initial commit of ebook 30714HEADmain

23 files changed, 68802 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/30714-8.txt b/30714-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9974379
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,21564 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
+Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25)
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+Other: Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: December 19, 2009 [EBook #30714]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       THE WORKS OF
+
+  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+     SWANSTON EDITION
+
+        VOLUME XXV
+
+
+  _Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five
+  Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS
+  STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies
+  have been printed, of which only Two Thousand
+  Copies are for sale._
+
+  _This is No._ .......
+
+
+  [Illustration: Yours truly
+                 Robert Louis Stevenson]
+
+
+  THE WORKS OF
+
+  ROBERT LOUIS
+   STEVENSON
+
+
+  VOLUME TWENTY-FIVE
+
+
+  LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND
+  WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL
+  AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM
+  HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN
+  AND COMPANY       MDCCCCXII
+
+
+  _For permission to use the_ LETTERS _in the_
+  SWANSTON EDITION OF STEVENSON'S WORKS
+  _the Publishers are indebted to the kindness of_
+  MESSRS. METHUEN & CO., LTD.
+
+
+  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+
+
+      THE LETTERS OF
+  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+        EDITED BY
+      SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+      PARTS XI--XIV
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+XI. LIFE IN SAMOA
+
+  FIRST YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+                                      PAGE
+  INTRODUCTORY                           3
+
+  LETTERS--
+    To Sidney Colvin                     9
+    To E. L. Burlingame                 24
+    To Sidney Colvin                    25
+    To E. L. Burlingame                 32
+    To Sidney Colvin                    34
+    To Henry James                      43
+    To Rudyard Kipling                  46
+    To Sidney Colvin                    48
+    To Marcel Schwob                    51
+    To Charles Baxter                   53
+    To Sidney Colvin                    54
+    To H. B. Baildon                    56
+    To Sidney Colvin                    58
+    To the Same                         66
+    To W. Craibe Angus                  69
+    To Edmund Gosse                     71
+    To Miss Rawlinson                   74
+    To Sidney Colvin                    76
+    To Miss Adelaide Boodle             80
+    To Charles Baxter                   82
+    To Sidney Colvin                    83
+    To E. L. Burlingame                 86
+    To W. Craibe Angus                  87
+    To H. C. Ide                        88
+    To Sidney Colvin                    90
+    To the Same                         94
+    To the Same                        102
+    To Henry James                     108
+    To E. L. Burlingame                110
+    To the Same                        111
+    To Sidney Colvin                   112
+    To W. Craibe Angus                 118
+    To Miss Annie H. Ide               118
+    To Charles Baxter                  120
+    To Sidney Colvin                   121
+    To Fred Orr                        127
+    To E. L. Burlingame                128
+    To Henry James                     130
+    To Sidney Colvin                   132
+
+
+XII. LIFE IN SAMOA--_continued_
+
+  SECOND YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+  INTRODUCTORY                         144
+
+  LETTERS--
+    To E. L. Burlingame                146
+    To Miss Adelaide Boodle            147
+    To Sidney Colvin                   152
+    To J. M. Barrie                    154
+    To Sidney Colvin                   156
+    To William Morris                  162
+    To Mrs. Charles Fairchild          163
+    To Sidney Colvin                   166
+    To E. L. Burlingame                174
+    To the Rev. S. J. Whitmee          174
+    To Charles Baxter                  177
+    To Sidney Colvin                   178
+    To the Same                        193
+    To T. W. Dover                     209
+    To E. L. Burlingame                210
+    To Sidney Colvin                   211
+    To Charles Baxter                  213
+    To W. E. Henley                    214
+    To E. L. Burlingame                215
+    To Andrew Lang                     216
+    To Miss Adelaide Boodle            217
+    To Sidney Colvin                   221
+    To the Countess of Jersey          228
+    To the Same                        229
+    To Sidney Colvin                   230
+    To Mrs. Charles Fairchild          240
+    To the Children in the Cellar      243
+    To Sidney Colvin                   249
+    To Gordon Browne                   252
+    To Miss Morse                      253
+    To Miss Taylor                     254
+    To E. L. Burlingame                257
+    To Sidney Colvin                   258
+    To J. M. Barrie                    264
+    To E. L. Burlingame                266
+    To Lieutenant Eeles                267
+    To Charles Baxter                  270
+    To Sidney Colvin                   271
+    To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin            273
+    To Henry James                     274
+    To J. M. Barrie                    276
+    To Charles Baxter                  278
+
+
+XIII. LIFE IN SAMOA--_continued_
+
+  THIRD YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+  INTRODUCTORY                         280
+
+  LETTERS--
+    To Sidney Colvin                   282
+    To Charles Baxter                  288
+    To Sidney Colvin                   289
+    To the Same                        291
+    To Charles Baxter                  292
+    To Sidney Colvin                   294
+    To A. Conan Doyle                  299
+    To Sidney Colvin                   299
+    To S. R. Crockett                  305
+    To Augustus St. Gaudens            308
+    To Sidney Colvin                   310
+    To Edmund Gosse                    317
+    To Henry James                     320
+    To Sidney Colvin                   324
+    To James S. Stevenson              334
+    To Henry James                     335
+    To A. Conan Doyle                  336
+    To Charles Baxter                  337
+    To Sidney Colvin                   338
+    To A. Conan Doyle                  339
+    To Augustus St. Gaudens            341
+    To James S. Stevenson              342
+    To George Meredith                 343
+    To Charles Baxter                  345
+    To Sidney Colvin                   347
+    To the Same                        352
+    To J. Horne Stevenson              357
+    To John P----n                     358
+    To Russell P----n                  359
+    To Alison Cunningham               359
+    To Charles Baxter                  360
+    To J. M. Barrie                    362
+    To R. Le Gallienne                 364
+    To Mrs. A. Baker                   366
+    To Henry James                     367
+    To Sidney Colvin                   367
+
+
+XIV. LIFESAMOA--_concluded_
+
+  FOURTH YEAR AT VAILIMA--THE END
+
+  INTRODUCTORY                         373
+
+  LETTERS--
+    To Charles Baxter                  376
+    To H. B. Baildon                   377
+    To W. H. Low                       378
+    To Sidney Colvin                   380
+    To H. B. Baildon                   381
+    To Sidney Colvin                   382
+    To J. H. Bates                     384
+    To William Archer                  384
+    To Sidney Colvin                   386
+    To W. B. Yeats                     390
+    To George Meredith                 390
+    To Charles Baxter                  392
+    To Mrs. Sitwell                    393
+    To Charles Baxter                  394
+    To Sidney Colvin                   396
+    To R. A. M. Stevenson              398
+    To Sidney Colvin                   404
+    To Henry James                     406
+    To Marcel Schwob                   409
+    To A. St. Gaudens                  410
+    To Miss Adelaide Boodle            410
+    To Mrs. A. Baker                   413
+    To Sidney Colvin                   414
+    To J. M. Barrie                    416
+    To Sidney Colvin                   422
+    To Dr. Bakewell                    424
+    To James Payn                      425
+    To Miss Middleton                  428
+    To A. Conan Doyle                  429
+    To Sidney Colvin                   430
+    To Charles Baxter                  433
+    To R. A. M. Stevenson              434
+    To Sir Herbert Maxwell             440
+    To Sidney Colvin                   441
+    To Alison Cunningham               445
+    To James Payn                      446
+    To Sidney Colvin                   448
+    To Professor Meiklejohn            450
+    To Lieutenant Eeles                451
+    To Sir Herbert Maxwell             453
+    To Andrew Lang                     453
+    To Edmund Gosse                    454
+
+
+  APPENDIX I--Account of the Death and
+     Burial of R. L. Stevenson, by
+     Lloyd Osbourne                    457
+
+  APPENDIX II--Address of R. L.
+     Stevenson to the Chiefs on the
+     Opening of the Road of Gratitude,
+     October 1894                      462
+
+  INDEX TO THE LETTERS:
+     VOLUMES XXIII-XXV                 469
+
+  INDEX TO VOLUMES I-XXII             509
+
+
+
+
+         THE LETTERS
+  OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+         1890--1894
+
+
+
+
+         THE LETTERS
+  OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+LIFE IN SAMOA
+
+FIRST YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+
+NOVEMBER 1890-DECEMBER 1891
+
+Returning from Sydney at the end of October 1890, Stevenson and his wife
+at once took up their abode in the wooden four-roomed cottage, or "rough
+barrack," as he calls it, which had been built for them in the clearing
+at Vailima during the months of their absence at Sydney and on their
+cruise in the _Equator_. Mr. Lloyd Osbourne in the meantime had started
+for England to wind up the family affairs at Bournemouth. During the
+first few months, as will be seen by the following letters, the
+conditions of life at Vailima were rough to the point of hardship. But
+matters soon mended; the work of clearing and planting went on under the
+eye of the master and mistress diligently and in the main successfully,
+though not of course without complications and misadventures. Ways and
+means of catering were found, and abundance began to reign in place of
+the makeshifts and privations of the first days. By April a better
+house, fit to receive the elder Mrs. Stevenson, had been built; and
+later in the year plans for further extension were considered, but for
+the present held over. The attempt made at first to work the
+establishment by means of white servants and head-men indoors and out
+proved unsatisfactory, and was gradually superseded by the formation of
+an efficient native staff, which in course of time developed itself into
+something like a small, devoted feudal clan.
+
+During the earlier months of 1891 Stevenson was not in continuous
+residence on his new property, but went away on two excursions, the
+first to Sydney to meet his mother; the second, in company of the
+American Consul Mr. Sewall, to Tutuila, a neighbouring island of the
+Samoan group. Of the latter, to him very interesting, trip, the
+correspondence contains only the beginning of an account abruptly broken
+off: more, will be found in the extracts from his diary given in Mr.
+Graham Balfour's _Life_ (ed. 1906, pp. 312 f.). During part of the
+spring he was fortunate in having the company of two distinguished
+Americans, the painter Lafarge and the historian Henry Adams, in
+addition to that of the local planters, traders, and officials, a
+singular and singularly mixed community. After some half-year's
+residence he began to realise that the arrangements made for the
+government of Samoa by treaty between the three powers England, Germany,
+and America were not working nor promising to work well. Stevenson was
+no abstracted student or dreamer; the human interests and human duties
+lying immediately about him were ever the first in his eyes; and he
+found himself drawn deeply into the complications of local politics, as
+so active a spirit could not fail to be drawn, however little taste he
+might have for the work.
+
+He kept in the meantime at a fair level of health, and among the
+multitude of new interests was faithful in the main business of his
+life--that is, to literature. He did not cease to toil uphill at the
+heavy task of preparing for serial publication the letters, or more
+properly chapters, on the South Seas. He planned and began delightedly
+his happiest tale of South Sea life, _The High Woods of Ulufanua_,
+afterwards changed to _The Beach of Falesá_; conceived the scheme, which
+was never carried out, of working two of his old conceptions into one
+long genealogical novel or fictitious family history to be called _The
+Shovels of Newton French_; and in the latter part of the year worked
+hard in continuation of _The Wrecker_. Having completed this during
+November, he turned at once, from a sense of duty rather than from any
+literary inspiration, to the _Footnote to History_, a laboriously
+prepared and minutely conscientious account of recent events in Samoa.
+
+From his earliest days at Vailima, determined that our intimacy should
+suffer no diminution by absence, Stevenson began, to my great pleasure,
+the practice of writing me a monthly budget containing a full account of
+his doings and interests. At first the pursuits of the enthusiastic
+farmer, planter, and overseer filled these letters delightfully, to the
+exclusion of almost everything else except references to his books
+projected or in hand. Later these interests began to give place in his
+letters to those of the local politician, immersed in affairs which
+seemed to me exasperatingly petty and obscure, however grave the
+potential European complications which lay behind them. At any rate,
+they were hard to follow intelligently from the other side of the globe;
+and it was a relief whenever his correspondence turned to matters
+literary or domestic, or humours of his own mind and character. These
+letters, or so much of them as seemed suitable for publication, were
+originally printed separately, in the year following the writer's
+death, under the title _Vailima Letters_. They are here placed, with
+some additions, in chronological order among those addressed to other
+friends or acquaintances. During this first year at Vailima his general
+correspondence was not nearly so large as it afterwards became; Mr.
+Burlingame, as representative of the house of Scribner, receiving the
+lion's share next to myself.
+
+For the love of Stevenson I will ask readers to take the small amount of
+pains necessary to grasp and remember the main facts of Samoan politics
+in the ten years 1889-99. At the date when he settled in Vailima the
+government of the islands had lately been re-ordered between the three
+powers interested--namely, Germany, England, and the United States--at
+the Convention of Berlin (July 14, 1889). The rivalries and jealousies
+of these three powers, complicated with the conflicting claims of
+various native kings or chiefs, had for some time kept the affairs of
+the islands dangerously embroiled. Under the Berlin Convention, Malietoa
+Laupepa, who had previously been deposed and deported by the Germans in
+favour of a nominee of their own, was reinstated as king, to the
+exclusion of his kinsman, the powerful and popular Mataafa, whose titles
+were equally good and abilities certainly greater, but who was
+especially obnoxious to the Germans owing to his resistance to them
+during the troubles of the preceding years. In the course of that
+resistance a small German force had been worsted in a petty skirmish at
+Fagalii, and resentment at this affront to the national pride was for
+several years one of the chief obstacles to the reconciliation of
+contending interests. For a time the two kinsmen, Laupepa and Mataafa,
+lived on amicable terms, but presently differences arose between them.
+Mataafa had expected to occupy a position of influence in the
+government: finding himself ignored, he withdrew to a camp (Malie) a
+few miles outside the town of Apia, where he lived in semi-royal state
+as a sort of passive rebel or rival to the recognised king. In the
+meantime, in the course of the year 1891, the two white officials
+appointed under the Berlin Convention--namely, the Chief Justice, a
+Swedish gentleman named Cedercrantz, and the President of the Council,
+Baron Senfft von Pilsach--had come out to the islands and entered on
+their duties. These gentlemen soon proved themselves unfitted for their
+task to a degree both disastrous and grotesque. Almost the entire white
+community were soon against them; with the native population they had no
+influence or credit; affairs both political and municipal went from bad
+to worse; and the consuls of the three powers, acting as an official
+board of advisers to the king, could do very little to mend them.
+
+To the impropriety of some of the official proceedings Stevenson felt
+compelled to call attention in a series of letters to the Times, the
+first of which appeared in 1891, the remainder in 1892. He had formed
+the conviction that for the cure of Samoan troubles two things were
+necessary: first and above all, the reconciliation of Laupepa and
+Mataafa; secondly, the supersession of the unlucky Chief Justice and
+President by men better qualified for their tasks. To effect the former
+purpose, he made his only practical intromission in local politics, and
+made it unsuccessfully. The motive of his letters to the Times was the
+hope to effect the second. In this matter, after undergoing the risk,
+which was at one moment serious, of deportation, he in the end saw his
+wishes fulfilled. The first Chief Justice and President were replaced by
+better qualified persons in the course of 1893. But meantime the muddle
+had grown to a head. In the autumn of that year war broke out between
+the partisans of Laupepa and Mataafa: the latter were defeated, and
+Mataafa exiled to a distant island. At the close of the following year
+Stevenson died. Three years later followed the death of Laupepa: then
+came more confused rivalries between various claimants to the kingly
+title. The Germans, having by this time come round to Stevenson's
+opinion, backed the claims of Mataafa, which they had before stubbornly
+disallowed, while the English and Americans stood for another candidate.
+In 1899 these differences resulted in a calamitous and unjustifiable
+action, the bombardment of native villages for several successive days
+by English and American war-ships. As a matter of urgent necessity, to
+avert worse things, new negotiations were set on foot between the three
+powers, with the result that England withdrew her claims in Samoa
+altogether, America was satisfied with the small island of Tutuila with
+its fine harbour of Pago-pago, while the two larger islands of Upolu and
+Savaii were ceded to Germany. German officials have governed them well
+and peacefully ever since, having allowed the restored Mataafa, as long
+as he lived, a recognised position of headship among the native chiefs.
+Stevenson during his lifetime was obnoxious to the German official
+world. But his name and memory are now held in honour by them, his
+policy to a large extent practically followed, and he would have been
+the first to acknowledge the merits of the new order had he lived to
+witness it.
+
+These remarks, following the subject down to what remains for the
+present its historic conclusion, will, I hope, be enough to clear it for
+the present purpose out of the reader's way and enable him to understand
+as much as is necessary of the political allusions in this and the
+following sections of the correspondence.
+
+It need only be added that in reading the following pages it must be
+borne in mind that Mulinuu and Malie, the places respectively of
+Laupepa's and Mataafa's residence, are also used to signify their
+respective parties and followings.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   During the absence of the Stevensons at Sydney some eight acres of
+   the Vailima property had been cleared of jungle, a cottage roughly
+   built on the clearing, and something done towards making the track up
+   the hill from Apia into a practicable road. They occupied the cottage
+   at once, and the following letters narrate of the sequel.
+
+    _In the Mountain, Apia, Samoa, Monday, November 2nd, 1890._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is a hard and interesting and beautiful life that
+we lead now. Our place is in a deep cleft of Vaea Mountain, some six
+hundred feet above the sea, embowered in forest, which is our strangling
+enemy, and which we combat with axes and dollars. I went crazy over
+outdoor work, and had at last to confine myself to the house, or
+literature must have gone by the board. _Nothing_ is so interesting as
+weeding, clearing, and path-making; the oversight of labourers becomes a
+disease; it is quite an effort not to drop into the farmer; and it does
+make you feel so well. To come down covered with mud and drenched with
+sweat and rain after some hours in the bush, change, rub down, and take
+a chair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet conscience. And the strange
+thing that I mark is this: If I go out and make sixpence, bossing my
+labourers and plying the cutlass or the spade, idiot conscience applauds
+me; if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds, idiot conscience wails
+over my neglect and the day wasted. For near a fortnight I did not go
+beyond the verandah; then I found my rush of work run out, and went down
+for the night to Apia; put in Sunday afternoon with our consul, "a nice
+young man," dined with my friend H. J. Moors in the evening, went to
+church--no less--at the white and half-white church--I had never been
+before, and was much interested; the woman I sat next _looked_ a
+full-blood native, and it was in the prettiest and readiest English that
+she sang the hymns; back to Moors', where we yarned of the islands,
+being both wide wanderers, till bedtime; bed, sleep, breakfast, horse
+saddled; round to the mission, to get Mr. Clarke to be my interpreter;
+over with him to the King's, whom I have not called on since my return;
+received by that mild old gentleman; have some interesting talk with him
+about Samoan superstitions and my land--the scene of a great battle in
+his (Malietoa Laupepa's) youth--the place which we have cleared the
+platform of his fort--the gulley of the stream full of dead bodies--the
+fight rolled off up Vaea mountain-side; back with Clarke to the mission;
+had a bit of lunch and consulted over a queer point of missionary policy
+just arisen, about our new Town Hall and the balls there--too long to go
+into, but a quaint example of the intricate questions which spring up
+daily in the missionary path.[1]
+
+Then off up the hill; Jack very fresh, the sun (close on noon) staring
+hot, the breeze very strong and pleasant; the ineffable green country
+all round--gorgeous little birds (I think they are humming-birds, but
+they say not) skirmishing in the wayside flowers. About a quarter way up
+I met a native coming down with the trunk of a cocoa palm across his
+shoulder; his brown breast glittering with sweat and oil:
+"Talofa"--"Talofa, alii--You see that white man? He speak for you."
+"White man he gone up here?"--"Ioe" (Yes)--"Tofa, alii"--"Tofa, soifua!"
+I put on Jack up the steep path, till he is all as white as shaving
+stick--Brown's euxesis, wish I had some--past Tanugamanono, a bush
+village--see into the houses as I pass--they are open sheds scattered on
+a green--see the brown folk sitting there, suckling kids, sleeping on
+their stiff wooden pillows--then on through the wood path--and here I
+find the mysterious white man (poor devil!) with his twenty years'
+certificate of good behaviour as a book-keeper, frozen out by the
+strikes in the colonies, come up here on a chance, no work to be found,
+big hotel bill, no ship to leave in--and come up to beg twenty dollars
+because he heard I was a Scotchman, offering to leave his portmanteau in
+pledge. Settle this, and on again; and here my house comes in view, and
+a war whoop fetches my wife and Henry (or Simelé), our Samoan boy, on
+the front balcony; and I am home again, and only sorry that I shall have
+to go down again to Apia this day week. I could, and would, dwell here
+unmoved, but there are things to be attended to.
+
+Never say I don't give you details and news. That is a picture of a
+letter.
+
+I have been hard at work since I came; three chapters of _The Wrecker_,
+and since that, eight of the South Sea book, and, along and about and in
+between, a hatful of verses. Some day I'll send the verse to you, and
+you'll say if any of it is any good. I have got in a better vein with
+the South Sea book, as I think you will see; I think these chapters will
+do for the volume without much change. Those that I did in the _Janet
+Nicoll_, under the most ungodly circumstances, I fear will want a lot of
+suppling and lightening, but I hope to have your remarks in a month or
+two upon that point. It seems a long while since I have heard from you.
+I do hope you are well. I am wonderful, but tired from so much work;
+'tis really immense what I have done; in the South Sea book I have fifty
+pages copied fair, some of which has been four times, and all twice
+written; certainly fifty pages of solid scriving inside a fortnight, but
+I was at it by seven a.m. till lunch, and from two till four or five
+every day; between whiles, verse and blowing on the flageolet; never
+outside. If you could see this place! but I don't want any one to see it
+till my clearing is done, and my house built. It will be a home for
+angels.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  * Point referred to in text.
+  ........ Paths.
+  ======== Our boundary.
+
+  _a. Garden._             _b. Present house._
+  _c. Banana Patch._       _d. Waterfall._
+  _e. Large waterfall into deep gorge where the heat of the fight was._]
+
+So far I wrote after my bit of dinner, some cold meat and bananas, on
+arrival. Then out to see where Henry and some of the men were clearing
+the garden; for it was plain there was to be no work to-day indoors, and
+I must set in consequence to farmering. I stuck a good while on the way
+up, for the path there is largely my own handiwork, and there were a lot
+of sprouts and saplings and stones to be removed. Then I reached our
+clearing just where the streams join in one; it had a fine autumn smell
+of burning, the smoke blew in the woods, and the boys were pretty merry
+and busy. Now I had a private design:--The Vaita'e I had explored
+pretty far up; not yet the other stream, the Vaituliga (g=nasal n, as ng
+in sing); and up that, with my wood knife, I set off alone. It is here
+quite dry; it went through endless woods; about as broad as a Devonshire
+lane, here and there crossed by fallen trees; huge trees overhead in the
+sun, dripping lianas and tufted with orchids, tree ferns, ferns
+depending with air roots from the steep banks, great arums--I had not
+skill enough to say if any of them were the edible kind, one of our
+staples here!--hundreds of bananas--another staple--and alas! I had
+skill enough to know all of these for the bad kind that bears no fruit.
+My Henry moralised over this the other day; how hard it was that the bad
+banana flourished wild, and the good must be weeded and tended; and I
+had not the heart to tell him how fortunate they were here, and how
+hungry were other lands by comparison. The ascent of this lovely lane of
+my dry stream filled me with delight. I could not but be reminded of old
+Mayne Reid, as I have been more than once since I came to the tropics;
+and I thought, if Reid had been still living, I would have written to
+tell him that, for me, _it had come true_; and I thought, forbye, that,
+if the great powers go on as they are going, and the Chief Justice
+delays, it would come truer still; and the war-conch will sound in the
+hills, and my home will be inclosed in camps, before the year is ended.
+And all at once--mark you, how Mayne Reid is on the spot--a strange
+thing happened. I saw a liana stretch across the bed of the brook about
+breast-high, swung up my knife to sever it, and--behold, it was a wire!
+On either hand it plunged into thick bush; to-morrow I shall see where
+it goes and get a guess perhaps of what it means. To-day I know no more
+than--there it is. A little higher the brook began to trickle, then to
+fill. At last, as I meant to do some work upon the homeward trail, it
+was time to turn. I did not return by the stream; knife in hand, as long
+as my endurance lasted, I was to cut a path in the congested bush.
+
+At first it went ill with me; I got badly stung as high as the elbows by
+the stinging plant; I was nearly hung in a tough liana--a rotten trunk
+giving way under my feet; it was deplorable bad business. And an axe--if
+I dared swing one--would have been more to the purpose than my cutlass.
+Of a sudden things began to go strangely easier; I found stumps, bushing
+out again; my body began to wonder, then my mind; I raised my eyes and
+looked ahead; and, by George, I was no longer pioneering, I had struck
+an old track overgrown, and was restoring an old path. So I laboured
+till I was in such a state that Carolina Wilhelmina Skeggs[2] could
+scarce have found a name for it. Thereon desisted; returned to the
+stream; made my way down that stony track to the garden, where the smoke
+was still hanging and the sun was still in the high tree-tops, and so
+home. Here, fondly supposing my long day was over, I rubbed down;
+exquisite agony; water spreads the poison of these weeds; I got it all
+over my hands, on my chest, in my eyes, and presently, while eating an
+orange, _ŕ la_ Rarotonga, burned my lip and eye with orange juice. Now
+all day, our three small pigs had been adrift, to the mortal peril of
+our corn, lettuce, onions, etc., and as I stood smarting on the back
+verandah, behold the three piglings issuing from the wood just opposite.
+Instantly I got together as many boys as I could--three, and got the
+pigs penned against the rampart of the sty, till the others joined;
+whereupon we formed a cordon, closed, captured the deserters, and
+dropped them, squeaking amain, into their strengthened barracks where,
+please God, they may now stay!
+
+Perhaps you may suppose the day now over; you are not the head of a
+plantation, my juvenile friend. Politics succeeded: Henry got adrift in
+his English, Bene was too cowardly to tell me what he was after: result,
+I have lost seven good labourers, and had to sit down and write to you
+to keep my temper. Let me sketch my lads.--Henry--Henry has gone down to
+town or I could not be writing to you--this were the hour of his English
+lesson else, when he learns what he calls "long explessions" or "your
+chief's language" for the matter of an hour and a half--Henry is a
+chiefling from Savaii; I once loathed, I now like and--pending fresh
+discoveries--have a kind of respect for Henry. He does good work for us;
+goes among the labourers, bossing and watching; helps Fanny; is civil,
+kindly, thoughtful; _O si sic semper!_ But will he be "his sometime self
+throughout the year"? Anyway, he has deserved of us, and he must
+disappoint me sharply ere I give him up.--Bene--or Peni--Ben, in plain
+English--is supposed to be my ganger; the Lord love him! God made a
+truckling coward, there is his full history. He cannot tell me what he
+wants; he dares not tell me what is wrong; he dares not transmit my
+orders or translate my censures. And with all this, honest, sober,
+industrious, miserably smiling over the miserable issue of his own
+unmanliness.--Paul--a German--cook and steward--a glutton of work--a
+splendid fellow; drawbacks, three: (1) no cook; (2) an inveterate
+bungler; a man with twenty thumbs, continually falling in the dishes,
+throwing out the dinner, preserving the garbage; (3) a dr----, well,
+don't let us say that--but we daren't let him go to town, and he--poor,
+good soul--is afraid to be let go.--Lafaele (Raphael), a strong, dull,
+deprecatory man; splendid with an axe, if watched; the better for a
+rowing, when he calls me "Papa" in the most wheedling tones; desperately
+afraid of ghosts, so that he dare not walk alone up in the banana
+patch--see map. The rest are changing labourers; and to-night, owing to
+the miserable cowardice of Peni, who did not venture to tell me what the
+men wanted--and which was no more than fair--all are gone--and my
+weeding in the article of being finished! Pity the sorrows of a planter.
+
+I am, Sir, yours, and be jowned to you, The Planter,
+
+    R. L. S.
+
+_Tuesday, 3rd._--I begin to see the whole scheme of letter-writing; you
+sit down every day and pour out an equable stream of twaddle.
+
+This morning all my fears were fled, and all the trouble had fallen to
+the lot of Peni himself, who deserved it; my field was full of weeders;
+and I am again able to justify the ways of God. All morning I worked at
+the _South Seas_, and finished the chapter I had stuck upon on Saturday.
+Fanny, awfully hove-to with rheumatics and injuries received upon the
+field of sport and glory, chasing pigs, was unable to go up and down
+stairs, so she sat upon the back verandah, and my work was chequered by
+her cries. "Paul, you take a spade to do that--dig a hole first. If you
+do that, you'll cut your foot off! Here, you boy, what you do there? You
+no get work? You go find Simelé; he give you work. Peni, you tell this
+boy he go find Simelé; suppose Simelé no give him work, you tell him go
+'way. I no want him here. That boy no good."--_Peni_ (from the distance
+in reassuring tones), "All right, sir!"--_Fanny_ (after a long pause),
+"Peni, you tell that boy go find Simelé! I no want him stand here all
+day. I no pay that boy. I see him all day. He no do nothing."--Luncheon,
+beef, soda-scones, fried bananas, pine-apple in claret, coffee. Try to
+write a poem; no go. Play the flageolet. Then sneakingly off to
+farmering and pioneering. Four gangs at work on our place; a lively
+scene; axes crashing and smoke blowing; all the knives are out. But I
+rob the garden party of one without a stock, and you should see my
+hand--cut to ribbons. Now I want to do my path up the Vaituliga
+single-handed, and I want it to burst on the public complete. Hence,
+with devilish ingenuity, I begin it at different places; so that if you
+stumble on one section, you may not even then suspect the fulness of my
+labours. Accordingly, I started in a new place, below the wire, and
+hoping to work up to it. It was perhaps lucky I had so bad a cutlass,
+and my smarting hand bid me stay before I had got up to the wire, but
+just in season, so that I was only the better of my activity, not dead
+beat as yesterday.
+
+A strange business it was, and infinitely solitary; away above, the sun
+was in the high tree-tops; the lianas noosed and sought to hang me; the
+saplings struggled, and came up with that sob of death that one gets to
+know so well; great, soft, sappy trees fell at a lick of the cutlass,
+little tough switches laughed at and dared my best endeavour. Soon,
+toiling down in that pit of verdure, I heard blows on the far side, and
+then laughter. I confess a chill settled on my heart. Being so dead
+alone, in a place where by rights none should be beyond me, I was aware,
+upon interrogation, if those blows had drawn nearer, I should (of course
+quite unaffectedly) have executed a strategic movement to the rear; and
+only the other day I was lamenting my insensibility to superstition! Am
+I beginning to be sucked in? Shall I become a midnight twitterer like my
+neighbours? At times I thought the blows were echoes; at times I thought
+the laughter was from birds. For our birds are strangely human in their
+calls. Vaea mountain about sundown sometimes rings with shrill cries,
+like the hails of merry, scattered children. As a matter of fact, I
+believe stealthy wood-cutters from Tanugamanono were above me in the
+wood and answerable for the blows; as for the laughter, a woman and two
+children had come and asked Fanny's leave to go up shrimp-fishing in the
+burn; beyond doubt, it was these I heard. Just at the right time I
+returned; to wash down, change, and begin this snatch of letter before
+dinner was ready, and to finish it afterwards, before Henry has yet put
+in an appearance for his lesson in "long explessions."
+
+Dinner: stewed beef and potatoes, baked bananas, new loaf-bread hot from
+the oven, pine-apple in claret. These are great days; we have been low
+in the past; but now are we as belly-gods, enjoying all things.
+
+_Wednesday_, (_Hist. Vailima resumed._)--A gorgeous evening of
+after-glow in the great tree-tops and behind the mountain, and full moon
+over the lowlands and the sea, inaugurated a night of horrid cold. To
+you effete denizens of the so-called temperate zone, it had seemed
+nothing; neither of us could sleep; we were up seeking extra coverings,
+I know not at what hour--it was as bright as day. The moon right over
+Vaea--near due west, the birds strangely silent, and the wood of the
+house tingling with cold; I believe it must have been 60°! Consequence:
+Fanny has a headache and is wretched, and I could do no work. (I am
+trying all round for a place to hold my pen; you will hear why later on;
+this to explain penmanship.) I wrote two pages, very bad, no movement,
+no life or interest; then I wrote a business letter; then took to
+tootling on the flageolet, till glory should call me farmering.
+
+I took up at the fit time Lafaele and Mauga--Mauga, accent on the first,
+is a mountain, I don't know what Maugŕ means--mind what I told you of
+the value of g--to the garden, and set them digging, then turned my
+attention to the path. I could not go into my bush path for two reasons:
+1st, sore hands; 2nd, had on my trousers and good shoes. Lucky it was.
+Right in the wild lime hedge which cuts athwart us just homeward of the
+garden, I found a great bed of kuikui--sensitive plant--our deadliest
+enemy. A fool brought it to this island in a pot, and used to lecture
+and sentimentalise over the tender thing. The tender thing has now taken
+charge of this island, and men fight it, with torn hands, for bread and
+life. A singular, insidious thing, shrinking and biting like a weasel;
+clutching by its roots as a limpet clutches to a rock. As I fought him,
+I bettered some verses in my poem, _The Woodman_;[3] the only thought I
+gave to letters. Though the kuikui was thick, there was but a small
+patch of it, and when I was done I attacked the wild lime, and had a
+hand-to-hand skirmish with its spines and elastic suckers. All this
+time, close by, in the cleared space of the garden, Lafaele and Maugŕ
+were digging. Suddenly quoth Lafaele, "Somebody he sing out."--"Somebody
+he sing out? All right. I go." And I went and found they had been
+whistling and "singing out" for long, but the fold of the hill and the
+uncleared bush shuts in the garden so that no one heard, and I was late
+for dinner, and Fanny's headache was cross; and when the meal was over,
+we had to cut up a pineapple which was going bad, to make jelly of; and
+the next time you have a handful of broken blood-blisters, apply
+pine-apple juice, and you will give me news of it, and I request a
+specimen of your hand of write five minutes after--the historic moment
+when I tackled this history. My day so far.
+
+Fanny was to have rested. Blessed Paul began making a duck-house; she
+let him be; the duck-house fell down, and she had to set her hand to it.
+He was then to make a drinking-place for the pigs; she let him be
+again--he made a stair by which the pigs will probably escape this
+evening, and she was near weeping. Impossible to blame the indefatigable
+fellow; energy is too rare and goodwill too noble a thing to discourage;
+but it's trying when she wants a rest. Then she had to cook the dinner;
+then, of course--like a fool and a woman--must wait dinner for me, and
+make a flurry of herself. Her day so far. _Cetera adhuc desunt._
+
+_Friday_--_I think._--I have been too tired to add to this chronicle,
+which will at any rate give you some guess of our employment. All goes
+well; the kuikui--(think of this mispronunciation having actually
+infected me to the extent of misspelling! tuitui is the word by
+rights)--the tuitui is all out of the paddock--a fenced park between the
+house and boundary; Peni's men start to-day on the road; the garden is
+part burned, part dug; and Henry, at the head of a troop of underpaid
+assistants, is hard at work clearing. The part clearing you will see
+from the map; from the house run down to the stream side, up the stream
+nearly as high as the garden; then back to the star which I have just
+added to the map.
+
+My long, silent contests in the forest have had a strange effect on me.
+The unconcealed vitality of these vegetables, their exuberant number and
+strength, the attempts--I can use no other word--of lianas to enwrap and
+capture the intruder, the awful silence, the knowledge that all my
+efforts are only like the performance of an actor, the thing of a
+moment, and the wood will silently and swiftly heal them up with fresh
+effervescence; the cunning sense of the tuitui, suffering itself to be
+touched with wind-swayed grasses and not minding--but let the grass be
+moved by a man, and it shuts up; the whole silent battle, murder, and
+slow death of the contending forest; weigh upon the imagination. My poem
+_The Woodman_ stands; but I have taken refuge in a new story, which just
+shot through me like a bullet in one of my moments of awe, alone in that
+tragic jungle:--
+
+  _The High Woods of Ulufanua_[4]
+
+   1. A South Sea Bridal.
+   2. Under the Ban.
+   3. Savao and Faavao.
+   4. Cries in the High Wood.
+   5. Rumour full of Tongues.
+   6. The Hour of Peril.
+   7. The Day of Vengeance.
+
+It is very strange, very extravagant, I dare say; but it's varied, and
+picturesque, and has a pretty love affair, and ends well. Ulufanua is a
+lovely Samoan word, ulu = grove; fanua = land; grove-land--"the tops of
+the high trees." Savao, "sacred to the wood," and Faavao, "wood-ways,"
+are the names of two of the characters, Ulufanua the name of the
+supposed island.
+
+I am very tired, and rest off to-day from all but letters. Fanny is
+quite done up; she could not sleep last night, something it seemed like
+asthma--I trust not. I suppose Lloyd will be about, so you can give him
+the benefit of this long scrawl.[5] Never say that I _can't_ write a
+letter, say that I don't.--Yours ever, my dearest fellow,
+
+    R. L. S.
+
+_Later on Friday._--The guidwife had bread to bake, and she baked it in
+a pan, O! But between whiles she was down with me weeding sensitive in
+the paddock. The men have but now passed over it; I was round in that
+very place to see the weeding was done thoroughly, and already the
+reptile springs behind our heels. Tuitui is a truly strange beast, and
+gives food for thought. I am nearly sure--I cannot yet be quite, I mean
+to experiment, when I am less on the hot chase of the beast--that, even
+at the instant he shrivels up his leaves, he strikes his prickles
+downward so as to catch the uprooting finger; instinctive, say the
+gabies; but so is man's impulse to strike out. One thing that takes and
+holds me is to see the strange variation in the propagation of alarm
+among these rooted beasts; at times it spreads to a radius (I speak by
+the guess of the eye) of five or six inches; at times only one
+individual plant appears frightened at a time. We tried how long it took
+one to recover; 'tis a sanguine creature; it is all abroad again before
+(I guess again) two minutes. It is odd how difficult in this world it is
+to be armed. The double armour of this plant betrays it. In a thick
+tuft, where the leaves disappear, I thrust In my hand, and the bite of
+the thorns betrays the top-most stem. In the open again, and when I
+hesitate if it be clover, a touch on the leaves, and its fine sense and
+retractile action betrays its identity at once. Yet it has one gift
+incomparable. Rome had virtue and knowledge; Rome perished. The
+sensitive plant has indigestible seeds--so they say--and it will
+flourish for ever. I give my advice thus to a young plant--have a strong
+root, a weak stem, and an indigestible seed; so you will outlast the
+eternal city, and your progeny will clothe mountains, and the irascible
+planter will blaspheme in vain. The weak point of tuitui is that its
+stem is strong.
+
+_Supplementary Page._--Here beginneth the third lesson, which is not
+from the planter but from a less estimable character, the writer of
+books.
+
+I want you to understand about this South Sea Book. The job is immense;
+I stagger under material. I have seen the first big _tache_. It was
+necessary to see the smaller ones; the letters were at my hand for the
+purpose, but I was not going to lose this experience; and, instead of
+writing mere letters, have poured out a lot of stuff for the book. How
+this works and fits, time is to show. But I believe, in time, I shall
+get the whole thing in form. Now, up to date, that is all my design, and
+I beg to warn you till we have the whole (or much) of the stuff
+together, you can hardly judge--and I can hardly judge. Such a mass of
+stuff is to be handled, if possible without repetition--so much foreign
+matter to be introduced--if possible with perspicuity--and, as much as
+can be, a spirit of narrative to be preserved. You will find that come
+stronger as I proceed, and get the explanations worked through. Problems
+of style are (as yet) dirt under my feet; my problem is architectural,
+creative--to get this stuff jointed and moving. If I can do that, I will
+trouble you for style; anybody might write it, and it would be splendid;
+well-engineered, the masses right, the blooming thing travelling--twig?
+
+This I wanted you to understand, for lots of the stuff sent home is, I
+imagine, rot--and slovenly rot--and some of it pompous rot; and I want
+you to understand it's a _lay-in_.
+
+Soon, if the tide of poeshie continues, I'll send you a whole lot to
+damn. You never said thank you for the handsome tribute addressed to
+you from Apemama;[6] such is the gratitude of the world to the God-sent
+poick. Well, well:--"Vex not thou the poick's mind, With thy coriaceous
+ingratitude, The P. will be to your faults more than a little blind, And
+yours is a far from handsome attitude." Having thus dropped into poetry
+in a spirit of friendship, I have the honour to subscribe myself, Sir,
+your obedient humble servant,
+
+    SILAS WEGG.
+
+
+I suppose by this you will have seen the lad--and his feet will have
+been in the Monument--and his eyes beheld the face of George.[7] Well!
+
+  There is much eloquence in a well!
+      I am, Sir,
+          Yours
+              The Epigrammatist
+
+           ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+        R                         N
+        O                        O
+         B                       S
+         E                       N
+          R                     E
+          T                     V
+                               E
+          L                    T
+          O                   S
+           U
+           I                  S
+            S                 I
+                             U
+            S                O
+            T               L
+             E
+             V              T
+              E            R
+              N            E
+               S          B
+               O         O
+                N        R
+             FINIS--EXPLICIT
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   The opening sentences of the following refer of course to _The
+   Wrecker_, and particularly to a suggestion of mine concerning the
+   relation of the main narrative to the prologue:--
+
+     _Vailima, Apia, Samoa, Nov. 7, 1890._
+
+I wish you to add to the words at the end of the prologue; they run, I
+think, thus, "And this is the yarn of Loudon Dodd"; add, "not as he
+told, but as he wrote it afterwards for his diversion." This becomes the
+more needful, because, when all is done, I shall probably revert to
+Tai-o-hae, and give final details about the characters in the way of a
+conversation between Dodd and Havers. These little snippets of
+information and _faits-divers_ have always a disjointed, broken-backed
+appearance; yet, readers like them. In this book we have introduced so
+many characters, that this kind of epilogue will be looked for; and I
+rather hope, looking far ahead, that I can lighten it in dialogue.
+
+We are well past the middle now. How does it strike you? and can you
+guess my mystery? It will make a fattish volume!
+
+I say, have you ever read the _Highland Widow_? I never had till
+yesterday: I am half inclined, bar a trip or two, to think it Scott's
+masterpiece; and it has the name of a failure! Strange things are
+readers.
+
+I expect proofs and revises in duplicate.
+
+We have now got into a small barrack at our place. We see the sea six
+hundred feet below filling the end of two vales of forest. On one hand
+the mountain runs above us some thousand feet higher; great trees stand
+round us in our clearing; there is an endless voice of birds; I have
+never lived in such a heaven; just now, I have fever, which mitigates
+but not destroys my gusto in my circumstances.--You may envy
+
+    ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+... O, I don't know if I mentioned that having seen your new tail to the
+magazine, I cried off interference, at least for this trip. Did I ask
+you to send me my books and papers, and all the bound volumes of the
+mag.? _quorum pars_. I might add that were there a good book or
+so--new--I don't believe there is--such would be welcome.
+
+I desire--I positively begin to awake--to be remembered to Scribner,
+Low, St. Gaudens, Russell Sullivan. Well, well, you fellows have the
+feast of reason and the flow of soul; I have a better-looking place and
+climate: you should hear the birds on the hill now! The day has just
+wound up with a shower; it is still light without, though I write within
+here at the cheek of a lamp; my wife and an invaluable German are
+wrestling about bread on the back verandah; and how the birds and the
+frogs are rattling, and piping, and hailing from the woods! Here and
+there a throaty chuckle; here and there, cries like those of jolly
+children who have lost their way; here and there, the ringing
+sleigh-bell of the tree frog. Out and away down below me on the sea it
+is still raining; it will be wet under foot on schooners, and the house
+will leak; how well I know that! Here the showers only patter on the
+iron roof, and sometimes roar; and within, the lamp burns steady on the
+tafa-covered walls, with their dusky tartan patterns, and the
+book-shelves with their thin array of books; and no squall can rout my
+house or bring my heart into my mouth.--The well-pleased South Sea
+Islander,
+
+    R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima, Tuesday, November 25th,1890._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I wanted to go out bright and early to go on with my
+survey. You never heard of that. The world has turned, and much water
+run under bridges, since I stopped my diary. I have written six more
+chapters of the book, all good I potently believe, and given up, as a
+deception of the devil's, the _High Woods_. I have been once down to
+Apia, to a huge native feast at Seumanutafa's, the chief of Apia. There
+was a vast mass of food, crowds of people, the police charging among
+them with whips, the whole in high good humour on both sides; infinite
+noise; and a historic event--Mr. Clarke, the missionary, and his wife,
+assisted at a native dance. On my return from this function, I found
+work had stopped; no more _South Seas_ in my belly. Well, Henry had
+cleared a great deal of our bush on a contract, and it ought to be
+measured. I set myself to the task with a tape-line; it seemed a dreary
+business; then I borrowed a prismatic compass, and tackled the task
+afresh. I have no books; I had not touched an instrument nor given a
+thought to the business since the year of grace 1871; you can imagine
+with what interest I sat down yesterday afternoon to reduce my
+observations; five triangles I had taken; all five came right, to my
+ineffable joy. Our dinner--the lowest we have ever been--consisted of
+_one avocado pear_ between Fanny and me, a ship's biscuit for the
+guidman, white bread for the Missis, and red wine for the twa. No salt
+horse, even, in all Vailima! After dinner Henry came, and I began to
+teach him decimals; you wouldn't think I knew them myself after so long
+desuetude!
+
+I could not but wonder how Henry stands his evenings here; the
+Polynesian loves gaiety--I feed him with decimals, the mariner's
+compass, derivations, grammar, and the like; delecting myself, after the
+manner of my race, _moult tristement_. I suck my paws; I live for my
+dexterities and by my accomplishments; even my clumsinesses are my
+joy--my woodcuts, my stumbling on the pipe, this surveying even--and
+even weeding sensitive; anything to do with the mind, with the eye, with
+the hand--with a part of _me_; diversion flows in these ways for the
+dreary man. But gaiety is what these children want; to sit in a crowd,
+tell stories and pass jests, to hear one another laugh and scamper with
+the girls. It's good fun, too, I believe, but not for R.L.S., _ćtat._
+40. Which I am now past forty, Custodian, and not one penny the worse
+that I can see; as amusable as ever; to be on board ship is reward
+enough for me; give me the wages of going on--in a schooner! Only, if
+ever I were gay, which I misremember, I am gay no more. And here is poor
+Henry passing his evenings on my intellectual husks, which the
+professors masticated; keeping the accounts of the estate--all wrong I
+have no doubt--I keep no check, beyond a very rough one; marching in
+with a cloudy brow, and the day-book under his arm; tackling decimals,
+coming with cases of conscience--how would an English chief behave in
+such a case? etc.; and, I am bound to say, on any glimmer of a jest,
+lapsing into native hilarity as a tree straightens itself after the wind
+is by. The other night I remembered my old friend--I believe yours
+also--Scholastikos, and administered the crow and the anchor--they were
+quite fresh to Samoan ears (this implies a very early severance)--and I
+thought the anchor would have made away with my Simelé altogether.
+
+Fanny's time, in this interval, has been largely occupied in contending
+publicly with wild swine. We have a black sow; we call her Jack
+Sheppard; impossible to confine her--impossible also for her to be
+confined! To my sure knowledge she has been in an interesting condition
+for longer than any other sow in story; else she had long died the
+death; as soon as she is brought to bed, she shall count her days. I
+suppose that sow has cost us in days' labour from thirty to fifty
+dollars; as many as eight boys (at a dollar a day) have been twelve
+hours in chase of her. Now it is supposed that Fanny has outwitted her;
+she grins behind broad planks in what was once the cook-house. She is a
+wild pig; far handsomer than any tame; and when she found the cook-house
+was too much for her methods of evasion, she lay down on the floor and
+refused food and drink for a whole Sunday. On Monday morning she
+relapsed, and now eats and drinks like a little man. I am reminded of an
+incident. Two Sundays ago, the sad word was brought that the sow was out
+again; this time she had carried another in her flight. Moors and I and
+Fanny were strolling up to the garden, and there by the waterside we saw
+the black sow, looking guilty. It seemed to me beyond words; but Fanny's
+_cri du coeur_ was delicious: "G-r-r!" she cried; "nobody loves you!"
+
+I would I could tell you the moving story of our cart and cart-horses;
+the latter are dapple-grey, about sixteen hands, and of enormous
+substance; the former was a kind of red and green shandrydan with a
+driving bench; plainly unfit to carry lumber or to face our road.
+(Remember that the last third of my road, about a mile, is all made out
+of a bridle-track by my boys--and my dollars.) It was supposed a white
+man had been found--an ex-German artilleryman--to drive this last; he
+proved incapable and drunken; the gallant Henry, who had never driven
+before, and knew nothing about horses--except the rats and weeds that
+flourish on the islands--volunteered; Moors accepted, proposing to
+follow and supervise: despatched his work and started after. No cart! he
+hurried on up the road--no cart. Transfer the scene to Vailima, where on
+a sudden, to Fanny and me, the cart appears, apparently at a hard
+gallop, some two hours before it was expected; Henry radiantly ruling
+chaos from the bench. It stopped: it was long before we had time to
+remark that the axle was twisted like the letter L. Our first care was
+the horses. There they stood, black with sweat, the sweat raining from
+them--literally raining--their heads down, their feet apart--and blood
+running thick from the nostrils of the mare. We got out Fanny's
+under-clothes--couldn't find anything else but our blankets--to rub them
+down, and in about half an hour we had the blessed satisfaction to see
+one after the other take a bite or two of grass. But it was a toucher;
+a little more and these steeds would have been foundered.
+
+_Monday, 31st(?) November._--Near a week elapsed, and no journal. On
+Monday afternoon, Moors rode up and I rode down with him, dined, and
+went over in the evening to the American consulate; present,
+Consul-General Sewall, Lieut. Parker and Mrs. Parker, Lafarge the
+American decorator, Adams an American historian; we talked late, and it
+was arranged I was to write up for Fanny, and we should both dine on the
+morrow.
+
+On the Friday, I was all forenoon in the mission house, lunched at the
+German consulate, went on board the _Sperber_(German war-ship) in the
+afternoon, called on my lawyer on my way out to American Consulate, and
+talked till dinner time with Adams, whom I am supplying with
+introductions and information for Tahiti and the Marquesas. Fanny
+arrived a wreck, and had to lie down. The moon rose, one day past full,
+and we dined in the verandah, a good dinner on the whole; talk with
+Lafarge about art and the lovely dreams of art students.[8] Remark by
+Adams, which took me briskly home to the Monument--"I only liked one
+_young_ woman--and that was Mrs. Procter."[9] Henry James would like
+that. Back by moonlight in the consulate boat--Fanny being too tired to
+walk--to Moors's. Saturday, I left Fanny to rest, and was off early to
+the Mission, where the politics are thrilling just now. The native
+pastors (to every one's surprise) have moved of themselves in the
+matter of the native dances, desiring the restrictions to be removed, or
+rather to be made dependent on the character of the dance. Clarke, who
+had feared censure and all kinds of trouble, is, of course, rejoicing
+greatly. A characteristic feature: the argument of the pastors was
+handed in in the form of a fictitious narrative of the voyage of one Mr.
+Pye, an English traveller, and his conversation with a chief; there are
+touches of satire in this educational romance. Mr. Pye, for instance,
+admits that he knows nothing about the Bible. At the Mission I was
+sought out by Henry in a devil of an agitation; he has been made the
+victim of a forgery--a crime hitherto unknown in Samoa. I had to go to
+Folau, the chief judge here, in the matter. Folau had never heard of the
+offence, and begged to know what was the punishment; there may be lively
+times in forgery ahead. It seems the sort of crime to tickle a
+Polynesian. After lunch--you can see what a busy three days I am
+describing--we set off to ride home. My Jack was full of the devil of
+corn and too much grass, and no work. I had to ride ahead and leave
+Fanny behind. He is a most gallant little rascal is my Jack, and takes
+the whole way as hard as the rider pleases. Single incident: half-way
+up, I find my boys upon the road and stop and talk with Henry in his
+character of ganger, as long as Jack will suffer me. Fanny drones in
+after; we make a show of eating--or I do--she goes to bed about
+half-past six! I write some verses, read Irving's _Washington_, and
+follow about half-past eight. O, one thing more I did, in a prophetic
+spirit. I had made sure Fanny was not fit to be left alone, and wrote
+before turning in a letter to Chalmers, telling him I could not meet him
+in Auckland at this time. By eleven at night, Fanny got me wakened--she
+had tried twice in vain--and I found her very bad. Thence till three, we
+laboured with mustard poultices, laudanum, soda and ginger--Heavens!
+wasn't it cold; the land breeze was as cold as a river; the moon was
+glorious in the paddock, and the great boughs and the black shadows of
+our trees were inconceivable. But it was a poor time.
+
+Sunday morning found Fanny, of course, a complete wreck, and myself not
+very brilliant. Paul had to go to Vailele _re_ cocoa-nuts; it was
+doubtful if he could be back by dinner; never mind, said I, I'll take
+dinner when you return. Off set Paul. I did an hour's work, and then
+tackled the house work. I did it beautiful: the house was a picture, it
+resplended of propriety. Presently Mr. Moors' Andrew rode up; I heard
+the doctor was at the Forest House and sent a note to him; and when he
+came, I heard my wife telling him she had been in bed all day, and that
+was why the house was so dirty! Was it grateful? Was it politic? Was it
+TRUE?--Enough! In the interval, up marched little L. S., one of my
+neighbours, all in his Sunday white linens; made a fine salute, and
+demanded the key of the kitchen in German and English. And he cooked
+dinner for us, like a little man, and had it on the table and the coffee
+ready by the hour. Paul had arranged me this surprise. Some time later,
+Paul returned himself with a fresh surprise on hand; he was almost
+sober; nothing but a hazy eye distinguished him from Paul of the week
+days: _vivat!_
+
+On the evening I cannot dwell. All the horses got out of the paddock,
+went across, and smashed my neighbour's garden into a big hole. How
+little the amateur conceives a farmer's troubles. I went out at once
+with a lantern, staked up a gap in the hedge, was kicked at by a
+chestnut mare, who straightway took to the bush; and came back. A little
+after, they had found another gap, and the crowd were all abroad again.
+What has happened to our own garden nobody yet knows.
+
+Fanny had a fair night, and we are both tolerable this morning, only the
+yoke of correspondence lies on me heavy. I beg you will let this go on
+to my mother. I got such a good start in your letter, that I kept on at
+it, and I have neither time nor energy for more.--Yours ever,
+
+    R. L. S.
+
+_Something new_.--I was called from my letters by the voice of Mr. ----,
+who had just come up with a load of wood, roaring, "Henry! Henry! Bring
+six boys!" I saw there was something wrong, and ran out. The cart, half
+unloaded, had upset with the mare in the shafts; she was all cramped
+together and all tangled up in harness and cargo, the off shaft pushing
+her over, the carter holding her up by main strength, and right
+along-side of her--where she must fall if she went down--a deadly stick
+of a tree like a lance. I could not but admire the wisdom and faith of
+this great brute; I never saw the riding-horse that would not have lost
+its life in such a situation; but the cart-elephant patiently waited and
+was saved. It was a stirring three minutes, I can tell you.
+
+I forgot in talking of Saturday to tell of one incident which will
+particularly interest my mother. I met Dr. Davis from Savaii, and had an
+age-long talk about Edinburgh folk; it was very pleasant. He has been
+studying in Edinburgh, along with his son; a pretty relation. He told me
+he knew nobody but college people: "I was altogether a student," he said
+with glee. He seems full of cheerfulness and thick-set energy. I feel as
+if I could put him in a novel with effect; and ten to one, if I know
+more of him, the image will be only blurred.
+
+_Tuesday, Dec. 2nd._--I should have told you yesterday that all my boys
+were got up for their work in moustaches and side-whiskers of some sort
+of blacking--I suppose wood-ash. It was a sight of joy to see them
+return at night, axe on shoulder, feigning to march like soldiers, a
+choragus with a loud voice singing out, "March--step! March--step!" in
+imperfect recollection of some drill.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   The intention here announced was only carried out to the extent of
+   finishing one paper, _My First Book_, and beginning a few
+   others--_Genesis of the Master of Ballantrae, Rosa Quo Locorum_,
+   etc.; see Edinburgh edition, _Miscellanies_, vol. iv. The "long
+   experience of gambling places" is a phrase which must not be
+   misunderstood. Stevenson loved risk to life and limb, but hated
+   gambling for money, and had known the tables only as a looker-on
+   during holiday or invalid travels as a boy and young man. "Tamate" is
+   the native (Rarotongan) word for trader, used especially as a name
+   for the famous missionary pioneer, the Rev. James Chalmers, for whom
+   Stevenson had an unbounded respect.
+
+     [_Vailima, December 1890._]
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--By some diabolical accident, I have mislaid your
+last. What was in it? I know not, and here I am caught unexpectedly by
+the American mail, a week earlier than by computation. The computation,
+not the mail, is supposed to be in error. The vols. of Scribner's have
+arrived, and present a noble appearance in my house, which is not a
+noble structure at present. But by autumn we hope to be sprawling in our
+verandah, twelve feet, sir, by eighty-eight in front, and seventy-two on
+the flank; view of the sea and mountains, sunrise, moonrise, and the
+German fleet at anchor three miles away in Apia harbour. I hope some day
+to offer you a bowl of kava there, or a slice of a pine-apple, or some
+lemonade from my own hedge. "I know a hedge where the lemons
+grow"--_Shakespeare_. My house at this moment smells of them strong; and
+the rain, which a while ago roared there, now rings in minute drops upon
+the iron roof. I have no _Wrecker_ for you this mail, other things
+having engaged me. I was on the whole rather relieved you did not vote
+for regular papers, as I feared the traces. It is my design from time to
+time to write a paper of a reminiscential (beastly word) description;
+some of them I could scarce publish from different considerations; but
+some of them--for instance, my long experience of gambling
+places--Homburg, Wiesbaden, Baden-Baden, old Monaco, and new Monte
+Carlo--would make good magazine padding, if I got the stuff handled the
+right way. I never could fathom why verse was put in magazines; it has
+something to do with the making-up, has it not? I am scribbling a lot
+just now; if you are taken badly that way, apply to the South Seas. I
+could send you some, I believe, anyway, only none of it is thoroughly
+ripe. If you have kept back the volume of ballads, I'll soon make it of
+a respectable size if this fit continue. By the next mail you may expect
+some more _Wrecker_, or I shall be displeased. Probably no more than a
+chapter, however, for it is a hard one, and I am denuded of my proofs,
+my collaborator having walked away with them to England; hence some
+trouble in catching the just note.
+
+I am a mere farmer: my talk, which would scarce interest you on
+Broadway, is all of fuafua and tuitui and black boys, and planting and
+weeding, and axes and cutlasses; my hands are covered with blisters and
+full of thorns; letters are, doubtless, a fine thing, so are beer and
+skittles, but give me farmering in the tropics for real interest. Life
+goes in enchantment; I come home to find I am late for dinner; and when
+I go to bed at night, I could cry for the weariness of my loins and
+thighs. Do not speak to me of vexation, the life brims with it, but with
+living interest fairly.
+
+Christmas I go to Auckland, to meet Tamate, the New Guinea missionary, a
+man I love. The rest of my life is a prospect of much rain, much weeding
+and making of paths, a little letters, and devilish little to eat.--I
+am, my dear Burlingame, with messages to all whom it may concern, very
+sincerely yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Monday, twenty-somethingth of December 1890._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I do not say my Jack is anything extraordinary; he is
+only an island horse; and the profane might call him a Punch; and his
+face is like a donkey's; and natives have ridden him, and he has no
+mouth in consequence, and occasionally shies. But his merits are equally
+surprising; and I don't think I should ever have known Jack's merits if
+I had not been riding up of late on moonless nights. Jack is a bit of a
+dandy; he loves to misbehave in a gallant manner, above all on Apia
+Street, and when I stop to speak to people, they say (Dr. Stuebel the
+German consul said about three days ago), "O what a wild horse! it
+cannot be safe to ride him." Such a remark is Jack's reward, and
+represents his ideal of fame. Now when I start out of Apia on a dark
+night, you should see my changed horse; at a fast steady walk, with his
+head down, and sometimes his nose to the ground--when he wants to do
+that, he asks for his head with a little eloquent polite movement
+indescribable--he climbs the long ascent and threads the darkest of the
+wood. The first night I came it was starry; and it was singular to see
+the starlight drip down into the crypt of the wood, and shine in the
+open end of the road, as bright as moonlight at home; but the crypt
+itself was proof, blackness lived in it. The next night it was raining.
+We left the lights of Apia and passed into limbo. Jack finds a way for
+himself, but he does not calculate for my height above the saddle; and I
+am directed forward, all braced up for a crouch and holding my switch
+upright in front of me. It is curiously interesting. In the forest, the
+dead wood is phosphorescent; some nights the whole ground is strewn with
+it, so that it seems like a grating over a pale hell; doubtless this is
+one of the things that feed the night fears of the natives; and I am
+free to confess that in a night of trackless darkness where all else is
+void, these pallid _ignes suppositi_ have a fantastic appearance, rather
+bogey even. One night, when it was very dark, a man had put out a little
+lantern by the wayside to show the entrance to his ground. I saw the
+light, as I thought, far ahead, and supposed it was a pedestrian coming
+to meet me; I was quite taken by surprise when it struck in my face and
+passed behind me. Jack saw it, and he was appalled; do you think he
+thought of shying? No, sir, not in the dark; in the dark Jack knows he
+is on duty; and he went past that lantern steady and swift; only, as he
+went, he groaned and shuddered. For about 2500 of Jack's steps we only
+passed one house--that where the lantern was; and about 1500 of these
+are in the darkness of the pit. But now the moon is on tap again, and
+the roads lighted.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  1. _Three posts._        5. _Sink of the Tuluiga._
+  2. _Leather Bottle._     6. _Silent Falls._
+  3. _Old Walls._          7. _Garden._
+  4. _Wreck Hill._]
+
+I have been exploring up the Vaituluiga; see your map. It comes down a
+wonderful fine glen; at least 200 feet of cliffs on either hand, winding
+like a corkscrew, great forest trees filling it. At the top there ought
+to be a fine double fall; but the stream evades it by a fault and
+passes underground. Above the fall it runs (at this season) full and
+very gaily in a shallow valley, some hundred yards before the head of
+the glen. Its course is seen full of grasses, like a flooded meadow;
+that is the sink! beyond the grave of the grasses, the bed lies dry.
+Near this upper part there is a great show of ruinous pig-walls; a
+village must have stood near by.
+
+To walk from our house to Wreck Hill (when the path is buried in fallen
+trees) takes one about half an hour, I think; to return, not more than
+twenty minutes; I dare say fifteen. Hence I should guess it was
+three-quarters of a mile. I had meant to join on my explorations passing
+eastward by the sink; but, Lord! how it rains.
+
+_Later._--I went out this morning with a pocket compass and walked in a
+varying direction, perhaps on an average S. by W., 1754 paces. Then I
+struck into the bush, N.W. by N., hoping to strike the Vaituluiga above
+the falls. Now I have it plotted out I see I should have gone W. or even
+W. by S.; but it is not easy to guess. For 600 weary paces I struggled
+through the bush, and then came on the stream below the gorge, where it
+was comparatively easy to get down to it. In the place where I struck
+it, it made cascades about a little isle, and was running about N.E., 20
+to 30 feet wide, as deep as to my knee, and piercing cold. I tried to
+follow it down, and keep the run of its direction and my paces; but when
+I was wading to the knees and the waist in mud, poison brush, and rotted
+wood, bound hand and foot in lianas, shovelled unceremoniously off the
+one shore and driven to try my luck upon the other--I saw I should have
+hard enough work to get my body down, if my mind rested. It was a
+damnable walk; certainly not half a mile as the crow flies, but a real
+bucketer for hardship. Once I had to pass the stream where it flowed
+between banks about three feet high. To get the easier down, I swung
+myself by a wild-cocoanut--(so called, it bears bunches of scarlet
+nutlets)--which grew upon the brink. As I so swung, I received a crack
+on the head that knocked me all abroad. Impossible to guess what tree
+had taken a shy at me. So many towered above, one over the other, and
+the missile, whatever it was, dropped in the stream and was gone before
+I had recovered my wits. (I scarce know what I write, so hideous a
+Niagara of rain roars, shouts, and demonizes on the iron roof--it is
+pitch dark too--the lamp lit at 5!) It was a blessed thing when I struck
+my own road; and I got home, neat for lunch time, one of the most
+wonderful mud statues ever witnessed. In the afternoon I tried again,
+going up the other path by the garden, but was early drowned out; came
+home, plotted out what I had done, and then wrote this truck to you.
+
+Fanny has been quite ill with ear-ache. She won't go,[10] hating the sea
+at this wild season; I don't like to leave her; so it drones on, steamer
+after steamer, and I guess it'll end by no one going at all. She is in a
+dreadful misfortune at this hour; a case of kerosene having burst in the
+kitchen. A little while ago it was the carpenter's horse that trod in a
+nest of fourteen eggs, and made an omelette of our hopes. The farmer's
+lot is not a happy one. And it looks like some real uncompromising bad
+weather too. I wish Fanny's ear were well. Think of parties in
+Monuments! think of me in Skerryvore, and now of this. It don't look
+like a part of the same universe to me. Work is quite laid aside; I have
+worked myself right out.
+
+_Christmas Eve._--Yesterday, who could write? My wife near crazy with
+ear-ache; the rain descending in white crystal rods and playing hell's
+tattoo, like a _tutti_ of battering rams, on our sheet-iron roof; the
+wind passing high overhead with a strange dumb mutter, or striking us
+full, so that all the huge trees in the paddock cried aloud, and wrung
+their hands, and brandished their vast arms. The horses stood in the
+shed like things stupid. The sea and the flagship lying on the jaws of
+the bay vanished in sheer rain. All day it lasted; I locked up my papers
+in the iron box, in case it was a hurricane, and the house might go. We
+went to bed with mighty uncertain feelings; far more than on shipboard,
+where you have only drowning ahead--whereas here you have a smash of
+beams, a shower of sheet-iron, and a blind race in the dark and through
+a whirlwind for the shelter of an unfinished stable--and my wife with
+ear-ache! Well, well, this morning, we had word from Apia; a hurricane
+was looked for, the ships were to leave the bay by 10 A.M.; it is now
+3.30, and the flagship is still a fixture, and the wind round in the
+blessed east, so I suppose the danger is over. But heaven is still
+laden; the day dim, with frequent rattling bucketfuls of rain; and just
+this moment (as I write) a squall went overhead, scarce striking us,
+with that singular, solemn noise of its passage, which is to me
+dreadful. I have always feared the sound of wind beyond everything. In
+my hell it would always blow a gale.
+
+I have been all day correcting proofs, and making out a new plan for our
+house. The other was too dear to be built now, and it was a hard task to
+make a smaller house that would suffice for the present, and not be a
+mere waste of money in the future. I believe I have succeeded; I have
+taken care of my study anyway.
+
+Two favours I want to ask of you. First, I wish you to get _Pioneering
+in New Guinea_, by J. Chalmers. It's a missionary book, and has less
+pretensions to be literature than Spurgeon's sermons. Yet I think even
+through that, you will see some of the traits of the hero that wrote it;
+a man that took me fairly by storm for the most attractive, simple,
+brave, and interesting man in the whole Pacific. He is away now to go up
+the Fly River; a desperate venture, it is thought; he is quite a
+Livingstone card.
+
+Second, try and keep yourself free next winter; and if my means can be
+stretched so far, I'll come to Egypt and we'll meet at Shepheard's
+Hotel, and you'll put me in my place, which I stand in need of badly by
+this time. Lord, what bully times! I suppose I'll come per British Asia,
+or whatever you call it, and avoid all cold, and might be in Egypt about
+November as ever was--eleven months from now or rather less. But do not
+let us count our chickens.
+
+Last night three piglings were stolen from one of our pig-pens. The
+great Lafaele appeared to my wife uneasy, so she engaged him in
+conversation on the subject, and played upon him the following engaging
+trick. You advance your two forefingers towards the sitter's eyes; he
+closes them, whereupon you substitute (on his eyelids) the fore and
+middle fingers of the left hand; and with your right (which he supposes
+engaged) you tap him on the head and back. When you let him open his
+eyes, he sees you withdrawing the two forefingers. "What that?" asked
+Lafaele. "My devil," says Fanny. "I wake um, my devil. All right now. He
+go catch the man that catch my pig." About an hour afterwards, Lafaele
+came for further particulars. "O, all right," my wife says. "By and by,
+that man he sleep, devil go sleep same place. By and by, that man plenty
+sick. I no care. What for he take my pig?" Lafaele cares plenty; I don't
+think he is the man, though he may be; but he knows him, and most likely
+will eat some of that pig to-night. He will not eat with relish.
+
+_Saturday, 27th._--It cleared up suddenly after dinner, and my wife and
+I saddled up and off to Apia, whence we did not return till yesterday
+morning. Christmas Day I wish you could have seen our party at table. H.
+J. Moors at one end with my wife, I at the other with Mrs. M., between
+us two native women, Carruthers the lawyer, Moors's two
+shop-boys--Walters and A. M. the quadroon--and the guests of the
+evening, Shirley Baker, the defamed and much-accused man of Tonga, and
+his son, with the artificial joint to his arm--where the assassins shot
+him in shooting at his father. Baker's appearance is not unlike John
+Bull on a cartoon; he is highly interesting to speak to, as I had
+expected; I found he and I had many common interests, and were engaged
+in puzzling over many of the same difficulties. After dinner it was
+quite pretty to see our Christmas party, it was so easily pleased and
+prettily behaved. In the morning I should say I had been to lunch at the
+German consulate, where I had as usual a very pleasant time. I shall
+miss Dr. Stuebel[11] much when he leaves, and when Adams and Lafarge go
+also, it will be a great blow. I am getting spoiled with all this good
+society.
+
+On Friday morning, I had to be at my house affairs before seven; and
+they kept me in Apia till past ten, disputing, and consulting about
+brick and stone and native and hydraulic lime, and cement and sand, and
+all sorts of otiose details about the chimney--just what I fled from in
+my father's office twenty years ago; I should have made a languid
+engineer. Rode up with the carpenter. Ah, my wicked Jack! on Christmas
+Eve, as I was taking the saddle bag off, he kicked at me, and fetched me
+too, right on the shin. On Friday, being annoyed at the carpenter's
+horse having a longer trot, he uttered a shrill cry and tried to bite
+him! Alas, alas, these are like old days; my dear Jack is a Bogue,[12]
+but I cannot strangle Jack into submission.
+
+I have given up the big house for just now; we go ahead right away with
+a small one, which should be ready in two months, and I suppose will
+suffice for just now.
+
+O I know I haven't told you about our _aitu_, have I? It is a lady,
+_aitu fafine_: she lives on the mountain-side; her presence is heralded
+by the sound of a gust of wind; a sound very common in the high woods;
+when she catches you, I do not know what happens; but in practice she
+is avoided, so I suppose she does more than pass the time of day. The
+great _aitu Saumai-afe_ was once a living woman, and became an _aitu_,
+no one understands how; she lives in a stream at the well-head, her hair
+is red, she appears as a lovely young lady, her bust particularly
+admired, to handsome young men; these die, her love being fatal;--as a
+handsome youth she has been known to court damsels with the like result,
+but this is very rare; as an old crone she goes about and asks for
+water, and woe to them who are uncivil! _Saumai-afe_ means literally,
+"Come here a thousand!" A good name for a lady of her manners. My _aitu
+fafine_ does not seem to be in the same line of business. It is unsafe
+to be a handsome youth in Samoa; a young man died from her favours last
+month--so we said on this side of the island; on the other, where he
+died, it was not so certain. I, for one, blame it on Madam _Saumai-afe_
+without hesitation.
+
+Example of the farmer's sorrows. I slipped out on the balcony a moment
+ago. It is a lovely morning, cloudless, smoking hot, the breeze not yet
+arisen. Looking west, in front of our new house, I saw two heads of
+Indian corn wagging, and the rest and all nature stock still. As I
+looked, one of the stalks subsided and disappeared. I dashed out to the
+rescue; two small pigs were deep in the grass--quite hid till within a
+few yards--gently but swiftly demolishing my harvest. Never be a farmer.
+
+12.30 _p.m._--I while away the moments of digestion by drawing you a
+faithful picture of my morning. When I had done writing as above it was
+time to clean our house. When I am working, it falls on my wife alone,
+but to-day we had it between us; she did the bedroom, I the
+sitting-room, in fifty-seven minutes of really most unpalatable labour.
+Then I changed every stitch, for I was wet through, and sat down and
+played on my pipe till dinner was ready, mighty pleased to be in a
+mildly habitable spot once more. The house had been neglected for near a
+week, and was a hideous spot; my wife's ear and our visit to Apia being
+the causes: our Paul we prefer not to see upon that theatre, and God
+knows he has plenty to do elsewhere.
+
+I am glad to look out of my back door and see the boys smoothing the
+foundations of the new house; this is all very jolly, but six months of
+it has satisfied me; we have too many things for such close quarters; to
+work in the midst of all the myriad misfortunes of the planter's life,
+seated in a Dyonisius' (can't spell him) ear, whence I catch every
+complaint, mishap and contention, is besides the devil; and the hope of
+a cave of my own inspires me with lust. O to be able to shut my own door
+and make my own confusion! O to have the brown paper and the matches and
+"make a hell of my own" once more!
+
+I do not bother you with all my troubles in these outpourings; the
+troubles of the farmer are inspiriting--they are like difficulties out
+hunting--a fellow rages at the time and rejoices to recall and to
+commemorate them. My troubles have been financial. It is hard to arrange
+wisely interests so distributed. America, England, Samoa, Sydney,
+everywhere I have an end of liability hanging out and some shelf of
+credit hard by; and to juggle all these and build a dwelling-place here,
+and check expense--a thing I am ill fitted for--you can conceive what a
+nightmare it is at times. Then God knows I have not been idle. But since
+_The Master_ nothing has come to raise any coins. I believe the springs
+are dry at home, and now I am worked out, and can no more at all. A
+holiday is required.
+
+_Dec. 28th._--I have got unexpectedly to work again, and feel quite
+dandy. Good-bye.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+   Mr. Lafarge the artist and Mr. Henry Adams the historian have been
+   mentioned already. The pinch in the matter of eatables only lasted
+   for a little while, until Mrs. Stevenson had taken her bearings and
+   made her arrangements in the matter of marketing, etc.
+
+     _Vailima, Apia, Samoa, December 29th, 1890._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--It is terrible how little everybody writes, and
+how much of that little disappears in the capacious maw of the Post
+Office. Many letters, both from and to me, I now know to have been lost
+in transit: my eye is on the Sydney Post Office, a large ungainly
+structure with a tower, as being not a hundred miles from the scene of
+disappearance; but then I have no proof. The _Tragic Muse_ you announced
+to me as coming; I had already ordered it from a Sydney bookseller:
+about two months ago he advised me that his copy was in the post; and I
+am still tragically museless.
+
+News, news, news. What do we know of yours? What do you care for ours?
+We are in the midst of the rainy season, and dwell among alarms of
+hurricanes, in a very unsafe little two-storied wooden box 650 feet
+above and about three miles from the sea-beach. Behind us, till the
+other slope of the island, desert forest, peaks, and loud torrents; in
+front green slopes to the sea, some fifty miles of which we dominate. We
+see the ships as they go out and in to the dangerous roadstead of Apia;
+and if they lie far out, we can even see their topmasts while they are
+at anchor. Of sounds of men, beyond those of our own labourers, there
+reach us, at very long intervals, salutes from the warships in harbour,
+the bell of the cathedral church, and the low of the conch-shell calling
+the labour boys on the German plantations. Yesterday, which was
+Sunday--the _quantičme_ is most likely erroneous; you can now correct
+it--we had a visitor--Baker of Tonga. Heard you ever of him? He is a
+great man here: he is accused of theft, rape, judicial murder, private
+poisoning, abortion, misappropriation of public moneys--oddly enough,
+not forgery, nor arson; you would be amused if you knew how thick the
+accusations fly in this South Sea world. I make no doubt my own
+character is something illustrious; or if not yet, there is a good time
+coming.
+
+But all our resources have not of late been Pacific. We have had
+enlightened society: Lafarge the painter, and your friend Henry Adams: a
+great privilege--would it might endure. I would go oftener to see them,
+but the place is awkward to reach on horseback. I had to swim my horse
+the last time I went to dinner; and as I have not yet returned the
+clothes I had to borrow, I dare not return in the same plight: it seems
+inevitable--as soon as the wash comes in, I plump straight into the
+American consul's shirt or trousers! They, I believe, would come oftener
+to see me but for the horrid doubt that weighs upon our commissariat
+department; we have _often_ almost nothing to eat; a guest would simply
+break the bank; my wife and I have dined on one avocado pear; I have
+several times dined on hard bread and onions. What would you do with a
+guest at such narrow seasons?--eat him? or serve up a labour boy
+fricasseed?
+
+Work? work is now arrested, but I have written, I should think, about
+thirty chapters of the South Sea book; they will all want rehandling, I
+dare say. Gracious, what a strain is a long book! The time it took me to
+design this volume, before I could dream of putting pen to paper, was
+excessive; and then think of writing a book of travels on the spot, when
+I am continually extending my information, revising my opinions, and
+seeing the most finely finished portions of my work come part by part in
+pieces. Very soon I shall have no opinions left. And without an opinion,
+how to string artistically vast accumulations of fact? Darwin said no
+one could observe without a theory; I suppose he was right; 'tis a fine
+point of metaphysic; but I will take my oath, no man can write without
+one--at least the way he would like to, and my theories melt, melt,
+melt, and as they melt the thaw-waters wash down my writing, and leave
+unideal tracts--wastes instead of cultivated farms.
+
+Kipling is by far the most promising young man who has appeared
+since--ahem--I appeared. He amazes me by his precocity and various
+endowment. But he alarms me by his copiousness and haste. He should
+shield his fire with both hands "and draw up all his strength and
+sweetness in one ball." ("Draw all his strength and all His sweetness up
+into one ball"? I cannot remember Marvell's words.) So the critics have
+been saying to me: but I was never capable of--and surely never guilty
+of--such a debauch of production. At this rate his works will soon fill
+the habitable globe; and surely he was armed for better conflicts than
+these succinct sketches and flying leaves of verse? I look on, I admire,
+I rejoice for myself; but in a kind of ambition we all have for our
+tongue and literature I am wounded. If I had this man's fertility and
+courage, it seems to me I could heave a pyramid.
+
+Well, we begin to be the old fogies now; and it was high time
+_something_ rose to take our places. Certainly Kipling has the gifts;
+the fairy godmothers were all tipsy at his christening: what will he do
+with them?
+
+Good-bye, my dear James; find an hour to write to us, and register your
+letter.--Yours affectionately,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO RUDYARD KIPLING
+
+
+   In 1890, on first becoming acquainted with Mr. Kipling's _Soldiers
+   Three_, Stevenson had written off his congratulations red-hot. "Well
+   and indeed, Mr. Mulvaney," so ran the first sentences of his note,
+   "but it's as good as meat to meet in with you, sir. They tell me it
+   was a man of the name of Kipling made ye; but indeed and they can't
+   fool me; it was the Lord God Almighty that made you." Taking the cue
+   thus offered, Mr. Kipling had written back in the character of his
+   own Irishman, Thomas Mulvaney, addressing Stevenson's Highlander,
+   Alan Breck Stewart. In the following letter, which belongs to an
+   uncertain date in 1891, Alan Breck is made to reply. "The gentleman I
+   now serve with" means, of course, R. L. S. himself.
+
+     [_Vailima, 1891._]
+
+SIR,--I cannot call to mind having written you, but I am so throng with
+occupation this may have fallen aside. I never heard tell I had any
+friends in Ireland, and I am led to understand you are come of no
+considerable family. The gentleman I now serve with assures me, however,
+you are a very pretty fellow and your letter deserves to be remarked.
+It's true he is himself a man of a very low descent upon the one side;
+though upon the other he counts cousinship with a gentleman, my very
+good friend, the late Mr. Balfour of the Shaws, in the Lothian; which I
+should be wanting in good fellowship to forget. He tells me besides you
+are a man of your hands; I am not informed of your weapon; but if all be
+true it sticks in my mind I would be ready to make exception in your
+favour, and meet you like one gentleman with another. I suppose this'll
+be your purpose in your favour, which I could very ill make out; it's
+one I would be sweir to baulk you of. It seems, Mr. McIlvaine, which I
+take to be your name, you are in the household of a gentleman of the
+name of Coupling: for whom my friend is very much engaged. The distances
+being very uncommodious, I think it will be maybe better if we leave it
+to these two to settle all that's necessary to honour. I would have you
+to take heed it's a very unusual condescension on my part, that bear a
+King's name; and for the matter of that I think shame to be mingled with
+a person of the name of Coupling, which is doubtless a very good house
+but one I never heard tell of, any more than Stevenson. But your purpose
+being laudable, I would be sorry (as the word goes) to cut off my nose
+to spite my face.--I am, Sir, your humble servant,
+
+       A. STEWART,
+     _Chevalier de St. Louis_.
+
+
+  _To Mr. M'Ilvaine,
+      Gentleman Private in a foot regiment,
+           under cover to Mr. Coupling._
+
+He has read me some of your Barrack Room Ballants, which are not of so
+noble a strain as some of mine in the Gaelic, but I could set some of
+them to the pipes if this rencounter goes as it's to be desired. Let's
+first, as I understand you to move, do each other this rational
+courtesy; and if either will survive, we may grow better acquaint. For
+your tastes for what's martial and for poetry agree with mine.
+
+     A. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This is the first appearance in Stevenson's letters of the Swedish
+   Chief Justice of Samoa, Mr. Conrad Cedercrantz, of whom we shall hear
+   enough and more than enough in the sequel.
+
+     _S.S. Lübeck, between Apia and Sydney, Jan. 17th, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--The Faamasino Sili, or Chief Justice, to speak your low
+language, has arrived. I had ridden down with Henry and Lafaele; the sun
+was down, the night was close at hand, so we rode fast; just as I came
+to the corner of the road before Apia, I heard a gun fire; and lo, there
+was a great crowd at the end of the pier, and the troops out, and a
+chief or two in the height of Samoa finery, and Seumanu coming in his
+boat (the oarsmen all in uniform), bringing the Faamasino Sili sure
+enough. It was lucky he was no longer; the natives would not have waited
+many weeks. But think of it, as I sat in the saddle at the outside of
+the crowd (looking, the English consul said, as if I were commanding the
+manoeuvres), I was nearly knocked down by a stampede of the three
+consuls; they had been waiting their guest at the Matafele end, and some
+wretched intrigue among the whites had brought him to Apia, and the
+consuls had to run all the length of the town and come too late.
+
+The next day was a long one; I was at a marriage of Gurr the banker to
+Fanua, the virgin of Apia. Bride and bridesmaids were all in the old
+high dress; the ladies were all native; the men, with the exception of
+Seumanu, all white.
+
+It was quite a pleasant party, and while we were writing, we had a
+bird's-eye view of the public reception of the Chief Justice. The best
+part of it were some natives in war array; with blacked faces, turbans,
+tapa kilts, and guns, they looked very manly and purposelike. No, the
+best part was poor old drunken Joe, the Portuguese boatman, who seemed
+to think himself specially charged with the reception, and ended by
+falling on his knees before the Chief Justice on the end of the pier and
+in full view of the whole town and bay. The natives pelted him with
+rotten bananas; how the Chief Justice took it I was too far off to see;
+but it was highly absurd.
+
+I have commemorated my genial hopes for the regimen of the Faamasino
+Sili in the following canine verses, which, if you at all guess how to
+read them, are very pretty in movement, and (unless he be a mighty good
+man) too true in sense.
+
+  We're quarrelling, the villages, we've beaten the wooden drums,
+  Sa femisai o nu'u, sa taia o pate,
+  Is confounded thereby the justice,
+  Ua atuatuvale a le faamasino e,
+  The chief justice, the terrified justice,
+  Le faamasino sili, le faamasino se,
+  Is on the point of running away the justice,
+  O le a solasola le faamasino e,
+  The justice denied any influence, the terrified justice,
+  O le faamasino le ai a, le faamasino se,
+  O le a solasola le faamasino e.
+
+Well, after this excursion into tongues that have never been
+alive--though I assure you we have one capital book in the language, a
+book of fables by an old missionary of the unpromising name of Pratt,
+which is simply the best and the most literary version of the fables
+known to me. I suppose I should except La Fontaine, but L. F. takes a
+long time; these are brief as the books of our childhood, and full of
+wit and literary colour; and O, Colvin, what a tongue it would be to
+write, if one only knew it--and there were only readers. Its curse in
+common use is an incredible left-handed wordiness; but in the hands of a
+man like Pratt it is succinct as Latin, compact of long rolling
+polysyllables and little and often pithy particles, and for beauty of
+sound a dream. Listen, I quote from Pratt--this is good Samoan, not
+canine--
+
+            1     2     3         4    1
+  O le afa, ua taalili ai le ulu vao, ua pa mai le faititili.
+  \__ ___/  \_____ _____/ \____ ___/  \___ ___/ \_____ ____/
+     V            V            V          V           V
+
+1 almost _wa_, 2 the two _a's_ just distinguished, 3 the _ai_ is
+practically suffixed to the verb, 4 almost _vow_. The excursion has
+prolonged itself.
+
+I started by the _Lübeck_ to meet Lloyd and my mother; there were many
+reasons for and against; the main reason against was the leaving of
+Fanny alone in her blessed cabin, which has been somewhat remedied by my
+carter, Mr. ----, putting up in the stable and messing with her; but
+perhaps desire of change decided me not well, though I do think I ought
+to see an oculist, being very blind indeed, and sometimes unable to
+read. Anyway I left, the only cabin passenger, four and a kid in the
+second cabin, and a dear voyage it had like to have proved. Close to
+Fiji (choose a worse place on the map) we broke our shaft early one
+morning; and when or where we might expect to fetch land or meet with
+any ship, I would like you to tell me. The Pacific is absolutely desert.
+I have sailed there now some years; and scarce ever seen a ship except
+in port or close by; I think twice. It was the hurricane season besides,
+and hurricane waters. Well, our chief engineer got the shaft--it was the
+middle crank shaft--mended; thrice it was mended, and twice broke down;
+but now keeps up--only we dare not stop, for it is almost impossible to
+start again. The captain in the meanwhile crowded her with sail;
+fifteen sails in all, every stay being gratified with a stay-sail, a
+boat-boom sent aloft for a maintop-gallant yard, and the derrick of a
+crane brought in service as bowsprit. All the time we have had a fine,
+fair wind and a smooth sea; to-day at noon our run was 203 miles (if you
+please!), and we are within some 360 miles of Sydney. Probably there has
+never been a more gallant success; and I can say honestly it was well
+worked for. No flurry, no high words, no long faces; only hard work and
+honest thought; a pleasant, manly business to be present at. All the
+chances were we might have been six weeks--ay, or three months at
+sea--or never turned up at all, and now it looks as though we should
+reach our destination some five days too late.
+
+
+
+
+TO MARCEL SCHWOB
+
+
+     _Sydney, January 19th, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--_Sapristi, comme vous y allez!_ Richard III. and Dumas,
+with all my heart: but not Hamlet. Hamlet is great literature; Richard
+III. a big, black, gross, sprawling melodrama, writ with infinite spirit
+but with no refinement or philosophy by a man who had the world,
+himself, mankind, and his trade still to learn. I prefer the Vicomte de
+Bragelonne to Richard III.; it is better done of its kind: I simply do
+not mention the Vicomte in the same part of the building with Hamlet, or
+Lear, or Othello, or any of those masterpieces that Shakespeare survived
+to give us.
+
+Also, _comme vous y allez_ in my commendation! I fear my _solide
+éducation classique_ had best be described, like Shakespeare's, as
+"little Latin and no Greek" and I was educated, let me inform you, for
+an engineer. I shall tell my bookseller to send you a copy of _Memories
+and Portraits_, where you will see something of my descent and
+education, as it was, and hear me at length on my dear Vicomte. I give
+you permission gladly to take your choice out of my works, and translate
+what you shall prefer, too much honoured that so clever a young man
+should think it worth the pains. My own choice would lie between
+_Kidnapped_ and the _Master of Ballantrae_. Should you choose the
+latter, pray do not let Mrs. Henry thrust the sword up to the hilt in
+the frozen ground--one of my inconceivable blunders, an exaggeration to
+stagger Hugo. Say "she sought to thrust it in the ground." In both these
+works you should be prepared for Scotticisms used deliberately.
+
+I fear my stepson will not have found time to get to Paris; he was
+overwhelmed with occupation, and is already on his voyage back. We live
+here in a beautiful land, amid a beautiful and interesting people. The
+life is still very hard: my wife and I live in a two-roomed cottage,
+about three miles and six hundred and fifty feet above the sea; we have
+had to make the road to it; our supplies are very imperfect; in the wild
+weather of this (the hurricane) season we have much discomfort: one
+night the wind blew in our house so outrageously that we must sit in the
+dark; and as the sound of the rain on the roof made speech inaudible,
+you may imagine we found the evening long. All these things, however,
+are pleasant to me. You say _l'artiste inconscient_ set off to travel:
+you do not divide me right. 0.6 of me is artist; 0.4, adventurer. First,
+I suppose, come letters; then adventure; and since I have indulged the
+second part, I think the formula begins to change: 0.55 of an artist,
+0.45 of the adventurer were nearer true. And if it had not been for my
+small strength, I might have been a different man in all things.
+
+Whatever you do, do not neglect to send me what you publish on Villon: I
+look forward to that with lively interest. I have no photograph at hand,
+but I will send one when I can. It would be kind if you would do the
+like, for I do not see much chance of our meeting in the flesh: and a
+name, and a handwriting, and an address, and even a style? I know about
+as much of Tacitus, and more of Horace; it is not enough between
+contemporaries, such as we still are. I have just remembered another of
+my books, which I re-read the other day, and thought in places
+good--_Prince Otto_. It is not as good as either of the others; but it
+has one recommendation--it has female parts, so it might perhaps please
+better in France.
+
+I will ask Chatto to send you, then--_Prince Otto_, _Memories and
+Portraits_, _Underwoods_, and _Ballads_, none of which you seem to have
+seen. They will be too late for the New Year: let them be an Easter
+present.
+
+You must translate me soon; you will soon have better to do than to
+transvase the work of others.--Yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
+
+    With the worst pen in the South Pacific.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   Stevenson had been indignant with an old friend at Edinburgh, who had
+   received much kindness from his mother, for neglecting to call on her
+   after her return from her wanderings in the Pacific.
+
+     _S.S. Lübeck, at sea [on the return voyage from Sydney, February
+     1891]._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--Perhaps in my old days I do grow irascible; "the old
+man virulent" has long been my pet name for myself. Well, the temper is
+at least all gone now; time is good at lowering these distemperatures;
+far better is a sharp sickness, and I am just (and scarce) afoot again
+after a smoking hot little malady at Sydney. And the temper being gone,
+I still think the same.... We have not our parents for ever; we are
+never very good to them; when they go and we have lost our front-file
+man we begin to feel all our neglects mighty sensibly. I propose a
+proposal. My mother is here on board with me; to-day for once I mean to
+make her as happy as I am able, and to do that which I know she likes.
+You, on the other hand, go and see your father, and do ditto, and give
+him a real good hour or two. We shall both be glad hereafter.--Yours
+ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   Stevenson had been sharply ailing as usual at Sydney, and was now on
+   his way back. Having received proofs of some of his _South Sea_
+   chapters, he had begun to realise that they were not what he had
+   hoped to make them.
+
+     [_On Board Ship between Sydney and Apia, February 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--The _Janet Nicoll_ stuff was rather worse than I had
+looked for; you have picked out all that is fit to stand, bar two others
+(which I don't dislike)--the Port of Entry and the House of Temoana;
+that is for a present opinion; I may condemn these also ere I have done.
+By this time you should have another Marquesan letter, the worst of the
+lot, I think; and seven Paumotu letters, which are not far out of the
+vein, as I wish it; I am in hopes the Hawaiian stuff is better yet: time
+will show, and time will make perfect. Is something of this sort
+practicable for the dedication?
+
+      TERRA MARIQUE
+  PER PERICULA PER ARDUA
+      AMICAE COMITI
+           D.D.
+      AMANS VIATOR
+
+'Tis a first shot concocted this morning in my berth: I had always
+before been trying it in English, which insisted on being either
+insignificant or fulsome: I cannot think of a better word than _comes_,
+there being not the shadow of a Latin book on board; yet sure there is
+some other. Then _viator_ (though it _sounds_ all right) is doubtful; it
+has too much, perhaps, the sense of wayfarer? Last, will it mark
+sufficiently that I mean my wife? And first, how about blunders? I
+scarce wish it longer.
+
+Have had a swingeing sharp attack in Sydney; beating the fields[13] for
+two nights, Saturday and Sunday. Wednesday was brought on board, _tel
+quel_, a wonderful wreck; and now, Wednesday week, am a good deal picked
+up, but yet not quite a Samson, being still groggy afoot and vague in
+the head. My chess, for instance, which is usually a pretty strong game,
+and defies all rivalry aboard, is vacillating, devoid of resource and
+observation, and hitherto not covered with customary laurels. As for
+work, it is impossible. We shall be in the saddle before long, no doubt,
+and the pen once more couched. You must not expect a letter under these
+circumstances, but be very thankful for a note. Once at Samoa, I shall
+try to resume my late excellent habits, and delight you with journals,
+you unaccustomed, I unaccustomed; but it is never too late to mend.
+
+It is vastly annoying that I cannot go even to Sydney without an attack;
+and heaven knows my life was anodyne. I only once dined with anybody; at
+the club with Wise; worked all morning--a terrible dead pull; a month
+only produced the imperfect embryos of two chapters; lunched in the
+boarding-house, played on my pipe; went out and did some of my messages;
+dined at a French restaurant, and returned to play draughts, whist, or
+Van John with my family. This makes a cheery life after Samoa; but it
+isn't what you call burning the candle at both ends, is it? (It appears
+to me not one word of this letter will be legible by the time I am done
+with it, this dreadful ink rubs off.) I have a strange kind of novel
+under construction; it begins about 1660 and ends 1830, or perhaps I may
+continue it to 1875 or so, with another life. One, two, three, four,
+five, six generations, perhaps seven, figure therein; two of my old
+stories, "Delafield" and "Shovel," are incorporated; it is to be told in
+the third person, with some of the brevity of history, some of the
+detail of romance. _The Shovels of Newton French_ will be the name. The
+idea is an old one; it was brought to birth by an accident; a friend in
+the islands who picked up F. Jenkin,[14] read a part, and said: "Do you
+know, that's a strange book? I like it; I don't believe the public will;
+but I like it." He thought it was a novel! "Very well," said I, "we'll
+see whether the public will like it or not; they shall have the
+chance."--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. B. BAILDON
+
+
+   The late Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, for some time Lecturer on English
+   Literature at the University of Vienna and afterwards at Dundee, had
+   been an old schoolmate and fellow-aspirant in literature with
+   Stevenson at Edinburgh. "Chalmers," of course, is the Rev. James
+   Chalmers of Rarotonga and New Guinea already referred to above, the
+   admirable missionary, explorer, and administrator, whom Stevenson
+   sometimes expressed a desire to survive, for the sake only of writing
+   his life.
+
+     _Vailima, Upolu [Spring 1891]._
+
+MY DEAR BAILDON,--This is a real disappointment. It was so long since we
+had met, I was anxious to see where time had carried and stranded us.
+Last time we saw each other--it must have been all ten years ago, as we
+were new to the thirties--it was only for a moment, and now we're in the
+forties, and before very long we shall be in our graves. Sick and well,
+I have had a splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very
+little--and then only some little corners of misconduct for which I
+deserve hanging, and must infallibly be damned--and, take it all over,
+damnation and all, would hardly change with any man of my time, unless
+perhaps it were Gordon or our friend Chalmers: a man I admire for his
+virtues, love for his faults, and envy for the really A1 life he has,
+with everything heart--my heart, I mean--could wish. It is curious to
+think you will read this in the grey metropolis; go the first grey,
+east-windy day into the Caledonian Station, if it looks at all as it did
+of yore: I met Satan there. And then go and stand by the cross, and
+remember the other one--him that went down--my brother, Robert
+Fergusson. It is a pity you had not made me out, and seen me as
+patriarch and planter. I shall look forward to some record of your time
+with Chalmers: you can't weary me of that fellow, he is as big as a
+house and far bigger than any church, where no man warms his hands. Do
+you know anything of Thomson? Of A----, B----, C----, D----, E----,
+F----, at all? As I write C.'s name mustard rises in my nose; I have
+never forgiven that weak, amiable boy a little trick he played me when I
+could ill afford it: I mean that whenever I think of it, some of the old
+wrath kindles, not that I would hurt the poor soul, if I got the world
+with it. And Old X----? Is he still afloat? Harmless bark! I gather you
+ain't married yet, since your sister, to whom I ask to be remembered,
+goes with you. Did you see a silly tale, _John Nicholson's
+Predicament_,[15] or some such name, in which I made free with your home
+at Murrayfield? There is precious little sense in it, but it might
+amuse. Cassell's published it in a thing called _Yule-Tide_ years ago,
+and nobody that ever I heard of read or has ever seen _Yule-Tide_. It is
+addressed to a class we never met--readers of Cassell's series and that
+class of conscientious chaff, and my tale was dull, though I don't
+recall that it was conscientious. Only, there's the house at Murrayfield
+and a dead body in it. Glad the _Ballads_ amused you. They failed to
+entertain a coy public, at which I wondered; not that I set much
+account by my verses, which are the verses of Prosator; but I do know
+how to tell a yarn, and two of the yarns are great. _Rahero_ is for its
+length a perfect folk-tale: savage and yet fine, full of tailforemost
+morality, ancient as the granite rocks; if the historian, not to say the
+politician, could get that yarn into his head, he would have learned
+some of his ABC. But the average man at home cannot understand
+antiquity; he is sunk over the ears in Roman civilisation; and a tale
+like that of _Rahero_ falls on his ears inarticulate. The Spectator said
+there was no psychology in it; that interested me much: my grandmother
+(as I used to call that able paper, and an able paper it is, and a fair
+one) cannot so much as observe the existence of savage psychology when
+it is put before it. I am at bottom a psychologist and ashamed of it;
+the tale seized me one-third because of its picturesque features,
+two-thirds because of its astonishing psychology, and the Spectator says
+there's none. I am going on with a lot of island work, exulting in the
+knowledge of a new world, "a new created world" and new men; and I am
+sure my income will DECLINE and FALL off; for the effort of
+comprehension is death to the intelligent public, and sickness to the
+dull.
+
+I do not know why I pester you with all this trash, above all as you
+deserve nothing. I give you my warm _talofa_ ("my love to you," Samoan
+salutation). Write me again when the spirit moves you. And some day, if
+I still live, make out the trip again and let us hob-a-nob with our grey
+pows on my verandah.--Yours sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The latter part of this letter was written in the course of an
+   expedition on which Stevenson had been invited by the American
+   Consul, Mr. Sewall, to the neighbouring island of Tutuila. Unluckily
+   the letter breaks off short, and the only record of this trip occurs
+   in the diary partly quoted in Mr. Balfour's _Life_, ch. xiv.
+
+     _Vailima, Friday, March 19th [1891]._
+
+MY DEAR S. C.,--You probably expect that now I am back at Vailima I
+shall resume the practice of the diary letter. A good deal is changed.
+We are more; solitude does not attend me as before; the night is passed
+playing Van John for shells; and, what is not less important, I have
+just recovered from a severe illness, and am easily tired.
+
+I will give you to-day. I sleep now in one of the lower rooms of the new
+house, where my wife has recently joined me. We have two beds, an empty
+case for a table, a chair, a tin basin, a bucket and a jug; next door in
+the dining-room, the carpenters camp on the floor, which is covered with
+their mosquito nets. Before the sun rises, at 5.45 or 5.50, Paul brings
+me tea, bread, and a couple of eggs; and by about six I am at work. I
+work in bed--my bed is of mats, no mattress, sheets, or filth--mats, a
+pillow, and a blanket--and put in some three hours. It was 9.5 this
+morning when I set off to the stream-side to my weeding; where I toiled,
+manuring the ground with the best enricher, human sweat, till the
+conch-shell was blown from our verandah at 10.30. At eleven we dine;
+about half-past twelve I tried (by exception) to work again, could make
+nothing on't, and by one was on my way to the weeding, where I wrought
+till three. Half-past five is our next meal, and I read Flaubert's
+Letters till the hour came round; dined, and then, Fanny having a cold,
+and I being tired, came over to my den in the unfinished house, where I
+now write to you, to the tune of the carpenters' voices, and by the
+light--I crave your pardon--by the twilight of three vile candles
+filtered through the medium of my mosquito bar. Bad ink being of the
+party, I write quite blindfold, and can only hope you may be granted to
+read that which I am unable to see while writing.
+
+I said I was tired; it is a mild phrase; my back aches like toothache;
+when I shut my eyes to sleep, I know I shall see before them--a
+phenomenon to which both Fanny and I are quite accustomed--endless vivid
+deeps of grass and weed, each plant particular and distinct, so that I
+shall lie inert in body, and transact for hours the mental part of my
+day business, choosing the noxious from the useful. And in my dreams I
+shall be hauling on recalcitrants, and suffering stings from nettles,
+stabs from citron thorns, fiery bites from ants, sickening resistances
+of mud and slime, evasions of slimy roots, dead weight of heat, sudden
+puffs of air, sudden starts from bird-calls in the contiguous
+forest--some mimicking my name, some laughter, some the signal of a
+whistle, and living over again at large the business of my day.
+
+Though I write so little, I pass all my hours of field-work in continual
+converse and imaginary correspondence. I scarce pull up a weed, but I
+invent a sentence on the matter to yourself; it does not get written;
+_autant en emportent les vents_; but the intent is there, and for me (in
+some sort) the companionship. To-day, for instance, we had a great talk.
+I was toiling, the sweat dripping from my nose, in the hot fit after a
+squall of rain: methought you asked me--frankly, was I happy. Happy
+(said I); I was only happy once; that was at Hyčres; it came to an end
+from a variety of reasons, decline of health, change of place, increase
+of money, age with his stealing steps; since then, as before then, I
+know not what it means. But I know pleasure still; pleasure with a
+thousand faces, and none perfect, a thousand tongues all broken, a
+thousand hands, and all of them with scratching nails. High among these
+I place this delight of weeding out here alone by the garrulous water,
+under the silence of the high wood, broken by incongruous sounds of
+birds. And take my life all through, look at it fore and back, and
+upside down,--though I would very fain change myself--I would not change
+my circumstances, unless it were to bring you here. And yet God knows
+perhaps this intercourse of writing serves as well; and I wonder, were
+you here indeed, would I commune so continually with the thought of you.
+I say "I wonder" for a form; I know, and I know I should not.
+
+So far, and much further, the conversation went, while I groped in slime
+after viscous roots, nursing and sparing little spears of grass, and
+retreating (even with outcry) from the prod of the wild lime. I wonder
+if any one had ever the same attitude to Nature as I hold, and have held
+for so long? This business fascinates me like a tune or a passion; yet
+all the while I thrill with a strong distaste. The horror of the thing,
+objective and subjective, is always present to my mind; the horror of
+creeping things, a superstitious horror of the void and the powers about
+me, the horror of my own devastation and continual murders. The life of
+the plants comes through my finger-tips, their struggles go to my heart
+like supplications. I feel myself blood-boltered; then I look back on my
+cleared grass, and count myself an ally in a fair quarrel, and make
+stout my heart.
+
+It is but a little while since I lay sick in Sydney, beating the fields
+about the navy and Dean Swift and Dryden's Latin hymns; judge if I love
+this reinvigorating climate, where I can already toil till my head swims
+and every string in the poor jumping Jack (as he now lies in bed) aches
+with a kind of yearning strain, difficult to suffer in quiescence.
+
+As for my damned literature,[16] God knows what a business it is,
+grinding along without a scrap of inspiration or a note of style. But it
+has to be ground, and the mill grinds exceeding slowly though not
+particularly small. The last two chapters have taken me considerably
+over a month, and they are still beneath pity. This I cannot continue,
+time not sufficing; and the next will just have to be worse. All the
+good I can express is just this; some day, when style revisits me, they
+will be excellent matter to rewrite. Of course, my old cure of a change
+of work would probably answer, but I cannot take it now. The treadmill
+turns; and, with a kind of desperate cheerfulness, I mount the idle
+stair. I haven't the least anxiety about the book; unless I die, I shall
+find the time to make it good; but the Lord deliver me from the thought
+of the Letters! However, the Lord has other things on hand; and about
+six to-morrow, I shall resume the consideration practically, and face
+(as best I may) the fact of my incompetence and disaffection to the
+task. Toil I do not spare; but fortune refuses me success. We can do
+more, Whatever-his-name-was, we can deserve it. But my misdesert began
+long since, by the acceptation of a bargain quite unsuitable to all my
+methods.[17]
+
+To-day I have had a queer experience. My carter has from the first been
+using my horses for his own ends; when I left for Sydney, I put him on
+his honour to cease, and my back was scarce turned ere he was forfeit. I
+have only been waiting to discharge him; and to-day an occasion arose. I
+am so much _the old man virulent_, so readily stumble into anger, that I
+gave a deal of consideration to my bearing, and decided at last to
+imitate that of the late ----. Whatever he might have to say, this
+eminently effective controversialist maintained a frozen demeanour and a
+jeering smile. The frozen demeanour is beyond my reach; but I could try
+the jeering smile; did so, perceived its efficacy, kept in consequence
+my temper, and got rid of my friend, myself composed and smiling still,
+he white and shaking like an aspen. He could explain everything; I said
+it did not interest me. He said he had enemies; I said nothing was more
+likely. He said he was calumniated; with all my heart, said I, but there
+are so many liars, that I find it safer to believe them. He said, in
+justice to himself, he must explain: God forbid I should interfere with
+you, said I, with the same factitious grin, but it can change nothing.
+So I kept my temper, rid myself of an unfaithful servant, found a method
+of conducting similar interviews in the future, and fell in my own
+liking. One thing more: I learned a fresh tolerance for the dead ----;
+he too had learned--perhaps had invented--the trick of this manner; God
+knows what weakness, what instability of feeling, lay beneath. _Ce que
+c'est que de nous!_ poor human nature; that at past forty I must adjust
+this hateful mask for the first time, and rejoice to find it effective;
+that the effort of maintaining an external smile should confuse and
+embitter a man's soul.
+
+To-day I have not weeded; I have written instead from six till eleven,
+from twelve till two; with the interruption of the interview aforesaid;
+a damned Letter is written for the third time; I dread to read it, for I
+dare not give it a fourth chance--unless it be very bad indeed. Now I
+write you from my mosquito curtain, to the song of saws and planes and
+hammers, and wood clumping on the floor above; in a day of heavenly
+brightness; a bird twittering near by; my eye, through the open door,
+commanding green meads, two or three forest trees casting their boughs
+against the sky, a forest-clad mountain-side beyond, and close in by the
+door-jamb a nick of the blue Pacific. It is March in England, bleak
+March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors wide open in an
+undershirt and p'jama trousers, and melt in the closure of mosquito
+bars, and burn to be out in the breeze. A few torn clouds--not white,
+the sun has tinged them a warm pink--swim in heaven. In which blessed
+and fair day, I have to make faces and speak bitter words to a man--who
+has deceived me, it is true--but who is poor, and older than I, and a
+kind of a gentleman too. On the whole, I prefer the massacre of weeds.
+
+_Sunday._--When I had done talking to you yesterday, I played on my
+pipe till the conch sounded, then went over to the old house for dinner,
+and had scarce risen from table ere I was submerged with visitors. The
+first of these despatched, I spent the rest of the evening going over
+the Samoan translation of my _Bottle Imp_[18] with Claxton the
+missionary; then to bed, but being upset, I suppose, by these
+interruptions, and having gone all day without my weeding, not to sleep.
+For hours I lay awake and heard the rain fall, and saw faint, far-away
+lightning over the sea, and wrote you long letters which I scorn to
+reproduce. This morning Paul was unusually early; the dawn had scarce
+begun when he appeared with the tray and lit my candle; and I had
+breakfasted and read (with indescribable sinkings) the whole of
+yesterday's work before the sun had risen. Then I sat and thought, and
+sat and better thought. It was not good enough, nor good; it was as
+slack as journalism, but not so inspired; it was excellent stuff
+misused, and the defects stood gross on it like humps upon a camel. But
+could I, in my present disposition, do much more with it? in my present
+pressure for time, were I not better employed doing another one about as
+ill, than making this some thousandth fraction better? Yes, I thought;
+and tried the new one, and behold, I could do nothing: my head swims,
+words do not come to me, nor phrases, and I accepted defeat, packed up
+my traps, and turned to communicate the failure to my esteemed
+correspondent. I think it possible I overworked yesterday. Well, we'll
+see to-morrow--perhaps try again later. It is indeed the hope of trying
+later that keeps me writing to you. If I take to my pipe, I know
+myself--all is over for the morning. Hurray, I'll correct proofs!
+
+_Pago-Pago, Wednesday._--After I finished on Sunday I passed a miserable
+day; went out weeding, but could not find peace. I do not like to steal
+my dinner, unless I have given myself a holiday in a canonical manner;
+and weeding after all is only fun, the amount of its utility small, and
+the thing capable of being done faster and nearly as well by a hired
+boy. In the evening Sewall came up (American consul) and proposed to
+take me on a malaga,[19] which I accepted. Monday I rode down to Apia,
+was nearly all day fighting about drafts and money; the silver problem
+does not touch you, but it is (in a strange and I hope passing phase)
+making my situation difficult in Apia.
+
+About eleven, the flags were all half-masted; it was old Captain
+Hamilton (Samasoni the natives called him) who had passed away. In the
+evening I walked round to the U.S. consulate; it was a lovely night with
+a full moon; and as I got round to the hot corner of Matautu I heard
+hymns in front. The balcony of the dead man's house was full of women
+singing; Mary (the widow, a native) sat on a chair by the doorstep, and
+I was set beside her on a bench, and next to Paul the carpenter; as I
+sat down I had a glimpse of the old captain, who lay in a sheet on his
+own table. After the hymn was over, a native pastor made a speech which
+lasted a long while; the light poured out of the door and windows; the
+girls were sitting clustered at my feet; it was choking hot. After the
+speech was ended, Mary carried me within; the captain's hands were
+folded on his bosom, his face and head were composed; he looked as if he
+might speak at any moment; I have never seen this kind of waxwork so
+express or more venerable; and when I went away, I was conscious of a
+certain envy for the man who was out of the battle. All night it ran in
+my head, and the next day when we sighted Tutuila, and ran into this
+beautiful landlocked loch of Pago Pago (whence I write), Captain
+Hamilton's folded hands and quiet face said a great deal more to me
+than the scenery.
+
+I am living here in a trader's house; we have a good table, Sewall doing
+things in style; and I hope to benefit by the change, and possibly get
+more stuff for Letters. In the meanwhile, I am seized quite
+_mal-ŕ-propos_ with desire to write a story, _The Bloody Wedding_,
+founded on fact--very possibly true, being an attempt to read a murder
+case--not yet months old, in this very place and house where I now
+write. The indiscretion is what stops me; but if I keep on feeling as I
+feel just now it will have to be written. Three Star Nettison, Kit
+Nettison, Field the Sailor, these are the main characters: old Nettison,
+and the captain of the man of war, the secondary. Possible scenario.
+Chapter I....
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Saturday, April 18th [1891]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I got back on Monday night, after twenty-three hours in
+an open boat; the keys were lost; the consul (who had promised us a
+bottle of Burgundy) nobly broke open his storeroom, and we got to bed
+about midnight. Next morning the blessed consul promised us horses for
+the daybreak; forgot all about it, worthy man; set us off at last in the
+heat of the day, and by a short cut which caused infinite trouble, and
+we were not home till dinner. I was extenuated, and have had a high
+fever since, or should have been writing before. To-day for the first
+time, I risk it. Tuesday I was pretty bad; Wednesday had a fever to kill
+a horse; Thursday I was better, but still out of ability to do aught but
+read awful trash. This is the time one misses civilisation; I wished to
+send out for some police novels; Montépin would have about suited my
+frozen brain. It is a bother when all one's thought turns on one's work
+in some sense or other; I could not even think yesterday; I took to
+inventing dishes by way of entertainment. Yesterday, while I lay asleep
+in the afternoon, a very lucky thing happened; the Chief Justice came to
+call; met one of our employés on the road; and was shown what I had done
+to the road.
+
+"Is this the road across the island?" he asked.
+
+"The only one," said Innes.
+
+"And has one man done all this?"
+
+"Three times," said the trusty Innes. "It has had to be made three
+times, and when Mr. Stevenson came, it was a track like what you see
+beyond."
+
+"This must be put right," said the Chief Justice.
+
+_Sunday._--The truth is, I broke down yesterday almost as soon as I
+began, and have been surreptitiously finishing the entry to-day. For all
+that I was much better, ate all the time, and had no fever. The day was
+otherwise uneventful. I am reminded; I had another visitor on Friday;
+and Fanny and Lloyd, as they returned from a forest raid, met in our
+desert, untrodden road, first Father Didier, Keeper of the conscience of
+Mataafa, the rising star; and next the Chief Justice, sole stay of
+Laupepa, the present and unsteady star, and remember, a few days before
+we were close to the sick bed and entertained by the amateur physician
+of Tamasese, the late and sunken star. "That is the fun of this place,"
+observed Lloyd; "everybody you meet is so important." Everybody is also
+so gloomy. It will come to war again, is the opinion of all the well
+informed--and before that to many bankruptcies; and after that, as
+usual, to famine. Here, under the microscope, we can see history at
+work.
+
+_Wednesday._--I have been very neglectful. A return to work, perhaps
+premature, but necessary, has used up all my possible energies, and made
+me acquainted with the living headache. I just jot down some of the past
+notabilia. Yesterday B., a carpenter, and K., my (unsuccessful) white
+man, were absent all morning from their work; I was working myself,
+where I hear every sound with morbid certainty, and I can testify that
+not a hammer fell. Upon inquiry I found they had passed the morning
+making ice with our ice machine and taking the horizon with a spirit
+level! I had no sooner heard this than--a violent headache set in; I am
+a real employer of labour now, and have much of the ship captain when
+aroused; and if I had a headache, I believe both these gentlemen had
+aching hearts. I promise you, the late ---- was to the front; and K.,
+who was the most guilty, yet (in a sense) the least blameable, having
+the brains and character of a canary-bird, fared none the better for
+B.'s repartees. I hear them hard at work this morning, so the menace may
+be blessed. It was just after my dinner, just before theirs, that I
+administered my redoubtable tongue--it is really redoubtable--to these
+skulkers. (Paul used to triumph over Mr. J. for weeks. "I am very sorry
+for you," he would say; "you're going to have a talk with Mr. Stevenson
+when he comes home: you don't know what that is!") In fact, none of them
+do, till they get it. I have known K., for instance, for months; he has
+never heard me complain, or take notice, unless it were to praise; I
+have used him always as my guest, and there seems to be something in my
+appearance which suggests endless, ovine long-suffering! We sat in the
+upper verandah all evening, and discussed the price of iron roofing, and
+the state of the draught-horses, with Innes, a new man we have taken,
+and who seems to promise well.
+
+One thing embarrasses me. No one ever seems to understand my attitude
+about that book; the stuff sent was never meant for other than a first
+state; I never meant it to appear as a book. Knowing well that I have
+never had one hour of inspiration since it was begun, and have only
+beaten out my metal by brute force and patient repetition, I hoped some
+day to get a "spate of style" and burnish it--fine mixed metaphor. I am
+now so sick that I intend, when the Letters are done and some more
+written that will be wanted, simply to make a book of it by the
+pruning-knife. I cannot fight longer; I am sensible of having done worse
+than I hoped, worse than I feared; all I can do now is to do the best I
+can for the future, and clear the book, like a piece of bush, with axe
+and cutlass. Even to produce the MS. of this will occupy me, at the most
+favourable opinion, till the middle of next year; really five years were
+wanting, when I could have made a book; but I have a family,
+and--perhaps I could not make the book after all.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
+
+
+   The late Mr. Craibe Angus of Glasgow was one of the chief organisers
+   of the Burns Exhibition in that city, and had proposed to send out to
+   Samoa a precious copy of the _Jolly Beggars_ to receive the autograph
+   of R. L. S. and be returned for the purposes of that Exhibition. The
+   line quoted, "But still our hearts are true," etc., should, it
+   appears, run, "But still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland."
+   The author of the _Canadian Boat Song_ which opens thus was Hugh,
+   twelfth Earl of Eglinton. The first quotation is of course from
+   Burns.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, April_ 1891.
+
+DEAR MR. ANGUS,--Surely I remember you! It was W. C. Murray who made us
+acquainted, and we had a pleasant crack. I see your poet is not yet
+dead. I remember even our talk--or you would not think of trusting that
+invaluable _Jolly Beggars_ to the treacherous posts, and the perils of
+the sea, and the carelessness of authors. I love the idea, but I could
+not bear the risk. However--
+
+  "Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle--"
+
+it was kindly thought upon.
+
+My interest in Burns is, as you suppose, perennial. I would I could be
+present at the exhibition, with the purpose of which I heartily
+sympathise; but the _Nancy_ has not waited in vain for me, I have
+followed my chest, the anchor is weighed long ago, I have said my last
+farewell to the hills and the heather and the lynns: like Leyden, I
+have gone into far lands to die, not stayed like Burns to mingle in the
+end with Scottish soil. I shall not even return like Scott for the last
+scene. Burns Exhibitions are all over. 'Tis a far cry to Lochow from
+tropical Vailima.
+
+  "But still our hearts are true, our hearts are Highland,
+   And we in dreams behold the Hebrides."
+
+When your hand is in, will you remember our poor Edinburgh Robin? Burns
+alone has been just to his promise; follow Burns, he knew best, he knew
+whence he drew fire--from the poor, white-faced, drunken, vicious boy
+that raved himself to death in the Edinburgh madhouse. Surely there is
+more to be gleaned about Fergusson, and surely it is high time the task
+was set about. I may tell you (because your poet is not dead) something
+of how I feel: we are three Robins who have touched the Scots lyre this
+last century. Well, the one is the world's; he did it, he came off, he
+is for ever; but I and the other--ah! what bonds we have--born in the
+same city; both sickly, both pestered, one nearly to madness, one to the
+madhouse, with a damnatory creed; both seeing the stars and the dawn,
+and wearing shoe-leather on the same ancient stones, under the same
+pends, down the same closes, where our common ancestors clashed in their
+armour, rusty or bright. And the old Robin, who was before Burns and the
+flood, died in his acute, painful youth, and left the models of the
+great things that were to come; and the new, who came after, outlived
+his green-sickness, and has faintly tried to parody the finished work.
+If you will collect the strays of Robin Fergusson, fish for material,
+collect any last re-echoing of gossip, command me to do what you
+prefer--to write the preface--to write the whole if you prefer:
+anything, so that another monument (after Burns's) be set up to my
+unhappy predecessor on the causey of Auld Reekie. You will never know,
+nor will any man, how deep this feeling is: I believe Fergusson lives
+in me. I do, but tell it not in Gath; every man has these fanciful
+superstitions, coming, going, but yet enduring; only most men are so
+wise (or the poet in them so dead) that they keep their follies for
+themselves.--I am, yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO EDMUND GOSSE
+
+
+     _Vailima, April 1891._
+
+MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have to thank you and Mrs. Gosse for many mementoes,
+chiefly for your _Life_ of your father. There is a very delicate task,
+very delicately done. I noted one or two carelessnesses, which I meant
+to point out to you for another edition; but I find I lack the time, and
+you will remark them for yourself against a new edition. There were two,
+or perhaps three, flabbinesses of style which (in your work) amazed me.
+Am I right in thinking you were a shade bored over the last chapters? or
+was it my own fault that made me think them susceptible of a more
+athletic compression? (The flabbinesses were not there, I think, but in
+the more admirable part, where they showed the bigger.) Take it all
+together, the book struck me as if you had been hurried at the last, but
+particularly hurried over the proofs, and could still spend a very
+profitable fortnight in earnest revision and (towards the end) heroic
+compression. The book, in design, subject, and general execution, is
+well worth the extra trouble. And even if I were wrong in thinking it
+specially wanted, it will not be lost; for do we not know, in Flaubert's
+dread confession, that "prose is never done"? What a medium to work in,
+for a man tired, perplexed among different aims and subjects, and
+spurred by the immediate need of "siller"! However, it's mine for what
+it's worth; and it's one of yours, the devil take it; and you know, as
+well as Flaubert, and as well as me, that it is _never done_; in other
+words, it is a torment of the pit, usually neglected by the bards who
+(lucky beggars!) approached the Styx in measure. I speak bitterly at the
+moment, having just detected in myself the last fatal symptom, three
+blank verses in succession--and I believe, God help me, a hemistich at
+the tail of them; hence I have deposed the labourer, come out of hell by
+my private trap, and now write to you from my little place in purgatory.
+But I prefer hell: would I could always dig in those red coals--or else
+be at sea in a schooner, bound for isles unvisited: to be on shore and
+not to work is emptiness--suicidal vacancy.
+
+I was the more interested in your _Life_ of your father, because I
+meditate one of mine, or rather of my family. I have no such materials
+as you, and (our objections already made) your attack fills me with
+despair; it is direct and elegant, and your style is always admirable to
+me--lenity, lucidity, usually a high strain of breeding, an elegance
+that has a pleasant air of the accidental. But beware of purple
+passages. I wonder if you think as well of your purple passages as I do
+of mine? I wonder if you think as ill of mine as I do of yours? I
+wonder; I can tell you at least what is wrong with yours--they are
+treated in the spirit of verse. The spirit--I don't mean the measure, I
+don't mean you fall into bastard cadences; what I mean is that they seem
+vacant and smoothed out, ironed, if you like. And in a style which (like
+yours) aims more and more successfully at the academic, one purple word
+is already much; three--a whole phrase--is inadmissible. Wed yourself to
+a clean austerity: that is your force. Wear a linen ephod, splendidly
+candid. Arrange its folds, but do not fasten it with any brooch. I swear
+to you, in your talking robes, there should be no patch of adornment;
+and where the subject forces, let it force you no further than it must;
+and be ready with a twinkle of your pleasantry. Yours is a fine tool,
+and I see so well how to hold it; I wonder if you see how to hold mine?
+But then I am to the neck in prose, and just now in the "dark
+_interstylar_ cave," all methods and effects wooing me, myself in the
+midst impotent to follow any. I look for dawn presently, and a full
+flowing river of expression, running whither it wills. But these useless
+seasons, above all, when a man _must_ continue to spoil paper, are
+infinitely weary.
+
+We are in our house after a fashion; without furniture, 'tis true,
+camping there, like the family after a sale. But the bailiff has not yet
+appeared; he will probably come after. The place is beautiful beyond
+dreams; some fifty miles of the Pacific spread in front; deep woods all
+round; a mountain making in the sky a profile of huge trees upon our
+left; about us, the little island of our clearing, studded with brave
+old gentlemen (or ladies, or "the twa o' them") whom we have spared. It
+is a good place to be in; night and morning, we have Theodore Rousseaus
+(always a new one) hung to amuse us on the walls of the world; and the
+moon--this is our good season, we have a moon just now--makes the night
+a piece of heaven. It amazes me how people can live on in the dirty
+north; yet if you saw our rainy season (which is really a caulker for
+wind, wet, and darkness--howling showers, roaring winds, pit-blackness
+at noon) you might marvel how we could endure that. And we can't. But
+there's a winter everywhere; only ours is in the summer. Mark my words:
+there will be a winter in heaven--and in hell. _Cela rentre dans les
+procédés du bon Dieu; et vous verrez!_ There's another very good thing
+about Vailima, I am away from the little bubble of the literary life. It
+is not all beer and skittles, is it? By the by, my _Ballads_ seem to
+have been dam bad; all the crickets sing so in their crickety papers;
+and I have no ghost of an idea on the point myself: verse is always to
+me the unknowable. You might tell me how it strikes a professional bard:
+not that it really matters, for, of course, good or bad, I don't think I
+shall get into _that_ galley any more. But I should like to know if you
+join the shrill chorus of the crickets. The crickets are the devil in
+all to you: 'tis a strange thing, they seem to rejoice like a strong
+man in their injustice. I trust you got my letter about your Browning
+book. In case it missed, I wish to say again that your publication of
+Browning's kind letter, as an illustration of _his_ character, was
+modest, proper, and in radiant good taste.--In Witness whereof, etc.
+etc.,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS RAWLINSON
+
+
+   The next is written to a young friend and visitor of Bournemouth days
+   (see vol. xxiv. p. 227) on the news of her engagement to Mr. Alfred
+   Spender.
+
+     _Vailima, Apia, Samoa, April 1891._
+
+MY DEAR MAY,--I never think of you by any more ceremonial name, so I
+will not pretend. There is not much chance that I shall forget you until
+the time comes for me to forget all this little turmoil in a corner
+(though indeed I have been in several corners) of an inconsiderable
+planet. You remain in my mind for a good reason, having given me (in so
+short a time) the most delightful pleasure. I shall remember, and you
+must still be beautiful. The truth is, you must grow more so, or you
+will soon be less. It is not so easy to be a flower, even when you bear
+a flower's name. And if I admired you so much, and still remember you,
+it is not because of your face, but because you were then worthy of it,
+as you must still continue.
+
+Will you give my heartiest congratulations to Mr. Spender? He has my
+admiration; he is a brave man; when I was young, I should have run away
+from the sight of you, pierced with the sense of my unfitness. He is
+more wise and manly. What a good husband he will have to be! And
+you--what a good wife! Carry your love tenderly. I will never forgive
+him--or you--it is in both your hands--if the face that once gladdened
+my heart should be changed into one sour or sorrowful.
+
+What a person you are to give flowers! It was so I first heard of you;
+and now you are giving the May flower!
+
+Yes, Skerryvore has passed; it was, for us. But I wish you could see us
+in our new home on the mountain, in the middle of great woods, and
+looking far out over the Pacific. When Mr. Spender is very rich, he must
+bring you round the world and let you see it, and see the old gentleman
+and the old lady. I mean to live quite a long while yet, and my wife
+must do the same, or else I couldn't manage it; so, you see, you will
+have plenty of time; and it's a pity not to see the most beautiful
+places, and the most beautiful people moving there, and the real stars
+and moon overhead, instead of the tin imitations that preside over
+London. I do not think my wife very well; but I am in hopes she will now
+have a little rest. It has been a hard business, above all for her; we
+lived four months in the hurricane season in a miserable house,
+overborne with work, ill-fed, continually worried, drowned in perpetual
+rain, beaten upon by wind, so that we must sit in the dark in the
+evenings; and then I ran away, and she had a month of it alone. Things
+go better now; the back of the work is broken; and we are still foolish
+enough to look forward to a little peace. I am a very different person
+from the prisoner of Skerryvore. The other day I was three-and-twenty
+hours in an open boat; it made me pretty ill; but fancy its not killing
+me half-way! It is like a fairy story that I should have recovered
+liberty and strength, and should go round again among my fellow-men,
+boating, riding, bathing, toiling hard with a wood-knife in the forest.
+I can wish you nothing more delightful than my fortune in life; I wish
+it you; and better, if the thing be possible.
+
+Lloyd is tinkling below me on the typewriter; my wife has just left the
+room; she asks me to say she would have written had she been well
+enough, and hopes to do it still.--Accept the best wishes of your
+admirer,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This letter announces (1) the arrival of Mrs. Thomas Stevenson from
+   Sydney, to take up her abode in her son's island home now that the
+   conditions of life there had been made fairly comfortable; and (2)
+   the receipt of a letter from me expressing the disappointment felt by
+   Stevenson's friends at home at the impersonal and even tedious
+   character of some portions of the South Sea Letters that had reached
+   us. As a corrective of this opinion, I may perhaps mention here that
+   there is a certain many-voyaged master-mariner as well as
+   master-writer--no less a person than Mr. Joseph Conrad--who does not
+   at all share it, and prefers _In the South Seas_ to _Treasure
+   Island_.
+
+     _[Vailima] April 29th, '91._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I begin again. I was awake this morning about half-past
+four. It was still night, but I made my fire, which is always a
+delightful employment, and read Lockhart's _Scott_ until the day began
+to peep. It was a beautiful and sober dawn, a dove-coloured dawn,
+insensibly brightening to gold. I was looking at it some while over the
+down-hill profile of our eastern road when I chanced to glance
+northward, and saw with extraordinary pleasure the sea lying outspread.
+It seemed as smooth as glass, and yet I knew the surf was roaring all
+along the reef, and indeed, if I had listened, I could have heard
+it--and saw the white sweep of it outside Matautu.
+
+I am out of condition still, and can do nothing, and toil to be at my
+pen, and see some ink behind me. I have taken up again _The High Woods
+of Ulufanua_. I still think the fable too fantastic and far-fetched.
+But, on a re-reading, fell in love with my first chapter, and for good
+or evil I must finish it. It is really good, well fed with facts, true
+to the manners, and (for once in my works) rendered pleasing by the
+presence of a heroine who is pretty. Miss Uma is pretty; a fact. All my
+other women have been as ugly as sin, and like Falconet's horse (I have
+just been reading the anecdote in Lockhart), _mortes_ forbye.
+
+News: our old house is now half demolished; it is to be rebuilt on a new
+site; now we look down upon and through the open posts of it like a
+bird-cage, to the woods beyond. My poor Paulo has lost his father and
+succeeded to thirty thousand thalers (I think); he had to go down to the
+consulate yesterday to send a legal paper; got drunk, of course, and is
+still this morning in so bemused a condition that our breakfasts all went
+wrong. Lafaele is absent at the deathbed of his fair spouse; fair she
+was, but not in deed, acting as harlot to the wreckers at work on the
+warships, to which society she probably owes her end, having fallen off a
+cliff, or been thrust off it--_inter pocula_. Henry is the same, our
+stand-by. In this transition stage he has been living in Apia; but the
+other night he stayed up, and sat with us about the chimney in my room.
+It was the first time he had seen a fire in a hearth; he could not look
+at it without smiles, and was always anxious to put on another stick. We
+entertained him with the fairy tales of civilisation--theatres, London,
+blocks in the street, Universities, the Underground, newspapers, etc.,
+and projected once more his visit to Sydney. If we can manage, it will be
+next Christmas. (I see it will be impossible for me to afford a further
+journey _this_ winter.) We have spent since we have been here about
+Ł2,500, which is not much if you consider we have built on that three
+houses, one of them of some size, and a considerable stable, made two
+miles of road some three times, cleared many acres of bush, made some
+miles of path, planted quantities of food, and enclosed a horse paddock
+and some acres of pig run; but 'tis a good deal of money regarded simply
+as money. K. is bosh; I have no use for him; but we must do what we can
+with the fellow meanwhile; he is good-humoured and honest, but
+inefficient, idle himself, the cause of idleness in others, grumbling, a
+self-excuser--all the faults in a bundle. He owes us thirty weeks'
+service--the wretched Paul about half as much. Henry is almost the only
+one of our employés who has a credit.
+
+_May 17th._--Well, am I ashamed of myself? I do not think so. I have
+been hammering letters ever since, and got three ready and a fourth
+about half through; all four will go by the mail, which is what I wish,
+for so I keep at least my start. Days and days of unprofitable stubbing
+and digging, and the result still poor as literature, left-handed,
+heavy, unillumined, but I believe readable and interesting as matter. It
+has been no joke of a hard time, and when my task was done, I had little
+taste for anything but blowing on the pipe. A few necessary letters
+filled the bowl to overflowing.
+
+My mother has arrived, young, well, and in good spirits. By desperate
+exertions, which have wholly floored Fanny, her room was ready for her,
+and the dining-room fit to eat in. It was a famous victory. Lloyd never
+told me of your portrait till a few days ago; fortunately, I had no
+pictures hung yet; and the space over my chimney waits your counterfeit
+presentment. I have not often heard anything that pleased me more; your
+severe head shall frown upon me and keep me to the mark. But why has it
+not come? Have you been as forgetful as Lloyd?
+
+_18th._--Miserable comforters are ye all! I read your esteemed pages
+this morning by lamplight and the glimmer of the dawn, and as soon as
+breakfast was over, I must turn to and tackle these despised labours!
+Some courage was necessary, but not wanting. There is one thing at least
+by which I can avenge myself for my drubbing, for on one point you seem
+impenetrably stupid. Can I find no form of words which will at last
+convey to your intelligence the fact that _these letters were never
+meant, and are not now meant, to be other than a quarry of materials
+from which the book may be drawn_? There seems something incommunicable
+in this (to me) simple idea; I know Lloyd failed to comprehend it, I
+doubt if he has grasped it now; and I despair, after all these efforts,
+that you should ever be enlightened. Still, oblige me by reading that
+form of words once more, and see if a light does not break. You may be
+sure, after the friendly freedoms of your criticism (necessary I am
+sure, and wholesome I know, but untimely to the poor labourer in his
+landslip) that mighty little of it will stand.
+
+Our Paul has come into a fortune, and wishes to go home to the Hie
+Germanie. This is a tile on our head, and if a shower, which is now
+falling, lets up, I must go down to Apia, and see if I can find a
+substitute of any kind. This is, from any point of view, disgusting;
+above all, from that of work; for, whatever the result, the mill has to
+be kept turning; apparently dust, and not flour, is the proceed. Well,
+there is gold in the dust, which is a fine consolation, since--well, I
+can't help it; night or morning, I do my darndest, and if I cannot
+charge for merit, I must e'en charge for toil, of which I have plenty
+and plenty more ahead before this cup is drained; sweat and hyssop are
+the ingredients.
+
+We are clearing from Carruthers' Road to the pig fence, twenty-eight
+powerful natives with Catholic medals about their necks, all swiping in
+like Trojans; long may the sport continue!
+
+The invoice to hand. Ere this goes out, I hope to see your expressive,
+but surely not benignant countenance! Adieu, O culler of offensive
+expressions--'and a' to be a posy to your ain dear May!'--Fanny seems a
+little revived again after her spasm of work. Our books and furniture
+keep slowly draining up the road, in a sad state of scatterment and
+disrepair; I wish the devil had had K. by his red beard before he had
+packed my library. Odd leaves and sheets and boards--a thing to make a
+bibliomaniac shed tears--are fished out of odd corners. But I am no
+bibliomaniac, praise Heaven, and I bear up, and rejoice when I find
+anything safe.
+
+_19th._--However, I worked five hours on the brute, and finished my
+Letter all the same, and couldn't sleep last night by consequence.
+Haven't had a bad night since I don't know when; dreamed a large
+handsome man (a New Orleans planter) had insulted my wife, and, do what
+I pleased, I could not make him fight me; and woke to find it was the
+eleventh anniversary of my marriage. A letter usually takes me from a
+week to three days; but I'm sometimes two days on a page--I was once
+three--and then my friends kick me. _C'est-y-bęte!_ I wish letters of
+that charming quality could be so timed as to arrive when a fellow
+wasn't working at the truck in question; but, of course, that can't be.
+Did not go down last night. It showered all afternoon, and poured heavy
+and loud all night.
+
+You should have seen our twenty-five popés (the Samoan phrase for a
+Catholic, lay or cleric) squatting when the day's work was done on the
+ground outside the verandah, and pouring in the rays of forty-eight eyes
+through the back and the front door of the dining-room, while Henry and
+I and the boss pope signed the contract. The second boss (an old man)
+wore a kilt (as usual) and a Balmoral bonnet with a little tartan edging
+and the tails pulled off. I told him that hat belong to my
+country--Sekotia; and he said, yes, that was the place that he belonged
+to right enough. And then all the Papists laughed till the woods rang;
+he was slashing away with a cutlass as he spoke.
+
+The pictures[20] have decidedly not come; they may probably arrive
+Sunday.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
+
+
+   The reference in the first paragraph is to a previous letter
+   concerning private matters, in which Stevenson had remonstrated with
+   his correspondent on what seemed to him her mistaken reasons for a
+   certain course of conduct.
+
+     [_Vailima, May 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR ADELAIDE,--I will own you just did manage to tread on my gouty
+toe; and I beg to assure you with most people I should simply have
+turned away and said no more. My cudgelling was therefore in the nature
+of a caress or testimonial.
+
+God forbid, I should seem to judge for you on such a point; it was what
+you seemed to set forth as your reasons that fluttered my old
+Presbyterian spirit--for, mind you, I am a child of the
+Covenanters--whom I do not love, but they are mine after all, my
+father's and my mother's--and they had their merits too, and their ugly
+beauties, and grotesque heroisms, that I love them for, the while I
+laugh at them; but in their name and mine do what you think right, and
+let the world fall. That is the privilege and the duty of private
+persons; and I shall think the more of you at the greater distance,
+because you keep a promise to your fellow-man, your helper and creditor
+in life, by just so much as I was tempted to think the less of you (O
+not much, or I would never have been angry) when I thought you were the
+swallower of a (tinfoil) formula.
+
+I must say I was uneasy about my letter, not because it was too strong
+as an expression of my unregenerate sentiments, but because I knew full
+well it should be followed by something kinder. And the mischief has
+been in my health. I fell sharply sick in Sydney, was put aboard the
+_Lübeck_ pretty bad, got to Vailima, hung on a month there, and didn't
+pick up as well as my work needed; set off on a journey, gained a great
+deal, lost it again; and am back at Vailima, still no good at my
+necessary work. I tell you this for my imperfect excuse that I should
+not have written you again sooner to remove the bad taste of my last.
+
+A road has been called Adelaide Road; it leads from the back of our
+house to the bridge, and thence to the garden, and by a bifurcation to
+the pig pen. It is thus much traversed, particularly by Fanny. An
+oleander, the only one of your seeds that prospered in this climate,
+grows there; and the name is now some week or ten days applied and
+published. ADELAIDE ROAD leads also into the bush, to the banana patch
+and by a second bifurcation over the left branch of the stream to the
+plateau and the right hand of the gorges. In short, it leads to all
+sorts of good, and is, besides, in itself a pretty winding path, bound
+downhill among big woods to the margin of the stream.
+
+What a strange idea, to think me a Jew-hater! Isaiah and David and Heine
+are good enough for me; and I leave more unsaid. Were I of Jew blood, I
+do not think I could ever forgive the Christians; the ghettos would get
+in my nostrils like mustard or lit gunpowder. Just so you, as being a
+child of the Presbytery, I retain--I need not dwell on that. The
+ascendant hand is what I feel most strongly; I am bound in and in with
+my forbears; were he one of mine, I should not be struck at all by Mr.
+Moss of Bevis Marks, I should still see behind him Moses of the Mount
+and the Tables and the shining face. We are all nobly born; fortunate
+those who know it; blessed those who remember.
+
+I am, my dear Adelaide, most genuinely yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+Write by return to say you are better, and I will try to do the same.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   The following refers again to the project of a long genealogical novel
+   expanded from the original idea of _Henry Shovel_.
+
+     _[Vailima] Tuesday, 19th May '91._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--I don't know what you think of me, not having written
+to you at all during your illness. I find two sheets begun with your
+name, but that is no excuse.... I am keeping bravely; getting about
+better every day, and hope soon to be in my usual fettle. My books begin
+to come; and I fell once more on the Old Bailey session papers. I have
+1778, 1784, and 1786. Should you be able to lay hands on any other
+volumes, above all a little later, I should be very glad you should buy
+them for me. I particularly want _one_ or _two_ during the course of the
+Peninsular War. Come to think, I ought rather to have communicated this
+want to Bain. Would it bore you to communicate to that effect with the
+great man? The sooner I have them, the better for me. 'Tis for _Henry
+Shovel_. But _Henry Shovel_ has now turned into a work called _The
+Shovels of Newton French: including Memoirs of Henry Shovel, a Private
+in the Peninsular War_, which work is to begin in 1664 with the marriage
+of Skipper, afterwards Alderman Shovel of Bristol, Henry's
+great-great-grandfather, and end about 1832 with his own second marriage
+to the daughter of his runaway aunt. Will the public ever stand such an
+opus? Gude kens, but it tickles me. Two or three historical personages
+will just appear: Judge Jeffreys, Wellington, Colquhoun, Grant, and I
+think Townsend the runner. I know the public won't like it; let 'em lump
+it then; I mean to make it good; it will be more like a saga.
+
+Adieu.--Yours ever affectionately,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] June 1891._
+
+SIR,--To you, under your portrait, which is, in expression, your true,
+breathing self, and up to now saddens me; in time, and soon, I shall be
+glad to have it there; it is still only a reminder of your absence.
+Fanny wept when we unpacked it, and you know how little she is given to
+that mood; I was scarce Roman myself, but that does not count--I lift up
+my voice so readily. These are good compliments to the artist.[21] I
+write in the midst of a wreck of books, which have just come up, and
+have for once defied my labours to get straight. The whole floor is
+filled with them, and (what's worse) most of the shelves forbye; and
+where they are to go to, and what is to become of the librarian, God
+knows. It is hot to-night, and has been airless all day, and I am out of
+sorts, and my work sticks, the devil fly away with it and me. We had an
+alarm of war since last I wrote my screeds to you, and it blew over, and
+is to blow on again, and the rumour goes they are to begin by killing
+all the whites. I have no belief in this, and should be infinitely sorry
+if it came to pass--I do not mean for us, that were otiose--but for the
+poor, deluded schoolboys, who should hope to gain by such a step.
+
+_Letter resumed, June 20th._--No diary this time. Why? you ask. I have
+only sent out four Letters, and two chapters of _The Wrecker_. Yes, but
+to get these I have written 132 pp., 66,000 words in thirty days; 2200
+words a day; the labours of an elephant. God knows what it's like, and
+don't ask me, but nobody shall say I have spared pains. I thought for
+some time it wouldn't come at all. I was days and days over the first
+letter of the lot--days and days writing and deleting and making no
+headway whatever, till I thought I should have gone bust; but it came at
+last after a fashion, and the rest went a thought more easily, though I
+am not so fond as to fancy any better.
+
+Your opinion as to the Letters as a whole is so damnatory that I put
+them by. But there is a "hell of a want of" money this year. And these
+Gilbert Island papers, being the most interesting in matter, and forming
+a compact whole, and being well illustrated, I did think of as a
+possible resource.
+
+It would be called
+
+  _Six Months in Melanesia,
+  Two Island Kings,
+  ---- Monarchies,
+  Gilbert Island Kings,
+  ---- Monarchies_,
+
+and I dare say I'll think of a better yet--and would divide thus:--
+
+    _Butaritari_
+
+    I. A Town Asleep.
+   II. The Three Brothers.
+  III. Around our House.
+   IV. A Tale of a Tapu.
+    V. The Five Days' Festival.
+   VI. Domestic Life--(which might be omitted, but not well, better be
+         recast).
+
+    _The King of Apemama_
+
+  VII. The Royal Traders.
+ VIII. Foundation of Equator Town.
+   IX. The Palace of Mary Warren.
+    X. Equator Town and the Palace.
+   XI. King and Commons.
+  XII. The Devil Work Box.
+ XIII. The Three Corslets.
+  XIV. Tail piece; the Court upon a Journey.
+
+I wish you to watch these closely, judging them as a whole, and treating
+them as I have asked you, and favour me with your damnatory advice. I
+look up at your portrait, and it frowns upon me. You seem to view me
+with reproach. The expression is excellent; Fanny wept when she saw it,
+and you know she is not given to the melting mood. She seems really
+better; I have a touch of fever again, I fancy overwork, and to-day,
+when I have overtaken my letters, I shall blow on my pipe. Tell Mrs.
+Sitwell I have been playing _Le Chant d'Amour_ lately, and have arranged
+it, after awful trouble, rather prettily for two pipes; and it brought
+her before me with an effect scarce short of hallucination. I could hear
+her voice in every note; yet I had forgot the air entirely, and began to
+pipe it from notes as something new, when I was brought up with a round
+turn by this reminiscence. We are now very much installed; the
+dining-room is done, and looks lovely. Soon we shall begin to photograph
+and send you our circumstances. My room is still a howling wilderness. I
+sleep on a platform in a window, and strike my mosquito bar and roll up
+my bedclothes every morning, so that the bed becomes by day a divan. A
+great part of the floor is knee-deep in books, yet nearly all the
+shelves are filled, alas! It is a place to make a pig recoil, yet here
+are my interminable labours begun daily by lamp-light, and sometimes not
+yet done when the lamp has once more to be lighted. The effect of
+pictures in this place is surprising. They give great pleasure.
+
+_June 21st._--A word more. I had my breakfast this morning at 4.30! My
+new cook has beaten me and (as Lloyd says) revenged all the cooks in the
+world. I have been hunting them to give me breakfast early since I was
+twenty; and now here comes Mr. Ratke, and I have to plead for mercy. I
+cannot stand 4.30; I am a mere fevered wreck; it is now half-past eight,
+and I can no more, and four hours divide me from lunch, the devil take
+the man! Yesterday it was about 5.30, which I can stand; day before 5,
+which is bad enough; to-day, I give out. It is like a London season, and
+as I do not take a siesta once in a month, and then only five minutes, I
+am being worn to the bones, and look aged and anxious.
+
+We have Rider Haggard's brother here as a Land Commissioner; a nice kind
+of a fellow; indeed, all the three Land Commissioners are very
+agreeable.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   For the result of the suggestion made in the following, see
+   Scribner's Magazine, October 1893, p. 494.
+
+     _Vailima [Summer 1891]._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--I find among my grandfather's papers his own
+reminiscences of his voyage round the north with Sir Walter, eighty
+years ago, _labuntur anni!_ They are not remarkably good, but he was not
+a bad observer, and several touches seem to me speaking. It has occurred
+to me you might like them to appear in the Magazine. If you would,
+kindly let me know, and tell me how you would like it handled. My
+grandad's MS. runs to between six and seven thousand words, which I
+could abbreviate of anecdotes that scarce touch Sir W. Would you like
+this done? Would you like me to introduce the old gentleman? I had
+something of the sort in my mind, and could fill a few columns rather _ŕ
+propos_. I give you the first offer of this, according to your request;
+for though it may forestall one of the interests of my biography, the
+thing seems to me particularly suited for prior appearance in a
+magazine.
+
+I see the first number of _The Wrecker_; I thought it went lively
+enough; and by a singular accident, the picture is not unlike Tai-o-hae!
+
+Thus we see the age of miracles, etc.--Yours very sincerely,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+Proofs for next mail.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
+
+
+   Referring again to the Burns Exhibition and to his correspondent's
+   request for an autograph in a special copy of _The Jolly Beggars_.
+
+     _[Summer 1891.]_
+
+DEAR MR. ANGUS,--You can use my letter as you will. The parcel has not
+come; pray Heaven the next post bring it safe. Is it possible for me to
+write a preface here? I will try if you like, if you think I must:
+though surely there are Rivers in Assyria. Of course you will send me
+sheets of the catalogue; I suppose it (the preface) need not be long;
+perhaps it should be rather very short? Be sure you give me your views
+upon these points. Also tell me what names to mention among those of
+your helpers, and do remember to register everything, else it is not
+safe.
+
+The true place (in my view) for a monument to Fergusson were the
+churchyard of Haddington. But as that would perhaps not carry many
+votes, I should say one of the two following sites:--First, either as
+near the site of the old Bedlam as we could get, or, second, beside the
+Cross, the heart of his city. Upon this I would have a fluttering
+butterfly, and, I suggest, the citation,
+
+  Poor butterfly, thy case I mourn.
+
+For the case of Fergusson is not one to pretend about. A more miserable
+tragedy the sun never shone upon, or (in consideration of our climate) I
+should rather say refused to brighten.--Yours truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+Where Burns goes will not matter. He is no local poet, like your Robin
+the First; he is general as the casing air. Glasgow, as the chief city
+of Scottish men, would do well; but for God's sake, don't let it be like
+the Glasgow memorial to Knox; I remember, when I first saw this,
+laughing for an hour by Shrewsbury clock.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. C. IDE
+
+
+   The following is written to the American Land Commissioner (later
+   Chief Justice for a term) in Samoa, whose elder daughter, then at
+   home in the States, had been born on a Christmas Day, and
+   consequently regarded herself as defrauded of her natural rights to a
+   private anniversary of her own.
+
+     _[Vailima, June 19, 1891.]_
+
+DEAR MR. IDE,--Herewith please find the DOCUMENT, which I trust will
+prove sufficient in law. It seems to me very attractive in its
+eclecticism; Scots, English, and Roman law phrases are all indifferently
+introduced, and a quotation from the works of Haynes Bayly can hardly
+fail to attract the indulgence of the Bench.--Yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar, author of _The
+Master of Ballantrae_ and _Moral Emblems_, stuck civil engineer, sole
+owner and patentee of the Palace and Plantation known as Vailima in the
+island of Upolu, Samoa, a British Subject, being in sound mind, and
+pretty well, I thank you, in body;
+
+In consideration that Miss Annie H. Ide, daughter of H. C. Ide, in the
+town of Saint Johnsbury, in the county of Caledonia, in the state of
+Vermont, United States of America, was born, out of all reason, upon
+Christmas Day, and is therefore out of all justice denied the
+consolation and profit of a proper birthday;
+
+And considering that I, the said Robert Louis Stevenson, have attained
+an age when O, we never mention it, and that I have now no further use
+for a birthday of any description;
+
+And in consideration that I have met H. C. Ide, the father of the said
+Annie H. Ide, and found him about as white a land commissioner as I
+require;
+
+_Have transferred_, and _do hereby transfer_, to the said Annie H. Ide,
+_all and whole_ my rights and privileges in the thirteenth day of
+November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby, and henceforth, the
+birthday of the said Annie H. Ide, to have, hold, exercise, and enjoy
+the same in the customary manner, by the sporting of fine raiment,
+eating of rich meats, and receipt of gifts, compliments, and copies of
+verse, according to the manner of our ancestors;
+
+_And I direct_ the said Annie H. Ide to add to the said name of Annie H.
+Ide the name Louisa--at least in private; and I charge her to use my
+said birthday with moderation and humanity, _et tamquam bona filia
+familić_, the said birthday not being so young as it once was, and
+having carried me in a very satisfactory manner since I can remember;
+
+And in case the said Annie H. Ide shall neglect or contravene either of
+the above conditions, I hereby revoke the donation and transfer my
+rights in the said birthday to the President of the United States of
+America for the time being;
+
+In witness whereof I have hereto set my hand and seal this nineteenth
+day of June in the year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-one.
+
+    [Illustration: SEAL]
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+_Witness_, LLOYD OSBOURNE,
+_Witness_, HAROLD WATTS.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The misgivings herein expressed about the imminence of a native war
+   were not realised until two years later, and the plans of defence
+   into which Stevenson here enters with characteristic gusto were not
+   put to the test.
+
+     [_Vailima, June and July 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am so hideously in arrears that I know not where to
+begin. However, here I am a prisoner in my room, unfit for work,
+incapable of reading with interest, and trying to catch up a bit. We
+have a guest here: a welcome guest: my Sydney music master, whose health
+broke down, and who came with his remarkable simplicity, to ask a
+month's lodging. He is newly married, his wife in the family way:
+beastly time to fall sick. I have found, by good luck, a job for him
+here which will pay some of his way: and in the meantime he is a
+pleasant guest, for he plays the flute with little sentiment but great
+perfection, and endears himself by his simplicity. To me, especially; I
+am so weary of finding people approach me with precaution, pick their
+words, flatter, and twitter; but the muttons of the good God are not at
+all afraid of the lion. They take him as he comes, and he does not
+bite--at least not hard. This makes us a party of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
+8, at table; deftly waited on by Mary Carter, a very nice Sydney girl,
+who served us at a boarding-house and has since come on--how long she
+will endure this exile is another story; and gauchely waited on by
+Faauma, the new left-handed wife of the famed Lafaele, a little creature
+in native dress of course and as beautiful as a bronze candlestick, so
+fine, clean and dainty in every limb; her arms and her little hips in
+particular masterpieces. The rest of the crew may be stated briefly: the
+great Henry Simelé, still to the front; King, of the yellow beard,
+rather a disappointment--I am inclined on this point to republican
+opinions: Ratke, a German cook, good--and Germanly bad, he don't make
+_my_ kitchen; Paul, now working out his debts outdoor; Emma, a strange
+weird creature--I suspect (from her colour) a quarter white--widow of a
+white man, ugly, capable, a really good laundress; Java--yes, that is
+the name--they spell it Siava, but pronounce it, and explain it
+Java--her assistant, a creature I adore from her plain, wholesome,
+bread-and-butter beauty. An honest, almost ugly, bright, good-natured
+face; the rest (to my sense) merely exquisite. She comes steering into
+my room of a morning, like Mrs. Nickleby, with elaborate precaution;
+unlike her, noiseless. If I look up from my work, she is ready with an
+explosive smile. I generally don't, and wait to look at her as she
+stoops for the bellows, and trips tiptoe off again, a miracle of
+successful womanhood in every line. I am amused to find plain, healthy
+Java pass in my fancy so far before pretty young Faauma. I observed
+Lloyd the other day to say that Java must have been lovely "when she was
+young"; and I thought it an odd word, of a woman in the height of
+health, not yet touched with fat, though (to be just) a little slack of
+bust.
+
+Our party you know: Fanny, Lloyd, my mother, Belle, and "the babe"--as
+we call him--Austin. We have now three instruments; Boehm flageolet,
+flute, and Bb clarinet; and we expect in a few days our piano. This is a
+great pleasure to me; the band-mastering, the playing and all. As soon
+as I am done with this stage of a letter, I shall return, not being
+allowed to play, to band-master, being engaged in an attempt to arrange
+an air with effect for the three pipes. And I'll go now, by jabers.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_July 3rd._--A long pause: occasioned, first by some days of hard work:
+next by a vile quinsey--if that be the way to spell it. But to-day I
+must write. For we have all kinds of larks on hand. The wars and rumours
+of wars begin to take consistency, insomuch that we have landed the
+weapons this morning, and inspected the premises with a view to defence.
+Of course it will come to nothing; but as in all stories of massacres,
+the one you don't prepare for is the one that comes off. All our natives
+think ill of the business; none of the whites do. According to our
+natives the demonstration threatened for to-day or to-morrow is one of
+vengeance on the whites--small wonder--and if that begins--where will it
+stop? Anyway I don't mean to go down for nothing, if I can help it; and
+to amuse you I will tell you our plans.
+
+There is the house, upper story. Our weak point is of course the sides
+AB, AH; so we propose to place half our garrison in the space HGFD and
+half in the opposite corner, BB'CD. We shall communicate through the
+interior, there is a water-tank in the angle C, my mother and Austin are
+to go in the loft. The holding of only these two corners and deserting
+the corner C' is for economy and communication, two doors being in the
+sides GF and CD; so that any one in the corner C' could only communicate
+or be reinforced by exposure. Besides we are short of mattresses.
+Garrison: R. L. S., Lloyd, Fanny, King, Ratke--doubtful, he may
+go--Emma, Mary, Belle; weapons: eight revolvers and a shot gun, and
+swords galore; but we're pretty far gone when we come to the swords. It
+has been rather a lark arranging; but I find it a bore to write, and I
+doubt it will be cruel stale to read about, when all's over and done, as
+it will be ere this goes, I fancy: far more ere it reaches you.
+
+_Date unknown._--Well, nothing as yet, though I don't swear by it yet.
+There has been a lot of trouble, and there still is a lot of doubt as to
+the future; and those who sit in the chief seats, who are all excellent,
+pleasant creatures, are not, perhaps, the most wise of mankind. They
+actually proposed to kidnap and deport Mataafa; a scheme which would
+have loosed the avalanche at once. But some human being interfered and
+choked off this pleasing scheme. You ask me in yours just received, what
+will become of us if it comes to a war? Well, if it is a war of the old
+sort, nothing. It will mean a little bother, and a great deal of theft,
+and more amusement. But if it comes to the massacre lark, I can only
+answer with the Bell of Old Bow. You are to understand that, in my
+reading of the native character, every day that passes is a solid gain.
+They put in the time public speaking; so wear out their energy, develop
+points of difference and exacerbate internal ill-feeling. Consequently,
+I feel less apprehension of difficulty now, by about a hundredfold. All
+that I stick to, is that if war begins, there are ten chances to one we
+shall have it bad. The natives have been scurvily used by all the white
+powers without exception; and they labour under the belief, of which
+they can't be cured, that they defeated Germany. This makes an awkward
+complication.
+
+I was extremely vexed to hear you were ill again. I hope you are better.
+'Tis a long time we have known each other now, to be sure. Well, well!
+you say you are sure to catch fever in the bush; so we do continually;
+but you are to conceive Samoa fever as the least formidable malady under
+heaven: implying only a day or so of slight headache and languor and ill
+humour, easily reduced by quinine or antipyrine. The hot fever I had was
+from over-exertion and blood poisoning, no doubt, and irritation of the
+bladder; it went of its own accord and with rest. I have had since a bad
+quinsey which knocked me rather useless for about a week, but I stuck to
+my work, with great difficulty and small success.
+
+_Date unknown._--But it's fast day and July, and the rude inclement
+depth of winter, and the thermometer was 68 this morning and a few days
+ago it was 63, and we have all been perishing with cold. All still seems
+quiet. Your counterfeit presentments are all round us: the pastel over
+my bed, the Dew-Smith photograph over my door, and the "celebrity" on
+Fanny's table. My room is now done, and looks very gay, and chromatic
+with its blue walls and my coloured lines of books.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This is the first letter in which Stevenson expresses the opinion
+   which had been forcing itself upon him, and which he felt it his duty
+   in the following year to express publicly in letters to the Times, of
+   the unwisdom of the government established under the treaty between
+   the Three Powers and the incompetence of the officials appointed to
+   carry it out.
+
+     _[Vailima] Sunday, Sept. 5(?), 1891._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Yours from Lochinver has just come. You ask me if I am
+ever homesick for the Highlands and the Isles. Conceive that for the
+last month I have been living there between 1786 and 1850, in my
+grandfather's diaries and letters. I _had_ to take a rest; no use
+talking; so I put in a month over my _Lives of the Stevensons_ with
+great pleasure and profit and some advance; one chapter and a part
+drafted. The whole promises well. Chapter I. Domestic Annals. Chapter
+II. The Northern Lights. Chapter III. The Bell Rock. Chapter IV. A
+Family of Boys. Chap. V. The Grandfather. VI. Alan Stevenson. VII.
+Thomas Stevenson. My materials for my great-grandfather are almost null;
+for my grandfather copious and excellent. Name, a puzzle. _A Scottish
+Family_, _A Family of Engineers_, _Northern Lights_, _The Engineers of
+the Northern Lights: A Family History_. Advise; but it will take long.
+Now, imagine if I have been homesick for Barrahead and Island Glass, and
+Kirkwall, and Cape Wrath, and the Wells of the Pentland Firth; I could
+have wept.
+
+Now for politics. I am much less alarmed; I believe the _malo_ (= _raj_,
+government) will collapse and cease like an overlain infant, without a
+shot fired. They have now been months here on their big salaries--and
+Cedercrantz, whom I specially like as a man, has done nearly nothing,
+and the Baron, who is well-meaning, has done worse. They have these
+large salaries, and they have all the taxes; they have made scarce a
+foot of road; they have not given a single native a position--all to
+white men; they have scarce laid out a penny on Apia, and scarce a penny
+on the King; they have forgot they were in Samoa, or that such a thing
+as Samoans existed, and had eyes and some intelligence. The Chief
+Justice has refused to pay his customs! The President proposed to have
+an expensive house built for himself, while the King, his master, has
+none! I had stood aside, and been a loyal, and, above all, a silent
+subject, up to then; but now I snap my fingers at their _malo_. It is
+damned, and I'm damned glad of it. And this is not all. Last "_Wainiu_,"
+when I sent Fanny off to Fiji, I hear the wonderful news that the Chief
+Justice is going to Fiji and the Colonies to improve his mind. I showed
+my way of thought to his guest, Count Wachtmeister, whom I have sent to
+you with a letter--he will tell you all the news. Well, the Chief
+Justice stayed, but they said he was to leave yesterday. I had intended
+to go down, and see and warn him! But the President's house had come up
+in the meanwhile, and I let them go to their doom, which I am only
+anxious to see swiftly and (if it may be) bloodlessly fall.
+
+Thus I have in a way withdrawn my unrewarded loyalty. Lloyd is down
+to-day with Moors to call on Mataafa; the news of the excursion made a
+considerable row in Apia, and both the German and the English consuls
+besought Lloyd not to go. But he stuck to his purpose, and with my
+approval. It's a poor thing if people are to give up a pleasure party
+for a _malo_ that has never done anything for us but draw taxes, and is
+going to go pop, and leave us at the mercy of the identical Mataafa,
+whom I have not visited for more than a year, and who is probably
+furious.
+
+The sense of my helplessness here has been rather bitter; I feel it
+wretched to see this dance of folly and injustice and unconscious
+rapacity go forward from day to day, and to be impotent. I was not
+consulted--or only by one man, and that on particular points; I did not
+choose to volunteer advice till some pressing occasion; I have not even
+a vote, for I am not a member of the municipality.
+
+What ails you, miserable man, to talk of saving material? I have a whole
+world in my head, a whole new society to work, but I am in no hurry; you
+will shortly make the acquaintance of the Island of Ulufanua, on which
+I mean to lay several stories; the _Bloody Wedding_, possibly the _High
+Woods_--(O, it's so good, the _High Woods_, but the story is craziness;
+that's the trouble)--a political story, the _Labour Slave_, etc.
+Ulufanua is an imaginary island; the name is a beautiful Samoan word for
+the _top_ of a forest; ulu=leaves or hair, fanua=land. The ground or
+country of the leaves. "Ulufanua the isle of the sea," read that verse
+dactylically and you get the beat; the u's are like our double oo; did
+ever you hear a prettier word?
+
+I do not feel inclined to make a volume of Essays,[22] but if I did, and
+perhaps the idea is good--and any idea is better than the _South
+Seas_--here would be my choice of the Scribner articles: _Dreams_,
+_Beggars_, _Lantern-Bearers_, _Random Memories_. There was a paper
+called the _Old Pacific Capital_ in Fraser, in Tulloch's time, which had
+merit; there were two on Fontainebleau in the Magazine of Art in
+Henley's time. I have no idea if they're any good; then there's the
+_Emigrant Train_. _Pulvis et Umbra_ is in a different key, and wouldn't
+hang on with the rest.
+
+I have just interrupted my letter and read through the chapter of the
+_High Woods_ that is written, a chapter and a bit, some sixteen pages,
+really very fetching, but what do you wish? the story is so wilful, so
+steep, so silly--it's a hallucination I have outlived, and yet I never
+did a better piece of work, horrid, and pleasing, and extraordinarily
+_true_; it's sixteen pages of the South Seas; their essence. What am I
+to do? Lose this little gem--for I'll be bold, and that's what I think
+it--or go on with the rest, which I don't believe in, and don't like,
+and which can never make aught but a silly yarn? Make another end to it?
+Ah, yes, but that's not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I
+never use an effect, when I can help it, unless it prepares the effects
+that are to follow; that's what a story consists in. To make another
+end, that is to make the beginning all wrong. The dénouement of a long
+story is nothing; it is just a "full close," which you may approach and
+accompany as you please--it is a coda, not an essential member in the
+rhythm; but the body and end of a short story is bone of the bone and
+blood of the blood of the beginning. Well, I shall end by finishing it
+against my judgment; that fragment is my Delilah. Golly, it's good. I am
+not shining by modesty; but I do just love the colour and movement of
+that piece so far as it goes.
+
+I was surprised to hear of your fishing. And you saw the _Pharos_,[23]
+thrice fortunate man; I wish I dared go home, I would ask the
+Commissioners to take me round for old sake's sake, and see all my
+family pictures once more from the Mull of Galloway to Unst. However,
+all is arranged for our meeting in Ceylon, except the date and the
+blooming pounds. I have heard of an exquisite hotel in the country,
+airy, large rooms, good cookery, not dear; we shall have a couple of
+months there, if we can make it out, and converse or--as my grandfather
+always said--"commune." "Communings with Mr. Kennedy as to Lighthouse
+Repairs." He was a fine old fellow, but a droll.
+
+_Evening._--Lloyd has returned. Peace and war were played before his
+eyes at heads or tails. A German was stopped with levelled guns; he
+raised his whip; had it fallen, we might have been now in war. Excuses
+were made by Mataafa himself. Doubtless the thing was done--I mean the
+stopping of the German--a little to show off before Lloyd. Meanwhile
+---- was up here, telling how the Chief Justice was really gone for five
+or eight weeks, and begging me to write to the Times and denounce the
+state of affairs; many strong reasons he advanced; and Lloyd and I have
+been since his arrival and ----'s departure, near half an hour, debating
+what should be done. Cedercrantz is gone; it is not my fault; he knows
+my views on that point--alone of all points;--he leaves me with my mouth
+sealed. Yet this is a nice thing that because he is guilty of a fresh
+offence--his flight--the mouth of the only possible influential witness
+should be closed? I do not like this argument. I look like a cad, if I
+do in the man's absence what I could have done in a more manly manner in
+his presence. True; but why did he go? It is his last sin. And I, who
+like the man extremely--that is the word--I love his society--he is
+intelligent, pleasant, even witty, a gentleman--and you know how that
+attaches--I loathe to seem to play a base part; but the poor
+natives--who are like other folk, false enough, lazy enough, not heroes,
+not saints--ordinary men damnably misused--are they to suffer because I
+like Cedercrantz, and Cedercrantz has cut his lucky? This is a little
+tragedy, observe well--a tragedy! I may be right, I may be wrong in my
+judgment, but I am in treaty with my honour. I know not how it will seem
+to-morrow. Lloyd thought the barrier of honour insurmountable, and it is
+an ugly obstacle. He (Cedercrantz) will likely meet my wife three days
+from now, may travel back with her, will be charming if he does; suppose
+this, and suppose him to arrive and find that I have sprung a mine--or
+the nearest approach to it I could find--behind his back? My position is
+pretty. Yes, I am an aristocrat. I have the old petty, personal view of
+honour? I should blush till I die if I do this; yet it is on the cards
+that I may do it. So much I have written you in bed, as a man writes or
+talks, in a _bittre Wahl_. Now I shall sleep, and see if I am more
+clear. I will consult the missionaries at least--I place some reliance
+in M. also--or I should if he were not a partisan; but a partisan he is.
+There's a pity. To sleep! A fund of wisdom in the prostrate body and the
+fed brain. Kindly observe R. L. S. in the talons of politics! 'Tis
+funny--'tis sad. Nobody but these cursed idiots could have so driven me;
+I cannot bear idiots.
+
+My dear Colvin, I must go to sleep; it is long past ten--a dreadful hour
+for me. And here am I lingering (so I feel) in the dining-room at the
+Monument, talking to you across the table, both on our feet, and only
+the two stairs to mount, and get to bed, and sleep, and be waked by dear
+old George--to whom I wish my kindest remembrances--next morning. I look
+round, and there is my blue room, and my long lines of shelves, and the
+door gaping on a moonless night, and no word of S. C. but his twa
+portraits on the wall. Good-bye, my dear fellow, and good-night. Queer
+place the world!
+
+_Monday._--No clearness of mind with the morning; I have no guess what I
+should do. 'Tis easy to say that the public duty should brush aside
+these little considerations of personal dignity; so it is that
+politicians begin, and in a month you find them rat and flatter and
+intrigue with brows of brass. I am rather of the old view, that a man's
+first duty is to these little laws; the big he does not, he never will,
+understand; I may be wrong about the Chief Justice and the Baron and the
+state of Samoa; I cannot be wrong about the vile attitude I put myself
+in if I blow the gaff on Cedercrantz behind his back.
+
+_Tuesday._--One more word about the _South Seas_, in answer to a
+question I observed I have forgotten to answer. The Tahiti part has
+never turned up, because it has never been written. As for telling you
+where I went or when, or anything about Honolulu, I would rather die;
+that is fair and plain. How can anybody care when or how I left
+Honolulu? A man of upwards of forty cannot waste his time in
+communicating matter of that indifference. The letters, it appears, are
+tedious; they would be more tedious still if I wasted my time upon such
+infantile and sucking-bottle details. If ever I put in any such detail,
+it is because it leads into something or serves as a transition. To
+tell it for its own sake, never! The mistake is all through that I have
+told too much; I had not sufficient confidence in the reader, and have
+overfed him; and here are you anxious to learn how I--O Colvin! Suppose
+it had made a book, all such information is given to one glance of an
+eye by a map with a little dotted line upon it. But let us forget this
+unfortunate affair.
+
+_Wednesday._--Yesterday I went down to consult Clarke, who took the view
+of delay. Has he changed his mind already? I wonder: here at least is
+the news. Some little while back some men of Manono--what is Manono?--a
+Samoan rotten borough, a small isle of huge political importance, heaven
+knows why, where a handful of chiefs make half the trouble in the
+country. Some men of Manono (which is strong Mataafa) burned down the
+houses and destroyed the crops of some Malietoa neighbours. The
+President went there the other day and landed alone on the island, which
+(to give him his due) was plucky. Moreover, he succeeded in persuading
+the folks to come up and be judged on a particular day in Apia. That day
+they did not come; but did come the next, and, to their vast surprise,
+were given six months' imprisonment and clapped in gaol. Those who had
+accompanied them cried to them on the streets as they were marched to
+prison, "Shall we rescue you?" The condemned, marching in the hands of
+thirty men with loaded rifles, cried out "No"! And the trick was done.
+But it was ardently believed a rescue would be attempted; the gaol was
+laid about with armed men day and night; but there was some question of
+their loyalty, and the commandant of the forces, a very nice young
+beardless Swede, became nervous, and conceived a plan. How if he should
+put dynamite under the gaol, and in case of an attempted rescue blow up
+prison and all? He went to the President, who agreed; he went to the
+American man-of-war for the dynamite and machine, was refused, and got
+it at last from the Wreckers. The thing began to leak out, and there
+arose a muttering in town. People had no fancy for amateur explosions,
+for one thing. For another, it did not clearly appear that it was legal;
+the men had been condemned to six months' prison, which they were
+peaceably undergoing; they had not been condemned to death. And lastly,
+it seemed a somewhat advanced example of civilisation to set before
+barbarians. The mutter in short became a storm, and yesterday, while I
+was down, a cutter was chartered, and the prisoners were suddenly
+banished to the Tokelaus. Who has changed the sentence? We are going to
+stir in the dynamite matter; we do not want the natives to fancy us
+consenting to such an outrage.
+
+Fanny has returned from her trip, and on the whole looks better. The
+_High Woods_ are under way, and their name is now the _Beach of Falesá_,
+and the yarn is cured. I have about thirty pages of it done; it will be
+fifty to seventy I suppose. No supernatural trick at all; and escaped
+out of it quite easily; can't think why I was so stupid for so long.
+Mighty glad to have Fanny back to this "Hell of the South Seas," as the
+German Captain called it. What will Cedercrantz think when he comes
+back? To do him justice, had he been here, this Manono hash would not
+have been.
+
+Here is a pretty thing. When Fanny was in Fiji all the Samoa and Tokelau
+folks were agog about our "flash" house; but the whites had never heard
+of it.
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
+      Author of _The Beach of Falesá_.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+    _[Vailima], Sept. 28, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Since I last laid down my pen, I have written and
+rewritten _The Beach of Falesá_; something like sixty thousand words of
+sterling domestic fiction (the story, you will understand, is only half
+that length); and now I don't want to write any more again for ever, or
+feel so; and I've got to overhaul it once again to my sorrow. I was all
+yesterday revising, and found a lot of slacknesses and (what is worse in
+this kind of thing) some literaryisms. One of the puzzles is this: It is
+a first person story--a trader telling his own adventure in an island.
+When I began I allowed myself a few liberties, because I was afraid of
+the end; now the end proved quite easy, and could be done in the pace;
+so the beginning remains about a quarter tone out (in places); but I
+have rather decided to let it stay so. The problem is always delicate;
+it is the only thing that worries me in first person tales, which
+otherwise (quo' Alan) "set better wi' my genius." There is a vast deal
+of fact in the story, and some pretty good comedy. It is the first
+realistic South Sea story; I mean with real South Sea character and
+details of life. Everybody else who has tried, that I have seen, got
+carried away by the romance, and ended in a kind of sugar candy sham
+epic, and the whole effect was lost--there was no etching, no human
+grin, consequently no conviction. Now I have got the smell and look of
+the thing a good deal. You will know more about the South Seas after you
+have read my little tale than if you had read a library. As to whether
+any one else will read it, I have no guess. I am in an off time, but
+there is just the possibility it might make a hit; for the yarn is good
+and melodramatic, and there is quite a love affair--for me; and Mr.
+Wiltshire (the narrator) is a huge lark, though I say it. But there is
+always the exotic question, and everything, the life, the place, the
+dialects--trader's talk, which is a strange conglomerate of literary
+expressions and English and American slang, and Beach de Mar, or native
+English,--the very trades and hopes and fears of the characters, are all
+novel, and may be found unwelcome to that great, hulking, bullering
+whale, the public.
+
+Since I wrote, I have been likewise drawing up a document to send in to
+the President; it has been dreadfully delayed, not by me, but to-day
+they swear it will be sent in. A list of questions about the dynamite
+report are herein laid before him, and considerations suggested why he
+should answer.
+
+_October 5th._--Ever since my last snatch I have been much chivied about
+over the President business; his answer has come, and is an evasion
+accompanied with schoolboy insolence, and we are going to try to answer
+it. I drew my answer and took it down yesterday; but one of the
+signatories wants another paragraph added, which I have not yet been
+able to draw, and as to the wisdom of which I am not yet convinced.
+
+_Next day, Oct. 7th the right day._--We are all in rather a muddled
+state with our President affair. I do loathe politics, but at the same
+time, I cannot stand by and have the natives blown in the air
+treacherously with dynamite. They are still quiet; how long this may
+continue I do not know, though of course by mere prescription the
+Government is strengthened, and is probably insured till the next taxes
+fall due. But the unpopularity of the whites is growing. My native
+overseer, the great Henry Simelé, announced to-day that he was "weary of
+whites upon the beach. All too proud," said this veracious witness. One
+of the proud ones had threatened yesterday to cut off his head with a
+bush knife! These are "native outrages"; honour bright, and setting
+theft aside, in which the natives are active, this is the main stream of
+irritation. The natives are generally courtly, far from always civil,
+but really gentle, and with a strong sense of honour of their own, and
+certainly quite as much civilised as our dynamiting President.
+
+We shall be delighted to see Kipling.[24] I go to bed usually about
+half-past eight, and my lamp is out before ten; I breakfast at six. We
+may say roughly we have no soda water on the island, and just now
+truthfully no whisky. I _have_ heard the chimes at midnight; now no
+more, I guess. _But_--Fanny and I, as soon as we can get coins for it,
+are coming to Europe, not to England: I am thinking of Royat. Bar wars.
+If not, perhaps the Apennines might give us a mountain refuge for two
+months or three in summer. How is that for high? But the money must be
+all in hand first.
+
+_October 13th._--How am I to describe my life these last few days? I
+have been wholly swallowed up in politics, a wretched business, with
+fine elements of farce in it too, which repay a man in passing,
+involving many dark and many moonlight rides, secret counsels which are
+at once divulged, sealed letters which are read aloud in confidence to
+the neighbours, and a mass of fudge and fun, which would have driven me
+crazy ten years ago, and now makes me smile.
+
+On Friday, Henry came and told us he must leave and go to "my poor old
+family in Savaii"; why? I do not quite know--but, I suspect, to be
+tattooed--if so, then probably to be married, and we shall see him no
+more. I told him he must do what he thought his duty; we had him to
+lunch, drank his health, and he and I rode down about twelve. When I got
+down, I sent my horse back to help bring down the family later. My own
+afternoon was cut out for me; my last draft for the President had been
+objected to by some of the signatories. I stood out, and one of our
+small number accordingly refused to sign. Him I had to go and persuade,
+which went off very well after the first hottish moments; you have no
+idea how stolid my temper is now. By about five the thing was done; and
+we sat down to dinner at the Chinaman's--the Verrey or Doyen of
+Apia--Gurr and I at each end as hosts; Gurr's wife--Fanua, late maid of
+the village; her (adopted) father and mother, Seumanu and Faatulia,
+Fanny, Belle, Lloyd, Austin, and Henry Simelé, his last appearance.
+Henry was in a kilt of grey shawl, with a blue jacket, white shirt, and
+black necktie, and looked like a dark genteel guest in a Highland
+shooting-box. Seumanu (opposite Fanny, next G.) is chief of Apia, a
+rather big gun in this place, looking like a large, fatted, military
+Englishman, bar the colour. Faatulia, next me, is a bigger chief than
+her husband. Henry is a chief too--his chief name, Iiga (Ee-eeng-a), he
+has not yet "taken" because of his youth. We were in fine society, and
+had a pleasant meal-time, with lots of fun. Then to the Opera--I beg
+your pardon, I mean the Circus. We occupied the first row in the
+reserved seats, and there in the row behind were all our
+friends--Captain Foss and his Captain-Lieutenant, three of the American
+officers, very nice fellows, the Dr., etc., so we made a fine show of
+what an embittered correspondent of the local paper called "the shoddy
+aristocracy of Apia"; and you should have seen how we carried on, and
+how I clapped, and Captain Foss hollered "_wunderschön!_" and threw
+himself forward in his seat, and how we all in fact enjoyed ourselves
+like school-children, Austin not a shade more than his neighbours. Then
+the Circus broke up, and the party went home, but I stayed down, having
+business on the morrow.
+
+Yesterday, October 12th, great news reaches me, and Lloyd and I, with
+the mail just coming in, must leave all, saddle, and ride down. True
+enough, the President had resigned! Sought to resign his presidency of
+the council, and keep his advisership to the King; given way to the
+consuls' objections and resigned all--then fell out with them about the
+disposition of the funds, and was now trying to resign from his
+resignation! Sad little President, so trim to look at, and I believe so
+kind to his little wife! Not only so, but I meet Dunnet on the beach.
+Dunnet calls me in consultation, and we make with infinite difficulty a
+draft of a petition to the King.... Then to dinner at Moors's, a very
+merry meal, interrupted before it was over by the arrival of the
+committee. Slight sketch of procedure agreed upon, self appointed
+spokesman, and the deputation sets off. Walk all through Matafele, all
+along Mulinuu, come to the King's house; he has verbally refused to see
+us in answer to our letter, swearing he is gasegase (chief sickness, not
+common man's) and indeed we see him inside in bed. It is a miserable low
+house, better houses by the dozen in the little hamlet (Tanugamanono) of
+bushmen on our way to Vailima; and the President's house in process of
+erection just opposite! We are told to return to-morrow; I refuse; and
+at last we are very sourly received, sit on the mats, and I open out,
+through a very poor interpreter, and sometimes hampered by unacceptable
+counsels from my backers. I can speak fairly well in a plain way now. C.
+asked me to write out my harangue for him this morning; I have done so,
+and couldn't get it near as good. I suppose (talking and interpreting) I
+was twenty minutes or half an hour on the deck; then his majesty replied
+in the dying whisper of a big chief; a few words of rejoinder
+(approving), and the deputation withdrew, rather well satisfied.
+
+A few days ago this intervention would have been a deportable offence;
+not now, I bet; I would like them to try. A little way back along
+Mulinuu, Mrs. Gurr met us with her husband's horse; and he and she and
+Lloyd and I rode back in a heavenly moonlight. Here ends a chapter in
+the life of an island politician! Catch me at it again; 'tis easy to go
+in, but it is not a pleasant trade. I have had a good team, as good as I
+could get on the beach; but what trouble even so, and what fresh
+troubles shaping. But I have on the whole carried all my points; I
+believe all but one, and on that (which did not concern me) I had no
+right to interfere. I am sure you would be amazed if you knew what a
+good hand I am at keeping my temper, talking people over, and giving
+reasons which are not my reasons, but calculated for the meridian of
+the particular objection; so soon does falsehood await the politician
+in his whirling path.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+   Stevenson had again been reading Mr. James's _Lesson of the Master_;
+   Adela Chart is the heroine of the second story in that collection,
+   called _The Marriages_.
+
+     [_Vailima, October 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--From this perturbed and hunted being expect but a
+line, and that line shall be but a whoop for Adela. O she's delicious,
+delicious; I could live and die with Adela--die, rather the better of
+the two; you never did a straighter thing, and never will.
+
+_David Balfour_, second part of _Kidnapped_, is on the stocks at last;
+and is not bad, I think. As for _The Wrecker_, it's a machine, you
+know--don't expect aught else--a machine, and a police machine; but I
+believe the end is one of the most genuine butcheries in literature; and
+we point to our machine with a modest pride, as the only police machine
+without a villain. Our criminals are a most pleasing crew, and leave the
+dock with scarce a stain upon their character.
+
+What a different line of country to be trying to draw Adela, and trying
+to write the last four chapters of _The Wrecker_! Heavens, it's like two
+centuries; and ours is such rude, transpontine business, aiming only at
+a certain fervour of conviction and sense of energy and violence in the
+men; and yours is so neat and bright and of so exquisite a surface!
+Seems dreadful to send such a book to such an author; but your name is
+on the list. And we do modestly ask you to consider the chapters on the
+_Norah Creina_ with the study of Captain Nares, and the forementioned
+last four, with their brutality of substance and the curious (and
+perhaps unsound) technical manoeuvre of running the story together to
+a point as we go along, the narrative becoming more succinct and the
+details fining off with every page.--Sworn affidavit of
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+_No person now alive has beaten Adela: I adore Adela and her maker. Sic
+subscrib._
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+    A Sublime Poem to follow.
+
+  Adela, Adela, Adela Chart,
+  What have you done to my elderly heart?
+  Of all the ladies of paper and ink
+  I count you the paragon, call you the pink.
+  The word of your brother depicts you in part:
+  "You raving maniac!" Adela Chart;
+  But in all the asylums that cumber the ground,
+  So delightful a maniac was ne'er to be found.
+
+  I pore on you, dote on you, clasp you to heart,
+  I laud, love, and laugh at you, Adela Chart,
+  And thank my dear maker the while I admire
+  That I can be neither your husband nor sire.
+
+  Your husband's, your sire's were a difficult part;
+  You're a byway to suicide, Adela Chart;
+  But to read of, depicted by exquisite James,
+  O, sure you're the flower and quintessence of dames.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+    _Eructavit cor meum_
+
+My heart was inditing a goodly matter about Adela Chart.
+
+  Though oft I've been touched by the volatile dart,
+  To none have I grovelled but Adela Chart,
+  There are passable ladies, no question, in art--
+  But where is the marrow of Adela Chart?
+
+  I dreamed that to Tyburn I passed in the cart--
+  I dreamed I was married to Adela Chart:
+  From the first I awoke with a palpable start,
+  The second dumbfoundered me, Adela Chart!
+
+Another verse bursts from me, you see; no end to the violence of the
+Muse.
+
+
+
+
+To E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+    _[Vailima], October 8th, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--All right, you shall have the _Tales of my
+Grandfather_ soon, but I guess we'll try and finish off _The Wrecker_
+first. _A propos_ of whom, please send some advanced sheets to
+Cassell's--away ahead of you--so that they may get a dummy out.
+
+Do you wish to illustrate _My Grandfather_? He mentions as excellent a
+portrait of Scott by Basil Hall's brother. I don't think I ever saw this
+engraved; would it not, if you could get track of it, prove a taking
+embellishment? I suggest this for your consideration and inquiry. A new
+portrait of Scott strikes me as good. There is a hard, tough,
+constipated old portrait of my grandfather hanging in my aunt's house,
+Mrs. Alan Stevenson, 16 St. Leonard's Terrace, Chelsea, which has never
+been engraved--the better portrait, Joseph's bust, has been reproduced,
+I believe, twice--and which, I am sure, my aunt would let you have a
+copy of. The plate could be of use for the book when we get so far, and
+thus to place it in the Magazine might be an actual saving.
+
+I am swallowed up in politics for the first, I hope for the last, time
+in my sublunary career. It is a painful, thankless trade; but one thing
+that came up I could not pass in silence. Much drafting, addressing,
+deputationising has eaten up all my time, and again (to my contrition)
+I leave you Wreckerless. As soon as the mail leaves I tackle it
+straight.--Yours very sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+     [_Vailima, October 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--The time draws nigh, the mail is near due, and I
+snatch a moment of collapse so that you may have at least some sort of a
+scratch of note along with the
+
+  \ end
+   \ of
+    \ _The_
+     \ _Wrecker_.     Hurray!
+
+which I mean to go herewith. It has taken me a devil of a pull, but I
+think it's going to be ready. If I did not know you were on the stretch
+waiting for it and trembling for your illustrations, I would keep it for
+another finish; but things being as they are, I will let it go the best
+way I can get it. I am now within two pages of the end of Chapter XXV.,
+which is the last chapter, the end with its gathering up of loose
+threads, being the dedication to Low, and addressed to him; this is my
+last and best expedient for the knotting up of these loose cards. 'Tis
+possible I may not get that finished in time, in which case you'll
+receive only Chapters XXII. to XXV. by this mail, which is all that can
+be required for illustration.
+
+I wish you would send me _Memoirs of Baron Marbot_ (French);
+_Introduction to the Study of the History of Language_, Strong, Logeman
+& Wheeler; _Principles of Psychology_, William James; Morris &
+Magnusson's _Saga Library_, any volumes that are out; George Meredith's
+_One of our Conquerors_; _Lŕ Bas_, by Huysmans (French); O'Connor
+Morris's _Great Commanders of Modern Times_; _Life's Handicap_, by
+Kipling; of Taine's _Origines de la France Contemporaine_, I have only
+as far as _la Révolution_, vol. iii.; if another volume is out, please
+add that. There is for a book-box.
+
+I hope you will like the end; I think it is rather strong meat. I have
+got into such a deliberate, dilatory, expansive turn, that the effort to
+compress this last yarn was unwelcome; but the longest yarn has to come
+to an end some time. Please look it over for carelessnesses, and tell me
+if it had any effect upon your jaded editorial mind. I'll see if ever I
+have time to add more.
+
+I add to my book-box list Adams' _Historical Essays_; the Plays of A. W.
+Pinero--all that have appeared, and send me the rest in course as they
+do appear; _Noughts and Crosses_ by Q.; Robertson's _Scotland under her
+Early Kings_.
+
+_Sunday._--The deed is done, didst thou not hear a noise? "The end" has
+been written to this endless yarn, and I am once more a free man. What
+will he do with it?
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Monday, October 24th._
+
+MY DEAR CARTHEW,[25]--See what I have written, but it's Colvin I'm
+after--I have written two chapters, about thirty pages of _Wrecker_
+since the mail left, which must be my excuse, and the bother I've had
+with it is not to be imagined; you might have seen me the day before
+yesterday weighing British sov.'s and Chili dollars to arrange my
+treasure chest. And there was such a calculation, not for that only, but
+for the ship's position and distances when--but I am not going to tell
+you the yarn--and then, as my arithmetic is particularly lax, Lloyd had
+to go over all my calculations; and then, as I had changed the amount
+of money, he had to go over all _his_ as to the amount of the lay; and
+altogether, a bank could be run with less effusion of figures than it
+took to shore up a single chapter of a measly yarn. However, it's done,
+and I have but one more, or at the outside two, to do, and I am Free!
+and can do any damn thing I like.
+
+Before falling on politics, I shall give you my day. Awoke somewhere
+about the first peep of day, came gradually to, and had a turn on the
+verandah before 5.55, when "the child" (an enormous Wallis Islander)
+brings me an orange; at 6, breakfast; 6.10, to work; which lasts till,
+at 10.30, Austin comes for his history lecture; this is rather
+dispiriting, but education must be gone about in faith--and charity,
+both of which pretty nigh failed me to-day about (of all things)
+Carthage; 11, luncheon; after luncheon in my mother's room, I read
+Chapter XXIII. of _The Wrecker_, then Belle, Lloyd, and I go up and make
+music furiously till about 2 (I suppose), when I turn into work again
+till 4; fool from 4 to half-past, tired out and waiting for the bath
+hour; 4.30, bath; 4.40, eat two heavenly mangoes on the verandah, and
+see the boys arrive with the pack-horses; 5, dinner; smoke, chat on
+verandah, then hand of cards, and at last at 8 come up to my room with a
+pint of beer and a hard biscuit, which I am now consuming, and as soon
+as they are consumed I shall turn in.
+
+Such are the innocent days of this ancient and outworn sportsman; to-day
+there was no weeding, usually there is however, edged in somewhere. My
+books for the moment are a crib to Phćdo, and the second book of
+Montaigne; and a little while back I was reading Frederic Harrison,
+_Choice of Books_, etc.--very good indeed, a great deal of sense and
+knowledge in the volume, and some very true stuff, _contra_ Carlyle,
+about the eighteenth century. A hideous idea came over me that perhaps
+Harrison is now getting _old_. Perhaps you are. Perhaps I am. Oh, this
+infidelity must be stared firmly down. I am about twenty-three--say
+twenty-eight; you about thirty, or, by'r lady, thirty-four; and as
+Harrison belongs to the same generation, there is no good bothering
+about him.
+
+Here has just been a fine alert; I gave my wife a dose of chlorodyne.
+"Something wrong," says she. "Nonsense," said I. "Embrocation," said
+she. I smelt it, and--it smelt very funny. "I think it's just gone bad,
+and to-morrow will tell." Proved to be so.
+
+_Wednesday._--History of Tuesday.--Woke at usual time, very little work,
+for I was tired, and had a job for the evening--to write parts for a new
+instrument, a violin. Lunch, chat, and up to my place to practise; but
+there was no practising for me--my flageolet was gone wrong, and I had
+to take it all to pieces, clean it, and put it up again. As this is a
+most intricate job--the thing dissolves into seventeen separate members,
+most of these have to be fitted on their individual springs as fine as
+needles, and sometimes two at once with the springs shoving different
+ways--it took me till two. Then Lloyd and I rode forth on our errands;
+first to Motootua, where we had a really instructive conversation on
+weeds and grasses. Thence down to Apia, where we bought a fresh bottle
+of chlorodyne and conversed on politics.
+
+My visit to the King, which I thought at the time a particularly
+nugatory and even schoolboy step, and only consented to because I had
+held the reins so tight over my little band before, has raised a deuce
+of a row--new proclamation, no one is to interview the sacred puppet
+without consuls' permission, two days' notice, and an approved
+interpreter--read (I suppose) spy. Then back; I should have said I was
+trying the new horse; a tallish piebald, bought from the circus; he
+proved steady and safe, but in very bad condition, and not so much the
+wild Arab steed of the desert as had been supposed. The height of his
+back, after commodious Jack, astonished me, and I had a great
+consciousness of exercise and florid action, as I posted to his long,
+emphatic trot. We had to ride back easy; even so he was hot and blown;
+and when we set a boy to lead him to and fro, our last character for
+sanity perished. We returned just neat for dinner; and in the evening
+our violinist arrived, a young lady, no great virtuoso truly, but
+plucky, industrious, and a good reader; and we played five pieces with
+huge amusement, and broke up at nine. This morning I have read a
+splendid piece of Montaigne, written this page of letter, and now turn
+to _The Wrecker_.
+
+_Wednesday._--November 16th or 17th--and I am ashamed to say mail day.
+_The Wrecker_ is finished, that is the best of my news; it goes by this
+mail to Scribner's; and I honestly think it a good yarn on the whole and
+of its measly kind. The part that is genuinely good is Nares, the
+American sailor; that is a genuine figure; had there been more Nares it
+would have been a better book; but of course it didn't set up to be a
+book, only a long tough yarn with some pictures of the manners of to-day
+in the greater world--not the shoddy sham world of cities, clubs, and
+colleges, but the world where men still live a man's life. The worst of
+my news is the influenza; Apia is devastate; the shops closed, a ball
+put off, etc. As yet we have not had it at Vailima, and, who knows? we
+may escape. None of us go down, but of course the boys come and go.
+
+Your letter had the most wonderful "I told you so" I ever heard in the
+course of my life. Why, you madman, I wouldn't change my present
+installation for any post, dignity, honour, or advantage conceivable to
+me. It fills the bill; I have the loveliest time. And as for wars and
+rumours of wars, you surely know enough of me to be aware that I like
+that also a thousand times better than decrepit peace in Middlesex? I do
+not quite like politics; I am too aristocratic, I fear, for that. God
+knows I don't care who I chum with; perhaps like sailors best; but to go
+round and sue and sneak to keep a crowd together--never. My
+imagination, which is not the least damped by the idea of having my head
+cut off in the bush, recoils aghast from the idea of a life like
+Gladstone's, and the shadow of the newspaper chills me to the bone.
+Hence my late eruption was interesting, but not what I like. All else
+suits me in this (killed a mosquito) A1 abode.
+
+About politics. A determination was come to by the President that he had
+been an idiot; emissaries came to Gurr and me to kiss and be friends. My
+man proposed I should have a personal interview; I said it was quite
+useless, I had nothing to say; I had offered him the chance to inform
+me, had pressed it on him, and had been very unpleasantly received, and
+now "Time was." Then it was decided that I was to be made a culprit
+against Germany; the German Captain--a delightful fellow and our
+constant visitor--wrote to say that as "a German officer" he could not
+come even to say farewell. We all wrote back in the most friendly
+spirit, telling him (politely) that some of these days he would be
+sorry, and we should be delighted to see our friend again. Since then I
+have seen no German shadow.
+
+Mataafa has been proclaimed a rebel; the President did this act, and
+then resigned. By singular good fortune, Mataafa has not yet moved; no
+thanks to our idiot governors. They have shot their bolt; they have made
+a rebel of the only man (_to their own knowledge, on the report of their
+own spy_) who held the rebel party in check; and having thus called on
+war to fall, they can do no more, sit equally "expertes" of _vis_ and
+counsel, regarding their handiwork. It is always a cry with these folks
+that he (Mataafa) had no ammunition. I always said it would be found;
+and we know of five boat-loads that have found their way to Malie
+already. Where there are traders, there will be ammunition; aphorism by
+R. L. S.
+
+Now what am I to do next?
+
+Lives of the Stevensons? _Historia Samoae_? A History for Children?
+Fiction? I have had two hard months at fiction; I want a change.
+Stevensons? I am expecting some more material; perhaps better wait.
+Samoa? rather tempting; might be useful to the islands--and to me; for
+it will be written in admirable temper; I have never agreed with any
+party, and see merits and excuses in all; should do it (if I did) very
+slackly and easily, as if half in conversation. History for Children?
+This flows from my lessons to Austin; no book is any good. The best I
+have seen is Freeman's _Old English History_; but his style is so
+rasping, and a child can learn more, if he's clever. I found my sketch
+of general Aryan history, given in conversation, to have been
+practically correct--at least what I mean is, Freeman had very much the
+same stuff in his early chapters, only not so much, and I thought not so
+well placed; and the child remembered some of it. Now the difficulty is
+to give this general idea of main place, growth, and movement; it is
+needful to tack it on a yarn. Now Scotch is the only history I know; it
+is the only history reasonably represented in my library; it is a very
+good one for my purpose, owing to two civilisations having been face to
+face throughout--or rather Roman civilisation face to face with our
+ancient barbaric life and government, down to yesterday, to 1750 anyway.
+But the _Tales of a Grandfather_ stand in my way; I am teaching them to
+Austin now, and they have all Scott's defects and all Scott's hopeless
+merit. I cannot compete with that; and yet, so far as regards teaching
+History, how he has missed his chances! I think I'll try; I really have
+some historic sense, I feel that in my bones. Then there's another
+thing. Scott never knew the Highlands; he was always a Borderer. He has
+missed that whole, long, strange, pathetic story of our savages, and,
+besides, his style is not very perspicuous to childhood. Gad, I think
+I'll have a flutter. Buridan's Ass! Whither to go, what to attack. Must
+go to other letters; shall add to this, if I have time.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, November 1891._
+
+MY DEAR MR. ANGUS,--Herewith the invaluable sheets. They came months
+after your letter, and I trembled; but here they are, and I have
+scrawled my vile name on them, and "thocht shame" as I did it. I am
+expecting the sheets of your catalogue, so that I may attack the
+preface. Please give me all the time you can. The sooner the better; you
+might even send me early proofs as they are sent out, to give me more
+incubation. I used to write as slow as judgment; now I write rather
+fast; but I am still "a slow study," and sit a long while silent on my
+eggs. Unconscious thought, there is the only method: macerate your
+subject, let it boil slow, then take the lid off and look in--and there
+your stuff is, good or bad. But the journalist's method is the way to
+manufacture lies; it is will-worship--if you know the luminous quaker
+phrase; and the will is only to be brought in the field for study and
+again for revision. The essential part of work is not an act, it is a
+state.
+
+I do not know why I write you this trash.
+
+Many thanks for your handsome dedication. I have not yet had time to do
+more than glance at Mrs. Begg; it looks interesting.--Yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS ANNIE H. IDE
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa [November 1891]._
+
+MY DEAR LOUISA,--Your picture of the church, the photograph of yourself
+and your sister, and your very witty and pleasing letter, came all in a
+bundle, and made me feel I had my money's worth for that birthday. I am
+now, I must be, one of your nearest relatives; exactly what we are to
+each other, I do not know, I doubt if the case has ever happened
+before--your papa ought to know, and I don't believe he does; but I
+think I ought to call you in the meanwhile, and until we get the advice
+of counsel learned in the law, my name-daughter. Well, I was extremely
+pleased to see by the church that my name-daughter could draw; by the
+letter, that she was no fool; and by the photograph, that she was a
+pretty girl, which hurts nothing. See how virtues are rewarded! My first
+idea of adopting you was entirely charitable; and here I find that I am
+quite proud of it, and of you, and that I chose just the kind of
+name-daughter I wanted. For I can draw too, or rather I mean to say I
+could before I forgot how; and I am very far from being a fool myself,
+however much I may look it; and I am as beautiful as the day, or at
+least I once hoped that perhaps I might be going to be. And so I might.
+So that you see we are well met, and peers on these important points. I
+am very glad also that you are older than your sister. So should I have
+been, if I had had one. So that the number of points and virtues which
+you have inherited from your name-father is already quite surprising.
+
+I wish you would tell your father--not that I like to encourage my
+rival--that we have had a wonderful time here of late, and that they are
+having a cold day on Mulinuu, and the consuls are writing reports, and I
+am writing to the Times, and if we don't get rid of our friends this
+time I shall begin to despair of everything but my name-daughter.
+
+You are quite wrong as to the effect of the birthday on your age. From
+the moment the deed was registered (as it was in the public press with
+every solemnity), the 13th of November became your own _and only_
+birthday, and you ceased to have been born on Christmas Day. Ask your
+father: I am sure he will tell you this is sound law. You are thus
+become a month and twelve days younger than you were, but will go on
+growing older for the future in the regular and human manner from one
+13th November to the next. The effect on me is more doubtful; I may, as
+you suggest, live for ever; I might, on the other hand, come to pieces
+like the one-horse shay at a moment's notice; doubtless the step was
+risky, but I do not the least regret that which enables me to sign
+myself your revered and delighted name-father,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+     [_Vailima, November 1891._]
+
+DEAR CHARLES,--[After dealing with some matters of business] I believe
+that's a'. By this time, I suppose you will have heard from McClure, and
+the _Beach of Falesá_ will be decided on for better for worse. The end
+of _The Wrecker_ goes by this mail, an awfae relief. I am now free and
+can do what I please. What do I please? I kenna. I'll bide a wee.
+There's a child's history in the wind; and there's my grandfather's life
+begun; and there's a hist^{ry} of Samoa in the last four or five years
+begun--there's a kind of sense to this book; it may help the Samoans, it
+may help me, for I am bound on the altar here for anti-Germanism. Then
+there's _The Pearl Fisher_ about a quarter done; and there's various
+short stories in various degrees of incompleteness. De'il, there's
+plenty grist; but the mill's unco slaw! To-morrow or next day, when the
+mail's through, I'll attack one or other, or maybe something else. All
+these schemes begin to laugh at me, for the day's far through, and I
+believe the pen grows heavy. However, I believe _The Wrecker_ is a good
+yarn of its poor sort, and it is certainly well nourished with facts; no
+realist can touch me there; for by this time I do begin to know
+something of life in the XIXth century, which no novelist either in
+France or England seems to know much of. You must have great larks over
+masonry. You're away up in the ranks now and (according to works that I
+have read) doubtless design assassinations. But I am an outsider; and I
+have a certain liking for a light unto my path which would deter me from
+joining the rank and file of so vast and dim a confraternity. At your
+altitude it becomes (of course) amusing and perhaps useful. Yes, I
+remember the L.J.R.,[26] and the constitution, and my homily on Liberty,
+and yours on Reverence, which was never written--so I never knew what
+reverence was. I remember I wanted to write Justice also; but I forget
+who had the billet. My dear papa was in a devil of a taking; and I had
+to go and lunch at Ferrier's in a strangely begrutten state, which was
+_infra dig_. for a homilist on liberty. It was about four, I suppose,
+that we met in the Lothian Road,--had we the price of two bitters
+between us? questionable!
+
+Your bookseller (I have lost his letter, I mean the maid has, arranging
+my room, and so have to send by you) wrote me a letter about Old Bailey
+Papers. Gosh, I near swarfed; dam'd, man, I near had dee'd o't. It's
+only yin or twa volumes I want; say 500 or 1000 pages of the stuff; and
+the worthy man (much doubting) proposed to bury me in volumes. Please
+allay his rage, and apologise that I have not written him direct. His
+note was civil and purposelike. And please send me a copy of Henley's
+_Book of Verses_; mine has disappeared.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Nov. 25th, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN, MY DEAR COLVIN,--I wonder how often I'm going to write
+it. In spite of the loss of three days, as I have to tell, and a lot of
+weeding and cacao planting, I have finished since the mail left four
+chapters, forty-eight pages of my Samoa history. It is true that the
+first three had been a good deal drafted two years ago, but they had all
+to be written and re-written, and the fourth chapter is all new. Chapter
+I. Elements of Discord--Native. II. Elements of Discord--Foreign. III.
+The Success of Laupepa. IV. Brandeis. V. Will probably be called "The
+Rise of Mataafa." VI. _Furor Consularis_--a devil of a long chapter.
+VII. Stuebel the Pacificator. VIII. Government under the Treaty of
+Berlin. IX. Practical Suggestions. Say three-sixths of it are done,
+maybe more; by this mail five chapters should go, and that should be a
+good half of it; say sixty pages. And if you consider that I sent by
+last mail the end of _The Wrecker_, coming on for seventy or eighty
+pages, and the mail before that the entire tale of the _Beach of Falesá,
+_ I do not think I can be accused of idleness. This is my season; I
+often work six and seven, and sometimes eight hours; and the same day I
+am perhaps weeding or planting for an hour or two more--and I dare say
+you know what hard work weeding is--and it all agrees with me at this
+time of the year--like--like idleness, if a man of my years could be
+idle.
+
+My first visit to Apia was a shock to me; every second person the ghost
+of himself, and the place reeking with infection. But I have not got the
+thing yet, and hope to escape. This shows how much stronger I am; think
+of me flitting through a town of influenza patients seemingly unscathed.
+We are all on the cacao planting.
+
+The next day my wife and I rode over to the German plantation, Vailele,
+whose manager is almost the only German left to speak to us. Seventy
+labourers down with influenza! It is a lovely ride, half-way down our
+mountain towards Apia, then turn to the right, ford the river, and three
+miles of solitary grass and cocoa palms, to where the sea beats and the
+wild wind blows unceasingly about the plantation house. On the way down
+Fanny said, "Now what would you do if you saw Colvin coming up?"
+
+Next day we rode down to Apia to make calls.
+
+Yesterday the mail came, and the fat was in the fire.
+
+_Nov. 29th_ (?).--Book.[27] All right. I must say I like your order. And
+the papers are some of them up to dick, and no mistake. I agree with you
+the lights seem a little turned down. The truth is, I was far through
+(if you understand Scots), and came none too soon to the South Seas,
+where I was to recover peace of body and mind. No man but myself knew
+all my bitterness in those days. Remember that, the next time you think
+I regret my exile. And however low the lights are, the stuff is true,
+and I believe the more effective; after all, what I wish to fight is the
+best fought by a rather cheerless presentation of the truth. The world
+must return some day to the word duty, and be done with the word reward.
+There are no rewards, and plenty duties. And the sooner a man sees that
+and acts upon it like a gentleman or a fine old barbarian, the better
+for himself.
+
+There is my usual puzzle about publishers. Chatto ought to have it, as
+he has all the other essays; these all belong to me, and Chatto
+publishes on terms. Longman has forgotten the terms we are on; let him
+look up our first correspondence, and he will see I reserved explicitly,
+as was my habit, the right to republish as I choose. Had the same
+arrangement with Henley, Magazine of Art, and with Tulloch,
+Fraser's.--For any necessary note or preface, it would be a real service
+if you would undertake the duty yourself. I should love a preface by
+you, as short or as long as you choose, three sentences, thirty pages,
+the thing I should like is your name. And the excuse of my great
+distance seems sufficient. I shall return with this the sheets corrected
+as far as I have them; the rest I will leave, if you will, to you
+entirely; let it be your book, and disclaim what you dislike in the
+preface. You can say it was at my eager prayer. I should say I am the
+less willing to pass Chatto over, because he behaved the other day in a
+very handsome manner. He asked leave to reprint _Damien_; I gave it to
+him as a present, explaining I could receive no emolument for a personal
+attack. And he took out my share of profits, and sent them in my name to
+the Leper Fund. I could not bear after that to take from him any of that
+class of books which I have always given him. Tell him the same terms
+will do. Clark to print, uniform with the others.
+
+I have lost all the days since this letter began rehandling Chapter IV.
+of the Samoa racket. I do not go in for literature; address myself to
+sensible people rather than to sensitive. And, indeed, it is a kind of
+journalism, I have no right to dally; if it is to help, it must come
+soon. In two months from now it shall be done, and should be published
+in the course of March. I propose Cassell gets it. I am going to call it
+_A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa_, I believe. I
+recoil from serious names; they seem so much too pretentious for a
+pamphlet. It will be about the size of _Treasure Island_, I believe. Of
+course, as you now know, my case of conscience cleared itself off, and I
+began my intervention directly to one of the parties. The other, the
+Chief Justice, I am to inform of my book the first occasion. God knows
+if the book will do any good--or harm; but I judge it right to try.
+There is one man's life certainly involved; and it may be all our lives.
+I must not stand and slouch, but do my best as best I can. But you may
+conceive the difficulty of a history extending to the present week, at
+least, and where almost all the actors upon all sides are of my personal
+acquaintance. The only way is to judge slowly, and write boldly, and
+leave the issue to fate.... I am far indeed from wishing to confine
+myself to creative work; that is a loss, the other repairs; the one
+chance for a man, and, above all, for one who grows elderly, ahem, is to
+vary drainage and repair. That is the one thing I understand--the
+cultivation of the shallow solum of my brain. But I would rather, from
+soon on, be released from the obligation to write. In five or six years
+this plantation--suppose it and us still to exist--should pretty well
+support us and pay wages; not before, and already the six years seem
+long to me. If literature were but a pastime!
+
+I have interrupted myself to write the necessary notification to the
+Chief Justice.
+
+I see in looking up Longman's letter that it was as usual the letter of
+an obliging gentleman; so do not trouble him with my reminder. I wish
+all my publishers were not so nice. And I have a fourth and a fifth
+baying at my heels; but for these, of course, they must go wanting.
+
+_Dec. 2nd._--No answer from the Chief Justice, which is like him, but
+surely very wrong in such a case. The lunch bell! I have been off work,
+playing patience and weeding all morning. Yesterday and the day before I
+drafted eleven and revised nine pages of Chapter V., and the truth is, I
+was extinct by lunch-time, and played patience sourly the rest of the
+day. To-morrow or next day I hope to go in again and win. Lunch 2nd
+Bell.
+
+_Dec. 2nd, afternoon._--I have kept up the idleness; blew on the pipe to
+Belle's piano; then had a ride in the forest all by my nainsel; back and
+piped again, and now dinner nearing. Take up this sheet with nothing to
+say. The weird figure of Faauma is in the room washing my windows, in a
+black lavalava (kilt) with a red handkerchief hanging from round her
+neck between her breasts; not another stitch; her hair close cropped and
+oiled; when she first came here she was an angelic little stripling, but
+she is now in full flower--or half-flower--and grows buxom. As I write,
+I hear her wet cloth moving and grunting with some industry; for I had a
+word this day with her husband on the matter of work and meal-time, when
+she is always late. And she has a vague reverence for Papa, as she and
+her enormous husband address me when anything is wrong. Her husband is
+Lafaele, sometimes called the archangel, of whom I have writ you often.
+Rest of our household, Talolo, cook; Pulu, kitchen boy, good, steady,
+industrious lads; Henry, back again from Savaii, where his love affair
+seems not to have prospered, with what looks like a spear-wound in the
+back of his head, of which Mr. Reticence says nothing; Simi, Manuele,
+and two other labourers outdoors. Lafaele is provost of the live-stock,
+whereof now, three milk-cows, one bull-calf, one heifer, Jack,
+Macfarlane, the mare, Harold, Tifaga Jack, Donald and Edinburgh--seven
+horses--O, and the stallion--eight horses; five cattle; total, if my
+arithmetic be correct, thirteen head of beasts; I don't know how the
+pigs stand, or the ducks, or the chickens; but we get a good many eggs,
+and now and again a duckling or a chickling for the table; the pigs are
+more solemn, and appear only on birthdays and sich.
+
+_Monday, Dec. 7._--On Friday morning about eleven 1500 cacao seeds
+arrived, and we set to and toiled from twelve that day to six, and went
+to bed pretty tired. Next day I got about an hour and a half at my
+History, and was at it again by 8.10, and except an hour for lunch kept
+at it till four P.M. Yesterday, I did some History in the morning, and
+slept most of the afternoon; and to-day, being still averse from
+physical labour, and the mail drawing nigh, drew out of the squad, and
+finished for press the fifth chapter of my History; fifty-nine pages in
+one month; which (you will allow me to say) is a devil of a large order;
+it means at least 177 pages of writing; 89,000 words! and hours going to
+and fro among my notes. However, this is the way it has to be done; the
+job must be done fast, or it is of no use. And it is a curious yarn.
+Honestly, I think people should be amused and convinced, if they could
+be at the pains to look at such a damned outlandish piece of machinery,
+which of course they won't. And much I care.
+
+When I was filling baskets all Saturday, in my dull mulish way, perhaps
+the slowest worker there, surely the most particular, and the only one
+that never looked up or knocked off, I could not but think I should have
+been sent on exhibition as an example to young literary men. Here is how
+to learn to write, might be the motto. You should have seen us; the
+verandah was like an Irish bog; our hands and faces were bedaubed with
+soil; and Faauma was supposed to have struck the right note when she
+remarked (_ŕ propos_ of nothing), "Too much _eleele_ (soil) for me!" The
+cacao (you must understand) has to be planted at first in baskets of
+plaited cocoa-leaf. From four to ten natives were plaiting these in the
+wood-shed. Four boys were digging up soil and bringing it by the boxful
+to the verandah. Lloyd and I and Belle, and sometimes S. (who came to
+bear a hand), were filling the baskets, removing stones and lumps of
+clay; Austin and Faauma carried them when full to Fanny, who planted a
+seed in each, and then set them, packed close, in the corners of the
+verandah. From twelve on Friday till five P.M. on Saturday we planted
+the first 1500, and more than 700 of a second lot. You cannot dream how
+filthy we were, and we were all properly tired. They are all at it again
+to-day, bar Belle and me, not required, and glad to be out of it. The
+Chief Justice has not yet replied, and I have news that he received my
+letter. What a man!
+
+I have gone crazy over Bourget's _Sensations d'Italie_; hence the
+enclosed dedication,[28] a mere cry of gratitude for the best fun I've
+had over a new book this ever so!
+
+
+
+
+TO FRED ORR
+
+
+   The following is in answer to an application for an autograph from a
+   young gentleman in the United  States:--
+
+     _Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, November 28th, 1891._
+
+DEAR SIR,--Your obliging communication is to hand. I am glad to find
+that you have read some of my books, and to see that you spell my name
+right. This is a point (for some reason) of great difficulty; and I
+believe that a gentleman who can spell Stevenson with a v at sixteen,
+should have a show for the Presidency before fifty. By that time
+
+  I, nearer to the wayside inn,
+
+predict that you will have outgrown your taste for autographs, but
+perhaps your son may have inherited the collection, and on the morning
+of the great day will recall my prophecy to your mind. And in the papers
+of 1921 (say) this letter may arouse a smile.
+
+Whatever you do, read something else besides novels and newspapers; the
+first are good enough when they are good; the second, at their best, are
+worth nothing. Read great books of literature and history; try to
+understand the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages; be sure you do not
+understand when you dislike them; condemnation is non-comprehension. And
+if you know something of these two periods, you will know a little more
+about to-day, and may be a good President.
+
+I send you my best wishes, and am yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
+
+  _Author of a vast quantity of little books_.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   The next letter announces to his New York publishers the beginning of
+   his volume on the troubles of Samoa, _A Footnote to History_.
+
+     [_Vailima, December 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--The end of _The Wrecker_ having but just come in,
+you will, I dare say, be appalled to receive three (possibly four)
+chapters of a new book of the least attractive sort: a history of
+nowhere in a corner, or no time to mention, running to a volume! Well,
+it may very likely be an illusion; it is very likely no one could
+possibly wish to read it, but I wish to publish it. If you don't cotton
+to the idea, kindly set it up at my expense, and let me know your terms
+for publishing. The great affair to me is to have per return (if it
+might be) four or five--better say half a dozen--sets of the roughest
+proofs that can be drawn. There are a good many men here whom I want to
+read the blessed thing, and not one would have the energy to read MS. At
+the same time, if you care to glance at it, and have the time, I should
+be very glad of your opinion as to whether I have made any step at all
+towards possibly inducing folk at home to read matter so extraneous and
+outlandish. I become heavy and owlish; years sit upon me; it begins to
+seem to me to be a man's business to leave off his damnable faces and
+say his say. Else I could have made it pungent and light and lively. In
+considering, kindly forget that I am R. L. S.; think of the four
+chapters as a book you are reading, by an inhabitant of our "lovely but
+fatil" islands; and see if it could possibly amuse the hebetated public.
+I have to publish anyway, you understand; I have a purpose beyond; I am
+concerned for some of the parties to this quarrel. What I want to hear
+is from curiosity; what I want you to judge of is what we are to do with
+the book in a business sense. To me it is not business at all; I had
+meant originally to lay all the profits to the credit of Samoa; when it
+comes to the pinch of writing, I judge this unfair--I give too much--and
+I mean to keep (if there be any profit at all) one-half for the artisan;
+the rest I shall hold over to give to the Samoans _for that which I
+choose and against work done_. I think I have never heard of greater
+insolence than to attempt such a subject; yet the tale is so strange and
+mixed, and the people so oddly charactered--above all, the whites--and
+the high note of the hurricane and the warships is so well prepared to
+take popular interest, and the latter part is so directly in the day's
+movement, that I am not without hope that some may read it; and if they
+don't, a murrain on them! Here is, for the first time, a tale of
+Greeks--Homeric Greeks--mingled with moderns, and all true; Odysseus
+along-side of Rajah Brooke, _proportion gardée_; and all true. Here is
+for the first time since the Greeks (that I remember) the history of a
+handful of men, where all know each other in the eyes, and live close in
+a few acres, narrated at length, and with the seriousness of history.
+Talk of the modern novel; here is a modern history. And if I had the
+misfortune to found a school, the legitimate historian might lie down
+and die, for he could never overtake his material. Here is a little tale
+that has not "caret"-ed its "vates"; "sacer" is another point.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+   Mr. Henry James was in the habit of sending out for Stevenson's
+   reading books that seemed likely to interest him, and among the last
+   had been M. Paul Bourget's _Sensations d'Italie_.
+
+     _December 7th, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--Thanks for yours; your former letter was lost; so
+it appears was my long and masterly treatise on the _Tragic Muse_. I
+remember sending it very well, and there went by the same mail a long
+and masterly tractate to Gosse about his daddy's life, for which I have
+been long expecting an acknowledgment, and which is plainly gone to the
+bottom with the other. If you see Gosse, please mention it. These gems
+of criticism are now lost literature, like the tomes of Alexandria. I
+could not do 'em again. And I must ask you to be content with a dull
+head, a weary hand, and short commons, for to-day, as I am physically
+tired with hard work of every kind, the labours of the planter and the
+author both piled upon me mountain deep. I am delighted beyond
+expression by Bourget's book: he has phrases which affect me almost like
+Montaigne; I had read ere this a masterly essay of his on Pascal; this
+book does it; I write for all his essays by this mail, and shall try to
+meet him when I come to Europe. The proposal is to pass a summer in
+France, I think in Royat, where the faithful could come and visit me;
+they are now not many. I expect Henry James to come and break a crust or
+two with us. I believe it will be only my wife and myself; and she will
+go over to England, but not I, or possibly incog. to Southampton, and
+then to Boscombe to see poor Lady Shelley. I am writing--trying to write
+in a Babel fit for the bottomless pit; my wife, her daughter, her
+grandson and my mother, all shrieking at each other round the house--not
+in war, thank God! but the din is ultra martial, and the note of Lloyd
+joins in occasionally, and the cause of this to-do is simply cacao,
+whereof chocolate comes. You may drink of our chocolate perhaps in five
+or six years from now, and not know it. It makes a fine bustle, and
+gives us some hard work, out of which I have slunk for to-day.
+
+I have a story coming out: God knows when or how; it answers to the name
+of the _Beach of Falesá_, and I think well of it. I was delighted with
+the _Tragic Muse_; I thought the Muse herself one of your best works; I
+was delighted also to hear of the success of your piece, as you know I
+am a dam failure,[29] and might have dined with the dinner club that
+Daudet and these parties frequented.
+
+_Next day._--I have just been breakfasting at Baiae and Brindisi, and
+the charm of Bourget hag-rides me. I wonder if this exquisite fellow,
+all made of fiddle-strings and scent and intelligence, could bear any of
+my bald prose. If you think he could, ask Colvin to send him a copy of
+these last essays of mine when they appear; and tell Bourget they go to
+him from a South Sea Island as literal homage. I have read no new book
+for years that gave me the same literary thrill as his _Sensations
+d'Italie_. If (as I imagine) my cut-and-dry literature would be death to
+him, and worse than death--journalism--be silent on the point. For I
+have a great curiosity to know him, and if he doesn't know my work, I
+shall have the better chance of making his acquaintance. I read _The
+Pupil_ the other day with great joy; your little boy is admirable; why
+is there no little boy like that unless he hails from the Great
+Republic?
+
+Here I broke off, and wrote Bourget a dedication; no use resisting; it's
+a love affair. O, he's exquisite, I bless you for the gift of him. I
+have really enjoyed this book as I--almost as I--used to enjoy books
+when I was going twenty-twenty-three; and these are the years for
+reading!
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Tuesday, Dec. 1891._
+
+SIR,--I have the honour to report further explorations of the course of
+the river Vaea, with accompanying sketch plan. The party under my
+command consisted of one horse, and was extremely insubordinate and
+mutinous, owing to not being used to go into the bush, and being
+half-broken anyway--and that the wrong half. The route indicated for my
+party was up the bed of the so-called river Vaea, which I accordingly
+followed to a distance of perhaps two or three furlongs eastward from
+the house of Vailima, where the stream being quite dry, the bush thick,
+and the ground very difficult, I decided to leave the main body of the
+force under my command tied to a tree, and push on myself with the point
+of the advance guard, consisting of one man. The valley had become very
+narrow and airless; foliage close shut above; dry bed of the stream much
+excavated, so that I passed under fallen trees without stooping.
+Suddenly it turned sharply to the north, at right angles to its former
+direction; I heard living water, and came in view of a tall face of rock
+and the stream spraying down it; it might have been climbed, but it
+would have been dangerous, and I had to make my way up the steep earth
+banks, where there is nowhere any looting for man, only for trees, which
+made the rounds of my ladder. I was near the top of this climb, which
+was very hot and steep, and the pulses were buzzing all over my body,
+when I made sure there was one external sound in my ears, and paused to
+listen. No mistake; a sound of a mill-wheel thundering, I thought, close
+by, yet below me, a huge mill-wheel, yet not going steadily, but with a
+_schottische_ movement, and at each fresh impetus shaking the mountain.
+There, where I was, I just put down the sound to the mystery of the
+bush; where no sound now surprises me--and any sound alarms; I only
+thought it would give Jack a fine fright, down where he stood tied to a
+tree by himself, and he was badly enough scared when I left him. The
+good folks at home identified it; it was a sharp earthquake.
+
+[Illustration:
+  1. _Mepi tree._                 4, 4. _Banana patches_
+  2. _Carruthers' Road._             5. _Waterfall._
+  3. _Vailima Plantation House._     6. _Banyan tree._]
+
+At the top of the climb I made my way again to the watercourse; it is
+here running steady and pretty full; strange these intermittencies--and
+just a little below the main stream is quite dry, and all the original
+brook has gone down some lava gallery of the mountain--and just a little
+further below, it begins picking up from the left hand in little boggy
+tributaries, and in the inside of a hundred yards has grown a brook
+again.[30] The general course of the brook was, I guess, S.E.; the
+valley still very deep and whelmed in wood. It seemed a swindle to have
+made so sheer a climb and still find yourself at the bottom of a well.
+But gradually the thing seemed to shallow, the trees to seem poorer and
+smaller; I could see more and more of the silver sprinkles of sky among
+the foliage, instead of the sombre piling up of tree behind tree. And
+here I had two scares--first, away up on my right hand I heard a bull
+low; I think it was a bull from the quality of the low, which was
+singularly songful and beautiful; the bulls belong to me, but how did I
+know that the bull was aware of that? and my advance guard not being at
+all properly armed, we advanced with great precaution until I was
+satisfied that I was passing eastward of the enemy. It was during this
+period that a pool of the river suddenly boiled up in my face in a
+little fountain. It was in a very dreary, marshy part among dilapidated
+trees that you see through holes in the trunks of; and if any kind of
+beast or elf or devil had come out of that sudden silver ebullition, I
+declare I do not think I should have been surprised. It was perhaps a
+thing as curious--a fish, with which these head waters of the stream
+are alive. They are some of them as long as my finger, should be easily
+caught in these shallows, and some day I'll have a dish of them.
+
+Very soon after I came to where the stream collects in another banana
+swamp, with the bananas bearing well. Beyond, the course is again quite
+dry; it mounts with a sharp turn a very steep face of the mountain, and
+then stops abruptly at the lip of a plateau, I suppose the top of Vaea
+mountain: plainly no more springs here--there was no smallest furrow of
+a watercourse beyond--and my task might be said to be accomplished. But
+such is the animated spirit in the service that the whole advance guard
+expressed a sentiment of disappointment that an exploration, so far
+successfully conducted, should come to a stop in the most promising view
+of fresh successes. And though unprovided either with compass or
+cutlass, it was determined to push some way along the plateau, marking
+our direction by the laborious process of bending down, sitting upon,
+and thus breaking the wild cocoanut trees. This was the less regretted
+by all from a delightful discovery made of a huge banyan growing here in
+the bush, with flying-buttressed flying buttresses, and huge arcs of
+trunk hanging high overhead and trailing down new complications of root.
+I climbed some way up what seemed the original beginning; it was easier
+to climb than a ship's rigging, even rattled; everywhere there was
+foot-hold and hand-hold. It was judged wise to return and rally the main
+body, who had now been left alone for perhaps forty minutes in the bush.
+
+The return was effected in good order, but unhappily I only arrived
+(like so many other explorers) to find my main body or rear-guard in a
+condition of mutiny; the work, it is to be supposed, of terror. It is
+right I should tell you the Vaea has a bad name, an _aitu
+fafine_--female devil of the woods--succubus--haunting it, and doubtless
+Jack had heard of her; perhaps, during my absence, saw her; lucky Jack!
+Anyway, he was neither to hold nor to bind, and finally, after nearly
+smashing me by accident, and from mere scare and insubordination several
+times, deliberately set in to kill me; but poor Jack! the tree he
+selected for that purpose was a banana! I jumped off and gave him the
+heavy end of my whip over the buttocks! Then I took and talked in his
+ear in various voices; you should have heard my alto--it was a dreadful,
+devilish note--I _knew_ Jack _knew_ it was an _aitu_. Then I mounted him
+again, and he carried me fairly steadily. He'll learn yet. He has to
+learn to trust absolutely to his rider; till he does, the risk is always
+great in thick bush, where a fellow must try different passages, and put
+back and forward, and pick his way by hair's-breadths.
+
+The expedition returned to Vailima in time to receive the visit of the
+R. C. Bishop. He is a superior man, much above the average of priests.
+
+_Thursday._--Yesterday the same expedition set forth to the southward by
+what is known as Carruthers' Road. At a fallen tree which completely
+blocks the way, the main body was as before left behind, and the advance
+guard of one now proceeded with the exploration. At the great tree known
+as _Mepi Tree_, after Maben the surveyor, the expedition struck forty
+yards due west till it struck the top of a steep bank which it
+descended. The whole bottom of the ravine is filled with sharp lava
+blocks quite unrolled and very difficult and dangerous to walk among; no
+water in the course, scarce any sign of water. And yet surely water must
+have made this bold cutting in the plateau. And if so, why is the lava
+sharp? My science gave out; but I could not but think it ominous and
+volcanic. The course of the stream was tortuous, but with a resultant
+direction a little by west of north; the sides the whole way exceeding
+steep, the expedition buried under fathoms of foliage. Presently water
+appeared in the bottom, a good quantity; perhaps thirty or forty cubic
+feet, with pools and waterfalls. A tree that stands all along the banks
+here must be very fond of water; its roots lie close-packed down the
+stream, like hanks of guts, so as to make often a corrugated walk, each
+root ending in a blunt tuft of filaments, plainly to drink water. Twice
+there came in small tributaries from the left or western side--the whole
+plateau having a smartish inclination to the east; one of the
+tributaries in a handsome little web of silver hanging in the forest.
+Twice I was startled by birds; one that barked like a dog; another that
+whistled loud ploughman's signals, so that I vow I was thrilled, and
+thought I had fallen among runaway blacks, and regretted my cutlass
+which I had lost and left behind while taking bearings. A good many
+fishes in the brook, and many crayfish; one of the last with a queer
+glow-worm head. Like all our brooks, the water is pure as air, and runs
+over red stones like rubies. The foliage along both banks very thick and
+high, the place close, the walking exceedingly laborious. By the time
+the expedition reached the fork, it was felt exceedingly questionable
+whether the _moral_ of the force were sufficiently good to undertake
+more extended operations. A halt was called, the men refreshed with
+water and a bath, and it was decided at a drumhead council of war to
+continue the descent of the Embassy Water straight for Vailima, whither
+the expedition returned, in rather poor condition, and wet to the waist,
+about 4 P.M.
+
+Thus in two days the two main watercourses of this country have been
+pretty thoroughly explored, and I conceive my instructions fully carried
+out. The main body of the second expedition was brought back by another
+officer despatched for that purpose from Vailima. Casualties: one horse
+wounded; one man bruised; no deaths--as yet, but the bruised man feels
+to-day as if his case was mighty serious.
+
+_Dec. 25, '91._--Your note with a very despicable bulletin of health
+arrived only yesterday, the mail being a day behind. It contained also
+the excellent Times article, which was a sight for sore eyes. I am
+still _taboo_; the blessed Germans will have none of me; and I only hope
+they may enjoy the Times article. 'Tis my revenge! I wish you had sent
+the letter too, as I have no copy, and do not even know what I wrote the
+last day, with a bad headache, and the mail going out. However, it must
+have been about right, for the Times article was in the spirit I wished
+to arouse. I hope we can get rid of the man before it is too late. He
+has set the natives to war; but the natives, by God's blessing, do not
+want to fight, and I think it will fizzle out--no thanks to the man who
+tried to start it. But I did not mean to drift into these politics;
+rather to tell you what I have done since I last wrote.
+
+Well, I worked away at my _History_ for a while, and only got one
+chapter done; no doubt this spate of work is pretty low now, and will be
+soon dry; but, God bless you, what a lot I have accomplished; _Wrecker_
+done, _Beach of Falesá_ done, half the _History: c'est étonnant_. (I
+hear from Burlingame, by the way, that he likes the end of the
+_Wrecker_; 'tis certainly a violent, dark yarn with interesting, plain
+turns of human nature), then Lloyd and I went down to live in Haggard's
+rooms, where Fanny presently joined us. Haggard's rooms are in a strange
+old building--old for Samoa, and has the effect of the antique like some
+strange monastery; I would tell you more of it, but I think I'm going to
+use it in a tale. The annexe close by had its door sealed; poor Dowdney
+lost at sea in a schooner. The place is haunted. The vast empty sheds,
+the empty store, the airless, hot, long, low rooms, the claps of wind
+that set everything flying--a strange uncanny house to spend Christmas
+in.
+
+_Jan. 1st,'92._--For a day or two I have sat close and wrought hard at
+the _History_, and two more chapters are all but done. About thirty
+pages should go by this mail, which is not what should be, but all I
+could overtake. Will any one ever read it? I fancy not; people don't
+read history for reading, but for education and display--and who
+desires education in the history of Samoa, with no population, no past,
+no future, or the exploits of Mataafa, Malietoa, and Consul Knappe?
+Colkitto and Galasp are a trifle to it. Well, it can't be helped, and it
+must be done, and, better or worse, it's capital fun. There are two to
+whom I have not been kind--German Consul Becker and the English Captain
+Hand, R.N.
+
+On Dec. 30th I rode down with Belle to go to (if you please) the Fancy
+Ball. When I got to the beach, I found the barometer was below 29°, the
+wind still in the east and steady, but a huge offensive continent of
+clouds and vapours forming to leeward. It might be a hurricane; I dared
+not risk getting caught away from my work, and, leaving Belle, returned
+at once to Vailima. Next day--yesterday--it was a tearer; we had storm
+shutters up; I sat in my room and wrote by lamplight--ten pages, if you
+please, seven of them draft, and some of these compiled authorities, so
+that was a brave day's work. About two a huge tree fell within sixty
+paces of our house; a little after, a second went; and we sent out boys
+with axes and cut down a third, which was too near the house, and
+buckling like a fishing rod. At dinner we had the front door closed and
+shuttered, the back door open, the lamp lit. The boys in the cook-house
+were all out at the cook-house door, where we could see them looking in
+and smiling. Lauilo and Faauma waited on us with smiles. The excitement
+was delightful. Some very violent squalls came as we sat there, and
+every one rejoiced; it was impossible to help it; a soul of putty had to
+sing. All night it blew; the roof was continually sounding under
+missiles; in the morning the verandahs were half full of branches torn
+from the forest. There was a last very wild squall about six; the rain,
+like a thick white smoke, flying past the house in volleys, and as
+swift, it seemed, as rifle balls; all with a strange, strident hiss,
+such as I have only heard before at sea, and, indeed, thought to be a
+marine phenomenon. Since then the wind has been falling with a few
+squalls, mostly rain. But our road is impassable for horses; we hear a
+schooner has been wrecked and some native houses blown down in Apia,
+where Belle is still and must remain a prisoner. Lucky I returned while
+I could! But the great good is this; much bread-fruit and bananas have
+been destroyed; if this be general through the islands, famine will be
+imminent; and _whoever blows the coals, there can be no war_. Do I then
+prefer a famine to a war? you ask. Not always, but just now. I am sure
+the natives do not want a war; I am sure a war would benefit no one but
+the white officials, and I believe we can easily meet the famine--or at
+least that it can be met. That would give our officials a legitimate
+opportunity to cover their past errors.
+
+_Jan. 2nd._--I woke this morning to find the blow quite ended. The
+heaven was all a mottled grey; even the east quite colourless; the
+downward slope of the island veiled in wafts of vapour, blue like smoke;
+not a leaf stirred on the tallest tree; only, three miles away below me
+on the barrier reef, I could see the individual breakers curl and fall,
+and hear their conjunct roaring rise, as it still rises at 1 P.M., like
+the roar of a thoroughfare close by. I did a good morning's work,
+correcting and clarifying my draft, and have now finished for press
+eight chapters, ninety-one pages, of this piece of journalism. Four more
+chapters, say fifty pages, remain to be done; I should gain my wager and
+finish this volume in three months, that is to say, the end should leave
+me per February mail; I cannot receive it back till the mail of April.
+Yes, it can be out in time; pray God that it be in time to help.
+
+How do journalists fetch up their drivel? I aim only at clearness and
+the most obvious finish, positively at no higher degree of merit, not
+even at brevity--I am sure it could have been all done, with double the
+time, in two-thirds of the space. And yet it has taken me two months to
+write 45,500 words; and, be damned to my wicked prowess, I am proud of
+the exploit! The real journalist must be a man not of brass only, but
+bronze. Chapter IX. gapes for me, but I shrink on the margin, and go on
+chattering to you. This last part will be much less offensive (strange
+to say) to the Germans. It is Becker they will never forgive me for;
+Knappe I pity and do not dislike; Becker I scorn and abominate. Here is
+the tableau. I. Elements of Discord: Native. II. Elements of Discord:
+Foreign. III. The Sorrows of Laupepa. IV. Brandeis. V. The Battle of
+Matautu. VI. Last Exploits of Becker. VII. The Samoan Camps. VIII.
+Affairs of Lautii and Fangalii. IX. "_Furor Consularis_." X. The
+Hurricane. XI. Stuebel Recluse. XII. The Present Government. I estimate
+the whole roughly at 70,000 words. Should anybody ever dream of reading
+it, it would be found amusing. 70000/300 = 233 printed pages; a
+respectable little five-bob volume, to bloom unread in shop windows.
+After that, I'll have a spank at fiction. And rest? I shall rest in the
+grave, or when I come to Italy. If only the public will continue to
+support me! I lost my chance not dying; there seems blooming little fear
+of it now. I worked close on five hours this morning; the day before,
+close on nine; and unless I finish myself off with this letter, I'll
+have another hour and a half, or _aiblins twa_, before dinner. Poor man,
+how you must envy me, as you hear of these orgies of work, and you
+scarce able for a letter. But Lord, Colvin, how lucky the situations are
+not reversed, for I have no situation, nor am fit for any. Life is a
+steigh brae. Here, have at Knappe, and no more clavers!
+
+_Jan. 3rd._--There was never any man had so many irons in the fire,
+except Jim Pinkerton.[31] I forgot to mention I have the most gallant
+suggestion from Lang, with an offer of MS. authorities, which turns my
+brain. It's all about the throne of Poland and buried treasure in the
+Mackay country, and Alan Breck can figure there in glory.
+
+Yesterday, J. and I set off to Blacklock's (American Consul) who lives
+not far from that little village I have so often mentioned as lying
+between us and Apia. I had some questions to ask him for my _History_;
+thence we must proceed to Vailele, where I had also to cross-examine the
+plantation manager about the battle there. We went by a track I had
+never before followed down the hill to Vaisigano, which flows here in a
+deep valley, and was unusually full, so that the horses trembled in the
+ford. The whole bottom of the valley is full of various streams posting
+between strips of forest with a brave sound of waters. In one place we
+had a glimpse of a fall some way higher up, and then sparkling in
+sunlight in the midst of the green valley. Then up by a winding path
+scarce accessible to a horse for steepness, to the other side, and the
+open cocoanut glades of the plantation. Here we rode fast, did a mighty
+satisfactory afternoon's work at the plantation house, and still faster
+back. On the return Jack fell with me, but got up again; when I felt him
+recovering I gave him his head, and he shoved his foot through the rein;
+I got him by the bit however, and all was well; he had mud over all his
+face, but his knees were not broken. We were scarce home when the rain
+began again; that was luck. It is pouring now in torrents; we are in the
+height of the bad season. Lloyd leaves along with this letter on a
+change to San Francisco; he had much need of it, but I think this will
+brace him up. I am, as you see, a tower of strength. I can remember
+riding not so far and not near so fast when I first came to Samoa, and
+being shattered next day with fatigue; now I could not tell I have done
+anything; have re-handled my battle of Fangalii according to yesterday's
+information--four pages rewritten; and written already some half-dozen
+pages of letters.
+
+I observe with disgust that while of yore, when I own I was guilty, you
+never spared me abuse--but now, when I am so virtuous, where is the
+praise? Do admit that I have become an excellent letter-writer--at least
+to you, and that your ingratitude is imbecile.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [1] "In the missionary work which is being done among the Samoans,
+    Mr. Stevenson was especially interested. He was an observant,
+    shrewd, yet ever generous critic of all our religious and
+    educational organisations. His knowledge of native character and
+    life enabled him to understand missionary difficulties, while his
+    genial contact with all sorts and conditions of men made him keen to
+    detect deficiencies in men and methods, and apt in useful
+    suggestion." The above is the testimony of the Mr. Clarke here
+    mentioned (Rev. W. E. Clarke of the London Missionary Society). This
+    gentleman was from the first one of the most valued friends of Mr.
+    Stevenson and his family in Samoa, and, when the end came, read the
+    funeral service beside his grave on Mount Vaea.
+
+  [2] The lady in the _Vicar of Wakefield_ who declares herself "all
+    in a muck of sweat."
+
+  [3] First published in the New Review, January 1895.
+
+  [4] Afterwards changed into _The Beach of Falesá_.
+
+  [5] Mr. Lloyd Osbourne had come to England to pack and wind up affairs
+    at Skerryvore.
+
+  [6] The lines beginning "I heard the pulse of the besieging sea"; see
+    Vol. xxiv., p. 366.
+
+  [7] "The Monument" was his name for my house at the British Museum,
+    and George was my old faithful servant, George Went.
+
+  [8] The late Mr. John Lafarge, long an honoured _doyen_ among New
+    York artists, whose record of his holiday in the South Seas, in the
+    shape of a series of water-colour sketches of the scenery and people
+    (with a catalogue full of interesting notes and observations), was
+    one of the features of the Champ de Mars Salon in 1895.
+
+  [9] Mrs. B. W. Procter, the stepdaughter of Basil Montagu and widow
+    of Barry Cornwall. The death of this spirited veteran in 1888
+    snapped one of the last links with the days and memories of Keats
+    and Coleridge. A shrewd and not too indulgent judge of character,
+    she took R. L. S. into warm favour at first sight, and never spoke of
+    or inquired after him but with unwonted tenderness.
+
+  [10] On a projected expedition to Sydney.
+
+  [11] See _A Footnote to History_ for more in praise of Dr. Stuebel,
+    and of his exceptional deserts among white officials in Samoa.
+
+  [12] One of the many aliases of the wicked Skye-terrier of Hyčres,
+    Davos, and Bournemouth days, celebrated in the essay _On the
+    Character of Dogs_.
+
+  [13] _Battre les champs_, to wander in mind.
+
+  [14] _Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin_, by R. L. S., prefixed to _Papers
+    Literary, Scientific, etc., by the late Fleeming Jenkin, F.R.S.,
+    LL.D._; 2 vols. London, Longmans, 1887. The first chapters consist
+    of a genealogical history of the family. This, to my mind one of the
+    best works of R. L. S., has lately been separately reprinted, having
+    long been accessible only in the Edinburgh and Pentland editions. Of
+    _Delafleld_ I never heard; the plan of _Shovel_, which was to be in
+    great part a story of the Peninsular War, had been sketched out and
+    a few chapters written as long ago as the seventies.
+
+  [15] _The Misadventures of John Nicholson._
+
+  [16] The South Sea Letters.
+
+  [17] The price advanced for these Letters was among the considerations
+    which originally induced the writer to set out on his Pacific voyage.
+
+
+  [18] The first serial tale, says Mr. Clarke, ever read by Samoans in
+    their own language was the story of the _Bottle Imp_, "which found
+    its way into print at Samoa, and was read with wonder and delight in
+    many a thatched Samoan hut before it won the admiration of readers
+    at home." In the English form the story was published first in Black
+    and White, and afterwards in the volume called _Island Nights'
+    Entertainments_.
+
+  [19] Boating expedition: pronounce _malanga_.
+
+  [20] Portraits of myself for which he had asked.
+
+  [21] Miss Fanny Macpherson, now Lady Holroyd.
+
+  [22] In reply to a suggestion which ultimately took effect in the
+    shape of the volume called _Across the Plains_ (Chatto & Windus,
+    1892).
+
+  [23] The steam-yacht of the Commissioners of Northern Lights, on
+    which he had been accustomed as a lad to accompany his father on the
+    official trips of inspection round the coast.
+
+  [24] Mr. Rudyard Kipling was at this time planning a trip to Samoa,
+    but the plan was unfortunately not carried out, and he and Stevenson
+    never met.
+
+  [25] Readers of _The Wrecker_ will not need to be reminded that this
+    is the name of the personage on whom the mystery in that story
+    hinges.
+
+  [26] See vol. xxiii. pp. 46, 48.
+
+  [27] _Across the Plains._ The papers specially referred to in the
+    next lines are those written at Saranac Lake in the winter of
+    1887-88, including _A Letter to a Young Gentleman_, _Pulvis et
+    Umbra_, _A Christmas Sermon_.
+
+  [28] For the volume _Across the Plains_.
+
+  [29] _i.e._ on the stage.
+
+  [30] As to this peculiar intermittency of the Samoan streams, full
+    in their upper course, but below in many places dry or lost, compare
+    the late Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_, p. 212:--"One odd
+    thing connected with these ravines is the fact that the higher you
+    go the more water you find. Unlike the Thames, which begins, I
+    believe, in half a mile of dusty lane, and expands in its brimming
+    breadth as it approaches the sea, a Samoan stream begins in bubbling
+    plenty and ends in utter drought a mile or two from the salt water.
+    Gradually as you ascend you become more and more hopeful; moist
+    patches of sand appear here and there, then tiny pools that a fallen
+    leaf might cover, then larger ones with little thread-like runs of
+    water between them; larger and larger, till at last you reach some
+    hard ledge of trap, over which a glorious stream gurgles and
+    splashes into a pool ample enough for the bath of an elephant."
+
+  [31] In _The Wrecker_. As to the story thus suggested by Mr. Andrew
+    Lang, see below, pp. 171, 187, etc.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+LIFE IN SAMOA--_Continued_
+
+SECOND YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+JANUARY-DECEMBER 1892
+
+
+The New Year found Stevenson down with his first attack of the influenza
+epidemic, then virulent all over the world. But the illness was not
+sufficient to stop his work, and in the first two months of the year he
+was busy continuing his conscientious labours on _The Footnote to
+History_, seeing _The Wrecker_ and _The Beach of Falesá_ through the
+press, planning the South Sea plantation novel _Sophia Scarlet_, which
+never got beyond that inchoate stage, and writing the continuation to
+_Kidnapped_, first intended to bear the name of the hero, David Balfour,
+and afterwards changed to _Catriona_. With this he proceeded swimmingly,
+completing it between February and September, in a shorter time than any
+other of his sustained narratives; and on publication its success was
+great. By May he had finished the _Footnote_, and then had a dash at the
+first chapters of _The Young Chevalier_, which stand in their truncated
+state a piece of work as vivid and telling as he had ever done. Early in
+the autumn he struck a still fuller note in the draft of the first
+chapters of _Weir of Hermiston_.
+
+During this year the household at Vailima received a new temporary
+inmate in the person of Mr. Graham Balfour, a cousin whom Stevenson had
+not previously known, but with whom he soon formed the closest and most
+confidential friendship of his later life. In the summer and early
+autumn he was much taken up both with politics and with hospitalities.
+As hereinafter narrated, he made, and was thwarted in, a serious attempt
+to effect a reconciliation between the two rival chiefs; and continued
+his series of letters to the Times showing up the incompetence, and
+worse, of the responsible Treaty officials. In August he took lively
+pleasure in a visit paid to the islands by Lady Jersey and some members
+of her family from Australia. During the course of their stay he
+conducted the visitors to the rebel camp under aliases, as the needs of
+the time required, and in a manner that seemed like the realisation of a
+chapter of a Waverley novel. A month or two later he became aware, with
+more amusement than alarm, of measures for his deportation set on foot
+but not carried through by the Treaty officials. For a man of his
+temper, the political muddle and mismanagement of which the Samoan
+Islands were the scene--and not only these, however much he might lament
+them for the sake of the inhabitants, but even the risks he ran of
+serious personal consequences from his own action,--added to life at
+least as much of zest and excitement as of annoyance.
+
+In October he determined, not without serious financial misgivings and
+chiefly in deference to his mother's urgency, to enlarge his house at
+Vailima by putting up a new block adjoining and communicating with that
+which he had hitherto inhabited. The work was promptly and efficiently
+carried out by the German Firm and completed by the end of the year.
+Quite towards the close of December, copies of _The Footnote to
+History_ reached Samoa, and the book, so far from being a cause of
+offence to his friends the managers of that firm, as both he and they
+had feared, was found acceptable and devoid of offence by them: a result
+celebrated in the convivial manner described in the last letter of this
+section. On the whole the year had been a prosperous one, full of
+successful work and eager interests, although darkened in its later
+months by disquietude on account of his wife's health. He had himself
+well maintained the improved strength and the renewed capacity both for
+literary work and outdoor activity which life in the South Seas had
+brought him from the first.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Jan, 2nd, '92._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Overjoyed you were pleased with _The Wrecker_, and
+shall consider your protests. There is perhaps more art than you think
+for in the peccant chapter, where I have succeeded in packing into one a
+dedication, an explanation, and a termination. Surely you had not
+recognised the phrase about boodle? It was a quotation from Jim
+Pinkerton, and seemed to me agreeably skittish. However, all shall be
+prayerfully considered.
+
+To come to a more painful subject. Herewith go three more chapters of
+the wretched History; as you see, I approach the climax. I expect the
+book to be some 70,000 words, of which you have now 45. Can I finish it
+for next mail? I am going to try! 'Tis a long piece of journalism, and
+full of difficulties here and there, of this kind and that, and will
+make me a power of friends to be sure. There is one Becker who will
+probably put up a window to me in the church where he was baptized; and
+I expect a testimonial from Captain Hand.
+
+Sorry to let the mail go without the Scott; this has been a bad month
+with me, and I have been below myself. I shall find a way to have it
+come by next, or know the reason why. The mail after, anyway.
+
+A bit of a sketch map appears to me necessary for my History; perhaps
+two. If I do not have any, 'tis impossible any one should follow; and I,
+even when not at all interested, demand that I shall be able to follow;
+even a tourist book without a map is a cross to me; and there must be
+others of my way of thinking. I inclose the very artless one that I
+think needful. Vailima, in case you are curious, is about as far again
+behind Tanugamanono as that is from the sea.
+
+M'Clure is publishing a short story of mine, some 50,000 words, I think,
+_The Beach of Falesá_; when he's done with it, I want you and Cassell to
+bring it out in a little volume; I shall send you a dedication for it; I
+believe it good; indeed, to be honest, very good. Good gear that pleases
+the merchant.
+
+The other map that I half threaten is a chart for the hurricane. Get me
+Kimberley's report of the hurricane: not to be found here. It is of most
+importance; I _must_ have it with my proofs of that part, if I cannot
+have it earlier, which now seems impossible.--Yours in hot haste,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
+
+
+   At the news that his correspondent was occupied teaching and
+   entertaining a class of children in a Kilburn basement, Stevenson
+   bethinks himself of helping her by writing an account of Samoa and
+   Samoan life for children.
+
+     _Vailima, January 4th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR ADELAIDE,--We were much pleased with your letter and the news of
+your employment. Admirable, your method. But will you not run dry of
+fairy stories? Please salute your pupils, and tell them that a long,
+lean, elderly man who lives right through on the under side of the
+world, so that down in your cellar you are nearer him than the people in
+the street, desires his compliments. This man lives in an island which
+is not very long, and extremely narrow. The sea beats round it very
+hard, so that it is difficult to get to shore. There is only one harbour
+where ships come, even that is very wild and dangerous; four ships of
+war were broken there a little while ago, and one of them is still lying
+on its side on a rock clean above water, where the sea threw it as you
+might throw your fiddle bow on the table. All round the harbour the town
+is strung out, it is nothing but wooden houses, only there are some
+churches built of stone, not very large, but the people have never seen
+such fine buildings. Almost all the houses are of one story. Away at one
+end lives the king of the whole country. His palace has a thatched roof
+which stands upon posts; it has no walls, but when it blows and rains,
+they have Venetian blinds which they let down between the posts and make
+it very snug. There is no furniture, and the king and queen and the
+courtiers sit and eat on the floor, which is of gravel: the lamp stands
+there too, and every now and then it is upset. These good folks wear
+nothing but a kilt about their waists, unless to go to church or for a
+dance, or the New Year, or some great occasion. The children play
+marbles all along the street; and though they are generally very jolly,
+yet they get awfully cross over their marbles, and cry and fight like
+boys and girls at home. Another amusement in country places is to shoot
+fish with a bow and arrow. All round the beach there is bright shallow
+water where fishes can be seen darting or lying in shoals. The child
+trots round the shore, and wherever he sees a fish, lets fly an arrow
+and misses, and then wades in after his arrow. It is great fun (I have
+tried it) for the child, and I never heard of it doing any harm to the
+fishes: so what could be more jolly? The road up to this lean man's
+house is uphill all the way and through forests; the forests are of
+great trees, not so much unlike the trees at home, only here and there
+are some very queer ones mixed with them, cocoa-nut palms, and great
+forest trees that are covered with blossom like red hawthorn, but not
+near so bright; and from all the trees thick creepers hang down like
+ropes, and nasty-looking weeds that they call orchids grow in the forks
+of the branches; and on the ground many prickly things are dotted which
+they call pine-apples: I suppose every one has eaten pineapple drops.
+
+On the way up to the lean man's house you pass a little village, all of
+houses like the king's house, so that as you ride through you can see
+everybody sitting at dinner, or if it be night, lying in their beds by
+lamplight; for all these people are terribly afraid of ghosts, and would
+not lie in the dark for any favour. After the village, there is only one
+more house, and that is the lean man's. For the people are not very
+many, and live all by the sea, and the whole inside of the island is
+desert woods and mountains. When the lean man goes into this forest, he
+is very much ashamed to say it, but he is always in a terrible fright.
+The wood is so great and empty and hot, and it is always filled with
+curious noises; birds cry like children and bark like dogs, and he can
+hear people laughing and felling trees; and the other day (when he was
+far in the woods) he heard a great sound like the biggest mill-wheel
+possible going with a kind of dot-and-carry-one movement like a dance.
+That was the noise of an earthquake away down below him in the bowels of
+the earth, and that is the same thing as to say away up towards you in
+your cellar in Kilburn. All these noises make him feel lonely and
+scared, and he doesn't quite know what he is scared of. Once when he was
+just about to cross a river, a blow struck him on the top of his head
+and knocked him head-foremost down the bank and splash into the water.
+It was a nut, I fancy, that had fallen from a tree, by which accidents
+people are sometimes killed. But at the time he thought it was a black
+boy.
+
+Aha, say you, and what is a black boy? Well, there are here a lot of
+poor people who are brought here from distant islands to labour as
+slaves for the Germans. They are not at all like the king or his people,
+who are brown and very pretty; but these are black as negroes and as
+ugly as sin, poor souls, and in their own lands they live all the time
+at war and cook and eat men's flesh. The Germans thrash them with whips
+to make them work, and every now and then some run away into the Bush,
+as the forest is called, and build little sheds of leaves, and eat nuts
+and roots and fruit, and dwell there by themselves in the great desert.
+Sometimes they are bad and wild and come down in the villages and steal
+and kill; and people whisper to each other that some of them have gone
+back to their horrid old habits, and catch men and women in order to eat
+them. But it is very likely not true; and the most of them are only
+poor, stupid, trembling, half-starved, pitiful creatures like frightened
+dogs. Their life is all very well when the sun shines, as it does eight
+or nine months in the year. But it is very different the rest of the
+time. The wind rages here most violently. The great trees thrash about
+like whips; the air is filled with leaves and great branches flying
+about like birds; and the sound of the trees falling shakes the earth.
+It rains too as it never rains at home. You can hear a shower while it
+is yet half a mile away, hissing like a shower-bath in the forest; and
+when it comes to you, the water blinds your eyes, and the cold drenching
+takes your breath away as though some one had struck you. In that kind
+of weather it must be dreadful indeed to live in the woods, one man
+alone by himself. And you must know that, if the lean man feels afraid
+to be in the forest, the people of the island and the black boys are
+much more afraid than he. For they believe the woods to be quite filled
+with spirits; some are like pigs, and some are like flying things; but
+others (and these are thought the most dangerous) come in the shape of
+beautiful young women and young men, beautifully dressed in the island
+manner, with fine kilts and fine necklaces and crowns of scarlet seeds
+and flowers. Woe betide he or she who gets to speak with one of these!
+They will be charmed out of their wits, and come home again quite silly,
+and go mad and die. So that the poor black boy must be always trembling
+and looking about for the coming of the women-devils.
+
+Sometimes the women-devils go down out of the woods into the villages,
+and here is a tale the lean man heard last year. One of the islanders
+was sitting in his house, and he had cooked fish. There came along the
+road two beautiful young women, dressed as I told you, who came into his
+house and asked for some of his fish. It is the fashion in the islands
+always to give what is asked, and never to ask folk's names. So the man
+gave them fish and talked to them in the island jesting way. And
+presently he asked one of the women for her red necklace, which is good
+manners and their way; he had given the fish, and he had a right to ask
+for something back. "I will give it you by and by," said the woman, and
+she and her companion went away; but he thought they were gone very
+suddenly, and the truth is they had vanished. The night was nearly come,
+when the man heard the voice of the woman crying that he should come to
+her and she would give the necklace. And he looked out, and behold she
+was standing calling him from the top of the sea, on which she stood as
+you might on the table. At that, fear came on the man; he fell on his
+knees and prayed, and the woman disappeared. It was known afterwards
+that this was once a woman indeed, but should have died a thousand years
+ago, and has lived all that while as a devil in the woods beside the
+spring of a river. Saumai-afe (Sow-my-affy) is her name, in case you
+want to write to her.--Ever your friend Tusitala (tale-writer),
+
+     _alias_ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The South Sea novel here mentioned, _Sophia Scarlet_, never got
+   beyond the rough draft of an opening chapter or two.
+
+     _[Vailima] Jan. 31st, '92._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--No letter at all from you, and this scratch from me!
+Here is a year that opens ill. Lloyd is off to "the coast" sick--_the
+coast_ means California over most of the Pacific--I have been down all
+month with influenza, and am just recovering--I am overlaid with proofs,
+which I am just about half fit to attend to. One of my horses died this
+morning, and another is now dying on the front lawn--Lloyd's horse and
+Fanny's. Such is my quarrel with destiny. But I am mending famously,
+come and go on the balcony, have perfectly good nights, and though I
+still cough, have no oppression and no hemorrhage and no fever. So if I
+can find time and courage to add no more, you will know my news is not
+altogether of the worst; a year or two ago, and what a state I should
+have been in now! Your silence, I own, rather alarms me. But I tell
+myself you have just miscarried; had you been too ill to write, some one
+would have written me. Understand, I send this brief scratch not because
+I am unfit to write more, but because I have 58 galleys of _The Wrecker_
+and 102 of _The Beach of Falesá_ to get overhauled somehow or other in
+time for the mail, and for three weeks I have not touched a pen with my
+finger.
+
+_Feb. 1st._--The second horse is still alive, but I still think dying.
+The first was buried this morning. My proofs are done; it was a rough
+two days of it, but done. _Consummatum est; ua uma_. I believe _The
+Wrecker_ ends well; if I know what a good yarn is, the last four
+chapters make a good yarn--but pretty horrible. _The Beach of Falesá_ I
+still think well of, but it seems it's immoral and there's a to-do, and
+financially it may prove a heavy disappointment. The plaintive request
+sent to me, to make the young folks married properly before "that
+night," I refused; you will see what would be left of the yarn, had I
+consented.[32] This is a poison bad world for the romancer, this
+Anglo-Saxon world; I usually get out of it by not having any women in it
+at all; but when I remember I had _The Treasure of Franchard_ refused as
+unfit for a family magazine, I feel despair weigh upon my wrists.
+
+As I know you are always interested in novels, I must tell you that a
+new one is now entirely planned. It is to be called _Sophia Scarlet_,
+and is in two parts. Part I. The Vanilla Planter. Part II. The
+Overseers. No chapters, I think; just two dense blocks of narrative, the
+first of which is purely sentimental, but the second has some rows and
+quarrels, and winds up with an explosion, if you please! I am just
+burning to get at _Sophia_, but I _must_ do this Samoan
+journalism--that's a cursed duty. The first part of _Sophia_, bar the
+first twenty or thirty pages, writes itself; the second is more
+difficult, involving a good many characters--about ten, I think--who
+have to be kept all moving, and give the effect of a society. I have
+three women to handle, out and well-away! but only Sophia is in full
+tone. Sophia and two men, Windermere, the Vanilla Planter, who dies at
+the end of Part I., and Rainsforth, who only appears in the beginning of
+Part II. The fact is, I blush to own it, but Sophia is a _regular
+novel_; heroine and hero, and false accusation, and love, and marriage,
+and all the rest of it--all planted in a big South Sea plantation run by
+ex-English officers--_ŕ la_ Stewart's plantation in Tahiti.[33] There is
+a strong undercurrent of labour trade which gives it a kind of Uncle Tom
+flavour, _absit omen!_
+
+The first start is hard; it is hard to avoid a little tedium here, but I
+think by beginning with the arrival of the three Miss Scarlets hot from
+school and society in England, I may manage to slide in the information.
+The problem is exactly a Balzac one, and I wish I had his fist--for I
+have already a better method--the kinetic, whereas he continually
+allowed himself to be led into the static. But then he had the fist, and
+the most I can hope is to get out of it with a modicum of grace and
+energy, but for sure without the strong impression, the full, dark
+brush. Three people have had it, the real creator's brush: Scott, see
+much of _The Antiquary_ and _The Heart of Midlothian_ (especially all
+round the trial, before, during, and after)--Balzac--and Thackeray in
+_Vanity Fair_. Everybody else either paints _thin_, or has to stop to
+paint, or paints excitedly, so that you see the author skipping before
+his canvas. Here is a long way from poor Sophia Scarlet!
+
+  This day is published
+    _Sophia Scarlet_
+
+          By
+ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+
+
+
+To J. M. BARRIE
+
+
+   The following is the first of several letters to Mr. J. M. Barrie,
+   for whose work Stevenson had a warm admiration, and with whom he soon
+   established by correspondence a cordial friendship.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, February 1892._
+
+DEAR MR. BARRIE,--This is at least the third letter I have written you,
+but my correspondence has a bad habit of not getting so far as the post.
+That which I possess of manhood turns pale before the business of the
+address and envelope. But I hope to be more fortunate with this: for,
+besides the usual and often recurrent desire to thank you for your
+work--you are one of four that have come to the front since I was
+watching and had a corner of my own to watch, and there is no reason,
+unless it be in these mysterious tides that ebb and flow, and make and
+mar and murder the works of poor scribblers, why you should not do work
+of the best order. The tides have borne away my sentence, of which I was
+weary at any rate, and between authors I may allow myself so much
+freedom as to leave it pending. We are both Scots besides, and I suspect
+both rather Scotty Scots; my own Scotchness tends to intermittency, but
+is at times erisypelitous--if that be rightly spelt. Lastly, I have
+gathered we had both made our stages in the metropolis of the winds: our
+Virgil's "grey metropolis," and I count that a lasting bond. No place so
+brands a man.
+
+Finally, I feel it a sort of duty to you to report progress. This may be
+an error, but I believed I detected your hand in an article--it may be
+an illusion, it may have been by one of those industrious insects who
+catch up and reproduce the handling of each emergent man--but I'll still
+hope it was yours--and hope it may please you to hear that the
+continuation of _Kidnapped_ is under way. I have not yet got to Alan, so
+I do not know if he is still alive, but David seems to have a kick or
+two in his shanks. I was pleased to see how the Anglo-Saxon theory fell
+into the trap: I gave my Lowlander a Gaelic name, and even commented on
+the fact in the text; yet almost all critics recognised in David and
+Alan a Saxon and a Celt. I know not about England; in Scotland at least,
+where Gaelic was spoken in Fife little over the century ago, and in
+Galloway not much earlier, I deny that there exists such a thing as a
+pure Saxon, and I think it more than questionable if there be such a
+thing as a pure Celt.
+
+But what have you to do with this? and what have I? Let us continue to
+inscribe our little bits of tales, and let the heathen rage!--Yours,
+with sincere interest in your career,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Feb. 1892._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This has been a busyish month for a sick man. First,
+Faauma--the bronze candlestick, whom otherwise I called my
+butler--bolted from the bed and bosom of Lafaele, the Archangel
+Hercules, prefect of the cattle. There was a deuce to pay, and Hercules
+was inconsolable, and immediately started out after a new wife, and has
+had one up on a visit, but says she has "no conversation"; and I think
+he will take back the erring and possibly repentant candlestick; whom we
+all devoutly prefer, as she is not only highly decorative, but
+good-natured, and if she does little work makes no rows. I tell this
+lightly, but it really was a heavy business; many were accused of
+complicity, and Rafael was really very sorry. I had to hold beds of
+justice--literally--seated in my bed and surrounded by lying Samoans
+seated on the floor; and there were many picturesque and still
+inexplicable passages. It is hard to reach the truth in these islands.
+
+The next incident overlapped with this. S. and Fanny found three strange
+horses in the paddock: for long now the boys have been forbidden to
+leave their horses here one hour because our grass is over-grazed. S.
+came up with the news, and I saw I must now strike a blow. "To the pound
+with the lot," said I. He proposed taking the three himself, but I
+thought that too dangerous an experiment, said I should go too, and
+hurried into my boots so as to show decision taken, in the necessary
+interviews. They came of course--the interviews--and I explained what I
+was going to do at huge length, and stuck to my guns. I am glad to say
+the natives, with their usual (purely speculative) sense of justice,
+highly approved the step after reflection. Meanwhile off went S. and I
+with the three _corpora delicti_; and a good job I went! Once, when our
+circus began to kick, we thought all was up; but we got them down all
+sound in wind and limb. I judged I was much fallen off from my Elliot
+forefathers, who managed this class of business with neatness and
+despatch.
+
+As we got down to town, we met the mother and daughter of my friend
+----, bathed in tears; they had left the house over a row, which I have
+not time or spirits to describe. This matter dashed me a good deal, and
+the first decent-looking day I mounted and set off to see if I could not
+patch things up. Half-way down it came on to rain tropic style, and I
+came back from my second outing drenched like a drowned man--I was
+literally blinded as I came back among these sheets of water; and the
+consequence was I was laid down with diarrhoea and threatenings of
+Samoa colic for the inside of another week. Meanwhile up came
+Laulii,[34] in whose house Mrs. and Miss ---- have taken refuge. One of
+Mrs. ----'s grievances is that her son has married one of these
+"pork-eaters and cannibals." (As a matter of fact there is no memory of
+cannibalism in Samoa.) And a strange thing it was to hear the "cannibal"
+Laulii describe her sorrows. She is singularly pretty and sweet, her
+training reflects wonderful credit on her husband; and when she began to
+describe to us--to act to us, in the tone of an actress walking through
+a rehearsal--the whole bearing of her angry guests; indicating the
+really tragic notes when they came in, so that Fanny and I were ashamed
+to laugh, and touching off the merely ludicrous with infinite tact and
+sly humour; showing, in fact, in her whole picture of a couple of irate
+barbarian women, the whole play and sympathy of what we call the
+civilised mind; the contrast was seizing. I speak with feeling. To-day
+again, being the first day humanly possible for me, I went down to Apia
+with Fanny, and between two and three hours did I argue with that old
+woman--not immovable, would she had been! but with a mechanical mind
+like a piece of a musical snuff-box, that returned always to the same
+starting-point; not altogether base, for she was long-suffering with me
+and professed even gratitude, and was just (in a sense) to her son, and
+showed here and there moments of genuine and not undignified emotion;
+but O! on the other side, what lapses--what a mechanical movement of the
+brain, what occasional trap-door devils of meanness, what a wooden front
+of pride! I came out damped and saddened and (to say truth) a trifle
+sick. My wife had better luck with the daughter; but O, it was a weary
+business!
+
+To add to my grief--but that's politics. Before I sleep to-night I have
+a confession to make. When I was sick I tried to get to work to finish
+that Samoa thing; wouldn't go; and at last, in the colic time, I slid
+off into _David Balfour_,[35] some 50 pages of which are drafted, and
+like me well. Really I think it is spirited; and there's a heroine that
+(up to now) seems to have attractions: _absit omen!_ David, on the
+whole, seems excellent. Alan does not come in till the tenth chapter,
+and I am only at the eighth, so I don't know if I can find him again;
+but David is on his feet, and doing well, and very much in love, and
+mixed up with the Lord Advocate and the (untitled) Lord Lovat, and all
+manner of great folk. And the tale interferes with my eating and
+sleeping. The join is bad; I have not thought to strain too much for
+continuity; so this part be alive, I shall be content. But there's no
+doubt David seems to have changed his style, de'il ha'e him! And much I
+care, if the tale travel!
+
+_Friday, Feb.?? 19th?_--Two incidents to-day which I must narrate. After
+lunch, it was raining pitilessly; we were sitting in my mother's
+bedroom, and I was reading aloud Kinglake's Charge of the Light Brigade,
+and we had just been all seized by the horses aligning with Lord George
+Paget, when a figure appeared on the verandah; a little, slim, small
+figure of a lad, with blond (_i.e._ limed) hair, a propitiatory smile,
+and a nose that alone of all his features grew pale with anxiety. "I
+come here stop," was about the outside of his English; and I began at
+once to guess that he was a runaway labourer,[36] and that the
+bush-knife in his hand was stolen. It proved he had a mate, who had
+lacked his courage, and was hidden down the road; they had both made up
+their minds to run away, and had "come here stop." I could not turn out
+the poor rogues, one of whom showed me marks on his back, into the
+drenching forest; I could not reason with them, for they had not enough
+English, and not one of our boys spoke their tongue; so I bade them feed
+and sleep here to-night, and to-morrow I must do what the Lord shall bid
+me.
+
+Near dinner time, I was told that a friend of Lafaele's had found human
+remains in my bush. After dinner, a figure was seen skulking across
+towards the waterfall, which produced from the verandah a shout, in my
+most stentorian tones: "_O ai le ingoa?_" literally "Who the name?"
+which serves here for "What's your business?" as well. It proved to be
+Lafaele's friend; I bade a kitchen boy, Lauilo, go with him to see the
+spot, for though it had ceased raining, the whole island ran and
+dripped. Lauilo was willing enough, but the friend of the archangel
+demurred; he had too much business; he had no time. "All right," I said,
+"you too much frightened, I go along," which of course produced the
+usual shout of delight from all those who did not require to go. I got
+into my Saranac snow boots; Lauilo got a cutlass; Mary Carter, our
+Sydney maid, joined the party for a lark, and off we set. I tell you our
+guide kept us moving; for the dusk fell swift. Our woods have an
+infamous reputation at the best, and our errand (to say the least of it)
+was grisly. At last they found the remains; they were old, which was
+all I cared to be sure of; it seemed a strangely small "pickle-banes" to
+stand for a big, flourishing, buck-islander, and their situation in the
+darkening and dripping bush was melancholy. All at once, I found there
+was a second skull, with a bullet-hole I could have stuck my two thumbs
+in--say anybody else's one thumb. My Samoans said it could not be, there
+were not enough bones; I put the two pieces of skull together, and at
+last convinced them. Whereupon, in a flash, they found the not
+unromantic explanation. This poor brave had succeeded in the height of a
+Samoan warrior's ambition; he had taken a head, which he was never
+destined to show to his applauding camp. Wounded himself, he had crept
+here into the bush to die with his useless trophy by his side. His date
+would be about fifteen years ago, in the great battle between Laupepa
+and Talavou, which took place on My Land, Sir. To-morrow we shall bury
+the bones and fire a salute in honour of unfortunate courage.
+
+Do you think I have an empty life? or that a man jogging to his club has
+so much to interest and amuse him?--touch and try him too, but that goes
+along with the others: no pain, no pleasure, is the iron law. So here I
+stop again, and leave, as I left yesterday, my political business
+untouched. And lo! here comes my pupil, I believe, so I stop in time.
+
+_March 2nd._--Since I last wrote, fifteen chapters of _David Balfour_
+have been drafted, and five _tirés au clair_. I think it pretty good;
+there's a blooming maiden that costs anxiety--she is as virginal as
+billy; but David seems there and alive, and the Lord Advocate is good,
+and so I think is an episodic appearance of the Master of Lovat. In
+Chapter XVII. I shall get David abroad--Alan went already in Chapter
+XII. The book should be about the length of _Kidnapped_; this early part
+of it, about D.'s evidence in the Appin case, is more of a story than
+anything in _Kidnapped_, but there is no doubt there comes a break in
+the middle, and the tale is practically in two divisions. In the first
+James More and the M'Gregors, and Catriona, only show; in the second,
+the Appin case being disposed of, and James Stewart hung, they rule the
+roast and usurp the interest--should there be any left. Why did I take
+up _David Balfour_? I don't know. A sudden passion.
+
+Monday, I went down in the rain with a colic to take the chair at a
+public meeting; dined with Haggard; sailed off to my meeting, and fought
+with wild beasts for three anxious hours. All was lost that any sensible
+man cared for, but the meeting did not break up--thanks a good deal to
+R. L. S.--and the man who opposed my election, and with whom I was all
+the time wrangling, proposed the vote of thanks to me with a certain
+handsomeness; I assure you I had earned it.... Haggard and the great
+Abdul, his high-caste Indian servant, imported by my wife, were sitting
+up for me with supper, and I suppose it was twelve before I got to bed.
+Tuesday raining, my mother rode down, and we went to the Consulate to
+sign a Factory and Commission. Thence, I to the lawyers, to the printing
+office, and to the mission. It was dinner time when I returned home.
+
+This morning, our cook-boy having suddenly left--injured feelings--the
+archangel was to cook breakfast. I found him lighting the fire before
+dawn; his eyes blazed, he had no word of any language left to use, and I
+saw in him (to my wonder) the strongest workings of gratified ambition.
+Napoleon was no more pleased to sign his first treaty with Austria than
+was Lafaele to cook that breakfast. All morning, when I had hoped to be
+at this letter, I slept like one drugged, and you must take this (which
+is all I can give you) for what it is worth--
+
+   D. B.
+
+   _Memoirs of his Adventures at Home and Abroad. The Second Part;
+   wherein are set forth the misfortunes in which he was involved upon
+   the Appin Murder; his troubles with Lord Advocate Prestongrange;
+   captivity on the Bass Rock; journey into France and Holland; and
+   singular relations with James More Drummond or Macgregor, a son of
+   the notorious Rob Roy._
+
+Chapters.--I. A Beggar on Horseback. II. The Highland Writer. III. I go
+to Pilrig. IV. Lord Advocate Prestongrange. V. Butter and Thunder. VI. I
+make a fault in honour. VII. The Bravo. VIII. The Heather on Fire. IX. I
+begin to be haunted with a red-headed man. X. The Wood by Silvermills.
+XI. On the march again with Alan. XII. Gillane Sands. XIII. The Bass
+Rock. XIV. Black Andie's Tale of Tod Lapraik. XV. I go to Inveraray.
+
+That is it, as far as drafted. Chapters IV. V. VII. IX. and XIV. I am
+specially pleased with; the last being an episodical bogie story about
+the Bass Rock told there by the Keeper.
+
+
+
+
+TO WILLIAM MORRIS
+
+
+   The following draft letter addressed to Mr. William Morris was found
+   among Stevenson's papers after his death. It has touches of
+   affectation and constraint not usual with him, and it is no doubt on
+   that account that he did not send it; but though not in his best
+   manner, it seems worth printing as illustrating the variety of his
+   interests and admirations in literature.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, Feb. 1892._
+
+MASTER,--A plea from a place so distant should have some weight, and
+from a heart so grateful should have some address. I have been long in
+your debt, Master, and I did not think it could be so much increased as
+you have now increased it. I was long in your debt and deep in your debt
+for many poems that I shall never forget, and for _Sigurd_ before all,
+and now you have plunged me beyond payment by the Saga Library. And so
+now, true to human nature, being plunged beyond payment, I come and bark
+at your heels.
+
+For surely, Master, that tongue that we write, and that you have
+illustrated so nobly, is yet alive. She has her rights and laws, and is
+our mother, our queen, and our instrument. Now in that living tongue
+_where_ has one sense, _whereas_ another. In the _Heathslayings Story_,
+p. 241, line 13, it bears one of its ordinary senses. Elsewhere and
+usually through the two volumes, which is all that has yet reached me of
+this entrancing publication, _whereas_ is made to figure for _where_.
+
+For the love of God, my dear and honoured Morris, use _where_, and let
+us know _whereas_ we are, wherefore our gratitude shall grow, whereby
+you shall be the more honoured wherever men love clear language, whereas
+now, although we honour, we are troubled.
+
+Whereunder, please find inscribed to this very impudent but yet very
+anxious document, the name of one of the most distant but not the
+youngest or the coldest of those who honour you
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
+
+
+   The projected visit of Mr. Kipling, with his wife and brother-in-law,
+   to Samoa, which is mentioned towards the close of this letter, never
+   took place, much to the regret of both authors.
+
+     [_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_[37] capital fun; but why, in fortune, did he pretend
+it was moral at the end? The so-called nineteenth century, _oů 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 house-folk 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,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] March 9th [1892]._
+
+MY DEAR S. C.,--Take it not amiss if this is a wretched letter. I am
+eaten up with business. Every day this week I have had some business
+impediment--I am even now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the
+road--and my precious morning was shattered by a polite old scourge of a
+_faipule_--parliament man--come begging. All the time _David Balfour_ is
+skelping along. I began it the 13th of last month; I have now 12
+chapters, 79 pages ready for press, or within an ace, and, by the time
+the month is out, one-half should be completed, and I'll be back at
+drafting the second half. What makes me sick is to think of Scott
+turning out _Guy Mannering_ in three weeks! What a pull of work:
+heavens, what thews and sinews! And here am I, my head spinning from
+having only re-written seven not very difficult pages--and not very good
+when done. Weakling generation. It makes me sick of myself, to make such
+a fash and bobbery over a rotten end of an old nursery yarn, not worth
+spitting on when done. Still, there is no doubt I turn out my work more
+easily than of yore; and I suppose I should be singly glad of that. And
+if I got my book done in six weeks, seeing it will be about half as long
+as a Scott, and I have to write everything twice, it would be about the
+same rate of industry. It is my fair intention to be done with it in
+three months, which would make me about one-half the man Sir Walter was
+for application and driving the dull pen. Of the merit we shall not
+talk; but I don't think Davie is _without_ merit.
+
+_March 12th._--And I have this day triumphantly finished 15 chapters,
+100 pages--being exactly one-half (as near as anybody can guess) of
+_David Balfour_; the book to be about a fifth as long again (altogether)
+as _Treasure Island:_ could I but do the second half in another month!
+But I can't, I fear; I shall have some belated material arriving by next
+mail, and must go again at the History. Is it not characteristic of my
+broken tenacity of mind, that I should have left Davie Balfour some five
+years in the British Linen Company's Office, and then follow him at last
+with such vivacity? But I leave you again; the last (15th) chapter ought
+to be re-wrote, or part of it, and I want the half completed in the
+month, and the month is out by midnight; though, to be sure, last month
+was February, and I might take grace. These notes are only to show I
+hold you in mind, though I know they can have no interest for man or God
+or animal.
+
+I should have told you about the Club. We have been asked to try and
+start a sort of weekly ball for the half-castes and natives, ourselves
+to be the only whites; and we consented, from a very heavy sense of
+duty, and with not much hope. Two nights ago we had twenty people up,
+received them in the front verandah, entertained them on cake and
+lemonade, and I made a speech--embodying our proposals, or conditions,
+if you like--for I suppose thirty minutes. No joke to speak to such an
+audience, but it is believed I was thoroughly intelligible. I took the
+plan of saying everything at least twice in a different form of words,
+so that if the one escaped my hearers, the other might be seized. One
+white man came with his wife, and was kept rigorously on the front
+verandah below! You see what a sea of troubles this is like to prove;
+but it is the only chance--and when it blows up, it must blow up! I have
+no more hope in anything than a dead frog; I go into everything with a
+composed despair, and don't mind--just as I always go to sea with the
+conviction I am to be drowned, and like it before all other pleasures.
+But you should have seen the return voyage, when nineteen horses had to
+be found in the dark, and nineteen bridles, all in a drench of rain, and
+the club, just constituted as such, sailed away in the wet, under a
+cloudy moon like a bad shilling, and to descend a road through the
+forest that was at that moment the image of a respectable mountain
+brook. My wife, who is president _with power to expel_, had to begin her
+functions....
+
+_25th March._--Heaven knows what day it is, but I am ashamed, all the
+more as your letter from Bournemouth of all places--poor old
+Bournemouth!--is to hand, and contains a statement of pleasure in my
+letters which I wish I could have rewarded with a long one. What has
+gone on? A vast of affairs, of a mingled, strenuous, inconclusive,
+desultory character; much waste of time, much riding to and fro, and
+little transacted or at least peracted.
+
+Let me give you a review of the present state of our live stock.--Six
+boys in the bush; six souls about the house. Talolo, the cook, returns
+again to-day, after an absence which has cost me about twelve hours of
+riding, and I suppose eight hours' solemn sitting in council. "I am
+sorry indeed for the Chief Justice of Samoa," I said; "it is more than I
+am fit for to be Chief Justice of Vailima."--Lauilo is steward. Both
+these are excellent servants; we gave a luncheon party when we buried
+the Samoan bones, and I assure you all was in good style, yet we never
+interfered. The food was good, the wine and dishes went round as by
+mechanism.--Steward's assistant and washman, Arrick, a New Hebridee
+black boy, hired from the German firm; not so ugly as most, but not
+pretty neither; not so dull as his sort are, but not quite a Crichton.
+When he came first, he ate so much of our good food that he got a
+prominent belly. Kitchen assistant, Tomas (Thomas in English), a Fiji
+man, very tall and handsome, moving like a marionette with sudden
+bounds, and rolling his eyes with sudden effort.--Washerwoman and
+precentor, Helen, Tomas's wife. This is our weak point; we are ashamed
+of Helen; the cook-house blushes for her; they murmur there at her
+presence. She seems all right; she is not a bad-looking, strapping
+wench, seems chaste, is industrious, has an excellent taste in
+hymns--you should have heard her read one aloud the other day, she
+marked the rhythm with so much gloating, dissenter sentiment. What is
+wrong, then? says you. Low in your ear--and don't let the papers get
+hold of it--she is of no family. None, they say; literally a common
+woman. Of course, we have out-islanders, who _may_ be villeins; but we
+give them the benefit of the doubt, which is impossible with Helen of
+Vailima; our blot, our pitted speck. The pitted speck I have said is our
+precentor. It is always a woman who starts Samoan song; the men who sing
+second do not enter for a bar or two. Poor, dear Faauma, the unchaste,
+the extruded Eve of our Paradise, knew only two hymns; but Helen seems
+to know the whole repertory, and the morning prayers go far more lively
+in consequence.--Lafaele, provost of the cattle. The cattle are Jack, my
+horse, quite converted, my wife rides him now, and he is as steady as a
+doctor's cob; Tifaga Jack, a circus horse, my mother's piebald, bought
+from a passing circus; Belle's mare, now in childbed or next door,
+confound the slut! Musu--amusingly translated the other day "don't want
+to," literally cross, but always in the sense of stubbornness and
+resistance--my wife's little dark-brown mare, with a white star on her
+forehead, whom I have been riding of late to steady her--she has no
+vices, but is unused, skittish and uneasy, and wants a lot of attention
+and humouring; lastly (of saddle horses) Luna--not the Latin _moon_, the
+Hawaiian _overseer_, but it's pronounced the same--a pretty little mare
+too, but scarce at all broken, a bad bucker, and has to be ridden with a
+stock-whip and be brought back with her rump criss-crossed like a clan
+tartan; the two cart horses, now only used with pack-saddles; two cows,
+one in the straw (I trust) to-morrow, a third cow, the Jersey--whose
+milk and temper are alike subjects of admiration--she gives good
+exercise to the farming saunterer, and refreshes him on his return with
+cream; two calves, a bull, and a cow; God knows how many ducks and
+chickens, and for a wager not even God knows how many cats; twelve
+horses, seven horses, five kine: is not this Babylon the Great which I
+have builded? Call it _Subpriorsford_.
+
+Two nights ago the club had its first meeting; only twelve were present,
+but it went very well. I was not there, I had ridden down the night
+before after dinner on my endless business, took a cup of tea in the
+mission like an ass, then took a cup of coffee like a fool at Haggard's,
+then fell into a discussion with the American Consul.... I went to bed
+at Haggard's, came suddenly broad awake, and lay sleepless the live
+night. It felt chill, I had only a sheet, and had to make a light and
+range the house for a cover--I found one in the hall, a macintosh. So
+back to my sleepless bed, and to lie there till dawn. In the morning I
+had a longish ride to take in a day of a blinding, staggering sun, and
+got home by eleven, our luncheon hour, with my head rather swimmy; the
+only time I have _feared_ the sun since I was in Samoa. However, I got
+no harm, but did not go to the club, lay off, lazied, played the pipe,
+and read a novel by James Payn--sometimes quite interesting, and in one
+place really very funny with the quaint humour of the man. Much
+interested the other day. As I rode past a house, I saw where a Samoan
+had written a word on a board, and there was an [inverted A], perfectly
+formed, but upside down. You never saw such a thing in Europe; but it is
+as common as dirt in Polynesia. Men's names are tattooed on the forearm;
+it is common to find a subverted letter tattooed there. Here is a
+tempting problem for psychologists.
+
+I am now on terms again with the German consulate, I know not for how
+long; not, of course, with the President, which I find a relief; still,
+with the Chief Justice and the English consul. For Haggard, I have a
+genuine affection; he is a loveable man.
+
+Wearyful man! "Here is the yarn of Loudon Dodd, _not as he told it, but
+as it was afterwards written_."[38] These words were left out by some
+carelessness, and I think I have been thrice tackled about them. Grave
+them in your mind and wear them on your forehead.
+
+The Lang story will have very little about the treasure; the Master[39]
+will appear; and it is to a great extent a tale of Prince Charlie
+_after_ the '45, and a love story forbye: the hero is a melancholy
+exile, and marries a young woman who interests the prince, and there is
+the devil to pay. I think the Master kills him in a duel, but don't know
+yet, not having yet seen my second heroine. No--the Master doesn't kill
+him, they fight, he is wounded, and the Master plays _deus ex machina_.
+_I think_ just now of calling it _The Tail of the Race_; no--heavens! I
+never saw till this moment--but of course nobody but myself would ever
+understand Mill-Race, they would think of a quarter-mile. So--I am
+nameless again. My melancholy young man is to be quite a Romeo. Yes,
+I'll name the book from him: _Dyce of Ythan_--pronounce Eethan.
+
+  Dyce of Ythan
+   by R. L. S.
+
+O, Shovel--Shovel waits his turn, he and his ancestors. I would have
+tackled him before, but my _State Trials_ have never come. So that I
+have now quite planned:--
+
+  Dyce of Ythan. (Historical, 1750.)
+
+  Sophia Scarlet. (To-day.)
+
+  The Shovels of Newton French. (Historical, 1650 to 1830.)
+
+And quite planned and part written:--
+
+  The Pearl Fisher. (To-day.) (With Lloyd: a machine.)[40]
+
+  David Balfour. (Historical, 1751.)
+
+And, by a strange exception for R. L. S., all in the third person except
+D. B.
+
+
+I don't know what day this is now (the 29th), but I have finished my two
+chapters, ninth and tenth, of _Samoa_ in time for the mail, and feel
+almost at peace. The tenth was the hurricane, a difficult problem; it so
+tempted one to be literary; and I feel sure the less of that there is in
+my little handbook, the more chance it has of some utility. Then the
+events are complicated, seven ships to tell of, and sometimes three of
+them together; O, it was quite a job. But I think I have my facts pretty
+correct, and for once, in my sickening yarn, they are handsome facts:
+creditable to all concerned; not to be written of--and I should think,
+scarce to be read--without a thrill. I doubt I have got no hurricane
+into it, the intricacies of the yarn absorbing me too much. But
+there--it's done somehow, and time presses hard on my heels. The book,
+with my best expedition, may come just too late to be of use. In which
+case I shall have made a handsome present of some months of my life for
+nothing and to nobody. Well, through Her the most ancient heavens are
+fresh and strong.[41]
+
+_30th._--After I had written you, I re-read my hurricane, which is very
+poor; the life of the journalist is hard, another couple of writings and
+I could make a good thing, I believe, and it must go as it is! But, of
+course, this book is not written for honour and glory, and the few who
+will read it may not know the difference. Very little time. I go down
+with the mail shortly, dine at the Chinese restaurant, and go to the
+club to dance with islandresses. Think of my going out once a week to
+dance.
+
+Politics are on the full job again, and we don't know what is to come
+next. I think the whole treaty _raj_ seems quite played out! They have
+taken to bribing the _faipule_ men (parliament men) to stay in Mulinuu,
+we hear; but I have not yet sifted the rumour. I must say I shall be
+scarce surprised if it prove true; these rumours have the knack of being
+right.--Our weather this last month has been tremendously hot, not by
+the thermometer, which sticks at 86°, but to the sensation: no rain, no
+wind, and this the storm month. It looks ominous, and is certainly
+disagreeable.
+
+No time to finish.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   The first sentences of the following refer to _A Footnote to
+   History_, Chapter x. of which, relating to the hurricane of 1889, was
+   first published in the Scots Observer, edited by Mr. Henley.
+
+     [_Vailima, March 1892._]
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Herewith Chapters IX. and X., and I am left face to
+face with the horrors and dilemmas of the present regimen: pray for
+those that go down to the sea in ships. I have promised Henley shall
+have a chance to publish the hurricane chapter if he like, so please let
+the slips be sent _quam primum_ to C. Baxter, W.S., 11 S. Charlotte
+Street, Edinburgh. I got on mighty quick with that chapter--about five
+days of the toughest kind of work. God forbid I should ever have such
+another pirn to wind! When I invent a language, there shall be a direct
+and an indirect pronoun differently declined--then writing would be some
+fun.
+
+  DIRECT            INDIRECT
+
+   He                  Tu
+   Him                 Tum
+   His                 Tus
+
+Ex.: _He_ seized _tum_ by _tus_ throat; but _tu_ at the same moment
+caught _him_ by his hair. A fellow could write hurricanes with an
+inflection like that! Yet there would be difficulties too.
+
+Please add to my former orders--
+
+  _Le Chevalier Des Touches_ } by Barbey d'Aurevilly.
+  _Les Diabohques_           }
+  _Correspondence de Henri Beyle_ (Stendahl).
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE REV. S. J. WHITMEE
+
+
+   In this letter the essential points of Stevenson's policy for Samoa
+   are defined more clearly than anywhere else. His correspondent, an
+   experienced missionary who had been absent from the islands and
+   lately returned, and whom Stevenson describes as being of a nature
+   essentially "childlike and candid," had been induced to support the
+   idea of a one-man power as necessary for putting an end to the
+   existing confusion, and to suggest the Chief Justice, Mr.
+   Cedercrantz, as the person to wield such power. In the present letter
+   and a subsequent conversation Stevenson was able to persuade his
+   correspondent to abandon at least that part of his proposal which
+   concerned the Chief Justice.
+
+     _[Vailima] Sunday. Better Day, Better Deed. April 24th, 1892._
+
+     Private and confidential.
+
+DEAR MR. WHITMEE,--I have reflected long and fully on your paper, and at
+your kind request give you the benefit of my last thoughts.
+
+I. I cannot bring myself to welcome your idea of one man. I fear we are
+too far away from any moderative influence; and suppose it to be true
+that the paper is bought, we should not even have a voice. Could we be
+sure to get a Gordon or a Lawrence, ah! very well. But in this
+out-of-the-way place, are these extreme experiments wise? Remember
+Baker; with much that he has done, I am in full sympathy; and the man,
+though wholly insincere, is a thousand miles from ill-meaning; and see
+to what excesses he was forced or led.
+
+II. But I willingly admit the idea is possible with the right man, and
+this brings me with greater conviction to my next point. I cannot
+endorse, and I would rather beg of you to reconsider, your
+recommendation of the Chief Justice. I told you the man has always
+attracted me, yet as I have earnestly reconsidered the points against
+him, I find objection growing....
+
+But there is yet another argument I have to lay before you. We are both
+to write upon this subject. Many of our opinions coincide, and, as I
+said the other day, on these we may reasonably suppose that we are not
+far wrong. Now here is a point on which we shall directly counter. No
+doubt but this will lessen the combined weight of our arguments where
+they coincide. And to avoid this effect, it might seem worth while to
+you to modify or cancel the last paragraph of your article.
+
+III. But I now approach what seems to me by far the most important.
+White man here, white man there, Samoa is to stand or fall (bar actual
+seizure) on the Samoan question. And upon this my mind is now really
+made up. I do not believe in Laupepa alone; I do not believe in Mataafa
+alone. I know that their conjunction implies peace; I am persuaded that
+their separation means either war or paralysis. It is the result of the
+past, which we cannot change, but which we must accept and use or suffer
+by. I have now made up my mind to do all that I may be able--little as
+it is--to effect a reconciliation between these two men Laupepa and
+Mataafa; persuaded as I am that there is the one door of hope. And it is
+my intention before long to approach both in this sense. Now, from the
+course of our interview, I was pleased to see that you were, if not
+equally strong with myself, at least inclined to much the same opinion.
+And in a carefully weighed paper, such as that you read me, I own I
+should be pleased to have this cardinal matter touched upon. At home it
+is not, it cannot be, understood: Mataafa is thought a rebel; the
+Germans profit by the thought to pursue their career of vengeance for
+Fagalii; the two men are perpetually offered as alternatives--they are
+no such thing--they are complementary; authority, supposing them to
+survive, will be impossible without both. They were once friends, fools
+and meddlers set them at odds, they must be friends again or have so
+much wisdom and public virtue as to pretend a friendship. There is my
+policy for Samoa. And I wish you would at least touch upon that point, I
+care not how; because, although I am far from supposing you feel it to
+be necessary in the same sense or to the same degree as I do, I am well
+aware that no man knows Samoa but must see its huge advantages. Excuse
+this long and tedious lecture, which I see I have to mark private and
+confidential, or I might get into deep water, and believe me, yours very
+truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   The maps herein bespoken do not adorn the ordinary editions of
+   _Catriona_, only the Edinburgh edition, for which they were executed
+   by Messrs. Bartholomew in a manner that would have rejoiced the
+   writer's heart.
+
+     _[Vailima] April 28, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have just written the dedication of _David Balfour_
+to you, and haste to put a job in your hands. This is a map of the
+environs of Edinburgh _circa_ 1750. It must contain Hope Park, Hunter's
+Bog, Calton Hill, the Mouter Hill, Lang Dykes, Nor' Loch, West Kirk,
+Village of Dean, pass down the water to Stockbridge, Silver Mills, the
+two mill lakes there, with a wood on the south side of the south one
+which I saw marked on a plan in the British Museum, Broughton, Picardy,
+Leith Walk, Leith, Pilrig, Lochend, Figgate Whins. And I would like a
+piece in a corner, giving for the same period Figgate Whins,
+Musselburgh, Inveresk, Prestonpans, battlefield of Gladsmuir, Cockenzie,
+Gullane--which I spell Gillane--Fidra, Dirleton, North Berwick Law,
+Whitekirk, Tantallon Castle and Castleton, Scougal and Auldhame, the
+Bass, the Glenteithy rocks, Satan's Bush, Wildfire rocks, and, if
+possible, the May. If need were, I would not stick at two maps. If there
+is but one, say, _Plan to illustrate David Balfour's adventures in the
+Lothians_. If two, call the first _Plan to illustrate David Balfour's
+adventures about the city of Edinburgh_, and the second, _Plan to
+illustrate David Balfour's adventures in East Lothian_. I suppose there
+must be a map-maker of some taste in Edinburgh; I wish few other names
+in, but what I have given, as far as possible. As soon as may be I will
+let you have the text, when you might even find some amusement in
+seeing that the maps fill the bill. If your map-maker be a poor
+creature, plainness is best; if he were a fellow of some genuine go, he
+might give it a little of the bird's-eye quality. I leave this to your
+good taste. If I have time I will copy the dedication to go herewith; I
+am pleased with it. The first map (suppose we take two) would go in at
+the beginning, the second at Chapter XI. The topography is very much
+worked into the story, and I have alluded in the dedication to our
+common fancy for exploring Auld Reekie.
+
+The list of books came duly, for which many thanks. I am plunged to the
+nostrils in various business.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] May 1st, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--As I rode down last night about six, I saw a sight I
+must try to tell you of. In front of me, right over the top of the
+forest into which I was descending, was a vast cloud. The front of it
+accurately represented the somewhat rugged, long-nosed, and
+beetle-browed profile of a man, crowned by a huge Kalmuck cap; the flesh
+part was of a heavenly pink, the cap, the moustache, the eyebrows were
+of a bluish grey; to see this with its childish exactitude of design and
+colour, and hugeness of scale--it covered at least 25°--held me
+spell-bound. As I continued to gaze, the expression began to change; he
+had the exact air of closing one eye, dropping his jaw, and drawing down
+his nose; had the thing not been so imposing, I could have smiled; and
+then almost in a moment, a shoulder of leaden-coloured bank drove in
+front and blotted it. My attention spread to the rest of the cloud, and
+it was a thing to worship. It rose from the horizon, and its top was
+within thirty degrees of the zenith; the lower parts were like a glacier
+in shadow, varying from dark indigo to a clouded white in exquisite
+gradations. The sky behind, so far as I could see, was all of a blue
+already enriched and darkened by the night, for the hill had what
+lingered of the sunset. But the top of my Titanic cloud flamed in broad
+sunlight, with the most excellent softness and brightness of fire and
+jewels, enlightening all the world. It must have been far higher than
+Mount Everest, and its glory, as I gazed up at it out of the night, was
+beyond wonder. Close by rode the little crescent moon; and right over
+its western horn, a great planet of about equal lustre with itself. The
+dark woods below were shrill with that noisy business of the birds'
+evening worship. When I returned, after eight, the moon was near down;
+she seemed little brighter than before, but now that the cloud no longer
+played its part of a nocturnal sun, we could see that sight, so rare
+with us at home that it was counted a portent, so customary in the
+tropics, of the dark sphere with its little gilt band upon the belly.
+The planet had been setting faster, and was now below the crescent. They
+were still of an equal brightness.
+
+I could not resist trying to reproduce this in words, as a specimen of
+these incredibly beautiful and imposing meteors of the tropic sky that
+make so much of my pleasure here; though a ship's deck is the place to
+enjoy them. O what _awful_ scenery, from a ship's deck, in the tropics!
+People talk about the Alps, but the clouds of the trade wind are alone
+for sublimity.
+
+Now to try and tell you what has been happening. The state of these
+islands, and of Mataafa and Laupepa (Malietoas _ambo_), had been much on
+my mind. I went to the priests and sent a message to Mataafa, at a time
+when it was supposed he was about to act. He did not act, delaying in
+true native style, and I determined I should go to visit him. I have
+been very good not to go sooner; to live within a few miles of a rebel
+camp, to be a novelist, to have all my family forcing me to go, and to
+refrain all these months, counts for virtue. But hearing that several
+people had gone and the government done nothing to punish them, and
+having an errand there which was enough to justify myself in my own
+eyes, I half determined to go, and spoke of it with the half-caste
+priest. And here (confound it) up came Laupepa and his guards to call on
+me; we kept him to lunch, and the old gentleman was very good and
+amiable. He asked me why I had not been to see him? I reminded him a law
+had been made, and told him I was not a small boy to go and ask leave of
+the consuls, and perhaps be refused. He told me to pay no attention to
+the law but come when I would, and begged me to name a day to lunch. The
+next day (I think it was) early in the morning, a man appeared; he had
+metal buttons like a policeman--but he was none of our Apia force; he
+was a rebel policeman, and had been all night coming round inland
+through the forest from Malie. He brought a letter addressed
+
+  _I lana susuga_   To his Excellency
+    _Misi Mea_.           Mr. Thingumbob.
+
+(So as not to compromise me.) I can read Samoan now, though not speak
+it. It was to ask me for last Wednesday. My difficulty was great; I had
+no man here who was fit, or who would have cared, to write for me; and I
+had to postpone the visit. So I gave up half-a-day with a groan, went
+down to the priests, arranged for Monday week to go to Malie, and named
+Thursday as my day to lunch with Laupepa. I was sharply ill on
+Wednesday, mail day. But on Thursday I had to trail down and go through
+the dreary business of a feast, in the King's wretched shanty, full in
+view of the President's fine new house; it made my heart burn.
+
+This gave me my chance to arrange a private interview with the king, and
+I decided to ask Mr. Whitmee to be my interpreter. On Friday, being too
+much exhausted to go down, I begged him to come up. He did. I told him
+the heads of what I meant to say; and he not only consented, but said,
+if we got on well with the king, he would even proceed with me to Malie.
+Yesterday, in consequence, I rode down to W.'s house by eight in the
+morning; waited till ten; received a message that the king was stopped
+by a meeting with the president and _faipule_; made another engagement
+for seven at night; came up; went down; waited till eight, and came away
+again, _bredouille_, and a dead body. The poor, weak, enslaved king had
+not dared to come to me even in secret. Now I have to-day for a rest,
+and to-morrow to Malie. Shall I be suffered to embark? It is very
+doubtful; they are on the trail. On Thursday, a policeman came up to me
+and began that a boy had been to see him, and said I was going to see
+Mataafa.--"And what did you say?" said I.--"I told him I did not know
+about where you were going," said he.--"A very good answer," said I, and
+turned away. It is lashing rain to-day, but to-morrow, rain or shine, I
+must at least make the attempt; and I am so weary, and the weather looks
+so bad. I could half wish they would arrest me on the beach. All this
+bother and pother to try and bring a little chance of peace; all this
+opposition and obstinacy in people who remain here by the mere
+forbearance of Mataafa, who has a great force within six miles of their
+government buildings, which are indeed only the residences of white
+officials. To understand how I have been occupied, you must know that
+"Misi Mea" has had another letter, and this time had to answer himself;
+think of doing so in a language so obscure to me, with the aid of a
+Bible, concordance, and dictionary! What a wonderful Baboo compilation
+it must have been! I positively expected to hear news of its arrival in
+Malie by the sound of laughter. I doubt if you will be able to read this
+scrawl, but I have managed to scramble somehow up to date; and
+to-morrow, one way or another, should be interesting. But as for me, I
+am a wreck, as I have no doubt style and handwriting both testify.
+
+8 P.M.--Wonderfully rested; feel almost fit for to-morrow's dreary
+excursion--not that it will be dreary if the weather favour, but
+otherwise it will be death; and a native feast, and I fear I am in for a
+big one, is a thing I loathe. I wonder if you can really conceive me as
+a politician in this extra-mundane sphere--presiding at public meetings,
+drafting proclamations, receiving mis-addressed letters that have been
+carried all night through tropical forests? It seems strange indeed, and
+to you, who know me really, must seem stranger. I do not say I am free
+from the itch of meddling, but God knows this is no tempting job to
+meddle in; I smile at picturesque circumstances like the Misi Mea
+(_Monsieur Chose_ is the exact equivalent) correspondence, but the
+business as a whole bores and revolts me. I do nothing and say nothing;
+and then a day comes, and I say "this can go on no longer."
+
+9.30 P.M.--The wretched native dilatoriness finds me out. News has just
+come that we must embark at six to-morrow; I have divided the night in
+watches, and hope to be called to-morrow at four and get under way by
+five. It is a great chance if it be managed; but I have given directions
+and lent my own clock to the boys, and hope the best. If I get called at
+four we shall do it nicely. Good-night; I must turn in.
+
+_May 3rd._--Well, we did get off by about 5.30, or, by'r lady! quarter
+to six; myself on Donald, the huge grey cart-horse, with a ship-bag
+across my saddle bow, Fanny on Musu and Belle on Jack. We were all
+feeling pretty tired and sick, and I looked like heaven knows what on
+the cart-horse: "death on the pale horse," I suggested--and young Hunt
+the missionary, who met me to-day on the same charger, squinted up at my
+perch and remarked, "There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft."
+The boat was ready and we set off down the lagoon about seven, four
+oars, and Talolo, my cook, steering.
+
+_May 9th_ (_Monday anyway_).--And see what good resolutions came to!
+Here is all this time past, and no speed made. Well, we got to Malie and
+were received with the most friendly consideration by the rebel chief.
+Belle and Fanny were obviously thought to be my two wives; they were
+served their kava together, as were Mataafa and myself. Talolo utterly
+broke down as interpreter; long speeches were made to me by Mataafa and
+his orators, of which he could make nothing but they were "very much
+surprised"--his way of pronouncing obliged--and as he could understand
+nothing that fell from me except the same form of words, the dialogue
+languished and all business had to be laid aside. We had kava,[42] and
+then a dish of arrowroot; one end of the house was screened off for us
+with a fine tapa, and we lay and slept, the three of us, heads and
+tails, upon the mats till dinner. After dinner his illegitimate majesty
+and myself had a walk, and talked as well as my twopenny Samoan would
+admit. Then there was a dance to amuse the ladies before the house, and
+we came back by moonlight, the sky piled full of high faint clouds that
+long preserved some of the radiance of the sunset. The lagoon was very
+shallow; we continually struck, for the moon was young and the light
+baffling; and for a long time we were accompanied by, and passed and
+repassed, a huge whale-boat from Savaii, pulling perhaps twelve oars,
+and containing perhaps forty people who sang in time as they went. So
+to the hotel, where we slept, and returned the next Tuesday morning on
+the three same steeds.
+
+Meanwhile my business was still untransacted. And on Saturday morning, I
+sent down and arranged with Charlie Taylor to go down that afternoon. I
+had scarce got the saddle-bags fixed and had not yet mounted, when the
+rain began. But it was no use delaying now; off I went in a wild
+waterspout to Apia; found Charlie (Salé) Taylor--a sesquipedalian young
+half-caste--not yet ready, had a snack of bread and cheese at the hotel
+while waiting him, and then off to Malie. It rained all the way, seven
+miles; the road, which begins in triumph, dwindles down to a nasty,
+boggy, rocky footpath with weeds up to a horseman's knees; and there are
+eight pig fences to jump, nasty beastly jumps--the next morning we found
+one all messed with blood where a horse had come to grief--but my Jack
+is a clever fencer; and altogether we made good time, and got to Malie
+about dark. It is a village of very fine native houses, high, domed,
+oval buildings, open at the sides, or only closed with slatted
+Venetians. To be sure, Mataafa's is not the worst. It was already quite
+dark within, only a little fire of cocoa-shell blazed in the midst and
+showed us four servants; the chief was in his chapel, whence we heard
+the sound of chaunting. Presently he returned; Taylor and I had our
+soaking clothes changed, family worship was held, kava brewed, I was
+exhibited to the chiefs as a man who had ridden through all that rain
+and risked deportation to serve their master; they were bidden learn my
+face, and remember upon all occasions to help and serve me. Then dinner,
+and politics, and fine speeches until twelve at night--O, and some more
+kava--when I could sit up no longer; my usual bed-time is eight, you
+must remember. Then one end of the house was screened off for me alone,
+and a bed made--you never saw such a couch--I believe of nearly fifty
+(half at least) fine mats, by Mataafa's daughter, Kalala. Here I
+reposed alone; and on the other side of the tapa, Majesty and his
+household. Armed guards and a drummer patrolled about the house all
+night; they had no shift, poor devils; but stood to arms from sun-down
+to sun-up.
+
+About four in the morning, I was awakened by the sound of a whistle pipe
+blown outside on the dark, very softly and to a pleasing simple air; I
+really think I have hit the first phrase:
+
+[Illustration: Andante tranquillo]
+
+It sounded very peaceful, sweet and strange in the dark; and I found
+this was a part of the routine of my rebel's night, and it was done (he
+said) to give good dreams. By a little before six, Taylor and I were in
+the saddle again fasting. My riding boots were so wet I could not get
+them on, so I must ride barefoot. The morning was fair but the roads
+very muddy, the weeds soaked us nearly to the waist, Salé was twice
+spilt at the fences, and we got to Apia a bedraggled enough pair. All
+the way along the coast, the paté (small wooden drum) was beating in the
+villages and the people crowding to the churches in their fine clothes.
+Thence through the mangrove swamp, among the black mud and the green
+mangroves, and the black and scarlet crabs, to Mulinuu, to the doctor's,
+where I had an errand, and so to the inn to breakfast about nine. After
+breakfast I rode home. Conceive such an outing, remember the pallid
+brute that lived in Skerryvore like a weevil in a biscuit, and receive
+the intelligence that I was rather the better for my journey. Twenty
+miles' ride, sixteen fences taken, ten of the miles in a drenching rain,
+seven of them fasting and in the morning chill, and six stricken hours'
+political discussions by an interpreter; to say nothing of sleeping in
+a native house, at which many of our excellent literati would look
+askance of itself.
+
+You are to understand: if I take all this bother, it is not only from a
+sense of duty, or a love of meddling--damn the phrase, take your
+choice--but from a great affection for Mataafa. He is a beautiful, sweet
+old fellow, and he and I grew quite fulsome on Saturday night about our
+sentiments. I had a messenger from him to-day with a flannel undershirt
+which I had left behind like a gibbering idiot; and perpetrated in reply
+another Baboo letter. It rains again to-day without mercy; blessed,
+welcome rains, making up for the paucity of the late wet season; and
+when the showers slacken, I can hear my stream roaring in the hollow,
+and tell myself that the cacaos are drinking deep. I am desperately
+hunted to finish my Samoa book before the mail goes; this last chapter
+is equally delicate and necessary. The prayers of the congregation are
+requested. Eheu! and it will be ended before this letter leaves and
+printed in the States ere you can read this scribble. The first dinner
+gong has sounded; _je vous salue, monsieur et cher confrčre. Tofa,
+soifua!_ Sleep! long life! as our Samoan salutation of farewell runs.
+
+_Friday, May_ 13_th._--Well, the last chapter, by far the most difficult
+and ungrateful, is well under way, I have been from six to seven hours
+upon it daily since I last wrote; and that is all I have done forbye
+working at Samoan rather hard, and going down on Wednesday evening to
+the club. I make some progress now at the language; I am teaching Belle,
+which clears and exercises myself. I am particularly taken with the
+_finesse_ of the pronouns. The pronouns are all dual and plural, and the
+first person, both in the dual and plural, has a special exclusive and
+inclusive form. You can conceive what fine effects of precision and
+distinction can be reached in certain cases. Take Ruth, i. _vv._ 8 to
+13, and imagine how those pronouns come in; it is exquisitely elegant,
+and makes the mouth of the _littérateur_ to water. I am going to
+exercitate my pupil over those verses to-day for pronoun practice.
+
+_Tuesday._--Yesterday came yours. Well, well, if the dears prefer a
+week, why, I'll give them ten days, but the real document, from which I
+have scarcely varied, ran for one night.[43] I think you seem scarcely
+fair to Wiltshire, who had surely, under his beast-ignorant ways, right
+noble qualities. And I think perhaps you scarce do justice to the fact
+that this is a place of realism _ŕ outrance_; nothing extenuated or
+coloured. Looked at so, is it not, with all its tragic features,
+wonderfully idyllic, with great beauty of scene and circumstance? And
+will you please to observe that almost all that is ugly is in the
+whites? I'll apologise for Papa Randal if you like; but if I told you
+the whole truth--for I did extenuate there!--and he seemed to me
+essential as a figure, and essential as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire's
+disgust for him being one of the small, efficient motives in the story.
+Now it would have taken a fairish dose to disgust Wiltshire.--Again, the
+idea of publishing the _Beach_ substantively is dropped--at once, both
+on account of expostulation, and because it measured shorter than I had
+expected. And it was only taken up, when the proposed volume, _Beach de
+Mar_, petered out. It petered out thus: the chief of the short stories
+got sucked into _Sophia Scarlet_--and _Sophia_ is a book I am much taken
+with, and mean to get to, as soon as--but not before--I have done _David
+Balfour_ and _The Young Chevalier_. So you see you are like to hear no
+more of the Pacific or the nineteenth century for a while. _The Young
+Chevalier_ is a story of sentiment and passion, which I mean to write a
+little differently from what I have been doing--if I can hit the key;
+rather more of a sentimental tremolo to it. It may thus help to prepare
+me for _Sophia_, which is to contain three ladies, and a kind of a love
+affair between the heroine and a dying planter who is a poet! large
+orders for R. L. S.
+
+O the German taboo is quite over; no soul attempts to support the C. J.
+or the President, they are past hope; the whites have just refused their
+taxes--I mean the council has refused to call for them, and if the
+council consented, nobody would pay; 'tis a farce, and the curtain is
+going to fall briefly. Consequently in my History, I say as little as
+may be of the two dwindling stars. Poor devils! I liked the one, and the
+other has a little wife, now lying in! There was no man born with so
+little animosity as I. When I heard the C. J. was in low spirits and
+never left his house, I could scarce refrain from going to him.
+
+It was a fine feeling to have finished the History; there ought to be a
+future state to reward that grind! It's not literature, you know; only
+journalism, and pedantic journalism. I had but the one desire, to get
+the thing as right as might be, and avoid false concords--even if that!
+And it was more than there was time for. However, there it is: done. And
+if Samoa turns up again, my book has to be counted with, being the only
+narrative extant. Milton and I--if you kindly excuse the
+juxtaposition--harnessed ourselves to strange waggons, and I at least
+will be found to have plodded very soberly with my load. There is not
+even a good sentence in it, but perhaps--I don't know--it may be found
+an honest, clear volume.
+
+_Wednesday._--Never got a word set down, and continues on Thursday, 19th
+May, his own marriage day as ever was. News; yes. The C. J. came up to
+call on us! After five months' cessation on my side, and a decidedly
+painful interchange of letters, I could not go down--_could_ not--to see
+him. My three ladies received him, however; he was very agreeable as
+usual, but refused wine, beer, water, lemonade, chocolate, and at last a
+cigarette. Then my wife asked him, "So you refuse to break bread?" and
+he waved his hands amiably in answer. All my three ladies received the
+same impression that he had serious matters in his mind: now we hear he
+is quite cock-a-hoop since the mail came, and going about as before his
+troubles darkened. But what did he want with me? 'Tis thought he had
+received a despatch--and that he misreads it (so we fully believe) to
+the effect that they are to have war ships at command and can make their
+little war after all. If it be so, and they do it, it will be the
+meanest wanton slaughter of poor men for the salaries of two white
+failures. But what was his errand with me? Perhaps to warn me that
+unless I behave he now hopes to be able to pack me off in the _Curaçoa_
+when she comes.
+
+I have celebrated my holiday from _Samoa_ by a plunge at the beginning
+of _The Young Chevalier_. I am afraid my touch is a little broad in a
+love story; I can't mean one thing and write another. As for women, I am
+no more in any fear of them; I can do a sort all right; age makes me
+less afraid of a petticoat, but I am a little in fear of grossness.
+However, this David Balfour's love affair, that's all right--might be
+read out to a mother's meeting--or a daughters' meeting. The difficulty
+in a love yarn, which dwells at all on love, is the dwelling on one
+string; it is manifold, I grant, but the root fact is there unchanged,
+and the sentiment being very intense, and already very much handled in
+letters, positively calls for a little pawing and gracing. With a writer
+of my prosaic literalness and pertinency of point of view, this all
+shoves toward grossness--positively even toward the far more damnable
+_closeness_. This has kept me off the sentiment hitherto, and now I am
+to try: Lord! Of course Meredith can do it, and so could Shakespeare;
+but with all my romance, I am a realist and a prosaist, and a most
+fanatical lover of plain physical sensations plainly and expressly
+rendered; hence my perils. To do love in the same spirit as I did (for
+instance) D. Balfour's fatigue in the heather; my dear sir, there were
+grossness--ready made! And hence, how to sugar? However, I have nearly
+done with Marie-Madeleine, and am in good hopes of Marie-Salomé, the
+real heroine; the other is only a prologuial heroine to introduce the
+hero.
+
+_Friday._--Anyway, the first prologuial episode is done, and Fanny likes
+it. There are only four characters: Francis Blair of Balmile (Jacobite
+Lord Gladsmuir) my hero; the Master of Ballantrae; Paradou, a
+wine-seller of Avignon; Marie-Madeleine his wife. These two last I am
+now done with, and I think they are successful, and I hope I have
+Balmile on his feet; and the style seems to be found. It is a little
+charged and violent; sins on the side of violence; but I think will
+carry the tale. I think it is a good idea so to introduce my hero, being
+made love to by an episodic woman. This queer tale--I mean queer for
+me--has taken a great hold upon me. Where the devil shall I go next?
+This is simply the tale of a _coup de tęte_ of a young man and a young
+woman; with a nearly, perhaps a wholly, tragic sequel, which I desire to
+make thinkable right through, and sensible; to make the reader, as far
+as I shall be able, eat and drink and breathe it. Marie-Salomé des
+Saintes-Maries is, I think, the heroine's name; she has got to _be_ yet:
+_sursum corda_! So has the young Chevalier, whom I have not yet touched,
+and who comes next in order. Characters: Balmile, or Lord Gladsmuir,
+_comme vous voulez_; Prince Charlie; Earl Marischal; Master of
+Ballantrae; and a spy, and Dr. Archie Campbell, and a few nondescripts;
+then, of women, Marie-Salomé and Flora Blair; seven at the outside;
+really four full lengths, and I suppose a half-dozen episodic profiles.
+How I must bore you with these ineptitudes! Have patience. I am going to
+bed; it is (of all hours) eleven. I have been forced in (since I began
+to write to you) to blatter to Fanny on the subject of my heroine, there
+being two _cruces_ as to her life and history: how came she alone? and
+how far did she go with the Chevalier? The second must answer itself
+when I get near enough to see. The first is a back-breaker. Yet I know
+there are many reasons why a _fille de famille_, romantic, adventurous,
+ambitious, innocent of the world, might run from her home in these days;
+might she not have been threatened with a convent? might there not be
+some Huguenot business mixed in? Here am I, far from books; if you can
+help me with a suggestion, I shall say God bless you. She has to be new
+run away from a strict family, well-justified in her own wild but honest
+eyes, and meeting these three men, Charles Edward, Marischal, and
+Balmile, through the accident of a fire at an inn. She must not run from
+a marriage, I think; it would bring her in the wrong frame of mind. Once
+I can get her, _sola_, on the highway, all were well with my narrative.
+Perpend. And help if you can.
+
+Lafaele, long (I hope) familiar to you, has this day received the visit
+of his _son_ from Tonga; and the _son_ proves to be a very pretty,
+attractive young daughter! I gave all the boys kava in honour of her
+arrival; along with a lean, side-whiskered Tongan, dimly supposed to be
+Lafaele's step-father; and they have been having a good time; in the end
+of my verandah, I hear Simi, my present incapable steward, talking
+Tongan with the nondescript papa. Simi, our out-door boy, burst a
+succession of blood-vessels over our work, and I had to make a position
+for the wreck of one of the noblest figures of a man I ever saw. I
+believe I may have mentioned the other day how I had to put my horse to
+the trot, the canter and (at last) the gallop to run him down. In a
+photograph I hope to send you (perhaps with this) you will see Simi
+standing in the verandah in profile. As a steward, one of his chief
+points is to break crystal; he is great on fracture--what do I
+say?--explosion! He cleans a glass, and the shards scatter like a
+comet's bowels.
+
+_N.B._--If I should by any chance be deported, the first of the rules
+hung up for that occasion is to communicate with you by
+telegraph.--Mind, I do not fear it, but it _is_ possible.
+
+_Monday, 25th._--We have had a devil of a morning of upset and bustle;
+the bronze candlestick Faauma has returned to the family, in time to
+take her position of step-mamma, and it is pretty to see how the child
+is at once at home, and all her terrors ended.
+
+_27th. Mail day._--And I don't know that I have much to report. I may
+have to leave for Malie as soon as these mail packets are made up. 'Tis
+a necessity (if it be one) I rather deplore. I think I should have liked
+to lazy; but I dare say all it means is the delay of a day or so in
+harking back to David Balfour; that respectable youth chides at being
+left (where he is now) in Glasgow with the Lord Advocate, and after five
+years in the British Linen, who shall blame him? I was all forenoon
+yesterday down in Apia, dictating, and Lloyd typewriting, the conclusion
+of _Samoa_; and then at home correcting till the dinner bell; and in the
+evening again till eleven of the clock. This morning I have made up most
+of my packets, and I think my mail is all ready but two more, and the
+tag of this. I would never deny (as D. B. might say) that I was rather
+tired of it. But I have a damned good dose of the devil in my pipe-stem
+atomy; I have had my little holiday outing in my kick at _The Young
+Chevalier_, and I guess I can settle to _David Balfour_ to-morrow or
+Friday like a little man. I wonder if any one had ever more energy upon
+so little strength?--I know there is a frost; the Samoa book can only
+increase that--I can't help it, that book is not written for me but for
+Miss Manners; but I mean to break that frost inside two years, and pull
+off a big success, and Vanity whispers in my ear that I have the
+strength. If I haven't, whistle ower the lave o't! I can do without
+glory and perhaps the time is not far off when I can do without coin. It
+is a time coming soon enough, anyway; and I have endured some two and
+forty years without public shame, and had a good time as I did it. If
+only I could secure a violent death, what a fine success! I wish to die
+in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be
+shot, to be thrown from a horse--ay, to be hanged, rather than pass
+again through that slow dissolution.
+
+I fancy this gloomy ramble is caused by a twinge of age; I put on an
+under-shirt yesterday (it was the only one I could find) that barely
+came under my trousers; and just below it, a fine healthy rheumatism has
+now settled like a fire in my hip. From such small causes do these
+valuable considerations flow!
+
+I shall now say adieu, dear Sir, having ten rugged miles before me and
+the horrors of a native feast and parliament without an interpreter, for
+to-day I go alone.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+  Describing a family expedition to visit Mataafa at Malie.
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Sunday, 29th May [1892]._
+
+How am I to overtake events? On Wednesday, as soon as my mail was
+finished, I had a wild whirl to look forward to. Immediately after
+dinner, Belle, Lloyd, and I set out on horseback, they to the club, I to
+Haggard's, thence to the hotel, where I had supper ready for them. All
+next day we hung round Apia with our whole house-crowd in Sunday array,
+hoping for the mail steamer with a menagerie on board. No such luck; the
+ship delayed; and at last, about three, I had to send them home again, a
+failure of a day's pleasuring that does not bear to be discussed. Lloyd
+was so sickened that he returned the same night to Vailima, Belle and I
+held on, sat most of the evening on the hotel verandah stricken silly
+with fatigue and disappointment, and genuine sorrow for our poor boys
+and girls, and got to bed with rather dismal appreciations of the
+morrow.
+
+These were more than justified, and yet I never had a jollier day than
+Friday 27th. By 7.30 Belle and I had breakfast; we had scarce done
+before my mother was at the door on horseback, and a boy at her heels to
+take her not very dashing charger home again. By 8.10 we were all on the
+landing pier, and it was 9.20 before we had got away in a boat with two
+inches of green wood on the keel of her, no rudder, no mast, no sail, no
+boat flag, two defective rowlocks, two wretched apologies for oars, and
+two boys--one a Tongan half-caste, one a white lad, son of the Tonga
+schoolmaster, and a sailor lad--to pull us. All this was our first taste
+of the tender mercies of Taylor (the sesquipedalian half-caste
+introduced two letters back, I believe). We had scarce got round Mulinuu
+when Salé Taylor's heart misgave him; he thought we had missed the tide;
+called a halt, and set off ashore to find canoes. Two were found; in one
+my mother and I were embarked with the two biscuit tins (my present to
+the feast), and the bag with our dry clothes, on which my mother was
+perched--and her cap was on the top of it--feminine hearts please
+sympathise; all under the guidance of Salé. In the other Belle and our
+guest; Tauilo, a chief-woman, the mother of my cook, were to have
+followed. And the boys were to have been left with the boat. But Tauilo
+refused. And the four, Belle, Tauilo, Frank the sailor-boy, and Jimmie
+the Tongan half-caste, set off in the boat across that rapidly shoaling
+bay of the lagoon.
+
+How long the next scene lasted, I could never tell. Salé was always
+trying to steal away with our canoe and leave the other four, probably
+for six hours, in an empty, leaky boat, without so much as an orange or
+a cocoanut on board, and under the direct rays of the sun. I had at last
+to stop him by taking the spare paddle off the outrigger and sticking it
+in the ground--depth, perhaps two feet--width of the bay, say three
+miles. At last I bid him land me and my mother and go back for the other
+ladies. "The coast is so rugged," said Salé.--"What?" I said, "all
+these villages and no landing-place?"--"Such is the nature of Samoans,"
+said he. Well, I'll find a landing-place, I thought; and presently I
+said, "Now we are going to land there."--"We can but try," said the
+bland Salé, with resignation. Never saw a better landing-place in my
+life. Here the boat joined us. My mother and Salé continued in the canoe
+alone, and Belle and I and Tauilo set off on foot for Malie. Tauilo was
+about the size of both of us put together and a piece over; she used us
+like a nurse with children. I had started barefoot; Belle had soon to
+pull off her gala shoes and stockings; the mud was as deep as to our
+knees, and so slippery that (moving, as we did, in Indian file, between
+dense scratching tufts of sensitive) Belle and I had to take hands to
+support each other, and Tauilo was steadying Belle from the rear. You
+can conceive we were got up to kill, Belle in an embroidered white dress
+and white hat, I in a suit of Bedford cords hot from the Sydney tailors;
+and conceive us, below, ink-black to the knees with adhesive clay, and
+above, streaming with heat. I suppose it was better than three miles,
+but at last we made the end of Malie. I asked if we could find no water
+to wash our feet; and our nursemaid guided us to a pool. We sat down on
+the pool side, and our nursemaid washed our feet and legs for us--ladies
+first, I suppose out of a sudden respect to the insane European fancies:
+such a luxury as you can scarce imagine. I felt a new man after it. But
+before we got to the King's house we were sadly muddied once more. It
+was 1 P.M. when we arrived, the canoe having beaten us by about five
+minutes, so we made fair time over our bog-holes.
+
+But the war dances were over, and we came in time to see only the tail
+end (some two hours) of the food presentation. In Mataafa's house three
+chairs were set for us covered with fine mats. Of course, a native house
+without the blinds down is like a verandah. All the green in front was
+surrounded with sheds, some of flapping canvas, some of green palm
+boughs, where (in three sides of a huge oblong) the natives sat by
+villages in a fine glow of many-hued array. There were folks in tapa,
+and folks in patchwork; there was every colour of the rainbow in a spot
+or a cluster; there were men with their heads gilded with powdered
+sandal-wood, others with heads all purple, stuck full of the petals of a
+flower. In the midst there was a growing field of outspread food,
+gradually covering acres; the gifts were brought in, now by chanting
+deputations, now by carriers in a file; they were brandished aloft and
+reclaimed over, with polite sacramental exaggerations, by the official
+receiver. He, a stalwart, well-oiled quadragenarian, shone with sweat
+from his exertions, brandishing cooked pigs. At intervals, from one of
+the squatted villages, an orator would arise. The field was almost
+beyond the reach of any human speaking voice; the proceedings besides
+continued in the midst; yet it was possible to catch snatches of this
+elaborate and cut-and-dry oratory--it was possible for me, for instance,
+to catch the description of my gift and myself as the _alii Tusitala, O
+le alii o malo tetele_--the chief Write Information, the chief of the
+great Governments. Gay designation? In the house, in our three curule
+chairs, we sat and looked on. On our left a little group of the family.
+In front of us, at our feet, an ancient Talking-man, crowned with green
+leaves, his profile almost exactly Dante's; Popo his name. He had
+worshipped idols in his youth; he had been full grown before the first
+missionary came hither from Tahiti; this makes him over eighty. Near by
+him sat his son and colleague. In the group on our left, his little
+grandchild sat with her legs crossed and her hands turned, the model
+already (at some three years old) of Samoan etiquette. Still further off
+to our right, Mataafa sat on the ground through all the business; and
+still I saw his lips moving, and the beads of his rosary slip stealthily
+through his hand. We had kava, and the King's drinking was hailed by the
+Popos (father and son) with a singular ululation, perfectly new to my
+ears; it means, to the expert, "Long live Tuiatua"; to the inexpert, is
+a mere voice of barbarous wolves. We had dinner, retired a bit behind
+the central pillar of the house; and, when the King was done eating, the
+ululation was repeated. I had my eyes on Mataafa's face, and I saw pride
+and gratified ambition spring to life there and be instantly sucked in
+again. It was the first time, since the difference with Laupepa, that
+Popo and his son had openly joined him, and given him the due cry as
+Tuiatua--one of the eight royal names of the islands, as I hope you will
+know before this reaches you.
+
+Not long after we had dined, the food-bringing was over. The gifts
+(carefully noted and tallied as they came in) were now announced by a
+humorous orator, who convulsed the audience, introducing singing notes,
+now on the name of the article, now on the number; six thousand odd
+heads of taro, three hundred and nineteen cooked pigs; and one thing
+that particularly caught me (by good luck), a single turtle "for the
+king"--_le tasi mo le tupu_. Then came one of the strangest sights I
+have yet witnessed. The two most important persons there (bar Mataafa)
+were Popo and his son. They rose, holding their long shod rods of
+talking men, passed forth from the house, broke into a strange dance,
+the father capering with outstretched arms and rod, the son crouching
+and gambolling beside him in a manner indescribable, and presently began
+to extend the circle of this dance among the acres of cooked food.
+_Whatever they leaped over, whatever they called for, became theirs._ To
+see medićval Dante thus demean himself struck a kind of a chill of
+incongruity into our Philistine souls; but even in a great part of the
+Samoan concourse, these antique and (I understand) quite local manners
+awoke laughter. One of my biscuit tins and a live calf were among the
+spoils he claimed, but the large majority of the cooked food (having
+once proved his dignity) he re-presented to the king.
+
+Then came the turn of _le alii Tusitala_. He would not dance, but he
+was given--five live hens, four gourds of oil, four fine tapas, a
+hundred heads of taro, two cooked pigs, a cooked shark, two or three
+cocoanut branches strung with kava, and the turtle, who soon after
+breathed his last, I believe, from sunstroke. It was a royal present for
+"the chief of the great powers." I should say the gifts were, on the
+proper signal, dragged out of the field of food by a troop of young men,
+all with their lava-lavas kilted almost into a loin-cloth. The art is to
+swoop on the food-field, pick up with unerring swiftness the right
+things and quantities, swoop forth again on the open, and separate,
+leaving the gifts in a new pile: so you may see a covey of birds in a
+corn-field. This reminds me of a very inhumane but beautiful passage I
+had forgotten in its place. The gift-giving was still in full swing,
+when there came a troop of some ninety men all in tapa lava-lavas of a
+purplish colour; they paused, and of a sudden there went up from them
+high into the air a flight of live chickens, which, as they came down
+again, were sent again into the air, for perhaps a minute, from the
+midst of a singular turmoil of flying arms and shouting voices; I assure
+you, it was very beautiful to see, but how many chickens were killed?
+
+No sooner was my food set out than I was to be going. I had a little
+serious talk with Mataafa on the floor, and we went down to the boat,
+where we got our food aboard, such a cargo--like the Swiss Family
+Robinson, we said. However, a squall began, Tauilo refused to let us go,
+and we came back to the house for half an hour or so, when my ladies
+distinguished themselves by walking through a Fono (council), my mother
+actually taking up a position between Mataafa and Popo! It was about
+five when we started--turtle, pigs, taro, etc., my mother, Belle,
+myself, Tauilo, a portly friend of hers with the voice of an angel, and
+a pronunciation so delicate and true that you could follow Samoan as she
+sang, and the two tired boys Frank and Jimmie, with the two bad oars and
+the two slippery rowlocks to impel the whole. Salé Taylor took the
+canoe and a strong Samoan to paddle him. Presently after he went
+inshore, and passed us a little after, with his arms folded, and _two_
+strong Samoans impelling him Apia-ward. This was too much for Belle, who
+hailed, taunted him, and made him return to the boat with one of the
+Samoans, setting Jimmie instead in the canoe. Then began our torment,
+Salé and the Samoan took the oars, sat on the same thwart (where they
+could get no swing on the boat had they tried), and deliberately ladled
+at the lagoon. We lay enchanted. Night fell; there was a light visible
+on shore; it did not move. The two women sang, Belle joining them in the
+hymns she has learned at family worship. Then a squall came up; we sat a
+while in roaring midnight under rivers of rain, and, when it blew by,
+there was the light again, immovable. A second squall followed, one of
+the worst I was ever out in; we could scarce catch our breath in the
+cold, dashing deluge. When it went, we were so cold that the water in
+the bottom of the boat (which I was then baling) seemed like a warm
+footbath in comparison, and Belle and I, who were still barefoot, were
+quite restored by laving in it.
+
+All this time I had kept my temper, and refrained as far as might be
+from any interference, for I saw (in our friend's mulish humour) he
+always contrived to twist it to our disadvantage. But now came the acute
+point. Young Frank now took an oar. He was a little fellow, near as
+frail as myself, and very short; if he weighed nine stone, it was the
+outside; but his blood was up. He took stroke, moved the big Samoan
+forward to bow, and set to work to pull him round in fine style.
+Instantly, a kind of race competition--almost race hatred--sprang up. We
+jeered the Samoan. Salé declared it was the trim of the boat; "if this
+lady was aft" (Tauilo's portly friend) "he would row round Frank." We
+insisted on her coming aft, and Frank still rowed round the Samoan. When
+the Samoan caught a crab (the thing was continual with these wretched
+oars and rowlocks), _we_ shouted and jeered; when Frank caught one, Salé
+and the Samoan jeered and yelled. But anyway the boat moved, and
+presently we got up with Mulinuu, where I finally lost my temper, when I
+found that Salé proposed to go ashore and make a visit--in fact, we all
+three did. It is not worth while going into, but I must give you one
+snatch of the subsequent conversation as we pulled round Apia bay. "This
+Samoan," said Salé, "received seven German bullets in the field of
+Fangalii." "I am delighted to hear it," said Belle. "His brother was
+killed there," pursued Salé; and Belle, prompt as an echo, "Then there
+are no more of the family? how delightful!" Salé was sufficiently
+surprised to change the subject; he began to praise Frank's rowing with
+insufferable condescension: "But it is after all not to be wondered at,"
+said he, "because he has been for some time a sailor. My good man, is it
+three or five years that you have been to sea?" And Frank, in a defiant
+shout: "Two!" Whereupon, so high did the ill-feeling run, that we three
+clapped and applauded and shouted, so that the President (whose house we
+were then passing) doubtless started at the sounds. It was nine when we
+got to the hotel; at first no food was to be found, but we skirmished up
+some bread and cheese and beer and brandy; and (having changed our wet
+clothes for the rather less wet in our bags) supped on the verandah.
+
+On Saturday, 28th, I was wakened about 6.30, long past my usual hour, by
+a benevolent passer-by. My turtle lay on the verandah at my door, and
+the man woke me to tell me it was dead, as it had been when we put it on
+board the day before. All morning I ran the gauntlet of men and women
+coming up to me: "Mr. Stevenson, your turtle is dead." I gave half of it
+to the hotel keeper, so that his cook should cut it up; and we got a
+damaged shell, and two splendid meals, beefsteak one day and soup the
+next. The horses came for us about 9.30. It was waterspouting; we were
+drenched before we got out of the town; the road was a fine going
+Highland trout stream; it thundered deep and frequent, and my mother's
+horse would not better on a walk. At last she took pity on us, and very
+nobly proposed that Belle and I should ride ahead. We were mighty glad
+to do so, for we were cold. Presently, I said I should ride back for my
+mother, but it thundered again; Belle is afraid of thunder, and I
+decided to see her through the forest before I returned for my other
+hen--I may say, my other wet hen. About the middle of the wood, where it
+is roughest and steepest, we met three pack-horses with barrels of
+lime-juice. I piloted Belle past these--it is not very easy in such a
+road--and then passed them again myself, to pilot my mother. This
+effected, it began to thunder again, so I rode on hard after Belle. When
+I caught up with her, she was singing Samoan hymns to support her
+terrors! We were all back, changed, and at table by lunch time, 11 A.M.
+Nor have any of us been the worse for it sin-syne. That is pretty good
+for a woman of my mother's age and an invalid of my standing; above all,
+as Tauilo was laid up with a bad cold, probably increased by rage.
+
+_Friday, 3rd June._--On Wednesday the club could not be held, and I must
+ride down town and to and fro all afternoon delivering messages, then
+dined and rode up by the young moon. I had plenty news when I got back;
+there is great talk in town of my deportation: it is thought they have
+written home to Downing Street requesting my removal, which leaves me
+not much alarmed; what I do rather expect is that H. J. Moors and I may
+be haled up before the C. J. to stand a trial for _lčse_-majesty. Well,
+we'll try and live it through.
+
+The rest of my history since Monday has been unadulterated _David
+Balfour_. In season and out of season, night and day, David and his
+innocent harem--let me be just, he never has more than the two--are on
+my mind. Think of David Balfour with a pair of fair ladies--very nice
+ones too--hanging round him. I really believe David is as good a
+character as anybody has a right to ask for in a novel. I have finished
+drafting Chapter XX. to-day, and feel it all ready to froth when the
+spigot is turned.
+
+O, I forgot--and do forget. What did I mean? A waft of cloud has fallen
+on my mind, and I will write no more.
+
+_Wednesday, I believe, 8th June._--Lots of David, and lots of David, and
+the devil any other news. Yesterday we were startled by great guns
+firing a salute, and to-day Whitmee (missionary) rode up to lunch, and
+we learned it was the _Curaçoa_ come in, the ship (according to rumour)
+in which I was to be deported. I went down to meet my fate, and the
+captain is to dine with me Saturday, so I guess I am not going this
+voyage. Even with the particularity with which I write to you, how much
+of my life goes unexpressed; my troubles with a madman by the name of
+----, a genuine living lunatic, I believe, and jolly dangerous; my
+troubles about poor ----, all these have dropped out; yet for moments
+they were very instant, and one of them is always present with me.
+
+I have finished copying Chapter XXI. of David--"_solus cum sola_; we
+travel together." Chapter XXII., "_Solus cum sola_; we keep house
+together," is already drafted. To the end of XXI. makes more than 150
+pages of my manuscript--damn this hair--and I only designed the book to
+run to about 200; but when you introduce the female sect, a book does
+run away with you. I am very curious to see what you will think of my
+two girls. My own opinion is quite clear; I am in love with both. I
+foresee a few pleasant years of spiritual flirtations. The creator (if I
+may name myself, for the sake of argument, by such a name) is
+essentially unfaithful. For the duration of the two chapters in which I
+dealt with Miss Grant, I totally forgot my heroine, and even--but this
+is a flat secret--tried to win away David. I think I must try some day
+to marry Miss Grant. I'm blest if I don't think I've got that hair out!
+which seems triumph enough; so I conclude.
+
+_Tuesday._--Your infinitesimal correspondence has reached me, and I have
+the honour to refer to it with scorn. It contains only one statement of
+conceivable interest, that your health is better; the rest is null, and
+so far as disquisitory unsound. I am all right, but David Balfour is
+ailing; this came from my visit to the man-of-war, where I had a cup of
+tea, and the most of that night walked the verandah with extraordinary
+convictions of guilt and ruin, many of which (but not all) proved to
+have fled with the day, taking David along with them; he R.I.P. in
+Chapter XXII.
+
+On Saturday I went down to the town, and fetched up Captain Gibson to
+dinner; Sunday I was all day at Samoa, and had a pile of visitors.
+Yesterday got my mail, including your despicable sheet; was fooled with
+a visit from the high chief Asi, went down at 4 P.M. to my Samoan lesson
+from Whitmee--I think I shall learn from him, he does not fool me with
+cockshot rules that are demolished next day, but professes ignorance
+like a man; the truth is, the grammar has still to be expiscated--dined
+with Haggard, and got home about nine.
+
+_Wednesday._--The excellent Clarke up here almost all day yesterday, a
+man I esteem and like to the soles of his boots; I prefer him to any one
+in Samoa, and to most people in the world; a real good missionary, with
+the inestimable advantage of having grown up a layman. Pity they all
+can't get that! It recalls my old proposal, which delighted Lady Taylor
+so much, that every divinity student should be thirty years old at least
+before he was admitted. Boys switched out of college into a pulpit, what
+chance have they? That any should do well amazes me, and the most are
+just what was to be expected.
+
+_Saturday._--I must tell you of our feast. It was long promised to the
+boys, and came off yesterday in one of their new houses. My good Simelé
+arrived from Savaii that morning asking for political advice; then we
+had Tauilo; Elena's father, a talking man of Tauilo's family; Talolo's
+cousin; and a boy of Simelé's family, who attended on his dignity; then
+Metu, the meat-man--you have never heard of him, but he is a great
+person in our household--brought a lady and a boy--and there was another
+infant--eight guests in all. And we sat down thirty strong. You should
+have seen our procession, going (about two o'clock), all in our best
+clothes, to the hall of feasting! All in our Sunday's best. The new
+house had been hurriedly finished; the rafters decorated with flowers;
+the floor spread, native style, with green leaves; we had given a big
+porker, twenty-five pounds of fresh beef, a tin of biscuit, cocoanuts,
+etc. Our places were all arranged with much care; the native ladies of
+the house facing our party; the sides filled up by the men; the guests,
+please observe: the two chief people, male and female, were placed with
+our family, the rest between S. and the native ladies. After the feast
+was over, we had kava, and the calling of the kava was a very elaborate
+affair, and I thought had like to have made Simelé very angry; he is
+really a considerable chief, but he and Tauilo were not called till
+after all our family, _and the guests_, I suppose the principle being
+that he was still regarded as one of the household. I forgot to say that
+our black boy did not turn up when the feast was ready. Off went the two
+cooks, found him, decorated him with huge red hibiscus flowers--he was
+in a very dirty undershirt--brought him back between them like a
+reluctant maid, and thrust him into a place between Faauma and Elena,
+where he was petted and ministered to. When his turn came in the kava
+drinking--and you may be sure, in their contemptuous, affectionate
+kindness for him, as for a good dog, it came rather earlier than it
+ought--he was cried under a new name. _Aleki_ is what they make of his
+own name Arrick; but instead of {the cup of / "le ipu a} Aleki!" it was
+called "le ipu a _Vailima_," and it was explained that he had "taken his
+chief-name"! a jest at which the plantation still laughs. Kava done, I
+made a little speech, Henry translating. If I had been well, I should
+have alluded to all, but I was scarce able to sit up; so only alluded to
+my guest of all this month, the Tongan, Tomas, and to Simelé, partly for
+the jest of making him translate compliments to himself. The talking man
+replied with many handsome compliments to me, in the usual flood of
+Samoan fluent neatness; and we left them to an afternoon of singing and
+dancing. Must stop now, as my right hand is very bad again. I am trying
+to write with my left.
+
+_Sunday._--About half-past eight last night, I had gone to my own room,
+Fanny and Lloyd were in Fanny's, every one else in bed, only two boys on
+the premises--the two little brown boys Mitaiele (Michael), age I
+suppose 11 or 12, and the new steward, a Wallis islander, speaking no
+English and about fifty words of Samoan, recently promoted from the bush
+work, and a most good, anxious, timid lad of 15 or 16--looks like 17 or
+18, of course--they grow fast here. In comes Mitaiele to Lloyd, and told
+some rigmarole about Paatalise (the steward's name) wanting to go and
+see his family in the bush.--"But he has no family in the bush," said
+Lloyd. "No," said Mitaiele. They went to the boy's bed (they sleep in
+the walled-in compartment of the verandah, once my dressing-room) and
+called at once for me. He lay like one asleep, talking in drowsy tones
+but without excitement, and at times "cheeping" like a frightened mouse;
+he was quite cool to the touch, and his pulse not fast; his breathing
+seemed wholly ventral; the bust still, the belly moving strongly.
+Presently he got from his bed, and ran for the door, with his head down
+not three feet from the floor and his body all on a stretch forward,
+like a striking snake: I say "ran," but this strange movement was not
+swift. Lloyd and I mastered him and got him back in bed. Soon there was
+another and more desperate attempt to escape, in which Lloyd had his
+ring broken. Then we bound him to the bed humanely with sheets, ropes,
+boards, and pillows. He lay there and sometimes talked, sometimes
+whispered, sometimes wept like an angry child; his principal word was
+"Faamolemole"--"Please"--and he kept telling us at intervals that his
+family were calling him. During this interval, by the special grace of
+God, my boys came home; we had already called in Arrick, the black boy;
+now we had that Hercules, Lafaele, and a man Savea, who comes from
+Paatalise's own island and can alone communicate with him freely. Lloyd
+went to bed, I took the first watch, and sat in my room reading, while
+Lafaele and Arrick watched the madman. Suddenly Arrick called me; I ran
+into the verandah; there was Paatalise free of all his bonds and Lafaele
+holding him. To tell what followed is impossible. We were five people at
+him--Lafaele and Savea, very strong men, Lloyd, I and Arrick, and the
+struggle lasted until 1 A.M. before we had him bound. One detail for a
+specimen: Lloyd and I had charge of one leg, we were both sitting on it
+and lo! we were both tossed into the air--I, I dare say, a couple of
+feet. At last we had him spread-eagled to the iron bedstead, by his
+wrists and ankles, with matted rope; a most inhumane business, but what
+could we do? it was all we could do to manage it even so. The strength
+of the paroxysms had been steadily increasing, and we trembled for the
+next. And now I come to pure Rider Haggard. Lafaele announced that the
+boy was very bad, and he would get "some medicine" which was a family
+secret of his own. Some leaves were brought mysteriously in; chewed,
+placed on the boy's eyes, dropped in his ears (see _Hamlet_) and stuck
+up his nostrils; as he did this, the weird doctor partly smothered the
+patient with his hand; and by about 2 A.M. he was in a deep sleep, and
+from that time he showed no symptom of dementia whatever. The medicine
+(says Lafaele) is principally used for the wholesale slaughter of
+families; he himself feared last night that his dose was fatal; only one
+other person, on this island, knows the secret; and she, Lafaele darkly
+whispers, has abused it. This remarkable tree we must try to identify.
+
+The man-of-war doctor came up to-day, gave us a strait-waistcoat, taught
+us to bandage, examined the boy and saw he was apparently well--he
+insisted on doing his work all morning, poor lad, and when he first came
+down kissed all the family at breakfast! The doctor was greatly excited,
+as may be supposed, about Lafaele's medicine.
+
+_Tuesday._--All yesterday writing my mail by the hand of Belle, to save
+my wrist. This is a great invention, to which I shall stick, if it can
+be managed. We had some alarm about Paatalise, but he slept well all
+night for a benediction. This lunatic asylum exercise has no attractions
+for any of us.
+
+I don't know if I remembered to say how much pleased I was with _Across
+the Plains_ in every way, inside and out, and you and me. The critics
+seem to taste it, too, as well as could be hoped, and I believe it will
+continue to bring me in a few shillings a year for a while. But such
+books pay only indirectly.
+
+To understand the full horror of the mad scene, and how well my boys
+behaved, remember that they _believed P.'s ravings_, they _knew_ that
+his dead family, thirty strong, crowded the front verandah and called on
+him to come to the other world. They _knew_ that his dead brother had
+met him that afternoon in the bush and struck him on both temples. And
+remember! we are fighting the dead, and they had to go out again in the
+black night, which is the dead man's empire. Yet last evening, when I
+thought P. was going to repeat the performance, I sent down for Lafaele,
+who had leave of absence, and he and his wife came up about eight
+o'clock with a lighted brand. These are the things for which I have to
+forgive my old cattle-man his manifold shortcomings; they are heroic--so
+are the shortcomings, to be sure.
+
+It came over me the other day suddenly that this diary of mine to you
+would make good pickings after I am dead, and a man could make some kind
+of a book out of it without much trouble. So, for God's sake, don't lose
+them, and they will prove a piece of provision for my "poor old family,"
+as Simelé calls it.
+
+About my coming to Europe, I get more and more doubtful, and rather
+incline to Ceylon again as place of meeting. I am so absurdly well here
+in the tropics, that it seems like affectation. Yet remember I have
+never once stood Sydney. Anyway, I shall have the money for it all
+ahead, before I think of such a thing.
+
+We had a bowl of punch on your birthday, which my incredible mother
+somehow knew and remembered.
+
+By the time you receive this, my Samoan book will I suppose be out and
+the worst known. If I am burned in effigy for it no more need be said;
+if on the other hand I get off cheap with the authorities, this is to
+say that, supposing a vacancy to occur, I would condescend to accept the
+office of H.B.M.'s consul with parts, pendicles and appurtenances. There
+is a very little work to do except some little entertaining, to which I
+am bound to say my family and in particular the amanuensis who now
+guides the pen look forward with delight; I with manly resignation. The
+real reasons for the step would be three: 1st, possibility of being able
+to do some good, or at least certainty of not being obliged to stand
+always looking on helplessly at what is bad: 2nd, larks for the family:
+3rd, and perhaps not altogether least, a house in town and a boat and a
+boat's crew.[44]
+
+But I find I have left out another reason: 4th, growing desire on the
+part of the old man virulent for anything in the nature of a
+salary--years seem to invest that idea with new beauty.
+
+I sometimes sit and yearn for anything in the nature of an income that
+would come in--mine has all got to be gone and fished for with the
+immortal mind of man. What I want is the income that really comes in of
+itself while all you have to do is just to blossom and exist and sit on
+chairs. Think how beautiful it would be not to have to mind the critics,
+and not even the darkest of the crowd--Sidney Colvin. I should probably
+amuse myself with works that would make your hair curl, if you had any
+left.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO T. W. DOVER
+
+
+   Stevenson's correspondent in this case is an artisan, who had been
+   struck by the truth of a remark in his essay on _Beggars_ that it is
+   only or mainly the poor who habitually give to the poor; and who
+   wrote to ask whether it was from experience that Stevenson knew this.
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa, June 20th, 1892._
+
+SIR,--In reply to your very interesting letter, I cannot fairly say that
+I have ever been poor, or known what it was to want a meal. I have been
+reduced, however, to a very small sum of money, with no apparent
+prospect of increasing it; and at that time I reduced myself to
+practically one meal a day, with the most disgusting consequences to my
+health. At this time I lodged in the house of a working-man, and
+associated much with others. At the same time, from my youth up, I have
+always been a good deal and rather intimately thrown among the
+working-classes, partly as a civil engineer in out-of-the-way places,
+partly from a strong and, I hope, not ill-favoured sentiment of
+curiosity. But the place where, perhaps, I was most struck with the fact
+upon which you comment was the house of a friend, who was exceedingly
+poor, in fact, I may say destitute, and who lived in the attic of a very
+tall house entirely inhabited by persons in varying stages of poverty.
+As he was also in ill-health, I made a habit of passing my afternoon
+with him, and when there it was my part to answer the door. The steady
+procession of people begging, and the expectant and confident manner in
+which they presented themselves, struck me more and more daily; and I
+could not but remember with surprise that though my father lived but a
+few streets away in a fine house, beggars scarce came to the door once a
+fortnight or a month. From that time forward I made it my business to
+inquire, and in the stories which I am very fond of hearing from all
+sorts and conditions of men, learned that in the time of their distress
+it was always from the poor they sought assistance, and almost always
+from the poor they got it.
+
+Trusting I have now satisfactorily answered your question, which I thank
+you for asking, I remain, with sincere compliments,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+     _Vailima, Summer 1892._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--First of all, _you have all the corrections on The
+Wrecker_. I found I had made what I meant and forgotten it, and was so
+careless as not to tell you.
+
+Second, of course, and by all means, charge corrections on the Samoa
+book to me; but there are not near so many as I feared. The Lord hath
+dealt bountifully with me, and I believe all my advisers were amazed to
+see how nearly correct I had got the truck, at least I was. With this
+you will receive the whole revise and a type-written copy of the last
+chapter. And the thing now is Speed, to catch a possible revision of the
+treaty. I believe Cassells are to bring it out, but Baxter knows, and
+the thing has to be crammed through _prestissimo, ŕ la chasseur_.
+
+You mention the belated Barbeys; what about the equally belated Pineros?
+And I hope you will keep your bookshop alive to supplying me
+continuously with the _Saga Library_. I cannot get enough of _Sagas_; I
+wish there were nine thousand; talk about realism!
+
+All seems to flourish with you; I also prosper; none the less for being
+quit of that abhorred task, Samoa. I could give a supper party here were
+there any one to sup. Never was such a disagreeable task, but the thing
+had to be told....
+
+There, I trust I am done with this cursed chapter of my career, bar the
+rotten eggs and broken bottles that may follow, of course. Pray
+remember, speed is now all that can be asked, hoped, or wished. I give
+up all hope of proofs, revises, proof of the map, or sic like; and you
+on your side will try to get it out as reasonably seemly as may be.
+
+Whole Samoa book herewith. Glory be to God.--Yours very sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The following consists of scraps merely, taken from a letter almost
+   entirely occupied with private family affairs.
+
+     _[Vailima] Saturday, 2nd July 1892._
+
+The character of my handwriting is explained, alas! by scrivener's
+cramp. This also explains how long I have let the paper lie plain.
+
+1 P.M.--I was busy copying _David Balfour_ with my left hand--a most
+laborious task--Fanny was down at the native house superintending the
+floor, Lloyd down in Apia, and Belle in her own house cleaning, when I
+heard the latter calling on my name. I ran out on the verandah; and
+there on the lawn beheld my crazy boy with an axe in his hand and
+dressed out in green ferns, dancing. I ran downstairs and found all my
+house boys on the back verandah, watching him through the dining-room. I
+asked what it meant?--"Dance belong his place," they said.--"I think
+this no time to dance," said I. "Has he done his work?"--"No," they told
+me, "away bush all morning." But there they all stayed on the back
+verandah. I went on alone through the dining-room, and bade him stop. He
+did so, shouldered the axe, and began to walk away; but I called him
+back, walked up to him, and took the axe out of his unresisting hands.
+The boy is in all things so good, that I can scarce say I was afraid;
+only I felt it had to be stopped ere he could work himself up by dancing
+to some craziness. Our house boys protested they were not afraid; all I
+know is they were all watching him round the back door and did not
+follow me till I had the axe. As for the out boys, who were working with
+Fanny in the native house, they thought it a very bad business, and made
+no secret of their fears.
+
+_Wednesday, 6th._--I have no account to give of my stewardship these
+days, and there's a day more to account for than mere arithmetic would
+tell you. For we have had two Monday Fourths, to bring us at last on the
+right side of the meridian, having hitherto been an exception in the
+world and kept our private date. Business has filled my hours sans
+intermission.
+
+_Tuesday, 12th._--I am doing no work and my mind is in abeyance. Fanny
+and Belle are sewing-machining in the next room; I have been pulling
+down their hair, and Fanny has been kicking me, and now I am driven out.
+Austin I have been chasing about the verandah; now he has gone to his
+lessons, and I make believe to write to you in despair. But there is
+nothing in my mind; I swim in mere vacancy, my head is like a rotten
+nut; I shall soon have to begin to work again or I shall carry away some
+part of the machinery. I have got your insufficient letter, for which I
+scorn to thank you. I have had no review by Gosse, none by Birrell;
+another time, if I have a letter in the Times, you might send me the
+text as well; also please send me a cricket bat and a cake, and when I
+come home for the holidays, I should like to have a pony.--I am, sir,
+your obedient servant,
+
+     JACOB TONSON.
+
+_P.S._--I am quite well; I hope you are quite well. The world is too
+much with us, and my mother bids me bind my hair and lace my bodice
+blue.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoan Islands, 18th July 1892._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,-- ... I have been now for some time contending with
+powers and principalities, and I have never once seen one of my own
+letters to the Times. So when you see something in the papers that you
+think might interest the exiles of Upolu, do not think twice, out with
+your saxpence, and send it flying to Vailima. Of what you say of the
+past, eh, man, it was a queer time, and awful miserable, but there's no
+sense in denying it was awful fun. Do you mind the youth in highland
+garb and the tableful of coppers? Do you mind the SIGNAL of Waterloo
+Place?--Hey, how the blood stands to the heart at such a memory!--Hae ye
+the notes o't? Gie's them.--Gude's sake, man, gie's the notes o't; I
+mind ye made a tüne o't an' played it on your pinanny; gie's the notes.
+Dear Lord, that past.
+
+Glad to hear Henley's prospects are fair: his new volume is the work of
+a real poet. He is one of those who can make a noise of his own with
+words, and in whom experience strikes an individual note. There is
+perhaps no more genuine poet living, bar the Big Guns. In case I cannot
+overtake an acknowledgment to himself by this mail, please let him hear
+of my pleasure and admiration. How poorly Kipling compares! He is all
+smart journalism and cleverness: it is all bright and shallow and
+limpid, like a business paper--a good one, _s'entend_; but there is no
+blot of heart's blood and the Old Night: there are no harmonics, there
+is scarce harmony to his music; and in Henley--all of these; a touch, a
+sense within sense, a sound outside the sound, the shadow of the
+inscrutable, eloquent beyond all definition. The First London Voluntary
+knocked me wholly.--Ever yours affectionately, my dear Charles,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+Kind memories to your father and all friends.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. E. HENLEY
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa, August 1st, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR HENLEY,--It is impossible to let your new volume pass in
+silence. I have not received the same thrill of poetry since G. M.'s
+_Joy of Earth_ volume and _Love in a Valley_; and I do not know that
+even that was so intimate and deep. Again and again, I take the book
+down, and read, and my blood is fired as it used to be in youth.
+_Andante con moto_ in the _Voluntaries_, and the thing about the trees
+at night (No. XXIV. I think) are up to date my favourites. I did not
+guess you were so great a magician; these are new tunes, this is an
+undertone of the true Apollo; these are not verse, they are
+poetry--inventions, creations, in language. I thank you for the joy you
+have given me, and remain your old friend and present huge admirer,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+The hand is really the hand of Esau, but under a course of threatened
+scrivener's cramp.
+
+For the next edition of the Book of Verses, pray accept an emendation.
+Last three lines of Echoes No. XLIV. read--
+
+  "But life in act? How should the grave
+   Be victor over these,
+   Mother, a mother of men?"
+
+The two vocatives scatter the effect of this inimitable close. If you
+insist on the longer line, equip "grave" with an epithet.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   Accompanying the MS. of the article giving extracts from the record
+   kept by Robert Stevenson the elder of the trip on which Sir Walter
+   Scott sailed in his company on board the Northern Lights yacht:
+   printed in Scribner's Magazine, 1893.
+
+     _Vailima, Upolu, August 1st, '92._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Herewith _My Grandfather_. I have had rather a bad
+time suppressing the old gentleman, who was really in a very garrulous
+stage; as for getting him _in order_, I could do but little towards
+that; however, there are one or two points of interest which may justify
+us in printing. The swinging of his stick and not knowing the sailor of
+Coruiskin, in particular, and the account of how he wrote the lives in
+the Bell Book particularly please me. I hope my own little introduction
+is not egoistic; or rather I do not care if it is. It was that old
+gentleman's blood that brought me to Samoa.
+
+By the by, vols. vii., viii., and ix. of Adams's _History_ have never
+come to hand; no more have the dictionaries.
+
+Please send me _Stonehenge on the Horse_, _Stories and Interludes_ by
+Barry Pain, and _Edinburgh Sketches and Memoirs_ by David Masson. _The
+Wrecker_ has turned up. So far as I have seen, it is very satisfactory,
+but on pp. 548, 549, there has been a devil of a miscarriage. The two
+Latin quotations instead of following each other being separated
+(doubtless for printing considerations) by a line of prose. My
+compliments to the printers; there is doubtless such a thing as good
+printing, but there is such a thing as good sense.
+
+The sequel to _Kidnapped_, _David Balfour_ by name, is about
+three-quarters done and gone to press for serial publication. By what I
+can find out it ought to be through hand with that and ready for volume
+form early next spring.--Yours very sincerely,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO ANDREW LANG
+
+
+   Mr. Andrew Lang had been supplying Stevenson with some books and
+   historical references for his proposed novel _The Young Chevalier_.
+
+     [_Vailima, August 1892._]
+
+MY DEAR LANG,--I knew you would prove a trusty purveyor. The books you
+have sent are admirable. I got the name of my hero out of Brown--Blair
+of Balmyle--Francie Blair. But whether to call the story _Blair of
+Balmyle_, or whether to call it _The Young Chevalier_, I have not yet
+decided. The admirable Cameronian tract--perhaps you will think this a
+cheat--is to be boned into _David Balfour_, where it will fit better,
+and really furnishes me with a desired foothold over a boggy place.
+
+_Later_; no, it won't go in, and I fear I must give up "the idolatrous
+occupant upon the throne," a phrase that overjoyed me beyond expression.
+I am in a deuce of a flutter with politics, which I hate, and in which I
+certainly do not shine; but a fellow cannot stand aside and look on at
+such an exhibition as our government. 'Tain't decent; no gent can hold a
+candle to it. But it's a grind to be interrupted by midnight messengers
+and pass your days writing proclamations (which are never proclaimed)
+and petitions (which ain't petited) and letters to the Times, which it
+makes my jaw yawn to re-read, and all your time have your heart with
+David Balfour; he has just left Glasgow this morning for Edinburgh,
+James More has escaped from the castle; it is far more real to me than
+the Behring Sea or the Baring brothers either--he got the news of James
+More's escape from the Lord Advocate, and started off straight to
+comfort Catriona. You don't know her; she's James More's daughter, and a
+respectable young wumman; the Miss Grants think so--the Lord Advocate's
+daughters--so there can't be anything really wrong. Pretty soon we all
+go to Holland, and be hanged; thence to Dunkirk, and be damned; and the
+tale concludes in Paris, and be Poll-parrotted. This is the last
+authentic news. You are not a real hard-working novelist; not a
+practical novelist; so you don't know the temptation to let your
+characters maunder. Dumas did it, and lived. But it is not war; it ain't
+sportsmanlike, and I have to be stopping their chatter all the time.
+Brown's appendix is great reading.
+
+  My only grief is that I can't
+  Use the idolatrous occupant.
+
+Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+Blessing and praising you for a useful (though idolatrous) occupant of
+Kensington.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
+
+
+   Samoa and the Samoans for children, continued after an eight months'
+   pause.
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, August 14th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--The lean man is exceedingly ashamed of himself,
+and offers his apologies to the little girls in the cellar just above.
+If they will be so good as to knock three times upon the floor, he will
+hear it on the other side of his floor, and will understand that he is
+forgiven. I believe I got you and the children--or rather left you and
+the children--still on the road to the lean man's house. When you get up
+there a great part of the forest has been cleared away. It comes back
+again pretty quick, though not quite so high; but everywhere, except
+where the weeders have been kept busy, young trees have sprouted up, and
+the cattle and the horses cannot be seen as they feed. In this clearing
+there are two or three houses scattered about, and between the two
+biggest I think the little girls in the cellar would first notice a sort
+of thing like a gridiron on legs made of logs and wood. Sometimes it
+has a flag flying on it made of rags of old clothes. It is a fort (so I
+am told) built by the person here who would be much the most interesting
+to the girls in the cellar. This is a young gentleman of eleven years of
+age answering to the name of Austin. It was after reading a book about
+the Red Indians that he thought it more prudent to create this place of
+strength. As the Red Indians are in North America, and this fort seems
+to me a very useless kind of building, I am anxious to hope that the two
+may never be brought together. When Austin is not engaged in building
+forts, nor on his lessons, which are just as annoying to him as other
+children's lessons are to them, he walks sometimes in the bush, and if
+anybody is with him, talks all the time. When he is alone I don't think
+he says anything, and I dare say he feels very lonely and frightened,
+just as the lean man does, at the queer noises and the endless lines of
+the trees. He finds the strangest kinds of seeds, some of them bright
+coloured like lollipops, or really like precious stones; some of them in
+odd cases like tobacco-pouches. He finds and collects all kinds of
+little shells with which the whole ground is scattered, and which,
+though they are the shells of land animals like our snails, are nearly
+of as many shapes and colours as the shells on our sea-beaches. In the
+streams that come running down out of the mountains, and which are all
+as clear and bright as mirror glass, he sees eels and little bright fish
+that sometimes jump together out of the surface of the brook in a little
+knot of silver, and fresh-water prawns which lie close under the stones,
+and can be seen looking up at him with eyes of the colour of a jewel. He
+sees all kinds of beautiful birds, some of them blue and white, some of
+them blue and white and red, and some of them coloured like our pigeons
+at home, and these last the little girls in the cellar may like to know
+live almost entirely on nutmegs as they fall ripe off the trees. Another
+little bird he may sometimes see, as the lean man saw him only this
+morning, a little fellow not so big as a man's hand, exquisitely neat,
+of a pretty bronze black like ladies' shoes, and who sticks up behind
+him (much as a peacock does) his little tail shaped and fluted like a
+scallop shell.
+
+Here are a lot of curious and interesting things that Austin sees round
+him every day; and when I was a child at home in the old country I used
+to play and pretend to myself that I saw things of the same kind. That
+the rooms were full of orange and nutmeg trees, and the cold town
+gardens outside the windows were alive with parrots and with lions. What
+do the little girls in the cellar think that Austin does? He makes
+believe just the other way: he pretends that the strange great trees
+with their broad leaves and slab-sided roots are European oaks; and the
+places on the road up (where you and I and the little girls in the
+cellar have already gone) he calls by old-fashioned, far-away European
+names, just as if you were to call the cellar stair and the corner of
+the next street--if you could only manage to pronounce the names--Upolu
+and Savaii. And so it is with all of us, with Austin and the lean man
+and the little girls in the cellar; wherever we are it is but a stage on
+the way to somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we do it, it
+is only a preparation to do something else that shall be different.
+
+But you must not suppose that Austin does nothing but build forts and
+walk among the woods and swim in the rivers. On the contrary, he is
+sometimes a very busy and useful fellow; and I think the little girls in
+the cellar would have admired him very nearly as much as he admired
+himself if they had seen him setting off on horseback with his hand on
+his hip and his pockets full of letters and orders, at the head of quite
+a procession of huge white cart-horses with pack-saddles, and big brown
+native men with nothing on but gaudy kilts. Mighty well he managed all
+his commissions; and those who saw him ordering and eating his
+single-handed luncheon in the queer little Chinese restaurant on the
+beach declare he looked as if the place, and the town, and the whole
+archipelago belonged to him. But I am not going to let you suppose that
+this great gentleman at the head of all his horses and his men, like the
+King of France in the old rhyme, would be thought much of a dandy on the
+streets of London. On the contrary, if he could be seen there with his
+dirty white cap, and his faded purple shirt, and his little brown breeks
+that do not reach his knees, and the bare shanks below, and the bare
+feet stuck in the stirrup leathers, for he is not quite long enough to
+reach the irons, I am afraid the little boys and girls in your part of
+the town might feel very much inclined to give him a penny in charity.
+So you see that a very, very big man in one place might seem very small
+potatoes in another, just as the king's palace here (of which I told you
+in my last) would be thought rather a poor place of residence by a
+Surrey gipsy. And if you come to that, even the lean man himself, who is
+no end of an important person, if he were picked up from the chair where
+he is now sitting, and slung down, feet foremost, in the neighbourhood
+of Charing Cross, would probably have to escape into the nearest shop,
+or take the consequences of being mobbed. And the ladies of his family,
+who are very pretty ladies, and think themselves uncommonly well-dressed
+for Samoa, would (if the same thing were done to them) be extremely glad
+to get into a cab.
+
+I write to you by the hands of another, because I am threatened again
+with scrivener's cramp. My health is beyond reproach; I wish I could say
+as much for my wife's, which is far from the thing. Give us some news of
+yours, and even when none of us write, do not suppose for a moment that
+we are forgetful of our old gamekeeper. Our prettiest walk, an alley of
+really beautiful green sward which leads through Fanny's garden to the
+river and the bridge and the beginning of the high woods on the
+mountain-side, where the Tapu a fafine (or spirit of the land) has her
+dwelling, and the work-boys fear to go alone, is called by a name that I
+think our gamekeeper has heard before--Adelaide Road.
+
+With much love from all of us to yourself, and all good wishes for your
+future, and the future of the children in the cellar, believe me your
+affectionate friend,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima [August 1892]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--You will have no letter at all this month and it is
+really not my fault. I have been saving my hand as much as possible for
+Davy Balfour; only this morning I was getting on first rate with him,
+when about half-past nine there came a prick in the middle of the ball
+of my thumb, and I had to take to the left hand and two words a minute.
+I fear I slightly exaggerate the speed of my left hand; about a word and
+a half in the minute--which is dispiriting to the last degree. Your last
+letter with the four excellent reviews and the good news about _The
+Wrecker_ was particularly welcome. I have already written to Charles
+Baxter about the volume form appearance of _The Beach of Falesá_. In
+spite of bad thumbs and other interruptions I hope to send to Baxter by
+this mail the whole first part (a good deal more than half) of David
+Balfour ready for press. This is pretty satisfactory, and I think ought
+to put us beyond the reach of financial catastrophe for the year.
+
+A cousin of mine, Graham Balfour, arrived along with your last. It was
+rather a lark. Fanny, Belle and I stayed down at the hotel two nights
+expecting the steamer, and we had seven horses down daily for the party
+and the baggage. These were on one occasion bossed by Austin, age
+eleven. "I'm afraid I cannot do that now," said he in answer to some
+communication, "as I am taking charge of the men here." In the course of
+the forenoon he took "his" men to get their lunch, and had his own by
+himself at the Chinese restaurant. What a day for a boy. The steamer
+came in at last on Saturday morning after breakfast. We three were out
+at the place of anchorage in the hotel boat as she came up, spotting
+rather anxiously for our guest, whom none of us had ever seen. We chose
+out some rather awful cads and tried to make up our mind to them; they
+were the least offensive yet observed among an awful crew of cabin
+passengers; but when the Simon Pure appeared at last upon the scene he
+was as nice a young fellow as you would want. Followed a time of giddy
+glory--one crowded hour of glorious life--when I figured about the deck
+with attendant shemales in the character of _the_ local celebrity, was
+introduced to the least unpresentable of the ruffians on board, dogged
+about the deck by a diminutive Hebrew with a Kodak, the click of which
+kept time to my progress like a pair of castanets, and filled up in the
+Captain's room on iced champagne at 8.30 of God's morning. The Captain
+in question, Cap. Morse, is a great South Sea character, like the side
+of a house and the green-room of a music-hall, but with all the saving
+qualities of the seaman. The celebrity was a great success with this
+untutored observer. He was kind enough to announce that he expected
+(rather with awe) a much more "thoughtful" person; and I think I pleased
+him much with my parting salutation, "Well, Captain, I suppose you and I
+are the two most notorious men in the Pacific." I think it will enable
+you to see the Captain if I tell you that he recited to us in cold blood
+the _words_ of a new comic song; doubtless a tribute to my literary
+character. I had often heard of Captain Morse and always had detested
+all that I was told, and detested the man in confidence, just as you are
+doing; but really he has a wonderful charm of strength, loyalty, and
+simplicity. The whole celebrity business was particularly
+characteristic; the Captain has certainly never read a word of mine; and
+as for the Jew with the Kodak, he had never heard of me till he came on
+board. There was a third admirer who sent messages in to the Captain's
+cabin asking if the Lion would accept a gift of Webster's _Unabridged_.
+I went out to him and signified a manly willingness to accept a gift of
+anything. He stood and bowed before me, his eyes danced with excitement.
+"Mr. Stevenson," he said and his voice trembled, "your name is very well
+known to me. I have been in the publishing line in Canada and I have
+handled many of your works for the trade." "Come," I said, "here's
+genuine appreciation."
+
+From this gaudy scene we descended into the hotel boat with our new
+second cousin, got to horse and returned to Vailima, passing shot of
+Kodak once more on the Nulivae bridge, where the little Jew was posted
+with his little Jew wife, each about three feet six in stature and as
+vulgar as a lodging house clock.
+
+We were just writing this when another passenger from the ship arrived
+up here at Vailima. This is a nice quiet simple blue-eyed little boy of
+Pennsylvania Quaker folk. Threatened with consumption of my sort, he has
+been sent here by his doctor on the strength of my case. I am sure if
+the case be really parallel he could not have been better done by. As we
+had a roast pig for dinner we kept him for that meal; and the rain
+coming on just when the moon should have risen kept him again for the
+night. So you see it is now to-morrow.
+
+Graham Balfour the new cousin and Lloyd are away with Clark the
+Missionary on a school inspecting _malaga_, really perhaps the prettiest
+little bit of opera in real life that can be seen, and made all the
+prettier by the actors being children. I have come to a collapse this
+morning on D.B.: wrote a chapter one way, half re-copied it in another,
+and now stand halting between the two like Buridan's donkey. These sorts
+of cruces always are to me the most insoluble, and I should not wonder
+if D.B. stuck there for a week or two. This is a bother, for I
+understand McClure talks of beginning serial publication in December. If
+this could be managed, what with D.B., the apparent success of _The
+Wrecker_, _Falesá_, and some little pickings from _Across the
+Plains_--not to mention, as quite hopeless, _The History of Samoa_--this
+should be rather a profitable year, as it must be owned it has been
+rather a busy one. The trouble is, if I miss the December publication,
+it may take the devil and all of a time to start another syndicate. I am
+really tempted to curse my conscientiousness. If I hadn't recopied Davie
+he would now be done and dead and buried; and here I am stuck about the
+middle, with an immediate publication threatened and the fear before me
+of having after all to scamp the essential business of the end. At the
+same time, though I love my Davy, I am a little anxious to get on again
+on _The Young Chevalier_. I have in nearly all my works been trying one
+racket: to get out the facts of life as clean and naked and sharp as I
+could manage it. In this other book I want to try and megilp them
+together in an atmosphere of sentiment, and I wonder whether twenty-five
+years of life spent in trying this one thing will not make it impossible
+for me to succeed in the other. However it is the only way to attempt a
+love story. You can't tell any of the facts, and the only chance is to
+paint an atmosphere.
+
+It is a very warm morning--the parrot is asleep on the door (she heard
+her name, and immediately awakened)--and my brains are completely addled
+by having come to grief over Davy.
+
+Hurray! a subject discovered! The parrot is a little white cockatoo of
+the small variety. It belongs to Belle, whom it guards like a watch dog.
+It chanced that when she was sick some months ago I came over and
+administered some medicine. Unnecessary to say Belle bleated, whereupon
+the parrot bounded upon me and buried his neb in my backside. From that
+day on the little wretch attacked me on every possible occasion, usually
+from the rear, though she would also follow me along the verandah and as
+I went downstairs attack my face. This was far from funny. I am a person
+of average courage, but I don't think I was ever more cordially afraid
+of anything than of this miserable atomy, and the deuce of it was that I
+could not but admire her appalling courage and there was no means of
+punishing such a thread-paper creature without destroying it entirely.
+Act II. On Graham's arrival I gave him my room and came out to Lloyd's
+in the lower floor of Belle's--I beg your pardon--the _parrot's_--house.
+The first morning I was to wake Belle early so that breakfast should be
+seen to for our guest. It was a mighty pretty dawn, the birds were
+singing extraordinary strong, all was peace, and there was the damned
+parrot hanging to the knob of Belle's door. Courage, my heart! On I went
+and Cockie buried her bill in the joint of my thumb. I believe that Job
+would have killed that bird; but I was more happily inspired--I caught
+it up and flung it over the verandah as far as I could throw. I must say
+it was violently done, and I looked with some anxiety to see in what
+state of preservation it would alight. Down it came however on its two
+feet, uttered a few oaths in a very modified tone of voice, and set
+forth on the return journey to its mansion. Its wings being cut and its
+gait in walking having been a circumstance apparently not thoroughly
+calculated by its maker, it took about twenty-five minutes to get home
+again. Now here is this remarkable point--that bird has never bitten me
+since. When I have early breakfast she and the cat come down and join
+me, and she sits on the back of my chair. When I am at work with the
+door shut she sits outside and demolishes the door with that same beak
+which was so recently reddened with my heart's blood--and in the evening
+she does her business all over my clothes in the most friendly manner
+in the world. I ought to add a word about the parrot and the cat. Three
+cats were brought by Belle from Sydney. This one alone remains faithful
+and domestic. One of the funniest things I have ever seen was Polly and
+Maud over a piece of bacon. Polly stood on one leg, held the bacon in
+the other, regarded Maudie with a secret and sinister look and very
+slowly and quietly--far too quietly for the word I have to use--gnashed
+her bill at her. Maudie came up quite close; there she stuck--she was
+afraid to come nearer, to go away she was ashamed; and she assisted at
+the final and very deliberate consumption of the bacon, making about as
+poor a figure as a cat can make.
+
+_Next day._--Date totally unknown, or rather it is now known but is
+reserved because it would certainly prove inconsistent with dates
+previously given. I went down about two o'clock in company with a couple
+of chance visitors to Apia. It was smoking hot, not a sign of any wind
+and the sun scorching your face. I found the great Haggard in hourly
+expectation of Lady Jersey, surrounded by crowds of very indifferent
+assistants, and I must honestly say--the only time I ever saw him
+so--cross. He directed my attention to all the new paint, his own
+handiwork he said, and made me visit the bathroom which he has just
+fixed up. I think I never saw a man more miserable and happy at the same
+time. Had some hock and a seltzer, went down town, met Fanny and Belle,
+and so home in time for a magnificent dinner of prawns and an eel cooked
+in oil, both from our own river.
+
+This morning the overseer--the new overseer Mr. Austin Strong--went down
+in charge of the pack-horses and a squad of men, himself riding a white
+horse with extreme dignity and what seemed to onlookers a perhaps
+somewhat theatrical air of command. He returned triumphantly, all his
+commissions apparently executed with success, bringing us a mail--not
+your mail, Colonial ways--and the news of Lady Jersey's arrival and
+reception among flying flags and banging guns.
+
+As soon as I had concluded my flattering description of Polly she bit
+one of my toes to the blood. But put not your trust in shemales, though
+to say the truth she looks more like a Russian colonel.
+
+_Aug. 15th._--On the Saturday night Fanny and I went down to Haggard's
+to dine and be introduced to Lady Jersey. She is there with her daughter
+Lady Margaret and her brother Captain Leigh, a very nice kind of
+glass-in-his-eye kind of fellow. It is to be presumed I made a good
+impression; for the meeting has had a most extraordinary sequel. Fanny
+and I slept in Haggard's billiard room, which happens to be Lloyd's
+bungalow. In the morning she and I breakfasted in the back parts with
+Haggard and Captain Leigh, and it was then arranged that the Captain
+should go with us to Malie on the Tuesday under a false name; so that
+Government House at Sydney might by no possibility be connected with a
+rebel camp. On Sunday afternoon up comes Haggard in a state of huge
+excitement: Lady J. insists on going too, in the character of my cousin;
+I write her a letter under the name of Miss Amelia Balfour, proposing
+the excursion; and this morning up comes a copy of verses from Amelia. I
+wrote to Mataafa announcing that I should bring two cousins instead of
+one, that the second was a lady, unused to Samoan manners, and it would
+be a good thing if she could sleep in another house with Ralala. Sent a
+copy of this to Amelia, and at the same time made all arrangements,
+dating my letter 1745. We shall go on ahead on the Malie Road; she is to
+follow with Haggard and Captain Leigh, and overtake us at the ford of
+the Gasi-gasi, whence Haggard will return and the rest of us pursue our
+way to the rebeldom.
+
+This lark is certainly huge. It is all nonsense that it can be
+concealed; Miss Amelia Balfour will be at once identified with the Queen
+of Sydney, as they call her; and I would not in the least wonder if the
+visit proved the signal of war. With this I have no concern, and the
+thing wholly suits my book and fits my predilections for Samoa. What a
+pity the mail leaves, and I must leave this adventure to be continued in
+our next! But I need scarcely say that all this is deadly private--I
+expect it all to come out, not without explosion; only it must not be
+through me or you. We had a visit yesterday from a person by the name of
+Count Nerli, who is said to be a good painter. Altogether the
+aristocracy clusters thick about us. In which radiant light, as the mail
+must now be really put up, I leave myself until next month,--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY
+
+
+   Following up the last letter, Stevenson here tells the story of the
+   visit paid to Apia by the Countess of Jersey, who had come over from
+   Sydney with her brother Captain Leigh and her young daughter Lady
+   Margaret Villiers. "A warm friendship," writes Lady Jersey, "was the
+   immediate result; we constantly met, either in the hospitable abode
+   of our host Mr. Bazett Haggard, or in Mr. Stevenson's delightful
+   mountain home, and passed many happy hours in riding, walking, and
+   conversation." The previous letter has shown how it was arranged that
+   the party should pay a visit of curiosity to the "rebel king," or
+   more properly the rival claimant to the kingly power, Mataafa, in his
+   camp at Malie, and how Stevenson at once treated the adventure as a
+   chapter out of a Waverley novel. "The wife of the new Governor of New
+   South Wales," writes Lady Jersey on her part, "could not pay such a
+   visit in her own name, so Mr. Stevenson adopted me as his cousin,
+   'Amelia Balfour.' This transparent disguise was congenial to his
+   romantic instincts, and he writes concerning the arrangements made
+   for the expedition, carefully dating his letter 'Aug. 14, 1745.'"
+
+     _August 14, 1745._
+
+To MISS AMELIA BALFOUR--MY DEAR COUSIN,--We are going an expedition to
+leeward on Tuesday morning. If a lady were perhaps to be encountered on
+horseback--say, towards the Gasi-gasi river--about six A.M., I think we
+should have an episode somewhat after the style of the '45. What a
+misfortune, my dear cousin, that you should have arrived while your
+cousin Graham was occupying my only guest-chamber--for Osterley Park is
+not so large in Samoa as it was at home--but happily our friend Haggard
+has found a corner for you!
+
+The King over the Water--the Gasi-gasi water--will be pleased to see the
+clan of Balfour mustering so thick around his standard.
+
+I have (one serious word) been so lucky as to get a really secret
+interpreter, so all is for the best in our little adventure into the
+Waverley Novels.--I am, your affectionate cousin,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+Observe the stealth with which I have blotted my signature, but we must
+be political _ŕ outrance_.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY
+
+
+MY DEAR COUSIN,--I send for your information a copy of my last letter to
+the gentleman in question. 'Tis thought more wise, in consideration of
+the difficulty and peril of the enterprise, that we should leave the
+town in the afternoon, and by several detachments. If you would start
+for a ride with the Master of Haggard and Captain Lockhart of Lee, say
+at three o'clock of the afternoon, you would make some rencounters by
+the wayside which might be agreeable to your political opinions. All
+present will be staunch.
+
+The Master of Haggard might extend his ride a little, and return through
+the marsh and by the nuns' house (I trust that has the proper flavour),
+so as a little to diminish the effect of separation.--I remain your
+affectionate cousin to command,
+
+     O TUSITALA.
+
+_P.S._--It is to be thought this present year of grace will be
+historical.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This letter tells without preface the story of the expedition planned
+   in the preceding.
+
+     [_Vailima, August 1892._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is Friday night, the (I believe) 18th or 20th
+August or September. I shall probably regret to-morrow having written
+you with my own hand like the Apostle Paul. But I am alone over here in
+the workman's house, where I and Belle and Lloyd and Austin are pigging;
+the rest are at cards in the main residence. I have not joined them
+because "belly belong me" has been kicking up, and I have just taken 15
+drops of laudanum.
+
+On Tuesday, the party set out--self in white cap, velvet coat, cords and
+yellow half boots, Belle in a white kind of suit and white cap to match
+mine, Lloyd in white clothes and long yellow boots and a straw hat,
+Graham in khakis and gaiters, Henry (my old overseer) in blue coat and
+black kilt, and the great Lafaele with a big ship-bag on his saddle-bow.
+We left the mail at the P.O., had lunch at the hotel, and about 1.50 set
+out westward to the place of tryst. This was by a little shrunken brook
+in a deep channel of mud, on the far side of which, in a thicket of low
+trees, all full of moths of shadow and butterflies of sun, we lay down
+to await her ladyship. Whisky and water, then a sketch of the encampment
+for which we all posed to Belle, passed off the time until 3.30. Then I
+could hold on no longer. 30 minutes late. Had the secret oozed out? Were
+they arrested? I got my horse, crossed the brook again, and rode hard
+back to the Vaea cross roads, whence I was aware of white clothes
+glancing in the other long straight radius of the quadrant. I turned at
+once to return to the place of tryst; but D. overtook me, and almost
+bore me down, shouting "Ride, ride!" like a hero in a ballad. Lady
+Margaret and he were only come to shew the place; they returned, and the
+rest of our party, reinforced by Captain Leigh and Lady Jersey, set on
+for Malie. The delay was due to D.'s infinite precautions, leading them
+up lanes, by back ways, and then down again to the beach road a hundred
+yards further on.
+
+It was agreed that Lady Jersey existed no more; she was now my cousin
+Amelia Balfour. That relative and I headed the march; she is a charming
+woman, all of us like her extremely after trial on this somewhat rude
+and absurd excursion. And we Amelia'd or Miss Balfour'd her with great
+but intermittent fidelity. When we came to the last village, I sent
+Henry on ahead to warn the King of our approach and amend his
+discretion, if that might be. As he left I heard the villagers asking
+_which was the great lady_? And a little further, at the borders of
+Malie itself, we found the guard making a music of bugles and conches.
+Then I knew the game was up and the secret out. A considerable guard of
+honour, mostly children, accompanied us; but, for our good fortune, we
+had been looked for earlier, and the crowd was gone.
+
+Dinner at the king's; he asked me to say grace, I could think of
+none--never could; Graham suggested _Benedictus Benedicat_, at which I
+leaped. We were nearly done, when old Popo inflicted the Atua howl (of
+which you have heard already) right at Lady Jersey's shoulder. She
+started in fine style.--"There," I said, "we have been giving you a
+chapter of Scott, but this goes beyond the Waverley Novels." After
+dinner, kava. Lady J. was served before me, and the king _drank last_;
+it was the least formal kava I ever saw in that house,--no names called,
+no show of ceremony. All my ladies are well trained, and when Belle
+drained her bowl, the King was pleased to clap his hands. Then he and I
+must retire for our private interview, to another house. He gave me his
+own staff and made me pass before him; and in the interview, which was
+long and delicate, he twice called me _afioga_. Ah, that leaves you
+cold, but I am Samoan enough to have been moved. _Susuga_ is my
+accepted rank; to be called _afioga_--Heavens! what an advance--and it
+leaves Europe cold. But it staggered my Henry. The first time it was
+complicated "lana susuga _ma_ lana afioga--his excellency _and_ his
+majesty" the next time plain Majesty. Henry then begged to interrupt the
+interview and tell who he was--he is a small family chief in Savaii, not
+very small--"I do not wish the king," says he, "to think me a boy from
+Apia." On our return to the palace, we separated. I had asked for the
+ladies to sleep alone--that was understood; but that Tusitala--his
+afioga Tusitala--should go out with the other young men, and not sleep
+with the highborn females of his family--was a doctrine received with
+difficulty. Lloyd and I had one screen, Graham and Leigh another, and we
+slept well.
+
+In the morning I was first abroad before dawn; not very long, already
+there was a stir of birds. A little after, I heard singing from the
+King's chapel--exceeding good--and went across in the hour when the east
+is yellow and the morning bank is breaking up, to hear it nearer. All
+about the chapel, the guards were posted, and all saluted Tusitala. I
+could not refrain from smiling: "So there is a place too," I thought,
+"where sentinels salute me." Mine has been a queer life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Breakfast was rather a protracted business. And that was scarce over
+when we were called to the great house (now finished--recall your
+earlier letters) to see a royal kava. This function is of rare use; I
+know grown Samoans who have never witnessed it. It is, besides, as you
+are to hear, a piece of prehistoric history, crystallised in figures,
+and the facts largely forgotten; an acted hieroglyph. The house is
+really splendid; in the rafters in the midst, two carved and coloured
+model birds are posted; the only thing of the sort I have ever remarked
+in Samoa, the Samoans being literal observers of the second commandment.
+At one side of the egg our party sat. a=Mataafa, b = Lady J., c =
+Belle, d = Tusitala, e =Graham, f = Lloyd, g = Captain Leigh, h = Henry,
+i = Popo. The x's round are the high chiefs, each man in his historical
+position. One side of the house is set apart for the king alone; we were
+allowed there as his guests and Henry as our interpreter. It was a huge
+trial to the lad, when a speech was made to me which he must translate,
+and I made a speech in answer which he had to orate, full-breathed, to
+that big circle; he blushed through his dark skin, but looked and acted
+like a gentleman and a young fellow of sense; then the kava came to the
+king; he poured one drop in libation, drank another, and flung the
+remainder outside the house behind him. Next came the turn of the old
+shapeless stone marked T. It stands for one of the king's titles,
+Tamasoalii; Mataafa is Tamasoalii this day, but cannot drink for it; and
+the stone must first be washed with water, and then have the bowl
+emptied on it. Then--the order I cannot recall--came the turn of y and
+z, two orators of the name of Malietoa; the first took his kava down
+plain, like an ordinary man; the second must be packed to bed under a
+big sheet of tapa, and be massaged by anxious assistants and rise on his
+elbow groaning to drink his cup. W., a great hereditary war man, came
+next; five times the cup-bearers marched up and down the house and
+passed the cup on, five times it was filled and the general's name and
+titles heralded at the bowl, and five times he refused it (after
+examination) as too small. It is said this commemorates a time when
+Malietoa at the head of his army suffered much for want of supplies.
+Then this same military gentleman must _drink_ five cups, one from each
+of the great names: all which took a precious long time. He acted very
+well, haughtily and in a society tone _outlining_ the part. The
+difference was marked when he subsequently made a speech in his own
+character as a plain God-fearing chief. A few more high chiefs, then
+Tusitala; one more, and then Lady Jersey; one more, and then Captain
+Leigh, and so on with the rest of our party--Henry of course excepted.
+You see in public, Lady Jersey followed me--just so far was the secret
+kept.
+
+Then we came home; Belle, Graham, and Lloyd to the Chinaman's, I with
+Lady Jersey, to lunch; so, severally home. Thursday I have forgotten:
+Saturday, I began again on Davie; on Sunday, the Jersey party came up to
+call and carried me to dinner. As I came out, to ride home, the
+search-lights of the _Curaçoa_ were lightening on the horizon from many
+miles away, and next morning she came in. Tuesday was huge fun: a
+reception at Haggard's. All our party dined there; Lloyd and I, in the
+absence of Haggard and Leigh, had to play aide-de-camp and host for
+about twenty minutes, and I presented the population of Apia at random
+but (luck helping) without one mistake. Wednesday we had two middies to
+lunch. Thursday we had Eeles and Hoskyn (lieutenant and doctor--very,
+very nice fellows--simple, good and not the least dull) to dinner.
+Saturday, Graham and I lunched on board; Graham, Belle, Lloyd dined at
+the G.'s; and Austin and the _whole_ of our servants went with them to
+an evening entertainment; the more bold returning by lantern-light.
+Yesterday, Sunday, Belle and I were off by about half past eight, left
+our horses at a public house, and went on board the _Curaçoa_, in the
+wardroom skiff; were entertained in the wardroom; thence on deck to the
+service, which was a great treat; three fiddles and a harmonium and
+excellent choir, and the great ship's company joining: on shore in
+Haggard's big boat to lunch with the party. Thence all together to
+Vailima, where we read aloud a Ouida Romance we have been secretly
+writing; in which Haggard was the hero, and each one of the authors had
+to draw a portrait of him or herself in a Ouida light. Leigh, Lady J.,
+Fanny, R. L. S., Belle and Graham were the authors.
+
+In the midst of this gay life, I have finally recopied two chapters, and
+drafted for the first time three of Davie Balfour. But it is not a life
+that would continue to suit me, and if I have not continued to write to
+you, you will scarce wonder. And to-day we all go down again to dinner,
+and to-morrow they all come up to lunch! The world is too much with us.
+But it now nears an end, to-day already the _Curaçoa_ has sailed; and on
+Saturday or Sunday Lady Jersey will follow them in the mail steamer. I
+am sending you a wire by her hands as far as Sydney, that is to say
+either you or Cassell, about _Falesá_: I will not allow it to be called
+_Uma_ in book form, that is not the logical name of the story. Nor can I
+have the marriage contract omitted; and the thing is full of misprints
+abominable. In the picture, Uma is rot; so is the old man and the negro;
+but Wiltshire is splendid, and Case will do. It seems badly illuminated,
+but this may be printing. How have I seen this first number? Not through
+your attention, guilty one! Lady Jersey had it, and only mentioned it
+yesterday.[45]
+
+I ought to say how much we all like the Jersey party. Leigh is very
+amusing in his way. Lady Margaret is a charming girl. And Lady Jersey is
+in all ways admirable, so unfussy, so plucky, so very kind and gracious.
+My boy Henry was enraptured with the manners of the _Tamaitai Sili_
+(chief lady). Among our other occupations, I did a bit of a supposed
+epic describing our tryst at the ford of the Gasegase; and Belle and I
+made a little book of caricatures and verses about incidents on the
+visit.
+
+_Tuesday._--The wild round of gaiety continues. After I had written to
+you yesterday, the brain being wholly extinct, I played piquet all
+morning with Graham. After lunch down to call on the U.S. consul, hurt
+in a steeplechase; thence back to the new girls' school which Lady J.
+was to open, and where my ladies met me. Lady J. is really an orator,
+with a voice of gold; the rest of us played our unremarked parts;
+missionaries, Haggard, myself, a Samoan chief, holding forth in turn;
+myself with (at least) a golden brevity. Thence, Fanny, Belle, and I to
+town, to our billiard room in Haggard's back garden, where we found
+Lloyd and where Graham joined us. The three men first dressed, with the
+ladies in a corner; and then, to leave them a free field, we went off to
+Haggard and Leigh's quarters, whereafter all to dinner, where our two
+parties, a brother of Colonel Kitchener's, a passing globe-trotter, and
+Clarke the missionary. A very gay evening, with all sorts of chaff and
+mirth, and a moonlit ride home, and to bed before 12.30. And now to-day,
+we have the Jersey-Haggard troupe to lunch, and I must pass the morning
+dressing ship.
+
+_Thursday, Sept. 1st._--I sit to write to you now, 7.15, all the world
+in bed except myself, accounted for, and Belle and Graham, down at
+Haggard's at dinner. Not a leaf is stirring here; but the moon overhead
+(now of a good bigness) is obscured and partly revealed in a whirling
+covey of thin storm-clouds. By Jove, it blows above.
+
+From 8 till 11.15 on Tuesday, I dressed ship, and in particular cleaned
+crystal, my specialty. About 11.30 the guests began to arrive before I
+was dressed, and between while I had written a parody for Lloyd to sing.
+Yesterday, Wednesday, I had to start out about 3 for town, had a long
+interview with the head of the German Firm about some work in my new
+house, got over to Lloyd's billiard-room about six, on the way whither I
+met Fanny and Belle coming down with one Kitchener, a brother of the
+Colonel's. Dined in the billiard-room, discovered we had forgot to order
+oatmeal; whereupon in the moonlit evening, I set forth in my tropical
+array, mess jacket and such, to get the oatmeal, and meet a young fellow
+C.--and not a bad young fellow either, only an idiot--as drunk as
+Croesus. He wept with me, he wept for me; he talked like a bad
+character in an impudently bad farce; I could have laughed aloud to
+hear, and could make you laugh by repeating, but laughter was not
+uppermost.
+
+This morning at about seven, I set off after the lost sheep. I could
+have no horse; all that could be mounted--we have one girth-sore and one
+dead-lame in the establishment--were due at a picnic about 10.30. The
+morning was very wet, and I set off barefoot, with my trousers over my
+knees, and a macintosh. Presently I had to take a side path in the bush;
+missed it; came forth in a great oblong patch of taro solemnly
+surrounded by forest--no soul, no sign, no sound--and as I stood there
+at a loss, suddenly between the showers out broke the note of a
+harmonium and a woman's voice singing an air that I know very well, but
+have (as usual) forgot the name of. 'Twas from a great way off, but
+seemed to fill the world. It was strongly romantic, and gave me a point
+which brought me, by all sorts of forest wading, to an open space of
+palms. These were of all ages, but mostly at that age when the branches
+arch from the ground level, range themselves, with leaves exquisitely
+green. The whole interspace was overgrown with convolvulus, purple,
+yellow and white, often as deep as to my waist, in which I floundered
+aimlessly. The very mountain was invisible from here. The rain came and
+went; now in sunlit April showers, now with the proper tramp and rattle
+of the tropics. All this while I met no sight or sound of man, except
+the voice which was now silent, and a damned pig-fence that headed me
+off at every corner. Do you know barbed wire? Think of a fence of it on
+rotten posts, and you barefoot. But I crossed it at last with my heart
+in my mouth and no harm done. Thence at last to C.'s.: no C. Next place
+I came to was in the zone of woods. They offered me a buggy and set a
+black boy to wash my legs and feet. "Washum legs belong that fellow
+whiteman" was the command. So at last I ran down my son of a gun in the
+hotel, sober, and with no story to tell; penitent, I think. As I sat and
+looked at him, I knew from my inside the biggest truth in life: there is
+only one thing that we cannot forgive, and that is ugliness--_our_
+ugliness. There is no ugliness, no beauty; only that which makes me
+(_ipse_) sicken or rejoice. And poor C. makes me sicken. Yet, according
+to canons, he is not amiss. Home, by buggy and my poor feet, up three
+miles of root, boulder, gravel, and liquid mud, slipping back at every
+step.
+
+_Sunday, Sept. 4th._--Hope you will be able to read a word of the last,
+no joke writing by a bad lantern with a groggy hand and your glasses
+mislaid. Not that the hand is not better, as you see by the absence of
+the amanuensis hitherto. Mail came Friday, and a communication from
+yourself much more decent than usual, for which I thank you. Glad the
+_Wrecker_ should so hum; but Lord, what fools these mortals be!
+
+So far yesterday, the citation being wrung from me by remembrance of
+many reviews. I have now received all _Falesá_, and my admiration for
+that tale rises; I believe it is in some ways my best work; I am pretty
+sure, at least, I have never done anything better than Wiltshire.
+
+_Monday, 13th September 1892._--On Wednesday the Spinsters of Apia gave
+a ball to a select crowd. Fanny, Belle, Lloyd, and I rode down, met
+Haggard by the way and joined company with him. Dinner with Haggard, and
+thence to the ball. The Chief Justice appeared; it was immediately
+remarked, and whispered from one to another, that he and I had the only
+red sashes in the room,--and they were both of the hue of blood, sir,
+blood. He shook hands with myself and all the members of my family. Then
+the cream came, and I found myself in the same set of a quadrille with
+his honour. We dance here in Apia a most fearful and wonderful
+quadrille, I don't know where the devil they fished it from; but it is
+rackety and prancing and embraceatory beyond words; perhaps it is best
+defined in Haggard's expression of a gambado. When I and my great enemy
+found ourselves involved in this gambol, and crossing hands, and kicking
+up, and being embraced almost in common by large and quite respectable
+females, we--or I--tried to preserve some rags of dignity, but not for
+long. The deuce of it is that, personally, I love this man; his eye
+speaks to me, I am pleased in his society. We exchanged a glance, and
+then a grin; the man took me in his confidence; and through the
+remainder of that prance we pranced for each other. Hard to imagine any
+position more ridiculous; a week before he had been trying to rake up
+evidence against me by brow-beating and threatening a half-white
+interpreter; that very morning I had been writing most villainous
+attacks upon him for the Times; and we meet and smile, and--damn
+it!--like each other. I do my best to damn the man and drive him from
+these islands; but the weakness endures--I love him. This is a thing I
+would despise in anybody else; but he is so jolly insidious and
+ingratiating! No, sir, I can't dislike him; but if I don't make hay of
+him, it shall not be for want of trying.
+
+Yesterday, we had two Germans and a young American boy at lunch; and in
+the afternoon, Vailima was in a state of siege; ten white people on the
+front verandah, at least as many brown in the cook-house, and countless
+blacks to see the black boy Arrick.
+
+Which reminds me, Arrick was sent Friday was a week to the German Firm
+with a note, and was not home on time. Lloyd and I were going bedward,
+it was late with a bright moon--ah, poor dog, you know no such moons as
+these!--when home came Arrick with his head in a white bandage and his
+eyes shining. He had had a fight with other blacks, Malaita boys; many
+against one, and one with a knife: "I KNICKED 'EM DOWN, three four!" he
+cried; and had himself to be taken to the doctor's and bandaged. Next
+day, he could not work, glory of battle swelled too high in his
+threadpaper breast; he had made a one-stringed harp for Austin, borrowed
+it, came to Fanny's room, and sang war-songs and danced a war dance in
+honour of his victory. And it appears, by subsequent advices, that it
+was a serious victory enough; four of his assailants went to hospital,
+and one is thought in danger. All Vailima rejoiced at this news.
+
+Five more chapters of David, 22 to 27, go to Baxter. All love affair;
+seems pretty good to me. Will it do for the young person? I don't know:
+since the Beach, I know nothing, except that men are fools and
+hypocrites, and I know less of them than I was fond enough to fancy.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
+
+
+     [_Vailima, August 1892._]
+
+MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,--Thank you a thousand times for your letter. You
+are the Angel of (the sort of) Information (that I care about): I
+appoint you successor to the newspaper press; and I beg of you,
+whenever you wish to gird at the age, or think the bugs out of
+proportion to the roses, or despair, or enjoy any cosmic or epochal
+emotion, to sit down again and write to the Hermit of Samoa. What do I
+think of it all? Well, I love the romantic solemnity of youth; and even
+in this form, although not without laughter, I have to love it still.
+They are such ducks! But what are they made of? We were just as solemn
+as that about atheism and the stars and humanity; but we were all for
+belief anyway--we held atheism and sociology (of which none of us, nor
+indeed anybody, knew anything) for a gospel and an iron rule of life;
+and it was lucky enough, or there would have been more windows broken.
+What is apt to puzzle one at first sight in the New Youth is that, with
+such rickety and risky problems always at heart, they should not plunge
+down a Niagara of Dissolution. But let us remember the high practical
+timidity of youth. I was a particularly brave boy--this I think of
+myself, looking back--and plunged into adventures and experiments, and
+ran risks that it still surprises me to recall. But, dear me, what a
+fear I was in of that strange blind machinery in the midst of which I
+stood; and with what a compressed heart and what empty lungs I would
+touch a new crank and await developments! I do not mean to say I do not
+fear life still; I do; and that terror (for an adventurer like myself)
+is still one of the chief joys of living.
+
+But it was different indeed while I was yet girt with the priceless
+robes of inexperience; then the fear was exquisite and infinite. And so,
+when you see all these little Ibsens, who seem at once so dry and so
+excitable, and faint in swathes over a play (I suppose--for a wager)
+that would seem to me merely tedious, smile behind your hand, and
+remember the little dears are all in a blue funk. It must be very funny,
+and to a spectator like yourself I almost envy it. But never get
+desperate; human nature is human nature; and the Roman Empire, since the
+Romans founded it and made our European human nature what it is, bids
+fair to go on and to be true to itself. These little bodies will all
+grow up and become men and women, and have heaps of fun; nay, and are
+having it now; and whatever happens to the fashion of the age, it makes
+no difference--there are always high and brave and amusing lives to be
+lived; and a change of key, however exotic, does not exclude melody.
+Even Chinamen, hard as we find it to believe, enjoy being Chinese. And
+the Chinaman stands alone to be unthinkable; natural enough, as the
+representative of the only other great civilisation. Take my people here
+at my doors; their life is a very good one; it is quite thinkable, quite
+acceptable to us. And the little dears will be soon skating on the other
+foot; sooner or later, in each generation, the one-half of them at least
+begin to remember all the material they had rejected when first they
+made and nailed up their little theory of life; and these become
+reactionaries or conservatives, and the ship of man begins to fill upon
+the other tack.
+
+Here is a sermon, by your leave! It is your own fault, you have amused
+and interested me so much by your breath of the New Youth, which comes
+to me from so far away, where I live up here in my mountain, and secret
+messengers bring me letters from rebels, and the government sometimes
+seizes them, and generally grumbles in its beard that Stevenson should
+really be deported. O my life is the more lively, never fear!
+
+It has recently been most amusingly varied by a visit from Lady Jersey.
+I took her over mysteriously (under the pseudonym of my cousin, Miss
+Amelia Balfour) to visit Mataafa, our rebel; and we had great fun, and
+wrote a Ouida novel on our life here, in which every author had to
+describe himself in the Ouida glamour, and of which--for the Jerseys
+intend printing it--I must let you have a copy. My wife's chapter, and
+my description of myself, should, I think, amuse you. But there were
+finer touches still; as when Belle and Lady Jersey came out to brush
+their teeth in front of the rebel King's palace, and the night guard
+squatted opposite on the grass and watched the process; or when I and my
+interpreter, and the King with his secretary, mysteriously disappeared
+to conspire.--Ever yours sincerely,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE CHILDREN IN THE CELLAR
+
+
+   This time the children in the Kilburn cellar are addressed direct,
+   with only a brief word at the end to their instructress.
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, September 4th, 1892._
+
+DEAR CHILDREN IN THE CELLAR,--I told you before something of the black
+boys who come here for work on the plantations, and some of whom run
+away and live a wild life in the forests of the islands. Now I want to
+tell you of one who lived in the house of the lean man. Like the rest of
+them here, he is a little fellow, and when he goes about in old,
+battered, cheap European clothes, looks very small and shabby. When
+first he came he was as lean as a tobacco-pipe, and his smile (like that
+of almost all the others) was the sort that makes you half wish to smile
+yourself, and half wish to cry. However, the boys in the kitchen took
+him in hand and fed him up. They would set him down alone to table and
+wait upon him till he had his fill, which was a good long time to wait;
+and the first thing we noticed was that his little stomach began to
+stick out like a pigeon's breast; and then the food got a little wider
+spread and he started little calves to his legs; and last of all he
+began to get quite saucy and impudent, so that we could know what sort
+of a fellow he really was when he was no longer afraid of being
+thrashed. He is really what you ought to call a young man, though I
+suppose nobody in the whole wide world has any idea of his age; and, as
+far as his behaviour goes, you can only think of him as a big little
+child with a good deal of sense. When Austin built his fort against the
+Indians, Arick (for that is the black boy's name) liked nothing so much
+as to help him. And this is very funny, when you think that of all the
+dangerous savages in this island Arick is one of the most dangerous. The
+other day, besides, he made Austin a musical instrument of the sort they
+use in his own country, a harp with only one string. He took a stick
+about three feet long, and perhaps four inches round. The under side he
+hollowed out in a deep trench to serve as sounding box; the two ends of
+the upper side he made to curve upward like the ends of a canoe, and
+between these he stretched the single string. He plays upon it with a
+match or a little piece of stick, and sings to it songs of his own
+country, of which no person here can understand a single word, and which
+are very likely all about fighting with his enemies in battle, and
+killing them, and I am sorry to say cooking them in a ground oven and
+eating them for supper when the fight is over.
+
+For Arick is really what you might call a savage, though a savage is a
+very different person in reality, and a very much nicer, from what he is
+made to appear in little books. He is the sort of person that everybody
+smiles to, or makes faces at, or gives a smack to as he goes by; the
+sort of person that all the girls on the plantation give the best seat
+to, and help first, and love to decorate with flowers and ribbons, and
+yet all the while are laughing at him; the sort of person who likes best
+to play with Austin, and whom Austin perhaps (when he is allowed) likes
+best to play with. He is all grins and giggles, and little steps out of
+dances, and little droll ways, to attract people's attention and set
+them laughing. And yet when you come to look at him closer, you will
+find that his body is all covered with scars. This was when he was a
+child. There was a war, as is the way in these wild islands, between his
+village and the next, much as if there were war in London between one
+street and another; and all the children ran about playing in the
+middle of the trouble, and I dare say took no more notice of the war
+than you children in London do of a general election. But sometimes, at
+general elections, English children may get run over by processions in
+the street; and it chanced that as little Arick was running about in the
+bush, and very busy about his playing, he ran into the midst of the
+warriors on the other side. These speared him with a poisoned spear; and
+his own people, when they had found him lying for dead, and in order to
+cure him of the poison, cut him up with knives that were probably made
+of fish-bones.
+
+This is a very savage piece of child-life, and Arick, for all his
+good-nature, is still a very savage person. I have told you how the
+black boys sometimes run away from the plantations, and live behind
+alone in the forest, building little sheds to protect them from the
+rain, and sometimes planting little gardens of food, but for the most
+part living the best they can upon the nuts of the trees and yams that
+they dig with their hands out of the earth. I do not think there can be
+anywhere in the world people more wretched than these runaways. They
+cannot return, for they would only return to be punished. They can never
+hope to see again their own land or their own people--indeed, I do not
+know what they can hope, but just to find enough yams every day to keep
+them from starvation. And in the wet season of the year, which is our
+summer and your winter, and the rain falls day after day far harder and
+louder than the loudest thunder-plump that ever fell in England, and the
+noon is sometimes so dark that the lean man is glad to light his lamp to
+write by, I can think of nothing so dreary as the state of these poor
+runaway slaves in the houseless bush. You are to remember, besides, that
+the people of this island hate and fear them because they are cannibals,
+sit and tell tales of them about their lamps at night in their own
+comfortable houses, and are sometimes afraid to lie down to sleep if
+they think there is a lurking black boy in the neighbourhood. Well now,
+Arick is of their own race and language, only he is a little more lucky
+because he has not run away; and how do you think that he proposed to
+help them? He asked if he might not have a gun. "What do you want with a
+gun, Arick?" was asked. And he said quite simply, and with his nice
+good-natured smile, that if he had a gun he would go up into the high
+bush and shoot black boys as men shoot pigeons. He said nothing about
+eating them, nor do I think he really meant to. I think all he wanted
+was to clear the property of vermin as gamekeepers at home kill weasels,
+or housewives mice.
+
+The other day he was sent down on an errand to the German Firm where
+many of the black boys live. It was very late when he came home on a
+bright moonlight night. He had a white bandage round his head, his eyes
+shone, and he could scarcely speak for excitement. It seems some of the
+black boys who were his enemies at home had attacked him, and one with a
+knife. By his own account he had fought very well, but the odds were
+heavy; the man with the knife had cut him both in the head and back, he
+had been struck down, and if some of the black boys of his own side had
+not come to the rescue, he must certainly have been killed. I am sure no
+Christmas-box could make any of you children so happy as this fight made
+Arick. A great part of the next day he neglected his work to play upon
+the one-stringed harp and sing songs about his great victory. And
+to-day, when he is gone upon his holiday, he has announced that he is
+going back to the German Firm to have another battle and another
+triumph. I do not think he will go all the same, or I should be more
+uneasy, for I do not want to have my Arick killed; and there is no doubt
+that if he begins to fight again, he will be likely to go on with it
+very far. For I have seen him once when he saw, or thought he saw, an
+enemy. It was one of our dreadful days of rain, the sound of it like a
+great waterfall or like a tempest of wind blowing in the forest; and
+there came to our door two runaway black boys seeking work. In such
+weather as that my enemy's dog (as Shakespeare says) should have had a
+right to shelter. But when Arick saw these two poor rogues coming with
+their empty bellies and drenched clothes, and one of them with a stolen
+cutlass in his hand, through that world of falling water, he had no
+thought of pity in his heart. Crouching behind one of the pillars of the
+verandah, which he held in his two hands, his mouth drew back into a
+strange sort of smile, his eyes grew bigger and bigger, and his whole
+face was just like the one word Murder in big capitals.
+
+Now I have told you a great deal too much about poor Arick's savage
+nature, and now I must tell you about a great amusement he had the other
+day. There came an English ship of war in the harbour, and the officers
+very good naturedly gave an entertainment of songs and dances and a
+magic-lantern, to which Arick and Austin were allowed to go. At the door
+of the hall there were crowds of black boys waiting and trying to peep
+in, the way children at home lie about and peep under the tent of a
+circus; and you may be sure Arick was a very proud person when he passed
+them all by and entered the hall with his ticket. I wish I knew what he
+thought of the whole performance; but the housekeeper of the lean man,
+who sat just in front of him, tells me what seemed to startle him the
+most. The first thing was when two of the officers came out with
+blackened faces like Christy minstrel boys and began to dance. Arick was
+sure that they were really black and his own people, and he was
+wonderfully surprised to see them dance this new European style of
+dance. But the great affair was the magic-lantern. The hall was made
+quite dark, which was very little to Arick's taste. He sat there behind
+the housekeeper, nothing to be seen of him but eyes and teeth, and his
+heart beating finely in his little scarred breast. And presently there
+came out on the white sheet that great bright eye of light that I am
+sure all you children must have often seen. It was quite new to Arick,
+he had no idea what would happen next; and in his fear and excitement,
+he laid hold with his little slim black fingers like a bird's claws on
+the neck of the housekeeper in front of him. All through the rest of the
+show, as one picture followed another on the white sheet, he sat there
+gasping and clutching at the housekeeper's neck, and goodness knows
+whether he were more pleased or frightened. Doubtless it was a very fine
+thing to see all these bright pictures coming out and dying away again
+one after another; but doubtless it was rather alarming also, for how
+was it done? And at last, when there appeared upon the screen the head
+of a black woman (as it might be his own mother or sister), and the
+black woman of a sudden began to roll her eyes, the fear or the
+excitement, whichever it was, wrung out of him a loud shuddering sob.
+And I think we all ought to admire his courage when, after an evening
+spent in looking on at such wonderful miracles, he and Austin set out
+alone through the forest to the lean man's house. It was late at night
+and pitch dark when some of the party overtook the little white boy and
+the big black boy marching among the trees with their lantern. I have
+told you the wood has an ill name, and all the people of the island
+believe it to be full of devils; but even if you do not believe in the
+devils, it is a pretty dreadful place to walk in by the moving light of
+a lantern, with nothing about you but a curious whirl of shadows and the
+black night above and beyond. But Arick kept his courage up, and I dare
+say Austin's too, with a perpetual chatter, so that the people coming
+after heard his voice long before they saw the shining of the lantern.
+
+My dear Miss Boodle,--will I be asking too much that you should send me
+back my letters to the Children, or copies, if you prefer; I have an
+idea that they may perhaps help in time to make up a book on the South
+Seas for children. I have addressed the Cellar so long this time that
+you must take this note for yourself and excuse, yours most sincerely,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Thursday, 15th September [1892]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--On Tuesday, we had our young adventurer[46] ready, and
+Fanny, Belle, he and I set out about three of a dark, deadly hot, and
+deeply unwholesome afternoon. Belle had the lad behind her; I had a pint
+of champagne in either pocket, a parcel in my hands, and as Jack had a
+girth sore and I rode without a girth, I might be said to occupy a very
+unstrategic position. On the way down, a little dreary, beastly drizzle
+beginning to come out of the darkness, Fanny put up an umbrella, her
+horse bounded, reared, cannoned into me, cannoned into Belle and the
+lad, and bolted for home. It really might and ought to have been an A1
+catastrophe; but nothing happened beyond Fanny's nerves being a good
+deal shattered; of course, she could not tell what had happened to us
+until she got her horse mastered.
+
+Next day, Haggard went off to the Commission and left us in charge of
+his house; all our people came down in wreaths of flowers; we had a boat
+for them; Haggard had a flag in the Commission boat for us; and when at
+last the steamer turned up, the young adventurer was carried on board in
+great style, with a new watch and chain, and about three pound ten of
+tips, and five big baskets of fruit as free-will offerings to the
+captain. Captain Morse had us all to lunch; champagne flowed, so did
+compliments; and I did the affable celebrity life-sized. It made a great
+send-off for the young adventurer. As the boat drew off, he was standing
+at the head of the gangway, supported by three handsome ladies--one of
+them a real full-blown beauty, Madame Green, the singer--and looking
+very engaging himself, between smiles and tears. Not that he cried in
+public. My, but we were a tired crowd! However, it is always a blessing
+to get home, and this time it was a sort of wonder to ourselves that we
+got back alive. Casualties: Fanny's back jarred, horse incident; Belle,
+bad headache, tears, and champagne; self, idiocy, champagne, fatigue;
+Lloyd, ditto, ditto. As for the adventurer, I believe he will have a
+delightful voyage for his little start in life. But there is always
+something touching in a mite's first launch.
+
+_Date unknown._--I am now well on with the third part of the
+_Débâcle_.[47] The two first I liked much; the second completely
+knocking me; so far as it has gone, this third part appears the
+ramblings of a dull man who has forgotten what he has to say--he reminds
+me of an M.P. But Sedan was really great, and I will pick no holes. The
+batteries under fire, the red-cross folk, the county charge--perhaps,
+above all, Major Bouroche and the operations, all beyond discussion; and
+every word about the Emperor splendid.
+
+_September 30th._--_David Balfour_ done, and its author along with it,
+or nearly so. Strange to think of even our doctor here repeating his
+nonsense about debilitating climate. Why, the work I have been doing the
+last twelve months, in one continuous spate, mostly with annoying
+interruptions and without any collapse to mention, would be incredible
+in Norway. But I _have_ broken down now, and will do nothing as long as
+I possibly can. With _David Balfour_ I am very well pleased; in fact
+these labours of the last year--I mean _Falesá_ and _D. B._, not Samoa,
+of course--seem to me to be nearer what I mean than anything I have ever
+done; nearer what I mean by fiction; the nearest thing before was
+_Kidnapped_. I am not forgetting the _Master of Ballantrae_, but that
+lacked all pleasurableness, and hence was imperfect in essence. So you
+see, if I am a little tired, I do not repent.
+
+The third part of the _Débâcle_ may be all very fine; but I cannot read
+it. It suffers from _impaired vitality_, and _uncertain aim_; two deadly
+sicknesses. Vital--that's what I am at, first: wholly vital, with a
+buoyancy of life. Then lyrical, if it may be, and picturesque, always
+with an epic value of scenes, so that the figures remain in the mind's
+eye for ever.
+
+_October 8th._--Suppose you sent us some of the catalogues of the
+parties what vends statutes? I don't want colossal Herculeses, but about
+quarter size and less. If the catalogues were illustrated it would
+probably be found a help to weak memories. These may be found to
+alleviate spare moments, when we sometimes amuse ourselves by thinking
+how fine we shall make the palace if we do not go pop. Perhaps in the
+same way it might amuse you to send us any pattern of wall paper that
+might strike you as cheap, pretty, and suitable for a room in a hot and
+extremely bright climate. It should be borne in mind that our climate
+can be extremely dark too. Our sitting-room is to be in varnished wood.
+The room I have particularly in mind is a sort of bed and sitting-room,
+pretty large, lit on three sides, and the colour in favour of its
+proprietor at present is a topazy yellow. But then with what colour to
+relieve it? For a little work-room of my own at the back, I should
+rather like to see some patterns of unglossy--well, I'll be hanged if I
+can describe this red--it's not Turkish and it's not Roman and it's not
+Indian, but it seems to partake of the two last, and yet it can't be
+either of them, because it ought to be able to go with vermillion. Ah,
+what a tangled web we weave--anyway, with what brains you have left
+choose me and send me some--many--patterns of this exact shade.
+
+A few days ago it was Haggard's birthday and we had him and his cousin
+to dinner--bless me if I ever told you of his cousin!--he is here
+anyway, and a fine, pleasing specimen, so that we have concluded (after
+our own happy experience) that the climate of Samoa must be favourable
+to cousins.[48] Then we went out on the verandah in a lovely moonlight,
+drinking port, hearing the cousin play and sing, till presently we were
+informed that our boys had got up a siva in Lafaele's house to which we
+were invited. It was entirely their own idea. The house, you must
+understand, is one-half floored, and one-half bare earth, and the daďs
+stands a little over knee high above the level of the soil. The daďs was
+the stage, with three footlights. We audience sat on mats on the floor,
+and the cook and three of our work-boys, sometimes assisted by our two
+ladies, took their places behind the footlights and began a topical
+Vailima song. The burden was of course that of a Samoan popular song
+about a white man who objects to all that he sees in Samoa. And there
+was of course a special verse for each one of the party--Lloyd was
+called the dancing man (practically the Chief's handsome son) of
+Vailima; he was also, in his character I suppose of overseer, compared
+to a policeman--Belle had that day been the almoner in a semi-comic
+distribution of wedding rings and thimbles (bought cheap at an auction)
+to the whole plantation company, fitting a ring on every man's finger,
+and a ring and a thimble on both the women's. This was very much in
+character with her native name _Teuila_, the adorner of the ugly--so of
+course this was the point of her verse and at a given moment all the
+performers displayed the rings upon their fingers. Pelema (the
+cousin--our cousin) was described as watching from the house and
+whenever he saw any boy not doing anything, running and doing it
+himself. Fanny's verse was less intelligible, but it was accompanied in
+the dance with a pantomime of terror well-fitted to call up her
+haunting, indefatigable and diminutive presence in a blue gown.
+
+
+
+
+TO GORDON BROWNE
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa [Autumn 1892]._
+
+  _To the Artist who did the illustrations to "Uma."_
+
+DEAR SIR,--I only know you under the initials G. B., but you have done
+some exceedingly spirited and satisfactory illustrations to my story
+_The Beach of Falesá_, and I wish to write and thank you expressly for
+the care and talent shown. Such numbers of people can do good black and
+whites! So few can illustrate a story, or apparently read it. You have
+shown that you can do both, and your creation of Wiltshire is a real
+illumination of the text. It was exactly so that Wiltshire dressed and
+looked, and you have the line of his nose to a nicety. His nose is an
+inspiration. Nor should I forget to thank you for Case, particularly in
+his last appearance. It is a singular fact--which seems to point still
+more directly to inspiration in your case--that your missionary actually
+resembles the flesh-and-blood person from whom Mr. Tarleton was drawn.
+The general effect of the islands is all that could be wished; indeed I
+have but one criticism to make, that in the background of Case taking
+the dollar from Mr. Tarleton's head--head--not hand, as the fools have
+printed it--the natives have a little too much the look of Africans.
+
+But the great affair is that you have been to the pains to illustrate my
+story instead of making conscientious black and whites of people sitting
+talking. I doubt if you have left unrepresented a single pictorial
+incident. I am writing by this mail to the editor in the hopes that I
+may buy from him the originals, and I am, dear sir, your very much
+obliged,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS MORSE
+
+
+   The next is an answer to an acknowledgment from a lady in the United
+   States, one of many similar which he from time to time received, of
+   help and encouragement derived from his writings.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoan Islands, October 7th, 1892._
+
+DEAR MADAM,--I have a great diffidence in answering your valued letter.
+It would be difficult for me to express the feelings with which I read
+it--and am now trying to re-read it as I dictate this.
+
+You ask me to forgive what you say "must seem a liberty," and I find
+that I cannot thank you sufficiently or even find a word with which to
+qualify your letter. Dear Madam, such a communication even the vainest
+man would think a sufficient reward for a lifetime of labour. That I
+should have been able to give so much help and pleasure to your sister
+is the subject of my grateful wonder.
+
+That she, being dead, and speaking with your pen, should be able to
+repay the debt with such a liberal interest, is one of those things that
+reconcile us with the world and make us take hope again. I do not know
+what I have done to deserve so beautiful and touching a compliment; and
+I feel there is but one thing fit for me to say here, that I will try
+with renewed courage to go on in the same path, and to deserve, if not
+to receive, a similar return from others.
+
+You apologise for speaking so much about yourselves. Dear Madam, I
+thought you did so too little. I should have wished to have known more
+of those who were so sympathetic as to find a consolation in my work,
+and so graceful and so tactful as to acknowledge it in such a letter as
+was yours.
+
+Will you offer to your mother the expression of a sympathy which (coming
+from a stranger) must seem very airy, but which yet is genuine; and
+accept for yourself my gratitude for the thought which inspired you to
+write to me and the words which you found to express it.
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS TAYLOR
+
+
+   Lady Taylor had died soon after the settlement of the Stevenson
+   family at Vailima. The second paragraph refers to a test which had
+   been set before an expert in the reading of character by handwriting.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoan Islands, October 7th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR IDA,--I feel very much the implied reproof in yours just
+received; but I assure you there is no fear of our forgetting either
+Una or yourself, or your dear mother, who was one of the women I have
+most admired and loved in the whole of my way through life. The truth is
+that Fanny writes to nobody and that I am on the whole rather
+overworked. I compose lots of letters to lots of unforgotten friends,
+but when it comes to taking the pen between my fingers there are many
+impediments. Hence it comes that I am now writing to you by an
+amanuensis, at which I know you will be very angry. Well, it was
+Hobson's choice. A little while ago I had very bad threatenings of
+scrivener's cramp; and if Belle (Fanny's daughter, of whom you remember
+to have heard) had not taken up the pen for my correspondence, I doubt
+you would never have heard from me again except in the way of books. I
+wish you and Una would be so good as to write to us now and then even
+without encouragement. An unsolicited letter would be almost certain
+(sooner or later, depending on the activity of the conscience) to
+produce some sort of an apology for an answer.
+
+All this upon one condition: that you send me your friend's description
+of my looks, age and character. The character of my work I am not so
+careful about. But did you ever hear of anything so tantalizing as for
+you to tell me the story and not send me your notes? I expect it was a
+device to extract an answer; and, as you see, it has succeeded. Let me
+suggest (if your friend be handy) that the present letter would be a
+very delicate test. It is in one person's handwriting, it expresses the
+ideas of another, of the writer herself you know nothing. I should be
+very curious to know what the sibyl will make of such a problem.
+
+If you carry out your design of settling in London you must be sure and
+let us have the new address. I swear we shall write some time--and if
+the interval be long you must just take it on your own head for
+prophesying horrors. You remember how you always said we were but an
+encampment of Bedouins, and that you would awake some morning to find
+us fled for ever. Nothing unsettled me more than these ill-judged
+remarks. I was doing my best to be a sedentary semi-respectable man in a
+suburban villa; and you were always shaking your head at me and assuring
+me (what I knew to be partly true) that it was all a farce. Even here,
+when I have sunk practically all that I possess, and have good health
+and my fill of congenial fighting, and could not possibly get away if I
+wanted ever so--even here and now the recollection of these infidel
+prophesies rings in my ears like an invitation to the sea. _Tu l'as
+voulu!_
+
+I know you want some of our news, and it is all so far away that I know
+not when to begin. We have a big house and we are building another--pray
+God that we can pay for it. I am just reminded that we have no less than
+eight several places of habitation in this place, which was a piece of
+uncleared forest some three years ago. I think there are on my pay rolls
+at the present moment thirteen human souls, not counting two washerwomen
+who come and go. In addition to this I am at daggers drawn with the
+Government, have had my correspondence stopped and opened by the Chief
+Justice--it was correspondence with the so-called Rebel King,--and have
+had boys examined and threatened with deportation to betray the secrets
+of my relations with the same person. In addition to this I might direct
+attention to those trifling exercises of the fancy, my literary works,
+and I hope you won't think that I am likely to suffer from ennui. Nor is
+Fanny any less active. Ill or well, rain or shine, a little blue
+indefatigable figure is to be observed howking about certain patches of
+garden. She comes in heated and bemired up to the eyebrows, late for
+every meal. She has reached a sort of tragic placidity. Whenever she
+plants anything new the boys weed it up. Whenever she tries to keep
+anything for seed the house-boys throw it away. And she has reached that
+pitch of a kind of noble dejection that she would almost say she did not
+mind. Anyway, her cabbages have succeeded. Talolo (our native cook, and
+a very good one too) likened them the other day to the head of a German;
+and even this hyperbolical image was grudging. I remember all the
+trouble you had with servants at the Roost. The most of them were
+nothing to the trances that we have to go through here at times, when I
+have to hold a bed of justice, and take evidence which is never twice
+the same, and decide, practically blindfold, and after I have decided
+have the accuser take back the accusation in block and beg for mercy for
+the culprit. Conceive the annoyance of all this when you are very fond
+of both.--Your affectionate friend,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, Oct. 10th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--It is now, as you see, the 10th of October, and
+there has not reached the Island of Upolu one single copy, or rag of a
+copy, of the Samoa book. I lie; there has come one, and that in the
+pocket of a missionary man who is at daggers drawn with me, who lends it
+to all my enemies, conceals it from all my friends, and is bringing a
+lawsuit against me on the strength of expressions in the same which I
+have forgotten, and now cannot see. This is pretty tragic, I think you
+will allow; and I was inclined to fancy it was the fault of the Post
+Office. But I hear from my sister-in-law Mrs. Sanchez that she is in the
+same case, and has received no _Footnote_. I have also to consider that
+I had no letter from you last mail, although you ought to have received
+by that time "My Grandfather and Scott," and "Me and my Grandfather."
+Taking one consideration with another, therefore, I prefer to conceive
+that No. 743 Broadway has fallen upon gentle and continuous slumber, and
+is become an enchanted palace among publishing houses. If it be not so,
+if the _Footnotes_ were really sent, I hope you will fall upon the Post
+Office with all the vigour you possess. How does _The Wrecker_ go in the
+States? It seems to be doing exceptionally well in England.--Yours
+sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This letter contains the first announcement of the scheme of _Weir of
+   Hermiston_.
+
+     _Vailima, October 28th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is very late to begin the monthly budget, but I
+have a good excuse this time, for I have had a very annoying fever with
+symptoms of sore arm, and in the midst of it a very annoying piece of
+business which suffered no delay or idleness....
+
+The consequence of all this was that my fever got very much worse and
+your letter has not been hitherto written. But, my dear fellow, do
+compare these little larky fevers with the fine, healthy, prostrating
+colds of the dear old dead days at home. Here was I, in the middle of a
+pretty bad one, and I was able to put it in my pocket, and go down day
+after day, and attend to and put my strength into this beastly business.
+Do you see me doing that with a catarrh? And if I had done so, what
+would have been the result?
+
+Last night, about four o'clock, Belle and I set off to Apia, whither my
+mother had preceded us. She was at the Mission; we went to Haggard's.
+There we had to wait the most unconscionable time for dinner. I do not
+wish to speak lightly of the Amanuensis, who is unavoidably present, but
+I may at least say for myself that I was as cross as two sticks. Dinner
+came at last, we had the tinned soup which is usually the _pičce de
+resistance_ in the halls of Haggard, and we pitched into it. Followed an
+excellent salad of tomatoes and crayfish, a good Indian curry, a tender
+joint of beef, a dish of pigeons, a pudding, cheese and coffee. I was so
+over-eaten after this "hunger and burst" that I could scarcely move; and
+it was my sad fate that night in the character of the local author to
+eloquute before the public--"Mr. Stevenson will read a selection from
+his own works"--a degrading picture. I had determined to read them the
+account of the hurricane; I do not know if I told you that my book has
+never turned up here, or rather only one copy has, and that in the
+unfriendly hands of ----. It has therefore only been seen by enemies;
+and this combination of mystery and evil report has been greatly
+envenomed by some ill-judged newspaper articles from the States.
+Altogether this specimen was listened to with a good deal of
+uncomfortable expectation on the part of the Germans, and when it was
+over was applauded with unmistakable relief. The public hall where these
+revels came off seems to be unlucky for me; I never go there but to some
+stone-breaking job. Last time it was the public meeting of which I must
+have written you; this time it was this uneasy but not on the whole
+unsuccessful experiment. Belle, my mother, and I rode home about
+midnight in a fine display of lightning and witch-fires. My mother is
+absent, so that I may dare to say that she struck me as voluble. The
+Amanuensis did not strike me the same way; she was probably thinking,
+but it was really rather a weird business, and I saw what I have never
+seen before, the witch-fires gathered into little bright blue points
+almost as bright as a night-light.
+
+_Saturday._--This is the day that should bring your letter; it is gray
+and cloudy and windless; thunder rolls in the mountain; it is a quarter
+past six, and I am alone, sir, alone in this workman's house, Belle and
+Lloyd having been down all yesterday to meet the steamer; they were
+scarce gone with most of the horses and all the saddles, than there
+began a perfect picnic of the sick and maim; Iopu with a bad foot,
+Faauma with a bad shoulder, Fanny with yellow spots. It was at first
+proposed to carry all these to the doctor, particularly Faauma, whose
+shoulder bore an appearance of erysipelas, that sent the amateur below.
+No horses, no saddle. Now I had my horse and I could borrow Lafaele's
+saddle; and if I went alone I could do a job that had long been waiting;
+and that was to interview the doctor on another matter. Off I set in a
+hazy moonlight night; windless, like to-day; the thunder rolling in the
+mountain, as to-day; in the still groves, these little mushroom lamps
+glowing blue and steady, singly or in pairs. Well, I had my interview,
+said everything as I had meant, and with just the result I hoped for.
+The doctor and I drank beer together and discussed German literature
+until nine, and we parted the best of friends. I got home to a silent
+house of sleepers, only Fanny awaiting me; we talked awhile, in
+whispers, on the interview; then, I got a lantern and went across to the
+workman's house, now empty and silent, myself sole occupant. So to bed,
+prodigious tired but mighty content with my night's work, and to-day,
+with a headache and a chill, have written you this page, while my new
+novel waits. Of this I will tell you nothing, except the various names
+under consideration. First, it ought to be called--but of course that is
+impossible--
+
+  _Braxfield._[49]
+
+Then it _is_ to be called either
+
+      _Weir of Hermiston,
+      The Lord-Justice Clerk,
+  The Two Kirsties of the Cauldstaneslap_,
+
+                  or
+
+       _The Four Black Brothers_.
+
+Characters:
+
+  Adam Weir, Lord-Justice Clerk, called Lord Hermiston.
+  Archie, his son.
+  Aunt Kirstie Elliott, his housekeeper at Hermiston.
+  Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap, her brother.
+  Kirstie Elliott, his daughter.
+  Jim,    \
+  Gib,     |
+  Hob       > his sons.
+  &        |
+  Dandie, /
+  Patrick Innes, a young advocate.
+  The Lord-Justice General.
+
+Scene, about Hermiston in the Lammermuirs and in Edinburgh. Temp. 1812.
+So you see you are to have another holiday from copra! The rain begins
+softly on the iron roof, and I will do the reverse and--dry up.
+
+_Sunday._--Yours with the diplomatic private opinion received. It is
+just what I should have supposed. _Ça m'est bien égal._--The name is to
+be
+
+  _The Lord-Justice Clerk._
+
+None others are genuine. Unless it be
+
+  _Lord-Justice Clerk Hermiston._
+
+_Nov. 2nd._--On Saturday we expected Captain Morse of the _Alameda_ to
+come up to lunch, and on Friday with genuine South Sea hospitality had a
+pig killed. On the Saturday morning no pig. Some of the boys seemed to
+give a doubtful account of themselves; our next neighbour below in the
+wood is a bad fellow and very intimate with some of our boys, for whom
+his confounded house is like a fly-paper for flies. To add to all this,
+there was on the Saturday a great public presentation of food to the
+king and parliament men, an occasion on which it is almost dignified for
+a Samoan to steal anything, and entirely dignified for him to steal a
+pig.
+
+(The Amanuensis went to the _talolo_, as it is called, and saw something
+so very pleasing she begs to interrupt the letter to tell it. The
+different villagers came in in bands--led by the maid of the village,
+followed by the young warriors. It was a very fine sight, for some three
+thousand people are said to have assembled. The men wore nothing but
+magnificent head-dresses and a bunch of leaves, and were oiled and
+glistening in the sunlight. One band had no maid but was led by a tiny
+child of about five--a serious little creature clad in a ribbon of grass
+and a fine head-dress, who skipped with elaborate leaps in front of the
+warriors, like a little kid leading a band of lions.      A.M.)
+
+The A.M. being done, I go on again. All this made it very possible that
+even if none of our boys had stolen the pig, some of them might know the
+thief. Besides, the theft, as it was a theft of meat prepared for a
+guest, had something of the nature of an insult, and "my face," in
+native phrase, "was ashamed." Accordingly, we determined to hold a bed
+of justice. It was done last night after dinner. I sat at the head of
+the table, Graham on my right hand, Henry Simelé at my left, Lloyd
+behind him. The house company sat on the floor around the walls--twelve
+all told. I am described as looking as like Braxfield as I could manage
+with my appearance; Graham, who is of a severe countenance, looked like
+Rhadamanthus; Lloyd was hideous to the view; and Simelé had all the fine
+solemnity of a Samoan chief. The proceedings opened by my delivering a
+Samoan prayer, which may be translated thus--"Our God, look down upon us
+and shine into our hearts. Help us to be far from falsehood so that each
+one of us may stand before Thy Face in his integrity."--Then, beginning
+with Simelé, every one came up to the table, laid his hand on the Bible,
+and repeated clause by clause after me the following oath--I fear it may
+sound even comic in English, but it is a very pretty piece of Samoan,
+and struck direct at the most lively superstitions of the race. "This is
+the Holy Bible here that I am touching. Behold me, O God! If I know who
+it was that took away the pig, or the place to which it was taken, or
+have heard anything relating to it, and shall not declare the same--be
+made an end of by God this life of mine!" They all took it with so much
+seriousness and firmness that (as Graham said) if they were not innocent
+they would make invaluable witnesses. I was so far impressed by their
+bearing that I went no further, and the funny and yet strangely solemn
+scene came to an end.
+
+_Sunday, Nov. 6th._--Here is a long story to go back upon, and I wonder
+if I have either time or patience for the task?
+
+Wednesday I had a great idea of match-making, and proposed to Henry that
+Faalé would make a good wife for him. I wish I had put this down when it
+was fresher in my mind, it was so interesting an interview. My gentleman
+would not tell if I were on or not. "I do not know yet; I will tell you
+next week. May I tell the sister of my father? No, better not, tell her
+when it is done."--"But will not your family be angry if you marry
+without asking them?"--"My village? What does my village want? Mats!" I
+said I thought the girl would grow up to have a great deal of sense, and
+my gentleman flew out upon me; she had sense now, he said.
+
+Thursday, we were startled by the note of guns, and presently after
+heard it was an English warship. Graham and I set off at once, and as
+soon as we met any towns-folk they began crying to me that I was to be
+arrested. It was the _Vossische Zeitung_ article which had been quoted
+in a paper. Went on board and saw Captain Bourke; he did not even
+know--not even guess--why he was here; having been sent off by cablegram
+from Auckland. It is hoped the same ship that takes this off Europewards
+may bring his orders and our news. But which is it to be? Heads or
+tails? If it is to be German, I hope they will deport me; I should
+prefer it so; I do not think that I could bear a German officialdom, and
+should probably have to leave _sponte mea_, which is only less
+picturesque and more expensive.
+
+_8th._--Mail day. All well, not yet put in prison, whatever may be in
+store for me. No time even to sign this lame letter.
+
+
+
+
+To J. M. BARRIE
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, November 1st, 1892._
+
+DEAR MR. BARRIE,--I can scarce thank you sufficiently for your extremely
+amusing letter. No, _The Auld Licht Idyls_ never reached me--I wish it
+had, and I wonder extremely whether it would not be good for me to have
+a pennyworth of the Auld Licht pulpit. It is a singular thing that I
+should live here in the South Seas under conditions so new and so
+striking, and yet my imagination so continually inhabit that cold old
+huddle of grey hills from which we come. I have just finished _David
+Balfour_; I have another book on the stocks, _The Young Chevalier_,
+which is to be part in France and part in Scotland, and to deal with
+Prince Charlie about the year 1749; and now what have I done but begun a
+third which is to be all moorland together, and is to have for a
+centre-piece a figure that I think you will appreciate--that of the
+immortal Braxfield--Braxfield himself is my _grand premier_, or, since
+you are so much involved in the British drama, let me say my heavy
+lead....
+
+Your descriptions of your dealings with Lord Rintoul are frightfully
+unconscientious. You should never write about anybody until you persuade
+yourself at least for the moment that you love him, above all anybody on
+whom your plot revolves. It will always make a hole in the book; and, if
+he has anything to do with the mechanism, prove a stick in your
+machinery. But you know all this better than I do, and it is one of your
+most promising traits that you do not take your powers too seriously.
+_The Little Minister_ ought to have ended badly; we all know it did; and
+we are infinitely grateful to you for the grace and good feeling with
+which you lied about it. If you had told the truth, I for one could
+never have forgiven you. As you had conceived and written the earlier
+parts, the truth about the end, though indisputably true to fact, would
+have been a lie, or what is worse, a discord in art. If you are going to
+make a book end badly, it must end badly from the beginning. Now your
+book began to end well. You let yourself fall in love with, and fondle,
+and smile at your puppets. Once you had done that, your honour was
+committed--at the cost of truth to life you were bound to save them. It
+is the blot on _Richard Feverel_, for instance, that it begins to end
+well; and then tricks you and ends ill. But in that case there is worse
+behind, for the ill-ending does not inherently issue from the plot--the
+story _had_, in fact, _ended well_ after the great last interview
+between Richard and Lucy--and the blind, illogical bullet which smashes
+all has no more to do between the boards than a fly has to do with the
+room into whose open window it comes buzzing. It _might_ have so
+happened; it needed not; and unless needs must, we have no right to pain
+our readers. I have had a heavy case of conscience of the same kind
+about my Braxfield story. Braxfield--only his name is Hermiston--has a
+son who is condemned to death; plainly, there is a fine tempting fitness
+about this; and I meant he was to hang. But now on considering my minor
+characters, I saw there were five people who would--in a sense who
+must--break prison and attempt his rescue. They were capable, hardy
+folks, too, who might very well succeed. Why should they not then? Why
+should not young Hermiston escape clear out of the country? and be
+happy, if he could, with his----. But soft! I will not betray my secret
+or my heroine. Suffice it to breathe in your ear that she was what
+Hardy calls (and others in their plain way don't) a Pure Woman.[50] Much
+virtue in a capital letter, such as yours was.
+
+Write to me again in my infinite distance. Tell me about your new book.
+No harm in telling _me_; I am too far off to be indiscreet; there are
+too few near me who would care to hear. I am rushes by the riverside,
+and the stream is in Babylon: breathe your secrets to me fearlessly; and
+if the Trade Wind caught and carried them away, there are none to catch
+them nearer than Australia, unless it were the Tropic Birds. In the
+unavoidable absence of my amanuensis, who is buying eels for dinner, I
+have thus concluded my dispatch, like St. Paul, with my own hand.
+
+And in the inimitable words of Lord Kames, Faur ye weel, ye
+bitch.--Yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Nov. 2nd, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--In the first place, I have to acknowledge receipt
+of your munificent cheque for three hundred and fifty dollars. Glad you
+liked the Scott voyage; rather more than I did upon the whole. As the
+proofs have not turned up at all, there can be no question of returning
+them, and I am therefore very much pleased to think you have arranged
+not to wait. The volumes of Adams arrived along with yours of October
+6th. One of the dictionaries has also blundered home, apparently from
+the Colonies; the other is still to seek. I note and sympathise with
+your bewilderment as to _Falesá_. My own direct correspondence with Mr.
+Baxter is now about three months in abeyance. Altogether you see how
+well it would be if you could do anything to wake up the Post Office.
+Not a single copy of the _Footnote_ has yet reached Samoa, but I hear of
+one having come to its address in Hawaii. Glad to hear good news of
+Stoddard.--Yours sincerely,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+_P.S._--Since the above was written an aftermath of post matter came in,
+among which were the proofs of _My Grandfather_. I shall correct and
+return them, but as I have lost all confidence in the Post Office, I
+shall mention here: first galley, 4th line from the bottom, for "AS"
+read "OR."
+
+Should I ever again have to use my work without waiting for proofs, bear
+in mind this golden principle. From a congenital defect, I must suppose,
+I am unable to write the word OR--wherever I write it the printer
+unerringly puts AS--and those who read for me had better, wherever it is
+possible, substitute _or_ for _as_. This the more so since many writers
+have a habit of using as which is death to my temper and confusion to my
+face.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO LIEUTENANT EELES
+
+
+   The following is addressed to one of Stevenson's best friends among
+   the officers of H.M.S. the Curaçoa, which had been for some time on
+   the South Pacific station.
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoan Islands, November 15th, 1892._
+
+DEAR EELES,--In the first place, excuse me writing to you by another
+hand, as that is the way in which alone all my correspondence gets
+effected. Before I took to this method, or rather before I found a
+victim, it simply didn't get effected.
+
+Thank you again and again, first for your kind thought of writing to me,
+and second for your extremely amusing and interesting letter. You can
+have no guess how immediately interesting it was to our family. First of
+all, the poor soul at Nukufetau is an old friend of ours, and we have
+actually treated him ourselves on a former visit to the island. I don't
+know if Hoskin would approve of our treatment; it consisted, I believe,
+mostly in a present of stout and a recommendation to put nails in his
+watertank. We also (as you seem to have done) recommended him to leave
+the island; and I remember very well how wise and kind we thought his
+answer. He had half-caste children (he said) who would suffer and
+perhaps be despised if he carried them elsewhere; if he left them there
+alone, they would almost certainly miscarry; and the best thing was that
+he should stay and die with them. But the cream of the fun was your
+meeting with Buckland. We not only know him, but (as the French say) we
+don't know anybody else; he is our intimate and adored original;
+and--prepare your mind--he was, is, and ever will be, TOMMY HADDON![51]
+As I don't believe you to be inspired, I suspect you to have suspected
+this. At least it was a mighty happy suspicion. You are quite right:
+Tommy is really "a good chap," though about as comic as they make them.
+
+I was extremely interested in your Fiji legend, and perhaps even more so
+in your capital account of the _Curaçoa's_ misadventure. Alas! we have
+nothing so thrilling to relate. All hangs and fools on in this isle of
+mis-government, without change, though not without novelty, but wholly
+without hope, unless perhaps you should consider it hopeful that I am
+still more immediately threatened with arrest. The confounded thing is,
+that if it comes off, I shall be sent away in the _Ringarooma_ instead
+of the _Curaçoa_. The former ship burst upon us by the run--she had been
+sent off by despatch and without orders--and to make me a little more
+easy in my mind she brought newspapers clamouring for my incarceration.
+Since then I have had a conversation with the German Consul. He said he
+had read a review of my Samoa book, and if the review were fair, must
+regard it as an insult, and one that would have to be resented. At the
+same time, I learn that letters addressed to the German squadron lie for
+them here in the Post Office. Reports are current of other English ships
+being on the way--I hope to goodness yours will be among the number. And
+I gather from one thing and another that there must be a holy row going
+on between the powers at home, and that the issue (like all else
+connected with Samoa) is on the knees of the gods. One thing, however,
+is pretty sure--_if_ that issue prove to be a German protectorate, I
+shall have to tramp. Can you give us any advice as to a fresh field of
+energy? We have been searching the atlas, and it seems difficult to fill
+the bill. How would Rarotonga do? I forget if you have been there. The
+best of it is that my new house is going up like winking, and I am
+dictating this letter to the accompaniment of saws and hammers. A
+hundred black boys and about a score draught oxen perished, or at least
+barely escaped with their lives, from the mud holes on our road,
+bringing up the materials. It will be a fine legacy to H.I.G.M.'s
+protectorate, and doubtless the Governor will take it for his country
+house.[51] The Ringarooma people, by the way, seem very nice. I liked
+Stansfield particularly.
+
+Our middy[53] has gone up to San Francisco in pursuit of the phantom
+Education. We have good word of him, and I hope he will not be in
+disgrace again, as he was when the hope of the British Navy--need I say
+that I refer to Admiral Burney?--honoured us last. The next time you
+come, as the new house will be finished, we shall be able to offer you a
+bed. Nares and Meiklejohn may like to hear that our new room is to be
+big enough to dance in. It will be a very pleasant day for me to see the
+_Curaçoa_ in port again and at least a proper contingent of her officers
+"skipping in my 'all."
+
+We have just had a feast on my birthday at which we had three of the
+Ringaroomas, and I wish they had been three Curaçoas--say yourself,
+Hoskin, and Burney the ever Great. (Consider this an invitation.) Our
+boys had got the thing up regardless. There were two huge sows--O,
+brutes of animals that would have broken down a hansom cab--four smaller
+pigs, two barrels of beef, and a horror of vegetables and fowls. We sat
+down between forty and fifty in a big new native house behind the
+kitchen that you have never seen, and ate and public spoke till all was
+blue. Then we had about half an hour's holiday with some beer and sherry
+and brandy and soda to restrengthen the European heart, and then out to
+the old native house to see a siva. Finally, all the guests were packed
+off in a trackless black night and down a road that was rather fitted
+for the _Curaçoa_ than any human pedestrian, though to be sure I do not
+know the draught of the _Curaçoa_. My ladies one and all desire to be
+particularly remembered to our friends on board, and all look forward,
+as I do myself, in the hope of your return.--Yours sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+And let me hear from you again!
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   The following extract gives a hint of Stevenson's intended management
+   of one of the most difficult points in the plot of _Weir of
+   Hermiston_.
+
+     _1st Dec. '92._
+
+... I have a novel on the stocks to be called _The Justice-Clerk_. It is
+pretty Scotch, the Grand Premier is taken from Braxfield--(Oh, by the
+by, send me Cockburn's _Memorials_)--and some of the story
+is--well--queer. The heroine is seduced by one man, and finally
+disappears with the other man who shot him.... Mind you, I expect _The
+Justice-Clerk_ to be my masterpiece. My Braxfield is already a thing of
+beauty and a joy for ever, and so far as he has gone _far_ my best
+character.
+
+[_Later._]--Second thought. I wish Pitcairn's _Criminal Trials quam
+primum_. Also, an absolutely correct text of the Scots judiciary oath.
+
+Also, in case Pitcairn does not come down late enough, I wish as full a
+report as possible of a Scotch murder trial between 1790-1820.
+Understand, _the fullest possible_.
+
+Is there any book which would guide me as to the following facts?
+
+The Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally on circuit. Certain
+evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to the J.-C.'s own son.
+Of course, in the next trial the J.-C. is excluded, and the case is
+called before the Lord-Justice General.
+
+Where would this trial have to be? I fear in Edinburgh, which would not
+suit my view. Could it be again at the circuit town?
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     [_Nov. 30, 1892._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Another grimy little odd and end of paper, for which
+you shall be this month repaid in kind, and serve you jolly well
+right.... This is a strange life I live, always on the brink of
+deportation, men's lives in the scale--and, well, you know my character:
+if I were to pretend to you that I was not amused, you would justly
+scorn me. The new house is roofed; it will be a braw house, and what is
+better, I have my yearly bill in, and I find I can pay for it. For all
+which mercies, etc. I must have made close on Ł4,000 this year all told;
+but, what is not so pleasant, I seem to have come near to spending them.
+I have been in great alarm, with this new house on the cards, all
+summer, and came very near to taking in sail, but I live here so
+entirely on credit, that I determined to hang on.
+
+_Dec. 1st._--I was saying yesterday that my life was strange and did not
+think how well I spoke. Yesterday evening I was briefed to defend a
+political prisoner before the Deputy Commissioner. What do you think of
+that for a vicissitude?
+
+_Dec. 3rd._--Now for a confession. When I heard you and Cassells had
+decided to print _The Bottle Imp_ along with _Falesá_, I was too much
+disappointed to answer. _The Bottle Imp_ was the _pičce de résistance_
+for my volume, _Island Nights' Entertainments_. However, that volume
+might have never got done; and I send you two others in case they should
+be in time.
+
+First have _The Beach of Falesá_.
+
+Then a fresh false title: ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS; and then
+
+_The Bottle Imp_: a cue from an old melodrama.
+
+_The Isle of Voices._
+
+_The Waif Woman_; a cue from a _saga_.
+
+Of course these two others are not up to the mark of _The Bottle Imp_;
+but they each have a certain merit, and they fit in style. By saying "a
+cue from an old melodrama" after the _B. I._, you can get rid of my
+note. If this is in time, it will be splendid, and will make quite a
+volume.
+
+Should you and Cassells prefer, you can call the whole volume _I. N.
+E._--though the _Beach of Falesá_ is the child of a quite different
+inspiration. They all have a queer realism, even the most extravagant,
+even the _Isle of Voices_; the manners are exact.
+
+Should they come too late, have them type-written and return to me here
+the type-written copies.
+
+_Sunday, Dec 4th._--3rd start,--But now more humbly and with the aid of
+an Amanuensis. First one word about page 2. My wife protests against
+_The Waif Woman_ and I am instructed to report the same to you.[54]...
+
+_Dec. 5th._--A horrid alarm rises that our October mail was burned
+crossing the Plains. If so, you lost a beautiful long letter--I am sure
+it was beautiful though I remember nothing about it--and I must say I
+think it serves you properly well. That I should continue writing to you
+at such length is simply a vicious habit for which I blush. At the same
+time, please communicate at once with Charles Baxter whether you have or
+have not received a letter posted here Oct. 12th, as he is going to
+cable me the fate of my mail.
+
+Now to conclude my news. The German Firm have taken my book like angels,
+and the result is that Lloyd and I were down there at dinner on
+Saturday, where we partook of fifteen several dishes and eight distinct
+forms of intoxicating drink. To the credit of Germany, I must say there
+was not a shadow of a headache the next morning. I seem to have done as
+well as my neighbours, for I hear one of the clerks expressed the next
+morning a gratified surprise that Mr. Stevenson stood his drink so well.
+It is a strange thing that any race can still find joy in such athletic
+exercises. I may remark in passing that the mail is due and you have had
+far more than you deserve.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN
+
+
+     _December 5th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--... So much said, I come with guilty speed to
+what more immediately concerns myself. Spare us a month or two for old
+sake's sake, and make my wife and me happy and proud. We are only
+fourteen days from San Francisco, just about a month from Liverpool; we
+have our new house almost finished. The thing _can_ be done; I believe
+we can make you almost comfortable. It is the loveliest climate in the
+world, our political troubles seem near an end. It can be done, _it
+must_! Do, please, make a virtuous effort, come and take a glimpse of a
+new world I am sure you do not dream of, and some old friends who do
+often dream of your arrival.
+
+Alas, I was just beginning to get eloquent, and there goes the lunch
+bell, and after lunch I must make up the mail.
+
+Do come. You must not come in February or March--bad months. From April
+on it is delightful.--Your sincere friend,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+     _December 5th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR JAMES,--How comes it so great a silence has fallen? The still
+small voice of self-approval whispers me it is not from me. I have
+looked up my register, and find I have neither written to you nor heard
+from you since June 22nd, on which day of grace that invaluable work
+began. This is not as it should be. How to get back? I remember
+acknowledging with rapture _The Lesson of the Master_, and I remember
+receiving _Marbot_: was that our last relation?
+
+Hey, well! anyway, as you may have probably gathered from the papers, I
+have been in devilish hot water, and (what may be new to you) devilish
+hard at work. In twelve calendar months I finished _The Wrecker_, wrote
+all of _Falesá_ but the first chapter, (well, much of) _The History of
+Samoa_, did something here and there to my Life of my Grandfather, and
+began And Finished _David Balfour_. What do you think of it for a year?
+Since then I may say I have done nothing beyond draft three chapters of
+another novel, _The Justice-Clerk_, which ought to be a snorter and a
+blower--at least if it don't make a spoon, it will spoil the horn of an
+Aurochs (if that's how it should be spelt).
+
+On the hot water side it may entertain you to know that I have been
+actually sentenced to deportation by my friends on Mulinuu, C.J.
+Cedercrantz, and Baron Senfft von Pilsach. The awful doom, however,
+declined to fall, owing to Circumstances over Which. I only heard of it
+(so to speak) last night. I mean officially, but I had walked among
+rumours. The whole tale will be some day put into my hand, and I shall
+share it with humorous friends.
+
+It is likely, however, by my judgment, that this epoch of gaiety in
+Samoa will soon cease; and the fierce white light of history will beat
+no longer on Yours Sincerely and his fellows here on the beach. We ask
+ourselves whether the reason will more rejoice over the end of a
+disgraceful business, or the unregenerate man more sorrow over the
+stoppage of the fun. For, say what you please, it has been a deeply
+interesting time. You don't know what news is, nor what politics, nor
+what the life of man, till you see it on so small a scale and with your
+own liberty on the board for stake. I would not have missed it for much.
+And anxious friends beg me to stay at home and study human nature in
+Brompton drawing-rooms! _Farceurs!_ And anyway you know that such is not
+my talent. I could never be induced to take the faintest interest in
+Brompton _qua_ Brompton or a drawing-room _qua_ a drawing-room. I am an
+Epick Writer with a k to it, but without the necessary genius.
+
+Hurry up with another book of stories. I am now reduced to two of my
+contemporaries, you and Barrie--O, and Kipling--you and Barrie and
+Kipling are now my Muses Three. And with Kipling, as you know, there are
+reservations to be made. And you and Barrie don't write enough. I should
+say I also read Anstey when he is serious, and can almost always get a
+happy day out of Marion Crawford--_ce n'est pas toujours la guerre_, but
+it's got life to it and guts, and it moves. Did you read the _Witch of
+Prague_? Nobody could read it twice, of course; and the first time even
+it was necessary to skip. _E pur si muove._ But Barrie is a beauty, the
+_Little Minister_ and the _Window in Thrums_, eh? Stuff in that young
+man; but he must see and not be too funny. Genius in him, but there's a
+journalist at his elbow--there's the risk. Look, what a page is the
+glove business in the _Window_! knocks a man flat; that's guts, if you
+please.
+
+Why have I wasted the little time that is left with a sort of naked
+review article? I don't know, I'm sure. I suppose a mere ebullition of
+congested literary talk. I am beginning to think a visit from friends
+would be due. Wish you could come!
+
+Let us have your news anyway, and forgive this silly stale
+effusion.--Yours ever,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+To J. M. BARRIE
+
+     [_Vailima, December 1892._]
+
+DEAR J. M. BARRIE,--You will be sick of me soon; I cannot help it. I
+have been off my work for some time, and re-read the _Edinburgh Eleven_,
+and had a great mind to write a parody and give you all your sauce back
+again, and see how you would like it yourself. And then I read (for the
+first time--I know not how) the _Window in Thrums_; I don't say that it
+is better than the _Minister_; it's less of a tale--and there is a
+beauty, a material beauty, of the tale _ipse_, which clever critics
+nowadays long and love to forget; it has more real flaws; but somehow it
+is--well, I read it last anyway, and it's by Barrie. And he's the man
+for my money. The glove is a great page; it is startlingly original, and
+as true as death and judgment. Tibbie Birse in the Burial is great, but
+I think it was a journalist that got in the word "official." The same
+character plainly had a word to say to Thomas Haggard. Thomas affects me
+as a lie--I beg your pardon; doubtless he was somebody you knew; that
+leads people so far astray. The actual is not the true.
+
+I am proud to think you are a Scotchman--though to be sure I know
+nothing of that country, being only an English tourist, quo' Gavin
+Ogilvy. I commend the hard case of Mr. Gavin Ogilvy to J. M. Barrie,
+whose work is to me a source of living pleasure and heartfelt national
+pride. There are two of us now that the Shirra might have patted on the
+head. And please do not think when I thus seem to bracket myself with
+you, that I am wholly blinded with vanity. Jess is beyond my frontier
+line; I could not touch her skirt; I have no such glamour of twilight on
+my pen. I am a capable artist; but it begins to look to me as if you
+were a man of genius. Take care of yourself for my sake. It's a devilish
+hard thing for a man who writes so many novels as I do, that I should
+get so few to read. And I can read yours, and I love them.
+
+A pity for you that my amanuensis is not on stock to-day, and my own
+hand perceptibly worse than usual.--Yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+     _December 5th, 1892._
+
+_P.S._--They tell me your health is not strong. Man, come out here and
+try the Prophet's chamber. There's only one bad point to us--we do rise
+early. The Amanuensis states that you are a lover of silence--and that
+ours is a noisy house--and she is a chatterbox--I am not answerable for
+these statements, though I do think there is a touch of garrulity about
+my premises. We have so little to talk about, you see. The house is
+three miles from town, in the midst of great silent forests. There is a
+burn close by, and when we are not talking you can hear the burn, and
+the birds, and the sea breaking on the coast three miles away and six
+hundred feet below us, and about three times a month a bell--I don't
+know where the bell is, nor who rings it; it may be the bell in Hans
+Andersen's story for all I know. It is never hot here--86 in the shade
+is about our hottest--and it is never cold except just in the early
+mornings. Take it for all in all, I suppose this island climate to be by
+far the healthiest in the world--even the influenza entirely lost its
+sting. Only two patients died, and one was a man nearly eighty, and the
+other a child below four months. I won't tell you if it is beautiful,
+for I want you to come here and see for yourself. Everybody on the
+premises except my wife has some Scotch blood in their veins--I beg your
+pardon--except the natives--and then my wife is a Dutchwoman--and the
+natives are the next thing conceivable to Highlanders before the
+forty-five. We would have some grand cracks!
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+Come, it will broaden your mind, and be the making of me.
+
+
+
+
+To CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   This correspondent had lately been on a tour in Sweden.
+
+     _[Vailima] December 28th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--Your really decent letter to hand. And here I am
+answering it, to the merry note of the carpenter's hammer, in an upper
+room of the New House. This upper floor is almost done now, but the
+Grrrrrreat 'All below is still unlined; it is all to be varnished
+redwood. I paid a big figure but do not repent; the trouble has been so
+minimised, the work has been so workmanlike, and all the parties have
+been so obliging. What a pity when you met the Buried Majesty of
+Sweden--the sovereign of my Cedercrantz--you did not breathe in his ear
+a word of Samoa!
+
+  O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,
+  Conceive how his plump carcase pants
+  To leave the spot he now is tree'd in,
+  And skip with all the dibbs to Sweden.
+  O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,
+  The lowly plea I now advantz;
+  Remove this man of light and leadin'
+  From us to more congenial Sweden.
+
+This kind of thing might be kept up a Lapland night. "Let us bury the
+great joke"--Shade of Tennyson, forgive!
+
+I am glad to say, you can scarce receive the second bill for the house
+until next mail, which gives more room to turn round in. Yes, my rate of
+expenditure is hellish. It is funny, it crept up and up; and when we sat
+upon one vent another exploded. Lloyd and I grew grey over the monthly
+returns; but every damned month, there is a new extra. However, we
+always hope the next will prove less recalcitrant; in which faith we
+advance trembling.
+
+The desiderated advertisement, I think I have told you, was mighty near
+supplied: that is, if deportation would suit your view: the ship was
+actually sought to be hired. Yes, it would have been an advertisement,
+and rather a lark, and yet a blooming nuisance. For my part, I shall try
+to do without.
+
+No one has thought fit to send me Atalanta[55]; and I have no proof at
+all of _D. Balfour_, which is far more serious. How about the _D. B._
+map? As soon as there is a proof it were well I should see it to accord
+the text thereto--or t'other way about if needs must. Remember I had to
+go much on memory in writing that work. Did you observe the dedication?
+and how did you like it? If it don't suit you, I am to try my hand
+again.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [32] Editors and publishers (since those days we have been _déniaisés_
+    with a vengeance) had actually been inclined to shy at the terms of
+    the fraudulent marriage contract, which is the pivot of the whole
+    story; see below, p. 187.
+
+  [33] For a lively account of this plantation and its history, see
+    Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_, chap. i.
+
+  [34] The native wife of a carpenter in Apia.
+
+  [35] The sequel to _Kidnapped_, published in the following year under
+    the title _Catriona_.
+
+  [36] Most of the work on the plantations in Samoa is done by "black
+    boys," _i.e._ imported labourers from other (Melanesian) islands.
+
+  [37] By Howard Pyle.
+
+  [38] In answer to the obvious remark that the length and style of
+    _The Wrecker_, then running in Scribner's Magazine, were out of
+    keeping with what professed at the outset to be a spoken yarn.
+
+  [39] Of Ballantrae: the story is the unfinished _Young Chevalier_.
+
+  [40] Afterwards changed into _The Ebb Tide_.
+
+  [41] Wordsworth's _Ode to Duty_, a shade misquoted.
+
+  [42] "Kava, properly Ava, is a drink more or less intoxicating, made
+    from the root of the _Piper Methysticum_, a Pepper plant. The root
+    is grated: formerly it was chewed by fair damsels. The root thus
+    broken up is rubbed about in a great pail, with water slowly added.
+    A strainer of bark cloth is plunged into it at times, and wrung out
+    so as to carry away the small fragments of root. The drink is made
+    and used in ceremony. Every detail is regulated by rules, and the
+    manner of the mixture of the water, the straining, the handling of
+    the cup, the drinking out of it and returning, should all be done
+    according to a well-established manner and in certain cadences." I
+    borrow this explanation from the late Mr. Lafarge's notes to his
+    catalogue of South Sea Drawings. It may serve to make clearer
+    several passages in later letters of the present collection. Readers
+    of the late Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_ will remember the
+    account of this beverage and its preparation in Chap. viii. of that
+    volume.
+
+  [43] Referring to the marriage contract in the _Beach of Falesá:_ see
+    above, p. 152.
+
+  [44] This about the consulship was only a passing notion on the part
+    of R. L. S. No vacancy occurred, and in his correspondence he does
+    not recur to the subject.
+
+  [45] I had not cared to send him the story as thus docked and
+    rechristened in its serial shape.
+
+  [46] Austin Strong, on his way to school in California.
+
+  [47] By Émile Zola.
+
+  [48] The reference is to the writer's maternal cousin, Mr. Graham
+    Balfour (_Samoicč_, "Pelema"), who during these months and again
+    later was an inmate of the home at Vailima: see above, p. 223.
+
+  [49] Robert MacQueen, Lord Braxfield, the "Hanging Judge,"
+    (1722-1799). This historical personage furnished the conception of
+    the chief character, but by no means the details or incidents of the
+    story, which is indeed dated some years after his death.
+
+  [50] The allusion is to _Tess_: a book R. L. S. did not like.
+
+  [51] A character in _The Wrecker_.
+
+  [52] Exactly what in the end actually happened.
+
+  [53] Austin Strong.
+
+  [54] This tale was withheld from the volume accordingly.
+
+  [55] The magazine in which _Catriona_ first appeared in this
+    country, under the title _David Balfour_.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+LIFE IN SAMOA--_Continued_
+
+THIRD YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+JANUARY-DECEMBER 1893
+
+
+By the New Year of 1893 the fine addition to the house at Vailima was
+finished, and its pleasantness and comfort went far to console Stevenson
+for the cost. But the year was on the whole a less fortunate one for the
+inmates than the last. A proclamation concerning penalties for sedition
+in the Samoan Islands, which from its tenor could have been aimed at no
+one else but Stevenson, had been issued at the close of 1892 by the High
+Commissioner at Fiji; and with its modification and practical
+withdrawal, by order of the Foreign Office at home, the last threat of
+unpleasant consequences in connection with his political action
+disappeared. But a sharp second attack of influenza in January lowered
+his vitality, and from a trip which the family took for the sake of
+change to Sydney, in the month of February, they returned with health
+unimproved. In April the illness of Mrs. Stevenson caused her husband
+some weeks of acute distress and anxiety. In August he suffered the
+chagrin of witnessing the outbreak of the war which he had vainly
+striven to prevent between the two rival kings, and the defeat and
+banishment of Mataafa, whom he knew to be the one man of governing
+capacity among the native chiefs, and whom, in the interest alike of
+whites and natives, he had desired to see the Powers not crush, but
+conciliate. On the other hand, he had the satisfaction of seeing the
+Chief Justice and President removed from the posts they had so
+incompetently filled, and superseded by new and better men. The task
+imposed by the three Powers upon these officials was in truth an
+impossible one; but their characters and endeavours earned respect, and
+with the American Chief Justice in particular, Mr. C. J. Ide (whom he
+had already known as one of the Land Commissioners), and with his family
+the Vailima household lived on terms of cordial friendship. In September
+Stevenson took a health-trip to Honolulu, which again turned out
+unsuccessful. For some weeks he was down with a renewed attack of fever
+and prostration, and his wife had to come from Samoa to nurse and fetch
+him home. Later in the autumn he mended again.
+
+During no part of the year were Stevenson's working powers up to the
+mark. In the early summer he finished _The Ebb Tide_, but on a plan much
+abridged from its original intention, and with an unusual degree of
+strain and effort. With _St. Ives_ and his own family history he made
+fair progress, but both of these he regarded as in a manner holiday
+tasks, not calling for any very serious exercise of his powers. In
+connection with the latter, he took an eager interest, as his
+correspondence will show, in the researches which friends and kinsmen
+undertook for him in Scotland. He fell into arrears in regard to one or
+two magazine stories for which he had contracted; and with none of his
+more ambitious schemes of romance, _Sophia Scarlet_, _The Young
+Chevalier_, _Heathercat_, and _Weir of Hermiston_, did he feel himself
+well able to cope. This falling-off of his power of production brought
+with it no small degree of inward strain and anxiety. He had not yet
+put by any provision for his wife and step-family (the income from the
+moderate fortune left by his father naturally going to his mother during
+her life). His earnings had since 1887 been considerable, at the rate of
+Ł4,000 a year or thereabouts; but his building expenses and large mode
+of life at Vailima, together with his habitual generosity, which scarce
+knew check or limit, towards the less fortunate of his friends and
+acquaintances in various parts of the world, made his expenditure about
+equal to his income. The idea originally entertained of turning part of
+the Vailima estate into a profitable plantation turned out chimerical.
+The thought began to haunt him, What if his power of earning were soon
+to cease? And occasional signs of inward depression and life-weariness
+began to appear in his correspondence. But it was only in writing, and
+then but rarely, that he let such signs appear: to those about him he
+retained the old affectionate charm and inspiring gaiety undiminished,
+fulfilling without failure the words of his own prayer, "Give us to
+awake with smiles, give us to labour smiling; as the sun lightens the
+world, so let our loving-kindness make bright this house of our
+habitation."
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] January 1893._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--You are properly paid at last, and it is like you will
+have but a shadow of a letter. I have been pretty thoroughly out of
+kilter; first a fever that would neither come on nor go off, then acute
+dyspepsia, in the weakening grasp of which I get wandering between the
+waking state and one of nightmare. Why the devil does no one send me
+Atalanta? And why are there no proofs of _D. Balfour_? Sure I should
+have had the whole, at least the half, of them by now; and it would be
+all for the advantage of the Atalantans. I have written to Cassell & Co.
+(matter of _Falesá_) "you will please arrange with him" (meaning you).
+"What he may decide I shall abide." So consider your hand free, and act
+for me without fear or favour. I am greatly pleased with the
+illustrations. It is very strange to a South-Seayer to see Hawaiian
+women dressed like Samoans, but I guess that's all one to you in
+Middlesex. It's about the same as if London city men were shown going to
+the Stock Exchange as _pifferari_; but no matter, none will sleep worse
+for it. I have accepted Cassell's proposal as an amendment to one of
+mine; that _D. B._ is to be brought out first under the title _Catriona_
+without pictures; and, when the hour strikes, _Kidnapped_ and _Catriona_
+are to form vols. I. and II. of the heavily illustrated _Adventures of
+David Balfour_ at 7s. 6d. each, sold separately.
+
+----'s letter was vastly sly and dry and shy.[56] I am not afraid now.
+Two attempts have been made, both have failed, and I imagine these
+failures strengthen me. Above all this is true of the last, where my
+weak point was attempted. On every other, I am strong. Only force can
+dislodge me, for public opinion is wholly on my side. All races and
+degrees are united in heartfelt opposition to the Men of Mulinuu. The
+news of the fighting was of no concern to mortal man; it was made much
+of because men love talk of battles, and because the Government pray God
+daily for some scandal not their own; but it was only a brisk episode in
+a clan fight which has grown apparently endemic in the west of Tutuila.
+At the best it was a twopenny affair, and never occupied my mind five
+minutes.
+
+I am so weary of reports that are without foundation and threats that go
+without fulfilment, and so much occupied besides by the raging troubles
+of my own wame, that I have been very slack on politics, as I have been
+in literature. With incredible labour, I have rewritten the First
+Chapter of the _Justice-Clerk_; it took me about ten days, and requires
+another athletic dressing after all. And that is my story for the month.
+The rest is grunting and grutching.
+
+Consideranda for _The Beach_:--
+
+I. Whether to add one or both the tales I sent you?
+
+II. Whether to call the whole volume _Island Nights' Entertainments_?
+
+III. Whether, having waited so long, it would not be better to give me
+another mail, in case I could add another member to the volume and a
+little better justify the name?
+
+If I possibly can draw up another story, I will. What annoyed me about
+the use of _The Bottle Imp_ was that I had always meant it for the
+centre-piece of a volume of _Märchen_ which I was slowly to elaborate.
+You always had an idea that I depreciated the _B. I._; I can't think
+wherefore; I always particularly liked it--one of my best works, and ill
+to equal; and that was why I loved to keep it in portfolio till I had
+time to grow up to some other fruit of the same _venue_. However, that
+is disposed of now, and we must just do the best we can.
+
+I am not aware that there is anything to add; the weather is hellish,
+waterspouts, mists, chills, the foul fiend's own weather, following on a
+week of expurgated heaven; so it goes at this bewildering season. I
+write in the upper floor of my new house, of which I will send you some
+day a plan to measure. 'Tis an elegant structure, surely, and the proid
+of me oi. Was asked to pay for it just now, and genteelly refused, and
+then agreed, in view of general good-will, to pay a half of what is
+still due.
+
+_24th January 1893._--This ought to have gone last mail and was
+forgotten. My best excuse is that I was engaged in starting an
+influenza, to which class of exploit our household has been since then
+entirely dedicated. We had eight cases, one of them very bad, and
+one--mine--complicated with my old friend Bluidy Jack.[57] Luckily
+neither Fanny, Lloyd, or Belle took the confounded thing, and they were
+able to run the household and nurse the sick to admiration.
+
+Some of our boys behaved like real trumps. Perhaps the prettiest
+performance was that of our excellent Henry Simelé, or, as we sometimes
+call him, Davy Balfour. Henry, I maun premeese, is a chief; the humblest
+Samoan recoils from emptying slops as you would from cheating at cards;
+now the last nights of our bad time, when we had seven down together, it
+was enough to have made anybody laugh or cry to see Henry going the
+rounds with a slop-bucket and going inside the mosquito net of each of
+the sick, Protestant and Catholic alike, to pray with them.
+
+I must tell you that in my sickness I had a huge alleviation and began a
+new story. This I am writing by dictation, and really think it is an art
+I can manage to acquire. The relief is beyond description; it is just
+like a school-treat to me, and the amanuensis bears up extraordinar'.
+The story is to be called _St. Ives_; I give you your choice whether or
+not it should bear the sub-title, "Experiences of a French prisoner in
+England." We were just getting on splendidly with it, when this cursed
+mail arrived and requires to be attended to. It looks to me very like as
+if _St. Ives_ would be ready before any of the others, but you know me
+and how impossible it is I should predict. The Amanuensis has her head
+quite turned and believes herself to be the author of this novel (and is
+to some extent)--and as the creature (!) has not been wholly useless in
+the matter (I told you so! A.M.) I propose to foster her vanity by a
+little commemoration gift! The name of the hero is Anne de St. Yves--he
+Englishes his name to St. Ives during his escape. It is my idea to get a
+ring made which shall either represent _Anne_ or A. S. Y. A., of course,
+would be Amethyst and S. Sapphire, which is my favourite stone anyway
+and was my father's before me. But what would the ex-Slade professor do
+about the letter Y? Or suppose he took the other version, how would he
+meet the case, the two N.'s? These things are beyond my knowledge, which
+it would perhaps be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I place the
+matter in the meanwhile under your consideration and beg to hear your
+views. I shall tell you on some other occasion and when the A.M. is out
+of hearing how _very_ much I propose to invest in this testimonial; but
+I may as well inform you at once that I intend it to be cheap, sir,
+damned cheap! My idea of running amanuenses is by praise, not pudding,
+flattery and not coins! I shall send you when the time is ripe a ring to
+measure by.
+
+To resume our sad tale. After the other seven were almost wholly
+recovered Henry lay down to influenza on his own account. He is but just
+better and it looks as though Fanny were about to bring up the rear. As
+for me, I am all right, though I _was_ reduced to dictating _Anne_ in
+the deaf-and-dumb alphabet, which I think you will admit is a _comble_.
+
+Politics leave me extraordinary cold. It seems that so much of my
+purpose has come off, and Cedercrantz and Pilsach are sacked. The rest
+of it has all gone to water. The triple-headed ass at home, in his
+plenitude of ignorance, prefers to collect the taxes and scatter the
+Mataafas by force or the threat of force. It may succeed, and I suppose
+it will. It is none the less for that expensive, harsh, unpopular and
+unsettling. I am young enough to have been annoyed, and altogether eject
+and renegate the whole idea of political affairs. Success in that field
+appears to be the organisation of failure enlivened with defamation of
+character; and, much as I love pickles and hot water (in your true
+phrase) I shall take my pickles in future from Crosse and Blackwell and
+my hot water with a dose of good Glenlivat.
+
+Do not bother at all about the wall-papers. We have had the whole of our
+new house varnished, and it looks beautiful. I wish you could see the
+hall; poor room, it had to begin life as an infirmary during our recent
+visitation; but it is really a handsome comely place, and when we get
+the furniture, and the pictures, and what is so very much more
+decorative, the picture frames, will look sublime.
+
+_Jan. 30th._--I have written to Charles asking for Rowlandson's _Syntax_
+and _Dance of Death_ out of our house, and begging for anything about
+fashions and manners (fashions particularly) for 1814. Can you help?
+Both the Justice Clerk and St. Ives fall in that fated year. Indeed I
+got into St. Ives while going over the Annual Register for the other.
+There is a kind of fancy list of Chaps. of St. Ives. (It begins in
+Edin^b Castle.) I. Story of a lion rampant (that was a toy he had made,
+and given to a girl visitor). II. Story of a pair of scissors. III. St.
+Ives receives a bundle of money. IV. St. Ives is shown a house. V. The
+Escape. VI. The Cottage (Swanston Cottage). VII. The Hen-house. VIII.
+Three is company and four none. IX. The Drovers. X. The Great North
+Road. XI. Burchell Fenn. XII. The covered cart. XIII. The doctor. XIV.
+The Luddites. XV. Set a thief to catch a thief. XVI. M. le Comte de
+Kérouaille (his uncle, the rich _émigré_, whom he finds murdered). XVII.
+The cousins. XVIII. Mr. Sergeant Garrow. XIX. A meeting at the Ship,
+Dover. XX. Diane. XXI. The Duke's Prejudices. XXII. The False Messenger.
+XXIII. The gardener's ladder. XXIV. The officers. XXV. Trouble with the
+Duke. XXVI. Fouquet again. XXVII. The Aeronaut. XXVIII. The True-Blooded
+Yankee. XXIX. In France. I don't know where to stop. Apropos, I want a
+book about Paris, and the _first return_ of the _émigrés_ and all up to
+the _Cent Jours_: d'ye ken anything in my way? I want in particular to
+know about them and the Napoleonic functionaries and officers, and to
+get the colour and some vital details of the business of exchange of
+departments from one side to the other.[58] Ten chapters are drafted,
+and VIII. re-copied by me, but will want another dressing for luck. It
+is merely a story of adventure, rambling along; but that is perhaps the
+guard that "sets my genius best," as Alan might have said. I wish I
+could feel as easy about the other! But there, all novels are a heavy
+burthen while they are doing, and a sensible disappointment when they
+are done.
+
+For God's sake, let me have a copy of the new German Samoa White Book.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   Telling how the projected tale, _The Pearl Fisher_, had been cut down
+   and in its new form was to be called _The Schooner Farallone_
+   (afterwards changed to _The Ebb Tide_).
+
+     [_Vailima, February 1893._]
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have had the influenza, as I believe you know: this
+has been followed by two goes of my old friend Bloodie Jacke, and I have
+had fefe--the island complaint--for the second time in two months. All
+this, and the fact that both my womenkind require to see a doctor: and
+some wish to see Lord Jersey before he goes home: all send me off on a
+month's holiday to Sydney. I may get my mail: or I may not: depends on
+freight, weather, and the captain's good-nature--he is one of those who
+most religiously fear Apia harbour: it is quite a superstition with
+American captains. (Odd note: American sailors, who make British hair
+grey by the way they carry canvas, appear to be actually _more_ nervous
+when it comes to coast and harbour work.) This is the only holiday I
+have had for more than 2 years; I dare say it will be as long again
+before I take another. And I am going to spend a lot of money. Ahem!
+
+On the other hand, you can prepare to dispose of the serial rights of
+the _Schooner Farallone:_ a most grim and gloomy tale. It will run to
+something between _Jekyll and Hyde_ and _Treasure Island_. I will not
+commit myself beyond this, but I anticipate from 65 to 70,000 words,
+could almost pledge myself not shorter than 65,000, but won't. The tale
+can be sent as soon as you have made arrangements; I hope to finish it
+in a month; six weeks, bar the worst accidents, for certain. I should
+say this is the butt end of what was once _The Pearl Fisher_. There is a
+peculiarity about this tale in its new form: it ends with a conversion!
+We have been tempted rather to call it _The Schooner Farallone: a tract
+by R. L. S._ and _L. O._ It would make a boss tract; the three main
+characters--and there are only four--are barats, insurance frauds,
+thieves and would-be murderers; so the company's good. Devil a woman
+there, by good luck; so it's "pure." 'Tis a most--what's the
+expression?--unconventional work.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _At Sea, s.s._ Mariposa, _Feb. 19th, '93_.
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--You will see from this heading that I am not dead yet
+nor likely to be. I was pretty considerably out of sorts, and that is
+indeed one reason why Fanny, Belle, and I have started out for a month's
+lark. To be quite exact, I think it will be about five weeks before we
+get home. We shall stay between two and three in Sydney. Already, though
+we only sailed yesterday, I am feeling as fit as a fiddle. Fanny ate a
+whole fowl for breakfast, to say nothing of a tower of hot cakes. Belle
+and I floored another hen betwixt the pair of us, and I shall be no
+sooner done with the present amanuensing racket than I shall put myself
+outside a pint of Guinness. If you think this looks like dying of
+consumption in Apia I can only say I differ from you. In the matter of
+_David_, I have never yet received my proofs at all, but shall certainly
+wait for your suggestions. Certainly, Chaps. 17 to 20 are the hitch, and
+I confess I hurried over them with both wings spread. This is doubtless
+what you complain of. Indeed, I placed my single reliance on Miss Grant.
+If she couldn't ferry me over, I felt I had to stay there.
+
+About _Island Nights' Entertainments_ all you say is highly
+satisfactory. Go in and win.
+
+The extracts from the Times I really cannot trust myself to comment
+upon. They were infernally satisfactory; so, and perhaps still more so,
+was a letter I had at the same time from Lord Pembroke. If I have time
+as I go through Auckland, I am going to see Sir George Grey.
+
+Now I really think that's all the business. I have been rather sick and
+have had two small hemorrhages, but the second I believe to have been
+accidental. No good denying that this annoys, because it do. However,
+you must expect influenza to leave some harm, and my spirits, appetite,
+peace on earth and goodwill to men are all on a rising market. During
+the last week the amanuensis was otherwise engaged, whereupon I took up,
+pitched into, and about one half demolished another tale, once intended
+to be called _The Pearl Fisher_, but now razeed and called _The Schooner
+Farallone_.[59] We had a capital start, the steamer coming in at
+sunrise, and just giving us time to get our letters ere she sailed
+again. The manager of the German Firm (O strange, changed days!) danced
+attendance upon us all morning; his boat conveyed us to and from the
+steamer.
+
+_Feb. 21st._--All continues well. Amanuensis bowled over for a day, but
+afoot again and jolly; Fanny enormously bettered by the voyage; I have
+been as jolly as a sand-boy as usual at sea. The Amanuensis sits
+opposite to me writing to her offspring. Fanny is on deck. I have just
+supplied her with the Canadian Pacific Agent, and so left her in good
+hands. You should hear me at table with the Ulster purser and a little
+punning microscopist called Davis. Belle does some kind of abstruse
+Boswell-ising; after the first meal, having gauged the kind of jests
+that would pay here, I observed, "Boswell is Barred during this cruise."
+
+_23rd._--We approach Auckland and I must close my mail. All goes well
+with the trio. Both the ladies are hanging round a beau--the same--that
+I unearthed for them: I am general provider, and especially great in the
+beaux business. I corrected some proofs for Fanny yesterday afternoon,
+fell asleep over them in the saloon--and the whole ship seems to have
+been down beholding me. After I woke up, had a hot bath, a whisky punch
+and a cigarette, and went to bed, and to sleep too, at 8.30; a
+recrudescence of Vailima hours. Awoke to-day, and had to go to the
+saloon clock for the hour--no sign of dawn--all heaven grey rainy fog.
+Have just had breakfast, written up one letter, register and close this.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+  Bad pen, bad ink,      _S.S._ Mariposa, _at Sea_.
+  bad light, bad         _Apia due by daybreak to-morrow,
+  blotting-paper.     9 p.m._ [_March 1st, 1893._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Have had an amusing but tragic holiday, from which we
+return in disarray. Fanny quite sick, but I think slowly and steadily
+mending; Belle in a terrific state of dentistry troubles which now seem
+calmed; and myself with a succession of gentle colds out of which I at
+last succeeded in cooking up a fine pleurisy. By stopping and stewing in
+a perfectly airless state-room I seem to have got rid of the pleurisy.
+Poor Fanny had very little fun of her visit, having been most of the
+time on a diet of maltine and slops--and this while the rest of us were
+rioting on oysters and mushrooms. Belle's only devil in the hedge was
+the dentist. As for me, I was entertained at the General Assembly of the
+Presbyterian Church, likewise at a sort of artistic club; made speeches
+at both, and may therefore be said to have been, like Saint Paul, all
+things to all men. I have an account of the latter racket which I meant
+to have enclosed in this.... Had some splendid photos taken, likewise a
+medallion by a French sculptor; met Graham, who returned with us as far
+as Auckland. Have seen a good deal too of Sir George Grey; what a
+wonderful old historic figure to be walking on your arm and recalling
+ancient events and instances! It makes a man small, and yet the extent
+to which he approved what I had done--or rather have tried to
+do--encouraged me. Sir George is an expert at least, he knows these
+races: he is not a small employé with an ink-pot and a Whitaker.
+
+Take it for all in all, it was huge fun: even Fanny had some lively
+sport at the beginning; Belle and I all through. We got Fanny a dress on
+the sly, gaudy black velvet and Duchesse lace. And alas! she was only
+able to wear it once. But we'll hope to see more of it at Samoa; it
+really is lovely. Both dames are royally outfitted in silk stockings,
+etc. We return, as from a raid, with our spoils and our wounded. I am
+now very dandy: I announced two years ago that I should change. Slovenly
+youth, all right--not slovenly age. So really now I am pretty spruce;
+always a white shirt, white necktie, fresh shave, silk socks, O a great
+sight!--No more possible.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   Of the books mentioned below, _Dr. Syntax's Tour_ and Rowlandson's
+   _Dance of Death_ had been for use in furnishing customs and manners
+   in the English part of _St. Ives_; _Pitcairn_ is Pitcairn's _Criminal
+   Trials of Scotland from 1488 to 1624_. As to the name of Stevenson
+   and its adoption by some members of the proscribed clan of Macgregor,
+   Stevenson had been greatly interested by the facts laid before him by
+   his correspondent here mentioned, Mr. Macgregor Stevenson of New
+   York, and had at first delightedly welcomed the idea that his own
+   ancestors might have been fellow-clansmen of Rob Roy. But further
+   correspondence on the subject of his own descent held with a trained
+   genealogist, his namesake Mr. J. Horne Stevenson of Edinburgh,
+   convinced him that the notion must be abandoned.
+
+     [_April 1893._]
+
+... About _The Justice-Clerk_, I long to go at it, but will first try to
+get a short story done. Since January I have had two severe illnesses,
+my boy, and some heartbreaking anxiety over Fanny; and am only now
+convalescing. I came down to dinner last night for the first time, and
+that only because the service had broken down, and to relieve an
+inexperienced servant. Nearly four months now I have rested my brains;
+and if it be true that rest is good for brains, I ought to be able to
+pitch in like a giant refreshed. Before the autumn, I hope to send you
+some _Justice-Clerk_, or _Weir of Hermiston_, as Colvin seems to prefer;
+I own to indecision. Received _Syntax_, _Dance of Death_, and
+_Pitcairn_, which last I have read from end to end since its arrival,
+with vast improvement. What a pity it stops so soon! I wonder is there
+nothing that seems to prolong the series? Why doesn't some young man
+take it up? How about my old friend Fountainhall's _Decisions?_ I
+remember as a boy that there was some good reading there. Perhaps you
+could borrow me that, and send it on loan; and perhaps Laing's
+_Memorials_ therewith; and a work I'm ashamed to say I have never read,
+_Balfour's Letters_.... I have come by accident, through a
+correspondent, on one very curious and interesting fact--namely, that
+Stevenson was one of the names adopted by the Macgregors at the
+proscription. The details supplied by my correspondent are both
+convincing and amusing; but it would be highly interesting to find out
+more of this.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   These notes are in reply to a set of queries and suggestions as to
+   points that seemed to need clearing in the tale of _Catriona_, as
+   first published in Atalanta under the title _David Balfour_.
+
+     _[Vailima] April 1893._
+
+1. _Slip_ 3. Davie would be _attracted_ into a similar dialect, as he is
+later--_e.g._ with Doig, chapter XIX. This is truly Scottish.
+
+4, _to lightly_; correct; "to lightly" is a good regular Scots verb.
+
+15. See Allan Ramsay's works.
+
+15, 16. Ay, and that is one of the pigments with which I am trying to
+draw the character of Prestongrange. 'Tis a most curious thing to render
+that kind, insignificant mask. To make anything precise is to risk my
+effect. And till the day he died, Davie was never sure of what P. was
+after. Not only so; very often P. didn't know himself. There was an
+element of mere liking for Davie; there was an element of being
+determined, in case of accidents, to keep well with him. He hoped his
+Barbara would bring him to her feet, besides, and make him manageable.
+That was why he sent him to Hope Park with them. But Davie cannot
+_know_; I give you the inside of Davie, and my method condemns me to
+give only the outside both of Prestongrange and his policy.
+
+- -I'll give my mind to the technicalities. Yet to me they seem a part
+of the story, which is historical, after all.
+
+- -I think they wanted Alan to escape. But when or where to say so? I
+will try.
+
+- -20, _Dean_. I'll try and make that plainer.
+
+_Chap._ XIII., I fear it has to go without blows. If I could get the
+pair--No, can't be.
+
+- -XIV. All right, will abridge.
+
+- -XV. I'd have to put a note to every word; and he who can't read Scots
+can _never_ enjoy Tod Lapraik.
+
+- -XVII. Quite right. I _can_ make this plainer, and will.
+
+- -XVIII. I know, but I have to hurry here; this is the broken back of
+my story; some business briefly transacted, I am leaping for Barbara's
+apron-strings.
+
+_Slip_ 57. Quite right again; I shall make it plain.
+
+_Chap._ XX. I shall make all these points clear. About Lady
+Prestongrange (not _Lady_ Grant, only _Miss_ Grant, my dear, though
+_Lady_ Prestongrange, quoth the dominie) I am taken with your idea of
+her death, and have a good mind to substitute a featureless aunt.
+
+_Slip_ 78. I don't see how to lessen this effect. There is really not
+much said of it; and I know Catriona did it. But I'll try.
+
+- -89. I know. This is an old puzzle of mine. You see C.'s dialect is not
+wholly a bed of roses. If only I knew the Gaelic. Well, I'll try for
+another expression.
+
+_The end._ I shall try to work it over. James was at Dunkirk ordering
+post-horses for his own retreat. Catriona did have her suspicions
+aroused by the letter, and careless gentleman, I told you so--or she did
+at least.--Yes, the blood money.--I am bothered about the portmanteau;
+it is the presence of Catriona that bothers me; the rape of the
+pockmantie is historic....
+
+To me, I own, it seems in the proof a very pretty piece of workmanship.
+David himself I refuse to discuss; he _is_. The Lord Advocate I think a
+strong sketch of a very difficult character, James More, sufficient; and
+the two girls very pleasing creatures. But O dear me, I came near losing
+my heart to Barbara! I am not quite so constant as David, and even
+he--well, he didn't know it, anyway! _Tod Lapraik_ is a piece of living
+Scots: if I had never writ anything but that and _Thrawn Janet_, still
+I'd have been a writer. The defects of _D. B._ are inherent, I fear. But
+on the whole, I am far indeed from being displeased with the tailie. One
+thing is sure, there has been no such drawing of Scots character since
+Scott; and even he never drew a full length like Davie, with his
+shrewdness and simplicity, and stockishness and charm. Yet, you'll see,
+the public won't want it; they want more Alan! Well, they can't get it.
+And readers of _Tess_ can have no use for my David, and his innocent but
+real love affairs.
+
+I found my fame much grown on this return to civilisation. _Digito
+monstrari_ is a new experience; people all looked at me in the streets
+in Sydney; and it was very queer. Here, of course, I am only the white
+chief in the Great House to the natives; and to the whites, either an
+ally or a foe. It is a much healthier state of matters. If I lived in an
+atmosphere of adulation, I should end by kicking against the pricks. O
+my beautiful forest, O my beautiful shining, windy house, what a joy it
+was to behold them again! No chance to take myself too seriously here.
+
+The difficulty of the end is the mass of matter to be attended to, and
+the small time left to transact it in. I mean from Alan's danger of
+arrest. But I have just seen my way out, I do believe.
+
+_Easter Sunday._--I have now got as far as slip 28, and finished the
+chapter of the law technicalities. Well, these seemed to me always of
+the essence of the story, which is the story of a _cause célčbre_;
+moreover, they are the justification of my inventions; if these men went
+so far (granting Davie sprung on them) would they not have gone so much
+further? But of course I knew they were a difficulty; determined to
+carry them through in a conversation; approached this (it seems) with
+cowardly anxiety; and filled it with gabble, sir, gabble. I have left
+all my facts, but have removed 42 lines. I should not wonder but what
+I'll end by re-writing it. It is not the technicalities that shocked
+you, it was my bad art. It is very strange that X. should be so good a
+chapter and IX. and XI. so uncompromisingly bad. It looks as if XI. also
+would have to be re-formed. If X. had not cheered me up, I should be in
+doleful dumps, but X. is alive anyway, and life is all in all.
+
+_Thursday, April 5th._--Well, there's no disguise possible; Fanny is not
+well, and we are miserably anxious....
+
+_Friday, 7th._--I am thankful to say the new medicine relieved her at
+once. A crape has been removed from the day for all of us. To make
+things better, the morning is ah! such a morning as you have never seen;
+heaven upon earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of
+unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment only by
+the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the rich piping of a single bird.
+You can't conceive what a relief this is; it seems a new world. She has
+such extraordinary recuperative power that I do hope for the best. I am
+as tired as man can be. This is a great trial to a family, and I thank
+God it seems as if ours was going to bear it well. And O! if it only
+lets up, it will be but a pleasant memory. We are all seedy, bar Lloyd:
+Fanny, as per above; self nearly extinct; Belle, utterly overworked and
+bad toothache; Cook, down with a bad foot; Butler, prostrate with a bad
+leg. Eh, what a faim'ly!
+
+_Sunday._--Grey heaven, raining torrents of rain; occasional thunder and
+lightning. Everything to dispirit; but my invalids are really on the
+mend. The rain roars like the sea; in the sound of it there is a strange
+and ominous suggestion of an approaching tramp; something nameless and
+measureless seems to draw near, and strikes me cold, and yet is welcome.
+I lie quiet in bed to-day, and think of the universe with a good deal of
+equanimity. I have, at this moment, but the one objection to it; the
+_fracas_ with which it proceeds. I do not love noise; I am like my
+grandfather in that; and so many years in these still islands has
+ingrained the sentiment perhaps. Here are no trains, only men pacing
+barefoot. No cars or carriages; at worst the rattle of a horse's shoes
+among the rocks. Beautiful silence; and so soon as this robustious rain
+takes off, I am to drink of it again by oceanfuls.
+
+_April 16th._--Several pages of this letter destroyed as beneath scorn;
+the wailings of a crushed worm; matter in which neither you nor I can
+take stock. Fanny is distinctly better, I believe all right now; I too
+am mending, though I have suffered from crushed wormery, which is not
+good for the body, and damnation to the soul. I feel to-night a baseless
+anxiety to write a lovely poem _ŕ propos des bottes de ma grand'mčre,
+qui etaient ŕ revers_. I see I am idiotic. I'll try the poem.
+
+_17th._--The poem did not get beyond plovers and lovers. I am still,
+however, harassed by the unauthentic Muse; if I cared to encourage
+her--but I have not the time, and anyway we are at the vernal equinox.
+It is funny enough, but my pottering verses are usually made (like the
+God-gifted organ voice's) at the autumnal; and this seems to hold at the
+Antipodes. There is here some odd secret of Nature. I cannot speak of
+politics; we wait and wonder. It seems (this is partly a guess) Ide
+won't take the C. J. ship, unless the islands are disarmed; and that
+England hesitates and holds off. By my own idea, strongly corroborated
+by Sir George, I am writing no more letters. But I have put as many
+irons in against this folly of the disarming as I could manage. It did
+not reach my ears till nearly too late. What a risk to take! What an
+expense to incur! And for how poor a gain! Apart from the treachery of
+it. My dear fellow, politics is a vile and a bungling business. I used
+to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!
+
+_Thursday._--A general, steady advance; Fanny really quite chipper and
+jolly--self on the rapid mend, and with my eye on _forests_ that are to
+fall--and my finger on the axe, which wants stoning.
+
+_Saturday_, 22.--Still all for the best; but I am having a heartbreaking
+time over _David_. I have nearly all corrected. But have to consider
+_The Heather on Fire_, _The Wood by Silvermills_, and the last chapter.
+They all seem to me off colour; and I am not fit to better them yet. No
+proof has been sent of the title, contents, or dedication.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+   The reference in the postscript here is, I believe, to the Journals
+   of the Society for Psychical Research.
+
+     _Vailima, Apia, Samoa, April 5th, 1893._
+
+DEAR SIR,--You have taken many occasions to make yourself very agreeable
+to me, for which I might in decency have thanked you earlier. It is now
+my turn; and I hope you will allow me to offer you my compliments on
+your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
+That is the class of literature that I like when I have the toothache.
+As a matter of fact, it was a pleurisy I was enjoying when I took the
+volume up; and it will interest you as a medical man to know that the
+cure was for the moment effectual. Only the one thing troubles me; can
+this be my old friend Joe Bell?--I am, yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+_P.S._--And lo, here is your address supplied me here in Samoa! But do
+not take mine, O frolic fellow Spookist, from the same source; mine is
+wrong.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The outbreak of hostilities was at this date imminent between Mulinuu
+   (the party of Laupepa, recognised and supported by the Three Powers)
+   and Malie (the party of Mataafa).
+
+     _[Vailima] 25th April [1893]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--To-day early I sent down to Maben (Secretary of State)
+an offer to bring up people from Malie, keep them in my house, and bring
+them down day by day for so long as the negotiation should last. I have
+a favourable answer so far. This I would not have tried, had not old Sir
+George Grey put me on my mettle; "Never despair," was his word; and "I
+am one of the few people who have lived long enough to see how true that
+is." Well, thereupon I plunged in; and the thing may do me great harm,
+but yet I do not think so--for I think jealousy will prevent the trial
+being made. And at any rate it is another chance for this distracted
+archipelago of children, sat upon by a clique of fools. If, by the gift
+of God, I can do--I am allowed to try to do--and succeed: but no, the
+prospect is too bright to be entertained.
+
+To-day we had a ride down to Tanugamanono, and then by the new wood
+paths. One led us to a beautiful clearing, with four native houses;
+taro, yams, and the like, excellently planted, and old Folau--"the
+Samoan Jew"--sitting and whistling there in his new-found and
+well-deserved well-being. It was a good sight to see a Samoan thus
+before the world. Further up, on our way home, we saw the world clear,
+and the wide die of the shadow lying broad; we came but a little
+further, and found in the borders of the bush a banyan. It must have
+been 150 feet in height; the trunk, and its acolytes, occupied a great
+space; above that, in the peaks of the branches, quite a forest of ferns
+and orchids were set; and over all again the huge spread of the boughs
+rose against the bright west, and sent their shadow miles to the
+eastward. I have not often seen anything more satisfying than this vast
+vegetable.
+
+_Sunday._--A heavenly day again! the world all dead silence, save when,
+from far down below us in the woods, comes up the crepitation of the
+little wooden drum that beats to church. Scarce a leaf stirs; only now
+and again a great, cool gush of air that makes my papers fly, and is
+gone.--The king of Samoa has refused my intercession between him and
+Mataafa; and I do not deny this is a good riddance to me of a difficult
+business, in which I might very well have failed. What else is to be
+done for these silly folks?
+
+_May 12th._--And this is where I had got to, before the mail arrives
+with, I must say, a real gentlemanly letter from yourself. Sir, that is
+the sort of letter I want! Now, I'll make my little proposal.[60] I will
+accept _Child's Play_ and _Pan's Pipes_. Then I want _Pastoral_, _The
+Manse_, _The Islet_, leaving out if you like all the prefacial matter
+and beginning at I. Then the portrait of Robert Hunter, beginning
+"Whether he was originally big or little," and ending "fearless and
+gentle." So much for _Mem. and Portraits_. _Beggars_, sections I. and
+II., _Random Memories_ II., and _Lantern Bearers_; I'm agreeable. These
+are my selections. I don't know about _Pulvis et Umbra_ either, but must
+leave that to you. But just what you please.
+
+About _Davie_ I elaborately wrote last time, but still _Davie_ is not
+done; I am grinding singly at _The Ebb Tide_, as we now call the
+_Farallone_; the most of it will go this mail. About the following, let
+there be no mistake: I will not write the abstract of _Kidnapped_; write
+it who will, I will not. Boccaccio must have been a clever fellow to
+write both argument and story; I am not, _et je me récuse_.
+
+We call it _The Ebb Tide: a Trio and Quartette_; but that secondary name
+you may strike out if it seems dull to you. The book, however, falls in
+two halves, when the fourth character appears. I am on p. 82 if you want
+to know, and expect to finish on I suppose 110 or so; but it goes
+slowly, as you may judge from the fact that this three weeks past, I
+have only struggled from p. 58 to p. 82: twenty-four pages, _et encore_
+sure to be re-written, in twenty-one days. This is no prize-taker; not
+much Waverley Novels about this!
+
+_May 16th._--I believe it will be ten chapters of _The Ebb Tide_ that go
+to you; the whole thing should be completed in I fancy twelve; and the
+end will follow punctually next mail. It is my great wish that this
+might get into The Illustrated London News for Gordon Browne to
+illustrate. For whom, in case he should get the job, I give you a few
+notes. A purao is a tree giving something like a fig with flowers. He
+will find some photographs of an old marine curiosity shop in my
+collection, which may help him. Attwater's settlement is to be entirely
+overshadowed everywhere by tall palms; see photographs of Fakarava: the
+verandahs of the house are 12 ft. wide. Don't let him forget the Figure
+Head, for which I have a great use in the last chapter. It stands just
+clear of the palms on the crest of the beach at the head of the pier;
+the flag-staff not far off; the pier he will understand is perhaps three
+feet above high water, not more at any price. The sailors of the
+_Farallone_ are to be dressed like white sailors of course. For other
+things, I remit this excellent artist to my photographs.
+
+I can't think what to say about the tale, but it seems to me to go off
+with a considerable bang; in fact, to be an extraordinary work: but
+whether popular! Attwater is a no end of a courageous attempt, I think
+you will admit; how far successful is another affair. If my island ain't
+a thing of beauty, I'll be damned. Please observe Wiseman and Wishart;
+for incidental grimness, they strike me as in it. Also, kindly observe
+the Captain and _Adar_; I think that knocks spots. In short, as you see,
+I'm a trifle vainglorious. But O, it has been such a grind! The devil
+himself would allow a man to brag a little after such a crucifixion! And
+indeed I'm only bragging for a change before I return to the darned
+thing lying waiting for me on p. 88, where I last broke down. I break
+down at every paragraph, I may observe; and lie here and sweat, till I
+can get one sentence wrung out after another. Strange doom; after having
+worked so easily for so long! Did ever anybody see such a story of four
+characters?
+
+_Later, 2.30._--It may interest you to know that I am entirely _tapu_,
+and live apart in my chambers like a caged beast. Lloyd has a bad cold,
+and Graham and Belle are getting it. Accordingly, I dwell here without
+the light of any human countenance or voice, and strap away at _The Ebb
+Tide_ until (as now) I can no more. Fanny can still come, but is gone to
+glory now, or to her garden. Page 88 is done, and must be done over
+again to-morrow, and I confess myself exhausted. Pity a man who can't
+work on along when he has nothing else on earth to do! But I have
+ordered Jack, and am going for a ride in the bush presently to refresh
+the machine; then back to a lonely dinner and durance vile. I acquiesce
+in this hand of fate; for I think another cold just now would just about
+do for me. I have scarce yet recovered the two last.
+
+_May 18th._--My progress is crabwise, and I fear only IX. chapters will
+be ready for the mail. I am on p. 88 again, and with half an idea of
+going back again to 85. We shall see when we come to read: I used to
+regard reading as a pleasure in my old light days. All the house are
+down with the iffluenza in a body, except Fanny and me. The Iffluenza
+appears to become endemic here, but it has always been a scourge in the
+islands. Witness the beginning of _The Ebb Tide_, which was observed
+long before the Iffle had distinguished himself at home by such
+Napoleonic conquests. I am now of course "quite a recluse," and it is
+very stale, and there is no amanuensis to carry me over my mail, to
+which I shall have to devote many hours that would have been more
+usefully devoted to _The Ebb Tide_. For you know you can dictate at all
+hours of the day and at any odd moment; but to sit down and write with
+your red right hand is a very different matter.
+
+_May 20th._--Well, I believe I've about finished the thing, I mean as
+far as the mail is to take it. Chapter X. is now in Lloyd's hands for
+remarks, and extends in its present form to p. 93 incl. On the 12th of
+May, I see by looking back, I was on p. 82, not for the first time; so
+that I have made 11 pages in nine livelong days. Well! up a high hill he
+heaved a huge round stone. But this Flaubert business must be resisted
+in the premises. Or is it the result of iffluenza God forbid. Fanny is
+down now, and the last link that bound me to my fellow men is severed. I
+sit up here, and write, and read Renan's _Origines_, which is certainly
+devilish interesting; I read his Nero yesterday, it is very good, O,
+very good! But he is quite a Michelet; the general views, and such a
+piece of character painting, excellent; but his method sheer lunacy. You
+can see him take up the block which he had just rejected, and make of it
+the corner-stone: a maddening way to deal with authorities; and the
+result so little like history that one almost blames oneself for wasting
+time. But the time is not wasted; the conspectus is always good, and the
+blur that remains on the mind is probably just enough. I have been
+enchanted with the unveiling of Revelations. Grigsby! what a lark! And
+how picturesque that return of the false Nero! The Apostle John is
+rather discredited. And to think how one had read the thing so often,
+and never understood the attacks upon St. Paul! I remember when I was a
+child, and we came to the Four Beasts that were all over eyes, the
+sickening terror with which I was filled. If that was Heaven, what, in
+the name of Davy Jones and the aboriginal night-mare, could Hell be?
+Take it for all in all, _L'Antéchrist_ is worth reading. The _Histoire
+d' Israël_ did not surprise me much; I had read those Hebrew sources
+with more intelligence than the New Testament, and was quite prepared to
+admire Ahab and Jezebel, etc. Indeed, Ahab has always been rather a hero
+of mine; I mean since the years of discretion.
+
+_May 21st._--And here I am back again on p. 85! the last chapter
+demanding an entire revision, which accordingly it is to get. And where
+my mail is to come in, God knows! This forced, violent, alembicated
+style is most abhorrent to me; it can't be helped; the note was struck
+years ago on the _Janet Nicoll_, and has to be maintained somehow; and
+I can only hope the intrinsic horror and pathos, and a kind of fierce
+glow of colour there is to it, and the surely remarkable wealth of
+striking incident, may guide our little shallop into port. If Gordon
+Browne is to get it, he should see the Brassey photographs of Papeete.
+But mind, the three waifs were never in the town; only on the beach and
+in the calaboose. By George, but it's a good thing to illustrate for a
+man like that! Fanny is all right again. False alarm! I was down
+yesterday afternoon at Papauta, and heard much growling of war, and the
+delightful news that the C. J. and the President are going to run away
+from Mulinuu and take refuge in the Tivoli hotel.
+
+_23rd. Mail day._--_The Ebb Tide_, all but (I take it) fifteen pages, is
+now in your hands--possibly only about eleven pp. It is hard to say. But
+there it is, and you can do your best with it. Personally, I believe I
+would in this case make even a sacrifice to get Gordon Browne and
+copious illustration. I guess in ten days I shall have finished with it;
+then I go next to _D. Balfour_, and get the proofs ready: a nasty job
+for me, as you know. And then? Well, perhaps I'll take a go at the
+family history. I think that will be wise, as I am so much off work. And
+then, I suppose, _Weir of Hermiston_, but it may be anything. I am
+discontented with _The Ebb Tide_, naturally; there seems such a veil of
+words over it; and I like more and more naked writing; and yet sometimes
+one has a longing for full colour and there comes the veil again. _The
+Young Chevalier_ is in very full colour, and I fear it for that
+reason.--Ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO S. R. CROCKETT
+
+
+   Glencorse Church in the Pentlands, mentioned by Stevenson with so
+   much emotion in the course of this letter, served him for the scene
+   of Chapter VI. in _Weir of Hermiston_, where his old associations and
+   feelings in connection with the place have so admirably inspired him.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, May 17th, 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,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+_P.S._--Be it known to this fluent generation that I, R. L. S., in the
+forty-third of my age and the twentieth of my professional life, wrote
+twenty-four pages in twenty-one days, working from six to eleven, and
+again in the afternoon from two to four or so, without fail or
+interruption. Such are the gifts the gods have endowed us withal: such
+was the facility of this prolific writer!
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, May 29th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR GOD-LIKE SCULPTOR,--I wish in the most delicate manner in the
+world to insinuate a few commissions:--
+
+No. 1. Is for a couple of copies of my medallion, as gilt-edged and
+high-toned as it is possible to make them. One is for our house here,
+and should be addressed as above. The other is for my friend Sidney
+Colvin, and should be addressed--Sidney Colvin, Esq., Keeper of the
+Print Room, British Museum, London.
+
+No. 2. This is a rather large order, and demands some explanation. Our
+house is lined with varnished wood of a dark ruddy colour, very
+beautiful to see; at the same time, it calls very much for gold; there
+is a limit to picture frames, and really you know there has to be a
+limit to the pictures you put inside of them. Accordingly, we have had
+an idea of a certain kind of decoration, which, I think, you might help
+us to make practical. What we want is an alphabet of gilt letters (very
+much such as people play with), and all mounted on spikes like
+drawing-pins; say two spikes to each letter, one at top, and I one at
+bottom. Say that they were this height, I I and that you chose a model
+of some really exquisitely fine, clear type from some Roman monument,
+and that they were made either of metal or some composition gilt--the
+point is, could not you, in your land of wooden houses, get a
+manufacturer to take the idea and manufacture them at a venture, so that
+I could get two or three hundred pieces or so at a moderate figure? You
+see, suppose you entertain an honoured guest, when he goes he leaves his
+name in gilt letters on your walls; an infinity of fun and decoration
+can be got out of hospitable and festive mottoes; and the doors of every
+room can be beautified by the legend of their names. I really think
+there is something in the idea, and you might be able to push it with
+the brutal and licentious manufacturer, using my name if necessary,
+though I should think the name of the god-like sculptor would be more
+germane. In case you should get it started, I should tell you that we
+should require commas in order to write the Samoan language, which is
+full of words written thus: la'u, ti'e ti'e. As the Samoan language uses
+but a very small proportion of the consonants, we should require a
+double or treble stock of all vowels, and of F, G, L, U, N, P, S, T, and
+V.
+
+The other day in Sydney, I think you might be interested to hear, I was
+sculpt a second time by a man called ----, as well as I can remember and
+read. I mustn't criticise a present, and he had very little time to do
+it in. It is thought by my family to be an excellent likeness of Mark
+Twain. This poor fellow, by the by, met with the devil of an accident. A
+model of a statue which he had just finished with a desperate effort was
+smashed to smithereens on its way to exhibition.
+
+Please be sure and let me know if anything is likely to come of this
+letter business, and the exact cost of each letter, so that I may count
+the cost before ordering.--Yours sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+  Relating the toilsome completion of _The Ebb Tide_, and beginning
+  of the account of his grandfather, Robert Stevenson, in _History of a
+  Family of Engineers_.
+
+     _[Vailima] 29th May [1893]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Still grinding at Chap. XI. I began many days ago on p.
+93, and am still on p. 93, which is exhilarating, but the thing takes
+shape all the same and should make a pretty lively chapter for an end of
+it. For XIII. is only a footnote _ad explicandum_.
+
+_June the 1st._--Back on p. 93. I was on 100 yesterday, but read it over
+and condemned it.
+
+_10 a.m._--I have worked up again to 97, but how? The deuce fly away
+with literature, for the basest sport in creation. But it's got to come
+straight! and if possible, so that I may finish _D. Balfour_ in time for
+the same mail. What a getting upstairs! This is Flaubert out-done.
+Belle, Graham, and Lloyd leave to-day on a malaga down the coast; to be
+absent a week or so: this leaves Fanny, me, and ----, who seems a nice,
+kindly fellow.
+
+_June 2nd._--I am nearly dead with dyspepsia, over-smoking, and
+unremunerative overwork. Last night, I went to bed by seven; woke up
+again about ten for a minute to find myself light-headed and altogether
+off my legs; went to sleep again, and woke this morning fairly fit. I
+have crippled on to p. 101, but I haven't read it yet, so do not boast.
+What kills me is the frame of mind of one of the characters; I cannot
+get it through. Of course that does not interfere with my total
+inability to write; so that yesterday I was a living half-hour upon a
+single clause and have a gallery of variants that would surprise you.
+And this sort of trouble (which I cannot avoid) unfortunately produces
+nothing when done but alembication and the far-fetched. Well, read it
+with mercy!
+
+_8 a.m._--Going to bed. Have read it, and believe the chapter
+practically done at last. But Lord! it has been a business.
+
+_June 3rd_, 8.15.--The draft is finished, the end of Chapter XII. and
+the tale, and I have only eight pages _wiederzuarbeiten_. This is just a
+cry of joy in passing.
+
+10.30.--Knocked out of time. Did 101 and 102. Alas, no more to-day, as I
+have to go down town to a meeting. Just as well though, as my thumb is
+about done up.
+
+_Sunday, June 4th._--Now for a little snippet of my life. Yesterday,
+12.30, in a heavenly day of sun and trade, I mounted my horse and set
+off. A boy opens my gate for me. "Sleep and long life! A blessing on
+your journey," says he. And I reply "Sleep, long life! A blessing on the
+house!" Then on, down the lime lane, a rugged, narrow, winding way, that
+seems almost as if it was leading you into Lyonesse, and you might see
+the head and shoulders of a giant looking in. At the corner of the road
+I meet the inspector of taxes, and hold a diplomatic interview with him;
+he wants me to pay taxes on the new house; I am informed I should not
+till next year; and we part, _re infecta_, he promising to bring me
+decisions, I assuring him that, if I find any favouritism, he will find
+me the most recalcitrant tax-payer on the island. Then I have a talk
+with an old servant by the wayside. A little further I pass two children
+coming up. "Love!" say I; "are you two chiefly-proceeding inland?" and
+they say, "Love! yes!" and the interesting ceremony is finished. Down to
+the post office, where I find Vitrolles and (Heaven reward you!) the
+White Book, just arrived per _Upolu_, having gone the wrong way round,
+by Australia; also six copies of _Island Nights' Entertainments_. Some
+of Weatherall's illustrations are very clever; but O Lord! the lagoon! I
+did say it was "shallow," but, O dear, not so shallow as that a man
+could stand up in it! I had still an hour to wait for my meeting, so
+Postmaster Davis let me sit down in his room and I had a bottle of beer
+in, and read _A Gentleman of France_. Have you seen it coming out in
+Longman's? My dear Colvin! 'tis the most exquisite pleasure; a real
+chivalrous yarn, like the Dumas' and yet unlike. Thereafter to the
+meeting of the five newspaper proprietors. Business transacted, I have
+to gallop home and find the boys waiting to be paid at the doorstep.
+
+_Monday, 5th._--Yesterday, Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Brown, secretary to the
+Wesleyan Mission, and the man who made the war in the Western Islands
+and was tried for his life in Fiji, came up, and we had a long,
+important talk about Samoa. O, if I could only talk to the home men! But
+what would it matter? none of them know, none of them care. If we could
+only have Macgregor here with his schooner, you would hear of no more
+troubles in Samoa. That is what we want; a man that knows and likes the
+natives, _qui paye de sa personne_, and is not afraid of hanging when
+necessary. We don't want bland Swedish humbugs, and fussy, footering
+German barons. That way the maelstrom lies, and we shall soon be in it.
+
+I have to-day written 103 and 104, all perfectly wrong, and shall have
+to rewrite them. This tale is devilish, and Chapter XI. the worst of the
+lot. The truth is of course that I am wholly worked out; but it's nearly
+done, and shall go somehow according to promise. I go against all my
+gods, and say it is _not worth while_ to massacre yourself over the last
+few pages of a rancid yarn, that the reviewers will quite justly tear to
+bits. As for _D. B._, no hope, I fear, this mail, but we'll see what the
+afternoon does for me.
+
+4.15.--Well, it's done. Those tragic 16 pp. are at last finished, and I
+have put away thirty-two pages of chips, and have spent thirteen days
+about as nearly in Hell as a man could expect to live through. It's
+done, and of course it ain't worth while, and who cares? There it is,
+and about as grim a tale as was ever written, and as grimy, and as
+hateful.
+
+   _______________________________________
+  |                                       |
+  |                 SACRED                |
+  |                                       |
+  |             TO THE MEMORY             |
+  |                                       |
+  |                  OF                   |
+  |                                       |
+  |             J. L. HUISH,              |
+  |                                       |
+  |     BORN 1856, AT HACKNEY, LONDON     |
+  |                                       |
+  | Accidentally killed upon this Island, |
+  |                                       |
+  |        10th September 1889.           |
+  |_______________________________________|
+
+_Tuesday, 6th._--I am exulting to do nothing. It pours with rain from
+the westward, very unusual kind of weather; I was standing out on the
+little verandah in front of my room this morning, and there went through
+me or over me a wave of extraordinary and apparently baseless emotion. I
+literally staggered. And then the explanation came, and I knew I had
+found a frame of mind and body that belonged to Scotland, and
+particularly to the neighbourhood of Callander. Very odd these
+identities of sensation, and the world of connotations implied;
+highland huts, and peat smoke, and the brown, swirling rivers, and wet
+clothes, and whisky, and the romance of the past, and that indescribable
+bite of the whole thing at a man's heart, which is--or rather lies at
+the bottom of--a story.
+
+I don't know if you are a Barbey d'Aurévilly-an. I am. I have a great
+delight in his Norman stories. Do you know the _Chevalier des Touches_
+and _L'Ensorcelée_? They are admirable, they reek of the soil and the
+past. But I was rather thinking just now of _Le Rideau Cramoisi_, and
+its adorable setting of the stopped coach, the dark street, the
+home-going in the inn yard, and the red blind illuminated. Without
+doubt, _there_ was an identity of sensation; one of those conjunctions
+in life that had filled Barbey full to the brim, and permanently bent
+his memory.
+
+I wonder exceedingly if I have done anything at all good; and who can
+tell me? and why should I wish to know? In so little a while, I, and the
+English language, and the bones of my descendants, will have ceased to
+be a memory! And yet--and yet--one would like to leave an image for a
+few years upon men's minds--for fun. This is a very dark frame of mind,
+consequent on overwork and the conclusion of the excruciating _Ebb
+Tide_. Adieu.
+
+What do you suppose should be done with _The Ebb Tide_? It would make a
+volume of 200 pp.; on the other hand, I might likely have some more
+stories soon: _The Owl_, _Death in the Pot_, _The Sleeper Awakened_; all
+these are possible. _The Owl_ might be half as long; _The Sleeper
+Awakened_, ditto; _Death in the Pot_ a deal shorter, I believe. Then
+there's the _Go-Between_, which is not impossible altogether. _The Owl_,
+_The Sleeper Awakened_, and the _Go-Between_ end reasonably well; _Death
+in the Pot_ is an ungodly massacre. O, well, _The Owl_ only ends well in
+so far as some lovers come together, and nobody is killed at the
+moment, but you know they are all doomed, they are Chouan fellows.[61]
+
+_Friday, 9th._--Well, the mail is in; no Blue-book, depressing letter
+from C.; a long, amusing ramble from my mother; vast masses of Romeike;
+they _are_ going to war now; and what will that lead to? and what has
+driven them to it but the persistent misconduct of these two officials?
+I know I ought to rewrite the end of this bloody _Ebb Tide_: well, I
+can't. _C'est plus fort que moi_; it has to go the way it is, and be
+jowned to it! From what I make out of the reviews,[62] I think it would
+be better not to republish _The Ebb Tide_: but keep it for other tales,
+if they should turn up. Very amusing how the reviews pick out one story
+and damn the rest! and it is always a different one. Be sure you send me
+the article from Le Temps. Talking of which, ain't it manners in France
+to acknowledge a dedication? I have never heard a word from Le Sieur
+Bourget.
+
+_Saturday, 17th._--Since I wrote this last, I have written a whole
+chapter of my Grandfather, and read it to-night; it was on the whole
+much appreciated, and I kind of hope it ain't bad myself. 'Tis a third
+writing, but it wants a fourth. By next mail, I believe I might send you
+3 chapters. That is to say _Family Annals_, _The Service of the Northern
+Lights_, and _The Building of the Bell Rock._ Possibly even 4--_A
+Houseful of Boys_. I could finish my Grandfather very easy now; my
+father and Uncle Alan stop the way. I propose to call the book:
+_Northern Lights: Memoirs of a Family of Engineers_. I tell you, it is
+going to be a good book. My idea in sending MS. would be to get it set
+up; two proofs to me, one to Professor Swan, Ardchapel,
+Helensburgh--mark it private and confidential--one to yourself; and
+come on with criticisms! But I'll have to see. The total plan of the
+book is this--
+
+     I. Domestic Annals.
+
+    II. The Service of the Northern Lights.
+
+   III. The Building of the Bell Rock.
+
+    IV. A Houseful of Boys (or the Family in Baxter's Place).
+
+     V. Education of an Engineer.
+
+    VI. The Grandfather.
+
+   VII. Alan Stevenson.
+
+  VIII. Thomas Stevenson.
+
+  There will be an Introduction 'The Surname of Stevenson' which has
+  proved a mighty queer subject of inquiry. But, Lord! if I were among
+  libraries.
+
+_Sunday, 18th._--I shall put in this envelope the end of the
+ever-to-be-execrated _Ebb Tide_, or Stevenson's Blooming Error. Also, a
+paper apart for _David Balfour_. The slips must go in another enclosure,
+I suspect, owing to their beastly bulk. Anyway, there are two pieces of
+work off my mind, and though I could wish I had rewritten a little more
+of _David_, yet it was plainly to be seen it was impossible. All the
+points indicated by you have been brought out; but to rewrite the end,
+in my present state of over-exhaustion and fiction-phobia, would have
+been madness; and I let it go as it stood. My grandfather is good enough
+for me, these days. I do not work any less; on the whole, if anything, a
+little more. But it is different.
+
+The slips go to you in four packets; I hope they are what they should
+be, but do not think so. I am at a pitch of discontent with fiction in
+all its form--or _my_ forms--that prevents me being able to be even
+interested. I have had to stop all drink; smoking I am trying to stop
+also. It annoys me dreadfully: and yet if I take a glass of claret, I
+have a headache the next day! O, and a good headache too; none of your
+trifles.
+
+Well, sir, here's to you, and farewell.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO EDMUND GOSSE
+
+
+     _June 10th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR GOSSE,--My mother tells me you never received the very long and
+careful letter that I sent you more than a year ago; or is it two years?
+
+I was indeed so much surprised at your silence that I wrote to Henry
+James and begged him to inquire if you had received it; his reply was an
+(if possible) higher power of the same silence; whereupon I bowed my
+head and acquiesced. But there is no doubt the letter was written and
+sent; and I am sorry it was lost, for it contained, among other things,
+an irrecoverable criticism of your father's _Life_, with a number of
+suggestions for another edition, which struck me at the time as
+excellent.
+
+Well, suppose we call that cried off, and begin as before? It is
+fortunate indeed that we can do so, being both for a while longer in the
+day. But, alas! when I see "works of the late J. A. S.,"[63] I can see
+no help and no reconciliation possible. I wrote him a letter, I think,
+three years ago, heard in some roundabout way that he had received it,
+waited in vain for an answer (which had probably miscarried), and in a
+humour between frowns and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the
+strange, poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the night,
+and the voice is silent that uttered so much excellent discourse; and I
+am sorry that I did not write to him again. Yet I am glad for him; light
+lie the turf! The Saturday is the only obituary I have seen, and I
+thought it very good upon the whole. I should be half tempted to write
+an _In Memoriam_, but I am submerged with other work. Are you going to
+do it? I very much admire your efforts that way; you are our only
+academician.
+
+So you have tried fiction? I will tell you the truth: when I saw it
+announced, I was so sure you would send it to me, that I did not order
+it! But the order goes this mail, and I will give you news of it. Yes,
+honestly, fiction is very difficult; it is a terrible strain to _carry_
+your characters all that time. And the difficulty of according the
+narrative and the dialogue (in a work in the third person) is extreme.
+That is one reason out of half a dozen why I so often prefer the first.
+It is much in my mind just now, because of my last work, just off the
+stocks three days ago, _The Ebb Tide_: a dreadful, grimy business in the
+third person, where the strain between a vilely realistic dialogue and a
+narrative style pitched about (in phrase) 'four notes higher' than it
+should have been, has sown my head with grey hairs; or I believe so--if
+my head escaped, my heart has them.
+
+The truth is, I have a little lost my way, and stand bemused at the
+cross-roads. A subject? Ay, I have dozens; I have at least four novels
+begun, they are none good enough; and the mill waits, and I'll have to
+take second best. _The Ebb Tide_ I make the world a present of; I
+expect, and, I suppose, deserve to be torn to pieces; but there was all
+that good work lying useless, and I had to finish it!
+
+All your news of your family is pleasant to hear. My wife has been very
+ill, but is now better; I may say I am ditto, _The Ebb Tide_ having left
+me high and dry, which is a good example of the mixed metaphor. Our
+home, and estate, and our boys, and the politics of the island, keep us
+perpetually amused and busy; and I grind away with an odd, dogged, down
+sensation--and an idea _in petto_ that the game is about played out. I
+have got too realistic, and I must break the trammels--I mean I would if
+I could; but the yoke is heavy. I saw with amusement that Zola says the
+same thing; and truly the _Débâcle_ was a mighty big book, I have no
+need for a bigger, though the last part is a mere mistake in my opinion.
+But the Emperor, and Sedan, and the doctor at the ambulance, and the
+horses in the field of battle, Lord, how gripped it is! What an epical
+performance! According to my usual opinion, I believe I could go over
+that book and leave a masterpiece by blotting and no ulterior art. But
+that is an old story, ever new with me. Taine gone, and Renan, and
+Symonds, and Tennyson, and Browning; the suns go swiftly out, and I see
+no suns to follow, nothing but a universal twilight of the
+demi-divinities, with parties like you and me and Lang beating on toy
+drums and playing on penny whistles about glow-worms. But Zola is big
+anyway; he has plenty in his belly; too much, that is all; he wrote the
+_Débâcle_ and he wrote _La Bęte humaine_, perhaps the most
+excruciatingly silly book that I ever read to an end. And why did I read
+it to an end, W. E. G.? Because the animal in me was interested in the
+lewdness. Not sincerely, of course, my mind refusing to partake in it;
+but the flesh was slightly pleased. And when it was done, I cast it from
+me with a peal of laughter, and forgot it, as I would forget a Montépin.
+Taine is to me perhaps the chief of these losses; I did luxuriate in his
+_Origines_; it was something beyond literature, not quite so good, if
+you please, but so much more systematic, and the pages that had to be
+"written" always so adequate. Robespierre, Napoleon, were both excellent
+good.
+
+_June 18th, '93._--Well, I have left fiction wholly, and gone to my
+Grandfather, and on the whole found peace. By next month my Grandfather
+will begin to be quite grown up. I have already three chapters about as
+good as done; by which, of course, as you know, I mean till further
+notice or the next discovery. I like biography far better than fiction
+myself: fiction is too free. In biography you have your little handful
+of facts, little bits of a puzzle, and you sit and think, and fit 'em
+together this way and that, and get up and throw 'em down, and say damn,
+and go out for a walk. And it's real soothing; and when done, gives an
+idea of finish to the writer that is very peaceful. Of course, it's not
+really so finished as quite a rotten novel; it always has and always
+must have the incurable illogicalities of life about it, the fathoms of
+slack and the miles of tedium. Still, that's where the fun comes in; and
+when you have at last managed to shut up the castle spectre (dulness),
+the very outside of his door looks beautiful by contrast. There are
+pages in these books that may seem nothing to the reader; but you
+_remember what they were, you know what they might have been_, and they
+seem to you witty beyond comparison. In my Grandfather I've had (for
+instance) to give up the temporal order almost entirely; doubtless the
+temporal order is the great foe of the biographer; it is so tempting, so
+easy, and lo! there you are in the bog!--Ever yours,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+With all kind messages from self and wife to you and yours. My wife is
+very much better, having been the early part of this year alarmingly
+ill. She is now all right, only complaining of trifles, annoying to her,
+but happily not interesting to her friends. I am in a hideous state,
+having stopped drink and smoking; yes, both. No wine, no tobacco; and
+the dreadful part of it is that--looking forward--I have--what shall I
+say?--nauseating intimations that it ought to be for ever.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+  _Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, June 17th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--I believe I have neglected a mail in answering
+yours. You will be very sorry to hear that my wife was exceedingly ill,
+and very glad to hear that she is better. I cannot say that I feel any
+more anxiety about her. We shall send you a photograph of her taken in
+Sydney in her customary island habit as she walks and gardens and
+shrilly drills her brown assistants. She was very ill when she sat for
+it, which may a little explain the appearance of the photograph. It
+reminds me of a friend of my grandmother's who used to say when talking
+to younger women, "Aweel, when I was young, I wasnae just exactly what
+ye wad call _bonny_, but I was pale, penetratin', and interestin'." I
+would not venture to hint that Fanny is "no bonny," but there is no
+doubt but that in this presentment she is "pale, penetratin', and
+interestin'."
+
+As you are aware, I have been wading deep waters and contending with the
+great ones of the earth, not wholly without success. It is, you may be
+interested to hear, a dreary and infuriating business. If you can get
+the fools to admit one thing, they will always save their face by
+denying another. If you can induce them to take a step to the right
+hand, they generally indemnify themselves by cutting a caper to the
+left. I always held (upon no evidence whatever, from a mere sentiment or
+intuition) that politics was the dirtiest, the most foolish, and the
+most random of human employments. I always held, but now I know it!
+Fortunately, you have nothing to do with anything of the kind, and I may
+spare you the horror of further details.
+
+I received from you a book by a man by the name of Anatole France. Why
+should I disguise it? I have no use for Anatole. He writes very
+prettily, and then afterwards? Baron Marbot was a different pair of
+shoes. So likewise is the Baron de Vitrolles, whom I am now perusing
+with delight. His escape in 1814 is one of the best pages I remember
+anywhere to have read. But Marbot and Vitrolles are dead, and what has
+become of the living? It seems as if literature were coming to a stand.
+I am sure it is with me; and I am sure everybody will say so when they
+have the privilege of reading _The Ebb Tide_. My dear man, the grimness
+of that story is not to be depicted in words. There are only four
+characters, to be sure, but they are such a troop of swine! And their
+behaviour is really so deeply beneath any possible standard, that on a
+retrospect I wonder I have been able to endure them myself until the
+yarn was finished. Well, there is always one thing; it will serve as a
+touchstone. If the admirers of Zola admire him for his pertinent
+ugliness and pessimism, I think they should admire this; but if, as I
+have long suspected, they neither admire nor understand the man's art,
+and only wallow in his rancidness like a hound in offal, then they will
+certainly be disappointed in _The Ebb Tide_. Alas! poor little tale, it
+is not _even_ rancid.
+
+By way of an antidote or febrifuge, I am going on at a great rate with
+my History of the Stevensons, which I hope may prove rather amusing, in
+some parts at least. The excess of materials weighs upon me. My
+grandfather is a delightful comedy part; and I have to treat him besides
+as a serious and (in his way) a heroic figure, and at times I lose my
+way, and I fear in the end will blur the effect. However, _ŕ la grâce de
+Dieu!_ I'll make a spoon or spoil a horn. You see, I have to do the
+Building of the Bell Rock by cutting down and packing my grand-sire's
+book, which I rather hope I have done, but do not know. And it makes a
+huge chunk of a very different style and quality between Chapters II.
+and IV. And it can't be helped! It is just a delightful and exasperating
+necessity. You know, the stuff is really excellent narrative: only,
+perhaps there's too much of it! There is the rub. Well, well, it will be
+plain to you that my mind is affected; it might be with less. _The Ebb
+Tide_ and _Northern Lights_ are a full meal for any plain man.
+
+I have written and ordered your last book, _The Real Thing_, so be sure
+and don't send it. What else are you doing or thinking of doing? News I
+have none, and don't want any. I have had to stop all strong drink and
+all tobacco, and am now in a transition state between the two, which
+seems to be near madness. You never smoked, I think, so you can never
+taste the joys of stopping it. But at least you have drunk, and you can
+enter perhaps into my annoyance when I suddenly find a glass of claret
+or a brandy-and-water give me a splitting headache the next morning. No
+mistake about it; drink anything, and there's your headache. Tobacco
+just as bad for me. If I live through this breach of habit, I shall be a
+white-livered puppy indeed. Actually I am so made, or so twisted, that I
+do not like to think of a life without the red wine on the table and the
+tobacco with its lovely little coal of fire. It doesn't amuse me from a
+distance. I may find it the Garden of Eden when I go in, but I don't
+like the colour of the gate-posts. Suppose somebody said to you, you are
+to leave your home, and your books, and your clubs, and go out and camp
+in mid-Africa, and command an expedition, you would howl, and kick, and
+flee. I think the same of a life without wine and tobacco; and if this
+goes on, I've got to go and do it, sir, in the living flesh!
+
+I thought Bourget was a friend of yours? And I thought the French were a
+polite race? He has taken my dedication with a stately silence that has
+surprised me into apoplexy. Did I go and dedicate my book[64] to the
+nasty alien, and the 'norrid Frenchman, and the Bloody Furrineer? Well,
+I wouldn't do it again; and unless his case is susceptible of
+explanation, you might perhaps tell him so over the walnuts and the
+wine, by way of speeding the gay hours. Sincerely, I thought my
+dedication worth a letter.
+
+If anything be worth anything here below! Do you know the story of the
+man who found a button in his hash, and called the waiter? "What do you
+call that?" says he. "Well," said the waiter, "what d'you expect? Expect
+to find a gold watch and chain?" Heavenly apologue, is it not? I
+expected (rather) to find a gold watch and chain; I expected to be able
+to smoke to excess and drink to comfort all the days of my life; and I
+am still indignantly staring on this button! It's not even a button;
+it's a teetotal badge!--Ever yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Saturday, 24th (?) June [1893]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Yesterday morning, after a day of absolute temperance,
+I awoke to the worst headache I had had yet. Accordingly, temperance was
+said farewell to, quinine instituted, and I believe my pains are soon to
+be over. We wait, with a kind of sighing impatience, for war to be
+declared, or to blow finally off, living in the meanwhile in a kind of
+children's hour of firelight and shadow and preposterous tales; the king
+seen at night galloping up our road upon unknown errands and covering
+his face as he passes our cook; Mataafa daily surrounded (when he
+awakes) with fresh "white man's boxes" (query, ammunition?) and
+professing to be quite ignorant of where they come from; marches of
+bodies of men across the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the
+coming on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and
+rag-tag as the devil himself could not unwind.
+
+_Wednesday, 28 June._--Yesterday it rained with but little intermission,
+but I was jealous of news. Graham and I got into the saddle about 1
+o'clock and off down to town. In town, there was nothing but rumours
+going; in the night drums had been beat, the men had run to arms on
+Mulinuu from as far as Vaiala, and the alarm proved false. There were no
+signs of any gathering in Apia proper, and the Secretary of State had no
+news to give. I believed him, too, for we are brither Scots. Then the
+temptation came upon me strong to go on to the ford and see the Mataafa
+villages, where we heard there was more afoot. Off we rode. When we came
+to Vaimusu, the houses were very full of men, but all seemingly unarmed.
+Immediately beyond is that river over which we passed in our scamper
+with Lady Jersey; it was all solitary. Three hundred yards beyond is a
+second ford; and there--I came face to face with war. Under the trees on
+the further bank sat a picket of seven men with Winchesters; their faces
+bright, their eyes ardent. As we came up, they did not speak or move;
+only their eyes followed us. The horses drank, and we passed the ford.
+"Talofa!" I said, and the commandant of the picket said "Talofa"; and
+then, when we were almost by, remembered himself and asked where we were
+going. "To Faamuiná," I said, and we rode on. Every house by the wayside
+was crowded with armed men. There was the European house of a Chinaman
+on the right-hand side: a flag of truce flying over the gate--indeed we
+saw three of these in what little way we penetrated into Mataafa's
+lines--all the foreigners trying to protect their goods; and the
+Chinaman's verandah overflowed with men and girls and Winchesters. By
+the way we met a party of about ten or a dozen marching with their guns
+and cartridge-belts, and the cheerful alacrity and brightness of their
+looks set my head turning with envy and sympathy. Arrived at Vaiusu, the
+houses about the _malae_ (village green) were thronged with men, all
+armed. On the outside of the council-house (which was all full within)
+there stood an orator; he had his back turned to his audience, and
+seemed to address the world at large; all the time we were there his
+strong voice continued unabated, and I heard snatches of political
+wisdom rising and falling.
+
+The house of Faamuiná stands on a knoll in the _malae_. Thither we
+mounted, a boy ran out and took our horses, and we went in. Faamuiná was
+there himself, his wife Palepa, three other chiefs, and some attendants;
+and here again was this exulting spectacle as of people on their
+marriage day. Faamuiná (when I last saw him) was an elderly, limping
+gentleman, with much of the debility of age; it was a bright-eyed boy
+that greeted me; the lady was no less excited; all had cartridge-belts.
+We stayed but a little while to smoke a selui; I would not have kava
+made, as I thought my escapade was already dangerous (perhaps even
+blameworthy) enough. On the way back, we were much greeted, and on
+coming to the ford, the commandant came and asked me if there were many
+on the other side. "Very many," said I; not that I knew, but I would not
+lead them on the ice. "That is well!" said he, and the little picket
+laughed aloud as we splashed into the river. We returned to Apia,
+through Apia, and out to windward as far as Vaiala, where the word went
+that the men of the Vaimauga had assembled. We met two boys carrying
+pigs, and saw six young men busy cooking in a cook-house; but no sign of
+an assembly; no arms, no blackened faces. (I forgot! As we turned to
+leave Faamuiná's, there ran forward a man with his face blackened, and
+the back of his lava-lava girded up so as to show his tattooed hips
+naked; he leaped before us, cut a wonderful caper, and flung his knife
+high in the air, and caught it. It was strangely savage and fantastic
+and high-spirited. I have seen a child doing the same antics long before
+in a dance, so that it is plainly an _accepted solemnity_. I should say
+that for weeks the children have been playing with spears.) Up by the
+plantation I took a short cut, which shall never be repeated, through
+grass and weeds over the horses' heads and among rolling stones; I
+thought we should have left a horse there, but fortune favoured us. So
+home, a little before six, in a dashing squall of rain, to a bowl of
+kava and dinner. But the impression on our minds was extraordinary; the
+sight of that picket at the ford, and those ardent, happy faces whirls
+in my head; the old aboriginal awoke in both of us and knickered like a
+stallion.
+
+It is dreadful to think that I must sit apart here and do nothing; I do
+not know if I can stand it out. But you see, I may be of use to these
+poor people, if I keep quiet, and if I threw myself in, I should have a
+bad job of it to save myself. There; I have written this to you; and it
+is still but 7.30 in the day, and the sun only about one hour up; can I
+go back to my old grandpapa, and men sitting with Winchesters in my
+mind's eye? No; war is a huge _entraînement_; there is no other
+temptation to be compared to it, not one. We were all wet, we had been
+about five hours in the saddle, mostly riding hard; and we came home
+like schoolboys, with such a lightness of spirits, and I am sure such a
+brightness of eye, as you could have lit a candle at!
+
+Do you appreciate the height and depth of my temptation? that I have
+about nine miles to ride, and I can become a general officer? and
+to-night I might seize Mulinuu and have the C. J. under arrest? And yet
+I stay here! It seems incredible, so huge is the empire of prudence and
+the second thought.
+
+_Thursday, 29th._--I had two priests to luncheon yesterday: the Bishop
+and Pčre Rémy. They were very pleasant, and quite clean too, which has
+been known sometimes not to be--even with bishops. Monseigneur is not
+unimposing; with his white beard and his violet girdle he looks
+splendidly episcopal, and when our three waiting lads came up one after
+another and kneeled before him in the big hall, and kissed his ring, it
+did me good for a piece of pageantry. Rémy is very engaging; he is a
+little, nervous, eager man, like a governess, and brimful of laughter
+and small jokes. So is the bishop indeed, and our luncheon party went
+off merrily--far more merrily than many a German spread, though with so
+much less liquor. One trait was delicious. With a complete ignorance of
+the Protestant that I would scarce have imagined, he related to us (as
+news) little stories from the gospels, and got the names all wrong! His
+comments were delicious, and to our ears a thought irreverent. "_Ah! il
+connaissait son monde, allez!_" "_Il était fin, notre Seigneur!_" etc.
+
+_Friday._--Down with Fanny and Belle, to lunch at the International.
+Heard there about the huge folly of the hour, all the Mulinuu
+ammunition having been yesterday marched openly to vaults in Matafele;
+and this morning, on a cry of protest from the whites, openly and
+humiliatingly disinterred and marched back again. People spoke of it
+with a kind of shrill note that did not quite satisfy me. They seemed
+not quite well at ease. Luncheon over, we rode out on the Malie road.
+All was quiet in Vaiusu, and when we got to the second ford, alas! there
+was no picket--which was just what Belle had come to sketch. On through
+quite empty roads; the houses deserted, never a gun to be seen; and at
+last a drum and a penny whistle playing in Vaiusu, and a cricket match
+on the _malae_! Went up to Faamuiná's; he is a trifle uneasy, though he
+gives us kava. I cannot see what ails him, then it appears that he has
+an engagement with the Chief Justice at half-past two to sell a piece of
+land. Is this the reason why war has disappeared? We ride back, stopping
+to sketch here and there the fords, a flag of truce, etc. I ride on to
+Public Hall Committee and pass an hour with my committees very heavily.
+To the hotel to dinner, then to the ball, and home by eleven, very
+tired. At the ball I heard some news, of how the chief of Letonu said
+that I was the source of all this trouble, and should be punished, and
+my family as well. This, and the rudeness of the man at the ford of the
+Gase-gase, looks but ill; I should have said that Faamuiná, as he
+approached the first ford, was spoken to by a girl, and immediately said
+good-bye and plunged into the bush; the girl had told him there was a
+war party out from Mulinuu; and a little further on, as we stopped to
+sketch a flag of truce, the beating of drums and the sound of a bugle
+from that direction startled us. But we saw nothing, and I believe
+Mulinuu is (at least at present) incapable of any act of offence. One
+good job, these threats to my home and family take away all my childish
+temptation to go out and fight. Our force must be here, to protect
+ourselves. I see panic rising among the whites; I hear the shrill note
+of it in their voices, and they talk already about a refuge on the war
+ships. There are two here, both German; and the _Orlando_ is expected
+presently.
+
+_Sunday, 9th July._--Well, the war has at last begun. For four or five
+days, Apia has been filled by these poor children with their faces
+blacked, and the red handkerchief about their brows, that makes the
+Malietoa uniform, and the boats have been coming in from the windward,
+some of them 50 strong, with a drum and a bugle on board--the bugle
+always ill-played--and a sort of jester leaping and capering on the
+sparred nose of the boat, and the whole crew uttering from time to time
+a kind of menacing ululation. Friday they marched out to the bush; and
+yesterday morning we heard that some had returned to their houses for
+the night, as they found it "so uncomfortable." After dinner a messenger
+came up to me with a note, that the wounded were arriving at the Mission
+House. Fanny, Lloyd and I saddled and rode off with a lantern; it was a
+fine starry night, though pretty cold. We left the lantern at
+Tanugamanono, and then down in the starlight. I found Apia, and myself,
+in a strange state of flusteration; my own excitement was gloomy and (I
+may say) truculent; others appeared imbecile; some sullen. The best
+place in the whole town was the hospital. A longish frame-house it was,
+with a big table in the middle for operations, and ten Samoans, each
+with an average of four sympathisers, stretched along the walls. Clarke
+was there, steady as a die; Miss Large, little spectacled angel, showed
+herself a real trump; the nice, clean, German orderlies in their white
+uniforms looked and meant business. (I hear a fine story of Miss
+Large--a cast-iron teetotaller--going to the public-house for a bottle
+of brandy.)
+
+The doctors were not there when I arrived; but presently it was observed
+that one of the men was going cold. He was a magnificent Samoan, very
+dark, with a noble aquiline countenance, like an Arab, I suppose, and
+was surrounded by seven people, fondling his limbs as he lay: he was
+shot through both lungs. And an orderly was sent to the town for the
+(German naval) doctors, who were dining there. Meantime I found an
+errand of my own. Both Clarke and Miss Large expressed a wish to have
+the public hall, of which I am chairman, and I set off down town, and
+woke people out of their beds, and got a committee together, and (with a
+great deal of difficulty from one man, whom we finally overwhelmed) got
+the public hall for them. Bar the one man, the committee was splendid,
+and agreed in a moment to share the expense if the shareholders object.
+Back to the hospital about 11.30; found the German doctors there. Two
+men were going now, one that was shot in the bowels--he was dying rather
+hard, in a gloomy stupor of pain and laudanum, silent, with contorted
+face. The chief, shot through the lungs, was lying on one side, awaiting
+the last angel; his family held his hands and legs: they were all
+speechless, only one woman suddenly clasped his knee, and "keened" for
+the inside of five seconds, and fell silent again. Went home, and to bed
+about two A.M. What actually passed seems undiscoverable; but the
+Mataafas were surely driven back out of Vaitele; that is a blow to them,
+and the resistance was far greater than had been anticipated--which is a
+blow to the Laupepas. All seems to indicate a long and bloody war.
+
+Frank's house in Mulinuu was likewise filled with wounded; many dead
+bodies were brought in; I hear with certainty of five, wrapped in mats;
+and a pastor goes to-morrow to the field to bring others. The Laupepas
+brought in eleven heads to Mulinuu, and to the great horror and
+consternation of the native mind, one proved to be a girl, and was
+identified as that of a Taupou--or Maid of the Village--from Savaii. I
+hear this morning, with great relief, that it has been returned to
+Malie, wrapped in the most costly silk handkerchiefs, and with an
+apologetic embassy. This could easily happen. The girl was of course
+attending on her father with ammunition, and got shot; her hair was cut
+short to make her father's war head-dress--even as our own Sina's is at
+this moment; and the decollator was probably, in his red flurry of
+fight, wholly unconscious of her sex. I am sorry for him in the future;
+he must make up his mind to many bitter jests--perhaps to vengeance. But
+what an end to one chosen for her beauty and, in the time of peace,
+watched over by trusty crones and hunchbacks!
+
+_Evening._--Can I write or not? I played lawn tennis in the morning, and
+after lunch down with Graham to Apia. Ulu, he that was shot in the
+lungs, still lives; he that was shot in the bowels is gone to his
+fathers, poor, fierce child! I was able to be of some very small help,
+and in the way of helping myself to information, to prove myself a mere
+gazer at meteors. But there seems no doubt the Mataafas for the time are
+scattered; the most of our friends are involved in this disaster, and
+Mataafa himself--who might have swept the islands a few months ago--for
+him to fall so poorly, doubles my regret. They say the Taupou had a gun
+and fired; probably an excuse manufactured _ex post facto_. I go down
+to-morrow at 12, to stay the afternoon, and help Miss Large. In the
+hospital to-day, when I first entered it, there were no attendants; only
+the wounded and their friends, all equally sleeping and their heads
+poised upon the wooden pillows. There is a pretty enough boy there,
+slightly wounded, whose fate is to be envied: two girls, and one of the
+most beautiful, with beaming eyes, tend him and sleep upon his pillow.
+In the other corner, another young man, very patient and brave, lies
+wholly deserted. Yet he seems to me far the better of the two; but not
+so pretty! Heavens, what a difference that makes; in our not very well
+proportioned bodies and our finely hideous faces, the 1-32nd--rather the
+1-64th--this way or that! Sixteen heads in all at Mulinuu. I am so stiff
+I can scarce move without a howl.
+
+_Monday, 10th._--Some news that Mataafa is gone to Savaii by way of
+Manono: this may mean a great deal more warfaring, and no great issue.
+(When Sosimo came in this morning with my breakfast he had to lift me
+up. It is no joke to play lawn tennis after carrying your right arm in a
+sling so many years.) What a hard, unjust business this is! On the 28th,
+if Mataafa had moved, he could have still swept Mulinuu. He waited, and
+I fear he is now only the stick of a rocket.
+
+_Wednesday, 12th._--No more political news; but many rumours. The
+government troops are off to Manono; no word of Mataafa. O, there is a
+passage in my mother's letter which puzzles me as to a date. Is it next
+Christmas you are coming? or the Christmas after? This is most
+important, and must be understood at once. If it is next Christmas, I
+could not go to Ceylon, for lack of gold, and you would have to adopt
+one of the following alternatives: 1st, either come straight on here and
+pass a month with us; 'tis the rainy season, but we have often lovely
+weather. Or (2nd) come to Hawaii and I will meet you there. Hawaii is
+only a week's sail from S. Francisco, making only about sixteen days on
+the heaving ocean; and the steamers run once a fortnight, so that you
+could turn round; and you could thus pass a day or two in the States--a
+fortnight even--and still see me. But I have sworn to take no further
+excursions till I have money saved to pay for them; and to go to Ceylon
+and back would be torture unless I had a lot. You must answer this at
+once, please; so that I may know what to do. We would dearly like you to
+come on here. I'll tell you how it can be done; I can come up and meet
+you at Hawaii, and if you had at all got over your sea-sickness, I could
+just come on board and we could return together to Samoa, and you could
+have a month of our life here, which I believe you could not help
+liking. Our horses are the devil, of course, miserable screws, and some
+of them a little vicious. I had a dreadful fright--the passage in my
+mother's letter is recrossed and I see it says the end of /94: so much
+the better, then; but I would like to submit to you my alternative plan.
+I could meet you at Hawaii, and reconduct you to Hawaii, so that we
+could have a full six weeks together and I believe a little over, and
+you would see this place of mine, and have a sniff of native life,
+native foods, native houses--and perhaps be in time to see the German
+flag raised, who knows?--and we could generally yarn for all we were
+worth. I should like you to see Vailima; and I should be curious to know
+how the climate affected you. It is quite hit or miss; it suits me, it
+suits Graham, it suits all our family; others it does not suit at all.
+It is either gold or poison. I rise at six, the rest at seven; lunch is
+at 12; at five we go to lawn tennis till dinner at six; and to roost
+early.
+
+A man brought in a head to Mulinuu in great glory; they washed the black
+paint off, and behold! it was his brother. When I last heard he was
+sitting in his house, with the head upon his lap, and weeping. Barbarous
+war is an ugly business; but I believe the civilised is fully uglier;
+but Lord! what fun!
+
+I should say we now have definite news that there are _three_ women's
+heads; it was difficult to get it out of the natives, who are all
+ashamed, and the women all in terror of reprisals. Nothing has been done
+to punish or disgrace these hateful innovators. It was a false report
+that the head had been returned.
+
+_Thursday, 13th._--Maatafa driven away from Savaii. I cannot write about
+this, and do not know what should be the end of it.
+
+_Monday, 17th._--Haggard and Ahrens (a German clerk) to lunch yesterday.
+There is no real certain news yet: I must say, no man could _swear_ to
+any result; but the sky looks horribly black for Mataafa and so many of
+our friends along with him. The thing has an abominable, a beastly,
+nightmare interest. But it's wonderful generally how little one cares
+about the wounded; hospital sights, etc.; things that used to murder me.
+I was far more struck with the excellent way in which things were
+managed; as if it had been a peep-show; I held some of the things at an
+operation, and did not care a dump.
+
+_Tuesday, 18th._--Sunday came the _Katoomba_, Captain Bickford, C.M.G.
+Yesterday, Graham and I went down to call, and find he has orders to
+suppress Mataafa at once, and has to go down to-day before daybreak to
+Manono. He is a very capable, energetic man; if he had only come ten
+days ago, all this would have gone by; but now the questions are thick
+and difficult. (1) Will Mataafa surrender? (2) Will his people allow
+themselves to be disarmed? (3) What will happen to them if they do? (4)
+What will any of them believe after former deceptions? The three consuls
+were scampering on horseback to Leulumoega to the king; no Cusack-Smith,
+without whose accession I could not send a letter to Mataafa. I rode up
+here, wrote my letter in the sweat of the concordance and with the
+able-bodied help of Lloyd--and dined. Then down in continual showers and
+pitchy darkness, and to Cusack-Smith's; not returned. Back to the inn
+for my horse, and to C.-S.'s, when I find him just returned and he
+accepts my letter. Thence home, by 12.30, jolly tired and wet. And
+to-day have been in a crispation of energy and ill-temper, raking my
+wretched mail together. It is a hateful business, waiting for the news;
+it may come to a fearful massacre yet.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES S. STEVENSON
+
+
+   This is addressed to a very remote cousin in quest of information
+   about the origins of the family.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, June 19th, 1893._
+
+DEAR MR. STEVENSON,--I am reminded by coming across some record of
+relations between my grandfather, Robert Stevenson, C.E., Edinburgh,
+and Robert Stevenson, Esq., Secretary to the Royal Exchange, Glasgow,
+and I presume a son of Hugh Stevenson who died in Tobago 16th April
+1774, that I have not yet consulted my cousins in Glasgow.
+
+I am engaged in writing a Life of my grandfather, my uncle Alan, and my
+father, Thomas, and I find almost inconceivable difficulty in placing
+and understanding their (and my) descent.
+
+Might I ask if you have any material to go upon? The smallest notes
+would be like found gold to me; and an old letter invaluable.
+
+I have not got beyond James Stevenson and Jean Keir his spouse, to whom
+Robert the First (?) was born in 1675. Could you get me further back?
+Have you any old notes of the trouble in the West Indian business which
+took Hugh and Alan to their deaths? How had they acquired so
+considerable a business at an age so early? You see how the queries pour
+from me; but I will ask nothing more in words. Suffice it to say that
+any information, however insignificant, as to our common forbears, will
+be very gratefully received. In case you should have any original
+documents, it would be better to have copies sent to me in this
+outlandish place, for the expense of which I will account to you as soon
+as you let me know the amount, and it will be wise to register your
+letter.--Believe me, in the old, honoured Scottish phrase, your
+affectionate cousin,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+     _Apia, July 1893._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--Yes. _Les Trophées_ is, on the whole, a book.[65]
+It is excellent; but is it a life's work? I always suspect _you_ of a
+volume of sonnets up your sleeve; when is it coming down? I am in one of
+my moods of wholesale impatience with all fiction and all verging on it,
+reading instead, with rapture, _Fountainhall's Decisions_. You never
+read it: well, it hasn't much form, and is inexpressibly dreary, I
+should suppose, to others--and even to me for pages. It's like walking
+in a mine underground, and with a damned bad lantern, and picking out
+pieces of ore. This, and war, will be my excuse for not having read your
+(doubtless) charming work of fiction. The revolving year will bring me
+round to it; and I know, when fiction shall begin to feel a little
+_solid_ to me again, that I shall love it, because it's James. Do you
+know, when I am in this mood, I would rather try to read a bad book?
+It's not so disappointing, anyway. And _Fountainhall_ is prime, two big
+folio volumes, and all dreary, and all true, and all as terse as an
+obituary; and about one interesting fact on an average in twenty pages,
+and ten of them unintelligible for technicalities. There's literature,
+if you like! It feeds; it falls about you genuine like rain. Rain:
+nobody has done justice to rain in literature yet: surely a subject for
+a Scot. But then you can't do rain in that ledger-book style that I am
+trying for--or between a ledger-book and an old ballad. How to get over,
+how to escape from, the besotting _particularity_ of fiction. "Roland
+approached the house; it had green doors and window blinds; and there
+was a scraper on the upper step." To hell with Roland and the
+scraper!--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+     _Vailima, July 12, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE,--The _White Company_ has not yet turned up; but
+when it does--which I suppose will be next mail--you shall hear news of
+me. I have a great talent for compliment, accompanied by a hateful,
+even a diabolic frankness.
+
+Delighted to hear I have a chance of seeing you and Mrs. Doyle; Mrs.
+Stevenson bids me say (what is too true) that our rations are often
+spare. Are you Great Eaters? Please reply.
+
+As to ways and means, here is what you will have to do. Leave San
+Francisco by the down mail, get off at Samoa, and twelve days or a
+fortnight later, you can continue your journey to Auckland per Upolu,
+which will give you a look at Tonga and possibly Fiji by the way. Make
+this a _first part of your plans_. A fortnight, even of Vailima diet,
+could kill nobody.
+
+We are in the midst of war here; rather a nasty business, with the
+head-taking; and there seems signs of other trouble. But I believe you
+need make no change in your design to visit us. All should be well over;
+and if it were not, why! you need not leave the steamer.--Yours very
+truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+     _19th July '93._
+
+... We are in the thick of war--see Illustrated London News--we have
+only two outside boys left to us. Nothing is doing, and _per contra_
+little paying.... My life here is dear; but I can live within my income
+for a time at least--so long as my prices keep up--and it seems a clear
+duty to waste none of it on gadding about. ... My Life of my family
+fills up intervals, and should be an excellent book when it is done, but
+big, damnably big.
+
+My dear old man, I perceive by a thousand signs that we grow old, and
+are soon to pass away; I hope with dignity; if not, with courage at
+least. I am myself very ready; or would be--will be--when I have made a
+little money for my folks. The blows that have fallen upon you are
+truly terrifying; I wish you strength to bear them. It is strange, I
+must seem to you to blaze in a Birmingham prosperity and happiness; and
+to myself I seem a failure. The truth is, I have never got over the last
+influenza yet, and am miserably out of heart and out of kilter. Lungs
+pretty right, stomach nowhere, spirits a good deal overshadowed; but
+we'll come through it yet, and cock our bonnets. (I confess with sorrow
+that I am not yet quite sure about the _intellects_; but I hope it is
+only one of my usual periods of non-work. They are more unbearable now,
+because I cannot rest. _No rest but the grave for Sir Walter!_ O the
+words ring in a man's head.)
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] August 1893._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Quite impossible to write. Your letter is due to-day; a
+nasty, rainy-like morning with huge blue clouds, and a huge indigo
+shadow on the sea, and my lamp still burning at near 7. Let me humbly
+give you news. Fanny seems on the whole the most, or the only, powerful
+member of the family; for some days she has been the Flower of the
+Flock. Belle is begging for quinine. Lloyd and Graham have both been
+down with "belly belong him" (Black Boy speech). As for me, I have to
+lay aside my lawn tennis, having (as was to be expected) had a smart but
+eminently brief hemorrhage. I am also on the quinine flask. I have been
+re-casting the beginning of the _Hanging Judge_ or _Weir of Hermiston_;
+then I have been cobbling on my Grandfather, whose last chapter (there
+are only to be four) is in the form of pieces of paper, a huge welter of
+inconsequence, and that glimmer of faith (or hope) which one learns at
+this trade, that somehow and some time, by perpetual staring and
+glowering and re-writing, order will emerge. It is indeed a queer hope;
+there is one piece for instance that I want in--I cannot put it one
+place for a good reason--I cannot put it another for a better--and every
+time I look at it, I turn sick and put the MS. away.
+
+Well, your letter hasn't come, and a number of others are missing. It
+looks as if a mail-bag had gone on, so I'll blame nobody, and proceed to
+business.
+
+It looks as if I was going to send you the first three chapters of my
+Grandfather.... If they were set up, it would be that much anxiety off
+my mind. I have a strange feeling of responsibility, as if I had my
+ancestors' _souls_ in my charge, and might miscarry with them.
+
+There's a lot of work gone into it, and a lot more is needed. Still
+Chapter I. seems about right to me, and much of Chapter II. Chapter III.
+I know nothing of, as I told you. And Chapter IV. is at present all ends
+and beginnings; but it can be pulled together.
+
+This is all I have been able to screw up to you for this month, and I
+may add that it is not only more than you deserve, but just about more
+than I was equal to. I have been and am entirely useless; just able to
+tinker at my Grandfather. The three chapters--perhaps also a little of
+the fourth--will come home to you next mail by the hand of my cousin
+Graham Balfour, a very nice fellow whom I recommend to you warmly--and
+whom I think you will like. This will give you time to consider my
+various and distracted schemes.
+
+All our wars are over in the meantime, to begin again as soon as the
+war-ships leave. Adieu.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+     _Vailima, August 23rd, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE,--I am reposing after a somewhat severe
+experience upon which I think it my duty to report to you. Immediately
+after dinner this evening it occurred to me to re-narrate to my native
+overseer Simelé your story of _The Engineer's Thumb_. And, sir, I have
+done it. It was necessary, I need hardly say, to go somewhat farther
+afield than you have done. To explain (for instance) what a railway is,
+what a steam hammer, what a coach and horse, what coining, what a
+criminal, and what the police. I pass over other and no less necessary
+explanations. But I did actually succeed; and if you could have seen the
+drawn, anxious features and the bright, feverish eyes of Simelé, you
+would have (for the moment at least) tasted glory. You might perhaps
+think that, were you to come to Samoa, you might be introduced as the
+Author of _The Engineer's Thumb_. Disabuse yourself. They do not know
+what it is to make up a story. _The Engineer's Thumb_ (God forgive me)
+was narrated as a piece of actual and factual history. Nay, and more, I
+who write to you have had the indiscretion to perpetrate a trifling
+piece of fiction entitled _The Bottle Imp_. Parties who come up to visit
+my unpretentious mansion, after having admired the ceilings by
+Vanderputty and the tapestry by Gobbling, manifest towards the end a
+certain uneasiness which proves them to be fellows of an infinite
+delicacy. They may be seen to shrug a brown shoulder, to roll up a
+speaking eye, and at last secret burst from them: "Where is the bottle?"
+Alas, my friends (I feel tempted to say), you will find it by the
+Engineer's Thumb! Talofa-soifua.
+
+O a'u, o lau uo moni, O Tusitala. More commonly known as
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+Have read the _Refugees_; Condé and old P. Murat very good; Louis xiv.
+and Louvois with the letter bag very rich. You have reached a trifle
+wide perhaps; too _many_ celebrities? Though I was delighted to
+re-encounter my old friend Du Chaylu. Old Murat is perhaps your
+high-water mark; 'tis excellently human, cheerful and real. Do it
+again. Madame de Maintenon struck me as quite good. Have you any
+document for the decapitation? It sounds steepish. The devil of all that
+first part is that you see old Dumas; yet your Louis XIV. is _distinctly
+good_. I am much interested with this book, which fulfils a good deal,
+and promises more. Question: How far a Historical Novel should be wholly
+episodic? I incline to that view, with trembling. I shake hands with you
+on old Murat.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS
+
+
+   Mr. St. Gaudens' large medallion portrait in bronze, executed from
+   sittings given in 1887, had at last found its way to Apia, but not
+   yet to Vailima.
+
+     _Vailima, September 1893._
+
+MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,--I had determined not to write to you till I had
+seen the medallion, but it looks as if that might mean the Greek Kalends
+or the day after to-morrow. Reassure yourself, your part is done, it is
+ours that halts--the consideration of conveyance over our sweet little
+road on boys' backs, for we cannot very well apply the horses to this
+work; there is only one; you cannot put it in a panier; to put it on the
+horse's back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty of R. L. S., to
+say nothing of his verses, which the publishers find heavy enough, and
+the genius of the god-like sculptor, the spine would snap and the
+well-knit limbs of the (ahem) cart-horse would be loosed by death. So
+you are to conceive me, sitting in my house, dubitative, and the
+medallion chuckling in the warehouse of the German firm, for some days
+longer; and hear me meanwhile on the golden letters.
+
+Alas! they are all my fancy painted, but the price is prohibitive. I
+cannot do it. It is another day-dream burst. Another gable of Abbotsford
+has gone down, fortunately before it was builded, so there's nobody
+injured--except me. I had a strong conviction that I was a great hand
+at writing inscriptions, and meant to exhibit and test my genius on the
+walls of my house; and now I see I can't. It is generally thus. The
+Battle of the Golden Letters will never be delivered. On making
+preparation to open the campaign, the King found himself face to face
+with invincible difficulties, in which the rapacity of a mercenary
+soldiery and the complaints of an impoverished treasury played an equal
+part.--Ever yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+I enclose a bill for the medallion; have been trying to find your
+letter, quite in vain, and therefore must request you to pay for the
+bronze letters yourself and let me know the damage.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES S. STEVENSON
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Island of Upolu, Samoa, Sept. 4th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR COUSIN,--I thank you cordially for your kinsmanlike reply to my
+appeal. Already the notes from the family Bible have spared me one
+blunder, which I had from some notes in my grandfather's own hand; and
+now, like the daughters of the horseleech, my voice is raised again to
+put you to more trouble. "Nether Carsewell, Neilston," I read. My
+knowledge of Scotland is fairly wide, but it does not include Neilston.
+
+However, I find by the (original) Statistical Account, it is a parish in
+Renfrew. Do you know anything of it? Have you identified Nether
+Carsewell? Have the Neilston parish registers been searched? I see whole
+vistas of questions arising, and here am I in Samoa!
+
+I shall write by this mail to my lawyer to have the records searched,
+and to my mother to go and inquire in the parish itself. But perhaps you
+may have some further information, and if so I should be glad of it. If
+you have not, pray do not trouble to answer. As to your father's blunder
+of "Stevenson of Cauldwell," it is now explained: _Carse_well may have
+been confounded with _Cauldwell_: and it seems likely our man may have
+been a tenant or retainer of Mure of Cauldwell, a very ancient and
+honourable family, who seems to have been at least a neighbouring laird
+to the parish of Neilston. I was just about to close this, when I
+observed again your obliging offer of service, and I take you promptly
+at your word.
+
+Do you think that you or your son could find a day to visit Neilston and
+try to identify Nether Carsewell, find what size of a farm it is, to
+whom it belonged, etc.? I shall be very much obliged. I am pleased
+indeed to learn some of my books have given pleasure to your family; and
+with all good wishes, I remain, your affectionate cousin,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+The registers I shall have seen to, through my lawyer.
+
+
+
+
+TO GEORGE MEREDITH
+
+
+     _Sept. 5th,1893, Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa._
+
+MY DEAR MEREDITH,--I have again and again taken up the pen to write to
+you, and many beginnings have gone into the waste paper basket (I have
+one now--for the second time in my life--and feel a big man on the
+strength of it). And no doubt it requires some decision to break so long
+a silence. My health is vastly restored, and I am now living
+patriarchally in this place six hundred feet above the sea on the
+shoulder of a mountain of 1500. Behind me, the unbroken bush slopes up
+to the backbone of the island (3 to 4000) without a house, with no
+inhabitants save a few runaway black boys, wild pigs and cattle, and
+wild doves and flying foxes, and many parti-coloured birds, and many
+black, and many white: a very eerie, dim, strange place and hard to
+travel. I am the head of a household of five whites, and of twelve
+Samoans, to all of whom I am the chief and father: my cook comes to me
+and asks leave to marry--and his mother, a fine old chief woman, who has
+never lived here, does the same. You may be sure I granted the petition.
+It is a life of great interest, complicated by the Tower of Babel, that
+old enemy. And I have all the time on my hands for literary work.
+
+My house is a great place; we have a hall fifty feet long with a great
+redwood stair ascending from it, where we dine in state--myself usually
+dressed in a singlet and a pair of trousers--and attended on by servants
+in a single garment, a kind of kilt--also flowers and leaves--and their
+hair often powdered with lime. The European who came upon it suddenly
+would think it was a dream. We have prayers on Sunday night--I am a
+perfect pariah in the island not to have them oftener, but the spirit is
+unwilling and the flesh proud, and I cannot go it more. It is strange to
+see the long line of the brown folk crouched along the wall with
+lanterns at intervals before them in the big shadowy hall, with an oak
+cabinet at one end of it and a group of Rodin's (which native taste
+regards as _prodigieusement leste_) presiding over all from the top--and
+to hear the long rambling Samoan hymn rolling up (God bless me, what
+style)! But I am off business to-day, and this is not meant to be
+literature.
+
+I have asked Colvin to send you a copy of _Catriona_, which I am
+sometimes tempted to think is about my best work. I hear word
+occasionally of the _Amazing Marriage_. It will be a brave day for me
+when I get hold of it. Gower Woodseer is now an ancient, lean, grim,
+exiled Scot, living and labouring as for a wager in the tropics; still
+active, still with lots of fire in him, but the youth--ah, the youth
+where is it? For years after I came here, the critics (those genial
+gentlemen) used to deplore the relaxation of my fibre and the idleness
+to which I had succumbed. I hear less of this now; the next thing is
+they will tell me I am writing myself out! and that my unconscientious
+conduct is bringing their grey hairs with sorrow to the dust. I do not
+know--I mean I do know one thing. For fourteen years I have not had a
+day's real health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have
+done my work unflinchingly. I have written in bed, and written out of
+it, written in hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by
+coughing, written when my head swam for weakness; and for so long, it
+seems to me I have won my wager and recovered my glove. I am better now,
+have been rightly speaking since first I came to the Pacific; and still,
+few are the days when I am not in some physical distress. And the battle
+goes on--ill or well, is a trifle; so as it goes. I was made for a
+contest, and the Powers have so willed that my battlefield should be
+this dingy, inglorious one of the bed and the physic bottle. At least I
+have not failed, but I would have preferred a place of trumpetings and
+the open air over my head.
+
+This is a devilish egotistical yarn. Will you try to imitate me in that
+if the spirit ever moves you to reply? And meantime be sure that away in
+the midst of the Pacific there is a house on a wooded island where the
+name of George Meredith is very dear, and his memory (since it must be
+no more) is continually honoured.--Ever your friend,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+Remember me to Mariette, if you please; and my wife sends her most kind
+remembrances to yourself.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   Finished on the way to Honolulu for a health change which turned out
+   unfortunate. With the help of Mr. J.H. Stevenson and other
+   correspondents he had now, as we have seen, been able (regretfully
+   giving up the possibility of a Macgregor lineage) to identify his
+   forbears as having about 1670 been tenant farmers at Nether Carsewell
+   in Renfrewshire. The German government at home had taken his
+   _Footnote to History_ much less kindly than his German neighbours on
+   the spot, and the Tauchnitz edition had been confiscated and
+   destroyed and its publisher fined.
+
+     [_Vailima, and s.s. Mariposa, September 1893._]
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--Here is a job for you. It appears that about 1665, or
+earlier, James Stevenson {in / of} Nether Carsewell, parish of Neilston,
+flourished. Will you kindly send an able-bodied reader to compulse the
+parish registers of Neilston, if they exist or go back as far? Also
+could any trace be found through Nether-Carsewell? I expect it to have
+belonged to Mure of Cauldwell. If this be so, might not the Cauldwell
+charter chest contain some references to their Stevenson tenantry?
+Perpend upon it. But clap me on the judicious, able-bodied reader on the
+spot. Can I really have found the tap-root of my illustrious ancestry at
+last? Souls of my fathers! What a giggle-iggle-orious moment! I have
+drawn on you for Ł400. Also I have written to Tauchnitz announcing I
+should bear one-half part of his fines and expenses, amounting to Ł62,
+10s. The Ł400 includes Ł160 which I have laid out here in land. Vanu
+Manutagi--the vale of crying birds (the wild dove)--is now mine: it was
+Fanny's wish and she is to buy it from me again when she has made that
+much money.
+
+Will you please order for me through your bookseller the _Mabinogion_ of
+Lady Charlotte Guest--if that be her name--and the original of Cook's
+voyages lately published? Also, I see announced a map of the Great North
+Road: you might see what it is like: if it is highly detailed, or has
+any posting information, I should like it.
+
+This is being finished on board the _Mariposa_ going north. I am making
+the run to Honolulu and back for health's sake. No inclination to write
+more.--As ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   On a first reading of the incomplete MS. of _The Ebb Tide_, without
+   its concluding chapters, which are the strongest, dislike of the
+   three detestable--or rather two detestable and one
+   contemptible--chief characters had made me unjust to the imaginative
+   force and vividness of the treatment.
+
+     _[Vailima] 23rd August._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Your pleasing letter _re The Ebb Tide_, to hand. I
+propose, if it be not too late, to delete Lloyd's name. He has nothing
+to do with the last half. The first we wrote together, as the beginning
+of a long yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather
+unfair on the young man to couple his name with so infamous a work.
+Above all, as you had not read the two last chapters, which seem to me
+the most ugly and cynical of all.
+
+You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I am not. It is not
+because of your letter, but because of the complicated miseries that
+surround me and that I choose to say nothing of.... Life is not all Beer
+and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white
+to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on.
+Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an
+ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still
+believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my own share in the
+missteps, and can bow my head to the result, like an old, stern, unhappy
+devil of a Norseman, as my ultimate character is....
+
+Well, _il faut cultiver son jardin_. That last expression of poor,
+unhappy human wisdom I take to my heart and go to _St. Ives_.
+
+_24th Aug._--And did, and worked about 2 hours and got to sleep
+ultimately and "a' the clouds has blawn away." "Be sure we'll have some
+pleisand weather, When a' the clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone?) away."
+Verses that have a quite inexplicable attraction for me, and I believe
+had for Burns. They have no merit, but are somehow good. I am now in a
+most excellent humour.
+
+I am deep in _St. Ives_ which, I believe, will be the next novel done.
+But it is to be clearly understood that I promise nothing, and may throw
+in your face the very last thing you expect--or I expect. _St. Ives_
+will (to my mind) not be wholly bad. It is written in rather a funny
+style; a little stilted and left-handed; the style of St. Ives; also, to
+some extent, the style of R. L. S. dictating. _St. Ives_ is
+unintellectual, and except as an adventure novel, dull. But the
+adventures seem to me sound and pretty probable; and it is a love story.
+Speed his wings!
+
+_Sunday night._--_De coeur un peu plus dispos, monsieur et cher
+confrčre, je me remets ŕ vous écrire._ _St. Ives_ is now in the 5th
+chapter copying; in the 14th chapter of the dictated draft. I do not
+believe I shall end by disliking it.
+
+_Monday._--Well, here goes again for the news. Fanny is _very well_
+indeed, and in good spirits; I am in good spirits, but not _very_ well;
+Lloyd is in good spirits and very well; Belle has a real good fever
+which has put her pipe out wholly. Graham goes back this mail. He takes
+with him three chapters of _The Family_, and is to go to you as soon as
+he can. He cannot be much the master of his movements, but you grip him
+when you can and get all you can from him, as he has lived about six
+months with us and he can tell you just what is true and what is
+not--and not the dreams of dear old Ross.[66] He is a good fellow, is he
+not?
+
+Since you rather revise your views of _The Ebb Tide_, I think Lloyd's
+name might stick, but I'll leave it to you. I'll tell you just how it
+stands. Up to the discovery of the champagne, the tale was all planned
+between us and drafted by Lloyd; from that moment he has had nothing to
+do with it except talking it over. For we changed our plan, gave up the
+projected Monte Cristo, and cut it down for a short story. My
+impression--(I beg your pardon--this is a local joke--a firm here had on
+its beer labels, "sole importers")--is that it will never be popular,
+but might make a little _succčs de scandale_. However, I'm done with it
+now, and not sorry, and the crowd may rave and mumble its bones for what
+I care.
+
+Hole essential.[67] I am sorry about the maps; but I want 'em for next
+edition, so see and have proofs sent. You are quite right about the
+bottle and the great Huish, I must try to make it clear. No, I will not
+write a play for Irving nor for the devil. Can you not see that the work
+of _falsification_ which a play demands is of all tasks the most
+ungrateful? And I have done it a long while--and nothing ever came of
+it.
+
+Consider my new proposal, I mean Honolulu. You would get the Atlantic
+and the Rocky Mountains, would you not? for bracing. And so much less
+sea! And then you could actually see Vailima, which I _would_ like you
+to, for it's beautiful and my home and tomb that is to be; though it's a
+wrench not to be planted in Scotland--that I can never deny--if I could
+only be buried in the hills, under the heather and a table tombstone
+like the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers are crying! Did you see a
+man who wrote the _Stickit Minister_,[68] and dedicated it to me, in
+words that brought the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them.
+"Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying. _His_
+heart remembers how." Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should fulfil
+the Scots destiny throughout, and live a voluntary exile, and have my
+head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time!
+
+And now a word as regards the delusions of the dear Ross, who remembers,
+I believe, my letters and Fanny's when we were first installed, and were
+really hoeing a hard row. We have salad, beans, cabbages, tomatoes,
+asparagus, kohl-rabi, oranges, limes, barbadines, pine-apples, Cape
+gooseberries--galore; pints of milk and cream; fresh meat five days a
+week. It is the rarest thing for any of us to touch a tin; and the
+gnashing of teeth when it has to be done is dreadful--for no one who has
+not lived on them for six months knows what the Hatred of the Tin is. As
+for exposure, my weakness is certainly the reverse; I am sometimes a
+month without leaving the verandah--for my sins, be it said! Doubtless,
+when I go about and, as the Doctor says, "expose myself to malaria," I
+am in far better health; and I would do so more too--for I do not mean
+to be silly--but the difficulties are great. However, you see how much
+the dear Doctor knows of my diet and habits! Malaria practically does
+not exist in these islands; it is a negligeable quantity. What really
+bothers us a little is the mosquito affair--the so-called
+elephantiasis--ask Ross about it. A real romance of natural history,
+_quoi_!
+
+Hi! stop! you say _The Ebb Tide_ is the "working out of an artistic
+problem of a kind." Well, I should just bet it was! You don't like
+Attwater. But look at my three rogues; they're all there, I'll go bail.
+Three types of the bad man, the weak man, and the strong man with a
+weakness, that are gone through and lived out.
+
+Yes, of course I was sorry for Mataafa, but a good deal sorrier and
+angrier about the mismanagement of all the white officials. I cannot
+bear to write about that. Manono all destroyed, one house standing in
+Apolima, the women stripped, the prisoners beaten with whips--and the
+women's heads taken--all under white auspices. And for upshot and result
+of so much shame to the white powers--Tamasese already conspiring! as I
+knew and preached in vain must be the case! Well, well, it is no fun to
+meddle in politics!
+
+I suppose you're right about Simon.[69] But it is Symon throughout in
+that blessed little volume my father bought for me in Inverness in the
+year of grace '81, I believe--the trial of James Stewart, with the
+Jacobite pamphlet and the dying speech appended--out of which the whole
+of _Davie_ has already been begotten, and which I felt it a kind of
+loyalty to follow. I really ought to have it bound in velvet and gold,
+if I had any gratitude! and the best of the lark is, that the name of
+David Balfour is not anywhere within the bounds of it. A pretty curious
+instance of the genesis of a book. I am delighted at your good word for
+_David_; I believe the two together make up much the best of my work and
+perhaps of what is in me. I am not ashamed of them, at least. There is
+one hitch; instead of three hours between the two parts, I fear there
+have passed three years over Davie's character; but do not tell anybody;
+see if they can find it out for themselves; and no doubt his experiences
+in _Kidnapped_ would go far to form him. I would like a copy to go to G.
+Meredith.
+
+_Wednesday._--Well, here is a new move. It is likely I may start with
+Graham next week and go to Honolulu to meet the other steamer and
+return: I do believe a fortnight at sea would do me good; yet I am not
+yet certain. The crowded _up_-steamer sticks in my throat.
+
+_Tuesday, 12th Sept._--Yesterday was perhaps the brightest in the annals
+of Vailima. I got leave from Captain Bickford to have the band of the
+_Katoomba_ come up, and they came, fourteen of 'em, with drum, fife,
+cymbals and bugles, blue jackets, white caps, and smiling faces. The
+house was all decorated with scented greenery above and below. We had
+not only our own nine out-door workers, but a contract party that we
+took on in charity to pay their war-fine; the band besides, as it came
+up the mountain, had collected a following of children by the way, and
+we had a picking of Samoan ladies to receive them. Chicken, ham, cake
+and fruits were served out with coffee and lemonade, and all the
+afternoon we had rounds of claret negus flavoured with rum and limes.
+They played to us, they danced, they sang, they tumbled. Our boys came
+in the end of the verandah and gave _them_ a dance for a while. It was
+anxious work getting this stopped once it had begun, but I knew the band
+was going on a programme. Finally they gave three cheers for Mr. and
+Mrs. Stevens, shook hands, formed up and marched off playing--till a
+kicking horse in the paddock put their pipes out something of the
+suddenest--we thought the big drum was gone, but Simelé flew to the
+rescue. And so they wound away down the hill with ever another call of
+the bugle, leaving us extinct with fatigue, but perhaps the most
+contented hosts that ever watched the departure of successful guests.
+Simply impossible to tell how well these blue-jackets behaved; a most
+interesting lot of men; this education of boys for the navy is making a
+class, wholly apart--how shall I call them?--a kind of lower-class
+public school boy, well-mannered, fairly intelligent, sentimental as a
+sailor. What is more shall be writ on board ship if anywhere.
+
+Please send _Catriona_ to G. Meredith.
+
+_S.S. Mariposa._--To-morrow I reach Honolulu. Good-morning to your
+honour.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   In the interval between the last letter and this, the writer had been
+   down with a sharp and prolonged attack of fever at Honolulu, and Mrs.
+   Stevenson had come from Samoa to nurse and take him home.
+
+     _Waikiki, Honolulu, H. I., Oct. 23rd, 1893._
+
+DEAR COLVIN,--My wife came up on the steamer and we go home together in
+2 days. I am practically all right, only sleepy and tired easily, slept
+yesterday from 11 to 11.45, from 1 to 2.50, went to bed at 8 P.M., and
+with an hour's interval slept till 6 A.M., close upon 14 hours out of
+the 24. We sail to-morrow. I am anxious to get home, though this has
+been an interesting visit, and politics have been curious indeed to
+study. We go to P.P.C. on the "Queen" this morning; poor, recluse lady,
+_abreuvée d'injures qu'elle est_. Had a rather annoying lunch on board
+the American man-of-war, with a member of the P.G. (provisional
+government); and a good deal of anti-royalist talk, which I had to sit
+out--not only for my host's sake, but my fellow guests. At last, I took
+the lead and changed the conversation.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+I am being busted here by party named Hutchinson.[70] Seems good.
+
+
+[_Vailima--November._]--Home again, and found all well, thank God. I am
+perfectly well again and ruddier than the cherry. Please note that 8000
+is not bad for a volume of short stories;[71] the _Merry Men_ did a good
+deal worse; the short story never sells. I hope _Catriona_ will do; that
+is the important. The reviews seem mixed and perplexed, and one had the
+peculiar virtue to make me angry. I am in a fair way to expiscate my
+family history. Fanny and I had a lovely voyage down, with our new C.J.
+and the American Land Commissioner, and on the whole, and for these
+disgusting steamers, a pleasant ship's company. I cannot understand why
+you don't take to the Hawaii scheme. Do you understand? You cross the
+Atlantic in six days, and go from 'Frisco to Honolulu in seven. Thirteen
+days at sea _in all_.--I have no wish to publish _The Ebb Tide_ as a
+book, let it wait. It will look well in the portfolio. I would like a
+copy, of course, for that end; and to "look upon't again"--which I
+scarce dare.
+
+[_Later._]--This is disgraceful. I have done nothing; neither work nor
+letters. On the Mé (May) day, we had a great triumph; our Protestant
+boys, instead of going with their own villages and families, went of
+their own accord in the Vailima uniform; Belle made coats for them on
+purpose to complete the uniform, they having bought the stuff; and they
+were hailed as they marched in as the Tama-ona--the rich man's children.
+This is really a score; it means that Vailima is publicly taken as a
+family. Then we had my birthday feast a week late, owing to diarrhoea
+on the proper occasion. The feast was laid in the Hall, and was a
+singular mass of food: 15 pigs, 100 lbs. beef, 100 lbs. pork, and the
+fruit and filigree in a proportion. We had sixty horse-posts driven in
+the gate paddock; how many guests I cannot guess, perhaps 150. They came
+between three and four and left about seven. Seumanu gave me one of his
+names; and when my name was called at the ava drinking, behold, it was
+_Au mai taua ma manu-vao!_ You would scarce recognise me, if you heard
+me thus referred to!
+
+Two days after, we hired a carriage in Apia, Fanny, Belle, Lloyd and I,
+and drove in great style, with a native outrider, to the prison; a huge
+gift of ava and tobacco under the seats. The prison is now under the
+_pule_ of an Austrian, Captain Wurmbrand, a soldier of fortune in Servia
+and Turkey, a charming, clever, kindly creature, who is adored "by _his_
+chiefs" (as he calls them) meaning _our_ political prisoners. And we
+came into the yard, walled about with tinned iron, and drank ava with
+the prisoners and the captain. It may amuse you to hear how it is proper
+to drink ava. When the cup is handed you, you reach your arm out
+somewhat behind you, and slowly pour a libation, saying with somewhat
+the manner of prayer, "_Ia taumafa e le atua. Ua matagofie le fesilafaga
+nei._" "Be it (high-chief) partaken of by the God. How (high chief)
+beautiful to view is this (high chief) gathering." This pagan practice
+is very queer. I should say that the prison ava was of that not very
+welcome form that we elegantly call spit-ava, but of course there was no
+escape, and it had to be drunk. Fanny and I rode home, and I moralised
+by the way. Could we ever stand Europe again? did she appreciate that if
+we were in London, we should be _actually jostled_ in the street? and
+there was nobody in the whole of Britain who knew how to take ava like a
+gentleman? 'Tis funny to be thus of two civilisations--or, if you like,
+of one civilisation and one barbarism. And, as usual, the barbarism is
+the more engaging.
+
+Colvin, you have to come here and see us in our {native / mortal} spot.
+I just don't seem to be able to make up my mind to your not coming. By
+this time, you will have seen Graham, I hope, and he will be able to
+tell you something about us, and something reliable. I shall feel for
+the first time as if you knew a little about Samoa after that. Fanny
+seems to be in the right way now. I must say she is very, very well for
+her, and complains scarce at all. Yesterday, she went down _sola_(at
+least accompanied by a groom) to pay a visit; Belle, Lloyd and I went a
+walk up the mountain road--the great public highway of the island, where
+you have to go single file. The object was to show Belle that gaudy
+valley of the Vaisigano which the road follows. If the road is to be
+made and opened, as our new Chief Justice promises, it will be one of
+the most beautiful roads in the world. But the point is this: I forgot I
+had been three months in civilisation, wearing shoes and stockings, and
+I tell you I suffered on my soft feet; coming home, down hill, on that
+stairway of loose stones, I could have cried. O yes, another story, I
+knew I had. The house boys had not been behaving well, so the other
+night I announced a _fono_, and Lloyd and I went into the boys'
+quarters, and I talked to them I suppose for half an hour, and Talolo
+translated; Lloyd was there principally to keep another ear on the
+interpreter; else there may be dreadful misconceptions. I rubbed all
+their ears, except two whom I particularly praised; and one man's wages
+I announced I had cut down by one half. Imagine his taking this smiling!
+Ever since, he has been specially attentive and greets me with a face of
+really heavenly brightness. This is another good sign of their really
+and fairly accepting me as a chief. When I first came here, if I had
+fined a man a sixpence, he would have quit work that hour, and now I
+remove half his income, and he is glad to stay on--nay, does not seem to
+entertain the possibility of leaving. And this in the face of one
+particular difficulty--I mean our house in the bush, and no society, and
+no women society within decent reach.
+
+I think I must give you our staff in a tabular form.
+
+          HOUSE                  KITCHEN                  OUTSIDE
+
+  + o _Sosimo_, provost   + o _Talolo_, provost     + o _Henry Simelé_,
+   and butler, and my      and chief cook.           provost and overseer
+   valet.                                            of outside
+                          + o _Iopu_, second cook.   boys.
+  o _Misifolo_, who
+   is Fanny and           _Tali_, his wife, no      _L[=u]_.
+   Belle's chamberlain.    wages.
+                                                    _Tasi Sele_.
+                          _Ti'a_, Samoan cook.
+                                                    _Maiele_.
+                          _Feiloa'i_, his child,
+                           no wages, likewise no    _Pulu_, who is also
+                           work--Belle's pet.        our talking man
+                                                     and cries the ava.
+                          + o _Leuelu_, Fanny's
+                           boy, gardener, odd jobs.
+
+                                IN APIA
+
+                          + _Eliga_, washman and
+                           daily errand man.
+
+The crosses mark out the really excellent boys. Ti'a is the man who has
+just been fined 1/2 his wages; he is a beautiful old man, the living
+image of "Fighting Gladiator," my favourite statue--but a dreadful
+humbug. I think we keep him on a little on account of his looks. This
+sign o marks those who have been two years or upwards in the family. I
+note all my old boys have the cross of honour, except Misifolo; well,
+poor dog, he does his best, I suppose. You should see him scour. It is a
+remark that has often been made by visitors: you never see a Samoan run,
+except at Vailima. Do you not suppose that makes me proud?
+
+I am pleased to see what a success _The Wrecker_ was, having already in
+little more than a year outstripped _The Master of Ballantrae_.
+
+About _David Balfour_ in two volumes, do see that they make it a
+decent-looking book, and tell me, do you think a little historical
+appendix would be of service? Lang bleats for one, and I thought I might
+address it to him as a kind of open letter.
+
+_Dec. 4th._--No time after all. Good-bye.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. HORNE STEVENSON
+
+
+   The following refers again to the introduction to the history of his
+   own family which Stevenson was then preparing under the title _A
+   Family of Engineers_. The correspondent was a specialist in
+   genealogical research. I give this letter as a sample of many which
+   passed between these two namesakes on this subject; omitting the
+   remainder as too technical to be of general interest.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, November 5th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR STEVENSON,--A thousand thanks for your voluminous and delightful
+collections. Baxter--so soon as it is ready--will let you see a proof of
+my introduction, which is only sent out as a sprat to catch whales. And
+you will find I have a good deal of what you have, only mine in a
+perfectly desultory manner, as is necessary to an exile. My uncle's
+pedigree is wrong; there was never a Stevenson of Caldwell, of course,
+but they were tenants of the Mures; the farm held by them is in my
+introduction; and I have already written to Charles Baxter to have a
+search made in the Register House. I hope he will have had the
+inspiration to put it under your surveillance. Your information as to
+your own family is intensely interesting, and I should not wonder but
+what you and we and old John Stevenson, "land labourer in the parish of
+Dailly," came all of the same stock. Ayrshire--and probably
+Cunningham--seems to be the home of the race--our part of it. From the
+distribution of the name--which your collections have so much extended
+without essentially changing my knowledge of--we seem rather pointed to
+a British origin. What you say of the Engineers is fresh to me, and must
+be well thrashed out. This introduction of it will take a long while to
+walk about!--as perhaps I may be tempted to let it become long; after
+all, I am writing _this_ for my own pleasure solely. Greetings to you
+and other Speculatives of our date, long bygone, alas!--Yours very
+sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+_P.S._--I have a different version of my grandfather's arms--or my
+father had if I could find it.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO JOHN P----N
+
+
+   The next two numbers are in answer to letters of appreciation
+   received from two small boys in England, whose mother desires that
+   they should remain nameless.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893._
+
+DEAR JOHNNIE,--Well, I must say you seem to be a tremendous fellow!
+Before I was eight I used to write stories--or dictate them at
+least--and I had produced an excellent history of Moses, for which I got
+Ł1 from an uncle; but I had never gone the length of a play, so you
+have beaten me fairly on my own ground. I hope you may continue to do
+so, and thanking you heartily for your nice letter, I shall beg you to
+believe me yours truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO RUSSELL P----N
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893._
+
+DEAR RUSSELL,--I have to thank you very much for your capital letter,
+which came to hand here in Samoa along with your mother's. When you
+"grow up and write stories like me," you will be able to understand that
+there is scarce anything more painful than for an author to hold a pen;
+he has to do it so much that his heart sickens and his fingers ache at
+the sight or touch of it; so that you will excuse me if I do not write
+much, but remain (with compliments and greetings from one Scot to
+another--though I was not born in Ceylon--you're ahead of me
+there).--Yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
+
+
+     _Vailima, December 5, 1893._
+
+MY DEAREST CUMMY,--This goes to you with a Merry Christmas and a Happy
+New Year. The Happy New Year anyway, for I think it should reach you
+about _Noor's Day_. I dare say it may be cold and frosty. Do you
+remember when you used to take me out of bed in the early morning, carry
+me to the back windows, show me the hills of Fife, and quote to me
+
+  "A' the hills are covered wi' snaw,
+    An' winter's noo come fairly"?
+
+There is not much chance of that here! I wonder how my mother is going
+to stand the winter. It she can, it will be a very good thing for her.
+We are in that part of the year which I like the best--the Rainy or
+Hurricane Season. "When it is good, it is very, very good; and when it
+is bad, it is horrid," and our fine days are certainly fine like heaven;
+such a blue of the sea, such green of the trees, and such crimson of the
+hibiscus flowers, you never saw; and the air as mild and gentle as a
+baby's breath, and yet not hot!
+
+The mail is on the move, and I must let up.--With much love, I am, your
+laddie,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   The following quotes the extract, from Fountainhall's "Decisions of
+   the Lords of Council, etc.," which suggested to Stevenson the romance
+   of Cameronian days and the Darien adventure of which, under the title
+   of _Heathercat_, he only lived to write the first few introductory
+   chapters (see vol. xxi. p. 177, of this edition).
+
+     _6th December 1893._
+
+"_October 25, 1685._--At Privy Council, George Murray, Lieutenant of the
+King's Guard, and others, did, on the 21st of September last, obtain a
+clandestine order of Privy Council to apprehend the person of Janet
+Pringle, daughter to the late Clifton, and she having retired out of the
+way upon information, he got an order against Andrew Pringle, her uncle,
+to produce her.... But she having married Andrew Pringle, her uncle's
+son (to disappoint all their designs of selling her), a boy of thirteen
+years old." But my boy is to be fourteen, so I extract no
+further.--FOUNTAINHALL, i. 320.
+
+"_May 6, 1685._--Wappus Pringle of Clifton was still alive after all,
+and in prison for debt, and transacts with Lieutenant Murray, giving
+security for 7000 marks."--i. 372.
+
+No, it seems to have been _her_ brother who had succeeded.
+
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES.--The above is my story, and I wonder if any light can
+be thrown on it. I prefer the girl's father dead; and the question is,
+How in that case could Lieutenant George Murray get his order to
+"apprehend" and his power to "sell" her in marriage?
+
+Or--might Lieutenant G. be her tutor, and she fugitive to the Pringles,
+and on the discovery of her whereabouts hastily married?
+
+A good legal note on these points is very ardently desired by me; it
+will be the corner-stone of my novel.
+
+This is for--I am quite wrong to tell you--for you will tell others--and
+nothing will teach you that all my schemes are in the air, and vanish
+and reappear again like shapes in the clouds--it is for _Heathercat_:
+whereof the first volume will be called _The Killing Time_, and I
+believe I have authorities ample for that. But the second volume is to
+be called (I believe) _Darien_, and for that I want, I fear, a good deal
+of truck:--
+
+  _Darien Papers_,
+  _Carstairs Papers_,
+  _Marchmont Papers_,
+  _Jerviswoode Correspondence_,
+
+I hope may do me. Some sort of general history of the Darien affair (if
+there is a decent one, which I misdoubt), it would also be well to
+have--the one with most details, if possible. It is singular how obscure
+to me this decade of Scots history remains, 1690-1700--a deuce of a want
+of light and grouping to it! However, I believe I shall be mostly out of
+Scotland in my tale; first in Carolina, next in Darien. I want also--I
+am the daughter of the horseleech truly--"Black's new large map of
+Scotland," sheets 3, 4, and 5, a 7s. 6d. touch. I believe, if you can
+get the
+
+  _Caldwell Papers_,
+
+they had better come also; and if there be any reasonable work--but no,
+I must call a halt....
+
+I fear the song looks doubtful, but I'll consider of it, and I can
+promise you some reminiscences which it will amuse me to write, whether
+or not it will amuse the public to read of them. But it's an unco
+business to supply deid-heid coapy.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. M. BARRIE
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 7th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR BARRIE,--I have received duly the _magnum opus_, and it really
+is a _magnum opus_.[72] 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.
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO R. LE GALLIENNE
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 28th, 1893._
+
+DEAR MR. LE GALLIENNE,--I have received some time ago, through our
+friend Miss Taylor, a book of yours. But that was by no means my first
+introduction to your name. The same book had stood already on my
+shelves; I had read articles of yours in the Academy; and by a piece of
+constructive criticism (which I trust was sound) had arrived at the
+conclusion that you were "Log-roller." Since then I have seen your
+beautiful verses to your wife. You are to conceive me, then, as only
+too ready to make the acquaintance of a man who loved good literature
+and could make it. I had to thank you, besides, for a triumphant
+exposure of a paradox of my own: the literary-prostitute disappeared
+from view at a phrase of yours--"The essence is not in the pleasure but
+the sale." True you are right, I was wrong; the author is not the whore
+but the libertine; and yet I shall let the passage stand. It is an
+error, but it illustrated the truth for which I was contending, that
+literature--painting--all art , are no other than pleasures, which we
+turn into trades.
+
+And more than all this, I had, and I have to thank you for the intimate
+loyalty you have shown to myself; for the eager welcome you give to what
+is good--for the courtly tenderness with which you touch on my defects.
+I begin to grow old; I have given my top note, I fancy;--and I have
+written too many books. The world begins to be weary of the old booth;
+and if not weary, familiar with the familiarity that breeds contempt. I
+do not know that I am sensitive to criticism, if it be hostile; I am
+sensitive indeed, when it is friendly; and when I read such criticism as
+yours, I am emboldened to go on and praise God.
+
+You are still young, and you may live to do much. The little artificial
+popularity of style in England tends, I think, to die out; the British
+pig returns to his true love, the love of the styleless, of the
+shapeless, of the slapdash and the disorderly. There is trouble coming,
+I think; and you may have to hold the fort for us in evil days.
+
+Lastly, let me apologise for the crucifixion that I am inflicting on you
+(_bien ŕ contre-coeur_) by my bad writing. I was once the best of
+writers; landladies, puzzled as to my "trade," used to have their honest
+bosoms set at rest by a sight of a page of manuscript.--"Ah," they would
+say, "no wonder they pay you for that";--and when I sent it in to the
+printers, it was given to the boys! I was about thirty-nine, I think,
+when I had a turn of scrivener's palsy; my hand got worse; and for the
+first time, I received clean proofs. But it has gone beyond that now. I
+know I am like my old friend James Payn, a terror to correspondents; and
+you would not believe the care with which this has been
+written.--Believe me to be, very sincerely yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. A. BAKER
+
+
+   The next is in answer to a request for permission to print some of
+   the writings of R. L. S. in Braille type for the use of the blind.
+
+     _December 1893._
+
+DEAR MADAM,--There is no trouble, and I wish I could help instead. As it
+is, I fear I am only going to put you to trouble and vexation. This
+Braille writing is a kind of consecration, and I would like if I could
+to have your copy perfect. The two volumes are to be published as Vols.
+I. and II. of _The Adventures of David Balfour_. 1st, _Kidnapped_; 2nd,
+_Catriona_. I am just sending home a corrected _Kidnapped_ for this
+purpose to Messrs. Cassell, and in order that I may if possible be in
+time, I send it to you first of all. Please, as soon as you have noted
+the changes, forward the same to Cassell and Co., La Belle Sauvage Yard,
+Ludgate Hill.
+
+I am writing to them by this mail to send you _Catriona_.
+
+You say, dear madam, you are good enough to say, it is "a keen pleasure"
+to you to bring my book within the reach of the blind.
+
+Conceive then what it is to me! and believe me, sincerely yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+  I was a barren tree before,
+    I blew a quenchčd coal,
+  I could not, on their midnight shore,
+    The lonely blind console.
+
+  A moment, lend your hand, I bring
+    My sheaf for you to bind,
+  And you can teach my words to sing
+    In the darkness of the blind.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+     _Apia, December, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--The mail has come upon me like an armed man three
+days earlier than was expected; and the Lord help me! It is impossible I
+should answer anybody the way they should be. Your jubilation over
+_Catriona_ did me good, and still more the subtlety and truth of your
+remark on the starving of the visual sense in that book. 'Tis true, and
+unless I make the greater effort--and am, as a step to that, convinced
+of its necessity--it will be more true I fear in the future. I _hear_
+people talking, and I _feel_ them acting, and that seems to me to be
+fiction. My two aims may be described as--
+
+  _1st._ War to the adjective.
+  _2nd._ Death to the optic nerve.
+
+Admitted we live in an age of the optic nerve in literature. For how
+many centuries did literature get along without a sign of it? However,
+I'll consider your letter.
+
+How exquisite is your character of the critic in _Essays in London_! I
+doubt if you have done any single thing so satisfying as a piece of
+style and of insight--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   Recounting a scene of gratitude for bounty shown by him to the
+   prisoners in Apia gaol.
+
+     [_Vailima, December 1893._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--One page out of my picture book I must give you. Fine
+burning day; 1/2 past two P.M. We four begin to rouse up from reparatory
+slumbers, yawn, and groan, get a cup of tea, and miserably dress: we
+have had a party the day before, X'mas Day, with all the boys absent
+but one, and latterly two; we had cooked all day long, a cold dinner,
+and lo! at two our guests began to arrive, though dinner was not till
+six; they were sixteen, and fifteen slept the night and breakfasted.
+Conceive, then, how unwillingly we climb on our horses and start off in
+the hottest part of the afternoon to ride 4 1/2 miles, attend a native
+feast in the gaol, and ride four and a half miles back. But there is no
+help for it. I am a sort of father of the political prisoners, and have
+_charge d'âmes_ in that riotously absurd establishment, Apia Gaol. The
+twenty-three (I think it is) chiefs act as under gaolers. The other day
+they told the Captain of an attempt to escape. One of the lesser
+political prisoners the other day effected a swift capture, while the
+Captain was trailing about with the warrant; the man came to see what
+was wanted; came, too, flanked by the former gaoler; my prisoner offers
+to show him the dark cell, shoves him in, and locks the door. "Why do
+you do that?" cries the former gaoler. "A warrant," says he. Finally,
+the chiefs actually feed the soldiery who watch them!
+
+The gaol is a wretched little building, containing a little room, and
+three cells, on each side of a central passage; it is surrounded by a
+fence of corrugated iron, and shows, over the top of that, only a gable
+end with the inscription _O le Fale Puipui_. It is on the edge of the
+mangrove swamp, and is reached by a sort of causeway of turf. When we
+drew near, we saw the gates standing open and a prodigious crowd
+outside--I mean prodigious for Apia, perhaps a hundred and fifty people.
+The two sentries at the gate stood to arms passively, and there seemed
+to be a continuous circulation inside and out. The captain came to meet
+us; our boy, who had been sent ahead was there to take the horses; and
+we passed inside the court which was full of food, and rang continuously
+to the voice of the caller of gifts; I had to blush a little later when
+my own present came, and I heard my one pig and eight miserable
+pine-apples being counted out like guineas. In the four corners of the
+yard and along one wall, there are make-shift, dwarfish, Samoan houses
+or huts, which have been run up since Captain Wurmbrand came to
+accommodate the chiefs. Before that they were all crammed into the six
+cells, and locked in for the night, some of them with dysentery. They
+are wretched constructions enough, but sanctified by the presence of
+chiefs. We heard a man corrected loudly to-day for saying "_Fale_" of
+one of them; "_Maota_," roared the highest chief present--"palace."
+About eighteen chiefs, gorgeously arrayed, stood up to greet us, and led
+us into one of these _maotas_, where you may be sure we had to crouch,
+almost to kneel, to enter, and where a row of pretty girls occupied one
+side to make the ava (kava). The highest chief present was a magnificent
+man, as high chiefs usually are; I find I cannot describe him; his face
+is full of shrewdness and authority; his figure like Ajax; his name
+Auilua. He took the head of the building and put Belle on his right
+hand. Fanny was called first for the ava (kava). Our names were called
+in English style, the high-chief wife of Mr. St--(an unpronounceable
+something); Mrs. Straw, and the like. And when we went into the other
+house to eat, we found we were seated alternately with chiefs about
+the--table, I was about to say, but rather floor. Everything was to be
+done European style with a vengeance! We were the only whites present,
+except Wurmbrand, and still I had no suspicion of the truth. They began
+to take off their ulas (necklaces of scarlet seeds) and hang them about
+our necks; we politely resisted, and were told that the king (who had
+stopped off their _siva_) had sent down to the prison a message to the
+effect that he was to give a dinner to-morrow, and wished their
+second-hand ulas for it. Some of them were content; others not. There
+was a ring of anger in the boy's voice, as he told us we were to wear
+them past the king's house. Dinner over, I must say they are moderate
+eaters at a feast, we returned to the ava house; and then the curtain
+drew suddenly up upon the set scene. We took our seats, and Auilua began
+to give me a present, recapitulating each article as he gave it out,
+with some appropriate comment. He called me several times "their only
+friend," said they were all in slavery, had no money, and these things
+were all made by the hands of their families--nothing bought; he had one
+phrase, in which I heard his voice rise up to a note of triumph: "This
+is a present from the poor prisoners to the rich man." Thirteen pieces
+of tapa, some of them surprisingly fine, one I think unique; thirty fans
+of every shape and colour; a kava cup, etc., etc. At first Auilua
+conducted the business with weighty gravity; but before the end of the
+thirty fans, his comments began to be humorous. When it came to a little
+basket, he said: "Here was a little basket for Tusitala to put sixpence
+in, when he could get hold of one"--with a delicious grimace. I answered
+as best as I was able through a miserable interpreter; and all the
+while, as I went on, I heard the crier outside in the court calling my
+gift of food, which I perceived was to be Gargantuan. I had brought but
+three boys with me. It was plain that they were wholly overpowered. We
+proposed to send for our gifts on the morrow; but no, said the
+interpreter, that would never do; they must go away to-day, Mulinuu must
+see my porters taking away the gifts,--"make 'em jella," quoth the
+interpreter. And I began to see the reason of this really splendid gift;
+one half, gratitude to me--one half, a wipe at the king.
+
+And now, to introduce darker colours, you must know this visit of mine
+to the gaol was just a little bit risky; we had several causes for
+anxiety; it _might_ have been put up, to connect with a Tamasese rising.
+Tusitala and his family would be good hostages. On the other hand, there
+were the Mulinuu people all about. We could see the anxiety of Captain
+Wurmbrand, no less anxious to have us go, than he had been to see us
+come; he was deadly white and plainly had a bad headache, in the noisy
+scene. Presently, the noise grew uproarious; there was a rush at the
+gate--a rush _in_, not a rush _out_--where the two sentries still stood
+passive; Auilua leaped from his place (it was then that I got the name
+of Ajax for him) and the next moment we heard his voice roaring and saw
+his mighty figure swaying to and fro in the hurly-burly. As the deuce
+would have it, we could not understand a word of what was going on. It
+might be nothing more than the ordinary "grab racket" with which a feast
+commonly concludes; it might be something worse. We made what
+arrangements we could for my tapa, fans, etc., as well as for my five
+pigs, my masses of fish, taro, etc., and with great dignity, and
+ourselves laden with ulas and other decorations, passed between the
+sentries among the howling mob to our horses. All's well that ends well.
+Owing to Fanny and Belle, we had to walk; and, as Lloyd said, "he had at
+last ridden in a circus." The whole length of Apia we paced our
+triumphal progress, past the king's palace, past the German firm at
+Sogi--you can follow it on the map--amidst admiring exclamations of
+"_Mawaia_"--beautiful--it may be rendered "O my! ain't they
+dandy"--until we turned up at last into our road as the dusk deepened
+into night. It was really exciting. And there is one thing sure: no such
+feast was ever made for a single family, and no such present ever given
+to a single white man. It is something to have been the hero of it. And
+whatever other ingredients there were, undoubtedly gratitude was
+present. As money value I have actually gained on the transaction!
+
+Your note arrived; little profit, I must say. Scott has already put his
+nose in, in _St. Ives_, sir; but his appearance is not yet complete;
+nothing is in that romance, except the story. I have to announce that I
+am off work, probably for six months. I must own that I have overworked
+bitterly--overworked--there, that's legible. My hand is a thing that
+was, and in the meanwhile so are my brains. And here, in the very midst,
+comes a plausible scheme to make Vailima pay, which will perhaps let me
+into considerable expense just when I don't want it. You know the vast
+cynicism of my view of affairs, and how readily and (as some people say)
+with how much gusto I take the darker view?
+
+Why do you not send me Jerome K. Jerome's paper, and let me see _The Ebb
+Tide_ as a serial? It is always very important to see a thing in
+different presentments. I want every number. Politically we begin the
+new year with every expectation of a bust in 2 or 3 days, a bust which
+may spell destruction to Samoa. I have written to Baxter about his
+proposal.[73]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [56] The correspondent whose letter I had sent on was a high official
+    at the Foreign Office: the subject, Stevenson and Samoa.
+
+  [57] Hemorrhage from the lungs.
+
+  [58] Vitrolle's _Mémoires_ and the "1814" and "1815" of M. Henri
+    Houssaye were sent accordingly.
+
+  [59] Ultimately _The Ebb Tide_.
+
+  [60] For a volume of selected _Essays_, containing the pick of
+    _Virginibus Puerisque_, _Memories and Portraits_, and _Across the
+    Plains_.
+
+  [61] _The Owl_ was to be a Breton story of the Revolution; _Death in
+    the Pot_, a tale of the Sta. Lucia mountains in California; the
+    scene of _The Go-Between_ was laid in the Pacific Islands; of _The
+    Sleeper Awakened_ I know nothing.
+
+  [62] Of _Island Nights' Entertainments_.
+
+  [63] John Addington Symonds.
+
+  [64] _Across the Plains._
+
+  [65] Volume of sonnets by José Maria de Hérédia.
+
+  [66] Dr. Fairfax Ross, a distinguished physician of Sydney, and
+    friend of the Stevenson family, who during a visit to England this
+    summer had conveyed to me no very reassuring impression as to the
+    healthfulness of the island life and climate.
+
+  [67] W. Hole, R.S.A.: essential for the projected illustrations to
+    _Kidnapped_ and _Catriona_.
+
+  [68] Mr. S. R. Crockett. The words quoted from this gentleman's
+    dedication were worked by Stevenson into a very moving and
+    metrically original set of verses, addressed to him in
+    acknowledgment (_Songs of Travel_, xlii.).
+
+  [69] Simon Fraser, the Master of Lovat, in _Catriona_: the spelling
+    of his name.
+
+  [70] The bust was exhibited in the New Gallery Summer Exhibition, 1895.
+
+  [71] _Island Nights' Entertainments._
+
+  [72] _The Window in Thrums_, with illustrations by W. Hole, R.S.A.
+    Hodder and Stoughton. 1892.
+
+  [73] The scheme of the Edinburgh Edition.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+LIFE IN SAMOA--_Concluded_
+
+FOURTH YEAR AT VAILIMA--THE END
+
+JANUARY-DECEMBER 1894
+
+
+This new year began for Stevenson with an illness which seemed to leave
+none of the usual lowering consequences, and for Samoa with fresh
+rumours of war, which were not realised until the autumn, and then--at
+least in the shape of serious hostilities--in the district of Atua only
+and not in his own. On the whole Stevenson's bodily health and vigour
+kept at a higher level than during the previous year. But for serious
+imaginative writing he found himself still unfit, and the sense that his
+old facility had for the time being failed him caused him much inward
+misgiving. In his correspondence the misgiving mood was allowed to
+appear pretty freely; but in personal intercourse his high spirits
+seemed to his family and visitors as unfailing as ever. Several things
+happened during the year to give him peculiar pleasure: first, at the
+beginning of the year, the news of Mr. Baxter's carefully prepared
+scheme of the Edinburgh Edition, and of its acceptance by the publishers
+concerned. On this subject much correspondence naturally passed between
+him and Mr. Baxter and myself, over and above that which is here
+published; and finally he resolved to leave all the details of the
+execution to us. By the early autumn the financial success of the scheme
+was fully assured and made known to him by cable; but he did not seem
+altogether to realise the full measure of relief from money anxieties
+which the assurance was meant to convey to him. Other pleasurable
+circumstances were the return of Mr. Graham Balfour after a prolonged
+absence; the visit of a spirited and accomplished young English man of
+business and of letters, Mr. Sidney Lysaght (see below, pp. 385, 388,
+etc.); and the frequent society of the officers of H.M.S. _Curaçoa_,
+with whom he was on terms of particular regard and cordiality. Lastly,
+he was very deeply touched and gratified by the action of the native
+political prisoners, towards whom he had shown much thoughtful kindness
+during their months of detention, in volunteering as a testimony of
+gratitude after their release to re-make with their own hands the branch
+road leading to his house: "the Road of Loving Hearts," as it came to be
+christened. Soon afterwards, the anniversaries of his own birthday and
+of the American Thanks-giving feast brought evidences hardly less
+welcome, after so much contention and annoyance as the island affairs
+and politics had involved him in, of the honour and affection in which
+he was held by all that was best in the white community. By each
+succeeding mail came stronger proofs from home of the manner in which
+men of letters of the younger generation had come to regard him as a
+master, an example, and a friend.
+
+But in spite of all these causes of pleasure, his letters showed that
+his old invincible spirit of inward cheerfulness was beginning not
+infrequently to give way to moods of depression and overstrained
+feeling. The importunity of these moods was no doubt due to some
+physical premonition that his vital powers, so frail from the cradle and
+always with so cheerful a courage overtaxed, were near exhaustion.
+During the first months of the year he attempted little writing; in the
+late spring and early summer his work was chiefly on the annals of his
+family and on the tale _St. Ives_. The latter he found uphill work:
+after the first ten or twelve chapters, which are in his happiest vein,
+the narrative, as he himself was painfully aware, began to flag. Towards
+the end of October he gave it up for the time being and turned to a more
+arduous task, the tragic _Weir of Hermiston_. On this theme he felt his
+inspiration return, and during the month of November and the first days
+of December wrought once more at the full pitch of his powers and in the
+conscious delight of their exercise. On the third of December, after a
+morning of happy work and pleasant correspondence, he was seen gazing
+long and wistfully toward the forest-clad mountain, on a ledge of which
+he had desired that he should be buried. In the afternoon he brought his
+morning's work to his wife, the most exacting of his critics; asked her
+whether it was not well done; and in her glow of admiring assent found
+his confirmation and his reward. Nevertheless she could not throw off an
+oppressive sense of coming calamity. He was reassuring her with gay and
+laughing talk when the sudden rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain
+laid him almost in a moment unconscious at her feet; and before two
+hours were over he had passed away. All the world knows how his body was
+carried by the loving hands of his native servants to the burial-place
+of his choice, and rests there with the words of his own requiem
+engraved on his tomb--the words which we have seen him putting on paper
+when he was at grips with death fifteen years before in California--
+
+  "Home is the sailor, home from sea,
+   And the hunter home from the hill."
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   Mr. Baxter, after much preliminary consideration and inquiry, had
+   matured and submitted to Stevenson the scheme of the Edinburgh
+   edition, to which this letter is his reply. The paper on _Treasure
+   Island_ appeared in the Idler for August 1889, and was afterwards
+   reprinted in the miscellany _My First Book_ (Chatto and Windus,
+   1894). See Edinburgh edition, _Miscellanies_, vol. iv. p. 285.
+
+     _1st January '94._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--I am delighted with your idea, and first, I will here
+give an amended plan and afterwards give you a note of some of the
+difficulties.
+
+  [Plan of the Edinburgh edition--14 vols.]
+
+... It may be a question whether my Times letters might not be appended
+to the _Footnote_ with a note of the dates of discharge of Cedercrantz
+and Pilsach.
+
+I am particularly pleased with this idea of yours, because I am come to
+a dead stop. I never can remember how bad I have been before, but at any
+rate I am bad enough just now, I mean as to literature; in health I am
+well and strong. I take it I shall be six months before I'm heard of
+again, and this time I could put in to some advantage in revising the
+text and (if it were thought desirable) writing prefaces. I do not know
+how many of them might be thought desirable. I have written a paper on
+_Treasure Island_, which is to appear shortly. _Master of Ballantrae_--I
+have one drafted. _The Wrecker_ is quite sufficiently done already with
+the last chapter, but I suppose an historic introduction to _David
+Balfour_ is quite unavoidable. _Prince Otto_ I don't think I could say
+anything about, and _Black Arrow_ don't want to. But it is probable I
+could say something to the volume of _Travels_. In the verse business I
+can do just what I like better than anything else, and extend
+_Underwoods_ with a lot of unpublished stuff. _Ŕ propos_, if I were to
+get printed off a very few poems which are somewhat too intimate for the
+public, could you get them run up in some luxuous manner, so that fools
+might be induced to buy them in just a sufficient quantity to pay
+expenses and the thing remain still in a manner private? We could supply
+photographs of the illustrations--and the poems are of Vailima and the
+family--I should much like to get this done as a surprise for Fanny.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. B. BAILDON
+
+
+     _Vailima, January 15th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR BAILDON,--Last mail brought your book and its Dedication.
+"Frederick Street and the gardens, and the short-lived Jack o' Lantern,"
+are again with me--and the note of the east wind, and Froebel's voice,
+and the smell of soup in Thomson's stair. Truly, you had no need to put
+yourself under the protection of any other saint, were that saint our
+Tamate himself! Yourself were enough, and yourself coming with so rich a
+sheaf.
+
+For what is this that you say about the Muses? They have certainly never
+better inspired you than in "Jael and Sisera," and "Herodias and John
+the Baptist," good stout poems, fiery and sound. "'Tis but a mask and
+behind it chuckles the God of the Garden," I shall never forget. By the
+by, an error of the press, page 49, line 4, "No infant's lesson are the
+ways of God." _The_ is dropped.
+
+And this reminds me you have a bad habit which is to be comminated in my
+theory of letters. Same page, two lines lower: "But the vulture's track"
+is surely as fine to the ear as "But vulture's track," and this latter
+version has a dreadful baldness. The reader goes on with a sense of
+impoverishment, of unnecessary sacrifice; he has been robbed by
+footpads, and goes scouting for his lost article! Again, in the second
+Epode, these fine verses would surely sound much finer if they began,
+"As a hardy climber who has set his heart," than with the jejune "As
+hardy climber." I do not know why you permit yourself this licence with
+grammar; you show, in so many pages, that you are superior to the paltry
+sense of rhythm which usually dictates it--as though some poetaster had
+been suffered to correct the poet's text. By the way, I confess to a
+heartfelt weakness for _Auriculas_.--Believe me the very grateful and
+characteristic pick-thank, but still sincere and affectionate,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. H. LOW
+
+
+     _Vailima, January 15th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR LOW,-- ... Pray you, stoop your proud head, and sell yourself to
+some Jew magazine, and make the visit out. I assure you, this is the
+spot for a sculptor or painter. This, and no other--I don't say to stay
+there, but to come once and get the living colour into them. I am used
+to it; I do not notice it; rather prefer my grey, freezing recollections
+of Scotland; but there it is, and every morning is a thing to give
+thanks for, and every night another--bar when it rains, of course.
+
+About _The Wrecker_--rather late days, and I still suspect I had somehow
+offended you; however, all's well that ends well, and I am glad I am
+forgiven--did you not fail to appreciate the attitude of Dodd? He was a
+fizzle and a stick, he knew it, he knew nothing else, and there is an
+undercurrent of bitterness in him. And then the problem that Pinkerton
+laid down: why the artist can _do nothing else_? is one that continually
+exercises myself. He cannot: granted. But Scott could. And Montaigne.
+And Julius Caesar. And many more. And why can't R. L. S.? Does it not
+amaze you? It does me. I think of the Renaissance fellows, and their
+all-round human sufficiency, and compare it with the ineffable smallness
+of the field in which we labour and in which we do so little. I think
+_David Balfour_ a nice little book, and very artistic, and just the
+thing to occupy the leisure of a busy man; but for the top flower of a
+man's life it seems to me inadequate. Small is the word; it is a small
+age, and I am of it. I could have wished to be otherwise busy in this
+world. I ought to have been able to build lighthouses and write _David
+Balfours_ too. _Hinc illae lacrymae._ I take my own case as most handy,
+but it is as illustrative of my quarrel with the age. We take all these
+pains, and we don't do as well as Michael Angelo or Leonardo, or even
+Fielding, who was an active magistrate, or Richardson, who was a busy
+bookseller. _J'ai honte pour nous_; my ears burn.
+
+I am amazed at the effect which this Chicago exhibition has produced
+upon you and others. It set Mrs. Fairchild literally mad--to judge by
+her letters. And I wish I had seen anything so influential. I suppose
+there was an aura, a halo, some sort of effulgency about the place; for
+here I find you louder than the rest. Well, it may be there is a time
+coming; and I wonder, when it comes, whether it will be a time of
+little, exclusive, one-eyed rascals like you and me, or parties of the
+old stamp who can paint and fight, and write and keep books of double
+entry, and sculp, and scalp. It might be. You have a lot of stuff in the
+kettle, and a great deal of it Celtic. I have changed my mind
+progressively about England: practically the whole of Scotland is
+Celtic, and the western half of England, and all Ireland, and the Celtic
+blood makes a rare blend for art. If it is stiffened up with Latin
+blood, you get the French. We were less lucky: we had only
+Scandinavians, themselves decidedly artistic, and the Low-German lot.
+However, that is a good starting-point, and with all the other elements
+in your crucible, it may come to something great very easily. I wish you
+would hurry up and let me see it. Here is a long while I have been
+waiting for something _good_ in art; and what have I seen? Zola's
+_Débâcle_ and a few of Kipling's tales. Are you a reader of Barbey
+d'Aurévilly? He is a never-failing source of pleasure to me, for my
+sins, I suppose. What a work is the _Rideau Cramoisi!_ and
+_L'Ensorcelée!_ and _Le Chevalier Des Touches!_
+
+This is degenerating into mere twaddle. So please remember us all most
+kindly to Mrs. Low, and believe me ever yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+_P.S._--Were all your privateers voiceless in the war of 1812? Did _no
+one_ of them write memoirs? I shall have to do my privateer from chic,
+if you can't help me.[74] My application to Scribner has been quite in
+vain. See if you can get hold of some historic sharp in the club, and
+tap him; they must some of them have written memoirs or notes of some
+sort; perhaps still unprinted; if that be so, get them copied for me.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima, Jan. 29th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I had fully intended for your education and moral
+health to fob you off with the meanest possible letter this month, and
+unfortunately I find I will have to treat you to a good long account of
+matters here. I believe I have told you before about Tui-ma-le-alii-fano
+and my taking him down to introduce him to the Chief Justice. Well, Tui
+came back to Vailima one day in the blackest sort of spirits, saying the
+war was decided, that he also must join in the fight, and that there was
+no hope whatever of success. He must fight as a point of honour for his
+family and country; and in his case, even if he escaped on the field of
+battle, deportation was the least to be looked for. He said he had a
+letter of complaint from the Great Council of A'ana which he wished to
+lay before the Chief Justice; and he asked me to accompany him as if I
+were his nurse. We went down about dinner time; and by the way received
+from a lurking native the famous letter in an official blue envelope
+gummed up to the edges. It proved to be a declaration of war, quite
+formal, but with some variations that really made you bounce. White
+residents were directly threatened, bidden to have nothing to do with
+the King's party, not to receive their goods in their houses, etc.,
+under pain of an accident. However, the Chief Justice took it very
+wisely and mildly, and between us, he and I and Tui made up a plan which
+has proved successful--so far. The war is over--fifteen chiefs are this
+morning undergoing a curious double process of law, comparable to a
+court martial; in which their complaints are to be considered, and if
+possible righted, while their conduct is to be criticised, perhaps
+punished. Up to now, therefore, it has been a most successful policy;
+but the danger is before us. My own feeling would decidedly be that all
+would be spoiled by a single execution. The great hope after all lies in
+the knotless, rather flaccid character of the people. These are no
+Maoris. All the powers that Cedercrantz let go by disuse the new C. J.
+is stealthily and boldly taking back again; perhaps some others also. He
+has shamed the chiefs in Mulinuu into a law against taking heads, with a
+punishment of six years' imprisonment and, for a chief, degradation. To
+him has been left the sole conduct of this anxious and decisive inquiry.
+If the natives stand it, why, well! But I am nervous.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. B. BAILDON
+
+
+     _Vailima, January 30th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR BAILDON,--"Call not blessed."--Yes, if I could die just now, or
+say in half a year, I should have had a splendid time of it on the
+whole. But it gets a little stale, and my work will begin to senesce;
+and parties to shy bricks at me; and now it begins to look as if I
+should survive to see myself impotent and forgotten. It's a pity suicide
+is not thought the ticket in the best circles.
+
+But your letter goes on to congratulate me on having done the one thing
+I am a little sorry for; a little--not much--for my father himself lived
+to think that I had been wiser than he. But the cream of the jest is
+that I have lived to change my mind; and think that he was wiser than I.
+Had I been an engineer, and literature my amusement, it would have been
+better perhaps. I pulled it off, of course, I won the wager, and it is
+pleasant while it lasts; but how long will it last? I don't know, say
+the Bells of Old Bow.
+
+All of which goes to show that nobody is quite sane in judging himself.
+Truly, had I given way and gone in for engineering, I should be dead by
+now. Well, the gods know best.
+
+... I hope you got my letter about the _Rescue_.--Adieu.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+True for you about the benefit: except by kisses, jests, song, _et hoc
+genus omne_, man _cannot_ convey benefit to another. The universal
+benefactor has been there before him.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Feb. 1894._
+
+DEAR COLVIN,--By a reaction, when your letter is a little decent, mine
+is to be naked and unashamed. We have been much exercised. No one can
+prophesy here, of course, and the balance still hangs trembling, but I
+_think_ it will go for peace.
+
+The mail was very late this time: hence the paltriness of this note.
+When it came and I had read it, I retired with _The Ebb Tide_ and read
+it all before I slept. I did not dream it was near as good; I am afraid
+I think it excellent. A little indecision about Attwater, not much. It
+gives me great hope, as I see I _can_ work in that constipated, mosaic
+manner, which is what I have to do just now with _Weir of Hermiston_.
+
+We have given a ball; I send you a paper describing the event. We have
+two guests in the house, Captain-Count Wurmbrand and Monsieur Albert de
+Lautreppe. Lautreppe is awfully nice--a quiet, gentlemanly fellow,
+_gonflé de ręves_, as he describes himself--once a sculptor in the
+atelier of Henry Crosse, he knows something of art, and is really a
+resource to me.
+
+Letter from Meredith very kind. Have you seen no more of Graham?
+
+What about my Grandfather? The family history will grow to be quite a
+chapter.
+
+I suppose I am growing sensitive; perhaps, by living among barbarians, I
+expect more civility. Look at this from the author of a very interesting
+and laudatory critique. He gives quite a false description of something
+of mine, and talks about my "insolence." Frankly, I supposed "insolence"
+to be a tapu word. I do not use it to a gentleman, I would not write it
+of a gentleman: I may be wrong, but I believe we did not write it of a
+gentleman in old days, and in my view he (clever fellow as he is) wants
+to be kicked for applying it to me. By writing a novel--even a bad
+one--I do not make myself a criminal for anybody to insult. This may
+amuse you. But either there is a change in journalism, too gradual for
+you to remark it on the spot, or there is a change in me. I cannot bear
+these phrases; I long to resent them. My forbears, the tenant farmers of
+the Mures, would not have suffered such expressions unless it had been
+from Cauldwell, or Rowallan, or maybe Auchendrane. My Family Pride
+bristles. I am like the negro, "I just heard last night" who my great,
+great, great, great grandfather was.--Ever yours,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. H. BATES
+
+
+   The next is to a correspondent in Cincinnati, who had been the
+   founder of an R. L. S. Society in that city, "originally," he writes
+   me, under date April 7, 1895, "the outcome of a boyish fancy, but it
+   has now grown into something more substantial."
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, March 25th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR MR. JOE H. BATES,--I shall have the greatest pleasure in
+acceding to your complimentary request. I shall think it an honour to be
+associated with your chapter, and I need not remind you (for you have
+said it yourself) how much depends upon your own exertions whether to
+make it to me a real honour or only a derision. This is to let you know
+that I accept the position that you have seriously offered to me in a
+quite serious spirit. I need scarce tell you that I shall always be
+pleased to receive reports of your proceedings; and if I do not always
+acknowledge them, you are to remember that I am a man very much occupied
+otherwise, and not at all to suppose that I have lost interest in my
+chapter.
+
+In this world, which (as you justly say) is so full of sorrow and
+suffering, it will always please me to remember that my name is
+connected with some efforts after alleviation, nor less so with purposes
+of innocent recreation which, after all, are the only certain means at
+our disposal for bettering human life.
+
+With kind regards, to yourself, to Mr. L. C. Congdon, to E. M. G. Bates,
+and to Mr. Edward Hugh Higlee Bates, and the heartiest wishes for the
+future success of the chapter, believe me, yours cordially.
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO WILLIAM ARCHER
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, March 27th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR ARCHER,--Many thanks for your _Theatrical World_. Do you know,
+it strikes me as being really very good? I have not yet read much of
+it, but so far as I have looked, there is not a dull and not an empty
+page in it. Hazlitt, whom you must often have thought of, would have
+been pleased. Come to think of it, I shall put this book upon the
+Hazlitt shelf. You have acquired a manner that I can only call august;
+otherwise, I should have to call it such amazing impudence. The _Bauble
+Shop_ and _Becket_ are examples of what I mean. But it "sets you weel."
+
+Marjorie Fleming I have known, as you surmise, for long. She was
+possibly--no, I take back possibly--she was one of the greatest works of
+God. Your note about the resemblance of her verses to mine gave me great
+joy, though it only proved me a plagiarist. By the by, was it not over
+_The Child's Garden of Verses_ that we first scraped acquaintance? I am
+sorry indeed to hear that my esteemed correspondent Tomarcher has such
+poor taste in literature.[75] I fear he cannot have inherited this trait
+from his dear papa. Indeed, I may say I know it, for I remember the
+energy of papa's disapproval when the work passed through his hands on
+its way to a second birth, which none regrets more than myself. It is an
+odd fact, or perhaps a very natural one; I find few greater pleasures
+than reading my own works, but I never, O I never read _The Black
+Arrow_. In that country Tomarcher reigns supreme. Well, and after all,
+if Tomarcher likes it, it has not been written in vain.
+
+We have just now a curious breath from Europe. A young fellow just
+beginning letters, and no fool, turned up here with a letter of
+introduction in the well-known blue ink and decorative hieroglyphs of
+George Meredith. His name may be known to you. It is Sidney Lysaght. He
+is staying with us but a day or two, and it is strange to me and not
+unpleasant to hear all the names, old and new, come up again. But oddly
+the new are so much more in number. If I revisited the glimpses of the
+moon on your side of the ocean, I should know comparatively few of
+them.
+
+My amanuensis deserts me--I should have said you, for yours is the loss,
+my script having lost all bond with humanity. One touch of nature makes
+the whole world kin: that nobody can read my hand. It is a humiliating
+circumstance that thus evens us with printers!
+
+You must sometimes think it strange--or perhaps it is only I that should
+so think it--to be following the old round, in the gas lamps and the
+crowded theatres, when I am away here in the tropical forest and the
+vast silences!
+
+My dear Archer, my wife joins me in the best wishes to yourself and Mrs.
+Archer, not forgetting Tom; and I am yours very cordially,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   Partly concerning a fresh rising, this time of the partisans of
+   Tamasese from the district of Atua, which had occurred and was after
+   some time suppressed; partly in reference to the visit of Mr. Sidney
+   Lysaght; partly in reply to a petition that his letters might be less
+   entirely taken up with native affairs, of relatively little meaning
+   to his correspondent.
+
+     [_Vailima, April 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is the very day the mail goes, and I have as yet
+written you nothing. But it was just as well--as it was all about my
+"blacks and chocolates," and what of it had relation to whites you will
+read some of in the Times. It means, as you will see, that I have at one
+blow quarrelled with _all_ the officials of Samoa, the Foreign Office,
+and I suppose her Majesty the Queen with milk and honey blest. But
+you'll see in the Times. I am very well indeed, but just about dead and
+mighty glad the mail is near here, and I can just give up all hope of
+contending with my letters, and lie down for the rest of the day. These
+Times letters are not easy to write. And I dare say the consuls say,
+"Why, then, does he write them?"
+
+I had miserable luck with _St. Ives_; being already half-way through it,
+a book I had ordered six months ago arrives at last, and I have to
+change the first half of it from top to bottom! How could I have dreamed
+the French prisoners were watched over like a female charity school,
+kept in a grotesque livery, and shaved twice a week? And I had made all
+my points on the idea that they were unshaved and clothed anyhow.
+However, this last is better business; if only the book had come when I
+ordered it! _Ŕ propos_, many of the books you announce don't come as a
+matter of fact. When they are of any value, it is best to register them.
+Your letter, alas! is not here; I sent it down to the cottage, with all
+my mail, for Fanny; on Sunday night a boy comes up with a lantern and a
+note from Fanny, to say the woods are full of Atuas and I must bring a
+horse down that instant, as the posts are established beyond her on the
+road, and she does not want to have the fight going on between us.
+Impossible to get a horse; so I started in the dark on foot, with a
+revolver, and my spurs on my bare feet, leaving directions that the boy
+should mount after me with the horse. Try such an experience on Our Road
+once, and do it, if you please, after you have been down town from nine
+o'clock till six, on board the ship-of-war lunching, teaching Sunday
+School (I actually do) and making necessary visits; and the Saturday
+before, having sat all day from 1/2-past six to 1/2-past four, scriving
+at my Times letter. About half-way up, just in fact at "point" of the
+outposts, I met Fanny coming up. Then all night long I was being wakened
+with scares that really should be looked into, though I _knew_ there was
+nothing in them and no bottom to the whole story; and the drums and
+shouts and cries from Tanugamanono and the town keeping up an all-night
+corybantic chorus in the moonlight--the moon rose late--and the
+search-light of the war-ship in the harbour making a jewel of brightness
+as it lit up the bay of Apia in the distance. And then next morning,
+about eight o'clock, a drum coming out of the woods and a party of
+patrols who had been in the woods on our left front (which is our true
+rear) coming up to the house, and meeting there another party who had
+been in the woods on our right {front / rear} which is Vaea Mountain,
+and 43 of them being entertained to ava and biscuits on the verandah,
+and marching off at last in single file for Apia. Briefly, it is not
+much wonder if your letter and my whole mail was left at the cottage,
+and I have no means of seeing or answering particulars.
+
+The whole thing was nothing but a bottomless scare; it was _obviously_
+so; you couldn't make a child believe it was anything else, but it has
+made the consuls sit up. My own private scares were really abominably
+annoying; as for instance after I had got to sleep for the ninth time
+perhaps--and that was no easy matter either, for I had a crick in my
+neck so agonising that I had to sleep sitting up--I heard noises as of a
+man being murdered in the boys' house. To be sure, said I, this is
+nothing again, but if a man's head was being taken, the noises would be
+the same! So I had to get up, stifle my cries of agony from the crick,
+get my revolver, and creep out stealthily to the boys' house. And there
+were two of them sitting up, keeping watch of their own accord like good
+boys, and whiling the time over a game of Sweepi (Cascino--the whist of
+our islanders)--and one of them was our champion idiot, Misifolo, and I
+suppose he was holding bad cards, and losing all the time--and these
+noises were his humorous protests against Fortune!
+
+Well, excuse this excursion into my "blacks and chocolates." It is the
+last. You will have heard from Lysaght how I failed to write last mail.
+The said Lysaght seems to me a very nice fellow. We were only sorry he
+could not stay with us longer. Austin came back from school last week,
+which made a great time for the Amanuensis, you may be sure. Then on
+Saturday, the _Curaçoa_ came in--same commission, with all our old
+friends; and on Sunday, as already mentioned, Austin and I went down to
+service and had lunch afterwards in the wardroom. The officers were
+awfully nice to Austin; they are the most amiable ship in the world; and
+after lunch we had a paper handed round on which we were to guess, and
+sign our guess, of the number of leaves on the pine-apple; I never saw
+this game before, but it seems it is much practised in the Queen's
+Navee. When all have betted, one of the party begins to strip the
+pine-apple head, and the person whose guess is furthest out has to pay
+for the sherry. My equanimity was disturbed by shouts of _The American
+Commodore_, and I found that Austin had entered and lost about a bottle
+of sherry! He turned with great composure and addressed me. "I am afraid
+I must look to you, Uncle Louis." The Sunday School racket is only an
+experiment which I took up at the request of the late American Land
+Commissioner; I am trying it for a month, and if I do as ill as I
+believe, and the boys find it only half as tedious as I do, I think it
+will end in a month. I have _carte blanche_, and say what I like; but
+does any single soul understand me?
+
+Fanny is on the whole very much better. Lloyd has been under the
+weather, and goes for a month to the South Island of New Zealand for
+some skating, save the mark! I get all the skating I want among
+officials.
+
+Dear Colvin, please remember that my life passes among my "blacks or
+chocolates." If I were to do as you propose, in a bit of a tiff, it
+would cut you off entirely from my life. You must try to exercise a
+trifle of imagination, and put yourself, perhaps with an effort, into
+some sort of sympathy with these people, or how am I to write to you? I
+think you are truly a little too Cockney with me.--Ever yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. B. YEATS
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, April 14, 1894._
+
+DEAR SIR,--Long since when I was a boy I remember the emotions with
+which I repeated Swinburne's poems and ballads. Some ten years ago, a
+similar spell was cast upon me by Meredith's _Love in the Valley_; the
+stanzas beginning "When her mother tends her" haunted me and made me
+drunk like wine; and I remember waking with them all the echoes of the
+hills about Hyčres. It may interest you to hear that I have a third time
+fallen in slavery: this is to your poem called the _Lake Isle of
+Innisfree_. It is so quaint and airy, simple, artful, and eloquent to
+the heart--but I seek words in vain. Enough that "always night and day I
+hear lake water lapping with low sounds on the shore," and am, yours
+gratefully,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO GEORGE MEREDITH
+
+
+   The young lady referred to in the following is Mr. Meredith's
+   daughter, now Mrs. H. Sturgis; the bearer of the introduction, Mr.
+   Sidney Lysaght, author of _The Marplot_ and _One of the Grenvilles._
+   It is only in the first few chapters of Mr. Meredith's _Amazing
+   Marriage_ that the character of Gower Woodseer has been allowed to
+   retain any likeness to that of R. L. S.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, April 17th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR MEREDITH,--Many good things have the gods sent to me of late.
+First of all there was a letter from you by the kind hand of Mariette,
+if she is not too great a lady to be remembered in such a style; and
+then there came one Lysaght with a charming note of introduction in the
+well-known hand itself. We had but a few days of him, and liked him
+well. There was a sort of geniality and inward fire about him at which I
+warmed my hands. It is long since I have seen a young man who has left
+in me such a favourable impression; and I find myself telling myself,
+"O, I must tell this to Lysaght," or, "This will interest him," in a
+manner very unusual after so brief an acquaintance. The whole of my
+family shared in this favourable impression, and my halls have re-echoed
+ever since, I am sure he will be amused to know, with _Widdicombe Fair_.
+
+He will have told you doubtless more of my news than I could tell you
+myself; he has your European perspective, a thing long lost to me. I
+heard with a great deal of interest the news of Box Hill. And so I
+understand it is to be enclosed! Allow me to remark, that seems a far
+more barbaric trait of manners than the most barbarous of ours. We
+content ourselves with cutting off an occasional head.
+
+I hear we may soon expect _The Amazing Marriage_. You know how long, and
+with how much curiosity, I have looked forward to the book. Now, in so
+far as you have adhered to your intention, Gower Woodseer will be a
+family portrait, age twenty-five, of the highly respectable and slightly
+influential and fairly aged _Tusitala_. You have not known that
+gentleman; console yourself, he is not worth knowing. At the same time,
+my dear Meredith, he is very sincerely yours--for what he is worth, for
+the memories of old times, and in the expectation of many pleasures
+still to come. I suppose we shall never see each other again; flitting
+youths of the Lysaght species may occasionally cover these
+unconscionable leagues and bear greetings to and fro. But we ourselves
+must be content to converse on an occasional sheet of notepaper, and I
+shall never see whether you have grown older, and you shall never
+deplore that Gower Woodseer should have declined into the pantaloon
+_Tusitala_. It is perhaps better so. Let us continue to see each other
+as we were, and accept, my dear Meredith, my love and respect.
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+_P.S._--My wife joins me in the kindest messages to yourself and
+Mariette.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+     _[Vailima], April 17, '94._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--_St. Ives_ is now well on its way into the second
+volume. There remains no mortal doubt that it will reach the
+three-volume standard.
+
+I am very anxious that you should send me--
+
+1st. _Tom and Jerry_, a cheap edition.
+
+2nd. The book by Ashton--the _Dawn of the Century_, I think it was
+called--which Colvin sent me, and which has miscarried, and
+
+3rd. If it is possible, a file of the Edinburgh Courant for the years
+1811, 1812, 1813, or 1814. I should not care for a whole year. If it
+were possible to find me three months, winter months by preference, it
+would do my business not only for _St. Ives_, but for the
+_Justice-Clerk_ as well. Suppose this to be impossible, perhaps I could
+get the loan of it from somebody; or perhaps it would be possible to
+have some one read a file for me and make notes. This would be extremely
+bad, as unhappily one man's food is another man's poison, and the reader
+would probably leave out everything I should choose. But if you are
+reduced to that, you might mention to the man who is to read for me that
+balloon ascensions are in the order of the day.
+
+4th. It might be as well to get a book on balloon ascension,
+particularly in the early part of the century.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+III. At last this book has come from Scribner, and, alas! I have the
+first six or seven chapters of _St. Ives_ to recast entirely. Who could
+foresee that they clothed the French prisoners in yellow? But that one
+fatal fact--and also that they shaved them twice a week--damns the whole
+beginning. If it had been sent in time, it would have saved me a deal of
+trouble....
+
+I have had a long letter from Dr. Scott Dalgleish, 25 Mayfield Terrace,
+asking me to put my name down to the Ballantyne Memorial Committee. I
+have sent him a pretty sharp answer in favour of cutting down the
+memorial and giving more to the widow and children. If there is to be
+any foolery in the way of statues or other trash, please send them a
+guinea; but if they are going to take my advice and put up a simple
+tablet with a few heartfelt words, and really devote the bulk of the
+subscriptions to the wife and family, I will go to the length of twenty
+pounds, if you will allow me (and if the case of the family be at all
+urgent), and at least I direct you to send ten pounds. I suppose you had
+better see Scott Dalgleish himself on the matter. I take the opportunity
+here to warn you that my head is simply spinning with a multitude of
+affairs, and I shall probably forget a half of my business at last.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. SITWELL
+
+
+     [_Vailima, April 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have at last got some photographs, and hasten to send
+you, as you asked, a portrait of Tusitala. He is a strange person; not
+so lean, say experts, but infinitely battered; mighty active again on
+the whole; going up and down our break-neck road at all hours of the day
+and night on horseback; holding meetings with all manner of chiefs;
+quite a political personage--God save the mark!--in a small way, but at
+heart very conscious of the inevitable flat failure that awaits every
+one. I shall never do a better book than _Catriona_, that is my
+high-water mark, and the trouble of production increases on me at a
+great rate--and mighty anxious about how I am to leave my family: an
+elderly man, with elderly preoccupations, whom I should be ashamed to
+show you for your old friend; but not a hope of my dying soon and
+cleanly, and "winning off the stage." Rather I am daily better in
+physical health. I shall have to see this business out, after all; and I
+think, in that case, they should have--they might have--spared me all my
+ill-health this decade past, if it were not to unbar the doors. I have
+no taste for old age, and my nose is to be rubbed in it in spite of my
+face. I was meant to die young, and the gods do not love me.
+
+This is very like an epitaph, bar the handwriting, which is anything but
+monumental, and I dare say I had better stop. Fanny is down at her own
+cottage planting or deplanting or replanting, I know not which, and she
+will not be home till dinner, by which time the mail will be all closed,
+else she would join me in all good messages and remembrances of love. I
+hope you will congratulate Burne Jones from me on his baronetcy. I
+cannot make out to be anything but raspingly, harrowingly sad; so I will
+close, and not affect levity which I cannot feel. Do not altogether
+forget me; keep a corner of your memory for the exile
+
+     LOUIS.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+     [_Vailima, May 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--My dear fellow, I wish to assure you of the greatness
+of the pleasure that this Edinburgh Edition gives me. I suppose it was
+your idea to give it that name. No other would have affected me in the
+same manner. Do you remember, how many years ago--I would be afraid to
+hazard a guess--one night when I communicated to you certain intimations
+of early death and aspiration after fame? I was particularly maudlin;
+and my remorse the next morning on a review of my folly has written the
+matter very deeply in my mind; from yours it may easily have fled. If
+any one at that moment could have shown me the Edinburgh Edition, I
+suppose I should have died. It is with gratitude and wonder that I
+consider "the way in which I have been led." Could a more preposterous
+idea have occurred to us in those days when we used to search our
+pockets for coppers, too often in vain, and combine forces to produce
+the threepence necessary for two glasses of beer, or wander down the
+Lothian Road without any, than that I should be strong and well at the
+age of forty-three in the island of Upolu, and that you should be at
+home bringing out the Edinburgh Edition? If it had been possible, I
+should almost have preferred the Lothian Road Edition, say, with a
+picture of the old Dutch smuggler on the covers. I have now something
+heavy on my mind. I had always a great sense of kinship with poor Robert
+Fergusson--so clever a boy, so wild, of such a mixed strain, so
+unfortunate, born in the same town with me, and, as I always felt,
+rather by express intimation than from evidence, so like myself. Now the
+injustice with which the one Robert is rewarded and the other left out
+in the cold sits heavy on me, and I wish you could think of some way in
+which I could do honour to my unfortunate namesake. Do you think it
+would look like affectation to dedicate the whole edition to his memory?
+I think it would. The sentiment which would dictate it to me is too
+abstruse; and besides, I think my wife is the proper person to receive
+the dedication of my life's work. At the same time, it is very odd--it
+really looks like the transmigration of souls--I feel that I must do
+something for Fergusson; Burns has been before me with the gravestone.
+It occurs to me you might take a walk down the Canongate and see in what
+condition the stone is. If it be at all uncared for, we might repair it,
+and perhaps add a few words of inscription.
+
+I must tell you, what I just remembered in a flash as I was walking
+about dictating this letter--there was in the original plan of the
+_Master of Ballantrae_ a sort of introduction describing my arrival in
+Edinburgh on a visit to yourself and your placing in my hands the papers
+of the story. I actually wrote it, and then condemned the idea--as being
+a little too like Scott, I suppose. Now I must really find the MS. and
+try to finish it for the E.E. It will give you, what I should so much
+like you to have, another corner of your own in that lofty monument.
+
+Suppose we do what I have proposed about Fergusson's monument, I wonder
+if an inscription like this would look arrogant--
+
+  This stone originally erected
+  by Robert Burns has been
+  repaired at the
+  charges of Robert Louis Stevenson,
+  and is by him re-dedicated to
+  the memory of Robert Fergusson,
+  as the gift of one Edinburgh
+  lad to another.
+
+In spacing this inscription I would detach the names of Fergusson and
+Burns, but leave mine in the text.
+
+Or would that look like sham modesty, and is it better to bring out the
+three Roberts?
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima, May 18th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Your proposals for the Edinburgh Edition are entirely
+to my mind. About the _Amateur Emigrant_, it shall go to you by this
+mail well slashed. If you like to slash some more on your own account, I
+give you permission. 'Tis not a great work; but since it goes to make up
+the two first volumes as proposed, I presume it has not been written in
+vain.[76]--_Miscellanies_. I see with some alarm the proposal to print
+_Juvenilia_; does it not seem to you taking myself a little too much as
+Grandfather William? I am certainly not so young as I once was--a lady
+took occasion to remind me of the fact no later agone than last night.
+"Why don't you leave that to the young men, Mr. Stevenson?" said
+she--but when I remember that I felt indignant at even John Ruskin when
+he did something of the kind I really feel myself blush from head to
+heel. If you want to make up the first volume, there are a good many
+works which I took the trouble to prepare for publication and which have
+never been republished. In addition to _Roads_ and _Dancing Children_,
+referred to by you, there is _An Autumn Effect_ in the Portfolio, and a
+paper on Fontainebleau--_Forest Notes_ is the name of it--in Cornhill. I
+have no objection to any of these being edited, say with a scythe, and
+reproduced. But I heartily abominate and reject the idea of reprinting
+_The Pentland Rising_. For God's sake let me get buried first.
+
+_Tales and Fantasies._ Vols. I. and II. have my hearty approval. But I
+think III. and IV. had better be crammed into one as you suggest. I will
+reprint none of the stories mentioned. They are below the mark. Well, I
+dare say the beastly _Body-Snatcher_ has merit, and I am unjust to it
+from my recollections of the Pall Mall. But the other two won't do. For
+vols. V. and VI., now changed into IV. and V., I propose the common
+title of _South Sea Yarns_. There! These are all my differences of
+opinion. I agree with every detail of your arrangement, and, as you see,
+my objections have turned principally on the question of hawking unripe
+fruit. I dare say it is all pretty green, but that is no reason for us
+to fill the barrow with trash. Think of having a new set of type cast,
+paper especially made, etc., in order to set up rubbish that is not fit
+for the Saturday Scotsman. It would be the climax of shame.
+
+I am sending you a lot of verses, which had best, I think, be called
+_Underwoods_ Book III., but in what order are they to go? Also, I am
+going on every day a little, till I get sick of it, with the attempt to
+get _The Emigrant_ compressed into life; I know I can--or you can after
+me--do it. It is only a question of time and prayer and ink, and should
+leave something, no, not good, but not all bad--a very genuine
+appreciation of these folks. You are to remember besides there is that
+paper of mine on Bunyan in the Magazine of Art. O, and then there's
+another thing in Seeley called some spewsome name, I cannot recall it.
+
+Well--come, here goes for _Juvenilia_. _Dancing Infants_, _Roads_, _An
+Autumn Effect_, _Forest Notes_ (but this should come at the end of them,
+as it's really rather riper), the t'other thing from Seeley, and I'll
+tell you, you may put in my letter to the Church of Scotland--it's not
+written amiss, and I dare say _The Philosophy of Umbrellas_ might go in,
+but there I stick--and remember _that_ was a collaboration with James
+Walter Ferrier. O, and there was a little skit called _The Charity
+Bazaar_, which you might see; I don't think it would do. Now, I do not
+think there are two other words that should be printed.--By the way,
+there is an article of mine called _The Day after To-morrow_ in the
+Contemporary which you might find room for somewhere; it's no' bad.
+
+Very busy with all these affairs and some native ones also.
+
+
+
+
+TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
+
+
+     [_Vailima, June 17th, 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR BOB,--I must make out a letter this mail or perish in the
+attempt. All the same, I am deeply stupid, in bed with a cold, deprived
+of my amanuensis, and conscious of the wish but not the furnished will.
+You may be interested to hear how the family inquiries go. It is now
+quite certain that we are a second-rate lot, and came out of Cunningham
+or Clydesdale, therefore _British_ folk; so that you are Cymry on both
+sides, and I Cymry and Pict. We may have fought with King Arthur and
+known Merlin. The first of the family, Stevenson of Stevenson, was quite
+a great party, and dates back to the wars of Edward First. The last male
+heir of Stevenson of Stevenson died 1670, Ł220, 10s. to the bad, from
+drink. About the same time the Stevensons, who were mostly in Cunningham
+before, crop up suddenly in the parish of Neilston, over the border in
+Renfrewshire. Of course, they may have been there before, but there is
+no word of them in that parish till 1675 in any extracts I have. Our
+first traceable ancestor was a tenant farmer of Mure of
+Cauldwell's--James in Nether Carsewell. Presently two families of
+maltmen are found in Glasgow, both, by re-duplicated proofs, related to
+James (the son of James) in Nether Carsewell. We descend by his second
+marriage from Robert; one of these died 1733. It is not very romantic up
+to now, but has interested me surprisingly to fish out, always hoping
+for more--and occasionally getting at least a little clearness and
+confirmation. But the earliest date, 1655, apparently the marriage of
+James in Nether Carsewell, cannot as yet be pushed back. From which of
+any number of dozen little families in Cunningham we should derive, God
+knows! Of course, it doesn't matter a hundred years hence, an argument
+fatal to all human enterprise, industry, or pleasure. And to me it will
+be a deadly disappointment if I cannot roll this stone away! One
+generation further might be nothing, but it is my present object of
+desire, and we are so near it! There is a man in the same parish called
+Constantine; if I could only trace to him, I could take you far afield
+by that one talisman of the strange Christian name of Constantine. But
+no such luck! And I kind of fear we shall stick at James.
+
+  I. JAMES, a tenant of the Mures, in Nether-Carsewell,
+          ||             Neilston, married (1665?) Jean Keir.
+          ||                                             |
+           ----------------------------------------------
+                |
+      II. ROBERT (Maltman in Glasgow), died 1733,
+                |      married 1st;      married second,
+                |      Elizabeth Cumming.
+                |                ||
+                |                 ------------------------------
+                |                                               |
+  WILLIAM (Maltman in Glasgow).                   III. ROBERT (Maltman in
+                 |                                   Glasgow), married
+      --------------------                           Margaret Fulton (had
+     |       |            |                          a large family).
+     |       |            |                                     ||
+  ROBERT, MARION, ELIZABETH.                       IV. ALAN, West India
+                                                      merchant, married
+                                                      Jean Lillie.
+                                                                ||
+                                                    V. ROBERT, married
+                                                      Jean Smith.
+                                                                |
+                                                         -------
+                                                        |
+                                                VI. ALAN.--Margaret Jones.
+                                                        |
+                                               VII. R. A. M. S.
+
+  NOTE.--Between 1730-1766 flourished in Glasgow Alan the Coppersmith,
+  who acts as a kind of a pin to the whole Stevenson system there. He
+  was caution to Robert the Second's will, and to William's will, and to
+  the will of a John, another maltman.
+
+So much, though all inchoate, I trouble you with, knowing that you, at
+least, must take an interest in it. So much is certain of that strange
+Celtic descent, that the past has an interest for it apparently
+gratuitous, but fiercely strong. I wish to trace my ancestors a thousand
+years, if I trace them by gallowses. It is not love, not pride, not
+admiration; it is an expansion of the identity, intimately pleasing, and
+wholly uncritical; I can expend myself in the person of an inglorious
+ancestor with perfect comfort; or a disgraced, if I could find one. I
+suppose, perhaps, it is more to me who am childless, and refrain with a
+certain shock from looking forwards. But, I am sure, in the solid
+grounds of race, that you have it also in some degree.
+
+Enough genealogy. I do not know if you will be able to read my hand.
+Unhappily, Belle, who is my amanuensis, is out of the way on other
+affairs, and I have to make the unwelcome effort. (O this is beautiful,
+I am quite pleased with myself.) Graham has just arrived last night (my
+mother is coming by the other steamer in three days), and has told me of
+your meeting, and he said you looked a little older than I did; so that
+I suppose we keep step fairly on the downward side of the hill. He
+thought you looked harassed, and I could imagine that too. I sometimes
+feel harassed. I have a great family here about me, a great anxiety. The
+loss (to use my grandfather's expression), the "loss" of our family is
+that we are disbelievers in the morrow--perhaps I should say, rather, in
+next year. The future is _always_ black to us; it was to Robert
+Stevenson; to Thomas; I suspect to Alan; to R. A. M. S. it was so almost
+to his ruin in youth; to R. L. S., who had a hard hopeful strain in him
+from his mother, it was not so much so once, but becomes daily more so.
+Daily so much more so, that I have a painful difficulty in believing I
+can ever finish another book, or that the public will ever read it.
+
+I have so huge a desire to know exactly what you are doing, that I
+suppose I should tell you what I am doing by way of an example. I have a
+room now, a part of the twelve-foot verandah sparred in, at the most
+inaccessible end of the house. Daily I see the sunrise out of my bed,
+which I still value as a tonic, a perpetual tuning fork, a look of God's
+face once in the day. At six my breakfast comes up to me here, and I
+work till eleven. If I am quite well, I sometimes go out and bathe in
+the river before lunch, twelve. In the afternoon I generally work again,
+now alone drafting, now with Belle dictating. Dinner is at six, and I am
+often in bed by eight. This is supposing me to stay at home. But I must
+often be away, sometimes all day long, sometimes till twelve, one, or
+two at night, when you might see me coming home to the sleeping house,
+sometimes in a trackless darkness, sometimes with a glorious tropic
+moon, everything drenched with dew--unsaddling and creeping to bed; and
+you would no longer be surprised that I live out in this country, and
+not in Bournemouth--in bed.
+
+My great recent interruptions have (as you know) come from politics; not
+much in my line, you will say. But it is impossible to live here and not
+feel very sorely the consequences of the horrid white mismanagement. I
+tried standing by and looking on, and it became too much for me. They
+are such illogical fools; a logical fool in an office, with a lot of red
+tape, is conceivable. Furthermore, he is as much as we have any reason
+to expect of officials--a thoroughly common-place, unintellectual lot.
+But these people are wholly on wires; laying their ears down, skimming
+away, pausing as though shot, and presto! full spread on the other tack.
+I observe in the official class mostly an insane jealousy of the
+smallest kind, as compared to which the artist's is of a grave, modest
+character--the actor's, even; a desire to extend his little authority,
+and to relish it like a glass of wine, that is _impayable_. Sometimes,
+when I see one of these little kings strutting over one of his
+victories--wholly illegal, perhaps, and certain to be reversed to his
+shame if his superiors ever heard of it--I could weep. The strange thing
+is that they _have nothing else_. I auscultate them in vain; no real
+sense of duty, no real comprehension, no real attempt to comprehend, no
+wish for information--you cannot offend one of them more bitterly than
+by offering information, though it is certain that you have _more_, and
+obvious that you have _other_, information than they have; and talking
+of policy, they could not play a better stroke than by listening to you,
+and it need by no means influence their action. _Tenez_, you know what a
+French post office or railway official is? That is the diplomatic card
+to the life. Dickens is not in it; caricature fails.
+
+All this keeps me from my work, and gives me the unpleasant side of the
+world. When your letters are disbelieved it makes you angry, and that
+is rot; and I wish I could keep out of it with all my soul. But I have
+just got into it again, and farewell peace!
+
+My work goes along but slowly. I have got to a crossing place, I
+suppose; the present book, _St. Ives_, is nothing; it is in no style in
+particular, a tissue of adventures, the central character not very well
+done, no philosophic pith under the yarn; and, in short, if people will
+read it, that's all I ask; and if they won't, damn them! I like doing it
+though; and if you ask me why! After that I am on _Weir of Hermiston_
+and _Heathercat_, two Scotch stories, which will either be something
+different, or I shall have failed. The first is generally designed, and
+is a private story of two or three characters in a very grim vein. The
+second--alas! the thought--is an attempt at a real historical novel, to
+present a whole field of time; the race--our own race--the west land and
+Clydesdale blue bonnets, under the influence of their last trial, when
+they got to a pitch of organisation in madness that no other peasantry
+has ever made an offer at. I was going to call it _The Killing Time_,
+but this man Crockett has forestalled me in that. Well, it'll be a big
+smash if I fail in it; but a gallant attempt. All my weary reading as a
+boy, which you remember well enough, will come to bear on it; and if my
+mind will keep up to the point it was in a while back, perhaps I can
+pull it through.
+
+For two months past, Fanny, Belle, Austin (her child), and I have been
+alone; but yesterday, as I mentioned, Graham Balfour arrived, and on
+Wednesday my mother and Lloyd will make up the party to its full
+strength. I wish you could drop in for a month or a week, or two hours.
+That is my chief want. On the whole, it is an unexpectedly pleasant
+corner I have dropped into for an end of it, which I could scarcely have
+foreseen from Wilson's shop, or the Princes Street Gardens, or the
+Portobello Road. Still, I would like to hear what my _alter ego_ thought
+of it; and I would sometimes like to have my old _maître-čs-arts_
+express an opinion on what I do. I put this very tamely, being on the
+whole a quiet elderly man; but it is a strong passion with me, though
+intermittent. Now, try to follow my example and tell me something about
+yourself, Louisa, the Bab, and your work; and kindly send me some
+specimens of what you're about. I have only seen one thing by you, about
+Notre Dame in the Westminster or St. James's, since I left England, now
+I suppose six years ago.
+
+I have looked this trash over, and it is not at all the letter I wanted
+to write--not truck about officials, ancestors, and the like
+rancidness--but you have to let your pen go in its own broken-down gait,
+like an old butcher's pony, stop when it pleases, and go on again as it
+will.--Ever, my dear Bob, your affectionate cousin,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima, June 18th, '94._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--You are to please understand that my last letter is
+withdrawn unconditionally. You and Baxter are having all the trouble of
+this Edition, and I simply put myself in your hands for you to do what
+you like with me, and I am sure that will be the best, at any rate.
+Hence you are to conceive me withdrawing all objections to your printing
+anything you please. After all, it is a sort of family affair. About the
+Miscellany Section, both plans seem to me quite good. Toss up. I think
+the _Old Gardener_ has to stay where I put him last. It would not do to
+separate John and Robert.
+
+In short, I am only sorry I ever uttered a word about the edition, and
+leave you to be the judge. I have had a vile cold which has prostrated
+me for more than a fortnight, and even now tears me nightly with
+spasmodic coughs; but it has been a great victory. I have never borne a
+cold with so little hurt; wait till the clouds blow by, before you begin
+to boast! I have had no fever; and though I've been very unhappy, it is
+nigh over, I think. Of course, _St. Ives_ has paid the penalty. I must
+not let you be disappointed in _St. I._ It is a mere tissue of
+adventures; the central figure not very well or very sharply drawn; no
+philosophy, no destiny, to it; some of the happenings very good in
+themselves, I believe, but none of them _bildende_, none of them
+constructive, except in so far perhaps as they make up a kind of sham
+picture of the time, all in italics and all out of drawing. Here and
+there, I think, it is well written; and here and there it's not. Some of
+the episodic characters are amusing, I do believe; others not, I
+suppose. However, they are the best of the thing such as it is. If it
+has a merit to it, I should say it was a sort of deliberation and swing
+to the style, which seems to me to suit the mail-coaches and
+post-chaises with which it sounds all through. 'Tis my most prosaic
+book.
+
+I called on the two German ships now in port, and we are quite friendly
+with them, and intensely friendly of course with our own _Curaçoas_. But
+it is other guess work on the beach. Some one has employed, or
+subsidised, one of the local editors to attack me once a week. He is
+pretty scurrilous and pretty false. The first effect of the perusal of
+the weekly Beast is to make me angry; the second is a kind of deep,
+golden content and glory, when I seem to say to people: "See! this is my
+position--I am a plain man dwelling in the bush in a house, and behold
+they have to get up this kind of truck against me--and I have so much
+influence that they are obliged to write a weekly article to say I have
+none."
+
+By this time you must have seen Lysaght and forgiven me the letter that
+came not at all. He was really so nice a fellow--he had so much to tell
+me of Meredith--and the time was so short--that I gave up the
+intervening days between mails entirely to entertain him.
+
+We go on pretty nicely. Fanny, Belle, and I have had two months alone,
+and it has been very pleasant. But by to-morrow or next day noon, we
+shall see the whole clan assembled again about Vailima table, which will
+be pleasant too; seven persons in all, and the Babel of voices will be
+heard again in the big hall so long empty and silent. Good-bye. Love to
+all. Time to close.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+     _Vailima, July 7th, 1894._
+
+DEAR HENRY JAMES,--I am going to try and dictate to you a letter or a
+note, and begin the same without any spark of hope, my mind being
+entirely in abeyance. This malady is very bitter on the literary man. I
+have had it now coming on for a month, and it seems to get worse instead
+of better. If it should prove to be softening of the brain, a melancholy
+interest will attach to the present document. I heard a great deal about
+you from my mother and Graham Balfour; the latter declares that you
+could take a First in any Samoan subject. If that be so, I should like
+to hear you on the theory of the constitution. Also to consult you on
+the force of the particles _o lo'o_ and _ua_, which are the subject of a
+dispute among local pundits. You might, if you ever answer this, give me
+your opinion on the origin of the Samoan race, just to complete the
+favour.
+
+They both say that you are looking well, and I suppose I may conclude
+from that that you are feeling passably. I wish I was. Do not suppose
+from this that I am ill in body; it is the numskull that I complain of.
+And when that is wrong, as you must be very keenly aware, you begin
+every day with a smarting disappointment, which is not good for the
+temper. I am in one of the humours when a man wonders how any one can be
+such an ass as to embrace the profession of letters, and not get
+apprenticed to a barber or keep a baked-potato stall. But I have no
+doubt in the course of a week, or perhaps to-morrow, things will look
+better.
+
+We have at present in port the model warship of Great Britain. She is
+called the _Curaçoa_, and has the nicest set of officers and men
+conceivable. They, the officers, are all very intimate with us, and the
+front verandah is known as the Curaçoa Club, and the road up to Vailima
+is known as the Curaçoa Track. It was rather a surprise to me; many
+naval officers have I known, and somehow had not learned to think
+entirely well of them, and perhaps sometimes ask myself a little
+uneasily how that kind of men could do great actions? and behold! the
+answer comes to me, and I see a ship that I would guarantee to go
+anywhere it was possible for men to go, and accomplish anything it was
+permitted man to attempt. I had a cruise on board of her not long ago to
+Manu'a, and was delighted. The goodwill of all on board; the grim
+playfulness of[77]       quarters, with the wounded falling down at the
+word; the ambulances hastening up and carrying them away; the Captain
+suddenly crying, "Fire in the ward-room!" and the squad hastening
+forward with the hose; and, last and most curious spectacle of all, all
+the men in their dust-coloured fatigue clothes, at a note of the bugle,
+falling simultaneously flat on deck, and the ship proceeding with its
+prostrate crew--_quasi_ to ram an enemy; our dinner at night in a wild
+open anchorage, the ship rolling almost to her gunwales, and showing us
+alternately her bulwarks up in the sky, and then the wild broken cliffy
+palm-crested shores of the island with the surf thundering and leaping
+close aboard. We had the ward-room mess on deck, lit by pink wax tapers,
+everybody, of course, in uniform but myself, and the first lieutenant
+(who is a rheumaticky body) wrapped in a boat cloak. Gradually the
+sunset faded out, the island disappeared from the eye, though it
+remained menacingly present to the ear with the voice of the surf; and
+then the captain turned on the searchlight and gave us the coast, the
+beach, the trees, the native houses, and the cliffs by glimpses of
+daylight, a kind of deliberate lightning. About which time, I suppose,
+we must have come as far as the dessert, and were probably drinking our
+first glass of port to Her Majesty. We stayed two days at the island,
+and had, in addition, a very picturesque snapshot at the native life.
+The three islands of Manu'a are independent, and are ruled over by a
+little slip of a half-caste girl about twenty, who sits all day in a
+pink gown, in a little white European house with about a quarter of an
+acre of roses in front of it, looking at the palm-trees on the village
+street, and listening to the surf. This, so far as I could discover, was
+all she had to do. "This is a very dull place," she said. It appears she
+could go to no other village for fear of raising the jealousy of her own
+people in the capital. And as for going about "tafatafaoing," as we say
+here, its cost was too enormous. A strong able-bodied native must walk
+in front of her and blow the conch shell continuously from the moment
+she leaves one house until the moment she enters another. Did you ever
+blow the conch shell? I presume not; but the sweat literally hailed off
+that man, and I expected every moment to see him burst a blood-vessel.
+We were entertained to kava in the guest-house with some very original
+features. The young men who run for the _kava_ have a right to
+misconduct themselves _ad libitum_ on the way back; and though they were
+told to restrain themselves on the occasion of our visit, there was a
+strange hurly-burly at their return, when they came beating the trees
+and the posts of the houses, leaping, shouting, and yelling like
+Bacchants.
+
+I tasted on that occasion what it is to be great. My name was called
+next after the captain's, and several chiefs (a thing quite new to me,
+and not at all Samoan practice) drank to me by name.
+
+And now, if you are not sick of the _Curaçoa_ and Manu'a, I am, at least
+on paper. And I decline any longer to give you examples of how not to
+write.
+
+By the by, you sent me long ago a work by Anatole France, which I
+confess I did not _taste_. Since then I have made the acquaintance of
+the _Abbé Coignard_, and have become a faithful adorer. I don't think a
+better book was ever written.
+
+And I have no idea what I have said, and I have no idea what I ought to
+have said, and I am a total ass, but my heart is in the right place, and
+I am, my dear Henry James, yours,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO MARCEL SCHWOB
+
+
+     _Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, July 7, 1894._
+
+DEAR MR. MARCEL SCHWOB,--Thank you for having remembered me in my exile.
+I have read _Mimes_ twice as a whole; and now, as I write, I am reading
+it again as it were by accident, and a piece at a time, my eye catching
+a word and travelling obediently on through the whole number. It is a
+graceful book, essentially graceful, with its haunting agreeable
+melancholy, its pleasing savoury of antiquity. At the same time, by its
+merits, it shows itself rather as the promise of something else to come
+than a thing final in itself. You have yet to give us--and I am
+expecting it with impatience--something of a larger gait; something
+daylit, not twilit; something with the colours of life, not the flat
+tints of a temple illumination; something that shall be _said_ with all
+the clearnesses and the trivialities of speech, not _sung_ like a
+semi-articulate lullaby. It will not please yourself as well, when you
+come to give it us, but it will please others better. It will be more of
+a whole, more worldly, more nourished, more commonplace--and not so
+pretty, perhaps not even so beautiful. No man knows better than I that,
+as we go on in life, we must part from prettiness and the graces. We
+but attain qualities to lose them; life is a series of farewells, even
+in art; even our proficiencies are deciduous and evanescent. So here
+with these exquisite pieces the XVIIth, XVIIIth, and IVth of the present
+collection. You will perhaps never excel them; I should think the
+"Hermes," never. Well, you will do something else, and of that I am in
+expectation.--Yours cordially,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. ST. GAUDENS
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, July 8, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,--This is to tell you that the medallion has been at
+last triumphantly transported up the hill and placed over my
+smoking-room mantelpiece. It is considered by everybody a first-rate but
+flattering portrait. We have it in a very good light, which brings out
+the artistic merits of the god-like sculptor to great advantage. As for
+my own opinion, I believe it to be a speaking likeness, and not
+flattered at all; possibly a little the reverse. The verses (curse the
+rhyme) look remarkably well.
+
+Please do not longer delay, but send me an account for the expense of
+the gilt letters. I was sorry indeed that they proved beyond the means
+of a small farmer.--Yours very sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
+
+
+     _Vailima, July 14, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR ADELAIDE,--... So, at last, you are going into mission work?
+where I think your heart always was. You will like it in a way, but
+remember it is dreary long. Do you know the story of the American tramp
+who was offered meals and a day's wage to chop with the back of an axe
+on a fallen trunk. "Damned if I can go on chopping when I can't see the
+chips fly!" You will never see the chips fly in mission work, never; and
+be sure you know it beforehand. The work is one long dull
+disappointment, varied by acute revulsions; and those who are by nature
+courageous and cheerful, and have grown old in experience, learn to rub
+their hands over infinitesimal successes. However, as I really believe
+there is some good done in the long run--_gutta cavat lapidem non vi_ in
+this business--it is a useful and honourable career in which no one
+should be ashamed to embark. Always remember the fable of the sun, the
+storm, and the traveller's cloak. Forget wholly and for ever all small
+pruderies, and remember that _you cannot change ancestral feelings of
+right and wrong without what is practically soul-murder_. Barbarous as
+the customs may seem, always hear them with patience, always judge them
+with gentleness, always find in them some seed of good; see that you
+always develop them; remember that all you can do is to civilise the man
+in the line of his own civilisation, such as it is. And never expect,
+never believe in, thaumaturgic conversions. They may do very well for
+St. Paul; in the case of an Andaman islander they mean less than
+nothing. In fact, what you have to do is to teach the parents in the
+interests of their great-grandchildren.
+
+Now, my dear Adelaide, dismiss from your mind the least idea of fault
+upon your side; nothing is further from the fact. I cannot forgive you,
+for I do not know your fault. My own is plain enough, and the name of it
+is cold-hearted neglect; and you may busy yourself more usefully in
+trying to forgive me. But ugly as my fault is, you must not suppose it
+to mean more than it does; it does not mean that we have at all
+forgotten you, that we have become at all indifferent to the thought of
+you. See, in my life of Jenkin, a remark of his, very well expressed, on
+the friendships of men who do not write to each other. I can honestly
+say that I have not changed to you in any way; though I have behaved
+thus ill, thus cruelly. Evil is done by want of--well, principally by
+want of industry. You can imagine what I would say (in a novel) of any
+one who had behaved as I have done. _Deteriora sequor_. And you must
+somehow manage to forgive your old friend; and if you will be so very
+good, continue to give us news of you, and let us share the knowledge of
+your adventures, sure that it will be always followed with
+interest--even if it is answered with the silence of ingratitude. For I
+am not a fool; I know my faults, I know they are ineluctable, I know
+they are growing on me. I know I may offend again, and I warn you of it.
+But the next time I offend, tell me so plainly and frankly like a lady,
+and don't lacerate my heart and bludgeon my vanity with imaginary faults
+of your own and purely gratuitous penance. I might suspect you of irony!
+
+We are all fairly well, though I have been off work and off--as you know
+very well--letter-writing. Yet I have sometimes more than twenty
+letters, and sometimes more than thirty, going out each mail. And Fanny
+has had a most distressing bronchitis for some time, which she is only
+now beginning to get over. I have just been to see her; she is
+lying--though she had breakfast an hour ago, about seven--in her big
+cool, mosquito-proof room, ingloriously asleep. As for me, you see that
+a doom has come upon me: I cannot make marks with a pen--witness
+"ingloriously" above; and my amanuensis not appearing so early in the
+day, for she is then immersed in household affairs, and I can hear her
+"steering the boys" up and down the verandahs--you must decipher this
+unhappy letter for yourself and, I fully admit, with everything against
+you. A letter should be always well written; how much more a letter of
+apology! Legibility is the politeness of men of letters, as punctuality
+of kings and beggars. By the punctuality of my replies, and the beauty
+of my hand-writing, judge what a fine conscience I must have!
+
+Now, my dear gamekeeper, I must really draw to a close. For I have much
+else to write before the mail goes out three days hence. Fanny being
+asleep, it would not be conscientious to invent a message from her, so
+you must just imagine her sentiments. I find I have not the heart to
+speak of your recent loss. You remember perhaps, when my father died,
+you told me those ugly images of sickness, decline, and impaired reason,
+which then haunted me day and night, would pass away and be succeeded by
+things more happily characteristic. I have found it so. He now haunts
+me, strangely enough, in two guises; as a man of fifty, lying on a
+hillside and carving mottoes on a stick, strong and well; and as a
+younger man, running down the sands into the sea near North Berwick,
+myself--_ćtat. 11_--somewhat horrified at finding him so beautiful when
+stripped! I hand on your own advice to you in case you have forgotten
+it, as I know one is apt to do in seasons of bereavement.--Ever yours,
+with much love and sympathy,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. A. BAKER
+
+
+   This refers again to the printing of some of his books in Braille
+   type for the blind.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, July 16, 1894._
+
+DEAR MRS. BAKER,--I am very much obliged to you for your letter and the
+enclosure from Mr. Skinner. Mr. Skinner says he "thinks Mr. Stevenson
+must be a very kind man"; he little knows me. But I am very sure of one
+thing, that you are a very kind woman. I envy you--my amanuensis being
+called away, I continue in my own hand, or what is left of it--unusually
+legible, I am thankful to see--I envy you your beautiful choice of an
+employment. There must be no regrets at least for a day so spent; and
+when the night falls you need ask no blessing on your work. "Inasmuch as
+ye have done it unto one of these."--Yours truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _July, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have to thank you this time for a very good letter,
+and will announce for the future, though I cannot now begin to put in
+practice, good intentions for our correspondence. I will try to return
+to the old system and write from time to time during the month; but
+truly you did not much encourage me to continue! However, that is all
+by-past. I do not know that there is much in your letter that calls for
+answer. Your questions about _St. Ives_ were practically answered in my
+last; so were your wails about the edition, _Amateur Emigrant_, etc. By
+the end of the year _St. I._ will be practically finished, whatever it
+be worth, and that I know not. When shall I receive proofs of the Magnum
+Opus? or shall I receive them at all?
+
+The return of the Amanuensis feebly lightens my heart. You can see the
+heavy weather I was making of it with my unaided pen. The last month has
+been particularly cheery largely owing to the presence of our good
+friends the Curaçoas. She is really a model ship, charming officers and
+charming seamen. They gave a ball last month, which was very rackety and
+joyous and naval....
+
+On the following day, about one o'clock, three horsemen might have been
+observed approaching Vailima, who gradually resolved themselves into two
+petty officers and a native guide. Drawing himself up and saluting, the
+spokesman (a corporal of Marines) addressed me thus. "Me and my
+shipmates inwites Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, Mrs. Strong, Mr. Austin, and Mr.
+Balfour to a ball to be given to-night in the self-same 'all." It was of
+course impossible to refuse, though I contented myself with putting in a
+very brief appearance. One glance was sufficient; the ball went off like
+a rocket from the start. I had only time to watch Belle careering around
+with a gallant bluejacket of exactly her own height--the standard of
+the British navy--an excellent dancer and conspicuously full of
+small-talk--and to hear a remark from a beach-comber, "It's a nice sight
+this some way, to see the officers dancing like this with the men, but I
+tell you, sir, these are the men that'll fight together!"
+
+I tell you, Colvin, the acquaintance of the men--and boys--makes me feel
+patriotic. Eeles in particular is a man whom I respect. I am half in a
+mind to give him a letter of introduction to you when he goes home. In
+case you feel inclined to make a little of him, give him a dinner, ask
+Henry James to come to meet him, etc.--you might let me know. I don't
+know that he would show his best, but he is a remarkably fine fellow, in
+every department of life.
+
+We have other visitors in port. A Count Festetics de Tolna, an Austrian
+officer, a very pleasant, simple, boyish creature, with his young wife,
+daughter of an American millionaire; he is a friend of our own Captain
+Wurmbrand, and it is a great pity Wurmbrand is away.
+
+Glad you saw and liked Lysaght. He has left in our house a most cheerful
+and pleasing memory, as a good, pleasant, brisk fellow with good health
+and brains, and who enjoys himself and makes other people happy. I am
+glad he gave you a good report of our surroundings and way of life; but
+I knew he would, for I believe he had a glorious time--and gave one.[78]
+
+I am on fair terms with the two Treaty officials, though all such
+intimacies are precarious; with the consuls, I need not say, my position
+is deplorable. The President (Herr Emil Schmidt) is a rather dreamy man,
+whom I like. Lloyd, Graham and I go to breakfast with him to-morrow; the
+next day the whole party of us lunch on the _Curaçoa_ and go in the
+evening to a _Bierabend_ at Dr. Funk's. We are getting up a paper-chase
+for the following week with some of the young German clerks, and have in
+view a sort of child's party for grown-up persons with kissing games,
+etc., here at Vailima. Such is the gay scene in which we move. Now I
+have done something, though not as much as I wanted, to give you an idea
+of how we are getting on, and I am keenly conscious that there are other
+letters to do before the mail goes.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. M. BARRIE
+
+
+     _Vailima, July 13, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR BARRIE,--This is the last effort of an ulcerated conscience. I
+have been so long owing you a letter, I have heard so much of you, fresh
+from the press, from my mother and Graham Balfour, that I have to write
+a letter no later than to-day, or perish in my shame. But the deuce of
+it is, my dear fellow, that you write such a very good letter that I am
+ashamed to exhibit myself before my junior (which you are, after all) in
+the light of the dreary idiot I feel. Understand that there will be
+nothing funny in the following pages. If I can manage to be rationally
+coherent, I shall be more than satisfied.
+
+In the first place, I have had the extreme satisfaction to be shown that
+photograph of your mother. It bears evident traces of the hand of an
+amateur. How is it that amateurs invariably take better photographs than
+professionals? I must qualify invariably. My own negatives have always
+represented a province of chaos and old night in which you might dimly
+perceive fleecy spots of twilight, representing nothing; so that, if I
+am right in supposing the portrait of your mother to be yours, I must
+salute you as my superior. Is that your mother's breakfast? Or is it
+only afternoon tea? If the first, do let me recommend to Mrs. Barrie to
+add an egg to her ordinary. Which, if you please, I will ask her to eat
+to the honour of her son, and I am sure she will live much longer for
+it, to enjoy his fresh successes. I never in my life saw anything more
+deliciously characteristic. I declare I can hear her speak. I wonder my
+mother could resist the temptation of your proposed visit to Kirriemuir,
+which it was like your kindness to propose. By the way, I was twice in
+Kirriemuir, I believe in the year '71, when I was going on a visit to
+Glenogil. It was Kirriemuir, was it not? I have a distinct recollection
+of an inn at the end--I think the upper end--of an irregular open place
+or square, in which I always see your characters evolve. But, indeed, I
+did not pay much attention; being all bent upon my visit to a
+shooting-box, where I should fish a real trout-stream, and I believe
+preserved. I did, too, and it was a charming stream, clear as crystal,
+without a trace of peat--a strange thing in Scotland--and alive with
+trout; the name of it I cannot remember, it was something like the
+Queen's River, and in some hazy way connected with memories of Mary
+Queen of Scots. It formed an epoch in my life, being the end of all my
+trout-fishing. I had always been accustomed to pause and very
+laboriously to kill every fish as I took it. But in the Queen's River I
+took so good a basket that I forgot these niceties; and when I sat down,
+in a hard rain shower, under a bank, to take my sandwiches and sherry,
+lo! and behold, there was the basketful of trouts still kicking in their
+agony.
+
+I had a very unpleasant conversation with my conscience. All that
+afternoon I persevered in fishing, brought home my basket in triumph,
+and sometime that night, "in the wee sma' hours ayont the twal," I
+finally forswore the gentle craft of fishing. I dare say your local
+knowledge may identify this historic river; I wish it could go farther
+and identify also that particular Free kirk in which I sat and groaned
+on Sunday. While my hand is in I must tell you a story. At that antique
+epoch you must not fall into the vulgar error that I was myself ancient.
+I was, on the contrary, very young, very green, and (what you will
+appreciate, Mr. Barrie) very shy. There came one day to lunch at the
+house two very formidable old ladies--or one very formidable, and the
+other what you please--answering to the honoured and historic name of
+the Miss C---- A----'s of Balnamoon. At table I was exceedingly funny,
+and entertained the company with tales of geese and bubbly-jocks. I was
+great in the expression of my terror for these bipeds, and suddenly this
+horrid, severe, and eminently matronly old lady put up a pair of gold
+eye-glasses, looked at me awhile in silence, and pronounced in a
+clangorous voice her verdict. "You give me very much the effect of a
+coward, Mr. Stevenson!" I had very nearly left two vices behind me at
+Glenogil--fishing and jesting at table. And of one thing you may be very
+sure, my lips were no more opened at that meal.
+
+_July 29th._--No, Barrie, 'tis in vain they try to alarm me with their
+bulletins. No doubt, you're ill, and unco ill, I believe; but I have
+been so often in the same case that I know pleurisy and pneumonia are in
+vain against Scotsmen who can write. (I once could.) You cannot imagine
+probably how near me this common calamity brings you. _Ce que j'ai
+toussé dans ma vie!_ How often and how long have I been on the rack at
+night and learned to appreciate that noble passage in the Psalms when
+somebody or other is said to be more set on something than they "who dig
+for hid treasures--yea, than those who long for the morning"--for all
+the world, as you have been racked and you have longed. Keep your heart
+up, and you'll do. Tell that to your mother, if you are still in any
+danger or suffering. And by the way, if you are at all like me--and I
+tell myself you are very like me--be sure there is only one thing good
+for you, and that is the sea in hot climates. Mount, sir, into "a little
+frigot" of 5000 tons or so, and steer peremptorily for the tropics; and
+what if the ancient mariner, who guides your frigot, should startle the
+silence of the ocean with the cry of land ho!--say, when the day is
+dawning--and you should see the turquoise mountain tops of Upolu coming
+hand over fist above the horizon? Mr. Barrie, sir, 'tis then there would
+be larks! And though I cannot be certain that our climate would suit you
+(for it does not suit some), I am sure as death the voyage would do you
+good--would do you _Best_--and if Samoa didn't do, you needn't stay
+beyond the month, and I should have had another pleasure in my life,
+which is a serious consideration for me. I take this as the hand of the
+Lord preparing your way to Vailima--in the desert, certainly--in the
+desert of Cough and by the ghoul-haunted woodland of Fever--but whither
+that way points there can be no question--and there will be a meeting of
+the twa Hoasting Scots Makers in spite of fate, fortune and the Devil.
+_Absit omen!_
+
+My dear Barrie, I am a little in the dark about this new work of yours:[79]
+what is to become of me afterwards? You say carefully--methought
+anxiously--that I was no longer me when I grew up? I cannot bear this
+suspense: what is it? It's no forgery? And AM I HANGIT? These are the
+elements of a very pretty lawsuit which you had better come to Samoa to
+compromise. I am enjoying a great pleasure that I had long looked
+forward to, reading Orme's _History of Indostan_; I had been looking out
+for it everywhere; but at last, in four volumes, large quarto,
+beautiful type and page, and with a delectable set of maps and plans,
+and all the names of the places wrongly spelled--it came to Samoa,
+little Barrie. I tell you frankly, you had better come soon. I am sair
+failed a'ready; and what I may be if you continue to dally, I dread to
+conceive. I may be speechless; already, or at least for a month or so,
+I'm little better than a teetoller--I beg pardon, a teetotaller. It is
+not exactly physical, for I am in good health, working four or five
+hours a day in my plantation, and intending to ride a paper-chase next
+Sunday--ay, man, that's a fact, and I havena had the hert to breathe it
+to my mother yet--the obligation's poleetical, for I am trying every
+means to live well with my German neighbours--and, O Barrie, but it's no
+easy!... To be sure, there are many exceptions. And the whole of the
+above must be regarded as private--strictly private. Breathe it not in
+Kirriemuir: tell it not to the daughters of Dundee! What a nice extract
+this would make for the daily papers! and how it would facilitate my
+position here!
+
+_August 5th._--This is Sunday, the Lord's Day. "The hour of attack
+approaches." And it is a singular consideration what I risk; I may yet
+be the subject of a tract, and a good tract too--such as one which I
+remember reading with recreant awe and rising hair in my youth, of a boy
+who was a very good boy, and went to Sunday Schule, and one day kipped
+from it, and went and actually bathed, and was dashed over a waterfall,
+and he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A dangerous
+trade, that, and one that I have to practise. I'll put in a word when I
+get home again, to tell you whether I'm killed or not. "Accident in the
+(Paper) Hunting Field: death of a notorious author. We deeply regret to
+announce the death of the most unpopular man in Samoa, who broke his
+neck, at the descent of Magiagi, from the misconduct of his little
+raving lunatic of an old beast of a pony. It is proposed to commemorate
+the incident by the erection of a suitable pile. The design (by our
+local architect, Mr. Walker) is highly artificial, with a rich and
+voluminous Crockett at each corner, a small but impervious Barričer at
+the entrance, an arch at the top, an Archer of a pleasing but solid
+character at the bottom; the colour will be genuine William-Black; and
+Lang, lang may the ladies sit wi' their fans in their hands." Well,
+well, they may sit as they sat for me, and little they'll reck, the
+ungrateful jauds! Muckle they cared about Tusitala when they had him!
+But now ye can see the difference; now leddies, ye can repent, when ower
+late, o' your former cauldness and what ye'll perhaps allow me to ca'
+your _tepeedity_! He was beautiful as the day, but his day is done! And
+perhaps, as he was maybe gettin' a wee thing fly-blown, it's nane too
+shüne.
+
+_Monday, August 6th._--Well, sir, I have escaped the dangerous
+conjunction of the widow's only son and the Sabbath Day. We had a most
+enjoyable time, and Lloyd and I were 3 and 4 to arrive; I will not tell
+here what interval had elapsed between our arrival and the arrival of 1
+and 2; the question, sir, is otiose and malign; it deserves, it shall
+have no answer. And now without further delay to the main purpose of
+this hasty note. We received and we have already in fact distributed the
+gorgeous fahbrics of Kirriemuir. Whether from the splendour of the robes
+themselves, or from the direct nature of the compliments with which you
+had directed us to accompany the presentations, one young lady blushed
+as she received the proofs of your munificence.... Bad ink, and the
+dregs of it at that, but the heart in the right place. Still very
+cordially interested in my Barrie and wishing him well through his
+sickness, which is of the body, and long defended from mine, which is of
+the head, and by the impolite might be described as idiocy. The whole
+head is useless, and the whole sitting part painful: reason, the recent
+Paper Chase.
+
+  There was racing and chasing in Vailele plantation,
+      And vastly we enjoyed it,
+  But, alas! for the state of my foundation,
+      For it wholly has destroyed it.
+
+Come, my mind is looking up. The above is wholly impromptu.--On oath,
+
+     TUSITALA.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The missionary view of the Sunday paper-chase, with an account of
+   Stevenson's apologies to the ladies and gentlemen of the mission,
+   have been printed by Mr. W. E. Clarke in the Chronicle of the London
+   Missionary Society for April and May 1908.
+
+     _[Vailima] Aug. 7th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is to inform you, sir, that on Sunday last (and
+this is Tuesday) I attained my ideal here, and we had a paper-chase in
+Vailele Plantation, about 15 miles, I take it, from us; and it was all
+that could be wished. It is really better fun than following the hounds,
+since you have to be your own hound, and a precious bad hound I was,
+following every false scent on the whole course to the bitter end; but I
+came in 3rd at the last on my little Jack, who stuck to it gallantly,
+and awoke the praises of some discriminating persons. (5 + 7 + 2-1/2 =
+14-1/2 miles; yes, that is the count.) We had quite the old sensations
+of exhilaration, discovery, an appeal to a savage instinct; and I felt
+myself about 17 again, a pleasant experience. However, it was on the
+Sabbath Day, and I am now a pariah among the English, as if I needed any
+increment of unpopularity. I must not go again; it gives so much
+unnecessary tribulation to poor people, and, sure, we don't want to make
+tribulation. I have been forbidden to work, and have been instead doing
+my two or three hours in the plantation every morning. I only wish
+somebody would pay me Ł10 a day for taking care of cacao, and I could
+leave literature to others. Certainly, if I have plenty of exercise, and
+no work, I feel much better; but there is Biles the butcher! him we
+have always with us.
+
+I do not much like novels, I begin to think, but I am enjoying
+exceedingly Orme's _History of Hindostan_, a lovely book in its way, in
+large quarto, with a quantity of maps, and written in a very lively and
+solid eighteenth century way, never picturesque except by accident and
+from a kind of conviction, and a fine sense of order. No historian I
+have ever read is so minute; yet he never gives you a word about the
+people; his interest is entirely limited in the concatenation of events,
+into which he goes with a lucid, almost superhuman, and wholly ghostly
+gusto. "By the ghost of a mathematician" the book might be announced. A
+very brave, honest book.
+
+Your letter to hand.
+
+Fact is, I don't like the picter.[80] O, it's a good picture, but if you
+_ask_ me, you know, I believe, stoutly believe, that mankind, including
+you, are going mad. I am not in the midst with the other frenzy dancers,
+so I don't catch it wholly; and when you show me a thing--and ask me,
+don't you know--Well, well! Glad to get so good an account of the
+_Amateur Emigrant_. Talking of which, I am strong for making a volume
+out of selections from the South Sea letters; I read over again the King
+of Apemama, and it is good in spite of your teeth, and a real curiosity,
+a thing that can never be seen again, and the group is annexed and
+Tembinoka dead. I wonder, couldn't you send out to me the _first_ five
+Butaritari letters and the Low Archipelago ones (both of which I have
+lost or mislaid) and I can chop out a perfectly fair volume of what I
+wish to be preserved. It can keep for the last of the series.
+
+_Travels and Excursions_, vol. II. Should it not include a paper on S. F.
+from the Mag. of Art? The A. E., the New Pacific capital, the Old ditto.
+_Silver._ _Squat._ This would give all my works on the States; and though
+it ain't very good, it's not so very bad. _Travels and Excursions_, vol.
+III., to be these resuscitated letters--_Miscellanies_, vol. II.--_comme
+vous voudrez, cher monsieur!_
+
+_Monday, Aug. 13th._--I have a sudden call to go up the coast and must
+hurry up with my information. There has suddenly come to our naval
+commanders the need of action, they're away up the coast bombarding the
+Atua rebels. All morning on Saturday the sound of the bombardment of
+Luatuanu'u kept us uneasy. To-day again the big guns have been sounding
+further along the coast. One delicious circumstance must not be
+forgotten. Our blessed President of the Council--a kind of hoary-headed
+urchin, with the dim, timid eyes of extreme childhood and a kind of
+beautiful simplicity that endears him to me beyond words--has taken the
+head of the army--honour to him for it, for his place is really
+there--and gone up the coast in the congenial company of his
+housekeeper, a woman coming on for sixty with whom he takes his walks
+abroad in the morning in his shirt-sleeves, whom he reads to at night
+(in a kind of Popular History of Germany) in the silence of the
+Presidential mansion, and with whom (and a couple of camp stools) he
+walked out last Sunday to behold the paper-chase. I cannot tell you how
+taken I am with this exploit of the President's and the housekeeper's.
+It is like Don Quixote, but infinitely superior. If I could only do it
+without offence, what a subject it would make!
+
+To-morrow morning early I am off up the coast myself. Therefore you must
+allow me to break off here without further ceremony.--Yours ever,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO DR. BAKEWELL
+
+
+   The following is to a physician in Australia.
+
+     _Vailima, August 7, 1894._
+
+DEAR DR. BAKEWELL,--I am not more than human. I am more human than is
+wholly convenient, and your anecdote was welcome. What you say about
+_unwilling work_, my dear sir, is a consideration always present with
+me, and yet not easy to give its due weight to. You grow gradually into
+a certain income; without spending a penny more, with the same sense of
+restriction as before when you painfully scraped two hundred a year
+together, you find you have spent, and you cannot well stop spending, a
+far larger sum; and this expense can only be supported by a certain
+production. However, I am off work this month, and occupy myself instead
+in weeding my cacao, paper-chases, and the like. I may tell you, my
+average of work in favourable circumstances is far greater than you
+suppose: from six o'clock till eleven at latest,[81] and often till
+twelve, and again in the afternoon from two to four. My hand is quite
+destroyed, as you may perceive, to-day to a really unusual extent. I can
+sometimes write a decent fist still; but I have just returned with my
+arms all stung from three hours' work in the cacao.--Yours, etc.,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES PAYN
+
+
+     _Vailima, Upolu, Samoa [August 11, 1894]._
+
+MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--I hear from Lang that you are unwell, and it
+reminds me of two circumstances: First, that it is a very long time
+since you had the exquisite pleasure of hearing from me; and second,
+that I have been very often unwell myself and sometimes had to thank you
+for a grateful anodyne.
+
+They are not good, the circumstances, to write an anodyne letter. The
+hills and my house at less than (boom) a minute's interval quake with
+thunder; and though I cannot hear that part of it, shells are falling
+thick into the fort of Luatuanu'u (boom). It is my friends of the
+_Curaçoa_, the _Falke_, and the _Bussard_ bombarding (after all
+these--boom--months) the rebels of Atua. (Boom-boom.) It is most
+distracting in itself; and the thought of the poor devils in their fort
+(boom) with their bits of rifles far from pleasant. (Boom-boom.) You can
+see how quick it goes, and I'll say no more about Mr. Bow-wow, only you
+must understand the perpetual accompaniment of this discomfortable
+sound, and make allowances for the value of my copy. It is odd, though,
+I can well remember, when the Franco-Prussian war began, and I was in
+Eilean Earraid, far enough from the sound of the loudest cannonade, I
+could _hear_ the shots fired, and I felt the pang in my breast of a man
+struck. It was sometimes so distressing, so instant, that I lay in the
+heather on the top of the island, with my face hid, kicking my heels for
+agony. And now, when I can hear the actual concussion of the air and
+hills, when I _know_ personally the people who stand exposed to it, I am
+able to go on _taut bien que mal_ with a letter to James Payn! The
+blessings of age, though mighty small, are tangible. I have heard a
+great deal of them since I came into the world, and now that I begin to
+taste of them--Well! But this is one, that people do get cured of the
+excess of sensibility; and I had as lief these people were shot at as
+myself--or almost, for then I should have some of the fun, such as it
+is.
+
+You are to conceive me, then, sitting in my little gallery room, shaken
+by these continual spasms of cannon, and with my eye more or less singly
+fixed on the imaginary figure of my dear James Payn. I try to see him in
+bed; no go. I see him instead jumping up in his room in Waterloo Place
+(where _ex hypothesi_ he is not), sitting on the table, drawing out a
+very black briar-root pipe, and beginning to talk to a slim and
+ill-dressed visitor in a voice that is good to hear and with a smile
+that is pleasant to see. (After a little more than half an hour, the
+voice that was ill to hear has ceased, the cannonade is over.) And I am
+thinking how I can get an answering smile wafted over so many leagues
+of land and water, and can find no way.
+
+I have always been a great visitor of the sick; and one of the sick I
+visited was W. E. Henley, which did not make very tedious visits, so
+I'll not get off much purgatory for them. That was in the Edinburgh
+Infirmary, the old one, the true one, with Georgius Secundus standing
+and pointing his toe in a niche of the façade; and a mighty fine
+building it was! And I remember one winter's afternoon, in that place of
+misery, that Henley and I chanced to fall in talk about James Payn
+himself. I am wishing you could have heard that talk! I think that would
+make you smile. We had mixed you up with John Payne, for one thing, and
+stood amazed at your extraordinary, even painful, versatility; and for
+another, we found ourselves each students so well prepared for
+examinations on the novels of the real Mackay. Perhaps, after all, this
+is worth something in life--to have given so much pleasure to a pair so
+different in every way as were Henley and I, and to be talked of with so
+much interest by two such (beg pardon) clever lads!
+
+The cheerful Lang has neglected to tell me what is the matter with you;
+so, I'm sorry to say, I am cut off from all the customary consolations.
+I can't say, "Think how much worse it would be if you had a broken leg!"
+when you may have the crushing repartee up your sleeve, "But it is my
+leg that is broken." This is a pity. But there are consolations. You are
+an Englishman (I believe); you are a man of letters; you have never been
+made C.B.; you hair was not red; you have played cribbage and whist; you
+did not play either the fiddle or the banjo; you were never an ćsthete;
+you never contributed to ----'s Journal; your name is not Jabez Balfour;
+you are totally unconnected with the Army and Navy departments; I
+understand you to have lived within your income--why, cheer up! here are
+many legitimate causes of congratulation. I seem to be writing an
+obituary notice. _Absit omen!_ But I feel very sure that these
+considerations will have done you more good than medicine.
+
+By the by, did you ever play piquet? I have fallen a victim to this
+debilitating game. It is supposed to be scientific; God save the mark,
+what self-deceivers men are! It is distinctly less so than cribbage. But
+how fascinating! There is such material opulence about it, such vast
+ambitions may be realised--and are not; it may be called the Monte
+Cristo of games. And the thrill with which you take five cards partakes
+of the nature of lust--and you draw four sevens and a nine, and the
+seven and nine of a suit that you discarded, and O! but the world is a
+desert! You may see traces of discouragement in my letter: all due to
+piquet! There has been a disastrous turn of the luck against me; a month
+or two ago I was two thousand ahead; now, and for a week back, I have
+been anything from four thousand eight hundred to five thousand two
+hundred astern. I have a sixičme, my beast of a partner has a septičme;
+and if I have three aces, three kings, three queens, and three knaves
+(excuse the slight exaggeration), the devil holds quatorze of tens!--I
+remain, my dear James Payn, your sincere and obliged friend--old friend
+let me say,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS MIDDLETON
+
+
+   A letter from the lady to whom this is addressed, and who had been a
+   friend of the Stevenson family in Edinburgh, had called up some
+   memories of a Skye terrier, Jura, of whom readers have heard
+   something already.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, September 9, 1894._
+
+DEAR MISS MIDDLETON,--Your letter has been like the drawing up of a
+curtain. Of course I remember you very well, and the Skye terrier to
+which you refer--a heavy, dull, fatted, graceless creature he grew up to
+be--was my own particular pet. It may amuse you, perhaps, as much as
+"The Inn" amused me, if I tell you what made this dog particularly mine.
+My father was the natural god of all the dogs in our house, and poor
+Jura took to him of course. Jura was stolen, and kept in prison
+somewhere for more than a week, as I remember. When he came back
+Smeoroch had come and taken my father's heart from him. He took his
+stand like a man, and positively never spoke to my father again from
+that day until the day of his death. It was the only sign of character
+he ever showed. I took him up to my room and to be my dog in
+consequence, partly because I was sorry for him, and partly because I
+admired his dignity in misfortune.
+
+With best regards and thanks for having reminded me of so many pleasant
+days, old acquaintances, dead friends, and--what is perhaps as pathetic
+as any of them--dead dogs, I remain, yours truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+   The following refers to the papers originally contributed by various
+   writers to Mr. Jerome's periodical The Idler, under the title _My
+   First Book_, and afterwards republished in a volume. The references
+   towards the end are to the illustrations in the pages of The Idler.
+
+     _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!).
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     [_Vailima, September 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This must be a very measly letter. I have been trying
+hard to get along with _St. Ives_. I should now lay it aside for a year
+and I dare say I should make something of it after all. Instead of that,
+I have to kick against the pricks, and break myself, and spoil the book,
+if there were anything to spoil, which I am far from saying. I'm as sick
+of the thing as ever any one can be; it's a rudderless hulk; it's a
+pagoda, and you can just feel--or I can feel--that it might have been a
+pleasant story, if it had been only blessed at baptism.
+
+Our politics have gone on fairly well, but the result is still doubtful.
+
+_Sept. 10th._--I know I have something else to say to you, but
+unfortunately I awoke this morning with colly-wobbles, and had to take a
+small dose of laudanum with the usual consequences of dry throat,
+intoxicated legs, partial madness and total imbecility; and for the
+life of me I cannot remember what it is. I have likewise mislaid your
+letter amongst the accumulations on my table, not that there was
+anything in it. Altogether I am in a poor state. I forgot to tell Baxter
+that the dummy had turned up and is a fine, personable-looking volume
+and very good reading. Please communicate this to him.
+
+I have just remembered an incident that I really must not let pass. You
+have heard a great deal more than you wanted about our political
+prisoners. Well, one day, about a fortnight ago, the last of them was
+set free--Old Poč, whom I think I must have mentioned to you, the
+father-in-law of my cook, was one that I had had a great deal of trouble
+with. I had taken the doctor to see him, got him out on sick leave, and
+when he was put back again gave bail for him. I must not forget that my
+wife ran away with him out of the prison on the doctor's orders and with
+the complicity of our friend the gaoler, who really and truly got the
+sack for the exploit. As soon as he was finally liberated, Poč called a
+meeting of his fellow-prisoners. All Sunday they were debating what they
+were to do, and on Monday morning I got an obscure hint from Talolo that
+I must expect visitors during the day who were coming to consult me.
+These consultations I am now very well used to, and seeing first, that I
+generally don't know what to advise, and second that they sometimes
+don't take my advice--though in some notable cases they have taken it,
+generally to my own wonder with pretty good results--I am not very fond
+of these calls. They minister to a sense of dignity, but not peace of
+mind, and consume interminable time, always in the morning too, when I
+can't afford it. However, this was to be a new sort of consultation. Up
+came Poč and some eight other chiefs, squatted in a big circle around
+the old dining-room floor, now the smoking-room. And the family, being
+represented by Lloyd, Graham, Belle, Austin and myself, proceeded to
+exchange the necessary courtesies. Then their talking man began. He
+said that they had been in prison, that I had always taken an interest
+in them, that they had now been set at liberty without condition,
+whereas some of the other chiefs who had been liberated before them were
+still under bond to work upon the roads, and that this had set them
+considering what they might do to testify their gratitude. They had
+therefore agreed to work upon my road as a free gift. They went on to
+explain that it was only to be on my road, on the branch that joins my
+house with the public way.
+
+Now I was very much gratified at this compliment, although (to one used
+to natives) it seemed rather a hollow one. It meant only that I should
+have to lay out a good deal of money on tools and food and to give wages
+under the guise of presents to some workmen who were most of them old
+and in ill-health. Conceive how much I was surprised and touched when I
+heard the whole scheme explained to me. They were to return to their
+provinces, and collect their families; some of the young men were to
+live in Apia with a boat, and ply up and down the coast to A'ana and
+Atua (our own Tuamasaga being quite drained of resources) in order to
+supply the working squad with food. Tools they did ask for, but it was
+especially mentioned that I was to make no presents. In short, the whole
+of this little "presentation" to me had been planned with a good deal
+more consideration than goes usually with a native campaign.
+
+[I sat on the opposite side of the circle to the talking man. His face
+was quite calm and high-bred as he went through the usual Samoan
+expressions of politeness and compliment, but when he came on to the
+object of their visit, on their love and gratitude to Tusitala, how his
+name was always in their prayers, and his goodness to them when they had
+no other friend, was their most cherished memory, he warmed up to real,
+burning, genuine feeling. I had never seen the Samoan mask of reserve
+laid aside before, and it touched me more than anything else. A.M.]
+
+This morning as ever was, bright and early up came the whole gang of
+them, a lot of sturdy, common-looking lads they seemed to be for the
+most part, and fell to on my new road. Old Poč was in the highest of
+good spirits, and looked better in health than he has done any time in
+two years, being positively rejuvenated by the success of his scheme. He
+jested as he served out the new tools, and I am sorry to say damned the
+Government up hill and down dale, probably with a view to show off his
+position as a friend of the family before his workboys. Now, whether or
+not their impulse will last them through the road does not matter to me
+one hair. It is the fact that they have attempted it, that they have
+volunteered and are now really trying to execute a thing that was never
+before heard of in Samoa. Think of it! It is road-making--the most
+fruitful cause (after taxes) of all rebellions in Samoa, a thing to
+which they could not be wiled with money nor driven by punishment. It
+does give me a sense of having done something in Samoa after all.
+
+Now there's one long story for you about "my blacks."--Yours ever,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   The following was written on hearing of the death of his friend's
+   father.
+
+     [_Vailima, September 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--... Well, there is no more Edmund Baxter now; and I
+think I may say I know how you feel. He was one of the best, the
+kindest, and the most genial men I ever knew. I shall always remember
+his brisk, cordial ways and the essential goodness which he showed me
+whenever we met with gratitude. And the always is such a little while
+now! He is another of the landmarks gone; when it comes to my own turn
+to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue; and
+whatever be my destiny afterward, I shall be glad to lie down with my
+fathers in honour. It is human at least, if not divine. And these deaths
+make me think of it with an ever greater readiness. Strange that you
+should be beginning a new life, when I, who am a little your junior, am
+thinking of the end of mine. But I have had hard lines; I have been so
+long waiting for death, I have unwrapped my thoughts from about life so
+long, that I have not a filament left to hold by; I have done my
+fiddling so long under Vesuvius, that I have almost forgotten to play,
+and can only wait for the eruption, and think it long of coming.
+Literally, no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it's
+good fun.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
+
+
+   Stevenson had received from his cousin a letter announcing, among
+   other things, the birth of a son to the writer, and rambling
+   suggestively, as may be guessed from the following reply, over many
+   disconnected themes: the ethnology of Scotland, paternity and
+   heredity, civilisation _versus_ primitive customs and instincts, the
+   story of their own descent, the method of writing in collaboration,
+   education, Christianity and sex, the religion of conduct, anarchism,
+   etc.; all which matters are here discursively touched on. "Old Skene"
+   is, of course, the distinguished Scottish antiquarian and historian,
+   William Forbes Skene, in whose firm (Skene & Edwards, W.S.) Stevenson
+   had for a time served irregularly enough as an unpaid clerk.
+
+     [_Vailima, September 1894._]
+
+DEAR BOB,--You are in error about the Picts. They were a Gaelic race,
+spoke a Celtic tongue, and we have no evidence that I know of that they
+were blacker than other Celts. The Balfours, I take it, were plainly
+Celts; their name shows it--the "cold croft," it means; so does their
+country. Where the _black_ Scotch come from nobody knows; but I
+recognise with you the fact that the whole of Britain is rapidly and
+progressively becoming more pigmented; already in one man's life I can
+decidedly trace a difference in the children about a school door. But
+colour is not an essential part of a man or a race. Take my Polynesians,
+an Asiatic people probably from the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf.
+They range through any amount of shades, from the burnt hue of the Low
+Archipelago islander, which seems half negro, to the "bleached" pretty
+women of the Marquesas (close by on the map), who come out for a
+festival no darker than an Italian; their colour seems to vary directly
+with the degree of exposure to the sun. And, as with negroes, the babes
+are born white; only it should seem a _little sack_ of pigment at the
+lower part of the spine, which presently spreads over the whole field.
+Very puzzling. But to return. The Picts furnish to-day perhaps a third
+of the population of Scotland, say another third for Scots and Britons,
+and the third for Norse and Angles is a bad third. Edinburgh was a
+Pictish place. But the fact is, we don't know their frontiers. Tell some
+of your journalist friends with a good style to popularise old Skene; or
+say your prayers, and read him for yourself; he was a Great Historian,
+and I was his blessed clerk, and did not know it; and you will not be in
+a state of grace about the Picts till you have studied him. J. Horne
+Stevenson (do you know him?) is working this up with me, and the fact
+is--it's not interesting to the public--but it's interesting, and very
+interesting, in itself, and just now very embarrassing--this rural
+parish supplied Glasgow with such a quantity of Stevensons in the
+beginning of last century! There is just a link wanting; and we might be
+able to go back to the eleventh century, always undistinguished, but
+clearly traceable. When I say just a link, I guess I may be taken to
+mean a dozen. What a singular thing is this undistinguished perpetuation
+of a family throughout the centuries, and the sudden bursting forth of
+character and capacity that began with our grandfather! But as I go on
+in life, day by day, I become more of a bewildered child; I cannot get
+used to this world, to procreation, to heredity, to sight, to hearing;
+the commonest things are a burthen. The prim obliterated polite face of
+life, and the broad, bawdy, and orgiastic--or mćnadic--foundations, form
+a spectacle to which no habit reconciles me; and "I could wish my days
+to be bound each to each" by the same open-mouthed wonder. They _are_
+anyway, and whether I wish it or not.
+
+I remember very well your attitude to life, this conventional surface of
+it. You had none of that curiosity for the social stage directions, the
+trivial _ficelles_ of the business; it is simian, but that is how the
+wild youth of man is captured; you wouldn't imitate, hence you kept
+free--a wild dog, outside the kennel--and came dam near starving for
+your pains. The key to the business is of course the belly; difficult as
+it is to keep that in view in the zone of three miraculous meals a day
+in which we were brought up. Civilisation has become reflex with us; you
+might think that hunger was the name of the best sauce; but hunger to
+the cold solitary under a bush of a rainy night is the name of something
+quite different. I defend civilisation for the thing it is, for the
+thing it has _come_ to be, the standpoint of a real old Tory. My ideal
+would be the Female Clan. But how can you turn these crowding dumb
+multitudes _back?_ They don't do anything _because_; they do things,
+write able articles, stitch shoes, dig, from the purely simian impulse.
+Go and reason with monkeys!
+
+No, I am right about Jean Lillie. Jean Lillie, our double
+great-grandmother, the daughter of David Lillie, sometime Deacon of the
+Wrights, married, first, Alan Stevenson, who died May 26, 1774, "at
+Santt Kittes of a fiver," by whom she had Robert Stevenson, born 8th
+June 1772; and, second, in May or June 1787, Thomas Smith, a widower,
+and already the father of our grandmother. This improbable double
+connection always tends to confuse a student of the family, Thomas Smith
+being doubly our great-grandfather.
+
+I looked on the perpetuation of our honoured name with veneration. My
+mother collared one of the photos, of course; the other is stuck up on
+my wall as the chief of our sept. Do you know any of the Gaelic-Celtic
+sharps? you might ask what the name means. It puzzles me. I find a
+_M'Stein_ and a _MacStephane_; and our own great-grandfather always
+called himself Steenson, though he wrote it Stevenson. There are at
+least three _places_ called Stevenson--_Stevenson_ in Cunningham,
+_Stevenson_ in Peebles, and _Stevenson_ in Haddington. And it was not
+the Celtic trick, I understand, to call places after people. I am going
+to write to Sir Herbert Maxwell about the name, but you might find some
+one.
+
+Get the Anglo-Saxon heresy out of your head; they superimposed their
+language, they scarce modified the race; only in Berwickshire and
+Roxburgh have they very largely affected the place names. The
+Scandinavians did much more to Scotland than the Angles. The Saxons
+didn't come.
+
+Enough of this sham antiquarianism. Yes, it is in the matter of the
+book[82] of course, that collaboration shows; as for the manner, it is
+superficially all mine in the sense that the last copy is all in my
+hand. Lloyd did not even put pen to paper in the Paris scenes or the
+Barbizon scene; it was no good; he wrote and often rewrote all the rest;
+I had the best service from him on the character of Nares. You see, we
+had been just meeting the man, and his memory was full of the man's
+words and ways. And Lloyd is an impressionist, pure and simple. The
+great difficulty of collaboration is that you can't explain what you
+mean. I know what kind of effect I mean a character to give--what kind
+of _tache_ he is to make; but how am I to tell my collaborator in words?
+Hence it was necessary to say, "Make him So-and-so"; and this was all
+right for Nares and Pinkerton and Loudon Dodd, whom we both knew, but
+for Bellairs, for instance--a man with whom I passed ten minutes fifteen
+years ago--what was I to say? and what could Lloyd do? I, as a personal
+artist, can begin a character with only a haze in my head, but how if I
+have to translate the haze into words before I begin? In our manner of
+collaboration (which I think the only possible--I mean that of one
+person being responsible, and giving the _coup de pouce_ to every part
+of the work) I was spared the obviously hopeless business of trying to
+explain to my collaborator what _style_ I wished a passage to be treated
+in. These are the times that illustrate to a man the inadequacy of
+spoken language. Now--to be just to written language--I can (or could)
+find a language for my every mood, but how could I _tell_ any one
+beforehand what this effect was to be, which it would take every art
+that I possessed, and hours and hours of deliberate labour and selection
+and rejection, to produce? These are the impossibilities of
+collaboration. Its immediate advantage is to focus two minds together on
+the stuff, and to produce in consequence an extraordinarily greater
+richness of purview, consideration, and invention. The hardest chapter
+of all was "Cross Questions and Crooked Answers." You would not believe
+what that cost us before it assumed the least unity and colour. Lloyd
+wrote it at least thrice, and I at least five times--this is from
+memory. And was that last chapter worth the trouble it cost? Alas, that
+I should ask the question! Two classes of men--the artist and the
+educationalist--are sworn, on soul and conscience, not to ask it. You
+get an ordinary, grinning, red-headed boy, and you have to educate him.
+Faith supports you; you give your valuable hours, the boy does not seem
+to profit, but that way your duty lies, for which you are paid, and you
+must persevere. Education has always seemed to me one of the few
+possible and dignified ways of life. A sailor, a shepherd, a
+schoolmaster--to a less degree, a soldier--and (I don't know why, upon
+my soul, except as a sort of schoolmaster's unofficial assistant, and a
+kind of acrobat in tights) an artist, almost exhaust the category.
+
+If I had to begin again--I know not--_si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse
+pouvait_ ... I know not at all--I believe I should try to honour Sex
+more religiously. The worst of our education is that Christianity does
+not recognise and hallow Sex. It looks askance at it, over its shoulder,
+oppressed as it is by reminiscences of hermits and Asiatic
+self-tortures. It is a terrible hiatus in our modern religions that they
+cannot see and make venerable that which they ought to see first and
+hallow most. Well, it is so; I cannot be wiser than my generation.
+
+But no doubt there is something great in the half-success that has
+attended the effort of turning into an emotional religion, Bald Conduct,
+without any appeal, or almost none, to the figurative, mysterious, and
+constitutive facts of life. Not that conduct is not constitutive, but
+dear! it's dreary! On the whole, conduct is better dealt with on the
+cast-iron "gentleman" and duty formula, with as little fervour and
+poetry as possible; stoical and short.... There is a new something or
+other in the wind, which exercises me hugely: anarchy,--I mean,
+anarchism. People who (for pity's sake) commit dastardly murders very
+basely, die like saints, and leave beautiful letters behind 'em (did you
+see Vaillant to his daughter? it was the New Testament over again);
+people whose conduct is inexplicable to me, and yet their spiritual life
+higher than that of most. This is just what the early Christians must
+have seemed to the Romans. Is this, then, a new _drive_[83] among the
+monkeys? Mind you, Bob, if they go on being martyred a few years more,
+the gross, dull, not unkindly bourgeois may get tired or ashamed or
+afraid of going on martyring; and the anarchists come out at the top
+just like the early Christians. That is, of course, they will step into
+power as a _personnel_, but God knows what they may believe when they
+come to do so; it can't be stranger or more improbable than what
+Christianity had come to be by the same time.
+
+Your letter was easily read, the pagination presented no difficulty, and
+I read it with much edification and gusto. To look back, and to
+stereotype one bygone humour--what a hopeless thing! The mind runs ever
+in a thousand eddies like a river between cliffs. You (the ego) are
+always spinning round in it, east, west, north, and south. You are
+twenty years old, and forty, and five, and the next moment you are
+freezing at an imaginary eighty; you are never the plain forty-four that
+you should be by dates. (The most philosophical language is the Gaelic,
+which has _no present tense_--and the most useless.) How, then, to
+choose some former age, and stick there?
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIR HERBERT MAXWELL
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, September 10, 1894._
+
+DEAR SIR HERBERT MAXWELL,--I am emboldened by reading your very
+interesting Rhind Lectures to put to you a question: What is my name,
+Stevenson?
+
+I find it in the forms Stevinetoun, Stevensoune, Stevensonne, Stenesone,
+Stewinsoune, M'Stein, and MacStephane. My family, and (as far as I can
+gather) the majority of the inglorious clan, hailed from the borders of
+Cunningham and Renfrew, and the upper waters of the Clyde. In the Barony
+of Bothwell was the seat of the laird Stevenson of Stevenson; but, as of
+course you know, there is a parish in Cunningham and places in Peebles
+and Haddington bearing the same name.
+
+If you can at all help me, you will render me a real service which I
+wish I could think of some manner to repay.--Believe me, yours truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+_P.S._--I should have added that I have perfect evidence before me that
+(for some obscure reason) Stevenson was a favourite alias with the
+M'Gregors.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, October 6th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--We have had quite an interesting month and mostly in
+consideration of that road which I think I told you was about to be
+made. It was made without a hitch, though I confess I was considerably
+surprised. When they got through, I wrote a speech to them, sent it down
+to a Missionary to be translated, and invited the lot to a feast. I
+thought a good deal of this feast. The occasion was really interesting.
+I wanted to pitch it in hot. And I wished to have as many influential
+witnesses present as possible. Well, as it drew towards the day I had
+nothing but refusals. Everybody supposed it was to be a political
+occasion, that I had made a hive of rebels up here, and was going to
+push for new hostilities.
+
+The Amanuensis has been ill, and after the above trial petered out. I
+must return to my own, lone Waverley. The captain refused, telling me
+why; and at last I had to beat up for people almost with prayers.
+However, I got a good lot, as you will see by the accompanying newspaper
+report. The road contained this inscription, drawn up by the chiefs
+themselves:
+
+  "THE ROAD OF GRATITUDE
+
+"Considering the great love of Tusitala in his loving care of us in our
+distress in the prison, we have therefore prepared a splendid gift. It
+shall never be muddy, it shall endure for ever, this road that we have
+dug."
+
+This the newspaper reporter could not give, not knowing any Samoan. The
+same reason explains his references to Seumanutafa's speech, which was
+not long and _was_ important, for it was a speech of courtesy and
+forgiveness to his former enemies. It was very much applauded. Secondly,
+it was not Poč, it was Mataaf[=a] (don't confuse with Mataafa) who spoke
+for the prisoners. Otherwise it is extremely correct.
+
+I beg your pardon for so much upon my aboriginals. Even you must
+sympathise with me in this unheard-of compliment, and my having been
+able to deliver so severe a sermon with acceptance. It remains a nice
+point of conscience what I should wish done in the matter. I think this
+meeting, its immediate results, and the terms of what I said to them,
+desirable to be known. It will do a little justice to me, who have not
+had too much justice done me. At the same time, to send this report to
+the papers is truly an act of self-advertisement, and I dislike the
+thought. Query, in a man who has been so much calumniated, is that not
+justifiable? I do not know; be my judge. Mankind is too complicated for
+me; even myself. Do I wish to advertise? I think I do, God help me! I
+have had hard times here, as every man must have who mixes up with
+public business; and I bemoan myself, knowing that all I have done has
+been in the interest of peace and good government; and having once
+delivered my mind, I would like it, I think, to be made public. But the
+other part of me _regimbs_.[84]
+
+I know I am at a climacteric for all men who live by their wits, so I do
+not despair. But the truth is I am pretty nearly useless at literature,
+and I will ask you to spare _St. Ives_ when it goes to you; it is a sort
+of _Count Robert of Paris_. But I hope rather a _Dombey and Son_, to be
+succeeded by _Our Mutual Friend_ and _Great Expectations_ and _A Tale of
+Two Cities_. No toil has been spared over the ungrateful canvas; and it
+_will not_ come together, and I must live, and my family. Were it not
+for my health, which made it impossible, I could not find it in my heart
+to forgive myself that I did not stick to an honest, commonplace trade
+when I was young, which might have now supported me during these ill
+years. But do not suppose me to be down in anything else; only, for the
+nonce, my skill deserts me, such as it is, or was. It was a very little
+dose of inspiration, and a pretty little trick of style, long lost,
+improved by the most heroic industry. So far, I have managed to please
+the journalists. But I am a fictitious article and have long known it. I
+am read by journalists, by my fellow-novelists, and by boys; with these,
+_incipit et explicit_ my vogue. Good thing anyway! for it seems to have
+sold the Edition. And I look forward confidently to an aftermath; I do
+not think my health can be so hugely improved, without some subsequent
+improvement in my brains. Though, of course, there is the possibility
+that literature is a morbid secretion, and abhors health! I do not think
+it is possible to have fewer illusions than I. I sometimes wish I had
+more. They are amusing. But I cannot take myself seriously as an artist;
+the limitations are so obvious. I did take myself seriously as a workman
+of old, but my practice has fallen off. I am now an idler and cumberer
+of the ground; it may be excused to me perhaps by twenty years of
+industry and ill-health, which have taken the cream off the milk.
+
+As I was writing this last sentence, I heard the strident rain drawing
+near across the forest, and by the time I was come to the word "cream"
+it burst upon my roof, and has since redoubled, and roared upon it. A
+very welcome change. All smells of the good wet earth, sweetly, with a
+kind of Highland touch; the crystal rods of the shower, as I look up,
+have drawn their criss-cross over everything; and a gentle and very
+welcome coolness comes up around me in little draughts, blessed
+draughts, not chilling, only equalising the temperature. Now the rain
+is off in this spot, but I hear it roaring still in the nigh
+neighbourhood--and that moment, I was driven from the verandah by random
+raindrops, spitting at me through the Japanese blinds. These are not
+tears with which the page is spotted! Now the windows stream, the roof
+reverberates. It is good; it answers something which is in my heart; I
+know not what; old memories of the wet moorland belike.
+
+Well, it has blown by again, and I am in my place once more, with an
+accompaniment of perpetual dripping on the verandah--and very much
+inclined for a chat. The exact subject I do not know! It will be bitter
+at least, and that is strange, for my attitude is essentially _not_
+bitter, but I have come into these days when a man sees above all the
+seamy side, and I have dwelt some time in a small place where he has an
+opportunity of reading little motives that he would miss in the great
+world, and indeed, to-day, I am almost ready to call the world an error.
+Because? Because I have not drugged myself with successful work, and
+there are all kinds of trifles buzzing in my ear, unfriendly trifles,
+from the least to the--well, to the pretty big. All these that touch me
+are Pretty Big; and yet none touch me in the least, if rightly looked
+at, except the one eternal burthen to go on making an income for my
+family. That is rightly the root and ground of my ill. The jingling,
+tingling, damned mint sauce is the trouble always; and if I could find a
+place where I could lie down and give up for (say) two years, and allow
+the sainted public to support me, if it were a lunatic asylum, wouldn't
+I go, just! But we can't have both extremes at once, worse luck! I
+should like to put my savings into a proprietarian investment, and
+retire in the meanwhile into a communistic retreat, which is
+double-dealing. But you men with aries don't know how alas family weighs
+on a fellow's mind.
+
+I hear the article in next week's _Herald_ is to be a great affair, and
+all the officials who came to me the other day are to be attacked! This
+is the unpleasant side of being (without a salary) in public life; I
+will leave any one to judge if my speech was well intended, and
+calculated to do good. It was even daring--I assure you one of the
+chiefs looked like a fiend at my description of Samoan warfare. Your
+warning was not needed; we are all determined to _keep the peace_ and to
+_hold our peace_. I know, my dear fellow, how remote all this sounds!
+Kindly pardon your friend. I have my life to live here; these interests
+are for me immediate; and if I do not write of them, I might as soon not
+write at all. There is the difficulty in a distant correspondence. It is
+perhaps easy for me to enter into and understand your interests; I own
+it is difficult for you; but you must just wade through them for
+friendship's sake, and try to find tolerable what is vital for your
+friend. I cannot forbear challenging you to it, as to intellectual
+lists. It is the proof of intelligence, the proof of not being a
+barbarian, to be able to enter into something outside of oneself,
+something that does not touch one's next neighbour in the city omnibus.
+
+Good-bye, my lord. May your race continue and you flourish.--Yours ever,
+
+     TUSITALA.
+
+
+
+
+TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
+
+
+   For a fuller account of the road-making affair here mentioned, see
+   pp. 431, 462.
+
+     _[Vailima] October 8th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR CUMMY,--So I hear you are ailing? Think shame to yoursell! So
+you think there is nothing better to be done with time than that? and be
+sure we can all do much ourselves to decide whether we are to be ill or
+well! like a man on the gymnastic bars. We are all pretty well. As for
+me, there is nothing the matter with me in the world, beyond the
+disgusting circumstance that I am not so young as once I was. Lloyd has
+a gymnastic machine, and practises upon it every morning for an hour:
+he is beginning to be a kind of young Samson. Austin grows fat and
+brown, and gets on not so ill with his lessons, and my mother is in
+great price. We are having knock-me-down weather for heat; I never
+remember it so hot before, and I fancy it means we are to have a
+hurricane again this year, I think; since we came here, we have not had
+a single gale of wind! The Pacific is but a child to the North Sea; but
+when she does get excited, and gets up and girds herself, she can do
+something good. We have had a very interesting business here. I helped
+the chiefs who were in prison; and when they were set free, what should
+they do but offer to make a part of my road for me out of gratitude?
+Well, I was ashamed to refuse, and the trumps dug my road for me, and
+put up this inscription on a board:--
+
+"_Considering the great love of His Excellency Tusitala in his loving
+care for us in our tribulation in the prison we have made this great
+gift; it shall never be muddy, it shall go on for ever, this road that
+we have dug!_" We had a great feast when it was done, and I read them a
+kind of lecture, which I dare say Auntie will have, and can let you see.
+Weel, guid bye to ye, and joy be wi' ye! I hae nae time to say mair.
+They say I'm gettin' _fat_--a fact!--Your laddie, with all love,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES PAYN
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, Nov. 4, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--I am asked to relate to you a little incident of
+domestic life at Vailima. I had read your _Gleams of Memory_, No. 1; it
+then went to my wife, to Osbourne, to the cousin that is within my
+gates, and to my respected amanuensis, Mrs. Strong. Sunday approached.
+In the course of the afternoon I was attracted to the great 'all--the
+winders is by Vanderputty, which upon entering I beheld a memorable
+scene. The floor was bestrewn with the forms of midshipmen from the
+_Curaçoa_--"boldly say a wilderness of gunroom"--and in the midst of
+this sat Mrs. Strong throned on the sofa and reading aloud _Gleams of
+Memory_. They had just come the length of your immortal definition of
+boyhood in the concrete, and I had the pleasure to see the whole party
+dissolve under its influence with inextinguishable laughter. I thought
+this was not half bad for arthritic gout! Depend upon it, sir, when I go
+into the arthritic gout business, I shall be done with literature, or at
+least with the funny business. It is quite true I have my battlefields
+behind me. I have done perhaps as much work as anybody else under the
+most deplorable conditions. But two things fall to be noticed: In the
+first place, I never was in actual pain; and in the second, I was never
+funny. I'll tell you the worst day that I remember. I had a hemorrhage,
+and was not allowed to speak; then, induced by the devil, or an errant
+doctor, I was led to partake of that bowl which neither cheers nor
+inebriates--the castor-oil bowl. Now, when castor-oil goes right, it is
+one thing; but when it goes wrong, it is another. And it went wrong with
+me that day. The waves of faintness and nausea succeeded each other for
+twelve hours, and I do feel a legitimate pride in thinking that I stuck
+to my work all through and wrote a good deal of _Admiral Guinea_ (which
+I might just as well not have written for all the reward it ever brought
+me) in spite of the barbarous bad conditions. I think that is my great
+boast; and it seems a little thing alongside of your _Gleams of Memory_
+illustrated by spasms of arthritic gout. We really should have an order
+of merit in the trade of letters. For valour, Scott would have had it;
+Pope too; myself on the strength of that castor-oil; and James Payn
+would be a Knight Commander. The worst of it is, though Lang tells me
+you exhibit the courage of Huish, that not even an order can alleviate
+the wretched annoyance of the business. I have always said that there
+is nothing like pain; toothache, dumb-ague, arthritic gout, it does not
+matter what you call it, if the screw is put upon the nerves
+sufficiently strong, there is nothing left in heaven or in earth that
+can interest the sufferer. Still, even to this there is the consolation
+that it cannot last for ever. Either you will be relieved and have a
+good hour again before the sun goes down, or else you will be liberated.
+It is something after all (although not much) to think that you are
+leaving a brave example; that other literary men love to remember, as I
+am sure they will love to remember, everything about you--your
+sweetness, your brightness, your helpfulness to all of us, and in
+particular those one or two really adequate and noble papers which you
+have been privileged to write during these last years.--With the
+heartiest and kindest good-will, I remain, yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This was the last letter I received from my friend. On the morning of
+   his death the following month he spoke of being behindhand with his
+   December letter and of his intention to write it next day.
+
+     [_Vailima, November 1894._]
+
+DEAR COLVIN,--Saturday there was a ball to the ship, and on Sunday Gurr
+had a child to be baptized. Belle was to be godmother and had to be got
+down; which was impossible, as the jester Euclid says. However, we had
+four men of very different heights take the poles of a sort of bier and
+carry her shoulder high down the road, till we met a trap. On the return
+journey on Sunday, they were led by Austin playing (?) on a bugle, and
+you have no idea how picturesque a business it was; the four half-naked
+bearers, the cane lounge at that height from the ground, and Belle in
+black and pretty pale reclining very like a dead warrior of yore.
+However she wasn't dead yet. All the rest of the afternoon we hung
+about and had consultations about the baptism. Just as we went in to
+dinner, I saw the moon rise accurately full, looking five times greater
+than nature, and the face that we try to decipher in its silver disk
+wearing an obliterated but benignant expression. The ball followed;
+bluejackets and officers danced indiscriminately, after their pleasant
+fashion; and Belle, who lay in the hotel verandah, and held a sort of
+reception all night, had her longest visit from one of the blue-jackets,
+her partner in the last ball. About one on the Sunday morning all was
+over, and we went to bed--I, alas! only to get up again, my room being
+in the verandah, where a certain solemnly absurd family conclave (all
+drunk) was being held until (I suppose) three. By six, I was awake, and
+went out on the verandah. On the east the dawn had broken, cold and pink
+and rust colour, and the marshes were all smoking whitely and blowing
+into the bay like smoke, but on the west, all was golden. The street was
+empty, and right over it hung the setting moon, accurately round, yellow
+as an apricot, but slumberous, with an effect of afternoon you would not
+believe if you had not seen it. Then followed a couple of hours on the
+verandah I would be glad to forget. By seven X. Y. had joined me, as
+drunk as they make 'em. As he sat and talked to me, he smelt of the
+charnel house, methought. He looked so old (he is one month my senior);
+he spoke so silly; his poor leg is again covered with boils, which will
+spell death to him; and--enough. That interview has made me a
+teetotaller. O, it is bad to grow old. For me, it is practically hell. I
+do not like the consolations of age. I was born a young man; I have
+continued so; and before I end, a pantaloon, a driveller--enough again.
+But I don't enjoy getting elderly. Belle and I got home about three in
+the afternoon, she having in the meantime renounced all that makes life
+worth living in the name of little Miss Gurr, and I seriously reflecting
+on renouncing the kindly bowl in earnest! Presently after arrived the
+news of Margery Ide (the C.J.'s daughter) being seriously ill,
+alarmingly ill. Fanny wanted to go down; it was a difficult choice; she
+was not fit for it; on the other hand (and by all accounts) the patient
+would die if she did not get better nursing. So we made up our own
+minds, and F. and I set out about dusk, came to the C.J.'s in the middle
+of dinner, and announced our errand. I am glad to say the C.J. received
+her very willingly; and I came home again, leaving her behind, where she
+was certainly much wanted.
+
+_Nov. 4th._--You ask about _St. Ives_. No, there is no Burford Bridge in
+it, and no Boney. He is a squire of dames, and there are petticoats in
+the story, and damned bad ones too, and it is of a tolerable length, a
+hundred thousand, I believe, at least. Also, since you are curious on
+the point, St. Ives learned his English from a Mr. Vicary, an English
+lawyer, a prisoner in France. He must have had a fine gift of languages!
+
+Things are going on here in their usual gently disheartening gait. The
+Treaty Officials are both good fellows whom I can't help liking, but who
+will never make a hand of Samoa.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO PROFESSOR MEIKLEJOHN
+
+
+   Congratulating an old friend of Savile Club days (see vol. xxiii. p.
+   263) on his sailor son.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, Nov. 6th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR MEIKLEJOHN,--Greeting! This is but a word to say how much we
+felicitate ourselves on having made the acquaintance of Hughie. He is
+having a famous good chance on board the _Curaçoa_, which is the best
+ship I have ever seen. And as for himself, he is a most engaging boy, of
+whom you may very well be proud, and I have no mortal manner of doubt
+but what you are. He comes up here very often, where he is a great
+favourite with my ladies, and sings me "the melancholy airs of my
+native land" with much acceptancy. His name has recently become changed
+in Vailima. Beginning with the courteous "Mr. Meiklejohn," it shaded off
+into the familiar "Hughie," and finally degenerated into "the
+Whitrett."[85] I hear good reports of him abroad and ashore, and I
+scarce need to add my own testimony.
+
+Hughie tells me you have gone into the publishing business, whereat I
+was much shocked. My own affairs with publishers are now in the most
+flourishing state, owing to my ingenuity in leaving them to be dealt
+with by a Scotch Writer to the Signet. It has produced revolutions in
+the book trade and my banking account. I tackled the Whitrett severely
+on a grammar you had published, which I had not seen and condemned out
+of hand and in the broadest Lallan. I even condescended on the part of
+that grammar which I thought to be the worst and condemned your
+presentation of the English verb unmercifully. It occurs to me, since
+you are a publisher, that the least thing you could do would be to send
+me a copy of that grammar to correct my estimate. But I fear I am
+talking too long to one of the enemy. I begin to hear in fancy the voice
+of Meiklejohn upraised in the Savile Club: "No quarter to publishers!"
+So I will ask you to present my compliments to Mrs. Meiklejohn upon her
+son, and to accept for yourself the warmest reminiscences of auld lang
+syne.--Yours sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO LIEUTENANT EELES
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, November 24, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR EELES,--The hand, as you will perceive (and also the spelling!),
+is Teuila's, but the scrannel voice is what remains of Tusitala's.
+First of all, for business. When you go to London you are to charter a
+hansom cab and proceed to the Museum. It is particular fun to do this on
+Sundays when the Monument is shut up. Your cabman expostulates with you,
+you persist. The cabman drives up in front of the closed gates and says,
+"I told you so, sir." You breathe in the porter's ears the mystic name
+of _Colvin_, and he immediately unfolds the iron barrier. You drive in,
+and doesn't your cabman think you're a swell. A lord mayor is nothing to
+it. Colvin's door is the only one in the eastern gable of the building.
+Send in your card to him with "From R. L. S." in the corner, and the
+machinery will do the rest. Henry James's address is 34 De Vere Mansions
+West. I cannot remember where the place is; I cannot even remember on
+which side of the park. But it's one of those big Cromwell Road-looking
+deserted thoroughfares out west in Kensington or Bayswater, or between
+the two; and anyway Colvin will be able to put you on the direct track
+for Henry James. I do not send formal introductions, as I have taken the
+liberty to prepare both of them for seeing you already.
+
+Hoskyn is staying with us.
+
+It is raining dismally. The Curaçoa track is hardly passable, but it
+must be trod to-morrow by the degenerate feet of their successor the
+Wallaroos. I think it a very good account of these last that we don't
+think them either deformed or habitual criminals--they seem to be a
+kindly lot.
+
+The doctor will give you all the gossip. I have preferred in this letter
+to stick to the strictly solid and necessary. With kind messages from
+all in the house to all in the wardroom, all in the gunroom, and (may we
+dare to breathe it) to him who walks abaft, believe me, my dear Eeles,
+yours ever,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIR HERBERT MAXWELL
+
+
+     _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,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO ANDREW LANG
+
+
+   The following refers of course to _Weir of Hermiston_, the chief
+   character of which was studied from the traditions of Lord Braxfield,
+   and on which Stevenson was working at the full height of his powers
+   when death overtook him two days later.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 1, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR LANG,--For the portrait of Braxfield, much thanks! It is
+engraved from the same Raeburn portrait that I saw in '76 or '77 with so
+extreme a gusto that I have ever since been Braxfield's humble servant,
+and am now trying, as you know, to stick him into a novel. Alas! one
+might as well try to stick in Napoleon. The picture shall be framed and
+hung up in my study. Not only as a memento of you, but as a perpetual
+encouragement to do better with his Lordship. I have not yet received
+the transcripts. They must be very interesting. Do you know I picked up
+the other day an old Longman's where I found an article of yours that I
+had missed, about Christie's? I read it with great delight. The year
+ends with us pretty much as it began, among wars and rumours of wars,
+and a vast and splendid exhibition of official incompetence.--Yours
+ever,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO EDMUND GOSSE
+
+
+   The next, and last, letter is to Mr. Gosse, dated also only two days
+   before the writer's death. It acknowledges the dedication "To
+   Tusitala" of that gentleman's volume of poems, _In Russet and
+   Silver_, just received.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 1, 1894._
+
+I AM afraid, my dear Weg, that this must be the result of bribery and
+corruption! The volume to which the dedication stands as preface seems
+to me to stand alone in your work; it is so natural, so personal, so
+sincere, so articulate in substance, and what you always were sure
+of--so rich in adornment.
+
+Let me speak first of the dedication. I thank you for it from the heart.
+It is beautifully said, beautifully and kindly felt; and I should be a
+churl indeed if I were not grateful, and an ass if I were not proud. I
+remember when Symonds dedicated a book to me; I wrote and told him of
+"the pang of gratified vanity" with which I had read it. The pang was
+present again, but how much more sober and autumnal--like your volume.
+Let me tell you a story, or remind you of a story. In the year of grace
+something or other, anything between '76 and '78, I mentioned to you in
+my usual autobiographical and inconsiderate manner that I was hard up.
+You said promptly that you had a balance at your banker's, and could
+make it convenient to let me have a cheque, and I accepted and got the
+money--how much was it?--twenty or perhaps thirty pounds? I know
+not--but it was a great convenience. The same evening, or the next day,
+I fell in conversation (in my usual autobiographical and ... see above)
+with a denizen of the Savile Club, name now gone from me, only his
+figure and a dim three-quarter view of his face remaining. To him I
+mentioned that you had given me a loan, remarking easily that of course
+it didn't matter to you. Whereupon he read me a lecture, and told me how
+it really stood with you financially. He was pretty serious; fearing, as
+I could not help perceiving, that I should take too light a view of the
+responsibility and the service (I was always thought too light--the
+irresponsible jester--you remember. O, _quantum mutatus ab illo_!) If I
+remember rightly, the money was repaid before the end of the week--or,
+to be more exact and a trifle pedantic, the se'nnight--but the service
+has never been forgotten; and I send you back this piece of ancient
+history, _consule Planco_, as a salute for your dedication, and propose
+that we should drink the health of the nameless one, who opened my eyes
+as to the true nature of what you did for me on that occasion.
+
+But here comes my Amanuensis, so we'll get on more swimmingly now. You
+will understand perhaps that what so particularly pleased me in the new
+volume, what seems to me to have so personal and original a note, are
+the middle-aged pieces in the beginning. The whole of them, I may say,
+though I must own an especial liking to--
+
+  "I yearn not for the fighting fate,
+    That holds and hath achieved;
+  I live to watch and meditate
+    And dream--and be deceived."
+
+You take the change gallantly. Not I, I must confess. It is all very
+well to talk of renunciation, and of course it has to be done. But, for
+my part, give me a roaring toothache! I do like to be deceived and to
+dream, but I have very little use for either watching or meditation. I
+was not born for age. And, curiously enough, I seem to see a contrary
+drift in my work from that which is so remarkable in yours. You are
+going on sedately travelling through your ages, decently changing with
+the years to the proper tune. And here am I, quite out of my true
+course, and with nothing in my foolish elderly head but love-stories.
+This must repose upon some curious distinction of temperaments. I gather
+from a phrase, boldly autobiographical, that you are--well, not
+precisely growing thin. Can that be the difference?
+
+It is rather funny that this matter should come up just now, as I am at
+present engaged in treating a severe case of middle age in one of my
+stories--"The Justice-Clerk." The case is that of a woman, and I think
+that I am doing her justice. You will be interested, I believe, to see
+the difference in our treatments. _Secreta Vitć_ comes nearer to the
+case of my poor Kirstie. Come to think of it, Gosse, I believe the main
+distinction is that you have a family growing up around you, and I am a
+childless, rather bitter, very clear-eyed, blighted youth. I have, in
+fact, lost the path that makes it easy and natural for you to descend
+the hill. I am going at it straight. And where I have to go down it is a
+precipice.
+
+I must not forget to give you a word of thanks for _An English Village_.
+It reminds me strongly of Keats, which is enough to say; and I was
+particularly pleased with the petulant sincerity of the concluding
+sentiment.
+
+Well, my dear Gosse, here's wishing you all health and prosperity, as
+well as to the mistress and the bairns. May you live long, since it
+seems as if you would continue to enjoy life. May you write many more
+books as good as this one--only there's one thing impossible, you can
+never write another dedication that can give the same pleasure to the
+vanished
+
+     TUSITALA.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [74] This question is with a view to the adventures of the hero in
+    _St. Ives_, who according to Stevenson's original plan was to have
+    been picked up from his foundered balloon by an American privateer.
+
+  [75] As to admire _The Black Arrow_.
+
+  [76] The suppressed first part of the _Amateur Emigrant_, written in
+    San Francisco in 1879, which it was proposed now to condense and to
+    some extent recast for the Edinburgh Edition.
+
+  [77] Word omitted in MS.
+
+  [78] I may be allowed to quote the following sentence from a letter
+    of this gentleman written when the news of our friend's death
+    reached England:--"So great was his power of winning love that
+    though I knew him for less than a week I could have borne the loss
+    of many a more intimate friend with less sorrow than Stevenson's.
+    When I saw him, last Easter, there was no suggestion of failure of
+    strength. After all I had heard of his delicacy I was astonished at
+    his vigour. He was up at five, and at work soon after, and at eleven
+    o'clock at night he was dancing on the floor of the big room while I
+    played Scotch and Irish reels on the rickety piano. He would talk to
+    me for hours of home and old friends, but with a wonderful
+    cheerfulness, knowing himself banished from them for life and yet
+    brought close to them by love. I confidently counted on his living;
+    he took keen interest in my own poor work, and it was one of my
+    ambitions to send him a book some day which would better deserve his
+    attention."
+
+  [79] _Sentimental Tommy_: whose chief likeness to R. L. S. was meant
+    to be in the literary temperament and passion for the _mot propre_.
+
+  [80] A proposed frontispiece for one of the volumes of the Edinburgh
+    Edition.
+
+  [81] _Sic_: query "least"?
+
+  [82] Of _The Wrecker_.
+
+  [83] _Trieb_, impulse.
+
+  [84] It seemed an obvious duty to publish the speech in question
+    through the English press, as the best proof both of Stevenson's
+    wise and understanding methods of dealing with his native friends,
+    and of the affection and authority which he enjoyed among them. I
+    have reprinted it, as a necessary supplement to this letter, in
+    Appendix II. at end of the present volume.
+
+  [85] Whitrett or Whitrack is Scots for a weasel: why applied to Mr.
+    Meiklejohn I know not.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I
+
+ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF R. L. STEVENSON, BY LLOYD OSBOURNE
+
+
+He wrote hard all that morning of the last day; his half-finished book,
+_Hermiston_, he judged the best he had ever written, and the sense of
+successful effort made him buoyant and happy as nothing else could. In
+the afternoon the mail fell to be answered; not business
+correspondence--for this was left till later--but replies to the long,
+kindly letters of distant friends, received but two days since, and
+still bright in memory.
+
+At sunset he came downstairs; rallied his wife about the forebodings she
+could not shake off; talked of a lecturing tour to America that he was
+eager to make, "as he was now so well," and played a game at cards with
+her to drive away her melancholy. He said he was hungry; begged her
+assistance to help him make a salad for the evening meal; and to enhance
+the little feast, he brought up a bottle of old Burgundy from the
+cellar. He was helping his wife on the verandah, and gaily talking, when
+suddenly he put both hands to his head, and cried out, "What's that?"
+Then he asked quickly, "Do I look strange?" Even as he did so he fell on
+his knees beside her. He was helped into the great hall, between his
+wife and his body-servant, Sosimo, losing consciousness instantly as he
+lay back in the arm-chair that had once been his grandfather's. Little
+time was lost in bringing the doctors--Anderson, of the man-of-war, and
+his friend Dr. Funk. They looked at him and shook their heads; they
+laboured strenuously, and left nothing undone; but he had passed the
+bounds of human skill.
+
+The dying man lay back in the chair, breathing heavily, his family about
+him frenzied with grief, as they realised all hope was past. The dozen
+and more Samoans that formed part of the little clan of which he was
+chief sat in a wide semicircle on the floor, their reverent, troubled,
+sorrow-stricken faces all fixed upon their dying master. Some knelt on
+one knee, to be instantly ready for any command that might be laid upon
+them. A narrow bed was brought into the centre of the room, the Master
+was gently laid upon it, his head supported by a rest, the gift of
+Shelley's son. Slower and slower grew his respiration, wider the
+interval between the long, deep breaths. The Rev. Mr. Clarke was now
+come, an old and valued friend; he knelt and prayed as the life ebbed
+away.
+
+He died at ten minutes past eight on Monday evening the 3rd of December,
+in the forty-fifth year of his age.
+
+The great Union Jack that flew over the house was hauled down, and laid
+over the body, fit shroud for a loyal Scotsman. He lay in the hall which
+was ever his pride, where he had passed the gayest and most delightful
+hours of his life, a noble room with open stairway and mullioned
+windows. In it were the treasures of his far-off Scottish home: the old
+carved furniture, the paintings and busts that had been in his father's
+house before him. The Samoans passed in procession beside his bed,
+kneeling and kissing his hand, each in turn, before taking their places
+for the long night watch beside him. No entreaty could induce them to
+retire, to rest themselves for the painful and arduous duties of the
+morrow. It would show little love for Tusitala, they said, if they did
+not spend their last night beside him. Mournful and silent, they sat in
+deep dejection, poor, simple, loyal folk, fulfilling the duty they owed
+their chief.
+
+A messenger was despatched to the few chiefs connected with the family,
+to announce the tidings and bid them assemble their men on the morrow
+for the work there was to do.
+
+Sosimo asked on behalf of the Roman Catholics that they might be allowed
+to recite the prayers for the dead. Till midnight the solemn chants
+continued, the prolonged, sonorous prayers of the Church of Rome, in
+commingled Latin and Samoan. Later still, a chief arrived with his
+retainers, bringing a precious mat to wrap about the dead.
+
+He too knelt and kissed the hand of Tusitala, and took his place amid
+the sleepless watchers. Another arrived with a fine mat, a man of higher
+rank, whose incipient consumption had often troubled the Master.
+
+"Talofa Tusitala!" he said as he drew nigh, and took a long, mournful
+look at the face he knew so well. When, later on, he was momentarily
+required on some business of the morrow, he bowed reverently before
+retiring. "Tofa Tusitala!" he said, "Sleep, Tusitala!"
+
+The morning of the 4th of December broke cool and sunny, a beautiful
+day, rare at this season of the year. More fine mats were brought, until
+the Union Jack lay nigh concealed beneath them. Among the new-comers was
+an old Mataafa chief, one of the builders of the "Road of the Loving
+Hearts," a man who had spent many days in prison for participation in
+the rebellion. "I am only a poor Samoan, and ignorant," said he, as he
+crouched beside the body; "others are rich, and can give Tusitala the
+parting presents of rich fine mats; I am poor, and can give nothing this
+last day he receives his friends. Yet I am not afraid to come and look
+the last time in my friend's face, never to see him more till we meet
+with God. Behold! Tusitala is dead; Mataafa is also dead to us. These
+two great friends have been taken by God. When Mataafa was taken, who
+was our support but Tusitala? We were in prison, and he cared for us. We
+were sick, and he made us well. We were hungry, and he fed us. The day
+was no longer than his kindness. You are great people and full of love.
+Yet who among you is so great as Tusitala? What is your love to his
+love? Our clan was Mataafa's clan, for whom I speak this day; therein
+was Tusitala also. We mourn them both."
+
+A meeting of chiefs was held to apportion the work and divide the men
+into parties. Forty were sent with knives and axes to cut a path up the
+steep face of the mountain, and the writer himself led another party to
+the summit--men chosen from the immediate family--to dig the grave on a
+spot where it was Mr. Stevenson's wish that he should lie. Nothing more
+picturesque can be imagined than the narrow ledge that forms the summit
+of Vaea, a place no wider than a room, and flat as a table. On either
+side the land descends precipitously; in front lies the vast ocean and
+the surf-swept reefs; to the right and left green mountains rise,
+densely covered with the primeval forest. Two hundred years ago the eyes
+of another man turned towards that same peak of Vaea as the spot that
+should ultimately receive his war-worn body: Soalu, a famous chief.
+
+All the morning, Samoans were arriving with flowers; few of these were
+white, for they have not learned our foreign custom, and the room glowed
+with the many colours. There were no strangers on that day, no
+acquaintances; those only were called who would deeply feel the loss. At
+one o'clock a body of powerful Samoans bore away the coffin, hid beneath
+a tattered red ensign that had flown above his vessel in many a corner
+of the South Seas. A path so steep and rugged taxed their strength to
+the utmost; for not only was the journey difficult in itself, but
+extreme care was requisite to carry the coffin shoulder-high.
+
+Half an hour later, the rest of his friends followed. It was a
+formidable ascent, and tried them hard. Nineteen Europeans, and some
+sixty Samoans, reached the summit. After a short rest, the Rev. W. E.
+Clarke read the burial service of the Church of England, interposing a
+prayer that Mr. Stevenson had written and had read aloud to his family
+only the evening before his death:--
+
+   We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, folk of many
+   families and nations, gathered together in the peace of this roof;
+   weak men and women, subsisting under the covert of Thy patience.
+
+   Be patient still; suffer us yet a while longer--with our broken
+   purposes of good, and our idle endeavours against evil--suffer us a
+   while longer to endure, and (if it may be) help us to do better.
+   Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if the day come when these
+   must be taken, have us play the man under affliction. Be with our
+   friends; be with ourselves. Go with each of us to rest; if any awake,
+   temper to them the dark hours of watching; and when the day returns
+   to us, our sun and comforter, call us up with morning faces and with
+   morning hearts--eager to labour--eager to be happy, if happiness
+   shall be our portion--and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to
+   endure it.
+
+   We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in the words of Him to whom this
+   day is sacred, close our oblation.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II
+
+ADDRESS OF R. L. STEVENSON TO THE CHIEFS ON THE OPENING OF THE ROAD OF
+GRATITUDE, OCTOBER 1894
+
+
+Mr. Stevenson said, "We are met together to-day to celebrate an event
+and to do honour to certain chiefs, my friends,--Lelei, Mataafa,
+Salevao, Poč, Teleso, Tupuola Lotofaga, Tupuola Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo,
+and Fatialofa. You are all aware in some degree of what has happened.
+You know these chiefs to have been prisoners; you perhaps know that
+during the term of their confinement I had it in my power to do them
+certain favours. One thing some of you cannot know, that they were
+immediately repaid by answering attentions. They were liberated by the
+new administration; by the King, and the Chief Justice, and the
+Ta'its'ifono, who are here amongst us to-day, and to whom we all desire
+to tender our renewed and perpetual gratitude for that favour. As soon
+as they were free men--owing no man anything--instead of going home to
+their own places and families, they came to me; they offered to do this
+work for me as a free gift, without hire, without supplies, and I was
+tempted at first to refuse their offer. I knew the country to be poor, I
+knew famine threatening; I knew their families long disorganised for
+want of supervision. Yet I accepted, because I thought the lesson of
+that road might be more useful to Samoa than a thousand breadfruit
+trees; and because to myself it was an exquisite pleasure to receive
+that which was so handsomely offered. It is now done; you have trod it
+to-day in coming hither. It has been made for me by chiefs; some of them
+old, some sick, all newly delivered from a harassing confinement, and in
+spite of weather unusually hot and insalubrious. I have seen these
+chiefs labour valiantly with their own hands upon the work, and I have
+set up over it, now that it is finished, the name of 'The Road of
+Gratitude' (the road of loving hearts) and the names of those that built
+it. 'In perpetuam memoriam,' we say, and speak idly. At least so long as
+my own life shall be spared, it shall be here perpetuated; partly for my
+pleasure and in my gratitude; partly for others; to continually publish
+the lesson of this road."
+
+Addressing himself to the chiefs, Mr. Stevenson then said:--
+
+"I will tell you, Chiefs, that, when I saw you working on that road, my
+heart grew warm; not with gratitude only, but with hope. It seemed to me
+that I read the promise of something good for Samoa: it seemed to me, as
+I looked at you, that you were a company of warriors in a battle,
+fighting for the defence of our common country against all aggression.
+For there is a time to fight, and a time to dig. You Samoans may fight,
+you may conquer twenty times, and thirty times, and all will be in vain.
+There is but one way to defend Samoa. Hear it before it is too late. It
+is to make roads, and gardens, and care for your trees, and sell their
+produce wisely, and, in one word, to occupy and use your country. If you
+do not, others will."
+
+The speaker then referred to the Parable of the Talents, Matt. xxv.
+14-30, and continuing, impressively asked: "What are you doing with your
+talent, Samoa? Your three talents, Savaii, Upolu, and Tutuila? Have you
+buried it in a napkin? Not Upolu at least. You have rather given it out
+to be trodden under feet of swine: and the swine cut down food trees and
+burn houses, according to the nature of swine, or of that much worse
+animal, foolish man, acting according to his folly. 'Thou knewest that I
+reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed.' But God
+has both sown and strawed for you here in Samoa; He has given you a rich
+soil, a splendid sun, copious rain; all is ready to your hand, half
+done. And I repeat to you that thing which is sure: if you do not occupy
+and use your country, others will. It will not continue to be yours or
+your children's, if you occupy it for nothing. You and your children
+will in that case be cast out into outer darkness, where shall be
+weeping and gnashing of teeth; for that is the law of God which passeth
+not away. I who speak to you have seen these things. I have seen them
+with my eyes--these judgments of God. I have seen them in Ireland, and I
+have seen them in the mountains of my own country--Scotland--and my
+heart was sad. These were a fine people in the past--brave, gay,
+faithful, and very much like Samoans, except in one particular, that
+they were much wiser and better at that business of fighting of which
+you think so much. But the time came to them as it now comes to you, and
+it did not find them ready. The messenger came into their villages, and
+they did not know him; they were told, as you are told, to use and
+occupy their country, and they would not hear. And now you may go
+through great tracts of the land and scarce meet a man or a smoking
+house, and see nothing but sheep feeding. The other people that I tell
+you of have come upon them like a foe in the night, and these are the
+other people's sheep who browse upon the foundation of their houses. To
+come nearer; and I have seen this judgment in Oahu also. I have ridden
+there the whole day along the coast of an island. Hour after hour went
+by and I saw the face of no living man except that of the guide who rode
+with me. All along that desolate coast, in one bay after another, we
+saw, still standing, the churches that have been built by the Hawaiians
+of old. There must have been many hundreds, many thousands, dwelling
+there in old times, and worshipping God in these now empty churches. For
+to-day they were empty; the doors were closed, the villages had
+disappeared, the people were dead and gone; only the church stood on
+like a tombstone over a grave, in the midst of the white men's sugar
+fields. The other people had come and used that country, and the
+Hawaiians who occupied it for nothing had been swept away, 'where is
+weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
+
+"I do not speak of this lightly, because I love Samoa and her people. I
+love the land, I have chosen it to be my home while I live, and my grave
+after I am dead; and I love the people, and have chosen them to be my
+people to live and die with. And I see that the day is come now of the
+great battle; of the great and the last opportunity by which it shall be
+decided whether you are to pass away like these other races of which I
+have been speaking, or to stand fast and have your children living on
+and honouring your memory in the land you received of your fathers.
+
+"The Land Commission and the Chief Justice will soon have ended their
+labours. Much of your land will be restored to you, to do what you can
+with. Now is the time the messenger is come into your villages to summon
+you; the man is come with the measuring rod; the fire is lighted in
+which you shall be tried, whether you are gold or dross. Now is the time
+for the true champions of Samoa to stand forth. And who is the true
+champion of Samoa? It is not the man who blackens his face, and cuts
+down trees, and kills pigs and wounded men. It is the man who makes
+roads, who plants food trees, who gathers harvests, and is a profitable
+servant before the Lord, using and improving that great talent that has
+been given him in trust. That is the brave soldier; that is the true
+champion; because all things in a country hang together like the links
+of the anchor cable, one by another: but the anchor itself is industry.
+
+"There is a friend of most of us, who is far away; not to be forgotten
+where I am, where Tupuola is, where Poč Lelei, Mataafa, Solevao, Poč
+Teleso, Tupuola Lotofaga, Tupuolo Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo, Fatialofa,
+Lemusu are. He knew what I am telling you; no man better. He saw the day
+was come when Samoa had to walk in a new path, and to be defended not
+only with guns and blackened faces, and the noise of men shouting, but
+by digging and planting, reaping and sowing. When he was still here
+amongst us, he busied himself planting cacao; he was anxious and eager
+about agriculture and commerce, and spoke and wrote continually; so that
+when we turn our minds to the same matters, we may tell ourselves that
+we are still obeying Mataafa. Ua tautala mai pea o ia ua mamao.
+
+"I know that I do not speak to idle or foolish hearers. I speak to those
+who are not too proud to work for gratitude. Chiefs! You have worked for
+Tusitala, and he thanks you from his heart. In this, I could wish you
+could be an example to all Samoa--I wish every chief in these islands
+would turn to, and work, and build roads, and sow fields, and plant food
+trees, and educate his children and improve his talents--not for love of
+Tusitala, but for the love of his brothers, and his children, and the
+whole body of generations yet unborn.
+
+"Chiefs! On this road that you have made many feet shall follow. The
+Romans were the bravest and greatest of people! mighty men of their
+hands, glorious fighters and conquerors. To this day in Europe you may
+go through parts of the country where all is marsh and bush, and perhaps
+after struggling through a thicket, you shall come forth upon an ancient
+road, solid and useful as the day it was made. You shall see men and
+women bearing their burdens along that even way, and you may tell
+yourself that it was built for them perhaps fifteen hundred years
+before,--perhaps before the coming of Christ,--by the Romans. And the
+people still remember and bless them for that convenience, and say to
+one another, that as the Romans were the bravest men to fight, so they
+were the best at building roads.
+
+"Chiefs! Our road is not built to last a thousand years, yet in a sense
+it is. When a road is once built, it is a strange thing how it collects
+traffic, how every year, as it goes on, more and more people are found
+to walk thereon and others are raised up to repair and perpetuate it and
+keep it alive; so that perhaps even this road of ours may, from
+reparation to reparation, continue to exist and be useful hundreds and
+hundreds of years after we are mingled in the dust. And it is my hope
+that our far-away descendants may remember and bless those who laboured
+for them to-day."
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO THE LETTERS
+
+[_For short Index to VOLS. I.-XXII., see pp. 509-519._]
+
+
+  "Abbé Coignard" (France), xxv. 409, 410
+
+  _Academy, The_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 166; contributions to, xxiii.
+    184, xxv. 364
+
+  "Across the Plains," xxv. 123 & _n._ 1, xxv. 207, 224, 301 _n._ 1;
+    dedication, xxv. 127 & _n._ 1, xxv. 323 & _n._ 1; inception, xxv. 97 &
+    _n._ 1
+
+  "Actor's Wife," projected, xxiii. 308
+
+  Adams, Henry, historian, xxv. 4, 29, 41, 43, 45
+
+  "Address to the Unco Guid" (Burns), xxiii. 225
+
+  "Adela Chart" ("The Marriages," H. James), xxv. 108-9, 110
+
+  "Adelaďde," song (Beethoven), xxiii. 64
+
+  Adirondack Mountains, stay in, xxiv. 234, 306 _et seq._
+
+  Admiral Benbow inn (Treasure Island), xxiii. 327
+
+  "Admiral Guinea," play (with Henley), xxiii. 327; xxiv. 106, 119, 120,
+    146, 147; xxv. 447
+
+  "Admiral," the (Story of a Lie), xxiii. 248, 249; xxiv. 90
+
+  "Adventures of David Balfour," proposed double volume of, xxv. 283,
+    357, 366
+
+  "Ćneid," reading of, xxiv. 186, 265, 306
+
+  "Ćsthetic Letters" (Schiller), xxiv. 71
+
+  Ahab, King, xxv. 304
+
+  "Ah perfido spergiuro," song, xxiii. 166
+
+  _Aitu fafine_, an, xxv. 41, 135
+
+  Alabama case, xxiii. 110
+
+  "Aladdin" (Pyle), xxv. 164
+
+  Alais, visit to, xxiii. 216
+
+  "Alan Breck Stewart," ("Catriona" and "Kidnapped"), xxiv. 201, 203,
+    xxv. 46, 142; letter as from, xxv. 46-8
+
+  Alexander, J. W., xxiv. 249, 250; drawing by, of R. L. S., xxiv. 199
+
+  Allan Ramsay, Fergusson and Burns, essay on, projected, xxiii. 191,
+    192, 193
+
+  Allen, Grant, ballade by, xxiv. 248
+
+  "Amateur Emigrant," xxiii. 235, 237, 239, 240, 244, 252, 254, 255,
+    259, 260, 265, 266, 267, 277, 352; xxv. 396-7 & _n._ 1, 398, 414, 423
+
+  "Amazing Marriage" (Meredith), R. L. S. drawn in, xxv. 344, 390-1
+
+  "Amelia Balfour," _see_ Jersey, Countess of
+
+  American politics, xxiii. 112
+
+  Anderson, Dr., xxv. 457-8
+
+  Andrews, Mrs., xxiii. 113
+
+  Angelo, Michael, xxiii. 32
+
+  Angus, W. Craibe, letters to, xxv. 69, 87, 118
+
+  "Annals of the Persecutions in Scotland" (Aikman), xxiii. 18
+
+  Anser, xxiii. 22
+
+  Anstey, F., xxv. 275
+
+  Anstruther, at, xxiii. 12
+
+  "Antichrist, L'" (Renan), xxv. 304
+
+  "Antiquary, The" (Scott), xxiv. 91
+
+  Antwerp, xxiii. 185
+
+  Apemama, Gilbert Islands, xxiv. 358
+
+  Apia, at, xxiv. 293, 370, 375; xxv. 226; famous hurricane at, xxiv.
+    345, 346, 369, 371; xxv. 147, 172-3, 174; prisoners at, gratitude
+    shown by, to R. L. S., xxv. 367 _et seq._
+
+  Apiang, Island, xxiv. 358
+
+  Apology, difficulty of, xxiii. 133, 134
+
+  "Apology for Idlers," xxiii. 203, 204, 205, 207, 210
+
+  "Appeal to the Clergy of the Church of Scotland," xxiii. 141, 142
+
+  Appin case (Catriona), xxv. 161, 351
+
+  Appin country, in, xxiii. 284
+
+  Appin Murder, xxiii. 284, 331, 332; xxv. 161, 351
+
+  Appleton, Dr., xxiii. _intro._ xvii. 143, 144, 168, 178
+
+  "Arblaster" (Black Arrow), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
+
+  Arbroath, Abbot of, xxiii. 29
+
+  Archer, Thomas, letter to, xxiv. 305
+
+  Archer, William, xxiv. 105, 161, 214; letters to, xxiv. 147, 156, 161,
+    163, 247, 270, 272, 273, xxv. 384
+
+  Archer, William and Thomas, letter to, xxiv. 300
+
+  Areia, chief, xxiv. 315
+
+  Arnold, Matthew, xxiii. 15
+
+  Arthur's Seat, xxiii. 71
+
+  Artist, the, problem of, xxv. 378-9
+
+  "Art of Literature," projected, xxiii. 342
+
+  "Art of Virtue," xxiii. 265
+
+  Asceticism and Christianity, xxiii. 213
+
+  Assurance of Faith, xxiii. 299,300
+
+  "As You Like It" (Shakespeare), xxiv. 96
+
+  _Atalanta_, magazine, contributions to, xxv. 279 & _n._ 1, 283
+
+  _Athenćum_, xxiii. 239
+
+  "At Last" (Kingsley), xxiv. 101
+
+  "Attwater" (Ebb Tide), xxv. 301, 307, 350, 382
+
+  Atua, bombardment of, xxv. 424, 426
+
+  Auckland, visits to, xxv. 30, 34; xxv. 290, 291, 292
+
+  "Auld Licht Idylls" (Barrie), xxv. 264
+
+  "Auntie's Skirts" (Child's Garden of Verse), xxiii. 223
+
+  Aurévilly, Barbey d', works of, xxiv. 83; xxv. 174, 314, 379
+
+  "Ausfürliche Erklarung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche" (Lichtenberg),
+    xxiii. 178
+
+  "Autolycus at Court," xxiii. 170
+
+  "Autumn Effect, An," xxiii. 155, 166; xxv. 397-8
+
+  Autun, xxiii. 216, 219
+
+  Avignon, at, xxiii. 77
+
+  Ayrshire and Galloway, walking tour in, xxiii. 182, 202
+
+
+  Babington, Mrs. Churchill, xxiii. 54; letter to, xxiii. 30
+
+  Babington, Professor Churchill, xxiii. 30, 54; xxiv. 130
+
+  Bacon, Sir F., on Time, xxiii. 81
+
+  Baildon, H. B., xxv. 56; letters to, xxv. 56, 377, 381
+
+  Baker, Mrs. A., letters to, xxv. 366, 413
+
+  Baker, Shirley, of Tonga, xxv. 40, 44
+
+  Baker, Sir Samuel, xxv. 175
+
+  Bakewell, Dr., letter to, xxv. 424
+
+  Balfour, Dr. George, xxiii. 330
+
+  Balfour, Graham, xxv. 221, 251 & _n._ 1, 292, 339, 348, 351, 355, 363,
+    406, 416; "Life" of R. L. S., by, xxiii. _intro._ xix.; at Vailima,
+    xxv. 144, 374, 401, 403
+
+  Balfour, James, xxiii. 4
+
+  Balfour, Miss Jane, letter to, xxiii. 223
+
+  Balfour, Mr., of the Shaws, xxv. 47
+
+  Balfour, Mrs. Lewis, xxiii. 4, 5
+
+  Balfour of Burley (Old Mortality), xxiii. 130
+
+  Balfour, Rev. Lewis, xxiii. 4
+
+  "Balfour's Letters," xxv. 293
+
+  "Ballade in Hot Weather" (Henley), xxiv. 248
+
+  "Ballades, Rondeaus, etc." (collected by Gleeson White), xxiv. 248
+
+  "Ballads," xxiv. 380; xxv. 34, 53, 57, 73
+
+  Ballantyne, R., xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  Balzac, xxv. 154; on literary frenzy, xxiii. 173; style of, xxiv. 60
+
+  Bamford, Dr. W., xxiii. 271; letter to, xxiii. 272
+
+  "Barbara" (Catriona), xxv. 294-5
+
+  Barbizon, visits to, xxiii. 174 _et seq._, 183
+
+  Barmouth, visits to, xxiii. 124, 146
+
+  "Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities" (Billing), xxiv. 270
+
+  "Barrack Room Ballads" (Kipling), xxv. 48
+
+  "Barrel Organ," xxiii. 171
+
+  Barrie, J. M., appreciation, xxv. 276-7: letters to, xxv. 154, 264,
+    276, 362, 416
+
+  Barrie, Mrs. (Margaret Ogilvie), xxv. 417
+
+  Bartholomew, Messrs., xxv. 177
+
+  Basin, Thomas, xxiii. 203 & _n._ 1
+
+  Basselin, Olivier, poems by, xxiii. 193
+
+  Bass Rock, xxiii. 207
+
+  Bates, --, xxiii. 89
+
+  Bates, Edward Hugh Higlee, xxv. 384
+
+  Bates, E. M. G., xxv. 384
+
+  Bates, J. H., letter to, xxv. 384
+
+  Bathgate, the inn maid at, xxiii. 226, 227
+
+  "Bauble Shop," play (H. A. Jones), xxv. 385
+
+  Baudelaire, --, xxiii. 160, 195
+
+  Baxter, Charles, xxiii. 3, 159, 174, 285, 336, 341, 353, 356; xxiv.
+    14, 47, 79; xxv. 174, 240, 266, 273, 306, 357; letters to, xxiii. 33,
+    34, 46, 49, 52, 92, 193, 217, 262, 285, 336, 341; xxiv. 14, 121, 122,
+    200, 251, 260, 268, 286, 294, 296, 301, 303, 322, 327, 343, 344, 369,
+    375, 384, 392; xxv. 53, 82, 120, 177. 213, 270, 278, 288, 292, 337,
+    345, 360, 376, 392, 394, 433; literary agency of, xxiv. 252; scheme
+    of, for "Edinburgh Edition," xxv. 372 & _n._ 1, 373
+
+  Baxter, Edmund, xxiv. 394; xxv. 54; death of, xxv. 433
+
+  Baynes, Professor Spencer, editor "Encyclopćdia Britannica," xxiii,
+    202
+
+  "Beachcombers" (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 361
+
+  "Beach de Mar," projected xxv. 187
+
+  "Beach of Falesá," xxv. 5, 20, 25, 76, 97, 102, 103 & _n._ 1, 120,
+    122, 131, 138, 147, 152, 221, 224, 235-6, & _n._ 1, 239, 240, 250,
+    266, 272, 274, 284; illustrations to, xxv. 253-4, 288; marriage
+    contract in, xxv. 187 & _n._ 1; publication, xxv. 1.
+
+  "Beau Austin," play (with Henley), xxiv. 106
+
+  Becker, Consul, xxv. 139, 141, 268
+
+  "Becket" (Tennyson), xxv. 385
+
+  "Bedtime" projected, xxiv. 99
+
+  "Beggars" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235, 253; xxv. 97, 209, 301
+
+  Bell Rock, book on, xxiv. 78; xxv. 322; controversy on, xxiv. 121
+
+  Bell, the, in the Vailima woods, xxv. 277
+
+  Ben More, xxiii. 318
+
+  Bennet, Dr., xxiii. 84, 101
+
+  Bentley, publisher, xxiii. 336, 339, 346
+
+  Béranger, article on, xxiii. 186, 191, 193
+
+  Bereavement, xxiv. 52
+
+  Berlin Convention, xxv. 6
+
+  Berlioz, paper on (Henley), xxiii. 318
+
+  "Bęte Humaine" (Zola), xxiv. 396; xxv. 319
+
+  "Betteredge" (Moonstone), xxiii. 18
+
+  Bickford, Captain, R.N., C.M.G., xxv. 334, 351
+
+  Bitter Creek, xxiii. 234
+
+  _Black and White_, contributions to, xxiii. 286, 337, 341
+
+  "Black Arrow," xxiv. 5, 31, 56, 247, 376, 385 & _n._ 1; serial issue,
+    xxiv. 55; success, xxiv. 68; suggested French version, xxiv. 398
+
+  "Black Canyon" (L. Osbourne), xxiii. 347, 348, 349
+
+  Blackie, Professor, xxiii. 28, 30, 306
+
+  Blacklock, Consul, xxv. 142
+
+  "Black Man," xxiii. 308
+
+  _Blackwood's Magazine_, xxiv. 370
+
+  Blair of Blairmyle (_see_ "Young Chevalier"), xxv. 216
+
+  "Blanche Amory" (Thackeray), xxiv. 212
+
+  "Bloody Wedding," projected, xxv. 66, 97
+
+  Board of Trade Offices, xxiv. 87
+
+  Boccaccio, xxv. 301
+
+  "Body Snatchers," xxiii. 308, 316, 321; xxiv. 125, 130; xxv. 397
+
+  "Bondage of Brandon" (Hemming), xxiii. 333
+
+  "Bondman, The" (Hall Caine), xxiv. 396-7
+
+  Boodle, Miss Adelaide, xxiv. 375; letters to, xxiv. 231, 259, 267,
+    284, 297, 339, 401; xxv. 80, 147, 217, 243, 248, 410
+
+  "Book, A, of Stories," projected contents, xxiii. 171
+
+  "Book of Verses" (Henley), xxv. 121
+
+  _Book Reader_, notice of "Prince Otto," xxiv. 195
+
+  Books wanted, xxiii. 36, 332; xxiv. 78, 101, 130, 134, 270, 274, 338;
+    xxv. 111, 112, 174, 215, 271, 287, 293, 346, 361, 392
+
+  Boswell, James, xxiii. 193, 203, 295
+
+  "Bottle Imp," xxiv. 292; xxv. 272, 284, 340; Samoan translation, xxv.
+    64 & _n._ 1
+
+  Bough, Sam, painter, xxiii. 24, 26-30; xxiv. 60
+
+  Bourget, Paul, xxv. 130-2, 315, 323
+
+  Bourke, Captain, R.N., xxv. 263
+
+  Bournemouth, at, xxiv. 104 _et seq._; xxv. 111
+
+  "Bouroche, Major" (Débâcle), xxv. 250
+
+  Braemar, at, xxiii. 282, 313, 320
+
+  Braille, books by R. L. S., to be issued in, xxv. 366, 413
+
+  Brandeis, xxv. 141
+
+  "Brashiana," burlesque sonnets, xxiii. 283; xxiv. 14, 38, 39
+
+  Brash, the publican, xxiii. 336; xxiv. 14
+
+  Braxfield (Weir of Hermiston), xxv. 260 & _n._ 1, 264-5; portrait of,
+    xxv. 453
+
+  Bridge of Allan, at, xxiii. 33, 174
+
+  British Museum, visits to, xxiv. 105, 107, 186-7, 202, 229, 365
+
+  Bronson, --, editor, xxiii. 240
+
+  Brooke, Rajah, xxv. 129
+
+  Brown, --, xxiv. 230
+
+  Brown, Dr. John, verses to, xxiii. 296, 297
+
+  Brown, Horatio F., xxiii. 303, 304; letters to, xxiii. 303, 304
+
+  Brown, Mrs., xxiii. 13
+
+  Brown, Rev. Dr., xxv. 312
+
+  Brown R. Glasgow (editor of _London_), xxiii. 184, 251; illness,
+    xxiii. 214 & _n._ 1
+
+  Browne, Gordon, xxv. 301, 305; letter to, xxv. 252
+
+  Browning, Robert, xxiv. 107, 202; book on, by Gosse, xxv. 74
+
+  Bruce, Michael, xxiii. 71
+
+  Bruno, Father, xxiv. 312, 334
+
+  Brussels, at, xxiii. 36
+
+  Buckinghamshire, walking tour in, xxiii. 124, 155
+
+  Buckle, Mrs., xxiv. 176
+
+  "Bucolics" (Virgil), xxiii. 18
+
+  "Bummkopf" (typical pedant), xxiii. 225
+
+  Bunner, --, xxiv. 64, 154
+
+  Bunting, --, xxiv. 227
+
+  Bunyan, John, xxiv. 29; essay on, xxiii. 334; xxv. 398
+
+  Burford Bridge, visit to, xxiii. 183
+
+  Burial customs, Gilbert Islanders', xxiv. 400-1
+
+  Burke, Edmund, xxiii. 71
+
+  Burlingame, E. L., editor of _Scribner's Magazine_, xxiv. 233; xxv. 6,
+    138; letters to, xxiv. 253-4, 269, 273-4, 319, 338, 367, 376, 387,
+    394, xxv. 24, 32, 86, 110, 128, 145, 174, 210, 215, 257, 266
+
+  Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, xxiii. 224; xxiv. 101, 107, 202; xxv. 394
+
+  Burney, "Admiral," R.N., xxv. 394
+
+  Burn, Miss, xxiv. 89
+
+  Burns Exhibition, Glasgow, xxv. 69, 87 _et seq._
+
+  Burns, Robert, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.; xxv. 69, 70, 88, 395-6;
+    articles and writings on, xxiii. 111, 151, 179, 191, 192, 193, 202,
+    203, 224, 226, 237, 241, 245, 250, 263, 273, 358, xxiv. 63; house of,
+    Dumfries, xxiii. 66; judgment on, xxiii. 224; poems of, xxiii. 4,
+    xxiv. 256
+
+  Burt, xxiii. 298
+
+  _Bussard_, the ship, xxv. 425
+
+  Butaritari, Gilbert Islands, xxiv. 358
+
+  "But still our hearts are true" (Eglinton), xxv. 69, 70
+
+  "But yet the Lord that is on high" (Scotch Psalter), xxiii. 23
+
+  "By Proxy" (Payn), xxiv. 7
+
+  Byron, Lord, xxiii. 132; essay on (Henley), xxiii. 318; xxiv. 7
+
+
+  Caldecott, Randolph, xxiii. 248, 267
+
+  California, visit to, xxiii. 228
+
+  Calistoga, at, xxiii. 277
+
+  Calton Hill (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
+
+  Calvin, John, studies in, xxiii. 126
+
+  Cambridge, visits to, xxiii. 219; xxiv. 105
+
+  Cameron, Captain, xxiv. 349, 350
+
+  Campagne Defli, at, xxiv. 4, 8 _et seq._
+
+  Campbell of Glenure, murder of, xxiii. 284, 331, 332
+
+  Campbell, Rev. Professor Lewis, xxiii. 278, 316; letter to, xxiv. 113
+
+  "Canadian Boat Song" (Earl of Eglinton), xxv. 69, 70
+
+  Candlish, Dr., xxiv. 63
+
+  "Cannon Mills," projected, xxiv. 403
+
+  Canoe Journey in France (_see_ Inland Voyage), xxiii. 204
+
+  "Canoe, The, Speaks" (Underwoods), xxiv. 89, 231
+
+  "Canterbury Pilgrimage" (Chaucer), illustrated, gift of, xxiv. 149
+
+  "Capitaine Fracasse, Le" (Théophile Gautier), xxiii. 75
+
+  Cap Martin, xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv., 93, 114
+
+  "Captain Singleton" (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 102
+
+  Carlyle, Thomas, xxiii. 302;  xxiv. 135; appreciation of, xxiii. 301,
+    302; on Coleridge, xxiii. 220
+
+  "Carmosine" (Musset), xxiv. 97
+
+  Carrington, C. Howard, letter to, xxiv. 152
+
+  Carr, T. Comyns, xxiv. 68
+
+  Carruthers, --, xxv. 40
+
+  Carson, Mrs., xxiii. 252
+
+  "Carthew" (Wrecker), xxv. 112 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Casamassima" (H. James), xxiv. 263
+
+  _Casco_, schooner, cruise in, xxiv. 234, 287 _et seq._, 290-1, 300,
+    305, 310, 312-3, 316 _et seq._, 325 _et seq._
+
+  "Case Bottle," xxiii. 281
+
+  "Cashel Byron's Profession" (Shaw), xxiv. 270-1
+
+  "Casparidea," unpublished, xxiii. 283
+
+  "Cassandra" (Mrs. R. L. Stevenson), xxiv. 22
+
+  Cassell and Co., xxiv. 110, 127; xxv. 57, 110, 124, 272, 283
+
+  "Catriona" (at first called "David Balfour," _q.v._), xxiii. _intro._
+    xxiii., 331; xxiv. 190, 402; xxv. 108, 144, 155, 158 & _n._ 1, 160-1,
+    163, 166-7, 172, 187, 192, 201-2, 211, 215, 240, 250, 264, 274, 283,
+    290, 298, 301, 305, 310, 316, 344, 351 & _n._ 1, 352, 378; in Braille,
+    xxv. 366; characters in, xxv. 216; draft of, xxv. 162; maps for, xxv.
+    177-8; "my high-water mark," xxv. 393 (but _see_ 379); projected
+    illustrations, xxv. 349 _n._ 1; replies to remarks on, xxv. 294 _et
+    seq._; restraint of description in, xxv. 367
+
+  Cavalier (de Sonne), xxiii. 307
+
+  Cavalier, Jean, xxiii. 306, 307
+
+  "Cavalier," The (G. P. R. James), xxiv. 274
+
+  Cedercrantz, Conrad, Chief Justice of Samoa, xxv. 7, 13, 48-9, 67,
+    95-6, 98-100, 102, 124-5, 175, 188, 239, 256, 275, 278, 281, 286, 305,
+    364, 376, 380-1
+
+  Celtic blood in Britain, xxv. 379
+
+  _Century Magazine_, xxiv. 26, 30, 55, 90, 171; article in, by H.
+    James, on R. L. S., xxiv. 250-1; contributions to, xxiii. 338, xxiv.
+    55, 170, 171, 185; critical notice in, of R. L. S., xxiv. 63, 64
+
+  Cévennes, the tramp in (_see_ "Travels with a Donkey"), xxiii. 183
+
+  Ceylon, projected visit, xxv. 98
+
+  Chair of History and Constitutional Law, Edinburgh University,
+    candidature for, xxiii. 282, 309 _et seq._, 331, 335, 336
+
+  Chalmers, Rev. J., xxv. 30, 33, 39, 56-7
+
+  "Chapter of Artistic History," suggested title for proposed book by
+    Henley, xxiii. 318
+
+  "Chapter on Dreams" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235; xxv. 97
+
+  "Character of Dogs" (_English Illustrated_), xxiv. 67; xxv. 41 _n._ 2
+
+  "Charity Bazaar," xxv. 398
+
+  Charles of Orleans, paper on, xxiii. 182, 191, 192, 202, 203, 204
+
+  "Charlotte" (Sorrows of Werther), xxiii. 60, 61
+
+  Charteris, Rev. Dr., xxiv. 276; letters to, xxiv. 276, 279
+
+  Chastity, xxiii. 338, 360
+
+  Chateaubriand (Sainte-Beuve), xxiii. 78
+
+  Chatto, Andrew, letter to, xxiv. 110
+
+  Chatto and Windus, publishers, xxiii. 335; xxiv. 110; xxv. 395; letter
+    to, xxiv. 231
+
+  Chepmell, Dr., xxiv. 242
+
+  Chester visited, xxiii. 145, 146
+
+  "Chevalier Des Touches"  (d'Aurévilly), xxv. 174, 314, 380
+
+  Chicago Exhibition, xxv. 379
+
+  Children, feelings towards, xxiii. 99, 101, 147, 171
+
+  Children in the [Kilburn] Cellar (_see also_ Boodle), letter to, xxv.
+    243
+
+  "Child's Garden of Verse," xxiii. 282; xxiv. 5, 17 _et seq._, 24, 54,
+    55, 70, 99 _et seq._, 106, 116, 154; xxv. 385; dedication, xxiv. 16,
+    19, 27, 92; illustrations, xxiv. 18 _et seq._, 32, 115; publication,
+    xxiv. 138, 140; reviews, xxiv. 147
+
+  "Child's Play," xxiv. 70; xxv. 301
+
+  Chiltern Hills, visited, xxiii. 155
+
+  "Choice of Books" (F. Harrison), xxv. 113
+
+  Christianity and Asceticism, xxiii. 213
+
+  Christmas Books (Dickens), xxiii. 148
+
+  Christmas Day at Vailima, xxv. 40-1
+
+  "Christmas Sermon," xxv. 123 _n._ 1
+
+  Christ's Hospital, xxiv. 206, 207
+
+  Chrystal, Professor, xxiv. 118
+
+  "Cimourdain" (Quatre-vingt Treize, by Hugo), xxiii. 130 _n._ 1
+
+  "Clarissa Harlowe" (Richardson), xxiii. 210
+
+  Clarke, Mrs. W. E., xxv. 26
+
+  Clark, R. & R., printers, xxv. 124
+
+  Clark, Rev. W. E., missionary, xxiv. 371; xxv. 10, 11 & _n._ 1, 26,
+    30, 64 _n._ 1, 101; xxv. 203, 236, 329, 330, 422, 458, 460
+
+  Clark, Sir Andrew, xxiii. 55, 77, 84
+
+  Claxton, missionary, xxv. 64
+
+  Clinton, --, xxiii. 332, 333
+
+  Clouds, descriptions of, xxv. 178-9
+
+  Club, at Vailima, xxv. 168, 170, 176
+
+  Clytie, bust of, xxiii. 170
+
+  Cockfield Rectory, xxiii. 276; at, xxiii. 54, 56
+
+  "Coggie," _see_ Ferrier, Miss
+
+  Coleridge, S. T., xxiii. 220
+
+  Colinton, manse of, xxiii. 5
+
+  "Collected Essays" (Huxley), xxiv. 219
+
+  Collins, Wilkie, xxiii. 238
+
+  "Colonel Jack" (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 103
+
+  Colorado, xxiv. 110 _et seq._, 229 _et seq._, 234
+
+  Colvin, Lady (_see also_ Sitwell, Mrs.), xxiii. 54
+
+  Colvin, Sir Sidney, xxiii. 88, 91, 93, 94 _et seq._, 116, 117, 152;
+    xxiv. 13, 47, 133, 191, 210, 216, 278, 323, 343, 396; choice of, for
+    literary executor, xxiii. _intro._ xviii.; introduction of Eeles to,
+    xxv. 452; letters to (_see_ especially xxv. 5), xxiii. 75, 76, 105,
+    106, 108, 124, 127, 129, 140, 141, 143, 157, 167, 169, 173, 178, 186,
+    191, 195, 196, 201, 202, 206, 211, 212, 225, 230, 232, 234, 235, 241,
+    244, 247, 251, 253, 258, 267, 269, 272, 273, 274, 276, 284, 291, 297,
+    300, 308, 310, 316, 320, 339, 349; xxiv. 15, 33, 55, 69, 81, 98, 99,
+    101, 134, 136, 137, 186, 189, 192, 210, 219, 227, 235-6, 238, 264,
+    265, 275, 283, 285, 293, 295, 298, 316, 329, 336, 353, 357, 362, 385;
+    xxv. 9, 25, 34, 48, 54, 58, 66, 76, 83, 90, 94, 102, 112, 121, 132,
+    152, 156, 166, 178, 193, 211, 221, 230, 249, 258, 271, 282, 289, 291,
+    294, 299, 310, 324, 338, 347, 352, 367, 380, 382, 387, 396, 404, 414,
+    422, 430, 441 (the last), 448; letters to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson,
+    xxiv. 308, 347; portraits of, xxv. 78-9, 80 & _n._ 1, 83-5, 94, 100;
+    testimonial from, xxiii. 316
+
+  "Come back" (Clough), xxiii. 294
+
+  Comines, Philippe de, xxiii. 193
+
+  Commissioners of Northern Lights, yacht of, xxv. 98 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Comtesse d'Escarbaguas" (Moličre), xxiv. 123
+
+  "Comtesse de Rudolstadt" (Sand), xxiii. 135
+
+  "Confessions" (St. Augustine), xxiv. 82-3
+
+  Congdon, L. C., xxv. 384
+
+  Conrad, Joseph, xxv. 76
+
+  "Consuelo" (Sand), xxiii. 87, 135
+
+  Consulship, xxv. 208 & _n._ 1
+
+  _Contemporary Review_, contributions to, xxiv. 143, 181, 227; xxv. 398
+
+  Cook's "Voyages," xxv. 346
+
+  "Coolin," Skye terrier, xxiv. 201
+
+  Coquelin, xxiii. 276
+
+  _Cornhill Magazine_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii.; xxiv. 355; contributions
+    to, xxiii. 56, 104, 125, 129, 180, 184, 191, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206,
+    208, 210, 211, 224, 237, 238, 256, 258, 264, 281, 341, 352, 355; xxiv.
+    90; xxv. 397; Henley's "Hospital" poems in, xxiii. 174 _n._ 1, 176
+
+  Cornwall, Barry, xxv. 29 _n._ 2
+
+  Cornwall, impressions of, xxiii. 207
+
+  "Correspondence" (Wodrow's), xxiii. 291
+
+  Corsica, glimpse of, xxiii. 108
+
+  "Country Dance," xxiii. 171, 172
+
+  "Country Wife" (Wycherley), Lamb's essay on, xxiv. 87
+
+  Covenanters, xxiii. 65, 67; rhyming by, xxv. 363
+
+  Craig, --, xxiii. 25
+
+  Cramond, xxiii. 61
+
+  "Cramond" and other cousins, xxiv. 44
+
+  Crane, Walter, xxiii. 212; xxiv. 32
+
+  "Crashaw," essay (Gosse), xxiii. 291
+
+  "Crime inconnu" (Méry), xxiii. 258
+
+  "Crime, Le, et le Châtiment" (Dostoieffsky), xxiv. 182 _n._ 1, 183
+
+  "Criminal Trials" (Arnott), xxiii. 332
+
+  "Critical Kitcats" (Gosse), xxiv. 235
+
+  _Critic, The_, notice in, xxiv. 64
+
+  Crockett, S. R., xxv. 349 & _n._ 2, 403; letters to, xxiv. 280; xxv.
+    305
+
+  Crosse, Henry, sculptor, xxv. 383
+
+  Cumming, Miss Gordon, xxiv. 308
+
+  Cummy (_see_ Cunningham)
+
+  Cunningham, Alison, xxiii. 5, 69, xxiv. 100; letters to, xxiii. 32,
+    340; xxiv. 16, 17, 44, 167, 196, 200, 202, 204, 220; xxv. 359, 445
+
+  _Curaçoa_, H.M.S., xxv. 189, 202, 234, 267 _et seq._, 416, 425;
+    officers of, xxv. 374, 389, 405-9, 414, 447, 450; petty officers'
+    ball, xxv. 414-5
+
+  "Curate of Anstruther's Bottle," xxiii. 108, 109, 170
+
+  Curtin, Jeremiah, widow and daughters of, xxiv. 108, 222
+
+  Cusack-Smith, Sir Berry, xxv. 334
+
+
+  Dalgleish, Dr. Scott, and the Ballantyne Memorial, xxv. 393
+
+  Damien, Father, xxiv. 291-2, 349, 354, 356; letter on, xxiv. 383-4,
+    391 _n._ 1, 404; xxv. 124
+
+  "Damned Ones of the Indies" (Joseph Méry), xxiii. 258
+
+  Damon, Rev. F., xxiv. 383
+
+  "Dance of Death" (Rowlandson's), xxv. 292-3
+
+  Dancing Children (Notes on the Movements of Young Children), xxv.
+    397-8
+
+  "Daniel Deronda" (George Eliot), xxiii. 210
+
+  Darien affair, books on, wanted, xxv. 361
+
+  Darwin, Charles, xxiii. 57, 122
+
+  David Balfour, character, xxv. 155, 189-90
+
+  "David Balfour" (title first given both to "Kidnapped" and "Catriona,"
+    _q.v._), xxiv. 179, 190-1, 196, 201, 204; xxv. 108, 144, 158 & _n._ 1,
+    160, 161-2, 163, 167, 172, 177, 279, 283, 313, 316, 351, 366, 379;
+    "Catriona" issued as, in serial form, xxv. 294; historical
+    introduction planned, xxv. 376; unfinished, xxiv. 402
+
+  Davis, Dr., of Savaii, xxv. 32
+
+  Davos, visits to, xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv., 280 _et seq._, 331 _et
+    seq._; papers on (_Pall Mall Gazette_), xxiii. 281, 347
+
+  "Dawn of the Century" (Ashton), xxv. 392
+
+  "Day after To-morrow" (_Contemporary_), xxv. 398
+
+  "Deacon Brodie," play (with Henley), xxiii. 185, 257; xxiv. 119, 230,
+    248; production, xxiv. 99, 102, 261
+
+  "Dead Man's Letter," projected, xxiii. 249, 308
+
+  Deans, Jeanie, xxiii. 65
+
+  "Death in the Pot," projected, xxv. 314 & _n._ 1
+
+  Death, thoughts on, xxiii. 136, 275, 276; xxiv. 58, 162, 183, 227
+
+  "Débâcle" (Zola), xxv. 250 & _n._ 1, 318, 319, 379
+
+  Deborah and Barak, fancies on, xxiii. 154, 155
+
+  "Decisions of the Lords of Council" (Fountainhall), xxv. 293, 336, 360
+
+  "Defence of Idlers" (_see_ "Apology for Idlers")
+
+  Defoe, Daniel, works of, xxiv. 101, 103
+
+  "Delafield," xxiii. 350; xxv. 55-6 _n._ 1
+
+  "Delhi," and other cousins, xxiv. 44
+
+  de Mattos, Mrs., letters to, xxiii. 199; xxiv. 152, 167
+
+  "Demi-Monde" (Dumas _fils_), scene in, xxiv. 273
+
+  Depression, xxiii. 199, 200
+
+  De Quincey, Thomas, biography of (Japp), xxiii. 321
+
+  "Derničre Aldini, La," xxiv. 97
+
+  Desborough, Mrs., xxiv. 177
+
+  Descamps, Maxime, xxiv. 405
+
+  "Descent of Man" (Darwin), xxiii. 57
+
+  des Ursins, Juvénal, xxiii. 192
+
+  "Devil on Cramond Sands," xxiii. 170, 249, 308
+
+  Dew-Smith, A. G., xxiv. 151; letter to, xxiii. 287
+
+  Dhu Heartach lighthouse, xxiii. 10
+
+  "Diaboliques, Les" (d'Aurévilly), xxv. 174
+
+  "Dialogue of Character and Destiny," unfinished, xxiii. 257, 267
+
+  "Dialogue on Man, Woman, and 'Clarissa Harlowe,'" projected, xxiii.
+  211
+
+  Diana of the Ephesians, play on, planned, xxiii. 124, 125
+
+  "Diary," suggested publication of, xxv. 208
+
+  Dick, Mr., xxiv. 135; letter to, xxiv. 83
+
+  "Dickon Crookback" (Black Arrow), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
+
+  "Dictionary of Music" (Grove), xxiii. 151
+
+  Didier, Father, xxv. 67
+
+  "Die Judin" at Frankfurt, xxiii. 44
+
+  Disappointment, xxiii. 295
+
+  Dobell, Dr., xxiv. 201, 230
+
+  Dobson, Austin, xxiii. 307; xxiv. 205; letter to, xxiv. 126
+
+  "Dr. Syntax's Tour," xxv. 292-3
+
+  "Dodd" (Wrecker), xxv. 378
+
+  "Dogs" (Mayhew), xxiii. 341
+
+  "Dolly" (Way of the World), xxiii. 215
+
+  Donadieu's restaurant, xxiii. 254
+
+  Donat, --, xxiv. 312
+
+  "Don Juan" (Byron), xxiii. 354
+
+  "Don Juan," unfinished play (with Henley), xxiii. 256, 257, 258
+
+  Dorchester, visited, xxiv. 153
+
+  Dostoieffsky's works, xxiv. 182-3
+
+  Dover, T. W., letter to, xxv. 209
+
+  Dowden, Professor, xxiv, 211-12
+
+  Dowdney, --, xxv. 138
+
+  Dowson, Mr., xxiii. 86, 88
+
+  Doyle, Sir A. Conan, letters to, xxv. 298, 336, 429
+
+  "Dreams," xxv. 97
+
+  Duddingston Loch, xxiii. 75, 164
+
+  "Du hast Diamanten und Perlen," song, xxiii. 58
+
+  Dumas, Alexandre (_pęre_), xxiii. 347; Henley's book on, xxiv. 54, 257
+
+  Dumas, novels of, xxiv. 398
+
+  Dumfries, at, xxiii. 64
+
+  Dunblane, at, xxiii. 33
+
+  Dunnet, --, xxv. 106
+
+  Dunoyer, Olympe, xxiii. 307
+
+  "Du schönes Fischermädchen," song (Schubert), xxiii. 139
+
+  Dutra, Augustin, xxiii. 240
+
+  Dutton, Mr., xxiv. 356
+
+  "Dyce of Ythan," projected (_see also_ "The Young Chevalier"), xxv. 172
+
+  "Dynamiter, The," xxiv. 114, 176
+
+  Dynamite, views on, xxiv. 108
+
+
+  Earraid, Isle of, xxiii. 10, 24, 318
+
+  "Earthly Paradise" (Morris), xxiii. 36
+
+  Easter Island, images from, xxiv. 362, 367
+
+  "Ebb Tide" (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 361, 399 & _n._ 1, 402; xxv.
+    120, 172 & _n._ 1, 281, 288 _et seq._, 290 & _n._ 1, 301 _et seq._,
+    307, 310, 314 _et seq._, 318, 321, 325, 350, 353, 372; criticism, xxv.
+    347 _et seq._; illustrations for, notes on, xxv. 301
+
+  "Echoes" (Henley), xxv. 215
+
+  Eckenhelm, xxiii. 39
+
+  "Eclogues" (Virgil), xxiii. 34
+
+  Edinburgh Academy (school), old boys' dinner, xxiii. 168, 169
+
+  Edinburgh, at, xxiii. _passim_; homes in, xxiii. 5; life at, 1874-5,
+    xxiii. 123 _et seq._
+
+  Edinburgh Castle, xxiii. 69, 71
+
+  _Edinburgh Courant_, wanted, xxv. 392
+
+  Edinburgh Edition of works, xxv. 372-3, 394, 396, 404, 414;
+    illustrations in, xxv. 423 & _n._ 1; suggested prefaces, xxv. 376
+
+  "Edinburgh Eleven" (Barrie), xxv. 276
+
+  Edinburgh, influence of, xxv. 155
+
+  Edinburgh, "Picturesque Notes on," xxiii. 185, 211, 216, 218
+
+  _Edinburgh Review_, article in, on Rembrandt, by Colvin, xxiii. 225
+
+  Edinburgh Society of Arts, medal awarded to R. L. S., xxiii. 10
+
+  Edinburgh streets, xxiv. 100
+
+  Edinburgh University, Speculative Society at, xxiii. 35, 64, 184;
+    xxiii. 312; xxiv. 178 studies at, xxiii. 8 _et seq._
+
+  Eeles, Lieutenant, R.N., xxv. 415; letters to, xxv. 267, 451
+
+  Effort, uses of, xxiv. 88
+
+  Eglinton, Hugh, 12th Earl of, xxv. 69
+
+  "Egoist, The" (Meredith), xxiii. 353
+
+  Eimeo, storm near, xxiv. 324
+
+  "Einst, O Wunder, einst," song, xxiii. 65
+
+  "Elements of Style" (_Contemporary Review_), xxiv. 181
+
+  Elgin marbles, the, xxiii. 158-60, 163-4
+
+  Eliot, George, works of, xxiii. 210
+
+  Elstree murder, xxiii. 338
+
+  "Emerson" (H. James), xxiv. 278
+
+  "Emigrant Train, The," xxv. 97
+
+  "Encyclopćdia Britannica," contributions to, xxiii. 179, 186, 191,
+    202-3
+
+  "Endymion" (Keats), xxiv. 170
+
+  "Engineer's Thumb" (Doyle), xxv. 340
+
+  England and Samoa, xxv. 6 _et seq._
+
+  England and Scotland, contrasts between, xxiii. 56 _et seq._
+
+  _English Illustrated Magazine_, contributions to, xxiv. 68 & _n._ 1
+
+  "English Odes," edited by Gosse, xxiii. 292; suggestions concerning,
+    xxiii. 293-4
+
+  English, the, mock definition of, xxiii. 225
+
+  "English Village, An" (Gosse), xxv. 457
+
+  "English Worthies" Series, book for, xxiv. 134
+
+  "Ensorcelée, L'" (d'Aurévilly), xxv. 314, 380
+
+  "Epilogue to an Inland Voyage," xxiv. 68
+
+  Epitaph for himself, by R. L. S., xxiii. 269; xxv. 375
+
+  Epitaph (mock) on himself, xxiv. 69
+
+  _Equator_, schooner, cruise in, xxiv. 291-2, 340, 343, 347, 357-8,
+    369, 390; xxv. 3
+
+  "Eroica" Symphony (Beethoven), xxiii. 166
+
+  "Escape at Bedtime" ("Child's Garden"), xxiv. 55
+
+  Essays, xxiii. 143; selected, projected volume and suggested contents,
+    xxv. 301 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Essays in Art" (Hamerton), xxiii. 242
+
+  "Essays in London" (H. James), xxv. 367
+
+  "Essays on the Art of Writing," xxiv. 265
+
+  "Essays on Travel," xxiii. 201, 281
+
+  "Etherege," essay (Gosse), xxiv. 45
+
+  "Evan Harrington" (Meredith), characters in, xxiv. 97
+
+  Evictions, Highland, xxiii. 298
+
+  "Evictions" (Miller), xxiii. 297
+
+  Ewing, Professor, xxiv. 226
+
+  Exeter, visited, xxiv. 105, 153
+
+  "Expansion of England" (Seeley), xxiv. 55, 56
+
+
+  "Fables in Song," xxiii. 127-8, 132, 141, 142
+
+  "Fables" (Lord Lytton), xxiii. 129
+
+  Fage, xxiii. 307
+
+  Fairchild, Blair, xxiv. 239, 405
+
+  Fairchild, Charles, xxiv. 233, 237, 239, 250; letter to, xxiv. 246
+
+  Fairchild, Mrs. Charles, xxiv. 233, 237, 239, 250; xxv. 379; letters
+  to, xxiv. 403; xxv. 163, 240
+
+  Fair Isle, visit to, xxiii. 24
+
+  Fakarava, at, xxiv. 295, 312
+
+  "Falconers, The Two, of Cairnstane," xxiii. 170
+
+  _Falke_, the, xxv. 425
+
+  Fall of Man, the, xxiii. 212
+
+  "Familiar Essays," xxiv. 230
+
+  "Familiar Studies of Men and Books," xxiii. 149, 224, 229, 351, 355;
+    publication, xxiii. 335.
+
+  "Family of Engineers" ("History of the Stevensons" or the "Northern
+    Lights"), unfinished; xxv. 120, 310, 315-6, 319-20, 322, 334, 339,
+    348, 357; germ of, xxiv. 279; xxv. 95
+
+  "Family of Love," xxiii. 170
+
+  "Fantasio" (de Musset), xxiv. 97
+
+  Farehau, xxiv. 310, 315
+
+  "F.A.S., In Memoriam" (Underwoods), xxiii. 300
+
+  Fast-day, xxiii. 153
+
+  "Fastidious Brisk," sobriquet, xxiv. 72
+
+  "Faust" (Goethe), xxiv. 71
+
+  Faxon, --, xxiv. 390
+
+  "Femmes Savantes" (Moličre), xxiv. 123
+
+  Fenian dynamite outrages, xxiii. 320
+
+  Fergusson, Robert, poet, xxiv. 214, 215; xxv. 57, 70-1, 88; monument,
+    xxv. 395-6
+
+  Ferrier, James Walter, xxiii. 48, 223; xxiv. 46, 47, 63, 98;
+    appreciation of, xxiv. 46 _et seq._; collaboration with, xxv. 398;
+    death, xxiv. 6, 46 _et seq._, 59, 69, 71-2, 96 _n._ 1; letter to,
+    xxiii. 269
+
+  Ferrier, Miss, xxiv. 90; letters to, xxiv. 46, 52, 71, 88, 121, 132,
+    282
+
+  Festetics de Solna, Count, at Apia, xxv. 415
+
+  Fielding, Henry, xxiii. 129
+
+  Fiji, xxv. 50, 96, 102
+
+  Fiji, High Commissioner of, proclamation by, xxv. 280
+
+  "Finsbury Tontine, The" (_see_ "Wrong Box")
+
+  Flaubert, Gustave, on prose, xxv. 71-2
+
+  Fleming, Marjorie, xxiv. 245 _n._ 1; verses of, xxv. 385
+
+  "Flint, Captain" ("Treasure Island"), xxiii. 326
+
+  "Flowers of the Forest," air, xxiii. 113
+
+  Folau, --, Chief Judge, xxv. 30
+
+  "Folk Lore" (Lang), xxiv. 130
+
+  Folleté, M., xxiii. 100
+
+  "Fons Bandusić" (Macdonald), xxiv. 249
+
+  Fontainebleau (_see also_ Barbizon, _and_ "Forest Notes"), visits to,
+    xxiii. 124, 182, 183, 184, 189, 282, 305
+
+  "Footnote to History," xxiv. 362 _et seq._, 369 _et seq._, 386; xxv.
+    5, 41 _n._ 1, 117, 120, 122, 124, 126, 129-30, 138, 140-4, 146, 163,
+    172, 188, 192, 211, 250, 257, 267, 274; publication of, xxv. 146;
+    German reception of, xxv. 346
+
+  "Foreigner, The, at Home," essay, xxiii. 56
+
+  "Forester," unfinished paper (J. W. Ferrier), xxiii. 269
+
+  "Forest Notes," essay on Fontainebleau (_Magazine of Art_), xxiii.
+    180, 181, 186, 198, 201, 202; xxiv. 32, 57, 58, 67, 68 _n._ 1; xxv.
+    397-8
+
+  "Forest State, The: A Romance" (_see also_ "Prince Otto"), xxiii. 259,
+    265, 266
+
+  Forfeited Estates, tenants of, xxiii. 298
+
+  Forster, --, xxiii. 321
+
+  Forth, Firth of, xxiii. 61, 68, 69
+
+  _Fortnightly Review_, contributions to, xxiii. 127, 132, 281
+
+  "Fortune by Sea and Land" (Heywood), xxiii. 354
+
+  Fortune, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 15
+
+  "Fortunes of Nigel" (Scott), xxiv. 91
+
+  Foss, Captain, xxv. 106
+
+  "Four Great Scotsmen," project for, xxiii. 111
+
+  "Fra Diavolo," at Frankfurt, xxiii. 42
+
+  France, Anatole, xxv. 321, 409
+
+  Franchise for working men, xxiii. 97
+
+  François, a baker, xxiii. 240; xxiv. 42
+
+  François Villon, xxiii. 182, 191, 192, 207; xxiv. 397; Schwob's
+    writings on, xxv. 52
+
+  Frank, --, xxv. 330
+
+  Frankfurt, at, xxiii. 38
+
+  Franklin, Benjamin, article on, projected, xxiii. 253, 265, 266, 333
+
+  _Fraser's Magazine_, contribution to, xxv. 97, 123
+
+  French possessions in the Pacific, xxiv. 293
+
+  French translations, _see_ letters to Schwob
+
+  "Friend," the (S. T. Coleridge), xxiii. 221
+
+  Friends, the six, xxiv. 47
+
+  "Fruits of Solitude" (Penn), xxiii. 303
+
+  Funk, Dr., xxv. 416, 458
+
+
+  Galitzin, Prince Leon, xxiii. 119, 120, 121, 125, 155
+
+  Galpin, --, xxiv. 202
+
+  "Gamekeeper," sobriquet for Miss Boodle, xxiv. 259, 284
+
+  "Game of Bluff," _see_ "Wrong Box"
+
+  Garschine, Madame, xxiii. 98, 99, 102, 108, 115, 147; letter from,
+    xxiii. 128
+
+  "Gauvain" (Quatre-vingt Treize, by Hugo), xxiii. 130 _n._ 1
+
+  "Gavin Ogilvy," character (Barrie), xxv. 277
+
+  "Gavottes Célčbres" (Litolf's edition), xxiv. 188
+
+  "Gebir," line from, quoted (Landor), xxiii. 329
+
+  "Genesis of the Master of Ballantrae," xxv. 33
+
+  "Gentleman of France" (Weyman), xxv. 312
+
+  "George the Pieman" (Deacon Brodie), xxiii. 257
+
+  German policy in Samoa, xxiv. 370; xxv. 6 _et seq._, 176 _et passim_
+
+  Gévaudan, xxiii. 218
+
+  "Giant Bunker," xxiv. 70
+
+  Gibson, Captain, xxv. 203
+
+  Gilbert Islands, burial customs in, xxiv. 399, 400; papers on, xxv.
+    84; suggested plan and title, 84; visited, xxiv. 291-2, 356-7 _et
+    seq._, 368
+
+  Gilder, R. W., editor _Century Magazine_, xxiii. 338; xxiv. 26, 29,
+    30, 64, 98, 149, 185, 250
+
+  Gilfillan, --, xxiv. 349, 352
+
+  Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., xxiii. 113; xxiv. 136-7, 139, 192
+
+  Glasgow, Knox memorial at, xxv. 88
+
+  "Gleams of Memory" (Payn), xxv. 447
+
+  Glencorse Church, xxiii. 180; xxv. 305, 307
+
+  "Go Between," xxv. 314-5 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Goguclat" (St. Ives), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
+
+  "Good Boy, A" ("Child's Garden"), xxiv. 55, 170
+
+  "Gordon Darnaway" ("Merry Men"), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
+
+  Gordon, General C. G., xxiv. 107, 137, 139-40, 183; xxv. 57
+
+  Gosse, Edmund, xxiii. 311, 316, 328, 329, 341; xxiv. 36, 120, 244;
+    appointment to Clark Readership, xxiv. 99; letters to, xxiii. 219,
+    224, 226, 236, 243, 245, 260, 271, 292, 293, 306, 311, 313, 324, 325,
+    332, 338, 350, 359, 360; xxiv. 26, 29, 30, 45, 50, 87, 97, 125, 139,
+    173, 181, 244, 277; xxv. 71, 317, 454; "Life" by, of his father, xxv.
+    71, 130, 317
+
+  Gosse, Mrs. Edmund, xxiii. 225, 227; letter to, xxiii. 347
+
+  Gosse, P. H., "Life" of, by E. Gosse, xxv. 71, 130, 317
+
+  "Gossip, A, on Romance," xxiii. 283, 342, 349
+
+  Göttingen, xxiii. 118, 122, 125
+
+  "Gower Woodseer" ("Amazing Marriage," by Meredith), prototype of, xxv.
+    344, 390-1
+
+  Grange, Lady, xxiii. 298
+
+  Grant, --, xxiii. 316
+
+  Grant, Geordie, xxiii. 19
+
+  Grant, Lady, xxiv. 53, 72
+
+  Grant, Mrs., of Laggan, xxiii. 298
+
+  Granton, xxiii. 8
+
+  Grant, Sir Alexander, xxiv. 53, 72, 132
+
+  "Grape from a Thorn" (Payn), xxiv. 7
+
+  Graves, home and foreign, xxv. 349 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Gray, Thomas" ("English Men of Letters"), by Gosse, xxiii. 350, 351,
+    360; works of, edited by Gosse, xxiv. 140
+
+  "Great Expectations" (Dickens), xxiv. 22-3
+
+  "Great North Road," unfinished, xxiii. 328; xxiv. 106, 127, 139, 152,
+    402
+
+  Greenaway, Kate, xxiv. 32
+
+  Green, Madame, singer, xxv. 249
+
+  Grey, Sir George, xxv. 290, 298-9; visit to, xxv. 292
+
+  Grez, at, xxiii. 183, 185, 187; meeting with Mrs. Osbourne at, xxii.
+    183, 228
+
+  Grove, Sir George, xxiii. _intro._ xviii. 151, 178, 204
+
+  Guérin, Maurice de, xxiii. 165
+
+  Gurr, --, xxv. 48, 105, 116, 448
+
+  Gurr, Mrs., xxv. 107
+
+  Guthrie, Charles J., letters to, xxiii. 312; xxiv. 178
+
+  "Guy Mannering" (Scott), xxiv. 91; xxv. 167
+
+
+  Habakkuk, prophet, xxiii. 211
+
+  Haddon, Trevor, letters to, xxiii. 357, 360; xxiv. 10, 39, 93
+
+  Haggard, Bazett, xxv. 138, 161, 170-1, 193 _et passim_
+
+  Haggard, Rider, xxiv. 257; xxv. 86, 226-7
+
+  "Haggis, The" (Burns), xxiv. 256
+
+  "Hair Trunk," xxiii. 205-6
+
+  Hake, Dr. Gordon, xxiv. 239
+
+  Hall, Basil, xxv. 111
+
+  Hallé, Sir Charles, xxiii. 169, 198
+
+  "Hall, Mr." (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 211
+
+  Hamerton, P. G., xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 58, 216, 218, 315 _n._ 1, 316,
+    336; letters to, xxiii. 242, 314, 335; xxiv. 143
+
+  "Hamerton, P. G., An Autobiography," xxiii. 216
+
+  Hamilton, Captain, death of, xxv. 65
+
+  "Hamlet" (Shakespeare), xxv. 51
+
+  Hammond, Basil, xxiv. 13 & _n._ 1
+
+  Hampstead, at, xxiii. 124, 133
+
+  Hand, Captain, R.N., xxv. 139
+
+  Handwriting, tests of, xxv. 254-5
+
+  Hansome, Rufe, xxiii. 278
+
+  Happiness, xxiv. 183-4
+
+  Hardy, Thomas, xxiv. 153; xxv. 266
+
+  Hargrove, Mr., xxiii. 25, 26
+
+  "Harry Richmond" (Meredith), characters in, xxiv. 97
+
+  Harte, Bret, xxiii. 210
+
+  "Hastie" (Kidnapped), xxiv. 196
+
+  Hawaiian Islands, stay in, xxiv. 291
+
+  "Hawthorne" (H. James), xxiii. 273, 277
+
+  Hayley, --, xxiii. 252
+
+  Hazlitt, William, xxv. 385
+
+  "Heart of Midlothian" (Scott), xxiii. 65; xxv. 154
+
+  "Heathercat," unfinished, xxv. 281, 360-1, 403
+
+  Hebrides, yachting trip in, xxiii. 124, 139, 140
+
+  Hecky, a dog, xxiv. 202
+
+  Hegel, --, xxiv. 75
+
+  Heintz, Dr., xxiii. 244
+
+  Henderson, Mr., xxiii. 6, 328; xxiv. 31
+
+  Henley, Anthony, xxiii. 238, 240
+
+  Henley, E. J., xxiv. 261
+
+  Henley, W. E., xxiii. 124, 171, 172, 177, 284, 285, 334, 352; xxiv.
+    29, 47, 52, 59, 67, 79, 99, 151, 155, 191, 202, 302, 377; xxv. 97,
+    121, 123, 174; appreciation of, xxv. 213; dramatic collaboration with,
+    xxiii.  185, 256, 257; xxiv. 99, 106, 119, 146; editor of _London_,
+    xxiii. 184; in hospital, xxv. 427; letters to, xxiii. 204, 217, 219,
+    221, 233, 238, 249, 255, 256, 265, 317, 319, 326, 328, 330, 334, 341,
+    342, 352, 362; xxiv. 17, 23, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 47, 54, 57, 65, 72,
+    79, 91, 96, 102, 111, 114, 120, 123, 127, 131, 133, 146, 147, 155,
+    229, 239, 248, 257; xxv. 214; poems by, xxv. 122, 214
+
+  "Henry Shovel," _see_ "Shovels of Newton French"
+
+  _Herald_, ship, xxv. 444
+
+  Herbert, George, poetry of, xxiii. 18
+
+  Herrick, Robert, xxiii. _intro._ xx.; xxiv. 36, 82
+
+  "Herrick, Robert," essay (Gosse), xxiv. 45
+
+  _Hester Noble_, unfinished play (with Henley), xxiii. 256, 257
+
+  "Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin' yet?" air, xxiii. 113
+
+  Highland History, projected, xxiii. 280, 290-1, 297; xxv. 117
+
+  "Highland Widow" (Scott), xxv. 24
+
+  "High Woods of Umfanua," _see_ "Beach of Falesá"
+
+  Hiroshigé, prints by, xxiii. 157
+
+  "Histoire d'Israël" (Renan), xxv. 304
+
+  "Histoire des Origines de Christianisme" (Renan), xxv. 304
+
+  "History of America" (Adams), xxv. 215, 266
+
+  "History of England" (Macaulay), xxiii. 70
+
+  "History of France" (Martin), xxiii. 193
+
+  "History of Indostani" (Orme), xxv. 419, 423
+
+  "History of Notorious Pirates" (Johnson), xxiv. 101
+
+  "History of the Great Storm" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
+
+  "History of the Rebellion" (Clarendon), xxiii. 31
+
+  "History of the Stevensons," _see_ "Family of Engineers"
+
+  "History of the United States" (Bancroft), xxiii. 246
+
+  Hogarth, William, xxiii. 69; Cambridge lectures on, by Colvin, xxiii.
+    178
+
+  Hokusai (_Magazine of Art_), xxiv. 32
+
+  Hole, W., illustrator, xxiv. 270, 319, 321-2, 346; xxv. 349 & _n._ 1,
+    362 _n._ 1
+
+  "Holy Fair" (Burns), xxiii. 4; xxiv. 265 _n._ 1
+
+  Homburg, visit to, xxiii. 182
+
+  "Home is the Sailor," lines chosen for epitaph, xxiii. 269; xxv. 375
+
+  Home Rule Bill of 1885, xxiv. 192
+
+  "Homme, L', qui rit" (Hugo), xxiii. 125 & _n._ 1
+
+  Honolulu, visits to, xxiv. 291, 319 _et seq._, 329, 353; xxv. 281,
+    345, 349, 362
+
+  "Horatian Ode" (Marvell), xxiii. 293
+
+  Hoskin, Dr., xxv. 268, 270, 452
+
+  "House of Eld" Fables, xxiii. 12, 141
+
+  Houses, characteristics of, xxiii. 145, 146
+
+  Howard Place, 8, Edinburgh, birthplace, xxiii. 5
+
+  "Howe, Miss" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
+
+  "Huckleberry Finn" (Twain), xxiv. 139
+
+  "Huguenots, Les," opera, xxiii. 200
+
+  "Huish" (Ebb Tide), xxv. 313
+
+  "Human Compromise," xxiii. 267
+
+  Humble Apology (Longman's), xxiv. 181
+
+  Humble Remonstrance (Longman's), xxiv. 127
+
+  Hume, David, xxiii. 4, 72, 111, 145
+
+  "Humilies et offensés" (Dostoieffsky), xxiv. 183
+
+  Hunter, Robert, "portrait" of, xxv. 301
+
+  Hurricane at Apia, the great, xxiv. 345, 346, 369; xxv. 141, 172-4;
+    chapter on, in "Footnote," issued in _Scots Observer_, xxv. 174
+
+  Hutchinson, --, bust by, of R. L. S., xxv. 353 & _n._ 1
+
+  Hyde, Rev. Dr., and Father Damien, xxiv. 292; controversy with, xxiv.
+    383-4, 391 & _n._ 1, 402, 404
+
+  Hyéres, at, xxiv. 5, 21 _et seq._; xxv. 60
+
+  Hyndman, --, xxiv. 141
+
+  "Hyperion" (Keats), xxiv. 170
+
+
+  Iceland, book on, by Gosse suggested, xxiii. 333
+
+  "Ich unglückselige Atlas," song (Schubert), xxiii. 139
+
+  Ide, Annie H., and R. L. S.'s birthday, xxv. 89-90, 118-9; letter to,
+    xxv. 118
+
+  Ide, C. J., Land Commissioner and afterwards Chief Justice in Samoa,
+    xxv. 281, 298, 380-1, 450; letter to, xxv. 88
+
+  Ide, Margery, xxv. 450
+
+  _Idler, The_, xxv. 372, 429; contributions to, xxv. 376
+
+  _Illustrated London News_, xxv. 301
+
+  Inchcape bell, xxiii. 29
+
+  Income-tax, xxiii. 113, 114
+
+  Inglis, John, Justice-General, xxiii. 181
+
+  Ingram, John H., xxiii. 166
+
+  "Inland Voyage," xxiii. 183, 185, 204, 211, 212, 218, 229, 247; xxiv.
+    103; criticisms on, xxiii. 215-6
+
+  "Inn Album" (Robert Browning), review of, xxiii, 198, 199
+
+  "Inn, The," xxv. 429
+
+  "In Russet and Silver" (Gosse), dedication of, xxv. 454
+
+  "In the Garden," projected, xxiv. 99
+
+  "In the South Seas," first published as "The South Seas," xxiv. 290,
+    292, 297, 320-1, 358, 362, 399, 403; xxv. 5, 12, 16, 22, 26, 34, 45,
+    54, 61 & _nn._ 1 & 2, 68, 69, 77, 78, 80, 97, 100; criticisms, xxiv.
+    293, 348-9; xxv. 76; dedication proposed, xxiv. 304
+
+  Intimate Poems, suggested edition, xxv. 377
+
+  _Iona_, vessel, xxiii. 24
+
+  Ireland, Alexander, letter to, xxiii. 342
+
+  Ireland, plan for life in, xxiv. 108, 222
+
+  Irongray, tombs at, xxiii. 65
+
+  "Isabella and the Pot of Basil" (Keats), xxiv. 170
+
+  Isaiah, prophet, xxiii. 211
+
+  "Is it not verse except enchanted groves" (Herbert), xxiii. 18
+
+  "Island Nights' Entertainments," xxv. 64, 272, 284, 290;
+    illustrations, xxv. 312; length, xxv. 353 & _n._ 1; reviews xxv.
+    315 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Isle of Voices," xxv. 272
+
+  "Islet, The," xxv. 301
+
+  "Ivanhoe" (Scott), xxiv. 31
+
+
+  Jack, the island horse, xxv. 35-6, 41, 136, 142
+
+  James, G. P. R., novels by, ordered by R. L. S., xxiv. 273
+
+  James, Henry, xxiv. 105, 127, 130, 133, 143, 154, 182, 235, 250, 359;
+    xxv. 29, 317, 415, 452; letters to, xxiv. 127, 160, 214, 215, 237,
+    249, 262, 278, 288, 334, 382, 396;  xxv. 43, 108, 130, 274, 320, 335,
+    367, 406
+
+  "James More," xxv. 161, 216, 295
+
+  _Janet Nicoll_, ss., cruise in, xxiv. 292-3, 385 _et seq._, 392, 403;
+    xxv. 11, 54, 304
+
+  Japan and Japanese art, interest in, xxiii. 157, 158, 159; xxiv. 32,
+    57
+
+  Japp, Dr. Alexander, xxiii. 329; letters to, xxiii. 321, 327, 351
+
+  Jeafferson, --, xxiv. 178
+
+  "Jedidiah Cleishbotham" (Scott), xxiii. 65
+
+  Jenkin family, xxiii. 25, 100
+
+  Jenkin, Mrs. Fleeming, xxiii. 10, 25; xxiv. 300; letters to, xxiv.
+    150, 151, 187, 221, 225, 258; xxv. 273
+
+  Jenkin, Professor Fleeming, xxiii. 10, 25, 118, 122, 175, 176, 183,
+    247, 311, 341, 353; xxiv. 48, 258, 272; death, xxiv. 106, 150, 151;
+    memoir of, by R. L. S. (_see_ "Memoir"); debt to, xxiv. 331
+
+  Jerome, Jerome K., xxv. 372, 429
+
+  "Jerry Abershaw," projected, xxiii. 328, 329; xxiv. 152
+
+  Jersey, Countess of, in Samoa, xxv. 145, 227, 228, 325; letters to,
+    xxv, 228-9; on her visit to R. L. S., xxv. 228
+
+  Jersey, Earl of, xxv. 288
+
+  "Jess" (Window in Thrums), xxv. 277
+
+  Jhering, Professor, xxiii. 118, 122
+
+  _J. L. Tiernan_, schooner, xxiv. 359
+
+  Joan of Arc, Byron's epithet for, xxiii. 354
+
+  "Jock o' Hazeldean," air, xxiii. 113
+
+  "John Peel" of the song, xxiii. 28
+
+  "John Silver" (Treasure Island), xxiv. 112, 123; genesis of, xxiv. 31
+
+  Johnson, --, an American, xxiii. 108, 110, 111, 112
+
+  "Johnson," or "Johnstone," pseudonym, xxiv. 14, 121
+
+  Johnson, Samuel, xxiii. 298; "Life" of, xxiii. 193, 203
+
+  Johnstone, Marie, Mary, or May, xxiii. 94, 95, 98, 99, 101
+
+  Johnstone, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 96, 99
+
+  _John Williams_, missionary barque, xxiv. 387
+
+  "Jolly Beggars" (Burns), sent for autograph, xxv. 69, 87, 118
+
+  Jones, Henry Arthur (_see also_ "Bauble Shop"), letter to, xxiv. 133
+
+  Jonson, Ben, xxiii. 294
+
+  Journalistic work, xxiii. 184
+
+  "Joy of Earth" (Meredith), xxv. 214
+
+  Jura, Skye terrier, xxv. 428-9
+
+  "Justice Clerk," _see_ Weir of Hermiston
+
+  "Juvenilia," xxv. 397-8
+
+
+  Kaiulani, Hawaiian Princess, xxiv. 345, 346
+
+  Kalakaua, King, xxiv. 320
+
+  Kalaupapa, Molokai, xxiv. 351 _et seq._
+
+  Kalawao, Molokai, xxiv. 353-4
+
+  _Katoomba_, H.M.S., xxv. 334; band of, xxv. 351
+
+  Kava, native beverage, xxv. 183 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Keats" ("English Men of Letters," by Colvin), xxiii. 349, 350-1;
+    xxiv. 210, 211
+
+  Keir, Jean, xxv. 335
+
+  Kelso, xxiii. 156
+
+  "Kenilworth" (Scott), xxiv. 91
+
+  "Kidnapped," xxiii. 24, 331; xxiv. 106, 146, 147, 179, 190, 195-6,
+    203, 233, 265, 317, 370, 377; xxv. 108, 160, 215, 250, 283, 301, 351;
+    in Braille, xxv. 366; projected  illustrations, xxv. 349 _n._ 1;
+    reception, xxiv. 198; reviews, xxiv. 203; sequel (_see_ "Catriona"),
+    xxv. 144; suggested French translation, xxv. 52
+
+  Killigrew, Anne, xxiii. 293 _n._ 1
+
+  "King Lear" (Shakespeare), xxv. 51
+
+  "King Matthias's Hunting Horn" lost, xxiii. 158, 160, 170
+
+  Kinglake, W., xxiii. 70
+
+  "King's Horn, The," xxiii. 308
+
+  Kingston, W.G., xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  Kingussie, at, xxiii. 284, 357
+
+  Kipling, Rudyard, anticipated visit from, xxv. 105 & _n._ 1; xxv. 163,
+    165; appreciations of, xxiv. 396; xxv. 46, 213, 275; letter to, xxv.
+    46; writings of, xxv. 379
+
+  Kirriemuir, xxv. 417
+
+  "Kirstie Elliot" (Weir of Hermiston), xxiii. _intro._ xx.; xxv. 457
+
+  Kitchener, Colonel, _ib._
+
+  Kitchener, Viscount, xxv. 236-7
+
+  Knappe, Consul, xxiv. 370; xxv. 139, 141
+
+  "Knox, John, and his Relations with Women," xxiii. 141, 149, 150, 153,
+    155
+
+  Knox, John, "Works" of, xxiii. 117
+
+  Knox, John, writings on, xxiii. 55, 61, 111, 141, 146, 147, 148, 149,
+    150, 153, 155, 158, 159, 167, 170, 171, 173
+
+  Ko-o-amua, ex-cannibal chief, xxiv. 293
+
+  "Kubla Khan" (Coleridge), xxiii. 92, 220
+
+  Kuniyoshi, prints by, xxiii. 157
+
+
+  Labiche, --, xxiii. 239
+
+  Labour, imported, in Samoa, xxv. 159 & _n._ 1
+
+  Lacy, Mr., xxiii. 307
+
+  "Lady Barberina" (H. James), xxiv. 128
+
+  "Lady Carbury" ("Way of the World"), xxiii. 215
+
+  Lafarge, John, painter, xxv. 4, 29 & _n._ 1, 41, 43, 45
+
+  La Fontaine, "Fables" of, xxv. 49
+
+  "Lake Isle of Innisfree" (Yeats), xxv. 390
+
+  Lamb, Charles, xxiii. 209
+
+  "Lamia" (Keats), illustrated by Low, xxiv. 142, 166; dedication of,
+    xxiv. 169-71
+
+  Lampman, Archibald, sonnet by, xxiv. 321 & _n._ 1
+
+  Landor, W. S., xxiii. 302, 317, 320-1
+
+  "Landscape" (Hamerton), xxiv. 143-4
+
+  Land's End, visited, xxiii. 183, 209
+
+  Lang, Andrew, xxiii. 115, 117, 222, 311, 316; xxiv. 106, 134, 206,
+    257, 278, 381, 388; xxv. 357, 427; letters to, xxiv. 399; xxv. 216,
+    453; story suggested by, xxv. 141 & _n._ 1; on "Treasure Island,"
+    xxiv. 67
+
+  Lantenac, M. (Victor Hugo), xxiii. 130 _n._ 1
+
+  "Lantern Bearers, The" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235, 254; xxv. 97, 301
+
+  Large, Miss, xxv. 329-31
+
+  La Sale, Antoine, projected essay on, xxiii. 207
+
+  "Last Sinner, The," xxiii. 171
+
+  Laupepa, _see_ Malietoa
+
+  Lautreppe, Albert de, xxv. 383
+
+  Lavenham, xxiii. 56
+
+  Law examination passed, xxiii. 182
+
+  "Lay Morals," 86, 185; xxiv. 62 _et seq._
+
+  "Leading Light, The," projected, xxiii. 329
+
+  "Leaves of Grass" (Whitman), xxiii. 70
+
+  Le Gallienne, Richard, letter to, xxv. 364
+
+  Legal work, xxiii. 182, 184
+
+  Leigh, Hon. Capt., xxv. 227-8, 231, 233, 234, 235
+
+  Leith, xxiii. 159, 202
+
+  Lemon, --, picture by, xxiv. 167
+
+  Lenz, --, xxiv. 198
+
+  Le Puy, xxiii. 217
+
+  "Lesson, The, of the Master" (H. James), xxiv. 382; xxv. 108, 274
+
+  "Letter to the Church of Scotland," xxv. 398
+
+  "Letter to a Young Gentleman," xxv. 123 _n._ 1
+
+  "Letters and Memories of Jane Welsh Carlyle" (Froude), xxiii, 301, 302
+
+  Letters, desiderata in, xxiii. 259
+
+  "Letters" (Flaubert), xxiv. 405; xxv. 59
+
+  "Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to his Friend in
+    London" (Burt), xxiii. 291
+
+  "Letters to his Family and Friends," xxiii. _intro._ xix.
+
+  Leven, xxiii. 61
+
+  "Library, The" (Lang), xxiii. 307
+
+  "Lieder und Balladen" (Burns), Silbergleit's translation, xxiii. 39
+
+  Life, two views on, xxiv. 158, 164, 165
+
+  "Life and Death," xxiii. 171
+
+  "Life of General Hutchinson" (Mrs. Hutchinson), xxiii. 30, 31, 32
+
+  "Life of Hazlitt," projected, xxiii. 283, 336, 339, 345
+
+  "Life of P. H. Gosse" (Edmund Gosse), xxv. 71, 130, 317
+
+  "Life of R. L. S." (Balfour), xxiii. _intro._ xix.; xxv. 4, 59
+
+  "Life of Robertson" (Dugald Stewart), xxiii. 119
+
+  "Life of Samuel Johnson" (Boswell), xxiii. 193, 203
+
+  "Life of Sir Walter Scott" (Lockhart), xxiv. 75, 84, 170, 171
+
+  "Life of Wellington" ("English Worthies"), unfinished, xxiv. 106, 134,
+  139
+
+  "Life on the Lagoons" (H. F. Brown), xxiii. 303
+
+  Lillie, Jean and David, connection of, with the Stevensons, xxv. 436
+
+  "Lion of the Nile," xxiv. 321
+
+  Lions, xxiii. 307
+
+  Lippincott, xxiv. 54-5, 90
+
+  "Literary Recollections" (Payn), xxiv. 381
+
+  "Little Minister" (Barrie), xxv. 265, 276
+
+  "Lives of the Admirals" (Southey), xxiii. 70
+
+  "Lives of the Stevensons," _see_ "Family of Engineers"
+
+  "L. J. R.," Essay Club, xxiii. 46, 48; xxv. 121
+
+  Llandudno, visited, xxiii. 124, 148
+
+  Locker-Lampson, Frederick, letters to, xxiv. 205, 206, 207, 208, 215
+
+  "Lodging for the Night," xxiii. 184, 191, 248
+
+  Logan, John, xxiii. 71, 72
+
+  _London_, contributions to, xxiii. 184
+
+  "London Life" (H. James), xxiv. 289
+
+  London, visits to (see _also_ British Museum), xxiii. 77, 155, 330;
+    xxiv. 105, 107, 186-7, 189, 202, 209, 229
+
+  "London Voluntaries" (Henley), xxv. 214
+
+  Longman, --, publisher, xxiv. 30, 66, 111, 134; xxv. 123, 125
+
+  _Longman's Magazine_, contributions to, xxiv. 127, 130, 134, 143, 181;
+    xxv. 454
+
+  "Lord Nidderdale" (Way of the World), xxiii. 215
+
+  "Lord Rintoul" (Little Minister), xxv. 265
+
+  "Lost Sir Massingberd" (Payn), xxiv. 7, 177
+
+  Loti, Pierre (M. Viaud), xxiv. 308
+
+  "Loudon Dodd" (Wrecker), xxv. 24, 172 & _n._1
+
+  "Louis XIV. et la Révocation de l'Édit de Nantes" (Michelet), xxiii.
+    69
+
+  "Louse, The" (Burns), xxiv. 256
+
+  "Love in the Valley" (Meredith), xxiv. 54; xxv. 214, 390
+
+  "Lovelace" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
+
+  Love, young, advice on, xxiii. 358
+
+  Lowell, John Russell, xxiv. 107
+
+  Low, Mrs. W. H., xxiv. 107, 202, 217
+
+  Low, W. H., xxiv. 107, 202, 217, 234, 250, 251, 255, 288, 369, 390;
+    xxv. 25, 111; illustrated edition by, of "Lamia," xxiv. 142, 166;
+    dedication of, xxiv. 169-71; letters to, xxiv. 57, 63, 72, 89, 115,
+    142, 153, 166, 169, 172, 177, 185, 217, 230, 245, 346; xxv. 378
+
+  _Lübeck_, s.s., passage on, xxiv. 375 _et seq._; xxv. 48, 50, 53, 81
+
+  _Ludgate Hill_, s.s., passage in, xxiv. 110, 230, 232; xxiv. 235 _et
+    seq._
+
+  Lully, J.B., gavotte by, xxiv. 188-9
+
+  Lysaght, Sidney, xxv. 385-6, 388, 405, 415 & _n._ 1; books by, xxv.
+    390; visit from, xxv. 374
+
+
+  _Macaire_, play (with Henley), xxiv. 146, 147
+
+  _Macbeth_ (Shakespeare), xxiv. 57
+
+  M'Carthy, Justin, xxiv. 173
+
+  McClure, S. S., publisher, relations with, xxiv. 234, 252, 321, 379;
+    xxv. 120
+
+  McCrie, --, xxiii. 117
+
+  Macdonald, David, xxiii. 20
+
+  Macdonald, Flora, xxiii. 298
+
+  Macdonald, George, xxiv. 248
+
+  Macdonald, J. H. A., xxiii. 114
+
+  Macgregor, clan, xxv. 293, 346
+
+  M'Gregor-Stevenson connection, question of, xxv. 440
+
+  Mackay, Professor Ćneas, xxiii. 282; letters to, xxiii. 309
+
+  Mackintosh family, xxiii. 169
+
+  M'Laren, Duncan, xxiii. 96, 97, 114
+
+  MacMahon, President, xxiii. 116
+
+  Macmillan, Alexander, xxiii. 151
+
+  _Macmillan's Magazine_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii. 204; contributions to,
+    xxiii. 125, 149, 151
+
+  Macpherson, Miss Fanny (Lady Holroyd), xxv. 83 & _n._ 1
+
+  Madeira, plan to visit, xxiv. 328
+
+  "Mademoiselle Merquem" (Sand), xxiii. 87
+
+  _Magazine of Art_, contributions to, xxiii. 333-4; xxiv. 54, 57, 115,
+    181; xxv. 97, 123, 398, 423
+
+  Majendie, Colonel, xxiv. 283
+
+  "Malade Imaginaire" (Moličre), xxiv. 123
+
+  "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre," xxiii. 102
+
+  Malie, abode and following of Malietoa, xxv. 6, 9 _et seq._
+
+  Malietoa Laupepa, xxv. 9, 176, 234, 466; friendliness with, xxv. 10;
+    and Mataafa, troubles concerning, xxv. 6-9 _et seq._
+
+  Manasquan, at, xxiv. 234, 286-8
+
+  Manchester Ship Canal, xxiv. 135
+
+  _Manhattan_, magazine, xxiv. 57, 90
+
+  "Manse, The," xxiii. 4; xxv. 301
+
+  Manu'a, islands of, "queen" of, xxv. 407-8
+
+  Marat, xxiv. 183
+
+  Marbot, "Memoires" of, xxv. 274, 321
+
+  "Marche funčbre" (Chopin), xxiii. 139
+
+  Marcus Aurelius, xxiv. 183
+
+  "Marden, Colonel" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
+
+  "Margery Bonthron," xxiii. 171
+
+  "Marion," xxiii. 307
+
+  _Mariposa_, s.s., xxv. 346
+
+  "Markheim," xxiii. _intro._ xx., xxiii.; xxiv. 125, 213
+
+  "Marmont's Memoirs," xxiv. 134
+
+  Marot, Clement, poems by, xxiii. 108
+
+  "Marplot, The" (Lysaght), xxv. 390
+
+  Marquesas Islands, visited, xxiv. 290, 293, 371
+
+  Marryat, Captain, works by, ordered by R. L. S., xxiv. 338
+
+  Marseilles, at, xxiv. 5, 12-14, 98
+
+  Marshall Islands, visited, xxiv. 292
+
+  Martial, xxiv. 82
+
+  Martin, A. Patchett, letters to, xxiii. 208, 209
+
+  "Martin's Madonna," xxiii. 171
+
+  Marvell, Andrew, xxv. 46
+
+  Mary, Queen of Scots, xxiii. 62
+
+  "Mary Wollstonecraft" (Mrs. Pennell), xxiv. 149
+
+  "Master of Ballantrae," xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.; xxiv. 235, 265,
+    268-70, 274, 276, 278, 279, 291, 314, 317, 328, 338, 339, 346, 349,
+    360, 369, 370, 377, 398; xxv. 43, 171 & _n._ 2, 250, 357;
+    illustrations, xxiv. 319, 320; original plan of, xxv. 396; paper on,
+    xxv. 376; suggested French translation, xxv. 52
+
+  Mataafa, xxiv. 370; xxv. 176, 256; troubles concerning, xxv. 6-9 _et
+    seq._, 93 _et seq._, 280, 332-3, 350; visits to, xxv. 193 _et seq._,
+    242; with Lady Jersey, xxv. 228 _et seq._
+
+  Matlock, visited, xxiv. 105, 189
+
+  Maupassant, Guy de, xxiv. 383
+
+  Maxwell, Sir Herbert, xxv. 437; letters to, xxv. 440, 453
+
+  "Mazeppa" (Byron), xxiii. 132
+
+  Medallion portrait by St. Gaudens, xxv. 410
+
+  Medea (Ordered South), xxiii. 86 & _n._ 1
+
+  Mediterranean, impression of, xxiii. 104, 105
+
+  Meiklejohn, Hugh, xxv. 269, 450, 451
+
+  Meiklejohn, Professor John, xxiii. 263, 316; compliments on "Burns"
+    article, xxiii. 241; letters to, xxiii. 263; xxv. 450
+
+  "Mein Herz ist im Hochland," xxiii. 41
+
+  Melford, xxiii. 56
+
+  Melville, Herman, xxiv. 295, 348, 381
+
+  "Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin," xxiv. 106-7, 150, 169, 174, 187, 225
+
+  "Memoirs of a Cavalier" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
+
+  "Memoirs of an Islet," essay, xxiii. 23
+
+  "Memoirs of Henry Shovel," unfinished, xxiv. 402
+
+  "Memorials" (Laing), xxv. 293
+
+  "Memorials of a Scottish Family," projected (_see also_ "Family of
+    Engineers"), xxiv. 279
+
+  "Memories and Portraits," xxiii. 56, 318 _n._ 1; xxiv. 96 _n._ 1, 214,
+    215, 230, 231, 257; xxv. 51, 53, 301 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Men and Books," xxiii. 86
+
+  Menken, Adah, xxiii. 275
+
+  Mentone, at, xxiii. 55, 77, 81 _et seq._, 143-4
+
+  Meredith, George, xxiii. 183, 311; xxiv. 97, 278 & _n._ 1; xxv. 351-2;
+    letters to, xxv. 343, 390
+
+  "Merry Men, The," xxiii. 282, 316, 317, 321; xxiv. 35, 90, 125, 213,
+    215; xxv. 353; criticisms on, xxiii. 319; dedication, xxiv. 211; germ
+    of, xxiii. 308; places described in, xxiii. 317
+
+  Michaels, barber, xxiii. 244
+
+  Michelet, --, xxv. 304
+
+  Middleton, Miss, letter to, xxv. 428
+
+  Millais, Sir John E., xxiv. 139; on R. L. S., as artist, xxiii.
+    _intro._ xxx.
+
+  Milne, Mrs., letter to, xxiv. 70
+
+  Milson, John, xxiv. 130
+
+  "Mimes" (Schwob), xxv. 409
+
+  "Misadventure in France, A," essay, xxiv. 67-8
+
+  "Misadventures of John Nicholson" (_Yule-Tide_), xxiii. 12; xxiv. 211,
+    214; xxv. 57 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Miscellanies" (Edinburgh edition), xxv. 33, 376, 397 & _n._ 1, 424
+
+  "Misérables, Les" (V. Hugo), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
+
+  Missions and missionary work, xxv. 10, _n._ 1, 33, 56, 57, 203,
+    410-11, 422
+
+  Möe, Princess, xxiv. 308, 309, 313
+
+  "Mobray" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
+
+  Mödestine, the donkey of the Cévennes journey, xxiii. 218
+
+  Moličre, xxiii. 69; plays, xxiv. 96, 123
+
+  "Moll Flanders" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
+
+  Molokai, visited, xxiv. 291, 345, 349 _et seq._, 356
+
+  Monaco, at, xxiii. 93
+
+  Monastier, visit to, xxiii. 217
+
+  Monkhouse, Cosmo, letters to, xxiv. 85, 95
+
+  Monroe, Miss, letters to, xxiv. 191, 193, 261
+
+  "Monsieur Auguste" (Méry), xxiii. 257, 258
+
+  Montagu, Basil, xxv. 29 _n._ 2
+
+  Montaigne, xxiv. 130, 144
+
+  Monterey, xxiv. 36; ranche life at, xxiii. 229, 234, 235, 236
+
+  "Monterey, California," xxiii. 241, 242
+
+  Montpellier, at, xxiv. 4
+
+  "Moonstone, The" (Wilkie Collins), xxiii. 18
+
+  Moors, H. J., xxiv. 292, 370, 371; xxv. 10, 28, 29, 30, 31, 40, 96,
+    107
+
+  "Morality, the, of the Profession of Letters" (_Fortnightly_), xxiii.
+    281
+
+  "More New Arabian Nights," xxiv. 106, 108, 114, 127, 139, 140, 142
+
+  Morley, Charles, of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, xxiv. 125
+
+  "Morley Ernstein" (G. P. R. James), xxiv. 75
+
+  Morley, John (Viscount Morley), xxiii. 127, 132, 226, 268
+
+  _Morning Star_, missionary ship, cruise in, projected, xxiv. 337,
+    338-9, 340, 343, 384
+
+  Morris, William, letter to, xxv. 162
+
+  Morse, Captain, xxv. 222
+
+  Morse, Miss, letter to, xxv. 253
+
+  Mount Chessie, xxiv. 44
+
+  Mount Saint Helena, xxiii. 277
+
+  Mount Vaea, burial-place of R. L. S., xxv. 9, 10, _n._ 1, 458 _et
+    seq._
+
+  Mulinuu, abode and party of Malietoa, xxv. 9 _et seq._, 107, 330, 332,
+    333, 370
+
+  "Mulvaney" (Soldiers Three), letter as from, xxv. 46
+
+  "Murder of Red Colin," projected, xxiii. 331
+
+  Murders, famous, volume on, projected by Gosse and R. L. S., xxiii.
+    338, 350
+
+  "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (Poe), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii
+
+  Mures, the, of Caldwell, xxv. 358
+
+  Murphy, Tommy, a lost child, story of, xxiii. 161, 162
+
+  Murrayfield, xxv. 57
+
+  Murray, Grahame, xxiii. 90
+
+  Murray, W. C., xxv. 69
+
+  Musset, Alfred de, comedies of, xxiii. 212
+
+  Mutiny, Indian, novel on, projected, xxiv. 283-4
+
+  "My Boy Tammie," air, xxiii. 113
+
+  "My First Book," series in _Idler_, xxv. 33, 376, 429
+
+  Myers, F. W. H., letter to, xxiv. 184
+
+
+  Napoleon III., xxv. 250, 319
+
+  Nares, Captain (The Wrecker), xxv. 269
+
+  Navigator Islands, xxiii. 180, 205; xxiv, 405
+
+  Navy, British, men of, xxv. 351-2
+
+  Nebraska, aspect of, xxiii. 233-4
+
+  Nerli, Count, xxv. 228
+
+  Neruda, Mme. Norman, xxiii. 169, 198
+
+  Nether Carsewell, xxv. 342, 346
+
+  "New Arabian Nights," xxiii. 185, 218; xxiv. 7, 256
+
+  New Caledonia, visited, xxiv. 293, 385, 392
+
+  "New Poems" (Edmund Gosse), xxiii. 245-6
+
+  Newport, U.S.A., at, xxiv. 233, 237-8, 255
+
+  _New Quarterly_, contributions to, xxiii. 237
+
+  _New Review_, contribution to, xxv. 18 _n._ 1
+
+  New Year's wish, a, xxiii. 212
+
+  New York, at, xxiv. 233-4, 238
+
+  _New York Ledger_, contribution to, xxiv. 361
+
+  _New York Tribune_, editor of, letter to, xxiv. 7
+
+  New Zealand, xxiv. 405
+
+  Nice, visits to, xxiii. 84; xxiv. 4, 6, 79, 92
+
+  Nile Campaigns, xxiv. 81
+
+  Noël-Pardon, M., xxiv. 394
+
+  "Noll and Nell," poem (Martin), xxiii. 210
+
+  "Norma," opera, xxiii. 252
+
+  "Northern Lights" (_see also_ "Family of Engineers"), xxiii. 4, 10;
+    xxv. 322
+
+  Norwood, at, xxiii. 57
+
+  "Note on Realism" (_Magazine of Art_), xxiv. 59, 62, 181
+
+  "Notes on the Movements of Young Children," xxiii. 133, 143 & _n._ 2
+
+  "Notre Dame" (Hugo), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
+
+  Noumea, visited, xxiv. 293, 392, 396
+
+  Nukahiva Island, at, xxiv. 290, 293
+
+  Nulivae Bridge, at, xxv. 223
+
+
+  "Ode to Duty" (Wordsworth), xxv. 173 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Ode to the Cuckoo," authorship of, xxiii. 71, 72
+
+  O'Donovan Rossa, xxiii. 321
+
+  "OEdipus King" (Sophocles), xxiv. 114
+
+  "Olalla," xxiv. 106
+
+  Old English History (Freeman's), xxv. 117
+
+  "Old Gardener," xxv. 404
+
+  "Old Mortality" (Scott), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1; essay on, xxiv. 6, 68, 96
+
+  "Old Pacific Capital" (_Fraser's Magazine_), xxv. 97
+
+  Oliphant, Mrs., xxiv. 370, 382
+
+  Omission, art of, xxiv. 60
+
+  Omond, --, xxiv. 178
+
+  "Omoo" (Melville), xxiv. 348
+
+  "One of the Grenvilles" (Lysaght), xxv. 390
+
+  "Only Child," projected, xxiv. 99
+
+  "On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places," xxiii. 15, 151-3
+
+  "On the Principal Causes of Silting in Estuaries" (T. Stevenson),
+    xxiv. 135
+
+  "On some Aspects of Burns" (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 224, 227
+
+  "On some Ghostly Companions at a Spa," xxiii. 285
+
+  "Operations of War" (Hamley), xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv.
+
+  Orange, at, xxiii. 80
+
+  "Ordered South," xxiii. _intro._ xxvii., 56, 77, 83, 86, 87 &  _n._
+    1, 116, 122, 126, 267; published, xxiii. 125
+
+  Organ-grinder episode, xxiii. 155-6
+
+  Ori a Ori, chief, xxiv. 291, 302, 304, 306-7, 309-10 _et seq._, 317,
+    334; letter from, xxiv. 332-3, 337
+
+  "Origines de la France Contemporaine" (Taine), xxiv. 258; xxv. 111-2,
+    319
+
+  "Origines" (Renan), xxv. 304
+
+  Orkneys and Shetlands, tour of, xxiii. 10, 24
+
+  _Orlando_, H.M.S., xxv. 329
+
+  Orr, Fred, letter to, xxv. 127
+
+  "Orsino" (_Twelfth Night_), R. L. S. as, xxiii. 175, 176
+
+  Osbourne, Lloyd, xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 300, 348 _et seq._; xxiv. 28,
+    139, 178, 198, 199, 201, 290, 309, 323, 330, 341, 366, 392, 396, 399,
+    402; xxv. 3, 21 & _n._ 2, 50, 52, 67, 78, 96, 98, 99, 390, 445;
+    account by, of death of R. L. S., xxv. 457 _et seq._; collaboration
+    with (_see also_ "Wrecker"), xxiv. 235, 249, 250, 256, 283-4, 328,
+    361, 367, 379, 380, 389, 399, 402; xxv. 347-9, 437-8; illness, xxv.
+    152
+
+  Osbourne, Mrs., _see_ Stevenson, Mrs. R. L.
+
+  Ossianic controversy, xxiii. 298
+
+  _Othello_ (Shakespeare), xxv. 51
+
+  Otis, Captain, xxiv. 234, 290
+
+  Otway, essay on (Gosse), xxiv. 45
+
+  Our Lady of the Snows, monastery, poem on (Underwoods), xxiii. 221-2
+
+  "Owl, The," projected, xxv. 315 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Oxford Dictionary of the English Language" (Murray), xxiv. 37
+
+
+  P--N, John, letter to, xxv. 358
+
+  P--n, Russell, letter to, xxv. 359
+
+  Pacific Ocean, xxiii. 240
+
+  Pacific voyages, _see_ "In the South Seas"
+
+  Page, H. A., pseudonym for Dr. Japp, _q.v._
+
+  Pago-pago harbour, xxv. 8, 65
+
+  Painters and their art, xxiv. 60-1
+
+  "Painters' Camp, in the Highlands" (Hamerton), xxiii. 216
+
+  _Pall Mall Gazette_, contributions to, xxiii. 281, 346; xxiv. 120,
+    125, 130, 131, 227; xxv. 397; Henley's articles in, xxiii. 238
+
+  "Pan's Pipes," xxiii. 212; xxv. 301
+
+  Papeete (Tahitian Islands), xxiv. 291, 296, 308, 314
+
+  Paperchase, Sunday, xxv. 422
+
+  Paris Exhibition of 1878, xxiii. 183
+
+  Paris, visits to, xxiii. 183, 305; xxiv. 105, 107
+
+  Parker, Lieutenant and Mrs., xxv. 29
+
+  "Parliament Close" (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
+
+  Parliament House, Edinburgh, verses on, xxiii. 193-4
+
+  Parnessiens, proposed paper on, xxiii. 168
+
+  "Paston Letters," xxiii. 203
+
+  "Pastoral" (Longman's), xxiv. 221; xxv. 301
+
+  Paton, John, and Co., xxiv. 252
+
+  Paul, C. Kegan, xxiii. 212
+
+  Paumotus atolls, visited, xxiv. 290, 293-4
+
+  "Pavilion, The, on the Links," xxiii. 229, 238, 249, 256, 259, 262,
+    267
+
+  Payne, John, xxv. 427
+
+  Payn, James, xxiv. 355; handwriting of, xxv. 365; letters to, xxiv.
+    176, 355, 381; xxv. 425, 446; novel by, xxv. 171; works of, xxiv. 7-9
+
+  "Pearl Fisher" (with Lloyd Osbourne, _see_ "Ebb Tide"),  changes of
+    name for story, xxv. 288 _et seq._
+
+  "Pegfurth Bannatyne," xxiii. 361, 362
+
+  Pella, letter from, xxiii. 115, 128
+
+  Pembroke, Earl of, xxv. 290
+
+  "Penn" (H. Dixon), xxiii. 277
+
+  Pennell, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph, xxiv. 149; letter to, xxiv. 149
+
+  Penn, William, article on, projected, xxiii. 265
+
+  "Penny plain and Twopence coloured," essay, xxiv. 93
+
+  "Penny Whistles," _see_ "Child's Garden of Verse"
+
+  "Pentland Hills" (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
+
+  "Pentland Rising," xxv. 397
+
+  Penzance, visit to, xxiii. 206
+
+  Pepys, Samuel, xxiv. 29, 183; essay on, xxiii. 281
+
+  "Petit Jehan de Saintre" (La Sale), essay on projected, xxiii. 267
+
+  "Petits Počmes en Prose," xxiii. 195, 196, 197
+
+  "Petronius Arbiter," xxiv. 83
+
+  "Pew" (_Admiral Guinea_), xxiv. 119, 120
+
+  Peyrat, Napoleon, xxiii. 307
+
+  _Pharos_, s.y., xxv. 98 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Phasellulus loquitur," xxiv. 116
+
+  Pheidias, xxiii. 159
+
+  "Philosophy of Umbrellas" (with Ferrier), xxv. 398
+
+  Picts, the, xxv. 434-6
+
+  "Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh," xxiii. 185, 211, 216, 218
+
+  "Pilgrim's Progress" (Bunyan), xxiii. 203; Bagster's edition, essay on
+    cuts in, xxiii. 334
+
+  Pilsach, Baron Senfft von, President of the Council, Samoa, xxv. 7, 95
+    _et seq._, 100-1, 275, 281, 286, 305, 364, 376
+
+  "Pinkerton" (Wrecker), xxiv. 368; xxv. 141 & _n._ 1, 146, 378
+
+  "Pioneering in New Guinea" (Chalmers), xxv. 39
+
+  Piquet, xxv. 428
+
+  "Pirate, The" (Marryat), xxiii. 329
+
+  "Pirate, The" (Scott), xxiii. 318
+
+  "Pirbright Smith," xxiii. 361
+
+  "Pitcairn's Criminal Trials of Scotland," xxv. 271, 293
+
+  Pitlochry, at, xxiii. 282, 306
+
+  "Plain Speaker" (Hazlitt), xxiv. 130
+
+  Platz, Herr, xxiv. 194
+
+  Poe, Edgar, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii., 166; xxiv. 83
+
+  Poems by Baildon, technique discussed, xxv. 377
+
+  Poepoe, Joseph, xxiv. 330
+
+  Poland, projected visit to, xxiii. 151, 152, 155
+
+  Pollington, Lord, xxiv. 260
+
+  Pollock, ----, xxiv. 36
+
+  Pomaré V., King, xxiv. 309
+
+  Poor folk, charity of, xxv. 209-10
+
+  "Poor Thing, The," xxiii. 141
+
+  Poquelin, ----, xxiv. 123
+
+  _Portfolio, The_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii.; contributions to, xxiii. 58,
+    77, 141, 146, 151, 152, 153, 164, 166, 168, 185, 216; xxv. 397-8;
+    Colvin's work for, xxiii. 178
+
+  Portobello, beach incident, xxiii. 73; train incident, xxiii. 63
+
+  "Portrait of a Lady" (H. James), xxiv. 263
+
+  Positivism, studies in, xxiii. 159
+
+  Pratt, ----, fables by, xxv. 49
+
+  "Prince de Galles," xxiii., 356
+
+  "Prince of Grünewald," _see_ "Prince Otto"
+
+  "Prince Otto" (Forest State _q.v._), xxiii. 229, 265, 266, 267, 278,
+    353; xxiv. 5, 23, 24, 34, 35, 36, 54, 66, 68, 73, 81, 106, 110, 142,
+    154, 173, 181; xxv. 53, 376;  criticisms, xxiv. 191; publication,
+    xxiv. 138; reviews, xxiv. 155-6
+
+  "Princess Casamassima" (H. James), xxiv. 160 _n._ 1
+
+  Princes Street, Edinburgh, xxiii. 72, 74
+
+  Pringle, Janet, xxv. 361
+
+  "Printemps, Le," group (Rodin), xxiv. 202, 209
+
+  Prisoners, Samoan, gratitude of, _see_ "Road of Loving Hearts"
+
+  Privateers, enquiry on, xxv. 380 & _n._ 1
+
+  Proctor, Mr. B. W., xxv. 29 & _n._ 2
+
+  "Professor Rensselaer," xxiii. 249
+
+  Pronouns, "direct and indirect," quip on, xxv. 174
+
+  "Providence and the Guitar," xxiii. _intro._ xx., 185, 219, 248, 268
+
+  Publishers, xxv. 123-5
+
+  "Pulvis et Umbra" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235, 253, 264, 274,284, 384;
+    xxv. 123 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Pupil, The" (H. James), xxv. 132
+
+  Purcell, Rev. ----, xxiii. 332-3; xxiv. 159
+
+  Purple passages in literature, xxv. 72-3
+
+  "Pye," ----, xxv. 30
+
+  Pyle, Howard, xxv. 164 _n._ 1
+
+
+  _Queen_, ship, xxv. 353
+
+  Queensferry, xxiii. 68, 69
+
+  Queen's River, xxv. 417
+
+  "Quentin Durward" (Scott), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1; xxiv. 91
+
+
+  "RAB and his Friends" (Brown) xxiii. 296
+
+  Raiatea, xxiv. 308 _et seq._
+
+  Raleigh, Walter, on restrained egoism in literature, xxiii. _intro._
+    xxvi., xxvii.
+
+  "Randal" (The Ebb Tide), xxv. 187
+
+  "Random Memories: the Coast of Fife" (_Scribner's_), xxiii. 12, 15;
+    xxiv. 235, 387; xxv. 97, 301
+
+  Rarotonga, xxv. 269
+
+  "Raskolnikoff" (Le Crime et le Châtiment), xxiv. 182
+
+  Rawlinson, Miss, letters to, xxiv. 227; xxv. 274; verses to, xxiv. 227
+
+  Rawlinson, Mrs., xxiv. 227
+
+  Reade, Charles, xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
+
+  "Real Thing" (H. James), xxv. 322
+
+  "Redgauntlet" (Scott), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii., 287 _n._ 1
+
+  Reformation, studies in, xxiii. 159
+
+  "Refugees" (Doyle), xxv. 340
+
+  Reid, Captain Mayne, works of, xxv. 13
+
+  "Reign of Law" (Duke of Argyll), xxiii. 67 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Rembrandt," article on, by Colvin (_Edinburgh Review_), xxiii. 225
+
+  "Reminiscences" (Carlyle), xxiii. 301
+
+  Rémy, Pčre, xxv. 327
+
+  Renaissance story, projected, xxiii. 167, 168
+
+  Renan, Ernest, works, xxv. 304
+
+  Rennie, John, xxiv. 121
+
+  Resignation, xxiv. 62, 76 _et seq._
+
+  "Restoration Dramatists," essay on (Lamb), xxiv. 85
+
+  Retrospective musings, xxv. 437-8
+
+  Revenge, Christian doctrine of, xxiii. 214
+
+  Rhone, the, xxiii. 79
+
+  "Richard Feverel" (Meredith), xxv. 265
+
+  _Richard III._ (Shakespeare), xxiv. 398; xxv. 51
+
+  Richardson, Samuel, novelist, xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
+
+  Richmond, Sir W. B., xxiv. 107; portrait by, xxiv. 202
+
+  _Richmond_, s.s., xxiv. 337, 343
+
+  Richmond, stay at, xxiv. 104
+
+  "Rideau Cramoisi, Le" (d'Aurévilly), xxv. 314, 380
+
+  _Ringarooma_, ship, xxv. 268-9
+
+  "Rising Sun," projected, xxiv. 403
+
+  "Ritter von dem heiligen Geist" (Heine), xxiii. 88 & _n._ 1
+
+  R. L. S. Society, Cincinnati, xxv. 384
+
+  "R. L. Stevenson in Wick" (Margaret H. Roberton), xxiii. 15 _n._ 1
+
+  "Roads," paper on, xxiii. 55, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 67, 76, 77, 117,
+    119, 121, 141, 143, 201; xxv. 397-8
+
+  "Road, the, of Loving Hearts," xxv. 374, 431 _et seq_., 441, 442, 446,
+    459 _et seq._; inscription on, xxv. 441, 446; speech by R. L. S. at
+    opening of, xxv. 441, 446, 462 _et seq._
+
+  Robert, Louis, xxiv. 28
+
+  Roberts, Earl, xxiv. 81
+
+  Robertson, --, xxiii. 117
+
+  Robertson's Sermons, xxiv, 268
+
+  Robinet, --, painter, xxiii. 98, 99
+
+  "Robin Run-the-Hedge," unfinished, xxiv. 402
+
+  "Robinson Crusoe" (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 103
+
+  Rob Roy, xxv. 293
+
+  "Rob Roy" (Scott), xxiv. 91
+
+  "Rocambole" (Ponson du Terrail), xxiii. 254
+
+  Roch, Valentine, xxiv. 110, 238 _et passim_
+
+  "Roderick Hudson" (H. James), xxiv. 262-3, 265
+
+  Rodin, Auguste, sculptor, xxiv. 107, 202; letters to, xxiv. 209, 216
+
+  Rodriguez Albano, xxiii. 244
+
+  "Rois en Exil" (Daudet), xxiii. 346
+
+  "Romance" (Longman's), xxiv. 181
+
+  Roman Law, studies in, xxiii. 126
+
+  Rondeaux, xxiii. 188-9
+
+  "Rosa Quo Locorum," xxv. 33
+
+  "Rose," character of (Meredith), xxiv. 97
+
+  "Rosen, Countess von" (Forest State), xxiii. 266
+
+  Ross, Dr. Fairfax, xxv. 348 & _n._ 1, 350
+
+  Ross family, xxiii. 28
+
+  Ross of Mull, used in "The Merry Men," xxiii. 41
+
+  Rossetti, D. G., xxiv. 239
+
+  Ross, Rev. Alexander and Mrs., xxiii. 27
+
+  Rothschild, Baron, xxiii. 195
+
+  "Rover," verses (Gosse), xxiv. 27
+
+  Rowfant, xxiv. 215
+
+  "Rowfant Rhymes" (Locker-Lampson), xxiv. 205
+
+  Royal Society of Edinburgh, xxiv. 118, 135
+
+  Royat, visits to, actual and projected, xxiv. 39, 98, 99 _et seq._;
+    xxv. 105, 131
+
+  Ruedi, Dr., xxiii. 297
+
+  Rui = Louis, in Samoan pronunciation, xxiv. 307, 310 _et alibi_
+
+  Ruskin, John, xxiii. 117; xxv. 397
+
+  Russel family, xxiii. 21, 22
+
+  Russel, Miss Sara, xxiii. 21, 22
+
+  Russel, Mrs., xxiii. 22
+
+  Russel, Sheriff, xxiii. 21, 22
+
+  Ruysdael, --, painting by, xxiii. 178
+
+
+  Sachsenhausen, xxiii. 43
+
+  Sagas, love of, xxiii. 332; xxiv. 207; xxv. 162, 211
+
+  "St. Agnes' Eve" (Keats), xxiv. 170
+
+  St. Augustine, xxiii. _intro._ xxiv.
+
+  St. Gaudens, Augustus, sculptor, xxiv. 170, 234, 238, 390; xxv. 25;
+    letters to, xxv. 308, 341, 410; medallion portrait by, xxiv. 238-9,
+    250, 255
+
+  St. Gaudens, Homer, letters to, xxiv. 287
+
+  St. Germain, at, xxiii. 305
+
+  "St. Ives," xxv. 281, 347-8, 371, 375, 380 & _n._ 1, 387, 392, 403,
+    405, 414, 430, 450; inception of, xxv. 285-6; parallel to, xxv. 442;
+    scheme for, xxv. 287
+
+  St. John, apostle, and the Revelation (in Renan's book), xxv. 304
+
+  St. Paul, xxv. 304; teaching of, xxiii. 214
+
+  Saintsbury, Professor G., xxiii. 307
+
+  Salvini, T., article on, xxiv. 72
+
+  Samoa and the Samoans for children (letters to Miss Boodle on), xxv.
+    147, 217, 243
+
+  Samoa, climate of, xxv. 250, 278, 333, 348 _n._ 1, 350, 419 contrasted
+    with Europe, xxv. 355 exile in, xxv. 349 letters from, xxv. 9 _et
+    seq._ missionary work, in, interest in, xxv. 10 & _n._ 1; xxv. 33, 56,
+    57 rain in, xxv. 443-4 rivers of, xxv. 132-3 _et seq._ visit to, and
+    settlement in, xxiv. 290 _et seq._ war trouble in, projected work on,
+    xxiv. 370, 379, 380
+
+  Samoan character, xxv. 381, 432 chiefs, road made by, _see_ "Road of
+    Loving Hearts" history, _see_ "Footnote to History" language, xxv. 49;
+    study of, xxv. 181, 203 politics, apologies for dwelling on, xxv. 388,
+    445; interest in. xxv. 4 _et passim_ prisoners (chiefs), _see_ "Road
+    of Loving Hearts"
+
+  _Samoa Times_, xxiv. 392
+
+  "Samuel Pepys," essay (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 281
+
+  Sanchez, Adolpho, xxiii. 240
+
+  Sanchez, Mrs., xxv. 257
+
+  Sand, George, writings of, xxiii. 87
+
+  Sandwich Islands, xxiv. 292, 340
+
+  "San Francisco," xxiii. 342
+
+  San Francisco, stay at, and visits to, xxiii. 229, 230; xxiv. 234,
+    283, 286, 289, 290
+
+  "Sannazzaro," xxiii. 167
+
+  Saône and Rhone, projected journey down and book on, xxiv. 98, 99
+
+  Saranac Lake, at, xxiv. 233-4, 240 _et seq._; xxv. 123 _n._ 1
+
+  Sargent, John S., artist, xxiv. 105, 167; portrait by, xxiv. 117, 155
+
+  _Saturday Review_, xxiii. 58, 69, 77
+
+  Savage Island, at, xxiv. 387
+
+  Savile Club, the, xxiii. 124, 127, 133, 186, 263; xxiv. 187
+
+  Schmidt, Emil, President of Council, Samoa, xxv. 416, 424
+
+  "Schooner Farallone," _see_ "Ebb Tide"
+
+  Schopenhauer, studies in, xxiii. 159
+
+  Schwob, Marcel, letters to, xxiv. 327, 397; xxv. 51, 409
+
+  Sciatica, xxiv. 92
+
+  "Scotch Church and Union" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
+
+  Scotch labourer and politics, xxiii. 61
+
+  Scotch murder trials, books on, asked for, xxv. 271
+
+  Scotch songs, Russian pleasure in, xxiii. 113
+
+  "Scotland and the Union," projected, xxiii. 297
+
+  Scotland, last visit, xxiv. 227
+
+  Scotland, whisky, etc., of, xxiii. 41
+
+  _Scotsman_, xxv. 398
+
+  _Scots Observer_, contribution to, xxv. 174
+
+  "Scots wha hae," air, xxiii. 113
+
+  Scott, Dr., letter to, xxiv. 374
+
+  Scott, Sir Walter (_see also_ Waverley Novels), xxiii. 65 & _n._ 1,
+    111, 130 _n._ 1, 264, 333; xxiv. 75, 76, 84, 91, 382; xxv. 86, 110,
+    154, 164, 167,371; love of action, xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv.; nobility of
+    character, xxiii. _intro._ xxxv.; novels, xxv. 24; novels contrasted
+    with R. L. S.'s, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  Scribner, C., xxiv. 233, 253-4, 390; xxv. 25, 380, 392; letters to,
+    xxiv. 252
+
+  Scribner, Messrs., verse published by, xxiv. 395
+
+  _Scribner's Magazine_, xxiv. 110, 142, 253, 258; contributions, actual
+    and suggested, xxiv. 233, 235, 239, 240, 247, 252, 268, 277, 287, 367,
+    377 _et seq._, 387, 393; xxv. 86, 97, 110, 115, 171 _n._ 1
+
+  "Sea-Cook, The" (_see also_ "Treasure Island"), xxiii. 326-7
+
+  Sedan, xxv. 250, 318
+
+  Seed, Hon. J., xxiii. 179; xxiv. 405
+
+  Seeley, Professor, style of, xxiv. 55-6
+
+  Seeley, Richmond, publisher and editor (_see also_ "Portfolio"),
+    xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 141, 142, 143, 148, 398
+
+  Sellar, Mrs., xxiii. 115
+
+  "Sensations d'Italie" (Bourget), xxv. 127, 130-1
+
+  "Sentimental Journey" (Sterne), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  "Sentimental Tommy" (Barrie), xxv. 419 & _n._ 1
+
+  Seraphina (_see also_ "Prince Otto"), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
+
+  "Service of Man" (Cotter Morison), xxiv. 219-20
+
+  Seumanutafa, Chief, of Apia, xxv. 26, 48-9, 105
+
+  "Seventeenth Century Studies" (Gosse), xxiv. 45
+
+  Sewall, Mr., American Consul at Samoa, xxv. 4, 29, 58, 65-6
+
+  "Shadow, The, on the Bed" (Mrs. R. L. S.), xxiii. 308, 316, 321
+
+  Shairp, Professor, xxiii. 191, 263
+
+  Shaltigoe, wreck at, xxiii. 22
+
+  Shannon, W. J., xxiii. 332-3
+
+  Shaw, Bernard, appreciation of, xxiv. 270-1
+
+  Shelley, Lady, xxiv. 105, 149, 177, 179, 211; xxv. 131
+
+  "Shelley Papers" (Dowden), xxiv. 211, 212
+
+  Shelley, P. B., xxiv. 177-8, 212; 372, 373-4; and Keats, xxiv. 211
+
+  Shelley, Sir P. B., xxiv. 177-8, 211, 373; xxv. 458
+
+  "Sherlock Holmes" (Doyle), xxv. 299
+
+  Shetland, visited, xxiii. 10, 24
+
+  "Shovels of Newton French," projected, xxv. 5, 55-6, 82-3, 172
+
+  Sick child, episode of, xxiii. 230, 269
+
+  "Sign of the ship" causerie (Lang), xxiv. 278, 388
+
+  "Sigurd" (W. Morris), xxiii. 334; xxv. 162
+
+  Silverado, life at, xxiii. 278
+
+  "Silverado Squatters," xxiii. 230, 279, 283, 352, 355; xxiv. 5, 26,
+    27, 30 & _n._ 1, 34, 56, 66, 67, 73, 92; xxv. 423; serial issue of,
+    xxiv. 55
+
+  "Silver Ship," _see_ "Casco"
+
+  Simoneau, Jules, xxiii. 239, 240, 244; xxiv. 423; letters to, xxiv.
+    36, 41
+
+  Simoneau, Mrs., xxiv. 42
+
+  "Simon Fraser" (Catriona), xxv. 351 & _n._ 1
+
+  Simpson, Sir Walter, xxiii. 36,43, 46, 49, 69, 89, 124, 159, 174, 182,
+    187, 259, 341, 353; xxiv. 47; letter to, xxiv. 117, 229, 242; yachting
+    trip with, xxiii. 124, 139, 140
+
+  Simson, Dr., xxiv. 91
+
+  Sinclair, Miss Amy, xxiii. 24, 27-8
+
+  Sinclair, Sir Tollemache, xxiii. 27
+
+  Sinico, --, singer, xxiii. 166
+
+  "Sire de Malétroit's Door," xiii. 184, 206, 207, 211, 248
+
+  Siron, aubergiste, Barbizon, xxiii. 187
+
+  Sitwell, Mrs. (_see also_ Colvin, Lady), xxiii. 54, 300; xxiv. 335;
+    xxv. 85; letter to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, xxiv. 331; letters to,
+    from R. L. S., xxiii. 57, 58, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 74, 77, 83, 86, 91,
+    93, 101, 103, 104, 110, 115, 121, 125, 127, 131, 133, 137, 139, 140,
+    144, 148, 149, 151, 153, 155, 156, 158, 161, 164, 166, 168, 171, 174,
+    175, 177, 180 _bis_, 181, 187, 189, 197, 198, 200, 203, 205, 207, 323;
+    xxiv. 24; xxv. 393
+
+  Skelt, xxiv. 57, 93
+
+  Skene, William Forbes, xxv. 434-5
+
+  Skerryvore, article on (Archer), xxiv. 305
+
+  "Skerryvore" (house), xxiv. 105, 109, 141, 196, 252; xxv. 31 _n._ 2,
+    75
+
+  Skinner, Mr., xxv. 413
+
+  Slade School, xxiv. 39
+
+  "Sleeper Awakened," xxv. 314 & _n._ 1
+
+  Smeoroch, Skye terrier, xxiv. 77 & _n._ 1; xxv. 429
+
+  Smiles, Samuel, xxiv. 121
+
+  Smith, Adam, xxiii. 72
+
+  Smith, Captain, xxiii. 235
+
+  Smith, Rev. George, xxiii. 4; xxiv. 265 _n._ 1
+
+  Soalu, Chief, xxv. 460
+
+  Society for Psychical Research, Journals of, xxv. 299
+
+  "Soldiers Three" (Kipling), xxv. 46
+
+  "Solemn Music" (Milton), xxiii. 294
+
+  "Solomon Crabb," xxiii. 343-4
+
+  "Solution, The" (Lesson of the Master, H. James), xxiv. 382
+
+  "Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle" (Wordsworth), xxiii. 315 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Song of To-morrow," xxiii. 141
+
+  "Songs of Scotland without words, for the Pianoforte" (Surrenne),
+    xxiii. 113
+
+  "Songs of Travel," xxiv. 190, 239, 337, 362, 375, 378, 395; xxv. 349 &
+    _n._ 1
+
+  "Sonnet to England" (Martin), xxiii. 210
+
+  "Sophia Scarlett," proposed, xxv. 144, 152-3, 172, 187, 281
+
+  Sophocles, translation (Campbell), xxiv. 113
+
+  Sorrow, discipline of, xxiv. 163
+
+  Soudan affairs, xxiv. 107
+
+  Southey, R., xxiii. 302
+
+  "South Sea Ballads," xxiv. 298-9, 317, 321, 380, 395, 399
+
+  "South Sea Bubble" (Earl of Pembroke), xxv. 153 _n._ 1; on Kava, xxv.
+    183 _n._ 1; on Samoan streams, xxiv. 133 _n._ 1
+
+  "South Sea Idylls" (Stoddard), xxiv. 180
+
+  South Sea Islands, call of, xxiii. 180, 205
+
+  "South Sea Letters," published first as "The South Seas," later as "In
+    the South Seas," _q.v._; selection from, projected, xxv. 423
+
+  South Seas, cruises in, xxiv. 233 _et seq._, 286 _et seq._
+
+  "South Sea Yarns" (with Lloyd Osbourne), projected, xxiv. 361, 367,
+    379; xxv. 397
+
+  Spain, xxiii. 119
+
+  _Spectator_, xxiii. 239, 264; xxv. 58
+
+  "Spectator" (Addison's), style of, xxiii. 252
+
+  Speculative Society, Edinburgh University, xxiii. 35, 64, 184, 312;
+    xxiv. 178
+
+  Speed, --, xxv. 210
+
+  Spencer, --, xxv. 74-5
+
+  Spencer, Herbert, xxiii. 169
+
+  _Sperber_, German warship, xxv. 29
+
+  Speyside, in, xxiii. 284
+
+  "Spring Sorrow" (Henley), xxiii. 186
+
+  "Spring time," xxiii. 191, 193, 196, 197, 202
+
+  "Squaw Men," projected, xxiii. 329
+
+  "Squire" (Story of a Lie), xxiii. 249
+
+  "Squire Trelawney" (Treasure Island), xxiii. 326-7
+
+  Stansfield, --, xxv. 269
+
+  "Stepfather's Story," projected, xxiii. 207
+
+  Stephen, Leslie, xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 174, 184, 205, 206, 207, 241,
+    256, 257, 264, 267, 302, 311; xxiv. 47; letter from with appreciation
+    of "Victor Hugo," xxiii. 129 _et seq._ & _n._ 1; introduction by, of
+    R. L. S. and Henley, xxiii. 172; on "Forest Notes," xxiii. 201, 202;
+    testimonial from, xxiii. 316
+
+  Stephenson, --, xxiii. 25
+
+  Sterne, Laurence, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  Stevenson, Alan, xxv. 335, 401, 436
+
+  Stevenson family, inquiries concerning, xxv. 293, 335, 342, 357, 399,
+    435-7
+
+  Stevenson, Hugh, xxv. 335
+
+  Stevenson, James, xxv. 334
+
+  Stevenson, James S., letter to, xxv. 334, 342
+
+  Stevenson, J. Horne, xxv. 293, 345, 435; letter to, xxv. 357
+
+  Stevenson, John, xxv. 358
+
+  Stevenson, Katharine (_see also_ de Mattos), xxiii. 138
+
+  Stevenson, Macgregor, xxv. 293
+
+  Stevenson, Mrs. Alan, xxv. 110, 436
+
+  Stevenson, Mrs. R. L., xxiv. 234, 247-8, 251, 256, 258-9, 275, 282,
+    291-2, 323, 330-1, 341-2, 390; xxv. 29, 30, 31, 38, 249-50, 371, 377;
+    character, xxiii. 279-80; first meeting, xxiii. 183, 228; marriage,
+    xxiii. 228 _et seq._, 260, 262, 268, 270, 272, 274; xxiv. 105;
+    collaboration with R. L. S., xxiii. 282; letter to, on avoiding the
+    infliction of pain in literary work, xxiii. _intro._ xxvi.; story by
+    (_see_ "Shadow on the Bed"); ill health and illness of, xxiii. 280,
+    283-4, 320-1,355; xxv. 146, 280, 297 _et seq._, 320-1 _et alibi_;
+    letter to, xxiv. 349; letters from, to S. Colvin, xxiv. 309, 347, to
+    Mrs. Sitwell, xxiv. 331, to J. A. Symonds, xxiv. 11
+
+  Stevenson, Mrs. Thomas (_née_ Balfour), xxiii. 4, 6, 148; xxiv. 39,
+    147, 199, 216, 220, 234, 248, 251, 258, 276, 280, 290, 291, 309, 310,
+    314, 323, 331, 336, 341, 343, 366, 375, 405; xxv. 3, 31, 50, 53, 193
+    _et seq._, 259, 282, 403, 406, 416; letters to, xxiii. 14, 15, 17, 19,
+    21, 24, 36, 38, 39, 44, 56, 81, 94, 96, 97, 99, 107, 112, 116, 117,
+    118, 120, 187, 215, 216, 218, 298, 337, 354; xxiv. 9, 21, 66, 76, 202,
+    383; settled in Samoa, xxv. 76, 78
+
+  Stevenson, Mrs. Thomas, and Thomas Stevenson, letters to (jointly),
+    _see_ Stevenson, Thomas, _infra_
+
+  Stevenson, name, query on to Sir H. Maxwell, xxv. 440
+
+  Stevenson, Robert, xxiii. 4, 13, 160, 200; xxiv. 359; xxv. 87, 95, 98,
+    120, 310, 315, 401, and _see_ "Family of Engineers"
+
+  Stevenson, Robert (the first), xxv. 335
+
+  Stevenson, Robert Alan Mowbray (Bob), xxiii. 49, 57, 58, 83, 103,
+    105, 109, 110, 124, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 149, 174, 183, 187, 239,
+    308, 341; xxiv. 3, 69, 89, 124, 167, 196, 328 & _n._ 1; letters to,
+    xxiii. 356; xxiv. 8, 59, 196, 198, 240, 323; xxv. 398, 401, 434
+
+  Stevenson, Robert Louis Balfour ("R. L. S."), ancestry, xxiii. 4, 5;
+    appearance, xxiii. _intro._ xxxviii.; appreciation of, by Lysaght,
+    xxv. 415 _n._ 1; appreciation of his own literary skill, xxv. 443;
+    characteristics and habitudes, xxiii. _intro._ xxii., xxvi. _et seq._,
+    8-12, 186; xxiv. 296; xxv. 33, 415, _n._ 1; charm, xxiii. _intro._
+    xxiii., xxvi., xxvii.-ix., xxxi., 55; xxv. 415; conversation, xxiii.
+    _intro._ xxxi., 9. 123; help derived from writings of, xxii., _intro._
+    xxix., 253-4; interest in missionary work, xxv. 10 & _n._ 1, 33, 56,
+    57; interest in music, xxiv. 188-9, 196 _et seq._, 285, 302; xxv. 85,
+    92, 125, 185; literary style and methods, xxiii. _intro._ xix. _et
+    seq._; xxv. 173; political views, xxiv. 107-8; portraits, busts,
+    photographs of, xxiv. 117, 154, 170, 177, 199, 202, 238-9, 250, 255;
+    xxv. 309, 310, 341, 353 & _n._ 1; relations with his father, xxiv. 5,
+    6 _et alibi_; religious views, xxiii. _intro._ xxxii., 11, 12, 53-4,
+    67
+
+   Life, 1850-57, Birth and Early delicacy, xxiii. 5
+
+    1858-67, Education and home life and early travels, xxiii. 6-8
+
+    1868-70, Engineering studies, xxiii. 10
+
+    1871-4, Law studies, religious differences with parents, xxiii.
+      10-12
+
+    1874-5 (May to June), Law studies, home life, experimental
+      literature, travels, home and foreign, and friendships, xxiii. 123-4
+
+    1875-79 (July to July), Bar studies concluded, travels in France and
+      Germany, life at the bar abandoned for literature; Fontainebleau
+      again, xxiii. 182-3; early journalistic and other writing, xxiii.
+      184-5
+
+    1879-1880 (July to July), Californian visit, hardships, illness,
+      marriage, xxiii. 228-30
+
+    1880, Aug.-1882, Oct., Home from California, xxiii. 279; summers in
+      Scotland, xxiii. 279-80; winters at Davos, and literary work, xxiii.
+      280, 283
+
+    1882, Oct.-1884, Aug., The Riviera again, Montpellier and
+      Marseilles, Nice, xxiv. 5; Hyčres home life, happier relations with
+      parents, illness and literary work, letters, xxiv. 3-5
+
+    1874, Sept.-1887, Aug., Bournemouth homes--"Skerryvore," invalid
+      life, friendships, and literary work, xxiv. 104-9; visit to Paris,
+      schemes for life in Ireland, xxiv. 108; death of his father, and
+      departure for Colorado, xxiv. 110
+
+    1887, Aug.-1888, June, Voyage to New York and reception there,
+      friends new and old, stay in the Adirondacks, journey to San
+      Francisco, xxiv. 233-4
+
+    1888, June-1890, Oct., Voyages in the Pacific, xxiv. 290-3;
+      settlement at Vailima, xxiv. 291-2; controversy about Father Damien,
+      xxiv. 292
+
+    1890, Nov.-1891, Dec., First year at Vailima, Samoan politics,
+      letters on, to _The Times_--building of the first Vailima house,
+      xxv. 3-8
+
+    1892, Jan. to Dec., Life at Vailima, second year, visitors,
+      enlargement of the house, Samoan politics, threatened deportation,
+      xxv. 144-6
+
+    1893, Jan. to Dec., Life at Vailima, third year, the addition to the
+      house completed, Samoan politics, proclamation aimed at him, illness
+      of Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, trips to Sydney, to Honolulu, to New
+      Zealand, outbreak of war, financial anxieties, signs of
+      life-weariness, xxv. 280-2
+
+    1894, Jan. to Dec., fourth year at Vailima, illness and recovery,
+      loss of literary facility, financial position, visitors, xxv. 373-5;
+      the making of the Road of Gratitude, xxv. 374, 432 _et seq._, 441,
+      446; speech and feast to the chiefs, xxv. 441, 446, 462 _et seq._;
+      sudden death and burial, xxv. 8, 10 _n._ 1, 375; account of, by
+      Lloyd Osbourne, xxv. 457 _et seq._; epitaph, xxiii. 268; xxv. 375
+
+  Stevenson, Thomas, xxii. 4, 5, 11, 12, 20, 24, 146, 148, 180, 260, 261
+    & _n._ 1, 279, 285, 298, 328, 347, 353; xxiv. 5, 6, 39, 58, 105, 107,
+    108, 118, 119, 135, 138, 147, 161, 187, 188, 189, 196, 199, 210, 216,
+    220, 234, 276, 280, 365, 405; xxv. 335, 382, 401; affection for Mrs.
+    R. L. S., xxiii. 279; gift to her of a Bournemouth house, xxiv. 105;
+    biographical essay on, xxiii. 21; letters to, xxiii. 13, 42, 111, 113,
+    213, 290, 330; xxiv. 9, 22, 62, 74, 90, 118, 119, 137, 159, 179, 190,
+    201; Memories of, xxv. 413; misunderstandings with, xxiii. _intro._
+    xvii., 11, 12, 55, 67; religious views, xxiii. 11, 12, 52, 67; death,
+    xxiii. 5; xxiv. 109, 227
+
+   and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson, joint letters to, xxiii. 215, 296, 305;
+    xxiv. 27, 75, 76, 78, 100, 110, 130, 168, 199
+
+  "Stewart, Alan Breck," xxv. 46-8
+
+  Stewart, James (_see_ Appin murder)
+
+  Stewart, Miss (Bathgate), xxiii. 227
+
+  Stewart, Sir Herbert, xxiv. 81
+
+  Stewart's plantation, Tahiti, xxv. 153 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Stickit Minister" (Crockett), dedication of, xxv. 349 & _n._ 1
+
+  Stobo Manse, at, xxiii. 284, 357
+
+  Stockton, F. R., verse to, xxiv. 125
+
+  Stoddard, Charles Warren, xxv. 267; letters to, xxiii. 275, 294; xxiv,
+    180
+
+  "Stories and Interludes" (Barry Pain), xxv. 215
+
+  "Stories," or "A Story Book," projected, xxiii. 249
+
+  Storm, ideas on, xxiii. 150
+
+  "Story of a Lie," xxiii. 12, 229, 230, 235, 237, 247, 249; xxiv. 90
+
+  "Strange Adventures of Mr. Nehemiah Solny," projected, xxiii. 170
+
+  "Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.;
+    xxiv. 106, 169, 171, 182, 233, 253, 398; xxv. 289; publication, xxiv.
+    166; dedication, xxiv. 167; criticisms, xxiv. 184
+
+  Strathpeffer, at, xxiii. 280, 284, 285
+
+  Streams, Samoan, peculiarities of, xxv. 36
+
+  Strong, Austin, xxiv. 151, 341; xxv. 92, 117, 249 & _n._ 1, 269 & _n._
+    1, 389, 403, 446
+
+  Strong, Mrs., xxiv. 325 & _n._ 1, 341; xxv. _passim_; letter to,
+    xxiii. 286
+
+  Stuebel, Dr., German Consul, xxv. 35, 41 & _n._ 1, 141
+
+  Sturgis, Mrs., xxv. 391
+
+  "Subpriorsford," nickname for Vailima, xxv. 165, 170
+
+  "Such is Life," poem (Martin), xxiii. 209
+
+  Sudbury, Suffolk, at, xxiii. 56
+
+  Suffering, value of, xxiii. 251
+
+  Suffolk, peasantry, xxiii. 61
+
+  "Suicide Club," xxiii. _intro._ xx., 356
+
+  Sullivan, Russell, xxv. 25
+
+  Sunrise, tonic of, xxv. 401
+
+  Sutherland, Mr., xxiii. 15
+
+  Sutherland, Mrs., xxiii. 22
+
+  Swan, Professor, xxiii. 193; xxiv. 143; xxv. 315
+
+  Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, xxiii. 8, 123, 126 _et seq._, 312
+
+  "Sweet Girl Graduate, A," and other poems (Martin), xxiii. 208-9
+
+  Swift, Dr. and Mrs., of Molokai, xxiv. 351-2
+
+  Swinburne, A. C., poems, xxv. 390
+
+  Sydney, N.S.W., visits to, and illnesses at, xxiv. 292-3, 325, 375,
+    382 _et seq._, 394; xxv. 4, 38, _n._ 1, 53 _et seq._, 61, 77, 81, 208,
+    288-9, 296
+
+  Symonds, J. A., xxiii. 281, 304, 311, 317, 334, 341, 351, 361; xxiv.
+    142; dedication of book by, xxv. 454; epithet of, for R. L. S., xxiii.
+    _intro._ xxvi.; letter to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, xxiv. 11;
+    letters to, xxiv. 182, 254, 304; on Southey, xxiii. 302; death of,
+    xxv. 317 & _n._ 1
+
+
+  "Table Talk" (Hazlitt), xxiv. 130
+
+  Tacitus, xxiv. 83
+
+  Tahiti, xxiv. 291, 371
+
+  Tahitian Islands, xxiv. 293; stay in, xxiv. 291, 296 _et seq._
+
+  Tait, Professor, xxiv. 118
+
+  "Tales and Fantasies," xxv. 397.
+
+  "Tales for Winter Nights," projected title, xxiii. 316, 318
+
+  "Tales of a Grandfather" (Scott), xxv. 117
+
+  "Tales of my Grandfather" (_see also_ "Family of Engineers"), xxv. 110
+
+  "Talk and Talkers" (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 283, 341, 349; xxiv. 138
+
+  Tamasese, xxiv. 371; xxv. 67, 351
+
+  Tamate, _see_ Chalmers
+
+  Tati, high chief of the Tevas, xxiv. 317
+
+  Tauchnitz, Baron, and "Footnote," xxv. 346
+
+  Tautira, at, xxiv. 291, 302 _et seq._, 317
+
+  Taylor, Ida and Una, xxiv. 105, 372, 374
+
+  Taylor, Lady, xxiv. 105, 180; xxv. 203; death of, xxv. 254; letters
+    to, xxiv. 211, 212, 286, 357, 372
+
+  Taylor, Miss, xxv. 364; letter to, xxv. 254
+
+  Taylor, Sir Henry, xxiv. 145, 180
+
+  Tembinoka, King of Apemama, xxiv. 358-9, 368, 400; verses to, xxiv.
+    378, 380
+
+  _Temple Bar_, contributions to, xxiii. 184, 206, 207, 211
+
+  Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (_see also_ "Becket"), xxiv. 205
+
+  "Tentation de St. Antoine" (Flaubert), xxiii. 150
+
+  Teriitera, Samoan name of R. L. S., xxiv. 308, 310, 317, 321
+
+  "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" (Hardy), xxv. 266 _n._ 1, 296
+
+  Thackeray, W. M., xxv. 154
+
+  "Theatrical World" (Archer), xxv. 384
+
+  "Thérčse Raquin" (Zola), xxiv. 57
+
+  "The Tempest" (Shakespeare), xxiv. 96
+
+  "Thomas Haggard" (Window in Thrums), xxv. 276
+
+  Thomson, Maggie, xxiii. 25
+
+  Thomson, Mr., xxiii. 8
+
+  "Thomson," pseudonym, letters in character of and as to, xxiv. 14,
+    121, 122
+
+  Thoreau, Henry David, essay on (Familiar Studies), xxiii. 226, 229,
+    252, 255, 262, 263, 265, 273; xxiv. 149, 158; criticisms on, xxiii.
+    322
+
+  "Thoughts on Literature as an Art," xxiii. 266
+
+  "Thrawn Janet" (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 282, 308, 316, 321; xxiv. 90; xxv.
+    295
+
+  "Tibby Birse" (Window in Thrums), xxv. 276, 362 _n._ 1
+
+  Time, Archer's criticisms in, xxiv. 156, 159, 160, 161
+
+  "Time" (Milton), xxiii. 294
+
+  _Times, The_, letters to, on Samoan affairs, xxv. 7, 94, 98, 119, 137,
+    145, 212, 376, 386, 387
+
+  Todd, John, xxiv. 221
+
+  Todd, Mrs., xxiv. 221
+
+  "Tod Lapraik" (Catriona), xxv. 294-5
+
+  "Tommy Haddon" (Wrecker), xxv. 268 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Toothache, The" (Burns), xxiv. 256
+
+  "Torn Surplice, The," suggested title, xxiii. 321
+
+  Torquay, at, xxiv. 109
+
+  Torrence, Rev. ----, xxiii. 181
+
+  "Touchstone, The," xxiii. 141
+
+  Tourgenieff, ----, xxiii. 222
+
+  "Tourgue, la" ("Quatre-vingt Treize," Hugo), xxiii. 130
+
+  Trades Unions, xxiii. 97
+
+  "Tragedies of the Wilderness" (Drake), xxiv. 270
+
+  "Tragic Comedians" (Meredith), xxiii. 224
+
+  "Tragic Muse, The" (H. James), xxiv. 397; xxv. 44, 130-1
+
+  "Transformation of the Scottish Highlands," projected, xxiii. 297
+
+  Traquair, Willie, xxiii. 20, xxiv. 70
+
+  "Travailleurs de la Mer" (Hugo), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
+
+  Travel-books, cheap edition projected, xxiii. 294
+
+  "Travelling Companion, The," projected, xxiii. 321; xxiv. 68, 149
+
+  "Travels and Excursions," Vols. II. and III. discussed, xxv. 423
+
+  "Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes," xxiii. 183, 184, 185, 216,
+    217, 219, 225, 229, 248, 250, 257
+
+  "Treasure Island," xxiii. _intro._ xxxv., 282, 283, 326, 334, 352,
+    355; xxiv. 31, 93, 101, 112, 179, 233; xxv. 76, 124, 289, 429;
+    publication as serial, xxiii. 328; in book form, xxiv. 6, 27, 35, 67;
+    criticisms, xxiv. 66; genesis of, xxiv. 101; illustrated edition,
+    xxiv. 159; paper on, xxv. 376
+
+  "Treasure of Franchard," xxiv. 4, 398; xxv. 153
+
+  "Trial of Joan of Arc," xxiii. 203
+
+  "Trials of the Sons of Rob Roy, with Anecdotes," xxiii. 332
+
+  "Tricoche et Cacolet," xxiii. 219
+
+  "Tristram Shandy" (Sterne), xxiii. 118
+
+  Trollope, Anthony, novels of, xxiii. 215
+
+  "Trophées, Les" (Hérédia), xxv. 331 & _n._ 1
+
+  Trudeau, Dr., xxiv. 234
+
+  Tulloch, Principal, xxiii. 280, 290, 297, 316; xxv. 97, 123
+
+  Tupper, Martin, xxiii. 348
+
+  "Tushery," xxiv. 6, 31, 32
+
+  Tusitala, xxv. 196 _et aliter_
+
+  Tutuila, visited, xxv. 4, 8, 58, 65
+
+  "Twa Dogs" (Burns), xxiii. 225
+
+  Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens), xxiii. 276
+
+  _Twelfth Night_ (Shakespeare) at the Jenkins', xxiii. 175, 176, 178
+
+  "Two Falconers, The, of Cairnstane," xxiii. 170
+
+  "Two St. Michael's Mounts," essay, projected, xxiii. 207
+
+  "Two Years before the Mast" (Dana), xxiv. 297
+
+  "Typee" (Melville), xxiv. 348
+
+
+  Ulufanua, island, xxv. 97
+
+  "Underwoods," collected verses, xxiii. 222, 271, 281, 296, 300; xxiv.
+    36, 89, 107, 170, 173 _n._ 1, 189-90, 214, 215, 229-30, 231, 395; xxv.
+    376, 398; dedication of, xxiv. 374; review by Gosse, xxiv. 244;
+    success of, xxiv. 239, 255-6
+
+  United States, the, and Samoa, xxv. 6 _et seq._
+
+  Upolu and Savaii, xxv. 8
+
+
+  Vacquerie, ----, xxiii. 307
+
+  Vaea, Mount, xxv. 9, 135, 388; burial-place, xxv. 10 _n._ 1, 460
+
+  Vaea river, xxv. 132 _et seq._
+
+  Vailima, home at, xxiv. 291; purchase of, xxiv. 292, 372-3, 374, 377,
+    390; life at, xxv. 3 _et seq._, 148-51, 156 _et seq._, 280 _et seq._;
+    visitors to, xxv. 228; expenses, xxv. 282; household staff, xxv.
+    356-7; joy of colour at, xxv. 378; new house, xxv. 145-6, 251, 269,
+    271, 278-9, 284, 287; decorations for, xxv. 308-9; feeling about, xxv.
+    349
+
+  "Vailima Letters," xxiii. _intro._ xviii., xxix.; xxv. 5
+
+  _Vanity Fair_, magazine, contributions to, xxiii. 184, 198, 199
+
+  "Vanity Fair" (Thackeray), xxv. 154
+
+  Vedder, Elihu, illustrator of "Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám," xxiv. 116
+
+  "Velasquez" (R. A. M. Stevenson), xxiii. 57
+
+  "Vendetta, in the West," unfinished, xxiii. 229, 238-9, 241, 244, 255,
+    256, 259, 266
+
+  Verses, Miscellaneous and Impromptu--
+
+    "Adela, Adela, Adela Chart," xxv. 109
+
+    "Bells upon the City are ringing in the night," xxiv. 167
+
+    "Blame me not that this Epistle," letter in verse to Baxter, xxiii.
+      46
+
+    "Brave lads in olden musical centuries," xxiii. 304
+
+    "Dear Henley, with a pig's snout on," xxiii. 330
+
+    "Do you remember--can we e'er forget?--," xxiv. 376
+
+    "Far have you come, my lady, from the town," rondel, xxiii. 188
+
+    "Feast of Famine" (Ballads, 1890), xxiv. 298-9, 321, 330, 395
+
+    "Figure me to yourself, I pray," xxiii. 287
+
+    "He may have been this and that," xxiv. 190
+
+    "Here's breid an' wine an' kebbuck," xxiii. 257
+
+    "Home no more home to me, where must I wander?" (Songs of Travel),
+      xxiv. 303
+
+    "I heard the pulse of the besieging sea" (to Colvin), xxiv. 366;
+      xxv. 23 & _n._ 1
+
+    "In the beloved hour that ushers day" (Songs of Travel), xxiv. 240
+
+    "I was a barren tree before," xxv. 366
+
+    "I would shoot you, but I have no bow," xxiii. 360
+
+    "Let us who part like brothers part like bards" (Songs of Travel),
+      xxiv. 378, 380
+
+    "My Stockton if I failed to like," xxiv. 125
+
+    "Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green," xxiii. 193
+
+    "Nor you, O Penny Whistler, grudge," xxiv. 20
+
+    "Not roses to the rose, I trow," xxiv. 205
+
+    "Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert," xxiii. 271
+
+    "Nous n'irons plus au bois," rondel, xxiii. 188-9
+
+    "Of the many flowers you brought me" (to Miss Rawlinson), xxiv. 227
+
+    "Of where or how, I nothing know," xxiii. 232
+
+    "O Henley, in my hours of ease," xxiii. 222
+
+    "O, how my spirit languishes," xxiv. 299
+
+    "O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz," xxv. 278
+
+    "Priests' Drought, The," ballad, xxiv. 321
+
+    "Song of Rahero," ballad, xxiv. 317, 321, 330, 395; xxv. 58
+
+    "Tandem Desino," xxiv. 79 _et seq._ "The pleasant river gushes,"
+      xxiv. 32
+
+    "There was racing and chasing in Vailima plantation," xxv. 422
+
+    "Though I've often been touched with the volatile dart," xxv. 109
+
+    "Ticonderoga," ballad, xxiv. 321, 395
+
+    "To Felix," xxiv. 189, 190 "We're quarrelling, the villages," xxv. 50
+
+    "When from her land to mine she goes" (Songs of Travel), xxiv. 345
+
+    "Woodman, The" _(New Review)_, xxv. 18 & _n._ 1, 20
+
+    "Youth now flees on feathered foot," xxiv. 172, 181
+
+  "Vicar of Wakefield," xxv. 14 _n._ 1
+
+  "Vicomte de Bragelonne" (Dumas), xxiv. 398; xxv. 51
+
+  Victor Hugo's romances, essay on, xxiii. 56, 124-5, 126, 127, 135
+
+  Victoria, Queen, xxiii. 323
+
+  Villiers, Lady Margaret, xxv. 228, 236
+
+  "Viol and Flute" (Gosse), xxiv. 98
+
+  "Virginibus Puerisque," xxiii. 184, 185, 203, 204, 208, 212, 284, 294;
+    xxv. 301 _n._ 1; publication, xxiii. 281; new edition, xxiv. 195, 216;
+    reprint, xxiv. 230
+
+  Vitrolles, Baron de, xxv. 288 _n._ 1, 321
+
+  Viviani, Emillia, xxiv. 212
+
+  Vogelweide, Walther von der (Studies in the Literature of Modern
+    Europe), Gosse's introduction to, xxiii. 221
+
+  "Volsungs" (Morris), xxiii. 334
+
+  Voltaire, xxiii. 297; on OEdipus, xxiv. 114
+
+  _Vossische Zeitung_, xxv. 263
+
+
+  Wachtmeister, Count, xxv. 96
+
+  "Waif Woman, The," xxv. 272 & _n._ 1
+
+  Walker, Patrick, xxiv. 91
+
+  "Walking Tours," xxiii. 202
+
+  _Wallaroo_, H.M.S., officers, xxv. 452
+
+  Walter, the Skye terrier, and his sobriquets, xxiii. 280, 281, 318;
+    xxv. 41 & _n._ 2, _et alibi_
+
+  "Wandering Willie," air, xxiii. 113
+
+  "Wandering Willie's Tale" (Redgauntlet), xxiii. 287
+
+  "Washington" (Irving), xxv. 30
+
+  Watts-Dunton, T., letter to, xxiv. 203
+
+  Waverley Novels (Scott), xxiv. 75, 76, 84, 91; xxv. 228
+
+  "Waverley" (Scott), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.; xxiv. 91
+
+  "Way of the World" (Trollope), xxiii. 215
+
+  Weather and the old woman, xxiii. 175
+
+  Webster, essay on (Gosse), xxiv. 45
+
+  Week, The, xxiv. 45
+
+  "Wegg, Silas," (Our Mutual Friend), xxiii. 226
+
+  "Weg," nickname for Gosse, xxiii. 224, 226, 227
+
+  "Weir of Hermiston," unfinished, xxiii. _intro._ xx., 12; xxv. 144,
+    170, 264-5, 274, 281, 284, 287, 293, 306-7, 338, 350, 375, 383, 392,
+    403, 453, 456-7; scheme for, xxv. 258, 260-1, 270-1
+
+  Wellington, Duke of (_see also_ "Life" of), xxiv. 34 _n._ 1;
+    Tennyson's "Ode" on, xxiii. 293
+
+  Went, George, xxv. 23 & _n._ 1, 100
+
+  "Werther" (Goethe's "Sorrows of Werther"), xxiii. 60
+
+  Western Islands, trip among, xxiii. 124
+
+  West Highlands, visit to, xxiii. 183
+
+  "What was on the Slate," xxiii. 222, 267
+
+  "When the Devil was well," xxiii. 167, 168, 186
+
+  "Where" and "Whereas," use discussed, xxv. 163
+
+  "White Company" (Doyle), xxv. 336
+
+  Whitman, Walt, essays on, xxiii. 55, 70, 72, 86, 89, 103, 104, 139,
+    140; works of, xxiii. 70, 72, 357-8; xxiv. 183
+
+  Whitmee, Rev. S. J., missionary xxv. 174, 180, 202, 203; letter to,
+    xxv. 174
+
+  Wick, at, xxiii. 12, 15
+
+  "Widdicombe Fair," song, xxv. 391
+
+  Wiesbaden, visit to, xxiii. 182
+
+  "Wild Man of the Woods," xxiii. 249
+
+  "Will o' the Mill," xxiii. 184, 207, 248, 268
+
+  Williams, Dr., of Nice, xxiv. 59
+
+  Williams, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 353
+
+  "William Wilson" (Poe), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  "Wiltshire" (Beach of Falesá), xxv. 187
+
+  "Window in Thrums" (Barrie), xxv. 276, 362 & _n._ 1
+
+  Winslow Reef, xxiv. 362
+
+  "Winter and New Year" (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
+
+  "Winter's Walk, The," unfinished, xxiii. 201, 202
+
+  Wise, ----, xxv. 55
+
+  "Witch of Prague" (Crawford), xxv. 275
+
+  "Wogg" (_see_ Walter), other names for, xxiii. 280-1, 318
+
+  Wolseley, Viscount, xxiv. 81
+
+  "Woman killed with Kindness" (Heywood), xxiii. 354
+
+  Women characters, dissatisfaction with, xxiv. 398
+
+  Women, thoughts on (_see also_ Elgin marbles), xxiii. 162-4, 358
+
+  Wood, Sir Evelyn, xxiv. 81
+
+  "Wrecker" (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiii. 12, 275; xxiv. 362, 367-8,
+    379, 380, 389, 396, 399, 402; xxv. 5, 11, 24, 33, 84, 87, 108, 110,
+    115, 128, 138,141, 152, 171, 210, 215, 221, 224, 274, 376, 378;
+    finished, xxv. 111-2 & _n._ 1, 113, 115, 120, 122; comments, xxv. 146;
+    discussed, xxv. 437 & _n._ 1; publication of, xxv. 87, 144; success
+    of, xxv. 238, 258, 357
+
+  Wreck of the _Susannah_, xxiii. 308
+
+  "Wrong Box, The," or "The Finsbury Tontine," or "The Game of Bluff"
+    (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 235, 249-50, 256, 258, 282, 291, 320,
+    322, 328, 360, 370
+
+  Wurmbrand, Captain Count, xxv. 354, 369, 370, 383, 415
+
+  Wyatt, Mr., xxiii. 6
+
+
+  Yeats, W. B., letter to, xxv. 390
+
+  "Yellow Paint," xxiii. 141
+
+  Yelverton, ----, xxiii. 275
+
+  "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum" (Treasure Island), xxiii. 326
+
+  Yoshida Torajiro, essay on (Familiar Studies), xxiii. 229, 262, 264,
+    265
+
+  "Young Chevalier," unfinished, xxv. 144, 171 _n._ 1, 187-8, 189, 192,
+    216-7, 264, 281, 305; characters in, xxv. 190-1
+
+  _Young Folks_, contributions to, xxiii. 328, 329, 332, 339; xxiv. 31,
+    55, 148
+
+  _Yule-Tide_, contribution to, xxv. 57
+
+
+  Zassetsky, Madame, xxiii. 97, 99, 102, 105, 108, 110, 113, 114, 115,
+    118, 122
+
+  Zassetsky, Nelitchka, xxiii. 98, 102, 104, 107, 108, 112, 114, 115,
+    116
+
+  Zola, Emile, xxiii. 346-7; xxiv. 396; xxv. 250 _n._ 1, 318, 319, 379
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO VOLUMES I-XXII
+
+[_For Index to the_ LETTERS, _see pp. 469-507 of this Volume._]
+
+
+  "A birdie with a yellow bill," xiv. 23
+
+  "A child should always say what's true," xiv. 5
+
+  Additional Memories and Portraits, xvi. 155
+
+  Additional Poems, xiv. 259
+
+  "Adela, Adela, Adela Chart," xiv. 276
+
+  Admiral Guinea, xv. 145
+
+  Advertisement of "Moral Emblems," Edition de Luxe, xxii. (end)
+
+  Advertisement of "Moral Emblems," Second Collection, xxii. (end)
+
+  Advertisement of "The Graver and the Pen," xxii. (end)
+
+  Ćs Triplex, ii. 358
+
+  "All night long, and every night," xiv. 4
+
+  "All round the house is the jet-black night," xiv. 28
+
+  "All the names I know from nurse," xiv. 46
+
+  "A lover of the moorland bare," xiv. 74
+
+  Alpine Diversions, xxii. 248
+
+  Alps, The Stimulation of the, xxii., 252
+
+  Amateur Emigrant, The: Part I., From the Clyde to Sandy Hook: The
+    Second Cabin, ii. 7; Early Impressions, ii. 15; Steerage Scenes, ii.
+    24; Steerage Types, ii. 32; The Sick Man, ii. 43; The Stowaways, ii.
+    53; Personal Experiences and Review, ii. 66; New York, ii. 77. Part
+    II., Across the Plains: Notes by the Way to Council Bluffs, ii. 93;
+    The Emigrant Train, ii. 107; The Plain of Nebraska, ii. 115; The
+    Desert of Wyoming, ii. 119; Fellow Passengers, ii. 124; Despised
+    Races, ii. 129; To the Golden Gates, ii. 133
+
+  "A mile an' a bittock, a mile or twa," xiv. 110
+
+  "_A naked house, a naked moor_," xiv. 71
+
+  Antwerp to Boom, i. 7
+
+  "A picture-frame for you to fill," xiv. 74
+
+  Apology, An, for Idlers, ii. 334
+
+  Appeal, An, to the Clergy of the Church of Scotland, xxii. 199
+
+  "As from the house your mother sees," xiv. 59
+
+  "As the single pang of the blow, when the metal is mingled well," xiv.
+    254
+
+  "At evening when the lamp is lit," xiv. 36
+
+  Autumn Effect, An, xxii. 112
+
+
+  Back to the World, i. 120
+
+  Bagster's "Pilgrim's Progress," xxii. 186
+
+  Balfour, David, xi. 1
+
+  Ballads, xiv. 139
+
+  Ballantrae, The Master of, xii. 5; its genesis, xvi. 341
+
+  Beach, The, of Falesá: A South Sea Bridal, xvii. 193; The Ban, xvii.
+    206; The Missionary, xvii. 228; Devil-work, xvii. 240; Night in the
+    Bush, xvii. 258; The Bottle Imp, xvii. 277; The Isle of Voices, xvii.
+    311
+
+  Beau Austin, xv. 91
+
+  Beggars, xvi. 190
+
+  "Berried brake and reedy island," xiv. 226
+
+  "Birds all the sunny day," xiv. 44
+
+  Black Arrow, The: Prologue, viii. 7; Book I. The Two Lads, viii. 25;
+    Book II. The Moat House, viii. 83; Book III. My Lord Foxham, viii.
+    123; Book IV. The Disguise, viii. 165; Book V. Crookback, viii. 217
+
+  Black Canyon, Advertisement of, xxii. (end)
+
+  Black Canyon or Wild Adventures in the Far West, xxii. (end)
+
+  "Blame me not that this epistle," xiv. 261
+
+  "Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying," xiv. 257
+
+  Boarders, The, i. 195
+
+  Body-snatcher, The, iii. 277
+
+  Books which have Influenced Me, xvi. 272
+
+  Bottle Imp, The, xvii. 275
+
+  "Brave lads in olden musical centuries," xiv. 270
+
+  "Bright is the ring of words," xiv. 227
+
+  "Bring the comb and play upon it," xiv. 15
+
+  Builder's Doom, The, xxii. (end)
+
+  Burns, Robert, Some Aspects of, iii. 43
+
+  "By Lyne and Tyne, by Thames and Tees," xiv. 133
+
+
+  Calton Hill, Edinburgh, i. 314
+
+  Camisards, The Country of the, i. 211
+
+  Camp, A, in the Dark, i. 167
+
+  Catriona: Part I. The Lord Advocate, xi. 7; Part II. Father and
+    Daughter, xi. 203
+
+  Changed Times, i. 99
+
+  Character, A, xxii. 37
+
+  Character, The, of Dogs, ix. 105
+
+  Charity Bazaar, The, xxii. 213
+
+  Charles of Orleans, iii. 171
+
+  Cheylard and Luc, i. 177
+
+  "_Chief of our aunts_, not only I," xiv. 56
+
+  "Children, you are very little," xiv. 18
+
+  Child's Garden, A, of Verses, xiv. 1
+
+  Child's Play, ii. 394
+
+  Christmas at Sea, xiv. 207
+
+  Christmas Sermon, A, xvi. 306
+
+  Cockermouth and Keswick, xxii. 80
+
+  College Magazine, A, ix. 36
+
+  College Memories, Some, ix. 19
+
+  College Papers: Edinburgh Students in 1824, xxii. 41; The Modern
+    Student considered generally, xxii. 45; Debating Societies, xxii. 53;
+    The Philosophy of Umbrellas, xxii. 58; The Philosophy of Nomenclature,
+    xxii. 63
+
+  "Come up here, O dusty feet," xiv. 24
+
+  Compičgne, At, i. 94
+
+  Crabbed Age and Youth, ii. 321
+
+  Criticisms: Lord Lytton's "Fables in Song," xxii. 171; Salvini's
+    "Macbeth," xxii. 180; Bagster's "Pilgrim's Progress," xxii. 186
+
+
+  "Dark brown is the river," xiv. 10
+
+  Davos in Winter, xxii. 241
+
+  Davos Press, The, xxii. (end)
+
+  Day, The, after To-morrow, xvi. 279
+
+  Deacon Brodie, or the Double Life, xv. 1
+
+  "Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair," xiv. 79
+
+  "Dear Thamson class, whaure'er I gang," xiv. 121
+
+  "Dear Uncle Jim, this garden ground," xiv. 50
+
+  Debating Societies, xxii. 53
+
+  "Do you remember--can we e'er forget?" xiv. 242
+
+  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Strange Case of, v. 227
+
+  Donkey, the Pack, and the Pack Saddle, i. 143
+
+  "Down by a shining water well," xiv. 32
+
+  Dreams, A Chapter on, xvi. 177
+
+  Dynamiter, The: Prologue of the Cigar Divan, v. 7; Challoner's
+    Adventure, v. 15; Somerset's Adventure, v. 73; Desborough's
+    Adventure, v. 149; Epilogue of the Cigar Divan, v. 212
+
+
+  Ebb-Tide, The: Note by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, xix. 3; Part I. The Trio,
+    xix. 7; Part II. The Quartette, xix. 81
+
+  Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, i. 269; Introductory, i. 271
+
+  Edinburgh Students in 1824, xxii. 41
+
+  Education, The, of an Engineer, xvi. 167
+
+  El Dorado, ii. 368
+
+  Engineers, Records of a Family of, xvi. 3
+
+  English Admirals, The, ii. 372
+
+  Enjoyment, The, of Unpleasant Places, xxii. 103
+
+  Epilogue to An Inland Voyage, i. 122
+
+  Episodes in the Story of a Mine, ii. 254
+
+  Essays of Travel: Davos in Winter, xxii. 241; Health and Mountains,
+    xxii. 244; Alpine Diversions, xxii. 248; The Stimulation of the
+    Alps, xxii. 252
+
+  "Even in the bluest noonday of July," xiv. 77
+
+  "Every night my prayers I say," xiv. 13
+
+
+  Fables: The Persons of the Tale, xxi. 269; The Sinking Ship, xxi.
+    272; The Two Matches, xxi. 274; The Sick Man and the Fireman, xxi.
+    275; The Devil and the Inn-keeper, xxi. 276; The Penitent, xxi. 277;
+    The Yellow Paint, xxi. 277; The House of Eld, xxi. 280; The Four
+    Reformers, xxi. 286; The Man and His Friend, xxi. 287; The Reader,
+    xxi. 287; The Citizen and the Traveller, xxi. 288; The Distinguished
+    Stranger, xxi. 289; The Cart-horses and the Saddle-horse, xxi. 290;
+    The Tadpole and the Frog, xxi. 291; Something in it, xxi. 291;
+    Faith, Half-faith, and No Faith at all, xxi. 295; The Touchstone,
+    xxi. 297; The Poor Thing, xxi. 304; The Song of the Morrow, xxi. 310
+
+  Falling in Love, On, ii. 302
+
+  Familiar Studies of Men and Books: Preface by Way of Criticism, iii.
+    5; Victor Hugo's Romances, iii. 19; Some Aspects of Robert Burns,
+    iii. 43; Walt Whitman, iii. 77; Henry David Thoreau: His Character
+    and Opinions, iii. 101; Yoshida-Torajiro, iii. 129; François Villon,
+    Student, Poet, and Housebreaker, iii. 142; Charles of Orleans, iii.
+    171; Samuel Pepys, iii. 206; John Knox and his Relations to Women,
+    iii. 230
+
+  "Far from the loud sea beaches," xiv. 72
+
+  "Far have you come, my lady, from the town," xiv. 263
+
+  "Farewell, fair day and fading light," xiv. 233
+
+  Farewell, Modestine! i. 253
+
+  "Far 'yont amang the years to be," xiv. 105
+
+  "Faster than fairies, faster than witches," xiv. 24
+
+  Father Apollinaris, i. 183
+
+  Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu, xvi.
+  315
+
+  Feast, The, of Famine; Marquesan Manners, xiv. 167; The Priest's
+    Vigil, xiv. 169; The Lovers, xiv. 172; The Feast, xiv. 176; The
+    Raid, xiv. 182; Notes, xiv. 213
+
+  Fife, The Coast of, xvi. 155
+
+  "Figure me to yourself, I pray," xiv. 268
+
+  Fleeming Jenkin, Memoir of, ix. 165
+
+  Florac, i. 234
+
+  Fontainebleau: Village Communities of Painters, xvi. 215
+
+  Footnote, A, to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa: The
+    Elements of Discord, I. Native, xvii. 5; II. Foreign, xvii. 15; The
+    Sorrows of Laupepa, xvii. 27; Brandeis, xvii. 53; The Battle of
+    Matautu, xvii. 70; Last Exploits of Becker, xvii. 83; The Samoan
+    Camps, xvii. 103; Affairs of Laulii and Fangalii, xvii. 112; "Furor
+    Consularis," xvii. 128; The Hurricane, xvii. 142; Laupepa and
+    Mataafa, xvii. 156
+
+  Foreigner, The, at Home, ix. 7
+
+  Forest Notes, xxii. 142
+
+  "For love of lovely words, and for the sake," xiv. 97
+
+  "Forth from her land to mine she goes," xiv. 239
+
+  "Frae nirly, nippin', Eas'lan' breeze," xiv. 106
+
+  "Friend, in my mountain-side demesne," xiv. 73
+
+  "From breakfast on all through the day," xiv. 12
+
+
+  Genesis, The, of "The Master of Ballantrae," xvi. 341
+
+  "Give to me the life I love," xiv. 219
+
+  "God, if this were enough," xiv. 234
+
+  "Go, little book, and wish to all," xiv. 67
+
+  Gossip, A, on a Novel of Dumas's, ix. 124
+
+  Gossip, A, on Romance, ix. 134
+
+  Goulet, Across the, i. 203
+
+  Graver, The, and the Pen, xxii. (end)
+
+  "Great is the sun, and wide he goes," xiv. 46
+
+  Great North Road, The, xxi. 203
+
+  Green Donkey Driver, The, i. 149
+
+  Greyfriars, Edinburgh, i. 298
+
+
+  Health and Mountains, xxii. 244
+
+  Heart of the Country, The, i. 7
+
+  Heather Ale: A Galloway Legend, xiv. 201; Notes, xiv. 215
+
+  Heathercat, xxi. 177
+
+  "He hears with gladdened heart the thunder," xiv. 233
+
+  "Here all is sunny, and when the truant gull," xiv. 97
+
+  "Here, from the forelands of the tideless sea," xiv. 273
+
+  "Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?" xiv. 229
+
+  "How do you like to go up in a swing?" xiv. 22
+
+  Hugo's, Victor, Romances, iii. 19
+
+  Human Life, Reflections and Remarks on, xvi. 354
+
+  Humble Remonstrance, A, ix. 148
+
+  Hunter's Family, The, ii. 230
+
+
+  "I am a kind of farthing dip," xiv. 95
+
+  Ideal House, The, xvi. 370
+
+  "If I have faltered more or less," xiv. 86
+
+  "If two may read aright," xiv. 55
+
+  "I have a goad," i. 158
+
+  "I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me," xiv. 12
+
+  "I have trod the upward and the downward slope," xiv. 233
+
+  "I heard the pulse of the besieging sea," xiv. 244
+
+  "I knew a silver head was bright beyond compare," xiv. 240
+
+  "I knew thee strong and quiet like the hills," xiv. 232
+
+  "I know not how it is with you," xiv. 225
+
+  "In all the grove, nor stream nor bird," xiv. 249
+
+  "In ancient tales, O friend, thy spirit dwelt," xiv. 80
+
+  "In dreams unhappy I behold you stand," xiv. 221
+
+  Inland Voyage, An, i. 7; Epilogue to, i. 122
+
+  "In mony a foreign pairt I've been," xiv. 125
+
+  "In rigorous hours, when down the iron lane," xiv. 230
+
+  "In the belovčd hour that ushers day," xiv. 231
+
+  "In the highlands, in the country places," xiv. 228
+
+  "In the other gardens," xiv. 49
+
+  Introduction, by Andrew Lang, to the Swanston Edition, i. ix.
+
+  "In winter I get up at night," xiv. 3
+
+  "I read, dear friend, in your dear face," xiv. 85
+
+  "I saw you toss the kites on high," xiv. 16
+
+  "I should like to rise and go," xiv. 7
+
+  "I sit and wait a pair of oars," xiv. 78
+
+  Island Nights' Entertainments, xvii. 193
+
+  Isle, The, of Voices, xvii. 311
+
+  "It is not yours, O mother, to complain," xiv. 90
+
+  "It is the season now to go," xiv. 70
+
+  "It is very nice to think," xiv. 4
+
+  "It's an owercome sooth for age an' youth," xiv. 135
+
+  "It's rainin'. Weet's the gairden sod," xiv. 116
+
+  "It's strange that God should fash to frame," xiv. 120
+
+  "I was a barren tree before," xiv. 276
+
+  "I will make you brooches and toys for your delight," xiv. 225
+
+  "I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day," xiv. 14
+
+
+  Juvenilia, and other Papers, xxii. 3
+
+
+  Kidnapped, x. 77
+
+  Knox, John, and his Relations to Women, iii. 230
+
+
+  La Fčre, of Cursed Memory, i. 79
+
+  Landrecies, At, i. 46
+
+  Lantern-Bearers, The, xvi. 200
+
+  Last Day, The, i. 248
+
+  "Last, to the chamber where I lie," xiv. 28
+
+  "Late in the nicht in bed I lay," xiv. 129
+
+  "Late lies the wintry sun a-bed," xiv. 25
+
+  Later Essays, xvi. 215
+
+  Lay Morals, xvi. 379
+
+  Legends, Edinburgh, i. 291
+
+  "Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams," xiv. 224
+
+  "Let now your soul in this substantial world," xiv. 255
+
+  Letter to a Young Gentleman who proposes to embrace the Career of Art,
+    xvi. 290
+
+  Letters from Samoa, xviii. 351
+
+  "Let us, who part like brothers part like bards," xvi. 245
+
+  "Light foot and tight foot," xiv. 277
+
+  Light-keeper, The, xxii. 217
+
+  "Little Indian, Sioux or Crow," xiv. 19
+
+  Lodging, A, for the Night, iv. 227
+
+  "Long must elapse ere you behold again," xiv. 241
+
+  Lord Lytton's "Fables in Song," xxii. 171
+
+  Lozčre, Across the, i. 213
+
+
+  Macaire, xv. 205
+
+  Manse, The, ix. 61
+
+  Markheim, viii. 273
+
+  Martial Elegy, A, for some Lead Soldiers, xxii. (end)
+
+  Master, The, of Ballantrae, xii. 5; its genesis, xvi. 341
+
+  Maubeuge, At, i. 21
+
+  Memoirs of an Islet, ix. 68
+
+  Memories and Portraits, ix. 7; Additional Memories and Portraits, xvi.
+    155
+
+  Merry Men, The, xxi. 69
+
+  Mimente, In the Valley of the, i. 237
+
+  Monks, The, i. 188
+
+  Montvert, Pont de, i. 218
+
+  Moral Emblems, xxii. (end)
+
+  Moral Emblems: Second Collection, xxii. (end)
+
+  Morality, The, of the Profession of Letters, xvi. 260
+
+  More New Arabian Nights, v. 7
+
+  Mountain Town, A, in France, i. 257
+
+  Movements of Young Children, Notes on the, xxii. 97
+
+  Moy, Down the Oise to, i. 74
+
+  "My bed is like a little boat," xiv. 21
+
+  "My body which my dungeon is," xiv. 98
+
+  "My bonny man, the warld, it's true," xiv. 118
+
+  My First Book, "Treasure Island," xvi. 331
+
+  "'_My house_,' I say. But hark to the sunny doves," xiv. 98
+
+  "My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky," xiv. 2
+
+
+  New Arabian Nights, iv. 3; More New Arabian Nights, v. 7
+
+  New Form of Intermittent Light for Lighthouses, xxii. 220
+
+  New Town, Edinburgh: Town and Country, i. 305
+
+  Nicholson, John, The Misadventures of, x. 3
+
+  Nomenclature, The Philosophy of, xxii. 63
+
+  "Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green," xiv. 265
+
+  Note, A, on Realism, xvi. 234
+
+  Notes and Essays, chiefly of the Road: A Retrospect, xxii. 71;
+    Cockermouth and Keswick, xxii. 80; Roads, xxii. 90; Notes on the
+    Movements of Young Children, xxii. 97; On the Enjoyment of
+    Unpleasant Places, xxii. 103; An Autumn Effect, xxii. 112; A
+    Winter's Walk in Carrick and Galloway, xxii. 132; Forest Notes,
+    xxii. 142
+
+  Not I, and other Poems, xxii. (end)
+
+  "Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert," xiv. 89
+
+  "Nous n'irons plus au bois," xiv. 263
+
+  Noyon Cathedral, i. 86
+
+  Nuits Blanches, xxii. 27
+
+  Nurses, xxii. 34
+
+
+  "Of a' the ills that flesh can fear," xiv. 131
+
+  "Of his pitiable transformation," xiv. 263
+
+  "Of speckled eggs, the birdie sings," xiv. 9
+
+  "Of where or how, I nothing know," xiv. 267
+
+  Oise, The, in Flood, i. 55; Down the Oise to Moy, i. 74; Through the
+    Golden Valley, i. 84; To Compičgne, i. 91 Church Interiors, i. 105
+
+  "O it's I that am the captain of a tidy little ship," xiv. 32
+
+  "O, I wad like to ken--to the beggar-wife says I," xiv. 116
+
+  "O mother, lay your hand on my brow," xiv. 92
+
+  Olalla, xxi. 127
+
+  Old Mortality, ix. 26
+
+  Old Scots Gardener, An, ix. 46
+
+  Old Town, Edinburgh: The Lands, i. 278
+
+  "Once only by the garden gate," xiv. 220
+
+  "On the great streams the ships may go," xiv. 68
+
+  Ordered South, ii. 345
+
+  Origny Sainte-Benoîte: A By-Day, i. 62; The Company at Table, i. 68
+
+  Our Lady of the Snows, i. 181
+
+  "Out of the sun, out of the blast," xiv. 87
+
+  "Over the borders, a sin without pardon," xiv. 17
+
+
+  Pacific Capitals, The Old and New: Monterey, ii. 141; San Francisco,
+    ii. 159
+
+  Pan's Pipes, ii. 415
+
+  Parliament Close, Edinburgh, i. 285
+
+  Pastoral, ix. 53
+
+  Pavilion on the Links, The: Tells how I camped in Graden Sea-wood,
+    and beheld a Light in the Pavilion, iv. 167; Tells of the Nocturnal
+    Landing from the Yacht, iv. 174; Tells how I became Acquainted with
+    my Wife, iv. 180; Tells in what a Startling Manner I learned that I
+    was not alone in Graden Sea-wood, iv. 189; Tells of an Interview
+    between Northmour, Clara, and myself, iv. 197; Tells of my
+    Introduction to the Tall Man, iv. 202; Tells how a Word was cried
+    through the Pavilion Window, iv. 208; Tells the last of the Tall
+    Man, iv. 214; Tells how Northmour carried out his Threat, iv. 221
+
+  "Peace and her huge invasion to these shores," xiv. 93
+
+  Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured, xi. 116
+
+  Pentland Hills, To the, Edinburgh, i. 327
+
+  Pentland Rising, The: The Causes of the Revolt, xxii. 3; The
+    Beginning, xxii. 6; The March of the Rebels, xxii. 8; Rullion Green,
+    xxii. 13; A Record of Blood, xxii. 17
+
+  Pepys, Samuel, iii. 206
+
+  Pines, A Night among the, i. 206
+
+  "Plain as the glistering planets shine," xiv. 223
+
+  Plea, A, for Gas Lamps, ii. 420
+
+  Pont-sur-Sambre: We are Pedlars, i. 31; The Travelling Merchant, i. 36
+
+  Portraits, Some, by Raeburn, ii. 385
+
+  Prayers written for Family Use at Vailima, xvi. 431
+
+  Précy and the Marionnettes, i. 111
+
+  Prince Otto: Book I. Prince Errant, vii. 7; Book II. Of Love and
+    Politics, vii. 49; Book III. Fortunate Misfortune, vii. 171
+
+  Providence and the Guitar, iv. 273
+
+  Pulvis et Umbra, xvi. 299
+
+
+  Raeburn, Some Portraits, by, ii. 385
+
+  Rajah's Diamond, The: Story of the Bandbox, iv. 86; Story of the
+    Young Man in Holy Orders, iv. 111; The Story of the House with the
+    Green Blinds, iv. 127; The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a
+    Detective, iv. 159
+
+  Random Memories: I. The Coast of Fife, xvi. 155; II.  The Education
+    of an Engineer, xvi. 167; _Rosa quo Locorum_, xvi. 345
+
+  Realism, A Note on, xvi. 234
+
+  Records of a Family of Engineers, xvi. 3
+
+  Reflections and Remarks on Human Life, xvi. 354
+
+  "Resign the rhapsody, the dream," xiv. 236
+
+  Retrospect, A, xxii. 71
+
+  Roads, xxii. 90
+
+  Robin and Ben, or the Pirate and the Apothecary, xxii. (end)
+
+  _Rosa quo Locorum_, xvi. 345
+
+  Royal Sport Nautique, The, i. 16
+
+
+  St. Ives, xx. 3
+
+  Salvini's "Macbeth," xxii. 180
+
+  Sambre and Oise Canal: Canal Boats, i. 50
+
+  Sambre Canalised, On the: To Quartes, i. 26; To Landrecies, i. 41
+
+  Satirist, The, xxii. 25
+
+  "Say not of me that weakly I declined," xiv. 99
+
+  Scots Gardener, An old, ix. 46
+
+  Sea-Fogs, The, ii. 239
+
+  "She rested by the Broken Brook," xiv. 222
+
+  Silverado Squatters, The, ii. 173; In the Valley: 1, Calistoga, ii.
+    179; 2, The Petrified Forest, ii. 184; 3, Napa Wine, ii. 188; 4, The
+    Scot Abroad, ii. 194. --With the Children of Israel: 1, To Introduce
+    Mr. Kelmar, ii. 201; 2, First Impressions of Silverado, ii. 205; 3,
+    The Return, ii. 215
+
+  "Since I am sworn to live my life," xiv. 263
+
+  "Since long ago, a child at home," xiv. 237
+
+  "Sing clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still," xiv. 96
+
+  "Sing me a song of a lad that is gone," xiv. 256
+
+  Sire de Malétroit's Door, The, iv. 250
+
+  Sketches: The Satirist, xxii. 25; Nuits Blanches, xxii. 27; The Wreath
+    of Immortelles, xxii. 30; Nurses, xxii. 34; A Character, xxii. 37
+
+  "Smooth it slides upon its travel," xiv. 23
+
+  "Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed,"
+    xiv. 58
+
+  Songs of Travel, xiv. 217
+
+  Song, The, of Rahéro: A Legend of Tahiti, xiv. 139; The Slaying of
+    Támatéa, xiv. 139; The Venging of Támatéa, xiv. 148; Rahéro, xiv.
+    159; Notes, xiv. 211
+
+  "Son of my woman's body, you go, to the drum and fife," xiv. 227
+
+  South Seas, In the: Part I. The Marquesas.--An Island Landfall,
+    xviii. 5; Making Friends, xviii. 12; The Maroon, xviii. 21; Death,
+    xviii. 28; Depopulation, xviii. 36; Chiefs and Tapus, xviii. 44;
+    Hatiheu, xviii. 53; The Port of Entry, xviii. 61; The House of
+    Temoana, xviii. 69; A Portrait and a Story, xviii. 77; Long Pig--A
+    Cannibal High Place, xviii. 85; The Story of a Plantation, xviii.
+    95; Characters, xviii. 105; In a Cannibal Valley, xviii. 112; The
+    Two Chiefs of Atuona, xviii, 119. Part II. The Paumotus.--The
+    Dangerous Archipelago--Atolls at a Distance, xviii. 129; Fakarava:
+    An Atoll at Hand, xviii. 137; A House to Let in a Low Island, xviii.
+    146; Traits and Sects in the Paumotus, xviii. 155; A Paumotuan
+    Funeral, xviii. 165; Graveyard Stories, xviii. 170. Part III. The
+    Eight Islands.--The Kona Coast, xviii. 187; A Ride in the Forest,
+    xviii. 197; The City of Refuge, xviii. 203; Koahumanu, xviii. 209;
+    The Lepers of Kona, xviii. 215. Part IV. The Gilberts.--Butaritari,
+    xviii. 223; The Four Brothers, xviii. 229; Around Our House, xviii.
+    237; A Tale of a Tapu, xviii. 247, 255; The Five Days' Festival,
+    xviii. 265; Husband and Wife, xviii. 278. Part V. The
+    Gilberts--Apemama.--The King of Apemama: The Royal Trader, xviii.
+    289; Foundation of Equator Town, xviii. 298; The Palace of Many
+    Women, xviii. 306; Equator Town and the Palace, xviii. 313; King and
+    Commons, xviii. 321; Devil-work, xviii. 320; The King of Apemama,
+    xviii. 342
+
+  Squatting, The Act of, ii. 221
+
+  Starry Drive, A, ii. 250
+
+  Stevenson at Play: Introduction by Lloyd Osbourne, xxii. 259; War
+    Correspondence from Stevenson's Note-book, xxii. 263
+
+  Stevenson, Thomas, ix. 75
+
+  Story, The, of a Lie, xxi. 3
+
+  Student, The Modern, considered generally, xxii. 45
+
+  Suicide Club, The, iv. 3; Story of the Young Man with the Cream
+    Tarts, iv. 5; The Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk, iv.
+    37; The Adventure of the Hansom Cabs, iv. 65
+
+  "Summer fading, winter comes," xiv. 33
+
+
+  Talk and Talkers: I., ix. 81; II., ix. 94
+
+  Tarn, In the Valley of the, i. 224
+
+  Technical Elements, Some, of Style in Literature, xvi. 241
+
+  "The bed was made, the room was fit," xiv. 96
+
+  "The clinkum-clank o' Sabbath bells," xiv. 111
+
+  "The coach is at the door at last," xiv. 26
+
+  "Thee, Mackintosh, artificer of light," xiv. 273
+
+  "The embers of the day are red," xiv. 257
+
+  "The friendly cow, all red and white," xiv. 16
+
+  "The ganger walked with willing foot," xiv. 67
+
+  "The gardener does not love to talk," xiv. 49
+
+  "The infinite shining heavens," xiv. 222
+
+  "The jolly English Yellowboy," xiv. 274
+
+  "The lamps now glitter down the street," xiv. 37
+
+  "The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out," xiv. 14
+
+  "The Lord Himsel' in former days," xiv. 123
+
+  "The moon has a face like the clock in the hall," xiv. 22
+
+  "The morning drum-call on my eager ear," xiv. 233
+
+  "The pleasant river gushes," xiv. 272
+
+  "The rain is raining all around," xiv. 5
+
+  "The red room with the giant bed," xiv. 56
+
+  Thermal Influence of Forests, xxii. 225
+
+  "The Silver Ship, my King--that was her name," xiv. 238
+
+  "The stormy evening closes now in vain," xiv. 230
+
+  "The sun is not a-bed when I," xiv. 20
+
+  "The tropics vanish, and meseems that I," xiv. 243
+
+  "The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears," xiv. 75
+
+  "These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest," xiv. 34
+
+  "The world is so full of a number of things," xiv. 16
+
+  "The year runs through her phases; rain and sun," xiv. 82
+
+  Thoreau, Henry David: His Character and Opinions, iii. 101
+
+  Thrawn Janet, v. 305
+
+  "Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing," xiv. 6
+
+  "Through all the pleasant meadow side," xiv. 26
+
+  Ticonderoga: A Legend of the West Islands, xiv. 187; The Saying of
+    the Name, xiv. 189; The Seeking of the Name, xiv. 194; The Place of
+    the Name, xiv. 196; Notes, xiv. 214
+
+  Toils and Pleasures, ii. 264
+
+  Toll House, The, ii. 245
+
+  "To see the infinite pity of this place," xiv. 240
+
+  "To the heart of youth the world is a highway side," xiv. 221
+
+  "To you, let snow and roses," xiv. 224
+
+  Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, i. 141
+
+  Treasure Island-- Part I. The Old Buccaneer, vi. 9; Part II. The
+    Sea-Cook, vi. 49; Part III. My Shore Adventure, vi. 87; Part IV. The
+    Stockade, vi. 109; Part V. My Sea Adventure, vi. 145; Part VI.
+    Captain Silver, vi. 185; My First Book, xvi. 331
+
+  Treasure, The, of Franchard, vi. 267
+
+  "Trusty, dusky, vivid, true," xiv. 235
+
+  Truth of Intercourse, ii. 311
+
+
+  Umbrellas, The Philosophy of, xxii. 58
+
+  "Under the wide and starry sky," xiv. 86
+
+  Underwoods: I. In English, xiv. 67; II. In Scots, xiv. 105
+
+  "Up into the cherry-tree," xiv. 6
+
+  Upper Gévaudan, i. 165, 201
+
+
+  Velay, i. 141
+
+  Villa Quarters, Edinburgh, i. 311
+
+  Villon, François: Student, Poet, and Housebreaker, iii. 142
+
+  Virginibus Puerisque, I., ii. 281; II., ii. 292; On Falling in Love,
+    ii. 302; Truth of Intercourse, ii. 311; Crabbed Age and Youth, ii.
+    321; An Apology for Idlers, ii. 334; Ordered South, ii. 345; Ćs
+    Triplex, ii. 358; El Dorado, ii. 368; The English Admirals, ii. 372;
+    Some Portraits by Raeburn, ii. 385; Child's Play, ii. 394; Walking
+    Tours, ii. 406; Pan's Pipes, ii. 415; A Plea for Gas Lamps, ii. 420
+
+
+  Walking Tours, ii. 406
+
+  Walt Whitman, iii. 77
+
+  War Correspondence from Stevenson's Note-book, xxii. 263
+
+  "We built a ship upon the stairs," xiv. 9
+
+  Weir of Hermiston, xix. 159; Sir Sidney Colvin's Note, xix. 284;
+    Glossary of Scots Words, xix. 297
+
+  "We see you as we see a face," xiv. 85
+
+  "We travelled in the print of olden wars," xiv. 96
+
+  "We uncommiserate pass into the night," xiv. 255
+
+  "What are you able to build with your blocks?" xiv. 35
+
+  "When aince Aprile has fairly come," xiv. 109
+
+  "When at home alone I sit," xiv. 38
+
+  "When children are playing alone on the green," xiv. 31
+
+  "When chitterin' cauld the day sail daw," xiv. 275
+
+  "Whenever Auntie moves around," xiv. 11
+
+  "Whenever the moon and stars are set," xiv. 7
+
+  "When I am grown to man's estate," xiv. 9
+
+  "When I was sick and lay a-bed," xiv. 11
+
+  "When the bright lamp is carried in," xiv. 27
+
+  "When the golden day is done," xiv. 43
+
+  "When the grass was closely mown," xiv. 47
+
+  "Where the bells peal far at sea," xiv. 84
+
+  "Who comes to-night? We ope the doors in vain," xiv. 83
+
+  Willebrock Canal, On the, i. 11
+
+  Will o' the Mill, vi. 235
+
+  Winter and New Year, Edinburgh, i. 320
+
+  Winter's Walk, A, in Carrick and Galloway, xxii. 132
+
+  "With half a heart I wander here," xiv. 94
+
+  Wreath, The, of Immortelles, xxii. 30
+
+  Wrecker, The: Prologue, xiii. 5; The Yarn, xiii. 19; Epilogue, xiii.
+    427
+
+  Wrong Box, The, vii. 219
+
+
+  "Yet, O stricken heart, remember, O remember," xiv. 93
+
+  Yoshida-Torajiro, iii. 129
+
+  Young Chevalier, The, xxi. 253
+
+  "Youth now flees on feathered foot," xiv. 76
+
+  "You, too, my mother, read my rhymes," xiv. 55
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
+Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON ***
+
+***** This file should be named 30714-8.txt or 30714-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/7/1/30714/
+
+Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/30714-8.zip b/30714-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6b08f14
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-8.zip
diff --git a/30714-h.zip b/30714-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..32f7d5f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h.zip
diff --git a/30714-h/30714-h.htm b/30714-h/30714-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..26e0303
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/30714-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,25658 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+    "text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume XXV, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
+    </title>
+
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+    body     { margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%; text-align: justify; line-height: 1.4em;}
+    p        {  margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; text-indent: 1em; }
+    p.noind  {  margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; text-indent: 0; }
+
+    h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { text-align: center; }
+    hr           { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; width: 70%; height: 5px; background-color: #dcdcdc; border:none; }
+    hr.art       { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 40%; height: 5px; background-color: #778899;
+                          margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em }
+    hr.foot      {text-align: left; margin-left: 2em; width: 16%; background-color: black; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 0; height: 1px; }
+    hr.short     {height: 1px; width: 20%; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 3em; }
+    hr.full      {width: 100%;}
+
+    .f90            { font-size: 90% }
+    .f80            { font-size: 80% }
+    .noa    {  margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent: 0; }
+    div.noa p {  margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent: 0; }
+
+    table.reg, table.reg1, table.reg2  { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both; }
+    table.nobctr  { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; }
+    table p       { text-indent: -2em; margin-left: 2em; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0; }
+    table.reg1 p  {  margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; text-indent: 0; }
+    table.reg2 p  {  margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; text-indent: -1em; }
+
+    td.tc1        { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 0; text-align: center; }
+    td.tc2        { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 0; text-align: right;  vertical-align: top;}
+    td.tc2a       { padding-right: 1em; padding-left: 0; text-align: right;}
+    td.tc2b       { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 0; text-align: right;  vertical-align: bottom;}
+    td.tc3        { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 0; text-align: left; }
+    td.tc3a       { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 1em; text-align: left; }
+
+    .center   {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;}
+
+    a:link, a:visited, link  {text-decoration:none}
+
+    .sc       {font-variant: small-caps;}
+    .scs      {font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 75%; }
+
+    .pagenum  {position: absolute; right: 5%; text-align: right; font-size: 10pt;
+                  background-color: #f5f5f5; color: #778899; text-indent: 0;
+                  padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em; font-style: normal; }
+    div.note     {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 0.9em; line-height: 1.4em;}
+
+    span.correction {border-bottom: 1px dashed red;}
+
+    .figcenter1  {text-align: center; padding-top: 1.5em; padding-bottom: 1.5em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; }
+
+    div.poemr        {margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    div.poemr p      {margin-left: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em; }
+    div.poemr p.i05  { margin-left: 0.4em; }
+    div.poemr p.i1   { margin-left: 1em; }
+    div.poemr p.i2   { margin-left: 2em; }
+    div.poemr p.i3   { margin-left: 3em; }
+    div.poemr p.stanza {margin-top: 1em;}
+
+    div.quote    { margin-left: 2em; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.4em; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em; }
+    div.quote p  { margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em; }
+
+    .border1     {background-color: #dcdcdc; color: #696969;}
+
+    div.index    { margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.4em; }
+    div.index p  { text-indent: -1.5em }
+
+    .sp       {position: relative; bottom: 0.5em; font-size: 0.7em;}
+    .note     {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 0.9em; }
+    .fn       { position: absolute; left: 12%; text-align: left; background-color: #f5f5f5;
+                text-indent: 0; padding-left: 0.2em; padding-right: 0.2em; }
+
+     .pt2   { padding-top: 2em; }
+     .pt3   { padding-top: 3em; }
+     .pt05  { padding-top: 0.5em; }
+
+     .rt    { text-align: right; padding-right: 1em; }
+
+    </style>
+   </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
+Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25)
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+Other: Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: December 19, 2009 [EBook #30714]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<table class="border1" border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="TN">
+<tr>
+<td style="width:25%; vertical-align:top">
+Transcriber's note:
+</td>
+<td>
+A few punctuation errors have been corrected. They
+appear in the text <span class="correction" title="explanation will pop up">like this</span>, and the
+explanation will appear when the mouse pointer is moved over the marked
+passage. Hyphenation inconsistencies were left unchanged.
+<br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<h4>THE WORKS OF</h4>
+
+<h3>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h3>
+
+<h4>SWANSTON EDITION</h4>
+
+<h5>VOLUME XXV</h5>
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p class="noind center"><i>Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five<br />
+Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS<br />
+STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies<br />
+have been printed, of which only Two Thousand<br />
+Copies are for sale.</i></p>
+
+<p class="noind center"><i>This is No. <span style="font-size: 60%;">............</span></i></p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter1">
+    <img src="images/img1.jpg" width="437" height="700" alt="Front image." title="Front image." /></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h3>THE WORKS OF</h3>
+<h2>ROBERT LOUIS</h2>
+<h2>STEVENSON</h2>
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5>VOLUME TWENTY-FIVE</h5>
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<h5>LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND<br />
+WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL<br />
+AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM<br />
+HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN<br />
+AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII</h5>
+
+<p class="noind center"><i>For permission to use the</i> <span class="sc">Letters</span> <i>in the</i><br />
+<span class="sc">Swanston Edition of Stevenson&rsquo;s Works</span><br />
+<i>the Publishers are indebted to the kindness of</i><br />
+<span class="sc">Messrs. Methuen &amp; Co., Ltd</span>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<h6>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</h6>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+
+
+<h4>THE LETTERS OF</h4>
+<h3>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h3>
+
+<h6>EDITED BY</h6>
+<h3>SIDNEY COLVIN</h3>
+
+<h5>PARTS XI&mdash;XIV</h5>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2"><h4>XI. LIFE IN SAMOA</h4>
+                                    <h5>PART I.&mdash;THE OLD BUCCANEER</h5></td> </tr>
+
+<tr style="font-size: 70%; "> <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">PAGE</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Introductory</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page3">3</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Letters&mdash;</td>
+     <td class="tc2b">&nbsp;</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page9">9</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page24">24</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page25">25</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page32">32</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page34">34</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page43">43</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Rudyard Kipling</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page46">46</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page48">48</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Marcel Schwob</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page51">51</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page53">53</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page54">54</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To H. B. Baildon</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page56">56</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page58">58</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page66">66</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. Craibe Angus</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page69">69</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page71">71</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Rawlinson</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page74">74</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page76">76</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page80">80</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page82">82</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page83">83</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page86">86</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. Craibe Angus</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page87">87</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To H. C. Ide</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page88">88</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page90">90</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page94">94</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page102">102</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page108">108</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page110">110</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page111">111</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page112">112</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. Craibe Angus</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page118">118</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Annie H. Ide</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page118">118</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page120">120</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page121">121</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Fred Orr</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page127">127</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page128">128</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page130">130</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page132">132</a></td> </tr>
+
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2"><h4>XII. LIFE IN SAMOA&mdash;<i>continued</i></h4>
+                                    <h5>SECOND YEAR AT VAILIMA</h5></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Introductory</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page144">144</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Letters&mdash;</td>
+     <td class="tc2b">&nbsp;</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page146">146</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page147">147</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page152">152</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To J. M. Barrie</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page154">154</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page156">156</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To William Morris</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page162">162</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Charles Fairchild</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page163">163</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page166">166</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page174">174</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Rev. S. J. Whitmee</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page174">174</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page177">177</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin </td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page178">178</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page193">193</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To T. W. Dover</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page209">209</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page210">210</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page211">211</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page213">213</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page214">214</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page215">215</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Andrew Lang</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page216">216</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page217">217</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page221">221</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Countess of Jersey</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page228">228</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page229">229</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page230">230</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Charles Fairchild</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page240">240</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Children in the Cellar</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page243">243</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page249">249</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Gordon Browne</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page252">252</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Morse</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page253">253</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Taylor</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page254">254</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page257">257</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page258">258</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To J. M. Barrie</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page264">264</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page266">266</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Lieutenant Eeles</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page267">267</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page270">270</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page271">271</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page273">273</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page274">274</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To J. M. Barrie</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page276">276</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page278">278</a></td> </tr>
+
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2"><h4>XIII. LIFE IN SAMOA&mdash;<i>continued</i></h4>
+                                    <h5>THIRD YEAR AT VAILIMA</h5></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Introductory</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page280">280</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Letters&mdash;</td>
+     <td class="tc2b">&nbsp;</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page282">282</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page288">288</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page289">289</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page291">291</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page292">292</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page294">294</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To A. Conan Doyle</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page299">299</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page299">299</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To S. R. Crockett</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page305">305</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Augustus St. Gaudens</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page308">308</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page310">310</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page317">317</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page320">320</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page324">324</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To James S. Stevenson</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page334">334</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page335">335</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To A. Conan Doyle</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page336">336</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page337">337</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page338">338</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To A. Conan Doyle</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page339">339</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Augustus St. Gaudens</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page341">341</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To James S. Stevenson</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page342">342</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To George Meredith</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page343">343</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page345">345</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page347">347</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page352">352</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To J. Horne Stevenson</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page357">357</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To John P&mdash;&mdash;n</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page358">358</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Russell P&mdash;&mdash;n</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page359">359</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Alison Cunningham</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page359">359</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page360">360</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To J. M. Barrie</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page362">362</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To R. Le Gallienne</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page364">364</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. A. Baker</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page366">366</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page367">367</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page367">367</a></td> </tr>
+
+
+<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2"><h4>XIV. LIFESAMOA&mdash;<i>concluded</i></h4>
+                                    <h5>FOURTH YEAR AT VAILIMA&mdash;THE END</h5></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Introductory</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page373">373</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Letters&mdash;</td>
+     <td class="tc2b">&nbsp;</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page376">376</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To H. B. Baildon</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page377">377</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page378">378</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page380">380</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To H. B. Baildon</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page381">381</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page382">382</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To J. H. Bates</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page384">384</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To William Archer</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page384">384</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page386">386</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. B. Yeats</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page390">390</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To George Meredith</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page390">390</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page392">392</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Sitwell</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page393">393</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page394">394</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page396">396</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To R. A. M. Stevenson</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page398">398</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page404">404</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page406">406</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Marcel Schwob</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page409">409</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To A. St. Gaudens</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page410">410</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page410">410</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. A. Baker</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page413">413</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page414">414</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To J. M. Barrie</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page416">416</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page422">422</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Dr. Bakewell</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page424">424</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To James Payn</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page425">425</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Middleton</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page428">428</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To A. Conan Doyle</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page429">429</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page430">430</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page433">433</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To R. A. M. Stevenson</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page434">434</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sir Herbert Maxwell</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page440">440</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page441">441</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Alison Cunningham</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page445">445</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To James Payn</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page446">446</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page448">448</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Professor Meiklejohn</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page450">450</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Lieutenant Eeles</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page451">451</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sir Herbert Maxwell</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page453">453</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Andrew Lang</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page453">453</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page454">454</a></td> </tr>
+
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3"><p><span class="sc">Appendix I</span>&mdash;Account of the Death and Burial of
+    R. L. Stevenson, by Lloyd Osbourne</p></td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page457">457</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3"><p><span class="sc">Appendix II</span>&mdash;Address of R. L. Stevenson to the
+    Chiefs on the Opening of the Road of
+    Gratitude, October 1894</p></td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page462">462</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Index to the Letters : <span class="sc">Volumes</span> XXIII-XXV</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page469">469</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Index to Volumes I&mdash;XXII</td>
+      <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page509">509</a></td> </tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page1"></a>1</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2>THE LETTERS</h2>
+<h2>OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h2>
+
+<h3>1890&mdash;1894</h3>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page2"></a>2</span></p>
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page3"></a>3</span></p>
+<h2>THE LETTERS</h2>
+<h2>OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>XI</h3>
+
+<h3>LIFE IN SAMOA</h3>
+
+<h4>FIRST YEAR AT VAILIMA</h4>
+
+
+<h5><span class="sc">November 1890-December 1891</span></h5>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Returning</span> from Sydney at the end of October 1890,
+Stevenson and his wife at once took up their abode in
+the wooden four-roomed cottage, or &ldquo;rough barrack,&rdquo;
+as he calls it, which had been built for them in the clearing
+at Vailima during the months of their absence at Sydney
+and on their cruise in the <i>Equator</i>. Mr. Lloyd Osbourne
+in the meantime had started for England to wind up
+the family affairs at Bournemouth. During the first few
+months, as will be seen by the following letters, the conditions
+of life at Vailima were rough to the point of hardship.
+But matters soon mended; the work of clearing
+and planting went on under the eye of the master and
+mistress diligently and in the main successfully, though
+not of course without complications and misadventures.
+Ways and means of catering were found, and abundance
+began to reign in place of the makeshifts and privations
+of the first days. By April a better house, fit to receive
+the elder Mrs. Stevenson, had been built; and later in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page4"></a>4</span>
+the year plans for further extension were considered, but
+for the present held over. The attempt made at first to
+work the establishment by means of white servants and
+head-men indoors and out proved unsatisfactory, and was
+gradually superseded by the formation of an efficient
+native staff, which in course of time developed itself into
+something like a small, devoted feudal clan.</p>
+
+<p>During the earlier months of 1891 Stevenson was not
+in continuous residence on his new property, but went
+away on two excursions, the first to Sydney to meet his
+mother; the second, in company of the American Consul
+Mr. Sewall, to Tutuila, a neighbouring island of the Samoan
+group. Of the latter, to him very interesting, trip, the
+correspondence contains only the beginning of an account
+abruptly broken off: more, will be found in the extracts
+from his diary given in Mr. Graham Balfour&rsquo;s <i>Life</i> (ed. 1906,
+pp. 312 f.). During part of the spring he was fortunate
+in having the company of two distinguished Americans,
+the painter Lafarge and the historian Henry Adams, in
+addition to that of the local planters, traders, and officials,
+a singular and singularly mixed community. After some
+half-year&rsquo;s residence he began to realise that the arrangements
+made for the government of Samoa by treaty between
+the three powers England, Germany, and America were not
+working nor promising to work well. Stevenson was no
+abstracted student or dreamer; the human interests and
+human duties lying immediately about him were ever the
+first in his eyes; and he found himself drawn deeply into
+the complications of local politics, as so active a spirit
+could not fail to be drawn, however little taste he might
+have for the work.</p>
+
+<p>He kept in the meantime at a fair level of health, and
+among the multitude of new interests was faithful in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page5"></a>5</span>
+main business of his life&mdash;that is, to literature. He did not
+cease to toil uphill at the heavy task of preparing for
+serial publication the letters, or more properly chapters,
+on the South Seas. He planned and began delightedly his
+happiest tale of South Sea life, <i>The High Woods of Ulufanua</i>,
+afterwards changed to <i>The Beach of Falesá</i>; conceived the
+scheme, which was never carried out, of working two
+of his old conceptions into one long genealogical novel or
+fictitious family history to be called <i>The Shovels of Newton
+French</i>; and in the latter part of the year worked hard
+in continuation of <i>The Wrecker</i>. Having completed this
+during November, he turned at once, from a sense of duty
+rather than from any literary inspiration, to the <i>Footnote
+to History</i>, a laboriously prepared and minutely conscientious
+account of recent events in Samoa.</p>
+
+<p>From his earliest days at Vailima, determined that our
+intimacy should suffer no diminution by absence, Stevenson
+began, to my great pleasure, the practice of writing me
+a monthly budget containing a full account of his doings
+and interests. At first the pursuits of the enthusiastic
+farmer, planter, and overseer filled these letters delightfully,
+to the exclusion of almost everything else except
+references to his books projected or in hand. Later these
+interests began to give place in his letters to those of
+the local politician, immersed in affairs which seemed to
+me exasperatingly petty and obscure, however grave the
+potential European complications which lay behind them.
+At any rate, they were hard to follow intelligently from
+the other side of the globe; and it was a relief whenever
+his correspondence turned to matters literary or domestic,
+or humours of his own mind and character. These letters,
+or so much of them as seemed suitable for publication,
+were originally printed separately, in the year following
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page6"></a>6</span>
+the writer&rsquo;s death, under the title <i>Vailima Letters</i>. They are
+here placed, with some additions, in chronological order
+among those addressed to other friends or acquaintances.
+During this first year at Vailima his general correspondence
+was not nearly so large as it afterwards became; Mr.
+Burlingame, as representative of the house of Scribner,
+receiving the lion&rsquo;s share next to myself.</p>
+
+<p>For the love of Stevenson I will ask readers to take
+the small amount of pains necessary to grasp and remember
+the main facts of Samoan politics in the ten years 1889-99.
+At the date when he settled in Vailima the government of
+the islands had lately been re-ordered between the three
+powers interested&mdash;namely, Germany, England, and the
+United States&mdash;at the Convention of Berlin (July 14, 1889).
+The rivalries and jealousies of these three powers, complicated
+with the conflicting claims of various native kings
+or chiefs, had for some time kept the affairs of the islands
+dangerously embroiled. Under the Berlin Convention,
+Malietoa Laupepa, who had previously been deposed and
+deported by the Germans in favour of a nominee of their
+own, was reinstated as king, to the exclusion of his kinsman,
+the powerful and popular Mataafa, whose titles were
+equally good and abilities certainly greater, but who was
+especially obnoxious to the Germans owing to his resistance
+to them during the troubles of the preceding years. In
+the course of that resistance a small German force had
+been worsted in a petty skirmish at Fagalii, and resentment
+at this affront to the national pride was for several
+years one of the chief obstacles to the reconciliation of
+contending interests. For a time the two kinsmen, Laupepa
+and Mataafa, lived on amicable terms, but presently
+differences arose between them. Mataafa had expected
+to occupy a position of influence in the government:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page7"></a>7</span>
+finding himself ignored, he withdrew to a camp (Malie)
+a few miles outside the town of Apia, where he lived in
+semi-royal state as a sort of passive rebel or rival to
+the recognised king. In the meantime, in the course of
+the year 1891, the two white officials appointed under the
+Berlin Convention&mdash;namely, the Chief Justice, a Swedish
+gentleman named Cedercrantz, and the President of the
+Council, Baron Senfft von Pilsach&mdash;had come out to the
+islands and entered on their duties. These gentlemen soon
+proved themselves unfitted for their task to a degree both
+disastrous and grotesque. Almost the entire white community
+were soon against them; with the native population
+they had no influence or credit; affairs both political
+and municipal went from bad to worse; and the consuls
+of the three powers, acting as an official board of advisers
+to the king, could do very little to mend them.</p>
+
+<p>To the impropriety of some of the official proceedings
+Stevenson felt compelled to call attention in a series of
+letters to the Times, the first of which appeared in 1891,
+the remainder in 1892. He had formed the conviction that
+for the cure of Samoan troubles two things were necessary:
+first and above all, the reconciliation of Laupepa and
+Mataafa; secondly, the supersession of the unlucky Chief
+Justice and President by men better qualified for their
+tasks. To effect the former purpose, he made his only
+practical intromission in local politics, and made it unsuccessfully.
+The motive of his letters to the Times was the
+hope to effect the second. In this matter, after undergoing
+the risk, which was at one moment serious, of deportation,
+he in the end saw his wishes fulfilled. The first Chief
+Justice and President were replaced by better qualified
+persons in the course of 1893. But meantime the muddle
+had grown to a head. In the autumn of that year war
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page8"></a>8</span>
+broke out between the partisans of Laupepa and Mataafa:
+the latter were defeated, and Mataafa exiled to a distant
+island. At the close of the following year Stevenson died.
+Three years later followed the death of Laupepa: then
+came more confused rivalries between various claimants
+to the kingly title. The Germans, having by this time
+come round to Stevenson&rsquo;s opinion, backed the claims of
+Mataafa, which they had before stubbornly disallowed,
+while the English and Americans stood for another candidate.
+In 1899 these differences resulted in a calamitous
+and unjustifiable action, the bombardment of native villages
+for several successive days by English and American
+war-ships. As a matter of urgent necessity, to avert
+worse things, new negotiations were set on foot between
+the three powers, with the result that England withdrew
+her claims in Samoa altogether, America was satisfied with
+the small island of Tutuila with its fine harbour of Pago-pago,
+while the two larger islands of Upolu and Savaii
+were ceded to Germany. German officials have governed
+them well and peacefully ever since, having allowed the
+restored Mataafa, as long as he lived, a recognised position
+of headship among the native chiefs. Stevenson during his
+lifetime was obnoxious to the German official world. But
+his name and memory are now held in honour by them, his
+policy to a large extent practically followed, and he would
+have been the first to acknowledge the merits of the new
+order had he lived to witness it.</p>
+
+<p>These remarks, following the subject down to what
+remains for the present its historic conclusion, will, I
+hope, be enough to clear it for the present purpose out
+of the reader&rsquo;s way and enable him to understand as much
+as is necessary of the political allusions in this and the
+following sections of the correspondence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page9"></a>9</span></p>
+
+<p>It need only be added that in reading the following
+pages it must be borne in mind that Mulinuu and Malie,
+the places respectively of Laupepa&rsquo;s and Mataafa&rsquo;s residence,
+are also used to signify their respective parties and
+followings.</p>
+
+<div class="pt05">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>During the absence of the Stevensons at Sydney some eight
+acres of the Vailima property had been cleared of jungle, a cottage
+roughly built on the clearing, and something done towards making
+the track up the hill from Apia into a practicable road. They
+occupied the cottage at once, and the following letters narrate of
+the sequel.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>In the Mountain, Apia, Samoa, Monday, November 2nd, 1890.</i></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;This is a hard and interesting and
+beautiful life that we lead now. Our place is in a deep
+cleft of Vaea Mountain, some six hundred feet above the
+sea, embowered in forest, which is our strangling enemy,
+and which we combat with axes and dollars. I went
+crazy over outdoor work, and had at last to confine myself
+to the house, or literature must have gone by the board.
+<i>Nothing</i> is so interesting as weeding, clearing, and path-making;
+the oversight of labourers becomes a disease;
+it is quite an effort not to drop into the farmer; and it
+does make you feel so well. To come down covered with
+mud and drenched with sweat and rain after some hours
+in the bush, change, rub down, and take a chair in the
+verandah, is to taste a quiet conscience. And the strange
+thing that I mark is this: If I go out and make sixpence,
+bossing my labourers and plying the cutlass or the spade,
+idiot conscience applauds me; if I sit in the house and
+make twenty pounds, idiot conscience wails over my neglect
+and the day wasted. For near a fortnight I did not go
+beyond the verandah; then I found my rush of work
+run out, and went down for the night to Apia; put in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page10"></a>10</span>
+Sunday afternoon with our consul, &ldquo;a nice young man,&rdquo;
+dined with my friend H. J. Moors in the evening, went
+to church&mdash;no less&mdash;at the white and half-white church&mdash;I
+had never been before, and was much interested; the
+woman I sat next <i>looked</i> a full-blood native, and it was
+in the prettiest and readiest English that she sang the
+hymns; back to Moors&rsquo;, where we yarned of the islands,
+being both wide wanderers, till bedtime; bed, sleep,
+breakfast, horse saddled; round to the mission, to get
+Mr. Clarke to be my interpreter; over with him to the
+King&rsquo;s, whom I have not called on since my return;
+received by that mild old gentleman; have some interesting
+talk with him about Samoan superstitions and my
+land&mdash;the scene of a great battle in his (Malietoa Laupepa&rsquo;s)
+youth&mdash;the place which we have cleared the platform of
+his fort&mdash;the gulley of the stream full of dead bodies&mdash;the
+fight rolled off up Vaea mountain-side; back with Clarke
+to the mission; had a bit of lunch and consulted over a
+queer point of missionary policy just arisen, about our
+new Town Hall and the balls there&mdash;too long to go into,
+but a quaint example of the intricate questions which
+spring up daily in the missionary path.<a name="FnAnchor_1" href="#Footnote_1"><span class="sp">1</span></a></p>
+
+<p>Then off up the hill; Jack very fresh, the sun (close
+on noon) staring hot, the breeze very strong and pleasant;
+the ineffable green country all round&mdash;gorgeous little birds
+(I think they are humming-birds, but they say not) skirmishing
+in the wayside flowers. About a quarter way up
+I met a native coming down with the trunk of a cocoa
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11"></a>11</span>
+palm across his shoulder; his brown breast glittering with
+sweat and oil: &ldquo;Talofa&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Talofa, alii&mdash;You see that
+white man? He speak for you.&rdquo; &ldquo;White man he gone
+up here?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Ioe&rdquo; (Yes)&mdash;&ldquo;Tofa, alii&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Tofa, soifua!&rdquo;
+I put on Jack up the steep path, till he is all as white as
+shaving stick&mdash;Brown&rsquo;s euxesis, wish I had some&mdash;past
+Tanugamanono, a bush village&mdash;see into the houses as I
+pass&mdash;they are open sheds scattered on a green&mdash;see the
+brown folk sitting there, suckling kids, sleeping on their
+stiff wooden pillows&mdash;then on through the wood path&mdash;and
+here I find the mysterious white man (poor devil!) with
+his twenty years&rsquo; certificate of good behaviour as a book-keeper,
+frozen out by the strikes in the colonies, come
+up here on a chance, no work to be found, big hotel bill,
+no ship to leave in&mdash;and come up to beg twenty dollars
+because he heard I was a Scotchman, offering to leave
+his portmanteau in pledge. Settle this, and on again; and
+here my house comes in view, and a war whoop fetches
+my wife and Henry (or Simelé), our Samoan boy, on the
+front balcony; and I am home again, and only sorry that
+I shall have to go down again to Apia this day week. I
+could, and would, dwell here unmoved, but there are
+things to be attended to.</p>
+
+<p>Never say I don&rsquo;t give you details and news. That
+is a picture of a letter.</p>
+
+<p>I have been hard at work since I came; three chapters
+of <i>The Wrecker</i>, and since that, eight of the South Sea
+book, and, along and about and in between, a hatful of
+verses. Some day I&rsquo;ll send the verse to you, and you&rsquo;ll
+say if any of it is any good. I have got in a better vein
+with the South Sea book, as I think you will see; I think
+these chapters will do for the volume without much
+change. Those that I did in the <i>Janet Nicoll</i>, under the
+most ungodly circumstances, I fear will want a lot of
+suppling and lightening, but I hope to have your remarks
+in a month or two upon that point. It seems a long
+while since I have heard from you. I do hope you are
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page12"></a>12</span>
+well. I am wonderful, but tired from so much work; &rsquo;tis
+really immense what I have done; in the South Sea
+book I have fifty pages copied fair, some of which has
+been four times, and all twice written; certainly fifty
+pages of solid scriving inside a fortnight, but I was at it
+by seven a.m. till lunch, and from two till four or five
+every day; between whiles, verse and blowing on the
+flageolet; never outside. If you could see this place!
+but I don&rsquo;t want any one to see it till my clearing is done,
+and my house built. It will be a home for angels.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter1">
+    <img src="images/img2.jpg" width="450" height="248" alt="Illustration" title="Illustration" /></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="f90">
+<table class="nobctr" width="60%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr><td class="tc3" style="padding-left: 20%;" colspan="2">* Point referred to in text.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tc3" style="padding-left: 20%;" colspan="2">........ Paths.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tc3" style="padding-left: 20%;" colspan="2">======== Our boundary.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3"><i>a. Garden.</i></td>
+<td class="tc3"><i>b. Present house.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3"><i>c. Banana Patch.</i></td>
+<td class="tc3"><i>d. Waterfall.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3" colspan="2"><i>e. Large waterfall into deep gorge where the heat of the fight was.</i></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>So far I wrote after my bit of dinner, some cold meat
+and bananas, on arrival. Then out to see where Henry
+and some of the men were clearing the garden; for it
+was plain there was to be no work to-day indoors, and I
+must set in consequence to farmering. I stuck a good
+while on the way up, for the path there is largely my own
+handiwork, and there were a lot of sprouts and saplings
+and stones to be removed. Then I reached our clearing
+just where the streams join in one; it had a fine autumn
+smell of burning, the smoke blew in the woods, and the boys
+were pretty merry and busy. Now I had a private design:&mdash;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page13"></a>13</span>
+The Vaita&rsquo;e I had explored pretty far up; not yet the
+other stream, the Vaituliga (g=nasal n, as ng in sing);
+and up that, with my wood knife, I set off alone. It is
+here quite dry; it went through endless woods; about
+as broad as a Devonshire lane, here and there crossed by
+fallen trees; huge trees overhead in the sun, dripping
+lianas and tufted with orchids, tree ferns, ferns depending
+with air roots from the steep banks, great arums&mdash;I had
+not skill enough to say if any of them were the edible
+kind, one of our staples here!&mdash;hundreds of bananas&mdash;another
+staple&mdash;and alas! I had skill enough to know all
+of these for the bad kind that bears no fruit. My Henry
+moralised over this the other day; how hard it was that
+the bad banana flourished wild, and the good must be
+weeded and tended; and I had not the heart to tell him
+how fortunate they were here, and how hungry were other
+lands by comparison. The ascent of this lovely lane of
+my dry stream filled me with delight. I could not but
+be reminded of old Mayne Reid, as I have been more than
+once since I came to the tropics; and I thought, if Reid
+had been still living, I would have written to tell him
+that, for me, <i>it had come true</i>; and I thought, forbye,
+that, if the great powers go on as they are going, and the
+Chief Justice delays, it would come truer still; and the
+war-conch will sound in the hills, and my home will be
+inclosed in camps, before the year is ended. And all at
+once&mdash;mark you, how Mayne Reid is on the spot&mdash;a
+strange thing happened. I saw a liana stretch across the
+bed of the brook about breast-high, swung up my knife to
+sever it, and&mdash;behold, it was a wire! On either hand it
+plunged into thick bush; to-morrow I shall see where it
+goes and get a guess perhaps of what it means. To-day I
+know no more than&mdash;there it is. A little higher the brook
+began to trickle, then to fill. At last, as I meant to do some
+work upon the homeward trail, it was time to turn. I did
+not return by the stream; knife in hand, as long as my endurance
+lasted, I was to cut a path in the congested bush.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page14"></a>14</span></p>
+
+<p>At first it went ill with me; I got badly stung as
+high as the elbows by the stinging plant; I was nearly
+hung in a tough liana&mdash;a rotten trunk giving way under
+my feet; it was deplorable bad business. And an axe&mdash;if
+I dared swing one&mdash;would have been more to the purpose
+than my cutlass. Of a sudden things began to go
+strangely easier; I found stumps, bushing out again;
+my body began to wonder, then my mind; I raised my
+eyes and looked ahead; and, by George, I was no longer
+pioneering, I had struck an old track overgrown, and
+was restoring an old path. So I laboured till I was in
+such a state that Carolina Wilhelmina Skeggs<a name="FnAnchor_2" href="#Footnote_2"><span class="sp">2</span></a> could
+scarce have found a name for it. Thereon desisted; returned
+to the stream; made my way down that stony
+track to the garden, where the smoke was still hanging
+and the sun was still in the high tree-tops, and so home.
+Here, fondly supposing my long day was over, I rubbed
+down; exquisite agony; water spreads the poison of
+these weeds; I got it all over my hands, on my chest,
+in my eyes, and presently, while eating an orange, <i>ŕ la</i>
+Rarotonga, burned my lip and eye with orange juice.
+Now all day, our three small pigs had been adrift, to the
+mortal peril of our corn, lettuce, onions, etc., and as I
+stood smarting on the back verandah, behold the three
+piglings issuing from the wood just opposite. Instantly
+I got together as many boys as I could&mdash;three, and got
+the pigs penned against the rampart of the sty, till the
+others joined; whereupon we formed a cordon, closed,
+captured the deserters, and dropped them, squeaking
+amain, into their strengthened barracks where, please God,
+they may now stay!</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps you may suppose the day now over; you are
+not the head of a plantation, my juvenile friend. Politics
+succeeded: Henry got adrift in his English, Bene was too
+cowardly to tell me what he was after: result, I have lost
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page15"></a>15</span>
+seven good labourers, and had to sit down and write to
+you to keep my temper. Let me sketch my lads.&mdash;Henry&mdash;Henry
+has gone down to town or I could not be writing
+to you&mdash;this were the hour of his English lesson else,
+when he learns what he calls &ldquo;long explessions&rdquo; or &ldquo;your
+chief&rsquo;s language&rdquo; for the matter of an hour and a half&mdash;Henry
+is a chiefling from Savaii; I once loathed, I now
+like and&mdash;pending fresh discoveries&mdash;have a kind of respect
+for Henry. He does good work for us; goes among the
+labourers, bossing and watching; helps Fanny; is civil,
+kindly, thoughtful; <i>O si sic semper!</i> But will he be &ldquo;his
+sometime self throughout the year&rdquo;? Anyway, he has
+deserved of us, and he must disappoint me sharply ere I
+give him up.&mdash;Bene&mdash;or Peni&mdash;Ben, in plain English&mdash;is
+supposed to be my ganger; the Lord love him! God
+made a truckling coward, there is his full history. He
+cannot tell me what he wants; he dares not tell me what
+is wrong; he dares not transmit my orders or translate
+my censures. And with all this, honest, sober, industrious,
+miserably smiling over the miserable issue of his own unmanliness.&mdash;Paul&mdash;a
+German&mdash;cook and steward&mdash;a glutton
+of work&mdash;a splendid fellow; drawbacks, three: (1) no
+cook; (2) an inveterate bungler; a man with twenty
+thumbs, continually falling in the dishes, throwing out the
+dinner, preserving the garbage; (3) a dr&mdash;&mdash;, well, don&rsquo;t let
+us say that&mdash;but we daren&rsquo;t let him go to town, and he&mdash;poor,
+good soul&mdash;is afraid to be let go.&mdash;Lafaele (Raphael),
+a strong, dull, deprecatory man; splendid with an axe,
+if watched; the better for a rowing, when he calls me
+&ldquo;Papa&rdquo; in the most wheedling tones; desperately afraid
+of ghosts, so that he dare not walk alone up in the banana
+patch&mdash;see map. The rest are changing labourers; and
+to-night, owing to the miserable cowardice of Peni, who
+did not venture to tell me what the men wanted&mdash;and
+which was no more than fair&mdash;all are gone&mdash;and my weeding
+in the article of being finished! Pity the sorrows of a
+planter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page16"></a>16</span>
+I am, Sir, yours, and be jowned to you, The Planter,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday, 3rd.</i>&mdash;I begin to see the whole scheme of
+letter-writing; you sit down every day and pour out an
+equable stream of twaddle.</p>
+
+<p>This morning all my fears were fled, and all the trouble
+had fallen to the lot of Peni himself, who deserved it;
+my field was full of weeders; and I am again able to
+justify the ways of God. All morning I worked at the
+<i>South Seas</i>, and finished the chapter I had stuck upon on
+Saturday. Fanny, awfully hove-to with rheumatics and
+injuries received upon the field of sport and glory, chasing
+pigs, was unable to go up and down stairs, so she sat upon
+the back verandah, and my work was chequered by her
+cries. &ldquo;Paul, you take a spade to do that&mdash;dig a hole
+first. If you do that, you&rsquo;ll cut your foot off! Here, you
+boy, what you do there? You no get work? You go
+find Simelé; he give you work. Peni, you tell this boy
+he go find Simelé; suppose Simelé no give him work, you
+tell him go &rsquo;way. I no want him here. That boy no
+good.&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Peni</i> (from the distance in reassuring tones), &ldquo;All
+right, sir!&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Fanny</i> (after a long pause), &ldquo;Peni, you tell
+that boy go find Simelé! I no want him stand here all
+day. I no pay that boy. I see him all day. He no do
+nothing.&rdquo;&mdash;Luncheon, beef, soda-scones, fried bananas,
+pine-apple in claret, coffee. Try to write a poem; no go.
+Play the flageolet. Then sneakingly off to farmering and
+pioneering. Four gangs at work on our place; a lively
+scene; axes crashing and smoke blowing; all the knives
+are out.  But I rob the garden party of one without a
+stock, and you should see my hand&mdash;cut to ribbons. Now
+I want to do my path up the Vaituliga single-handed, and
+I want it to burst on the public complete. Hence, with
+devilish ingenuity, I begin it at different places; so that
+if you stumble on one section, you may not even then
+suspect the fulness of my labours. Accordingly, I started
+in a new place, below the wire, and hoping to work up
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page17"></a>17</span>
+to it. It was perhaps lucky I had so bad a cutlass, and
+my smarting hand bid me stay before I had got up to the
+wire, but just in season, so that I was only the better of
+my activity, not dead beat as yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>A strange business it was, and infinitely solitary; away
+above, the sun was in the high tree-tops; the lianas noosed
+and sought to hang me; the saplings struggled, and came
+up with that sob of death that one gets to know so well;
+great, soft, sappy trees fell at a lick of the cutlass, little
+tough switches laughed at and dared my best endeavour.
+Soon, toiling down in that pit of verdure, I heard blows
+on the far side, and then laughter. I confess a chill settled
+on my heart. Being so dead alone, in a place where by
+rights none should be beyond me, I was aware, upon
+interrogation, if those blows had drawn nearer, I should
+(of course quite unaffectedly) have executed a strategic
+movement to the rear; and only the other day I was
+lamenting my insensibility to superstition! Am I beginning
+to be sucked in? Shall I become a midnight twitterer
+like my neighbours? At times I thought the blows were
+echoes; at times I thought the laughter was from birds.
+For our birds are strangely human in their calls. Vaea
+mountain about sundown sometimes rings with shrill cries,
+like the hails of merry, scattered children. As a matter of
+fact, I believe stealthy wood-cutters from Tanugamanono
+were above me in the wood and answerable for the blows;
+as for the laughter, a woman and two children had come
+and asked Fanny&rsquo;s leave to go up shrimp-fishing in the
+burn; beyond doubt, it was these I heard. Just at the
+right time I returned; to wash down, change, and begin
+this snatch of letter before dinner was ready, and to finish
+it afterwards, before Henry has yet put in an appearance
+for his lesson in &ldquo;long explessions.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Dinner: stewed beef and potatoes, baked bananas,
+new loaf-bread hot from the oven, pine-apple in claret.
+These are great days; we have been low in the past; but
+now are we as belly-gods, enjoying all things.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page18"></a>18</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday</i>, (<i>Hist. Vailima resumed.</i>)&mdash;A gorgeous
+evening of after-glow in the great tree-tops and behind
+the mountain, and full moon over the lowlands and the
+sea, inaugurated a night of horrid cold. To you effete
+denizens of the so-called temperate zone, it had seemed
+nothing; neither of us could sleep; we were up seeking
+extra coverings, I know not at what hour&mdash;it was as bright
+as day. The moon right over Vaea&mdash;near due west, the
+birds strangely silent, and the wood of the house tingling
+with cold; I believe it must have been 60°! Consequence:
+Fanny has a headache and is wretched, and I could do no
+work. (I am trying all round for a place to hold my pen;
+you will hear why later on; this to explain penmanship.)
+I wrote two pages, very bad, no movement, no life or
+interest; then I wrote a business letter; then took to
+tootling on the flageolet, till glory should call me farmering.</p>
+
+<p>I took up at the fit time Lafaele and Mauga&mdash;Mauga,
+accent on the first, is a mountain, I don&rsquo;t know what
+Maugŕ means&mdash;mind what I told you of the value of g&mdash;to
+the garden, and set them digging, then turned my
+attention to the path. I could not go into my bush path
+for two reasons: 1st, sore hands; 2nd, had on my trousers
+and good shoes. Lucky it was. Right in the wild lime
+hedge which cuts athwart us just homeward of the garden,
+I found a great bed of kuikui&mdash;sensitive plant&mdash;our deadliest
+enemy. A fool brought it to this island in a pot, and
+used to lecture and sentimentalise over the tender thing.
+The tender thing has now taken charge of this island, and
+men fight it, with torn hands, for bread and life. A singular,
+insidious thing, shrinking and biting like a weasel; clutching
+by its roots as a limpet clutches to a rock. As I fought
+him, I bettered some verses in my poem, <i>The Woodman</i>;<a name="FnAnchor_3" href="#Footnote_3"><span class="sp">3</span></a>
+the only thought I gave to letters. Though the kuikui was
+thick, there was but a small patch of it, and when I was
+done I attacked the wild lime, and had a hand-to-hand
+skirmish with its spines and elastic suckers. All this time,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page19"></a>19</span>
+close by, in the cleared space of the garden, Lafaele and
+Maugŕ were digging. Suddenly quoth Lafaele, &ldquo;Somebody
+he sing out.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Somebody he sing out? All right.
+I go.&rdquo; And I went and found they had been whistling
+and &ldquo;singing out&rdquo; for long, but the fold of the hill and
+the uncleared bush shuts in the garden so that no one
+heard, and I was late for dinner, and Fanny&rsquo;s headache
+was cross; and when the meal was over, we had to cut
+up a pineapple which was going bad, to make jelly of;
+and the next time you have a handful of broken blood-blisters,
+apply pine-apple juice, and you will give me news
+of it, and I request a specimen of your hand of write five
+minutes after&mdash;the historic moment when I tackled this
+history. My day so far.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny was to have rested. Blessed Paul began making
+a duck-house; she let him be; the duck-house fell down,
+and she had to set her hand to it. He was then to make
+a drinking-place for the pigs; she let him be again&mdash;he
+made a stair by which the pigs will probably escape this
+evening, and she was near weeping. Impossible to blame
+the indefatigable fellow; energy is too rare and goodwill
+too noble a thing to discourage; but it&rsquo;s trying when
+she wants a rest. Then she had to cook the dinner; then,
+of course&mdash;like a fool and a woman&mdash;must wait dinner
+for me, and make a flurry of herself. Her day so far.
+<i>Cetera adhuc desunt.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Friday</i>&mdash;<i>I think.</i>&mdash;I have been too tired to add to this
+chronicle, which will at any rate give you some guess of
+our employment. All goes well; the kuikui&mdash;(think of
+this mispronunciation having actually infected me to the
+extent of misspelling! tuitui is the word by rights)&mdash;the
+tuitui is all out of the paddock&mdash;a fenced park between
+the house and boundary; Peni&rsquo;s men start to-day on the
+road; the garden is part burned, part dug; and Henry,
+at the head of a troop of underpaid assistants, is hard at
+work clearing. The part clearing you will see from the
+map; from the house run down to the stream side, up
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page20"></a>20</span>
+the stream nearly as high as the garden; then back to the
+star which I have just added to the map.</p>
+
+<p>My long, silent contests in the forest have had a
+strange effect on me. The unconcealed vitality of these
+vegetables, their exuberant number and strength, the
+attempts&mdash;I can use no other word&mdash;of lianas to enwrap
+and capture the intruder, the awful silence, the knowledge
+that all my efforts are only like the performance of
+an actor, the thing of a moment, and the wood will silently
+and swiftly heal them up with fresh effervescence; the
+cunning sense of the tuitui, suffering itself to be touched
+with wind-swayed grasses and not minding&mdash;but let the
+grass be moved by a man, and it shuts up; the whole
+silent battle, murder, and slow death of the contending
+forest; weigh upon the imagination. My poem <i>The Woodman</i>
+stands; but I have taken refuge in a new story,
+which just shot through me like a bullet in one of my
+moments of awe, alone in that tragic jungle:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr" style="font-size: 100%;">
+
+<p class="center noind"><i>The High Woods of Ulufanua</i><a name="FnAnchor_4" href="#Footnote_4"><span class="sp">4</span></a></p>
+
+<p class="i1">1. A South Sea Bridal.</p>
+<p class="i1">2. Under the Ban.</p>
+<p class="i1">3. Savao and Faavao.</p>
+<p class="i1">4. Cries in the High Wood.</p>
+<p class="i1">5. Rumour full of Tongues.</p>
+<p class="i1">6. The Hour of Peril.</p>
+<p class="i1">7. The Day of Vengeance.</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>It is very strange, very extravagant, I dare say; but
+it&rsquo;s varied, and picturesque, and has a pretty love affair,
+and ends well. Ulufanua is a lovely Samoan word, ulu =
+grove; fanua = land; grove-land&mdash;&ldquo;the tops of the high
+trees.&rdquo; Savao, &ldquo;sacred to the wood,&rdquo; and Faavao, &ldquo;wood-ways,&rdquo;
+are the names of two of the characters, Ulufanua
+the name of the supposed island.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page21"></a>21</span>
+I am very tired, and rest off to-day from all but letters.
+Fanny is quite done up; she could not sleep last night,
+something it seemed like asthma&mdash;I trust not. I suppose
+Lloyd will be about, so you can give him the benefit of
+this long scrawl.<a name="FnAnchor_5" href="#Footnote_5"><span class="sp">5</span></a> Never say that I <i>can&rsquo;t</i> write a letter,
+say that I don&rsquo;t.&mdash;Yours ever, my dearest fellow,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p><i>Later on Friday.</i>&mdash;The guidwife had bread to bake,
+and she baked it in a pan, O! But between whiles she
+was down with me weeding sensitive in the paddock. The
+men have but now passed over it; I was round in that
+very place to see the weeding was done thoroughly, and
+already the reptile springs behind our heels. Tuitui is
+a truly strange beast, and gives food for thought. I am
+nearly sure&mdash;I cannot yet be quite, I mean to experiment,
+when I am less on the hot chase of the beast&mdash;that, even
+at the instant he shrivels up his leaves, he strikes his
+prickles downward so as to catch the uprooting finger;
+instinctive, say the gabies; but so is man&rsquo;s impulse to
+strike out. One thing that takes and holds me is to see
+the strange variation in the propagation of alarm among
+these rooted beasts; at times it spreads to a radius (I
+speak by the guess of the eye) of five or six inches; at
+times only one individual plant appears frightened at a
+time. We tried how long it took one to recover; &rsquo;tis a
+sanguine creature; it is all abroad again before (I guess
+again) two minutes. It is odd how difficult in this world
+it is to be armed. The double armour of this plant betrays
+it. In a thick tuft, where the leaves disappear, I thrust
+In my hand, and the bite of the thorns betrays the top-most
+stem. In the open again, and when I hesitate if it
+be clover, a touch on the leaves, and its fine sense and
+retractile action betrays its identity at once. Yet it has
+one gift incomparable. Rome had virtue and knowledge;
+Rome perished. The sensitive plant has indigestible seeds&mdash;so
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page22"></a>22</span>
+they say&mdash;and it will flourish for ever. I give my
+advice thus to a young plant&mdash;have a strong root, a weak
+stem, and an indigestible seed; so you will outlast the
+eternal city, and your progeny will clothe mountains, and
+the irascible planter will blaspheme in vain. The weak
+point of tuitui is that its stem is strong.</p>
+
+<p><i>Supplementary Page.</i>&mdash;Here beginneth the third lesson,
+which is not from the planter but from a less estimable
+character, the writer of books.</p>
+
+<p>I want you to understand about this South Sea Book.
+The job is immense; I stagger under material. I have
+seen the first big <i>tache</i>. It was necessary to see the smaller
+ones; the letters were at my hand for the purpose, but I
+was not going to lose this experience; and, instead of
+writing mere letters, have poured out a lot of stuff for the
+book. How this works and fits, time is to show. But I
+believe, in time, I shall get the whole thing in form. Now,
+up to date, that is all my design, and I beg to warn you
+till we have the whole (or much) of the stuff together, you
+can hardly judge&mdash;and I can hardly judge. Such a mass
+of stuff is to be handled, if possible without repetition&mdash;so
+much foreign matter to be introduced&mdash;if possible with
+perspicuity&mdash;and, as much as can be, a spirit of narrative
+to be preserved. You will find that come stronger
+as I proceed, and get the explanations worked through.
+Problems of style are (as yet) dirt under my feet; my
+problem is architectural, creative&mdash;to get this stuff
+jointed and moving. If I can do that, I will trouble
+you for style; anybody might write it, and it would be
+splendid; well-engineered, the masses right, the blooming
+thing travelling&mdash;twig?</p>
+
+<p>This I wanted you to understand, for lots of the stuff
+sent home is, I imagine, rot&mdash;and slovenly rot&mdash;and some
+of it pompous rot; and I want you to understand it&rsquo;s a
+<i>lay-in</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Soon, if the tide of poeshie continues, I&rsquo;ll send you a
+whole lot to damn. You never said thank you for the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page23"></a>23</span>
+handsome tribute addressed to you from Apemama;<a name="FnAnchor_6" href="#Footnote_6"><span class="sp">6</span></a> such
+is the gratitude of the world to the God-sent poick. Well,
+well:&mdash;&ldquo;Vex not thou the poick&rsquo;s mind, With thy coriaceous
+ingratitude, The P. will be to your faults more than
+a little blind, And yours is a far from handsome attitude.&rdquo;
+Having thus dropped into poetry in a spirit of friendship,
+I have the honour to subscribe myself, Sir, your obedient
+humble servant,</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Silas Wegg</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p>I suppose by this you will have seen the lad&mdash;and his
+feet will have been in the Monument&mdash;and his eyes beheld
+the face of George.<a name="FnAnchor_7" href="#Footnote_7"><span class="sp">7</span></a> Well!</p>
+
+<p style="padding-left: 5em;">There is much eloquence in a well!</p>
+<p style="padding-left: 7em;">I am, Sir,</p>
+<p style="padding-left: 9em;">Yours</p>
+<p style="padding-left: 11em;">The Epigrammatist</p>
+
+
+<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration">
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="figcenter1">
+    <img src="images/img3.jpg" width="300" height="311" alt="Epigram." title="Epigram." /></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="pt05">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page24"></a>24</span></p>
+
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The opening sentences of the following refer of course to <i>The
+Wrecker</i>, and particularly to a suggestion of mine concerning the
+relation of the main narrative to the prologue:&mdash;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Apia, Samoa, Nov. 7, 1890.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">I wish</span> you to add to the words at the end of the prologue;
+they run, I think, thus, &ldquo;And this is the yarn of
+Loudon Dodd&rdquo;; add, &ldquo;not as he told, but as he wrote
+it afterwards for his diversion.&rdquo; This becomes the more
+needful, because, when all is done, I shall probably revert
+to Tai-o-hae, and give final details about the characters
+in the way of a conversation between Dodd and Havers.
+These little snippets of information and <i>faits-divers</i> have
+always a disjointed, broken-backed appearance; yet,
+readers like them. In this book we have introduced so
+many characters, that this kind of epilogue will be looked
+for; and I rather hope, looking far ahead, that I can
+lighten it in dialogue.</p>
+
+<p>We are well past the middle now. How does it strike
+you? and can you guess my mystery? It will make a
+fattish volume!</p>
+
+<p>I say, have you ever read the <i>Highland Widow</i>? I
+never had till yesterday: I am half inclined, bar a trip
+or two, to think it Scott&rsquo;s masterpiece; and it has the
+name of a failure! Strange things are readers.</p>
+
+<p>I expect proofs and revises in duplicate.</p>
+
+<p>We have now got into a small barrack at our place.
+We see the sea six hundred feet below filling the end of
+two vales of forest. On one hand the mountain runs above
+us some thousand feet higher; great trees stand round
+us in our clearing; there is an endless voice of birds; I
+have never lived in such a heaven; just now, I have
+fever, which mitigates but not destroys my gusto in my
+circumstances.&mdash;You may envy</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page25"></a>25</span>
+ ... O, I don&rsquo;t know if I mentioned that having seen
+your new tail to the magazine, I cried off interference, at
+least for this trip. Did I ask you to send me my books
+and papers, and all the bound volumes of the mag.?
+<i>quorum pars</i>. I might add that were there a good book
+or so&mdash;new&mdash;I don&rsquo;t believe there is&mdash;such would be
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p>I desire&mdash;I positively begin to awake&mdash;to be remembered
+to Scribner, Low, St. Gaudens, Russell Sullivan.
+Well, well, you fellows have the feast of reason and the
+flow of soul; I have a better-looking place and climate:
+you should hear the birds on the hill now! The day has
+just wound up with a shower; it is still light without,
+though I write within here at the cheek of a lamp; my
+wife and an invaluable German are wrestling about bread
+on the back verandah; and how the birds and the frogs
+are rattling, and piping, and hailing from the woods!
+Here and there a throaty chuckle; here and there, cries
+like those of jolly children who have lost their way; here
+and there, the ringing sleigh-bell of the tree frog. Out
+and away down below me on the sea it is still raining; it
+will be wet under foot on schooners, and the house will
+leak; how well I know that! Here the showers only
+patter on the iron roof, and sometimes roar; and within,
+the lamp burns steady on the tafa-covered walls, with
+their dusky tartan patterns, and the book-shelves with
+their thin array of books; and no squall can rout my
+house or bring my heart into my mouth.&mdash;The well-pleased
+South Sea Islander,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt05">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Tuesday, November 25th,1890.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;I wanted to go out bright and early
+to go on with my survey. You never heard of that. The
+world has turned, and much water run under bridges,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page26"></a>26</span>
+since I stopped my diary. I have written six more chapters
+of the book, all good I potently believe, and given up, as
+a deception of the devil&rsquo;s, the <i>High Woods</i>. I have been
+once down to Apia, to a huge native feast at Seumanutafa&rsquo;s,
+the chief of Apia. There was a vast mass of food, crowds
+of people, the police charging among them with whips,
+the whole in high good humour on both sides; infinite
+noise; and a historic event&mdash;Mr. Clarke, the missionary,
+and his wife, assisted at a native dance. On my return
+from this function, I found work had stopped; no more
+<i>South Seas</i> in my belly. Well, Henry had cleared a great
+deal of our bush on a contract, and it ought to be measured.
+I set myself to the task with a tape-line; it seemed a
+dreary business; then I borrowed a prismatic compass,
+and tackled the task afresh. I have no books; I had not
+touched an instrument nor given a thought to the business
+since the year of grace 1871; you can imagine with
+what interest I sat down yesterday afternoon to reduce
+my observations; five triangles I had taken; all five
+came right, to my ineffable joy. Our dinner&mdash;the lowest
+we have ever been&mdash;consisted of <i>one avocado pear</i> between
+Fanny and me, a ship&rsquo;s biscuit for the guidman, white
+bread for the Missis, and red wine for the twa. No salt
+horse, even, in all Vailima! After dinner Henry came,
+and I began to teach him decimals; you wouldn&rsquo;t think
+I knew them myself after so long desuetude!</p>
+
+<p>I could not but wonder how Henry stands his evenings
+here; the Polynesian loves gaiety&mdash;I feed him with decimals,
+the mariner&rsquo;s compass, derivations, grammar, and
+the like; delecting myself, after the manner of my race,
+<i>moult tristement</i>. I suck my paws; I live for my dexterities
+and by my accomplishments; even my clumsinesses
+are my joy&mdash;my woodcuts, my stumbling on the pipe,
+this surveying even&mdash;and even weeding sensitive; anything
+to do with the mind, with the eye, with the hand&mdash;with
+a part of <i>me</i>; diversion flows in these ways for
+the dreary man. But gaiety is what these children want;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page27"></a>27</span>
+to sit in a crowd, tell stories and pass jests, to hear one
+another laugh and scamper with the girls. It&rsquo;s good
+fun, too, I believe, but not for R. L. S., <i>ćtat.</i> 40. Which
+I am now past forty, Custodian, and not one penny the
+worse that I can see; as amusable as ever; to be on
+board ship is reward enough for me; give me the wages
+of going on&mdash;in a schooner! Only, if ever I were gay,
+which I misremember, I am gay no more. And here is
+poor Henry passing his evenings on my intellectual husks,
+which the professors masticated; keeping the accounts of
+the estate&mdash;all wrong I have no doubt&mdash;I keep no check,
+beyond a very rough one; marching in with a cloudy
+brow, and the day-book under his arm; tackling decimals,
+coming with cases of conscience&mdash;how would an English
+chief behave in such a case? etc.; and, I am bound to say,
+on any glimmer of a jest, lapsing into native hilarity as
+a tree straightens itself after the wind is by. The other
+night I remembered my old friend&mdash;I believe yours also&mdash;Scholastikos,
+and administered the crow and the anchor&mdash;they
+were quite fresh to Samoan ears (this implies a
+very early severance)&mdash;and I thought the anchor would
+have made away with my Simelé altogether.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny&rsquo;s time, in this interval, has been largely occupied
+in contending publicly with wild swine. We have a black
+sow; we call her Jack Sheppard; impossible to confine
+her&mdash;impossible also for her to be confined! To my sure
+knowledge she has been in an interesting condition for
+longer than any other sow in story; else she had long
+died the death; as soon as she is brought to bed, she
+shall count her days. I suppose that sow has cost us
+in days&rsquo; labour from thirty to fifty dollars; as many as
+eight boys (at a dollar a day) have been twelve hours in
+chase of her. Now it is supposed that Fanny has outwitted
+her; she grins behind broad planks in what was
+once the cook-house. She is a wild pig; far handsomer
+than any tame; and when she found the cook-house was
+too much for her methods of evasion, she lay down on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page28"></a>28</span>
+the floor and refused food and drink for a whole Sunday.
+On Monday morning she relapsed, and now eats and
+drinks like a little man. I am reminded of an incident.
+Two Sundays ago, the sad word was brought that the
+sow was out again; this time she had carried another in
+her flight. Moors and I and Fanny were strolling up to
+the garden, and there by the waterside we saw the black
+sow, looking guilty. It seemed to me beyond words; but
+Fanny&rsquo;s <i>cri du c&oelig;ur</i> was delicious: &ldquo;G-r-r!&rdquo; she cried;
+&ldquo;nobody loves you!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I would I could tell you the moving story of our cart
+and cart-horses; the latter are dapple-grey, about sixteen
+hands, and of enormous substance; the former was
+a kind of red and green shandrydan with a driving bench;
+plainly unfit to carry lumber or to face our road. (Remember
+that the last third of my road, about a mile, is all
+made out of a bridle-track by my boys&mdash;and my dollars.)
+It was supposed a white man had been found&mdash;an ex-German
+artilleryman&mdash;to drive this last; he proved incapable
+and drunken; the gallant Henry, who had never
+driven before, and knew nothing about horses&mdash;except the
+rats and weeds that flourish on the islands&mdash;volunteered;
+Moors accepted, proposing to follow and supervise: despatched
+his work and started after. No cart! he hurried
+on up the road&mdash;no cart. Transfer the scene to Vailima,
+where on a sudden, to Fanny and me, the cart appears,
+apparently at a hard gallop, some two hours before it
+was expected; Henry radiantly ruling chaos from the
+bench. It stopped: it was long before we had time to
+remark that the axle was twisted like the letter L. Our
+first care was the horses. There they stood, black with
+sweat, the sweat raining from them&mdash;literally raining&mdash;their
+heads down, their feet apart&mdash;and blood running
+thick from the nostrils of the mare. We got out Fanny&rsquo;s
+under-clothes&mdash;couldn&rsquo;t find anything else but our blankets&mdash;to
+rub them down, and in about half an hour we
+had the blessed satisfaction to see one after the other
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page29"></a>29</span>
+take a bite or two of grass. But it was a toucher; a little
+more and these steeds would have been foundered.</p>
+
+<div class="pt05">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><i>Monday, 31st(?) November.</i>&mdash;Near a week elapsed, and
+no journal. On Monday afternoon, Moors rode up and
+I rode down with him, dined, and went over in the evening
+to the American consulate; present, Consul-General
+Sewall, Lieut. Parker and Mrs. Parker, Lafarge the American
+decorator, Adams an American historian; we talked late,
+and it was arranged I was to write up for Fanny, and we
+should both dine on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>On the Friday, I was all forenoon in the mission house,
+lunched at the German consulate, went on board the
+<i>Sperber</i>(German war-ship) in the afternoon, called on my
+lawyer on my way out to American Consulate, and talked
+till dinner time with Adams, whom I am supplying with
+introductions and information for Tahiti and the Marquesas.
+Fanny arrived a wreck, and had to lie down.
+The moon rose, one day past full, and we dined in the
+verandah, a good dinner on the whole; talk with Lafarge
+about art and the lovely dreams of art students.<a name="FnAnchor_8" href="#Footnote_8"><span class="sp">8</span></a> Remark
+by Adams, which took me briskly home to the Monument&mdash;&ldquo;I
+only liked one <i>young</i> woman&mdash;and that was Mrs.
+Procter.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_9" href="#Footnote_9"><span class="sp">9</span></a> Henry James would like that. Back by moonlight
+in the consulate boat&mdash;Fanny being too tired to
+walk&mdash;to Moors&rsquo;s. Saturday, I left Fanny to rest, and was
+off early to the Mission, where the politics are thrilling
+just now. The native pastors (to every one&rsquo;s surprise)
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page30"></a>30</span>
+have moved of themselves in the matter of the native
+dances, desiring the restrictions to be removed, or rather
+to be made dependent on the character of the dance.
+Clarke, who had feared censure and all kinds of trouble, is,
+of course, rejoicing greatly. A characteristic feature: the
+argument of the pastors was handed in in the form of a
+fictitious narrative of the voyage of one Mr. Pye, an
+English traveller, and his conversation with a chief;
+there are touches of satire in this educational romance.
+Mr. Pye, for instance, admits that he knows nothing
+about the Bible. At the Mission I was sought out by
+Henry in a devil of an agitation; he has been made the
+victim of a forgery&mdash;a crime hitherto unknown in Samoa.
+I had to go to Folau, the chief judge here, in the matter.
+Folau had never heard of the offence, and begged to know
+what was the punishment; there may be lively times
+in forgery ahead. It seems the sort of crime to tickle a
+Polynesian. After lunch&mdash;you can see what a busy three
+days I am describing&mdash;we set off to ride home. My Jack
+was full of the devil of corn and too much grass, and no
+work. I had to ride ahead and leave Fanny behind. He
+is a most gallant little rascal is my Jack, and takes the
+whole way as hard as the rider pleases. Single incident:
+half-way up, I find my boys upon the road and stop and
+talk with Henry in his character of ganger, as long as
+Jack will suffer me. Fanny drones in after; we make a
+show of eating&mdash;or I do&mdash;she goes to bed about half-past
+six! I write some verses, read Irving&rsquo;s <i>Washington</i>, and
+follow about half-past eight. O, one thing more I did, in
+a prophetic spirit. I had made sure Fanny was not fit to
+be left alone, and wrote before turning in a letter to
+Chalmers, telling him I could not meet him in Auckland
+at this time. By eleven at night, Fanny got me wakened&mdash;she
+had tried twice in vain&mdash;and I found her very bad.
+Thence till three, we laboured with mustard poultices, laudanum,
+soda and ginger&mdash;Heavens! wasn&rsquo;t it cold; the land
+breeze was as cold as a river; the moon was glorious in
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page31"></a>31</span>
+the paddock, and the great boughs and the black shadows
+of our trees were inconceivable. But it was a poor time.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday morning found Fanny, of course, a complete
+wreck, and myself not very brilliant. Paul had to go to
+Vailele <i>re</i> cocoa-nuts; it was doubtful if he could be back
+by dinner; never mind, said I, I&rsquo;ll take dinner when you
+return. Off set Paul. I did an hour&rsquo;s work, and then
+tackled the house work. I did it beautiful: the house was
+a picture, it resplended of propriety. Presently Mr. Moors&rsquo;
+Andrew rode up; I heard the doctor was at the Forest
+House and sent a note to him; and when he came, I
+heard my wife telling him she had been in bed all day,
+and that was why the house was so dirty! Was it grateful?
+Was it politic? Was it <span class="sc">TRUE</span>?&mdash;Enough! In the
+interval, up marched little L. S., one of my neighbours,
+all in his Sunday white linens; made a fine salute, and
+demanded the key of the kitchen in German and English.
+And he cooked dinner for us, like a little man, and had
+it on the table and the coffee ready by the hour. Paul had
+arranged me this surprise. Some time later, Paul returned
+himself with a fresh surprise on hand; he was almost
+sober; nothing but a hazy eye distinguished him from
+Paul of the week days: <i>vivat!</i></p>
+
+<p>On the evening I cannot dwell. All the horses got out
+of the paddock, went across, and smashed my neighbour&rsquo;s
+garden into a big hole. How little the amateur conceives
+a farmer&rsquo;s troubles. I went out at once with a lantern,
+staked up a gap in the hedge, was kicked at by a chestnut
+mare, who straightway took to the bush; and came back.
+A little after, they had found another gap, and the crowd
+were all abroad again. What has happened to our own
+garden nobody yet knows.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny had a fair night, and we are both tolerable this
+morning, only the yoke of correspondence lies on me heavy.
+I beg you will let this go on to my mother. I got such a
+good start in your letter, that I kept on at it, and I have
+neither time nor energy for more.&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page32"></a>32</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Something new</i>.&mdash;I was called from my letters by the
+voice of Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, who had just come up with a load of
+wood, roaring, &ldquo;Henry! Henry! Bring six boys!&rdquo; I
+saw there was something wrong, and ran out. The cart,
+half unloaded, had upset with the mare in the shafts;
+she was all cramped together and all tangled up in harness
+and cargo, the off shaft pushing her over, the carter holding
+her up by main strength, and right along-side of her&mdash;where
+she must fall if she went down&mdash;a deadly stick
+of a tree like a lance. I could not but admire the
+wisdom and faith of this great brute; I never saw
+the riding-horse that would not have lost its life in
+such a situation; but the cart-elephant patiently waited
+and was saved. It was a stirring three minutes, I can
+tell you.</p>
+
+<p>I forgot in talking of Saturday to tell of one incident
+which will particularly interest my mother. I met Dr.
+Davis from Savaii, and had an age-long talk about Edinburgh
+folk; it was very pleasant. He has been studying
+in Edinburgh, along with his son; a pretty relation. He
+told me he knew nobody but college people: &ldquo;I was
+altogether a student,&rdquo; he said with glee. He seems full
+of cheerfulness and thick-set energy. I feel as if I could
+put him in a novel with effect; and ten to one, if I
+know more of him, the image will be only blurred.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday, Dec. 2nd.</i>&mdash;I should have told you yesterday
+that all my boys were got up for their work in moustaches
+and side-whiskers of some sort of blacking&mdash;I suppose
+wood-ash. It was a sight of joy to see them return at
+night, axe on shoulder, feigning to march like soldiers, a
+choragus with a loud voice singing out, &ldquo;March&mdash;step!
+March&mdash;step!&rdquo; in imperfect recollection of some drill.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The intention here announced was only carried out to the extent
+of finishing one paper, <i>My First Book</i>, and beginning a few others&mdash;<i>Genesis
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page33"></a>33</span>
+of the Master of Ballantrae, Rosa Quo Locorum</i>, etc.; see
+Edinburgh edition, <i>Miscellanies</i>, vol. iv. The &ldquo;long experience of
+gambling places&rdquo; is a phrase which must not be misunderstood.
+Stevenson loved risk to life and limb, but hated gambling for money,
+and had known the tables only as a looker-on during holiday or
+invalid travels as a boy and young man. &ldquo;Tamate&rdquo; is the native
+(Rarotongan) word for trader, used especially as a name for the
+famous missionary pioneer, the Rev. James Chalmers, for whom
+Stevenson had an unbounded respect.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, December</i>1890.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;By some diabolical accident,
+I have mislaid your last. What was in it? I know not,
+and here I am caught unexpectedly by the American mail,
+a week earlier than by computation. The computation,
+not the mail, is supposed to be in error. The vols. of
+Scribner&rsquo;s have arrived, and present a noble appearance
+in my house, which is not a noble structure at present. But
+by autumn we hope to be sprawling in our verandah,
+twelve feet, sir, by eighty-eight in front, and seventy-two
+on the flank; view of the sea and mountains, sunrise,
+moonrise, and the German fleet at anchor three miles
+away in Apia harbour. I hope some day to offer you a
+bowl of kava there, or a slice of a pine-apple, or some
+lemonade from my own hedge. &ldquo;I know a hedge where
+the lemons grow&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Shakespeare</i>. My house at this moment
+smells of them strong; and the rain, which a while ago
+roared there, now rings in minute drops upon the iron roof.
+I have no <i>Wrecker</i> for you this mail, other things having
+engaged me. I was on the whole rather relieved you did
+not vote for regular papers, as I feared the traces. It is
+my design from time to time to write a paper of a reminiscential
+(beastly word) description; some of them I
+could scarce publish from different considerations; but
+some of them&mdash;for instance, my long experience of gambling
+places&mdash;Homburg, Wiesbaden, Baden-Baden, old
+Monaco, and new Monte Carlo&mdash;would make good magazine
+padding, if I got the stuff handled the right way. I
+never could fathom why verse was put in magazines; it
+has something to do with the making-up, has it not? I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page34"></a>34</span>
+am scribbling a lot just now; if you are taken badly
+that way, apply to the South Seas. I could send you
+some, I believe, anyway, only none of it is thoroughly
+ripe. If you have kept back the volume of ballads, I&rsquo;ll
+soon make it of a respectable size if this fit continue. By
+the next mail you may expect some more <i>Wrecker</i>, or I
+shall be displeased. Probably no more than a chapter,
+however, for it is a hard one, and I am denuded of my
+proofs, my collaborator having walked away with them
+to England; hence some trouble in catching the just note.</p>
+
+<p>I am a mere farmer: my talk, which would scarce
+interest you on Broadway, is all of fuafua and tuitui and
+black boys, and planting and weeding, and axes and
+cutlasses; my hands are covered with blisters and full of
+thorns; letters are, doubtless, a fine thing, so are beer
+and skittles, but give me farmering in the tropics for real
+interest. Life goes in enchantment; I come home to find
+I am late for dinner; and when I go to bed at night, I
+could cry for the weariness of my loins and thighs. Do
+not speak to me of vexation, the life brims with it, but
+with living interest fairly.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas I go to Auckland, to meet Tamate, the New
+Guinea missionary, a man I love. The rest of my life is
+a prospect of much rain, much weeding and making of
+paths, a little letters, and devilish little to eat.&mdash;I am,
+my dear Burlingame, with messages to all whom it may
+concern, very sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Monday, twenty-somethingth of
+December 1890.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;I do not say my Jack is anything
+extraordinary; he is only an island horse; and the
+profane might call him a Punch; and his face is like a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page35"></a>35</span>
+donkey&rsquo;s; and natives have ridden him, and he has no
+mouth in consequence, and occasionally shies. But his
+merits are equally surprising; and I don&rsquo;t think I should
+ever have known Jack&rsquo;s merits if I had not been riding
+up of late on moonless nights. Jack is a bit of a dandy;
+he loves to misbehave in a gallant manner, above all on
+Apia Street, and when I stop to speak to people, they
+say (Dr. Stuebel the German consul said about three days
+ago), &ldquo;O what a wild horse! it cannot be safe to ride
+him.&rdquo; Such a remark is Jack&rsquo;s reward, and represents
+his ideal of fame. Now when I start out of Apia on a
+dark night, you should see my changed horse; at a fast
+steady walk, with his head down, and sometimes his
+nose to the ground&mdash;when he wants to do that, he asks
+for his head with a little eloquent polite movement indescribable&mdash;he
+climbs the long ascent and threads the
+darkest of the wood. The first night I came it was starry;
+and it was singular to see the starlight drip down into
+the crypt of the wood, and shine in the open end of the
+road, as bright as moonlight at home; but the crypt
+itself was proof, blackness lived in it. The next night
+it was raining. We left the lights of Apia and passed
+into limbo. Jack finds a way for himself, but he does
+not calculate for my height above the saddle; and I am
+directed forward, all braced up for a crouch and holding
+my switch upright in front of me. It is curiously interesting.
+In the forest, the dead wood is phosphorescent; some
+nights the whole ground is strewn with it, so that it seems
+like a grating over a pale hell; doubtless this is one of
+the things that feed the night fears of the natives; and
+I am free to confess that in a night of trackless darkness
+where all else is void, these pallid <i>ignes suppositi</i> have a
+fantastic appearance, rather bogey even. One night, when
+it was very dark, a man had put out a little lantern by
+the wayside to show the entrance to his ground. I saw
+the light, as I thought, far ahead, and supposed it was a
+pedestrian coming to meet me; I was quite taken by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page36"></a>36</span>
+surprise when it struck in my face and passed behind me.
+Jack saw it, and he was appalled; do you think he thought
+of shying? No, sir, not in the dark; in the dark Jack
+knows he is on duty; and he went past that lantern steady
+and swift; only, as he went, he groaned and shuddered.
+For about 2500 of Jack&rsquo;s steps we only passed one house&mdash;that
+where the lantern was; and about 1500 of these
+are in the darkness of the pit. But now the moon is on
+tap again, and the roads lighted.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter1">
+<img style="border:0; width:600px; height:660px"
+     src="images/img4.jpg"
+     alt="Map." />
+</div>
+
+<p>I have been exploring up the Vaituluiga; see your map.
+It comes down a wonderful fine glen; at least 200 feet
+of cliffs on either hand, winding like a corkscrew, great
+forest trees filling it. At the top there ought to be a
+fine double fall; but the stream evades it by a fault and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page37"></a>37</span>
+passes underground. Above the fall it runs (at this season)
+full and very gaily in a shallow valley, some hundred
+yards before the head of the glen. Its course is seen full
+of grasses, like a flooded meadow; that is the sink! beyond
+the grave of the grasses, the bed lies dry. Near this upper
+part there is a great show of ruinous pig-walls; a village
+must have stood near by.</p>
+
+<p>To walk from our house to Wreck Hill (when the path
+is buried in fallen trees) takes one about half an hour,
+I think; to return, not more than twenty minutes; I dare
+say fifteen. Hence I should guess it was three-quarters
+of a mile. I had meant to join on my explorations passing
+eastward by the sink; but, Lord! how it rains.</p>
+
+<p><i>Later.</i>&mdash;I went out this morning with a pocket compass
+and walked in a varying direction, perhaps on an
+average S. by W., 1754 paces. Then I struck into the
+bush, N.W. by N., hoping to strike the Vaituluiga above
+the falls. Now I have it plotted out I see I should have
+gone W. or even W. by S.; but it is not easy to guess.
+For 600 weary paces I struggled through the bush, and
+then came on the stream below the gorge, where it was
+comparatively easy to get down to it. In the place where
+I struck it, it made cascades about a little isle, and was
+running about N.E., 20 to 30 feet wide, as deep as to my
+knee, and piercing cold. I tried to follow it down, and
+keep the run of its direction and my paces; but when I
+was wading to the knees and the waist in mud, poison
+brush, and rotted wood, bound hand and foot in lianas,
+shovelled unceremoniously off the one shore and driven to
+try my luck upon the other&mdash;I saw I should have hard
+enough work to get my body down, if my mind rested.
+It was a damnable walk; certainly not half a mile as the
+crow flies, but a real bucketer for hardship. Once I had
+to pass the stream where it flowed between banks about
+three feet high. To get the easier down, I swung myself
+by a wild-cocoanut&mdash;(so called, it bears bunches of scarlet
+nutlets)&mdash;which grew upon the brink. As I so swung, I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page38"></a>38</span>
+received a crack on the head that knocked me all abroad.
+Impossible to guess what tree had taken a shy at me.
+So many towered above, one over the other, and the
+missile, whatever it was, dropped in the stream and was
+gone before I had recovered my wits. (I scarce know
+what I write, so hideous a Niagara of rain roars, shouts,
+and demonizes on the iron roof&mdash;it is pitch dark too&mdash;the
+lamp lit at 5!) It was a blessed thing when I struck
+my own road; and I got home, neat for lunch time, one
+of the most wonderful mud statues ever witnessed. In
+the afternoon I tried again, going up the other path by
+the garden, but was early drowned out; came home,
+plotted out what I had done, and then wrote this truck
+to you.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny has been quite ill with ear-ache. She won&rsquo;t go,<a name="FnAnchor_10" href="#Footnote_10"><span class="sp">10</span></a>
+hating the sea at this wild season; I don&rsquo;t like to leave
+her; so it drones on, steamer after steamer, and I guess
+it&rsquo;ll end by no one going at all. She is in a dreadful misfortune
+at this hour; a case of kerosene having burst in
+the kitchen. A little while ago it was the carpenter&rsquo;s
+horse that trod in a nest of fourteen eggs, and made an
+omelette of our hopes. The farmer&rsquo;s lot is not a happy
+one. And it looks like some real uncompromising bad
+weather too. I wish Fanny&rsquo;s ear were well. Think of
+parties in Monuments! think of me in Skerryvore, and
+now of this. It don&rsquo;t look like a part of the same universe
+to me. Work is quite laid aside; I have worked myself
+right out.</p>
+
+<p><i>Christmas Eve.</i>&mdash;Yesterday, who could write? My wife
+near crazy with ear-ache; the rain descending in white
+crystal rods and playing hell&rsquo;s tattoo, like a <i>tutti</i> of battering
+rams, on our sheet-iron roof; the wind passing high
+overhead with a strange dumb mutter, or striking us full,
+so that all the huge trees in the paddock cried aloud, and
+wrung their hands, and brandished their vast arms. The
+horses stood in the shed like things stupid. The sea and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page39"></a>39</span>
+the flagship lying on the jaws of the bay vanished in sheer
+rain. All day it lasted; I locked up my papers in the
+iron box, in case it was a hurricane, and the house might
+go. We went to bed with mighty uncertain feelings; far
+more than on shipboard, where you have only drowning
+ahead&mdash;whereas here you have a smash of beams, a shower
+of sheet-iron, and a blind race in the dark and through
+a whirlwind for the shelter of an unfinished stable&mdash;and
+my wife with ear-ache! Well, well, this morning, we had
+word from Apia; a hurricane was looked for, the ships
+were to leave the bay by 10 <span class="sc">A.M</span>.; it is now 3.30, and the
+flagship is still a fixture, and the wind round in the blessed
+east, so I suppose the danger is over. But heaven is still
+laden; the day dim, with frequent rattling bucketfuls of
+rain; and just this moment (as I write) a squall went
+overhead, scarce striking us, with that singular, solemn
+noise of its passage, which is to me dreadful. I have
+always feared the sound of wind beyond everything. In
+my hell it would always blow a gale.</p>
+
+<p>I have been all day correcting proofs, and making out
+a new plan for our house. The other was too dear to be
+built now, and it was a hard task to make a smaller house
+that would suffice for the present, and not be a mere
+waste of money in the future. I believe I have succeeded;
+I have taken care of my study anyway.</p>
+
+<p>Two favours I want to ask of you. First, I wish you
+to get <i>Pioneering in New Guinea</i>, by J. Chalmers. It&rsquo;s
+a missionary book, and has less pretensions to be literature
+than Spurgeon&rsquo;s sermons. Yet I think even through
+that, you will see some of the traits of the hero that wrote
+it; a man that took me fairly by storm for the most
+attractive, simple, brave, and interesting man in the
+whole Pacific. He is away now to go up the Fly River;
+a desperate venture, it is thought; he is quite a Livingstone
+card.</p>
+
+<p>Second, try and keep yourself free next winter; and
+if my means can be stretched so far, I&rsquo;ll come to Egypt
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page40"></a>40</span>
+and we&rsquo;ll meet at Shepheard&rsquo;s Hotel, and you&rsquo;ll put me
+in my place, which I stand in need of badly by this time.
+Lord, what bully times! I suppose I&rsquo;ll come per British
+Asia, or whatever you call it, and avoid all cold, and might
+be in Egypt about November as ever was&mdash;eleven months
+from now or rather less. But do not let us count our
+chickens.</p>
+
+<p>Last night three piglings were stolen from one of our
+pig-pens. The great Lafaele appeared to my wife uneasy,
+so she engaged him in conversation on the subject, and
+played upon him the following engaging trick. You advance
+your two forefingers towards the sitter&rsquo;s eyes; he closes
+them, whereupon you substitute (on his eyelids) the fore
+and middle fingers of the left hand; and with your right
+(which he supposes engaged) you tap him on the head
+and back. When you let him open his eyes, he sees you
+withdrawing the two forefingers. &ldquo;What that?&rdquo; asked
+Lafaele. &ldquo;My devil,&rdquo; says Fanny. &ldquo;I wake um, my
+devil. All right now. He go catch the man that catch
+my pig.&rdquo; About an hour afterwards, Lafaele came for
+further particulars. &ldquo;O, all right,&rdquo; my wife says. &ldquo;By
+and by, that man he sleep, devil go sleep same place.
+By and by, that man plenty sick. I no care. What for
+he take my pig?&rdquo; Lafaele cares plenty; I don&rsquo;t think
+he is the man, though he may be; but he knows him,
+and most likely will eat some of that pig to-night. He
+will not eat with relish.</p>
+
+<p><i>Saturday, 27th.</i>&mdash;It cleared up suddenly after dinner,
+and my wife and I saddled up and off to Apia, whence
+we did not return till yesterday morning. Christmas Day
+I wish you could have seen our party at table. H. J.
+Moors at one end with my wife, I at the other with Mrs. M.,
+between us two native women, Carruthers the lawyer,
+Moors&rsquo;s two shop-boys&mdash;Walters and A. M. the quadroon&mdash;and
+the guests of the evening, Shirley Baker, the defamed
+and much-accused man of Tonga, and his son, with the
+artificial joint to his arm&mdash;where the assassins shot him
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page41"></a>41</span>
+in shooting at his father. Baker&rsquo;s appearance is not unlike
+John Bull on a cartoon; he is highly interesting to
+speak to, as I had expected; I found he and I had many
+common interests, and were engaged in puzzling over
+many of the same difficulties. After dinner it was quite
+pretty to see our Christmas party, it was so easily pleased
+and prettily behaved. In the morning I should say I had
+been to lunch at the German consulate, where I had as
+usual a very pleasant time. I shall miss Dr. Stuebel<a name="FnAnchor_11" href="#Footnote_11"><span class="sp">11</span></a>
+much when he leaves, and when Adams and Lafarge go
+also, it will be a great blow. I am getting spoiled with
+all this good society.</p>
+
+<p>On Friday morning, I had to be at my house affairs
+before seven; and they kept me in Apia till past ten,
+disputing, and consulting about brick and stone and
+native and hydraulic lime, and cement and sand, and
+all sorts of otiose details about the chimney&mdash;just what
+I fled from in my father&rsquo;s office twenty years ago; I
+should have made a languid engineer. Rode up with the
+carpenter. Ah, my wicked Jack! on Christmas Eve, as
+I was taking the saddle bag off, he kicked at me, and
+fetched me too, right on the shin. On Friday, being annoyed
+at the carpenter&rsquo;s horse having a longer trot, he uttered
+a shrill cry and tried to bite him! Alas, alas, these are
+like old days; my dear Jack is a Bogue,<a name="FnAnchor_12" href="#Footnote_12"><span class="sp">12</span></a> but I cannot
+strangle Jack into submission.</p>
+
+<p>I have given up the big house for just now; we go
+ahead right away with a small one, which should be ready
+in two months, and I suppose will suffice for just now.</p>
+
+<p>O I know I haven&rsquo;t told you about our <i>aitu</i>, have I?
+It is a lady, <i>aitu fafine</i>: she lives on the mountain-side;
+her presence is heralded by the sound of a gust of wind;
+a sound very common in the high woods; when she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page42"></a>42</span>
+catches you, I do not know what happens; but in practice
+she is avoided, so I suppose she does more than pass
+the time of day. The great <i>aitu Saumai-afe</i> was once a
+living woman, and became an <i>aitu</i>, no one understands
+how; she lives in a stream at the well-head, her hair is red,
+she appears as a lovely young lady, her bust particularly
+admired, to handsome young men; these die, her
+love being fatal;&mdash;as a handsome youth she has been
+known to court damsels with the like result, but this is
+very rare; as an old crone she goes about and asks for
+water, and woe to them who are uncivil! <i>Saumai-afe</i>
+means literally, &ldquo;Come here a thousand!&rdquo; A good name
+for a lady of her manners. My <i>aitu fafine</i> does not seem
+to be in the same line of business. It is unsafe to be a
+handsome youth in Samoa; a young man died from her
+favours last month&mdash;so we said on this side of the island;
+on the other, where he died, it was not so certain. I, for
+one, blame it on Madam <i>Saumai-afe</i> without hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>Example of the farmer&rsquo;s sorrows. I slipped out on the
+balcony a moment ago. It is a lovely morning, cloudless,
+smoking hot, the breeze not yet arisen. Looking west, in
+front of our new house, I saw two heads of Indian corn
+wagging, and the rest and all nature stock still. As
+I looked, one of the stalks subsided and disappeared. I
+dashed out to the rescue; two small pigs were deep in
+the grass&mdash;quite hid till within a few yards&mdash;gently but
+swiftly demolishing my harvest. Never be a farmer.</p>
+
+<p>12.30 <i>p.m.</i>&mdash;I while away the moments of digestion by
+drawing you a faithful picture of my morning. When I
+had done writing as above it was time to clean our house.
+When I am working, it falls on my wife alone, but to-day
+we had it between us; she did the bedroom, I the sitting-room,
+in fifty-seven minutes of really most unpalatable
+labour. Then I changed every stitch, for I was wet through,
+and sat down and played on my pipe till dinner was ready,
+mighty pleased to be in a mildly habitable spot once
+more. The house had been neglected for near a week,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page43"></a>43</span>
+and was a hideous spot; my wife&rsquo;s ear and our visit to
+Apia being the causes: our Paul we prefer not to see
+upon that theatre, and God knows he has plenty to
+do elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad to look out of my back door and see the boys
+smoothing the foundations of the new house; this is all
+very jolly, but six months of it has satisfied me; we have
+too many things for such close quarters; to work in the
+midst of all the myriad misfortunes of the planter&rsquo;s life,
+seated in a Dyonisius&rsquo; (can&rsquo;t spell him) ear, whence I
+catch every complaint, mishap and contention, is besides
+the devil; and the hope of a cave of my own inspires me
+with lust. O to be able to shut my own door and make
+my own confusion! O to have the brown paper and the
+matches and &ldquo;make a hell of my own&rdquo; once more!</p>
+
+<p>I do not bother you with all my troubles in these outpourings;
+the troubles of the farmer are inspiriting&mdash;they
+are like difficulties out hunting&mdash;a fellow rages at
+the time and rejoices to recall and to commemorate them.
+My troubles have been financial. It is hard to arrange
+wisely interests so distributed. America, England, Samoa,
+Sydney, everywhere I have an end of liability hanging
+out and some shelf of credit hard by; and to juggle all
+these and build a dwelling-place here, and check expense&mdash;a
+thing I am ill fitted for&mdash;you can conceive what a
+nightmare it is at times. Then God knows I have not
+been idle. But since <i>The Master</i> nothing has come to raise
+any coins. I believe the springs are dry at home, and
+now I am worked out, and can no more at all. A
+holiday is required.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dec. 28th.</i>&mdash;I have got unexpectedly to work again,
+and feel quite dandy. Good-bye.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Henry James</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Mr. Lafarge the artist and Mr. Henry Adams the historian have
+been mentioned already. The pinch in the matter of eatables only
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page44"></a>44</span>
+lasted for a little while, until Mrs. Stevenson had taken her bearings
+and made her arrangements in the matter of marketing, etc.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Apia, Samoa, December 29th, 1890.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,&mdash;It is terrible how little everybody
+writes, and how much of that little disappears in
+the capacious maw of the Post Office. Many letters, both
+from and to me, I now know to have been lost in transit:
+my eye is on the Sydney Post Office, a large ungainly
+structure with a tower, as being not a hundred miles from
+the scene of disappearance; but then I have no proof.
+The <i>Tragic Muse</i> you announced to me as coming; I had
+already ordered it from a Sydney bookseller: about two
+months ago he advised me that his copy was in the post;
+and I am still tragically museless.</p>
+
+<p>News, news, news. What do we know of yours?
+What do you care for ours? We are in the midst of the
+rainy season, and dwell among alarms of hurricanes, in
+a very unsafe little two-storied wooden box 650 feet above
+and about three miles from the sea-beach. Behind us, till
+the other slope of the island, desert forest, peaks, and
+loud torrents; in front green slopes to the sea, some fifty
+miles of which we dominate. We see the ships as they
+go out and in to the dangerous roadstead of Apia; and
+if they lie far out, we can even see their topmasts while
+they are at anchor. Of sounds of men, beyond those of
+our own labourers, there reach us, at very long intervals,
+salutes from the warships in harbour, the bell of the
+cathedral church, and the low of the conch-shell calling
+the labour boys on the German plantations. Yesterday,
+which was Sunday&mdash;the <i>quantičme</i> is most likely erroneous;
+you can now correct it&mdash;we had a visitor&mdash;Baker of Tonga.
+Heard you ever of him? He is a great man here: he is
+accused of theft, rape, judicial murder, private poisoning,
+abortion, misappropriation of public moneys&mdash;oddly
+enough, not forgery, nor arson; you would be amused
+if you knew how thick the accusations fly in this South
+Sea world. I make no doubt my own character is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page45"></a>45</span>
+something illustrious; or if not yet, there is a good time
+coming.</p>
+
+<p>But all our resources have not of late been Pacific.
+We have had enlightened society: Lafarge the painter,
+and your friend Henry Adams: a great privilege&mdash;would
+it might endure. I would go oftener to see them, but the
+place is awkward to reach on horseback. I had to swim
+my horse the last time I went to dinner; and as I have
+not yet returned the clothes I had to borrow, I dare not
+return in the same plight: it seems inevitable&mdash;as soon
+as the wash comes in, I plump straight into the American
+consul&rsquo;s shirt or trousers! They, I believe, would come
+oftener to see me but for the horrid doubt that weighs
+upon our commissariat department; we have <i>often</i> almost
+nothing to eat; a guest would simply break the bank;
+my wife and I have dined on one avocado pear; I have
+several times dined on hard bread and onions. What
+would you do with a guest at such narrow seasons?&mdash;eat
+him? or serve up a labour boy fricasseed?</p>
+
+<p>Work? work is now arrested, but I have written, I
+should think, about thirty chapters of the South Sea book;
+they will all want rehandling, I dare say. Gracious, what a
+strain is a long book! The time it took me to design this
+volume, before I could dream of putting pen to paper,
+was excessive; and then think of writing a book of travels
+on the spot, when I am continually extending my information,
+revising my opinions, and seeing the most finely
+finished portions of my work come part by part in pieces.
+Very soon I shall have no opinions left. And without an
+opinion, how to string artistically vast accumulations of
+fact? Darwin said no one could observe without a theory;
+I suppose he was right; &rsquo;tis a fine point of metaphysic;
+but I will take my oath, no man can write without one&mdash;at
+least the way he would like to, and my theories melt,
+melt, melt, and as they melt the thaw-waters wash down
+my writing, and leave unideal tracts&mdash;wastes instead of
+cultivated farms.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page46"></a>46</span></p>
+
+<p>Kipling is by far the most promising young man who
+has appeared since&mdash;ahem&mdash;I appeared. He amazes me
+by his precocity and various endowment. But he alarms
+me by his copiousness and haste. He should shield his
+fire with both hands &ldquo;and draw up all his strength and
+sweetness in one ball.&rdquo; (&ldquo;Draw all his strength and all
+His sweetness up into one ball&rdquo;? I cannot remember
+Marvell&rsquo;s words.) So the critics have been saying to me:
+but I was never capable of&mdash;and surely never guilty of&mdash;such
+a debauch of production. At this rate his works
+will soon fill the habitable globe; and surely he was
+armed for better conflicts than these succinct sketches and
+flying leaves of verse? I look on, I admire, I rejoice for myself;
+but in a kind of ambition we all have for our tongue
+and literature I am wounded. If I had this man&rsquo;s fertility
+and courage, it seems to me I could heave a pyramid.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we begin to be the old fogies now; and it was
+high time <i>something</i> rose to take our places. Certainly
+Kipling has the gifts; the fairy godmothers were all
+tipsy at his christening: what will he do with them?</p>
+
+<p>Good-bye, my dear James; find an hour to write to
+us, and register your letter.&mdash;Yours affectionately,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Rudyard Kipling</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>In 1890, on first becoming acquainted with Mr. Kipling&rsquo;s <i>Soldiers
+Three</i>, Stevenson had written off his congratulations red-hot. &ldquo;Well
+and indeed, Mr. Mulvaney,&rdquo; so ran the first sentences of his note,
+&ldquo;but it&rsquo;s as good as meat to meet in with you, sir. They tell me
+it was a man of the name of Kipling made ye; but indeed and they
+can&rsquo;t fool me; it was the Lord God Almighty that made you.&rdquo;
+Taking the cue thus offered, Mr. Kipling had written back in the
+character of his own Irishman, Thomas Mulvaney, addressing
+Stevenson&rsquo;s Highlander, Alan Breck Stewart. In the following
+letter, which belongs to an uncertain date in 1891, Alan Breck is
+made to reply. &ldquo;The gentleman I now serve with&rdquo; means, of
+course, R. L. S. himself.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, 1891.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">SIR</span>,&mdash;I cannot call to mind having written you, but
+I am so throng with occupation this may have fallen
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page47"></a>47</span>
+aside. I never heard tell I had any friends in Ireland,
+and I am led to understand you are come of no considerable
+family. The gentleman I now serve with assures
+me, however, you are a very pretty fellow and your letter
+deserves to be remarked. It&rsquo;s true he is himself a man
+of a very low descent upon the one side; though upon
+the other he counts cousinship with a gentleman, my very
+good friend, the late Mr. Balfour of the Shaws, in the
+Lothian; which I should be wanting in good fellowship
+to forget. He tells me besides you are a man of your
+hands; I am not informed of your weapon; but if all be
+true it sticks in my mind I would be ready to make exception
+in your favour, and meet you like one gentleman
+with another. I suppose this&rsquo;ll be your purpose in your
+favour, which I could very ill make out; it&rsquo;s one I would
+be sweir to baulk you of. It seems, Mr. McIlvaine, which
+I take to be your name, you are in the household of a
+gentleman of the name of Coupling: for whom my friend
+is very much engaged. The distances being very uncommodious,
+I think it will be maybe better if we leave it
+to these two to settle all that&rsquo;s necessary to honour. I
+would have you to take heed it&rsquo;s a very unusual condescension
+on my part, that bear a King&rsquo;s name; and for the
+matter of that I think shame to be mingled with a person
+of the name of Coupling, which is doubtless a very good
+house but one I never heard tell of, any more than Stevenson.
+But your purpose being laudable, I would be sorry
+(as the word goes) to cut off my nose to spite my face.&mdash;I
+am, Sir, your humble servant,</p>
+
+<p class="noa sc" style= "text-align: right; padding-right: 3em;">A. Stewart,</p>
+<p class="rt"><i>Chevalier de St. Louis</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="noa"><i>To Mr. M&rsquo;Ilvaine</i>,</p>
+<p class="noa" style="padding-left: 1.5em"><i>Gentleman Private in a foot regiment,</i></p>
+<p class="noa" style="padding-left: 3em"><i>under cover to Mr. Coupling.</i></p>
+
+<p>He has read me some of your Barrack Room Ballants,
+which are not of so noble a strain as some of mine in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page48"></a>48</span>
+Gaelic, but I could set some of them to the pipes if this
+rencounter goes as it&rsquo;s to be desired. Let&rsquo;s first, as I understand
+you to move, do each other this rational courtesy;
+and if either will survive, we may grow better acquaint.
+For your tastes for what&rsquo;s martial and for poetry agree
+with mine.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">A. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>This is the first appearance in Stevenson&rsquo;s letters of the Swedish
+Chief Justice of Samoa, Mr. Conrad Cedercrantz, of whom we shall
+hear enough and more than enough in the sequel.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noa rt"><i>S.S.</i> Lübeck, <i>between Apia and Sydney,</i></p>
+<p class="noa" style="text-align: right; padding-right: 6em;"><i>Jan. 17th, 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;The Faamasino Sili, or Chief Justice,
+to speak your low language, has arrived. I had ridden
+down with Henry and Lafaele; the sun was down, the
+night was close at hand, so we rode fast; just as I came to
+the corner of the road before Apia, I heard a gun fire;
+and lo, there was a great crowd at the end of the pier,
+and the troops out, and a chief or two in the height of
+Samoa finery, and Seumanu coming in his boat (the oarsmen
+all in uniform), bringing the Faamasino Sili sure
+enough. It was lucky he was no longer; the natives would
+not have waited many weeks. But think of it, as I sat in
+the saddle at the outside of the crowd (looking, the English
+consul said, as if I were commanding the man&oelig;uvres), I
+was nearly knocked down by a stampede of the three
+consuls; they had been waiting their guest at the Matafele
+end, and some wretched intrigue among the whites had
+brought him to Apia, and the consuls had to run all the
+length of the town and come too late.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was a long one; I was at a marriage of
+Gurr the banker to Fanua, the virgin of Apia. Bride and
+bridesmaids were all in the old high dress; the ladies were
+all native; the men, with the exception of Seumanu, all
+white.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page49"></a>49</span></p>
+
+<p>It was quite a pleasant party, and while we were writing,
+we had a bird&rsquo;s-eye view of the public reception of
+the Chief Justice. The best part of it were some natives
+in war array; with blacked faces, turbans, tapa kilts, and
+guns, they looked very manly and purposelike. No, the
+best part was poor old drunken Joe, the Portuguese boatman,
+who seemed to think himself specially charged with
+the reception, and ended by falling on his knees before
+the Chief Justice on the end of the pier and in full view
+of the whole town and bay. The natives pelted him with
+rotten bananas; how the Chief Justice took it I was
+too far off to see; but it was highly absurd.</p>
+
+<p>I have commemorated my genial hopes for the regimen
+of the Faamasino Sili in the following canine verses, which,
+if you at all guess how to read them, are very pretty in
+movement, and (unless he be a mighty good man) too
+true in sense.</p>
+
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="i1">We&rsquo;re quarrelling, the villages, we&rsquo;ve beaten the wooden drums,</p>
+<p class="i1">Sa femisai o nu&rsquo;u, sa taia o pate,</p>
+<p class="i1">Is confounded thereby the justice,</p>
+<p class="i1">Ua atuatuvale a le faamasino e,</p>
+<p class="i1">The chief justice, the terrified justice,</p>
+<p class="i1">Le faamasino sili, le faamasino se,</p>
+<p class="i1">Is on the point of running away the justice,</p>
+<p class="i1">O le a solasola le faamasino e,</p>
+<p class="i1">The justice denied any influence, the terrified justice,</p>
+<p class="i1">O le faamasino le ai a, le faamasino se,</p>
+<p class="i1">O le a solasola le faamasino e.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Well, after this excursion into tongues that have never
+been alive&mdash;though I assure you we have one capital
+book in the language, a book of fables by an old missionary
+of the unpromising name of Pratt, which is simply
+the best and the most literary version of the fables known
+to me. I suppose I should except La Fontaine, but L. F.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page50"></a>50</span>
+takes a long time; these are brief as the books of our
+childhood, and full of wit and literary colour; and O,
+Colvin, what a tongue it would be to write, if one only
+knew it&mdash;and there were only readers. Its curse in common
+use is an incredible left-handed wordiness; but in
+the hands of a man like Pratt it is succinct as Latin,
+compact of long rolling polysyllables and little and often
+pithy particles, and for beauty of sound a dream. Listen,
+I quote from Pratt&mdash;this is good Samoan, not canine&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter1">
+<img style="border:0; width:600px; height:72px"
+     src="images/img5.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>1 almost <i>wa</i>, 2 the two <i>a&rsquo;s</i> just distinguished, 3 the <i>ai</i>
+is practically suffixed to the verb, 4 almost <i>vow</i>. The
+excursion has prolonged itself.</p>
+
+<p>I started by the <i>Lübeck</i> to meet Lloyd and my mother;
+there were many reasons for and against; the main reason
+against was the leaving of Fanny alone in her blessed
+cabin, which has been somewhat remedied by my carter,
+Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, putting up in the stable and messing with her;
+but perhaps desire of change decided me not well, though
+I do think I ought to see an oculist, being very blind
+indeed, and sometimes unable to read. Anyway I left,
+the only cabin passenger, four and a kid in the second
+cabin, and a dear voyage it had like to have proved.
+Close to Fiji (choose a worse place on the map) we broke
+our shaft early one morning; and when or where we
+might expect to fetch land or meet with any ship, I would
+like you to tell me. The Pacific is absolutely desert. I
+have sailed there now some years; and scarce ever seen
+a ship except in port or close by; I think twice. It was
+the hurricane season besides, and hurricane waters. Well,
+our chief engineer got the shaft&mdash;it was the middle crank
+shaft&mdash;mended; thrice it was mended, and twice broke
+down; but now keeps up&mdash;only we dare not stop, for it
+is almost impossible to start again. The captain in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page51"></a>51</span>
+meanwhile crowded her with sail; fifteen sails in all,
+every stay being gratified with a stay-sail, a boat-boom
+sent aloft for a maintop-gallant yard, and the derrick of
+a crane brought in service as bowsprit. All the time we
+have had a fine, fair wind and a smooth sea; to-day at
+noon our run was 203 miles (if you please!), and we are
+within some 360 miles of Sydney. Probably there has
+never been a more gallant success; and I can say honestly
+it was well worked for. No flurry, no high words, no long
+faces; only hard work and honest thought; a pleasant,
+manly business to be present at. All the chances were
+we might have been six weeks&mdash;ay, or three months at
+sea&mdash;or never turned up at all, and now it looks as though
+we should reach our destination some five days too late.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Marcel Schwob</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Sydney, January 19th,1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR SIR</span>,&mdash;<i>Sapristi, comme vous y allez!</i> Richard
+<span class="scs">III</span>. and Dumas, with all my heart: but not Hamlet.
+Hamlet is great literature; Richard <span class="sc">III</span>. a big, black,
+gross, sprawling melodrama, writ with infinite spirit but
+with no refinement or philosophy by a man who had
+the world, himself, mankind, and his trade still to learn.
+I prefer the Vicomte de Bragelonne to Richard <span class="sc">III</span>.; it
+is better done of its kind: I simply do not mention the
+Vicomte in the same part of the building with Hamlet,
+or Lear, or Othello, or any of those masterpieces that
+Shakespeare survived to give us.</p>
+
+<p>Also, <i>comme vous y allez</i> in my commendation! I fear
+my <i>solide éducation classique</i> had best be described, like
+Shakespeare&rsquo;s, as &ldquo;little Latin and no Greek&rdquo; and I was
+educated, let me inform you, for an engineer. I shall tell
+my bookseller to send you a copy of <i>Memories and Portraits,</i>
+where you will see something of my descent and education,
+as it was, and hear me at length on my dear Vicomte.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page52"></a>52</span>
+I give you permission gladly to take your choice out of
+my works, and translate what you shall prefer, too much
+honoured that so clever a young man should think it
+worth the pains. My own choice would lie between <i>Kidnapped</i>
+and the <i>Master of Ballantrae</i>. Should you choose
+the latter, pray do not let Mrs. Henry thrust the sword
+up to the hilt in the frozen ground&mdash;one of my inconceivable
+blunders, an exaggeration to stagger Hugo. Say
+&ldquo;she sought to thrust it in the ground.&rdquo; In both these
+works you should be prepared for Scotticisms used deliberately.</p>
+
+<p>I fear my stepson will not have found time to get to
+Paris; he was overwhelmed with occupation, and is
+already on his voyage back. We live here in a beautiful
+land, amid a beautiful and interesting people. The life is
+still very hard: my wife and I live in a two-roomed
+cottage, about three miles and six hundred and fifty feet
+above the sea; we have had to make the road to it; our
+supplies are very imperfect; in the wild weather of this
+(the hurricane) season we have much discomfort: one
+night the wind blew in our house so outrageously that we
+must sit in the dark; and as the sound of the rain on the
+roof made speech inaudible, you may imagine we found
+the evening long. All these things, however, are pleasant
+to me. You say <i>l&rsquo;artiste inconscient</i> set off to travel: you
+do not divide me right. 0.6 of me is artist; 0.4, adventurer.
+First, I suppose, come letters; then adventure; and
+since I have indulged the second part, I think the formula
+begins to change: 0.55 of an artist, 0.45 of the adventurer
+were nearer true. And if it had not been for my small
+strength, I might have been a different man in all things.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever you do, do not neglect to send me what you
+publish on Villon: I look forward to that with lively
+interest. I have no photograph at hand, but I will send
+one when I can. It would be kind if you would do the
+like, for I do not see much chance of our meeting in the
+flesh: and a name, and a handwriting, and an address,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page53"></a>53</span>
+and even a style? I know about as much of Tacitus, and
+more of Horace; it is not enough between contemporaries,
+such as we still are. I have just remembered another of
+my books, which I re-read the other day, and thought in
+places good&mdash;<i>Prince Otto</i>. It is not as good as either of
+the others; but it has one recommendation&mdash;it has female
+parts, so it might perhaps please better in France.</p>
+
+<p>I will ask Chatto to send you, then&mdash;<i>Prince Otto</i>,
+<i>Memories and Portraits</i>, <i>Underwoods</i>, and <i>Ballads</i>, none of
+which you seem to have seen. They will be too late for
+the New Year: let them be an Easter present.</p>
+
+<p>You must translate me soon; you will soon have
+better to do than to transvase the work of others.&mdash;Yours
+very truly,</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right; padding-right: 3em;"><span class="sc">Robert Louis Stevenson</span>,</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right;">With the worst pen in the South Pacific.</p>
+
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Stevenson had been indignant with an old friend at Edinburgh,
+who had received much kindness from his mother, for neglecting to
+call on her after her return from her wanderings in the Pacific.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>S.S.</i> Lübeck, <i>at sea</i> [<i>on the return voyage
+from Sydney, February 1891</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;Perhaps in my old days I do grow
+irascible; &ldquo;the old man virulent&rdquo; has long been my pet
+name for myself. Well, the temper is at least all gone
+now; time is good at lowering these distemperatures; far
+better is a sharp sickness, and I am just (and scarce) afoot
+again after a smoking hot little malady at Sydney. And
+the temper being gone, I still think the same.... We
+have not our parents for ever; we are never very good
+to them; when they go and we have lost our front-file
+man we begin to feel all our neglects mighty sensibly. I
+propose a proposal. My mother is here on board with me;
+to-day for once I mean to make her as happy as I am able,
+and to do that which I know she likes. You, on the other
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page54"></a>54</span>
+hand, go and see your father, and do ditto, and give him
+a real good hour or two. We shall both be glad hereafter.&mdash;Yours
+ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Stevenson had been sharply ailing as usual at Sydney, and was
+now on his way back. Having received proofs of some of his <i>South
+Sea</i> chapters, he had begun to realise that they were not what he
+had hoped to make them.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>On Board Ship between Sydney and Apia,
+February1891.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;The <i>Janet Nicoll</i> stuff was rather
+worse than I had looked for; you have picked out all
+that is fit to stand, bar two others (which I don&rsquo;t dislike)&mdash;the
+Port of Entry and the House of Temoana; that is
+for a present opinion; I may condemn these also ere I
+have done. By this time you should have another Marquesan
+letter, the worst of the lot, I think; and seven
+Paumotu letters, which are not far out of the vein, as I
+wish it; I am in hopes the Hawaiian stuff is better yet:
+time will show, and time will make perfect. Is something
+of this sort practicable for the dedication?</p>
+
+<p class="center noind"><span class="scs">TERRA MARIQUE<br />
+PER PERICULA PER ARDUA<br />
+AMICAE COMITI<br />
+D.D.<br />
+AMANS VIATOR</span></p>
+
+<p>&rsquo;Tis a first shot concocted this morning in my berth:
+I had always before been trying it in English, which insisted
+on being either insignificant or fulsome: I cannot
+think of a better word than <i>comes</i>, there being not the
+shadow of a Latin book on board; yet sure there is some
+other. Then <i>viator</i> (though it <i>sounds</i> all right) is doubtful;
+it has too much, perhaps, the sense of wayfarer? Last,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page55"></a>55</span>
+will it mark sufficiently that I mean my wife? And first,
+how about blunders? I scarce wish it longer.</p>
+
+<p>Have had a swingeing sharp attack in Sydney; beating
+the fields<a name="FnAnchor_13" href="#Footnote_13"><span class="sp">13</span></a> for two nights, Saturday and Sunday.
+Wednesday was brought on board, <i>tel quel</i>, a wonderful
+wreck; and now, Wednesday week, am a good deal picked
+up, but yet not quite a Samson, being still groggy afoot
+and vague in the head. My chess, for instance, which is
+usually a pretty strong game, and defies all rivalry aboard,
+is vacillating, devoid of resource and observation, and
+hitherto not covered with customary laurels. As for work,
+it is impossible. We shall be in the saddle before long, no
+doubt, and the pen once more couched. You must not
+expect a letter under these circumstances, but be very
+thankful for a note. Once at Samoa, I shall try to resume
+my late excellent habits, and delight you with journals,
+you unaccustomed, I unaccustomed; but it is never too
+late to mend.</p>
+
+<p>It is vastly annoying that I cannot go even to Sydney
+without an attack; and heaven knows my life was anodyne.
+I only once dined with anybody; at the club with Wise;
+worked all morning&mdash;a terrible dead pull; a month only
+produced the imperfect embryos of two chapters; lunched
+in the boarding-house, played on my pipe; went out and
+did some of my messages; dined at a French restaurant,
+and returned to play draughts, whist, or Van John with
+my family. This makes a cheery life after Samoa; but
+it isn&rsquo;t what you call burning the candle at both ends,
+is it? (It appears to me not one word of this letter will
+be legible by the time I am done with it, this dreadful
+ink rubs off.) I have a strange kind of novel under construction;
+it begins about 1660 and ends 1830, or perhaps
+I may continue it to 1875 or so, with another life. One,
+two, three, four, five, six generations, perhaps seven, figure
+therein; two of my old stories, &ldquo;Delafield&rdquo; and &ldquo;Shovel,&rdquo;
+are incorporated; it is to be told in the third person, with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page56"></a>56</span>
+some of the brevity of history, some of the detail of romance.
+<i>The Shovels of Newton French</i> will be the name. The idea
+is an old one; it was brought to birth by an accident;
+a friend in the islands who picked up F. Jenkin,<a name="FnAnchor_14" href="#Footnote_14"><span class="sp">14</span></a> read
+a part, and said: &ldquo;Do you know, that&rsquo;s a strange book?
+I like it; I don&rsquo;t believe the public will; but I like it.&rdquo;
+He thought it was a novel! &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ll
+see whether the public will like it or not; they shall have
+the chance.&rdquo;&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To H. B. Baildon</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The late Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, for some time Lecturer on
+English Literature at the University of Vienna and afterwards at
+Dundee, had been an old schoolmate and fellow-aspirant in literature
+with Stevenson at Edinburgh. &ldquo;Chalmers,&rdquo; of course, is the Rev.
+James Chalmers of Rarotonga and New Guinea already referred to
+above, the admirable missionary, explorer, and administrator, whom
+Stevenson sometimes expressed a desire to survive, for the sake
+only of writing his life.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Upolu</i> [<i>Spring 1891</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BAILDON</span>,&mdash;This is a real disappointment. It
+was so long since we had met, I was anxious to see where
+time had carried and stranded us. Last time we saw each
+other&mdash;it must have been all ten years ago, as we were
+new to the thirties&mdash;it was only for a moment, and now
+we&rsquo;re in the forties, and before very long we shall be in
+our graves. Sick and well, I have had a splendid life of
+it, grudge nothing, regret very little&mdash;and then only some
+little corners of misconduct for which I deserve hanging,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page57"></a>57</span>
+and must infallibly be damned&mdash;and, take it all over,
+damnation and all, would hardly change with any man
+of my time, unless perhaps it were Gordon or our friend
+Chalmers: a man I admire for his virtues, love for his
+faults, and envy for the really A1 life he has, with everything
+heart&mdash;my heart, I mean&mdash;could wish. It is curious
+to think you will read this in the grey metropolis; go the
+first grey, east-windy day into the Caledonian Station, if
+it looks at all as it did of yore: I met Satan there. And
+then go and stand by the cross, and remember the other
+one&mdash;him that went down&mdash;my brother, Robert Fergusson.
+It is a pity you had not made me out, and seen me as
+patriarch and planter. I shall look forward to some record
+of your time with Chalmers: you can&rsquo;t weary me of that
+fellow, he is as big as a house and far bigger than any
+church, where no man warms his hands. Do you know
+anything of Thomson? Of A&mdash;&mdash;, B&mdash;&mdash;, C&mdash;&mdash;, D&mdash;&mdash;,
+E&mdash;&mdash;, F&mdash;&mdash;, at all? As I write C.&rsquo;s name mustard
+rises in my nose; I have never forgiven that weak, amiable
+boy a little trick he played me when I could ill afford it:
+I mean that whenever I think of it, some of the old wrath
+kindles, not that I would hurt the poor soul, if I got the
+world with it. And Old X&mdash;&mdash;? Is he still afloat?
+Harmless bark! I gather you ain&rsquo;t married yet, since
+your sister, to whom I ask to be remembered, goes with
+you. Did you see a silly tale, <i>John Nicholson&rsquo;s Predicament</i>,<a name="FnAnchor_15" href="#Footnote_15"><span class="sp">15</span></a>
+or some such name, in which I made free with your
+home at Murrayfield? There is precious little sense in it,
+but it might amuse. Cassell&rsquo;s published it in a thing
+called <i>Yule-Tide</i> years ago, and nobody that ever I heard
+of read or has ever seen <i>Yule-Tide</i>. It is addressed to a
+class we never met&mdash;readers of Cassell&rsquo;s series and that
+class of conscientious chaff, and my tale was dull, though
+I don&rsquo;t recall that it was conscientious. Only, there&rsquo;s the
+house at Murrayfield and a dead body in it. Glad the
+<i>Ballads</i> amused you. They failed to entertain a coy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page58"></a>58</span>
+public, at which I wondered; not that I set much account
+by my verses, which are the verses of Prosator; but I
+do know how to tell a yarn, and two of the yarns are
+great. <i>Rahero</i> is for its length a perfect folk-tale: savage
+and yet fine, full of tailforemost morality, ancient as the
+granite rocks; if the historian, not to say the politician,
+could get that yarn into his head, he would have learned
+some of his <span class="sc">ABC</span>. But the average man at home cannot
+understand antiquity; he is sunk over the ears in Roman
+civilisation; and a tale like that of <i>Rahero</i> falls on his
+ears inarticulate. The Spectator said there was no
+psychology in it; that interested me much: my grandmother
+(as I used to call that able paper, and an able
+paper it is, and a fair one) cannot so much as observe the
+existence of savage psychology when it is put before it.
+I am at bottom a psychologist and ashamed of it; the tale
+seized me one-third because of its picturesque features,
+two-thirds because of its astonishing psychology, and the
+Spectator says there&rsquo;s none. I am going on with a lot
+of island work, exulting in the knowledge of a new world,
+&ldquo;a new created world&rdquo; and new men; and I am sure
+my income will <span class="sc">DECLINE</span> and <span class="sc">FALL</span> off; for the effort of
+comprehension is death to the intelligent public, and sickness
+to the dull.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know why I pester you with all this trash,
+above all as you deserve nothing. I give you my warm
+<i>talofa</i> (&ldquo;my love to you,&rdquo; Samoan salutation). Write me
+again when the spirit moves you. And some day, if I
+still live, make out the trip again and let us hob-a-nob
+with our grey pows on my verandah.&mdash;Yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The latter part of this letter was written in the course of an
+expedition on which Stevenson had been invited by the American
+Consul, Mr. Sewall, to the neighbouring island of Tutuila. Unluckily
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page59"></a>59</span>
+the letter breaks off short, and the only record of this trip
+occurs in the diary partly quoted in Mr. Balfour&rsquo;s <i>Life</i>, ch. xiv.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Friday, March 19th</i> [<i>1891</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR S. C.</span>,&mdash;You probably expect that now I am
+back at Vailima I shall resume the practice of the diary
+letter. A good deal is changed. We are more; solitude
+does not attend me as before; the night is passed playing
+Van John for shells; and, what is not less important, I
+have just recovered from a severe illness, and am easily
+tired.</p>
+
+<p>I will give you to-day. I sleep now in one of the lower
+rooms of the new house, where my wife has recently joined
+me. We have two beds, an empty case for a table, a chair,
+a tin basin, a bucket and a jug; next door in the dining-room,
+the carpenters camp on the floor, which is covered
+with their mosquito nets. Before the sun rises, at 5.45
+or 5.50, Paul brings me tea, bread, and a couple of eggs;
+and by about six I am at work. I work in bed&mdash;my bed
+is of mats, no mattress, sheets, or filth&mdash;mats, a pillow,
+and a blanket&mdash;and put in some three hours. It was 9.5
+this morning when I set off to the stream-side to my
+weeding; where I toiled, manuring the ground with the
+best enricher, human sweat, till the conch-shell was blown
+from our verandah at 10.30. At eleven we dine; about
+half-past twelve I tried (by exception) to work again,
+could make nothing on&rsquo;t, and by one was on my way to
+the weeding, where I wrought till three. Half-past five is
+our next meal, and I read Flaubert&rsquo;s Letters till the hour
+came round; dined, and then, Fanny having a cold, and
+I being tired, came over to my den in the unfinished
+house, where I now write to you, to the tune of the carpenters&rsquo;
+voices, and by the light&mdash;I crave your pardon&mdash;by
+the twilight of three vile candles filtered through
+the medium of my mosquito bar. Bad ink being of the
+party, I write quite blindfold, and can only hope you may
+be granted to read that which I am unable to see while
+writing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page60"></a>60</span></p>
+
+<p>I said I was tired; it is a mild phrase; my back aches
+like toothache; when I shut my eyes to sleep, I know
+I shall see before them&mdash;a phenomenon to which both
+Fanny and I are quite accustomed&mdash;endless vivid deeps
+of grass and weed, each plant particular and distinct, so
+that I shall lie inert in body, and transact for hours the
+mental part of my day business, choosing the noxious
+from the useful. And in my dreams I shall be hauling
+on recalcitrants, and suffering stings from nettles, stabs
+from citron thorns, fiery bites from ants, sickening resistances
+of mud and slime, evasions of slimy roots, dead
+weight of heat, sudden puffs of air, sudden starts from
+bird-calls in the contiguous forest&mdash;some mimicking my
+name, some laughter, some the signal of a whistle, and
+living over again at large the business of my day.</p>
+
+<p>Though I write so little, I pass all my hours of field-work
+in continual converse and imaginary correspondence.
+I scarce pull up a weed, but I invent a sentence on the
+matter to yourself; it does not get written; <i>autant en
+emportent les vents</i>; but the intent is there, and for me
+(in some sort) the companionship. To-day, for instance,
+we had a great talk. I was toiling, the sweat dripping
+from my nose, in the hot fit after a squall of rain: methought
+you asked me&mdash;frankly, was I happy. Happy
+(said I); I was only happy once; that was at Hyčres; it
+came to an end from a variety of reasons, decline of
+health, change of place, increase of money, age with his
+stealing steps; since then, as before then, I know not what
+it means. But I know pleasure still; pleasure with a
+thousand faces, and none perfect, a thousand tongues all
+broken, a thousand hands, and all of them with scratching
+nails. High among these I place this delight of weeding
+out here alone by the garrulous water, under the silence
+of the high wood, broken by incongruous sounds of birds.
+And take my life all through, look at it fore and back,
+and upside down,&mdash;though I would very fain change myself&mdash;I
+would not change my circumstances, unless it were to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page61"></a>61</span>
+bring you here. And yet God knows perhaps this intercourse
+of writing serves as well; and I wonder, were you
+here indeed, would I commune so continually with the
+thought of you. I say &ldquo;I wonder&rdquo; for a form; I know,
+and I know I should not.</p>
+
+<p>So far, and much further, the conversation went, while
+I groped in slime after viscous roots, nursing and sparing
+little spears of grass, and retreating (even with outcry)
+from the prod of the wild lime. I wonder if any one had
+ever the same attitude to Nature as I hold, and have held
+for so long? This business fascinates me like a tune or
+a passion; yet all the while I thrill with a strong distaste.
+The horror of the thing, objective and subjective, is always
+present to my mind; the horror of creeping things, a
+superstitious horror of the void and the powers about me,
+the horror of my own devastation and continual murders.
+The life of the plants comes through my finger-tips, their
+struggles go to my heart like supplications. I feel myself
+blood-boltered; then I look back on my cleared grass,
+and count myself an ally in a fair quarrel, and make stout
+my heart.</p>
+
+<p>It is but a little while since I lay sick in Sydney, beating
+the fields about the navy and Dean Swift and Dryden&rsquo;s
+Latin hymns; judge if I love this reinvigorating climate,
+where I can already toil till my head swims and every
+string in the poor jumping Jack (as he now lies in bed)
+aches with a kind of yearning strain, difficult to suffer in
+quiescence.</p>
+
+<p>As for my damned literature,<a name="FnAnchor_16" href="#Footnote_16"><span class="sp">16</span></a> God knows what a business
+it is, grinding along without a scrap of inspiration or
+a note of style. But it has to be ground, and the mill
+grinds exceeding slowly though not particularly small.
+The last two chapters have taken me considerably over a
+month, and they are still beneath pity. This I cannot
+continue, time not sufficing; and the next will just have
+to be worse. All the good I can express is just this; some
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page62"></a>62</span>
+day, when style revisits me, they will be excellent matter
+to rewrite. Of course, my old cure of a change of work
+would probably answer, but I cannot take it now. The
+treadmill turns; and, with a kind of desperate cheerfulness,
+I mount the idle stair. I haven&rsquo;t the least anxiety
+about the book; unless I die, I shall find the time to make
+it good; but the Lord deliver me from the thought of the
+Letters! However, the Lord has other things on hand;
+and about six to-morrow, I shall resume the consideration
+practically, and face (as best I may) the fact of my incompetence
+and disaffection to the task. Toil I do not spare;
+but fortune refuses me success. We can do more, Whatever-his-name-was,
+we can deserve it. But my misdesert
+began long since, by the acceptation of a bargain
+quite unsuitable to all my methods.<a name="FnAnchor_17" href="#Footnote_17"><span class="sp">17</span></a></p>
+
+<p>To-day I have had a queer experience. My carter has
+from the first been using my horses for his own ends; when
+I left for Sydney, I put him on his honour to cease, and
+my back was scarce turned ere he was forfeit. I have
+only been waiting to discharge him; and to-day an
+occasion arose. I am so much <i>the old man virulent</i>, so
+readily stumble into anger, that I gave a deal of consideration
+to my bearing, and decided at last to imitate that of
+the late &mdash;&mdash;. Whatever he might have to say, this
+eminently effective controversialist maintained a frozen
+demeanour and a jeering smile. The frozen demeanour
+is beyond my reach; but I could try the jeering smile;
+did so, perceived its efficacy, kept in consequence my
+temper, and got rid of my friend, myself composed and
+smiling still, he white and shaking like an aspen. He
+could explain everything; I said it did not interest me.
+He said he had enemies; I said nothing was more likely.
+He said he was calumniated; with all my heart, said I,
+but there are so many liars, that I find it safer to believe
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page63"></a>63</span>
+them. He said, in justice to himself, he must explain:
+God forbid I should interfere with you, said I, with the
+same factitious grin, but it can change nothing. So I
+kept my temper, rid myself of an unfaithful servant, found
+a method of conducting similar interviews in the future,
+and fell in my own liking. One thing more: I learned
+a fresh tolerance for the dead &mdash;&mdash;; he too had learned&mdash;perhaps
+had invented&mdash;the trick of this manner; God
+knows what weakness, what instability of feeling, lay
+beneath. <i>Ce que c&rsquo;est que de nous!</i> poor human nature;
+that at past forty I must adjust this hateful mask for the
+first time, and rejoice to find it effective; that the effort
+of maintaining an external smile should confuse and
+embitter a man&rsquo;s soul.</p>
+
+<p>To-day I have not weeded; I have written instead
+from six till eleven, from twelve till two; with the interruption
+of the interview aforesaid; a damned Letter is
+written for the third time; I dread to read it, for I dare
+not give it a fourth chance&mdash;unless it be very bad indeed.
+Now I write you from my mosquito curtain, to the song
+of saws and planes and hammers, and wood clumping on
+the floor above; in a day of heavenly brightness; a bird
+twittering near by; my eye, through the open door, commanding
+green meads, two or three forest trees casting
+their boughs against the sky, a forest-clad mountain-side
+beyond, and close in by the door-jamb a nick of the blue
+Pacific. It is March in England, bleak March, and I lie
+here with the great sliding doors wide open in an undershirt
+and p&rsquo;jama trousers, and melt in the closure of
+mosquito bars, and burn to be out in the breeze. A few
+torn clouds&mdash;not white, the sun has tinged them a warm
+pink&mdash;swim in heaven. In which blessed and fair day, I
+have to make faces and speak bitter words to a man&mdash;who
+has deceived me, it is true&mdash;but who is poor, and older
+than I, and a kind of a gentleman too. On the whole,
+I prefer the massacre of weeds.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday.</i>&mdash;When I had done talking to you yesterday,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page64"></a>64</span>
+I played on my pipe till the conch sounded, then went
+over to the old house for dinner, and had scarce risen
+from table ere I was submerged with visitors. The first
+of these despatched, I spent the rest of the evening going
+over the Samoan translation of my <i>Bottle Imp</i><a name="FnAnchor_18" href="#Footnote_18"><span class="sp">18</span></a> with
+Claxton the missionary; then to bed, but being upset,
+I suppose, by these interruptions, and having gone all day
+without my weeding, not to sleep. For hours I lay awake
+and heard the rain fall, and saw faint, far-away lightning
+over the sea, and wrote you long letters which I scorn to
+reproduce. This morning Paul was unusually early; the
+dawn had scarce begun when he appeared with the tray
+and lit my candle; and I had breakfasted and read (with
+indescribable sinkings) the whole of yesterday&rsquo;s work before
+the sun had risen. Then I sat and thought, and sat and
+better thought. It was not good enough, nor good; it
+was as slack as journalism, but not so inspired; it was
+excellent stuff misused, and the defects stood gross on it
+like humps upon a camel. But could I, in my present
+disposition, do much more with it? in my present pressure
+for time, were I not better employed doing another one
+about as ill, than making this some thousandth fraction
+better? Yes, I thought; and tried the new one, and
+behold, I could do nothing: my head swims, words do
+not come to me, nor phrases, and I accepted defeat, packed
+up my traps, and turned to communicate the failure to
+my esteemed correspondent. I think it possible I overworked
+yesterday. Well, we&rsquo;ll see to-morrow&mdash;perhaps try
+again later. It is indeed the hope of trying later that keeps
+me writing to you. If I take to my pipe, I know myself&mdash;all
+is over for the morning. Hurray, I&rsquo;ll correct proofs!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page65"></a>65</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Pago-Pago, Wednesday.</i>&mdash;After I finished on Sunday I
+passed a miserable day; went out weeding, but could
+not find peace. I do not like to steal my dinner, unless I
+have given myself a holiday in a canonical manner; and
+weeding after all is only fun, the amount of its utility small,
+and the thing capable of being done faster and nearly as
+well by a hired boy. In the evening Sewall came up
+(American consul) and proposed to take me on a malaga,<a name="FnAnchor_19" href="#Footnote_19"><span class="sp">19</span></a>
+which I accepted. Monday I rode down to Apia, was
+nearly all day fighting about drafts and money; the silver
+problem does not touch you, but it is (in a strange and
+I hope passing phase) making my situation difficult in
+Apia.</p>
+
+<p>About eleven, the flags were all half-masted; it was
+old Captain Hamilton (Samasoni the natives called him)
+who had passed away. In the evening I walked round to
+the U.S. consulate; it was a lovely night with a full moon;
+and as I got round to the hot corner of Matautu I heard
+hymns in front. The balcony of the dead man&rsquo;s house
+was full of women singing; Mary (the widow, a native)
+sat on a chair by the doorstep, and I was set beside her
+on a bench, and next to Paul the carpenter; as I sat
+down I had a glimpse of the old captain, who lay in a
+sheet on his own table. After the hymn was over, a
+native pastor made a speech which lasted a long while;
+the light poured out of the door and windows; the girls
+were sitting clustered at my feet; it was choking hot.
+After the speech was ended, Mary carried me within; the
+captain&rsquo;s hands were folded on his bosom, his face and
+head were composed; he looked as if he might speak at
+any moment; I have never seen this kind of waxwork so
+express or more venerable; and when I went away, I was
+conscious of a certain envy for the man who was out
+of the battle. All night it ran in my head, and the next
+day when we sighted Tutuila, and ran into this beautiful
+landlocked loch of Pago Pago (whence I write), Captain
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page66"></a>66</span>
+Hamilton&rsquo;s folded hands and quiet face said a great deal
+more to me than the scenery.</p>
+
+<p>I am living here in a trader&rsquo;s house; we have a good
+table, Sewall doing things in style; and I hope to benefit
+by the change, and possibly get more stuff for Letters.
+In the meanwhile, I am seized quite <i>mal-ŕ-propos</i> with
+desire to write a story, <i>The Bloody Wedding</i>, founded on
+fact&mdash;very possibly true, being an attempt to read a
+murder case&mdash;not yet months old, in this very place and
+house where I now write. The indiscretion is what stops
+me; but if I keep on feeling as I feel just now it will have
+to be written. Three Star Nettison, Kit Nettison, Field
+the Sailor, these are the main characters: old Nettison,
+and the captain of the man of war, the secondary. Possible
+scenario. Chapter I....</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Saturday, April 18th</i> [<i>1891</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;I got back on Monday night, after
+twenty-three hours in an open boat; the keys were lost;
+the consul (who had promised us a bottle of Burgundy)
+nobly broke open his storeroom, and we got to bed about
+midnight. Next morning the blessed consul promised us
+horses for the daybreak; forgot all about it, worthy man;
+set us off at last in the heat of the day, and by a short
+cut which caused infinite trouble, and we were not home
+till dinner. I was extenuated, and have had a high fever
+since, or should have been writing before. To-day for the
+first time, I risk it. Tuesday I was pretty bad; Wednesday
+had a fever to kill a horse; Thursday I was better,
+but still out of ability to do aught but read awful trash.
+This is the time one misses civilisation; I wished to send
+out for some police novels; Montépin would have about
+suited my frozen brain. It is a bother when all one&rsquo;s
+thought turns on one&rsquo;s work in some sense or other; I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page67"></a>67</span>
+could not even think yesterday; I took to inventing
+dishes by way of entertainment. Yesterday, while I lay
+asleep in the afternoon, a very lucky thing happened; the
+Chief Justice came to call; met one of our employés on
+the road; and was shown what I had done to the road.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is this the road across the island?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The only one,&rdquo; said Innes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And has one man done all this?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Three times,&rdquo; said the trusty Innes. &ldquo;It has had to
+be made three times, and when Mr. Stevenson came, it
+was a track like what you see beyond.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This must be put right,&rdquo; said the Chief Justice.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday.</i>&mdash;The truth is, I broke down yesterday almost
+as soon as I began, and have been surreptitiously finishing
+the entry to-day. For all that I was much better, ate all
+the time, and had no fever. The day was otherwise
+uneventful. I am reminded; I had another visitor on
+Friday; and Fanny and Lloyd, as they returned from a
+forest raid, met in our desert, untrodden road, first Father
+Didier, Keeper of the conscience of Mataafa, the rising
+star; and next the Chief Justice, sole stay of Laupepa,
+the present and unsteady star, and remember, a few days
+before we were close to the sick bed and entertained by
+the amateur physician of Tamasese, the late and sunken
+star. &ldquo;That is the fun of this place,&rdquo; observed Lloyd;
+&ldquo;everybody you meet is so important.&rdquo; Everybody is
+also so gloomy. It will come to war again, is the opinion
+of all the well informed&mdash;and before that to many bankruptcies;
+and after that, as usual, to famine. Here, under
+the microscope, we can see history at work.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday.</i>&mdash;I have been very neglectful. A return
+to work, perhaps premature, but necessary, has used up
+all my possible energies, and made me acquainted with the
+living headache. I just jot down some of the past notabilia.
+Yesterday B., a carpenter, and K., my (unsuccessful)
+white man, were absent all morning from their work;
+I was working myself, where I hear every sound with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page68"></a>68</span>
+morbid certainty, and I can testify that not a hammer
+fell. Upon inquiry I found they had passed the morning
+making ice with our ice machine and taking the horizon
+with a spirit level! I had no sooner heard this than&mdash;a
+violent headache set in; I am a real employer of labour
+now, and have much of the ship captain when aroused;
+and if I had a headache, I believe both these gentlemen
+had aching hearts. I promise you, the late &mdash;&mdash; was to
+the front; and K., who was the most guilty, yet (in a
+sense) the least blameable, having the brains and character
+of a canary-bird, fared none the better for B.&rsquo;s repartees.
+I hear them hard at work this morning, so the menace may
+be blessed. It was just after my dinner, just before theirs,
+that I administered my redoubtable tongue&mdash;it is really
+redoubtable&mdash;to these skulkers. (Paul used to triumph
+over Mr. J. for weeks. &ldquo;I am very sorry for you,&rdquo; he
+would say; &ldquo;you&rsquo;re going to have a talk with Mr. Stevenson
+when he comes home: you don&rsquo;t know what that is!&rdquo;)
+In fact, none of them do, till they get it. I have known
+K., for instance, for months; he has never heard me complain,
+or take notice, unless it were to praise; I have used
+him always as my guest, and there seems to be something
+in my appearance which suggests endless, ovine long-suffering!
+We sat in the upper verandah all evening, and
+discussed the price of iron roofing, and the state of the
+draught-horses, with Innes, a new man we have taken, and
+who seems to promise well.</p>
+
+<p>One thing embarrasses me. No one ever seems to
+understand my attitude about that book; the stuff sent
+was never meant for other than a first state; I never
+meant it to appear as a book. Knowing well that I have
+never had one hour of inspiration since it was begun, and
+have only beaten out my metal by brute force and patient
+repetition, I hoped some day to get a &ldquo;spate of style&rdquo;
+and burnish it&mdash;fine mixed metaphor. I am now so sick
+that I intend, when the Letters are done and some more
+written that will be wanted, simply to make a book of it by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page69"></a>69</span>
+the pruning-knife. I cannot fight longer; I am sensible
+of having done worse than I hoped, worse than I feared;
+all I can do now is to do the best I can for the future, and
+clear the book, like a piece of bush, with axe and cutlass.
+Even to produce the MS. of this will occupy me, at the
+most favourable opinion, till the middle of next year;
+really five years were wanting, when I could have made
+a book; but I have a family, and&mdash;perhaps I could not
+make the book after all.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To W. Craibe Angus</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The late Mr. Craibe Angus of Glasgow was one of the chief
+organisers of the Burns Exhibition in that city, and had proposed
+to send out to Samoa a precious copy of the <i>Jolly Beggars</i> to receive
+the autograph of R. L. S. and be returned for the purposes of that
+Exhibition. The line quoted, &ldquo;But still our hearts are true,&rdquo; etc.,
+should, it appears, run, &ldquo;But still the blood is strong, the heart is
+Highland.&rdquo; The author of the <i>Canadian Boat Song</i> which opens
+thus was Hugh, twelfth Earl of Eglinton. The first quotation is of
+course from Burns.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, April</i> 1891.</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. ANGUS</span>,&mdash;Surely I remember you! It was
+W. C. Murray who made us acquainted, and we had a
+pleasant crack. I see your poet is not yet dead. I remember
+even our talk&mdash;or you would not think of trusting
+that invaluable <i>Jolly Beggars</i> to the treacherous posts,
+and the perils of the sea, and the carelessness of authors.
+I love the idea, but I could not bear the risk. However&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center noind f90">&ldquo;Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p class="noind">it was kindly thought upon.</p>
+
+<p>My interest in Burns is, as you suppose, perennial. I
+would I could be present at the exhibition, with the purpose
+of which I heartily sympathise; but the <i>Nancy</i> has
+not waited in vain for me, I have followed my chest, the
+anchor is weighed long ago, I have said my last farewell
+to the hills and the heather and the lynns: like Leyden,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page70"></a>70</span>
+I have gone into far lands to die, not stayed like Burns
+to mingle in the end with Scottish soil. I shall not even
+return like Scott for the last scene. Burns Exhibitions
+are all over. &rsquo;Tis a far cry to Lochow from tropical
+Vailima.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>&ldquo;But still our hearts are true, our hearts are Highland,</p>
+<p class="i05">And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.&rdquo;</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>When your hand is in, will you remember our poor
+Edinburgh Robin? Burns alone has been just to his
+promise; follow Burns, he knew best, he knew whence he
+drew fire&mdash;from the poor, white-faced, drunken, vicious
+boy that raved himself to death in the Edinburgh madhouse.
+Surely there is more to be gleaned about Fergusson,
+and surely it is high time the task was set about.
+I may tell you (because your poet is not dead) something
+of how I feel: we are three Robins who have touched
+the Scots lyre this last century. Well, the one is the
+world&rsquo;s; he did it, he came off, he is for ever; but I and
+the other&mdash;ah! what bonds we have&mdash;born in the same
+city; both sickly, both pestered, one nearly to madness,
+one to the madhouse, with a damnatory creed; both seeing
+the stars and the dawn, and wearing shoe-leather on
+the same ancient stones, under the same pends, down the
+same closes, where our common ancestors clashed in their
+armour, rusty or bright. And the old Robin, who was
+before Burns and the flood, died in his acute, painful youth,
+and left the models of the great things that were to come;
+and the new, who came after, outlived his green-sickness,
+and has faintly tried to parody the finished work. If you
+will collect the strays of Robin Fergusson, fish for material,
+collect any last re-echoing of gossip, command me to do
+what you prefer&mdash;to write the preface&mdash;to write the whole
+if you prefer: anything, so that another monument (after
+Burns&rsquo;s) be set up to my unhappy predecessor on the
+causey of Auld Reekie. You will never know, nor will
+any man, how deep this feeling is: I believe Fergusson
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page71"></a>71</span>
+lives in me. I do, but tell it not in Gath; every man has
+these fanciful superstitions, coming, going, but yet enduring;
+only most men are so wise (or the poet in them so
+dead) that they keep their follies for themselves.&mdash;I am,
+yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt"><span class="sc">Robert Louis Stevenson</span>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Edmund Gosse</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, April 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,&mdash;I have to thank you and Mrs. Gosse
+for many mementoes, chiefly for your <i>Life</i> of your father.
+There is a very delicate task, very delicately done. I noted
+one or two carelessnesses, which I meant to point out to
+you for another edition; but I find I lack the time, and
+you will remark them for yourself against a new edition.
+There were two, or perhaps three, flabbinesses of style
+which (in your work) amazed me. Am I right in thinking
+you were a shade bored over the last chapters? or was
+it my own fault that made me think them susceptible of
+a more athletic compression? (The flabbinesses were not
+there, I think, but in the more admirable part, where they
+showed the bigger.) Take it all together, the book struck
+me as if you had been hurried at the last, but particularly
+hurried over the proofs, and could still spend a very profitable
+fortnight in earnest revision and (towards the end)
+heroic compression. The book, in design, subject, and
+general execution, is well worth the extra trouble. And
+even if I were wrong in thinking it specially wanted, it
+will not be lost; for do we not know, in Flaubert&rsquo;s dread
+confession, that &ldquo;prose is never done&rdquo;? What a medium
+to work in, for a man tired, perplexed among different aims
+and subjects, and spurred by the immediate need of
+&ldquo;siller&rdquo;! However, it&rsquo;s mine for what it&rsquo;s worth; and
+it&rsquo;s one of yours, the devil take it; and you know, as well
+as Flaubert, and as well as me, that it is <i>never done;</i> in
+other words, it is a torment of the pit, usually neglected
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page72"></a>72</span>
+by the bards who (lucky beggars!) approached the Styx
+in measure. I speak bitterly at the moment, having just
+detected in myself the last fatal symptom, three blank
+verses in succession&mdash;and I believe, God help me, a hemistich
+at the tail of them; hence I have deposed the labourer,
+come out of hell by my private trap, and now write to you
+from my little place in purgatory. But I prefer hell:
+would I could always dig in those red coals&mdash;or else be at
+sea in a schooner, bound for isles unvisited: to be on
+shore and not to work is emptiness&mdash;suicidal vacancy.</p>
+
+<p>I was the more interested in your <i>Life</i> of your father,
+because I meditate one of mine, or rather of my family.
+I have no such materials as you, and (our objections
+already made) your attack fills me with despair; it is
+direct and elegant, and your style is always admirable to
+me&mdash;lenity, lucidity, usually a high strain of breeding, an
+elegance that has a pleasant air of the accidental. But
+beware of purple passages. I wonder if you think as well
+of your purple passages as I do of mine? I wonder
+if you think as ill of mine as I do of yours? I wonder;
+I can tell you at least what is wrong with yours&mdash;they
+are treated in the spirit of verse. The spirit&mdash;I don&rsquo;t
+mean the measure, I don&rsquo;t mean you fall into bastard
+cadences; what I mean is that they seem vacant and
+smoothed out, ironed, if you like. And in a style which
+(like yours) aims more and more successfully at the
+academic, one purple word is already much; three&mdash;a
+whole phrase&mdash;is inadmissible. Wed yourself to a clean
+austerity: that is your force. Wear a linen ephod,
+splendidly candid. Arrange its folds, but do not fasten it
+with any brooch. I swear to you, in your talking robes,
+there should be no patch of adornment; and where the
+subject forces, let it force you no further than it must;
+and be ready with a twinkle of your pleasantry. Yours
+is a fine tool, and I see so well how to hold it; I wonder
+if you see how to hold mine? But then I am to the neck
+in prose, and just now in the &ldquo;dark <i>interstylar</i> cave,&rdquo; all
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page73"></a>73</span>
+methods and effects wooing me, myself in the midst impotent
+to follow any. I look for dawn presently, and a full
+flowing river of expression, running whither it wills. But
+these useless seasons, above all, when a man <i>must</i> continue
+to spoil paper, are infinitely weary.</p>
+
+<p>We are in our house after a fashion; without furniture,
+&rsquo;tis true, camping there, like the family after a sale. But
+the bailiff has not yet appeared; he will probably come
+after. The place is beautiful beyond dreams; some fifty
+miles of the Pacific spread in front; deep woods all round;
+a mountain making in the sky a profile of huge trees upon
+our left; about us, the little island of our clearing, studded
+with brave old gentlemen (or ladies, or &ldquo;the twa o&rsquo; them&rdquo;)
+whom we have spared. It is a good place to be in; night
+and morning, we have Theodore Rousseaus (always a new
+one) hung to amuse us on the walls of the world; and
+the moon&mdash;this is our good season, we have a moon just
+now&mdash;makes the night a piece of heaven. It amazes me
+how people can live on in the dirty north; yet if you saw
+our rainy season (which is really a caulker for wind, wet,
+and darkness&mdash;howling showers, roaring winds, pit-blackness
+at noon) you might marvel how we could endure
+that. And we can&rsquo;t. But there&rsquo;s a winter everywhere;
+only ours is in the summer. Mark my words: there will
+be a winter in heaven&mdash;and in hell. <i>Cela rentre dans les
+procédés du bon Dieu; et vous verrez!</i> There&rsquo;s another
+very good thing about Vailima, I am away from the little
+bubble of the literary life. It is not all beer and skittles,
+is it? By the by, my <i>Ballads</i> seem to have been dam
+bad; all the crickets sing so in their crickety papers;
+and I have no ghost of an idea on the point myself: verse
+is always to me the unknowable. You might tell me how
+it strikes a professional bard: not that it really matters,
+for, of course, good or bad, I don&rsquo;t think I shall get into
+<i>that</i> galley any more. But I should like to know if you
+join the shrill chorus of the crickets. The crickets are
+the devil in all to you: &rsquo;tis a strange thing, they seem to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page74"></a>74</span>
+rejoice like a strong man in their injustice. I trust you
+got my letter about your Browning book. In case it
+missed, I wish to say again that your publication of
+Browning&rsquo;s kind letter, as an illustration of <i>his</i> character,
+was modest, proper, and in radiant good taste.&mdash;In Witness
+whereof, etc. etc.,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Miss Rawlinson</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The next is written to a young friend and visitor of Bournemouth
+days (see vol. xxiv. p. 227) on the news of her engagement to
+Mr. Alfred Spender.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Apia, Samoa, April 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MAY</span>,&mdash;I never think of you by any more
+ceremonial name, so I will not pretend. There is not
+much chance that I shall forget you until the time comes
+for me to forget all this little turmoil in a corner (though
+indeed I have been in several corners) of an inconsiderable
+planet. You remain in my mind for a good reason,
+having given me (in so short a time) the most delightful
+pleasure. I shall remember, and you must still be
+beautiful. The truth is, you must grow more so, or you
+will soon be less. It is not so easy to be a flower, even
+when you bear a flower&rsquo;s name. And if I admired you so
+much, and still remember you, it is not because of your
+face, but because you were then worthy of it, as you must
+still continue.</p>
+
+<p>Will you give my heartiest congratulations to Mr.
+Spender? He has my admiration; he is a brave man;
+when I was young, I should have run away from the sight
+of you, pierced with the sense of my unfitness. He is
+more wise and manly. What a good husband he will
+have to be! And you&mdash;what a good wife! Carry your
+love tenderly. I will never forgive him&mdash;or you&mdash;it is in
+both your hands&mdash;if the face that once gladdened my
+heart should be changed into one sour or sorrowful.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page75"></a>75</span></p>
+
+<p>What a person you are to give flowers! It was so I first
+heard of you; and now you are giving the May flower!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Skerryvore has passed; it was, for us. But I
+wish you could see us in our new home on the mountain,
+in the middle of great woods, and looking far out over the
+Pacific. When Mr. Spender is very rich, he must bring
+you round the world and let you see it, and see the old
+gentleman and the old lady. I mean to live quite a long
+while yet, and my wife must do the same, or else I couldn&rsquo;t
+manage it; so, you see, you will have plenty of time;
+and it&rsquo;s a pity not to see the most beautiful places, and
+the most beautiful people moving there, and the real stars
+and moon overhead, instead of the tin imitations that
+preside over London. I do not think my wife very well;
+but I am in hopes she will now have a little rest. It has
+been a hard business, above all for her; we lived four
+months in the hurricane season in a miserable house, overborne
+with work, ill-fed, continually worried, drowned in
+perpetual rain, beaten upon by wind, so that we must sit
+in the dark in the evenings; and then I ran away, and
+she had a month of it alone. Things go better now; the
+back of the work is broken; and we are still foolish enough
+to look forward to a little peace. I am a very different
+person from the prisoner of Skerryvore. The other day
+I was three-and-twenty hours in an open boat; it made
+me pretty ill; but fancy its not killing me half-way! It
+is like a fairy story that I should have recovered liberty
+and strength, and should go round again among my fellow-men,
+boating, riding, bathing, toiling hard with a wood-knife
+in the forest. I can wish you nothing more delightful
+than my fortune in life; I wish it you; and better, if
+the thing be possible.</p>
+
+<p>Lloyd is tinkling below me on the typewriter; my wife
+has just left the room; she asks me to say she would have
+written had she been well enough, and hopes to do it still.&mdash;Accept
+the best wishes of your admirer,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page76"></a>76</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>This letter announces (1) the arrival of Mrs. Thomas Stevenson
+from Sydney, to take up her abode in her son&rsquo;s island home now
+that the conditions of life there had been made fairly comfortable;
+and (2) the receipt of a letter from me expressing the disappointment
+felt by Stevenson&rsquo;s friends at home at the impersonal and even
+tedious character of some portions of the South Sea Letters that
+had reached us. As a corrective of this opinion, I may perhaps
+mention here that there is a certain many-voyaged master-mariner
+as well as master-writer&mdash;no less a person than Mr. Joseph Conrad&mdash;who
+does not at all share it, and prefers <i>In the South Seas</i> to
+<i>Treasure Island</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>April 29th, &rsquo;91.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;I begin again. I was awake this
+morning about half-past four. It was still night, but I
+made my fire, which is always a delightful employment,
+and read Lockhart&rsquo;s <i>Scott</i> until the day began to peep.
+It was a beautiful and sober dawn, a dove-coloured dawn,
+insensibly brightening to gold. I was looking at it some
+while over the down-hill profile of our eastern road when
+I chanced to glance northward, and saw with extraordinary
+pleasure the sea lying outspread. It seemed as smooth as
+glass, and yet I knew the surf was roaring all along the
+reef, and indeed, if I had listened, I could have heard it&mdash;and
+saw the white sweep of it outside Matautu.</p>
+
+<p>I am out of condition still, and can do nothing, and
+toil to be at my pen, and see some ink behind me. I
+have taken up again <i>The High Woods of Ulufanua</i>. I
+still think the fable too fantastic and far-fetched. But,
+on a re-reading, fell in love with my first chapter, and
+for good or evil I must finish it. It is really good, well
+fed with facts, true to the manners, and (for once in my
+works) rendered pleasing by the presence of a heroine
+who is pretty. Miss Uma is pretty; a fact. All my
+other women have been as ugly as sin, and like Falconet&rsquo;s
+horse (I have just been reading the anecdote in Lockhart),
+<i>mortes</i> forbye.</p>
+
+<p>News: our old house is now half demolished; it is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page77"></a>77</span>
+to be rebuilt on a new site; now we look down upon and
+through the open posts of it like a bird-cage, to the woods
+beyond. My poor Paulo has lost his father and succeeded
+to thirty thousand thalers (I think); he had to go down
+to the consulate yesterday to send a legal paper; got
+drunk, of course, and is still this morning in so bemused
+a condition that our breakfasts all went wrong. Lafaele
+is absent at the deathbed of his fair spouse; fair she was,
+but not in deed, acting as harlot to the wreckers at work
+on the warships, to which society she probably owes her
+end, having fallen off a cliff, or been thrust off it&mdash;<i>inter
+pocula</i>. Henry is the same, our stand-by. In this transition
+stage he has been living in Apia; but the other
+night he stayed up, and sat with us about the chimney
+in my room. It was the first time he had seen a fire in
+a hearth; he could not look at it without smiles, and was
+always anxious to put on another stick. We entertained
+him with the fairy tales of civilisation&mdash;theatres, London,
+blocks in the street, Universities, the Underground, newspapers,
+etc., and projected once more his visit to Sydney.
+If we can manage, it will be next Christmas. (I see it
+will be impossible for me to afford a further journey <i>this</i>
+winter.) We have spent since we have been here about
+Ł2,500, which is not much if you consider we have built
+on that three houses, one of them of some size, and a
+considerable stable, made two miles of road some three
+times, cleared many acres of bush, made some miles of
+path, planted quantities of food, and enclosed a horse
+paddock and some acres of pig run; but &rsquo;tis a good deal
+of money regarded simply as money. K. is bosh; I
+have no use for him; but we must do what we can with
+the fellow meanwhile; he is good-humoured and honest,
+but inefficient, idle himself, the cause of idleness in others,
+grumbling, a self-excuser&mdash;all the faults in a bundle. He
+owes us thirty weeks&rsquo; service&mdash;the wretched Paul about
+half as much. Henry is almost the only one of our
+employés who has a credit.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page78"></a>78</span></p>
+
+<p><i>May 17th.</i>&mdash;Well, am I ashamed of myself? I do not
+think so. I have been hammering letters ever since,
+and got three ready and a fourth about half through;
+all four will go by the mail, which is what I wish, for so
+I keep at least my start. Days and days of unprofitable
+stubbing and digging, and the result still poor as literature,
+left-handed, heavy, unillumined, but I believe readable
+and interesting as matter. It has been no joke of a hard
+time, and when my task was done, I had little taste for
+anything but blowing on the pipe. A few necessary letters
+filled the bowl to overflowing.</p>
+
+<p>My mother has arrived, young, well, and in good
+spirits. By desperate exertions, which have wholly
+floored Fanny, her room was ready for her, and the dining-room
+fit to eat in. It was a famous victory. Lloyd never
+told me of your portrait till a few days ago; fortunately,
+I had no pictures hung yet; and the space over my
+chimney waits your counterfeit presentment. I have not
+often heard anything that pleased me more; your severe
+head shall frown upon me and keep me to the mark. But
+why has it not come? Have you been as forgetful as
+Lloyd?</p>
+
+<p><i>18th.</i>&mdash;Miserable comforters are ye all! I read your
+esteemed pages this morning by lamplight and the glimmer
+of the dawn, and as soon as breakfast was over, I must
+turn to and tackle these despised labours! Some courage
+was necessary, but not wanting. There is one thing at
+least by which I can avenge myself for my drubbing, for
+on one point you seem impenetrably stupid. Can I find
+no form of words which will at last convey to your intelligence
+the fact that <i>these letters were never meant, and are
+not now meant, to be other than a quarry of materials from
+which the book may be drawn</i>? There seems something
+incommunicable in this (to me) simple idea; I know
+Lloyd failed to comprehend it, I doubt if he has grasped
+it now; and I despair, after all these efforts, that you
+should ever be enlightened. Still, oblige me by reading
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page79"></a>79</span>
+that form of words once more, and see if a light does not
+break. You may be sure, after the friendly freedoms of
+your criticism (necessary I am sure, and wholesome I
+know, but untimely to the poor labourer in his landslip)
+that mighty little of it will stand.</p>
+
+<p>Our Paul has come into a fortune, and wishes to go
+home to the Hie Germanie. This is a tile on our head,
+and if a shower, which is now falling, lets up, I must go
+down to Apia, and see if I can find a substitute of any
+kind. This is, from any point of view, disgusting; above
+all, from that of work; for, whatever the result, the mill
+has to be kept turning; apparently dust, and not flour,
+is the proceed. Well, there is gold in the dust, which
+is a fine consolation, since&mdash;well, I can&rsquo;t help it; night
+or morning, I do my darndest, and if I cannot charge
+for merit, I must e&rsquo;en charge for toil, of which I have
+plenty and plenty more ahead before this cup is drained;
+sweat and hyssop are the ingredients.</p>
+
+<p>We are clearing from Carruthers&rsquo; Road to the pig
+fence, twenty-eight powerful natives with Catholic medals
+about their necks, all swiping in like Trojans; long may
+the sport continue!</p>
+
+<p>The invoice to hand. Ere this goes out, I hope to see
+your expressive, but surely not benignant countenance!
+Adieu, O culler of offensive expressions&mdash;&lsquo;and a&rsquo; to be
+a posy to your ain dear May!&rsquo;&mdash;Fanny seems a little
+revived again after her spasm of work. Our books and
+furniture keep slowly draining up the road, in a sad state
+of scatterment and disrepair; I wish the devil had had
+K. by his red beard before he had packed my library.
+Odd leaves and sheets and boards&mdash;a thing to make a
+bibliomaniac shed tears&mdash;are fished out of odd corners.
+But I am no bibliomaniac, praise Heaven, and I bear up,
+and rejoice when I find anything safe.</p>
+
+<p><i>19th.</i>&mdash;However, I worked five hours on the brute, and
+finished my Letter all the same, and couldn&rsquo;t sleep last
+night by consequence. Haven&rsquo;t had a bad night since I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page80"></a>80</span>
+don&rsquo;t know when; dreamed a large handsome man (a
+New Orleans planter) had insulted my wife, and, do what
+I pleased, I could not make him fight me; and woke to
+find it was the eleventh anniversary of my marriage. A
+letter usually takes me from a week to three days; but
+I&rsquo;m sometimes two days on a page&mdash;I was once three&mdash;and
+then my friends kick me. <i>C&rsquo;est-y-bęte!</i> I wish
+letters of that charming quality could be so timed as to
+arrive when a fellow wasn&rsquo;t working at the truck in
+question; but, of course, that can&rsquo;t be. Did not go down
+last night. It showered all afternoon, and poured heavy
+and loud all night.</p>
+
+<p>You should have seen our twenty-five popés (the
+Samoan phrase for a Catholic, lay or cleric) squatting
+when the day&rsquo;s work was done on the ground outside the
+verandah, and pouring in the rays of forty-eight eyes
+through the back and the front door of the dining-room,
+while Henry and I and the boss pope signed the contract.
+The second boss (an old man) wore a kilt (as usual) and
+a Balmoral bonnet with a little tartan edging and the
+tails pulled off. I told him that hat belong to my country&mdash;Sekotia;
+and he said, yes, that was the place that he
+belonged to right enough. And then all the Papists
+laughed till the woods rang; he was slashing away with
+a cutlass as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>The pictures<a name="FnAnchor_20" href="#Footnote_20"><span class="sp">20</span></a> have decidedly not come; they may
+probably arrive Sunday.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The reference in the first paragraph is to a previous letter concerning
+private matters, in which Stevenson had remonstrated with
+his correspondent on what seemed to him her mistaken reasons for
+a certain course of conduct.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, May 1891.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR ADELAIDE</span>,&mdash;I will own you just did manage
+to tread on my gouty toe; and I beg to assure you with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page81"></a>81</span>
+most people I should simply have turned away and said
+no more. My cudgelling was therefore in the nature of
+a caress or testimonial.</p>
+
+<p>God forbid, I should seem to judge for you on such a
+point; it was what you seemed to set forth as your
+reasons that fluttered my old Presbyterian spirit&mdash;for,
+mind you, I am a child of the Covenanters&mdash;whom I do
+not love, but they are mine after all, my father&rsquo;s and my
+mother&rsquo;s&mdash;and they had their merits too, and their ugly
+beauties, and grotesque heroisms, that I love them for,
+the while I laugh at them; but in their name and mine
+do what you think right, and let the world fall. That is
+the privilege and the duty of private persons; and I shall
+think the more of you at the greater distance, because
+you keep a promise to your fellow-man, your helper and
+creditor in life, by just so much as I was tempted to think
+the less of you (O not much, or I would never have been
+angry) when I thought you were the swallower of a (tinfoil)
+formula.</p>
+
+<p>I must say I was uneasy about my letter, not because
+it was too strong as an expression of my unregenerate
+sentiments, but because I knew full well it should be
+followed by something kinder. And the mischief has
+been in my health. I fell sharply sick in Sydney, was
+put aboard the <i>Lübeck</i> pretty bad, got to Vailima, hung
+on a month there, and didn&rsquo;t pick up as well as my work
+needed; set off on a journey, gained a great deal, lost it
+again; and am back at Vailima, still no good at my
+necessary work. I tell you this for my imperfect excuse
+that I should not have written you again sooner to remove
+the bad taste of my last.</p>
+
+<p>A road has been called Adelaide Road; it leads from
+the back of our house to the bridge, and thence to the
+garden, and by a bifurcation to the pig pen. It is thus
+much traversed, particularly by Fanny. An oleander,
+the only one of your seeds that prospered in this climate,
+grows there; and the name is now some week or ten
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page82"></a>82</span>
+days applied and published. <span class="sc">Adelaide Road</span> leads also
+into the bush, to the banana patch and by a second
+bifurcation over the left branch of the stream to the
+plateau and the right hand of the gorges. In short, it
+leads to all sorts of good, and is, besides, in itself a pretty
+winding path, bound downhill among big woods to the
+margin of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>What a strange idea, to think me a Jew-hater! Isaiah
+and David and Heine are good enough for me; and I
+leave more unsaid. Were I of Jew blood, I do not think
+I could ever forgive the Christians; the ghettos would
+get in my nostrils like mustard or lit gunpowder. Just
+so you, as being a child of the Presbytery, I retain&mdash;I
+need not dwell on that. The ascendant hand is what I
+feel most strongly; I am bound in and in with my forbears;
+were he one of mine, I should not be struck at
+all by Mr. Moss of Bevis Marks, I should still see behind
+him Moses of the Mount and the Tables and the shining
+face. We are all nobly born; fortunate those who know
+it; blessed those who remember.</p>
+
+<p>I am, my dear Adelaide, most genuinely yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>Write by return to say you are better, and I will try
+to do the same.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following refers again to the project of a long genealogical
+novel expanded from the original idea of <i>Henry Shovel</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Tuesday, 19th May &rsquo;91.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what you think of
+me, not having written to you at all during your illness.
+I find two sheets begun with your name, but that is no
+excuse.... I am keeping bravely; getting about better
+every day, and hope soon to be in my usual fettle. My
+books begin to come; and I fell once more on the Old
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page83"></a>83</span>
+Bailey session papers. I have 1778, 1784, and 1786.
+Should you be able to lay hands on any other volumes,
+above all a little later, I should be very glad you should
+buy them for me. I particularly want <i>one</i> or <i>two</i> during
+the course of the Peninsular War. Come to think, I ought
+rather to have communicated this want to Bain. Would
+it bore you to communicate to that effect with the great
+man? The sooner I have them, the better for me. &rsquo;Tis
+for <i>Henry Shovel</i>. But <i>Henry Shovel</i> has now turned into
+a work called <i>The Shovels of Newton French: including
+Memoirs of Henry Shovel, a Private in the Peninsular War</i>,
+which work is to begin in 1664 with the marriage of Skipper,
+afterwards Alderman Shovel of Bristol, Henry&rsquo;s great-great-grandfather,
+and end about 1832 with his own second
+marriage to the daughter of his runaway aunt. Will the
+public ever stand such an opus? Gude kens, but it
+tickles me. Two or three historical personages will just
+appear: Judge Jeffreys, Wellington, Colquhoun, Grant,
+and I think Townsend the runner. I know the public
+won&rsquo;t like it; let &rsquo;em lump it then; I mean to make it
+good; it will be more like a saga.</p>
+
+<p>Adieu.&mdash;Yours ever affectionately,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>June 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">SIR</span>,&mdash;To you, under your portrait, which is, in expression,
+your true, breathing self, and up to now saddens
+me; in time, and soon, I shall be glad to have it there;
+it is still only a reminder of your absence. Fanny wept
+when we unpacked it, and you know how little she is given
+to that mood; I was scarce Roman myself, but that does
+not count&mdash;I lift up my voice so readily. These are good
+compliments to the artist.<a name="FnAnchor_21" href="#Footnote_21"><span class="sp">21</span></a> I write in the midst of a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page84"></a>84</span>
+wreck of books, which have just come up, and have for
+once defied my labours to get straight. The whole floor
+is filled with them, and (what&rsquo;s worse) most of the shelves
+forbye; and where they are to go to, and what is to become
+of the librarian, God knows. It is hot to-night, and has
+been airless all day, and I am out of sorts, and my work
+sticks, the devil fly away with it and me. We had an
+alarm of war since last I wrote my screeds to you, and
+it blew over, and is to blow on again, and the rumour goes
+they are to begin by killing all the whites. I have no belief
+in this, and should be infinitely sorry if it came to pass&mdash;I
+do not mean for us, that were otiose&mdash;but for the poor, deluded
+schoolboys, who should hope to gain by such a step.</p>
+
+<p><i>Letter resumed, June 20th.</i>&mdash;No diary this time. Why?
+you ask. I have only sent out four Letters, and two
+chapters of <i>The Wrecker</i>. Yes, but to get these I have
+written 132 pp., 66,000 words in thirty days; 2200 words
+a day; the labours of an elephant. God knows what it&rsquo;s
+like, and don&rsquo;t ask me, but nobody shall say I have spared
+pains. I thought for some time it wouldn&rsquo;t come at all.
+I was days and days over the first letter of the lot&mdash;days
+and days writing and deleting and making no headway whatever,
+till I thought I should have gone bust; but it came
+at last after a fashion, and the rest went a thought more
+easily, though I am not so fond as to fancy any better.</p>
+
+<p>Your opinion as to the Letters as a whole is so damnatory
+that I put them by. But there is a &ldquo;hell of a want of&rdquo;
+money this year. And these Gilbert Island papers, being the
+most interesting in matter, and forming a compact whole, and
+being well illustrated, I did think of as a possible resource.</p>
+
+<p>It would be called</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p><i>Six Months in Melanesia,</i></p>
+<p><i>Two Island Kings,</i></p>
+<p><i>&mdash;&mdash; Monarchies,</i></p>
+<p><i>Gilbert Island Kings,</i></p>
+<p><i>&mdash;&mdash; Monarchies,</i></p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page85"></a>85</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind">and I dare say I&rsquo;ll think of a better yet&mdash;and would divide
+thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="50%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr> <td class="tc1 pt05" colspan="2"><i>Butaritari</i></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">I.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">A Town Asleep.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">II.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">The Three Brothers.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">III. </td>
+     <td class="tc3a">Around our House.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">IV.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">A Tale of a Tapu.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">V.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">The Five Days&rsquo; Festival.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">VI.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">Domestic Life&mdash;(which might be omitted, but
+                      not well, better be recast).</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc1 pt05" colspan="2"><i>The King of Apemama</i></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">VII.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">The Royal Traders.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">VIII.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">Foundation of Equator Town.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">IX.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">The Palace of Mary Warren.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">X.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">Equator Town and the Palace.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">XI.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">King and Commons.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">XII.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">The Devil Work Box.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">XIII.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">The Three Corslets.</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2 scs">XIV.</td>
+     <td class="tc3a">Tail piece; the Court upon a Journey.</td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>I wish you to watch these closely, judging them as
+a whole, and treating them as I have asked you, and
+favour me with your damnatory advice. I look up at
+your portrait, and it frowns upon me. You seem to view
+me with reproach. The expression is excellent; Fanny
+wept when she saw it, and you know she is not given to
+the melting mood. She seems really better; I have a
+touch of fever again, I fancy overwork, and to-day, when
+I have overtaken my letters, I shall blow on my pipe.
+Tell Mrs. Sitwell I have been playing <i>Le Chant d&rsquo;Amour</i>
+lately, and have arranged it, after awful trouble, rather
+prettily for two pipes; and it brought her before me with
+an effect scarce short of hallucination. I could hear her
+voice in every note; yet I had forgot the air entirely, and
+began to pipe it from notes as something new, when I
+was brought up with a round turn by this reminiscence.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page86"></a>86</span>
+We are now very much installed; the dining-room is
+done, and looks lovely. Soon we shall begin to photograph
+and send you our circumstances. My room is still a howling
+wilderness. I sleep on a platform in a window, and
+strike my mosquito bar and roll up my bedclothes every
+morning, so that the bed becomes by day a divan. A
+great part of the floor is knee-deep in books, yet nearly
+all the shelves are filled, alas! It is a place to make a
+pig recoil, yet here are my interminable labours begun
+daily by lamp-light, and sometimes not yet done when
+the lamp has once more to be lighted. The effect of
+pictures in this place is surprising. They give great
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<p><i>June 21st.</i>&mdash;A word more. I had my breakfast this
+morning at 4.30! My new cook has beaten me and (as
+Lloyd says) revenged all the cooks in the world. I have
+been hunting them to give me breakfast early since I was
+twenty; and now here comes Mr. Ratke, and I have to
+plead for mercy. I cannot stand 4.30; I am a mere fevered
+wreck; it is now half-past eight, and I can no more, and
+four hours divide me from lunch, the devil take the man!
+Yesterday it was about 5.30, which I can stand; day
+before 5, which is bad enough; to-day, I give out. It is
+like a London season, and as I do not take a siesta once
+in a month, and then only five minutes, I am being worn
+to the bones, and look aged and anxious.</p>
+
+<p>We have Rider Haggard&rsquo;s brother here as a Land
+Commissioner; a nice kind of a fellow; indeed, all the
+three Land Commissioners are very agreeable.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>For the result of the suggestion made in the following, see
+Scribner&rsquo;s Magazine, October 1893, p. 494.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima</i> [<i>Summer 1891</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;I find among my grandfather&rsquo;s
+papers his own reminiscences of his voyage round
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page87"></a>87</span>
+the north with Sir Walter, eighty years ago, <i>labuntur anni!</i>
+They are not remarkably good, but he was not a bad
+observer, and several touches seem to me speaking. It
+has occurred to me you might like them to appear in
+the Magazine. If you would, kindly let me know, and
+tell me how you would like it handled. My grandad&rsquo;s MS.
+runs to between six and seven thousand words, which I
+could abbreviate of anecdotes that scarce touch Sir W.
+Would you like this done? Would you like me to introduce
+the old gentleman? I had something of the sort in
+my mind, and could fill a few columns rather <i>ŕ propos</i>.
+I give you the first offer of this, according to your request;
+for though it may forestall one of the interests of my
+biography, the thing seems to me particularly suited for
+prior appearance in a magazine.</p>
+
+<p>I see the first number of <i>The Wrecker;</i> I thought it
+went lively enough; and by a singular accident, the
+picture is not unlike Tai-o-hae!</p>
+
+<p>Thus we see the age of miracles, etc.&mdash;Yours very
+sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt" style="margin-top: -2em;">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p>Proofs for next mail.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To W. Craibe Angus</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Referring again to the Burns Exhibition and to his correspondent&rsquo;s
+request for an autograph in a special copy of <i>The Jolly
+Beggars</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Summer 1891.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. ANGUS</span>,&mdash;You can use my letter as you will.
+The parcel has not come; pray Heaven the next post
+bring it safe. Is it possible for me to write a preface here?
+I will try if you like, if you think I must: though surely
+there are Rivers in Assyria. Of course you will send me
+sheets of the catalogue; I suppose it (the preface) need
+not be long; perhaps it should be rather very short?
+Be sure you give me your views upon these points. Also
+tell me what names to mention among those of your
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page88"></a>88</span>
+helpers, and do remember to register everything, else it
+is not safe.</p>
+
+<p>The true place (in my view) for a monument to Fergusson
+were the churchyard of Haddington. But as that
+would perhaps not carry many votes, I should say one
+of the two following sites:&mdash;First, either as near the site
+of the old Bedlam as we could get, or, second, beside
+the Cross, the heart of his city. Upon this I would have
+a fluttering butterfly, and, I suggest, the citation,</p>
+
+<p class="center noind">Poor butterfly, thy case I mourn.</p>
+
+<p>For the case of Fergusson is not one to pretend about.
+A more miserable tragedy the sun never shone upon, or
+(in consideration of our climate) I should rather say refused
+to brighten.&mdash;Yours truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>Where Burns goes will not matter. He is no local
+poet, like your Robin the First; he is general as the
+casing air. Glasgow, as the chief city of Scottish men,
+would do well; but for God&rsquo;s sake, don&rsquo;t let it be like
+the Glasgow memorial to Knox; I remember, when I first
+saw this, laughing for an hour by Shrewsbury clock.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To H. C. Ide</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following is written to the American Land Commissioner
+(later Chief Justice for a term) in Samoa, whose elder daughter, then
+at home in the States, had been born on a Christmas Day, and
+consequently regarded herself as defrauded of her natural rights
+to a private anniversary of her own.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, June 19, 1891.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. IDE</span>,&mdash;Herewith please find the <span class="sc">Document</span>,
+which I trust will prove sufficient in law. It seems to
+me very attractive in its eclecticism; Scots, English, and
+Roman law phrases are all indifferently introduced, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page89"></a>89</span>
+a quotation from the works of Haynes Bayly can hardly
+fail to attract the indulgence of the Bench.&mdash;Yours very
+truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt05">&nbsp;</div>
+<p>I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar,
+author of <i>The Master of Ballantrae</i> and <i>Moral Emblems</i>,
+stuck civil engineer, sole owner and patentee of the Palace
+and Plantation known as Vailima in the island of Upolu,
+Samoa, a British Subject, being in sound mind, and pretty
+well, I thank you, in body;</p>
+
+<p>In consideration that Miss Annie H. Ide, daughter of
+H. C. Ide, in the town of Saint Johnsbury, in the county
+of Caledonia, in the state of Vermont, United States of
+America, was born, out of all reason, upon Christmas Day,
+and is therefore out of all justice denied the consolation
+and profit of a proper birthday;</p>
+
+<p>And considering that I, the said Robert Louis Stevenson,
+have attained an age when O, we never mention it,
+and that I have now no further use for a birthday of any
+description;</p>
+
+<p>And in consideration that I have met H. C. Ide, the
+father of the said Annie H. Ide, and found him about as
+white a land commissioner as I require;</p>
+
+<p><i>Have transferred</i>, and <i>do hereby transfer</i>, to the said
+Annie H. Ide, <i>all and whole</i> my rights and privileges in
+the thirteenth day of November, formerly my birthday,
+now, hereby, and henceforth, the birthday of the said
+Annie H. Ide, to have, hold, exercise, and enjoy the same
+in the customary manner, by the sporting of fine raiment,
+eating of rich meats, and receipt of gifts, compliments,
+and copies of verse, according to the manner of our
+ancestors;</p>
+
+<p><i>And I direct</i> the said Annie H. Ide to add to the said
+name of Annie H. Ide the name Louisa&mdash;at least in
+private; and I charge her to use my said birthday with
+moderation and humanity, <i>et tamquam bona filia familić</i>,
+the said birthday not being so young as it once was, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page90"></a>90</span>
+having carried me in a very satisfactory manner since I
+can remember;</p>
+
+<p>And in case the said Annie H. Ide shall neglect or
+contravene either of the above conditions, I hereby revoke
+the donation and transfer my rights in the said birthday
+to the President of the United States of America for the
+time being;</p>
+
+<p>In witness whereof I have hereto set my hand and seal
+this nineteenth day of June in the year of grace eighteen
+hundred and ninety-one.</p>
+
+<div style="text-align: right; padding-right: 5em;">
+<img style="border:0; width:50px; height:50px"
+     src="images/img6.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p class="noind"><i>Witness</i>, <span class="sc">Lloyd Osbourne</span>,</p>
+<p class="noind"><i>Witness</i>, <span class="sc">Harold Watts</span>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The misgivings herein expressed about the imminence of a native
+war were not realised until two years later, and the plans of defence
+into which Stevenson here enters with characteristic gusto were not
+put to the test.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, June and July 1891.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;I am so hideously in arrears that
+I know not where to begin. However, here I am a
+prisoner in my room, unfit for work, incapable of reading
+with interest, and trying to catch up a bit. We have a
+guest here: a welcome guest: my Sydney music master,
+whose health broke down, and who came with his remarkable
+simplicity, to ask a month&rsquo;s lodging. He is newly
+married, his wife in the family way: beastly time to fall
+sick. I have found, by good luck, a job for him here
+which will pay some of his way: and in the meantime
+he is a pleasant guest, for he plays the flute with little
+sentiment but great perfection, and endears himself by
+his simplicity. To me, especially; I am so weary of
+finding people approach me with precaution, pick their
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page91"></a>91</span>
+words, flatter, and twitter; but the muttons of the good
+God are not at all afraid of the lion. They take him
+as he comes, and he does not bite&mdash;at least not hard.
+This makes us a party of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, at table;
+deftly waited on by Mary Carter, a very nice Sydney
+girl, who served us at a boarding-house and has since
+come on&mdash;how long she will endure this exile is another
+story; and gauchely waited on by Faauma, the new
+left-handed wife of the famed Lafaele, a little creature
+in native dress of course and as beautiful as a bronze
+candlestick, so fine, clean and dainty in every limb; her
+arms and her little hips in particular masterpieces. The
+rest of the crew may be stated briefly: the great Henry
+Simelé, still to the front; King, of the yellow beard,
+rather a disappointment&mdash;I am inclined on this point to
+republican opinions: Ratke, a German cook, good&mdash;and
+Germanly bad, he don&rsquo;t make <i>my</i> kitchen; Paul, now
+working out his debts outdoor; Emma, a strange weird
+creature&mdash;I suspect (from her colour) a quarter white&mdash;widow
+of a white man, ugly, capable, a really good laundress;
+Java&mdash;yes, that is the name&mdash;they spell it Siava,
+but pronounce it, and explain it Java&mdash;her assistant, a
+creature I adore from her plain, wholesome, bread-and-butter
+beauty. An honest, almost ugly, bright, good-natured
+face; the rest (to my sense) merely exquisite.
+She comes steering into my room of a morning, like Mrs.
+Nickleby, with elaborate precaution; unlike her, noiseless.
+If I look up from my work, she is ready with an
+explosive smile. I generally don&rsquo;t, and wait to look at
+her as she stoops for the bellows, and trips tiptoe off again,
+a miracle of successful womanhood in every line. I am
+amused to find plain, healthy Java pass in my fancy so
+far before pretty young Faauma. I observed Lloyd the
+other day to say that Java must have been lovely &ldquo;when
+she was young&rdquo;; and I thought it an odd word, of a
+woman in the height of health, not yet touched with fat,
+though (to be just) a little slack of bust.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page92"></a>92</span></p>
+
+<p>Our party you know: Fanny, Lloyd, my mother,
+Belle, and &ldquo;the babe&rdquo;&mdash;as we call him&mdash;Austin. We
+have now three instruments; Boehm flageolet, flute, and
+Bb clarinet; and we expect in a few days our piano. This
+is a great pleasure to me; the band-mastering, the playing
+and all. As soon as I am done with this stage of a letter,
+I shall return, not being allowed to play, to band-master,
+being engaged in an attempt to arrange an air with effect
+for the three pipes. And I&rsquo;ll go now, by jabers.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter1">
+<img style="border:0; width:500px; height:353px"
+     src="images/img7.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><i>July 3rd.</i>&mdash;A long pause: occasioned, first by some
+days of hard work: next by a vile quinsey&mdash;if that be the
+way to spell it. But to-day I must write. For we have
+all kinds of larks on hand. The wars and rumours of
+wars begin to take consistency, insomuch that we have
+landed the weapons this morning, and inspected the
+premises with a view to defence. Of course it will come
+to nothing; but as in all stories of massacres, the one you
+don&rsquo;t prepare for is the one that comes off. All our natives
+think ill of the business; none of the whites do. According
+to our natives the demonstration threatened for to-day
+or to-morrow is one of vengeance on the whites&mdash;small
+wonder&mdash;and if that begins&mdash;where will it stop? Anyway
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page93"></a>93</span>
+I don&rsquo;t mean to go down for nothing, if I can help
+it; and to amuse you I will tell you our plans.</p>
+
+<p>There is the house, upper story. Our weak point is
+of course the sides AB, AH; so we propose to place half
+our garrison in the space HGFD and half in the opposite
+corner, BB&prime;CD. We shall communicate through the
+interior, there is a water-tank in the angle C, my mother
+and Austin are to go in the loft. The holding of only these
+two corners and deserting the corner C&prime; is for economy
+and communication, two doors being in the sides GF and
+CD; so that any one in the corner C&prime; could only communicate
+or be reinforced by exposure. Besides we are
+short of mattresses. Garrison: R. L. S., Lloyd, Fanny,
+King, Ratke&mdash;doubtful, he may go&mdash;Emma, Mary, Belle;
+weapons: eight revolvers and a shot gun, and swords
+galore; but we&rsquo;re pretty far gone when we come to the
+swords. It has been rather a lark arranging; but I find
+it a bore to write, and I doubt it will be cruel stale to
+read about, when all&rsquo;s over and done, as it will be ere this
+goes, I fancy: far more ere it reaches you.</p>
+
+<p><i>Date unknown.</i>&mdash;Well, nothing as yet, though I don&rsquo;t
+swear by it yet. There has been a lot of trouble, and there
+still is a lot of doubt as to the future; and those who sit
+in the chief seats, who are all excellent, pleasant creatures,
+are not, perhaps, the most wise of mankind. They actually
+proposed to kidnap and deport Mataafa; a scheme which
+would have loosed the avalanche at once. But some
+human being interfered and choked off this pleasing
+scheme. You ask me in yours just received, what will
+become of us if it comes to a war? Well, if it is a war of
+the old sort, nothing. It will mean a little bother, and
+a great deal of theft, and more amusement. But if it
+comes to the massacre lark, I can only answer with the
+Bell of Old Bow. You are to understand that, in my
+reading of the native character, every day that passes is
+a solid gain. They put in the time public speaking; so
+wear out their energy, develop points of difference and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page94"></a>94</span>
+exacerbate internal ill-feeling. Consequently, I feel less
+apprehension of difficulty now, by about a hundredfold.
+All that I stick to, is that if war begins, there are ten
+chances to one we shall have it bad. The natives have
+been scurvily used by all the white powers without exception;
+and they labour under the belief, of which they
+can&rsquo;t be cured, that they defeated Germany. This makes
+an awkward complication.</p>
+
+<p>I was extremely vexed to hear you were ill again.
+I hope you are better. &rsquo;Tis a long time we have known
+each other now, to be sure. Well, well! you say you
+are sure to catch fever in the bush; so we do continually;
+but you are to conceive Samoa fever as the least formidable
+malady under heaven: implying only a day or so of
+slight headache and languor and ill humour, easily reduced
+by quinine or antipyrine. The hot fever I had was from
+over-exertion and blood poisoning, no doubt, and irritation
+of the bladder; it went of its own accord and with
+rest. I have had since a bad quinsey which knocked me
+rather useless for about a week, but I stuck to my work,
+with great difficulty and small success.</p>
+
+<p><i>Date unknown.</i>&mdash;But it&rsquo;s fast day and July, and the
+rude inclement depth of winter, and the thermometer
+was 68 this morning and a few days ago it was 63, and
+we have all been perishing with cold. All still seems
+quiet. Your counterfeit presentments are all round us:
+the pastel over my bed, the Dew-Smith photograph over
+my door, and the &ldquo;celebrity&rdquo; on Fanny&rsquo;s table. My room
+is now done, and looks very gay, and chromatic with its
+blue walls and my coloured lines of books.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>This is the first letter in which Stevenson expresses the opinion
+which had been forcing itself upon him, and which he felt it his duty
+in the following year to express publicly in letters to the Times,
+of the unwisdom of the government established under the treaty
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page95"></a>95</span>
+between the Three Powers and the incompetence of the officials
+appointed to carry it out.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Sunday, Sept. 5(?), 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">My Dear Colvin</span>,&mdash;Yours from Lochinver has just
+come. You ask me if I am ever homesick for the Highlands
+and the Isles. Conceive that for the last month I
+have been living there between 1786 and 1850, in my
+grandfather&rsquo;s diaries and letters. I <i>had</i> to take a rest;
+no use talking; so I put in a month over my <i>Lives of
+the Stevensons</i> with great pleasure and profit and some
+advance; one chapter and a part drafted. The whole
+promises well. Chapter I. Domestic Annals. Chapter II.
+The Northern Lights. Chapter III. The Bell Rock.
+Chapter IV. A Family of Boys. Chap. V. The Grandfather.
+VI. Alan Stevenson. VII. Thomas Stevenson. My materials
+for my great-grandfather are almost null; for my grandfather
+copious and excellent. Name, a puzzle. <i>A Scottish
+Family</i>, <i>A Family of Engineers</i>, <i>Northern Lights</i>, <i>The
+Engineers of the Northern Lights: A Family History</i>.
+Advise; but it will take long. Now, imagine if I have
+been homesick for Barrahead and Island Glass, and Kirkwall,
+and Cape Wrath, and the Wells of the Pentland
+Firth; I could have wept.</p>
+
+<p>Now for politics. I am much less alarmed; I believe
+the <i>malo</i> (= <i>raj</i>, government) will collapse and cease like
+an overlain infant, without a shot fired. They have now
+been months here on their big salaries&mdash;and Cedercrantz,
+whom I specially like as a man, has done nearly nothing,
+and the Baron, who is well-meaning, has done worse.
+They have these large salaries, and they have all the
+taxes; they have made scarce a foot of road; they have
+not given a single native a position&mdash;all to white men;
+they have scarce laid out a penny on Apia, and scarce a
+penny on the King; they have forgot they were in Samoa,
+or that such a thing as Samoans existed, and had eyes
+and some intelligence. The Chief Justice has refused to
+pay his customs! The President proposed to have an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page96"></a>96</span>
+expensive house built for himself, while the King, his
+master, has none! I had stood aside, and been a loyal,
+and, above all, a silent subject, up to then; but now I
+snap my fingers at their <i>malo</i>. It is damned, and I&rsquo;m
+damned glad of it. And this is not all. Last &ldquo;<i>Wainiu</i>,&rdquo;
+when I sent Fanny off to Fiji, I hear the wonderful news
+that the Chief Justice is going to Fiji and the Colonies
+to improve his mind. I showed my way of thought to
+his guest, Count Wachtmeister, whom I have sent to you
+with a letter&mdash;he will tell you all the news. Well, the
+Chief Justice stayed, but they said he was to leave yesterday.
+I had intended to go down, and see and warn him!
+But the President&rsquo;s house had come up in the meanwhile,
+and I let them go to their doom, which I am only anxious
+to see swiftly and (if it may be) bloodlessly fall.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I have in a way withdrawn my unrewarded
+loyalty. Lloyd is down to-day with Moors to call on
+Mataafa; the news of the excursion made a considerable
+row in Apia, and both the German and the English consuls
+besought Lloyd not to go. But he stuck to his purpose,
+and with my approval. It&rsquo;s a poor thing if people
+are to give up a pleasure party for a <i>malo</i> that has never
+done anything for us but draw taxes, and is going to go
+pop, and leave us at the mercy of the identical Mataafa,
+whom I have not visited for more than a year, and who
+is probably furious.</p>
+
+<p>The sense of my helplessness here has been rather
+bitter; I feel it wretched to see this dance of folly and
+injustice and unconscious rapacity go forward from day
+to day, and to be impotent. I was not consulted&mdash;or
+only by one man, and that on particular points; I did
+not choose to volunteer advice till some pressing occasion;
+I have not even a vote, for I am not a member of the
+municipality.</p>
+
+<p>What ails you, miserable man, to talk of saving
+material? I have a whole world in my head, a whole
+new society to work, but I am in no hurry; you will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page97"></a>97</span>
+shortly make the acquaintance of the Island of Ulufanua,
+on which I mean to lay several stories; the <i>Bloody Wedding</i>,
+possibly the <i>High Woods</i>&mdash;(O, it&rsquo;s so good, the <i>High
+Woods</i>, but the story is craziness; that&rsquo;s the trouble)&mdash;a
+political story, the <i>Labour Slave</i>, etc. Ulufanua is an
+imaginary island; the name is a beautiful Samoan word
+for the <i>top</i> of a forest; ulu=leaves or hair, fanua=land.
+The ground or country of the leaves. &ldquo;Ulufanua the isle
+of the sea,&rdquo; read that verse dactylically and you get the
+beat; the u&rsquo;s are like our double oo; did ever you hear
+a prettier word?</p>
+
+<p>I do not feel inclined to make a volume of Essays,<a name="FnAnchor_22" href="#Footnote_22"><span class="sp">22</span></a>
+but if I did, and perhaps the idea is good&mdash;and any idea
+is better than the <i>South Seas</i>&mdash;here would be my choice of
+the Scribner articles: <i>Dreams</i>, <i>Beggars</i>, <i>Lantern-Bearers</i>,
+<i>Random Memories</i>. There was a paper called the <i>Old
+Pacific Capital</i> in Fraser, in Tulloch&rsquo;s time, which had
+merit; there were two on Fontainebleau in the Magazine
+of Art in Henley&rsquo;s time. I have no idea if they&rsquo;re any
+good; then there&rsquo;s the <i>Emigrant Train</i>. <i>Pulvis et Umbra</i>
+is in a different key, and wouldn&rsquo;t hang on with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>I have just interrupted my letter and read through
+the chapter of the <i>High Woods</i> that is written, a chapter
+and a bit, some sixteen pages, really very fetching, but
+what do you wish? the story is so wilful, so steep, so
+silly&mdash;it&rsquo;s a hallucination I have outlived, and yet I never
+did a better piece of work, horrid, and pleasing, and extraordinarily
+<i>true</i>; it&rsquo;s sixteen pages of the South Seas;
+their essence. What am I to do? Lose this little gem&mdash;for
+I&rsquo;ll be bold, and that&rsquo;s what I think it&mdash;or go on
+with the rest, which I don&rsquo;t believe in, and don&rsquo;t like,
+and which can never make aught but a silly yarn? Make
+another end to it? Ah, yes, but that&rsquo;s not the way I
+write; the whole tale is implied; I never use an effect,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page98"></a>98</span>
+when I can help it, unless it prepares the effects that are
+to follow; that&rsquo;s what a story consists in. To make
+another end, that is to make the beginning all wrong.
+The dénouement of a long story is nothing; it is just a
+&ldquo;full close,&rdquo; which you may approach and accompany
+as you please&mdash;it is a coda, not an essential member in
+the rhythm; but the body and end of a short story is
+bone of the bone and blood of the blood of the beginning.
+Well, I shall end by finishing it against my judgment;
+that fragment is my Delilah. Golly, it&rsquo;s good. I am not
+shining by modesty; but I do just love the colour and
+movement of that piece so far as it goes.</p>
+
+<p>I was surprised to hear of your fishing. And you saw
+the <i>Pharos</i>,<a name="FnAnchor_23" href="#Footnote_23"><span class="sp">23</span></a> thrice fortunate man; I wish I dared go
+home, I would ask the Commissioners to take me round
+for old sake&rsquo;s sake, and see all my family pictures once
+more from the Mull of Galloway to Unst. However, all
+is arranged for our meeting in Ceylon, except the date
+and the blooming pounds. I have heard of an exquisite
+hotel in the country, airy, large rooms, good cookery, not
+dear; we shall have a couple of months there, if we can
+make it out, and converse or&mdash;as my grandfather always
+said&mdash;&ldquo;commune.&rdquo; &ldquo;Communings with Mr. Kennedy as
+to Lighthouse Repairs.&rdquo; He was a fine old fellow, but a
+droll.</p>
+
+<p><i>Evening.</i>&mdash;Lloyd has returned. Peace and war were
+played before his eyes at heads or tails. A German was
+stopped with levelled guns; he raised his whip; had it
+fallen, we might have been now in war. Excuses were
+made by Mataafa himself. Doubtless the thing was done&mdash;I
+mean the stopping of the German&mdash;a little to show
+off before Lloyd. Meanwhile &mdash;&mdash; was up here, telling
+how the Chief Justice was really gone for five or eight
+weeks, and begging me to write to the Times and denounce
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page99"></a>99</span>
+the state of affairs; many strong reasons he advanced;
+and Lloyd and I have been since his arrival and &mdash;&mdash;&rsquo;s
+departure, near half an hour, debating what should be done.
+Cedercrantz is gone; it is not my fault; he knows my
+views on that point&mdash;alone of all points;&mdash;he leaves me
+with my mouth sealed. Yet this is a nice thing that
+because he is guilty of a fresh offence&mdash;his flight&mdash;the
+mouth of the only possible influential witness should be
+closed? I do not like this argument. I look like a cad,
+if I do in the man&rsquo;s absence what I could have done in
+a more manly manner in his presence. True; but why
+did he go? It is his last sin. And I, who like the man
+extremely&mdash;that is the word&mdash;I love his society&mdash;he is
+intelligent, pleasant, even witty, a gentleman&mdash;and you
+know how that attaches&mdash;I loathe to seem to play a base
+part; but the poor natives&mdash;who are like other folk,
+false enough, lazy enough, not heroes, not saints&mdash;ordinary
+men damnably misused&mdash;are they to suffer because I like
+Cedercrantz, and Cedercrantz has cut his lucky? This is
+a little tragedy, observe well&mdash;a tragedy! I may be right,
+I may be wrong in my judgment, but I am in treaty with
+my honour. I know not how it will seem to-morrow.
+Lloyd thought the barrier of honour insurmountable, and
+it is an ugly obstacle. He (Cedercrantz) will likely meet
+my wife three days from now, may travel back with her,
+will be charming if he does; suppose this, and suppose
+him to arrive and find that I have sprung a mine&mdash;or the
+nearest approach to it I could find&mdash;behind his back?
+My position is pretty. Yes, I am an aristocrat. I have
+the old petty, personal view of honour? I should blush
+till I die if I do this; yet it is on the cards that I may
+do it. So much I have written you in bed, as a man writes
+or talks, in a <i>bittre Wahl</i>. Now I shall sleep, and see if I
+am more clear. I will consult the missionaries at least&mdash;I
+place some reliance in M. also&mdash;or I should if he were
+not a partisan; but a partisan he is. There&rsquo;s a pity. To
+sleep! A fund of wisdom in the prostrate body and the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page100"></a>100</span>
+fed brain. Kindly observe R. L. S. in the talons of politics!
+&rsquo;Tis funny&mdash;&rsquo;tis sad. Nobody but these cursed idiots
+could have so driven me; I cannot bear idiots.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Colvin, I must go to sleep; it is long past
+ten&mdash;a dreadful hour for me. And here am I lingering (so
+I feel) in the dining-room at the Monument, talking to
+you across the table, both on our feet, and only the two
+stairs to mount, and get to bed, and sleep, and be waked
+by dear old George&mdash;to whom I wish my kindest remembrances&mdash;next
+morning. I look round, and there is my
+blue room, and my long lines of shelves, and the door
+gaping on a moonless night, and no word of S. C. but
+his twa portraits on the wall. Good-bye, my dear fellow,
+and good-night. Queer place the world!</p>
+
+<p><i>Monday.</i>&mdash;No clearness of mind with the morning; I
+have no guess what I should do. &rsquo;Tis easy to say that
+the public duty should brush aside these little considerations
+of personal dignity; so it is that politicians begin,
+and in a month you find them rat and flatter and intrigue
+with brows of brass. I am rather of the old view, that a
+man&rsquo;s first duty is to these little laws; the big he does
+not, he never will, understand; I may be wrong about
+the Chief Justice and the Baron and the state of Samoa;
+I cannot be wrong about the vile attitude I put myself in
+if I blow the gaff on Cedercrantz behind his back.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday.</i>&mdash;One more word about the <i>South Seas</i>, in
+answer to a question I observed I have forgotten to answer.
+The Tahiti part has never turned up, because it has never
+been written. As for telling you where I went or when,
+or anything about Honolulu, I would rather die; that is
+fair and plain. How can anybody care when or how I
+left Honolulu? A man of upwards of forty cannot waste
+his time in communicating matter of that indifference.
+The letters, it appears, are tedious; they would be more
+tedious still if I wasted my time upon such infantile and
+sucking-bottle details. If ever I put in any such detail,
+it is because it leads into something or serves as a transition.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page101"></a>101</span>
+To tell it for its own sake, never! The mistake is
+all through that I have told too much; I had not sufficient
+confidence in the reader, and have overfed him; and here
+are you anxious to learn how I&mdash;O Colvin! Suppose it
+had made a book, all such information is given to one
+glance of an eye by a map with a little dotted line upon
+it. But let us forget this unfortunate affair.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday.</i>&mdash;Yesterday I went down to consult Clarke,
+who took the view of delay. Has he changed his mind
+already? I wonder: here at least is the news.  Some
+little while back some men of Manono&mdash;what is Manono?&mdash;a
+Samoan rotten borough, a small isle of huge political
+importance, heaven knows why, where a handful of chiefs
+make half the trouble in the country. Some men of Manono
+(which is strong Mataafa) burned down the houses and
+destroyed the crops of some Malietoa neighbours. The
+President went there the other day and landed alone on
+the island, which (to give him his due) was plucky. Moreover,
+he succeeded in persuading the folks to come up
+and be judged on a particular day in Apia. That day
+they did not come; but did come the next, and, to their
+vast surprise, were given six months&rsquo; imprisonment and
+clapped in gaol. Those who had accompanied them cried
+to them on the streets as they were marched to prison,
+&ldquo;Shall we rescue you?&rdquo; The condemned, marching in the
+hands of thirty men with loaded rifles, cried out &ldquo;No&rdquo;!
+And the trick was done. But it was ardently believed a
+rescue would be attempted; the gaol was laid about with
+armed men day and night; but there was some question
+of their loyalty, and the commandant of the forces, a
+very nice young beardless Swede, became nervous, and
+conceived a plan. How if he should put dynamite under
+the gaol, and in case of an attempted rescue blow up
+prison and all? He went to the President, who agreed;
+he went to the American man-of-war for the dynamite
+and machine, was refused, and got it at last from the
+Wreckers. The thing began to leak out, and there arose a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page102"></a>102</span>
+muttering in town. People had no fancy for amateur
+explosions, for one thing. For another, it did not clearly
+appear that it was legal; the men had been condemned
+to six months&rsquo; prison, which they were peaceably undergoing;
+they had not been condemned to death. And
+lastly, it seemed a somewhat advanced example of civilisation
+to set before barbarians. The mutter in short became
+a storm, and yesterday, while I was down, a cutter was
+chartered, and the prisoners were suddenly banished to
+the Tokelaus. Who has changed the sentence? We are
+going to stir in the dynamite matter; we do not want
+the natives to fancy us consenting to such an outrage.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny has returned from her trip, and on the whole
+looks better. The <i>High Woods</i> are under way, and their
+name is now the <i>Beach of Falesá</i>, and the yarn is cured.
+I have about thirty pages of it done; it will be fifty to
+seventy I suppose. No supernatural trick at all; and
+escaped out of it quite easily; can&rsquo;t think why I was so
+stupid for so long. Mighty glad to have Fanny back to
+this &ldquo;Hell of the South Seas,&rdquo; as the German Captain
+called it. What will Cedercrantz think when he comes
+back? To do him justice, had he been here, this Manono
+hash would not have been.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a pretty thing. When Fanny was in Fiji all
+the Samoa and Tokelau folks were agog about our &ldquo;flash&rdquo;
+house; but the whites had never heard of it.</p>
+
+<p class="sc" style="text-align: right; padding-right: 5em;">Robert Louis Stevenson,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">Author of <i>The Beach of Falesá</i>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>], <i>Sept. 28, 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;Since I last laid down my pen, I
+have written and rewritten <i>The Beach of Falesá</i>; something
+like sixty thousand words of sterling domestic
+fiction (the story, you will understand, is only half that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page103"></a>103</span>
+length); and now I don&rsquo;t want to write any more again
+for ever, or feel so; and I&rsquo;ve got to overhaul it once again
+to my sorrow. I was all yesterday revising, and found a
+lot of slacknesses and (what is worse in this kind of thing)
+some literaryisms. One of the puzzles is this: It is a first
+person story&mdash;a trader telling his own adventure in an
+island. When I began I allowed myself a few liberties,
+because I was afraid of the end; now the end proved
+quite easy, and could be done in the pace; so the beginning
+remains about a quarter tone out (in places); but
+I have rather decided to let it stay so. The problem is
+always delicate; it is the only thing that worries me in
+first person tales, which otherwise (quo&rsquo; Alan) &ldquo;set better
+wi&rsquo; my genius.&rdquo; There is a vast deal of fact in the story,
+and some pretty good comedy. It is the first realistic
+South Sea story; I mean with real South Sea character
+and details of life. Everybody else who has tried, that
+I have seen, got carried away by the romance, and ended
+in a kind of sugar candy sham epic, and the whole effect
+was lost&mdash;there was no etching, no human grin, consequently
+no conviction. Now I have got the smell and look
+of the thing a good deal. You will know more about the
+South Seas after you have read my little tale than if you
+had read a library. As to whether any one else will read
+it, I have no guess. I am in an off time, but there is just
+the possibility it might make a hit; for the yarn is good
+and melodramatic, and there is quite a love affair&mdash;for
+me; and Mr. Wiltshire (the narrator) is a huge lark,
+though I say it. But there is always the exotic question,
+and everything, the life, the place, the dialects&mdash;trader&rsquo;s
+talk, which is a strange conglomerate of literary expressions
+and English and American slang, and Beach de
+Mar, or native English,&mdash;the very trades and hopes and
+fears of the characters, are all novel, and may be found
+unwelcome to that great, hulking, bullering whale, the
+public.</p>
+
+<p>Since I wrote, I have been likewise drawing up a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page104"></a>104</span>
+document to send in to the President; it has been dreadfully
+delayed, not by me, but to-day they swear it will
+be sent in. A list of questions about the dynamite report
+are herein laid before him, and considerations suggested
+why he should answer.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 5th.</i>&mdash;Ever since my last snatch I have been
+much chivied about over the President business; his
+answer has come, and is an evasion accompanied with
+schoolboy insolence, and we are going to try to answer it.
+I drew my answer and took it down yesterday; but one
+of the signatories wants another paragraph added, which
+I have not yet been able to draw, and as to the wisdom
+of which I am not yet convinced.</p>
+
+<p><i>Next day, Oct. 7th the right day.</i>&mdash;We are all in rather
+a muddled state with our President affair. I do loathe
+politics, but at the same time, I cannot stand by and
+have the natives blown in the air treacherously with
+dynamite. They are still quiet; how long this may continue
+I do not know, though of course by mere prescription
+the Government is strengthened, and is probably
+insured till the next taxes fall due. But the unpopularity
+of the whites is growing. My native overseer, the
+great Henry Simelé, announced to-day that he was
+&ldquo;weary of whites upon the beach. All too proud,&rdquo; said
+this veracious witness. One of the proud ones had
+threatened yesterday to cut off his head with a bush
+knife! These are &ldquo;native outrages&rdquo;; honour bright,
+and setting theft aside, in which the natives are active,
+this is the main stream of irritation. The natives are
+generally courtly, far from always civil, but really gentle,
+and with a strong sense of honour of their own, and
+certainly quite as much civilised as our dynamiting
+President.</p>
+
+<p>We shall be delighted to see Kipling.<a name="FnAnchor_24" href="#Footnote_24"><span class="sp">24</span></a> I go to bed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page105"></a>105</span>
+usually about half-past eight, and my lamp is out before
+ten; I breakfast at six. We may say roughly we have
+no soda water on the island, and just now truthfully no
+whisky. I <i>have</i> heard the chimes at midnight; now no
+more, I guess. <i>But</i>&mdash;Fanny and I, as soon as we can
+get coins for it, are coming to Europe, not to England:
+I am thinking of Royat. Bar wars. If not, perhaps the
+Apennines might give us a mountain refuge for two
+months or three in summer. How is that for high? But
+the money must be all in hand first.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 13th.</i>&mdash;How am I to describe my life these
+last few days? I have been wholly swallowed up in
+politics, a wretched business, with fine elements of farce
+in it too, which repay a man in passing, involving many
+dark and many moonlight rides, secret counsels which
+are at once divulged, sealed letters which are read aloud
+in confidence to the neighbours, and a mass of fudge and
+fun, which would have driven me crazy ten years ago,
+and now makes me smile.</p>
+
+<p>On Friday, Henry came and told us he must leave
+and go to &ldquo;my poor old family in Savaii&rdquo;; why? I do
+not quite know&mdash;but, I suspect, to be tattooed&mdash;if so,
+then probably to be married, and we shall see him no
+more. I told him he must do what he thought his duty;
+we had him to lunch, drank his health, and he and I rode
+down about twelve. When I got down, I sent my horse
+back to help bring down the family later. My own afternoon
+was cut out for me; my last draft for the President
+had been objected to by some of the signatories. I stood
+out, and one of our small number accordingly refused to
+sign. Him I had to go and persuade, which went off
+very well after the first hottish moments; you have no
+idea how stolid my temper is now. By about five the
+thing was done; and we sat down to dinner at the Chinaman&rsquo;s&mdash;the
+Verrey or Doyen of Apia&mdash;Gurr and I at each
+end as hosts; Gurr&rsquo;s wife&mdash;Fanua, late maid of the
+village; her (adopted) father and mother, Seumanu and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page106"></a>106</span>
+Faatulia, Fanny, Belle, Lloyd, Austin, and Henry Simelé,
+his last appearance. Henry was in a kilt of grey shawl,
+with a blue jacket, white shirt, and black necktie, and
+looked like a dark genteel guest in a Highland shooting-box.
+Seumanu (opposite Fanny, next G.) is chief of
+Apia, a rather big gun in this place, looking like a large,
+fatted, military Englishman, bar the colour. Faatulia,
+next me, is a bigger chief than her husband. Henry is a
+chief too&mdash;his chief name, Iiga (Ee-eeng-a), he has not
+yet &ldquo;taken&rdquo; because of his youth. We were in fine
+society, and had a pleasant meal-time, with lots of fun.
+Then to the Opera&mdash;I beg your pardon, I mean the Circus.
+We occupied the first row in the reserved seats, and there
+in the row behind were all our friends&mdash;Captain Foss and
+his Captain-Lieutenant, three of the American officers,
+very nice fellows, the Dr., etc., so we made a fine show
+of what an embittered correspondent of the local paper
+called &ldquo;the shoddy aristocracy of Apia&rdquo;; and you
+should have seen how we carried on, and how I clapped,
+and Captain Foss hollered &ldquo;<i>wunderschön!</i>&rdquo; and threw
+himself forward in his seat, and how we all in fact enjoyed
+ourselves like school-children, Austin not a shade more
+than his neighbours. Then the Circus broke up, and the
+party went home, but I stayed down, having business on
+the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, October 12th, great news reaches me, and
+Lloyd and I, with the mail just coming in, must leave
+all, saddle, and ride down. True enough, the President
+had resigned! Sought to resign his presidency of the
+council, and keep his advisership to the King; given
+way to the consuls&rsquo; objections and resigned all&mdash;then fell
+out with them about the disposition of the funds, and was
+now trying to resign from his resignation! Sad little
+President, so trim to look at, and I believe so kind to his
+little wife! Not only so, but I meet Dunnet on the beach.
+Dunnet calls me in consultation, and we make with infinite
+difficulty a draft of a petition to the King....
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page107"></a>107</span>
+Then to dinner at Moors&rsquo;s, a very merry meal, interrupted
+before it was over by the arrival of the committee. Slight
+sketch of procedure agreed upon, self appointed spokesman,
+and the deputation sets off. Walk all through
+Matafele, all along Mulinuu, come to the King&rsquo;s house;
+he has verbally refused to see us in answer to our letter,
+swearing he is gasegase (chief sickness, not common man&rsquo;s)
+and indeed we see him inside in bed. It is a miserable
+low house, better houses by the dozen in the little hamlet
+(Tanugamanono) of bushmen on our way to Vailima; and
+the President&rsquo;s house in process of erection just opposite!
+We are told to return to-morrow; I refuse; and at last
+we are very sourly received, sit on the mats, and I open
+out, through a very poor interpreter, and sometimes hampered
+by unacceptable counsels from my backers. I can
+speak fairly well in a plain way now. C. asked me to
+write out my harangue for him this morning; I have done
+so, and couldn&rsquo;t get it near as good. I suppose (talking
+and interpreting) I was twenty minutes or half an hour
+on the deck; then his majesty replied in the dying
+whisper of a big chief; a few words of rejoinder (approving),
+and the deputation withdrew, rather well satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>A few days ago this intervention would have been a
+deportable offence; not now, I bet; I would like them
+to try. A little way back along Mulinuu, Mrs. Gurr met
+us with her husband&rsquo;s horse; and he and she and Lloyd
+and I rode back in a heavenly moonlight. Here ends a
+chapter in the life of an island politician! Catch me at
+it again; &rsquo;tis easy to go in, but it is not a pleasant trade.
+I have had a good team, as good as I could get on the
+beach; but what trouble even so, and what fresh troubles
+shaping. But I have on the whole carried all my points;
+I believe all but one, and on that (which did not concern
+me) I had no right to interfere. I am sure you would be
+amazed if you knew what a good hand I am at keeping
+my temper, talking people over, and giving reasons which
+are not my reasons, but calculated for the meridian of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page108"></a>108</span>
+the particular objection; so soon does falsehood await the
+politician in his whirling path.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Henry James</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Stevenson had again been reading Mr. James&rsquo;s <i>Lesson of the
+Master</i>; Adela Chart is the heroine of the second story in that
+collection, called <i>The Marriages</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, October 1891.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,&mdash;From this perturbed and
+hunted being expect but a line, and that line shall be
+but a whoop for Adela. O she&rsquo;s delicious, delicious; I
+could live and die with Adela&mdash;die, rather the better of
+the two; you never did a straighter thing, and never
+will.</p>
+
+<p><i>David Balfour</i>, second part of <i>Kidnapped</i>, is on the
+stocks at last; and is not bad, I think. As for <i>The
+Wrecker</i>, it&rsquo;s a machine, you know&mdash;don&rsquo;t expect aught
+else&mdash;a machine, and a police machine; but I believe
+the end is one of the most genuine butcheries in literature;
+and we point to our machine with a modest pride,
+as the only police machine without a villain. Our criminals
+are a most pleasing crew, and leave the dock with
+scarce a stain upon their character.</p>
+
+<p>What a different line of country to be trying to draw
+Adela, and trying to write the last four chapters of <i>The
+Wrecker</i>! Heavens, it&rsquo;s like two centuries; and ours is
+such rude, transpontine business, aiming only at a certain
+fervour of conviction and sense of energy and violence in
+the men; and yours is so neat and bright and of so exquisite
+a surface! Seems dreadful to send such a book
+to such an author; but your name is on the list. And
+we do modestly ask you to consider the chapters on the
+<i>Norah Creina</i> with the study of Captain Nares, and the
+forementioned last four, with their brutality of substance
+and the curious (and perhaps unsound) technical man&oelig;uvre
+of running the story together to a point as we go
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page109"></a>109</span>
+along, the narrative becoming more succinct and the
+details fining off with every page.&mdash;Sworn affidavit of</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p><i>No person now alive has beaten Adela: I adore Adela
+and her maker. Sic subscrib.</i></p>
+
+<p class="rt sc"><span class="sc">Robert Louis Stevenson</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p>A Sublime Poem to follow.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>Adela, Adela, Adela Chart,</p>
+<p>What have you done to my elderly heart?</p>
+<p>Of all the ladies of paper and ink</p>
+<p>I count you the paragon, call you the pink.</p>
+<p>The word of your brother depicts you in part:</p>
+<p>&ldquo;You raving maniac!&rdquo; Adela Chart;</p>
+<p>But in all the asylums that cumber the ground,</p>
+<p>So delightful a maniac was ne&rsquo;er to be found.</p>
+
+<p class="stanza">I pore on you, dote on you, clasp you to heart,</p>
+<p>I laud, love, and laugh at you, Adela Chart,</p>
+<p>And thank my dear maker the while I admire</p>
+<p>That I can be neither your husband nor sire.</p>
+
+<p class="stanza">Your husband&rsquo;s, your sire&rsquo;s were a difficult part;</p>
+<p>You&rsquo;re a byway to suicide, Adela Chart;</p>
+<p>But to read of, depicted by exquisite James,</p>
+<p>O, sure you&rsquo;re the flower and quintessence of dames.</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p class="center noind"><i>Eructavit cor meum</i></p>
+
+<p>My heart was inditing a goodly matter about Adela
+Chart.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>Though oft I&rsquo;ve been touched by the volatile dart,</p>
+<p>To none have I grovelled but Adela Chart,</p>
+<p>There are passable ladies, no question, in art&mdash;</p>
+<p>But where is the marrow of Adela Chart?</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page110"></a>110</span></p>
+<p>I dreamed that to Tyburn I passed in the cart&mdash;</p>
+<p>I dreamed I was married to Adela Chart:</p>
+<p>From the first I awoke with a palpable start,</p>
+<p>The second dumbfoundered me, Adela Chart!</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Another verse bursts from me, you see; no end to the
+violence of the Muse.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5>To <span class="sc">E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>], <i>October 8th, 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;All right, you shall have the
+<i>Tales of my Grandfather</i> soon, but I guess we&rsquo;ll try and
+finish off <i>The Wrecker</i> first. <i>A propos</i> of whom, please
+send some advanced sheets to Cassell&rsquo;s&mdash;away ahead of
+you&mdash;so that they may get a dummy out.</p>
+
+<p>Do you wish to illustrate <i>My Grandfather</i>? He mentions
+as excellent a portrait of Scott by Basil Hall&rsquo;s
+brother. I don&rsquo;t think I ever saw this engraved; would
+it not, if you could get track of it, prove a taking embellishment?
+I suggest this for your consideration and
+inquiry. A new portrait of Scott strikes me as good.
+There is a hard, tough, constipated old portrait of my
+grandfather hanging in my aunt&rsquo;s house, Mrs. Alan Stevenson,
+16 St. Leonard&rsquo;s Terrace, Chelsea, which has never
+been engraved&mdash;the better portrait, Joseph&rsquo;s bust, has
+been reproduced, I believe, twice&mdash;and which, I am sure,
+my aunt would let you have a copy of. The plate could
+be of use for the book when we get so far, and thus to
+place it in the Magazine might be an actual saving.</p>
+
+<p>I am swallowed up in politics for the first, I hope for
+the last, time in my sublunary career. It is a painful,
+thankless trade; but one thing that came up I could not
+pass in silence. Much drafting, addressing, deputationising
+has eaten up all my time, and again (to my contrition)
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page111"></a>111</span>
+I leave you Wreckerless. As soon as the mail leaves I
+tackle it straight.&mdash;Yours very sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, October 1891.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;The time draws nigh, the mail
+is near due, and I snatch a moment of collapse so that
+you may have at least some sort of a scratch of note along
+with the</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>\ end</p>
+<p class="i1">\ of</p>
+<p class="i2">\ <i>The</i></p>
+<p class="i3">\ <i>Wrecker</i>.<span style="padding-left: 5em;">Hurray!</span></p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="noind">which I mean to go herewith. It has taken me a devil
+of a pull, but I think it&rsquo;s going to be ready. If I did not
+know you were on the stretch waiting for it and trembling
+for your illustrations, I would keep it for another
+finish; but things being as they are, I will let it go the
+best way I can get it. I am now within two pages of
+the end of Chapter <span class="scs">XXV</span>., which is the last chapter, the
+end with its gathering up of loose threads, being the dedication
+to Low, and addressed to him; this is my last
+and best expedient for the knotting up of these loose
+cards. &rsquo;Tis possible I may not get that finished in time,
+in which case you&rsquo;ll receive only Chapters <span class="scs">XXII</span>. to <span class="scs">XXV</span>.
+by this mail, which is all that can be required for illustration.</p>
+
+<p>I wish you would send me <i>Memoirs of Baron Marbot</i>
+(French); <i>Introduction to the Study of the History of
+Language</i>, Strong, Logeman &amp; Wheeler; <i>Principles of
+Psychology</i>, William James; Morris &amp; Magnusson&rsquo;s <i>Saga
+Library</i>, any volumes that are out; George Meredith&rsquo;s
+<i>One of our Conquerors</i>; <i>Lŕ Bas</i>, by Huysmans (French);
+O&rsquo;Connor Morris&rsquo;s <i>Great Commanders of Modern Times</i>;
+<i>Life&rsquo;s Handicap</i>, by Kipling; of Taine&rsquo;s <i>Origines de la
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page112"></a>112</span>
+France Contemporaine</i>, I have only as far as <i>la Révolution</i>,
+vol. iii.; if another volume is out, please add that. There
+is for a book-box.</p>
+
+<p>I hope you will like the end; I think it is rather strong
+meat. I have got into such a deliberate, dilatory, expansive
+turn, that the effort to compress this last yarn
+was unwelcome; but the longest yarn has to come to an
+end some time. Please look it over for carelessnesses,
+and tell me if it had any effect upon your jaded editorial
+mind. I&rsquo;ll see if ever I have time to add more.</p>
+
+<p>I add to my book-box list Adams&rsquo; <i>Historical Essays</i>;
+the Plays of A. W. Pinero&mdash;all that have appeared, and
+send me the rest in course as they do appear; <i>Noughts
+and Crosses</i> by Q.; Robertson&rsquo;s <i>Scotland under her Early
+Kings</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday.</i>&mdash;The deed is done, didst thou not hear a noise?
+&ldquo;The end&rdquo; has been written to this endless yarn, and I
+am once more a free man. What will he do with it?</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Monday, October 24th.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CARTHEW</span>,<a name="FnAnchor_25" href="#Footnote_25"><span class="sp">25</span></a>&mdash;See what I have written, but
+it&rsquo;s Colvin I&rsquo;m after&mdash;I have written two chapters, about
+thirty pages of <i>Wrecker</i> since the mail left, which must
+be my excuse, and the bother I&rsquo;ve had with it is not to
+be imagined; you might have seen me the day before
+yesterday weighing British sov.&rsquo;s and Chili dollars to
+arrange my treasure chest. And there was such a calculation,
+not for that only, but for the ship&rsquo;s position and
+distances when&mdash;but I am not going to tell you the yarn&mdash;and
+then, as my arithmetic is particularly lax, Lloyd
+had to go over all my calculations; and then, as I had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page113"></a>113</span>
+changed the amount of money, he had to go over all <i>his</i>
+as to the amount of the lay; and altogether, a bank
+could be run with less effusion of figures than it took
+to shore up a single chapter of a measly yarn. However,
+it&rsquo;s done, and I have but one more, or at the outside two,
+to do, and I am Free! and can do any damn thing I like.</p>
+
+<p>Before falling on politics, I shall give you my day.
+Awoke somewhere about the first peep of day, came
+gradually to, and had a turn on the verandah before 5.55,
+when &ldquo;the child&rdquo; (an enormous Wallis Islander) brings
+me an orange; at 6, breakfast; 6.10, to work; which
+lasts till, at 10.30, Austin comes for his history lecture;
+this is rather dispiriting, but education must be gone
+about in faith&mdash;and charity, both of which pretty nigh
+failed me to-day about (of all things) Carthage; 11,
+luncheon; after luncheon in my mother&rsquo;s room, I read
+Chapter <span class="sc">XXIII</span>. of <i>The Wrecker</i>, then Belle, Lloyd, and I
+go up and make music furiously till about 2 (I suppose),
+when I turn into work again till 4; fool from 4 to half-past,
+tired out and waiting for the bath hour; 4.30, bath;
+4.40, eat two heavenly mangoes on the verandah, and see
+the boys arrive with the pack-horses; 5, dinner; smoke,
+chat on verandah, then hand of cards, and at last at 8
+come up to my room with a pint of beer and a hard
+biscuit, which I am now consuming, and as soon as they
+are consumed I shall turn in.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the innocent days of this ancient and outworn
+sportsman; to-day there was no weeding, usually
+there is however, edged in somewhere. My books for the
+moment are a crib to Phćdo, and the second book of
+Montaigne; and a little while back I was reading Frederic
+Harrison, <i>Choice of Books</i>, etc.&mdash;very good indeed, a
+great deal of sense and knowledge in the volume, and
+some very true stuff, <i>contra</i> Carlyle, about the eighteenth
+century. A hideous idea came over me that perhaps
+Harrison is now getting <i>old</i>. Perhaps you are. Perhaps
+I am. Oh, this infidelity must be stared firmly down.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page114"></a>114</span>
+I am about twenty-three&mdash;say twenty-eight; you about
+thirty, or, by&rsquo;r lady, thirty-four; and as Harrison belongs
+to the same generation, there is no good bothering about
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Here has just been a fine alert; I gave my wife a
+dose of chlorodyne. &ldquo;Something wrong,&rdquo; says she.
+&ldquo;Nonsense,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Embrocation,&rdquo; said she. I smelt
+it, and&mdash;it smelt very funny. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s just gone
+bad, and to-morrow will tell.&rdquo; Proved to be so.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday.</i>&mdash;History of Tuesday.&mdash;Woke at usual
+time, very little work, for I was tired, and had a job for
+the evening&mdash;to write parts for a new instrument, a
+violin. Lunch, chat, and up to my place to practise;
+but there was no practising for me&mdash;my flageolet was
+gone wrong, and I had to take it all to pieces, clean it,
+and put it up again. As this is a most intricate job&mdash;the
+thing dissolves into seventeen separate members, most of
+these have to be fitted on their individual springs as fine
+as needles, and sometimes two at once with the springs
+shoving different ways&mdash;it took me till two. Then Lloyd
+and I rode forth on our errands; first to Motootua, where
+we had a really instructive conversation on weeds and
+grasses. Thence down to Apia, where we bought a fresh
+bottle of chlorodyne and conversed on politics.</p>
+
+<p>My visit to the King, which I thought at the time a
+particularly nugatory and even schoolboy step, and only
+consented to because I had held the reins so tight over
+my little band before, has raised a deuce of a row&mdash;new
+proclamation, no one is to interview the sacred puppet
+without consuls&rsquo; permission, two days&rsquo; notice, and an
+approved interpreter&mdash;read (I suppose) spy. Then back;
+I should have said I was trying the new horse; a tallish
+piebald, bought from the circus; he proved steady and
+safe, but in very bad condition, and not so much the
+wild Arab steed of the desert as had been supposed. The
+height of his back, after commodious Jack, astonished
+me, and I had a great consciousness of exercise and florid
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page115"></a>115</span>
+action, as I posted to his long, emphatic trot. We had to
+ride back easy; even so he was hot and blown; and when
+we set a boy to lead him to and fro, our last character
+for sanity perished. We returned just neat for dinner;
+and in the evening our violinist arrived, a young lady,
+no great virtuoso truly, but plucky, industrious, and
+a good reader; and we played five pieces with huge
+amusement, and broke up at nine. This morning I have
+read a splendid piece of Montaigne, written this page of
+letter, and now turn to <i>The Wrecker</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday.</i>&mdash;November 16th or 17th&mdash;and I am
+ashamed to say mail day. <i>The Wrecker</i> is finished, that
+is the best of my news; it goes by this mail to Scribner&rsquo;s;
+and I honestly think it a good yarn on the whole and of
+its measly kind. The part that is genuinely good is Nares,
+the American sailor; that is a genuine figure; had there
+been more Nares it would have been a better book; but
+of course it didn&rsquo;t set up to be a book, only a long tough
+yarn with some pictures of the manners of to-day in the
+greater world&mdash;not the shoddy sham world of cities, clubs,
+and colleges, but the world where men still live a man&rsquo;s
+life. The worst of my news is the influenza; Apia is
+devastate; the shops closed, a ball put off, etc. As yet
+we have not had it at Vailima, and, who knows? we
+may escape. None of us go down, but of course the boys
+come and go.</p>
+
+<p>Your letter had the most wonderful &ldquo;I told you so&rdquo;
+I ever heard in the course of my life. Why, you madman,
+I wouldn&rsquo;t change my present installation for any
+post, dignity, honour, or advantage conceivable to me. It
+fills the bill; I have the loveliest time. And as for wars
+and rumours of wars, you surely know enough of me to
+be aware that I like that also a thousand times better
+than decrepit peace in Middlesex? I do not quite like
+politics; I am too aristocratic, I fear, for that. God
+knows I don&rsquo;t care who I chum with; perhaps like sailors
+best; but to go round and sue and sneak to keep a crowd
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page116"></a>116</span>
+together&mdash;never. My imagination, which is not the least
+damped by the idea of having my head cut off in the
+bush, recoils aghast from the idea of a life like Gladstone&rsquo;s,
+and the shadow of the newspaper chills me to the bone.
+Hence my late eruption was interesting, but not what I
+like. All else suits me in this (killed a mosquito) A1
+abode.</p>
+
+<p>About politics. A determination was come to by the
+President that he had been an idiot; emissaries came to
+Gurr and me to kiss and be friends. My man proposed
+I should have a personal interview; I said it was quite
+useless, I had nothing to say; I had offered him the
+chance to inform me, had pressed it on him, and had
+been very unpleasantly received, and now &ldquo;Time was.&rdquo;
+Then it was decided that I was to be made a culprit
+against Germany; the German Captain&mdash;a delightful
+fellow and our constant visitor&mdash;wrote to say that as &ldquo;a
+German officer&rdquo; he could not come even to say farewell.
+We all wrote back in the most friendly spirit, telling him
+(politely) that some of these days he would be sorry,
+and we should be delighted to see our friend again. Since
+then I have seen no German shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Mataafa has been proclaimed a rebel; the President
+did this act, and then resigned. By singular good fortune,
+Mataafa has not yet moved; no thanks to our idiot
+governors. They have shot their bolt; they have made
+a rebel of the only man (<i>to their own knowledge, on the
+report of their own spy</i>) who held the rebel party in check;
+and having thus called on war to fall, they can do no
+more, sit equally &ldquo;expertes&rdquo; of <i>vis</i> and counsel, regarding
+their handiwork. It is always a cry with these folks
+that he (Mataafa) had no ammunition. I always said it
+would be found; and we know of five boat-loads that
+have found their way to Malie already. Where there are
+traders, there will be ammunition; aphorism by R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p>Now what am I to do next?</p>
+
+<p>Lives of the Stevensons? <i>Historia Samoae</i>? A History
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page117"></a>117</span>
+for Children? Fiction? I have had two hard months at
+fiction; I want a change. Stevensons? I am expecting
+some more material; perhaps better wait. Samoa?
+rather tempting; might be useful to the islands&mdash;and to
+me; for it will be written in admirable temper; I have
+never agreed with any party, and see merits and excuses
+in all; should do it (if I did) very slackly and easily,
+as if half in conversation. History for Children? This
+flows from my lessons to Austin; no book is any good.
+The best I have seen is Freeman&rsquo;s <i>Old English History</i>;
+but his style is so rasping, and a child can learn more,
+if he&rsquo;s clever. I found my sketch of general Aryan history,
+given in conversation, to have been practically correct&mdash;at
+least what I mean is, Freeman had very much the
+same stuff in his early chapters, only not so much, and
+I thought not so well placed; and the child remembered
+some of it. Now the difficulty is to give this general idea
+of main place, growth, and movement; it is needful to
+tack it on a yarn. Now Scotch is the only history I know;
+it is the only history reasonably represented in my library;
+it is a very good one for my purpose, owing to two civilisations
+having been face to face throughout&mdash;or rather
+Roman civilisation face to face with our ancient barbaric
+life and government, down to yesterday, to 1750 anyway.
+But the <i>Tales of a Grandfather</i> stand in my way; I am
+teaching them to Austin now, and they have all Scott&rsquo;s
+defects and all Scott&rsquo;s hopeless merit. I cannot compete
+with that; and yet, so far as regards teaching History,
+how he has missed his chances! I think I&rsquo;ll try; I really
+have some historic sense, I feel that in my bones. Then
+there&rsquo;s another thing. Scott never knew the Highlands;
+he was always a Borderer. He has missed that whole,
+long, strange, pathetic story of our savages, and, besides,
+his style is not very perspicuous to childhood. Gad, I
+think I&rsquo;ll have a flutter. Buridan&rsquo;s Ass! Whither to go,
+what to attack. Must go to other letters; shall add to
+this, if I have time.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page118"></a>118</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To W. Craibe Angus</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, November 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MR. ANGUS</span>,&mdash;Herewith the invaluable sheets.
+They came months after your letter, and I trembled; but
+here they are, and I have scrawled my vile name on them,
+and &ldquo;thocht shame&rdquo; as I did it. I am expecting the
+sheets of your catalogue, so that I may attack the preface.
+Please give me all the time you can. The sooner the
+better; you might even send me early proofs as they are
+sent out, to give me more incubation. I used to write
+as slow as judgment; now I write rather fast; but I am
+still &ldquo;a slow study,&rdquo; and sit a long while silent on my
+eggs. Unconscious thought, there is the only method:
+macerate your subject, let it boil slow, then take the lid
+off and look in&mdash;and there your stuff is, good or bad. But
+the journalist&rsquo;s method is the way to manufacture lies;
+it is will-worship&mdash;if you know the luminous quaker phrase;
+and the will is only to be brought in the field for study
+and again for revision. The essential part of work is not
+an act, it is a state.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know why I write you this trash.</p>
+
+<p>Many thanks for your handsome dedication. I have
+not yet had time to do more than glance at Mrs. Begg; it
+looks interesting.&mdash;Yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Miss Annie H. Ide</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa</i> [<i>November 1891</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOUISA</span>,&mdash;Your picture of the church, the
+photograph of yourself and your sister, and your very
+witty and pleasing letter, came all in a bundle, and made
+me feel I had my money&rsquo;s worth for that birthday. I am
+now, I must be, one of your nearest relatives; exactly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page119"></a>119</span>
+what we are to each other, I do not know, I doubt if the
+case has ever happened before&mdash;your papa ought to know,
+and I don&rsquo;t believe he does; but I think I ought to call
+you in the meanwhile, and until we get the advice of counsel
+learned in the law, my name-daughter. Well, I was
+extremely pleased to see by the church that my name-daughter
+could draw; by the letter, that she was no fool;
+and by the photograph, that she was a pretty girl, which
+hurts nothing. See how virtues are rewarded! My first
+idea of adopting you was entirely charitable; and here
+I find that I am quite proud of it, and of you, and that I
+chose just the kind of name-daughter I wanted. For I can
+draw too, or rather I mean to say I could before I forgot
+how; and I am very far from being a fool myself,
+however much I may look it; and I am as beautiful as
+the day, or at least I once hoped that perhaps I might
+be going to be. And so I might. So that you see we are
+well met, and peers on these important points. I am
+very glad also that you are older than your sister. So
+should I have been, if I had had one. So that the number
+of points and virtues which you have inherited from your
+name-father is already quite surprising.</p>
+
+<p>I wish you would tell your father&mdash;not that I like to
+encourage my rival&mdash;that we have had a wonderful time
+here of late, and that they are having a cold day on Mulinuu,
+and the consuls are writing reports, and I am writing to
+the Times, and if we don&rsquo;t get rid of our friends this time
+I shall begin to despair of everything but my name-daughter.</p>
+
+<p>You are quite wrong as to the effect of the birthday
+on your age. From the moment the deed was registered
+(as it was in the public press with every solemnity), the
+13th of November became your own <i>and only</i> birthday,
+and you ceased to have been born on Christmas Day.
+Ask your father: I am sure he will tell you this is sound
+law. You are thus become a month and twelve days
+younger than you were, but will go on growing older for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page120"></a>120</span>
+the future in the regular and human manner from one
+13th November to the next. The effect on me is more
+doubtful; I may, as you suggest, live for ever; I might,
+on the other hand, come to pieces like the one-horse shay
+at a moment&rsquo;s notice; doubtless the step was risky, but
+I do not the least regret that which enables me to sign
+myself your revered and delighted name-father,</p>
+
+<p class="rt"><span class="sc">Robert Louis Stevenson</span>.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, November 1891.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;[After dealing with some matters of
+business] I believe that&rsquo;s a&rsquo;. By this time, I suppose you
+will have heard from McClure, and the <i>Beach of Falesá</i>
+will be decided on for better for worse. The end of <i>The
+Wrecker</i> goes by this mail, an awfae relief. I am now free
+and can do what I please. What do I please? I kenna.
+I&rsquo;ll bide a wee. There&rsquo;s a child&rsquo;s history in the wind; and
+there&rsquo;s my grandfather&rsquo;s life begun; and there&rsquo;s a hist<span class="sp">ry</span>
+of Samoa in the last four or five years begun&mdash;there&rsquo;s a
+kind of sense to this book; it may help the Samoans, it
+may help me, for I am bound on the altar here for anti-Germanism.
+Then there&rsquo;s <i>The Pearl Fisher</i> about a quarter
+done; and there&rsquo;s various short stories in various degrees
+of incompleteness. De&rsquo;il, there&rsquo;s plenty grist; but the
+mill&rsquo;s unco slaw! To-morrow or next day, when the
+mail&rsquo;s through, I&rsquo;ll attack one or other, or maybe something
+else. All these schemes begin to laugh at me, for
+the day&rsquo;s far through, and I believe the pen grows heavy.
+However, I believe <i>The Wrecker</i> is a good yarn of its poor
+sort, and it is certainly well nourished with facts; no
+realist can touch me there; for by this time I do begin
+to know something of life in the XIXth century, which
+no novelist either in France or England seems to know
+much of. You must have great larks over masonry.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page121"></a>121</span>
+You&rsquo;re away up in the ranks now and (according to works
+that I have read) doubtless design assassinations. But I
+am an outsider; and I have a certain liking for a light
+unto my path which would deter me from joining the
+rank and file of so vast and dim a confraternity. At your
+altitude it becomes (of course) amusing and perhaps useful.
+Yes, I remember the L.J.R.,<a name="FnAnchor_26" href="#Footnote_26"><span class="sp">26</span></a> and the constitution,
+and my homily on Liberty, and yours on Reverence, which
+was never written&mdash;so I never knew what reverence was.
+I remember I wanted to write Justice also; but I forget
+who had the billet. My dear papa was in a devil of a
+taking; and I had to go and lunch at Ferrier&rsquo;s in a strangely
+begrutten state, which was <i>infra dig</i>. for a homilist on
+liberty. It was about four, I suppose, that we met in the
+Lothian Road,&mdash;had we the price of two bitters between
+us? questionable!</p>
+
+<p>Your bookseller (I have lost his letter, I mean the
+maid has, arranging my room, and so have to send by
+you) wrote me a letter about Old Bailey Papers. Gosh,
+I near swarfed; dam&rsquo;d, man, I near had dee&rsquo;d o&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s
+only yin or twa volumes I want; say 500 or 1000 pages
+of the stuff; and the worthy man (much doubting) proposed
+to bury me in volumes. Please allay his rage, and
+apologise that I have not written him direct. His note
+was civil and purposelike. And please send me a copy of
+Henley&rsquo;s <i>Book of Verses</i>; mine has disappeared.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Nov. 25th, 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN, MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;I wonder how
+often I&rsquo;m going to write it. In spite of the loss of three
+days, as I have to tell, and a lot of weeding and cacao
+planting, I have finished since the mail left four chapters,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page122"></a>122</span>
+forty-eight pages of my Samoa history. It is true that
+the first three had been a good deal drafted two years ago,
+but they had all to be written and re-written, and the
+fourth chapter is all new. Chapter <span class="scs">I.</span> Elements of Discord&mdash;Native.
+<span class="scs">II.</span> Elements of Discord&mdash;Foreign. <span class="scs">III.</span> The
+Success of Laupepa. <span class="scs">IV.</span> Brandeis. <span class="scs">V.</span> Will probably be
+called &ldquo;The Rise of Mataafa.&rdquo; <span class="scs">VI.</span> <i>Furor Consularis</i>&mdash;a
+devil of a long chapter. <span class="scs">VII.</span> Stuebel the Pacificator.
+<span class="scs">VIII.</span> Government under the Treaty of Berlin. <span class="scs">IX.</span> Practical
+Suggestions. Say three-sixths of it are done, maybe
+more; by this mail five chapters should go, and that
+should be a good half of it; say sixty pages. And if you
+consider that I sent by last mail the end of <i>The Wrecker,</i>
+coming on for seventy or eighty pages, and the mail before
+that the entire tale of the <i>Beach of Falesá, </i> I do not think
+I can be accused of idleness. This is my season; I often
+work six and seven, and sometimes eight hours; and the
+same day I am perhaps weeding or planting for an hour
+or two more&mdash;and I dare say you know what hard work
+weeding is&mdash;and it all agrees with me at this time of the
+year&mdash;like&mdash;like idleness, if a man of my years could be
+idle.</p>
+
+<p>My first visit to Apia was a shock to me; every second
+person the ghost of himself, and the place reeking with
+infection. But I have not got the thing yet, and hope to
+escape. This shows how much stronger I am; think of
+me flitting through a town of influenza patients seemingly
+unscathed. We are all on the cacao planting.</p>
+
+<p>The next day my wife and I rode over to the German
+plantation, Vailele, whose manager is almost the only
+German left to speak to us. Seventy labourers down with
+influenza! It is a lovely ride, half-way down our mountain
+towards Apia, then turn to the right, ford the river,
+and three miles of solitary grass and cocoa palms, to where
+the sea beats and the wild wind blows unceasingly about
+the plantation house. On the way down Fanny said,
+&ldquo;Now what would you do if you saw Colvin coming up?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page123"></a>123</span></p>
+
+<p>Next day we rode down to Apia to make calls.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday the mail came, and the fat was in the fire.</p>
+
+<p><i>Nov. 29th</i> (?).&mdash;Book.<a name="FnAnchor_27" href="#Footnote_27"><span class="sp">27</span></a> All right. I must say I like
+your order. And the papers are some of them up to dick,
+and no mistake. I agree with you the lights seem a little
+turned down. The truth is, I was far through (if you
+understand Scots), and came none too soon to the South
+Seas, where I was to recover peace of body and mind.
+No man but myself knew all my bitterness in those days.
+Remember that, the next time you think I regret my
+exile. And however low the lights are, the stuff is true,
+and I believe the more effective; after all, what I wish
+to fight is the best fought by a rather cheerless presentation
+of the truth. The world must return some day to the
+word duty, and be done with the word reward. There are
+no rewards, and plenty duties. And the sooner a man
+sees that and acts upon it like a gentleman or a fine old
+barbarian, the better for himself.</p>
+
+<p>There is my usual puzzle about publishers. Chatto
+ought to have it, as he has all the other essays; these all
+belong to me, and Chatto publishes on terms. Longman
+has forgotten the terms we are on; let him look up our
+first correspondence, and he will see I reserved explicitly,
+as was my habit, the right to republish as I choose. Had
+the same arrangement with Henley, Magazine of Art, and
+with Tulloch, Fraser&rsquo;s.&mdash;For any necessary note or preface,
+it would be a real service if you would undertake the duty
+yourself. I should love a preface by you, as short or as
+long as you choose, three sentences, thirty pages, the thing
+I should like is your name. And the excuse of my great
+distance seems sufficient. I shall return with this the
+sheets corrected as far as I have them; the rest I will
+leave, if you will, to you entirely; let it be your book,
+and disclaim what you dislike in the preface. You can
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page124"></a>124</span>
+say it was at my eager prayer. I should say I am the
+less willing to pass Chatto over, because he behaved the
+other day in a very handsome manner. He asked leave
+to reprint <i>Damien</i>; I gave it to him as a present, explaining
+I could receive no emolument for a personal attack.
+And he took out my share of profits, and sent them in my
+name to the Leper Fund. I could not bear after that to
+take from him any of that class of books which I have
+always given him. Tell him the same terms will do.
+Clark to print, uniform with the others.</p>
+
+<p>I have lost all the days since this letter began rehandling
+Chapter <span class="sc">IV.</span> of the Samoa racket. I do not go
+in for literature; address myself to sensible people rather
+than to sensitive. And, indeed, it is a kind of journalism,
+I have no right to dally; if it is to help, it must come
+soon. In two months from now it shall be done, and
+should be published in the course of March. I propose
+Cassell gets it. I am going to call it <i>A Footnote to History:
+Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa</i>, I believe. I recoil from
+serious names; they seem so much too pretentious for a
+pamphlet. It will be about the size of <i>Treasure Island</i>, I
+believe. Of course, as you now know, my case of conscience
+cleared itself off, and I began my intervention
+directly to one of the parties. The other, the Chief Justice,
+I am to inform of my book the first occasion. God knows
+if the book will do any good&mdash;or harm; but I judge it
+right to try. There is one man&rsquo;s life certainly involved;
+and it may be all our lives. I must not stand and slouch,
+but do my best as best I can. But you may conceive the
+difficulty of a history extending to the present week, at
+least, and where almost all the actors upon all sides are of
+my personal acquaintance. The only way is to judge
+slowly, and write boldly, and leave the issue to fate....
+I am far indeed from wishing to confine myself to creative
+work; that is a loss, the other repairs; the one chance for
+a man, and, above all, for one who grows elderly, ahem, is
+to vary drainage and repair. That is the one thing I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page125"></a>125</span>
+understand&mdash;the cultivation of the shallow solum of my
+brain. But I would rather, from soon on, be released from
+the obligation to write. In five or six years this plantation&mdash;suppose
+it and us still to exist&mdash;should pretty well support
+us and pay wages; not before, and already the six
+years seem long to me. If literature were but a pastime!</p>
+
+<p>I have interrupted myself to write the necessary notification
+to the Chief Justice.</p>
+
+<p>I see in looking up Longman&rsquo;s letter that it was as
+usual the letter of an obliging gentleman; so do not
+trouble him with my reminder. I wish all my publishers
+were not so nice. And I have a fourth and a fifth baying
+at my heels; but for these, of course, they must go wanting.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dec. 2nd.</i>&mdash;No answer from the Chief Justice, which is
+like him, but surely very wrong in such a case. The lunch
+bell! I have been off work, playing patience and weeding
+all morning. Yesterday and the day before I drafted
+eleven and revised nine pages of Chapter <span class="sc">V.</span>, and the truth
+is, I was extinct by lunch-time, and played patience
+sourly the rest of the day. To-morrow or next day I hope
+to go in again and win. Lunch 2nd Bell.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dec. 2nd, afternoon.</i>&mdash;I have kept up the idleness; blew
+on the pipe to Belle&rsquo;s piano; then had a ride in the forest
+all by my nainsel; back and piped again, and now dinner
+nearing. Take up this sheet with nothing to say. The
+weird figure of Faauma is in the room washing my windows,
+in a black lavalava (kilt) with a red handkerchief hanging
+from round her neck between her breasts; not another
+stitch; her hair close cropped and oiled; when she first
+came here she was an angelic little stripling, but she is
+now in full flower&mdash;or half-flower&mdash;and grows buxom.
+As I write, I hear her wet cloth moving and grunting with
+some industry; for I had a word this day with her husband
+on the matter of work and meal-time, when she is
+always late. And she has a vague reverence for Papa, as
+she and her enormous husband address me when anything
+is wrong. Her husband is Lafaele, sometimes called the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page126"></a>126</span>
+archangel, of whom I have writ you often. Rest of our
+household, Talolo, cook; Pulu, kitchen boy, good, steady,
+industrious lads; Henry, back again from Savaii, where
+his love affair seems not to have prospered, with what
+looks like a spear-wound in the back of his head, of which
+Mr. Reticence says nothing; Simi, Manuele, and two other
+labourers outdoors. Lafaele is provost of the live-stock,
+whereof now, three milk-cows, one bull-calf, one heifer,
+Jack, Macfarlane, the mare, Harold, Tifaga Jack, Donald
+and Edinburgh&mdash;seven horses&mdash;O, and the stallion&mdash;eight
+horses; five cattle; total, if my arithmetic be correct,
+thirteen head of beasts; I don&rsquo;t know how the pigs stand,
+or the ducks, or the chickens; but we get a good many
+eggs, and now and again a duckling or a chickling for the
+table; the pigs are more solemn, and appear only on birthdays
+and sich.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monday, Dec. 7.</i>&mdash;On Friday morning about eleven
+1500 cacao seeds arrived, and we set to and toiled from
+twelve that day to six, and went to bed pretty tired. Next
+day I got about an hour and a half at my History, and
+was at it again by 8.10, and except an hour for lunch kept
+at it till four <span class="sc">P.M.</span> Yesterday, I did some History in the
+morning, and slept most of the afternoon; and to-day,
+being still averse from physical labour, and the mail drawing
+nigh, drew out of the squad, and finished for press the
+fifth chapter of my History; fifty-nine pages in one month;
+which (you will allow me to say) is a devil of a large order;
+it means at least 177 pages of writing; 89,000 words!
+and hours going to and fro among my notes. However,
+this is the way it has to be done; the job must be done
+fast, or it is of no use. And it is a curious yarn. Honestly,
+I think people should be amused and convinced, if they
+could be at the pains to look at such a damned outlandish
+piece of machinery, which of course they won&rsquo;t. And
+much I care.</p>
+
+<p>When I was filling baskets all Saturday, in my dull
+mulish way, perhaps the slowest worker there, surely the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page127"></a>127</span>
+most particular, and the only one that never looked up
+or knocked off, I could not but think I should have been
+sent on exhibition as an example to young literary men.
+Here is how to learn to write, might be the motto. You
+should have seen us; the verandah was like an Irish
+bog; our hands and faces were bedaubed with soil; and
+Faauma was supposed to have struck the right note when
+she remarked (<i>ŕ propos</i> of nothing), &ldquo;Too much <i>eleele</i>
+(soil) for me!&rdquo; The cacao (you must understand) has to
+be planted at first in baskets of plaited cocoa-leaf. From
+four to ten natives were plaiting these in the wood-shed.
+Four boys were digging up soil and bringing it by the
+boxful to the verandah. Lloyd and I and Belle, and
+sometimes S. (who came to bear a hand), were filling the
+baskets, removing stones and lumps of clay; Austin and
+Faauma carried them when full to Fanny, who planted a
+seed in each, and then set them, packed close, in the
+corners of the verandah. From twelve on Friday till five
+<span class="sc">P.M.</span> on Saturday we planted the first 1500, and more than
+700 of a second lot. You cannot dream how filthy we
+were, and we were all properly tired. They are all at it
+again to-day, bar Belle and me, not required, and glad
+to be out of it. The Chief Justice has not yet replied, and
+I have news that he received my letter. What a man!</p>
+
+<p>I have gone crazy over Bourget&rsquo;s <i>Sensations d&rsquo;Italie</i>;
+hence the enclosed dedication,<a name="FnAnchor_28" href="#Footnote_28"><span class="sp">28</span></a> a mere cry of gratitude
+for the best fun I&rsquo;ve had over a new book this ever so!</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Fred Orr</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following is in answer to an application for an autograph
+from a young gentleman in the United States:&mdash;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, November 28th, 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR</span>,&mdash;Your obliging communication is to hand.
+I am glad to find that you have read some of my books,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page128"></a>128</span>
+and to see that you spell my name right. This is a point
+(for some reason) of great difficulty; and I believe that a
+gentleman who can spell Stevenson with a v at sixteen,
+should have a show for the Presidency before fifty. By
+that time</p>
+
+<p class="center noind">I, nearer to the wayside inn,</p>
+
+<p class="noind">predict that you will have outgrown your taste for autographs,
+but perhaps your son may have inherited the
+collection, and on the morning of the great day will recall
+my prophecy to your mind. And in the papers of 1921
+(say) this letter may arouse a smile.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever you do, read something else besides novels
+and newspapers; the first are good enough when they are
+good; the second, at their best, are worth nothing. Read
+great books of literature and history; try to understand
+the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages; be sure you do
+not understand when you dislike them; condemnation is
+non-comprehension. And if you know something of these
+two periods, you will know a little more about to-day, and
+may be a good President.</p>
+
+<p>I send you my best wishes, and am yours,</p>
+
+<p class="sc" style="text-align: right; padding-right: 3em;">Robert Louis Stevenson,</p>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Author of a vast quantity of little books</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The next letter announces to his New York publishers the beginning
+of his volume on the troubles of Samoa, <i>A Footnote to
+History</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, December 1891.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;The end of <i>The Wrecker</i> having
+but just come in, you will, I dare say, be appalled to
+receive three (possibly four) chapters of a new book of the
+least attractive sort: a history of nowhere in a corner, or
+no time to mention, running to a volume! Well, it may
+very likely be an illusion; it is very likely no one could
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page129"></a>129</span>
+possibly wish to read it, but I wish to publish it. If you
+don&rsquo;t cotton to the idea, kindly set it up at my expense,
+and let me know your terms for publishing. The great
+affair to me is to have per return (if it might be) four or
+five&mdash;better say half a dozen&mdash;sets of the roughest proofs
+that can be drawn. There are a good many men here
+whom I want to read the blessed thing, and not one would
+have the energy to read MS. At the same time, if you
+care to glance at it, and have the time, I should be very
+glad of your opinion as to whether I have made any step
+at all towards possibly inducing folk at home to read matter
+so extraneous and outlandish. I become heavy and
+owlish; years sit upon me; it begins to seem to me to be
+a man&rsquo;s business to leave off his damnable faces and say
+his say. Else I could have made it pungent and light and
+lively. In considering, kindly forget that I am R. L. S.;
+think of the four chapters as a book you are reading, by
+an inhabitant of our &ldquo;lovely but fatil&rdquo; islands; and see
+if it could possibly amuse the hebetated public. I have
+to publish anyway, you understand; I have a purpose
+beyond; I am concerned for some of the parties to this
+quarrel. What I want to hear is from curiosity; what I
+want you to judge of is what we are to do with the book
+in a business sense. To me it is not business at all; I
+had meant originally to lay all the profits to the credit
+of Samoa; when it comes to the pinch of writing, I judge
+this unfair&mdash;I give too much&mdash;and I mean to keep (if there
+be any profit at all) one-half for the artisan; the rest I
+shall hold over to give to the Samoans <i>for that which I
+choose and against work done</i>. I think I have never heard
+of greater insolence than to attempt such a subject; yet
+the tale is so strange and mixed, and the people so oddly
+charactered&mdash;above all, the whites&mdash;and the high note of
+the hurricane and the warships is so well prepared to take
+popular interest, and the latter part is so directly in the
+day&rsquo;s movement, that I am not without hope that some
+may read it; and if they don&rsquo;t, a murrain on them! Here
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130"></a>130</span>
+is, for the first time, a tale of Greeks&mdash;Homeric Greeks&mdash;mingled
+with moderns, and all true; Odysseus alongside
+of Rajah Brooke, <i>proportion gardée</i>; and all true.
+Here is for the first time since the Greeks (that I remember)
+the history of a handful of men, where all know each other
+in the eyes, and live close in a few acres, narrated at length,
+and with the seriousness of history. Talk of the modern
+novel; here is a modern history. And if I had the misfortune
+to found a school, the legitimate historian might
+lie down and die, for he could never overtake his material.
+Here is a little tale that has not &ldquo;caret&rdquo;-ed its &ldquo;vates&rdquo;;
+&ldquo;sacer&rdquo; is another point.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Henry James</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Mr. Henry James was in the habit of sending out for Stevenson&rsquo;s
+reading books that seemed likely to interest him, and among
+the last had been M. Paul Bourget&rsquo;s <i>Sensations d&rsquo;Italie</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>December 7th, 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,&mdash;Thanks for yours; your
+former letter was lost; so it appears was my long and
+masterly treatise on the <i>Tragic Muse</i>. I remember sending
+it very well, and there went by the same mail a long and
+masterly tractate to Gosse about his daddy&rsquo;s life, for which
+I have been long expecting an acknowledgment, and which
+is plainly gone to the bottom with the other. If you see
+Gosse, please mention it. These gems of criticism are now
+lost literature, like the tomes of Alexandria. I could not
+do &rsquo;em again. And I must ask you to be content with a
+dull head, a weary hand, and short commons, for to-day,
+as I am physically tired with hard work of every kind,
+the labours of the planter and the author both piled upon
+me mountain deep. I am delighted beyond expression
+by Bourget&rsquo;s book: he has phrases which affect me almost
+like Montaigne; I had read ere this a masterly essay of his
+on Pascal; this book does it; I write for all his essays by
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page131"></a>131</span>
+this mail, and shall try to meet him when I come to Europe.
+The proposal is to pass a summer in France, I think in
+Royat, where the faithful could come and visit me; they
+are now not many. I expect Henry James to come and
+break a crust or two with us. I believe it will be only my
+wife and myself; and she will go over to England, but
+not I, or possibly incog. to Southampton, and then to
+Boscombe to see poor Lady Shelley. I am writing&mdash;trying
+to write in a Babel fit for the bottomless pit; my
+wife, her daughter, her grandson and my mother, all
+shrieking at each other round the house&mdash;not in war,
+thank God! but the din is ultra martial, and the note of
+Lloyd joins in occasionally, and the cause of this to-do
+is simply cacao, whereof chocolate comes. You may
+drink of our chocolate perhaps in five or six years from
+now, and not know it. It makes a fine bustle, and gives
+us some hard work, out of which I have slunk for to-day.</p>
+
+<p>I have a story coming out: God knows when or how;
+it answers to the name of the <i>Beach of Falesá</i>, and I think
+well of it. I was delighted with the <i>Tragic Muse</i>; I
+thought the Muse herself one of your best works; I was
+delighted also to hear of the success of your piece, as you
+know I am a dam failure,<a name="FnAnchor_29" href="#Footnote_29"><span class="sp">29</span></a> and might have dined with the
+dinner club that Daudet and these parties frequented.</p>
+
+<p><i>Next day.</i>&mdash;I have just been breakfasting at Baiae and
+Brindisi, and the charm of Bourget hag-rides me. I
+wonder if this exquisite fellow, all made of fiddle-strings
+and scent and intelligence, could bear any of my bald
+prose. If you think he could, ask Colvin to send him a
+copy of these last essays of mine when they appear; and
+tell Bourget they go to him from a South Sea Island as
+literal homage. I have read no new book for years that
+gave me the same literary thrill as his <i>Sensations d&rsquo;Italie</i>.
+If (as I imagine) my cut-and-dry literature would be death
+to him, and worse than death&mdash;journalism&mdash;be silent on
+the point. For I have a great curiosity to know him, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page132"></a>132</span>
+if he doesn&rsquo;t know my work, I shall have the better chance
+of making his acquaintance. I read <i>The Pupil</i> the other
+day with great joy; your little boy is admirable; why
+is there no little boy like that unless he hails from the
+Great Republic?</p>
+
+<p>Here I broke off, and wrote Bourget a dedication; no
+use resisting; it&rsquo;s a love affair. O, he&rsquo;s exquisite, I bless
+you for the gift of him. I have really enjoyed this book
+as I&mdash;almost as I&mdash;used to enjoy books when I was going
+twenty-twenty-three; and these are the years for reading!</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Tuesday, Dec. 1891.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">SIR</span>,&mdash;I have the honour to report further explorations
+of the course of the river Vaea, with accompanying sketch
+plan. The party under my command consisted of one
+horse, and was extremely insubordinate and mutinous,
+owing to not being used to go into the bush, and being
+half-broken anyway&mdash;and that the wrong half. The route
+indicated for my party was up the bed of the so-called
+river Vaea, which I accordingly followed to a distance of
+perhaps two or three furlongs eastward from the house of
+Vailima, where the stream being quite dry, the bush thick,
+and the ground very difficult, I decided to leave the main
+body of the force under my command tied to a tree, and
+push on myself with the point of the advance guard, consisting
+of one man. The valley had become very narrow
+and airless; foliage close shut above; dry bed of the
+stream much excavated, so that I passed under fallen trees
+without stooping. Suddenly it turned sharply to the north,
+at right angles to its former direction; I heard living
+water, and came in view of a tall face of rock and the
+stream spraying down it; it might have been climbed,
+but it would have been dangerous, and I had to make my
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page133"></a>133</span>
+way up the steep earth banks, where there is nowhere
+any looting for man, only for trees, which made the rounds
+of my ladder. I was near the top of this climb, which was
+very hot and steep, and the pulses were buzzing all over
+my body, when I made sure there was one external sound
+in my ears, and paused to listen. No mistake; a sound
+of a mill-wheel thundering, I thought, close by, yet below
+me, a huge mill-wheel, yet not going steadily, but with a
+<i>schottische</i> movement, and at each fresh impetus shaking
+the mountain. There, where I was, I just put down the
+sound to the mystery of the bush; where no sound now
+surprises me&mdash;and any sound alarms; I only thought it
+would give Jack a fine fright, down where he stood tied
+to a tree by himself, and he was badly enough scared when
+I left him. The good folks at home identified it; it was
+a sharp earthquake.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter1">
+<img style="border:0; width:550px; height:445px"
+     src="images/img8.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>At the top of the climb I made my way again to the
+watercourse; it is here running steady and pretty full;
+strange these intermittencies&mdash;and just a little below the
+main stream is quite dry, and all the original brook has
+gone down some lava gallery of the mountain&mdash;and just a
+little further below, it begins picking up from the left hand
+in little boggy tributaries, and in the inside of a hundred
+yards has grown a brook again.<a name="FnAnchor_30" href="#Footnote_30"><span class="sp">30</span></a> The general course of
+the brook was, I guess, S.E.; the valley still very deep
+and whelmed in wood. It seemed a swindle to have made
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page134"></a>134</span>
+so sheer a climb and still find yourself at the bottom of a
+well. But gradually the thing seemed to shallow, the
+trees to seem poorer and smaller; I could see more and
+more of the silver sprinkles of sky among the foliage,
+instead of the sombre piling up of tree behind tree. And
+here I had two scares&mdash;first, away up on my right hand
+I heard a bull low; I think it was a bull from the quality
+of the low, which was singularly songful and beautiful;
+the bulls belong to me, but how did I know that the bull
+was aware of that? and my advance guard not being at
+all properly armed, we advanced with great precaution
+until I was satisfied that I was passing eastward of the
+enemy. It was during this period that a pool of the river
+suddenly boiled up in my face in a little fountain. It
+was in a very dreary, marshy part among dilapidated
+trees that you see through holes in the trunks of; and if
+any kind of beast or elf or devil had come out of that
+sudden silver ebullition, I declare I do not think I should
+have been surprised. It was perhaps a thing as curious&mdash;a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page135"></a>135</span>
+fish, with which these head waters of the stream are
+alive. They are some of them as long as my finger, should
+be easily caught in these shallows, and some day I&rsquo;ll have
+a dish of them.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon after I came to where the stream collects in
+another banana swamp, with the bananas bearing well.
+Beyond, the course is again quite dry; it mounts with a
+sharp turn a very steep face of the mountain, and then
+stops abruptly at the lip of a plateau, I suppose the top
+of Vaea mountain: plainly no more springs here&mdash;there
+was no smallest furrow of a watercourse beyond&mdash;and my
+task might be said to be accomplished. But such is the
+animated spirit in the service that the whole advance
+guard expressed a sentiment of disappointment that an
+exploration, so far successfully conducted, should come
+to a stop in the most promising view of fresh successes.
+And though unprovided either with compass or cutlass, it
+was determined to push some way along the plateau,
+marking our direction by the laborious process of bending
+down, sitting upon, and thus breaking the wild cocoanut
+trees. This was the less regretted by all from a delightful
+discovery made of a huge banyan growing here in the
+bush, with flying-buttressed flying buttresses, and huge
+arcs of trunk hanging high overhead and trailing down
+new complications of root. I climbed some way up what
+seemed the original beginning; it was easier to climb
+than a ship&rsquo;s rigging, even rattled; everywhere there
+was foot-hold and hand-hold. It was judged wise to
+return and rally the main body, who had now been left
+alone for perhaps forty minutes in the bush.</p>
+
+<p>The return was effected in good order, but unhappily
+I only arrived (like so many other explorers) to find my
+main body or rear-guard in a condition of mutiny; the
+work, it is to be supposed, of terror. It is right I should
+tell you the Vaea has a bad name, an <i>aitu fafine</i>&mdash;female
+devil of the woods&mdash;succubus&mdash;haunting it, and doubtless
+Jack had heard of her; perhaps, during my absence, saw
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page136"></a>136</span>
+her; lucky Jack! Anyway, he was neither to hold nor
+to bind, and finally, after nearly smashing me by accident,
+and from mere scare and insubordination several times,
+deliberately set in to kill me; but poor Jack! the tree he
+selected for that purpose was a banana! I jumped off
+and gave him the heavy end of my whip over the buttocks!
+Then I took and talked in his ear in various voices; you
+should have heard my alto&mdash;it was a dreadful, devilish note&mdash;I
+<i>knew</i> Jack <i>knew</i> it was an <i>aitu</i>. Then I mounted him
+again, and he carried me fairly steadily. He&rsquo;ll learn yet.
+He has to learn to trust absolutely to his rider; till he
+does, the risk is always great in thick bush, where a fellow
+must try different passages, and put back and forward,
+and pick his way by hair&rsquo;s-breadths.</p>
+
+<p>The expedition returned to Vailima in time to receive
+the visit of the R. C. Bishop. He is a superior man, much
+above the average of priests.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thursday.</i>&mdash;Yesterday the same expedition set forth to
+the southward by what is known as Carruthers&rsquo; Road. At
+a fallen tree which completely blocks the way, the main
+body was as before left behind, and the advance guard of
+one now proceeded with the exploration. At the great
+tree known as <i>Mepi Tree</i>, after Maben the surveyor, the
+expedition struck forty yards due west till it struck the
+top of a steep bank which it descended. The whole bottom
+of the ravine is filled with sharp lava blocks quite unrolled
+and very difficult and dangerous to walk among; no water
+in the course, scarce any sign of water. And yet surely
+water must have made this bold cutting in the plateau.
+And if so, why is the lava sharp? My science gave out;
+but I could not but think it ominous and volcanic. The
+course of the stream was tortuous, but with a resultant
+direction a little by west of north; the sides the whole
+way exceeding steep, the expedition buried under fathoms
+of foliage. Presently water appeared in the bottom, a good
+quantity; perhaps thirty or forty cubic feet, with pools
+and waterfalls. A tree that stands all along the banks
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page137"></a>137</span>
+here must be very fond of water; its roots lie close-packed
+down the stream, like hanks of guts, so as to make often
+a corrugated walk, each root ending in a blunt tuft of filaments,
+plainly to drink water. Twice there came in small
+tributaries from the left or western side&mdash;the whole plateau
+having a smartish inclination to the east; one of the
+tributaries in a handsome little web of silver hanging in
+the forest. Twice I was startled by birds; one that
+barked like a dog; another that whistled loud ploughman&rsquo;s
+signals, so that I vow I was thrilled, and thought
+I had fallen among runaway blacks, and regretted my
+cutlass which I had lost and left behind while taking bearings.
+A good many fishes in the brook, and many crayfish;
+one of the last with a queer glow-worm head. Like
+all our brooks, the water is pure as air, and runs over red
+stones like rubies. The foliage along both banks very
+thick and high, the place close, the walking exceedingly
+laborious. By the time the expedition reached the fork,
+it was felt exceedingly questionable whether the <i>moral</i> of
+the force were sufficiently good to undertake more extended
+operations. A halt was called, the men refreshed
+with water and a bath, and it was decided at a drumhead
+council of war to continue the descent of the Embassy
+Water straight for Vailima, whither the expedition returned,
+in rather poor condition, and wet to the waist,
+about 4 <span class="scs">P.M.</span></p>
+
+<p>Thus in two days the two main watercourses of this
+country have been pretty thoroughly explored, and I conceive
+my instructions fully carried out. The main body
+of the second expedition was brought back by another
+officer despatched for that purpose from Vailima. Casualties:
+one horse wounded; one man bruised; no deaths&mdash;as
+yet, but the bruised man feels to-day as if his case
+was mighty serious.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dec. 25, &rsquo;91.</i>&mdash;Your note with a very despicable bulletin
+of health arrived only yesterday, the mail being a day
+behind. It contained also the excellent Times article,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page138"></a>138</span>
+which was a sight for sore eyes. I am still <i>taboo</i>; the
+blessed Germans will have none of me; and I only hope
+they may enjoy the Times article. &rsquo;Tis my revenge! I
+wish you had sent the letter too, as I have no copy, and
+do not even know what I wrote the last day, with a bad
+headache, and the mail going out. However, it must
+have been about right, for the Times article was in the
+spirit I wished to arouse. I hope we can get rid of the
+man before it is too late. He has set the natives to war;
+but the natives, by God&rsquo;s blessing, do not want to fight,
+and I think it will fizzle out&mdash;no thanks to the man who
+tried to start it. But I did not mean to drift into these
+politics; rather to tell you what I have done since I last
+wrote.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I worked away at my <i>History</i> for a while, and
+only got one chapter done; no doubt this spate of work
+is pretty low now, and will be soon dry; but, God bless
+you, what a lot I have accomplished; <i>Wrecker</i> done, <i>Beach
+of Falesá</i> done, half the <i>History: c&rsquo;est étonnant</i>. (I hear
+from Burlingame, by the way, that he likes the end of the
+<i>Wrecker</i>; &rsquo;tis certainly a violent, dark yarn with interesting,
+plain turns of human nature), then Lloyd and I went
+down to live in Haggard&rsquo;s rooms, where Fanny presently
+joined us. Haggard&rsquo;s rooms are in a strange old building&mdash;old
+for Samoa, and has the effect of the antique like
+some strange monastery; I would tell you more of it,
+but I think I&rsquo;m going to use it in a tale. The annexe
+close by had its door sealed; poor Dowdney lost at sea
+in a schooner. The place is haunted. The vast empty
+sheds, the empty store, the airless, hot, long, low rooms,
+the claps of wind that set everything flying&mdash;a strange
+uncanny house to spend Christmas in.</p>
+
+<p><i>Jan. 1st,&rsquo;92.</i>&mdash;For a day or two I have sat close and
+wrought hard at the <i>History</i>, and two more chapters are
+all but done. About thirty pages should go by this mail,
+which is not what should be, but all I could overtake.
+Will any one ever read it? I fancy not; people don&rsquo;t
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page139"></a>139</span>
+read history for reading, but for education and display&mdash;and
+who desires education in the history of Samoa, with
+no population, no past, no future, or the exploits of Mataafa,
+Malietoa, and Consul Knappe? Colkitto and Galasp are
+a trifle to it. Well, it can&rsquo;t be helped, and it must be
+done, and, better or worse, it&rsquo;s capital fun. There are
+two to whom I have not been kind&mdash;German Consul
+Becker and the English Captain Hand, R. N.</p>
+
+<p>On Dec. 30th I rode down with Belle to go to (if you
+please) the Fancy Ball. When I got to the beach, I found
+the barometer was below 29°, the wind still in the east
+and steady, but a huge offensive continent of clouds and
+vapours forming to leeward. It might be a hurricane; I
+dared not risk getting caught away from my work, and,
+leaving Belle, returned at once to Vailima. Next day&mdash;yesterday&mdash;it
+was a tearer; we had storm shutters up;
+I sat in my room and wrote by lamplight&mdash;ten pages, if
+you please, seven of them draft, and some of these compiled
+authorities, so that was a brave day&rsquo;s work. About two
+a huge tree fell within sixty paces of our house; a little
+after, a second went; and we sent out boys with axes
+and cut down a third, which was too near the house, and
+buckling like a fishing rod. At dinner we had the front
+door closed and shuttered, the back door open, the lamp
+lit. The boys in the cook-house were all out at the cook-house
+door, where we could see them looking in and
+smiling. Lauilo and Faauma waited on us with smiles.
+The excitement was delightful. Some very violent squalls
+came as we sat there, and every one rejoiced; it was
+impossible to help it; a soul of putty had to sing. All
+night it blew; the roof was continually sounding under
+missiles; in the morning the verandahs were half full of
+branches torn from the forest. There was a last very wild
+squall about six; the rain, like a thick white smoke,
+flying past the house in volleys, and as swift, it seemed,
+as rifle balls; all with a strange, strident hiss, such as I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page140"></a>140</span>
+have only heard before at sea, and, indeed, thought to be
+a marine phenomenon. Since then the wind has been
+falling with a few squalls, mostly rain. But our road is
+impassable for horses; we hear a schooner has been
+wrecked and some native houses blown down in Apia,
+where Belle is still and must remain a prisoner. Lucky
+I returned while I could! But the great good is this;
+much bread-fruit and bananas have been destroyed; if this
+be general through the islands, famine will be imminent;
+and <i>whoever blows the coals, there can be no war</i>. Do I
+then prefer a famine to a war? you ask. Not always,
+but just now. I am sure the natives do not want a war;
+I am sure a war would benefit no one but the white
+officials, and I believe we can easily meet the famine&mdash;or
+at least that it can be met. That would give our officials
+a legitimate opportunity to cover their past errors.</p>
+
+<p><i>Jan. 2nd.</i>&mdash;I woke this morning to find the blow quite
+ended. The heaven was all a mottled grey; even the
+east quite colourless; the downward slope of the island
+veiled in wafts of vapour, blue like smoke; not a leaf
+stirred on the tallest tree; only, three miles away below
+me on the barrier reef, I could see the individual breakers
+curl and fall, and hear their conjunct roaring rise, as it
+still rises at 1 <span class="sc">P.M.</span>, like the roar of a thoroughfare close
+by. I did a good morning&rsquo;s work, correcting and clarifying
+my draft, and have now finished for press eight chapters,
+ninety-one pages, of this piece of journalism. Four more
+chapters, say fifty pages, remain to be done; I should
+gain my wager and finish this volume in three months,
+that is to say, the end should leave me per February
+mail; I cannot receive it back till the mail of April. Yes,
+it can be out in time; pray God that it be in time to help.</p>
+
+<p>How do journalists fetch up their drivel? I aim only
+at clearness and the most obvious finish, positively at no
+higher degree of merit, not even at brevity&mdash;I am sure it
+could have been all done, with double the time, in two-thirds
+of the space. And yet it has taken me two months
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page141"></a>141</span>
+to write 45,500 words; and, be damned to my wicked
+prowess, I am proud of the exploit! The real journalist
+must be a man not of brass only, but bronze. Chapter <span class="sc">IX.</span>
+gapes for me, but I shrink on the margin, and go on chattering
+to you. This last part will be much less offensive
+(strange to say) to the Germans. It is Becker they will
+never forgive me for; Knappe I pity and do not dislike;
+Becker I scorn and abominate. Here is the tableau.
+<span class="sc">I.</span> Elements of Discord: Native. <span class="scs">II.</span> Elements of Discord:
+Foreign. <span class="scs">III.</span> The Sorrows of Laupepa. <span class="scs">IV.</span> Brandeis. <span class="scs">V.</span>
+The Battle of Matautu. <span class="scs">VI.</span> Last Exploits of Becker. <span class="scs">VII.</span>
+The Samoan Camps. <span class="scs">VIII.</span> Affairs of Lautii and Fangalii.
+<span class="scs">IX.</span> &ldquo;<i>Furor Consularis</i>.&rdquo; <span class="scs">X.</span> The Hurricane. <span class="scs">XI.</span> Stuebel
+Recluse. <span class="scs">XII.</span> The Present Government. I estimate the
+whole roughly at 70,000 words. Should anybody ever
+dream of reading it, it would be found amusing. 70000/300
+= 233 printed pages; a respectable little five-bob volume,
+to bloom unread in shop windows. After that, I&rsquo;ll have
+a spank at fiction. And rest? I shall rest in the grave,
+or when I come to Italy. If only the public will continue
+to support me! I lost my chance not dying; there seems
+blooming little fear of it now. I worked close on five
+hours this morning; the day before, close on nine; and
+unless I finish myself off with this letter, I&rsquo;ll have another
+hour and a half, or <i>aiblins twa</i>, before dinner. Poor man,
+how you must envy me, as you hear of these orgies of
+work, and you scarce able for a letter. But Lord, Colvin,
+how lucky the situations are not reversed, for I have no
+situation, nor am fit for any. Life is a steigh brae. Here,
+have at Knappe, and no more clavers!</p>
+
+<p><i>Jan. 3rd.</i>&mdash;There was never any man had so many
+irons in the fire, except Jim Pinkerton.<a name="FnAnchor_31" href="#Footnote_31"><span class="sp">31</span></a> I forgot to
+mention I have the most gallant suggestion from Lang,
+with an offer of MS. authorities, which turns my brain.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page142"></a>142</span>
+It&rsquo;s all about the throne of Poland and buried treasure
+in the Mackay country, and Alan Breck can figure there
+in glory.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, J. and I set off to Blacklock&rsquo;s (American
+Consul) who lives not far from that little village I have
+so often mentioned as lying between us and Apia. I had
+some questions to ask him for my <i>History</i>; thence we
+must proceed to Vailele, where I had also to cross-examine
+the plantation manager about the battle there. We went
+by a track I had never before followed down the hill to
+Vaisigano, which flows here in a deep valley, and was
+unusually full, so that the horses trembled in the ford.
+The whole bottom of the valley is full of various streams
+posting between strips of forest with a brave sound of
+waters. In one place we had a glimpse of a fall some
+way higher up, and then sparkling in sunlight in the
+midst of the green valley. Then up by a winding path
+scarce accessible to a horse for steepness, to the other
+side, and the open cocoanut glades of the plantation.
+Here we rode fast, did a mighty satisfactory afternoon&rsquo;s
+work at the plantation house, and still faster back. On
+the return Jack fell with me, but got up again; when I
+felt him recovering I gave him his head, and he shoved
+his foot through the rein; I got him by the bit however,
+and all was well; he had mud over all his face, but his
+knees were not broken. We were scarce home when the
+rain began again; that was luck. It is pouring now in
+torrents; we are in the height of the bad season. Lloyd
+leaves along with this letter on a change to San Francisco;
+he had much need of it, but I think this will brace him up.
+I am, as you see, a tower of strength. I can remember
+riding not so far and not near so fast when I first came to
+Samoa, and being shattered next day with fatigue; now
+I could not tell I have done anything; have re-handled
+my battle of Fangalii according to yesterday&rsquo;s information&mdash;four
+pages rewritten; and written already some half-dozen
+pages of letters.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page143"></a>143</span></p>
+
+<p>I observe with disgust that while of yore, when I own
+I was guilty, you never spared me abuse&mdash;but now, when
+I am so virtuous, where is the praise? Do admit that I
+have become an excellent letter-writer&mdash;at least to you,
+and that your ingratitude is imbecile.&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" href="#FnAnchor_1"><span class="fn">1</span></a> &ldquo;In the missionary work which is being done among the
+Samoans, Mr. Stevenson was especially interested. He was an
+observant, shrewd, yet ever generous critic of all our religious and
+educational organisations. His knowledge of native character and
+life enabled him to understand missionary difficulties, while his
+genial contact with all sorts and conditions of men made him keen
+to detect deficiencies in men and methods, and apt in useful suggestion.&rdquo;
+The above is the testimony of the Mr. Clarke here mentioned
+(Rev. W. E. Clarke of the London Missionary Society).
+This gentleman was from the first one of the most valued friends of
+Mr. Stevenson and his family in Samoa, and, when the end came,
+read the funeral service beside his grave on Mount Vaea.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2" href="#FnAnchor_2"><span class="fn">2</span></a> The lady in the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i> who declares herself &ldquo;all
+in a muck of sweat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3" href="#FnAnchor_3"><span class="fn">3</span></a> First published in the New Review, January 1895.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4" href="#FnAnchor_4"><span class="fn">4</span></a> Afterwards changed into <i>The Beach of Falesá</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5" href="#FnAnchor_5"><span class="fn">5</span></a> Mr. Lloyd Osbourne had come to England to pack and wind up
+affairs at Skerryvore.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6" href="#FnAnchor_6"><span class="fn">6</span></a> The lines beginning &ldquo;I heard the pulse of the besieging sea&rdquo;;
+see Vol. xxiv., p. 366.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7" href="#FnAnchor_7"><span class="fn">7</span></a> &ldquo;The Monument&rdquo; was his name for my house at the British
+Museum, and George was my old faithful servant, George Went.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8" href="#FnAnchor_8"><span class="fn">8</span></a> The late Mr. John Lafarge, long an honoured <i>doyen</i> among
+New York artists, whose record of his holiday in the South Seas,
+in the shape of a series of water-colour sketches of the scenery and
+people (with a catalogue full of interesting notes and observations),
+was one of the features of the Champ de Mars Salon in 1895.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9" href="#FnAnchor_9"><span class="fn">9</span></a> Mrs. B. W. Procter, the stepdaughter of Basil Montagu and
+widow of Barry Cornwall. The death of this spirited veteran in
+1888 snapped one of the last links with the days and memories
+of Keats and Coleridge. A shrewd and not too indulgent judge of
+character, she took R. L. S. into warm favour at first sight, and
+never spoke of or inquired after him but with unwonted tenderness.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_10" href="#FnAnchor_10"><span class="fn">10</span></a> On a projected expedition to Sydney.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_11" href="#FnAnchor_11"><span class="fn">11</span></a> See <i>A Footnote to History</i> for more in praise of Dr. Stuebel, and
+of his exceptional deserts among white officials in Samoa.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_12" href="#FnAnchor_12"><span class="fn">12</span></a> One of the many aliases of the wicked Skye-terrier of Hyčres,
+Davos, and Bournemouth days, celebrated in the essay <i>On the
+Character of Dogs</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_13" href="#FnAnchor_13"><span class="fn">13</span></a> <i>Battre les champs</i>, to wander in mind.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_14" href="#FnAnchor_14"><span class="fn">14</span></a> <i>Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin</i>, by R. L. S., prefixed to <i>Papers
+Literary, Scientific, etc., by the late Fleeming Jenkin, F.R.S., LL.D.</i>;
+2 vols. London, Longmans, 1887. The first chapters consist of a
+genealogical history of the family. This, to my mind one of the
+best works of R. L. S., has lately been separately reprinted, having
+long been accessible only in the Edinburgh and Pentland editions.
+Of <i>Delafleld</i> I never heard; the plan of <i>Shovel</i>, which was to be in
+great part a story of the Peninsular War, had been sketched out
+and a few chapters written as long ago as the seventies.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_15" href="#FnAnchor_15"><span class="fn">15</span></a> <i>The Misadventures of John Nicholson.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_16" href="#FnAnchor_16"><span class="fn">16</span></a> The South Sea Letters.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_17" href="#FnAnchor_17"><span class="fn">17</span></a> The price advanced for these Letters was among the considerations
+which originally induced the writer to set out on his Pacific
+voyage.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_18" href="#FnAnchor_18"><span class="fn">18</span></a> The first serial tale, says Mr. Clarke, ever read by Samoans in
+their own language was the story of the <i>Bottle Imp</i>, &ldquo;which found
+its way into print at Samoa, and was read with wonder and delight
+in many a thatched Samoan hut before it won the admiration of
+readers at home.&rdquo; In the English form the story was published
+first in Black and White, and afterwards in the volume called <i>Island
+Nights&rsquo; Entertainments</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_19" href="#FnAnchor_19"><span class="fn">19</span></a> Boating expedition: pronounce <i>malanga</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_20" href="#FnAnchor_20"><span class="fn">20</span></a> Portraits of myself for which he had asked.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_21" href="#FnAnchor_21"><span class="fn">21</span></a> Miss Fanny Macpherson, now Lady Holroyd.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_22" href="#FnAnchor_22"><span class="fn">22</span></a> In reply to a suggestion which ultimately took effect in the
+shape of the volume called <i>Across the Plains</i> (Chatto &amp; Windus,
+1892).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_23" href="#FnAnchor_23"><span class="fn">23</span></a> The steam-yacht of the Commissioners of Northern Lights, on
+which he had been accustomed as a lad to accompany his father
+on the official trips of inspection round the coast.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_24" href="#FnAnchor_24"><span class="fn">24</span></a> Mr. Rudyard Kipling was at this time planning a trip to
+Samoa, but the plan was unfortunately not carried out, and he
+and Stevenson never met.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_25" href="#FnAnchor_25"><span class="fn">25</span></a> Readers of <i>The Wrecker</i> will not need to be reminded that this
+is the name of the personage on whom the mystery in that story
+hinges.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_26" href="#FnAnchor_26"><span class="fn">26</span></a> See vol. xxiii. pp. 46, 48.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_27" href="#FnAnchor_27"><span class="fn">27</span></a> <i>Across the Plains.</i> The papers specially referred to in the next
+lines are those written at Saranac Lake in the winter of 1887-88,
+including <i>A Letter to a Young Gentleman</i>, <i>Pulvis et Umbra</i>, <i>A Christmas
+Sermon</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_28" href="#FnAnchor_28"><span class="fn">28</span></a> For the volume <i>Across the Plains</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_29" href="#FnAnchor_29"><span class="fn">29</span></a> <i>i.e.</i> on the stage.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_30" href="#FnAnchor_30"><span class="fn">30</span></a> As to this peculiar intermittency of the Samoan streams, full
+in their upper course, but below in many places dry or lost, compare
+the late Lord Pembroke&rsquo;s <i>South Sea Bubbles</i>, p. 212:&mdash;&ldquo;One odd
+thing connected with these ravines is the fact that the higher you
+go the more water you find. Unlike the Thames, which begins, I
+believe, in half a mile of dusty lane, and expands in its brimming
+breadth as it approaches the sea, a Samoan stream begins in bubbling
+plenty and ends in utter drought a mile or two from the salt water.
+Gradually as you ascend you become more and more hopeful;
+moist patches of sand appear here and there, then tiny pools that
+a fallen leaf might cover, then larger ones with little thread-like runs
+of water between them; larger and larger, till at last you reach
+some hard ledge of trap, over which a glorious stream gurgles and
+splashes into a pool ample enough for the bath of an elephant.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_31" href="#FnAnchor_31"><span class="fn">31</span></a> In <i>The Wrecker</i>. As to the story thus suggested by Mr. Andrew
+Lang, see below, pp. 171, 187, etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+<hr class="art" />
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page144"></a>144</span></p>
+
+<h3>XII</h3>
+
+<h3>LIFE IN SAMOA&mdash;<i>Continued</i></h3>
+
+<h4>SECOND YEAR AT VAILIMA</h4>
+
+<h5><span class="sc">January-December 1892</span></h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> New Year found Stevenson down with his first attack
+of the influenza epidemic, then virulent all over the world.
+But the illness was not sufficient to stop his work, and in
+the first two months of the year he was busy continuing
+his conscientious labours on <i>The Footnote to History</i>, seeing
+<i>The Wrecker</i> and <i>The Beach of Falesá</i> through the press,
+planning the South Sea plantation novel <i>Sophia Scarlet</i>,
+which never got beyond that inchoate stage, and writing
+the continuation to <i>Kidnapped</i>, first intended to bear the
+name of the hero, David Balfour, and afterwards changed
+to <i>Catriona</i>. With this he proceeded swimmingly, completing
+it between February and September, in a shorter
+time than any other of his sustained narratives; and
+on publication its success was great. By May he had
+finished the <i>Footnote</i>, and then had a dash at the first
+chapters of <i>The Young Chevalier</i>, which stand in their
+truncated state a piece of work as vivid and telling as he
+had ever done. Early in the autumn he struck a still
+fuller note in the draft of the first chapters of <i>Weir of
+Hermiston</i>.</p>
+
+<p>During this year the household at Vailima received a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page145"></a>145</span>
+new temporary inmate in the person of Mr. Graham
+Balfour, a cousin whom Stevenson had not previously
+known, but with whom he soon formed the closest and
+most confidential friendship of his later life. In the
+summer and early autumn he was much taken up both
+with politics and with hospitalities. As hereinafter
+narrated, he made, and was thwarted in, a serious attempt
+to effect a reconciliation between the two rival chiefs;
+and continued his series of letters to the Times showing
+up the incompetence, and worse, of the responsible Treaty
+officials. In August he took lively pleasure in a visit paid
+to the islands by Lady Jersey and some members of her
+family from Australia. During the course of their stay
+he conducted the visitors to the rebel camp under aliases,
+as the needs of the time required, and in a manner that
+seemed like the realisation of a chapter of a Waverley
+novel. A month or two later he became aware, with more
+amusement than alarm, of measures for his deportation
+set on foot but not carried through by the Treaty officials.
+For a man of his temper, the political muddle and mismanagement
+of which the Samoan Islands were the scene&mdash;and
+not only these, however much he might lament
+them for the sake of the inhabitants, but even the risks he
+ran of serious personal consequences from his own action,&mdash;added
+to life at least as much of zest and excitement
+as of annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>In October he determined, not without serious financial
+misgivings and chiefly in deference to his mother&rsquo;s urgency,
+to enlarge his house at Vailima by putting up a new block
+adjoining and communicating with that which he had
+hitherto inhabited. The work was promptly and efficiently
+carried out by the German Firm and completed by the
+end of the year. Quite towards the close of December,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146"></a>146</span>
+copies of <i>The Footnote to History</i> reached Samoa, and the
+book, so far from being a cause of offence to his friends
+the managers of that firm, as both he and they had feared,
+was found acceptable and devoid of offence by them: a
+result celebrated in the convivial manner described in the
+last letter of this section. On the whole the year had
+been a prosperous one, full of successful work and eager
+interests, although darkened in its later months by disquietude
+on account of his wife&rsquo;s health. He had himself
+well maintained the improved strength and the renewed
+capacity both for literary work and outdoor activity
+which life in the South Seas had brought him from the
+first.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Jan, 2nd, &rsquo;92.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;Overjoyed you were pleased
+with <i>The Wrecker</i>, and shall consider your protests. There
+is perhaps more art than you think for in the peccant
+chapter, where I have succeeded in packing into one a
+dedication, an explanation, and a termination. Surely you
+had not recognised the phrase about boodle? It was a
+quotation from Jim Pinkerton, and seemed to me agreeably
+skittish. However, all shall be prayerfully considered.</p>
+
+<p>To come to a more painful subject. Herewith go three
+more chapters of the wretched History; as you see, I
+approach the climax. I expect the book to be some 70,000
+words, of which you have now 45. Can I finish it for
+next mail? I am going to try! &rsquo;Tis a long piece of
+journalism, and full of difficulties here and there, of this
+kind and that, and will make me a power of friends to be
+sure. There is one Becker who will probably put up a
+window to me in the church where he was baptized; and
+I expect a testimonial from Captain Hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page147"></a>147</span></p>
+
+<p>Sorry to let the mail go without the Scott; this has
+been a bad month with me, and I have been below myself.
+I shall find a way to have it come by next, or know the
+reason why. The mail after, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>A bit of a sketch map appears to me necessary for my
+History; perhaps two. If I do not have any, &rsquo;tis impossible
+any one should follow; and I, even when not at all
+interested, demand that I shall be able to follow; even a
+tourist book without a map is a cross to me; and there
+must be others of my way of thinking. I inclose the very
+artless one that I think needful. Vailima, in case you are
+curious, is about as far again behind Tanugamanono as
+that is from the sea.</p>
+
+<p>M&rsquo;Clure is publishing a short story of mine, some
+50,000 words, I think, <i>The Beach of Falesá</i>; when he&rsquo;s
+done with it, I want you and Cassell to bring it out in a
+little volume; I shall send you a dedication for it; I
+believe it good; indeed, to be honest, very good. Good
+gear that pleases the merchant.</p>
+
+<p>The other map that I half threaten is a chart for the
+hurricane. Get me Kimberley&rsquo;s report of the hurricane:
+not to be found here. It is of most importance; I <i>must</i>
+have it with my proofs of that part, if I cannot have it
+earlier, which now seems impossible.&mdash;Yours in hot haste,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>At the news that his correspondent was occupied teaching and
+entertaining a class of children in a Kilburn basement, Stevenson
+bethinks himself of helping her by writing an account of Samoa
+and Samoan life for children.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, January 4th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR ADELAIDE</span>,&mdash;We were much pleased with
+your letter and the news of your employment. Admirable,
+your method. But will you not run dry of fairy
+stories? Please salute your pupils, and tell them that a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page148"></a>148</span>
+long, lean, elderly man who lives right through on the
+under side of the world, so that down in your cellar you
+are nearer him than the people in the street, desires his
+compliments. This man lives in an island which is not
+very long, and extremely narrow. The sea beats round
+it very hard, so that it is difficult to get to shore. There
+is only one harbour where ships come, even that is very
+wild and dangerous; four ships of war were broken there
+a little while ago, and one of them is still lying on its side
+on a rock clean above water, where the sea threw it as
+you might throw your fiddle bow on the table. All
+round the harbour the town is strung out, it is nothing but
+wooden houses, only there are some churches built of
+stone, not very large, but the people have never seen
+such fine buildings. Almost all the houses are of one
+story. Away at one end lives the king of the whole
+country. His palace has a thatched roof which stands
+upon posts; it has no walls, but when it blows and rains,
+they have Venetian blinds which they let down between
+the posts and make it very snug. There is no furniture,
+and the king and queen and the courtiers sit and eat on
+the floor, which is of gravel: the lamp stands there too,
+and every now and then it is upset. These good folks
+wear nothing but a kilt about their waists, unless to go to
+church or for a dance, or the New Year, or some great
+occasion. The children play marbles all along the street;
+and though they are generally very jolly, yet they get
+awfully cross over their marbles, and cry and fight like
+boys and girls at home. Another amusement in country
+places is to shoot fish with a bow and arrow. All round
+the beach there is bright shallow water where fishes can
+be seen darting or lying in shoals. The child trots round
+the shore, and wherever he sees a fish, lets fly an arrow
+and misses, and then wades in after his arrow. It is great
+fun (I have tried it) for the child, and I never heard of
+it doing any harm to the fishes: so what could be more
+jolly? The road up to this lean man&rsquo;s house is uphill
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page149"></a>149</span>
+all the way and through forests; the forests are of great
+trees, not so much unlike the trees at home, only here
+and there are some very queer ones mixed with them,
+cocoa-nut palms, and great forest trees that are covered
+with blossom like red hawthorn, but not near so bright;
+and from all the trees thick creepers hang down
+like ropes, and nasty-looking weeds that they call
+orchids grow in the forks of the branches; and on
+the ground many prickly things are dotted which they
+call pine-apples: I suppose every one has eaten pineapple
+drops.</p>
+
+<p>On the way up to the lean man&rsquo;s house you pass a little
+village, all of houses like the king&rsquo;s house, so that as you
+ride through you can see everybody sitting at dinner, or
+if it be night, lying in their beds by lamplight; for all
+these people are terribly afraid of ghosts, and would not
+lie in the dark for any favour. After the village, there is
+only one more house, and that is the lean man&rsquo;s. For
+the people are not very many, and live all by the sea, and
+the whole inside of the island is desert woods and mountains.
+When the lean man goes into this forest, he is very
+much ashamed to say it, but he is always in a terrible
+fright. The wood is so great and empty and hot, and it
+is always filled with curious noises; birds cry like children
+and bark like dogs, and he can hear people laughing and
+felling trees; and the other day (when he was far in the
+woods) he heard a great sound like the biggest mill-wheel
+possible going with a kind of dot-and-carry-one movement
+like a dance. That was the noise of an earthquake away
+down below him in the bowels of the earth, and that is
+the same thing as to say away up towards you in your
+cellar in Kilburn. All these noises make him feel lonely
+and scared, and he doesn&rsquo;t quite know what he is scared
+of. Once when he was just about to cross a river, a blow
+struck him on the top of his head and knocked him head-foremost
+down the bank and splash into the water. It
+was a nut, I fancy, that had fallen from a tree, by which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page150"></a>150</span>
+accidents people are sometimes killed.  But at the time
+he thought it was a black boy.</p>
+
+<p>Aha, say you, and what is a black boy? Well, there
+are here a lot of poor people who are brought here from
+distant islands to labour as slaves for the Germans. They
+are not at all like the king or his people, who are brown
+and very pretty; but these are black as negroes and as
+ugly as sin, poor souls, and in their own lands they live
+all the time at war and cook and eat men&rsquo;s flesh. The
+Germans thrash them with whips to make them work,
+and every now and then some run away into the Bush,
+as the forest is called, and build little sheds of leaves,
+and eat nuts and roots and fruit, and dwell there by themselves
+in the great desert. Sometimes they are bad and
+wild and come down in the villages and steal and kill;
+and people whisper to each other that some of them have
+gone back to their horrid old habits, and catch men and
+women in order to eat them. But it is very likely not
+true; and the most of them are only poor, stupid, trembling,
+half-starved, pitiful creatures like frightened dogs.
+Their life is all very well when the sun shines, as it does
+eight or nine months in the year. But it is very different
+the rest of the time. The wind rages here most violently.
+The great trees thrash about like whips; the air is filled
+with leaves and great branches flying about like birds;
+and the sound of the trees falling shakes the earth. It
+rains too as it never rains at home. You can hear a shower
+while it is yet half a mile away, hissing like a shower-bath
+in the forest; and when it comes to you, the water blinds
+your eyes, and the cold drenching takes your breath away
+as though some one had struck you. In that kind of
+weather it must be dreadful indeed to live in the woods,
+one man alone by himself. And you must know that, if
+the lean man feels afraid to be in the forest, the people of
+the island and the black boys are much more afraid than
+he. For they believe the woods to be quite filled with
+spirits; some are like pigs, and some are like flying things;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page151"></a>151</span>
+but others (and these are thought the most dangerous)
+come in the shape of beautiful young women and young
+men, beautifully dressed in the island manner, with fine
+kilts and fine necklaces and crowns of scarlet seeds and
+flowers. Woe betide he or she who gets to speak with
+one of these! They will be charmed out of their wits,
+and come home again quite silly, and go mad and die.
+So that the poor black boy must be always trembling and
+looking about for the coming of the women-devils.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the women-devils go down out of the woods
+into the villages, and here is a tale the lean man heard
+last year. One of the islanders was sitting in his house,
+and he had cooked fish. There came along the road two
+beautiful young women, dressed as I told you, who came
+into his house and asked for some of his fish. It is the
+fashion in the islands always to give what is asked, and
+never to ask folk&rsquo;s names. So the man gave them fish
+and talked to them in the island jesting way. And presently
+he asked one of the women for her red necklace,
+which is good manners and their way; he had given the
+fish, and he had a right to ask for something back. &ldquo;I
+will give it you by and by,&rdquo; said the woman, and she and
+her companion went away; but he thought they were
+gone very suddenly, and the truth is they had vanished.
+The night was nearly come, when the man heard the
+voice of the woman crying that he should come to her
+and she would give the necklace. And he looked out, and
+behold she was standing calling him from the top of the
+sea, on which she stood as you might on the table. At
+that, fear came on the man; he fell on his knees and
+prayed, and the woman disappeared. It was known afterwards
+that this was once a woman indeed, but should have
+died a thousand years ago, and has lived all that while as
+a devil in the woods beside the spring of a river. Saumai-afe
+(Sow-my-affy) is her name, in case you want to
+write to her.&mdash;Ever your friend Tusitala (tale-writer),</p>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>alias</i> <span class="sc">Robert Louis Stevenson</span>.</p>
+
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page152"></a>152</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The South Sea novel here mentioned, <i>Sophia Scarlet</i>, never got
+beyond the rough draft of an opening chapter or two.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Jan. 31st, &rsquo;92.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;No letter at all from you, and this
+scratch from me! Here is a year that opens ill. Lloyd
+is off to &ldquo;the coast&rdquo; sick&mdash;<i>the coast</i> means California over
+most of the Pacific&mdash;I have been down all month with
+influenza, and am just recovering&mdash;I am overlaid with
+proofs, which I am just about half fit to attend to. One
+of my horses died this morning, and another is now dying
+on the front lawn&mdash;Lloyd&rsquo;s horse and Fanny&rsquo;s. Such is
+my quarrel with destiny. But I am mending famously,
+come and go on the balcony, have perfectly good nights,
+and though I still cough, have no oppression and no hemorrhage
+and no fever. So if I can find time and courage to
+add no more, you will know my news is not altogether of
+the worst; a year or two ago, and what a state I should
+have been in now! Your silence, I own, rather alarms
+me. But I tell myself you have just miscarried; had you
+been too ill to write, some one would have written me.
+Understand, I send this brief scratch not because I am
+unfit to write more, but because I have 58 galleys of <i>The
+Wrecker</i> and 102 of <i>The Beach of Falesá</i> to get overhauled
+somehow or other in time for the mail, and for three weeks
+I have not touched a pen with my finger.</p>
+
+<p><i>Feb. 1st.</i>&mdash;The second horse is still alive, but I still think
+dying. The first was buried this morning. My proofs are
+done; it was a rough two days of it, but done. <i>Consummatum
+est; ua uma</i>. I believe <i>The Wrecker</i> ends
+well; if I know what a good yarn is, the last four chapters
+make a good yarn&mdash;but pretty horrible. <i>The Beach of
+Falesá</i> I still think well of, but it seems it&rsquo;s immoral and
+there&rsquo;s a to-do, and financially it may prove a heavy disappointment.
+The plaintive request sent to me, to make
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page153"></a>153</span>
+the young folks married properly before &ldquo;that night,&rdquo; I
+refused; you will see what would be left of the yarn, had I
+consented.<a name="FnAnchor_32" href="#Footnote_32"><span class="sp">32</span></a> This is a poison bad world for the romancer,
+this Anglo-Saxon world; I usually get out of it by not
+having any women in it at all; but when I remember
+I had <i>The Treasure of Franchard</i> refused as
+unfit for a family magazine, I feel despair weigh upon
+my wrists.</p>
+
+<p>As I know you are always interested in novels, I must
+tell you that a new one is now entirely planned. It is to
+be called <i>Sophia Scarlet</i>, and is in two parts. Part I. The
+Vanilla Planter. Part II. The Overseers. No chapters,
+I think; just two dense blocks of narrative, the first of
+which is purely sentimental, but the second has some rows
+and quarrels, and winds up with an explosion, if you please!
+I am just burning to get at <i>Sophia</i>, but I <i>must</i> do this
+Samoan journalism&mdash;that&rsquo;s a cursed duty. The first part
+of <i>Sophia</i>, bar the first twenty or thirty pages, writes itself;
+the second is more difficult, involving a good many characters&mdash;about
+ten, I think&mdash;who have to be kept all
+moving, and give the effect of a society. I have three
+women to handle, out and well-away! but only Sophia
+is in full tone. Sophia and two men, Windermere, the
+Vanilla Planter, who dies at the end of Part I., and Rainsforth,
+who only appears in the beginning of Part II. The
+fact is, I blush to own it, but Sophia is a <i>regular novel</i>;
+heroine and hero, and false accusation, and love, and
+marriage, and all the rest of it&mdash;all planted in a big South
+Sea plantation run by ex-English officers&mdash;<i>ŕ la</i> Stewart&rsquo;s
+plantation in Tahiti.<a name="FnAnchor_33" href="#Footnote_33"><span class="sp">33</span></a> There is a strong undercurrent of
+labour trade which gives it a kind of Uncle Tom flavour,
+<i>absit omen!</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page154"></a>154</span></p>
+
+<p>The first start is hard; it is hard to avoid a little
+tedium here, but I think by beginning with the arrival of
+the three Miss Scarlets hot from school and society in
+England, I may manage to slide in the information. The
+problem is exactly a Balzac one, and I wish I had his fist&mdash;for
+I have already a better method&mdash;the kinetic, whereas
+he continually allowed himself to be led into the static.
+But then he had the fist, and the most I can hope is to get
+out of it with a modicum of grace and energy, but for sure
+without the strong impression, the full, dark brush. Three
+people have had it, the real creator&rsquo;s brush: Scott, see
+much of <i>The Antiquary</i> and <i>The Heart of Midlothian</i>
+(especially all round the trial, before, during, and after)&mdash;Balzac&mdash;and
+Thackeray in <i>Vanity Fair</i>. Everybody else
+either paints <i>thin</i>, or has to stop to paint, or paints excitedly,
+so that you see the author skipping before his canvas.
+Here is a long way from poor Sophia Scarlet!</p>
+
+<p class="center noind">This day is published</p>
+<p class="center noind"><i>Sophia Scarlet</i></p>
+<p class="center noind">By</p>
+<p class="center noind sc">Robert Louis Stevenson</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5>To J. M. <span class="sc">Barrie</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following is the first of several letters to Mr. J. M. Barrie,
+for whose work Stevenson had a warm admiration, and with whom
+he soon established by correspondence a cordial friendship.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, February 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. BARRIE</span>,&mdash;This is at least the third letter I
+have written you, but my correspondence has a bad habit
+of not getting so far as the post. That which I possess of
+manhood turns pale before the business of the address
+and envelope. But I hope to be more fortunate with this:
+for, besides the usual and often recurrent desire to thank
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page155"></a>155</span>
+you for your work&mdash;you are one of four that have come to
+the front since I was watching and had a corner of my own
+to watch, and there is no reason, unless it be in these
+mysterious tides that ebb and flow, and make and mar
+and murder the works of poor scribblers, why you should
+not do work of the best order. The tides have borne away
+my sentence, of which I was weary at any rate, and between
+authors I may allow myself so much freedom as
+to leave it pending. We are both Scots besides, and I
+suspect both rather Scotty Scots; my own Scotchness
+tends to intermittency, but is at times erisypelitous&mdash;if
+that be rightly spelt. Lastly, I have gathered we had
+both made our stages in the metropolis of the winds: our
+Virgil&rsquo;s &ldquo;grey metropolis,&rdquo; and I count that a lasting
+bond. No place so brands a man.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, I feel it a sort of duty to you to report progress.
+This may be an error, but I believed I detected your hand
+in an article&mdash;it may be an illusion, it may have been by
+one of those industrious insects who catch up and reproduce
+the handling of each emergent man&mdash;but I&rsquo;ll still
+hope it was yours&mdash;and hope it may please you to hear
+that the continuation of <i>Kidnapped</i> is under way. I have
+not yet got to Alan, so I do not know if he is still alive,
+but David seems to have a kick or two in his shanks. I
+was pleased to see how the Anglo-Saxon theory fell into
+the trap: I gave my Lowlander a Gaelic name, and even
+commented on the fact in the text; yet almost all critics
+recognised in David and Alan a Saxon and a Celt. I know
+not about England; in Scotland at least, where Gaelic
+was spoken in Fife little over the century ago, and in
+Galloway not much earlier, I deny that there exists such
+a thing as a pure Saxon, and I think it more than questionable
+if there be such a thing as a pure Celt.</p>
+
+<p>But what have you to do with this? and what have I?
+Let us continue to inscribe our little bits of tales, and let
+the heathen rage!&mdash;Yours, with sincere interest in your
+career,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page156"></a>156</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Feb. 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;This has been a busyish month for
+a sick man. First, Faauma&mdash;the bronze candlestick, whom
+otherwise I called my butler&mdash;bolted from the bed and
+bosom of Lafaele, the Archangel Hercules, prefect of the
+cattle. There was a deuce to pay, and Hercules was inconsolable,
+and immediately started out after a new wife,
+and has had one up on a visit, but says she has &ldquo;no conversation&rdquo;;
+and I think he will take back the erring and
+possibly repentant candlestick; whom we all devoutly
+prefer, as she is not only highly decorative, but good-natured,
+and if she does little work makes no rows. I
+tell this lightly, but it really was a heavy business; many
+were accused of complicity, and Rafael was really very
+sorry. I had to hold beds of justice&mdash;literally&mdash;seated in
+my bed and surrounded by lying Samoans seated on the
+floor; and there were many picturesque and still inexplicable
+passages. It is hard to reach the truth in
+these islands.</p>
+
+<p>The next incident overlapped with this. S. and Fanny
+found three strange horses in the paddock: for long now
+the boys have been forbidden to leave their horses here
+one hour because our grass is over-grazed. S. came up
+with the news, and I saw I must now strike a blow. &ldquo;To
+the pound with the lot,&rdquo; said I. He proposed taking the
+three himself, but I thought that too dangerous an experiment,
+said I should go too, and hurried into my boots so
+as to show decision taken, in the necessary interviews.
+They came of course&mdash;the interviews&mdash;and I explained
+what I was going to do at huge length, and stuck to my
+guns. I am glad to say the natives, with their usual
+(purely speculative) sense of justice, highly approved the
+step after reflection. Meanwhile off went S. and I with
+the three <i>corpora delicti</i>; and a good job I went! Once,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page157"></a>157</span>
+when our circus began to kick, we thought all was up;
+but we got them down all sound in wind and limb. I
+judged I was much fallen off from my Elliot forefathers,
+who managed this class of business with neatness and
+despatch.</p>
+
+<p>As we got down to town, we met the mother and
+daughter of my friend &mdash;&mdash;, bathed in tears; they had
+left the house over a row, which I have not time or spirits
+to describe. This matter dashed me a good deal, and the
+first decent-looking day I mounted and set off to see if
+I could not patch things up. Half-way down it came on
+to rain tropic style, and I came back from my second
+outing drenched like a drowned man&mdash;I was literally
+blinded as I came back among these sheets of water;
+and the consequence was I was laid down with diarrh&oelig;a
+and threatenings of Samoa colic for the inside of another
+week. Meanwhile up came Laulii,<a name="FnAnchor_34" href="#Footnote_34"><span class="sp">34</span></a> in whose house Mrs.
+and Miss &mdash;&mdash; have taken refuge. One of Mrs. &mdash;&mdash;&rsquo;s
+grievances is that her son has married one of these &ldquo;pork-eaters
+and cannibals.&rdquo; (As a matter of fact there is no
+memory of cannibalism in Samoa.) And a strange thing
+it was to hear the &ldquo;cannibal&rdquo; Laulii describe her sorrows.
+She is singularly pretty and sweet, her training reflects
+wonderful credit on her husband; and when she began to
+describe to us&mdash;to act to us, in the tone of an actress walking
+through a rehearsal&mdash;the whole bearing of her angry
+guests; indicating the really tragic notes when they came
+in, so that Fanny and I were ashamed to laugh, and touching
+off the merely ludicrous with infinite tact and sly
+humour; showing, in fact, in her whole picture of a couple
+of irate barbarian women, the whole play and sympathy
+of what we call the civilised mind; the contrast was
+seizing. I speak with feeling. To-day again, being the
+first day humanly possible for me, I went down to Apia
+with Fanny, and between two and three hours did I argue
+with that old woman&mdash;not immovable, would she had
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page158"></a>158</span>
+been! but with a mechanical mind like a piece of a musical
+snuff-box, that returned always to the same starting-point;
+not altogether base, for she was long-suffering with me
+and professed even gratitude, and was just (in a sense)
+to her son, and showed here and there moments of genuine
+and not undignified emotion; but O! on the other side,
+what lapses&mdash;what a mechanical movement of the brain,
+what occasional trap-door devils of meanness, what a
+wooden front of pride! I came out damped and saddened
+and (to say truth) a trifle sick. My wife had better luck
+with the daughter; but O, it was a weary business!</p>
+
+<p>To add to my grief&mdash;but that&rsquo;s politics. Before I sleep
+to-night I have a confession to make. When I was sick
+I tried to get to work to finish that Samoa thing; wouldn&rsquo;t
+go; and at last, in the colic time, I slid off into <i>David
+Balfour</i>,<a name="FnAnchor_35" href="#Footnote_35"><span class="sp">35</span></a> some 50 pages of which are drafted, and like me
+well. Really I think it is spirited; and there&rsquo;s a heroine
+that (up to now) seems to have attractions: <i>absit omen!</i>
+David, on the whole, seems excellent. Alan does not come
+in till the tenth chapter, and I am only at the eighth, so
+I don&rsquo;t know if I can find him again; but David is on his
+feet, and doing well, and very much in love, and mixed
+up with the Lord Advocate and the (untitled) Lord Lovat,
+and all manner of great folk. And the tale interferes with
+my eating and sleeping. The join is bad; I have not
+thought to strain too much for continuity; so this part
+be alive, I shall be content. But there&rsquo;s no doubt David
+seems to have changed his style, de&rsquo;il ha&rsquo;e him! And much
+I care, if the tale travel!</p>
+
+<p><i>Friday, Feb.?? 19th?</i>&mdash;Two incidents to-day which I
+must narrate. After lunch, it was raining pitilessly; we
+were sitting in my mother&rsquo;s bedroom, and I was reading
+aloud Kinglake&rsquo;s Charge of the Light Brigade, and we had
+just been all seized by the horses aligning with Lord
+George Paget, when a figure appeared on the verandah;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page159"></a>159</span>
+a little, slim, small figure of a lad, with blond (<i>i.e.</i> limed)
+hair, a propitiatory smile, and a nose that alone of all his
+features grew pale with anxiety. &ldquo;I come here stop,&rdquo; was
+about the outside of his English; and I began at once to
+guess that he was a runaway labourer,<a name="FnAnchor_36" href="#Footnote_36"><span class="sp">36</span></a> and that the bush-knife
+in his hand was stolen. It proved he had a mate,
+who had lacked his courage, and was hidden down the
+road; they had both made up their minds to run away,
+and had &ldquo;come here stop.&rdquo; I could not turn out the poor
+rogues, one of whom showed me marks on his back, into
+the drenching forest; I could not reason with them, for
+they had not enough English, and not one of our boys
+spoke their tongue; so I bade them feed and sleep here
+to-night, and to-morrow I must do what the Lord shall
+bid me.</p>
+
+<p>Near dinner time, I was told that a friend of Lafaele&rsquo;s
+had found human remains in my bush. After dinner, a
+figure was seen skulking across towards the waterfall,
+which produced from the verandah a shout, in my most
+stentorian tones: &ldquo;<i>O ai le ingoa?</i>&rdquo; literally &ldquo;Who the
+name?&rdquo; which serves here for &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your business?&rdquo;
+as well. It proved to be Lafaele&rsquo;s friend; I bade a kitchen
+boy, Lauilo, go with him to see the spot, for though it had
+ceased raining, the whole island ran and dripped. Lauilo
+was willing enough, but the friend of the archangel demurred;
+he had too much business; he had no time.
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;you too much frightened, I go
+along,&rdquo; which of course produced the usual shout of
+delight from all those who did not require to go. I got
+into my Saranac snow boots; Lauilo got a cutlass; Mary
+Carter, our Sydney maid, joined the party for a lark, and
+off we set. I tell you our guide kept us moving; for the
+dusk fell swift. Our woods have an infamous reputation
+at the best, and our errand (to say the least of it) was
+grisly. At last they found the remains; they were old,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page160"></a>160</span>
+which was all I cared to be sure of; it seemed a strangely
+small &ldquo;pickle-banes&rdquo; to stand for a big, flourishing, buck-islander,
+and their situation in the darkening and dripping
+bush was melancholy. All at once, I found there was a
+second skull, with a bullet-hole I could have stuck my
+two thumbs in&mdash;say anybody else&rsquo;s one thumb. My
+Samoans said it could not be, there were not enough
+bones; I put the two pieces of skull together, and at last
+convinced them. Whereupon, in a flash, they found the
+not unromantic explanation. This poor brave had succeeded
+in the height of a Samoan warrior&rsquo;s ambition; he
+had taken a head, which he was never destined to show
+to his applauding camp. Wounded himself, he had crept
+here into the bush to die with his useless trophy by his
+side. His date would be about fifteen years ago, in the
+great battle between Laupepa and Talavou, which took
+place on My Land, Sir. To-morrow we shall bury the
+bones and fire a salute in honour of unfortunate courage.</p>
+
+<p>Do you think I have an empty life? or that a man
+jogging to his club has so much to interest and amuse
+him?&mdash;touch and try him too, but that goes along with
+the others: no pain, no pleasure, is the iron law. So here
+I stop again, and leave, as I left yesterday, my political
+business untouched. And lo! here comes my pupil, I
+believe, so I stop in time.</p>
+
+<p><i>March 2nd.</i>&mdash;Since I last wrote, fifteen chapters of
+<i>David Balfour</i> have been drafted, and five <i>tirés au clair</i>.
+I think it pretty good; there&rsquo;s a blooming maiden that
+costs anxiety&mdash;she is as virginal as billy; but David
+seems there and alive, and the Lord Advocate is good, and
+so I think is an episodic appearance of the Master of Lovat.
+In Chapter <span class="sc">XVII.</span> I shall get David abroad&mdash;Alan went
+already in Chapter <span class="sc">XII.</span> The book should be about the
+length of <i>Kidnapped</i>; this early part of it, about D.&rsquo;s
+evidence in the Appin case, is more of a story than anything
+in <i>Kidnapped</i>, but there is no doubt there comes a
+break in the middle, and the tale is practically in two
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page161"></a>161</span>
+divisions. In the first James More and the M&rsquo;Gregors,
+and Catriona, only show; in the second, the Appin case
+being disposed of, and James Stewart hung, they rule the
+roast and usurp the interest&mdash;should there be any left.
+Why did I take up <i>David Balfour</i>? I don&rsquo;t know. A
+sudden passion.</p>
+
+<p>Monday, I went down in the rain with a colic to take
+the chair at a public meeting; dined with Haggard;
+sailed off to my meeting, and fought with wild beasts for
+three anxious hours. All was lost that any sensible man
+cared for, but the meeting did not break up&mdash;thanks a
+good deal to R. L. S.&mdash;and the man who opposed my
+election, and with whom I was all the time wrangling,
+proposed the vote of thanks to me with a certain handsomeness;
+I assure you I had earned it.... Haggard
+and the great Abdul, his high-caste Indian servant,
+imported by my wife, were sitting up for me with supper,
+and I suppose it was twelve before I got to bed. Tuesday
+raining, my mother rode down, and we went to the Consulate
+to sign a Factory and Commission. Thence, I to
+the lawyers, to the printing office, and to the mission. It
+was dinner time when I returned home.</p>
+
+<p>This morning, our cook-boy having suddenly left&mdash;injured
+feelings&mdash;the archangel was to cook breakfast. I
+found him lighting the fire before dawn; his eyes blazed,
+he had no word of any language left to use, and I saw in
+him (to my wonder) the strongest workings of gratified
+ambition. Napoleon was no more pleased to sign his first
+treaty with Austria than was Lafaele to cook that breakfast.
+All morning, when I had hoped to be at this letter,
+I slept like one drugged, and you must take this (which
+is all I can give you) for what it is worth&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center noind pt05">D. B.</p>
+
+<p style="padding-left: 2em;"><i>Memoirs of his Adventures at Home and Abroad.
+The Second Part; wherein are set forth the misfortunes
+in which he was involved upon the Appin Murder; his</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page162"></a>162</span>
+<i>troubles with Lord Advocate Prestongrange; captivity
+on the Bass Rock; journey into France and Holland;
+and singular relations with James More Drummond or
+Macgregor, a son of the notorious Rob Roy.</i></p>
+
+<p>Chapters.&mdash;<span class="scs">I.</span> A Beggar on Horseback. <span class="scs">II.</span> The Highland
+Writer. <span class="scs">III.</span> I go to Pilrig. <span class="scs">IV.</span> Lord Advocate
+Prestongrange. <span class="scs">V.</span> Butter and Thunder. <span class="scs">VI.</span> I make a
+fault in honour. <span class="scs">VII.</span> The Bravo. <span class="scs">VIII.</span> The Heather on
+Fire. <span class="scs">IX.</span> I begin to be haunted with a red-headed man.
+<span class="scs">X.</span> The Wood by Silvermills. <span class="scs">XI.</span> On the march again
+with Alan. <span class="scs">XII.</span> Gillane Sands. <span class="scs">XIII.</span> The Bass Rock.
+<span class="scs">XIV.</span> Black Andie&rsquo;s Tale of Tod Lapraik. <span class="scs">XV.</span> I go to
+Inveraray.</p>
+
+<p>That is it, as far as drafted. Chapters <span class="scs">IV. V. VII. IX.</span>
+and <span class="scs">XIV.</span> I am specially pleased with; the last being an
+episodical bogie story about the Bass Rock told there by
+the Keeper.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To William Morris</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following draft letter addressed to Mr. William Morris was
+found among Stevenson&rsquo;s papers after his death. It has touches of
+affectation and constraint not usual with him, and it is no doubt
+on that account that he did not send it; but though not in his best
+manner, it seems worth printing as illustrating the variety of his
+interests and admirations in literature.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, Feb. 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MASTER</span>,&mdash;A plea from a place so distant should have
+some weight, and from a heart so grateful should have
+some address. I have been long in your debt, Master,
+and I did not think it could be so much increased as you
+have now increased it. I was long in your debt and deep
+in your debt for many poems that I shall never forget,
+and for <i>Sigurd</i> before all, and now you have plunged me
+beyond payment by the Saga Library. And so now, true
+to human nature, being plunged beyond payment, I come
+and bark at your heels.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page163"></a>163</span></p>
+
+<p>For surely, Master, that tongue that we write, and that
+you have illustrated so nobly, is yet alive. She has her
+rights and laws, and is our mother, our queen, and our
+instrument. Now in that living tongue <i>where</i> has one
+sense, <i>whereas</i> another. In the <i>Heathslayings Story</i>, p. 241,
+line 13, it bears one of its ordinary senses. Elsewhere and
+usually through the two volumes, which is all that has
+yet reached me of this entrancing publication, <i>whereas</i> is
+made to figure for <i>where</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For the love of God, my dear and honoured Morris, use
+<i>where</i>, and let us know <i>whereas</i> we are, wherefore our
+gratitude shall grow, whereby you shall be the more
+honoured wherever men love clear language, whereas now,
+although we honour, we are troubled.</p>
+
+<p>Whereunder, please find inscribed to this very impudent
+but yet very anxious document, the name of one of
+the most distant but not the youngest or the coldest of
+those who honour you</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Mrs. Charles Fairchild</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The projected visit of Mr. Kipling, with his wife and brother-in-law,
+to Samoa, which is mentioned towards the close of this letter,
+never took place, much to the regret of both authors.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, March 1892.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD</span>,&mdash;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 <i>History of Samoa</i> 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 <i>David Balfour</i>,
+the sequel to <i>Kidnapped</i>. Add the ordinary impediments
+of life, and admire my busyness. I am now an old, but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page164"></a>164</span>
+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&mdash;only I have no bed, only
+a chest with a mat and blankets&mdash;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&mdash;for when it comes to the judicial I
+play dignity&mdash;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&mdash;if I may use Scotch to you&mdash;it is so far
+more scornful than any English idiom. Well, I can&rsquo;t help
+being a skeleton, and you are to take this devious passage
+for an apology.</p>
+
+<p>I thought <i>Aladdin</i><a name="FnAnchor_37" href="#Footnote_37"><span class="sp">37</span></a> capital fun; but why, in fortune,
+did he pretend it was moral at the end? The so-called
+nineteenth century, <i>oů va-t-il se nicher?</i> &rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;it
+is no more&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page165"></a>165</span>
+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&mdash;or I should rather say, can
+you believe&mdash;or (in the famous old Tichborne trial phrase)
+would you be surprised to learn, that all you have read
+of Vailima&mdash;or Subpriorsford, as I call it&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Mrs. Fairchild, I must go to my work. I have
+but two words to say in conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>First, civilisation is rot.</p>
+
+<p>Second, console a savage with more of the milk of that
+over-civilised being, your adorable schoolboy.</p>
+
+<p>As I wrote these remarkable words, I was called down
+to eight o&rsquo;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 (&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page166"></a>166</span></p>
+
+<p>I think it will amuse you (for a last word) to hear that
+our precentress&mdash;she is the washerwoman&mdash;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&mdash;she is not of good family.
+Don&rsquo;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 house-folk
+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 &ldquo;name.&rdquo; 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&mdash;though not quite always&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>With love to Fairchild and the Huge Schoolboy, I am,
+my dear Mrs. Fairchild, yours very sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>March 9th</i> [<i>1892</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR S. C.</span>,&mdash;Take it not amiss if this is a wretched
+letter. I am eaten up with business. Every day this
+week I have had some business impediment&mdash;I am even
+now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the road&mdash;and
+my precious morning was shattered by a polite old scourge
+of a <i>faipule</i>&mdash;parliament man&mdash;come begging. All the
+time <i>David Balfour</i> is skelping along. I began it the 13th
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page167"></a>167</span>
+of last month; I have now 12 chapters, 79 pages ready
+for press, or within an ace, and, by the time the month is
+out, one-half should be completed, and I&rsquo;ll be back at
+drafting the second half. What makes me sick is to think
+of Scott turning out <i>Guy Mannering</i> in three weeks! What
+a pull of work: heavens, what thews and sinews! And
+here am I, my head spinning from having only re-written
+seven not very difficult pages&mdash;and not very good when
+done. Weakling generation. It makes me sick of myself,
+to make such a fash and bobbery over a rotten end of an
+old nursery yarn, not worth spitting on when done. Still,
+there is no doubt I turn out my work more easily than of
+yore; and I suppose I should be singly glad of that.
+And if I got my book done in six weeks, seeing it will
+be about half as long as a Scott, and I have to write everything
+twice, it would be about the same rate of industry.
+It is my fair intention to be done with it in three months,
+which would make me about one-half the man Sir Walter
+was for application and driving the dull pen. Of the merit
+we shall not talk; but I don&rsquo;t think Davie is <i>without</i> merit.</p>
+
+<p><i>March 12th.</i>&mdash;And I have this day triumphantly finished
+15 chapters, 100 pages&mdash;being exactly one-half (as near as
+anybody can guess) of <i>David Balfour</i>; the book to be
+about a fifth as long again (altogether) as <i>Treasure Island:</i>
+could I but do the second half in another month! But I
+can&rsquo;t, I fear; I shall have some belated material arriving
+by next mail, and must go again at the History. Is it
+not characteristic of my broken tenacity of mind, that I
+should have left Davie Balfour some five years in the
+British Linen Company&rsquo;s Office, and then follow him at
+last with such vivacity? But I leave you again; the last
+(15th) chapter ought to be re-wrote, or part of it, and I
+want the half completed in the month, and the month is
+out by midnight; though, to be sure, last month was
+February, and I might take grace. These notes are only
+to show I hold you in mind, though I know they can have
+no interest for man or God or animal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page168"></a>168</span></p>
+
+<p>I should have told you about the Club. We have been
+asked to try and start a sort of weekly ball for the half-castes
+and natives, ourselves to be the only whites; and
+we consented, from a very heavy sense of duty, and with
+not much hope. Two nights ago we had twenty people up,
+received them in the front verandah, entertained them on
+cake and lemonade, and I made a speech&mdash;embodying our
+proposals, or conditions, if you like&mdash;for I suppose thirty
+minutes. No joke to speak to such an audience, but it
+is believed I was thoroughly intelligible. I took the plan
+of saying everything at least twice in a different form of
+words, so that if the one escaped my hearers, the other
+might be seized. One white man came with his wife, and
+was kept rigorously on the front verandah below! You
+see what a sea of troubles this is like to prove; but it is
+the only chance&mdash;and when it blows up, it must blow up!
+I have no more hope in anything than a dead frog; I go
+into everything with a composed despair, and don&rsquo;t mind&mdash;just
+as I always go to sea with the conviction I am to
+be drowned, and like it before all other pleasures. But
+you should have seen the return voyage, when nineteen
+horses had to be found in the dark, and nineteen bridles,
+all in a drench of rain, and the club, just constituted as
+such, sailed away in the wet, under a cloudy moon like a
+bad shilling, and to descend a road through the forest that
+was at that moment the image of a respectable mountain
+brook. My wife, who is president <i>with power to expel</i>,
+had to begin her functions....</p>
+
+<p><i>25th March.</i>&mdash;Heaven knows what day it is, but I am
+ashamed, all the more as your letter from Bournemouth
+of all places&mdash;poor old Bournemouth!&mdash;is to hand, and
+contains a statement of pleasure in my letters which I
+wish I could have rewarded with a long one. What has
+gone on? A vast of affairs, of a mingled, strenuous, inconclusive,
+desultory character; much waste of time, much
+riding to and fro, and little transacted or at least peracted.</p>
+
+<p>Let me give you a review of the present state of our
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page169"></a>169</span>
+live stock.&mdash;Six boys in the bush; six souls about the
+house. Talolo, the cook, returns again to-day, after an
+absence which has cost me about twelve hours of riding,
+and I suppose eight hours&rsquo; solemn sitting in council. &ldquo;I
+am sorry indeed for the Chief Justice of Samoa,&rdquo; I said;
+&ldquo;it is more than I am fit for to be Chief Justice of Vailima.&rdquo;&mdash;Lauilo
+is steward. Both these are excellent servants;
+we gave a luncheon party when we buried the Samoan
+bones, and I assure you all was in good style, yet we never
+interfered. The food was good, the wine and dishes went
+round as by mechanism.&mdash;Steward&rsquo;s assistant and washman,
+Arrick, a New Hebridee black boy, hired from the German
+firm; not so ugly as most, but not pretty neither; not so
+dull as his sort are, but not quite a Crichton. When he
+came first, he ate so much of our good food that he got
+a prominent belly. Kitchen assistant, Tomas (Thomas in
+English), a Fiji man, very tall and handsome, moving like
+a marionette with sudden bounds, and rolling his eyes
+with sudden effort.&mdash;Washerwoman and precentor, Helen,
+Tomas&rsquo;s wife. This is our weak point; we are ashamed
+of Helen; the cook-house blushes for her; they murmur
+there at her presence. She seems all right; she is not a
+bad-looking, strapping wench, seems chaste, is industrious,
+has an excellent taste in hymns&mdash;you should have heard
+her read one aloud the other day, she marked the rhythm
+with so much gloating, dissenter sentiment. What is
+wrong, then? says you. Low in your ear&mdash;and don&rsquo;t let
+the papers get hold of it&mdash;she is of no family. None, they
+say; literally a common woman. Of course, we have out-islanders,
+who <i>may</i> be villeins; but we give them the
+benefit of the doubt, which is impossible with Helen of
+Vailima; our blot, our pitted speck. The pitted speck I
+have said is our precentor. It is always a woman who
+starts Samoan song; the men who sing second do not
+enter for a bar or two. Poor, dear Faauma, the unchaste,
+the extruded Eve of our Paradise, knew only two hymns;
+but Helen seems to know the whole repertory, and the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page170"></a>170</span>
+morning prayers go far more lively in consequence.&mdash;Lafaele,
+provost of the cattle. The cattle are Jack, my
+horse, quite converted, my wife rides him now, and he is as
+steady as a doctor&rsquo;s cob; Tifaga Jack, a circus horse, my
+mother&rsquo;s piebald, bought from a passing circus; Belle&rsquo;s
+mare, now in childbed or next door, confound the slut!
+Musu&mdash;amusingly translated the other day &ldquo;don&rsquo;t want
+to,&rdquo; literally cross, but always in the sense of stubbornness
+and resistance&mdash;my wife&rsquo;s little dark-brown mare, with a
+white star on her forehead, whom I have been riding of
+late to steady her&mdash;she has no vices, but is unused, skittish
+and uneasy, and wants a lot of attention and humouring;
+lastly (of saddle horses) Luna&mdash;not the Latin <i>moon,</i>
+the Hawaiian <i>overseer</i>, but it&rsquo;s pronounced the same&mdash;a
+pretty little mare too, but scarce at all broken, a bad
+bucker, and has to be ridden with a stock-whip and be
+brought back with her rump criss-crossed like a clan
+tartan; the two cart horses, now only used with pack-saddles;
+two cows, one in the straw (I trust) to-morrow,
+a third cow, the Jersey&mdash;whose milk and temper are
+alike subjects of admiration&mdash;she gives good exercise to
+the farming saunterer, and refreshes him on his return
+with cream; two calves, a bull, and a cow; God knows
+how many ducks and chickens, and for a wager not even
+God knows how many cats; twelve horses, seven horses,
+five kine: is not this Babylon the Great which I have
+builded? Call it <i>Subpriorsford</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Two nights ago the club had its first meeting; only
+twelve were present, but it went very well. I was not
+there, I had ridden down the night before after dinner on
+my endless business, took a cup of tea in the mission like
+an ass, then took a cup of coffee like a fool at Haggard&rsquo;s,
+then fell into a discussion with the American Consul....
+I went to bed at Haggard&rsquo;s, came suddenly broad awake,
+and lay sleepless the live night. It felt chill, I had only a
+sheet, and had to make a light and range the house for a
+cover&mdash;I found one in the hall, a macintosh. So back
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page171"></a>171</span>
+to my sleepless bed, and to lie there till dawn. In the
+morning I had a longish ride to take in a day of a blinding,
+staggering sun, and got home by eleven, our luncheon
+hour, with my head rather swimmy; the only time I have
+<i>feared</i> the sun since I was in Samoa. However, I got no
+harm, but did not go to the club, lay off, lazied, played
+the pipe, and read a novel by James Payn&mdash;sometimes
+quite interesting, and in one place really very funny with
+the quaint humour of the man. Much interested the other
+day. As I rode past a house, I saw where a Samoan had
+written a word on a board, and there was an &#8704;, perfectly
+formed, but upside down. You never saw such a thing
+in Europe; but it is as common as dirt in Polynesia. Men&rsquo;s
+names are tattooed on the forearm; it is common to find
+a subverted letter tattooed there. Here is a tempting
+problem for psychologists.</p>
+
+<p>I am now on terms again with the German consulate,
+I know not for how long; not, of course, with the President,
+which I find a relief; still, with the Chief Justice
+and the English consul. For Haggard, I have a genuine
+affection; he is a loveable man.</p>
+
+<p>Wearyful man! &ldquo;Here is the yarn of Loudon Dodd,
+<i>not as he told it, but as it was afterwards written</i>.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_38" href="#Footnote_38"><span class="sp">38</span></a> These
+words were left out by some carelessness, and I think I
+have been thrice tackled about them. Grave them in
+your mind and wear them on your forehead.</p>
+
+<p>The Lang story will have very little about the treasure;
+the Master<a name="FnAnchor_39" href="#Footnote_39"><span class="sp">39</span></a> will appear; and it is to a great extent a
+tale of Prince Charlie <i>after</i> the &rsquo;45, and a love story forbye:
+the hero is a melancholy exile, and marries a young woman
+who interests the prince, and there is the devil to pay. I
+think the Master kills him in a duel, but don&rsquo;t know yet,
+not having yet seen my second heroine. No&mdash;the Master
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page172"></a>172</span>
+doesn&rsquo;t kill him, they fight, he is wounded, and the Master
+plays <i>deus ex machina</i>. <i>I think</i> just now of calling it <i>The
+Tail of the Race</i>; no&mdash;heavens! I never saw till this
+moment&mdash;but of course nobody but myself would ever
+understand Mill-Race, they would think of a quarter-mile.
+So&mdash;I am nameless again. My melancholy young man is
+to be quite a Romeo. Yes, I&rsquo;ll name the book from him:
+<i>Dyce of Ythan</i>&mdash;pronounce Eethan.</p>
+
+<p class="center pt05">Dyce of Ythan<br />
+by R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p>O, Shovel&mdash;Shovel waits his turn, he and his ancestors.
+I would have tackled him before, but my <i>State Trials</i>
+have never come. So that I have now quite planned:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="i3">Dyce of Ythan. (Historical, 1750.)</p>
+<p class="i3">Sophia Scarlet. (To-day.)</p>
+<p class="i3">The Shovels of Newton French. (Historical, 1650 to 1830.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noind">And quite planned and part written:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poemr">
+<p class="i3">The Pearl Fisher. (To-day.) (With Lloyd: a machine.)<a name="FnAnchor_40" href="#Footnote_40"><span class="sp">40</span></a></p>
+<p class="i3">David Balfour. (Historical, 1751.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noind">And, by a strange exception for R. L. S., all in the third
+person except D. B.</p>
+
+<p class="pt05">I don&rsquo;t know what day this is now (the 29th), but I
+have finished my two chapters, ninth and tenth, of <i>Samoa</i>
+in time for the mail, and feel almost at peace. The tenth
+was the hurricane, a difficult problem; it so tempted one
+to be literary; and I feel sure the less of that there is in
+my little handbook, the more chance it has of some utility.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page173"></a>173</span>
+Then the events are complicated, seven ships to tell of,
+and sometimes three of them together; O, it was quite
+a job. But I think I have my facts pretty correct, and
+for once, in my sickening yarn, they are handsome facts:
+creditable to all concerned; not to be written of&mdash;and I
+should think, scarce to be read&mdash;without a thrill. I doubt
+I have got no hurricane into it, the intricacies of the yarn
+absorbing me too much. But there&mdash;it&rsquo;s done somehow,
+and time presses hard on my heels. The book, with my
+best expedition, may come just too late to be of use. In
+which case I shall have made a handsome present of some
+months of my life for nothing and to nobody. Well,
+through Her the most ancient heavens are fresh and
+strong.<a name="FnAnchor_41" href="#Footnote_41"><span class="sp">41</span></a></p>
+
+<p><i>30th.</i>&mdash;After I had written you, I re-read my hurricane,
+which is very poor; the life of the journalist is hard,
+another couple of writings and I could make a good thing,
+I believe, and it must go as it is! But, of course, this
+book is not written for honour and glory, and the few
+who will read it may not know the difference. Very
+little time. I go down with the mail shortly, dine
+at the Chinese restaurant, and go to the club to dance
+with islandresses. Think of my going out once a week
+to dance.</p>
+
+<p>Politics are on the full job again, and we don&rsquo;t know
+what is to come next. I think the whole treaty <i>raj</i> seems
+quite played out! They have taken to bribing the <i>faipule</i>
+men (parliament men) to stay in Mulinuu, we hear; but
+I have not yet sifted the rumour. I must say I shall be
+scarce surprised if it prove true; these rumours have the
+knack of being right.&mdash;Our weather this last month has
+been tremendously hot, not by the thermometer, which
+sticks at 86°, but to the sensation: no rain, no wind, and
+this the storm month. It looks ominous, and is certainly
+disagreeable.</p>
+
+<p>No time to finish.&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page174"></a>174</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The first sentences of the following refer to <i>A Footnote to History,</i>
+Chapter x. of which, relating to the hurricane of 1889, was first
+published in the Scots Observer, edited by Mr. Henley.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, March 1892.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;Herewith Chapters <span class="scs">IX.</span> and <span class="scs">X.</span>,
+and I am left face to face with the horrors and dilemmas
+of the present regimen: pray for those that go down to
+the sea in ships. I have promised Henley shall have a
+chance to publish the hurricane chapter if he like, so
+please let the slips be sent <i>quam primum</i> to C. Baxter,
+W.S., 11 S. Charlotte Street, Edinburgh. I got on mighty
+quick with that chapter&mdash;about five days of the toughest
+kind of work. God forbid I should ever have such another
+pirn to wind! When I invent a language, there shall be
+a direct and an indirect pronoun differently declined&mdash;then
+writing would be some fun.</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="60%" summary="Contents">
+<tr> <td class="tc3"><p class="scs">Direct</p>
+   <p style="padding-left: 1em;">He</p>
+   <p style="padding-left: 1em;">Him</p>
+   <p style="padding-left: 1em;">His</p></td>
+
+     <td class="tc3"><p class="scs">Indirect</p>
+   <p style="padding-left: 1em;">Tu</p>
+   <p style="padding-left: 1em;">Tum</p>
+   <p style="padding-left: 1em;">Tus</p></td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Ex.: <i>He</i> seized <i>tum</i> by <i>tus</i> throat; but <i>tu</i> at the same
+moment caught <i>him</i> by his hair. A fellow could write
+hurricanes with an inflection like that! Yet there would
+be difficulties too.</p>
+
+<p>Please add to my former orders&mdash;</p>
+
+<table style="margin-left: 3em;" summary="text format"> <tr><td>
+<p><i>Le Chevalier Des Touches</i></p>
+<p><i>Les Diabohques</i></p></td>
+<td><span style="font-size: 4em; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #708090;">}</span></td>
+<td>by Barbey d&rsquo;Aurevilly.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td><p><i>Correspondence de Henri Beyle</i> (Stendahl).</p></td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To the Rev. S. J. Whitmee</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>In this letter the essential points of Stevenson&rsquo;s policy for Samoa
+are defined more clearly than anywhere else. His correspondent, an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page175"></a>175</span>
+experienced missionary who had been absent from the islands and
+lately returned, and whom Stevenson describes as being of a nature
+essentially &ldquo;childlike and candid,&rdquo; had been induced to support
+the idea of a one-man power as necessary for putting an end to the
+existing confusion, and to suggest the Chief Justice, Mr. Cedercrantz,
+as the person to wield such power. In the present letter and
+a subsequent conversation Stevenson was able to persuade his correspondent
+to abandon at least that part of his proposal which concerned
+the Chief Justice.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Sunday. Better Day, Better Deed.</i></p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right; padding-right: 6em;"><i>April 24th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center noind">Private and confidential.</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. WHITMEE</span>,&mdash;I have reflected long and fully
+on your paper, and at your kind request give you the
+benefit of my last thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>I. I cannot bring myself to welcome your idea of one
+man. I fear we are too far away from any moderative
+influence; and suppose it to be true that the paper is
+bought, we should not even have a voice. Could we be
+sure to get a Gordon or a Lawrence, ah! very well.
+But in this out-of-the-way place, are these extreme experiments
+wise? Remember Baker; with much that he has
+done, I am in full sympathy; and the man, though wholly
+insincere, is a thousand miles from ill-meaning; and see
+to what excesses he was forced or led.</p>
+
+<p>II. But I willingly admit the idea is possible with the
+right man, and this brings me with greater conviction to
+my next point. I cannot endorse, and I would rather beg
+of you to reconsider, your recommendation of the Chief
+Justice. I told you the man has always attracted me, yet
+as I have earnestly reconsidered the points against him, I
+find objection growing....</p>
+
+<p>But there is yet another argument I have to lay before
+you. We are both to write upon this subject. Many of
+our opinions coincide, and, as I said the other day, on
+these we may reasonably suppose that we are not far
+wrong. Now here is a point on which we shall directly
+counter. No doubt but this will lessen the combined
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page176"></a>176</span>
+weight of our arguments where they coincide. And to
+avoid this effect, it might seem worth while to you to
+modify or cancel the last paragraph of your article.</p>
+
+<p>III. But I now approach what seems to me by far
+the most important. White man here, white man there,
+Samoa is to stand or fall (bar actual seizure) on the Samoan
+question. And upon this my mind is now really made
+up. I do not believe in Laupepa alone; I do not believe
+in Mataafa alone. I know that their conjunction implies
+peace; I am persuaded that their separation means either
+war or paralysis. It is the result of the past, which we
+cannot change, but which we must accept and use or
+suffer by. I have now made up my mind to do all that
+I may be able&mdash;little as it is&mdash;to effect a reconciliation
+between these two men Laupepa and Mataafa; persuaded
+as I am that there is the one door of hope. And it is my
+intention before long to approach both in this sense.
+Now, from the course of our interview, I was pleased to
+see that you were, if not equally strong with myself, at
+least inclined to much the same opinion. And in a carefully
+weighed paper, such as that you read me, I own I
+should be pleased to have this cardinal matter touched
+upon. At home it is not, it cannot be, understood: Mataafa
+is thought a rebel; the Germans profit by the thought to
+pursue their career of vengeance for Fagalii; the two
+men are perpetually offered as alternatives&mdash;they are no
+such thing&mdash;they are complementary; authority, supposing
+them to survive, will be impossible without both. They
+were once friends, fools and meddlers set them at odds,
+they must be friends again or have so much wisdom and
+public virtue as to pretend a friendship. There is my
+policy for Samoa. And I wish you would at least touch
+upon that point, I care not how; because, although I am
+far from supposing you feel it to be necessary in the same
+sense or to the same degree as I do, I am well aware that
+no man knows Samoa but must see its huge advantages.
+Excuse this long and tedious lecture, which I see I have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177"></a>177</span>
+to mark private and confidential, or I might get into deep
+water, and believe me, yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The maps herein bespoken do not adorn the ordinary editions of
+<i>Catriona</i>, only the Edinburgh edition, for which they were executed
+by Messrs. Bartholomew in a manner that would have rejoiced the
+writer&rsquo;s heart.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>April 28, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;I have just written the dedication
+of <i>David Balfour</i> to you, and haste to put a job in
+your hands. This is a map of the environs of Edinburgh
+<i>circa</i> 1750. It must contain Hope Park, Hunter&rsquo;s Bog,
+Calton Hill, the Mouter Hill, Lang Dykes, Nor&rsquo; Loch,
+West Kirk, Village of Dean, pass down the water to
+Stockbridge, Silver Mills, the two mill lakes there, with
+a wood on the south side of the south one which I saw
+marked on a plan in the British Museum, Broughton,
+Picardy, Leith Walk, Leith, Pilrig, Lochend, Figgate
+Whins. And I would like a piece in a corner, giving for
+the same period Figgate Whins, Musselburgh, Inveresk,
+Prestonpans, battlefield of Gladsmuir, Cockenzie, Gullane&mdash;which
+I spell Gillane&mdash;Fidra, Dirleton, North Berwick
+Law, Whitekirk, Tantallon Castle and Castleton, Scougal
+and Auldhame, the Bass, the Glenteithy rocks, Satan&rsquo;s
+Bush, Wildfire rocks, and, if possible, the May. If need
+were, I would not stick at two maps. If there is but
+one, say, <i>Plan to illustrate David Balfour&rsquo;s adventures in
+the Lothians</i>. If two, call the first <i>Plan to illustrate David
+Balfour&rsquo;s adventures about the city of Edinburgh</i>, and the
+second, <i>Plan to illustrate David Balfour&rsquo;s adventures in
+East Lothian</i>. I suppose there must be a map-maker
+of some taste in Edinburgh; I wish few other names in,
+but what I have given, as far as possible. As soon as
+may be I will let you have the text, when you might
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page178"></a>178</span>
+even find some amusement in seeing that the maps fill
+the bill. If your map-maker be a poor creature, plainness
+is best; if he were a fellow of some genuine go, he
+might give it a little of the bird&rsquo;s-eye quality. I leave
+this to your good taste. If I have time I will copy the
+dedication to go herewith; I am pleased with it. The
+first map (suppose we take two) would go in at the beginning,
+the second at Chapter <span class="sc">XI.</span> The topography is very
+much worked into the story, and I have alluded in the
+dedication to our common fancy for exploring Auld Reekie.</p>
+
+<p>The list of books came duly, for which many thanks.
+I am plunged to the nostrils in various business.&mdash;Yours
+ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>May 1st, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;As I rode down last night about
+six, I saw a sight I must try to tell you of. In front of
+me, right over the top of the forest into which I was
+descending, was a vast cloud. The front of it accurately
+represented the somewhat rugged, long-nosed, and beetle-browed
+profile of a man, crowned by a huge Kalmuck cap;
+the flesh part was of a heavenly pink, the cap, the moustache,
+the eyebrows were of a bluish grey; to see this
+with its childish exactitude of design and colour, and
+hugeness of scale&mdash;it covered at least 25°&mdash;held me spell-bound.
+As I continued to gaze, the expression began to
+change; he had the exact air of closing one eye, dropping
+his jaw, and drawing down his nose; had the thing not
+been so imposing, I could have smiled; and then almost
+in a moment, a shoulder of leaden-coloured bank drove
+in front and blotted it. My attention spread to the rest
+of the cloud, and it was a thing to worship. It rose from
+the horizon, and its top was within thirty degrees of the
+zenith; the lower parts were like a glacier in shadow,
+varying from dark indigo to a clouded white in exquisite
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page179"></a>179</span>
+gradations. The sky behind, so far as I could see, was
+all of a blue already enriched and darkened by the night,
+for the hill had what lingered of the sunset. But the
+top of my Titanic cloud flamed in broad sunlight, with
+the most excellent softness and brightness of fire and
+jewels, enlightening all the world. It must have been
+far higher than Mount Everest, and its glory, as I gazed
+up at it out of the night, was beyond wonder. Close by
+rode the little crescent moon; and right over its western
+horn, a great planet of about equal lustre with itself.
+The dark woods below were shrill with that noisy business
+of the birds&rsquo; evening worship. When I returned,
+after eight, the moon was near down; she seemed little
+brighter than before, but now that the cloud no longer
+played its part of a nocturnal sun, we could see that sight,
+so rare with us at home that it was counted a portent,
+so customary in the tropics, of the dark sphere with its
+little gilt band upon the belly. The planet had been
+setting faster, and was now below the crescent. They
+were still of an equal brightness.</p>
+
+<p>I could not resist trying to reproduce this in words,
+as a specimen of these incredibly beautiful and imposing
+meteors of the tropic sky that make so much of my pleasure
+here; though a ship&rsquo;s deck is the place to enjoy
+them. O what <i>awful</i> scenery, from a ship&rsquo;s deck, in the
+tropics! People talk about the Alps, but the clouds of
+the trade wind are alone for sublimity.</p>
+
+<p>Now to try and tell you what has been happening.
+The state of these islands, and of Mataafa and Laupepa
+(Malietoas <i>ambo</i>), had been much on my mind. I went
+to the priests and sent a message to Mataafa, at a time
+when it was supposed he was about to act. He did not
+act, delaying in true native style, and I determined I
+should go to visit him. I have been very good not to go
+sooner; to live within a few miles of a rebel camp, to
+be a novelist, to have all my family forcing me to go,
+and to refrain all these months, counts for virtue. But
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180"></a>180</span>
+hearing that several people had gone and the government
+done nothing to punish them, and having an errand
+there which was enough to justify myself in my own
+eyes, I half determined to go, and spoke of it with the
+half-caste priest. And here (confound it) up came Laupepa
+and his guards to call on me; we kept him to lunch, and
+the old gentleman was very good and amiable. He asked
+me why I had not been to see him? I reminded him a
+law had been made, and told him I was not a small boy
+to go and ask leave of the consuls, and perhaps be refused.
+He told me to pay no attention to the law but come when
+I would, and begged me to name a day to lunch. The
+next day (I think it was) early in the morning, a man
+appeared; he had metal buttons like a policeman&mdash;but
+he was none of our Apia force; he was a rebel policeman,
+and had been all night coming round inland through the
+forest from Malie. He brought a letter addressed</p>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="70%" summary="Contents"><tr><td>
+<p><i>I lana susuga</i></p>
+<p style="padding-left: 1em;"><i>Misi Mea</i>.</p></td>
+
+<td><p>To his Excellency</p>
+<p style="padding-left: 4em;">Mr. Thingumbob.</p></td></tr></table>
+
+<p>(So as not to compromise me.) I can read Samoan now,
+though not speak it. It was to ask me for last Wednesday.
+My difficulty was great; I had no man here who was fit,
+or who would have cared, to write for me; and I had
+to postpone the visit. So I gave up half-a-day with a
+groan, went down to the priests, arranged for Monday
+week to go to Malie, and named Thursday as my day to
+lunch with Laupepa. I was sharply ill on Wednesday,
+mail day. But on Thursday I had to trail down and go
+through the dreary business of a feast, in the King&rsquo;s
+wretched shanty, full in view of the President&rsquo;s fine new
+house; it made my heart burn.</p>
+
+<p>This gave me my chance to arrange a private interview
+with the king, and I decided to ask Mr. Whitmee to
+be my interpreter. On Friday, being too much exhausted
+to go down, I begged him to come up. He did. I told
+him the heads of what I meant to say; and he not only
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181"></a>181</span>
+consented, but said, if we got on well with the king, he
+would even proceed with me to Malie. Yesterday, in
+consequence, I rode down to W.&rsquo;s house by eight in the
+morning; waited till ten; received a message that the
+king was stopped by a meeting with the president and
+<i>faipule</i>; made another engagement for seven at night;
+came up; went down; waited till eight, and came away
+again, <i>bredouille</i>, and a dead body. The poor, weak,
+enslaved king had not dared to come to me even in secret.
+Now I have to-day for a rest, and to-morrow to Malie.
+Shall I be suffered to embark? It is very doubtful; they
+are on the trail. On Thursday, a policeman came up to
+me and began that a boy had been to see him, and said
+I was going to see Mataafa.&mdash;&ldquo;And what did you say?&rdquo;
+said I.&mdash;&ldquo;I told him I did not know about where you
+were going,&rdquo; said he.&mdash;&ldquo;A very good answer,&rdquo; said I,
+and turned away. It is lashing rain to-day, but to-morrow,
+rain or shine, I must at least make the attempt; and I
+am so weary, and the weather looks so bad. I could half
+wish they would arrest me on the beach. All this bother
+and pother to try and bring a little chance of peace; all
+this opposition and obstinacy in people who remain here
+by the mere forbearance of Mataafa, who has a great
+force within six miles of their government buildings,
+which are indeed only the residences of white officials.
+To understand how I have been occupied, you must know
+that &ldquo;Misi Mea&rdquo; has had another letter, and this time had
+to answer himself; think of doing so in a language so
+obscure to me, with the aid of a Bible, concordance, and
+dictionary! What a wonderful Baboo compilation it
+must have been! I positively expected to hear news of
+its arrival in Malie by the sound of laughter. I doubt if
+you will be able to read this scrawl, but I have managed
+to scramble somehow up to date; and to-morrow, one
+way or another, should be interesting. But as for me,
+I am a wreck, as I have no doubt style and handwriting
+both testify.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page182"></a>182</span></p>
+
+<p>8 <span class="scs">P.M.</span>&mdash;Wonderfully rested; feel almost fit for to-morrow&rsquo;s
+dreary excursion&mdash;not that it will be dreary if
+the weather favour, but otherwise it will be death; and
+a native feast, and I fear I am in for a big one, is a thing
+I loathe. I wonder if you can really conceive me as a
+politician in this extra-mundane sphere&mdash;presiding at
+public meetings, drafting proclamations, receiving mis-addressed
+letters that have been carried all night through
+tropical forests? It seems strange indeed, and to you,
+who know me really, must seem stranger. I do not say
+I am free from the itch of meddling, but God knows this
+is no tempting job to meddle in; I smile at picturesque
+circumstances like the Misi Mea (<i>Monsieur Chose</i> is the
+exact equivalent) correspondence, but the business as a
+whole bores and revolts me. I do nothing and say nothing;
+and then a day comes, and I say &ldquo;this can go
+on no longer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>9.30 <span class="sc">P.M.</span>&mdash;The wretched native dilatoriness finds me
+out. News has just come that we must embark at six
+to-morrow; I have divided the night in watches, and
+hope to be called to-morrow at four and get under way
+by five. It is a great chance if it be managed; but I
+have given directions and lent my own clock to the boys,
+and hope the best. If I get called at four we shall do it
+nicely. Good-night; I must turn in.</p>
+
+<p><i>May 3rd.</i>&mdash;Well, we did get off by about 5.30, or, by&rsquo;r
+lady! quarter to six; myself on Donald, the huge grey
+cart-horse, with a ship-bag across my saddle bow, Fanny
+on Musu and Belle on Jack. We were all feeling pretty
+tired and sick, and I looked like heaven knows what on
+the cart-horse: &ldquo;death on the pale horse,&rdquo; I suggested&mdash;and
+young Hunt the missionary, who met me to-day
+on the same charger, squinted up at my perch and remarked,
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft.&rdquo;
+The boat was ready and we set off down the lagoon about
+seven, four oars, and Talolo, my cook, steering.</p>
+
+<p><i>May 9th</i> (<i>Monday anyway</i>).&mdash;And see what good resolutions
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183"></a>183</span>
+came to! Here is all this time past, and no speed
+made. Well, we got to Malie and were received with the
+most friendly consideration by the rebel chief. Belle and
+Fanny were obviously thought to be my two wives; they
+were served their kava together, as were Mataafa and
+myself. Talolo utterly broke down as interpreter; long
+speeches were made to me by Mataafa and his orators, of
+which he could make nothing but they were &ldquo;very much
+surprised&rdquo;&mdash;his way of pronouncing obliged&mdash;and as he
+could understand nothing that fell from me except the
+same form of words, the dialogue languished and all
+business had to be laid aside. We had kava,<a name="FnAnchor_42" href="#Footnote_42"><span class="sp">42</span></a> and then
+a dish of arrowroot; one end of the house was screened
+off for us with a fine tapa, and we lay and slept, the three
+of us, heads and tails, upon the mats till dinner. After
+dinner his illegitimate majesty and myself had a walk, and
+talked as well as my twopenny Samoan would admit.
+Then there was a dance to amuse the ladies before the
+house, and we came back by moonlight, the sky piled
+full of high faint clouds that long preserved some of the
+radiance of the sunset. The lagoon was very shallow; we
+continually struck, for the moon was young and the light
+baffling; and for a long time we were accompanied by,
+and passed and repassed, a huge whale-boat from Savaii,
+pulling perhaps twelve oars, and containing perhaps forty
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page184"></a>184</span>
+people who sang in time as they went. So to the hotel,
+where we slept, and returned the next Tuesday morning
+on the three same steeds.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile my business was still untransacted. And
+on Saturday morning, I sent down and arranged with
+Charlie Taylor to go down that afternoon. I had scarce
+got the saddle-bags fixed and had not yet mounted, when
+the rain began. But it was no use delaying now; off I
+went in a wild waterspout to Apia; found Charlie (Salé)
+Taylor&mdash;a sesquipedalian young half-caste&mdash;not yet ready,
+had a snack of bread and cheese at the hotel while waiting
+him, and then off to Malie. It rained all the way, seven
+miles; the road, which begins in triumph, dwindles down
+to a nasty, boggy, rocky footpath with weeds up to a
+horseman&rsquo;s knees; and there are eight pig fences to jump,
+nasty beastly jumps&mdash;the next morning we found one all
+messed with blood where a horse had come to grief&mdash;but
+my Jack is a clever fencer; and altogether we made good
+time, and got to Malie about dark. It is a village of very
+fine native houses, high, domed, oval buildings, open at
+the sides, or only closed with slatted Venetians. To be
+sure, Mataafa&rsquo;s is not the worst. It was already quite
+dark within, only a little fire of cocoa-shell blazed in
+the midst and showed us four servants; the chief was
+in his chapel, whence we heard the sound of chaunting.
+Presently he returned; Taylor and I had our soaking
+clothes changed, family worship was held, kava brewed, I
+was exhibited to the chiefs as a man who had ridden
+through all that rain and risked deportation to serve their
+master; they were bidden learn my face, and remember
+upon all occasions to help and serve me. Then dinner,
+and politics, and fine speeches until twelve at night&mdash;O,
+and some more kava&mdash;when I could sit up no longer;
+my usual bed-time is eight, you must remember. Then
+one end of the house was screened off for me alone, and a
+bed made&mdash;you never saw such a couch&mdash;I believe of
+nearly fifty (half at least) fine mats, by Mataafa&rsquo;s daughter,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185"></a>185</span>
+Kalala. Here I reposed alone; and on the other side
+of the tapa, Majesty and his household. Armed guards
+and a drummer patrolled about the house all night; they
+had no shift, poor devils; but stood to arms from sun-down
+to sun-up.</p>
+
+<p>About four in the morning, I was awakened by the
+sound of a whistle pipe blown outside on the dark, very
+softly and to a pleasing simple air; I really think I have
+hit the first phrase:</p>
+
+<p class="center noind f80">Andante tranquillo</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter1" style="padding-top:0;">
+<img style="border:0; width:350px; height:74px"
+     src="images/img9.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noind">It sounded very peaceful, sweet and strange in the dark;
+and I found this was a part of the routine of my rebel&rsquo;s
+night, and it was done (he said) to give good dreams. By
+a little before six, Taylor and I were in the saddle again
+fasting. My riding boots were so wet I could not get
+them on, so I must ride barefoot. The morning was fair
+but the roads very muddy, the weeds soaked us nearly to
+the waist, Salé was twice spilt at the fences, and we got
+to Apia a bedraggled enough pair. All the way along the
+coast, the paté (small wooden drum) was beating in the
+villages and the people crowding to the churches in their
+fine clothes. Thence through the mangrove swamp,
+among the black mud and the green mangroves, and the
+black and scarlet crabs, to Mulinuu, to the doctor&rsquo;s, where
+I had an errand, and so to the inn to breakfast about nine.
+After breakfast I rode home. Conceive such an outing,
+remember the pallid brute that lived in Skerryvore like a
+weevil in a biscuit, and receive the intelligence that I was
+rather the better for my journey. Twenty miles&rsquo; ride,
+sixteen fences taken, ten of the miles in a drenching rain,
+seven of them fasting and in the morning chill, and six
+stricken hours&rsquo; political discussions by an interpreter; to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page186"></a>186</span>
+say nothing of sleeping in a native house, at which many
+of our excellent literati would look askance of itself.</p>
+
+<p>You are to understand: if I take all this bother, it is
+not only from a sense of duty, or a love of meddling&mdash;damn
+the phrase, take your choice&mdash;but from a great
+affection for Mataafa. He is a beautiful, sweet old fellow,
+and he and I grew quite fulsome on Saturday night about
+our sentiments. I had a messenger from him to-day
+with a flannel undershirt which I had left behind like a
+gibbering idiot; and perpetrated in reply another Baboo
+letter. It rains again to-day without mercy; blessed,
+welcome rains, making up for the paucity of the late wet
+season; and when the showers slacken, I can hear my
+stream roaring in the hollow, and tell myself that the
+cacaos are drinking deep. I am desperately hunted to
+finish my Samoa book before the mail goes; this last chapter
+is equally delicate and necessary. The prayers of the
+congregation are requested. Eheu! and it will be ended
+before this letter leaves and printed in the States ere
+you can read this scribble. The first dinner gong has
+sounded; <i>je vous salue, monsieur et cher confrčre. Tofa,
+soifua!</i> Sleep! long life! as our Samoan salutation of
+farewell runs.</p>
+
+<p><i>Friday, May</i> 13<i>th.</i>&mdash;Well, the last chapter, by far the
+most difficult and ungrateful, is well under way, I have
+been from six to seven hours upon it daily since I last
+wrote; and that is all I have done forbye working at
+Samoan rather hard, and going down on Wednesday
+evening to the club. I make some progress now at the
+language; I am teaching Belle, which clears and exercises
+myself. I am particularly taken with the <i>finesse</i> of the
+pronouns. The pronouns are all dual and plural, and the
+first person, both in the dual and plural, has a special
+exclusive and inclusive form. You can conceive what
+fine effects of precision and distinction can be reached
+in certain cases. Take Ruth, i. <i>vv.</i> 8 to 13, and imagine
+how those pronouns come in; it is exquisitely elegant,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187"></a>187</span>
+and makes the mouth of the <i>littérateur</i> to water. I am
+going to exercitate my pupil over those verses to-day
+for pronoun practice.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday.</i>&mdash;Yesterday came yours. Well, well, if the
+dears prefer a week, why, I&rsquo;ll give them ten days, but
+the real document, from which I have scarcely varied,
+ran for one night.<a name="FnAnchor_43" href="#Footnote_43"><span class="sp">43</span></a> I think you seem scarcely fair to
+Wiltshire, who had surely, under his beast-ignorant ways,
+right noble qualities. And I think perhaps you scarce
+do justice to the fact that this is a place of realism <i>ŕ
+outrance</i>; nothing extenuated or coloured. Looked at so,
+is it not, with all its tragic features, wonderfully idyllic,
+with great beauty of scene and circumstance? And will
+you please to observe that almost all that is ugly is in the
+whites? I&rsquo;ll apologise for Papa Randal if you like; but
+if I told you the whole truth&mdash;for I did extenuate there!&mdash;and
+he seemed to me essential as a figure, and essential
+as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire&rsquo;s disgust for him being
+one of the small, efficient motives in the story. Now it
+would have taken a fairish dose to disgust Wiltshire.&mdash;Again,
+the idea of publishing the <i>Beach</i> substantively is
+dropped&mdash;at once, both on account of expostulation, and
+because it measured shorter than I had expected. And
+it was only taken up, when the proposed volume, <i>Beach
+de Mar</i>, petered out. It petered out thus: the chief of
+the short stories got sucked into <i>Sophia Scarlet</i>&mdash;and
+<i>Sophia</i> is a book I am much taken with, and mean to
+get to, as soon as&mdash;but not before&mdash;I have done <i>David
+Balfour</i> and <i>The Young Chevalier</i>. So you see you are
+like to hear no more of the Pacific or the nineteenth century
+for a while. <i>The Young Chevalier</i> is a story of sentiment
+and passion, which I mean to write a little differently
+from what I have been doing&mdash;if I can hit the key; rather
+more of a sentimental tremolo to it. It may thus help
+to prepare me for <i>Sophia</i>, which is to contain three ladies,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188"></a>188</span>
+and a kind of a love affair between the heroine and a
+dying planter who is a poet! large orders for R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p>O the German taboo is quite over; no soul attempts
+to support the C. J. or the President, they are past hope;
+the whites have just refused their taxes&mdash;I mean the
+council has refused to call for them, and if the council
+consented, nobody would pay; &rsquo;tis a farce, and the curtain
+is going to fall briefly. Consequently in my History, I
+say as little as may be of the two dwindling stars. Poor
+devils! I liked the one, and the other has a little wife,
+now lying in! There was no man born with so little
+animosity as I. When I heard the C. J. was in low spirits
+and never left his house, I could scarce refrain from going
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine feeling to have finished the History;
+there ought to be a future state to reward that grind!
+It&rsquo;s not literature, you know; only journalism, and
+pedantic journalism. I had but the one desire, to get
+the thing as right as might be, and avoid false concords&mdash;even
+if that! And it was more than there was time
+for. However, there it is: done. And if Samoa turns
+up again, my book has to be counted with, being the only
+narrative extant. Milton and I&mdash;if you kindly excuse the
+juxtaposition&mdash;harnessed ourselves to strange waggons,
+and I at least will be found to have plodded very soberly
+with my load. There is not even a good sentence in it,
+but perhaps&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;it may be found an honest,
+clear volume.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday.</i>&mdash;Never got a word set down, and continues
+on Thursday, 19th May, his own marriage day as ever
+was. News; yes. The C. J. came up to call on us! After
+five months&rsquo; cessation on my side, and a decidedly painful
+interchange of letters, I could not go down&mdash;<i>could</i> not&mdash;to
+see him. My three ladies received him, however; he
+was very agreeable as usual, but refused wine, beer, water,
+lemonade, chocolate, and at last a cigarette. Then my
+wife asked him, &ldquo;So you refuse to break bread?&rdquo; and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page189"></a>189</span>
+he waved his hands amiably in answer. All my three
+ladies received the same impression that he had serious
+matters in his mind: now we hear he is quite cock-a-hoop
+since the mail came, and going about as before his troubles
+darkened. But what did he want with me? &rsquo;Tis thought
+he had received a despatch&mdash;and that he misreads it (so
+we fully believe) to the effect that they are to have war
+ships at command and can make their little war after
+all. If it be so, and they do it, it will be the meanest
+wanton slaughter of poor men for the salaries of two
+white failures. But what was his errand with me?
+Perhaps to warn me that unless I behave he now
+hopes to be able to pack me off in the <i>Curaçoa</i> when
+she comes.</p>
+
+<p>I have celebrated my holiday from <i>Samoa</i> by a plunge
+at the beginning of <i>The Young Chevalier</i>. I am afraid
+my touch is a little broad in a love story; I can&rsquo;t mean
+one thing and write another. As for women, I am no
+more in any fear of them; I can do a sort all right; age
+makes me less afraid of a petticoat, but I am a little in
+fear of grossness. However, this David Balfour&rsquo;s love
+affair, that&rsquo;s all right&mdash;might be read out to a mother&rsquo;s
+meeting&mdash;or a daughters&rsquo; meeting. The difficulty in a
+love yarn, which dwells at all on love, is the dwelling
+on one string; it is manifold, I grant, but the root fact
+is there unchanged, and the sentiment being very intense,
+and already very much handled in letters, positively calls
+for a little pawing and gracing. With a writer of my
+prosaic literalness and pertinency of point of view, this
+all shoves toward grossness&mdash;positively even toward the
+far more damnable <i>closeness</i>. This has kept me off the
+sentiment hitherto, and now I am to try: Lord! Of
+course Meredith can do it, and so could Shakespeare;
+but with all my romance, I am a realist and a prosaist,
+and a most fanatical lover of plain physical sensations
+plainly and expressly rendered; hence my perils. To do
+love in the same spirit as I did (for instance) D. Balfour&rsquo;s
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page190"></a>190</span>
+fatigue in the heather; my dear sir, there were grossness&mdash;ready
+made! And hence, how to sugar? However, I
+have nearly done with Marie-Madeleine, and am in good
+hopes of Marie-Salomé, the real heroine; the other is
+only a prologuial heroine to introduce the hero.</p>
+
+<p><i>Friday.</i>&mdash;Anyway, the first prologuial episode is done,
+and Fanny likes it. There are only four characters:
+Francis Blair of Balmile (Jacobite Lord Gladsmuir) my
+hero; the Master of Ballantrae; Paradou, a wine-seller
+of Avignon; Marie-Madeleine his wife. These two last I
+am now done with, and I think they are successful, and I
+hope I have Balmile on his feet; and the style seems to
+be found. It is a little charged and violent; sins on the
+side of violence; but I think will carry the tale. I think
+it is a good idea so to introduce my hero, being made
+love to by an episodic woman. This queer tale&mdash;I mean
+queer for me&mdash;has taken a great hold upon me. Where
+the devil shall I go next? This is simply the tale of a
+<i>coup de tęte</i> of a young man and a young woman; with
+a nearly, perhaps a wholly, tragic sequel, which I desire
+to make thinkable right through, and sensible; to
+make the reader, as far as I shall be able, eat and drink
+and breathe it. Marie-Salomé des Saintes-Maries is, I
+think, the heroine&rsquo;s name; she has got to <i>be</i> yet: <i>sursum
+corda</i>! So has the young Chevalier, whom I have not
+yet touched, and who comes next in order. Characters:
+Balmile, or Lord Gladsmuir, <i>comme vous voulez</i>; Prince
+Charlie; Earl Marischal; Master of Ballantrae; and a
+spy, and Dr. Archie Campbell, and a few nondescripts;
+then, of women, Marie-Salomé and Flora Blair; seven at
+the outside; really four full lengths, and I suppose a half-dozen
+episodic profiles. How I must bore you with these
+ineptitudes! Have patience. I am going to bed; it is
+(of all hours) eleven. I have been forced in (since I began
+to write to you) to blatter to Fanny on the subject of my
+heroine, there being two <i>cruces</i> as to her life and history:
+how came she alone? and how far did she go with the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page191"></a>191</span>
+Chevalier? The second must answer itself when I get
+near enough to see. The first is a back-breaker. Yet I
+know there are many reasons why a <i>fille de famille</i>, romantic,
+adventurous, ambitious, innocent of the world, might run
+from her home in these days; might she not have been
+threatened with a convent? might there not be some
+Huguenot business mixed in? Here am I, far from books;
+if you can help me with a suggestion, I shall say God bless
+you. She has to be new run away from a strict family,
+well-justified in her own wild but honest eyes, and meeting
+these three men, Charles Edward, Marischal, and Balmile,
+through the accident of a fire at an inn. She must not run
+from a marriage, I think; it would bring her in the wrong
+frame of mind. Once I can get her, <i>sola</i>, on the highway,
+all were well with my narrative. Perpend. And help if
+you can.</p>
+
+<p>Lafaele, long (I hope) familiar to you, has this day
+received the visit of his <i>son</i> from Tonga; and the <i>son</i>
+proves to be a very pretty, attractive young daughter!
+I gave all the boys kava in honour of her arrival; along
+with a lean, side-whiskered Tongan, dimly supposed to be
+Lafaele&rsquo;s step-father; and they have been having a good
+time; in the end of my verandah, I hear Simi, my present
+incapable steward, talking Tongan with the nondescript
+papa. Simi, our out-door boy, burst a succession of blood-vessels
+over our work, and I had to make a position for
+the wreck of one of the noblest figures of a man I ever saw.
+I believe I may have mentioned the other day how I had
+to put my horse to the trot, the canter and (at last) the
+gallop to run him down. In a photograph I hope to send
+you (perhaps with this) you will see Simi standing in the
+verandah in profile. As a steward, one of his chief points
+is to break crystal; he is great on fracture&mdash;what do I
+say?&mdash;explosion! He cleans a glass, and the shards
+scatter like a comet&rsquo;s bowels.</p>
+
+<p><i>N.B.</i>&mdash;If I should by any chance be deported, the first
+of the rules hung up for that occasion is to communicate
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page192"></a>192</span>
+with you by telegraph.&mdash;Mind, I do not fear it, but it <i>is</i>
+possible.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monday, 25th.</i>&mdash;We have had a devil of a morning of
+upset and bustle; the bronze candlestick Faauma has
+returned to the family, in time to take her position of
+step-mamma, and it is pretty to see how the child is at
+once at home, and all her terrors ended.</p>
+
+<p><i>27th. Mail day.</i>&mdash;And I don&rsquo;t know that I have
+much to report. I may have to leave for Malie as soon as
+these mail packets are made up. &rsquo;Tis a necessity (if it be
+one) I rather deplore. I think I should have liked to
+lazy; but I dare say all it means is the delay of a day
+or so in harking back to David Balfour; that respectable
+youth chides at being left (where he is now) in Glasgow
+with the Lord Advocate, and after five years in the British
+Linen, who shall blame him? I was all forenoon yesterday
+down in Apia, dictating, and Lloyd typewriting, the conclusion
+of <i>Samoa</i>; and then at home correcting till the
+dinner bell; and in the evening again till eleven of the
+clock. This morning I have made up most of my packets,
+and I think my mail is all ready but two more, and the
+tag of this. I would never deny (as D. B. might say) that
+I was rather tired of it. But I have a damned good dose
+of the devil in my pipe-stem atomy; I have had my little
+holiday outing in my kick at <i>The Young Chevalier</i>, and I
+guess I can settle to <i>David Balfour</i> to-morrow or Friday
+like a little man. I wonder if any one had ever more
+energy upon so little strength?&mdash;I know there is a frost;
+the Samoa book can only increase that&mdash;I can&rsquo;t help it,
+that book is not written for me but for Miss Manners;
+but I mean to break that frost inside two years, and pull
+off a big success, and Vanity whispers in my ear that I
+have the strength. If I haven&rsquo;t, whistle ower the lave
+o&rsquo;t! I can do without glory and perhaps the time is not
+far off when I can do without coin. It is a time coming
+soon enough, anyway; and I have endured some two and
+forty years without public shame, and had a good time
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page193"></a>193</span>
+as I did it. If only I could secure a violent death, what
+a fine success! I wish to die in my boots; no more Land
+of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be shot, to
+be thrown from a horse&mdash;ay, to be hanged, rather than
+pass again through that slow dissolution.</p>
+
+<p>I fancy this gloomy ramble is caused by a twinge of
+age; I put on an under-shirt yesterday (it was the only
+one I could find) that barely came under my trousers;
+and just below it, a fine healthy rheumatism has now
+settled like a fire in my hip. From such small causes do
+these valuable considerations flow!</p>
+
+<p>I shall now say adieu, dear Sir, having ten rugged
+miles before me and the horrors of a native feast and
+parliament without an interpreter, for to-day I go alone.&mdash;Yours
+ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Describing a family expedition to visit Mataafa at Malie.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Sunday, 29th May</i> [<i>1892</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">How</span> am I to overtake events? On Wednesday, as
+soon as my mail was finished, I had a wild whirl to look
+forward to. Immediately after dinner, Belle, Lloyd, and
+I set out on horseback, they to the club, I to Haggard&rsquo;s,
+thence to the hotel, where I had supper ready for them.
+All next day we hung round Apia with our whole house-crowd
+in Sunday array, hoping for the mail steamer with
+a menagerie on board. No such luck; the ship delayed;
+and at last, about three, I had to send them home again,
+a failure of a day&rsquo;s pleasuring that does not bear to be
+discussed. Lloyd was so sickened that he returned the
+same night to Vailima, Belle and I held on, sat most of
+the evening on the hotel verandah stricken silly with
+fatigue and disappointment, and genuine sorrow for our
+poor boys and girls, and got to bed with rather dismal
+appreciations of the morrow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page194"></a>194</span></p>
+
+<p>These were more than justified, and yet I never had a
+jollier day than Friday 27th. By 7.30 Belle and I had
+breakfast; we had scarce done before my mother was at
+the door on horseback, and a boy at her heels to take her
+not very dashing charger home again. By 8.10 we were
+all on the landing pier, and it was 9.20 before we had got
+away in a boat with two inches of green wood on the keel
+of her, no rudder, no mast, no sail, no boat flag, two defective
+rowlocks, two wretched apologies for oars, and two
+boys&mdash;one a Tongan half-caste, one a white lad, son of
+the Tonga schoolmaster, and a sailor lad&mdash;to pull us.
+All this was our first taste of the tender mercies of Taylor
+(the sesquipedalian half-caste introduced two letters back,
+I believe). We had scarce got round Mulinuu when Salé
+Taylor&rsquo;s heart misgave him; he thought we had missed
+the tide; called a halt, and set off ashore to find canoes.
+Two were found; in one my mother and I were embarked
+with the two biscuit tins (my present to the feast), and
+the bag with our dry clothes, on which my mother was
+perched&mdash;and her cap was on the top of it&mdash;feminine hearts
+please sympathise; all under the guidance of Salé. In
+the other Belle and our guest; Tauilo, a chief-woman, the
+mother of my cook, were to have followed. And the boys
+were to have been left with the boat. But Tauilo refused.
+And the four, Belle, Tauilo, Frank the sailor-boy, and
+Jimmie the Tongan half-caste, set off in the boat across
+that rapidly shoaling bay of the lagoon.</p>
+
+<p>How long the next scene lasted, I could never tell.
+Salé was always trying to steal away with our canoe and
+leave the other four, probably for six hours, in an empty,
+leaky boat, without so much as an orange or a cocoanut
+on board, and under the direct rays of the sun. I had at
+last to stop him by taking the spare paddle off the outrigger
+and sticking it in the ground&mdash;depth, perhaps two
+feet&mdash;width of the bay, say three miles. At last I bid him
+land me and my mother and go back for the other ladies.
+&ldquo;The coast is so rugged,&rdquo; said Salé.&mdash;&ldquo;What?&rdquo; I said,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195"></a>195</span>
+&ldquo;all these villages and no landing-place?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Such is
+the nature of Samoans,&rdquo; said he. Well, I&rsquo;ll find a landing-place,
+I thought; and presently I said, &ldquo;Now we are
+going to land there.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;We can but try,&rdquo; said the bland
+Salé, with resignation. Never saw a better landing-place
+in my life. Here the boat joined us. My mother and
+Salé continued in the canoe alone, and Belle and I and
+Tauilo set off on foot for Malie. Tauilo was about the
+size of both of us put together and a piece over; she
+used us like a nurse with children. I had started barefoot;
+Belle had soon to pull off her gala shoes and stockings;
+the mud was as deep as to our knees, and so slippery that
+(moving, as we did, in Indian file, between dense scratching
+tufts of sensitive) Belle and I had to take hands to support
+each other, and Tauilo was steadying Belle from the
+rear. You can conceive we were got up to kill, Belle in
+an embroidered white dress and white hat, I in a suit of
+Bedford cords hot from the Sydney tailors; and conceive
+us, below, ink-black to the knees with adhesive clay, and
+above, streaming with heat. I suppose it was better than
+three miles, but at last we made the end of Malie. I asked
+if we could find no water to wash our feet; and our nursemaid
+guided us to a pool. We sat down on the pool side,
+and our nursemaid washed our feet and legs for us&mdash;ladies
+first, I suppose out of a sudden respect to the insane
+European fancies: such a luxury as you can scarce imagine.
+I felt a new man after it. But before we got to the King&rsquo;s
+house we were sadly muddied once more. It was 1 <span class="sc">p.m</span>.
+when we arrived, the canoe having beaten us by about
+five minutes, so we made fair time over our bog-holes.</p>
+
+<p>But the war dances were over, and we came in time
+to see only the tail end (some two hours) of the food presentation.
+In Mataafa&rsquo;s house three chairs were set for
+us covered with fine mats. Of course, a native house
+without the blinds down is like a verandah. All the green
+in front was surrounded with sheds, some of flapping
+canvas, some of green palm boughs, where (in three sides
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196"></a>196</span>
+of a huge oblong) the natives sat by villages in a fine glow
+of many-hued array. There were folks in tapa, and folks
+in patchwork; there was every colour of the rainbow in
+a spot or a cluster; there were men with their heads
+gilded with powdered sandal-wood, others with heads all
+purple, stuck full of the petals of a flower. In the midst
+there was a growing field of outspread food, gradually
+covering acres; the gifts were brought in, now by
+chanting deputations, now by carriers in a file; they were
+brandished aloft and reclaimed over, with polite sacramental
+exaggerations, by the official receiver. He, a
+stalwart, well-oiled quadragenarian, shone with sweat from
+his exertions, brandishing cooked pigs. At intervals, from
+one of the squatted villages, an orator would arise. The
+field was almost beyond the reach of any human speaking
+voice; the proceedings besides continued in the midst;
+yet it was possible to catch snatches of this elaborate and
+cut-and-dry oratory&mdash;it was possible for me, for instance,
+to catch the description of my gift and myself as the <i>alii
+Tusitala, O le alii o malo tetele</i>&mdash;the chief Write Information,
+the chief of the great Governments. Gay designation?
+In the house, in our three curule chairs, we sat and looked
+on. On our left a little group of the family. In front
+of us, at our feet, an ancient Talking-man, crowned with
+green leaves, his profile almost exactly Dante&rsquo;s; Popo his
+name. He had worshipped idols in his youth; he had
+been full grown before the first missionary came hither
+from Tahiti; this makes him over eighty. Near by him
+sat his son and colleague. In the group on our left, his
+little grandchild sat with her legs crossed and her hands
+turned, the model already (at some three years old) of
+Samoan etiquette. Still further off to our right, Mataafa
+sat on the ground through all the business; and still I saw
+his lips moving, and the beads of his rosary slip stealthily
+through his hand. We had kava, and the King&rsquo;s drinking
+was hailed by the Popos (father and son) with a singular
+ululation, perfectly new to my ears; it means, to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page197"></a>197</span>
+expert, &ldquo;Long live Tuiatua&rdquo;; to the inexpert, is a mere
+voice of barbarous wolves. We had dinner, retired a bit
+behind the central pillar of the house; and, when the
+King was done eating, the ululation was repeated. I had
+my eyes on Mataafa&rsquo;s face, and I saw pride and gratified
+ambition spring to life there and be instantly sucked in
+again. It was the first time, since the difference with
+Laupepa, that Popo and his son had openly joined him,
+and given him the due cry as Tuiatua&mdash;one of the eight
+royal names of the islands, as I hope you will know before
+this reaches you.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after we had dined, the food-bringing was
+over. The gifts (carefully noted and tallied as they came
+in) were now announced by a humorous orator, who convulsed
+the audience, introducing singing notes, now on the
+name of the article, now on the number; six thousand
+odd heads of taro, three hundred and nineteen cooked
+pigs; and one thing that particularly caught me (by
+good luck), a single turtle &ldquo;for the king&rdquo;&mdash;<i>le tasi mo le
+tupu</i>. Then came one of the strangest sights I have yet
+witnessed. The two most important persons there (bar
+Mataafa) were Popo and his son. They rose, holding their
+long shod rods of talking men, passed forth from the house,
+broke into a strange dance, the father capering with outstretched
+arms and rod, the son crouching and gambolling
+beside him in a manner indescribable, and presently began
+to extend the circle of this dance among the acres of cooked
+food. <i>Whatever they leaped over, whatever they called for,
+became theirs.</i> To see medićval Dante thus demean himself
+struck a kind of a chill of incongruity into our Philistine
+souls; but even in a great part of the Samoan concourse,
+these antique and (I understand) quite local manners
+awoke laughter. One of my biscuit tins and a live calf
+were among the spoils he claimed, but the large majority
+of the cooked food (having once proved his dignity) he
+re-presented to the king.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the turn of <i>le alii Tusitala</i>. He would not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page198"></a>198</span>
+dance, but he was given&mdash;five live hens, four gourds of
+oil, four fine tapas, a hundred heads of taro, two cooked
+pigs, a cooked shark, two or three cocoanut branches
+strung with kava, and the turtle, who soon after breathed
+his last, I believe, from sunstroke. It was a royal present
+for &ldquo;the chief of the great powers.&rdquo; I should say the
+gifts were, on the proper signal, dragged out of the field
+of food by a troop of young men, all with their lava-lavas
+kilted almost into a loin-cloth. The art is to swoop on
+the food-field, pick up with unerring swiftness the right
+things and quantities, swoop forth again on the open, and
+separate, leaving the gifts in a new pile: so you may see
+a covey of birds in a corn-field. This reminds me of a very
+inhumane but beautiful passage I had forgotten in its
+place. The gift-giving was still in full swing, when there
+came a troop of some ninety men all in tapa lava-lavas
+of a purplish colour; they paused, and of a sudden there
+went up from them high into the air a flight of live chickens,
+which, as they came down again, were sent again into the
+air, for perhaps a minute, from the midst of a singular
+turmoil of flying arms and shouting voices; I assure you,
+it was very beautiful to see, but how many chickens were
+killed?</p>
+
+<p>No sooner was my food set out than I was to be going.
+I had a little serious talk with Mataafa on the floor, and
+we went down to the boat, where we got our food aboard,
+such a cargo&mdash;like the Swiss Family Robinson, we said.
+However, a squall began, Tauilo refused to let us go, and
+we came back to the house for half an hour or so, when
+my ladies distinguished themselves by walking through a
+Fono (council), my mother actually taking up a position
+between Mataafa and Popo! It was about five when we
+started&mdash;turtle, pigs, taro, etc., my mother, Belle, myself,
+Tauilo, a portly friend of hers with the voice of an angel,
+and a pronunciation so delicate and true that you could
+follow Samoan as she sang, and the two tired boys Frank
+and Jimmie, with the two bad oars and the two slippery
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page199"></a>199</span>
+rowlocks to impel the whole. Salé Taylor took the canoe
+and a strong Samoan to paddle him. Presently after he
+went inshore, and passed us a little after, with his arms
+folded, and <i>two</i> strong Samoans impelling him Apia-ward.
+This was too much for Belle, who hailed, taunted him, and
+made him return to the boat with one of the Samoans,
+setting Jimmie instead in the canoe. Then began our
+torment, Salé and the Samoan took the oars, sat on the
+same thwart (where they could get no swing on the boat
+had they tried), and deliberately ladled at the lagoon. We
+lay enchanted. Night fell; there was a light visible on
+shore; it did not move. The two women sang, Belle
+joining them in the hymns she has learned at family
+worship. Then a squall came up; we sat a while in roaring
+midnight under rivers of rain, and, when it blew by,
+there was the light again, immovable. A second squall
+followed, one of the worst I was ever out in; we could
+scarce catch our breath in the cold, dashing deluge. When
+it went, we were so cold that the water in the bottom of
+the boat (which I was then baling) seemed like a warm
+footbath in comparison, and Belle and I, who were still
+barefoot, were quite restored by laving in it.</p>
+
+<p>All this time I had kept my temper, and refrained as
+far as might be from any interference, for I saw (in our
+friend&rsquo;s mulish humour) he always contrived to twist it
+to our disadvantage. But now came the acute point.
+Young Frank now took an oar. He was a little fellow,
+near as frail as myself, and very short; if he weighed nine
+stone, it was the outside; but his blood was up. He
+took stroke, moved the big Samoan forward to bow, and
+set to work to pull him round in fine style. Instantly, a
+kind of race competition&mdash;almost race hatred&mdash;sprang up.
+We jeered the Samoan. Salé declared it was the trim of
+the boat; &ldquo;if this lady was aft&rdquo; (Tauilo&rsquo;s portly friend)
+&ldquo;he would row round Frank.&rdquo; We insisted on her coming
+aft, and Frank still rowed round the Samoan. When the
+Samoan caught a crab (the thing was continual with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page200"></a>200</span>
+these wretched oars and rowlocks), <i>we</i> shouted and jeered;
+when Frank caught one, Salé and the Samoan jeered and
+yelled. But anyway the boat moved, and presently we
+got up with Mulinuu, where I finally lost my temper,
+when I found that Salé proposed to go ashore and make
+a visit&mdash;in fact, we all three did. It is not worth while
+going into, but I must give you one snatch of the subsequent
+conversation as we pulled round Apia bay. &ldquo;This
+Samoan,&rdquo; said Salé, &ldquo;received seven German bullets in
+the field of Fangalii.&rdquo; &ldquo;I am delighted to hear it,&rdquo; said
+Belle. &ldquo;His brother was killed there,&rdquo; pursued Salé;
+and Belle, prompt as an echo, &ldquo;Then there are no more
+of the family? how delightful!&rdquo; Salé was sufficiently
+surprised to change the subject; he began to praise Frank&rsquo;s
+rowing with insufferable condescension: &ldquo;But it is after
+all not to be wondered at,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;because he has been
+for some time a sailor. My good man, is it three or five
+years that you have been to sea?&rdquo; And Frank, in a
+defiant shout: &ldquo;Two!&rdquo; Whereupon, so high did the ill-feeling
+run, that we three clapped and applauded and
+shouted, so that the President (whose house we were then
+passing) doubtless started at the sounds. It was nine when
+we got to the hotel; at first no food was to be found, but
+we skirmished up some bread and cheese and beer and
+brandy; and (having changed our wet clothes for the
+rather less wet in our bags) supped on the verandah.</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday, 28th, I was wakened about 6.30, long
+past my usual hour, by a benevolent passer-by. My
+turtle lay on the verandah at my door, and the man woke
+me to tell me it was dead, as it had been when we put
+it on board the day before. All morning I ran the gauntlet
+of men and women coming up to me: &ldquo;Mr. Stevenson,
+your turtle is dead.&rdquo; I gave half of it to the hotel keeper,
+so that his cook should cut it up; and we got a damaged
+shell, and two splendid meals, beefsteak one day and soup
+the next. The horses came for us about 9.30. It was
+waterspouting; we were drenched before we got out of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page201"></a>201</span>
+the town; the road was a fine going Highland trout
+stream; it thundered deep and frequent, and my mother&rsquo;s
+horse would not better on a walk. At last she took pity
+on us, and very nobly proposed that Belle and I should
+ride ahead. We were mighty glad to do so, for we were
+cold. Presently, I said I should ride back for my mother,
+but it thundered again; Belle is afraid of thunder, and I
+decided to see her through the forest before I returned
+for my other hen&mdash;I may say, my other wet hen. About
+the middle of the wood, where it is roughest and steepest,
+we met three pack-horses with barrels of lime-juice. I
+piloted Belle past these&mdash;it is not very easy in such a road&mdash;and
+then passed them again myself, to pilot my mother.
+This effected, it began to thunder again, so I rode on hard
+after Belle. When I caught up with her, she was singing
+Samoan hymns to support her terrors! We were all back,
+changed, and at table by lunch time, 11 <span class="scs">A.M.</span> Nor have
+any of us been the worse for it sin-syne. That is pretty
+good for a woman of my mother&rsquo;s age and an invalid of
+my standing; above all, as Tauilo was laid up with a
+bad cold, probably increased by rage.</p>
+
+<p><i>Friday, 3rd June.</i>&mdash;On Wednesday the club could not
+be held, and I must ride down town and to and fro all
+afternoon delivering messages, then dined and rode up by
+the young moon. I had plenty news when I got back;
+there is great talk in town of my deportation: it is thought
+they have written home to Downing Street requesting
+my removal, which leaves me not much alarmed; what
+I do rather expect is that H. J. Moors and I may be haled
+up before the C. J. to stand a trial for <i>lčse</i>-majesty. Well,
+we&rsquo;ll try and live it through.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of my history since Monday has been unadulterated
+<i>David Balfour</i>. In season and out of season,
+night and day, David and his innocent harem&mdash;let me be
+just, he never has more than the two&mdash;are on my mind.
+Think of David Balfour with a pair of fair ladies&mdash;very
+nice ones too&mdash;hanging round him. I really believe David
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page202"></a>202</span>
+is as good a character as anybody has a right to ask for
+in a novel. I have finished drafting Chapter <span class="scs">XX.</span> to-day,
+and feel it all ready to froth when the spigot is turned.</p>
+
+<p>O, I forgot&mdash;and do forget. What did I mean? A
+waft of cloud has fallen on my mind, and I will write no
+more.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday, I believe, 8th June.</i>&mdash;Lots of David, and
+lots of David, and the devil any other news. Yesterday
+we were startled by great guns firing a salute, and to-day
+Whitmee (missionary) rode up to lunch, and we learned
+it was the <i>Curaçoa</i> come in, the ship (according to rumour)
+in which I was to be deported. I went down to meet my
+fate, and the captain is to dine with me Saturday, so I
+guess I am not going this voyage. Even with the particularity
+with which I write to you, how much of my life
+goes unexpressed; my troubles with a madman by the
+name of &mdash;&mdash;, a genuine living lunatic, I believe, and jolly
+dangerous; my troubles about poor &mdash;&mdash;, all these have
+dropped out; yet for moments they were very instant,
+and one of them is always present with me.</p>
+
+<p>I have finished copying Chapter <span class="scs">XXI.</span> of David&mdash;&ldquo;<i>solus
+cum sola</i>; we travel together.&rdquo; Chapter <span class="scs">XXII.</span>, &ldquo;<i>Solus
+cum sola</i>; we keep house together,&rdquo; is already drafted.
+To the end of <span class="scs">XXI.</span> makes more than 150 pages of my
+manuscript&mdash;damn this hair&mdash;and I only designed the book
+to run to about 200; but when you introduce the female
+sect, a book does run away with you. I am very curious
+to see what you will think of my two girls. My own
+opinion is quite clear; I am in love with both. I foresee
+a few pleasant years of spiritual flirtations. The creator
+(if I may name myself, for the sake of argument, by such
+a name) is essentially unfaithful. For the duration of the
+two chapters in which I dealt with Miss Grant, I totally
+forgot my heroine, and even&mdash;but this is a flat secret&mdash;tried
+to win away David. I think I must try some day to marry
+Miss Grant. I&rsquo;m blest if I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve got that hair
+out! which seems triumph enough; so I conclude.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page203"></a>203</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday.</i>&mdash;Your infinitesimal correspondence has
+reached me, and I have the honour to refer to it with
+scorn. It contains only one statement of conceivable
+interest, that your health is better; the rest is null, and
+so far as disquisitory unsound. I am all right, but David
+Balfour is ailing; this came from my visit to the man-of-war,
+where I had a cup of tea, and the most of that night
+walked the verandah with extraordinary convictions of
+guilt and ruin, many of which (but not all) proved to have
+fled with the day, taking David along with them; he
+R.I.P. in Chapter <span class="scs">XXII</span>.</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday I went down to the town, and fetched up
+Captain Gibson to dinner; Sunday I was all day at Samoa,
+and had a pile of visitors. Yesterday got my mail, including
+your despicable sheet; was fooled with a visit
+from the high chief Asi, went down at 4 <span class="scs">P.M</span>. to my Samoan
+lesson from Whitmee&mdash;I think I shall learn from him, he does
+not fool me with cockshot rules that are demolished next
+day, but professes ignorance like a man; the truth is,
+the grammar has still to be expiscated&mdash;dined with Haggard,
+and got home about nine.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday.</i>&mdash;The excellent Clarke up here almost all
+day yesterday, a man I esteem and like to the soles of his
+boots; I prefer him to any one in Samoa, and to most
+people in the world; a real good missionary, with the
+inestimable advantage of having grown up a layman.
+Pity they all can&rsquo;t get that! It recalls my old proposal,
+which delighted Lady Taylor so much, that every divinity
+student should be thirty years old at least before he was
+admitted. Boys switched out of college into a pulpit,
+what chance have they? That any should do well amazes
+me, and the most are just what was to be expected.</p>
+
+<p><i>Saturday.</i>&mdash;I must tell you of our feast. It was long
+promised to the boys, and came off yesterday in one of
+their new houses. My good Simelé arrived from Savaii
+that morning asking for political advice; then we had
+Tauilo; Elena&rsquo;s father, a talking man of Tauilo&rsquo;s family;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page204"></a>204</span>
+Talolo&rsquo;s cousin; and a boy of Simelé&rsquo;s family, who attended
+on his dignity; then Metu, the meat-man&mdash;you have
+never heard of him, but he is a great person in our household&mdash;brought
+a lady and a boy&mdash;and there was another
+infant&mdash;eight guests in all. And we sat down thirty strong.
+You should have seen our procession, going (about two
+o&rsquo;clock), all in our best clothes, to the hall of feasting!
+All in our Sunday&rsquo;s best. The new house had been
+hurriedly finished; the rafters decorated with flowers;
+the floor spread, native style, with green leaves; we had
+given a big porker, twenty-five pounds of fresh beef, a
+tin of biscuit, cocoanuts, etc. Our places were all arranged
+with much care; the native ladies of the house facing
+our party; the sides filled up by the men; the guests,
+please observe: the two chief people, male and female,
+were placed with our family, the rest between S. and the
+native ladies. After the feast was over, we had kava, and
+the calling of the kava was a very elaborate affair, and I
+thought had like to have made Simelé very angry; he is
+really a considerable chief, but he and Tauilo were not
+called till after all our family, <i>and the guests</i>, I suppose
+the principle being that he was still regarded as one of
+the household. I forgot to say that our black boy did
+not turn up when the feast was ready. Off went the two
+cooks, found him, decorated him with huge red hibiscus
+flowers&mdash;he was in a very dirty undershirt&mdash;brought him
+back between them like a reluctant maid, and thrust him
+into a place between Faauma and Elena, where he was
+petted and ministered to. When his turn came in the
+kava drinking&mdash;and you may be sure, in their contemptuous,
+affectionate kindness for him, as for a good dog, it came
+rather earlier than it ought&mdash;he was cried under a new
+name. <i>Aleki</i> is what they make of his own name Arrick;
+but instead of <span style="font-size: 2em;">{</span>the cup of &ldquo;le ipu a<span style="font-size: 2em;">}</span> Aleki!&rdquo; it was called &ldquo;le ipu
+a <i>Vailima</i>,&rdquo; and it was explained that he had &ldquo;taken
+his chief-name&rdquo;! a jest at which the plantation still
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page205"></a>205</span>
+laughs. Kava done, I made a little speech, Henry translating.
+If I had been well, I should have alluded to all,
+but I was scarce able to sit up; so only alluded to my
+guest of all this month, the Tongan, Tomas, and to Simelé,
+partly for the jest of making him translate compliments
+to himself. The talking man replied with many handsome
+compliments to me, in the usual flood of Samoan
+fluent neatness; and we left them to an afternoon of
+singing and dancing. Must stop now, as my right
+hand is very bad again. I am trying to write with my
+left.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday.</i>&mdash;About half-past eight last night, I had gone
+to my own room, Fanny and Lloyd were in Fanny&rsquo;s, every
+one else in bed, only two boys on the premises&mdash;the two
+little brown boys Mitaiele (Michael), age I suppose 11 or
+12, and the new steward, a Wallis islander, speaking no
+English and about fifty words of Samoan, recently promoted
+from the bush work, and a most good, anxious,
+timid lad of 15 or 16&mdash;looks like 17 or 18, of course&mdash;they
+grow fast here. In comes Mitaiele to Lloyd, and told
+some rigmarole about Paatalise (the steward&rsquo;s name) wanting
+to go and see his family in the bush.&mdash;&ldquo;But he has no
+family in the bush,&rdquo; said Lloyd. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Mitaiele.
+They went to the boy&rsquo;s bed (they sleep in the walled-in
+compartment of the verandah, once my dressing-room)
+and called at once for me. He lay like one asleep, talking
+in drowsy tones but without excitement, and at times
+&ldquo;cheeping&rdquo; like a frightened mouse; he was quite cool
+to the touch, and his pulse not fast; his breathing seemed
+wholly ventral; the bust still, the belly moving strongly.
+Presently he got from his bed, and ran for the door, with
+his head down not three feet from the floor and his body
+all on a stretch forward, like a striking snake: I say
+&ldquo;ran,&rdquo; but this strange movement was not swift. Lloyd
+and I mastered him and got him back in bed. Soon there
+was another and more desperate attempt to escape, in
+which Lloyd had his ring broken. Then we bound him
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page206"></a>206</span>
+to the bed humanely with sheets, ropes, boards, and pillows.
+He lay there and sometimes talked, sometimes whispered,
+sometimes wept like an angry child; his principal word
+was &ldquo;Faamolemole&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Please&rdquo;&mdash;and he kept telling us
+at intervals that his family were calling him. During this
+interval, by the special grace of God, my boys came home;
+we had already called in Arrick, the black boy; now we
+had that Hercules, Lafaele, and a man Savea, who comes
+from Paatalise&rsquo;s own island and can alone communicate
+with him freely. Lloyd went to bed, I took the first watch,
+and sat in my room reading, while Lafaele and Arrick
+watched the madman. Suddenly Arrick called me; I
+ran into the verandah; there was Paatalise free of all
+his bonds and Lafaele holding him. To tell what followed
+is impossible. We were five people at him&mdash;Lafaele and
+Savea, very strong men, Lloyd, I and Arrick, and the
+struggle lasted until 1 <span class="sc">A.M.</span> before we had him bound.
+One detail for a specimen: Lloyd and I had charge of one
+leg, we were both sitting on it and lo! we were both tossed
+into the air&mdash;I, I dare say, a couple of feet. At last we
+had him spread-eagled to the iron bedstead, by his wrists
+and ankles, with matted rope; a most inhumane business,
+but what could we do? it was all we could do to manage
+it even so. The strength of the paroxysms had been steadily
+increasing, and we trembled for the next. And now I
+come to pure Rider Haggard. Lafaele announced that the
+boy was very bad, and he would get &ldquo;some medicine&rdquo;
+which was a family secret of his own. Some leaves were
+brought mysteriously in; chewed, placed on the boy&rsquo;s
+eyes, dropped in his ears (see <i>Hamlet</i>) and stuck up his
+nostrils; as he did this, the weird doctor partly smothered
+the patient with his hand; and by about 2 <span class="sc">A.M.</span> he was
+in a deep sleep, and from that time he showed no symptom
+of dementia whatever. The medicine (says Lafaele) is
+principally used for the wholesale slaughter of families;
+he himself feared last night that his dose was fatal; only
+one other person, on this island, knows the secret; and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page207"></a>207</span>
+she, Lafaele darkly whispers, has abused it. This remarkable
+tree we must try to identify.</p>
+
+<p>The man-of-war doctor came up to-day, gave us a
+strait-waistcoat, taught us to bandage, examined the boy
+and saw he was apparently well&mdash;he insisted on doing
+his work all morning, poor lad, and when he first came
+down kissed all the family at breakfast! The doctor was
+greatly excited, as may be supposed, about Lafaele&rsquo;s
+medicine.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday.</i>&mdash;All yesterday writing my mail by the hand
+of Belle, to save my wrist. This is a great invention, to
+which I shall stick, if it can be managed. We had some
+alarm about Paatalise, but he slept well all night for a
+benediction. This lunatic asylum exercise has no attractions
+for any of us.</p>
+
+<p>I don&rsquo;t know if I remembered to say how much pleased
+I was with <i>Across the Plains</i> in every way, inside and out,
+and you and me. The critics seem to taste it, too, as well
+as could be hoped, and I believe it will continue to bring
+me in a few shillings a year for a while. But such books
+pay only indirectly.</p>
+
+<p>To understand the full horror of the mad scene, and
+how well my boys behaved, remember that they <i>believed
+P.&rsquo;s ravings</i>, they <i>knew</i> that his dead family, thirty strong,
+crowded the front verandah and called on him to come
+to the other world. They <i>knew</i> that his dead brother had
+met him that afternoon in the bush and struck him on
+both temples. And remember! we are fighting the dead,
+and they had to go out again in the black night, which is
+the dead man&rsquo;s empire. Yet last evening, when I thought
+P. was going to repeat the performance, I sent down for
+Lafaele, who had leave of absence, and he and his wife
+came up about eight o&rsquo;clock with a lighted brand. These
+are the things for which I have to forgive my old cattle-man
+his manifold shortcomings; they are heroic&mdash;so are
+the shortcomings, to be sure.</p>
+
+<p>It came over me the other day suddenly that this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page208"></a>208</span>
+diary of mine to you would make good pickings after I
+am dead, and a man could make some kind of a book out
+of it without much trouble. So, for God&rsquo;s sake, don&rsquo;t
+lose them, and they will prove a piece of provision for my
+&ldquo;poor old family,&rdquo; as Simelé calls it.</p>
+
+<p>About my coming to Europe, I get more and more
+doubtful, and rather incline to Ceylon again as place of
+meeting. I am so absurdly well here in the tropics, that
+it seems like affectation. Yet remember I have never once
+stood Sydney. Anyway, I shall have the money for it all
+ahead, before I think of such a thing.</p>
+
+<p>We had a bowl of punch on your birthday, which my
+incredible mother somehow knew and remembered.</p>
+
+<p>By the time you receive this, my Samoan book will I
+suppose be out and the worst known. If I am burned in
+effigy for it no more need be said; if on the other hand
+I get off cheap with the authorities, this is to say that,
+supposing a vacancy to occur, I would condescend to accept
+the office of H.B.M.&rsquo;s consul with parts, pendicles and
+appurtenances. There is a very little work to do except
+some little entertaining, to which I am bound to say my
+family and in particular the amanuensis who now guides
+the pen look forward with delight; I with manly resignation.
+The real reasons for the step would be three: 1st,
+possibility of being able to do some good, or at least certainty
+of not being obliged to stand always looking on
+helplessly at what is bad: 2nd, larks for the family:
+3rd, and perhaps not altogether least, a house in town
+and a boat and a boat&rsquo;s crew.<a name="FnAnchor_44" href="#Footnote_44"><span class="sp">44</span></a></p>
+
+<p>But I find I have left out another reason: 4th, growing
+desire on the part of the old man virulent for anything
+in the nature of a salary&mdash;years seem to invest that idea
+with new beauty.</p>
+
+<p>I sometimes sit and yearn for anything in the nature
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page209"></a>209</span>
+of an income that would come in&mdash;mine has all got to be
+gone and fished for with the immortal mind of man. What
+I want is the income that really comes in of itself while
+all you have to do is just to blossom and exist and sit on
+chairs. Think how beautiful it would be not to have to
+mind the critics, and not even the darkest of the crowd&mdash;Sidney
+Colvin. I should probably amuse myself with
+works that would make your hair curl, if you had any left.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To T. W. Dover</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Stevenson&rsquo;s correspondent in this case is an artisan, who had
+been struck by the truth of a remark in his essay on <i>Beggars</i> that
+it is only or mainly the poor who habitually give to the poor; and
+who wrote to ask whether it was from experience that Stevenson
+knew this.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa,</i></p>
+<p style="text-align:right; padding-right:5em;"><i>June 20th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">SIR</span>,&mdash;In reply to your very interesting letter, I cannot
+fairly say that I have ever been poor, or known what it
+was to want a meal. I have been reduced, however, to
+a very small sum of money, with no apparent prospect
+of increasing it; and at that time I reduced myself to
+practically one meal a day, with the most disgusting consequences
+to my health. At this time I lodged in the
+house of a working-man, and associated much with others.
+At the same time, from my youth up, I have always been
+a good deal and rather intimately thrown among the
+working-classes, partly as a civil engineer in out-of-the-way
+places, partly from a strong and, I hope, not ill-favoured
+sentiment of curiosity. But the place where,
+perhaps, I was most struck with the fact upon which you
+comment was the house of a friend, who was exceedingly
+poor, in fact, I may say destitute, and who lived in the
+attic of a very tall house entirely inhabited by persons
+in varying stages of poverty. As he was also in ill-health,
+I made a habit of passing my afternoon with him, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page210"></a>210</span>
+when there it was my part to answer the door. The steady
+procession of people begging, and the expectant and
+confident manner in which they presented themselves,
+struck me more and more daily; and I could not but
+remember with surprise that though my father lived but
+a few streets away in a fine house, beggars scarce came
+to the door once a fortnight or a month. From that
+time forward I made it my business to inquire, and in the
+stories which I am very fond of hearing from all sorts
+and conditions of men, learned that in the time of their
+distress it was always from the poor they sought assistance,
+and almost always from the poor they got it.</p>
+
+<p>Trusting I have now satisfactorily answered your question,
+which I thank you for asking, I remain, with sincere
+compliments,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Summer 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;First of all, <i>you have all the
+corrections on The Wrecker</i>. I found I had made what I
+meant and forgotten it, and was so careless as not to
+tell you.</p>
+
+<p>Second, of course, and by all means, charge corrections
+on the Samoa book to me; but there are not near so
+many as I feared. The Lord hath dealt bountifully with
+me, and I believe all my advisers were amazed to see
+how nearly correct I had got the truck, at least I was.
+With this you will receive the whole revise and a type-written
+copy of the last chapter. And the thing now is
+Speed, to catch a possible revision of the treaty. I believe
+Cassells are to bring it out, but Baxter knows, and the
+thing has to be crammed through <i>prestissimo, ŕ la chasseur</i>.</p>
+
+<p>You mention the belated Barbeys; what about the
+equally belated Pineros? And I hope you will keep your
+bookshop alive to supplying me continuously with the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page211"></a>211</span>
+<i>Saga Library</i>. I cannot get enough of <i>Sagas</i>; I wish
+there were nine thousand; talk about realism!</p>
+
+<p>All seems to flourish with you; I also prosper; none
+the less for being quit of that abhorred task, Samoa. I
+could give a supper party here were there any one to sup.
+Never was such a disagreeable task, but the thing had to
+be told....</p>
+
+<p>There, I trust I am done with this cursed chapter of
+my career, bar the rotten eggs and broken bottles that
+may follow, of course. Pray remember, speed is now all
+that can be asked, hoped, or wished. I give up all hope
+of proofs, revises, proof of the map, or sic like; and you
+on your side will try to get it out as reasonably seemly
+as may be.</p>
+
+<p>Whole Samoa book herewith. Glory be to God.&mdash;Yours
+very sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following consists of scraps merely, taken from a letter almost
+entirely occupied with private family affairs.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Saturday, 2nd July 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p>The character of my handwriting is explained, alas!
+by scrivener&rsquo;s cramp. This also explains how long I have
+let the paper lie plain.</p>
+
+<p>1 <span class="scs">P.M.</span>&mdash;I was busy copying <i>David Balfour</i> with my
+left hand&mdash;a most laborious task&mdash;Fanny was down at
+the native house superintending the floor, Lloyd down in
+Apia, and Belle in her own house cleaning, when I heard
+the latter calling on my name. I ran out on the verandah;
+and there on the lawn beheld my crazy boy with an axe
+in his hand and dressed out in green ferns, dancing. I
+ran downstairs and found all my house boys on the back
+verandah, watching him through the dining-room. I asked
+what it meant?&mdash;&ldquo;Dance belong his place,&rdquo; they said.&mdash;&ldquo;I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page212"></a>212</span>
+think this no time to dance,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Has he done
+his work?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;No,&rdquo; they told me, &ldquo;away bush all morning.&rdquo;
+But there they all stayed on the back verandah.
+I went on alone through the dining-room, and bade him
+stop. He did so, shouldered the axe, and began to walk
+away; but I called him back, walked up to him, and
+took the axe out of his unresisting hands. The boy is in
+all things so good, that I can scarce say I was afraid; only
+I felt it had to be stopped ere he could work himself
+up by dancing to some craziness. Our house boys protested
+they were not afraid; all I know is they were
+all watching him round the back door and did not
+follow me till I had the axe. As for the out boys,
+who were working with Fanny in the native house, they
+thought it a very bad business, and made no secret of
+their fears.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday, 6th.</i>&mdash;I have no account to give of my
+stewardship these days, and there&rsquo;s a day more to account
+for than mere arithmetic would tell you. For we have
+had two Monday Fourths, to bring us at last on the right
+side of the meridian, having hitherto been an exception
+in the world and kept our private date. Business has
+filled my hours sans intermission.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday, 12th.</i>&mdash;I am doing no work and my mind is
+in abeyance. Fanny and Belle are sewing-machining in
+the next room; I have been pulling down their hair, and
+Fanny has been kicking me, and now I am driven out.
+Austin I have been chasing about the verandah; now he
+has gone to his lessons, and I make believe to write to
+you in despair. But there is nothing in my mind; I
+swim in mere vacancy, my head is like a rotten nut; I
+shall soon have to begin to work again or I shall carry
+away some part of the machinery. I have got your
+insufficient letter, for which I scorn to thank you. I have
+had no review by Gosse, none by Birrell; another time,
+if I have a letter in the Times, you might send me the
+text as well; also please send me a cricket bat and a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page213"></a>213</span>
+cake, and when I come home for the holidays, I should
+like to have a pony.&mdash;I am, sir, your obedient servant,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Jacob Tonson.</p>
+
+<p><i>P.S.</i>&mdash;I am quite well; I hope you are quite well.
+The world is too much with us, and my mother bids me
+bind my hair and lace my bodice blue.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Upolu,
+Samoan Islands, 18th July 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash; ... I have been now for some
+time contending with powers and principalities, and I have
+never once seen one of my own letters to the Times. So
+when you see something in the papers that you think
+might interest the exiles of Upolu, do not think twice,
+out with your saxpence, and send it flying to Vailima.
+Of what you say of the past, eh, man, it was a queer time,
+and awful miserable, but there&rsquo;s no sense in denying it
+was awful fun. Do you mind the youth in highland garb
+and the tableful of coppers? Do you mind the <span class="sc">SIGNAL</span>
+of Waterloo Place?&mdash;Hey, how the blood stands to the
+heart at such a memory!&mdash;Hae ye the notes o&rsquo;t? Gie&rsquo;s
+them.&mdash;Gude&rsquo;s sake, man, gie&rsquo;s the notes o&rsquo;t; I mind ye
+made a tüne o&rsquo;t an&rsquo; played it on your pinanny; gie&rsquo;s the
+notes. Dear Lord, that past.</p>
+
+<p>Glad to hear Henley&rsquo;s prospects are fair: his new
+volume is the work of a real poet. He is one of those who
+can make a noise of his own with words, and in whom
+experience strikes an individual note. There is perhaps
+no more genuine poet living, bar the Big Guns. In case
+I cannot overtake an acknowledgment to himself by this
+mail, please let him hear of my pleasure and admiration.
+How poorly Kipling compares! He is all smart journalism
+and cleverness: it is all bright and shallow and limpid,
+like a business paper&mdash;a good one, <i>s&rsquo;entend</i>; but there is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page214"></a>214</span>
+no blot of heart&rsquo;s blood and the Old Night: there are no
+harmonics, there is scarce harmony to his music; and in
+Henley&mdash;all of these; a touch, a sense within sense, a
+sound outside the sound, the shadow of the inscrutable,
+eloquent beyond all definition. The First London Voluntary
+knocked me wholly.&mdash;Ever yours affectionately, my
+dear Charles,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>Kind memories to your father and all friends.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To W. E. Henley</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa,
+August 1st, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENLEY</span>,&mdash;It is impossible to let your new
+volume pass in silence. I have not received the same
+thrill of poetry since G. M.&rsquo;s <i>Joy of Earth</i> volume and
+<i>Love in a Valley</i>; and I do not know that even that was
+so intimate and deep. Again and again, I take the book
+down, and read, and my blood is fired as it used to be in
+youth. <i>Andante con moto</i> in the <i>Voluntaries</i>, and the
+thing about the trees at night (No. <span class="sc">XXIV.</span> I think) are up
+to date my favourites. I did not guess you were so great
+a magician; these are new tunes, this is an undertone
+of the true Apollo; these are not verse, they are poetry&mdash;inventions,
+creations, in language. I thank you for the
+joy you have given me, and remain your old friend and
+present huge admirer,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>The hand is really the hand of Esau, but under a course
+of threatened scrivener&rsquo;s cramp.</p>
+
+<p>For the next edition of the Book of Verses, pray accept
+an emendation. Last three lines of Echoes No. <span class="sc">XLIV.</span>
+read&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>&ldquo;But life in act? How should the grave</p>
+<p class="i05">Be victor over these,</p>
+<p class="i05">Mother, a mother of men?&rdquo;</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The two vocatives scatter the effect of this inimitable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page215"></a>215</span>
+close. If you insist on the longer line, equip &ldquo;grave&rdquo;
+with an epithet.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Accompanying the MS. of the article giving extracts from the
+record kept by Robert Stevenson the elder of the trip on which Sir
+Walter Scott sailed in his company on board the Northern Lights
+yacht: printed in Scribner&rsquo;s Magazine, 1893.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Upolu, August 1st, &rsquo;92.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;Herewith <i>My Grandfather</i>. I
+have had rather a bad time suppressing the old gentleman,
+who was really in a very garrulous stage; as for
+getting him <i>in order</i>, I could do but little towards that;
+however, there are one or two points of interest which
+may justify us in printing. The swinging of his stick and
+not knowing the sailor of Coruiskin, in particular, and
+the account of how he wrote the lives in the Bell Book
+particularly please me. I hope my own little introduction
+is not egoistic; or rather I do not care if it is. It was
+that old gentleman&rsquo;s blood that brought me to Samoa.</p>
+
+<p>By the by, vols. vii., viii., and ix. of Adams&rsquo;s <i>History</i>
+have never come to hand; no more have the dictionaries.</p>
+
+<p>Please send me <i>Stonehenge on the Horse</i>, <i>Stories and
+Interludes</i> by Barry Pain, and <i>Edinburgh Sketches and
+Memoirs</i> by David Masson. <i>The Wrecker</i> has turned up.
+So far as I have seen, it is very satisfactory, but on pp.
+548, 549, there has been a devil of a miscarriage. The
+two Latin quotations instead of following each other being
+separated (doubtless for printing considerations) by a
+line of prose. My compliments to the printers; there is
+doubtless such a thing as good printing, but there is such
+a thing as good sense.</p>
+
+<p>The sequel to <i>Kidnapped</i>, <i>David Balfour</i> by name, is
+about three-quarters done and gone to press for serial
+publication. By what I can find out it ought to be through
+hand with that and ready for volume form early next
+spring.&mdash;Yours very sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page216"></a>216</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Andrew Lang</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Mr. Andrew Lang had been supplying Stevenson with some
+books and historical references for his proposed novel <i>The Young
+Chevalier</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, August 1892.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LANG</span>,&mdash;I knew you would prove a trusty
+purveyor. The books you have sent are admirable. I got
+the name of my hero out of Brown&mdash;Blair of Balmyle&mdash;Francie
+Blair. But whether to call the story <i>Blair of
+Balmyle</i>, or whether to call it <i>The Young Chevalier</i>, I have
+not yet decided. The admirable Cameronian tract&mdash;perhaps
+you will think this a cheat&mdash;is to be boned into
+<i>David Balfour</i>, where it will fit better, and really furnishes
+me with a desired foothold over a boggy place.</p>
+
+<p><i>Later</i>; no, it won&rsquo;t go in, and I fear I must give up
+&ldquo;the idolatrous occupant upon the throne,&rdquo; a phrase
+that overjoyed me beyond expression. I am in a deuce
+of a flutter with politics, which I hate, and in which I
+certainly do not shine; but a fellow cannot stand aside
+and look on at such an exhibition as our government.
+&rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t decent; no gent can hold a candle to it. But it&rsquo;s
+a grind to be interrupted by midnight messengers and
+pass your days writing proclamations (which are never
+proclaimed) and petitions (which ain&rsquo;t petited) and letters
+to the Times, which it makes my jaw yawn to re-read,
+and all your time have your heart with David Balfour;
+he has just left Glasgow this morning for Edinburgh, James
+More has escaped from the castle; it is far more real to me
+than the Behring Sea or the Baring brothers either&mdash;he
+got the news of James More&rsquo;s escape from the Lord Advocate,
+and started off straight to comfort Catriona. You
+don&rsquo;t know her; she&rsquo;s James More&rsquo;s daughter, and a
+respectable young wumman; the Miss Grants think so&mdash;the
+Lord Advocate&rsquo;s daughters&mdash;so there can&rsquo;t be anything
+really wrong. Pretty soon we all go to Holland,
+and be hanged; thence to Dunkirk, and be damned;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page217"></a>217</span>
+and the tale concludes in Paris, and be Poll-parrotted.
+This is the last authentic news. You are not a real hard-working
+novelist; not a practical novelist; so you don&rsquo;t
+know the temptation to let your characters maunder.
+Dumas did it, and lived. But it is not war; it ain&rsquo;t
+sportsmanlike, and I have to be stopping their chatter
+all the time. Brown&rsquo;s appendix is great reading.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>My only grief is that I can&rsquo;t</p>
+<p>Use the idolatrous occupant.</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="noind">Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p>Blessing and praising you for a useful (though idolatrous)
+occupant of Kensington.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Samoa and the Samoans for children, continued after an eight
+months&rsquo; pause.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands,
+August 14th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MISS BOODLE</span>,&mdash;The lean man is exceedingly
+ashamed of himself, and offers his apologies to the little
+girls in the cellar just above. If they will be so good as
+to knock three times upon the floor, he will hear it on the
+other side of his floor, and will understand that he is
+forgiven. I believe I got you and the children&mdash;or rather
+left you and the children&mdash;still on the road to the lean
+man&rsquo;s house. When you get up there a great part of the
+forest has been cleared away. It comes back again pretty
+quick, though not quite so high; but everywhere, except
+where the weeders have been kept busy, young trees have
+sprouted up, and the cattle and the horses cannot be seen
+as they feed. In this clearing there are two or three
+houses scattered about, and between the two biggest I
+think the little girls in the cellar would first notice a sort
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page218"></a>218</span>
+of thing like a gridiron on legs made of logs and wood.
+Sometimes it has a flag flying on it made of rags of old
+clothes. It is a fort (so I am told) built by the person
+here who would be much the most interesting to the girls
+in the cellar. This is a young gentleman of eleven years
+of age answering to the name of Austin. It was after reading
+a book about the Red Indians that he thought it more
+prudent to create this place of strength. As the Red
+Indians are in North America, and this fort seems to me
+a very useless kind of building, I am anxious to hope that
+the two may never be brought together. When Austin is
+not engaged in building forts, nor on his lessons, which
+are just as annoying to him as other children&rsquo;s lessons are
+to them, he walks sometimes in the bush, and if anybody
+is with him, talks all the time. When he is alone I don&rsquo;t
+think he says anything, and I dare say he feels very lonely
+and frightened, just as the lean man does, at the queer
+noises and the endless lines of the trees. He finds the
+strangest kinds of seeds, some of them bright coloured
+like lollipops, or really like precious stones; some of them
+in odd cases like tobacco-pouches. He finds and collects
+all kinds of little shells with which the whole ground is
+scattered, and which, though they are the shells of land
+animals like our snails, are nearly of as many shapes and
+colours as the shells on our sea-beaches. In the streams
+that come running down out of the mountains, and which
+are all as clear and bright as mirror glass, he sees eels
+and little bright fish that sometimes jump together out
+of the surface of the brook in a little knot of silver, and
+fresh-water prawns which lie close under the stones, and
+can be seen looking up at him with eyes of the colour of
+a jewel. He sees all kinds of beautiful birds, some of them
+blue and white, some of them blue and white and red,
+and some of them coloured like our pigeons at home, and
+these last the little girls in the cellar may like to know live
+almost entirely on nutmegs as they fall ripe off the trees.
+Another little bird he may sometimes see, as the lean man
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page219"></a>219</span>
+saw him only this morning, a little fellow not so big as a
+man&rsquo;s hand, exquisitely neat, of a pretty bronze black like
+ladies&rsquo; shoes, and who sticks up behind him (much as a
+peacock does) his little tail shaped and fluted like a scallop
+shell.</p>
+
+<p>Here are a lot of curious and interesting things that
+Austin sees round him every day; and when I was a
+child at home in the old country I used to play and pretend
+to myself that I saw things of the same kind. That
+the rooms were full of orange and nutmeg trees, and the
+cold town gardens outside the windows were alive with
+parrots and with lions. What do the little girls in the
+cellar think that Austin does? He makes believe just
+the other way: he pretends that the strange great trees
+with their broad leaves and slab-sided roots are European
+oaks; and the places on the road up (where you and I
+and the little girls in the cellar have already gone) he
+calls by old-fashioned, far-away European names, just as
+if you were to call the cellar stair and the corner of the
+next street&mdash;if you could only manage to pronounce the
+names&mdash;Upolu and Savaii. And so it is with all of us,
+with Austin and the lean man and the little girls in the
+cellar; wherever we are it is but a stage on the way to
+somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we
+do it, it is only a preparation to do something else that
+shall be different.</p>
+
+<p>But you must not suppose that Austin does nothing
+but build forts and walk among the woods and swim in
+the rivers. On the contrary, he is sometimes a very busy
+and useful fellow; and I think the little girls in the
+cellar would have admired him very nearly as much as
+he admired himself if they had seen him setting off on
+horseback with his hand on his hip and his pockets full
+of letters and orders, at the head of quite a procession of
+huge white cart-horses with pack-saddles, and big brown
+native men with nothing on but gaudy kilts. Mighty
+well he managed all his commissions; and those who saw
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page220"></a>220</span>
+him ordering and eating his single-handed luncheon in
+the queer little Chinese restaurant on the beach declare
+he looked as if the place, and the town, and the whole
+archipelago belonged to him. But I am not going to let
+you suppose that this great gentleman at the head of all
+his horses and his men, like the King of France in the
+old rhyme, would be thought much of a dandy on the
+streets of London. On the contrary, if he could be seen
+there with his dirty white cap, and his faded purple shirt,
+and his little brown breeks that do not reach his knees,
+and the bare shanks below, and the bare feet stuck in
+the stirrup leathers, for he is not quite long enough to
+reach the irons, I am afraid the little boys and girls in your
+part of the town might feel very much inclined to give
+him a penny in charity. So you see that a very, very big
+man in one place might seem very small potatoes in
+another, just as the king&rsquo;s palace here (of which I told
+you in my last) would be thought rather a poor place of
+residence by a Surrey gipsy. And if you come to that,
+even the lean man himself, who is no end of an important
+person, if he were picked up from the chair where he is
+now sitting, and slung down, feet foremost, in the neighbourhood
+of Charing Cross, would probably have to escape
+into the nearest shop, or take the consequences of being
+mobbed. And the ladies of his family, who are very
+pretty ladies, and think themselves uncommonly well-dressed
+for Samoa, would (if the same thing were done
+to them) be extremely glad to get into a cab.</p>
+
+<p>I write to you by the hands of another, because I am
+threatened again with scrivener&rsquo;s cramp. My health is
+beyond reproach; I wish I could say as much for my
+wife&rsquo;s, which is far from the thing. Give us some news
+of yours, and even when none of us write, do not suppose
+for a moment that we are forgetful of our old gamekeeper.
+Our prettiest walk, an alley of really beautiful green
+sward which leads through Fanny&rsquo;s garden to the river
+and the bridge and the beginning of the high woods on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221"></a>221</span>
+the mountain-side, where the Tapu a fafine (or spirit of
+the land) has her dwelling, and the work-boys fear to
+go alone, is called by a name that I think our gamekeeper
+has heard before&mdash;Adelaide Road.</p>
+
+<p>With much love from all of us to yourself, and all
+good wishes for your future, and the future of the children
+in the cellar, believe me your affectionate friend,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima</i> [<i>August 1892</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;You will have no letter at all this
+month and it is really not my fault. I have been saving
+my hand as much as possible for Davy Balfour; only
+this morning I was getting on first rate with him, when
+about half-past nine there came a prick in the middle
+of the ball of my thumb, and I had to take to the left
+hand and two words a minute. I fear I slightly exaggerate
+the speed of my left hand; about a word and a
+half in the minute&mdash;which is dispiriting to the last degree.
+Your last letter with the four excellent reviews and the
+good news about <i>The Wrecker</i> was particularly welcome.
+I have already written to Charles Baxter about the volume
+form appearance of <i>The Beach of Falesá</i>. In spite of bad
+thumbs and other interruptions I hope to send to Baxter
+by this mail the whole first part (a good deal more than
+half) of David Balfour ready for press. This is pretty
+satisfactory, and I think ought to put us beyond the
+reach of financial catastrophe for the year.</p>
+
+<p>A cousin of mine, Graham Balfour, arrived along with
+your last. It was rather a lark. Fanny, Belle and I stayed
+down at the hotel two nights expecting the steamer, and
+we had seven horses down daily for the party and the
+baggage. These were on one occasion bossed by Austin,
+age eleven. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid I cannot do that now,&rdquo; said he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page222"></a>222</span>
+in answer to some communication, &ldquo;as I am taking charge
+of the men here.&rdquo; In the course of the forenoon he took
+&ldquo;his&rdquo; men to get their lunch, and had his own by himself
+at the Chinese restaurant. What a day for a boy.
+The steamer came in at last on Saturday morning after
+breakfast. We three were out at the place of anchorage
+in the hotel boat as she came up, spotting rather anxiously
+for our guest, whom none of us had ever seen. We chose
+out some rather awful cads and tried to make up our
+mind to them; they were the least offensive yet observed
+among an awful crew of cabin passengers; but when the
+Simon Pure appeared at last upon the scene he was as
+nice a young fellow as you would want. Followed a time
+of giddy glory&mdash;one crowded hour of glorious life&mdash;when
+I figured about the deck with attendant shemales in the
+character of <i>the</i> local celebrity, was introduced to the
+least unpresentable of the ruffians on board, dogged about
+the deck by a diminutive Hebrew with a Kodak, the
+click of which kept time to my progress like a pair of
+castanets, and filled up in the Captain&rsquo;s room on iced
+champagne at 8.30 of God&rsquo;s morning. The Captain in
+question, Cap. Morse, is a great South Sea character, like
+the side of a house and the green-room of a music-hall,
+but with all the saving qualities of the seaman. The
+celebrity was a great success with this untutored observer.
+He was kind enough to announce that he expected (rather
+with awe) a much more &ldquo;thoughtful&rdquo; person; and I
+think I pleased him much with my parting salutation,
+&ldquo;Well, Captain, I suppose you and I are the two most
+notorious men in the Pacific.&rdquo; I think it will enable you
+to see the Captain if I tell you that he recited to us in
+cold blood the <i>words</i> of a new comic song; doubtless a
+tribute to my literary character. I had often heard of
+Captain Morse and always had detested all that I was
+told, and detested the man in confidence, just as you are
+doing; but really he has a wonderful charm of strength,
+loyalty, and simplicity. The whole celebrity business was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223"></a>223</span>
+particularly characteristic; the Captain has certainly
+never read a word of mine; and as for the Jew with the
+Kodak, he had never heard of me till he came on board.
+There was a third admirer who sent messages in to the
+Captain&rsquo;s cabin asking if the Lion would accept a gift
+of Webster&rsquo;s <i>Unabridged</i>. I went out to him and signified
+a manly willingness to accept a gift of anything. He
+stood and bowed before me, his eyes danced with excitement.
+&ldquo;Mr. Stevenson,&rdquo; he said and his voice trembled,
+&ldquo;your name is very well known to me. I have been in
+the publishing line in Canada and I have handled many
+of your works for the trade.&rdquo; &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;here&rsquo;s
+genuine appreciation.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>From this gaudy scene we descended into the hotel
+boat with our new second cousin, got to horse and returned
+to Vailima, passing shot of Kodak once more on
+the Nulivae bridge, where the little Jew was posted with
+his little Jew wife, each about three feet six in stature
+and as vulgar as a lodging house clock.</p>
+
+<p>We were just writing this when another passenger
+from the ship arrived up here at Vailima. This is a nice
+quiet simple blue-eyed little boy of Pennsylvania Quaker
+folk. Threatened with consumption of my sort, he has
+been sent here by his doctor on the strength of my case.
+I am sure if the case be really parallel he could not have
+been better done by. As we had a roast pig for dinner
+we kept him for that meal; and the rain coming on just
+when the moon should have risen kept him again for
+the night. So you see it is now to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>Graham Balfour the new cousin and Lloyd are away
+with Clark the Missionary on a school inspecting <i>malaga</i>,
+really perhaps the prettiest little bit of opera in real life
+that can be seen, and made all the prettier by the actors
+being children. I have come to a collapse this morning
+on D.B.: wrote a chapter one way, half re-copied it in
+another, and now stand halting between the two like
+Buridan&rsquo;s donkey. These sorts of cruces always are to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224"></a>224</span>
+me the most insoluble, and I should not wonder if D.B.
+stuck there for a week or two. This is a bother, for I understand
+McClure talks of beginning serial publication in
+December. If this could be managed, what with D.B.,
+the apparent success of <i>The Wrecker</i>, <i>Falesá</i>, and some
+little pickings from <i>Across the Plains</i>&mdash;not to mention,
+as quite hopeless, <i>The History of Samoa</i>&mdash;this should be
+rather a profitable year, as it must be owned it has been
+rather a busy one. The trouble is, if I miss the December
+publication, it may take the devil and all of a time to
+start another syndicate. I am really tempted to curse
+my conscientiousness. If I hadn&rsquo;t recopied Davie he
+would now be done and dead and buried; and here I am
+stuck about the middle, with an immediate publication
+threatened and the fear before me of having after all to
+scamp the essential business of the end. At the same
+time, though I love my Davy, I am a little anxious to
+get on again on <i>The Young Chevalier</i>. I have in nearly
+all my works been trying one racket: to get out the facts
+of life as clean and naked and sharp as I could manage
+it. In this other book I want to try and megilp them
+together in an atmosphere of sentiment, and I wonder
+whether twenty-five years of life spent in trying this
+one thing will not make it impossible for me to succeed
+in the other. However it is the only way to attempt a
+love story. You can&rsquo;t tell any of the facts, and the only
+chance is to paint an atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very warm morning&mdash;the parrot is asleep on
+the door (she heard her name, and immediately awakened)&mdash;and
+my brains are completely addled by having come
+to grief over Davy.</p>
+
+<p>Hurray! a subject discovered! The parrot is a little
+white cockatoo of the small variety. It belongs to Belle,
+whom it guards like a watch dog. It chanced that when
+she was sick some months ago I came over and administered
+some medicine. Unnecessary to say Belle bleated,
+whereupon the parrot bounded upon me and buried his
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page225"></a>225</span>
+neb in my backside. From that day on the little wretch
+attacked me on every possible occasion, usually from the
+rear, though she would also follow me along the verandah
+and as I went downstairs attack my face. This was far
+from funny. I am a person of average courage, but I
+don&rsquo;t think I was ever more cordially afraid of anything
+than of this miserable atomy, and the deuce of it was
+that I could not but admire her appalling courage and
+there was no means of punishing such a thread-paper
+creature without destroying it entirely. Act <span class="scs">II</span>. On
+Graham&rsquo;s arrival I gave him my room and came out to
+Lloyd&rsquo;s in the lower floor of Belle&rsquo;s&mdash;I beg your pardon&mdash;the
+<i>parrot&rsquo;s</i>&mdash;house. The first morning I was to wake
+Belle early so that breakfast should be seen to for our
+guest. It was a mighty pretty dawn, the birds were
+singing extraordinary strong, all was peace, and there
+was the damned parrot hanging to the knob of Belle&rsquo;s
+door. Courage, my heart! On I went and Cockie buried
+her bill in the joint of my thumb. I believe that Job
+would have killed that bird; but I was more happily
+inspired&mdash;I caught it up and flung it over the verandah
+as far as I could throw. I must say it was violently done,
+and I looked with some anxiety to see in what state of
+preservation it would alight. Down it came however on
+its two feet, uttered a few oaths in a very modified tone
+of voice, and set forth on the return journey to its mansion.
+Its wings being cut and its gait in walking having
+been a circumstance apparently not thoroughly calculated
+by its maker, it took about twenty-five minutes
+to get home again. Now here is this remarkable point&mdash;that
+bird has never bitten me since. When I have early
+breakfast she and the cat come down and join me, and
+she sits on the back of my chair. When I am at work
+with the door shut she sits outside and demolishes the
+door with that same beak which was so recently reddened
+with my heart&rsquo;s blood&mdash;and in the evening she does her
+business all over my clothes in the most friendly manner
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page226"></a>226</span>
+in the world. I ought to add a word about the parrot
+and the cat. Three cats were brought by Belle from
+Sydney. This one alone remains faithful and domestic.
+One of the funniest things I have ever seen was Polly
+and Maud over a piece of bacon. Polly stood on one
+leg, held the bacon in the other, regarded Maudie with
+a secret and sinister look and very slowly and quietly&mdash;far
+too quietly for the word I have to use&mdash;gnashed her
+bill at her. Maudie came up quite close; there she stuck&mdash;she
+was afraid to come nearer, to go away she was
+ashamed; and she assisted at the final and very deliberate
+consumption of the bacon, making about as poor a
+figure as a cat can make.</p>
+
+<p><i>Next day.</i>&mdash;Date totally unknown, or rather it is now
+known but is reserved because it would certainly prove
+inconsistent with dates previously given. I went down
+about two o&rsquo;clock in company with a couple of chance
+visitors to Apia. It was smoking hot, not a sign of any
+wind and the sun scorching your face. I found the great
+Haggard in hourly expectation of Lady Jersey, surrounded
+by crowds of very indifferent assistants, and I must
+honestly say&mdash;the only time I ever saw him so&mdash;cross.
+He directed my attention to all the new paint, his own
+handiwork he said, and made me visit the bathroom which
+he has just fixed up. I think I never saw a man more
+miserable and happy at the same time. Had some hock
+and a seltzer, went down town, met Fanny and Belle,
+and so home in time for a magnificent dinner of
+prawns and an eel cooked in oil, both from our own
+river.</p>
+
+<p>This morning the overseer&mdash;the new overseer Mr.
+Austin Strong&mdash;went down in charge of the pack-horses
+and a squad of men, himself riding a white horse with
+extreme dignity and what seemed to onlookers a perhaps
+somewhat theatrical air of command. He returned triumphantly,
+all his commissions apparently executed with
+success, bringing us a mail&mdash;not your mail, Colonial ways&mdash;and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page227"></a>227</span>
+the news of Lady Jersey&rsquo;s arrival and reception
+among flying flags and banging guns.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I had concluded my flattering description
+of Polly she bit one of my toes to the blood. But put
+not your trust in shemales, though to say the truth she
+looks more like a Russian colonel.</p>
+
+<p><i>Aug. 15th.</i>&mdash;On the Saturday night Fanny and I went
+down to Haggard&rsquo;s to dine and be introduced to Lady
+Jersey. She is there with her daughter Lady Margaret
+and her brother Captain Leigh, a very nice kind of glass-in-his-eye
+kind of fellow. It is to be presumed I made a
+good impression; for the meeting has had a most extraordinary
+sequel. Fanny and I slept in Haggard&rsquo;s billiard
+room, which happens to be Lloyd&rsquo;s bungalow. In the
+morning she and I breakfasted in the back parts with
+Haggard and Captain Leigh, and it was then arranged
+that the Captain should go with us to Malie on the Tuesday
+under a false name; so that Government House at
+Sydney might by no possibility be connected with a
+rebel camp. On Sunday afternoon up comes Haggard
+in a state of huge excitement: Lady J. insists on going
+too, in the character of my cousin; I write her a letter
+under the name of Miss Amelia Balfour, proposing the
+excursion; and this morning up comes a copy of verses
+from Amelia. I wrote to Mataafa announcing that I
+should bring two cousins instead of one, that the second
+was a lady, unused to Samoan manners, and it would
+be a good thing if she could sleep in another house with
+Ralala. Sent a copy of this to Amelia, and at the same
+time made all arrangements, dating my letter 1745. We
+shall go on ahead on the Malie Road; she is to follow
+with Haggard and Captain Leigh, and overtake us at
+the ford of the Gasi-gasi, whence Haggard will return and
+the rest of us pursue our way to the rebeldom.</p>
+
+<p>This lark is certainly huge. It is all nonsense that
+it can be concealed; Miss Amelia Balfour will be at once
+identified with the Queen of Sydney, as they call her;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page228"></a>228</span>
+and I would not in the least wonder if the visit proved
+the signal of war. With this I have no concern, and the
+thing wholly suits my book and fits my predilections for
+Samoa. What a pity the mail leaves, and I must leave
+this adventure to be continued in our next! But I need
+scarcely say that all this is deadly private&mdash;I expect it
+all to come out, not without explosion; only it must not
+be through me or you. We had a visit yesterday from
+a person by the name of Count Nerli, who is said to be
+a good painter. Altogether the aristocracy clusters thick
+about us. In which radiant light, as the mail must now
+be really put up, I leave myself until next month,&mdash;Yours
+ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To the Countess of Jersey</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Following up the last letter, Stevenson here tells the story of
+the visit paid to Apia by the Countess of Jersey, who had come
+over from Sydney with her brother Captain Leigh and her young
+daughter Lady Margaret Villiers. &ldquo;A warm friendship,&rdquo; writes
+Lady Jersey, &ldquo;was the immediate result; we constantly met,
+either in the hospitable abode of our host Mr. Bazett Haggard, or
+in Mr. Stevenson&rsquo;s delightful mountain home, and passed many
+happy hours in riding, walking, and conversation.&rdquo; The previous
+letter has shown how it was arranged that the party should pay a
+visit of curiosity to the &ldquo;rebel king,&rdquo; or more properly the rival
+claimant to the kingly power, Mataafa, in his camp at Malie, and
+how Stevenson at once treated the adventure as a chapter out of
+a Waverley novel. &ldquo;The wife of the new Governor of New South
+Wales,&rdquo; writes Lady Jersey on her part, &ldquo;could not pay such a
+visit in her own name, so Mr. Stevenson adopted me as his cousin,
+&lsquo;Amelia Balfour.&rsquo; This transparent disguise was congenial to his
+romantic instincts, and he writes concerning the arrangements
+made for the expedition, carefully dating his letter &lsquo;Aug. 14, 1745.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>August 14, 1745.</i></p>
+
+<p>To <span class="scs">Miss Amelia Balfour&mdash;my dear cousin</span>,&mdash;We
+are going an expedition to leeward on Tuesday morning.
+If a lady were perhaps to be encountered on horseback&mdash;say,
+towards the Gasi-gasi river&mdash;about six <span class="scs">A.M.</span>, I
+think we should have an episode somewhat after the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page229"></a>229</span>
+style of the &rsquo;45. What a misfortune, my dear cousin,
+that you should have arrived while your cousin Graham
+was occupying my only guest-chamber&mdash;for Osterley Park
+is not so large in Samoa as it was at home&mdash;but happily
+our friend Haggard has found a corner for you!</p>
+
+<p>The King over the Water&mdash;the Gasi-gasi water&mdash;will
+be pleased to see the clan of Balfour mustering so thick
+around his standard.</p>
+
+<p>I have (one serious word) been so lucky as to get a
+really secret interpreter, so all is for the best in our little
+adventure into the Waverley Novels.&mdash;I am, your affectionate
+cousin,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>Observe the stealth with which I have blotted my
+signature, but we must be political <i>ŕ outrance</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To the Countess of Jersey</span></h5>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COUSIN</span>,&mdash;I send for your information a copy of
+my last letter to the gentleman in question. &rsquo;Tis thought
+more wise, in consideration of the difficulty and peril of
+the enterprise, that we should leave the town in the afternoon,
+and by several detachments. If you would start
+for a ride with the Master of Haggard and Captain Lockhart
+of Lee, say at three o&rsquo;clock of the afternoon, you
+would make some rencounters by the wayside which
+might be agreeable to your political opinions. All present
+will be staunch.</p>
+
+<p>The Master of Haggard might extend his ride a little,
+and return through the marsh and by the nuns&rsquo; house
+(I trust that has the proper flavour), so as a little to
+diminish the effect of separation.&mdash;I remain your affectionate
+cousin to command,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">O Tusitala.</p>
+
+<p><i>P.S.</i>&mdash;It is to be thought this present year of grace
+will be historical.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page230"></a>230</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>This letter tells without preface the story of the expedition
+planned in the preceding.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, August 1892.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;This is Friday night, the (I believe)
+18th or 20th August or September. I shall probably
+regret to-morrow having written you with my own hand
+like the Apostle Paul. But I am alone over here in the
+workman&rsquo;s house, where I and Belle and Lloyd and Austin
+are pigging; the rest are at cards in the main residence.
+I have not joined them because &ldquo;belly belong me&rdquo; has
+been kicking up, and I have just taken 15 drops of laudanum.</p>
+
+<p>On Tuesday, the party set out&mdash;self in white cap,
+velvet coat, cords and yellow half boots, Belle in a white
+kind of suit and white cap to match mine, Lloyd in white
+clothes and long yellow boots and a straw hat, Graham
+in khakis and gaiters, Henry (my old overseer) in blue
+coat and black kilt, and the great Lafaele with a big
+ship-bag on his saddle-bow. We left the mail at the P.O.,
+had lunch at the hotel, and about 1.50 set out westward
+to the place of tryst. This was by a little shrunken brook
+in a deep channel of mud, on the far side of which, in a
+thicket of low trees, all full of moths of shadow and butterflies
+of sun, we lay down to await her ladyship. Whisky
+and water, then a sketch of the encampment for which
+we all posed to Belle, passed off the time until 3.30. Then
+I could hold on no longer. 30 minutes late. Had the
+secret oozed out? Were they arrested? I got my horse,
+crossed the brook again, and rode hard back to the Vaea
+cross roads, whence I was aware of white clothes glancing
+in the other long straight radius of the quadrant. I turned
+at once to return to the place of tryst; but D. overtook
+me, and almost bore me down, shouting &ldquo;Ride, ride!&rdquo;
+like a hero in a ballad. Lady Margaret and he were only
+come to shew the place; they returned, and the rest of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page231"></a>231</span>
+our party, reinforced by Captain Leigh and Lady Jersey,
+set on for Malie. The delay was due to D.&rsquo;s infinite
+precautions, leading them up lanes, by back ways, and
+then down again to the beach road a hundred yards
+further on.</p>
+
+<p>It was agreed that Lady Jersey existed no more; she
+was now my cousin Amelia Balfour. That relative and
+I headed the march; she is a charming woman, all of us
+like her extremely after trial on this somewhat rude and
+absurd excursion. And we Amelia&rsquo;d or Miss Balfour&rsquo;d
+her with great but intermittent fidelity. When we came
+to the last village, I sent Henry on ahead to warn the
+King of our approach and amend his discretion, if that
+might be. As he left I heard the villagers asking <i>which
+was the great lady</i>? And a little further, at the borders
+of Malie itself, we found the guard making a music of
+bugles and conches. Then I knew the game was up and
+the secret out. A considerable guard of honour, mostly
+children, accompanied us; but, for our good fortune, we
+had been looked for earlier, and the crowd was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner at the king&rsquo;s; he asked me to say grace, I
+could think of none&mdash;never could; Graham suggested
+<i>Benedictus Benedicat</i>, at which I leaped. We were nearly
+done, when old Popo inflicted the Atua howl (of which
+you have heard already) right at Lady Jersey&rsquo;s shoulder.
+She started in fine style.&mdash;&ldquo;There,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;we have
+been giving you a chapter of Scott, but this goes beyond
+the Waverley Novels.&rdquo; After dinner, kava. Lady J.
+was served before me, and the king <i>drank last</i>; it was
+the least formal kava I ever saw in that house,&mdash;no names
+called, no show of ceremony. All my ladies are well
+trained, and when Belle drained her bowl, the King was
+pleased to clap his hands. Then he and I must retire
+for our private interview, to another house. He gave
+me his own staff and made me pass before him; and in
+the interview, which was long and delicate, he twice
+called me <i>afioga</i>. Ah, that leaves you cold, but I am
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page232"></a>232</span>
+Samoan enough to have been moved. <i>Susuga</i> is my
+accepted rank; to be called <i>afioga</i>&mdash;Heavens! what an
+advance&mdash;and it leaves Europe cold. But it staggered
+my Henry. The first time it was complicated &ldquo;lana
+susuga <i>ma</i> lana afioga&mdash;his excellency <i>and</i> his majesty&rdquo;
+the next time plain Majesty. Henry then begged to
+interrupt the interview and tell who he was&mdash;he is a
+small family chief in Savaii, not very small&mdash;&ldquo;I do not
+wish the king,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;to think me a boy from Apia.&rdquo;
+On our return to the palace, we separated. I had asked
+for the ladies to sleep alone&mdash;that was understood; but
+that Tusitala&mdash;his afioga Tusitala&mdash;should go out with
+the other young men, and not sleep with the highborn
+females of his family&mdash;was a doctrine received with difficulty.
+Lloyd and I had one screen, Graham and Leigh
+another, and we slept well.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning I was first abroad before dawn; not
+very long, already there was a stir of birds. A little after,
+I heard singing from the King&rsquo;s chapel&mdash;exceeding good&mdash;and
+went across in the hour when the east is yellow
+and the morning bank is breaking up, to hear it nearer.
+All about the chapel, the guards were posted, and all
+saluted Tusitala. I could not refrain from smiling: &ldquo;So
+there is a place too,&rdquo; I thought, &ldquo;where sentinels salute
+me.&rdquo; Mine has been a queer life.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter1">
+<img style="border:0; width:550px; height:527px"
+     src="images/img10.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Breakfast was rather a protracted business. And that
+was scarce over when we were called to the great house
+(now finished&mdash;recall your earlier letters) to see a royal
+kava. This function is of rare use; I know grown Samoans
+who have never witnessed it. It is, besides, as you are to
+hear, a piece of prehistoric history, crystallised in figures,
+and the facts largely forgotten; an acted hieroglyph.
+The house is really splendid; in the rafters in the midst,
+two carved and coloured model birds are posted; the
+only thing of the sort I have ever remarked in Samoa,
+the Samoans being literal observers of the second commandment.
+At one side of the egg our party sat. a=Mataafa,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page233"></a>233</span>
+b = Lady J., c = Belle, d = Tusitala, e  =Graham,
+f = Lloyd, g = Captain Leigh, h = Henry, i = Popo. The x&rsquo;s
+round are the high chiefs, each man in his historical
+position. One side of the house is set apart for the king
+alone; we were allowed there as his guests and Henry
+as our interpreter. It was a huge trial to the lad, when
+a speech was made to me which he must translate, and
+I made a speech in answer which he had to orate, full-breathed,
+to that big circle; he blushed through his dark
+skin, but looked and acted like a gentleman and a young
+fellow of sense; then the kava came to the king; he
+poured one drop in libation, drank another, and flung
+the remainder outside the house behind him. Next came
+the turn of the old shapeless stone marked T. It stands
+for one of the king&rsquo;s titles, Tamasoalii; Mataafa is Tamasoalii
+this day, but cannot drink for it; and the stone
+must first be washed with water, and then have the bowl
+emptied on it. Then&mdash;the order I cannot recall&mdash;came
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page234"></a>234</span>
+the turn of y and z, two orators of the name of Malietoa;
+the first took his kava down plain, like an ordinary man;
+the second must be packed to bed under a big sheet of
+tapa, and be massaged by anxious assistants and rise on
+his elbow groaning to drink his cup. W., a great hereditary
+war man, came next; five times the cup-bearers
+marched up and down the house and passed the cup on,
+five times it was filled and the general&rsquo;s name and titles
+heralded at the bowl, and five times he refused it (after
+examination) as too small. It is said this commemorates
+a time when Malietoa at the head of his army suffered
+much for want of supplies. Then this same military gentleman
+must <i>drink</i> five cups, one from each of the great
+names: all which took a precious long time. He acted
+very well, haughtily and in a society tone <i>outlining</i> the
+part. The difference was marked when he subsequently
+made a speech in his own character as a plain God-fearing
+chief. A few more high chiefs, then Tusitala; one more,
+and then Lady Jersey; one more, and then Captain Leigh,
+and so on with the rest of our party&mdash;Henry of course
+excepted. You see in public, Lady Jersey followed me&mdash;just
+so far was the secret kept.</p>
+
+<p>Then we came home; Belle, Graham, and Lloyd to
+the Chinaman&rsquo;s, I with Lady Jersey, to lunch; so, severally
+home. Thursday I have forgotten: Saturday, I began
+again on Davie; on Sunday, the Jersey party came up
+to call and carried me to dinner. As I came out, to ride
+home, the search-lights of the <i>Curaçoa</i> were lightening on
+the horizon from many miles away, and next morning
+she came in. Tuesday was huge fun: a reception at
+Haggard&rsquo;s. All our party dined there; Lloyd and I, in
+the absence of Haggard and Leigh, had to play aide-de-camp
+and host for about twenty minutes, and I presented
+the population of Apia at random but (luck helping) without
+one mistake. Wednesday we had two middies to
+lunch. Thursday we had Eeles and Hoskyn (lieutenant
+and doctor&mdash;very, very nice fellows&mdash;simple, good and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page235"></a>235</span>
+not the least dull) to dinner. Saturday, Graham and I
+lunched on board; Graham, Belle, Lloyd dined at the
+G.&rsquo;s; and Austin and the <i>whole</i> of our servants went with
+them to an evening entertainment; the more bold returning
+by lantern-light. Yesterday, Sunday, Belle and I were
+off by about half past eight, left our horses at a public
+house, and went on board the <i>Curaçoa</i>, in the wardroom
+skiff; were entertained in the wardroom; thence on deck
+to the service, which was a great treat; three fiddles
+and a harmonium and excellent choir, and the great
+ship&rsquo;s company joining: on shore in Haggard&rsquo;s big
+boat to lunch with the party. Thence all together
+to Vailima, where we read aloud a Ouida Romance
+we have been secretly writing; in which Haggard
+was the hero, and each one of the authors had to
+draw a portrait of him or herself in a Ouida light.
+Leigh, Lady J., Fanny, R. L. S., Belle and Graham
+were the authors.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this gay life, I have finally recopied
+two chapters, and drafted for the first time three of
+Davie Balfour. But it is not a life that would continue
+to suit me, and if I have not continued to write to you,
+you will scarce wonder. And to-day we all go down again
+to dinner, and to-morrow they all come up to lunch! The
+world is too much with us. But it now nears an end,
+to-day already the <i>Curaçoa</i> has sailed; and on Saturday
+or Sunday Lady Jersey will follow them in the mail
+steamer. I am sending you a wire by her hands as far
+as Sydney, that is to say either you or Cassell, about
+<i>Falesá</i>: I will not allow it to be called <i>Uma</i> in
+book form, that is not the logical name of the story.
+Nor can I have the marriage contract omitted; and
+the thing is full of misprints abominable. In the picture,
+Uma is rot; so is the old man and the negro;
+but Wiltshire is splendid, and Case will do. It seems
+badly illuminated, but this may be printing. How have
+I seen this first number? Not through your attention,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page236"></a>236</span>
+guilty one! Lady Jersey had it, and only mentioned
+it yesterday.<a name="FnAnchor_45" href="#Footnote_45"><span class="sp">45</span></a></p>
+
+<p>I ought to say how much we all like the Jersey party.
+Leigh is very amusing in his way. Lady Margaret is a
+charming girl. And Lady Jersey is in all ways admirable,
+so unfussy, so plucky, so very kind and gracious. My
+boy Henry was enraptured with the manners of the
+<i>Tamaitai Sili</i> (chief lady). Among our other occupations,
+I did a bit of a supposed epic describing our tryst at the
+ford of the Gasegase; and Belle and I made a little book
+of caricatures and verses about incidents on the visit.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday.</i>&mdash;The wild round of gaiety continues. After
+I had written to you yesterday, the brain being wholly
+extinct, I played piquet all morning with Graham. After
+lunch down to call on the U.S. consul, hurt in a steeplechase;
+thence back to the new girls&rsquo; school which Lady
+J. was to open, and where my ladies met me. Lady J.
+is really an orator, with a voice of gold; the rest of us
+played our unremarked parts; missionaries, Haggard,
+myself, a Samoan chief, holding forth in turn; myself
+with (at least) a golden brevity. Thence, Fanny, Belle,
+and I to town, to our billiard room in Haggard&rsquo;s back
+garden, where we found Lloyd and where Graham joined
+us. The three men first dressed, with the ladies in a
+corner; and then, to leave them a free field, we went off
+to Haggard and Leigh&rsquo;s quarters, whereafter all to dinner,
+where our two parties, a brother of Colonel Kitchener&rsquo;s,
+a passing globe-trotter, and Clarke the missionary. A
+very gay evening, with all sorts of chaff and mirth, and a
+moonlit ride home, and to bed before 12.30. And now
+to-day, we have the Jersey-Haggard troupe to lunch, and
+I must pass the morning dressing ship.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thursday, Sept. 1st.</i>&mdash;I sit to write to you now, 7.15,
+all the world in bed except myself, accounted for, and
+Belle and Graham, down at Haggard&rsquo;s at dinner. Not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page237"></a>237</span>
+a leaf is stirring here; but the moon overhead (now of
+a good bigness) is obscured and partly revealed in a whirling
+covey of thin storm-clouds. By Jove, it blows above.</p>
+
+<p>From 8 till 11.15 on Tuesday, I dressed ship, and in
+particular cleaned crystal, my specialty. About 11.30
+the guests began to arrive before I was dressed, and
+between while I had written a parody for Lloyd to sing.
+Yesterday, Wednesday, I had to start out about 3 for
+town, had a long interview with the head of the German
+Firm about some work in my new house, got over to
+Lloyd&rsquo;s billiard-room about six, on the way whither I met
+Fanny and Belle coming down with one Kitchener, a
+brother of the Colonel&rsquo;s. Dined in the billiard-room,
+discovered we had forgot to order oatmeal; whereupon
+in the moonlit evening, I set forth in my tropical array,
+mess jacket and such, to get the oatmeal, and meet a
+young fellow C.&mdash;and not a bad young fellow either, only
+an idiot&mdash;as drunk as Cr&oelig;sus. He wept with me, he
+wept for me; he talked like a bad character in an impudently
+bad farce; I could have laughed aloud to hear,
+and could make you laugh by repeating, but laughter
+was not uppermost.</p>
+
+<p>This morning at about seven, I set off after the lost
+sheep. I could have no horse; all that could be mounted&mdash;we
+have one girth-sore and one dead-lame in the establishment&mdash;were
+due at a picnic about 10.30. The morning
+was very wet, and I set off barefoot, with my trousers
+over my knees, and a macintosh. Presently I had to
+take a side path in the bush; missed it; came forth in a
+great oblong patch of taro solemnly surrounded by forest&mdash;no soul,
+no sign, no sound&mdash;and as I stood there at a
+loss, suddenly between the showers out broke the note of
+a harmonium and a woman&rsquo;s voice singing an air that I
+know very well, but have (as usual) forgot the name of.
+&rsquo;Twas from a great way off, but seemed to fill the world.
+It was strongly romantic, and gave me a point which
+brought me, by all sorts of forest wading, to an open
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page238"></a>238</span>
+space of palms. These were of all ages, but mostly at
+that age when the branches arch from the ground level,
+range themselves, with leaves exquisitely green. The
+whole interspace was overgrown with convolvulus, purple,
+yellow and white, often as deep as to my waist, in which
+I floundered aimlessly. The very mountain was invisible
+from here. The rain came and went; now in sunlit April
+showers, now with the proper tramp and rattle of the
+tropics. All this while I met no sight or sound of man,
+except the voice which was now silent, and a damned
+pig-fence that headed me off at every corner. Do you
+know barbed wire? Think of a fence of it on rotten posts,
+and you barefoot. But I crossed it at last with my heart
+in my mouth and no harm done. Thence at last to C.&rsquo;s.:
+no C. Next place I came to was in the zone of woods.
+They offered me a buggy and set a black boy to wash my
+legs and feet. &ldquo;Washum legs belong that fellow whiteman&rdquo;
+was the command. So at last I ran down my son
+of a gun in the hotel, sober, and with no story to tell;
+penitent, I think. As I sat and looked at him, I knew
+from my inside the biggest truth in life: there is only
+one thing that we cannot forgive, and that is ugliness&mdash;<i>our</i>
+ugliness. There is no ugliness, no beauty; only
+that which makes me (<i>ipse</i>) sicken or rejoice. And poor C.
+makes me sicken. Yet, according to canons, he is not
+amiss. Home, by buggy and my poor feet, up three
+miles of root, boulder, gravel, and liquid mud, slipping
+back at every step.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday, Sept. 4th.</i>&mdash;Hope you will be able to read a
+word of the last, no joke writing by a bad lantern with
+a groggy hand and your glasses mislaid. Not that the
+hand is not better, as you see by the absence of the
+amanuensis hitherto. Mail came Friday, and a communication
+from yourself much more decent than usual, for
+which I thank you. Glad the <i>Wrecker</i> should so hum;
+but Lord, what fools these mortals be!</p>
+
+<p>So far yesterday, the citation being wrung from me
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page239"></a>239</span>
+by remembrance of many reviews. I have now received
+all <i>Falesá</i>, and my admiration for that tale rises; I believe
+it is in some ways my best work; I am pretty sure, at
+least, I have never done anything better than Wiltshire.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monday, 13th September 1892.</i>&mdash;On Wednesday the
+Spinsters of Apia gave a ball to a select crowd. Fanny,
+Belle, Lloyd, and I rode down, met Haggard by the way
+and joined company with him. Dinner with Haggard,
+and thence to the ball. The Chief Justice appeared; it
+was immediately remarked, and whispered from one to
+another, that he and I had the only red sashes in the
+room,&mdash;and they were both of the hue of blood, sir, blood.
+He shook hands with myself and all the members of my
+family. Then the cream came, and I found myself in
+the same set of a quadrille with his honour. We dance
+here in Apia a most fearful and wonderful quadrille, I
+don&rsquo;t know where the devil they fished it from; but it
+is rackety and prancing and embraceatory beyond words;
+perhaps it is best defined in Haggard&rsquo;s expression of a
+gambado. When I and my great enemy found ourselves
+involved in this gambol, and crossing hands, and kicking
+up, and being embraced almost in common by large and
+quite respectable females, we&mdash;or I&mdash;tried to preserve
+some rags of dignity, but not for long. The deuce of it
+is that, personally, I love this man; his eye speaks to me,
+I am pleased in his society. We exchanged a glance, and
+then a grin; the man took me in his confidence; and
+through the remainder of that prance we pranced for each
+other. Hard to imagine any position more ridiculous; a
+week before he had been trying to rake up evidence against
+me by brow-beating and threatening a half-white interpreter;
+that very morning I had been writing most
+villainous attacks upon him for the Times; and we meet
+and smile, and&mdash;damn it!&mdash;like each other. I do my
+best to damn the man and drive him from these islands;
+but the weakness endures&mdash;I love him. This is a thing
+I would despise in anybody else; but he is so jolly insidious
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page240"></a>240</span>
+and ingratiating! No, sir, I can&rsquo;t dislike him; but if I
+don&rsquo;t make hay of him, it shall not be for want of trying.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, we had two Germans and a young American
+boy at lunch; and in the afternoon, Vailima was in a
+state of siege; ten white people on the front verandah,
+at least as many brown in the cook-house, and countless
+blacks to see the black boy Arrick.</p>
+
+<p>Which reminds me, Arrick was sent Friday was a
+week to the German Firm with a note, and was not home
+on time. Lloyd and I were going bedward, it was late
+with a bright moon&mdash;ah, poor dog, you know no such
+moons as these!&mdash;when home came Arrick with his head
+in a white bandage and his eyes shining. He had had a
+fight with other blacks, Malaita boys; many against one,
+and one with a knife: &ldquo;I <span class="scs">KNICKED &rsquo;EM DOWN</span>, three
+four!&rdquo; he cried; and had himself to be taken to the
+doctor&rsquo;s and bandaged. Next day, he could not work,
+glory of battle swelled too high in his threadpaper breast;
+he had made a one-stringed harp for Austin, borrowed
+it, came to Fanny&rsquo;s room, and sang war-songs and danced
+a war dance in honour of his victory. And it appears,
+by subsequent advices, that it was a serious victory
+enough; four of his assailants went to hospital, and one
+is thought in danger. All Vailima rejoiced at this news.</p>
+
+<p>Five more chapters of David, 22 to 27, go to Baxter.
+All love affair; seems pretty good to me. Will it do for
+the young person? I don&rsquo;t know: since the Beach, I
+know nothing, except that men are fools and hypocrites,
+and I know less of them than I was fond enough to fancy.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Mrs. Charles Fairchild</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, August 1892.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD</span>,&mdash;Thank you a thousand
+times for your letter. You are the Angel of (the sort of)
+Information (that I care about): I appoint you successor
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page241"></a>241</span>
+to the newspaper press; and I beg of you, whenever you
+wish to gird at the age, or think the bugs out of proportion
+to the roses, or despair, or enjoy any cosmic or epochal
+emotion, to sit down again and write to the Hermit of
+Samoa. What do I think of it all? Well, I love the
+romantic solemnity of youth; and even in this form,
+although not without laughter, I have to love it still.
+They are such ducks! But what are they made of? We
+were just as solemn as that about atheism and the stars
+and humanity; but we were all for belief anyway&mdash;we
+held atheism and sociology (of which none of us, nor
+indeed anybody, knew anything) for a gospel and an iron
+rule of life; and it was lucky enough, or there would have
+been more windows broken. What is apt to puzzle one
+at first sight in the New Youth is that, with such rickety
+and risky problems always at heart, they should not
+plunge down a Niagara of Dissolution. But let us remember
+the high practical timidity of youth. I was a
+particularly brave boy&mdash;this I think of myself, looking
+back&mdash;and plunged into adventures and experiments, and
+ran risks that it still surprises me to recall. But, dear me,
+what a fear I was in of that strange blind machinery in
+the midst of which I stood; and with what a compressed
+heart and what empty lungs I would touch a new crank
+and await developments! I do not mean to say I do
+not fear life still; I do; and that terror (for an adventurer
+like myself) is still one of the chief joys of living.</p>
+
+<p>But it was different indeed while I was yet girt with
+the priceless robes of inexperience; then the fear was
+exquisite and infinite. And so, when you see all these
+little Ibsens, who seem at once so dry and so excitable,
+and faint in swathes over a play (I suppose&mdash;for a wager)
+that would seem to me merely tedious, smile behind your
+hand, and remember the little dears are all in a blue funk.
+It must be very funny, and to a spectator like yourself I
+almost envy it. But never get desperate; human nature
+is human nature; and the Roman Empire, since the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page242"></a>242</span>
+Romans founded it and made our European human nature
+what it is, bids fair to go on and to be true to itself. These
+little bodies will all grow up and become men and women,
+and have heaps of fun; nay, and are having it now; and
+whatever happens to the fashion of the age, it makes no
+difference&mdash;there are always high and brave and amusing
+lives to be lived; and a change of key, however exotic,
+does not exclude melody. Even Chinamen, hard as we
+find it to believe, enjoy being Chinese. And the Chinaman
+stands alone to be unthinkable; natural enough, as
+the representative of the only other great civilisation.
+Take my people here at my doors; their life is a very good
+one; it is quite thinkable, quite acceptable to us. And
+the little dears will be soon skating on the other foot;
+sooner or later, in each generation, the one-half of them
+at least begin to remember all the material they had
+rejected when first they made and nailed up their little
+theory of life; and these become reactionaries or conservatives,
+and the ship of man begins to fill upon the
+other tack.</p>
+
+<p>Here is a sermon, by your leave! It is your own fault,
+you have amused and interested me so much by your
+breath of the New Youth, which comes to me from so far
+away, where I live up here in my mountain, and secret
+messengers bring me letters from rebels, and the government
+sometimes seizes them, and generally grumbles in
+its beard that Stevenson should really be deported. O
+my life is the more lively, never fear!</p>
+
+<p>It has recently been most amusingly varied by a visit
+from Lady Jersey. I took her over mysteriously (under
+the pseudonym of my cousin, Miss Amelia Balfour) to visit
+Mataafa, our rebel; and we had great fun, and wrote a
+Ouida novel on our life here, in which every author had
+to describe himself in the Ouida glamour, and of which&mdash;for
+the Jerseys intend printing it&mdash;I must let you have a
+copy. My wife&rsquo;s chapter, and my description of myself,
+should, I think, amuse you. But there were finer touches
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page243"></a>243</span>
+still; as when Belle and Lady Jersey came out to brush
+their teeth in front of the rebel King&rsquo;s palace, and the
+night guard squatted opposite on the grass and watched
+the process; or when I and my interpreter, and the King
+with his secretary, mysteriously disappeared to conspire.&mdash;Ever
+yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To the Children in the Cellar</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>This time the children in the Kilburn cellar are addressed direct,
+with only a brief word at the end to their instructress.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands,
+September 4th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR CHILDREN IN THE CELLAR</span>,&mdash;I told you before
+something of the black boys who come here for work on
+the plantations, and some of whom run away and live a
+wild life in the forests of the islands. Now I want to tell
+you of one who lived in the house of the lean man. Like
+the rest of them here, he is a little fellow, and when he
+goes about in old, battered, cheap European clothes, looks
+very small and shabby. When first he came he was as
+lean as a tobacco-pipe, and his smile (like that of almost
+all the others) was the sort that makes you half wish to
+smile yourself, and half wish to cry. However, the boys
+in the kitchen took him in hand and fed him up. They
+would set him down alone to table and wait upon him
+till he had his fill, which was a good long time to wait;
+and the first thing we noticed was that his little stomach
+began to stick out like a pigeon&rsquo;s breast; and then the
+food got a little wider spread and he started little calves
+to his legs; and last of all he began to get quite saucy
+and impudent, so that we could know what sort of a fellow
+he really was when he was no longer afraid of being thrashed.
+He is really what you ought to call a young man, though I
+suppose nobody in the whole wide world has any idea of
+his age; and, as far as his behaviour goes, you can only
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page244"></a>244</span>
+think of him as a big little child with a good deal of sense.
+When Austin built his fort against the Indians, Arick (for
+that is the black boy&rsquo;s name) liked nothing so much as to
+help him. And this is very funny, when you think that of
+all the dangerous savages in this island Arick is one of the
+most dangerous. The other day, besides, he made Austin
+a musical instrument of the sort they use in his own
+country, a harp with only one string. He took a stick
+about three feet long, and perhaps four inches round.
+The under side he hollowed out in a deep trench to serve
+as sounding box; the two ends of the upper side he made
+to curve upward like the ends of a canoe, and between
+these he stretched the single string. He plays upon it
+with a match or a little piece of stick, and sings to it
+songs of his own country, of which no person here can
+understand a single word, and which are very likely all
+about fighting with his enemies in battle, and killing them,
+and I am sorry to say cooking them in a ground oven
+and eating them for supper when the fight is over.</p>
+
+<p>For Arick is really what you might call a savage, though
+a savage is a very different person in reality, and a very
+much nicer, from what he is made to appear in little books.
+He is the sort of person that everybody smiles to, or makes
+faces at, or gives a smack to as he goes by; the sort of
+person that all the girls on the plantation give the best
+seat to, and help first, and love to decorate with flowers
+and ribbons, and yet all the while are laughing at him;
+the sort of person who likes best to play with Austin, and
+whom Austin perhaps (when he is allowed) likes best to
+play with. He is all grins and giggles, and little steps out
+of dances, and little droll ways, to attract people&rsquo;s attention
+and set them laughing. And yet when you come to
+look at him closer, you will find that his body is all covered
+with scars. This was when he was a child. There was a
+war, as is the way in these wild islands, between his village
+and the next, much as if there were war in London between
+one street and another; and all the children ran about
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page245"></a>245</span>
+playing in the middle of the trouble, and I dare say took
+no more notice of the war than you children in London
+do of a general election. But sometimes, at general elections,
+English children may get run over by processions
+in the street; and it chanced that as little Arick was
+running about in the bush, and very busy about his playing,
+he ran into the midst of the warriors on the other side.
+These speared him with a poisoned spear; and his own
+people, when they had found him lying for dead, and in
+order to cure him of the poison, cut him up with knives
+that were probably made of fish-bones.</p>
+
+<p>This is a very savage piece of child-life, and Arick, for
+all his good-nature, is still a very savage person. I have
+told you how the black boys sometimes run away from
+the plantations, and live behind alone in the forest, building
+little sheds to protect them from the rain, and sometimes
+planting little gardens of food, but for the most
+part living the best they can upon the nuts of the trees
+and yams that they dig with their hands out of the earth.
+I do not think there can be anywhere in the world people
+more wretched than these runaways. They cannot return,
+for they would only return to be punished. They can
+never hope to see again their own land or their own people&mdash;indeed,
+I do not know what they can hope, but just to
+find enough yams every day to keep them from starvation.
+And in the wet season of the year, which is our summer
+and your winter, and the rain falls day after day far harder
+and louder than the loudest thunder-plump that ever fell
+in England, and the noon is sometimes so dark that the
+lean man is glad to light his lamp to write by, I can think
+of nothing so dreary as the state of these poor runaway
+slaves in the houseless bush. You are to remember,
+besides, that the people of this island hate and fear them
+because they are cannibals, sit and tell tales of them about
+their lamps at night in their own comfortable houses, and
+are sometimes afraid to lie down to sleep if they think
+there is a lurking black boy in the neighbourhood. Well
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page246"></a>246</span>
+now, Arick is of their own race and language, only he is
+a little more lucky because he has not run away; and how
+do you think that he proposed to help them? He asked
+if he might not have a gun. &ldquo;What do you want with a
+gun, Arick?&rdquo; was asked. And he said quite simply, and
+with his nice good-natured smile, that if he had a gun he
+would go up into the high bush and shoot black boys as
+men shoot pigeons. He said nothing about eating them,
+nor do I think he really meant to. I think all he wanted
+was to clear the property of vermin as gamekeepers at
+home kill weasels, or housewives mice.</p>
+
+<p>The other day he was sent down on an errand to the
+German Firm where many of the black boys live. It was
+very late when he came home on a bright moonlight night.
+He had a white bandage round his head, his eyes shone,
+and he could scarcely speak for excitement. It seems
+some of the black boys who were his enemies at home
+had attacked him, and one with a knife. By his own
+account he had fought very well, but the odds were heavy;
+the man with the knife had cut him both in the head and
+back, he had been struck down, and if some of the black
+boys of his own side had not come to the rescue, he must
+certainly have been killed. I am sure no Christmas-box
+could make any of you children so happy as this fight
+made Arick. A great part of the next day he neglected
+his work to play upon the one-stringed harp and sing songs
+about his great victory. And to-day, when he is gone upon
+his holiday, he has announced that he is going back to the
+German Firm to have another battle and another triumph.
+I do not think he will go all the same, or I should be more
+uneasy, for I do not want to have my Arick killed; and
+there is no doubt that if he begins to fight again, he will
+be likely to go on with it very far. For I have seen him
+once when he saw, or thought he saw, an enemy. It was
+one of our dreadful days of rain, the sound of it like a great
+waterfall or like a tempest of wind blowing in the forest;
+and there came to our door two runaway black boys
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page247"></a>247</span>
+seeking work. In such weather as that my enemy&rsquo;s dog
+(as Shakespeare says) should have had a right to shelter.
+But when Arick saw these two poor rogues coming with
+their empty bellies and drenched clothes, and one of them
+with a stolen cutlass in his hand, through that world of
+falling water, he had no thought of pity in his heart.
+Crouching behind one of the pillars of the verandah, which
+he held in his two hands, his mouth drew back into a
+strange sort of smile, his eyes grew bigger and bigger, and his
+whole face was just like the one word Murder in big capitals.</p>
+
+<p>Now I have told you a great deal too much about poor
+Arick&rsquo;s savage nature, and now I must tell you about a
+great amusement he had the other day. There came an
+English ship of war in the harbour, and the officers very
+good naturedly gave an entertainment of songs and dances
+and a magic-lantern, to which Arick and Austin were
+allowed to go. At the door of the hall there were crowds
+of black boys waiting and trying to peep in, the way
+children at home lie about and peep under the tent
+of a circus; and you may be sure Arick was a very proud
+person when he passed them all by and entered the hall
+with his ticket. I wish I knew what he thought of the
+whole performance; but the housekeeper of the lean man,
+who sat just in front of him, tells me what seemed to
+startle him the most. The first thing was when two of
+the officers came out with blackened faces like Christy
+minstrel boys and began to dance. Arick was sure that
+they were really black and his own people, and he was
+wonderfully surprised to see them dance this new European
+style of dance. But the great affair was the magic-lantern.
+The hall was made quite dark, which was very
+little to Arick&rsquo;s taste. He sat there behind the housekeeper,
+nothing to be seen of him but eyes and teeth,
+and his heart beating finely in his little scarred breast.
+And presently there came out on the white sheet that great
+bright eye of light that I am sure all you children must
+have often seen. It was quite new to Arick, he had no
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page248"></a>248</span>
+idea what would happen next; and in his fear and excitement,
+he laid hold with his little slim black fingers like a
+bird&rsquo;s claws on the neck of the housekeeper in front of
+him. All through the rest of the show, as one picture
+followed another on the white sheet, he sat there gasping
+and clutching at the housekeeper&rsquo;s neck, and goodness
+knows whether he were more pleased or frightened. Doubtless
+it was a very fine thing to see all these bright pictures
+coming out and dying away again one after another; but
+doubtless it was rather alarming also, for how was it done?
+And at last, when there appeared upon the screen the head
+of a black woman (as it might be his own mother or sister),
+and the black woman of a sudden began to roll her eyes,
+the fear or the excitement, whichever it was, wrung out
+of him a loud shuddering sob. And I think we all ought
+to admire his courage when, after an evening spent in
+looking on at such wonderful miracles, he and Austin set
+out alone through the forest to the lean man&rsquo;s house. It
+was late at night and pitch dark when some of the party
+overtook the little white boy and the big black boy marching
+among the trees with their lantern. I have told you
+the wood has an ill name, and all the people of the island
+believe it to be full of devils; but even if you do not
+believe in the devils, it is a pretty dreadful place to walk
+in by the moving light of a lantern, with nothing about
+you but a curious whirl of shadows and the black night
+above and beyond. But Arick kept his courage up, and
+I dare say Austin&rsquo;s too, with a perpetual chatter, so that
+the people coming after heard his voice long before they
+saw the shining of the lantern.</p>
+
+<p>My dear Miss Boodle,&mdash;will I be asking too much that
+you should send me back my letters to the Children, or
+copies, if you prefer; I have an idea that they may perhaps
+help in time to make up a book on the South Seas
+for children. I have addressed the Cellar so long this time
+that you must take this note for yourself and excuse,
+yours most sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page249"></a>249</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Thursday, 15th September</i> [<i>1892</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;On Tuesday, we had our young
+adventurer<a name="FnAnchor_46" href="#Footnote_46"><span class="sp">46</span></a> ready, and Fanny, Belle, he and I set out
+about three of a dark, deadly hot, and deeply unwholesome
+afternoon. Belle had the lad behind her; I had a
+pint of champagne in either pocket, a parcel in my hands,
+and as Jack had a girth sore and I rode without a girth,
+I might be said to occupy a very unstrategic position.
+On the way down, a little dreary, beastly drizzle beginning
+to come out of the darkness, Fanny put up an umbrella,
+her horse bounded, reared, cannoned into me, cannoned
+into Belle and the lad, and bolted for home. It really
+might and ought to have been an A1 catastrophe; but
+nothing happened beyond Fanny&rsquo;s nerves being a good
+deal shattered; of course, she could not tell what had
+happened to us until she got her horse mastered.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, Haggard went off to the Commission and
+left us in charge of his house; all our people came down
+in wreaths of flowers; we had a boat for them; Haggard
+had a flag in the Commission boat for us; and when at
+last the steamer turned up, the young adventurer was
+carried on board in great style, with a new watch and
+chain, and about three pound ten of tips, and five big
+baskets of fruit as free-will offerings to the captain. Captain
+Morse had us all to lunch; champagne flowed, so did
+compliments; and I did the affable celebrity life-sized.
+It made a great send-off for the young adventurer. As
+the boat drew off, he was standing at the head of the
+gangway, supported by three handsome ladies&mdash;one of
+them a real full-blown beauty, Madame Green, the singer&mdash;and
+looking very engaging himself, between smiles and
+tears. Not that he cried in public. My, but we were a
+tired crowd! However, it is always a blessing to get
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page250"></a>250</span>
+home, and this time it was a sort of wonder to ourselves
+that we got back alive. Casualties: Fanny&rsquo;s back jarred,
+horse incident; Belle, bad headache, tears, and champagne;
+self, idiocy, champagne, fatigue; Lloyd, ditto,
+ditto. As for the adventurer, I believe he will have a
+delightful voyage for his little start in life. But there is
+always something touching in a mite&rsquo;s first launch.</p>
+
+<p><i>Date unknown.</i>&mdash;I am now well on with the third part
+of the <i>Débâcle</i>.<a name="FnAnchor_47" href="#Footnote_47"><span class="sp">47</span></a> The two first I liked much; the second
+completely knocking me; so far as it has gone, this third
+part appears the ramblings of a dull man who has forgotten
+what he has to say&mdash;he reminds me of an M.P. But Sedan
+was really great, and I will pick no holes. The batteries
+under fire, the red-cross folk, the county charge&mdash;perhaps,
+above all, Major Bouroche and the operations, all beyond
+discussion; and every word about the Emperor splendid.</p>
+
+<p><i>September 30th.</i>&mdash;<i>David Balfour</i> done, and its author
+along with it, or nearly so. Strange to think of even our
+doctor here repeating his nonsense about debilitating
+climate. Why, the work I have been doing the last twelve
+months, in one continuous spate, mostly with annoying
+interruptions and without any collapse to mention, would
+be incredible in Norway. But I <i>have</i> broken down now,
+and will do nothing as long as I possibly can. With <i>David
+Balfour</i> I am very well pleased; in fact these labours of
+the last year&mdash;I mean <i>Falesá</i> and <i>D. B.</i>, not Samoa, of
+course&mdash;seem to me to be nearer what I mean than anything
+I have ever done; nearer what I mean by fiction;
+the nearest thing before was <i>Kidnapped</i>. I am not forgetting
+the <i>Master of Ballantrae</i>, but that lacked all pleasurableness,
+and hence was imperfect in essence. So you see,
+if I am a little tired, I do not repent.</p>
+
+<p>The third part of the <i>Débâcle</i> may be all very fine; but
+I cannot read it. It suffers from <i>impaired vitality</i>, and
+<i>uncertain aim</i>; two deadly sicknesses. Vital&mdash;that&rsquo;s what
+I am at, first: wholly vital, with a buoyancy of life. Then
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page251"></a>251</span>
+lyrical, if it may be, and picturesque, always with an epic
+value of scenes, so that the figures remain in the mind&rsquo;s
+eye for ever.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 8th.</i>&mdash;Suppose you sent us some of the catalogues
+of the parties what vends statutes? I don&rsquo;t want
+colossal Herculeses, but about quarter size and less. If
+the catalogues were illustrated it would probably be found
+a help to weak memories. These may be found to alleviate
+spare moments, when we sometimes amuse ourselves by
+thinking how fine we shall make the palace if we do not
+go pop. Perhaps in the same way it might amuse you
+to send us any pattern of wall paper that might strike
+you as cheap, pretty, and suitable for a room in a hot and
+extremely bright climate. It should be borne in mind that
+our climate can be extremely dark too. Our sitting-room
+is to be in varnished wood. The room I have particularly
+in mind is a sort of bed and sitting-room, pretty large, lit
+on three sides, and the colour in favour of its proprietor
+at present is a topazy yellow. But then with what colour
+to relieve it? For a little work-room of my own at the
+back, I should rather like to see some patterns of unglossy&mdash;well,
+I&rsquo;ll be hanged if I can describe this red&mdash;it&rsquo;s not
+Turkish and it&rsquo;s not Roman and it&rsquo;s not Indian, but it
+seems to partake of the two last, and yet it can&rsquo;t be either
+of them, because it ought to be able to go with vermillion.
+Ah, what a tangled web we weave&mdash;anyway, with what
+brains you have left choose me and send me some&mdash;many&mdash;patterns
+of this exact shade.</p>
+
+<p>A few days ago it was Haggard&rsquo;s birthday and we had
+him and his cousin to dinner&mdash;bless me if I ever told you
+of his cousin!&mdash;he is here anyway, and a fine, pleasing
+specimen, so that we have concluded (after our own happy
+experience) that the climate of Samoa must be favourable
+to cousins.<a name="FnAnchor_48" href="#Footnote_48"><span class="sp">48</span></a> Then we went out on the verandah in a lovely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page252"></a>252</span>
+moonlight, drinking port, hearing the cousin play and
+sing, till presently we were informed that our boys had
+got up a siva in Lafaele&rsquo;s house to which we were invited.
+It was entirely their own idea. The house, you must
+understand, is one-half floored, and one-half bare earth,
+and the daďs stands a little over knee high above the level
+of the soil. The daďs was the stage, with three footlights.
+We audience sat on mats on the floor, and the cook and
+three of our work-boys, sometimes assisted by our two
+ladies, took their places behind the footlights and began
+a topical Vailima song. The burden was of course that
+of a Samoan popular song about a white man who objects
+to all that he sees in Samoa. And there was of course a
+special verse for each one of the party&mdash;Lloyd was called
+the dancing man (practically the Chief&rsquo;s handsome son) of
+Vailima; he was also, in his character I suppose of overseer,
+compared to a policeman&mdash;Belle had that day been the
+almoner in a semi-comic distribution of wedding rings
+and thimbles (bought cheap at an auction) to the whole
+plantation company, fitting a ring on every man&rsquo;s finger,
+and a ring and a thimble on both the women&rsquo;s. This was
+very much in character with her native name <i>Teuila</i>, the
+adorner of the ugly&mdash;so of course this was the point of
+her verse and at a given moment all the performers displayed
+the rings upon their fingers. Pelema (the cousin&mdash;our
+cousin) was described as watching from the house
+and whenever he saw any boy not doing anything, running
+and doing it himself. Fanny&rsquo;s verse was less intelligible,
+but it was accompanied in the dance with a pantomime
+of terror well-fitted to call up her haunting, indefatigable
+and diminutive presence in a blue gown.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Gordon Browne</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa</i> [<i>Autumn 1892</i>].</p>
+
+<p class="center noind"><i>To the Artist who did the illustrations to &ldquo;Uma.&rdquo;</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR</span>,&mdash;I only know you under the initials G. B.,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page253"></a>253</span>
+but you have done some exceedingly spirited and satisfactory
+illustrations to my story <i>The Beach of Falesá</i>, and
+I wish to write and thank you expressly for the care and
+talent shown. Such numbers of people can do good black
+and whites! So few can illustrate a story, or apparently
+read it. You have shown that you can do both, and your
+creation of Wiltshire is a real illumination of the text.
+It was exactly so that Wiltshire dressed and looked, and
+you have the line of his nose to a nicety. His nose is an
+inspiration. Nor should I forget to thank you for Case,
+particularly in his last appearance. It is a singular fact&mdash;which
+seems to point still more directly to inspiration
+in your case&mdash;that your missionary actually resembles the
+flesh-and-blood person from whom Mr. Tarleton was
+drawn. The general effect of the islands is all that could
+be wished; indeed I have but one criticism to make, that
+in the background of Case taking the dollar from Mr. Tarleton&rsquo;s
+head&mdash;head&mdash;not hand, as the fools have printed it&mdash;the
+natives have a little too much the look of Africans.</p>
+
+<p>But the great affair is that you have been to the pains
+to illustrate my story instead of making conscientious
+black and whites of people sitting talking. I doubt if you
+have left unrepresented a single pictorial incident. I am
+writing by this mail to the editor in the hopes that I may
+buy from him the originals, and I am, dear sir, your very
+much obliged,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Miss Morse</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The next is an answer to an acknowledgment from a lady in the
+United States, one of many similar which he from time to time
+received, of help and encouragement derived from his writings.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoan Islands, October 7th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MADAM</span>,&mdash;I have a great diffidence in answering
+your valued letter. It would be difficult for me to express
+the feelings with which I read it&mdash;and am now trying to
+re-read it as I dictate this.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page254"></a>254</span></p>
+
+<p>You ask me to forgive what you say &ldquo;must seem a
+liberty,&rdquo; and I find that I cannot thank you sufficiently or
+even find a word with which to qualify your letter. Dear
+Madam, such a communication even the vainest man
+would think a sufficient reward for a lifetime of labour.
+That I should have been able to give so much help and
+pleasure to your sister is the subject of my grateful wonder.</p>
+
+<p>That she, being dead, and speaking with your pen,
+should be able to repay the debt with such a liberal interest,
+is one of those things that reconcile us with the world and
+make us take hope again. I do not know what I have
+done to deserve so beautiful and touching a compliment;
+and I feel there is but one thing fit for me to say here, that
+I will try with renewed courage to go on in the same path,
+and to deserve, if not to receive, a similar return from
+others.</p>
+
+<p>You apologise for speaking so much about yourselves.
+Dear Madam, I thought you did so too little. I should
+have wished to have known more of those who were so
+sympathetic as to find a consolation in my work, and so
+graceful and so tactful as to acknowledge it in such a
+letter as was yours.</p>
+
+<p>Will you offer to your mother the expression of a sympathy
+which (coming from a stranger) must seem very
+airy, but which yet is genuine; and accept for yourself
+my gratitude for the thought which inspired you to write
+to me and the words which you found to express it.</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Miss Taylor</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Lady Taylor had died soon after the settlement of the Stevenson
+family at Vailima. The second paragraph refers to a test which
+had been set before an expert in the reading of character by handwriting.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoan Islands, October 7th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR IDA</span>,&mdash;I feel very much the implied reproof
+in yours just received; but I assure you there is no fear
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page255"></a>255</span>
+of our forgetting either Una or yourself, or your dear
+mother, who was one of the women I have most admired
+and loved in the whole of my way through life. The truth
+is that Fanny writes to nobody and that I am on the whole
+rather overworked. I compose lots of letters to lots of
+unforgotten friends, but when it comes to taking the pen
+between my fingers there are many impediments. Hence
+it comes that I am now writing to you by an amanuensis,
+at which I know you will be very angry. Well, it was
+Hobson&rsquo;s choice. A little while ago I had very bad
+threatenings of scrivener&rsquo;s cramp; and if Belle (Fanny&rsquo;s
+daughter, of whom you remember to have heard) had
+not taken up the pen for my correspondence, I doubt you
+would never have heard from me again except in the way
+of books. I wish you and Una would be so good as to
+write to us now and then even without encouragement.
+An unsolicited letter would be almost certain (sooner or
+later, depending on the activity of the conscience) to
+produce some sort of an apology for an answer.</p>
+
+<p>All this upon one condition: that you send me your
+friend&rsquo;s description of my looks, age and character. The
+character of my work I am not so careful about. But
+did you ever hear of anything so tantalizing as for you
+to tell me the story and not send me your notes? I
+expect it was a device to extract an answer; and, as you
+see, it has succeeded. Let me suggest (if your friend be
+handy) that the present letter would be a very delicate
+test. It is in one person&rsquo;s handwriting, it expresses the
+ideas of another, of the writer herself you know nothing.
+I should be very curious to know what the sibyl will make
+of such a problem.</p>
+
+<p>If you carry out your design of settling in London you
+must be sure and let us have the new address. I swear
+we shall write some time&mdash;and if the interval be long you
+must just take it on your own head for prophesying horrors.
+You remember how you always said we were but an encampment
+of Bedouins, and that you would awake some
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page256"></a>256</span>
+morning to find us fled for ever. Nothing unsettled me
+more than these ill-judged remarks. I was doing my
+best to be a sedentary semi-respectable man in a suburban
+villa; and you were always shaking your head at me and
+assuring me (what I knew to be partly true) that it was all
+a farce. Even here, when I have sunk practically all that
+I possess, and have good health and my fill of congenial
+fighting, and could not possibly get away if I wanted ever
+so&mdash;even here and now the recollection of these infidel
+prophesies rings in my ears like an invitation to the sea.
+<i>Tu l&rsquo;as voulu!</i></p>
+
+<p>I know you want some of our news, and it is all so far
+away that I know not when to begin. We have a big
+house and we are building another&mdash;pray God that we can
+pay for it. I am just reminded that we have no less than
+eight several places of habitation in this place, which was
+a piece of uncleared forest some three years ago. I think
+there are on my pay rolls at the present moment thirteen
+human souls, not counting two washerwomen who come
+and go. In addition to this I am at daggers drawn with
+the Government, have had my correspondence stopped and
+opened by the Chief Justice&mdash;it was correspondence with
+the so-called Rebel King,&mdash;and have had boys examined
+and threatened with deportation to betray the secrets of
+my relations with the same person. In addition to this
+I might direct attention to those trifling exercises of the
+fancy, my literary works, and I hope you won&rsquo;t think that
+I am likely to suffer from ennui. Nor is Fanny any less
+active. Ill or well, rain or shine, a little blue indefatigable
+figure is to be observed howking about certain patches of
+garden. She comes in heated and bemired up to the eyebrows,
+late for every meal. She has reached a sort of
+tragic placidity. Whenever she plants anything new the
+boys weed it up. Whenever she tries to keep anything
+for seed the house-boys throw it away. And she has
+reached that pitch of a kind of noble dejection that she
+would almost say she did not mind. Anyway, her cabbages
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page257"></a>257</span>
+have succeeded. Talolo (our native cook, and a
+very good one too) likened them the other day to the
+head of a German; and even this hyperbolical image was
+grudging. I remember all the trouble you had with
+servants at the Roost. The most of them were nothing
+to the trances that we have to go through here at times,
+when I have to hold a bed of justice, and take evidence
+which is never twice the same, and decide, practically
+blindfold, and after I have decided have the accuser take
+back the accusation in block and beg for mercy for the
+culprit. Conceive the annoyance of all this when you
+are very fond of both.&mdash;Your affectionate friend,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands,
+Oct. 10th</i>, 1892.</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;It is now, as you see, the
+10th of October, and there has not reached the Island of
+Upolu one single copy, or rag of a copy, of the Samoa
+book. I lie; there has come one, and that in the pocket
+of a missionary man who is at daggers drawn with me,
+who lends it to all my enemies, conceals it from all my
+friends, and is bringing a lawsuit against me on the strength
+of expressions in the same which I have forgotten, and
+now cannot see. This is pretty tragic, I think you will
+allow; and I was inclined to fancy it was the fault of the
+Post Office. But I hear from my sister-in-law Mrs. Sanchez
+that she is in the same case, and has received no <i>Footnote</i>.
+I have also to consider that I had no letter from you last
+mail, although you ought to have received by that time
+&ldquo;My Grandfather and Scott,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Me and my Grandfather.&rdquo;
+Taking one consideration with another, therefore,
+I prefer to conceive that No. 743 Broadway has fallen
+upon gentle and continuous slumber, and is become an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page258"></a>258</span>
+enchanted palace among publishing houses. If it be not
+so, if the <i>Footnotes</i> were really sent, I hope you will fall
+upon the Post Office with all the vigour you possess.
+How does <i>The Wrecker</i> go in the States? It seems to be
+doing exceptionally well in England.&mdash;Yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>This letter contains the first announcement of the scheme of
+<i>Weir of Hermiston</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, October 28th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;This is very late to begin the
+monthly budget, but I have a good excuse this time, for
+I have had a very annoying fever with symptoms of sore
+arm, and in the midst of it a very annoying piece of business
+which suffered no delay or idleness....</p>
+
+<p>The consequence of all this was that my fever got very
+much worse and your letter has not been hitherto written.
+But, my dear fellow, do compare these little larky fevers
+with the fine, healthy, prostrating colds of the dear old
+dead days at home. Here was I, in the middle of a pretty
+bad one, and I was able to put it in my pocket, and go
+down day after day, and attend to and put my strength
+into this beastly business. Do you see me doing that
+with a catarrh? And if I had done so, what would have
+been the result?</p>
+
+<p>Last night, about four o&rsquo;clock, Belle and I set off to
+Apia, whither my mother had preceded us. She was at
+the Mission; we went to Haggard&rsquo;s. There we had to
+wait the most unconscionable time for dinner. I do not
+wish to speak lightly of the Amanuensis, who is unavoidably
+present, but I may at least say for myself that I was
+as cross as two sticks. Dinner came at last, we had the
+tinned soup which is usually the <i>pičce de resistance</i> in the
+halls of Haggard, and we pitched into it. Followed an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page259"></a>259</span>
+excellent salad of tomatoes and crayfish, a good Indian
+curry, a tender joint of beef, a dish of pigeons, a pudding,
+cheese and coffee. I was so over-eaten after this &ldquo;hunger
+and burst&rdquo; that I could scarcely move; and it was my
+sad fate that night in the character of the local author to
+eloquute before the public&mdash;&ldquo;Mr. Stevenson will read a
+selection from his own works&rdquo;&mdash;a degrading picture. I
+had determined to read them the account of the hurricane;
+I do not know if I told you that my book has never
+turned up here, or rather only one copy has, and that
+in the unfriendly hands of &mdash;&mdash;. It has therefore only
+been seen by enemies; and this combination of mystery
+and evil report has been greatly envenomed by some ill-judged
+newspaper articles from the States. Altogether this
+specimen was listened to with a good deal of uncomfortable
+expectation on the part of the Germans, and when it
+was over was applauded with unmistakable relief. The
+public hall where these revels came off seems to be unlucky
+for me; I never go there but to some stone-breaking job.
+Last time it was the public meeting of which I must have
+written you; this time it was this uneasy but not on the
+whole unsuccessful experiment. Belle, my mother, and I
+rode home about midnight in a fine display of lightning
+and witch-fires. My mother is absent, so that I may dare
+to say that she struck me as voluble. The Amanuensis
+did not strike me the same way; she was probably thinking,
+but it was really rather a weird business, and I saw
+what I have never seen before, the witch-fires gathered
+into little bright blue points almost as bright as a night-light.</p>
+
+<p><i>Saturday.</i>&mdash;This is the day that should bring your
+letter; it is gray and cloudy and windless; thunder rolls
+in the mountain; it is a quarter past six, and I am alone,
+sir, alone in this workman&rsquo;s house, Belle and Lloyd having
+been down all yesterday to meet the steamer; they were
+scarce gone with most of the horses and all the saddles,
+than there began a perfect picnic of the sick and maim;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page260"></a>260</span>
+Iopu with a bad foot, Faauma with a bad shoulder, Fanny
+with yellow spots. It was at first proposed to carry all
+these to the doctor, particularly Faauma, whose shoulder
+bore an appearance of erysipelas, that sent the amateur
+below. No horses, no saddle. Now I had my horse and
+I could borrow Lafaele&rsquo;s saddle; and if I went alone I
+could do a job that had long been waiting; and that was
+to interview the doctor on another matter. Off I set in
+a hazy moonlight night; windless, like to-day; the thunder
+rolling in the mountain, as to-day; in the still groves, these
+little mushroom lamps glowing blue and steady, singly
+or in pairs. Well, I had my interview, said everything as
+I had meant, and with just the result I hoped for. The
+doctor and I drank beer together and discussed German
+literature until nine, and we parted the best of friends.
+I got home to a silent house of sleepers, only Fanny awaiting
+me; we talked awhile, in whispers, on the interview;
+then, I got a lantern and went across to the workman&rsquo;s
+house, now empty and silent, myself sole occupant. So
+to bed, prodigious tired but mighty content with my
+night&rsquo;s work, and to-day, with a headache and a chill,
+have written you this page, while my new novel waits.
+Of this I will tell you nothing, except the various names
+under consideration. First, it ought to be called&mdash;but of
+course that is impossible&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="pt05" style="padding-left: 8em;"><i>Braxfield.</i><a name="FnAnchor_49" href="#Footnote_49"><span class="sp">49</span></a></p>
+
+<p>Then it <i>is</i> to be called either</p>
+
+<div class="noa">
+<p style="padding-left: 6em;"><i>Weir of Hermiston,</i></p>
+<p style="padding-left: 6em;"><i>The Lord-Justice Clerk,</i></p>
+<p style="padding-left: 4em;"><i>The Two Kirsties of the Cauldstaneslap,</i></p>
+<p style="padding-left: 12em;">or</p>
+<p style="padding-left: 7em;"><i>The Four Black Brothers</i>.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page261"></a>261</span></p>
+
+<p>Characters:</p>
+
+<table style="padding-left: 2em;" summary="text format">
+
+<tr><td colspan="3">
+<p>Adam Weir, Lord-Justice Clerk, called Lord Hermiston.</p>
+<p>Archie, his son.</p>
+<p>Aunt Kirstie Elliott, his housekeeper at Hermiston.</p>
+<p>Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap, her brother.</p>
+<p>Kirstie Elliott, his daughter.</p></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>
+<p>Jim,</p>
+<p>Gib,</p>
+<p>Hob</p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&amp;</p>
+<p>Dandie,</p></td>
+<td><span style="font-size: 6em; font-family: 'Courier New'; color: #708090;">}</span></td>
+<td>his sons.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="3">
+<p>Patrick Innes, a young advocate.</p>
+<p>The Lord-Justice General.</p></td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Scene, about Hermiston in the Lammermuirs and in
+Edinburgh. Temp. 1812. So you see you are to have
+another holiday from copra! The rain begins softly on
+the iron roof, and I will do the reverse and&mdash;dry up.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday.</i>&mdash;Yours with the diplomatic private opinion
+received. It is just what I should have supposed. <i>Ça
+m&rsquo;est bien égal.</i>&mdash;The name is to be</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>The Lord-Justice Clerk.</i></p>
+
+<p class="noind">None others are genuine. Unless it be</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Lord-Justice Clerk Hermiston.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Nov. 2nd.</i>&mdash;On Saturday we expected Captain Morse of
+the <i>Alameda</i> to come up to lunch, and on Friday with
+genuine South Sea hospitality had a pig killed. On the
+Saturday morning no pig. Some of the boys seemed to
+give a doubtful account of themselves; our next neighbour
+below in the wood is a bad fellow and very intimate
+with some of our boys, for whom his confounded house is
+like a fly-paper for flies. To add to all this, there was on
+the Saturday a great public presentation of food to the
+king and parliament men, an occasion on which it is
+almost dignified for a Samoan to steal anything, and
+entirely dignified for him to steal a pig.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page262"></a>262</span></p>
+
+<p>(The Amanuensis went to the <i>talolo</i>, as it is called, and
+saw something so very pleasing she begs to interrupt the
+letter to tell it. The different villagers came in in bands&mdash;led
+by the maid of the village, followed by the young
+warriors. It was a very fine sight, for some three thousand
+people are said to have assembled. The men wore
+nothing but magnificent head-dresses and a bunch of
+leaves, and were oiled and glistening in the sunlight. One
+band had no maid but was led by a tiny child of about
+five&mdash;a serious little creature clad in a ribbon of grass and
+a fine head-dress, who skipped with elaborate leaps in
+front of the warriors, like a little kid leading a band of
+lions.</p>
+
+<p class="rt scs">A. M.)</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="scs">A.M</span>. being done, I go on again. All this made it
+very possible that even if none of our boys had stolen the
+pig, some of them might know the thief. Besides, the
+theft, as it was a theft of meat prepared for a guest, had
+something of the nature of an insult, and &ldquo;my face,&rdquo; in
+native phrase, &ldquo;was ashamed.&rdquo; Accordingly, we determined
+to hold a bed of justice. It was done last night
+after dinner. I sat at the head of the table, Graham on
+my right hand, Henry Simelé at my left, Lloyd behind
+him. The house company sat on the floor around the
+walls&mdash;twelve all told. I am described as looking as like
+Braxfield as I could manage with my appearance; Graham,
+who is of a severe countenance, looked like Rhadamanthus;
+Lloyd was hideous to the view; and Simelé had
+all the fine solemnity of a Samoan chief. The proceedings
+opened by my delivering a Samoan prayer, which may be
+translated thus&mdash;&ldquo;Our God, look down upon us and shine
+into our hearts. Help us to be far from falsehood so that
+each one of us may stand before Thy Face in his integrity.&rdquo;&mdash;Then,
+beginning with Simelé, every one came up to the
+table, laid his hand on the Bible, and repeated clause by
+clause after me the following oath&mdash;I fear it may sound
+even comic in English, but it is a very pretty piece of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263"></a>263</span>
+Samoan, and struck direct at the most lively superstitions
+of the race. &ldquo;This is the Holy Bible here that I am
+touching. Behold me, O God! If I know who it was
+that took away the pig, or the place to which it was taken,
+or have heard anything relating to it, and shall not declare
+the same&mdash;be made an end of by God this life of mine!&rdquo;
+They all took it with so much seriousness and firmness that
+(as Graham said) if they were not innocent they would
+make invaluable witnesses. I was so far impressed by
+their bearing that I went no further, and the funny and
+yet strangely solemn scene came to an end.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday, Nov. 6th.</i>&mdash;Here is a long story to go back
+upon, and I wonder if I have either time or patience for
+the task?</p>
+
+<p>Wednesday I had a great idea of match-making, and
+proposed to Henry that Faalé would make a good wife
+for him. I wish I had put this down when it was fresher
+in my mind, it was so interesting an interview. My
+gentleman would not tell if I were on or not. &ldquo;I do not
+know yet; I will tell you next week. May I tell the sister
+of my father? No, better not, tell her when it is done.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;But
+will not your family be angry if you marry without
+asking them?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;My village? What does my
+village want? Mats!&rdquo; I said I thought the girl would
+grow up to have a great deal of sense, and my gentleman
+flew out upon me; she had sense now, he said.</p>
+
+<p>Thursday, we were startled by the note of guns, and
+presently after heard it was an English warship. Graham
+and I set off at once, and as soon as we met any towns-folk
+they began crying to me that I was to be arrested.
+It was the <i>Vossische Zeitung</i> article which had been quoted
+in a paper. Went on board and saw Captain Bourke;
+he did not even know&mdash;not even guess&mdash;why he was here;
+having been sent off by cablegram from Auckland. It is
+hoped the same ship that takes this off Europewards may
+bring his orders and our news. But which is it to be?
+Heads or tails? If it is to be German, I hope they will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264"></a>264</span>
+deport me; I should prefer it so; I do not think that I
+could bear a German officialdom, and should probably
+have to leave <i>sponte mea</i>, which is only less picturesque
+and more expensive.</p>
+
+<p><i>8th.</i>&mdash;Mail day. All well, not yet put in prison, whatever
+may be in store for me. No time even to sign this
+lame letter.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5>To J. M. <span class="sc">Barrie</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands,
+November 1st, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. BARRIE</span>,&mdash;I can scarce thank you sufficiently
+for your extremely amusing letter. No, <i>The Auld Licht
+Idyls</i> never reached me&mdash;I wish it had, and I wonder
+extremely whether it would not be good for me to have a
+pennyworth of the Auld Licht pulpit. It is a singular
+thing that I should live here in the South Seas under conditions
+so new and so striking, and yet my imagination so
+continually inhabit that cold old huddle of grey hills from
+which we come. I have just finished <i>David Balfour</i>; I
+have another book on the stocks, <i>The Young Chevalier</i>,
+which is to be part in France and part in Scotland, and
+to deal with Prince Charlie about the year 1749; and
+now what have I done but begun a third which is to be
+all moorland together, and is to have for a centre-piece a
+figure that I think you will appreciate&mdash;that of the immortal
+Braxfield&mdash;Braxfield himself is my <i>grand premier</i>, or, since
+you are so much involved in the British drama, let me say
+my heavy lead....</p>
+
+<p>Your descriptions of your dealings with Lord Rintoul
+are frightfully unconscientious. You should never write
+about anybody until you persuade yourself at least for the
+moment that you love him, above all anybody on whom
+your plot revolves. It will always make a hole in the
+book; and, if he has anything to do with the mechanism,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265"></a>265</span>
+prove a stick in your machinery. But you know all this
+better than I do, and it is one of your most promising
+traits that you do not take your powers too seriously.
+<i>The Little Minister</i> ought to have ended badly; we all
+know it did; and we are infinitely grateful to you for the
+grace and good feeling with which you lied about it. If
+you had told the truth, I for one could never have forgiven
+you. As you had conceived and written the earlier
+parts, the truth about the end, though indisputably true
+to fact, would have been a lie, or what is worse, a discord
+in art. If you are going to make a book end badly, it
+must end badly from the beginning. Now your book
+began to end well. You let yourself fall in love with, and
+fondle, and smile at your puppets. Once you had done
+that, your honour was committed&mdash;at the cost of truth
+to life you were bound to save them. It is the blot on
+<i>Richard Feverel</i>, for instance, that it begins to end well;
+and then tricks you and ends ill. But in that case there
+is worse behind, for the ill-ending does not inherently issue
+from the plot&mdash;the story <i>had</i>, in fact, <i>ended well</i> after the
+great last interview between Richard and Lucy&mdash;and the
+blind, illogical bullet which smashes all has no more to
+do between the boards than a fly has to do with the room
+into whose open window it comes buzzing. It <i>might</i> have
+so happened; it needed not; and unless needs must, we
+have no right to pain our readers. I have had a heavy
+case of conscience of the same kind about my Braxfield
+story. Braxfield&mdash;only his name is Hermiston&mdash;has a son
+who is condemned to death; plainly, there is a fine tempting
+fitness about this; and I meant he was to hang. But
+now on considering my minor characters, I saw there were
+five people who would&mdash;in a sense who must&mdash;break prison
+and attempt his rescue. They were capable, hardy folks,
+too, who might very well succeed. Why should they not
+then? Why should not young Hermiston escape clear
+out of the country? and be happy, if he could, with his&mdash;&mdash;. But
+soft! I will not betray my secret or my heroine.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266"></a>266</span>
+Suffice it to breathe in your ear that she was what Hardy
+calls (and others in their plain way don&rsquo;t) a Pure Woman.<a name="FnAnchor_50" href="#Footnote_50"><span class="sp">50</span></a>
+Much virtue in a capital letter, such as yours was.</p>
+
+<p>Write to me again in my infinite distance. Tell me
+about your new book. No harm in telling <i>me</i>; I am too
+far off to be indiscreet; there are too few near me who
+would care to hear. I am rushes by the riverside, and the
+stream is in Babylon: breathe your secrets to me fearlessly;
+and if the Trade Wind caught and carried them
+away, there are none to catch them nearer than Australia,
+unless it were the Tropic Birds. In the unavoidable
+absence of my amanuensis, who is buying eels for dinner,
+I have thus concluded my dispatch, like St. Paul, with my
+own hand.</p>
+
+<p>And in the inimitable words of Lord Kames, Faur ye
+weel, ye bitch.&mdash;Yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To E. L. Burlingame</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Nov. 2nd, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,&mdash;In the first place, I have to
+acknowledge receipt of your munificent cheque for three
+hundred and fifty dollars. Glad you liked the Scott voyage;
+rather more than I did upon the whole. As the
+proofs have not turned up at all, there can be no question
+of returning them, and I am therefore very much pleased
+to think you have arranged not to wait. The volumes of
+Adams arrived along with yours of October 6th. One of
+the dictionaries has also blundered home, apparently from
+the Colonies; the other is still to seek. I note and sympathise
+with your bewilderment as to <i>Falesá</i>. My own
+direct correspondence with Mr. Baxter is now about three
+months in abeyance. Altogether you see how well it
+would be if you could do anything to wake up the Post
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267"></a>267</span>
+Office. Not a single copy of the <i>Footnote</i> has yet reached
+Samoa, but I hear of one having come to its address in
+Hawaii. Glad to hear good news of Stoddard.&mdash;Yours
+sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><i>P.S.</i>&mdash;Since the above was written an aftermath of
+post matter came in, among which were the proofs of <i>My
+Grandfather</i>. I shall correct and return them, but as I
+have lost all confidence in the Post Office, I shall mention
+here: first galley, 4th line from the bottom, for &ldquo;<span class="sc">AS</span>&rdquo;
+read &ldquo;<span class="sc">OR</span>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Should I ever again have to use my work without
+waiting for proofs, bear in mind this golden principle.
+From a congenital defect, I must suppose, I am unable to
+write the word <span class="sc">OR</span>&mdash;wherever I write it the printer unerringly
+puts <span class="sc">AS</span>&mdash;and those who read for me had better,
+wherever it is possible, substitute <i>or</i> for <i>as</i>. This the more
+so since many writers have a habit of using as which is
+death to my temper and confusion to my face.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5>To <span class="sc">Lieutenant Eeles</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following is addressed to one of Stevenson&rsquo;s best friends
+among the officers of H.M.S. the Curaçoa, which had been for some
+time on the South Pacific station.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoan Islands,
+November 15th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR EELES</span>,&mdash;In the first place, excuse me writing to
+you by another hand, as that is the way in which alone
+all my correspondence gets effected. Before I took to
+this method, or rather before I found a victim, it simply
+didn&rsquo;t get effected.</p>
+
+<p>Thank you again and again, first for your kind thought
+of writing to me, and second for your extremely amusing
+and interesting letter. You can have no guess how immediately
+interesting it was to our family. First of all, the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268"></a>268</span>
+poor soul at Nukufetau is an old friend of ours, and we
+have actually treated him ourselves on a former visit to
+the island. I don&rsquo;t know if Hoskin would approve of our
+treatment; it consisted, I believe, mostly in a present of
+stout and a recommendation to put nails in his watertank.
+We also (as you seem to have done) recommended him to
+leave the island; and I remember very well how wise and
+kind we thought his answer. He had half-caste children
+(he said) who would suffer and perhaps be despised if he
+carried them elsewhere; if he left them there alone, they
+would almost certainly miscarry; and the best thing
+was that he should stay and die with them. But the cream
+of the fun was your meeting with Buckland. We not only
+know him, but (as the French say) we don&rsquo;t know anybody
+else; he is our intimate and adored original; and&mdash;prepare
+your mind&mdash;he was, is, and ever will be, <span class="sc">Tommy
+Haddon</span>!<a name="FnAnchor_51" href="#Footnote_51"><span class="sp">51</span></a> As I don&rsquo;t believe you to be inspired, I
+suspect you to have suspected this. At least it was a
+mighty happy suspicion. You are quite right: Tommy
+is really &ldquo;a good chap,&rdquo; though about as comic as they
+make them.</p>
+
+<p>I was extremely interested in your Fiji legend, and
+perhaps even more so in your capital account of the
+<i>Curaçoa&rsquo;s</i> misadventure. Alas! we have nothing so thrilling
+to relate. All hangs and fools on in this isle of mis-government,
+without change, though not without novelty,
+but wholly without hope, unless perhaps you should consider
+it hopeful that I am still more immediately threatened
+with arrest. The confounded thing is, that if it
+comes off, I shall be sent away in the <i>Ringarooma</i> instead
+of the <i>Curaçoa</i>. The former ship burst upon us by the
+run&mdash;she had been sent off by despatch and without orders&mdash;and
+to make me a little more easy in my mind she
+brought newspapers clamouring for my incarceration.
+Since then I have had a conversation with the German
+Consul. He said he had read a review of my Samoa book,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269"></a>269</span>
+and if the review were fair, must regard it as an insult,
+and one that would have to be resented. At the same
+time, I learn that letters addressed to the German squadron
+lie for them here in the Post Office. Reports are current
+of other English ships being on the way&mdash;I hope to goodness
+yours will be among the number. And I gather from
+one thing and another that there must be a holy row going
+on between the powers at home, and that the issue (like
+all else connected with Samoa) is on the knees of the
+gods. One thing, however, is pretty sure&mdash;<i>if</i> that issue
+prove to be a German protectorate, I shall have to tramp.
+Can you give us any advice as to a fresh field of energy?
+We have been searching the atlas, and it seems difficult
+to fill the bill. How would Rarotonga do? I forget if
+you have been there. The best of it is that my new house
+is going up like winking, and I am dictating this letter
+to the accompaniment of saws and hammers. A hundred
+black boys and about a score draught oxen perished, or
+at least barely escaped with their lives, from the mud
+holes on our road, bringing up the materials. It will be
+a fine legacy to H.I.G.M.&rsquo;s protectorate, and doubtless the
+Governor will take it for his country house.<a name="FnAnchor_52" href="#Footnote_52"><span class="sp">52</span></a> The Ringarooma
+people, by the way, seem very nice. I liked Stansfield
+particularly.</p>
+
+<p>Our middy<a name="FnAnchor_53" href="#Footnote_53"><span class="sp">53</span></a> has gone up to San Francisco in pursuit
+of the phantom Education. We have good word of him,
+and I hope he will not be in disgrace again, as he was
+when the hope of the British Navy&mdash;need I say that I
+refer to Admiral Burney?&mdash;honoured us last. The next
+time you come, as the new house will be finished, we shall
+be able to offer you a bed. Nares and Meiklejohn may
+like to hear that our new room is to be big enough to
+dance in. It will be a very pleasant day for me to see the
+<i>Curaçoa</i> in port again and at least a proper contingent of
+her officers &ldquo;skipping in my &rsquo;all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page270"></a>270</span></p>
+
+<p>We have just had a feast on my birthday at which we
+had three of the Ringaroomas, and I wish they had been
+three Curaçoas&mdash;say yourself, Hoskin, and Burney the
+ever Great. (Consider this an invitation.) Our boys had
+got the thing up regardless. There were two huge sows&mdash;O,
+brutes of animals that would have broken down a
+hansom cab&mdash;four smaller pigs, two barrels of beef, and
+a horror of vegetables and fowls. We sat down between
+forty and fifty in a big new native house behind the kitchen
+that you have never seen, and ate and public spoke till all
+was blue. Then we had about half an hour&rsquo;s holiday
+with some beer and sherry and brandy and soda to restrengthen
+the European heart, and then out to the old
+native house to see a siva. Finally, all the guests were
+packed off in a trackless black night and down a road that
+was rather fitted for the <i>Curaçoa</i> than any human pedestrian,
+though to be sure I do not know the draught of the <i>Curaçoa</i>.
+My ladies one and all desire to be particularly remembered
+to our friends on board, and all look forward, as I do
+myself, in the hope of your return.&mdash;Yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>And let me hear from you again!</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following extract gives a hint of Stevenson&rsquo;s intended
+management of one of the most difficult points in the plot of <i>Weir
+of Hermiston</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>1st Dec. &rsquo;92.</i></p>
+
+<p>...<span class="sc">I have</span> a novel on the stocks to be called <i>The
+Justice-Clerk</i>. It is pretty Scotch, the Grand Premier is
+taken from Braxfield&mdash;(Oh, by the by, send me Cockburn&rsquo;s
+<i>Memorials</i>)&mdash;and some of the story is&mdash;well&mdash;queer.
+The heroine is seduced by one man, and finally disappears
+with the other man who shot him.... Mind you, I
+expect <i>The Justice-Clerk</i> to be my masterpiece. My
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271"></a>271</span>
+Braxfield is already a thing of beauty and a joy for ever,
+and so far as he has gone <i>far</i> my best character.</p>
+
+<p>[<i>Later.</i>]&mdash;Second thought. I wish Pitcairn&rsquo;s <i>Criminal
+Trials quam primum</i>. Also, an absolutely correct text of
+the Scots judiciary oath.</p>
+
+<p>Also, in case Pitcairn does not come down late
+enough, I wish as full a report as possible of a Scotch
+murder trial between 1790-1820. Understand, <i>the fullest
+possible</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Is there any book which would guide me as to the
+following facts?</p>
+
+<p>The Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally on circuit.
+Certain evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to
+the J.-C.&rsquo;s own son. Of course, in the next trial the J.-C.
+is excluded, and the case is called before the Lord-Justice
+General.</p>
+
+<p>Where would this trial have to be? I fear in Edinburgh,
+which would not suit my view. Could it be again
+at the circuit town?</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5>To <span class="sc">Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Nov. 30, 1892.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;Another grimy little odd and end
+of paper, for which you shall be this month repaid in
+kind, and serve you jolly well right.... This is a strange
+life I live, always on the brink of deportation, men&rsquo;s lives
+in the scale&mdash;and, well, you know my character: if I
+were to pretend to you that I was not amused, you would
+justly scorn me. The new house is roofed; it will be a
+braw house, and what is better, I have my yearly bill in,
+and I find I can pay for it. For all which mercies, etc.
+I must have made close on Ł4,000 this year all told; but,
+what is not so pleasant, I seem to have come near to
+spending them. I have been in great alarm, with this new
+house on the cards, all summer, and came very near to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272"></a>272</span>
+taking in sail, but I live here so entirely on credit, that I
+determined to hang on.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dec. 1st.</i>&mdash;I was saying yesterday that my life was
+strange and did not think how well I spoke. Yesterday
+evening I was briefed to defend a political prisoner before
+the Deputy Commissioner. What do you think of that
+for a vicissitude?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dec. 3rd.</i>&mdash;Now for a confession. When I heard you
+and Cassells had decided to print <i>The Bottle Imp</i> along
+with <i>Falesá</i>, I was too much disappointed to answer.
+<i>The Bottle Imp</i> was the <i>pičce de résistance</i> for my volume,
+<i>Island Nights&rsquo; Entertainments</i>. However, that volume
+might have never got done; and I send you two others
+in case they should be in time.</p>
+
+<p>First have <i>The Beach of Falesá</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Then a fresh false title: <span class="sc">Island Nights&rsquo; Entertainments</span>;
+and then</p>
+
+<p><i>The Bottle Imp</i>: a cue from an old melodrama.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Isle of Voices.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>The Waif Woman</i>; a cue from a <i>saga</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Of course these two others are not up to the mark of <i>The
+Bottle Imp</i>; but they each have a certain merit, and they
+fit in style. By saying &ldquo;a cue from an old melodrama&rdquo;
+after the <i>B. I.</i>, you can get rid of my note. If this is in
+time, it will be splendid, and will make quite a volume.</p>
+
+<p>Should you and Cassells prefer, you can call the whole
+volume <i>I. N. E.</i>&mdash;though the <i>Beach of Falesá</i> is the child
+of a quite different inspiration. They all have a queer
+realism, even the most extravagant, even the <i>Isle of Voices;</i>
+the manners are exact.</p>
+
+<p>Should they come too late, have them type-written
+and return to me here the type-written copies.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday, Dec 4th.</i>&mdash;3rd start,&mdash;But now more humbly
+and with the aid of an Amanuensis. First one word about
+page 2. My wife protests against <i>The Waif Woman</i> and
+I am instructed to report the same to you.<a name="FnAnchor_54" href="#Footnote_54"><span class="sp">54</span></a>...</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page273"></a>273</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Dec. 5th.</i>&mdash;A horrid alarm rises that our October mail
+was burned crossing the Plains. If so, you lost a beautiful
+long letter&mdash;I am sure it was beautiful though I remember
+nothing about it&mdash;and I must say I think it
+serves you properly well. That I should continue writing
+to you at such length is simply a vicious habit for which
+I blush. At the same time, please communicate at once
+with Charles Baxter whether you have or have not received
+a letter posted here Oct. 12th, as he is going to cable me
+the fate of my mail.</p>
+
+<p>Now to conclude my news. The German Firm have
+taken my book like angels, and the result is that Lloyd
+and I were down there at dinner on Saturday, where we
+partook of fifteen several dishes and eight distinct forms
+of intoxicating drink. To the credit of Germany, I must
+say there was not a shadow of a headache the next morning.
+I seem to have done as well as my neighbours, for
+I hear one of the clerks expressed the next morning a
+gratified surprise that Mr. Stevenson stood his drink so
+well. It is a strange thing that any race can still find
+joy in such athletic exercises. I may remark in passing
+that the mail is due and you have had far more than
+you deserve.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>December 5th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN</span>,&mdash; ... So much said, I come
+with guilty speed to what more immediately concerns
+myself. Spare us a month or two for old sake&rsquo;s sake,
+and make my wife and me happy and proud. We are
+only fourteen days from San Francisco, just about a
+month from Liverpool; we have our new house almost
+finished. The thing <i>can</i> be done; I believe we can make
+you almost comfortable. It is the loveliest climate in the
+world, our political troubles seem near an end. It can
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274"></a>274</span>
+be done, <i>it must</i>! Do, please, make a virtuous effort,
+come and take a glimpse of a new world I am sure you
+do not dream of, and some old friends who do often dream
+of your arrival.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, I was just beginning to get eloquent, and there
+goes the lunch bell, and after lunch I must make up the
+mail.</p>
+
+<p>Do come. You must not come in February or March&mdash;bad
+months. From April on it is delightful.&mdash;Your
+sincere friend,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Henry James</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>December 5th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR JAMES</span>,&mdash;How comes it so great a silence has
+fallen? The still small voice of self-approval whispers
+me it is not from me. I have looked up my register, and
+find I have neither written to you nor heard from you
+since June 22nd, on which day of grace that invaluable
+work began. This is not as it should be. How to get
+back? I remember acknowledging with rapture <i>The
+Lesson of the Master</i>, and I remember receiving <i>Marbot</i>:
+was that our last relation?</p>
+
+<p>Hey, well! anyway, as you may have probably gathered
+from the papers, I have been in devilish hot water, and
+(what may be new to you) devilish hard at work. In
+twelve calendar months I finished <i>The Wrecker</i>, wrote all
+of <i>Falesá</i> but the first chapter, (well, much of) <i>The History
+of Samoa</i>, did something here and there to my Life of my
+Grandfather, and began And Finished <i>David Balfour</i>.
+What do you think of it for a year? Since then I may
+say I have done nothing beyond draft three chapters of
+another novel, <i>The Justice-Clerk</i>, which ought to be a
+snorter and a blower&mdash;at least if it don&rsquo;t make a spoon,
+it will spoil the horn of an Aurochs (if that&rsquo;s how it should
+be spelt).</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page275"></a>275</span></p>
+
+<p>On the hot water side it may entertain you to know
+that I have been actually sentenced to deportation by my
+friends on Mulinuu, C.J. Cedercrantz, and Baron Senfft
+von Pilsach. The awful doom, however, declined to fall,
+owing to Circumstances over Which. I only heard of it
+(so to speak) last night. I mean officially, but I had
+walked among rumours. The whole tale will be some
+day put into my hand, and I shall share it with humorous
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>It is likely, however, by my judgment, that this epoch
+of gaiety in Samoa will soon cease; and the fierce white
+light of history will beat no longer on Yours Sincerely
+and his fellows here on the beach. We ask ourselves
+whether the reason will more rejoice over the end of a
+disgraceful business, or the unregenerate man more sorrow
+over the stoppage of the fun. For, say what you please,
+it has been a deeply interesting time. You don&rsquo;t know
+what news is, nor what politics, nor what the life of man,
+till you see it on so small a scale and with your own liberty
+on the board for stake. I would not have missed it for
+much. And anxious friends beg me to stay at home and
+study human nature in Brompton drawing-rooms! <i>Farceurs!</i>
+And anyway you know that such is not my talent.
+I could never be induced to take the faintest interest in
+Brompton <i>qua</i> Brompton or a drawing-room <i>qua</i> a drawing-room.
+I am an Epick Writer with a k to it, but without
+the necessary genius.</p>
+
+<p>Hurry up with another book of stories. I am now
+reduced to two of my contemporaries, you and Barrie&mdash;O,
+and Kipling&mdash;you and Barrie and Kipling are now my
+Muses Three. And with Kipling, as you know, there are
+reservations to be made. And you and Barrie don&rsquo;t
+write enough. I should say I also read Anstey when he
+is serious, and can almost always get a happy day out
+of Marion Crawford&mdash;<i>ce n&rsquo;est pas toujours la guerre</i>, but
+it&rsquo;s got life to it and guts, and it moves. Did you read
+the <i>Witch of Prague</i>? Nobody could read it twice, of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276"></a>276</span>
+course; and the first time even it was necessary to skip.
+<i>E pur si muove.</i> But Barrie is a beauty, the <i>Little Minister</i>
+and the <i>Window in Thrums</i>, eh? Stuff in that young
+man; but he must see and not be too funny. Genius in
+him, but there&rsquo;s a journalist at his elbow&mdash;there&rsquo;s the
+risk. Look, what a page is the glove business in the
+<i>Window</i>! knocks a man flat; that&rsquo;s guts, if you please.</p>
+
+<p>Why have I wasted the little time that is left with a
+sort of naked review article? I don&rsquo;t know, I&rsquo;m sure.
+I suppose a mere ebullition of congested literary talk. I
+am beginning to think a visit from friends would be due.
+Wish you could come!</p>
+
+<p>Let us have your news anyway, and forgive this silly
+stale effusion.&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To J. M. Barrie</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, December 1892.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR J. M. BARRIE</span>,&mdash;You will be sick of me soon; I
+cannot help it. I have been off my work for some time,
+and re-read the <i>Edinburgh Eleven</i>, and had a great mind
+to write a parody and give you all your sauce back again,
+and see how you would like it yourself. And then I read
+(for the first time&mdash;I know not how) the <i>Window in
+Thrums</i>; I don&rsquo;t say that it is better than the <i>Minister</i>;
+it&rsquo;s less of a tale&mdash;and there is a beauty, a material beauty,
+of the tale <i>ipse</i>, which clever critics nowadays long and
+love to forget; it has more real flaws; but somehow it is&mdash;well,
+I read it last anyway, and it&rsquo;s by Barrie. And he&rsquo;s
+the man for my money. The glove is a great page; it is
+startlingly original, and as true as death and judgment.
+Tibbie Birse in the Burial is great, but I think it was a
+journalist that got in the word &ldquo;official.&rdquo; The same
+character plainly had a word to say to Thomas Haggard.
+Thomas affects me as a lie&mdash;I beg your pardon; doubtless
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277"></a>277</span>
+he was somebody you knew; that leads people so far
+astray. The actual is not the true.</p>
+
+<p>I am proud to think you are a Scotchman&mdash;though
+to be sure I know nothing of that country, being only an
+English tourist, quo&rsquo; Gavin Ogilvy. I commend the hard
+case of Mr. Gavin Ogilvy to J. M. Barrie, whose work is
+to me a source of living pleasure and heartfelt national
+pride. There are two of us now that the Shirra might
+have patted on the head. And please do not think when
+I thus seem to bracket myself with you, that I am wholly
+blinded with vanity. Jess is beyond my frontier line;
+I could not touch her skirt; I have no such glamour of
+twilight on my pen. I am a capable artist; but it begins
+to look to me as if you were a man of genius. Take care
+of yourself for my sake. It&rsquo;s a devilish hard thing for a
+man who writes so many novels as I do, that I should get
+so few to read. And I can read yours, and I love them.</p>
+
+<p>A pity for you that my amanuensis is not on stock
+to-day, and my own hand perceptibly worse than usual.&mdash;Yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>December 5th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>P.S.</i>&mdash;They tell me your health is not strong. Man,
+come out here and try the Prophet&rsquo;s chamber. There&rsquo;s
+only one bad point to us&mdash;we do rise early. The Amanuensis
+states that you are a lover of silence&mdash;and that
+ours is a noisy house&mdash;and she is a chatterbox&mdash;I am not
+answerable for these statements, though I do think there
+is a touch of garrulity about my premises. We have so
+little to talk about, you see. The house is three miles
+from town, in the midst of great silent forests. There is
+a burn close by, and when we are not talking you can
+hear the burn, and the birds, and the sea breaking on the
+coast three miles away and six hundred feet below us,
+and about three times a month a bell&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know
+where the bell is, nor who rings it; it may be the bell in
+Hans Andersen&rsquo;s story for all I know. It is never hot
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278"></a>278</span>
+here&mdash;86 in the shade is about our hottest&mdash;and it is
+never cold except just in the early mornings. Take it
+for all in all, I suppose this island climate to be by far
+the healthiest in the world&mdash;even the influenza entirely
+lost its sting. Only two patients died, and one was a man
+nearly eighty, and the other a child below four months.
+I won&rsquo;t tell you if it is beautiful, for I want you to come
+here and see for yourself. Everybody on the premises
+except my wife has some Scotch blood in their veins&mdash;I
+beg your pardon&mdash;except the natives&mdash;and then my wife
+is a Dutchwoman&mdash;and the natives are the next thing
+conceivable to Highlanders before the forty-five. We
+would have some grand cracks!</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Come</span>, it will broaden your mind, and be the making
+of me.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5>To <span class="sc">Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>This correspondent had lately been on a tour in Sweden.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>December 28th, 1892.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;Your really decent letter to hand.
+And here I am answering it, to the merry note of the
+carpenter&rsquo;s hammer, in an upper room of the New House.
+This upper floor is almost done now, but the Grrrrrreat
+&rsquo;All below is still unlined; it is all to be varnished redwood.
+I paid a big figure but do not repent; the trouble
+has been so minimised, the work has been so workmanlike,
+and all the parties have been so obliging. What a
+pity when you met the Buried Majesty of Sweden&mdash;the
+sovereign of my Cedercrantz&mdash;you did not breathe in his
+ear a word of Samoa!</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,</p>
+<p>Conceive how his plump carcase pants</p>
+<p>To leave the spot he now is tree&rsquo;d in,</p>
+<p>And skip with all the dibbs to Sweden.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page279"></a>279</span></p>
+<p>O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,</p>
+<p>The lowly plea I now advantz;</p>
+<p>Remove this man of light and leadin&rsquo;</p>
+<p>From us to more congenial Sweden.</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>This kind of thing might be kept up a Lapland night.
+&ldquo;Let us bury the great joke&rdquo;&mdash;Shade of Tennyson, forgive!</p>
+
+<p>I am glad to say, you can scarce receive the second
+bill for the house until next mail, which gives more room
+to turn round in. Yes, my rate of expenditure is hellish.
+It is funny, it crept up and up; and when we sat upon
+one vent another exploded. Lloyd and I grew grey over
+the monthly returns; but every damned month, there
+is a new extra. However, we always hope the next will
+prove less recalcitrant; in which faith we advance
+trembling.</p>
+
+<p>The desiderated advertisement, I think I have told
+you, was mighty near supplied: that is, if deportation
+would suit your view: the ship was actually sought to be
+hired. Yes, it would have been an advertisement, and
+rather a lark, and yet a blooming nuisance. For my
+part, I shall try to do without.</p>
+
+<p>No one has thought fit to send me Atalanta<a name="FnAnchor_55" href="#Footnote_55"><span class="sp">55</span></a>; and I
+have no proof at all of <i>D. Balfour</i>, which is far more
+serious. How about the <i>D. B.</i> map? As soon as there
+is a proof it were well I should see it to accord the text
+thereto&mdash;or t&rsquo;other way about if needs must. Remember
+I had to go much on memory in writing that work. Did
+you observe the dedication?  and how did you like it?
+If it don&rsquo;t suit you, I am to try my hand again.&mdash;Yours
+ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_32" href="#FnAnchor_32"><span class="fn">32</span></a> Editors and publishers (since those days we have been <i>déniaisés</i>
+with a vengeance) had actually been inclined to shy at the terms
+of the fraudulent marriage contract, which is the pivot of the whole
+story; see below, p. 187.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_33" href="#FnAnchor_33"><span class="fn">33</span></a> For a lively account of this plantation and its history, see Lord
+Pembroke&rsquo;s <i>South Sea Bubbles</i>, chap. i.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_34" href="#FnAnchor_34"><span class="fn">34</span></a> The native wife of a carpenter in Apia.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_35" href="#FnAnchor_35"><span class="fn">35</span></a> The sequel to <i>Kidnapped</i>, published in the following year under
+the title <i>Catriona</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_36" href="#FnAnchor_36"><span class="fn">36</span></a> Most of the work on the plantations in Samoa is done by &ldquo;black
+boys,&rdquo; <i>i.e.</i> imported labourers from other (Melanesian) islands.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_37" href="#FnAnchor_37"><span class="fn">37</span></a> By Howard Pyle.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_38" href="#FnAnchor_38"><span class="fn">38</span></a> In answer to the obvious remark that the length and style of
+<i>The Wrecker</i>, then running in Scribner&rsquo;s Magazine, were out of
+keeping with what professed at the outset to be a spoken yarn.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_39" href="#FnAnchor_39"><span class="fn">39</span></a> Of Ballantrae: the story is the unfinished <i>Young Chevalier</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_40" href="#FnAnchor_40"><span class="fn">40</span></a> Afterwards changed into <i>The Ebb Tide</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_41" href="#FnAnchor_41"><span class="fn">41</span></a> Wordsworth&rsquo;s <i>Ode to Duty</i>, a shade misquoted.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_42" href="#FnAnchor_42"><span class="fn">42</span></a> &ldquo;Kava, properly Ava, is a drink more or less intoxicating, made
+from the root of the <i>Piper Methysticum</i>, a Pepper plant. The root
+is grated: formerly it was chewed by fair damsels. The root thus
+broken up is rubbed about in a great pail, with water slowly added.
+A strainer of bark cloth is plunged into it at times, and wrung out
+so as to carry away the small fragments of root. The drink is
+made and used in ceremony. Every detail is regulated by rules, and
+the manner of the mixture of the water, the straining, the handling
+of the cup, the drinking out of it and returning, should all be done
+according to a well-established manner and in certain cadences.&rdquo; I
+borrow this explanation from the late Mr. Lafarge&rsquo;s notes to his
+catalogue of South Sea Drawings. It may serve to make clearer
+several passages in later letters of the present collection. Readers
+of the late Lord Pembroke&rsquo;s <i>South Sea Bubbles</i> will remember the
+account of this beverage and its preparation in Chap. viii. of that
+volume.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_43" href="#FnAnchor_43"><span class="fn">43</span></a> Referring to the marriage contract in the <i>Beach of Falesá:</i> see
+above, p. 152.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_44" href="#FnAnchor_44"><span class="fn">44</span></a> This about the consulship was only a passing notion on the
+part of R. L. S. No vacancy occurred, and in his correspondence
+he does not recur to the subject.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_45" href="#FnAnchor_45"><span class="fn">45</span></a> I had not cared to send him the story as thus docked and rechristened
+in its serial shape.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_46" href="#FnAnchor_46"><span class="fn">46</span></a> Austin Strong, on his way to school in California.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_47" href="#FnAnchor_47"><span class="fn">47</span></a> By Émile Zola.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_48" href="#FnAnchor_48"><span class="fn">48</span></a> The reference is to the writer&rsquo;s maternal cousin, Mr. Graham
+Balfour (<i>Samoicč</i>, &ldquo;Pelema&rdquo;), who during these months and again
+later was an inmate of the home at Vailima: see above, p. 223.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_49" href="#FnAnchor_49"><span class="fn">49</span></a> Robert MacQueen, Lord Braxfield, the &ldquo;Hanging Judge,&rdquo;
+(1722-1799). This historical personage furnished the conception of
+the chief character, but by no means the details or incidents of the
+story, which is indeed dated some years after his death.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_50" href="#FnAnchor_50"><span class="fn">50</span></a> The allusion is to <i>Tess</i>: a book R. L. S. did not like.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_51" href="#FnAnchor_51"><span class="fn">51</span></a> A character in <i>The Wrecker</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_52" href="#FnAnchor_52"><span class="fn">52</span></a> Exactly what in the end actually happened.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_53" href="#FnAnchor_53"><span class="fn">53</span></a> Austin Strong.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_54" href="#FnAnchor_54"><span class="fn">54</span></a> This tale was withheld from the volume accordingly.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_55" href="#FnAnchor_55"><span class="fn">55</span></a> The magazine in which <i>Catriona</i> first appeared in this country,
+under the title <i>David Balfour</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+<hr class="art" />
+
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page280"></a>280</span></p>
+
+<h3>XIII</h3>
+
+<h3>LIFE IN SAMOA&mdash;<i>Continued</i></h3>
+
+<h3>THIRD YEAR AT VAILIMA</h3>
+
+<h5><span class="sc">January-December 1893</span></h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">By</span> the New Year of 1893 the fine addition to the house
+at Vailima was finished, and its pleasantness and comfort
+went far to console Stevenson for the cost. But the year
+was on the whole a less fortunate one for the inmates
+than the last. A proclamation concerning penalties for
+sedition in the Samoan Islands, which from its tenor could
+have been aimed at no one else but Stevenson, had been
+issued at the close of 1892 by the High Commissioner at
+Fiji; and with its modification and practical withdrawal,
+by order of the Foreign Office at home, the last threat of
+unpleasant consequences in connection with his political
+action disappeared. But a sharp second attack of influenza
+in January lowered his vitality, and from a trip
+which the family took for the sake of change to Sydney,
+in the month of February, they returned with health
+unimproved. In April the illness of Mrs. Stevenson
+caused her husband some weeks of acute distress and
+anxiety. In August he suffered the chagrin of witnessing
+the outbreak of the war which he had vainly striven to
+prevent between the two rival kings, and the defeat and
+banishment of Mataafa, whom he knew to be the one
+man of governing capacity among the native chiefs, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page281"></a>281</span>
+whom, in the interest alike of whites and natives, he had
+desired to see the Powers not crush, but conciliate. On
+the other hand, he had the satisfaction of seeing the Chief
+Justice and President removed from the posts they had
+so incompetently filled, and superseded by new and better
+men. The task imposed by the three Powers upon these
+officials was in truth an impossible one; but their characters
+and endeavours earned respect, and with the American
+Chief Justice in particular, Mr. C. J. Ide (whom he had
+already known as one of the Land Commissioners), and
+with his family the Vailima household lived on terms of
+cordial friendship. In September Stevenson took a health-trip
+to Honolulu, which again turned out unsuccessful.
+For some weeks he was down with a renewed attack of
+fever and prostration, and his wife had to come from
+Samoa to nurse and fetch him home. Later in the autumn
+he mended again.</p>
+
+<p>During no part of the year were Stevenson&rsquo;s working
+powers up to the mark. In the early summer he finished
+<i>The Ebb Tide</i>, but on a plan much abridged from its
+original intention, and with an unusual degree of strain
+and effort. With <i>St. Ives</i> and his own family history he
+made fair progress, but both of these he regarded as in a
+manner holiday tasks, not calling for any very serious
+exercise of his powers. In connection with the latter, he
+took an eager interest, as his correspondence will show,
+in the researches which friends and kinsmen undertook
+for him in Scotland. He fell into arrears in regard to
+one or two magazine stories for which he had contracted;
+and with none of his more ambitious schemes of romance,
+<i>Sophia Scarlet</i>, <i>The Young Chevalier</i>, <i>Heathercat</i>, and <i>Weir
+of Hermiston</i>, did he feel himself well able to cope. This
+falling-off of his power of production brought with it no
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page282"></a>282</span>
+small degree of inward strain and anxiety. He had not
+yet put by any provision for his wife and step-family
+(the income from the moderate fortune left by his father
+naturally going to his mother during her life). His earnings
+had since 1887 been considerable, at the rate of
+Ł4,000 a year or thereabouts; but his building expenses
+and large mode of life at Vailima, together with his habitual
+generosity, which scarce knew check or limit, towards the
+less fortunate of his friends and acquaintances in various
+parts of the world, made his expenditure about equal to
+his income. The idea originally entertained of turning
+part of the Vailima estate into a profitable plantation
+turned out chimerical. The thought began to haunt him,
+What if his power of earning were soon to cease? And
+occasional signs of inward depression and life-weariness
+began to appear in his correspondence. But it was only in
+writing, and then but rarely, that he let such signs appear:
+to those about him he retained the old affectionate charm
+and inspiring gaiety undiminished, fulfilling without failure
+the words of his own prayer, &ldquo;Give us to awake with
+smiles, give us to labour smiling; as the sun lightens the
+world, so let our loving-kindness make bright this house
+of our habitation.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>January 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;You are properly paid at last, and
+it is like you will have but a shadow of a letter. I have
+been pretty thoroughly out of kilter; first a fever that
+would neither come on nor go off, then acute dyspepsia,
+in the weakening grasp of which I get wandering between
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page283"></a>283</span>
+the waking state and one of nightmare. Why the devil
+does no one send me Atalanta? And why are there no
+proofs of <i>D. Balfour</i>? Sure I should have had the whole,
+at least the half, of them by now; and it would be all
+for the advantage of the Atalantans. I have written to
+Cassell &amp; Co. (matter of <i>Falesá</i>) &ldquo;you will please arrange
+with him&rdquo; (meaning you). &ldquo;What he may decide I shall
+abide.&rdquo; So consider your hand free, and act for me without
+fear or favour. I am greatly pleased with the illustrations.
+It is very strange to a South-Seayer to see
+Hawaiian women dressed like Samoans, but I guess that&rsquo;s
+all one to you in Middlesex. It&rsquo;s about the same as if
+London city men were shown going to the Stock Exchange
+as <i>pifferari</i>; but no matter, none will sleep worse for it.
+I have accepted Cassell&rsquo;s proposal as an amendment to
+one of mine; that <i>D. B.</i> is to be brought out first under
+the title <i>Catriona</i> without pictures; and, when the hour
+strikes, <i>Kidnapped</i> and <i>Catriona</i> are to form vols. <span class="sc">I.</span> and <span class="sc">II.</span>
+of the heavily illustrated <i>Adventures of David Balfour</i> at
+7s. 6d. each, sold separately.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo;s letter was vastly sly and dry and shy.<a name="FnAnchor_56" href="#Footnote_56"><span class="sp">56</span></a> I am
+not afraid now. Two attempts have been made, both
+have failed, and I imagine these failures strengthen me.
+Above all this is true of the last, where my weak point
+was attempted. On every other, I am strong. Only
+force can dislodge me, for public opinion is wholly on
+my side. All races and degrees are united in heartfelt
+opposition to the Men of Mulinuu. The news of the fighting
+was of no concern to mortal man; it was made much
+of because men love talk of battles, and because the
+Government pray God daily for some scandal not their
+own; but it was only a brisk episode in a clan fight
+which has grown apparently endemic in the west of
+Tutuila. At the best it was a twopenny affair, and never
+occupied my mind five minutes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page284"></a>284</span></p>
+
+<p>I am so weary of reports that are without foundation
+and threats that go without fulfilment, and so much
+occupied besides by the raging troubles of my own wame,
+that I have been very slack on politics, as I have been in
+literature. With incredible labour, I have rewritten the
+First Chapter of the <i>Justice-Clerk</i>; it took me about ten
+days, and requires another athletic dressing after all.
+And that is my story for the month. The rest is grunting
+and grutching.</p>
+
+<p>Consideranda for <i>The Beach</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I. Whether to add one or both the tales I sent you?</p>
+
+<p>II. Whether to call the whole volume <i>Island Nights&rsquo;
+Entertainments</i>?</p>
+
+<p>III. Whether, having waited so long, it would not be
+better to give me another mail, in case I could add another
+member to the volume and a little better justify the
+name?</p>
+
+<p>If I possibly can draw up another story, I will. What
+annoyed me about the use of <i>The Bottle Imp</i> was that I
+had always meant it for the centre-piece of a volume of
+<i>Märchen</i> which I was slowly to elaborate. You always
+had an idea that I depreciated the <i>B. I.</i>; I can&rsquo;t think
+wherefore; I always particularly liked it&mdash;one of my
+best works, and ill to equal; and that was why I loved
+to keep it in portfolio till I had time to grow up to some
+other fruit of the same <i>venue</i>. However, that is disposed
+of now, and we must just do the best we can.</p>
+
+<p>I am not aware that there is anything to add; the
+weather is hellish, waterspouts, mists, chills, the foul
+fiend&rsquo;s own weather, following on a week of expurgated
+heaven; so it goes at this bewildering season. I write
+in the upper floor of my new house, of which I will send
+you some day a plan to measure. &rsquo;Tis an elegant structure,
+surely, and the proid of me oi. Was asked to pay for it
+just now, and genteelly refused, and then agreed, in view
+of general good-will, to pay a half of what is still due.</p>
+
+<p><i>24th January 1893.</i>&mdash;This ought to have gone last
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page285"></a>285</span>
+mail and was forgotten. My best excuse is that I was
+engaged in starting an influenza, to which class of exploit
+our household has been since then entirely dedicated.
+We had eight cases, one of them very bad, and one&mdash;mine&mdash;complicated
+with my old friend Bluidy Jack.<a name="FnAnchor_57" href="#Footnote_57"><span class="sp">57</span></a>
+Luckily neither Fanny, Lloyd, or Belle took the confounded
+thing, and they were able to run the household
+and nurse the sick to admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Some of our boys behaved like real trumps. Perhaps
+the prettiest performance was that of our excellent Henry
+Simelé, or, as we sometimes call him, Davy Balfour.
+Henry, I maun premeese, is a chief; the humblest Samoan
+recoils from emptying slops as you would from cheating
+at cards; now the last nights of our bad time, when we
+had seven down together, it was enough to have made
+anybody laugh or cry to see Henry going the rounds with
+a slop-bucket and going inside the mosquito net of each
+of the sick, Protestant and Catholic alike, to pray with
+them.</p>
+
+<p>I must tell you that in my sickness I had a huge alleviation
+and began a new story. This I am writing by
+dictation, and really think it is an art I can manage to
+acquire. The relief is beyond description; it is just like
+a school-treat to me, and the amanuensis bears up extraordinar&rsquo;.
+The story is to be called <i>St. Ives</i>; I give you
+your choice whether or not it should bear the sub-title,
+&ldquo;Experiences of a French prisoner in England.&rdquo;
+We were just getting on splendidly with it, when this
+cursed mail arrived and requires to be attended to. It
+looks to me very like as if <i>St. Ives</i> would be ready before
+any of the others, but you know me and how impossible
+it is I should predict. The Amanuensis has her head
+quite turned and believes herself to be the author of this
+novel (and is to some extent)&mdash;and as the creature (!) has not
+been wholly useless in the matter (I told you so! <span class="scs">A.M.</span>) I
+propose to foster her vanity by a little commemoration
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page286"></a>286</span>
+gift! The name of the hero is Anne de St. Yves&mdash;he
+Englishes his name to St. Ives during his escape. It is
+my idea to get a ring made which shall either represent
+<i>Anne</i> or A. S. Y. A., of course, would be Amethyst and
+S. Sapphire, which is my favourite stone anyway and was
+my father&rsquo;s before me. But what would the ex-Slade professor
+do about the letter Y? Or suppose he took the other
+version, how would he meet the case, the two N.&rsquo;s? These
+things are beyond my knowledge, which it would perhaps
+be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I place the
+matter in the meanwhile under your consideration and
+beg to hear your views. I shall tell you on some other
+occasion and when the <span class="scs">A.M.</span> is out of hearing how <i>very</i>
+much I propose to invest in this testimonial; but I may as
+well inform you at once that I intend it to be cheap, sir,
+damned cheap! My idea of running amanuenses is by
+praise, not pudding, flattery and not coins! I shall send
+you when the time is ripe a ring to measure by.</p>
+
+<p>To resume our sad tale. After the other seven were
+almost wholly recovered Henry lay down to influenza on
+his own account. He is but just better and it looks as
+though Fanny were about to bring up the rear. As for
+me, I am all right, though I <i>was</i> reduced to dictating <i>Anne</i>
+in the deaf-and-dumb alphabet, which I think you will
+admit is a <i>comble</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Politics leave me extraordinary cold. It seems that so
+much of my purpose has come off, and Cedercrantz and
+Pilsach are sacked. The rest of it has all gone to water.
+The triple-headed ass at home, in his plenitude of ignorance,
+prefers to collect the taxes and scatter the Mataafas
+by force or the threat of force. It may succeed, and I
+suppose it will. It is none the less for that expensive,
+harsh, unpopular and unsettling. I am young enough to
+have been annoyed, and altogether eject and renegate
+the whole idea of political affairs. Success in that field
+appears to be the organisation of failure enlivened with
+defamation of character; and, much as I love pickles and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287"></a>287</span>
+hot water (in your true phrase) I shall take my pickles
+in future from Crosse and Blackwell and my hot water
+with a dose of good Glenlivat.</p>
+
+<p>Do not bother at all about the wall-papers. We have
+had the whole of our new house varnished, and it looks
+beautiful. I wish you could see the hall; poor room, it
+had to begin life as an infirmary during our recent visitation;
+but it is really a handsome comely place, and when
+we get the furniture, and the pictures, and what is so
+very much more decorative, the picture frames, will look
+sublime.</p>
+
+<p><i>Jan. 30th.</i>&mdash;I have written to Charles asking for Rowlandson&rsquo;s
+<i>Syntax</i> and <i>Dance of Death</i> out of our house,
+and begging for anything about fashions and manners
+(fashions particularly) for 1814. Can you help? Both
+the Justice Clerk and St. Ives fall in that fated year.
+Indeed I got into St. Ives while going over the Annual
+Register for the other. There is a kind of fancy list of
+Chaps. of St. Ives. (It begins in Edin<span class="sp">b</span> Castle.) <span class="scs">I.</span> Story
+of a lion rampant (that was a toy he had made, and given
+to a girl visitor). <span class="scs">II.</span> Story of a pair of scissors. <span class="scs">III.</span> St.
+Ives receives a bundle of money. <span class="scs">IV.</span> St. Ives is shown
+a house. <span class="scs">V.</span> The Escape. <span class="scs">VI.</span> The Cottage (Swanston
+Cottage). <span class="scs">VII.</span> The Hen-house. <span class="scs">VIII.</span> Three is company
+and four none. <span class="scs">IX.</span> The Drovers. <span class="scs">X.</span> The Great North
+Road. <span class="scs">XI.</span> Burchell Fenn. <span class="scs">XII.</span> The covered cart. <span class="scs">XIII.</span>
+The doctor. <span class="scs">XIV.</span> The Luddites. <span class="scs">XV.</span> Set a thief to
+catch a thief. <span class="scs">XVI.</span> M. le Comte de Kérouaille (his uncle,
+the rich <i>émigré</i>, whom he finds murdered). <span class="scs">XVII.</span> The
+cousins. <span class="scs">XVIII.</span> Mr. Sergeant Garrow. <span class="scs">XIX.</span> A meeting
+at the Ship, Dover. <span class="scs">XX.</span> Diane. <span class="scs">XXI.</span> The Duke&rsquo;s Prejudices.
+<span class="scs">XXII.</span> The False Messenger. <span class="scs">XXIII.</span> The gardener&rsquo;s
+ladder. <span class="scs">XXIV.</span> The officers. <span class="scs">XXV.</span> Trouble with
+the Duke. <span class="scs">XXVI.</span> Fouquet again. <span class="scs">XXVII.</span> The Aeronaut.
+<span class="scs">XXVIII.</span> The True-Blooded Yankee. <span class="scs">XXIX.</span> In France. I
+don&rsquo;t know where to stop. Apropos, I want a book about
+Paris, and the <i>first return</i> of the <i>émigrés</i> and all up to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page288"></a>288</span>
+<i>Cent Jours</i>: d&rsquo;ye ken anything in my way? I want in
+particular to know about them and the Napoleonic functionaries
+and officers, and to get the colour and some vital
+details of the business of exchange of departments from
+one side to the other.<a name="FnAnchor_58" href="#Footnote_58"><span class="sp">58</span></a> Ten chapters are drafted, and
+<span class="scs">VIII.</span> re-copied by me, but will want another dressing for
+luck. It is merely a story of adventure, rambling along;
+but that is perhaps the guard that &ldquo;sets my genius best,&rdquo;
+as Alan might have said. I wish I could feel as easy about
+the other! But there, all novels are a heavy burthen while
+they are doing, and a sensible disappointment when they
+are done.</p>
+
+<p>For God&rsquo;s sake, let me have a copy of the new German
+Samoa White Book.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Telling how the projected tale, <i>The Pearl Fisher</i>, had been cut
+down and in its new form was to be called <i>The Schooner Farallone</i>
+(afterwards changed to <i>The Ebb Tide</i>).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, February 1893.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;I have had the influenza, as I
+believe you know: this has been followed by two goes of
+my old friend Bloodie Jacke, and I have had fefe&mdash;the
+island complaint&mdash;for the second time in two months.
+All this, and the fact that both my womenkind require
+to see a doctor: and some wish to see Lord Jersey before
+he goes home: all send me off on a month&rsquo;s holiday to
+Sydney. I may get my mail: or I may not: depends
+on freight, weather, and the captain&rsquo;s good-nature&mdash;he is
+one of those who most religiously fear Apia harbour: it
+is quite a superstition with American captains. (Odd
+note: American sailors, who make British hair grey by
+the way they carry canvas, appear to be actually <i>more</i>
+nervous when it comes to coast and harbour work.) This
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289"></a>289</span>
+is the only holiday I have had for more than 2 years; I
+dare say it will be as long again before I take another.
+And I am going to spend a lot of money. Ahem!</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, you can prepare to dispose of the
+serial rights of the <i>Schooner Farallone:</i> a most grim and
+gloomy tale. It will run to something between <i>Jekyll and
+Hyde</i> and <i>Treasure Island</i>. I will not commit myself
+beyond this, but I anticipate from 65 to 70,000 words,
+could almost pledge myself not shorter than 65,000, but
+won&rsquo;t. The tale can be sent as soon as you have made
+arrangements; I hope to finish it in a month; six weeks,
+bar the worst accidents, for certain. I should say this is
+the butt end of what was once <i>The Pearl Fisher</i>. There
+is a peculiarity about this tale in its new form: it ends
+with a conversion! We have been tempted rather to call
+it <i>The Schooner Farallone: a tract by R. L. S.</i> and <i>L.O.</i>
+It would make a boss tract; the three main characters&mdash;and
+there are only four&mdash;are barats, insurance frauds,
+thieves and would-be murderers; so the company&rsquo;s good.
+Devil a woman there, by good luck; so it&rsquo;s &ldquo;pure.&rdquo; &rsquo;Tis
+a most&mdash;what&rsquo;s the expression?&mdash;unconventional work.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>At Sea</i>,  <i>s.s.</i>  Mariposa, <i>Feb. 19th, &rsquo;93</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;You will see from this heading that
+I am not dead yet nor likely to be. I was pretty considerably
+out of sorts, and that is indeed one reason why Fanny,
+Belle, and I have started out for a month&rsquo;s lark. To be
+quite exact, I think it will be about five weeks before we
+get home. We shall stay between two and three in Sydney.
+Already, though we only sailed yesterday, I am feeling as
+fit as a fiddle. Fanny ate a whole fowl for breakfast, to
+say nothing of a tower of hot cakes. Belle and I floored
+another hen betwixt the pair of us, and I shall be no sooner
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page290"></a>290</span>
+done with the present amanuensing racket than I shall put
+myself outside a pint of Guinness. If you think this looks
+like dying of consumption in Apia I can only say I differ
+from you. In the matter of <i>David</i>, I have never yet received
+my proofs at all, but shall certainly wait for your
+suggestions. Certainly, Chaps. 17 to 20 are the hitch,
+and I confess I hurried over them with both wings spread.
+This is doubtless what you complain of. Indeed, I placed
+my single reliance on Miss Grant. If she couldn&rsquo;t ferry
+me over, I felt I had to stay there.</p>
+
+<p>About <i>Island Nights&rsquo; Entertainments</i> all you say is
+highly satisfactory. Go in and win.</p>
+
+<p>The extracts from the Times I really cannot trust
+myself to comment upon. They were infernally satisfactory;
+so, and perhaps still more so, was a letter I had
+at the same time from Lord Pembroke. If I have time as
+I go through Auckland, I am going to see Sir George
+Grey.</p>
+
+<p>Now I really think that&rsquo;s all the business. I have been
+rather sick and have had two small hemorrhages, but the
+second I believe to have been accidental. No good denying
+that this annoys, because it do. However, you must
+expect influenza to leave some harm, and my spirits,
+appetite, peace on earth and goodwill to men are all on a
+rising market. During the last week the amanuensis was
+otherwise engaged, whereupon I took up, pitched into,
+and about one half demolished another tale, once intended
+to be called <i>The Pearl Fisher</i>, but now razeed and called
+<i>The Schooner Farallone</i>.<a name="FnAnchor_59" href="#Footnote_59"><span class="sp">59</span></a> We had a capital start, the
+steamer coming in at sunrise, and just giving us time to
+get our letters ere she sailed again. The manager of the
+German Firm (O strange, changed days!) danced attendance
+upon us all morning; his boat conveyed us to and
+from the steamer.</p>
+
+<p><i>Feb. 21st.</i>&mdash;All continues well. Amanuensis bowled
+over for a day, but afoot again and jolly; Fanny enormously
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page291"></a>291</span>
+bettered by the voyage; I have been as jolly as
+a sand-boy as usual at sea. The Amanuensis sits opposite
+to me writing to her offspring. Fanny is on deck. I have
+just supplied her with the Canadian Pacific Agent, and
+so left her in good hands. You should hear me at table
+with the Ulster purser and a little punning microscopist
+called Davis. Belle does some kind of abstruse Boswell-ising;
+after the first meal, having gauged the kind of jests
+that would pay here, I observed, &ldquo;Boswell is Barred
+during this cruise.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>23rd.</i>&mdash;We approach Auckland and I must close my
+mail. All goes well with the trio. Both the ladies are
+hanging round a beau&mdash;the same&mdash;that I unearthed for
+them: I am general provider, and especially great in the
+beaux business. I corrected some proofs for Fanny
+yesterday afternoon, fell asleep over them in the saloon&mdash;and
+the whole ship seems to have been down beholding
+me. After I woke up, had a hot bath, a whisky punch
+and a cigarette, and went to bed, and to sleep too, at
+8.30; a recrudescence of Vailima hours. Awoke to-day,
+and had to go to the saloon clock for the hour&mdash;no sign
+of dawn&mdash;all heaven grey rainy fog. Have just had breakfast,
+written up one letter, register and close this.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="100%" summary="Contents"><tr><td style="width: 40%;">
+
+<p>Bad pen, bad ink,</p>
+<p>bad light, bad</p>
+<p>blotting-paper.</p></td>
+
+<td><p style="padding-left: 3em;"><i>S.S.</i> Mariposa, <i>at Sea</i>.</p>
+<p style="padding-left: 3em;"><i>Apia due by daybreak to-morrow,
+9 p.m.</i> [<i>March 1st, 1893.</i>]</p></td></tr></table>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;Have had an amusing but tragic
+holiday, from which we return in disarray. Fanny quite
+sick, but I think slowly and steadily mending; Belle in
+a terrific state of dentistry troubles which now seem
+calmed; and myself with a succession of gentle colds out
+of which I at last succeeded in cooking up a fine pleurisy.
+By stopping and stewing in a perfectly airless state-room
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page292"></a>292</span>
+I seem to have got rid of the pleurisy. Poor Fanny had
+very little fun of her visit, having been most of the time
+on a diet of maltine and slops&mdash;and this while the rest of
+us were rioting on oysters and mushrooms. Belle&rsquo;s only
+devil in the hedge was the dentist. As for me, I was
+entertained at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
+Church, likewise at a sort of artistic club; made speeches
+at both, and may therefore be said to have been, like
+Saint Paul, all things to all men. I have an account of
+the latter racket which I meant to have enclosed in this....
+Had some splendid photos taken, likewise a medallion
+by a French sculptor; met Graham, who returned
+with us as far as Auckland. Have seen a good deal too
+of Sir George Grey; what a wonderful old historic figure
+to be walking on your arm and recalling ancient events
+and instances! It makes a man small, and yet the extent
+to which he approved what I had done&mdash;or rather have
+tried to do&mdash;encouraged me. Sir George is an expert at
+least, he knows these races: he is not a small employé
+with an ink-pot and a Whitaker.</p>
+
+<p>Take it for all in all, it was huge fun: even Fanny had
+some lively sport at the beginning; Belle and I all through.
+We got Fanny a dress on the sly, gaudy black velvet and
+Duchesse lace. And alas! she was only able to wear it
+once. But we&rsquo;ll hope to see more of it at Samoa; it really
+is lovely. Both dames are royally outfitted in silk stockings,
+etc. We return, as from a raid, with our spoils and
+our wounded. I am now very dandy: I announced two
+years ago that I should change. Slovenly youth, all right&mdash;not
+slovenly age. So really now I am pretty spruce;
+always a white shirt, white necktie, fresh shave, silk
+socks, O a great sight!&mdash;No more possible.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Of the books mentioned below, <i>Dr. Syntax&rsquo;s Tour</i> and Rowlandson&rsquo;s
+<i>Dance of Death</i> had been for use in furnishing customs and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page293"></a>293</span>
+manners in the English part of <i>St. Ives</i>; <i>Pitcairn</i> is Pitcairn&rsquo;s
+<i>Criminal Trials of Scotland from 1488 to 1624</i>. As to the name of
+Stevenson and its adoption by some members of the proscribed clan
+of Macgregor, Stevenson had been greatly interested by the facts
+laid before him by his correspondent here mentioned, Mr. Macgregor
+Stevenson of New York, and had at first delightedly welcomed the
+idea that his own ancestors might have been fellow-clansmen of
+Rob Roy. But further correspondence on the subject of his own
+descent held with a trained genealogist, his namesake Mr. J. Horne
+Stevenson of Edinburgh, convinced him that the notion must be
+abandoned.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>April 1893.</i>]</p>
+
+<p> ... <span class="sc">About</span> <i>The Justice-Clerk</i>, I long to go at it, but
+will first try to get a short story done. Since January I
+have had two severe illnesses, my boy, and some heartbreaking
+anxiety over Fanny; and am only now convalescing.
+I came down to dinner last night for the first
+time, and that only because the service had broken down,
+and to relieve an inexperienced servant. Nearly four
+months now I have rested my brains; and if it be true
+that rest is good for brains, I ought to be able to pitch in
+like a giant refreshed. Before the autumn, I hope to send
+you some <i>Justice-Clerk</i>, or <i>Weir of Hermiston</i>, as Colvin
+seems to prefer; I own to indecision. Received <i>Syntax</i>,
+<i>Dance of Death</i>, and <i>Pitcairn</i>, which last I have read from
+end to end since its arrival, with vast improvement. What
+a pity it stops so soon! I wonder is there nothing that
+seems to prolong the series? Why doesn&rsquo;t some young
+man take it up? How about my old friend Fountainhall&rsquo;s
+<i>Decisions?</i> I remember as a boy that there was some
+good reading there. Perhaps you could borrow me that,
+and send it on loan; and perhaps Laing&rsquo;s <i>Memorials</i>
+therewith; and a work I&rsquo;m ashamed to say I have never
+read, <i>Balfour&rsquo;s Letters</i>.... I have come by accident,
+through a correspondent, on one very curious and interesting
+fact&mdash;namely, that Stevenson was one of the names
+adopted by the Macgregors at the proscription. The
+details supplied by my correspondent are both convincing
+and amusing; but it would be highly interesting to find
+out more of this.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page294"></a>294</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>These notes are in reply to a set of queries and suggestions as to
+points that seemed to need clearing in the tale of <i>Catriona</i>, as first
+published in Atalanta under the title <i>David Balfour</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>April 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p>1. <i>Slip</i> 3. Davie would be <i>attracted</i> into a similar
+dialect, as he is later&mdash;<i>e.g.</i> with Doig, chapter <span class="scs">XIX</span>. This
+is truly Scottish.</p>
+
+<p>4, <i>to lightly</i>; correct; &ldquo;to lightly&rdquo; is a good regular
+Scots verb.</p>
+
+<p>15. See Allan Ramsay&rsquo;s works.</p>
+
+<p>15, 16. Ay, and that is one of the pigments with
+which I am trying to draw the character of Prestongrange.
+&rsquo;Tis a most curious thing to render that kind, insignificant
+mask. To make anything precise is to risk my effect.
+And till the day he died, Davie was never sure of what
+P. was after. Not only so; very often P. didn&rsquo;t know
+himself. There was an element of mere liking for Davie;
+there was an element of being determined, in case of
+accidents, to keep well with him. He hoped his Barbara
+would bring him to her feet, besides, and make him manageable.
+That was why he sent him to Hope Park with them.
+But Davie cannot <i>know</i>; I give you the inside of Davie,
+and my method condemns me to give only the outside
+both of Prestongrange and his policy.</p>
+
+<p>- -I&rsquo;ll give my mind to the technicalities. Yet to me
+they seem a part of the story, which is historical, after all.</p>
+
+<p>- -I think they wanted Alan to escape. But when or
+where to say so? I will try.</p>
+
+<p>- -20, <i>Dean</i>. I&rsquo;ll try and make that plainer.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chap.</i> <span class="scs">XIII.</span>, I fear it has to go without blows. If I
+could get the pair&mdash;No, can&rsquo;t be.</p>
+
+<p>- -<span class="scs">XIV.</span> All right, will abridge.</p>
+
+<p>- -<span class="scs">XV.</span> I&rsquo;d have to put a note to every word; and
+he who can&rsquo;t read Scots can <i>never</i> enjoy Tod Lapraik.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page295"></a>295</span></p>
+
+<p>- -<span class="scs">XVII.</span> Quite right. I <i>can</i> make this plainer, and
+will.</p>
+
+<p>- -<span class="scs">XVIII.</span> I know, but I have to hurry here; this is
+the broken back of my story; some business briefly
+transacted, I am leaping for Barbara&rsquo;s apron-strings.</p>
+
+<p><i>Slip</i> 57. Quite right again; I shall make it plain.</p>
+
+<p><i>Chap.</i> <span class="scs">XX.</span> I shall make all these points clear. About
+Lady Prestongrange (not <i>Lady</i> Grant, only <i>Miss</i> Grant,
+my dear, though <i>Lady</i> Prestongrange, quoth the dominie)
+I am taken with your idea of her death, and have a good
+mind to substitute a featureless aunt.</p>
+
+<p><i>Slip</i> 78. I don&rsquo;t see how to lessen this effect. There
+is really not much said of it; and I know Catriona did it.
+But I&rsquo;ll try.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;89. I know. This is an old puzzle of mine. You
+see C.&rsquo;s dialect is not wholly a bed of roses. If only I
+knew the Gaelic. Well, I&rsquo;ll try for another expression.</p>
+
+<p><i>The end.</i> I shall try to work it over. James was at
+Dunkirk ordering post-horses for his own retreat. Catriona
+did have her suspicions aroused by the letter, and careless
+gentleman, I told you so&mdash;or she did at least.&mdash;Yes,
+the blood money.&mdash;I am bothered about the portmanteau;
+it is the presence of Catriona that bothers me; the rape
+of the pockmantie is historic....</p>
+
+<p>To me, I own, it seems in the proof a very pretty piece
+of workmanship. David himself I refuse to discuss; he
+<i>is</i>. The Lord Advocate I think a strong sketch of a very
+difficult character, James More, sufficient; and the two
+girls very pleasing creatures. But O dear me, I came
+near losing my heart to Barbara! I am not quite so
+constant as David, and even he&mdash;well, he didn&rsquo;t know it,
+anyway! <i>Tod Lapraik</i> is a piece of living Scots: if I
+had never writ anything but that and <i>Thrawn Janet</i>, still
+I&rsquo;d have been a writer. The defects of <i>D. B.</i> are inherent,
+I fear. But on the whole, I am far indeed from being
+displeased with the tailie. One thing is sure, there has
+been no such drawing of Scots character since Scott;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page296"></a>296</span>
+and even he never drew a full length like Davie, with his
+shrewdness and simplicity, and stockishness and charm.
+Yet, you&rsquo;ll see, the public won&rsquo;t want it; they want more
+Alan! Well, they can&rsquo;t get it. And readers of <i>Tess</i> can have
+no use for my David, and his innocent but real love affairs.</p>
+
+<p>I found my fame much grown on this return to civilisation.
+<i>Digito monstrari</i> is a new experience; people all
+looked at me in the streets in Sydney; and it was very
+queer. Here, of course, I am only the white chief in the
+Great House to the natives; and to the whites, either an
+ally or a foe. It is a much healthier state of matters.
+If I lived in an atmosphere of adulation, I should end by
+kicking against the pricks. O my beautiful forest, O my
+beautiful shining, windy house, what a joy it was to behold
+them again! No chance to take myself too seriously here.</p>
+
+<p>The difficulty of the end is the mass of matter to be
+attended to, and the small time left to transact it in. I
+mean from Alan&rsquo;s danger of arrest. But I have just seen
+my way out, I do believe.</p>
+
+<p><i>Easter Sunday.</i>&mdash;I have now got as far as slip 28, and
+finished the chapter of the law technicalities. Well, these
+seemed to me always of the essence of the story, which is
+the story of a <i>cause célčbre</i>; moreover, they are the justification
+of my inventions; if these men went so far (granting
+Davie sprung on them) would they not have gone so
+much further? But of course I knew they were a difficulty;
+determined to carry them through in a conversation;
+approached this (it seems) with cowardly anxiety;
+and filled it with gabble, sir, gabble. I have left all my
+facts, but have removed 42 lines. I should not wonder
+but what I&rsquo;ll end by re-writing it. It is not the technicalities
+that shocked you, it was my bad art. It is very
+strange that <span class="scs">X.</span> should be so good a chapter and <span class="scs">IX.</span> and
+<span class="scs">XI.</span> so uncompromisingly bad. It looks as if <span class="scs">XI.</span> also would
+have to be re-formed. If <span class="scs">X.</span> had not cheered me up, I
+should be in doleful dumps, but <span class="scs">X.</span> is alive anyway, and
+life is all in all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page297"></a>297</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Thursday, April 5th.</i>&mdash;Well, there&rsquo;s no disguise possible;
+Fanny is not well, and we are miserably anxious....</p>
+
+<p><i>Friday, 7th.</i>&mdash;I am thankful to say the new medicine
+relieved her at once. A crape has been removed from the
+day for all of us. To make things better, the morning is
+ah! such a morning as you have never seen; heaven
+upon earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth
+of unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken at this
+moment only by the far-away murmur of the Pacific and
+the rich piping of a single bird. You can&rsquo;t conceive what
+a relief this is; it seems a new world. She has such
+extraordinary recuperative power that I do hope for the
+best. I am as tired as man can be. This is a great trial
+to a family, and I thank God it seems as if ours was going
+to bear it well. And O! if it only lets up, it will be but
+a pleasant memory. We are all seedy, bar Lloyd: Fanny,
+as per above; self nearly extinct; Belle, utterly overworked
+and bad toothache; Cook, down with a bad foot;
+Butler, prostrate with a bad leg. Eh, what a faim&rsquo;ly!</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday.</i>&mdash;Grey heaven, raining torrents of rain; occasional
+thunder and lightning. Everything to dispirit; but
+my invalids are really on the mend. The rain roars like
+the sea; in the sound of it there is a strange and ominous
+suggestion of an approaching tramp; something nameless
+and measureless seems to draw near, and strikes me
+cold, and yet is welcome. I lie quiet in bed to-day, and
+think of the universe with a good deal of equanimity.
+I have, at this moment, but the one objection to it; the
+<i>fracas</i> with which it proceeds. I do not love noise; I am
+like my grandfather in that; and so many years in these
+still islands has ingrained the sentiment perhaps. Here
+are no trains, only men pacing barefoot. No cars or carriages;
+at worst the rattle of a horse&rsquo;s shoes among the
+rocks. Beautiful silence; and so soon as this robustious
+rain takes off, I am to drink of it again by oceanfuls.</p>
+
+<p><i>April 16th.</i>&mdash;Several pages of this letter destroyed as
+beneath scorn; the wailings of a crushed worm; matter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page298"></a>298</span>
+in which neither you nor I can take stock. Fanny is distinctly
+better, I believe all right now; I too am mending,
+though I have suffered from crushed wormery, which is
+not good for the body, and damnation to the soul. I feel
+to-night a baseless anxiety to write a lovely poem <i>ŕ propos
+des bottes de ma grand&rsquo;mčre, qui etaient ŕ revers</i>. I see I
+am idiotic. I&rsquo;ll try the poem.</p>
+
+<p><i>17th.</i>&mdash;The poem did not get beyond plovers and lovers.
+I am still, however, harassed by the unauthentic Muse;
+if I cared to encourage her&mdash;but I have not the time, and
+anyway we are at the vernal equinox. It is funny enough,
+but my pottering verses are usually made (like the God-gifted
+organ voice&rsquo;s) at the autumnal; and this seems to
+hold at the Antipodes. There is here some odd secret
+of Nature. I cannot speak of politics; we wait and
+wonder. It seems (this is partly a guess) Ide won&rsquo;t take
+the C. J. ship, unless the islands are disarmed; and that
+England hesitates and holds off. By my own idea, strongly
+corroborated by Sir George, I am writing no more letters.
+But I have put as many irons in against this folly of the
+disarming as I could manage. It did not reach my ears
+till nearly too late. What a risk to take! What an expense
+to incur! And for how poor a gain! Apart from the
+treachery of it. My dear fellow, politics is a vile and a
+bungling business. I used to think meanly of the plumber;
+but how he shines beside the politician!</p>
+
+<p><i>Thursday.</i>&mdash;A general, steady advance; Fanny really
+quite chipper and jolly&mdash;self on the rapid mend, and with
+my eye on <i>forests</i> that are to fall&mdash;and my finger on the axe,
+which wants stoning.</p>
+
+<p><i>Saturday, 22.</i>&mdash;Still all for the best; but I am having
+a heartbreaking time over <i>David</i>. I have nearly all
+corrected. But have to consider <i>The Heather on Fire</i>, <i>The
+Wood by Silvermills</i>, and the last chapter. They all seem
+to me off colour; and I am not fit to better them
+yet. No proof has been sent of the title, contents, or
+dedication.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page299"></a>299</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To A. Conan Doyle</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The reference in the postscript here is, I believe, to the Journals
+of the Society for Psychical Research.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Apia, Samoa, April 5th, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR</span>,&mdash;You have taken many occasions to make
+yourself very agreeable to me, for which I might in
+decency have thanked you earlier. It is now my turn; and
+I hope you will allow me to offer you my compliments on
+your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of
+Sherlock Holmes. That is the class of literature that I
+like when I have the toothache. As a matter of fact, it
+was a pleurisy I was enjoying when I took the volume
+up; and it will interest you as a medical man to know
+that the cure was for the moment effectual. Only the one
+thing troubles me; can this be my old friend Joe Bell?&mdash;I
+am, yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><i>P.S</i>.&mdash;And lo, here is your address supplied me here
+in Samoa! But do not take mine, O frolic fellow Spookist,
+from the same source; mine is wrong.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The outbreak of hostilities was at this date imminent between
+Mulinuu (the party of Laupepa, recognised and supported by the
+Three Powers) and Malie (the party of Mataafa).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>25th April</i> [<i>1893</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;To-day early I sent down to Maben
+(Secretary of State) an offer to bring up people from Malie,
+keep them in my house, and bring them down day by
+day for so long as the negotiation should last. I have a
+favourable answer so far. This I would not have tried,
+had not old Sir George Grey put me on my mettle; &ldquo;Never
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page300"></a>300</span>
+despair,&rdquo; was his word; and &ldquo;I am one of the few people
+who have lived long enough to see how true that is.&rdquo; Well,
+thereupon I plunged in; and the thing may do me great
+harm, but yet I do not think so&mdash;for I think jealousy will
+prevent the trial being made. And at any rate it is another
+chance for this distracted archipelago of children, sat upon
+by a clique of fools. If, by the gift of God, I can do&mdash;I am
+allowed to try to do&mdash;and succeed: but no, the prospect
+is too bright to be entertained.</p>
+
+<p>To-day we had a ride down to Tanugamanono, and then
+by the new wood paths. One led us to a beautiful clearing,
+with four native houses; taro, yams, and the like,
+excellently planted, and old Folau&mdash;&ldquo;the Samoan Jew&rdquo;&mdash;sitting
+and whistling there in his new-found and well-deserved
+well-being. It was a good sight to see a Samoan
+thus before the world. Further up, on our way home, we
+saw the world clear, and the wide die of the shadow lying
+broad; we came but a little further, and found in the
+borders of the bush a banyan. It must have been 150
+feet in height; the trunk, and its acolytes, occupied a
+great space; above that, in the peaks of the branches,
+quite a forest of ferns and orchids were set; and over all
+again the huge spread of the boughs rose against the
+bright west, and sent their shadow miles to the eastward.
+I have not often seen anything more satisfying than this
+vast vegetable.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday.</i>&mdash;A heavenly day again! the world all dead
+silence, save when, from far down below us in the woods,
+comes up the crepitation of the little wooden drum that
+beats to church. Scarce a leaf stirs; only now and again
+a great, cool gush of air that makes my papers fly, and
+is gone.&mdash;The king of Samoa has refused my intercession
+between him and Mataafa; and I do not deny this is a
+good riddance to me of a difficult business, in which I
+might very well have failed. What else is to be done for
+these silly folks?</p>
+
+<p><i>May 12th.</i>&mdash;And this is where I had got to, before the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page301"></a>301</span>
+mail arrives with, I must say, a real gentlemanly letter
+from yourself. Sir, that is the sort of letter I want!
+Now, I&rsquo;ll make my little proposal.<a name="FnAnchor_60" href="#Footnote_60"><span class="sp">60</span></a> I will accept <i>Child&rsquo;s
+Play</i> and <i>Pan&rsquo;s Pipes</i>. Then I want <i>Pastoral</i>, <i>The Manse</i>,
+<i>The Islet</i>, leaving out if you like all the prefacial matter
+and beginning at <span class="scs">I</span>. Then the portrait of Robert Hunter,
+beginning &ldquo;Whether he was originally big or little,&rdquo; and
+ending &ldquo;fearless and gentle.&rdquo; So much for <i>Mem. and
+Portraits</i>. <i>Beggars</i>, sections <span class="scs">I.</span> and <span class="scs">II.</span>, <i>Random Memories</i>
+<span class="scs">II.</span>, and <i>Lantern Bearers</i>; I&rsquo;m agreeable. These are my
+selections. I don&rsquo;t know about <i>Pulvis et Umbra</i> either,
+but must leave that to you. But just what you please.</p>
+
+<p>About <i>Davie</i> I elaborately wrote last time, but still
+<i>Davie</i> is not done; I am grinding singly at <i>The Ebb Tide</i>,
+as we now call the <i>Farallone</i>; the most of it will go this
+mail. About the following, let there be no mistake: I
+will not write the abstract of <i>Kidnapped</i>; write it who
+will, I will not. Boccaccio must have been a clever fellow
+to write both argument and story; I am not, <i>et je me récuse</i>.</p>
+
+<p>We call it <i>The Ebb Tide: a Trio and Quartette</i>; but
+that secondary name you may strike out if it seems dull
+to you. The book, however, falls in two halves, when
+the fourth character appears. I am on p. 82 if you want
+to know, and expect to finish on I suppose 110 or so; but
+it goes slowly, as you may judge from the fact that this
+three weeks past, I have only struggled from p. 58 to p.
+82: twenty-four pages, <i>et encore</i> sure to be re-written, in
+twenty-one days. This is no prize-taker; not much
+Waverley Novels about this!</p>
+
+<p><i>May 16th.</i>&mdash;I believe it will be ten chapters of <i>The
+Ebb Tide</i> that go to you; the whole thing should be
+completed in I fancy twelve; and the end will follow
+punctually next mail. It is my great wish that this
+might get into The Illustrated London News for Gordon
+Browne to illustrate. For whom, in case he should get
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page302"></a>302</span>
+the job, I give you a few notes. A purao is a tree giving
+something like a fig with flowers. He will find some
+photographs of an old marine curiosity shop in my collection,
+which may help him. Attwater&rsquo;s settlement is to
+be entirely overshadowed everywhere by tall palms; see
+photographs of Fakarava: the verandahs of the house
+are 12 ft. wide. Don&rsquo;t let him forget the Figure Head,
+for which I have a great use in the last chapter. It stands
+just clear of the palms on the crest of the beach at the
+head of the pier; the flag-staff not far off; the pier he
+will understand is perhaps three feet above high water,
+not more at any price. The sailors of the <i>Farallone</i> are
+to be dressed like white sailors of course. For other
+things, I remit this excellent artist to my photographs.</p>
+
+<p>I can&rsquo;t think what to say about the tale, but it seems
+to me to go off with a considerable bang; in fact, to be
+an extraordinary work: but whether popular! Attwater
+is a no end of a courageous attempt, I think you will
+admit; how far successful is another affair. If my island
+ain&rsquo;t a thing of beauty, I&rsquo;ll be damned. Please observe
+Wiseman and Wishart; for incidental grimness, they
+strike me as in it. Also, kindly observe the Captain and
+<i>Adar</i>; I think that knocks spots. In short, as you see,
+I&rsquo;m a trifle vainglorious. But O, it has been such a
+grind! The devil himself would allow a man to brag a
+little after such a crucifixion! And indeed I&rsquo;m only
+bragging for a change before I return to the darned thing
+lying waiting for me on p. 88, where I last broke down.
+I break down at every paragraph, I may observe; and
+lie here and sweat, till I can get one sentence wrung out
+after another. Strange doom; after having worked so
+easily for so long! Did ever anybody see such a story
+of four characters?</p>
+
+<p><i>Later, 2.30.</i>&mdash;It may interest you to know that I am
+entirely <i>tapu</i>, and live apart in my chambers like a caged
+beast. Lloyd has a bad cold, and Graham and Belle are
+getting it. Accordingly, I dwell here without the light
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page303"></a>303</span>
+of any human countenance or voice, and strap away at
+<i>The Ebb Tide</i> until (as now) I can no more. Fanny can
+still come, but is gone to glory now, or to her garden.
+Page 88 is done, and must be done over again to-morrow,
+and I confess myself exhausted. Pity a man who can&rsquo;t
+work on along when he has nothing else on earth to do!
+But I have ordered Jack, and am going for a ride in the
+bush presently to refresh the machine; then back to a
+lonely dinner and durance vile. I acquiesce in this hand
+of fate; for I think another cold just now would just
+about do for me. I have scarce yet recovered the two
+last.</p>
+
+<p><i>May 18th.</i>&mdash;My progress is crabwise, and I fear only
+<span class="scs">IX.</span> chapters will be ready for the mail. I am on p. 88
+again, and with half an idea of going back again to 85.
+We shall see when we come to read: I used to regard
+reading as a pleasure in my old light days. All the house
+are down with the iffluenza in a body, except Fanny and
+me. The Iffluenza appears to become endemic here, but
+it has always been a scourge in the islands. Witness the
+beginning of <i>The Ebb Tide</i>, which was observed long before
+the Iffle had distinguished himself at home by such Napoleonic
+conquests. I am now of course &ldquo;quite a recluse,&rdquo;
+and it is very stale, and there is no amanuensis to carry
+me over my mail, to which I shall have to devote many
+hours that would have been more usefully devoted to
+<i>The Ebb Tide</i>. For you know you can dictate at all hours
+of the day and at any odd moment; but to sit down
+and write with your red right hand is a very different
+matter.</p>
+
+<p><i>May 20th.</i>&mdash;Well, I believe I&rsquo;ve about finished the
+thing, I mean as far as the mail is to take it. Chapter <span class="scs">X.</span>
+is now in Lloyd&rsquo;s hands for remarks, and extends in its
+present form to p. 93 incl. On the 12th of May, I see
+by looking back, I was on p. 82, not for the first time;
+so that I have made 11 pages in nine livelong days. Well!
+up a high hill he heaved a huge round stone. But this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page304"></a>304</span>
+Flaubert business must be resisted in the premises. Or
+is it the result of iffluenza? God forbid. Fanny is down
+now, and the last link that bound me to my fellow men
+is severed. I sit up here, and write, and read Renan&rsquo;s
+<i>Origines</i>, which is certainly devilish interesting; I read
+his Nero yesterday, it is very good, O, very good! But
+he is quite a Michelet; the general views, and such a
+piece of character painting, excellent; but his method
+sheer lunacy. You can see him take up the block which
+he had just rejected, and make of it the corner-stone: a
+maddening way to deal with authorities; and the result
+so little like history that one almost blames oneself for
+wasting time. But the time is not wasted; the conspectus
+is always good, and the blur that remains on the mind
+is probably just enough. I have been enchanted with
+the unveiling of Revelations. Grigsby! what a lark!
+And how picturesque that return of the false Nero! The
+Apostle John is rather discredited. And to think how
+one had read the thing so often, and never understood
+the attacks upon St. Paul! I remember when I was a
+child, and we came to the Four Beasts that were all
+over eyes, the sickening terror with which I was filled. If
+that was Heaven, what, in the name of Davy Jones and
+the aboriginal night-mare, could Hell be? Take it for
+all in all, <i>L&rsquo;Antéchrist</i> is worth reading. The <i>Histoire
+d&rsquo; Israël</i> did not surprise me much; I had read those
+Hebrew sources with more intelligence than the New
+Testament, and was quite prepared to admire Ahab
+and Jezebel, etc. Indeed, Ahab has always been
+rather a hero of mine; I mean since the years of
+discretion.</p>
+
+<p><i>May 21st.</i>&mdash;And here I am back again on p. 85! the
+last chapter demanding an entire revision, which accordingly
+it is to get. And where my mail is to come in, God
+knows! This forced, violent, alembicated style is most
+abhorrent to me; it can&rsquo;t be helped; the note was struck
+years ago on the <i>Janet Nicoll</i>, and has to be maintained
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page305"></a>305</span>
+somehow; and I can only hope the intrinsic horror and
+pathos, and a kind of fierce glow of colour there is to it,
+and the surely remarkable wealth of striking incident,
+may guide our little shallop into port. If Gordon
+Browne is to get it, he should see the Brassey photographs
+of Papeete. But mind, the three waifs were
+never in the town; only on the beach and in the
+calaboose. By George, but it&rsquo;s a good thing to illustrate
+for a man like that! Fanny is all right again.
+False alarm! I was down yesterday afternoon at Papauta,
+and heard much growling of war, and the delightful
+news that the C. J. and the President are going to
+run away from Mulinuu and take refuge in the Tivoli
+hotel.</p>
+
+<p><i>23rd. Mail day.</i>&mdash;<i>The Ebb Tide</i>, all but (I take it)
+fifteen pages, is now in your hands&mdash;possibly only about
+eleven pp. It is hard to say. But there it is, and you
+can do your best with it. Personally, I believe I would
+in this case make even a sacrifice to get Gordon Browne
+and copious illustration. I guess in ten days I shall have
+finished with it; then I go next to <i>D. Balfour</i>, and get
+the proofs ready: a nasty job for me, as you know. And
+then? Well, perhaps I&rsquo;ll take a go at the family history.
+I think that will be wise, as I am so much off work. And
+then, I suppose, <i>Weir of Hermiston</i>, but it may be anything.
+I am discontented with <i>The Ebb Tide</i>, naturally;
+there seems such a veil of words over it; and I like more
+and more naked writing; and yet sometimes one has a
+longing for full colour and there comes the veil again.
+<i>The Young Chevalier</i> is in very full colour, and I fear
+it for that reason.&mdash;Ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To S. R. Crockett</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Glencorse Church in the Pentlands, mentioned by Stevenson with
+so much emotion in the course of this letter, served him for the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page306"></a>306</span>
+scene of Chapter <span class="sc">VI.</span> in <i>Weir of Hermiston</i>, where his old associations
+and feelings in connection with the place have so admirably inspired
+him.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, May 17th, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. CROCKETT</span>,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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; &ldquo;Man&rsquo;s ingratitude to man makes
+countless thousands mourn,&rdquo; quo&rsquo; Rab&mdash;or words to that
+effect. By the way, an anecdote of a cautious sailor:
+&ldquo;Bill, Bill,&rdquo; says I to him, &ldquo;<i>or words to that effect</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I shall never take that walk by the Fisher&rsquo;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: &ldquo;Passenger to&mdash;Hades.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>Weir of
+Hermiston</i> is as yet scarce begun. It&rsquo;s going to be excellent,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page307"></a>307</span>
+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, <i>The Ebb Tide</i>, 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&mdash;well, two of them are, and
+the third is their comrade and accomplice. It sounds
+cheering, doesn&rsquo;t it? Barratry, and drunkenness, and
+vitriol, and I cannot tell you all what, are the beams
+of the roof. And yet&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I sort of think
+there&rsquo;s something in it. You&rsquo;ll see (which is more than
+I ever can) whether Davis and Attwater come off or not.</p>
+
+<p><i>Weir of Hermiston</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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: <i>moriturus
+salutat</i>. See that it&rsquo;s a sunny day; I would like it to be
+a Sunday, but that&rsquo;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&rsquo;t
+appear to you! well, it can&rsquo;t be helped, and will be
+extremely funny.</p>
+
+<p>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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page308"></a>308</span>
+from six in the morning till eight at night, with trifling
+and not always agreeable intervals for meals.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.&mdash;I am, yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><i>P.S.</i>&mdash;Be it known to this fluent generation that I,
+R. L. S., in the forty-third of my age and the twentieth
+of my professional life, wrote twenty-four pages in twenty-one
+days, working from six to eleven, and again in the
+afternoon from two to four or so, without fail or interruption.
+Such are the gifts the gods have endowed us
+withal: such was the facility of this prolific writer!</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Augustus St. Gaudens</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, May 29th, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOD-LIKE SCULPTOR</span>,&mdash;I wish in the most
+delicate manner in the world to insinuate a few commissions:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>No. 1. Is for a couple of copies of my medallion, as
+gilt-edged and high-toned as it is possible to make them.
+One is for our house here, and should be addressed as
+above. The other is for my friend Sidney Colvin, and
+should be addressed&mdash;Sidney Colvin, Esq., Keeper of the
+Print Room, British Museum, London.</p>
+
+<p>No. 2. This is a rather large order, and demands some
+explanation. Our house is lined with varnished wood of
+a dark ruddy colour, very beautiful to see; at the same
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page309"></a>309</span>
+time, it calls very much for gold; there is a limit to
+picture frames, and really you know there has to be a
+limit to the pictures you put inside of them. Accordingly,
+we have had an idea of a certain kind of decoration, which,
+I think, you might help us to make practical. What we
+want is an alphabet of gilt letters (very much such as
+people play with), and all mounted on spikes like drawing-pins;
+say two spikes to each letter, one at top, and
+one at bottom. Say that they were this height, <span style="font-size: 3em; position: relative; top: 0.2em;">I</span>
+and that you chose a model of some really exquisitely
+fine, clear type from some Roman monument, and that
+they were made either of metal or some composition gilt&mdash;the
+point is, could not you, in your land of wooden
+houses, get a manufacturer to take the idea and manufacture
+them at a venture, so that I could get two or
+three hundred pieces or so at a moderate figure? You
+see, suppose you entertain an honoured guest, when he
+goes he leaves his name in gilt letters on your walls; an
+infinity of fun and decoration can be got out of hospitable
+and festive mottoes; and the doors of every room can
+be beautified by the legend of their names. I really
+think there is something in the idea, and you might be
+able to push it with the brutal and licentious manufacturer,
+using my name if necessary, though I should think
+the name of the god-like sculptor would be more germane.
+In case you should get it started, I should tell you that
+we should require commas in order to write the Samoan
+language, which is full of words written thus: la&rsquo;u, ti&rsquo;e ti&rsquo;e.
+As the Samoan language uses but a very small proportion
+of the consonants, we should require a double or treble
+stock of all vowels, and of F, G, L, U, N, P, S, T, and V.</p>
+
+<p>The other day in Sydney, I think you might be interested
+to hear, I was sculpt a second time by a man
+called &mdash;&mdash;, as well as I can remember and read. I mustn&rsquo;t
+criticise a present, and he had very little time to do it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page310"></a>310</span>
+in. It is thought by my family to be an excellent likeness
+of Mark Twain. This poor fellow, by the by, met
+with the devil of an accident. A model of a statue which
+he had just finished with a desperate effort was smashed
+to smithereens on its way to exhibition.</p>
+
+<p>Please be sure and let me know if anything is likely
+to come of this letter business, and the exact cost of each
+letter, so that I may count the cost before ordering.&mdash;
+Yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Relating the toilsome completion of <i>The Ebb Tide</i>, and beginning
+of the account of his grandfather, Robert Stevenson, in <i>History of a
+Family of Engineers</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>29th May</i> [<i>1893</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;Still grinding at Chap. <span class="sc">XI.</span> I began
+many days ago on p. 93, and am still on p. 93, which
+is exhilarating, but the thing takes shape all the same
+and should make a pretty lively chapter for an end of
+it. For <span class="sc">XIII.</span> is only a footnote <i>ad explicandum</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>June the 1st.</i>&mdash;Back on p. 93. I was on 100 yesterday,
+but read it over and condemned it.</p>
+
+<p><i>10 a.m.</i>&mdash;I have worked up again to 97, but how?
+The deuce fly away with literature, for the basest sport
+in creation. But it&rsquo;s got to come straight! and if possible,
+so that I may finish <i>D. Balfour</i> in time for the same
+mail. What a getting upstairs! This is Flaubert out-done.
+Belle, Graham, and Lloyd leave to-day on a malaga
+down the coast; to be absent a week or so: this leaves
+Fanny, me, and &mdash;&mdash;, who seems a nice, kindly fellow.</p>
+
+<p><i>June 2nd.</i>&mdash;I am nearly dead with dyspepsia, over-smoking,
+and unremunerative overwork. Last night, I
+went to bed by seven; woke up again about ten for a
+minute to find myself light-headed and altogether off my
+legs; went to sleep again, and woke this morning fairly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page311"></a>311</span>
+fit. I have crippled on to p. 101, but I haven&rsquo;t read it
+yet, so do not boast. What kills me is the frame of mind
+of one of the characters; I cannot get it through. Of
+course that does not interfere with my total inability to
+write; so that yesterday I was a living half-hour upon a
+single clause and have a gallery of variants that would
+surprise you. And this sort of trouble (which I cannot
+avoid) unfortunately produces nothing when done but
+alembication and the far-fetched. Well, read it with
+mercy!</p>
+
+<p><i>8 a.m.</i>&mdash;Going to bed. Have read it, and believe the
+chapter practically done at last. But Lord! it has been
+a business.</p>
+
+<p><i>June</i> 3<i>rd</i>, 8.15.&mdash;The draft is finished, the end of
+Chapter <span class="sc">XII.</span> and the tale, and I have only eight pages
+<i>wiederzuarbeiten</i>. This is just a cry of joy in passing.</p>
+
+<p>10.30.&mdash;Knocked out of time. Did 101 and 102. Alas,
+no more to-day, as I have to go down town to a meeting.
+Just as well though, as my thumb is about done up.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday, June</i> 4<i>th.</i>&mdash;Now for a little snippet of my life.
+Yesterday, 12.30, in a heavenly day of sun and trade, I
+mounted my horse and set off. A boy opens my gate
+for me. &ldquo;Sleep and long life! A blessing on your
+journey,&rdquo; says he. And I reply &ldquo;Sleep, long life! A
+blessing on the house!&rdquo; Then on, down the lime lane,
+a rugged, narrow, winding way, that seems almost as if
+it was leading you into Lyonesse, and you might see the
+head and shoulders of a giant looking in. At the corner
+of the road I meet the inspector of taxes, and hold a
+diplomatic interview with him; he wants me to pay
+taxes on the new house; I am informed I should not
+till next year; and we part, <i>re infecta</i>, he promising to
+bring me decisions, I assuring him that, if I find any
+favouritism, he will find me the most recalcitrant tax-payer
+on the island. Then I have a talk with an old
+servant by the wayside. A little further I pass two
+children coming up. &ldquo;Love!&rdquo; say I; &ldquo;are you two
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page312"></a>312</span>
+chiefly-proceeding inland?&rdquo; and they say, &ldquo;Love! yes!&rdquo;
+and the interesting ceremony is finished. Down to the
+post office, where I find Vitrolles and (Heaven reward
+you!) the White Book, just arrived per <i>Upolu</i>, having
+gone the wrong way round, by Australia; also six copies
+of <i>Island Nights&rsquo; Entertainments</i>. Some of Weatherall&rsquo;s
+illustrations are very clever; but O Lord! the lagoon!
+I did say it was &ldquo;shallow,&rdquo; but, O dear, not so shallow
+as that a man could stand up in it! I had still an hour
+to wait for my meeting, so Postmaster Davis let me sit
+down in his room and I had a bottle of beer in, and read
+<i>A Gentleman of France</i>. Have you seen it coming out
+in Longman&rsquo;s? My dear Colvin! &rsquo;tis the most exquisite
+pleasure; a real chivalrous yarn, like the Dumas&rsquo; and
+yet unlike. Thereafter to the meeting of the five newspaper
+proprietors. Business transacted, I have to gallop
+home and find the boys waiting to be paid at the doorstep.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monday, 5th.</i>&mdash;Yesterday, Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Brown,
+secretary to the Wesleyan Mission, and the man who
+made the war in the Western Islands and was tried for
+his life in Fiji, came up, and we had a long, important
+talk about Samoa. O, if I could only talk to the home
+men! But what would it matter? none of them know,
+none of them care. If we could only have Macgregor
+here with his schooner, you would hear of no more troubles
+in Samoa. That is what we want; a man that knows
+and likes the natives, <i>qui paye de sa personne</i>, and is not
+afraid of hanging when necessary. We don&rsquo;t want bland
+Swedish humbugs, and fussy, footering German barons.
+That way the maelstrom lies, and we shall soon be
+in it.</p>
+
+<p>I have to-day written 103 and 104, all perfectly wrong,
+and shall have to rewrite them. This tale is devilish,
+and Chapter <span class="scs">XI</span>. the worst of the lot. The truth is of
+course that I am wholly worked out; but it&rsquo;s nearly
+done, and shall go somehow according to promise. I go
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page313"></a>313</span>
+against all my gods, and say it is <i>not worth while</i> to
+massacre yourself over the last few pages of a rancid
+yarn, that the reviewers will quite justly tear to bits.
+As for <i>D. B.</i>, no hope, I fear, this mail, but we&rsquo;ll see what
+the afternoon does for me.</p>
+
+<p>4.15.&mdash;Well, it&rsquo;s done. Those tragic 16 pp. are at last
+finished, and I have put away thirty-two pages of chips,
+and have spent thirteen days about as nearly in Hell as
+a man could expect to live through. It&rsquo;s done, and of
+course it ain&rsquo;t worth while, and who cares? There it is,
+and about as grim a tale as was ever written, and as
+grimy, and as hateful.</p>
+
+<div class="pt05">&nbsp;</div>
+<table class="reg1" style="border: 1px solid black;" summary="data"><tr><td>
+
+<div style="padding-right: 2em;">
+<p class="center">SACRED</p>
+<p class="center">TO THE MEMORY</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="sc f80">OF</span></p>
+<p class="center">J. L. HUISH,</p>
+<p class="center f80"><span class="sc">BORN</span> 1856, <span class="sc">AT HACKNEY,</span></p>
+<p class="center f80 sc">LONDON</p>
+<p class="center f90">Accidentally killed upon this</p>
+<p class="center f90">Island,</p>
+<p class="center f90">10th September 1889.</p>
+</div></td></tr></table>
+<div class="pt05">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday, 6th.</i>&mdash;I am exulting to do nothing. It pours
+with rain from the westward, very unusual kind of weather;
+I was standing out on the little verandah in front of my
+room this morning, and there went through me or over
+me a wave of extraordinary and apparently baseless
+emotion. I literally staggered. And then the explanation
+came, and I knew I had found a frame of mind and
+body that belonged to Scotland, and particularly to the
+neighbourhood of Callander. Very odd these identities
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page314"></a>314</span>
+of sensation, and the world of connotations implied; highland
+huts, and peat smoke, and the brown, swirling rivers,
+and wet clothes, and whisky, and the romance of the
+past, and that indescribable bite of the whole thing at a
+man&rsquo;s heart, which is&mdash;or rather lies at the bottom of&mdash;a
+story.</p>
+
+<p>I don&rsquo;t know if you are a Barbey d&rsquo;Aurévilly-an. I
+am. I have a great delight in his Norman stories. Do
+you know the <i>Chevalier des Touches</i> and <i>L&rsquo;Ensorcelée</i>?
+They are admirable, they reek of the soil and the past.
+But I was rather thinking just now of <i>Le Rideau Cramoisi</i>,
+and its adorable setting of the stopped coach, the dark
+street, the home-going in the inn yard, and the red blind
+illuminated. Without doubt, <i>there</i> was an identity of
+sensation; one of those conjunctions in life that had
+filled Barbey full to the brim, and permanently bent his
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder exceedingly if I have done anything at all
+good; and who can tell me? and why should I wish to
+know? In so little a while, I, and the English language,
+and the bones of my descendants, will have ceased to be
+a memory! And yet&mdash;and yet&mdash;one would like to leave
+an image for a few years upon men&rsquo;s minds&mdash;for fun.
+This is a very dark frame of mind, consequent on overwork
+and the conclusion of the excruciating <i>Ebb Tide</i>.
+Adieu.</p>
+
+<p>What do you suppose should be done with <i>The Ebb
+Tide</i>? It would make a volume of 200 pp.; on the other
+hand, I might likely have some more stories soon: <i>The
+Owl</i>, <i>Death in the Pot</i>, <i>The Sleeper Awakened</i>; all these
+are possible. <i>The Owl</i> might be half as long; <i>The Sleeper
+Awakened</i>, ditto; <i>Death in the Pot</i> a deal shorter, I believe.
+Then there&rsquo;s the <i>Go-Between</i>, which is not impossible
+altogether. <i>The Owl</i>, <i>The Sleeper Awakened</i>, and the
+<i>Go-Between</i> end reasonably well; <i>Death in the Pot</i> is an
+ungodly massacre. O, well, <i>The Owl</i> only ends well in so
+far as some lovers come together, and nobody is killed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page315"></a>315</span>
+at the moment, but you know they are all doomed, they
+are Chouan fellows.<a name="FnAnchor_61" href="#Footnote_61"><span class="sp">61</span></a></p>
+
+<p><i>Friday, 9th.</i>&mdash;Well, the mail is in; no Blue-book,
+depressing letter from C.; a long, amusing ramble from
+my mother; vast masses of Romeike; they <i>are</i> going
+to war now; and what will that lead to? and what has
+driven them to it but the persistent misconduct of these
+two officials? I know I ought to rewrite the end of this
+bloody <i>Ebb Tide</i>: well, I can&rsquo;t. <i>C&rsquo;est plus fort que moi</i>;
+it has to go the way it is, and be jowned to it! From
+what I make out of the reviews,<a name="FnAnchor_62" href="#Footnote_62"><span class="sp">62</span></a> I think it would be
+better not to republish <i>The Ebb Tide</i>: but keep it for
+other tales, if they should turn up. Very amusing how
+the reviews pick out one story and damn the rest! and
+it is always a different one. Be sure you send me the
+article from Le Temps. Talking of which, ain&rsquo;t it manners
+in France to acknowledge a dedication? I have never
+heard a word from Le Sieur Bourget.</p>
+
+<p><i>Saturday, 17th.</i>&mdash;Since I wrote this last, I have written
+a whole chapter of my Grandfather, and read it to-night;
+it was on the whole much appreciated, and I kind of
+hope it ain&rsquo;t bad myself. &rsquo;Tis a third writing, but it
+wants a fourth. By next mail, I believe I might send
+you 3 chapters. That is to say <i>Family Annals</i>, <i>The Service
+of the Northern Lights</i>, and <i>The Building of the Bell Rock.</i>
+Possibly even 4&mdash;<i>A Houseful of Boys</i>. I could finish my
+Grandfather very easy now; my father and Uncle Alan
+stop the way. I propose to call the book: <i>Northern Lights:
+Memoirs of a Family of Engineers</i>. I tell you, it is going
+to be a good book. My idea in sending MS. would be to
+get it set up; two proofs to me, one to Professor Swan,
+Ardchapel, Helensburgh&mdash;mark it private and confidential&mdash;one
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page316"></a>316</span>
+to yourself; and come on with criticisms! But I&rsquo;ll
+have to see. The total plan of the book is this&mdash;</p>
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+
+<tr><td class="tc2a scs">I.</td>
+    <td class="tc3">Domestic Annals.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc2a scs">II.</td>
+    <td class="tc3">The Service of the Northern Lights.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc2a scs">III.</td>
+    <td class="tc3">The Building of the Bell Rock.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc2a scs">IV.</td>
+    <td class="tc3">A Houseful of Boys (or the Family in Baxter&rsquo;s Place).</td>
+    <td class="tc3 f80" style="text-indent: -1em; width: 30%; vertical-align: top;" rowspan="5">
+           There will be an Introduction &lsquo;The Surname of Stevenson&rsquo; which has proved a mighty
+           queer subject of inquiry. But, Lord! if I were among libraries.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc2a scs">V.</td>
+    <td class="tc3">Education of an Engineer.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc2a scs">VI.</td>
+    <td class="tc3">The Grandfather.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc2a scs">VII.</td>
+    <td class="tc3">Alan Stevenson.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc2a scs">VIII.</td>
+    <td class="tc3">Thomas Stevenson.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><i>Sunday, 18th.</i>&mdash;I shall put in this envelope the end
+of the ever-to-be-execrated <i>Ebb Tide</i>, or Stevenson&rsquo;s
+Blooming Error. Also, a paper apart for <i>David Balfour</i>.
+The slips must go in another enclosure, I suspect, owing
+to their beastly bulk. Anyway, there are two pieces of
+work off my mind, and though I could wish I had rewritten
+a little more of <i>David</i>, yet it was plainly to be
+seen it was impossible. All the points indicated by you
+have been brought out; but to rewrite the end, in my
+present state of over-exhaustion and fiction-phobia, would
+have been madness; and I let it go as it stood. My grandfather
+is good enough for me, these days. I do not work
+any less; on the whole, if anything, a little more. But
+it is different.</p>
+
+<p>The slips go to you in four packets; I hope they are
+what they should be, but do not think so. I am at a
+pitch of discontent with fiction in all its form&mdash;or <i>my</i>
+forms&mdash;that prevents me being able to be even interested.
+I have had to stop all drink; smoking I am trying to
+stop also. It annoys me dreadfully: and yet if I take
+a glass of claret, I have a headache the next day! O,
+and a good headache too; none of your trifles.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sir, here&rsquo;s to you, and farewell.&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page317"></a>317</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Edmund Gosse</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>June 10th, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,&mdash;My mother tells me you never
+received the very long and careful letter that I sent you
+more than a year ago; or is it two years?</p>
+
+<p>I was indeed so much surprised at your silence that
+I wrote to Henry James and begged him to inquire if
+you had received it; his reply was an (if possible) higher
+power of the same silence; whereupon I bowed my head
+and acquiesced. But there is no doubt the letter was
+written and sent; and I am sorry it was lost, for it contained,
+among other things, an irrecoverable criticism of
+your father&rsquo;s <i>Life</i>, with a number of suggestions for another
+edition, which struck me at the time as excellent.</p>
+
+<p>Well, suppose we call that cried off, and begin as
+before? It is fortunate indeed that we can do so, being
+both for a while longer in the day. But, alas! when I
+see &ldquo;works of the late J. A. S.,&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_63" href="#Footnote_63"><span class="sp">63</span></a> I can see no help and
+no reconciliation possible. I wrote him a letter, I think,
+three years ago, heard in some roundabout way that he
+had received it, waited in vain for an answer (which had
+probably miscarried), and in a humour between frowns
+and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the strange,
+poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the
+night, and the voice is silent that uttered so much excellent
+discourse; and I am sorry that I did not write
+to him again. Yet I am glad for him; light lie the turf!
+The Saturday is the only obituary I have seen, and I
+thought it very good upon the whole. I should be half
+tempted to write an <i>In Memoriam</i>, but I am submerged
+with other work. Are you going to do it? I
+very much admire your efforts that way; you are our
+only academician.</p>
+
+<p>So you have tried fiction? I will tell you the truth:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page318"></a>318</span>
+when I saw it announced, I was so sure you would send
+it to me, that I did not order it! But the order goes
+this mail, and I will give you news of it. Yes, honestly,
+fiction is very difficult; it is a terrible strain to <i>carry</i>
+your characters all that time. And the difficulty of according
+the narrative and the dialogue (in a work in the third
+person) is extreme. That is one reason out of half a dozen
+why I so often prefer the first. It is much in my mind
+just now, because of my last work, just off the stocks
+three days ago, <i>The Ebb Tide</i>: a dreadful, grimy business
+in the third person, where the strain between a vilely
+realistic dialogue and a narrative style pitched about
+(in phrase) &lsquo;four notes higher&rsquo; than it should have
+been, has sown my head with grey hairs; or I believe
+so&mdash;if my head escaped, my heart has them.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, I have a little lost my way, and stand
+bemused at the cross-roads. A subject? Ay, I have
+dozens; I have at least four novels begun, they are none
+good enough; and the mill waits, and I&rsquo;ll have to take
+second best. <i>The Ebb Tide</i> I make the world a present of;
+I expect, and, I suppose, deserve to be torn to pieces;
+but there was all that good work lying useless, and I
+had to finish it!</p>
+
+<p>All your news of your family is pleasant to hear. My
+wife has been very ill, but is now better; I may say I am
+ditto, <i>The Ebb Tide</i> having left me high and dry, which
+is a good example of the mixed metaphor. Our home, and
+estate, and our boys, and the politics of the island, keep
+us perpetually amused and busy; and I grind away with
+an odd, dogged, down sensation&mdash;and an idea <i>in petto</i> that
+the game is about played out. I have got too realistic,
+and I must break the trammels&mdash;I mean I would if I could;
+but the yoke is heavy. I saw with amusement that Zola
+says the same thing; and truly the <i>Débâcle</i> was a mighty
+big book, I have no need for a bigger, though the last part
+is a mere mistake in my opinion. But the Emperor, and
+Sedan, and the doctor at the ambulance, and the horses
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page319"></a>319</span>
+in the field of battle, Lord, how gripped it is! What an
+epical performance! According to my usual opinion, I
+believe I could go over that book and leave a masterpiece
+by blotting and no ulterior art. But that is an old
+story, ever new with me. Taine gone, and Renan, and
+Symonds, and Tennyson, and Browning; the suns go
+swiftly out, and I see no suns to follow, nothing but a
+universal twilight of the demi-divinities, with parties like
+you and me and Lang beating on toy drums and playing
+on penny whistles about glow-worms. But Zola is big
+anyway; he has plenty in his belly; too much, that is
+all; he wrote the <i>Débâcle</i> and he wrote <i>La Bęte humaine</i>,
+perhaps the most excruciatingly silly book that I ever
+read to an end. And why did I read it to an end, W. E. G.?
+Because the animal in me was interested in the lewdness.
+Not sincerely, of course, my mind refusing to partake in
+it; but the flesh was slightly pleased. And when it was
+done, I cast it from me with a peal of laughter, and forgot
+it, as I would forget a Montépin. Taine is to me perhaps
+the chief of these losses; I did luxuriate in his <i>Origines</i>;
+it was something beyond literature, not quite so good,
+if you please, but so much more systematic, and the
+pages that had to be &ldquo;written&rdquo; always so adequate.
+Robespierre, Napoleon, were both excellent good.</p>
+
+<p><i>June 18th, &rsquo;93.</i>&mdash;Well, I have left fiction wholly, and
+gone to my Grandfather, and on the whole found peace.
+By next month my Grandfather will begin to be quite
+grown up. I have already three chapters about as good
+as done; by which, of course, as you know, I mean till
+further notice or the next discovery. I like biography far
+better than fiction myself: fiction is too free. In biography
+you have your little handful of facts, little bits of
+a puzzle, and you sit and think, and fit &rsquo;em together this
+way and that, and get up and throw &rsquo;em down, and say
+damn, and go out for a walk. And it&rsquo;s real soothing;
+and when done, gives an idea of finish to the writer that
+is very peaceful. Of course, it&rsquo;s not really so finished as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page320"></a>320</span>
+quite a rotten novel; it always has and always must
+have the incurable illogicalities of life about it, the fathoms
+of slack and the miles of tedium. Still, that&rsquo;s where the
+fun comes in; and when you have at last managed to
+shut up the castle spectre (dulness), the very outside of
+his door looks beautiful by contrast. There are pages in
+these books that may seem nothing to the reader; but you
+<i>remember what they were, you know what they might have
+been</i>, and they seem to you witty beyond comparison.
+In my Grandfather I&rsquo;ve had (for instance) to give up the
+temporal order almost entirely; doubtless the temporal
+order is the great foe of the biographer; it is so tempting,
+so easy, and lo! there you are in the bog!&mdash;Ever
+yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>With all kind messages from self and wife to you and
+yours. My wife is very much better, having been the
+early part of this year alarmingly ill. She is now all right,
+only complaining of trifles, annoying to her, but happily
+not interesting to her friends. I am in a hideous state,
+having stopped drink and smoking; yes, both. No wine,
+no tobacco; and the dreadful part of it is that&mdash;looking
+forward&mdash;I have&mdash;what shall I say?&mdash;nauseating intimations
+that it ought to be for ever.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Henry James</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands,
+June 17th, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,&mdash;I believe I have neglected a
+mail in answering yours. You will be very sorry to hear
+that my wife was exceedingly ill, and very glad to hear
+that she is better. I cannot say that I feel any more
+anxiety about her. We shall send you a photograph of
+her taken in Sydney in her customary island habit as she
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page321"></a>321</span>
+walks and gardens and shrilly drills her brown assistants.
+She was very ill when she sat for it, which may a little
+explain the appearance of the photograph. It reminds me
+of a friend of my grandmother&rsquo;s who used to say when
+talking to younger women, &ldquo;Aweel, when I was young,
+I wasnae just exactly what ye wad call <i>bonny</i>, but I was
+pale, penetratin&rsquo;, and interestin&rsquo;.&rdquo; I would not venture to
+hint that Fanny is &ldquo;no bonny,&rdquo; but there is no doubt
+but that in this presentment she is &ldquo;pale, penetratin&rsquo;, and
+interestin&rsquo;.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As you are aware, I have been wading deep waters and
+contending with the great ones of the earth, not wholly
+without success. It is, you may be interested to hear, a
+dreary and infuriating business. If you can get the fools
+to admit one thing, they will always save their face by
+denying another. If you can induce them to take a step
+to the right hand, they generally indemnify themselves
+by cutting a caper to the left. I always held (upon no
+evidence whatever, from a mere sentiment or intuition)
+that politics was the dirtiest, the most foolish, and the
+most random of human employments. I always held, but
+now I know it! Fortunately, you have nothing to do
+with anything of the kind, and I may spare you the horror
+of further details.</p>
+
+<p>I received from you a book by a man by the name of
+Anatole France. Why should I disguise it? I have no
+use for Anatole. He writes very prettily, and then afterwards?
+Baron Marbot was a different pair of shoes. So
+likewise is the Baron de Vitrolles, whom I am now perusing
+with delight. His escape in 1814 is one of the best pages
+I remember anywhere to have read. But Marbot and
+Vitrolles are dead, and what has become of the living?
+It seems as if literature were coming to a stand. I am
+sure it is with me; and I am sure everybody will say so
+when they have the privilege of reading <i>The Ebb Tide</i>. My
+dear man, the grimness of that story is not to be depicted
+in words. There are only four characters, to be sure, but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page322"></a>322</span>
+they are such a troop of swine! And their behaviour is
+really so deeply beneath any possible standard, that on
+a retrospect I wonder I have been able to endure them
+myself until the yarn was finished. Well, there is always
+one thing; it will serve as a touchstone. If the admirers
+of Zola admire him for his pertinent ugliness and pessimism,
+I think they should admire this; but if, as I have long
+suspected, they neither admire nor understand the man&rsquo;s
+art, and only wallow in his rancidness like a hound in offal,
+then they will certainly be disappointed in <i>The Ebb Tide</i>.
+Alas! poor little tale, it is not <i>even</i> rancid.</p>
+
+<p>By way of an antidote or febrifuge, I am going on at
+a great rate with my History of the Stevensons, which I
+hope may prove rather amusing, in some parts at least.
+The excess of materials weighs upon me. My grandfather
+is a delightful comedy part; and I have to treat
+him besides as a serious and (in his way) a heroic figure,
+and at times I lose my way, and I fear in the end will
+blur the effect. However, <i>ŕ la grâce de Dieu!</i> I&rsquo;ll make
+a spoon or spoil a horn. You see, I have to do the Building
+of the Bell Rock by cutting down and packing my grand-sire&rsquo;s
+book, which I rather hope I have done, but do not
+know. And it makes a huge chunk of a very different
+style and quality between Chapters <span class="scs">II.</span> and <span class="scs">IV.</span> And it
+can&rsquo;t be helped! It is just a delightful and exasperating
+necessity. You know, the stuff is really excellent
+narrative: only, perhaps there&rsquo;s too much of it! There
+is the rub. Well, well, it will be plain to you that my
+mind is affected; it might be with less. <i>The Ebb Tide</i>
+and <i>Northern Lights</i> are a full meal for any plain man.</p>
+
+<p>I have written and ordered your last book, <i>The Real
+Thing</i>, so be sure and don&rsquo;t send it. What else are you
+doing or thinking of doing? News I have none, and don&rsquo;t
+want any. I have had to stop all strong drink and all
+tobacco, and am now in a transition state between the
+two, which seems to be near madness. You never smoked,
+I think, so you can never taste the joys of stopping it.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page323"></a>323</span>
+But at least you have drunk, and you can enter perhaps
+into my annoyance when I suddenly find a glass of claret
+or a brandy-and-water give me a splitting headache the
+next morning. No mistake about it; drink anything, and
+there&rsquo;s your headache. Tobacco just as bad for me. If
+I live through this breach of habit, I shall be a white-livered
+puppy indeed. Actually I am so made, or so
+twisted, that I do not like to think of a life without the
+red wine on the table and the tobacco with its lovely little
+coal of fire. It doesn&rsquo;t amuse me from a distance. I
+may find it the Garden of Eden when I go in, but I don&rsquo;t
+like the colour of the gate-posts. Suppose somebody said
+to you, you are to leave your home, and your books, and
+your clubs, and go out and camp in mid-Africa, and command
+an expedition, you would howl, and kick, and flee.
+I think the same of a life without wine and tobacco; and
+if this goes on, I&rsquo;ve got to go and do it, sir, in the living
+flesh!</p>
+
+<p>I thought Bourget was a friend of yours? And I
+thought the French were a polite race? He has taken
+my dedication with a stately silence that has surprised
+me into apoplexy. Did I go and dedicate my book<a name="FnAnchor_64" href="#Footnote_64"><span class="sp">64</span></a> to
+the nasty alien, and the &lsquo;norrid Frenchman, and the
+Bloody Furrineer? Well, I wouldn&rsquo;t do it again; and
+unless his case is susceptible of explanation, you might
+perhaps tell him so over the walnuts and the wine, by
+way of speeding the gay hours. Sincerely, I thought my
+dedication worth a letter.</p>
+
+<p>If anything be worth anything here below! Do you
+know the story of the man who found a button in his
+hash, and called the waiter? &ldquo;What do you call that?&rdquo;
+says he. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the waiter, &ldquo;what d&rsquo;you expect?
+Expect to find a gold watch and chain?&rdquo; Heavenly
+apologue, is it not? I expected (rather) to find a gold
+watch and chain; I expected to be able to smoke to excess
+and drink to comfort all the days of my life; and I am
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page324"></a>324</span>
+still indignantly staring on this button! It&rsquo;s not even a
+button; it&rsquo;s a teetotal badge!&mdash;Ever yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Saturday, 24th (?) June</i> [<i>1893</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;Yesterday morning, after a day of
+absolute temperance, I awoke to the worst headache I
+had had yet. Accordingly, temperance was said farewell
+to, quinine instituted, and I believe my pains are soon to
+be over. We wait, with a kind of sighing impatience, for
+war to be declared, or to blow finally off, living in the
+meanwhile in a kind of children&rsquo;s hour of firelight and
+shadow and preposterous tales; the king seen at night
+galloping up our road upon unknown errands and covering
+his face as he passes our cook; Mataafa daily surrounded
+(when he awakes) with fresh &ldquo;white man&rsquo;s boxes&rdquo; (query,
+ammunition?) and professing to be quite ignorant of
+where they come from; marches of bodies of men across
+the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the coming
+on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment
+and rag-tag as the devil himself could not unwind.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday, 28 June.</i>&mdash;Yesterday it rained with but
+little intermission, but I was jealous of news. Graham
+and I got into the saddle about 1 o&rsquo;clock and off down
+to town. In town, there was nothing but rumours going;
+in the night drums had been beat, the men had run to
+arms on Mulinuu from as far as Vaiala, and the alarm
+proved false. There were no signs of any gathering in
+Apia proper, and the Secretary of State had no news to
+give. I believed him, too, for we are brither Scots. Then
+the temptation came upon me strong to go on to the ford
+and see the Mataafa villages, where we heard there was
+more afoot. Off we rode. When we came to Vaimusu, the
+houses were very full of men, but all seemingly unarmed.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page325"></a>325</span>
+Immediately beyond is that river over which we passed
+in our scamper with Lady Jersey; it was all solitary.
+Three hundred yards beyond is a second ford; and there&mdash;I
+came face to face with war. Under the trees on the
+further bank sat a picket of seven men with Winchesters;
+their faces bright, their eyes ardent. As we came up, they
+did not speak or move; only their eyes followed us. The
+horses drank, and we passed the ford. &ldquo;Talofa!&rdquo; I said,
+and the commandant of the picket said &ldquo;Talofa&rdquo;; and
+then, when we were almost by, remembered himself and
+asked where we were going. &ldquo;To Faamuiná,&rdquo; I said, and
+we rode on. Every house by the wayside was crowded with
+armed men. There was the European house of a Chinaman
+on the right-hand side: a flag of truce flying over the
+gate&mdash;indeed we saw three of these in what little way we
+penetrated into Mataafa&rsquo;s lines&mdash;all the foreigners trying
+to protect their goods; and the Chinaman&rsquo;s verandah
+overflowed with men and girls and Winchesters. By the
+way we met a party of about ten or a dozen marching
+with their guns and cartridge-belts, and the cheerful
+alacrity and brightness of their looks set my head turning
+with envy and sympathy. Arrived at Vaiusu, the houses
+about the <i>malae</i> (village green) were thronged with men,
+all armed. On the outside of the council-house (which
+was all full within) there stood an orator; he had his
+back turned to his audience, and seemed to address the
+world at large; all the time we were there his strong voice
+continued unabated, and I heard snatches of political
+wisdom rising and falling.</p>
+
+<p>The house of Faamuiná stands on a knoll in the <i>malae</i>.
+Thither we mounted, a boy ran out and took our horses,
+and we went in. Faamuiná was there himself, his wife
+Palepa, three other chiefs, and some attendants; and here
+again was this exulting spectacle as of people on their
+marriage day. Faamuiná (when I last saw him) was an
+elderly, limping gentleman, with much of the debility of
+age; it was a bright-eyed boy that greeted me; the lady
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page326"></a>326</span>
+was no less excited; all had cartridge-belts. We stayed
+but a little while to smoke a selui; I would not have kava
+made, as I thought my escapade was already dangerous
+(perhaps even blameworthy) enough. On the way back,
+we were much greeted, and on coming to the ford, the
+commandant came and asked me if there were many on
+the other side. &ldquo;Very many,&rdquo; said I; not that I knew,
+but I would not lead them on the ice. &ldquo;That is well!&rdquo;
+said he, and the little picket laughed aloud as we splashed
+into the river. We returned to Apia, through Apia, and
+out to windward as far as Vaiala, where the word went
+that the men of the Vaimauga had assembled. We met
+two boys carrying pigs, and saw six young men busy cooking
+in a cook-house; but no sign of an assembly; no arms,
+no blackened faces. (I forgot! As we turned to leave
+Faamuiná&rsquo;s, there ran forward a man with his face blackened,
+and the back of his lava-lava girded up so as to show
+his tattooed hips naked; he leaped before us, cut a wonderful
+caper, and flung his knife high in the air, and caught
+it. It was strangely savage and fantastic and high-spirited.
+I have seen a child doing the same antics long before in
+a dance, so that it is plainly an <i>accepted solemnity</i>. I
+should say that for weeks the children have been playing
+with spears.) Up by the plantation I took a short cut,
+which shall never be repeated, through grass and weeds
+over the horses&rsquo; heads and among rolling stones; I thought
+we should have left a horse there, but fortune favoured
+us. So home, a little before six, in a dashing squall of
+rain, to a bowl of kava and dinner. But the impression
+on our minds was extraordinary; the sight of that picket
+at the ford, and those ardent, happy faces whirls in my
+head; the old aboriginal awoke in both of us and knickered
+like a stallion.</p>
+
+<p>It is dreadful to think that I must sit apart here and
+do nothing; I do not know if I can stand it out. But
+you see, I may be of use to these poor people, if I keep
+quiet, and if I threw myself in, I should have a bad job
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page327"></a>327</span>
+of it to save myself. There; I have written this to you;
+and it is still but 7.30 in the day, and the sun only about
+one hour up; can I go back to my old grandpapa, and
+men sitting with Winchesters in my mind&rsquo;s eye? No;
+war is a huge <i>entraînement</i>; there is no other temptation
+to be compared to it, not one. We were all wet, we had
+been about five hours in the saddle, mostly riding hard;
+and we came home like schoolboys, with such a lightness
+of spirits, and I am sure such a brightness of eye, as you
+could have lit a candle at!</p>
+
+<p>Do you appreciate the height and depth of my temptation?
+that I have about nine miles to ride, and I can
+become a general officer? and to-night I might seize
+Mulinuu and have the C. J. under arrest? And yet I
+stay here! It seems incredible, so huge is the empire of
+prudence and the second thought.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thursday, 29th.</i>&mdash;I had two priests to luncheon yesterday:
+the Bishop and Pčre Rémy. They were very
+pleasant, and quite clean too, which has been known
+sometimes not to be&mdash;even with bishops. Monseigneur is
+not unimposing; with his white beard and his violet
+girdle he looks splendidly episcopal, and when our three
+waiting lads came up one after another and kneeled before
+him in the big hall, and kissed his ring, it did me good
+for a piece of pageantry. Rémy is very engaging; he is
+a little, nervous, eager man, like a governess, and brimful
+of laughter and small jokes. So is the bishop indeed, and
+our luncheon party went off merrily&mdash;far more merrily
+than many a German spread, though with so much less
+liquor. One trait was delicious. With a complete ignorance
+of the Protestant that I would scarce have imagined,
+he related to us (as news) little stories from the gospels,
+and got the names all wrong! His comments were delicious,
+and to our ears a thought irreverent. &ldquo;<i>Ah! il connaissait
+son monde, allez!</i>&rdquo; &ldquo;<i>Il était fin, notre Seigneur!</i>&rdquo; etc.</p>
+
+<p><i>Friday.</i>&mdash;Down with Fanny and Belle, to lunch at the
+International. Heard there about the huge folly of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page328"></a>328</span>
+hour, all the Mulinuu ammunition having been yesterday
+marched openly to vaults in Matafele; and this morning,
+on a cry of protest from the whites, openly and humiliatingly
+disinterred and marched back again. People spoke of
+it with a kind of shrill note that did not quite satisfy me.
+They seemed not quite well at ease. Luncheon over, we
+rode out on the Malie road. All was quiet in Vaiusu, and
+when we got to the second ford, alas! there was no picket&mdash;which
+was just what Belle had come to sketch. On through
+quite empty roads; the houses deserted, never a gun to
+be seen; and at last a drum and a penny whistle playing
+in Vaiusu, and a cricket match on the <i>malae</i>! Went up
+to Faamuiná&rsquo;s; he is a trifle uneasy, though he gives us
+kava. I cannot see what ails him, then it appears that
+he has an engagement with the Chief Justice at half-past
+two to sell a piece of land. Is this the reason why war
+has disappeared? We ride back, stopping to sketch here
+and there the fords, a flag of truce, etc. I ride on to
+Public Hall Committee and pass an hour with my committees
+very heavily. To the hotel to dinner, then to the
+ball, and home by eleven, very tired. At the ball I heard
+some news, of how the chief of Letonu said that I was
+the source of all this trouble, and should be punished, and
+my family as well. This, and the rudeness of the man at
+the ford of the Gase-gase, looks but ill; I should have said
+that Faamuiná, as he approached the first ford, was spoken
+to by a girl, and immediately said good-bye and plunged
+into the bush; the girl had told him there was a war
+party out from Mulinuu; and a little further on, as we
+stopped to sketch a flag of truce, the beating of drums
+and the sound of a bugle from that direction startled us.
+But we saw nothing, and I believe Mulinuu is (at least
+at present) incapable of any act of offence. One good
+job, these threats to my home and family take away all
+my childish temptation to go out and fight. Our force
+must be here, to protect ourselves. I see panic rising
+among the whites; I hear the shrill note of it in their voices,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page329"></a>329</span>
+and they talk already about a refuge on the war ships.
+There are two here, both German; and the <i>Orlando</i> is
+expected presently.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday, 9th July.</i>&mdash;Well, the war has at last begun.
+For four or five days, Apia has been filled by these poor
+children with their faces blacked, and the red handkerchief
+about their brows, that makes the Malietoa uniform,
+and the boats have been coming in from the windward,
+some of them 50 strong, with a drum and a bugle on board&mdash;the
+bugle always ill-played&mdash;and a sort of jester leaping
+and capering on the sparred nose of the boat, and the
+whole crew uttering from time to time a kind of menacing
+ululation. Friday they marched out to the bush; and
+yesterday morning we heard that some had returned to
+their houses for the night, as they found it &ldquo;so uncomfortable.&rdquo;
+After dinner a messenger came up to me with
+a note, that the wounded were arriving at the Mission
+House. Fanny, Lloyd and I saddled and rode off with a
+lantern; it was a fine starry night, though pretty cold.
+We left the lantern at Tanugamanono, and then down in
+the starlight. I found Apia, and myself, in a strange state
+of flusteration; my own excitement was gloomy and (I
+may say) truculent; others appeared imbecile; some
+sullen. The best place in the whole town was the hospital.
+A longish frame-house it was, with a big table in the middle
+for operations, and ten Samoans, each with an average
+of four sympathisers, stretched along the walls. Clarke
+was there, steady as a die; Miss Large, little spectacled
+angel, showed herself a real trump; the nice, clean,
+German orderlies in their white uniforms looked and
+meant business. (I hear a fine story of Miss Large&mdash;a
+cast-iron teetotaller&mdash;going to the public-house for a
+bottle of brandy.)</p>
+
+<p>The doctors were not there when I arrived; but presently
+it was observed that one of the men was going cold.
+He was a magnificent Samoan, very dark, with a noble
+aquiline countenance, like an Arab, I suppose, and was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page330"></a>330</span>
+surrounded by seven people, fondling his limbs as he
+lay: he was shot through both lungs. And an orderly
+was sent to the town for the (German naval) doctors, who
+were dining there. Meantime I found an errand of my
+own. Both Clarke and Miss Large expressed a wish to
+have the public hall, of which I am chairman, and I set
+off down town, and woke people out of their beds, and
+got a committee together, and (with a great deal of difficulty
+from one man, whom we finally overwhelmed) got
+the public hall for them. Bar the one man, the committee
+was splendid, and agreed in a moment to share the expense
+if the shareholders object. Back to the hospital about
+11.30; found the German doctors there. Two men were
+going now, one that was shot in the bowels&mdash;he was dying
+rather hard, in a gloomy stupor of pain and laudanum,
+silent, with contorted face. The chief, shot through the
+lungs, was lying on one side, awaiting the last angel; his
+family held his hands and legs: they were all speechless,
+only one woman suddenly clasped his knee, and &ldquo;keened&rdquo;
+for the inside of five seconds, and fell silent again. Went
+home, and to bed about two <span class="scs">A.M.</span> What actually passed
+seems undiscoverable; but the Mataafas were surely driven
+back out of Vaitele; that is a blow to them, and the resistance
+was far greater than had been anticipated&mdash;which is
+a blow to the Laupepas. All seems to indicate a long
+and bloody war.</p>
+
+<p>Frank&rsquo;s house in Mulinuu was likewise filled with
+wounded; many dead bodies were brought in; I hear
+with certainty of five, wrapped in mats; and a pastor goes
+to-morrow to the field to bring others. The Laupepas
+brought in eleven heads to Mulinuu, and to the great
+horror and consternation of the native mind, one proved
+to be a girl, and was identified as that of a Taupou&mdash;or
+Maid of the Village&mdash;from Savaii. I hear this morning, with
+great relief, that it has been returned to Malie, wrapped
+in the most costly silk handkerchiefs, and with an apologetic
+embassy. This could easily happen. The girl was of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page331"></a>331</span>
+course attending on her father with ammunition, and got
+shot; her hair was cut short to make her father&rsquo;s war
+head-dress&mdash;even as our own Sina&rsquo;s is at this moment;
+and the decollator was probably, in his red flurry of fight,
+wholly unconscious of her sex. I am sorry for him in the
+future; he must make up his mind to many bitter jests&mdash;perhaps
+to vengeance. But what an end to one chosen
+for her beauty and, in the time of peace, watched over by
+trusty crones and hunchbacks!</p>
+
+<p><i>Evening.</i>&mdash;Can I write or not? I played lawn tennis
+in the morning, and after lunch down with Graham to
+Apia. Ulu, he that was shot in the lungs, still lives; he
+that was shot in the bowels is gone to his fathers, poor,
+fierce child! I was able to be of some very small help,
+and in the way of helping myself to information, to prove
+myself a mere gazer at meteors. But there seems no
+doubt the Mataafas for the time are scattered; the most
+of our friends are involved in this disaster, and Mataafa
+himself&mdash;who might have swept the islands a few months
+ago&mdash;for him to fall so poorly, doubles my regret. They
+say the Taupou had a gun and fired; probably an excuse
+manufactured <i>ex post facto</i>. I go down to-morrow at 12,
+to stay the afternoon, and help Miss Large. In the
+hospital to-day, when I first entered it, there were no
+attendants; only the wounded and their friends, all
+equally sleeping and their heads poised upon the wooden
+pillows. There is a pretty enough boy there, slightly
+wounded, whose fate is to be envied: two girls, and one
+of the most beautiful, with beaming eyes, tend him and
+sleep upon his pillow. In the other corner, another young
+man, very patient and brave, lies wholly deserted. Yet
+he seems to me far the better of the two; but not so
+pretty! Heavens, what a difference that makes; in our
+not very well proportioned bodies and our finely hideous
+faces, the 1-32nd&mdash;rather the 1-64th&mdash;this way or that!
+Sixteen heads in all at Mulinuu. I am so stiff I can
+scarce move without a howl.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page332"></a>332</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Monday,</i> 10<i>th.</i>&mdash;Some news that Mataafa is gone to
+Savaii by way of Manono: this may mean a great deal
+more warfaring, and no great issue. (When Sosimo came
+in this morning with my breakfast he had to lift me up.
+It is no joke to play lawn tennis after carrying your right
+arm in a sling so many years.) What a hard, unjust
+business this is! On the 28th, if Mataafa had moved,
+he could have still swept Mulinuu. He waited, and I
+fear he is now only the stick of a rocket.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday, 12th.</i>&mdash;No more political news; but many
+rumours. The government troops are off to Manono; no
+word of Mataafa. O, there is a passage in my mother&rsquo;s
+letter which puzzles me as to a date. Is it next Christmas
+you are coming? or the Christmas after? This is most
+important, and must be understood at once. If it is
+next Christmas, I could not go to Ceylon, for lack of gold,
+and you would have to adopt one of the following alternatives:
+1st, either come straight on here and pass a
+month with us; &rsquo;tis the rainy season, but we have often
+lovely weather. Or (2nd) come to Hawaii and I will
+meet you there. Hawaii is only a week&rsquo;s sail from S.
+Francisco, making only about sixteen days on the heaving
+ocean; and the steamers run once a fortnight, so that
+you could turn round; and you could thus pass a day
+or two in the States&mdash;a fortnight even&mdash;and still see me.
+But I have sworn to take no further excursions till I
+have money saved to pay for them; and to go to Ceylon
+and back would be torture unless I had a lot. You must
+answer this at once, please; so that I may know what
+to do. We would dearly like you to come on here. I&rsquo;ll
+tell you how it can be done; I can come up and meet
+you at Hawaii, and if you had at all got over your sea-sickness,
+I could just come on board and we could return
+together to Samoa, and you could have a month of our
+life here, which I believe you could not help liking. Our
+horses are the devil, of course, miserable screws, and
+some of them a little vicious. I had a dreadful fright&mdash;the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page333"></a>333</span>
+passage in my mother&rsquo;s letter is recrossed and I see
+it says the end of /94: so much the better, then; but
+I would like to submit to you my alternative plan. I
+could meet you at Hawaii, and reconduct you to Hawaii,
+so that we could have a full six weeks together and I
+believe a little over, and you would see this place of mine,
+and have a sniff of native life, native foods, native houses&mdash;and
+perhaps be in time to see the German flag raised,
+who knows?&mdash;and we could generally yarn for all we
+were worth. I should like you to see Vailima; and I
+should be curious to know how the climate affected you.
+It is quite hit or miss; it suits me, it suits Graham, it
+suits all our family; others it does not suit at all. It is
+either gold or poison. I rise at six, the rest at seven;
+lunch is at 12; at five we go to lawn tennis till dinner
+at six; and to roost early.</p>
+
+<p>A man brought in a head to Mulinuu in great glory;
+they washed the black paint off, and behold! it was his
+brother. When I last heard he was sitting in his house,
+with the head upon his lap, and weeping. Barbarous
+war is an ugly business; but I believe the civilised is
+fully uglier; but Lord! what fun!</p>
+
+<p>I should say we now have definite news that there
+are <i>three</i> women&rsquo;s heads; it was difficult to get it out
+of the natives, who are all ashamed, and the women all
+in terror of reprisals. Nothing has been done to punish
+or disgrace these hateful innovators. It was a false report
+that the head had been returned.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thursday, 13th.</i>&mdash;Maatafa driven away from Savaii.
+I cannot write about this, and do not know what should
+be the end of it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monday, 17th.</i>&mdash;Haggard and Ahrens (a German clerk)
+to lunch yesterday. There is no real certain news yet:
+I must say, no man could <i>swear</i> to any result; but the
+sky looks horribly black for Mataafa and so many of our
+friends along with him. The thing has an abominable, a
+beastly, nightmare interest. But it&rsquo;s wonderful generally
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page334"></a>334</span>
+how little one cares about the wounded; hospital sights,
+etc.; things that used to murder me. I was far more
+struck with the excellent way in which things were managed;
+as if it had been a peep-show; I held some of the
+things at an operation, and did not care a dump.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday, 18th.</i>&mdash;Sunday came the <i>Katoomba</i>, Captain
+Bickford, C.M.G. Yesterday, Graham and I went down
+to call, and find he has orders to suppress Mataafa at
+once, and has to go down to-day before daybreak to
+Manono. He is a very capable, energetic man; if he
+had only come ten days ago, all this would have gone
+by; but now the questions are thick and difficult. (1)
+Will Mataafa surrender? (2) Will his people allow themselves
+to be disarmed? (3) What will happen to them
+if they do? (4) What will any of them believe after
+former deceptions? The three consuls were scampering
+on horseback to Leulumoega to the king; no Cusack-Smith,
+without whose accession I could not send a letter
+to Mataafa. I rode up here, wrote my letter in the sweat
+of the concordance and with the able-bodied help of
+Lloyd&mdash;and dined. Then down in continual showers and
+pitchy darkness, and to Cusack-Smith&rsquo;s; not returned.
+Back to the inn for my horse, and to C.-S.&rsquo;s, when I find
+him just returned and he accepts my letter. Thence home,
+by 12.30, jolly tired and wet. And to-day have been in
+a crispation of energy and ill-temper, raking my wretched
+mail together. It is a hateful business, waiting for the
+news; it may come to a fearful massacre yet.&mdash;Yours
+ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To James S. Stevenson</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>This is addressed to a very remote cousin in quest of information
+about the origins of the family.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, June 19th, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. STEVENSON</span>,&mdash;I am reminded by coming
+across some record of relations between my grandfather,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page335"></a>335</span>
+Robert Stevenson, C.E., Edinburgh, and Robert Stevenson,
+Esq., Secretary to the Royal Exchange, Glasgow, and
+I presume a son of Hugh Stevenson who died in Tobago
+16th April 1774, that I have not yet consulted my cousins
+in Glasgow.</p>
+
+<p>I am engaged in writing a Life of my grandfather, my
+uncle Alan, and my father, Thomas, and I find almost
+inconceivable difficulty in placing and understanding their
+(and my) descent.</p>
+
+<p>Might I ask if you have any material to go upon?
+The smallest notes would be like found gold to me; and
+an old letter invaluable.</p>
+
+<p>I have not got beyond James Stevenson and Jean
+Keir his spouse, to whom Robert the First (?) was born
+in 1675. Could you get me further back? Have you
+any old notes of the trouble in the West Indian business
+which took Hugh and Alan to their deaths? How had
+they acquired so considerable a business at an age so
+early? You see how the queries pour from me; but I
+will ask nothing more in words. Suffice it to say that
+any information, however insignificant, as to our common
+forbears, will be very gratefully received. In case you
+should have any original documents, it would be better
+to have copies sent to me in this outlandish place, for the
+expense of which I will account to you as soon as you
+let me know the amount, and it will be wise to register
+your letter.&mdash;Believe me, in the old, honoured Scottish
+phrase, your affectionate cousin,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Henry James</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Apia, July 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,&mdash;Yes. <i>Les Trophées</i> is, on the
+whole, a book.<a name="FnAnchor_65" href="#Footnote_65"><span class="sp">65</span></a> It is excellent; but is it a life&rsquo;s work?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page336"></a>336</span>
+I always suspect <i>you</i> of a volume of sonnets up your
+sleeve; when is it coming down? I am in one of my
+moods of wholesale impatience with all fiction and all
+verging on it, reading instead, with rapture, <i>Fountainhall&rsquo;s
+Decisions</i>. You never read it: well, it hasn&rsquo;t much
+form, and is inexpressibly dreary, I should suppose, to
+others&mdash;and even to me for pages. It&rsquo;s like walking in
+a mine underground, and with a damned bad lantern,
+and picking out pieces of ore. This, and war, will be my
+excuse for not having read your (doubtless) charming
+work of fiction. The revolving year will bring me round
+to it; and I know, when fiction shall begin to feel a little
+<i>solid</i> to me again, that I shall love it, because it&rsquo;s James.
+Do you know, when I am in this mood, I would rather
+try to read a bad book? It&rsquo;s not so disappointing, anyway.
+And <i>Fountainhall</i> is prime, two big folio volumes,
+and all dreary, and all true, and all as terse as an obituary;
+and about one interesting fact on an average in twenty
+pages, and ten of them unintelligible for technicalities.
+There&rsquo;s literature, if you like! It feeds; it falls about
+you genuine like rain. Rain: nobody has done justice to
+rain in literature yet: surely a subject for a Scot. But
+then you can&rsquo;t do rain in that ledger-book style that I
+am trying for&mdash;or between a ledger-book and an old
+ballad. How to get over, how to escape from, the besotting
+<i>particularity</i> of fiction. &ldquo;Roland approached the
+house; it had green doors and window blinds; and
+there was a scraper on the upper step.&rdquo; To hell with
+Roland and the scraper!&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To A. Conan Doyle</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, July 12, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE</span>,&mdash;The <i>White Company</i> has
+not yet turned up; but when it does&mdash;which I suppose
+will be next mail&mdash;you shall hear news of me. I have a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page337"></a>337</span>
+great talent for compliment, accompanied by a hateful,
+even a diabolic frankness.</p>
+
+<p>Delighted to hear I have a chance of seeing you and
+Mrs. Doyle; Mrs. Stevenson bids me say (what is too
+true) that our rations are often spare. Are you Great
+Eaters? Please reply.</p>
+
+<p>As to ways and means, here is what you will have to
+do. Leave San Francisco by the down mail, get off at
+Samoa, and twelve days or a fortnight later, you can
+continue your journey to Auckland per Upolu, which
+will give you a look at Tonga and possibly Fiji by the
+way. Make this a <i>first part of your plans</i>. A fortnight,
+even of Vailima diet, could kill nobody.</p>
+
+<p>We are in the midst of war here; rather a nasty business,
+with the head-taking; and there seems signs of
+other trouble. But I believe you need make no change
+in your design to visit us. All should be well over; and
+if it were not, why! you need not leave the steamer.&mdash;Yours
+very truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>19th July &rsquo;93.</i></p>
+
+<p>... <span class="sc">We</span> are in the thick of war&mdash;see Illustrated
+London News&mdash;we have only two outside boys left to us.
+Nothing is doing, and <i>per contra</i> little paying.... My
+life here is dear; but I can live within my income for
+a time at least&mdash;so long as my prices keep up&mdash;and it
+seems a clear duty to waste none of it on gadding about.
+ ... My Life of my family fills up intervals, and should
+be an excellent book when it is done, but big, damnably
+big.</p>
+
+<p>My dear old man, I perceive by a thousand signs that
+we grow old, and are soon to pass away; I hope with
+dignity; if not, with courage at least. I am myself very
+ready; or would be&mdash;will be&mdash;when I have made a little
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page338"></a>338</span>
+money for my folks. The blows that have fallen upon
+you are truly terrifying; I wish you strength to bear
+them. It is strange, I must seem to you to blaze in a
+Birmingham prosperity and happiness; and to myself I
+seem a failure. The truth is, I have never got over the
+last influenza yet, and am miserably out of heart and
+out of kilter. Lungs pretty right, stomach nowhere,
+spirits a good deal overshadowed; but we&rsquo;ll come through
+it yet, and cock our bonnets. (I confess with sorrow that
+I am not yet quite sure about the <i>intellects</i>; but I hope
+it is only one of my usual periods of non-work. They are
+more unbearable now, because I cannot rest. <i>No rest
+but the grave for Sir Walter!</i> O the words ring in a man&rsquo;s
+head.)</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>August 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;Quite impossible to write. Your
+letter is due to-day; a nasty, rainy-like morning with
+huge blue clouds, and a huge indigo shadow on the sea,
+and my lamp still burning at near 7. Let me humbly
+give you news. Fanny seems on the whole the most, or
+the only, powerful member of the family; for some days
+she has been the Flower of the Flock. Belle is begging
+for quinine. Lloyd and Graham have both been down
+with &ldquo;belly belong him&rdquo; (Black Boy speech). As for me,
+I have to lay aside my lawn tennis, having (as was to be
+expected) had a smart but eminently brief hemorrhage.
+I am also on the quinine flask. I have been re-casting
+the beginning of the <i>Hanging Judge</i> or <i>Weir of Hermiston</i>;
+then I have been cobbling on my Grandfather, whose last
+chapter (there are only to be four) is in the form of pieces
+of paper, a huge welter of inconsequence, and that glimmer
+of faith (or hope) which one learns at this trade, that
+somehow and some time, by perpetual staring and glowering
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page339"></a>339</span>
+and re-writing, order will emerge. It is indeed a queer
+hope; there is one piece for instance that I want in&mdash;I
+cannot put it one place for a good reason&mdash;I cannot put
+it another for a better&mdash;and every time I look at it, I turn
+sick and put the MS. away.</p>
+
+<p>Well, your letter hasn&rsquo;t come, and a number of others
+are missing. It looks as if a mail-bag had gone on, so
+I&rsquo;ll blame nobody, and proceed to business.</p>
+
+<p>It looks as if I was going to send you the first three
+chapters of my Grandfather.... If they were set up,
+it would be that much anxiety off my mind. I have a
+strange feeling of responsibility, as if I had my ancestors&rsquo;
+<i>souls</i> in my charge, and might miscarry with them.</p>
+
+<p>There&rsquo;s a lot of work gone into it, and a lot more is
+needed. Still Chapter <span class="scs">I.</span> seems about right to me, and
+much of Chapter <span class="scs">II.</span> Chapter <span class="scs">III.</span> I know nothing of, as
+I told you. And Chapter <span class="scs">IV.</span> is at present all ends and
+beginnings; but it can be pulled together.</p>
+
+<p>This is all I have been able to screw up to you for
+this month, and I may add that it is not only more than
+you deserve, but just about more than I was equal to.
+I have been and am entirely useless; just able to tinker
+at my Grandfather. The three chapters&mdash;perhaps also a
+little of the fourth&mdash;will come home to you next mail
+by the hand of my cousin Graham Balfour, a very nice
+fellow whom I recommend to you warmly&mdash;and whom I
+think you will like. This will give you time to consider
+my various and distracted schemes.</p>
+
+<p>All our wars are over in the meantime, to begin again
+as soon as the war-ships leave. Adieu.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To A. Conan Doyle</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, August 23rd, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE</span>,&mdash;I am reposing after a
+somewhat severe experience upon which I think it my
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page340"></a>340</span>
+duty to report to you. Immediately after dinner this
+evening it occurred to me to re-narrate to my native
+overseer Simelé your story of <i>The Engineer&rsquo;s Thumb</i>.
+And, sir, I have done it. It was necessary, I need hardly
+say, to go somewhat farther afield than you have done.
+To explain (for instance) what a railway is, what a steam
+hammer, what a coach and horse, what coining, what a
+criminal, and what the police. I pass over other and no
+less necessary explanations. But I did actually succeed;
+and if you could have seen the drawn, anxious features
+and the bright, feverish eyes of Simelé, you would have
+(for the moment at least) tasted glory. You might perhaps
+think that, were you to come to Samoa, you might
+be introduced as the Author of <i>The Engineer&rsquo;s Thumb</i>.
+Disabuse yourself. They do not know what it is to make
+up a story. <i>The Engineer&rsquo;s Thumb</i> (God forgive me) was
+narrated as a piece of actual and factual history. Nay,
+and more, I who write to you have had the indiscretion
+to perpetrate a trifling piece of fiction entitled <i>The Bottle
+Imp</i>. Parties who come up to visit my unpretentious
+mansion, after having admired the ceilings by Vanderputty
+and the tapestry by Gobbling, manifest towards
+the end a certain uneasiness which proves them to be
+fellows of an infinite delicacy. They may be seen to
+shrug a brown shoulder, to roll up a speaking eye, and
+at last secret burst from them: &ldquo;Where is the bottle?&rdquo;
+Alas, my friends (I feel tempted to say), you will find
+it by the Engineer&rsquo;s Thumb! Talofa-soifua.</p>
+
+<p>O a&rsquo;u, o lau uo moni, O Tusitala.
+More commonly known as</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>Have read the <i>Refugees</i>; Condé and old P. Murat
+very good; Louis xiv. and Louvois with the letter bag
+very rich. You have reached a trifle wide perhaps; too
+<i>many</i> celebrities? Though I was delighted to re-encounter
+my old friend Du Chaylu. Old Murat is perhaps your
+high-water mark; &rsquo;tis excellently human, cheerful and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page341"></a>341</span>
+real. Do it again. Madame de Maintenon struck me as
+quite good. Have you any document for the decapitation?
+It sounds steepish. The devil of all that first
+part is that you see old Dumas; yet your Louis <span class="sc">XIV.</span> is
+<i>distinctly good</i>. I am much interested with this book,
+which fulfils a good deal, and promises more. Question:
+How far a Historical Novel should be wholly episodic?
+I incline to that view, with trembling. I shake hands
+with you on old Murat.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Augustus St. Gaudens</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Mr. St. Gaudens&rsquo; large medallion portrait in bronze, executed
+from sittings given in 1887, had at last found its way to Apia, but
+not yet to Vailima.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, September 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS</span>,&mdash;I had determined not to
+write to you till I had seen the medallion, but it looks
+as if that might mean the Greek Kalends or the day
+after to-morrow. Reassure yourself, your part is done,
+it is ours that halts&mdash;the consideration of conveyance
+over our sweet little road on boys&rsquo; backs, for we cannot
+very well apply the horses to this work; there is only
+one; you cannot put it in a panier; to put it on the
+horse&rsquo;s back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty
+of R. L. S., to say nothing of his verses, which the publishers
+find heavy enough, and the genius of the god-like
+sculptor, the spine would snap and the well-knit limbs
+of the (ahem) cart-horse would be loosed by death. So
+you are to conceive me, sitting in my house, dubitative,
+and the medallion chuckling in the warehouse of the
+German firm, for some days longer; and hear me meanwhile
+on the golden letters.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! they are all my fancy painted, but the price is
+prohibitive. I cannot do it. It is another day-dream
+burst. Another gable of Abbotsford has gone down,
+fortunately before it was builded, so there&rsquo;s nobody
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page342"></a>342</span>
+injured&mdash;except me. I had a strong conviction that I
+was a great hand at writing inscriptions, and meant to
+exhibit and test my genius on the walls of my house;
+and now I see I can&rsquo;t. It is generally thus. The Battle
+of the Golden Letters will never be delivered. On making
+preparation to open the campaign, the King found himself
+face to face with invincible difficulties, in which the
+rapacity of a mercenary soldiery and the complaints of
+an impoverished treasury played an equal part.&mdash;Ever
+yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>I enclose a bill for the medallion; have been trying to
+find your letter, quite in vain, and therefore must request
+you to pay for the bronze letters yourself and let me
+know the damage.</p>
+
+<p class="rt"><span class="sc">R. L. S.</span></p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To James S. Stevenson</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima Plantation, Island of Upolu,
+Samoa, Sept. 4th, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COUSIN</span>,&mdash;I thank you cordially for your
+kinsmanlike reply to my appeal. Already the notes
+from the family Bible have spared me one blunder, which
+I had from some notes in my grandfather&rsquo;s own hand;
+and now, like the daughters of the horseleech, my voice
+is raised again to put you to more trouble. &ldquo;Nether
+Carsewell, Neilston,&rdquo; I read. My knowledge of Scotland
+is fairly wide, but it does not include Neilston.</p>
+
+<p>However, I find by the (original) Statistical Account,
+it is a parish in Renfrew. Do you know anything of it?
+Have you identified Nether Carsewell? Have the Neilston
+parish registers been searched? I see whole vistas of
+questions arising, and here am I in Samoa!</p>
+
+<p>I shall write by this mail to my lawyer to have the
+records searched, and to my mother to go and inquire
+in the parish itself. But perhaps you may have some
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page343"></a>343</span>
+further information, and if so I should be glad of it. If
+you have not, pray do not trouble to answer. As to
+your father&rsquo;s blunder of &ldquo;Stevenson of Cauldwell,&rdquo; it is
+now explained: <i>Carse</i>well may have been confounded
+with <i>Cauldwell</i>: and it seems likely our man may have
+been a tenant or retainer of Mure of Cauldwell, a very
+ancient and honourable family, who seems to have been
+at least a neighbouring laird to the parish of Neilston.
+I was just about to close this, when I observed again
+your obliging offer of service, and I take you promptly
+at your word.</p>
+
+<p>Do you think that you or your son could find a day
+to visit Neilston and try to identify Nether Carsewell,
+find what size of a farm it is, to whom it belonged, etc.?
+I shall be very much obliged. I am pleased indeed to
+learn some of my books have given pleasure to your
+family; and with all good wishes, I remain, your affectionate
+cousin,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>The registers I shall have seen to, through my lawyer.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To George Meredith</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Sept. 5th,1893,
+Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MEREDITH</span>,&mdash;I have again and again taken
+up the pen to write to you, and many beginnings have
+gone into the waste paper basket (I have one now&mdash;for
+the second time in my life&mdash;and feel a big man on the
+strength of it). And no doubt it requires some decision
+to break so long a silence. My health is vastly restored,
+and I am now living patriarchally in this place six hundred
+feet above the sea on the shoulder of a mountain of 1500.
+Behind me, the unbroken bush slopes up to the backbone
+of the island (3 to 4000) without a house, with no inhabitants
+save a few runaway black boys, wild pigs and cattle,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page344"></a>344</span>
+and wild doves and flying foxes, and many parti-coloured
+birds, and many black, and many white: a very eerie,
+dim, strange place and hard to travel. I am the head of
+a household of five whites, and of twelve Samoans, to all
+of whom I am the chief and father: my cook comes to
+me and asks leave to marry&mdash;and his mother, a fine old
+chief woman, who has never lived here, does the same.
+You may be sure I granted the petition. It is a life of
+great interest, complicated by the Tower of Babel, that
+old enemy. And I have all the time on my hands for
+literary work.</p>
+
+<p>My house is a great place; we have a hall fifty feet
+long with a great redwood stair ascending from it, where
+we dine in state&mdash;myself usually dressed in a singlet
+and a pair of trousers&mdash;and attended on by servants in
+a single garment, a kind of kilt&mdash;also flowers and leaves&mdash;and
+their hair often powdered with lime. The European
+who came upon it suddenly would think it was a dream.
+We have prayers on Sunday night&mdash;I am a perfect pariah
+in the island not to have them oftener, but the spirit is
+unwilling and the flesh proud, and I cannot go it more.
+It is strange to see the long line of the brown folk crouched
+along the wall with lanterns at intervals before them in
+the big shadowy hall, with an oak cabinet at one end of
+it and a group of Rodin&rsquo;s (which native taste regards as
+<i>prodigieusement leste</i>) presiding over all from the top&mdash;and
+to hear the long rambling Samoan hymn rolling up (God
+bless me, what style)! But I am off business to-day, and
+this is not meant to be literature.</p>
+
+<p>I have asked Colvin to send you a copy of <i>Catriona</i>,
+which I am sometimes tempted to think is about my
+best work. I hear word occasionally of the <i>Amazing
+Marriage</i>. It will be a brave day for me when I get hold
+of it. Gower Woodseer is now an ancient, lean, grim,
+exiled Scot, living and labouring as for a wager in the
+tropics; still active, still with lots of fire in him, but
+the youth&mdash;ah, the youth where is it? For years after I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page345"></a>345</span>
+came here, the critics (those genial gentlemen) used to
+deplore the relaxation of my fibre and the idleness to
+which I had succumbed. I hear less of this now; the
+next thing is they will tell me I am writing myself out!
+and that my unconscientious conduct is bringing their
+grey hairs with sorrow to the dust. I do not know&mdash;I
+mean I do know one thing. For fourteen years I have
+not had a day&rsquo;s real health; I have wakened sick and
+gone to bed weary; and I have done my work unflinchingly.
+I have written in bed, and written out of it,
+written in hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn
+by coughing, written when my head swam for weakness;
+and for so long, it seems to me I have won my wager
+and recovered my glove. I am better now, have been
+rightly speaking since first I came to the Pacific; and
+still, few are the days when I am not in some physical
+distress. And the battle goes on&mdash;ill or well, is a trifle;
+so as it goes. I was made for a contest, and the Powers
+have so willed that my battlefield should be this dingy,
+inglorious one of the bed and the physic bottle. At least
+I have not failed, but I would have preferred a place of
+trumpetings and the open air over my head.</p>
+
+<p>This is a devilish egotistical yarn. Will you try to
+imitate me in that if the spirit ever moves you to reply?
+And meantime be sure that away in the midst of the
+Pacific there is a house on a wooded island where the
+name of George Meredith is very dear, and his memory
+(since it must be no more) is continually honoured.&mdash;Ever
+your friend,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>Remember me to Mariette, if you please; and my
+wife sends her most kind remembrances to yourself.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Finished on the way to Honolulu for a health change which
+turned out unfortunate. With the help of Mr. J.H. Stevenson and
+other correspondents he had now, as we have seen, been able (regretfully
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page346"></a>346</span>
+giving up the possibility of a Macgregor lineage) to identify his
+forbears as having about 1670 been tenant farmers at Nether Carsewell
+in Renfrewshire. The German government at home had taken
+his <i>Footnote to History</i> much less kindly than his German neighbours
+on the spot, and the Tauchnitz edition had been confiscated and
+destroyed and its publisher fined.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, and s.s.</i> Mariposa, <i>September 1893.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;Here is a job for you.  It
+appears that about 1665, or earlier, James Stevenson
+<span style="font-size:150%;">{</span>in of<span style="font-size:150%;">}</span> Nether Carsewell, parish of Neilston, flourished.
+Will you kindly send an able-bodied reader to compulse
+the parish registers of Neilston, if they exist or go back
+as far? Also could any trace be found through Nether-Carsewell?
+I expect it to have belonged to Mure of
+Cauldwell. If this be so, might not the Cauldwell charter
+chest contain some references to their Stevenson tenantry?
+Perpend upon it. But clap me on the judicious, able-bodied
+reader on the spot. Can I really have found the
+tap-root of my illustrious ancestry at last? Souls of my
+fathers! What a giggle-iggle-orious moment! I have
+drawn on you for Ł400. Also I have written to Tauchnitz
+announcing I should bear one-half part of his fines and
+expenses, amounting to Ł62, 10s. The Ł400 includes
+Ł160 which I have laid out here in land. Vanu Manutagi&mdash;the
+vale of crying birds (the wild dove)&mdash;is now mine:
+it was Fanny&rsquo;s wish and she is to buy it from me again
+when she has made that much money.</p>
+
+<p>Will you please order for me through your bookseller
+the <i>Mabinogion</i> of Lady Charlotte Guest&mdash;if that be her
+name&mdash;and the original of Cook&rsquo;s voyages lately published?
+Also, I see announced a map of the Great North
+Road: you might see what it is like: if it is highly
+detailed, or has any posting information, I should like it.</p>
+
+<p>This is being finished on board the <i>Mariposa</i> going
+north. I am making the run to Honolulu and back for
+health&rsquo;s sake. No inclination to write more.&mdash;As ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page347"></a>347</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>On a first reading of the incomplete MS. of <i>The Ebb Tide</i>, without
+its concluding chapters, which are the strongest, dislike of the three
+detestable&mdash;or rather two detestable and one contemptible&mdash;chief
+characters had made me unjust to the imaginative force and vividness
+of the treatment.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>23rd August</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;Your pleasing letter <i>re The Ebb
+Tide</i>, to hand. I propose, if it be not too late, to delete
+Lloyd&rsquo;s name. He has nothing to do with the last half.
+The first we wrote together, as the beginning of a long
+yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather
+unfair on the young man to couple his name with so
+infamous a work. Above all, as you had not read the
+two last chapters, which seem to me the most ugly and
+cynical of all.</p>
+
+<p>You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I
+am not. It is not because of your letter, but because of
+the complicated miseries that surround me and that I
+choose to say nothing of.... Life is not all Beer and
+Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself
+out from white to black and blacker, and the poor things
+of a day look ruefully on. Does it shake my cast-iron
+faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an ultimate
+decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still
+believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my
+own share in the missteps, and can bow my head to the
+result, like an old, stern, unhappy devil of a Norseman,
+as my ultimate character is....</p>
+
+<p>Well, <i>il faut cultiver son jardin</i>. That last expression
+of poor, unhappy human wisdom I take to my heart and
+go to <i>St. Ives</i>.</p>
+
+<p><i>24th Aug.</i>&mdash;And did, and worked about 2 hours and
+got to sleep ultimately and &ldquo;a&rsquo; the clouds has blawn
+away.&rdquo; &ldquo;Be sure we&rsquo;ll have some pleisand weather,
+When a&rsquo; the clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone?) away.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page348"></a>348</span>
+Verses that have a quite inexplicable attraction for me,
+and I believe had for Burns. They have no merit, but
+are somehow good. I am now in a most excellent humour.</p>
+
+<p>I am deep in <i>St. Ives</i> which, I believe, will be the next
+novel done. But it is to be clearly understood that I
+promise nothing, and may throw in your face the very last
+thing you expect&mdash;or I expect. <i>St. Ives</i> will (to my mind)
+not be wholly bad. It is written in rather a funny style;
+a little stilted and left-handed; the style of St. Ives;
+also, to some extent, the style of R. L. S. dictating. <i>St.
+Ives</i> is unintellectual, and except as an adventure novel,
+dull. But the adventures seem to me sound and pretty
+probable; and it is a love story. Speed his wings!</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday night.</i>&mdash;<i>De c&oelig;ur un peu plus dispos, monsieur et
+cher confrčre, je me remets ŕ vous écrire.</i> <i>St. Ives</i> is now in
+the 5th chapter copying; in the 14th chapter of the
+dictated draft. I do not believe I shall end by disliking it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monday.</i>&mdash;Well, here goes again for the news. Fanny
+is <i>very well</i> indeed, and in good spirits; I am in good
+spirits, but not <i>very</i> well; Lloyd is in good spirits and
+very well; Belle has a real good fever which has put her
+pipe out wholly. Graham goes back this mail. He takes
+with him three chapters of <i>The Family</i>, and is to go to
+you as soon as he can. He cannot be much the master
+of his movements, but you grip him when you can and
+get all you can from him, as he has lived about six months
+with us and he can tell you just what is true and what is
+not&mdash;and not the dreams of dear old Ross.<a name="FnAnchor_66" href="#Footnote_66"><span class="sp">66</span></a> He is a good
+fellow, is he not?</p>
+
+<p>Since you rather revise your views of <i>The Ebb Tide</i>,
+I think Lloyd&rsquo;s name might stick, but I&rsquo;ll leave it to
+you. I&rsquo;ll tell you just how it stands. Up to the discovery
+of the champagne, the tale was all planned between
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page349"></a>349</span>
+us and drafted by Lloyd; from that moment he has had
+nothing to do with it except talking it over. For we
+changed our plan, gave up the projected Monte Cristo,
+and cut it down for a short story. My impression&mdash;(I beg
+your pardon&mdash;this is a local joke&mdash;a firm here had on its
+beer labels, &ldquo;sole importers&rdquo;)&mdash;is that it will never be
+popular, but might make a little <i>succčs de scandale</i>. However,
+I&rsquo;m done with it now, and not sorry, and the crowd
+may rave and mumble its bones for what I care.</p>
+
+<p>Hole essential.<a name="FnAnchor_67" href="#Footnote_67"><span class="sp">67</span></a> I am sorry about the maps; but I
+want &rsquo;em for next edition, so see and have proofs sent.
+You are quite right about the bottle and the great Huish,
+I must try to make it clear. No, I will not write a play
+for Irving nor for the devil. Can you not see that the work
+of <i>falsification</i> which a play demands is of all tasks the
+most ungrateful? And I have done it a long while&mdash;and
+nothing ever came of it.</p>
+
+<p>Consider my new proposal, I mean Honolulu. You
+would get the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, would
+you not? for bracing. And so much less sea! And then
+you could actually see Vailima, which I <i>would</i> like you
+to, for it&rsquo;s beautiful and my home and tomb that is to
+be; though it&rsquo;s a wrench not to be planted in Scotland&mdash;that
+I can never deny&mdash;if I could only be buried in the
+hills, under the heather and a table tombstone like the
+martyrs, where the whaups and plovers are crying! Did
+you see a man who wrote the <i>Stickit Minister</i>,<a name="FnAnchor_68" href="#Footnote_68"><span class="sp">68</span></a> and dedicated
+it to me, in words that brought the tears to my eyes
+every time I looked at them. &ldquo;Where about the graves
+of the martyrs the whaups are crying. <i>His</i> heart remembers
+how.&rdquo; Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should
+fulfil the Scots destiny throughout, and live a voluntary
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page350"></a>350</span>
+exile, and have my head filled with the blessed, beastly
+place all the time!</p>
+
+<p>And now a word as regards the delusions of the dear
+Ross, who remembers, I believe, my letters and Fanny&rsquo;s
+when we were first installed, and were really hoeing a
+hard row. We have salad, beans, cabbages, tomatoes,
+asparagus, kohl-rabi, oranges, limes, barbadines, pine-apples,
+Cape gooseberries&mdash;galore; pints of milk and
+cream; fresh meat five days a week. It is the rarest
+thing for any of us to touch a tin; and the gnashing of
+teeth when it has to be done is dreadful&mdash;for no one who
+has not lived on them for six months knows what the
+Hatred of the Tin is. As for exposure, my weakness is
+certainly the reverse; I am sometimes a month without
+leaving the verandah&mdash;for my sins, be it said! Doubtless,
+when I go about and, as the Doctor says, &ldquo;expose myself
+to malaria,&rdquo; I am in far better health; and I would do
+so more too&mdash;for I do not mean to be silly&mdash;but the difficulties
+are great. However, you see how much the dear
+Doctor knows of my diet and habits! Malaria practically
+does not exist in these islands; it is a negligeable quantity.
+What really bothers us a little is the mosquito affair&mdash;the
+so-called elephantiasis&mdash;ask Ross about it. A real romance
+of natural history, <i>quoi!</i></p>
+
+<p>Hi! stop! you say <i>The Ebb Tide</i> is the &ldquo;working out
+of an artistic problem of a kind.&rdquo; Well, I should just
+bet it was! You don&rsquo;t like Attwater. But look at my
+three rogues; they&rsquo;re all there, I&rsquo;ll go bail. Three types
+of the bad man, the weak man, and the strong man with
+a weakness, that are gone through and lived out.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, of course I was sorry for Mataafa, but a good
+deal sorrier and angrier about the mismanagement of all
+the white officials. I cannot bear to write about that.
+Manono all destroyed, one house standing in Apolima,
+the women stripped, the prisoners beaten with whips&mdash;and
+the women&rsquo;s heads taken&mdash;all under white auspices.
+And for upshot and result of so much shame to the white
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page351"></a>351</span>
+powers&mdash;Tamasese already conspiring! as I knew and
+preached in vain must be the case! Well, well, it is no
+fun to meddle in politics!</p>
+
+<p>I suppose you&rsquo;re right about Simon.<a name="FnAnchor_69" href="#Footnote_69"><span class="sp">69</span></a> But it is Symon
+throughout in that blessed little volume my father bought
+for me in Inverness in the year of grace &rsquo;81, I believe&mdash;the
+trial of James Stewart, with the Jacobite pamphlet
+and the dying speech appended&mdash;out of which the whole
+of <i>Davie</i> has already been begotten, and which I felt it
+a kind of loyalty to follow. I really ought to have it
+bound in velvet and gold, if I had any gratitude! and the
+best of the lark is, that the name of David Balfour is not
+anywhere within the bounds of it. A pretty curious instance
+of the genesis of a book. I am delighted at your
+good word for <i>David</i>; I believe the two together make
+up much the best of my work and perhaps of what is in
+me. I am not ashamed of them, at least. There is one
+hitch; instead of three hours between the two parts, I fear
+there have passed three years over Davie&rsquo;s character; but do
+not tell anybody; see if they can find it out for themselves;
+and no doubt his experiences in <i>Kidnapped</i> would go far
+to form him. I would like a copy to go to G. Meredith.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wednesday.</i>&mdash;Well, here is a new move. It is likely I
+may start with Graham next week and go to Honolulu
+to meet the other steamer and return: I do believe a
+fortnight at sea would do me good; yet I am not yet
+certain. The crowded <i>up</i>-steamer sticks in my throat.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tuesday, 12th Sept.</i>&mdash;Yesterday was perhaps the brightest
+in the annals of Vailima. I got leave from Captain
+Bickford to have the band of the <i>Katoomba</i> come up, and
+they came, fourteen of &rsquo;em, with drum, fife, cymbals and
+bugles, blue jackets, white caps, and smiling faces. The
+house was all decorated with scented greenery above and
+below. We had not only our own nine out-door workers,
+but a contract party that we took on in charity to pay
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page352"></a>352</span>
+their war-fine; the band besides, as it came up the mountain,
+had collected a following of children by the way,
+and we had a picking of Samoan ladies to receive them.
+Chicken, ham, cake and fruits were served out with coffee
+and lemonade, and all the afternoon we had rounds of
+claret negus flavoured with rum and limes. They played
+to us, they danced, they sang, they tumbled. Our boys
+came in the end of the verandah and gave <i>them</i> a dance
+for a while. It was anxious work getting this stopped
+once it had begun, but I knew the band was going on a
+programme. Finally they gave three cheers for Mr. and
+Mrs. Stevens, shook hands, formed up and marched off
+playing&mdash;till a kicking horse in the paddock put their
+pipes out something of the suddenest&mdash;we thought the
+big drum was gone, but Simelé flew to the rescue. And
+so they wound away down the hill with ever another
+call of the bugle, leaving us extinct with fatigue, but perhaps
+the most contented hosts that ever watched the
+departure of successful guests. Simply impossible to tell
+how well these blue-jackets behaved; a most interesting
+lot of men; this education of boys for the navy is making
+a class, wholly apart&mdash;how shall I call them?&mdash;a kind of
+lower-class public school boy, well-mannered, fairly intelligent,
+sentimental as a sailor. What is more shall be writ
+on board ship if anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Please send <i>Catriona</i> to G. Meredith.</p>
+
+<p><i>S.S. Mariposa.</i>&mdash;To-morrow I reach Honolulu. Good-morning
+to your honour.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>In the interval between the last letter and this, the writer had
+been down with a sharp and prolonged attack of fever at Honolulu,
+and Mrs. Stevenson had come from Samoa to nurse and take him
+home.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Waikiki, Honolulu, H. I., Oct. 23rd, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;My wife came up on the steamer and
+we go home together in 2 days. I am practically all right,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page353"></a>353</span>
+only sleepy and tired easily, slept yesterday from 11 to
+11.45, from 1 to 2.50, went to bed at 8 <span class="scs">P.M.</span>, and with an
+hour&rsquo;s interval slept till 6 <span class="scs">A.M.</span>, close upon 14 hours out of
+the 24. We sail to-morrow. I am anxious to get home,
+though this has been an interesting visit, and politics have
+been curious indeed to study. We go to P.P.C. on the
+&ldquo;Queen&rdquo; this morning; poor, recluse lady, <i>abreuvée
+d&rsquo;injures qu&rsquo;elle est</i>. Had a rather annoying lunch on
+board the American man-of-war, with a member of the
+P.G. (provisional government); and a good deal of anti-royalist
+talk, which I had to sit out&mdash;not only for my host&rsquo;s
+sake, but my fellow guests. At last, I took the lead and
+changed the conversation.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p>I am being busted here by party named Hutchinson.<a name="FnAnchor_70" href="#Footnote_70"><span class="sp">70</span></a>
+Seems good.</p>
+
+<p>[<i>Vailima&mdash;November.</i>]&mdash;Home again, and found all well,
+thank God. I am perfectly well again and ruddier than
+the cherry. Please note that 8000 is not bad for a volume
+of short stories;<a name="FnAnchor_71" href="#Footnote_71"><span class="sp">71</span></a> the <i>Merry Men</i> did a good deal worse;
+the short story never sells. I hope <i>Catriona</i> will do; that is
+the important. The reviews seem mixed and perplexed,
+and one had the peculiar virtue to make me angry. I
+am in a fair way to expiscate my family history. Fanny
+and I had a lovely voyage down, with our new C.J. and
+the American Land Commissioner, and on the whole, and
+for these disgusting steamers, a pleasant ship&rsquo;s company.
+I cannot understand why you don&rsquo;t take to the Hawaii
+scheme. Do you understand? You cross the Atlantic in
+six days, and go from &rsquo;Frisco to Honolulu in seven. Thirteen
+days at sea <i>in all</i>.&mdash;I have no wish to publish <i>The Ebb
+Tide</i> as a book, let it wait. It will look well in the portfolio.
+I would like a copy, of course, for that end; and
+to &ldquo;look upon&rsquo;t again&rdquo;&mdash;which I scarce dare.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page354"></a>354</span></p>
+
+<p>[<i>Later.</i>]&mdash;This is disgraceful. I have done nothing;
+neither work nor letters. On the Mé (May) day, we had
+a great triumph; our Protestant boys, instead of going
+with their own villages and families, went of their own
+accord in the Vailima uniform; Belle made coats for them
+on purpose to complete the uniform, they having bought
+the stuff; and they were hailed as they marched in as the
+Tama-ona&mdash;the rich man&rsquo;s children. This is really a score;
+it means that Vailima is publicly taken as a family. Then
+we had my birthday feast a week late, owing to diarrh&oelig;a
+on the proper occasion. The feast was laid in the Hall,
+and was a singular mass of food: 15 pigs, 100 lbs. beef,
+100 lbs. pork, and the fruit and filigree in a proportion.
+We had sixty horse-posts driven in the gate paddock;
+how many guests I cannot guess, perhaps 150. They came
+between three and four and left about seven. Seumanu
+gave me one of his names; and when my name was called
+at the ava drinking, behold, it was <i>Au mai taua ma manu-vao!</i>
+You would scarce recognise me, if you heard me
+thus referred to!</p>
+
+<p>Two days after, we hired a carriage in Apia, Fanny,
+Belle, Lloyd and I, and drove in great style, with a native
+outrider, to the prison; a huge gift of ava and tobacco
+under the seats. The prison is now under the <i>pule</i> of an
+Austrian, Captain Wurmbrand, a soldier of fortune in
+Servia and Turkey, a charming, clever, kindly creature,
+who is adored &ldquo;by <i>his</i> chiefs&rdquo; (as he calls them) meaning
+<i>our</i> political prisoners. And we came into the yard, walled
+about with tinned iron, and drank ava with the prisoners
+and the captain. It may amuse you to hear how it is
+proper to drink ava. When the cup is handed you, you
+reach your arm out somewhat behind you, and slowly pour
+a libation, saying with somewhat the manner of prayer,
+&ldquo;<i>Ia taumafa e le atua. Ua matagofie le fesilafaga nei.</i>&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Be it (high-chief) partaken of by the God. How (high
+chief) beautiful to view is this (high chief) gathering.&rdquo;
+This pagan practice is very queer. I should say that the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page355"></a>355</span>
+prison ava was of that not very welcome form that we
+elegantly call spit-ava, but of course there was no escape,
+and it had to be drunk. Fanny and I rode home, and I
+moralised by the way. Could we ever stand Europe again?
+did she appreciate that if we were in London, we should
+be <i>actually jostled</i> in the street? and there was nobody
+in the whole of Britain who knew how to take ava like a
+gentleman? &rsquo;Tis funny to be thus of two civilisations&mdash;or,
+if you like, of one civilisation and one barbarism.
+And, as usual, the barbarism is the more engaging.
+Colvin, you have to come here and see us in our
+<span style="font-size:150%;">{</span>native mortal<span style="font-size:150%;">}</span> spot. I just don&rsquo;t seem to be able to make
+up my mind to your not coming. By this time, you will
+have seen Graham, I hope, and he will be able to tell you
+something about us, and something reliable. I shall feel
+for the first time as if you knew a little about Samoa after
+that. Fanny seems to be in the right way now. I must
+say she is very, very well for her, and complains scarce
+at all. Yesterday, she went down <i>sola</i>(at least accompanied
+by a groom) to pay a visit; Belle, Lloyd and I
+went a walk up the mountain road&mdash;the great public highway
+of the island, where you have to go single file. The
+object was to show Belle that gaudy valley of the Vaisigano
+which the road follows. If the road is to be made and
+opened, as our new Chief Justice promises, it will be one
+of the most beautiful roads in the world. But the point
+is this: I forgot I had been three months in civilisation,
+wearing shoes and stockings, and I tell you I suffered on
+my soft feet; coming home, down hill, on that stairway
+of loose stones, I could have cried. O yes, another story,
+I knew I had. The house boys had not been behaving
+well, so the other night I announced a <i>fono</i>, and Lloyd and
+I went into the boys&rsquo; quarters, and I talked to them I
+suppose for half an hour, and Talolo translated; Lloyd
+was there principally to keep another ear on the interpreter;
+else there may be dreadful misconceptions. I rubbed all
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page356"></a>356</span>
+their ears, except two whom I particularly praised; and
+one man&rsquo;s wages I announced I had cut down by one half.
+Imagine his taking this smiling! Ever since, he has been
+specially attentive and greets me with a face of really
+heavenly brightness. This is another good sign of their
+really and fairly accepting me as a chief. When I first
+came here, if I had fined a man a sixpence, he would have
+quit work that hour, and now I remove half his income,
+and he is glad to stay on&mdash;nay, does not seem to entertain
+the possibility of leaving. And this in the face of one
+particular difficulty&mdash;I mean our house in the bush, and
+no society, and no women society within decent reach.</p>
+
+<p>I think I must give you our staff in a tabular form.</p>
+
+<table class="reg2" summary="Contents"><tr>
+
+<td style="vertical-align:top;"><p class="center">HOUSE</p>
+<p>+ o <i>Sosimo</i>, provost and butler, and my valet.</p>
+<p>o <i>Misifolo</i>, who is Fanny and Belle&rsquo;s chamberlain.</p></td>
+
+<td style="vertical-align:top;"><p class="center">KITCHEN</p>
+<p>+ o <i>Talolo</i>, provost and chief cook.</p>
+<p>+ o <i>Iopu</i>, second cook.</p>
+<p><i>Tali</i>, his wife, no wages.</p>
+<p><i>Ti&rsquo;a</i>, Samoan cook.</p>
+<p><i>Feiloa&rsquo;i</i>, his child, no wages, likewise no work&mdash;Belle&rsquo;s pet.</p>
+<p>+ o <i>Leuelu</i>, Fanny&rsquo;s boy, gardener, odd jobs.</p>
+<p class="center sc">In APIA</p>
+<p>+ <i>Eliga</i>, washman and daily errand man.</p></td>
+
+<td style="vertical-align:top;"><p class="center">OUTSIDE</p>
+<p>+ o <i>Henry Simelé</i>, provost and overseer of outside boys.</p>
+<p><i>L&#363;</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Tasi Sele</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Maiele</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Pulu</i>, who is also our talking man and cries the ava.</p></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page357"></a>357</span></p>
+
+<p>The crosses mark out the really excellent boys. Ti&rsquo;a is
+the man who has just been fined &frac12; his wages; he is a
+beautiful old man, the living image of &ldquo;Fighting Gladiator,&rdquo;
+my favourite statue&mdash;but a dreadful humbug. I
+think we keep him on a little on account of his looks.
+This sign o marks those who have been two years or upwards
+in the family. I note all my old boys have the
+cross of honour, except Misifolo; well, poor dog, he does
+his best, I suppose. You should see him scour. It is a
+remark that has often been made by visitors: you never
+see a Samoan run, except at Vailima. Do you not suppose
+that makes me proud?</p>
+
+<p>I am pleased to see what a success <i>The Wrecker</i> was,
+having already in little more than a year outstripped <i>The
+Master of Ballantrae</i>.</p>
+
+<p>About <i>David Balfour</i> in two volumes, do see that they
+make it a decent-looking book, and tell me, do you think
+a little historical appendix would be of service? Lang
+bleats for one, and I thought I might address it to him as
+a kind of open letter.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dec. 4th.</i>&mdash;No time after all. Good-bye.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To J. Horne Stevenson</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following refers again to the introduction to the history of
+his own family which Stevenson was then preparing under the title
+<i>A Family of Engineers</i>. The correspondent was a specialist in
+genealogical research. I give this letter as a sample of many which
+passed between these two namesakes on this subject; omitting the
+remainder as too technical to be of general interest.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, November 5th, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR STEVENSON</span>,&mdash;A thousand thanks for your
+voluminous and delightful collections. Baxter&mdash;so soon
+as it is ready&mdash;will let you see a proof of my introduction,
+which is only sent out as a sprat to catch whales. And
+you will find I have a good deal of what you have, only
+mine in a perfectly desultory manner, as is necessary to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page358"></a>358</span>
+an exile. My uncle&rsquo;s pedigree is wrong; there was never
+a Stevenson of Caldwell, of course, but they were tenants
+of the Mures; the farm held by them is in my introduction;
+and I have already written to Charles Baxter to
+have a search made in the Register House. I hope he will
+have had the inspiration to put it under your surveillance.
+Your information as to your own family is intensely interesting,
+and I should not wonder but what you and we and
+old John Stevenson, &ldquo;land labourer in the parish of
+Dailly,&rdquo; came all of the same stock. Ayrshire&mdash;and probably
+Cunningham&mdash;seems to be the home of the race&mdash;our
+part of it. From the distribution of the name&mdash;which
+your collections have so much extended without essentially
+changing my knowledge of&mdash;we seem rather pointed to a
+British origin. What you say of the Engineers is fresh to
+me, and must be well thrashed out. This introduction of
+it will take a long while to walk about!&mdash;as perhaps I may
+be tempted to let it become long; after all, I am writing
+<i>this</i> for my own pleasure solely. Greetings to you and
+other Speculatives of our date, long bygone, alas!&mdash;Yours
+very sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><i>P.S.</i>&mdash;I have a different version of my grandfather&rsquo;s
+arms&mdash;or my father had if I could find it.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To John P&mdash;&mdash;n</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The next two numbers are in answer to letters of appreciation
+received from two small boys in England, whose mother desires
+that they should remain nameless.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR JOHNNIE</span>,&mdash;Well, I must say you seem to be a
+tremendous fellow! Before I was eight I used to write
+stories&mdash;or dictate them at least&mdash;and I had produced an
+excellent history of Moses, for which I got Ł1 from an
+uncle; but I had never gone the length of a play, so you
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page359"></a>359</span>
+have beaten me fairly on my own ground. I hope you
+may continue to do so, and thanking you heartily for
+your nice letter, I shall beg you to believe me yours truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Russell P&mdash;&mdash;n</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR RUSSELL</span>,&mdash;I have to thank you very much for
+your capital letter, which came to hand here in Samoa
+along with your mother&rsquo;s. When you &ldquo;grow up and
+write stories like me,&rdquo; you will be able to understand that
+there is scarce anything more painful than for an author
+to hold a pen; he has to do it so much that his heart
+sickens and his fingers ache at the sight or touch of it;
+so that you will excuse me if I do not write much, but
+remain (with compliments and greetings from one Scot
+to another&mdash;though I was not born in Ceylon&mdash;you&rsquo;re
+ahead of me there).&mdash;Yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Alison Cunningham</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, December 5, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAREST CUMMY</span>,&mdash;This goes to you with a Merry
+Christmas and a Happy New Year. The Happy New
+Year anyway, for I think it should reach you about <i>Noor&rsquo;s
+Day</i>. I dare say it may be cold and frosty. Do you
+remember when you used to take me out of bed in the
+early morning, carry me to the back windows, show me
+the hills of Fife, and quote to me</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr f80">
+
+<p>&ldquo;A&rsquo; the hills are covered wi&rsquo; snaw,</p>
+<p class="i1">An&rsquo; winter&rsquo;s noo come fairly&rdquo;?</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>There is not much chance of that here! I wonder how
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page360"></a>360</span>
+my mother is going to stand the winter. It she can, it
+will be a very good thing for her. We are in that part
+of the year which I like the best&mdash;the Rainy or Hurricane
+Season. &ldquo;When it is good, it is very, very good; and
+when it is bad, it is horrid,&rdquo; and our fine days are certainly
+fine like heaven; such a blue of the sea, such green
+of the trees, and such crimson of the hibiscus flowers, you
+never saw; and the air as mild and gentle as a baby&rsquo;s
+breath, and yet not hot!</p>
+
+<p>The mail is on the move, and I must let up.&mdash;With
+much love, I am, your laddie,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following quotes the extract, from Fountainhall&rsquo;s &ldquo;Decisions
+of the Lords of Council, etc.,&rdquo; which suggested to Stevenson the
+romance of Cameronian days and the Darien adventure of which,
+under the title of <i>Heathercat</i>, he only lived to write the first few
+introductory chapters (see vol. xxi. p. 177, of this edition).</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>6th December 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>October 25, 1685.</i>&mdash;At Privy Council, George Murray,
+Lieutenant of the King&rsquo;s Guard, and others, did, on the
+21st of September last, obtain a clandestine order of Privy
+Council to apprehend the person of Janet Pringle, daughter
+to the late Clifton, and she having retired out of the way
+upon information, he got an order against Andrew Pringle,
+her uncle, to produce her.... But she having married
+Andrew Pringle, her uncle&rsquo;s son (to disappoint all their
+designs of selling her), a boy of thirteen years old.&rdquo; But
+my boy is to be fourteen, so I extract no further.&mdash;<span class="sc">Fountainhall</span>,
+i. 320.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>May 6, 1685.</i>&mdash;Wappus Pringle of Clifton was still
+alive after all, and in prison for debt, and transacts with
+Lieutenant Murray, giving security for 7000 marks.&rdquo;&mdash;i.
+372.</p>
+
+<p>No, it seems to have been <i>her</i> brother who had succeeded.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page361"></a>361</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>.&mdash;The above is my story, and I
+wonder if any light can be thrown on it. I prefer the
+girl&rsquo;s father dead; and the question is, How in that case
+could Lieutenant George Murray get his order to &ldquo;apprehend&rdquo;
+and his power to &ldquo;sell&rdquo; her in marriage?</p>
+
+<p>Or&mdash;might Lieutenant G. be her tutor, and she fugitive
+to the Pringles, and on the discovery of her whereabouts
+hastily married?</p>
+
+<p>A good legal note on these points is very ardently
+desired by me; it will be the corner-stone of my novel.</p>
+
+<p>This is for&mdash;I am quite wrong to tell you&mdash;for you will
+tell others&mdash;and nothing will teach you that all my schemes
+are in the air, and vanish and reappear again like shapes
+in the clouds&mdash;it is for <i>Heathercat</i>: whereof the first
+volume will be called <i>The Killing Time</i>, and I believe I
+have authorities ample for that. But the second volume
+is to be called (I believe) <i>Darien</i>, and for that I want, I
+fear, a good deal of truck:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p><i>Darien Papers</i>,</p>
+<p><i>Carstairs Papers</i>,</p>
+<p><i>Marchmont Papers</i>,</p>
+<p><i>Jerviswoode Correspondence</i>,</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>I hope may do me. Some sort of general history of the
+Darien affair (if there is a decent one, which I misdoubt),
+it would also be well to have&mdash;the one with most details,
+if possible. It is singular how obscure to me this decade
+of Scots history remains, 1690-1700&mdash;a deuce of a want
+of light and grouping to it! However, I believe I shall be
+mostly out of Scotland in my tale; first in Carolina, next
+in Darien. I want also&mdash;I am the daughter of the horseleech
+truly&mdash;&ldquo;Black&rsquo;s new large map of Scotland,&rdquo; sheets
+3, 4, and 5, a 7s. 6d. touch. I believe, if you can get the</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Caldwell Papers</i>,</p>
+
+<p>they had better come also; and if there be any reasonable
+work&mdash;but no, I must call a halt....</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page362"></a>362</span></p>
+
+<p>I fear the song looks doubtful, but I&rsquo;ll consider of it,
+and I can promise you some reminiscences which it will
+amuse me to write, whether or not it will amuse the public
+to read of them. But it&rsquo;s an unco business to supply
+deid-heid coapy.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To J. M. Barrie</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, December 7th, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BARRIE</span>,&mdash;I have received duly the <i>magnum
+opus</i>, and it really is a <i>magnum opus</i>.<a name="FnAnchor_72" href="#Footnote_72"><span class="sp">72</span></a> It is a beautiful
+specimen of Clark&rsquo;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&rsquo;s mantua-maker in Edinburgh
+and answered to the name of Miss <i>Broddie</i>. 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&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page363"></a>363</span>
+my own recollection of the fact. What <i>I</i> remember is,
+that I sat down under your immediate inspiration and
+wrote an answer in every way worthy. If I didn&rsquo;t, as it
+seems proved that I couldn&rsquo;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&mdash;for he is rather of the Scottish
+character&mdash;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&mdash;I say nothing about virtues.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;or would be, if I could raise the beard&mdash;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&mdash;those who know so much
+better what we are than we do ourselves,&mdash;trace down
+my literary descent from all sorts of people, including
+Addison, of whom I could never read a word. Well,
+laigh i&rsquo; your lug, sir&mdash;the clue was found. My style is
+from the Covenanting writers. Take a particular case&mdash;the
+fondness for rhymes. I don&rsquo;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&mdash;a beautiful example of the unconscious rhyme above
+referred to.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page364"></a>364</span></p>
+
+<p>I suppose you know that success has so far attended
+my banners&mdash;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&rsquo;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....</p>
+
+<p>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, &ldquo;Come
+to Vailima!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>My dear sir, your soul&rsquo;s health is in it&mdash;you will never
+do the great book, you will never cease to work in L.,
+etc., till you come to Vailima.</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To R. Le Gallienne</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, December 28th, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. LE GALLIENNE</span>,&mdash;I have received some time
+ago, through our friend Miss Taylor, a book of yours.
+But that was by no means my first introduction to your
+name. The same book had stood already on my shelves;
+I had read articles of yours in the Academy; and by a
+piece of constructive criticism (which I trust was sound)
+had arrived at the conclusion that you were &ldquo;Log-roller.&rdquo;
+Since then I have seen your beautiful verses to your wife.
+You are to conceive me, then, as only too ready to make
+the acquaintance of a man who loved good literature
+and could make it. I had to thank you, besides, for a
+triumphant exposure of a paradox of my own: the literary-prostitute
+disappeared from view at a phrase of yours&mdash;&ldquo;The
+essence is not in the pleasure but the sale.&rdquo; True
+you are right, I was wrong; the author is not the whore
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page365"></a>365</span>
+but the libertine; and yet I shall let the passage stand.
+It is an error, but it illustrated the truth for which I was
+contending, that literature&mdash;painting&mdash;all art, are no
+other than pleasures, which we turn into trades.</p>
+
+<p>And more than all this, I had, and I have to thank
+you for the intimate loyalty you have shown to myself;
+for the eager welcome you give to what is good&mdash;for the
+courtly tenderness with which you touch on my defects.
+I begin to grow old; I have given my top note, I fancy;&mdash;and
+I have written too many books. The world begins
+to be weary of the old booth; and if not weary, familiar
+with the familiarity that breeds contempt. I do not
+know that I am sensitive to criticism, if it be hostile; I
+am sensitive indeed, when it is friendly; and when I read
+such criticism as yours, I am emboldened to go on and
+praise God.</p>
+
+<p>You are still young, and you may live to do much.
+The little artificial popularity of style in England tends,
+I think, to die out; the British pig returns to his true
+love, the love of the styleless, of the shapeless, of the
+slapdash and the disorderly. There is trouble coming, I
+think; and you may have to hold the fort for us in evil
+days.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, let me apologise for the crucifixion that I am
+inflicting on you (<i>bien ŕ contre-c&oelig;ur</i>) by my bad writing.
+I was once the best of writers; landladies, puzzled as to
+my &ldquo;trade,&rdquo; used to have their honest bosoms set at rest
+by a sight of a page of manuscript.&mdash;&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; they would
+say, &ldquo;no wonder they pay you for that&rdquo;;&mdash;and when I
+sent it in to the printers, it was given to the boys! I was
+about thirty-nine, I think, when I had a turn of scrivener&rsquo;s
+palsy; my hand got worse; and for the first time, I received
+clean proofs. But it has gone beyond that now.
+I know I am like my old friend James Payn, a terror to
+correspondents; and you would not believe the care with
+which this has been written.&mdash;Believe me to be, very sincerely
+yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page366"></a>366</span></p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Mrs. A. Baker</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The next is in answer to a request for permission to print some
+of the writings of R. L. S. in Braille type for the use of the blind.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>December 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MADAM</span>,&mdash;There is no trouble, and I wish I could
+help instead. As it is, I fear I am only going to put you
+to trouble and vexation. This Braille writing is a kind
+of consecration, and I would like if I could to have your
+copy perfect. The two volumes are to be published as
+Vols. <span class="sc">I.</span> and <span class="sc">II.</span> of <i>The Adventures of David Balfour</i>. 1st,
+<i>Kidnapped</i>; 2nd, <i>Catriona</i>. I am just sending home a
+corrected <i>Kidnapped</i> for this purpose to Messrs. Cassell,
+and in order that I may if possible be in time, I send it
+to you first of all. Please, as soon as you have noted the
+changes, forward the same to Cassell and Co., La Belle
+Sauvage Yard, Ludgate Hill.</p>
+
+<p>I am writing to them by this mail to send you
+<i>Catriona</i>.</p>
+
+<p>You say, dear madam, you are good enough to say, it
+is &ldquo;a keen pleasure&rdquo; to you to bring my book within the
+reach of the blind.</p>
+
+<p>Conceive then what it is to me! and believe me,
+sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>I was a barren tree before,</p>
+  <p class="i1">I blew a quenchčd coal,</p>
+<p>I could not, on their midnight shore,</p>
+  <p class="i1">The lonely blind console.</p>
+
+<p class="stanza">A moment, lend your hand, I bring</p>
+  <p class="i1">My sheaf for you to bind,</p>
+<p>And you can teach my words to sing</p>
+  <p class="i1">In the darkness of the blind.</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="rt">R .L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page367"></a>367</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Henry James</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Apia, December, 1893.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,&mdash;The mail has come upon me
+like an armed man three days earlier than was expected;
+and the Lord help me! It is impossible I should answer
+anybody the way they should be. Your jubilation over
+<i>Catriona</i> did me good, and still more the subtlety and
+truth of your remark on the starving of the visual sense
+in that book. &rsquo;Tis true, and unless I make the greater
+effort&mdash;and am, as a step to that, convinced of its necessity&mdash;it
+will be more true I fear in the future. I <i>hear</i> people
+talking, and I <i>feel</i> them acting, and that seems to me to
+be fiction. My two aims may be described as&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p class="i05"><i>1st.</i> War to the adjective.</p>
+<p><i>2nd.</i> Death to the optic nerve.</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Admitted we live in an age of the optic nerve in literature.
+For how many centuries did literature get along
+without a sign of it? However, I&rsquo;ll consider your letter.</p>
+
+<p>How exquisite is your character of the critic in <i>Essays
+in London</i>! I doubt if you have done any single thing
+so satisfying as a piece of style and of insight&mdash;Yours
+ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Recounting a scene of gratitude for bounty shown by him to the
+prisoners in Apia gaol.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, December 1893.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;One page out of my picture book
+I must give you. Fine burning day; &frac12; past two <span class="sc">P.M.</span>
+We four begin to rouse up from reparatory slumbers,
+yawn, and groan, get a cup of tea, and miserably dress:
+we have had a party the day before, X&rsquo;mas Day, with all
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page368"></a>368</span>
+the boys absent but one, and latterly two; we had cooked
+all day long, a cold dinner, and lo! at two our guests
+began to arrive, though dinner was not till six; they
+were sixteen, and fifteen slept the night and breakfasted.
+Conceive, then, how unwillingly we climb on our horses
+and start off in the hottest part of the afternoon to ride
+4&frac12; miles, attend a native feast in the gaol, and ride four
+and a half miles back. But there is no help for it. I am
+a sort of father of the political prisoners, and have <i>charge
+d&rsquo;âmes</i> in that riotously absurd establishment, Apia Gaol.
+The twenty-three (I think it is) chiefs act as under gaolers.
+The other day they told the Captain of an attempt to
+escape. One of the lesser political prisoners the other day
+effected a swift capture, while the Captain was trailing
+about with the warrant; the man came to see what was
+wanted; came, too, flanked by the former gaoler; my
+prisoner offers to show him the dark cell, shoves him in,
+and locks the door. &ldquo;Why do you do that?&rdquo; cries the
+former gaoler. &ldquo;A warrant,&rdquo; says he. Finally, the chiefs
+actually feed the soldiery who watch them!</p>
+
+<p>The gaol is a wretched little building, containing a
+little room, and three cells, on each side of a central passage;
+it is surrounded by a fence of corrugated iron, and
+shows, over the top of that, only a gable end with the
+inscription <i>O le Fale Puipui</i>. It is on the edge of the
+mangrove swamp, and is reached by a sort of causeway
+of turf. When we drew near, we saw the gates standing
+open and a prodigious crowd outside&mdash;I mean prodigious
+for Apia, perhaps a hundred and fifty people. The two
+sentries at the gate stood to arms passively, and there
+seemed to be a continuous circulation inside and out.
+The captain came to meet us; our boy, who had been
+sent ahead was there to take the horses; and we passed
+inside the court which was full of food, and rang continuously
+to the voice of the caller of gifts; I had to
+blush a little later when my own present came, and I
+heard my one pig and eight miserable pine-apples being
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page369"></a>369</span>
+counted out like guineas. In the four corners of the yard
+and along one wall, there are make-shift, dwarfish, Samoan
+houses or huts, which have been run up since Captain
+Wurmbrand came to accommodate the chiefs. Before that
+they were all crammed into the six cells, and locked in
+for the night, some of them with dysentery. They are
+wretched constructions enough, but sanctified by the presence
+of chiefs. We heard a man corrected loudly to-day
+for saying &ldquo;<i>Fale</i>&rdquo; of one of them; &ldquo;<i>Maota</i>,&rdquo; roared the
+highest chief present&mdash;&ldquo;palace.&rdquo; About eighteen chiefs,
+gorgeously arrayed, stood up to greet us, and led us into
+one of these <i>maotas</i>, where you may be sure we had to
+crouch, almost to kneel, to enter, and where a row of
+pretty girls occupied one side to make the ava (kava).
+The highest chief present was a magnificent man, as high
+chiefs usually are; I find I cannot describe him; his
+face is full of shrewdness and authority; his figure like
+Ajax; his name Auilua. He took the head of the building
+and put Belle on his right hand. Fanny was called
+first for the ava (kava). Our names were called in English
+style, the high-chief wife of Mr. St&mdash;(an unpronounceable
+something); Mrs. Straw, and the like. And when we
+went into the other house to eat, we found we were seated
+alternately with chiefs about the&mdash;table, I was about to
+say, but rather floor. Everything was to be done European
+style with a vengeance! We were the only whites
+present, except Wurmbrand, and still I had no suspicion
+of the truth. They began to take off their ulas (necklaces
+of scarlet seeds) and hang them about our necks;
+we politely resisted, and were told that the king (who had
+stopped off their <i>siva</i>) had sent down to the prison a message
+to the effect that he was to give a dinner to-morrow, and
+wished their second-hand ulas for it. Some of them were
+content; others not. There was a ring of anger in the
+boy&rsquo;s voice, as he told us we were to wear them past the
+king&rsquo;s house. Dinner over, I must say they are moderate
+eaters at a feast, we returned to the ava house; and then
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page370"></a>370</span>
+the curtain drew suddenly up upon the set scene. We
+took our seats, and Auilua began to give me a present,
+recapitulating each article as he gave it out, with some
+appropriate comment. He called me several times &ldquo;their
+only friend,&rdquo; said they were all in slavery, had no money,
+and these things were all made by the hands of their
+families&mdash;nothing bought; he had one phrase, in which
+I heard his voice rise up to a note of triumph: &ldquo;This is
+a present from the poor prisoners to the rich man.&rdquo; Thirteen
+pieces of tapa, some of them surprisingly fine, one I
+think unique; thirty fans of every shape and colour; a
+kava cup, etc., etc. At first Auilua conducted the business
+with weighty gravity; but before the end of the
+thirty fans, his comments began to be humorous. When
+it came to a little basket, he said: &ldquo;Here was a little basket
+for Tusitala to put sixpence in, when he could get hold
+of one&rdquo;&mdash;with a delicious grimace. I answered as best
+as I was able through a miserable interpreter; and all
+the while, as I went on, I heard the crier outside in the
+court calling my gift of food, which I perceived was to be
+Gargantuan. I had brought but three boys with me. It
+was plain that they were wholly overpowered. We proposed
+to send for our gifts on the morrow; but no, said
+the interpreter, that would never do; they must go away
+to-day, Mulinuu must see my porters taking away the
+gifts,&mdash;&ldquo;make &rsquo;em jella,&rdquo; quoth the interpreter. And I
+began to see the reason of this really splendid gift; one
+half, gratitude to me&mdash;one half, a wipe at the king.</p>
+
+<p>And now, to introduce darker colours, you must know
+this visit of mine to the gaol was just a little bit risky;
+we had several causes for anxiety; it <i>might</i> have been put
+up, to connect with a Tamasese rising. Tusitala and his
+family would be good hostages. On the other hand, there
+were the Mulinuu people all about. We could see the
+anxiety of Captain Wurmbrand, no less anxious to have
+us go, than he had been to see us come; he was deadly
+white and plainly had a bad headache, in the noisy scene.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page371"></a>371</span>
+Presently, the noise grew uproarious; there was a rush at
+the gate&mdash;a rush <i>in</i>, not a rush <i>out</i>&mdash;where the two sentries
+still stood passive; Auilua leaped from his place (it was
+then that I got the name of Ajax for him) and the next
+moment we heard his voice roaring and saw his mighty
+figure swaying to and fro in the hurly-burly. As the
+deuce would have it, we could not understand a word of
+what was going on. It might be nothing more than the
+ordinary &ldquo;grab racket&rdquo; with which a feast commonly
+concludes; it might be something worse. We made what
+arrangements we could for my tapa, fans, etc., as well as
+for my five pigs, my masses of fish, taro, etc., and with
+great dignity, and ourselves laden with ulas and other
+decorations, passed between the sentries among the howling
+mob to our horses. All&rsquo;s well that ends well. Owing
+to Fanny and Belle, we had to walk; and, as Lloyd said,
+&ldquo;he had at last ridden in a circus.&rdquo; The whole length of
+Apia we paced our triumphal progress, past the king&rsquo;s
+palace, past the German firm at Sogi&mdash;you can follow it
+on the map&mdash;amidst admiring exclamations of &ldquo;<i>Mawaia</i>&rdquo;&mdash;beautiful&mdash;it
+may be rendered &ldquo;O my! ain&rsquo;t they
+dandy&rdquo;&mdash;until we turned up at last into our road as the
+dusk deepened into night. It was really exciting. And
+there is one thing sure: no such feast was ever made for
+a single family, and no such present ever given to a single
+white man. It is something to have been the hero of it.
+And whatever other ingredients there were, undoubtedly
+gratitude was present. As money value I have actually
+gained on the transaction!</p>
+
+<p>Your note arrived; little profit, I must say. Scott has
+already put his nose in, in <i>St. Ives</i>, sir; but his appearance
+is not yet complete; nothing is in that romance, except
+the story. I have to announce that I am off work, probably
+for six months. I must own that I have overworked
+bitterly&mdash;overworked&mdash;there, that&rsquo;s legible. My hand is
+a thing that was, and in the meanwhile so are my brains.
+And here, in the very midst, comes a plausible scheme
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page372"></a>372</span>
+to make Vailima pay, which will perhaps let me into considerable
+expense just when I don&rsquo;t want it. You know
+the vast cynicism of my view of affairs, and how readily
+and (as some people say) with how much gusto I take
+the darker view?</p>
+
+<p>Why do you not send me Jerome K. Jerome&rsquo;s paper,
+and let me see <i>The Ebb Tide</i> as a serial? It is always
+very important to see a thing in different presentments.
+I want every number. Politically we begin the new year
+with every expectation of a bust in 2 or 3 days, a bust
+which may spell destruction to Samoa. I have written to
+Baxter about his proposal.<a name="FnAnchor_73" href="#Footnote_73"><span class="sp">73</span></a></p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_56" href="#FnAnchor_56"><span class="fn">56</span></a> The correspondent whose letter I had sent on was a high official
+at the Foreign Office: the subject, Stevenson and Samoa.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_57" href="#FnAnchor_57"><span class="fn">57</span></a> Hemorrhage from the lungs.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_58" href="#FnAnchor_58"><span class="fn">58</span></a> Vitrolle&rsquo;s <i>Mémoires</i> and the &ldquo;1814&rdquo; and &ldquo;1815&rdquo; of M. Henri
+Houssaye were sent accordingly.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_59" href="#FnAnchor_59"><span class="fn">59</span></a> Ultimately <i>The Ebb Tide</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_60" href="#FnAnchor_60"><span class="fn">60</span></a> For a volume of selected <i>Essays</i>, containing the pick of <i>Virginibus
+Puerisque</i>, <i>Memories and Portraits</i>, and <i>Across the Plains</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_61" href="#FnAnchor_61"><span class="fn">61</span></a> <i>The Owl</i> was to be a Breton story of the Revolution; <i>Death in
+the Pot</i>, a tale of the Sta. Lucia mountains in California; the scene
+of <i>The Go-Between</i> was laid in the Pacific Islands; of <i>The Sleeper
+Awakened</i> I know nothing.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_62" href="#FnAnchor_62"><span class="fn">62</span></a> Of <i>Island Nights&rsquo; Entertainments</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_63" href="#FnAnchor_63"><span class="fn">63</span></a> John Addington Symonds.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_64" href="#FnAnchor_64"><span class="fn">64</span></a> <i>Across the Plains.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_65" href="#FnAnchor_65"><span class="fn">65</span></a> Volume of sonnets by José Maria de Hérédia.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_66" href="#FnAnchor_66"><span class="fn">66</span></a> Dr. Fairfax Ross, a distinguished physician of Sydney, and
+friend of the Stevenson family, who during a visit to England this
+summer had conveyed to me no very reassuring impression as to
+the healthfulness of the island life and climate.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_67" href="#FnAnchor_67"><span class="fn">67</span></a> W. Hole, R.S.A.: essential for the projected illustrations to
+<i>Kidnapped</i> and <i>Catriona</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_68" href="#FnAnchor_68"><span class="fn">68</span></a> Mr. S. R. Crockett. The words quoted from this gentleman&rsquo;s
+dedication were worked by Stevenson into a very moving and metrically
+original set of verses, addressed to him in acknowledgment
+(<i>Songs of Travel</i>, xlii.).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_69" href="#FnAnchor_69"><span class="fn">69</span></a> Simon Fraser, the Master of Lovat, in <i>Catriona</i>: the spelling
+of his name.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_70" href="#FnAnchor_70"><span class="fn">70</span></a> The bust was exhibited in the New Gallery Summer Exhibition,
+1895.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_71" href="#FnAnchor_71"><span class="fn">71</span></a> <i>Island Nights&rsquo; Entertainments.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_72" href="#FnAnchor_72"><span class="fn">72</span></a> <i>The Window in Thrums</i>, with illustrations by W. Hole, R.S.A.
+Hodder and Stoughton. 1892.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_73" href="#FnAnchor_73"><span class="fn">73</span></a> The scheme of the Edinburgh Edition.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page373"></a>373</span></p>
+
+<h3>XIV</h3>
+
+<h3>LIFE IN SAMOA&mdash;<i>Concluded</i></h3>
+
+<h3>FOURTH YEAR AT VAILIMA&mdash;THE END</h3>
+
+<h5><span class="sc">January-December</span> 1894</h5>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">This</span> new year began for Stevenson with an illness which
+seemed to leave none of the usual lowering consequences,
+and for Samoa with fresh rumours of war, which were not
+realised until the autumn, and then&mdash;at least in the shape
+of serious hostilities&mdash;in the district of Atua only and not
+in his own. On the whole Stevenson&rsquo;s bodily health and
+vigour kept at a higher level than during the previous year.
+But for serious imaginative writing he found himself still
+unfit, and the sense that his old facility had for the time
+being failed him caused him much inward misgiving. In
+his correspondence the misgiving mood was allowed to
+appear pretty freely; but in personal intercourse his high
+spirits seemed to his family and visitors as unfailing as
+ever. Several things happened during the year to give
+him peculiar pleasure: first, at the beginning of the year,
+the news of Mr. Baxter&rsquo;s carefully prepared scheme of the
+Edinburgh Edition, and of its acceptance by the publishers
+concerned. On this subject much correspondence naturally
+passed between him and Mr. Baxter and myself, over
+and above that which is here published; and finally he
+resolved to leave all the details of the execution to us.
+By the early autumn the financial success of the scheme
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page374"></a>374</span>
+was fully assured and made known to him by cable; but
+he did not seem altogether to realise the full measure of
+relief from money anxieties which the assurance was
+meant to convey to him. Other pleasurable circumstances
+were the return of Mr. Graham Balfour after a prolonged
+absence; the visit of a spirited and accomplished young
+English man of business and of letters, Mr. Sidney Lysaght
+(see below, pp. 385, 388, etc.); and the frequent society
+of the officers of H.M.S. <i>Curaçoa</i>, with whom he was on
+terms of particular regard and cordiality. Lastly, he was
+very deeply touched and gratified by the action of the
+native political prisoners, towards whom he had shown
+much thoughtful kindness during their months of detention,
+in volunteering as a testimony of gratitude after
+their release to re-make with their own hands the branch
+road leading to his house: &ldquo;the Road of Loving Hearts,&rdquo;
+as it came to be christened. Soon afterwards, the anniversaries
+of his own birthday and of the American Thanks-giving
+feast brought evidences hardly less welcome, after
+so much contention and annoyance as the island affairs
+and politics had involved him in, of the honour and affection
+in which he was held by all that was best in the white
+community. By each succeeding mail came stronger
+proofs from home of the manner in which men of letters
+of the younger generation had come to regard him as a
+master, an example, and a friend.</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of all these causes of pleasure, his letters
+showed that his old invincible spirit of inward cheerfulness
+was beginning not infrequently to give way to moods of
+depression and overstrained feeling. The importunity of
+these moods was no doubt due to some physical premonition
+that his vital powers, so frail from the cradle and always
+with so cheerful a courage overtaxed, were near exhaustion.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page375"></a>375</span>
+During the first months of the year he attempted
+little writing; in the late spring and early summer his
+work was chiefly on the annals of his family and on the
+tale <i>St. Ives</i>. The latter he found uphill work: after the
+first ten or twelve chapters, which are in his happiest vein,
+the narrative, as he himself was painfully aware, began
+to flag. Towards the end of October he gave it up for
+the time being and turned to a more arduous task, the
+tragic <i>Weir of Hermiston</i>. On this theme he felt his
+inspiration return, and during the month of November
+and the first days of December wrought once more at the
+full pitch of his powers and in the conscious delight of
+their exercise. On the third of December, after a morning
+of happy work and pleasant correspondence, he was
+seen gazing long and wistfully toward the forest-clad
+mountain, on a ledge of which he had desired that he
+should be buried. In the afternoon he brought his morning&rsquo;s
+work to his wife, the most exacting of his critics;
+asked her whether it was not well done; and in her glow
+of admiring assent found his confirmation and his reward.
+Nevertheless she could not throw off an oppressive sense
+of coming calamity. He was reassuring her with gay and
+laughing talk when the sudden rupture of a blood-vessel
+in the brain laid him almost in a moment unconscious at
+her feet; and before two hours were over he had passed
+away. All the world knows how his body was carried by
+the loving hands of his native servants to the burial-place
+of his choice, and rests there with the words of his own
+requiem engraved on his tomb&mdash;the words which we have
+seen him putting on paper when he was at grips with
+death fifteen years before in California&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr f90">
+
+<p>&ldquo;Home is the sailor, home from sea,</p>
+<p class="i05">And the hunter home from the hill.&rdquo;</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page376"></a>376</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Mr. Baxter, after much preliminary consideration and inquiry,
+had matured and submitted to Stevenson the scheme of the Edinburgh
+edition, to which this letter is his reply. The paper on
+<i>Treasure Island</i> appeared in the Idler for August 1889, and was
+afterwards reprinted in the miscellany <i>My First Book</i> (Chatto and
+Windus, 1894). See Edinburgh edition, <i>Miscellanies</i>, vol. iv. p. 285.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>1st January &rsquo;94.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;I am delighted with your idea, and
+first, I will here give an amended plan and afterwards give
+you a note of some of the difficulties.</p>
+
+<p class="center">[Plan of the Edinburgh edition&mdash;14 vols.]</p>
+
+<p>... It may be a question whether my Times letters
+might not be appended to the <i>Footnote</i> with a note of the
+dates of discharge of Cedercrantz and Pilsach.</p>
+
+<p>I am particularly pleased with this idea of yours, because
+I am come to a dead stop. I never can remember
+how bad I have been before, but at any rate I am bad
+enough just now, I mean as to literature; in health I am
+well and strong. I take it I shall be six months before
+I&rsquo;m heard of again, and this time I could put in to some
+advantage in revising the text and (if it were thought
+desirable) writing prefaces. I do not know how many of
+them might be thought desirable. I have written a paper
+on <i>Treasure Island</i>, which is to appear shortly. <i>Master
+of Ballantrae</i>&mdash;I have one drafted. <i>The Wrecker</i> is quite
+sufficiently done already with the last chapter, but I suppose
+an historic introduction to <i>David Balfour</i> is quite
+unavoidable. <i>Prince Otto</i> I don&rsquo;t think I could say anything
+about, and <i>Black Arrow</i> don&rsquo;t want to. But it is
+probable I could say something to the volume of <i>Travels</i>.
+In the verse business I can do just what I like better than
+anything else, and extend <i>Underwoods</i> with a lot of unpublished
+stuff. <i>Ŕ propos</i>, if I were to get printed off a
+very few poems which are somewhat too intimate for the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page377"></a>377</span>
+public, could you get them run up in some luxuous manner,
+so that fools might be induced to buy them in just a sufficient
+quantity to pay expenses and the thing remain still
+in a manner private? We could supply photographs of
+the illustrations&mdash;and the poems are of Vailima and the
+family&mdash;I should much like to get this done as a surprise
+for Fanny.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To H. B. Baildon</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, January 15th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BAILDON</span>,&mdash;Last mail brought your book and
+its Dedication. &ldquo;Frederick Street and the gardens, and
+the short-lived Jack o&rsquo; Lantern,&rdquo; are again with me&mdash;and
+the note of the east wind, and Froebel&rsquo;s voice, and the
+smell of soup in Thomson&rsquo;s stair. Truly, you had no need
+to put yourself under the protection of any other saint,
+were that saint our Tamate himself! Yourself were enough,
+and yourself coming with so rich a sheaf.</p>
+
+<p>For what is this that you say about the Muses? They
+have certainly never better inspired you than in &ldquo;Jael and
+Sisera,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Herodias and John the Baptist,&rdquo; good stout
+poems, fiery and sound. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis but a mask and behind it
+chuckles the God of the Garden,&rdquo; I shall never forget.
+By the by, an error of the press, page 49, line 4, &ldquo;No
+infant&rsquo;s lesson are the ways of God.&rdquo; <i>The</i> is dropped.</p>
+
+<p>And this reminds me you have a bad habit which is to
+be comminated in my theory of letters. Same page, two
+lines lower: &ldquo;But the vulture&rsquo;s track&rdquo; is surely as fine
+to the ear as &ldquo;But vulture&rsquo;s track,&rdquo; and this latter version
+has a dreadful baldness. The reader goes on with a sense
+of impoverishment, of unnecessary sacrifice; he has been
+robbed by footpads, and goes scouting for his lost article!
+Again, in the second Epode, these fine verses would surely
+sound much finer if they began, &ldquo;As a hardy climber who
+has set his heart,&rdquo; than with the jejune &ldquo;As hardy climber.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page378"></a>378</span>
+I do not know why you permit yourself this licence with
+grammar; you show, in so many pages, that you are
+superior to the paltry sense of rhythm which usually dictates
+it&mdash;as though some poetaster had been suffered to
+correct the poet&rsquo;s text. By the way, I confess to a heartfelt
+weakness for <i>Auriculas</i>.&mdash;Believe me the very grateful
+and characteristic pick-thank, but still sincere and affectionate,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To W. H. Low</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, January 15th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,&mdash; ... Pray you, stoop your proud
+head, and sell yourself to some Jew magazine, and make
+the visit out. I assure you, this is the spot for a sculptor
+or painter. This, and no other&mdash;I don&rsquo;t say to stay
+there, but to come once and get the living colour into them.
+I am used to it; I do not notice it; rather prefer my
+grey, freezing recollections of Scotland; but there it is,
+and every morning is a thing to give thanks for, and
+every night another&mdash;bar when it rains, of course.</p>
+
+<p>About <i>The Wrecker</i>&mdash;rather late days, and I still suspect
+I had somehow offended you; however, all&rsquo;s well
+that ends well, and I am glad I am forgiven&mdash;did you
+not fail to appreciate the attitude of Dodd? He was a
+fizzle and a stick, he knew it, he knew nothing else, and
+there is an undercurrent of bitterness in him. And then
+the problem that Pinkerton laid down: why the artist
+can <i>do nothing else</i>? is one that continually exercises
+myself. He cannot: granted. But Scott could. And
+Montaigne. And Julius Caesar. And many more. And
+why can&rsquo;t R. L. S.? Does it not amaze you? It does
+me. I think of the Renaissance fellows, and their all-round
+human sufficiency, and compare it with the ineffable
+smallness of the field in which we labour and in which we
+do so little. I think <i>David Balfour</i> a nice little book,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page379"></a>379</span>
+and very artistic, and just the thing to occupy the leisure
+of a busy man; but for the top flower of a man&rsquo;s life
+it seems to me inadequate. Small is the word; it is a
+small age, and I am of it. I could have wished to be
+otherwise busy in this world. I ought to have been able
+to build lighthouses and write <i>David Balfours</i> too. <i>Hinc
+illae lacrymae.</i> I take my own case as most handy, but
+it is as illustrative of my quarrel with the age. We take
+all these pains, and we don&rsquo;t do as well as Michael Angelo
+or Leonardo, or even Fielding, who was an active magistrate,
+or Richardson, who was a busy bookseller. <i>J&rsquo;ai
+honte pour nous</i>; my ears burn.</p>
+
+<p>I am amazed at the effect which this Chicago exhibition
+has produced upon you and others. It set Mrs. Fairchild
+literally mad&mdash;to judge by her letters. And I wish
+I had seen anything so influential. I suppose there was
+an aura, a halo, some sort of effulgency about the place;
+for here I find you louder than the rest. Well, it may
+be there is a time coming; and I wonder, when it comes,
+whether it will be a time of little, exclusive, one-eyed
+rascals like you and me, or parties of the old stamp who
+can paint and fight, and write and keep books of double
+entry, and sculp, and scalp. It might be. You have a
+lot of stuff in the kettle, and a great deal of it Celtic.
+I have changed my mind progressively about England:
+practically the whole of Scotland is Celtic, and the western
+half of England, and all Ireland, and the Celtic blood
+makes a rare blend for art. If it is stiffened up with Latin
+blood, you get the French. We were less lucky: we
+had only Scandinavians, themselves decidedly artistic, and
+the Low-German lot. However, that is a good starting-point,
+and with all the other elements in your crucible,
+it may come to something great very easily. I wish you
+would hurry up and let me see it. Here is a long while
+I have been waiting for something <i>good</i> in art; and what
+have I seen? Zola&rsquo;s <i>Débâcle</i> and a few of Kipling&rsquo;s tales.
+Are you a reader of Barbey d&rsquo;Aurévilly? He is a never-failing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page380"></a>380</span>
+source of pleasure to me, for my sins, I suppose.
+What a work is the <i>Rideau Cramoisi!</i> and <i>L&rsquo;Ensorcelée!</i>
+and <i>Le Chevalier Des Touches!</i></p>
+
+<p>This is degenerating into mere twaddle. So please
+remember us all most kindly to Mrs. Low, and believe
+me ever yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><i>P.S.</i>&mdash;Were all your privateers voiceless in the war of
+1812? Did <i>no one</i> of them write memoirs? I shall have
+to do my privateer from chic, if you can&rsquo;t help me.<a name="FnAnchor_74" href="#Footnote_74"><span class="sp">74</span></a> My
+application to Scribner has been quite in vain. See if
+you can get hold of some historic sharp in the club, and
+tap him; they must some of them have written memoirs
+or notes of some sort; perhaps still unprinted; if that
+be so, get them copied for me.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Jan. 29th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;I had fully intended for your education
+and moral health to fob you off with the meanest
+possible letter this month, and unfortunately I find I will
+have to treat you to a good long account of matters here.
+I believe I have told you before about Tui-ma-le-alii-fano
+and my taking him down to introduce him to the Chief
+Justice. Well, Tui came back to Vailima one day in the
+blackest sort of spirits, saying the war was decided, that
+he also must join in the fight, and that there was no hope
+whatever of success. He must fight as a point of honour
+for his family and country; and in his case, even if he
+escaped on the field of battle, deportation was the least
+to be looked for. He said he had a letter of complaint
+from the Great Council of A&rsquo;ana which he wished to lay
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page381"></a>381</span>
+before the Chief Justice; and he asked me to accompany
+him as if I were his nurse. We went down about dinner
+time; and by the way received from a lurking native
+the famous letter in an official blue envelope gummed up
+to the edges. It proved to be a declaration of war, quite
+formal, but with some variations that really made you
+bounce. White residents were directly threatened, bidden
+to have nothing to do with the King&rsquo;s party, not to receive
+their goods in their houses, etc., under pain of an accident.
+However, the Chief Justice took it very wisely and mildly,
+and between us, he and I and Tui made up a plan which
+has proved successful&mdash;so far. The war is over&mdash;fifteen
+chiefs are this morning undergoing a curious double process
+of law, comparable to a court martial; in which their
+complaints are to be considered, and if possible righted,
+while their conduct is to be criticised, perhaps punished.
+Up to now, therefore, it has been a most successful policy;
+but the danger is before us. My own feeling would decidedly
+be that all would be spoiled by a single execution.
+The great hope after all lies in the knotless, rather flaccid
+character of the people. These are no Maoris. All the
+powers that Cedercrantz let go by disuse the new C. J.
+is stealthily and boldly taking back again; perhaps some
+others also. He has shamed the chiefs in Mulinuu into
+a law against taking heads, with a punishment of six
+years&rsquo; imprisonment and, for a chief, degradation. To
+him has been left the sole conduct of this anxious and
+decisive inquiry. If the natives stand it, why, well! But
+I am nervous.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To H. B. Baildon</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, January 30th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BAILDON</span>,&mdash;&ldquo;Call not blessed.&rdquo;&mdash;Yes, if I
+could die just now, or say in half a year, I should have
+had a splendid time of it on the whole. But it gets a
+little stale, and my work will begin to senesce; and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page382"></a>382</span>
+parties to shy bricks at me; and now it begins to look
+as if I should survive to see myself impotent and forgotten.
+It&rsquo;s a pity suicide is not thought the ticket in the best
+circles.</p>
+
+<p>But your letter goes on to congratulate me on having
+done the one thing I am a little sorry for; a little&mdash;not
+much&mdash;for my father himself lived to think that I had
+been wiser than he. But the cream of the jest is that I
+have lived to change my mind; and think that he was
+wiser than I. Had I been an engineer, and literature my
+amusement, it would have been better perhaps. I pulled
+it off, of course, I won the wager, and it is pleasant while
+it lasts; but how long will it last? I don&rsquo;t know, say
+the Bells of Old Bow.</p>
+
+<p>All of which goes to show that nobody is quite sane
+in judging himself. Truly, had I given way and gone in
+for engineering, I should be dead by now. Well, the
+gods know best.</p>
+
+<p>... I hope you got my letter about the <i>Rescue</i>.&mdash;Adieu.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<p>True for you about the benefit: except by kisses,
+jests, song, <i>et hoc genus omne</i>, man <i>cannot</i> convey benefit
+to another. The universal benefactor has been there
+before him.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Feb. 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;By a reaction, when your letter is a
+little decent, mine is to be naked and unashamed. We
+have been much exercised. No one can prophesy here,
+of course, and the balance still hangs trembling, but I
+<i>think</i> it will go for peace.</p>
+
+<p>The mail was very late this time: hence the paltriness
+of this note. When it came and I had read it, I
+retired with <i>The Ebb Tide</i> and read it all before I slept.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page383"></a>383</span>
+I did not dream it was near as good; I am afraid I think
+it excellent. A little indecision about Attwater, not
+much. It gives me great hope, as I see I <i>can</i> work in
+that constipated, mosaic manner, which is what I have
+to do just now with <i>Weir of Hermiston</i>.</p>
+
+<p>We have given a ball; I send you a paper describing
+the event. We have two guests in the house, Captain-Count
+Wurmbrand and Monsieur Albert de Lautreppe.
+Lautreppe is awfully nice&mdash;a quiet, gentlemanly fellow,
+<i>gonflé de ręves</i>, as he describes himself&mdash;once a sculptor
+in the atelier of Henry Crosse, he knows something of
+art, and is really a resource to me.</p>
+
+<p>Letter from Meredith very kind. Have you seen no
+more of Graham?</p>
+
+<p>What about my Grandfather? The family history
+will grow to be quite a chapter.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I am growing sensitive; perhaps, by living
+among barbarians, I expect more civility. Look at this
+from the author of a very interesting and laudatory
+critique. He gives quite a false description of something
+of mine, and talks about my &ldquo;insolence.&rdquo; Frankly, I
+supposed &ldquo;insolence&rdquo; to be a tapu word. I do not use
+it to a gentleman, I would not write it of a gentleman:
+I may be wrong, but I believe we did not write it of a
+gentleman in old days, and in my view he (clever fellow
+as he is) wants to be kicked for applying it to me. By
+writing a novel&mdash;even a bad one&mdash;I do not make myself
+a criminal for anybody to insult. This may amuse you.
+But either there is a change in journalism, too gradual
+for you to remark it on the spot, or there is a change in
+me. I cannot bear these phrases; I long to resent them.
+My forbears, the tenant farmers of the Mures, would
+not have suffered such expressions unless it had been
+from Cauldwell, or Rowallan, or maybe Auchendrane.
+My Family Pride bristles. I am like the negro, &ldquo;I just
+heard last night&rdquo; who my great, great, great, great
+grandfather was.&mdash;Ever yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page384"></a>384</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To J. H. Bates</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The next is to a correspondent in Cincinnati, who had been the
+founder of an R. L. S. Society in that city, &ldquo;originally,&rdquo; he writes
+me, under date April 7, 1895, &ldquo;the outcome of a boyish fancy, but
+it has now grown into something more substantial.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, March 25th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MR. JOE H. BATES</span>,&mdash;I shall have the greatest
+pleasure in acceding to your complimentary request. I
+shall think it an honour to be associated with your chapter,
+and I need not remind you (for you have said it yourself)
+how much depends upon your own exertions whether
+to make it to me a real honour or only a derision. This
+is to let you know that I accept the position that you
+have seriously offered to me in a quite serious spirit. I
+need scarce tell you that I shall always be pleased to
+receive reports of your proceedings; and if I do not
+always acknowledge them, you are to remember that I
+am a man very much occupied otherwise, and not at
+all to suppose that I have lost interest in my chapter.</p>
+
+<p>In this world, which (as you justly say) is so full of
+sorrow and suffering, it will always please me to remember
+that my name is connected with some efforts after alleviation,
+nor less so with purposes of innocent recreation
+which, after all, are the only certain means at our disposal
+for bettering human life.</p>
+
+<p>With kind regards, to yourself, to Mr. L. C. Congdon,
+to E. M. G. Bates, and to Mr. Edward Hugh Higlee Bates,
+and the heartiest wishes for the future success of the
+chapter, believe me, yours cordially.</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To William Archer</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, March 27th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR ARCHER</span>,&mdash;Many thanks for your <i>Theatrical
+World</i>. Do you know, it strikes me as being really very
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page385"></a>385</span>
+good? I have not yet read much of it, but so far as I
+have looked, there is not a dull and not an empty page
+in it. Hazlitt, whom you must often have thought of,
+would have been pleased. Come to think of it, I shall
+put this book upon the Hazlitt shelf. You have acquired
+a manner that I can only call august; otherwise, I should
+have to call it such amazing impudence. The <i>Bauble Shop</i>
+and <i>Becket</i> are examples of what I mean. But it &ldquo;sets
+you weel.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Marjorie Fleming I have known, as you surmise, for
+long. She was possibly&mdash;no, I take back possibly&mdash;she
+was one of the greatest works of God. Your note about
+the resemblance of her verses to mine gave me great
+joy, though it only proved me a plagiarist. By the by,
+was it not over <i>The Child&rsquo;s Garden of Verses</i> that we first
+scraped acquaintance? I am sorry indeed to hear that
+my esteemed correspondent Tomarcher has such poor
+taste in literature.<a name="FnAnchor_75" href="#Footnote_75"><span class="sp">75</span></a> I fear he cannot have inherited this
+trait from his dear papa. Indeed, I may say I know it,
+for I remember the energy of papa&rsquo;s disapproval when
+the work passed through his hands on its way to a second
+birth, which none regrets more than myself. It is an
+odd fact, or perhaps a very natural one; I find few greater
+pleasures than reading my own works, but I never, O
+I never read <i>The Black Arrow</i>. In that country Tomarcher
+reigns supreme. Well, and after all, if Tomarcher likes
+it, it has not been written in vain.</p>
+
+<p>We have just now a curious breath from Europe.
+A young fellow just beginning letters, and no fool, turned
+up here with a letter of introduction in the well-known
+blue ink and decorative hieroglyphs of George Meredith.
+His name may be known to you. It is Sidney Lysaght.
+He is staying with us but a day or two, and it is strange
+to me and not unpleasant to hear all the names, old and
+new, come up again. But oddly the new are so much
+more in number. If I revisited the glimpses of the moon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page386"></a>386</span>
+on your side of the ocean, I should know comparatively
+few of them.</p>
+
+<p>My amanuensis deserts me&mdash;I should have said you,
+for yours is the loss, my script having lost all bond with
+humanity. One touch of nature makes the whole world
+kin: that nobody can read my hand. It is a humiliating
+circumstance that thus evens us with printers!</p>
+
+<p>You must sometimes think it strange&mdash;or perhaps it
+is only I that should so think it&mdash;to be following the old
+round, in the gas lamps and the crowded theatres, when
+I am away here in the tropical forest and the vast
+silences!</p>
+
+<p>My dear Archer, my wife joins me in the best wishes
+to yourself and Mrs. Archer, not forgetting Tom; and
+I am yours very cordially,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Partly concerning a fresh rising, this time of the partisans of
+Tamasese from the district of Atua, which had occurred and was
+after some time suppressed; partly in reference to the visit of Mr.
+Sidney Lysaght; partly in reply to a petition that his letters might
+be less entirely taken up with native affairs, of relatively little
+meaning to his correspondent.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, April 1894.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;This is the very day the mail goes,
+and I have as yet written you nothing. But it was just
+as well&mdash;as it was all about my &ldquo;blacks and chocolates,&rdquo;
+and what of it had relation to whites you will read some
+of in the Times. It means, as you will see, that I have
+at one blow quarrelled with <i>all</i> the officials of Samoa,
+the Foreign Office, and I suppose her Majesty the Queen
+with milk and honey blest. But you&rsquo;ll see in the Times.
+I am very well indeed, but just about dead and mighty
+glad the mail is near here, and I can just give up all hope
+of contending with my letters, and lie down for the
+rest of the day. These Times letters are not easy to write.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page387"></a>387</span>
+And I dare say the consuls say, &ldquo;Why, then, does he
+write them?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I had miserable luck with <i>St. Ives</i>; being already
+half-way through it, a book I had ordered six months
+ago arrives at last, and I have to change the first half
+of it from top to bottom! How could I have dreamed
+the French prisoners were watched over like a female
+charity school, kept in a grotesque livery, and shaved
+twice a week? And I had made all my points on the
+idea that they were unshaved and clothed anyhow. However,
+this last is better business; if only the book had
+come when I ordered it! <i>Ŕ propos</i>, many of the books
+you announce don&rsquo;t come as a matter of fact. When
+they are of any value, it is best to register them. Your
+letter, alas! is not here; I sent it down to the
+cottage, with all my mail, for Fanny; on Sunday night
+a boy comes up with a lantern and a note from Fanny,
+to say the woods are full of Atuas and I must bring a
+horse down that instant, as the posts are established
+beyond her on the road, and she does not want to have
+the fight going on between us. Impossible to get a horse;
+so I started in the dark on foot, with a revolver, and
+my spurs on my bare feet, leaving directions that the
+boy should mount after me with the horse. Try such
+an experience on Our Road once, and do it, if you please,
+after you have been down town from nine o&rsquo;clock till
+six, on board the ship-of-war lunching, teaching Sunday
+School (I actually do) and making necessary visits; and
+the Saturday before, having sat all day from &frac12;-past six
+to &frac12;-past four, scriving at my Times letter. About half-way
+up, just in fact at &ldquo;point&rdquo; of the outposts, I met
+Fanny coming up. Then all night long I was being
+wakened with scares that really should be looked into,
+though I <i>knew</i> there was nothing in them and no bottom
+to the whole story; and the drums and shouts and cries
+from Tanugamanono and the town keeping up an all-night
+corybantic chorus in the moonlight&mdash;the moon rose
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page388"></a>388</span>
+late&mdash;and the search-light of the war-ship in the harbour
+making a jewel of brightness as it lit up the bay of Apia
+in the distance. And then next morning, about eight
+o&rsquo;clock, a drum coming out of the woods and a party of
+patrols who had been in the woods on our left front (which
+is our true rear) coming up to the house, and meeting
+there another party who had been in the woods on our
+right <span style="font-size: 2em;">{</span>front rear<span style="font-size: 2em;">}</span> which is Vaea Mountain, and 43 of them
+being entertained to ava and biscuits on the verandah,
+and marching off at last in single file for Apia. Briefly,
+it is not much wonder if your letter and my whole mail
+was left at the cottage, and I have no means of seeing
+or answering particulars.</p>
+
+<p>The whole thing was nothing but a bottomless scare;
+it was <i>obviously</i> so; you couldn&rsquo;t make a child believe
+it was anything else, but it has made the consuls sit up.
+My own private scares were really abominably annoying;
+as for instance after I had got to sleep for the ninth time
+perhaps&mdash;and that was no easy matter either, for I had
+a crick in my neck so agonising that I had to sleep sitting
+up&mdash;I heard noises as of a man being murdered in the
+boys&rsquo; house. To be sure, said I, this is nothing again,
+but if a man&rsquo;s head was being taken, the noises would
+be the same! So I had to get up, stifle my cries of agony
+from the crick, get my revolver, and creep out stealthily
+to the boys&rsquo; house. And there were two of them sitting
+up, keeping watch of their own accord like good boys,
+and whiling the time over a game of Sweepi (Cascino&mdash;the
+whist of our islanders)&mdash;and one of them was our champion
+idiot, Misifolo, and I suppose he was holding bad
+cards, and losing all the time&mdash;and these noises were his
+humorous protests against Fortune!</p>
+
+<p>Well, excuse this excursion into my &ldquo;blacks and
+chocolates.&rdquo; It is the last. You will have heard from
+Lysaght how I failed to write last mail. The said Lysaght
+seems to me a very nice fellow. We were only sorry he
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page389"></a>389</span>
+could not stay with us longer. Austin came back from
+school last week, which made a great time for the Amanuensis,
+you may be sure. Then on Saturday, the <i>Curaçoa</i>
+came in&mdash;same commission, with all our old friends;
+and on Sunday, as already mentioned, Austin and I
+went down to service and had lunch afterwards in the
+wardroom. The officers were awfully nice to Austin;
+they are the most amiable ship in the world; and after
+lunch we had a paper handed round on which we were
+to guess, and sign our guess, of the number of leaves on
+the pine-apple; I never saw this game before, but it seems
+it is much practised in the Queen&rsquo;s Navee. When all
+have betted, one of the party begins to strip the pine-apple
+head, and the person whose guess is furthest out
+has to pay for the sherry. My equanimity was disturbed
+by shouts of <i>The American Commodore</i>, and I found that
+Austin had entered and lost about a bottle of sherry!
+He turned with great composure and addressed me. &ldquo;I
+am afraid I must look to you, Uncle Louis.&rdquo; The Sunday
+School racket is only an experiment which I took up at
+the request of the late American Land Commissioner; I
+am trying it for a month, and if I do as ill as I believe,
+and the boys find it only half as tedious as I do, I think
+it will end in a month. I have <i>carte blanche</i>, and say what
+I like; but does any single soul understand me?</p>
+
+<p>Fanny is on the whole very much better. Lloyd has
+been under the weather, and goes for a month to the
+South Island of New Zealand for some skating, save the
+mark! I get all the skating I want among officials.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Colvin, please remember that my life passes
+among my &ldquo;blacks or chocolates.&rdquo; If I were to do as
+you propose, in a bit of a tiff, it would cut you off entirely
+from my life. You must try to exercise a trifle of imagination,
+and put yourself, perhaps with an effort, into some
+sort of sympathy with these people, or how am I to write
+to you? I think you are truly a little too Cockney with
+me.&mdash;Ever yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page390"></a>390</span></p>
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To W. B. Yeats</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, April 14, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR</span>,&mdash;Long since when I was a boy I remember
+the emotions with which I repeated Swinburne&rsquo;s poems
+and ballads. Some ten years ago, a similar spell was
+cast upon me by Meredith&rsquo;s <i>Love in the Valley</i>; the
+stanzas beginning &ldquo;When her mother tends her&rdquo; haunted
+me and made me drunk like wine; and I remember waking
+with them all the echoes of the hills about Hyčres. It
+may interest you to hear that I have a third time fallen
+in slavery: this is to your poem called the <i>Lake Isle of
+Innisfree</i>. It is so quaint and airy, simple, artful, and
+eloquent to the heart&mdash;but I seek words in vain. Enough
+that &ldquo;always night and day I hear lake water lapping
+with low sounds on the shore,&rdquo; and am, yours gratefully,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To George Meredith</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The young lady referred to in the following is Mr. Meredith&rsquo;s
+daughter, now Mrs. H. Sturgis; the bearer of the introduction, Mr.
+Sidney Lysaght, author of <i>The Marplot</i> and <i>One of the Grenvilles.</i>
+It is only in the first few chapters of Mr. Meredith&rsquo;s <i>Amazing Marriage</i>
+that the character of Gower Woodseer has been allowed to
+retain any likeness to that of R. L. S.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, April 17th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MEREDITH</span>,&mdash;Many good things have the
+gods sent to me of late. First of all there was a letter
+from you by the kind hand of Mariette, if she is not too
+great a lady to be remembered in such a style; and then
+there came one Lysaght with a charming note of introduction
+in the well-known hand itself. We had but a
+few days of him, and liked him well. There was a sort
+of geniality and inward fire about him at which I warmed
+my hands. It is long since I have seen a young man who
+has left in me such a favourable impression; and I find
+myself telling myself, &ldquo;O, I must tell this to Lysaght,&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page391"></a>391</span>
+or, &ldquo;This will interest him,&rdquo; in a manner very unusual
+after so brief an acquaintance. The whole of my family
+shared in this favourable impression, and my halls have
+re-echoed ever since, I am sure he will be amused to know,
+with <i>Widdicombe Fair</i>.</p>
+
+<p>He will have told you doubtless more of my news
+than I could tell you myself; he has your European
+perspective, a thing long lost to me. I heard with a great
+deal of interest the news of Box Hill. And so I understand
+it is to be enclosed! Allow me to remark, that
+seems a far more barbaric trait of manners than the most
+barbarous of ours. We content ourselves with cutting off
+an occasional head.</p>
+
+<p>I hear we may soon expect <i>The Amazing Marriage</i>.
+You know how long, and with how much curiosity, I
+have looked forward to the book. Now, in so far as you
+have adhered to your intention, Gower Woodseer will be
+a family portrait, age twenty-five, of the highly respectable
+and slightly influential and fairly aged <i>Tusitala</i>.
+You have not known that gentleman; console yourself,
+he is not worth knowing. At the same time, my dear
+Meredith, he is very sincerely yours&mdash;for what he is worth,
+for the memories of old times, and in the expectation of
+many pleasures still to come. I suppose we shall never
+see each other again; flitting youths of the Lysaght
+species may occasionally cover these unconscionable
+leagues and bear greetings to and fro. But we ourselves
+must be content to converse on an occasional sheet of
+notepaper, and I shall never see whether you have grown
+older, and you shall never deplore that Gower Woodseer
+should have declined into the pantaloon <i>Tusitala</i>. It is
+perhaps better so. Let us continue to see each other as
+we were, and accept, my dear Meredith, my love and
+respect.</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><i>P.S.</i>&mdash;My wife joins me in the kindest messages to
+yourself and Mariette.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page392"></a>392</span></p>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>], <i>April 17, &rsquo;94.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;<i>St. Ives</i> is now well on its way
+into the second volume. There remains no mortal doubt
+that it will reach the three-volume standard.</p>
+
+<p>I am very anxious that you should send me&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1st. <i>Tom and Jerry</i>, a cheap edition.</p>
+
+<p>2nd. The book by Ashton&mdash;the <i>Dawn of the Century</i>, I
+think it was called&mdash;which Colvin sent me, and which has
+miscarried, and</p>
+
+<p>3rd. If it is possible, a file of the Edinburgh Courant
+for the years 1811, 1812, 1813, or 1814. I should not care
+for a whole year. If it were possible to find me three
+months, winter months by preference, it would do my
+business not only for <i>St. Ives</i>, but for the <i>Justice-Clerk</i> as
+well. Suppose this to be impossible, perhaps I could get
+the loan of it from somebody; or perhaps it would be
+possible to have some one read a file for me and make
+notes. This would be extremely bad, as unhappily one
+man&rsquo;s food is another man&rsquo;s poison, and the reader would
+probably leave out everything I should choose. But if
+you are reduced to that, you might mention to the man
+who is to read for me that balloon ascensions are in the
+order of the day.</p>
+
+<p>4th. It might be as well to get a book on balloon ascension,
+particularly in the early part of the century.</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: 200%; letter-spacing: 1.5em;"> ........</p>
+
+<p>III. At last this book has come from Scribner, and,
+alas! I have the first six or seven chapters of <i>St. Ives</i> to
+recast entirely. Who could foresee that they clothed the
+French prisoners in yellow? But that one fatal fact&mdash;and
+also that they shaved them twice a week&mdash;damns the
+whole beginning. If it had been sent in time, it would
+have saved me a deal of trouble....</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page393"></a>393</span></p>
+
+<p>I have had a long letter from Dr. Scott Dalgleish,
+25 Mayfield Terrace, asking me to put my name down to
+the Ballantyne Memorial Committee. I have sent him a
+pretty sharp answer in favour of cutting down the memorial
+and giving more to the widow and children. If there is
+to be any foolery in the way of statues or other trash,
+please send them a guinea; but if they are going to take
+my advice and put up a simple tablet with a few heartfelt
+words, and really devote the bulk of the subscriptions to
+the wife and family, I will go to the length of twenty
+pounds, if you will allow me (and if the case of the family
+be at all urgent), and at least I direct you to send ten
+pounds. I suppose you had better see Scott Dalgleish
+himself on the matter. I take the opportunity here to
+warn you that my head is simply spinning with a multitude
+of affairs, and I shall probably forget a half of my
+business at last.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Mrs. Sitwell</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, April 1894.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FRIEND</span>,&mdash;I have at last got some photographs,
+and hasten to send you, as you asked, a portrait of Tusitala.
+He is a strange person; not so lean, say experts,
+but infinitely battered; mighty active again on the whole;
+going up and down our break-neck road at all hours of
+the day and night on horseback; holding meetings with
+all manner of chiefs; quite a political personage&mdash;God
+save the mark!&mdash;in a small way, but at heart very conscious
+of the inevitable flat failure that awaits every one.
+I shall never do a better book than <i>Catriona</i>, that is my
+high-water mark, and the trouble of production increases
+on me at a great rate&mdash;and mighty anxious about how I
+am to leave my family: an elderly man, with elderly preoccupations,
+whom I should be ashamed to show you for
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page394"></a>394</span>
+your old friend; but not a hope of my dying soon and
+cleanly, and &ldquo;winning off the stage.&rdquo; Rather I am daily
+better in physical health. I shall have to see this business
+out, after all; and I think, in that case, they should
+have&mdash;they might have&mdash;spared me all my ill-health this
+decade past, if it were not to unbar the doors. I have
+no taste for old age, and my nose is to be rubbed in it in
+spite of my face. I was meant to die young, and the gods
+do not love me.</p>
+
+<p>This is very like an epitaph, bar the handwriting,
+which is anything but monumental, and I dare say I had
+better stop. Fanny is down at her own cottage planting
+or deplanting or replanting, I know not which, and she
+will not be home till dinner, by which time the mail will
+be all closed, else she would join me in all good messages
+and remembrances of love. I hope you will congratulate
+Burne Jones from me on his baronetcy. I cannot make
+out to be anything but raspingly, harrowingly sad; so I
+will close, and not affect levity which I cannot feel. Do
+not altogether forget me; keep a corner of your memory
+for the exile</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Louis.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, May 1894.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;My dear fellow, I wish to assure
+you of the greatness of the pleasure that this Edinburgh
+Edition gives me. I suppose it was your idea to give it
+that name. No other would have affected me in the same
+manner. Do you remember, how many years ago&mdash;I
+would be afraid to hazard a guess&mdash;one night when I communicated
+to you certain intimations of early death and
+aspiration after fame? I was particularly maudlin;
+and my remorse the next morning on a review of my
+folly has written the matter very deeply in my mind; from
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page395"></a>395</span>
+yours it may easily have fled. If any one at that moment
+could have shown me the Edinburgh Edition, I suppose
+I should have died. It is with gratitude and wonder that
+I consider &ldquo;the way in which I have been led.&rdquo; Could
+a more preposterous idea have occurred to us in those
+days when we used to search our pockets for coppers,
+too often in vain, and combine forces to produce the threepence
+necessary for two glasses of beer, or wander down
+the Lothian Road without any, than that I should be
+strong and well at the age of forty-three in the island of
+Upolu, and that you should be at home bringing out the
+Edinburgh Edition? If it had been possible, I should
+almost have preferred the Lothian Road Edition, say,
+with a picture of the old Dutch smuggler on the covers.
+I have now something heavy on my mind. I had always
+a great sense of kinship with poor Robert Fergusson&mdash;so
+clever a boy, so wild, of such a mixed strain, so unfortunate,
+born in the same town with me, and, as I always felt,
+rather by express intimation than from evidence, so like
+myself. Now the injustice with which the one Robert is
+rewarded and the other left out in the cold sits heavy on
+me, and I wish you could think of some way in which I
+could do honour to my unfortunate namesake. Do you
+think it would look like affectation to dedicate the whole
+edition to his memory? I think it would. The sentiment
+which would dictate it to me is too abstruse; and
+besides, I think my wife is the proper person to receive the
+dedication of my life&rsquo;s work. At the same time, it is very
+odd&mdash;it really looks like the transmigration of souls&mdash;I feel
+that I must do something for Fergusson; Burns has been
+before me with the gravestone. It occurs to me you
+might take a walk down the Canongate and see in what
+condition the stone is. If it be at all uncared for, we
+might repair it, and perhaps add a few words of
+inscription.</p>
+
+<p>I must tell you, what I just remembered in a flash as
+I was walking about dictating this letter&mdash;there was in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page396"></a>396</span>
+original plan of the <i>Master of Ballantrae</i> a sort of introduction
+describing my arrival in Edinburgh on a visit to
+yourself and your placing in my hands the papers of the
+story. I actually wrote it, and then condemned the idea&mdash;as
+being a little too like Scott, I suppose. Now I must
+really find the MS. and try to finish it for the E.E. It
+will give you, what I should so much like you to have,
+another corner of your own in that lofty monument.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose we do what I have proposed about Fergusson&rsquo;s
+monument, I wonder if an inscription like this would look
+arrogant&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>This stone originally erected</p>
+<p>by Robert Burns has been</p>
+<p>repaired at the</p>
+<p>charges of Robert Louis Stevenson,</p>
+<p>and is by him re-dedicated to</p>
+<p>the memory of Robert Fergusson,</p>
+<p>as the gift of one Edinburgh</p>
+<p>lad to another.</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>In spacing this inscription I would detach the names
+of Fergusson and Burns, but leave mine in the text.</p>
+
+<p>Or would that look like sham modesty, and is it better
+to bring out the three Roberts?</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, May 18th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;Your proposals for the Edinburgh
+Edition are entirely to my mind. About the <i>Amateur
+Emigrant</i>, it shall go to you by this mail well slashed.
+If you like to slash some more on your own account, I
+give you permission. &rsquo;Tis not a great work; but since
+it goes to make up the two first volumes as proposed, I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page397"></a>397</span>
+presume it has not been written in vain.<a name="FnAnchor_76" href="#Footnote_76"><span class="sp">76</span></a>&mdash;<i>Miscellanies</i>.
+I see with some alarm the proposal to print <i>Juvenilia</i>;
+does it not seem to you taking myself a little too much
+as Grandfather William? I am certainly not so young as
+I once was&mdash;a lady took occasion to remind me of the
+fact no later agone than last night. &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you
+leave that to the young men, Mr. Stevenson?&rdquo; said she&mdash;but
+when I remember that I felt indignant at even John
+Ruskin when he did something of the kind I really feel
+myself blush from head to heel. If you want to make up
+the first volume, there are a good many works which I
+took the trouble to prepare for publication and which have
+never been republished. In addition to <i>Roads</i> and <i>Dancing
+Children</i>, referred to by you, there is <i>An Autumn Effect</i>
+in the Portfolio, and a paper on Fontainebleau&mdash;<i>Forest
+Notes</i> is the name of it&mdash;in Cornhill. I have no objection
+to any of these being edited, say with a scythe, and reproduced.
+But I heartily abominate and reject the idea of
+reprinting <i>The Pentland Rising</i>. For God&rsquo;s sake let me
+get buried first.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tales and Fantasies.</i> Vols. <span class="scs">I.</span> and <span class="scs">II.</span> have my hearty
+approval. But I think <span class="scs">III.</span> and <span class="scs">IV.</span> had better be crammed
+into one as you suggest. I will reprint none of the stories
+mentioned. They are below the mark. Well, I dare say
+the beastly <i>Body-Snatcher</i> has merit, and I am unjust to
+it from my recollections of the Pall Mall. But the other
+two won&rsquo;t do. For vols. <span class="scs">V.</span> and <span class="scs">VI.</span>, now changed into
+<span class="scs">IV.</span> and <span class="scs">V.</span>, I propose the common title of <i>South Sea Yarns</i>.
+There! These are all my differences of opinion. I agree
+with every detail of your arrangement, and, as you see,
+my objections have turned principally on the question of
+hawking unripe fruit. I dare say it is all pretty green,
+but that is no reason for us to fill the barrow with trash.
+Think of having a new set of type cast, paper especially
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page398"></a>398</span>
+made, etc., in order to set up rubbish that is not fit for
+the Saturday Scotsman. It would be the climax of
+shame.</p>
+
+<p>I am sending you a lot of verses, which had best, I
+think, be called <i>Underwoods</i> Book <span class="scs">III.</span>, but in what order
+are they to go? Also, I am going on every day a little,
+till I get sick of it, with the attempt to get <i>The Emigrant</i>
+compressed into life; I know I can&mdash;or you can after me&mdash;do
+it. It is only a question of time and prayer and
+ink, and should leave something, no, not good, but not
+all bad&mdash;a very genuine appreciation of these folks. You
+are to remember besides there is that paper of mine on
+Bunyan in the Magazine of Art. O, and then there&rsquo;s
+another thing in Seeley called some spewsome name, I
+cannot recall it.</p>
+
+<p>Well&mdash;come, here goes for <i>Juvenilia</i>. <i>Dancing Infants</i>,
+<i>Roads</i>, <i>An Autumn Effect</i>, <i>Forest Notes</i> (but this should
+come at the end of them, as it&rsquo;s really rather riper), the
+t&rsquo;other thing from Seeley, and I&rsquo;ll tell you, you may put
+in my letter to the Church of Scotland&mdash;it&rsquo;s not written
+amiss, and I dare say <i>The Philosophy of Umbrellas</i> might
+go in, but there I stick&mdash;and remember <i>that</i> was a collaboration
+with James Walter Ferrier. O, and there was
+a little skit called <i>The Charity Bazaar</i>, which you might
+see; I don&rsquo;t think it would do. Now, I do not think
+there are two other words that should be printed.&mdash;By
+the way, there is an article of mine called <i>The Day after
+To-morrow</i> in the Contemporary which you might find
+room for somewhere; it&rsquo;s no&rsquo; bad.</p>
+
+<p>Very busy with all these affairs and some native ones
+also.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To R. A. M. Stevenson</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, June 17th, 1894.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BOB</span>,&mdash;I must make out a letter this mail or
+perish in the attempt. All the same, I am deeply stupid,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page399"></a>399</span>
+in bed with a cold, deprived of my amanuensis, and conscious
+of the wish but not the furnished will. You may
+be interested to hear how the family inquiries go. It is
+now quite certain that we are a second-rate lot, and came
+out of Cunningham or Clydesdale, therefore <i>British</i> folk;
+so that you are Cymry on both sides, and I Cymry and
+Pict. We may have fought with King Arthur and known
+Merlin. The first of the family, Stevenson of Stevenson,
+was quite a great party, and dates back to the wars of
+Edward First. The last male heir of Stevenson of Stevenson
+died 1670, Ł220, 10s. to the bad, from drink. About
+the same time the Stevensons, who were mostly in Cunningham
+before, crop up suddenly in the parish of Neilston,
+over the border in Renfrewshire. Of course, they may
+have been there before, but there is no word of them in
+that parish till 1675 in any extracts I have. Our first
+traceable ancestor was a tenant farmer of Mure of Cauldwell&rsquo;s&mdash;James
+in Nether Carsewell. Presently two families
+of maltmen are found in Glasgow, both, by re-duplicated
+proofs, related to James (the son of James) in Nether
+Carsewell. We descend by his second marriage from
+Robert; one of these died 1733. It is not very romantic
+up to now, but has interested me surprisingly to fish out,
+always hoping for more&mdash;and occasionally getting at least
+a little clearness and confirmation. But the earliest date,
+1655, apparently the marriage of James in Nether Carsewell,
+cannot as yet be pushed back. From which of any
+number of dozen little families in Cunningham we should
+derive, God knows! Of course, it doesn&rsquo;t matter a hundred
+years hence, an argument fatal to all human enterprise,
+industry, or pleasure. And to me it will be a deadly disappointment
+if I cannot roll this stone away! One generation
+further might be nothing, but it is my present
+object of desire, and we are so near it! There is a man
+in the same parish called Constantine; if I could only
+trace to him, I could take you far afield by that one
+talisman of the strange Christian name of Constantine.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page400"></a>400</span>
+But no such luck! And I kind of fear we shall stick
+at James.</p>
+
+<table class="reg2" width="100%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr><td class="tc1" colspan="2">
+<p>I. <span class="sc">James</span>, a tenant of the Mures, in Nether-Carsewell,</p>
+<p style="padding-left: 6em">Neilston, married (1665?) Jean Keir.</p></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc1" colspan="2">
+<div class="figcenter1">
+<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:30px"
+     src="images/img11.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+</div></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc1" colspan="2">
+<p>II. <span class="sc">Robert</span> (Maltman in Glasgow), died 1733,</p>
+<p style="padding-left: 6em">married 1st; married second,<br />
+Elizabeth Cumming.</p></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc1" colspan="2">
+<div class="figcenter1">
+<img style="border:0; width:300px; height:34px"
+     src="images/img12.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+</div></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3" style="width: 50%; padding-right: 2em; vertical-align: top;">
+<p><span class="sc">William</span> (Maltman in Glasgow).</p>
+
+<div style="text-align: left; padding-left: 2em;">
+<img style="border:0; width:150px; height:61px"
+     src="images/img13.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Robert, Marion, Elizabeth</span>.</p>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 1em; padding-left: 0; margin-left: 0;"><span class="sc">Note.</span>&mdash;Between 1730-1766
+flourished in Glasgow Alan the
+Coppersmith, who acts as a kind
+of a pin to the whole Stevenson
+system there. He was caution
+to Robert the Second&rsquo;s will,
+and to William&rsquo;s will, and to
+the will of a John, another
+maltman.</p></td>
+
+<td class="tc3" style="padding-left: 2em; vertical-align: top;">
+<p>III. <span class="sc">Robert</span> (Maltman in
+Glasgow), married
+Margaret Fulton (had
+a large family).</p>
+
+<p class="center">||</p>
+
+<p>IV. <span class="sc">Alan</span>, West India merchant,
+married Jean Lillie.</p>
+
+<p class="center">||</p>
+
+<p>V. <span class="sc">Robert</span>, married
+Jean Smith.</p>
+
+<div style="text-align: left; padding-left: 4em;">
+<img style="border:0; width:90px; height:31px"
+     src="images/img14.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>VI. <span class="sc">Alan</span>.&mdash;Margaret Jones.</p>
+
+<p style="padding-left: 3em;">|</p>
+
+<p>VII. R. A. M. S.</p></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>So much, though all inchoate, I trouble you with,
+knowing that you, at least, must take an interest in it.
+So much is certain of that strange Celtic descent, that the
+past has an interest for it apparently gratuitous, but
+fiercely strong. I wish to trace my ancestors a thousand
+years, if I trace them by gallowses. It is not love, not
+pride, not admiration; it is an expansion of the identity,
+intimately pleasing, and wholly uncritical; I can expend
+myself in the person of an inglorious ancestor with perfect
+comfort; or a disgraced, if I could find one. I suppose,
+perhaps, it is more to me who am childless, and refrain
+with a certain shock from looking forwards. But, I am
+sure, in the solid grounds of race, that you have it also
+in some degree.</p>
+
+<p>Enough genealogy. I do not know if you will be able
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page401"></a>401</span>
+to read my hand. Unhappily, Belle, who is my amanuensis,
+is out of the way on other affairs, and I have to
+make the unwelcome effort. (O this is beautiful, I am
+quite pleased with myself.) Graham has just arrived last
+night (my mother is coming by the other steamer in three
+days), and has told me of your meeting, and he said you
+looked a little older than I did; so that I suppose we keep
+step fairly on the downward side of the hill. He thought
+you looked harassed, and I could imagine that too. I
+sometimes feel harassed. I have a great family here about
+me, a great anxiety. The loss (to use my grandfather&rsquo;s
+expression), the &ldquo;loss&rdquo; of our family is that we are disbelievers
+in the morrow&mdash;perhaps I should say, rather,
+in next year. The future is <i>always</i> black to us; it was
+to Robert Stevenson; to Thomas; I suspect to Alan;
+to R. A. M. S. it was so almost to his ruin in youth; to
+R. L. S., who had a hard hopeful strain in him from his
+mother, it was not so much so once, but becomes daily
+more so. Daily so much more so, that I have a painful
+difficulty in believing I can ever finish another book, or
+that the public will ever read it.</p>
+
+<p>I have so huge a desire to know exactly what you are
+doing, that I suppose I should tell you what I am doing
+by way of an example. I have a room now, a part of the
+twelve-foot verandah sparred in, at the most inaccessible
+end of the house. Daily I see the sunrise out of my bed,
+which I still value as a tonic, a perpetual tuning fork, a
+look of God&rsquo;s face once in the day. At six my breakfast
+comes up to me here, and I work till eleven. If I am
+quite well, I sometimes go out and bathe in the river
+before lunch, twelve. In the afternoon I generally work
+again, now alone drafting, now with Belle dictating. Dinner
+is at six, and I am often in bed by eight. This is supposing
+me to stay at home. But I must often be away,
+sometimes all day long, sometimes till twelve, one, or two
+at night, when you might see me coming home to the
+sleeping house, sometimes in a trackless darkness, sometimes
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page402"></a>402</span>
+with a glorious tropic moon, everything drenched
+with dew&mdash;unsaddling and creeping to bed; and you
+would no longer be surprised that I live out in this country,
+and not in Bournemouth&mdash;in bed.</p>
+
+<p>My great recent interruptions have (as you know)
+come from politics; not much in my line, you will say.
+But it is impossible to live here and not feel very sorely
+the consequences of the horrid white mismanagement. I
+tried standing by and looking on, and it became too much
+for me. They are such illogical fools; a logical fool in
+an office, with a lot of red tape, is conceivable. Furthermore,
+he is as much as we have any reason to expect of
+officials&mdash;a thoroughly common-place, unintellectual lot.
+But these people are wholly on wires; laying their ears
+down, skimming away, pausing as though shot, and presto!
+full spread on the other tack. I observe in the official class
+mostly an insane jealousy of the smallest kind, as compared
+to which the artist&rsquo;s is of a grave, modest character&mdash;the
+actor&rsquo;s, even; a desire to extend his little authority,
+and to relish it like a glass of wine, that is <i>impayable</i>.
+Sometimes, when I see one of these little kings strutting
+over one of his victories&mdash;wholly illegal, perhaps, and
+certain to be reversed to his shame if his superiors
+ever heard of it&mdash;I could weep. The strange thing is that
+they <i>have nothing else</i>. I auscultate them in vain; no real
+sense of duty, no real comprehension, no real attempt to
+comprehend, no wish for information&mdash;you cannot offend
+one of them more bitterly than by offering information,
+though it is certain that you have <i>more</i>, and obvious that
+you have <i>other</i>, information than they have; and talking
+of policy, they could not play a better stroke than by
+listening to you, and it need by no means influence their
+action. <i>Tenez</i>, you know what a French post office or
+railway official is? That is the diplomatic card to the
+life. Dickens is not in it; caricature fails.</p>
+
+<p>All this keeps me from my work, and gives me the unpleasant
+side of the world. When your letters are disbelieved
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page403"></a>403</span>
+it makes you angry, and that is rot; and I wish
+I could keep out of it with all my soul. But I have just
+got into it again, and farewell peace!</p>
+
+<p>My work goes along but slowly. I have got to a crossing
+place, I suppose; the present book, <i>St. Ives</i>, is nothing;
+it is in no style in particular, a tissue of adventures, the
+central character not very well done, no philosophic pith
+under the yarn; and, in short, if people will read it, that&rsquo;s
+all I ask; and if they won&rsquo;t, damn them! I like doing
+it though; and if you ask me why! After that I am on
+<i>Weir of Hermiston</i> and <i>Heathercat</i>, two Scotch stories,
+which will either be something different, or I shall have
+failed. The first is generally designed, and is a private
+story of two or three characters in a very grim vein. The
+second&mdash;alas! the thought&mdash;is an attempt at a real historical
+novel, to present a whole field of time; the race&mdash;our
+own race&mdash;the west land and Clydesdale blue bonnets,
+under the influence of their last trial, when they got to a
+pitch of organisation in madness that no other peasantry
+has ever made an offer at. I was going to call it <i>The Killing
+Time</i>, but this man Crockett has forestalled me in that.
+Well, it&rsquo;ll be a big smash if I fail in it; but a gallant
+attempt. All my weary reading as a boy, which you
+remember well enough, will come to bear on it; and if
+my mind will keep up to the point it was in a while back,
+perhaps I can pull it through.</p>
+
+<p>For two months past, Fanny, Belle, Austin (her child),
+and I have been alone; but yesterday, as I mentioned,
+Graham Balfour arrived, and on Wednesday my mother
+and Lloyd will make up the party to its full strength. I
+wish you could drop in for a month or a week, or two
+hours. That is my chief want. On the whole, it is an
+unexpectedly pleasant corner I have dropped into for an
+end of it, which I could scarcely have foreseen from Wilson&rsquo;s
+shop, or the Princes Street Gardens, or the Portobello
+Road. Still, I would like to hear what my <i>alter ego</i>
+thought of it; and I would sometimes like to have my old
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page404"></a>404</span>
+<i>maître-čs-arts</i> express an opinion on what I do. I put
+this very tamely, being on the whole a quiet elderly man;
+but it is a strong passion with me, though intermittent.
+Now, try to follow my example and tell me something
+about yourself, Louisa, the Bab, and your work; and
+kindly send me some specimens of what you&rsquo;re about. I
+have only seen one thing by you, about Notre Dame in
+the Westminster or St. James&rsquo;s, since I left England, now
+I suppose six years ago.</p>
+
+<p>I have looked this trash over, and it is not at all the
+letter I wanted to write&mdash;not truck about officials, ancestors,
+and the like rancidness&mdash;but you have to let your
+pen go in its own broken-down gait, like an old butcher&rsquo;s
+pony, stop when it pleases, and go on again as it will.&mdash;Ever,
+my dear Bob, your affectionate cousin,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, June 18th, &rsquo;94.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;You are to please understand that
+my last letter is withdrawn unconditionally. You and
+Baxter are having all the trouble of this Edition, and I
+simply put myself in your hands for you to do what you
+like with me, and I am sure that will be the best, at any
+rate. Hence you are to conceive me withdrawing all
+objections to your printing anything you please. After
+all, it is a sort of family affair. About the Miscellany
+Section, both plans seem to me quite good. Toss up. I
+think the <i>Old Gardener</i> has to stay where I put him last.
+It would not do to separate John and Robert.</p>
+
+<p>In short, I am only sorry I ever uttered a word about
+the edition, and leave you to be the judge. I have had
+a vile cold which has prostrated me for more than a fortnight,
+and even now tears me nightly with spasmodic
+coughs; but it has been a great victory. I have never
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page405"></a>405</span>
+borne a cold with so little hurt; wait till the clouds blow
+by, before you begin to boast! I have had no fever; and
+though I&rsquo;ve been very unhappy, it is nigh over, I think.
+Of course, <i>St. Ives</i> has paid the penalty. I must not let
+you be disappointed in <i>St. I.</i> It is a mere tissue of adventures;
+the central figure not very well or very sharply
+drawn; no philosophy, no destiny, to it; some of the
+happenings very good in themselves, I believe, but none
+of them <i>bildende</i>, none of them constructive, except in so
+far perhaps as they make up a kind of sham picture of the
+time, all in italics and all out of drawing. Here and there,
+I think, it is well written; and here and there it&rsquo;s not.
+Some of the episodic characters are amusing, I do believe;
+others not, I suppose. However, they are the best of the
+thing such as it is. If it has a merit to it, I should say it
+was a sort of deliberation and swing to the style, which
+seems to me to suit the mail-coaches and post-chaises
+with which it sounds all through. &rsquo;Tis my most prosaic
+book.</p>
+
+<p>I called on the two German ships now in port, and we
+are quite friendly with them, and intensely friendly of
+course with our own <i>Curaçoas</i>. But it is other guess work
+on the beach. Some one has employed, or subsidised,
+one of the local editors to attack me once a week. He
+is pretty scurrilous and pretty false. The first effect of
+the perusal of the weekly Beast is to make me angry;
+the second is a kind of deep, golden content and glory,
+when I seem to say to people: &ldquo;See! this is my position&mdash;I
+am a plain man dwelling in the bush in a house, and
+behold they have to get up this kind of truck against me&mdash;and
+I have so much influence that they are obliged to
+write a weekly article to say I have none.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>By this time you must have seen Lysaght and forgiven
+me the letter that came not at all. He was really so nice
+a fellow&mdash;he had so much to tell me of Meredith&mdash;and
+the time was so short&mdash;that I gave up the intervening
+days between mails entirely to entertain him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page406"></a>406</span></p>
+
+<p>We go on pretty nicely. Fanny, Belle, and I have had
+two months alone, and it has been very pleasant. But
+by to-morrow or next day noon, we shall see the whole
+clan assembled again about Vailima table, which will be
+pleasant too; seven persons in all, and the Babel of voices
+will be heard again in the big hall so long empty and
+silent. Good-bye. Love to all. Time to close.&mdash;Yours
+ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Henry James</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, July 7th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,&mdash;I am going to try and dictate
+to you a letter or a note, and begin the same without any
+spark of hope, my mind being entirely in abeyance. This
+malady is very bitter on the literary man. I have had it
+now coming on for a month, and it seems to get worse
+instead of better. If it should prove to be softening of
+the brain, a melancholy interest will attach to the present
+document. I heard a great deal about you from my mother
+and Graham Balfour; the latter declares that you could
+take a First in any Samoan subject. If that be so, I
+should like to hear you on the theory of the constitution.
+Also to consult you on the force of the particles <i>o lo&rsquo;o</i> and
+<i>ua</i>, which are the subject of a dispute among local pundits.
+You might, if you ever answer this, give me your opinion
+on the origin of the Samoan race, just to complete the
+favour.</p>
+
+<p>They both say that you are looking well, and I suppose
+I may conclude from that that you are feeling passably.
+I wish I was. Do not suppose from this that I am ill in
+body; it is the numskull that I complain of. And when
+that is wrong, as you must be very keenly aware, you
+begin every day with a smarting disappointment, which is
+not good for the temper. I am in one of the humours
+when a man wonders how any one can be such an ass as
+to embrace the profession of letters, and not get apprenticed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page407"></a>407</span>
+to a barber or keep a baked-potato stall. But I
+have no doubt in the course of a week, or perhaps to-morrow,
+things will look better.</p>
+
+<p>We have at present in port the model warship of Great
+Britain. She is called the <i>Curaçoa</i>, and has the nicest set
+of officers and men conceivable. They, the officers, are
+all very intimate with us, and the front verandah is known
+as the Curaçoa Club, and the road up to Vailima is known
+as the Curaçoa Track. It was rather a surprise to me;
+many naval officers have I known, and somehow had not
+learned to think entirely well of them, and perhaps sometimes
+ask myself a little uneasily how that kind of men
+could do great actions? and behold! the answer comes
+to me, and I see a ship that I would guarantee to go anywhere
+it was possible for men to go, and accomplish anything
+it was permitted man to attempt. I had a cruise
+on board of her not long ago to Manu&rsquo;a, and was delighted.
+The goodwill of all on board; the grim playfulness of<a name="FnAnchor_77" href="#Footnote_77"><span class="sp">77</span></a>
+<span style="letter-spacing: 3em;">&nbsp;</span>quarters, with the wounded falling down at the
+word; the ambulances hastening up and carrying them
+away; the Captain suddenly crying, &ldquo;Fire in the ward-room!&rdquo;
+and the squad hastening forward with the hose;
+and, last and most curious spectacle of all, all the
+men in their dust-coloured fatigue clothes, at a note of
+the bugle, falling simultaneously flat on deck, and the
+ship proceeding with its prostrate crew&mdash;<i>quasi</i> to ram an
+enemy; our dinner at night in a wild open anchorage, the
+ship rolling almost to her gunwales, and showing us
+alternately her bulwarks up in the sky, and then the wild
+broken cliffy palm-crested shores of the island with the
+surf thundering and leaping close aboard. We had the
+ward-room mess on deck, lit by pink wax tapers, everybody,
+of course, in uniform but myself, and the first lieutenant
+(who is a rheumaticky body) wrapped in a boat
+cloak. Gradually the sunset faded out, the island disappeared
+from the eye, though it remained menacingly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page408"></a>408</span>
+present to the ear with the voice of the surf; and then
+the captain turned on the searchlight and gave us the
+coast, the beach, the trees, the native houses, and the
+cliffs by glimpses of daylight, a kind of deliberate lightning.
+About which time, I suppose, we must have come
+as far as the dessert, and were probably drinking our
+first glass of port to Her Majesty. We stayed two days
+at the island, and had, in addition, a very picturesque
+snapshot at the native life. The three islands of Manu&rsquo;a
+are independent, and are ruled over by a little slip of a
+half-caste girl about twenty, who sits all day in a pink
+gown, in a little white European house with about a
+quarter of an acre of roses in front of it, looking at the
+palm-trees on the village street, and listening to the surf.
+This, so far as I could discover, was all she had to do.
+&ldquo;This is a very dull place,&rdquo; she said. It appears she
+could go to no other village for fear of raising the jealousy
+of her own people in the capital. And as for going
+about &ldquo;tafatafaoing,&rdquo; as we say here, its cost was too
+enormous. A strong able-bodied native must walk in front
+of her and blow the conch shell continuously from the
+moment she leaves one house until the moment she enters
+another. Did you ever blow the conch shell? I presume
+not; but the sweat literally hailed off that man, and I
+expected every moment to see him burst a blood-vessel.
+We were entertained to kava in the guest-house with
+some very original features. The young men who run for
+the <i>kava</i> have a right to misconduct themselves <i>ad libitum</i>
+on the way back; and though they were told to restrain
+themselves on the occasion of our visit, there was a strange
+hurly-burly at their return, when they came beating the
+trees and the posts of the houses, leaping, shouting, and
+yelling like Bacchants.</p>
+
+<p>I tasted on that occasion what it is to be great. My
+name was called next after the captain&rsquo;s, and several
+chiefs (a thing quite new to me, and not at all Samoan
+practice) drank to me by name.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page409"></a>409</span></p>
+
+<p>And now, if you are not sick of the <i>Curaçoa</i> and Manu&rsquo;a,
+I am, at least on paper. And I decline any longer to give
+you examples of how not to write.</p>
+
+<p>By the by, you sent me long ago a work by Anatole
+France, which I confess I did not <i>taste</i>. Since then I have
+made the acquaintance of the <i>Abbé Coignard</i>, and have
+become a faithful adorer. I don&rsquo;t think a better book
+was ever written.</p>
+
+<p>And I have no idea what I have said, and I have no
+idea what I ought to have said, and I am a total ass, but
+my heart is in the right place, and I am, my dear Henry
+James, yours,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Marcel Schwob</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, July 7, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. MARCEL SCHWOB</span>,&mdash;Thank you for having
+remembered me in my exile. I have read <i>Mimes</i> twice
+as a whole; and now, as I write, I am reading it again
+as it were by accident, and a piece at a time, my eye catching
+a word and travelling obediently on through the whole
+number. It is a graceful book, essentially graceful, with
+its haunting agreeable melancholy, its pleasing savoury of
+antiquity. At the same time, by its merits, it shows
+itself rather as the promise of something else to come than
+a thing final in itself. You have yet to give us&mdash;and I am
+expecting it with impatience&mdash;something of a larger gait;
+something daylit, not twilit; something with the colours
+of life, not the flat tints of a temple illumination; something
+that shall be <i>said</i> with all the clearnesses and the
+trivialities of speech, not <i>sung</i> like a semi-articulate lullaby.
+It will not please yourself as well, when you come to give
+it us, but it will please others better. It will be more of
+a whole, more worldly, more nourished, more commonplace&mdash;and
+not so pretty, perhaps not even so beautiful.
+No man knows better than I that, as we go on in life, we
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page410"></a>410</span>
+must part from prettiness and the graces. We but attain
+qualities to lose them; life is a series of farewells, even in
+art; even our proficiencies are deciduous and evanescent.
+So here with these exquisite pieces the <span class="sc">XVII</span>th, <span class="sc">XVIII</span>th, and
+<span class="sc">IV</span>th of the present collection. You will perhaps never
+excel them; I should think the &ldquo;Hermes,&rdquo; never. Well,
+you will do something else, and of that I am in expectation.&mdash;Yours
+cordially,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To A. St. Gaudens</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, July 8, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS</span>,&mdash;This is to tell you that the
+medallion has been at last triumphantly transported up
+the hill and placed over my smoking-room mantelpiece.
+It is considered by everybody a first-rate but flattering
+portrait. We have it in a very good light, which brings
+out the artistic merits of the god-like sculptor to great
+advantage. As for my own opinion, I believe it to be a
+speaking likeness, and not flattered at all; possibly a
+little the reverse. The verses (curse the rhyme) look
+remarkably well.</p>
+
+<p>Please do not longer delay, but send me an account
+for the expense of the gilt letters. I was sorry indeed
+that they proved beyond the means of a small farmer.&mdash;Yours
+very sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, July 14, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR ADELAIDE</span>,&mdash;... So, at last, you are going
+into mission work? where I think your heart always was.
+You will like it in a way, but remember it is dreary long.
+Do you know the story of the American tramp who was
+offered meals and a day&rsquo;s wage to chop with the back of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page411"></a>411</span>
+an axe on a fallen trunk. &ldquo;Damned if I can go on chopping
+when I can&rsquo;t see the chips fly!&rdquo; You will never
+see the chips fly in mission work, never; and be sure you
+know it beforehand. The work is one long dull disappointment,
+varied by acute revulsions; and those who
+are by nature courageous and cheerful, and have grown
+old in experience, learn to rub their hands over infinitesimal
+successes. However, as I really believe there is some
+good done in the long run&mdash;<i>gutta cavat lapidem non
+vi</i> in this business&mdash;it is a useful and honourable career
+in which no one should be ashamed to embark. Always
+remember the fable of the sun, the storm, and the traveller&rsquo;s
+cloak. Forget wholly and for ever all small pruderies, and
+remember that <i>you cannot change ancestral feelings of right
+and wrong without what is practically soul-murder</i>. Barbarous
+as the customs may seem, always hear them with
+patience, always judge them with gentleness, always find
+in them some seed of good; see that you always develop
+them; remember that all you can do is to civilise the
+man in the line of his own civilisation, such as it is. And
+never expect, never believe in, thaumaturgic conversions.
+They may do very well for St. Paul; in the case of an
+Andaman islander they mean less than nothing. In fact,
+what you have to do is to teach the parents in the interests
+of their great-grandchildren.</p>
+
+<p>Now, my dear Adelaide, dismiss from your mind the
+least idea of fault upon your side; nothing is further
+from the fact. I cannot forgive you, for I do not know
+your fault. My own is plain enough, and the name of it
+is cold-hearted neglect; and you may busy yourself more
+usefully in trying to forgive me. But ugly as my fault is,
+you must not suppose it to mean more than it does; it
+does not mean that we have at all forgotten you, that we
+have become at all indifferent to the thought of you.
+See, in my life of Jenkin, a remark of his, very well expressed,
+on the friendships of men who do not write to
+each other. I can honestly say that I have not changed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page412"></a>412</span>
+to you in any way; though I have behaved thus ill, thus
+cruelly. Evil is done by want of&mdash;well, principally by
+want of industry. You can imagine what I would say (in
+a novel) of any one who had behaved as I have done.
+<i>Deteriora sequor</i>. And you must somehow manage to forgive
+your old friend; and if you will be so very good,
+continue to give us news of you, and let us share the knowledge
+of your adventures, sure that it will be always followed
+with interest&mdash;even if it is answered with the silence of
+ingratitude. For I am not a fool; I know my faults, I
+know they are ineluctable, I know they are growing on
+me. I know I may offend again, and I warn you of it.
+But the next time I offend, tell me so plainly and frankly
+like a lady, and don&rsquo;t lacerate my heart and bludgeon my
+vanity with imaginary faults of your own and purely
+gratuitous penance. I might suspect you of irony!</p>
+
+<p>We are all fairly well, though I have been off work
+and off&mdash;as you know very well&mdash;letter-writing. Yet I
+have sometimes more than twenty letters, and sometimes
+more than thirty, going out each mail. And Fanny has
+had a most distressing bronchitis for some time, which
+she is only now beginning to get over. I have just been
+to see her; she is lying&mdash;though she had breakfast an
+hour ago, about seven&mdash;in her big cool, mosquito-proof
+room, ingloriously asleep. As for me, you see that a doom
+has come upon me: I cannot make marks with a pen&mdash;witness
+&ldquo;ingloriously&rdquo; above; and my amanuensis not
+appearing so early in the day, for she is then immersed
+in household affairs, and I can hear her &ldquo;steering the
+boys&rdquo; up and down the verandahs&mdash;you must decipher
+this unhappy letter for yourself and, I fully admit, with
+everything against you. A letter should be always well
+written; how much more a letter of apology! Legibility
+is the politeness of men of letters, as punctuality of kings
+and beggars. By the punctuality of my replies, and the
+beauty of my hand-writing, judge what a fine conscience
+I must have!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page413"></a>413</span></p>
+
+<p>Now, my dear gamekeeper, I must really draw to a
+close. For I have much else to write before the mail goes
+out three days hence. Fanny being asleep, it would not
+be conscientious to invent a message from her, so you
+must just imagine her sentiments. I find I have not the
+heart to speak of your recent loss. You remember perhaps,
+when my father died, you told me those ugly images of
+sickness, decline, and impaired reason, which then haunted
+me day and night, would pass away and be succeeded by
+things more happily characteristic. I have found it so.
+He now haunts me, strangely enough, in two guises; as
+a man of fifty, lying on a hillside and carving mottoes on
+a stick, strong and well; and as a younger man, running
+down the sands into the sea near North Berwick, myself&mdash;<i>ćtat.
+11</i>&mdash;somewhat horrified at finding him so beautiful
+when stripped! I hand on your own advice to you in
+case you have forgotten it, as I know one is apt to do in
+seasons of bereavement.&mdash;Ever yours, with much love and
+sympathy,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Mrs. A. Baker</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>This refers again to the printing of some of his books in Braille
+type for the blind.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, July 16, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MRS. BAKER</span>,&mdash;I am very much obliged to you
+for your letter and the enclosure from Mr. Skinner. Mr.
+Skinner says he &ldquo;thinks Mr. Stevenson must be a very
+kind man&rdquo;; he little knows me. But I am very sure of
+one thing, that you are a very kind woman. I envy you&mdash;my
+amanuensis being called away, I continue in my own
+hand, or what is left of it&mdash;unusually legible, I am thankful
+to see&mdash;I envy you your beautiful choice of an employment.
+There must be no regrets at least for a day so
+spent; and when the night falls you need ask no blessing
+on your work. &ldquo;Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one
+of these.&rdquo;&mdash;Yours truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page414"></a>414</span></p>
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>July, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;I have to thank you this time for
+a very good letter, and will announce for the future, though
+I cannot now begin to put in practice, good intentions for
+our correspondence. I will try to return to the old system
+and write from time to time during the month; but truly
+you did not much encourage me to continue! However,
+that is all by-past. I do not know that there is much in
+your letter that calls for answer. Your questions about
+<i>St. Ives</i> were practically answered in my last; so were your
+wails about the edition, <i>Amateur Emigrant</i>, etc. By the end
+of the year <i>St. I.</i> will be practically finished, whatever it be
+worth, and that I know not. When shall I receive proofs
+of the Magnum Opus? or shall I receive them at all?</p>
+
+<p>The return of the Amanuensis feebly lightens my heart.
+You can see the heavy weather I was making of it with
+my unaided pen. The last month has been particularly
+cheery largely owing to the presence of our good friends
+the Curaçoas. She is really a model ship, charming officers
+and charming seamen. They gave a ball last month, which
+was very rackety and joyous and naval....</p>
+
+<p>On the following day, about one o&rsquo;clock, three horsemen
+might have been observed approaching Vailima, who
+gradually resolved themselves into two petty officers and
+a native guide. Drawing himself up and saluting, the
+spokesman (a corporal of Marines) addressed me thus.
+&ldquo;Me and my shipmates inwites Mr. and Mrs. Stevens,
+Mrs. Strong, Mr. Austin, and Mr. Balfour to a ball to be
+given to-night in the self-same &rsquo;all.&rdquo; It was of course
+impossible to refuse, though I contented myself with
+putting in a very brief appearance. One glance was
+sufficient; the ball went off like a rocket from the start.
+I had only time to watch Belle careering around with a
+gallant bluejacket of exactly her own height&mdash;the standard
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page415"></a>415</span>
+of the British navy&mdash;an excellent dancer and conspicuously
+full of small-talk&mdash;and to hear a remark from a beach-comber,
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nice sight this some way, to see the officers
+dancing like this with the men, but I tell you, sir, these are
+the men that&rsquo;ll fight together!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I tell you, Colvin, the acquaintance of the men&mdash;and
+boys&mdash;makes me feel patriotic. Eeles in particular is a
+man whom I respect. I am half in a mind to give him a
+letter of introduction to you when he goes home. In case
+you feel inclined to make a little of him, give him a dinner,
+ask Henry James to come to meet him, etc.&mdash;you might let
+me know. I don&rsquo;t know that he would show his best, but he
+is a remarkably fine fellow, in every department of life.</p>
+
+<p>We have other visitors in port. A Count Festetics de
+Tolna, an Austrian officer, a very pleasant, simple, boyish
+creature, with his young wife, daughter of an American
+millionaire; he is a friend of our own Captain Wurmbrand,
+and it is a great pity Wurmbrand is away.</p>
+
+<p>Glad you saw and liked Lysaght. He has left in our
+house a most cheerful and pleasing memory, as a good,
+pleasant, brisk fellow with good health and brains, and
+who enjoys himself and makes other people happy. I am
+glad he gave you a good report of our surroundings and
+way of life; but I knew he would, for I believe he had a
+glorious time&mdash;and gave one.<a name="FnAnchor_78" href="#Footnote_78"><span class="sp">78</span></a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page416"></a>416</span></p>
+
+<p>I am on fair terms with the two Treaty officials, though
+all such intimacies are precarious; with the consuls, I
+need not say, my position is deplorable. The President
+(Herr Emil Schmidt) is a rather dreamy man, whom I
+like. Lloyd, Graham and I go to breakfast with him to-morrow;
+the next day the whole party of us lunch on the
+<i>Curaçoa</i> and go in the evening to a <i>Bierabend</i> at Dr. Funk&rsquo;s.
+We are getting up a paper-chase for the following week
+with some of the young German clerks, and have in view
+a sort of child&rsquo;s party for grown-up persons with kissing
+games, etc., here at Vailima. Such is the gay scene in
+which we move. Now I have done something, though
+not as much as I wanted, to give you an idea of how we
+are getting on, and I am keenly conscious that there are
+other letters to do before the mail goes.&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To J. M. Barrie</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, July 13, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BARRIE</span>,&mdash;This is the last effort of an ulcerated
+conscience. I have been so long owing you a letter,
+I have heard so much of you, fresh from the press, from
+my mother and Graham Balfour, that I have to write a
+letter no later than to-day, or perish in my shame. But
+the deuce of it is, my dear fellow, that you write such a
+very good letter that I am ashamed to exhibit myself
+before my junior (which you are, after all) in the light of
+the dreary idiot I feel. Understand that there will be
+nothing funny in the following pages. If I can manage
+to be rationally coherent, I shall be more than satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, I have had the extreme satisfaction
+to be shown that photograph of your mother. It bears
+evident traces of the hand of an amateur. How is it that
+amateurs invariably take better photographs than professionals?
+I must qualify invariably. My own negatives
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page417"></a>417</span>
+have always represented a province of chaos and
+old night in which you might dimly perceive fleecy spots
+of twilight, representing nothing; so that, if I am right
+in supposing the portrait of your mother to be yours, I
+must salute you as my superior. Is that your mother&rsquo;s
+breakfast? Or is it only afternoon tea? If the first, do
+let me recommend to Mrs. Barrie to add an egg to her
+ordinary. Which, if you please, I will ask her to eat to
+the honour of her son, and I am sure she will live much
+longer for it, to enjoy his fresh successes. I never in my
+life saw anything more deliciously characteristic. I declare
+I can hear her speak. I wonder my mother could resist
+the temptation of your proposed visit to Kirriemuir, which
+it was like your kindness to propose. By the way, I was
+twice in Kirriemuir, I believe in the year &rsquo;71, when I was
+going on a visit to Glenogil. It was Kirriemuir, was it
+not? I have a distinct recollection of an inn at the end&mdash;I
+think the upper end&mdash;of an irregular open place or
+square, in which I always see your characters evolve.
+But, indeed, I did not pay much attention; being all
+bent upon my visit to a shooting-box, where I should fish
+a real trout-stream, and I believe preserved. I did, too,
+and it was a charming stream, clear as crystal, without a
+trace of peat&mdash;a strange thing in Scotland&mdash;and alive
+with trout; the name of it I cannot remember, it was
+something like the Queen&rsquo;s River, and in some hazy way
+connected with memories of Mary Queen of Scots. It
+formed an epoch in my life, being the end of all my trout-fishing.
+I had always been accustomed to pause and very
+laboriously to kill every fish as I took it. But in the
+Queen&rsquo;s River I took so good a basket that I forgot these
+niceties; and when I sat down, in a hard rain shower,
+under a bank, to take my sandwiches and sherry, lo! and
+behold, there was the basketful of trouts still kicking in
+their agony.</p>
+
+<p>I had a very unpleasant conversation with my conscience.
+All that afternoon I persevered in fishing, brought
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page418"></a>418</span>
+home my basket in triumph, and sometime that night,
+&ldquo;in the wee sma&rsquo; hours ayont the twal,&rdquo; I finally forswore
+the gentle craft of fishing. I dare say your local knowledge
+may identify this historic river; I wish it could go
+farther and identify also that particular Free kirk in
+which I sat and groaned on Sunday. While my hand is
+in I must tell you a story. At that antique epoch you must
+not fall into the vulgar error that I was myself ancient.
+I was, on the contrary, very young, very green, and (what
+you will appreciate, Mr. Barrie) very shy. There came
+one day to lunch at the house two very formidable old
+ladies&mdash;or one very formidable, and the other what you
+please&mdash;answering to the honoured and historic name of
+the Miss C&mdash;&mdash; A&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo;s of Balnamoon. At table I was
+exceedingly funny, and entertained the company with tales
+of geese and bubbly-jocks. I was great in the expression
+of my terror for these bipeds, and suddenly this horrid,
+severe, and eminently matronly old lady put up a pair
+of gold eye-glasses, looked at me awhile in silence, and
+pronounced in a clangorous voice her verdict. &ldquo;You give
+me very much the effect of a coward, Mr. Stevenson!&rdquo;
+I had very nearly left two vices behind me at Glenogil&mdash;fishing
+and jesting at table. And of one thing you
+may be very sure, my lips were no more opened at that
+meal.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 29th.</i>&mdash;No, Barrie, &rsquo;tis in vain they try to alarm
+me with their bulletins. No doubt, you&rsquo;re ill, and unco
+ill, I believe; but I have been so often in the same case
+that I know pleurisy and pneumonia are in vain against
+Scotsmen who can write. (I once could.) You cannot
+imagine probably how near me this common calamity
+brings you. <i>Ce que j&rsquo;ai toussé dans ma vie!</i> How often
+and how long have I been on the rack at night and learned
+to appreciate that noble passage in the Psalms when
+somebody or other is said to be more set on something
+than they &ldquo;who dig for hid treasures&mdash;yea, than those
+who long for the morning&rdquo;&mdash;for all the world, as you have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page419"></a>419</span>
+been racked and you have longed. Keep your heart up,
+and you&rsquo;ll do. Tell that to your mother, if you are still
+in any danger or suffering. And by the way, if you are
+at all like me&mdash;and I tell myself you are very like
+me&mdash;be sure there is only one thing good for you, and
+that is the sea in hot climates. Mount, sir, into &ldquo;a little
+frigot&rdquo; of 5000 tons or so, and steer peremptorily for the
+tropics; and what if the ancient mariner, who guides your
+frigot, should startle the silence of the ocean with the
+cry of land ho!&mdash;say, when the day is dawning&mdash;and you
+should see the turquoise mountain tops of Upolu coming
+hand over fist above the horizon? Mr. Barrie, sir, &rsquo;tis
+then there would be larks! And though I cannot be certain
+that our climate would suit you (for it does not suit
+some), I am sure as death the voyage would do you good&mdash;would
+do you <i>Best</i>&mdash;and if Samoa didn&rsquo;t do, you needn&rsquo;t
+stay beyond the month, and I should have had another
+pleasure in my life, which is a serious consideration for
+me. I take this as the hand of the Lord preparing your
+way to Vailima&mdash;in the desert, certainly&mdash;in the desert of
+Cough and by the ghoul-haunted woodland of Fever&mdash;but
+whither that way points there can be no question&mdash;and
+there will be a meeting of the twa Hoasting Scots
+Makers in spite of fate, fortune and the Devil. <i>Absit
+omen!</i></p>
+
+<p>My dear Barrie, I am a little in the dark about this
+new work of yours:<a name="FnAnchor_79" href="#Footnote_79"><span class="sp">79</span></a> what is to become of me afterwards?
+You say carefully&mdash;methought anxiously&mdash;that I was no
+longer me when I grew up? I cannot bear this suspense:
+what is it? It&rsquo;s no forgery? And <span class="sc">AM I HANGIT</span>? These
+are the elements of a very pretty lawsuit which you had
+better come to Samoa to compromise. I am enjoying a
+great pleasure that I had long looked forward to, reading
+Orme&rsquo;s <i>History of Indostan</i>; I had been looking out for
+it everywhere; but at last, in four volumes, large quarto,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page420"></a>420</span>
+beautiful type and page, and with a delectable set of maps
+and plans, and all the names of the places wrongly spelled&mdash;it
+came to Samoa, little Barrie. I tell you frankly, you
+had better come soon. I am sair failed a&rsquo;ready; and
+what I may be if you continue to dally, I dread
+to conceive. I may be speechless; already, or at
+least for a month or so, I&rsquo;m little better than a teetoller&mdash;I
+beg pardon, a teetotaller. It is not exactly
+physical, for I am in good health, working four or five
+hours a day in my plantation, and intending to ride a
+paper-chase next Sunday&mdash;ay, man, that&rsquo;s a fact, and I
+havena had the hert to breathe it to my mother yet&mdash;the
+obligation&rsquo;s poleetical, for I am trying every
+means to live well with my German neighbours&mdash;and,
+O Barrie, but it&rsquo;s no easy!... To be sure, there
+are many exceptions. And the whole of the above
+must be regarded as private&mdash;strictly private. Breathe
+it not in Kirriemuir: tell it not to the daughters of
+Dundee! What a nice extract this would make for the
+daily papers! and how it would facilitate my position
+here!</p>
+
+<p><i>August 5th.</i>&mdash;This is Sunday, the Lord&rsquo;s Day. &ldquo;The
+hour of attack approaches.&rdquo; And it is a singular consideration
+what I risk; I may yet be the subject of a tract,
+and a good tract too&mdash;such as one which I remember
+reading with recreant awe and rising hair in my youth, of
+a boy who was a very good boy, and went to Sunday Schule,
+and one day kipped from it, and went and actually bathed,
+and was dashed over a waterfall, and he was the only son
+of his mother, and she was a widow. A dangerous trade,
+that, and one that I have to practise. I&rsquo;ll put in a word
+when I get home again, to tell you whether I&rsquo;m killed or
+not. &ldquo;Accident in the (Paper) Hunting Field: death of
+a notorious author. We deeply regret to announce the
+death of the most unpopular man in Samoa, who broke his
+neck, at the descent of Magiagi, from the misconduct of
+his little raving lunatic of an old beast of a pony. It is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page421"></a>421</span>
+proposed to commemorate the incident by the erection
+of a suitable pile. The design (by our local architect,
+Mr. Walker) is highly artificial, with a rich and voluminous
+Crockett at each corner, a small but impervious Barričer
+at the entrance, an arch at the top, an Archer of a pleasing
+but solid character at the bottom; the colour will be
+genuine William-Black; and Lang, lang may the ladies
+sit wi&rsquo; their fans in their hands.&rdquo; Well, well, they may
+sit as they sat for me, and little they&rsquo;ll reck, the ungrateful
+jauds! Muckle they cared about Tusitala when they
+had him! But now ye can see the difference; now
+leddies, ye can repent, when ower late, o&rsquo; your former
+cauldness and what ye&rsquo;ll perhaps allow me to ca&rsquo; your
+<i>tepeedity</i>! He was beautiful as the day, but his day is
+done! And perhaps, as he was maybe gettin&rsquo; a wee thing
+fly-blown, it&rsquo;s nane too shüne.</p>
+
+<p><i>Monday, August 6th.</i>&mdash;Well, sir, I have escaped the
+dangerous conjunction of the widow&rsquo;s only son and the
+Sabbath Day. We had a most enjoyable time, and Lloyd
+and I were 3 and 4 to arrive; I will not tell here what
+interval had elapsed between our arrival and the arrival
+of 1 and 2; the question, sir, is otiose and malign; it
+deserves, it shall have no answer. And now without
+further delay to the main purpose of this hasty note. We
+received and we have already in fact distributed the
+gorgeous fahbrics of Kirriemuir. Whether from the splendour
+of the robes themselves, or from the direct nature of
+the compliments with which you had directed us to accompany
+the presentations, one young lady blushed as she
+received the proofs of your munificence.... Bad ink,
+and the dregs of it at that, but the heart in the right place.
+Still very cordially interested in my Barrie and wishing
+him well through his sickness, which is of the body, and
+long defended from mine, which is of the head, and by
+the impolite might be described as idiocy. The whole
+head is useless, and the whole sitting part painful: reason,
+the recent Paper Chase.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page422"></a>422</span></p>
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>There was racing and chasing in Vailele plantation,</p>
+    <p class="i2">And vastly we enjoyed it,</p>
+<p>But, alas! for the state of my foundation,</p>
+    <p class="i2">For it wholly has destroyed it.</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Come, my mind is looking up. The above is wholly
+impromptu.&mdash;On oath,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Tusitala.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The missionary view of the Sunday paper-chase, with an account
+of Stevenson&rsquo;s apologies to the ladies and gentlemen of the mission,
+have been printed by Mr. W. E. Clarke in the Chronicle of the London
+Missionary Society for April and May 1908.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>Aug. 7th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;This is to inform you, sir, that on
+Sunday last (and this is Tuesday) I attained my ideal here,
+and we had a paper-chase in Vailele Plantation, about
+15 miles, I take it, from us; and it was all that could be
+wished. It is really better fun than following the hounds,
+since you have to be your own hound, and a precious bad
+hound I was, following every false scent on the whole
+course to the bitter end; but I came in 3rd at the last
+on my little Jack, who stuck to it gallantly, and awoke
+the praises of some discriminating persons. (5 + 7 + 2&frac12;
+= 14&frac12; miles; yes, that is the count.) We had quite the
+old sensations of exhilaration, discovery, an appeal to a
+savage instinct; and I felt myself about 17 again, a
+pleasant experience. However, it was on the Sabbath
+Day, and I am now a pariah among the English, as if I
+needed any increment of unpopularity. I must not go
+again; it gives so much unnecessary tribulation to poor
+people, and, sure, we don&rsquo;t want to make tribulation. I
+have been forbidden to work, and have been instead
+doing my two or three hours in the plantation every morning.
+I only wish somebody would pay me Ł10 a day for
+taking care of cacao, and I could leave literature to others.
+Certainly, if I have plenty of exercise, and no work, I feel
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page423"></a>423</span>
+much better; but there is Biles the butcher! him we have
+always with us.</p>
+
+<p>I do not much like novels, I begin to think, but I am
+enjoying exceedingly Orme&rsquo;s <i>History of Hindostan</i>, a lovely
+book in its way, in large quarto, with a quantity of maps,
+and written in a very lively and solid eighteenth century
+way, never picturesque except by accident and from a kind
+of conviction, and a fine sense of order. No historian I
+have ever read is so minute; yet he never gives you a
+word about the people; his interest is entirely limited
+in the concatenation of events, into which he goes with a
+lucid, almost superhuman, and wholly ghostly gusto.
+&ldquo;By the ghost of a mathematician&rdquo; the book might be
+announced. A very brave, honest book.</p>
+
+<p>Your letter to hand.</p>
+
+<p>Fact is, I don&rsquo;t like the picter.<a name="FnAnchor_80" href="#Footnote_80"><span class="sp">80</span></a> O, it&rsquo;s a good picture,
+but if you <i>ask</i> me, you know, I believe, stoutly believe,
+that mankind, including you, are going mad. I am not
+in the midst with the other frenzy dancers, so I don&rsquo;t catch
+it wholly; and when you show me a thing&mdash;and ask me,
+don&rsquo;t you know&mdash;Well, well! Glad to get so good an
+account of the <i>Amateur Emigrant</i>. Talking of which, I am
+strong for making a volume out of selections from the South
+Sea letters; I read over again the King of Apemama, and
+it is good in spite of your teeth, and a real curiosity, a
+thing that can never be seen again, and the group is annexed
+and Tembinoka dead. I wonder, couldn&rsquo;t you send out
+to me the <i>first</i> five Butaritari letters and the Low Archipelago
+ones (both of which I have lost or mislaid) and I
+can chop out a perfectly fair volume of what I wish to
+be preserved. It can keep for the last of the series.</p>
+
+<p><i>Travels and Excursions</i>, vol. <span class="sc">II.</span> Should it not include
+a paper on S. F. from the Mag. of Art? The A. E., the
+New Pacific capital, the Old ditto. <i>Silver.</i> <i>Squat.</i> This
+would give all my works on the States; and though it
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page424"></a>424</span>
+ain&rsquo;t very good, it&rsquo;s not so very bad. <i>Travels and Excursions</i>,
+vol. <span class="sc">III.</span>, to be these resuscitated letters&mdash;<i>Miscellanies</i>,
+vol. <span class="sc">II.</span>&mdash;<i>comme vous voudrez, cher monsieur!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Monday, Aug. 13th.</i>&mdash;I have a sudden call to go up
+the coast and must hurry up with my information. There
+has suddenly come to our naval commanders the need of
+action, they&rsquo;re away up the coast bombarding the Atua
+rebels. All morning on Saturday the sound of the bombardment
+of Luatuanu&rsquo;u kept us uneasy. To-day again
+the big guns have been sounding further along the coast.
+One delicious circumstance must not be forgotten. Our
+blessed President of the Council&mdash;a kind of hoary-headed
+urchin, with the dim, timid eyes of extreme childhood and
+a kind of beautiful simplicity that endears him to me
+beyond words&mdash;has taken the head of the army&mdash;honour
+to him for it, for his place is really there&mdash;and gone up the
+coast in the congenial company of his housekeeper, a woman
+coming on for sixty with whom he takes his walks abroad
+in the morning in his shirt-sleeves, whom he reads to at
+night (in a kind of Popular History of Germany) in the
+silence of the Presidential mansion, and with whom (and
+a couple of camp stools) he walked out last Sunday to
+behold the paper-chase. I cannot tell you how taken I am
+with this exploit of the President&rsquo;s and the housekeeper&rsquo;s.
+It is like Don Quixote, but infinitely superior. If I could
+only do it without offence, what a subject it would make!</p>
+
+<p>To-morrow morning early I am off up the coast myself.
+Therefore you must allow me to break off here
+without further ceremony.&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Dr. Bakewell</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following is to a physician in Australia.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, August 7, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR DR. BAKEWELL</span>,&mdash;I am not more than human.
+I am more human than is wholly convenient, and your
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page425"></a>425</span>
+anecdote was welcome. What you say about <i>unwilling
+work</i>, my dear sir, is a consideration always present with
+me, and yet not easy to give its due weight to. You
+grow gradually into a certain income; without spending
+a penny more, with the same sense of restriction as before
+when you painfully scraped two hundred a year together,
+you find you have spent, and you cannot well stop spending,
+a far larger sum; and this expense can only be supported
+by a certain production. However, I am off work
+this month, and occupy myself instead in weeding my
+cacao, paper-chases, and the like. I may tell you, my
+average of work in favourable circumstances is far greater
+than you suppose: from six o&rsquo;clock till eleven at latest,<a name="FnAnchor_81" href="#Footnote_81"><span class="sp">81</span></a>
+and often till twelve, and again in the afternoon from
+two to four. My hand is quite destroyed, as you may
+perceive, to-day to a really unusual extent. I can sometimes
+write a decent fist still; but I have just returned
+with my arms all stung from three hours&rsquo; work in the
+cacao.&mdash;Yours, etc.,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To James Payn</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Upolu, Samoa</i> [<i>August 11, 1894</i>].</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR JAMES PAYN</span>,&mdash;I hear from Lang that you
+are unwell, and it reminds me of two circumstances:
+First, that it is a very long time since you had the exquisite
+pleasure of hearing from me; and second, that I have
+been very often unwell myself and sometimes had to
+thank you for a grateful anodyne.</p>
+
+<p>They are not good, the circumstances, to write an
+anodyne letter. The hills and my house at less than
+(boom) a minute&rsquo;s interval quake with thunder; and
+though I cannot hear that part of it, shells are falling
+thick into the fort of Luatuanu&rsquo;u (boom). It is my friends
+of the <i>Curaçoa</i>, the <i>Falke</i>, and the <i>Bussard</i> bombarding
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page426"></a>426</span>
+(after all these&mdash;boom&mdash;months) the rebels of Atua.
+(Boom-boom.) It is most distracting in itself; and the
+thought of the poor devils in their fort (boom) with their
+bits of rifles far from pleasant. (Boom-boom.) You can
+see how quick it goes, and I&rsquo;ll say no more about Mr.
+Bow-wow, only you must understand the perpetual
+accompaniment of this discomfortable sound, and make
+allowances for the value of my copy. It is odd, though,
+I can well remember, when the Franco-Prussian war
+began, and I was in Eilean Earraid, far enough from the
+sound of the loudest cannonade, I could <i>hear</i> the shots
+fired, and I felt the pang in my breast of a man struck.
+It was sometimes so distressing, so instant, that I lay in
+the heather on the top of the island, with my face hid,
+kicking my heels for agony. And now, when I can hear
+the actual concussion of the air and hills, when I <i>know</i>
+personally the people who stand exposed to it, I am able
+to go on <i>taut bien que mal</i> with a letter to James Payn!
+The blessings of age, though mighty small, are tangible.
+I have heard a great deal of them since I came into the
+world, and now that I begin to taste of them&mdash;Well!
+But this is one, that people do get cured of the excess
+of sensibility; and I had as lief these people were shot
+at as myself&mdash;or almost, for then I should have some of
+the fun, such as it is.</p>
+
+<p>You are to conceive me, then, sitting in my little
+gallery room, shaken by these continual spasms of cannon,
+and with my eye more or less singly fixed on the imaginary
+figure of my dear James Payn. I try to see him in bed;
+no go. I see him instead jumping up in his room in Waterloo
+Place (where <i>ex hypothesi</i> he is not), sitting on the
+table, drawing out a very black briar-root pipe, and
+beginning to talk to a slim and ill-dressed visitor in a
+voice that is good to hear and with a smile that is pleasant
+to see. (After a little more than half an hour, the voice
+that was ill to hear has ceased, the cannonade is over.)
+And I am thinking how I can get an answering smile
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page427"></a>427</span>
+wafted over so many leagues of land and water, and can
+find no way.</p>
+
+<p>I have always been a great visitor of the sick; and
+one of the sick I visited was W. E. Henley, which did
+not make very tedious visits, so I&rsquo;ll not get off much
+purgatory for them. That was in the Edinburgh Infirmary,
+the old one, the true one, with Georgius Secundus standing
+and pointing his toe in a niche of the façade; and a
+mighty fine building it was! And I remember one winter&rsquo;s
+afternoon, in that place of misery, that Henley and I
+chanced to fall in talk about James Payn himself. I am
+wishing you could have heard that talk! I think that
+would make you smile. We had mixed you up with
+John Payne, for one thing, and stood amazed at your
+extraordinary, even painful, versatility; and for another,
+we found ourselves each students so well prepared for
+examinations on the novels of the real Mackay. Perhaps,
+after all, this is worth something in life&mdash;to have given
+so much pleasure to a pair so different in every way as
+were Henley and I, and to be talked of with so much
+interest by two such (beg pardon) clever lads!</p>
+
+<p>The cheerful Lang has neglected to tell me what is
+the matter with you; so, I&rsquo;m sorry to say, I am cut off
+from all the customary consolations. I can&rsquo;t say, &ldquo;Think
+how much worse it would be if you had a broken leg!&rdquo;
+when you may have the crushing repartee up your sleeve,
+&ldquo;But it is my leg that is broken.&rdquo; This is a pity. But
+there are consolations. You are an Englishman (I believe);
+you are a man of letters; you have never been made
+C.B.; you hair was not red; you have played cribbage
+and whist; you did not play either the fiddle or the
+banjo; you were never an ćsthete; you never contributed
+to &mdash;&mdash;&rsquo;s Journal; your name is not Jabez Balfour;
+you are totally unconnected with the Army and Navy
+departments; I understand you to have lived within
+your income&mdash;why, cheer up! here are many legitimate
+causes of congratulation. I seem to be writing an obituary
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page428"></a>428</span>
+notice. <i>Absit omen!</i> But I feel very sure that
+these considerations will have done you more good than
+medicine.</p>
+
+<p>By the by, did you ever play piquet? I have fallen
+a victim to this debilitating game. It is supposed to be
+scientific; God save the mark, what self-deceivers men
+are! It is distinctly less so than cribbage. But how
+fascinating! There is such material opulence about it,
+such vast ambitions may be realised&mdash;and are not; it
+may be called the Monte Cristo of games. And the thrill
+with which you take five cards partakes of the nature of
+lust&mdash;and you draw four sevens and a nine, and the seven
+and nine of a suit that you discarded, and O! but the
+world is a desert! You may see traces of discouragement
+in my letter: all due to piquet! There has been
+a disastrous turn of the luck against me; a month or
+two ago I was two thousand ahead; now, and for a week
+back, I have been anything from four thousand eight
+hundred to five thousand two hundred astern. I have
+a sixičme, my beast of a partner has a septičme; and
+if I have three aces, three kings, three queens, and three
+knaves (excuse the slight exaggeration), the devil holds
+quatorze of tens!&mdash;I remain, my dear James Payn, your
+sincere and obliged friend&mdash;old friend let me say,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Miss Middleton</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>A letter from the lady to whom this is addressed, and who had
+been a friend of the Stevenson family in Edinburgh, had called up
+some memories of a Skye terrier, Jura, of whom readers have heard
+something already.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, September 9, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR MISS MIDDLETON</span>,&mdash;Your letter has been like the
+drawing up of a curtain. Of course I remember you
+very well, and the Skye terrier to which you refer&mdash;a
+heavy, dull, fatted, graceless creature he grew up to be&mdash;was
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page429"></a>429</span>
+my own particular pet. It may amuse you, perhaps,
+as much as &ldquo;The Inn&rdquo; amused me, if I tell you
+what made this dog particularly mine. My father was
+the natural god of all the dogs in our house, and poor
+Jura took to him of course. Jura was stolen, and kept
+in prison somewhere for more than a week, as I remember.
+When he came back Smeoroch had come and taken my
+father&rsquo;s heart from him. He took his stand like a man,
+and positively never spoke to my father again from that
+day until the day of his death. It was the only sign of
+character he ever showed. I took him up to my room
+and to be my dog in consequence, partly because I was
+sorry for him, and partly because I admired his dignity
+in misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>With best regards and thanks for having reminded
+me of so many pleasant days, old acquaintances, dead
+friends, and&mdash;what is perhaps as pathetic as any of them&mdash;dead
+dogs, I remain, yours truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To A. Conan Doyle</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following refers to the papers originally contributed by
+various writers to Mr. Jerome&rsquo;s periodical The Idler, under the title
+<i>My First Book</i>, and afterwards republished in a volume. The
+references towards the end are to the illustrations in the pages of
+The Idler.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, September 9, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CONAN DOYLE</span>,&mdash;If you found anything to
+entertain you in my <i>Treasure Island</i> article, it may amuse
+you to know that you owe it entirely to yourself. <i>Your</i>
+&ldquo;First Book&rdquo; was by some accident read aloud one
+night in my Baronial &rsquo;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&mdash;Miss Braddon, for instance,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page430"></a>430</span>
+who was really one of the best where all are good&mdash;or
+all but one!... In short, I fell in love with &ldquo;The
+First Book&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s a
+grievous thought to me that that effigy in the German
+cap&mdash;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&mdash;should
+be perpetuated. I may seem to speak in pleasantry&mdash;it
+is only a seeming&mdash;that German cap, sir, would
+be found, when I come to die, imprinted on my heart.
+Enough&mdash;my heart is too full. Adieu.&mdash;Yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt"><span class="sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</span><br />
+(in a German cap, damn &rsquo;em!).</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, September 1894.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;This must be a very measly letter.
+I have been trying hard to get along with <i>St. Ives</i>. I should
+now lay it aside for a year and I dare say I should make
+something of it after all. Instead of that, I have to kick
+against the pricks, and break myself, and spoil the book,
+if there were anything to spoil, which I am far from saying.
+I&rsquo;m as sick of the thing as ever any one can be; it&rsquo;s a
+rudderless hulk; it&rsquo;s a pagoda, and you can just feel&mdash;or
+I can feel&mdash;that it might have been a pleasant story,
+if it had been only blessed at baptism.</p>
+
+<p>Our politics have gone on fairly well, but the result
+is still doubtful.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sept. 10th.</i>&mdash;I know I have something else to say to
+you, but unfortunately I awoke this morning with colly-wobbles,
+and had to take a small dose of laudanum with
+the usual consequences of dry throat, intoxicated legs,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page431"></a>431</span>
+partial madness and total imbecility; and for the life
+of me I cannot remember what it is. I have likewise mislaid
+your letter amongst the accumulations on my table,
+not that there was anything in it. Altogether I am in a
+poor state. I forgot to tell Baxter that the dummy had
+turned up and is a fine, personable-looking volume and
+very good reading. Please communicate this to him.</p>
+
+<p>I have just remembered an incident that I really must
+not let pass. You have heard a great deal more than
+you wanted about our political prisoners. Well, one day,
+about a fortnight ago, the last of them was set free&mdash;Old
+Poč, whom I think I must have mentioned to you,
+the father-in-law of my cook, was one that I had had a
+great deal of trouble with. I had taken the doctor to see
+him, got him out on sick leave, and when he was put
+back again gave bail for him. I must not forget that
+my wife ran away with him out of the prison on the doctor&rsquo;s
+orders and with the complicity of our friend the gaoler,
+who really and truly got the sack for the exploit. As
+soon as he was finally liberated, Poč called a meeting
+of his fellow-prisoners. All Sunday they were debating
+what they were to do, and on Monday morning I got
+an obscure hint from Talolo that I must expect visitors
+during the day who were coming to consult me. These
+consultations I am now very well used to, and seeing
+first, that I generally don&rsquo;t know what to advise, and
+second that they sometimes don&rsquo;t take my advice&mdash;though
+in some notable cases they have taken it, generally
+to my own wonder with pretty good results&mdash;I am not
+very fond of these calls. They minister to a sense of
+dignity, but not peace of mind, and consume interminable
+time, always in the morning too, when I can&rsquo;t afford it.
+However, this was to be a new sort of consultation. Up
+came Poč and some eight other chiefs, squatted in a big
+circle around the old dining-room floor, now the smoking-room.
+And the family, being represented by Lloyd,
+Graham, Belle, Austin and myself, proceeded to exchange
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page432"></a>432</span>
+the necessary courtesies. Then their talking man began.
+He said that they had been in prison, that I had always
+taken an interest in them, that they had now been set
+at liberty without condition, whereas some of the other
+chiefs who had been liberated before them were still
+under bond to work upon the roads, and that this had
+set them considering what they might do to testify their
+gratitude. They had therefore agreed to work upon my
+road as a free gift. They went on to explain that it was
+only to be on my road, on the branch that joins my house
+with the public way.</p>
+
+<p>Now I was very much gratified at this compliment,
+although (to one used to natives) it seemed rather a
+hollow one. It meant only that I should have to lay
+out a good deal of money on tools and food and to give
+wages under the guise of presents to some workmen who
+were most of them old and in ill-health. Conceive how
+much I was surprised and touched when I heard the
+whole scheme explained to me. They were to return to
+their provinces, and collect their families; some of the
+young men were to live in Apia with a boat, and ply up
+and down the coast to A&rsquo;ana and Atua (our own Tuamasaga
+being quite drained of resources) in order to supply
+the working squad with food. Tools they did ask for,
+but it was especially mentioned that I was to make no
+presents. In short, the whole of this little &ldquo;presentation&rdquo;
+to me had been planned with a good deal more consideration
+than goes usually with a native campaign.</p>
+
+<p>[I sat on the opposite side of the circle to the talking
+man. His face was quite calm and high-bred as he went
+through the usual Samoan expressions of politeness and
+compliment, but when he came on to the object of their
+visit, on their love and gratitude to Tusitala, how his
+name was always in their prayers, and his goodness to
+them when they had no other friend, was their most
+cherished memory, he warmed up to real, burning, genuine
+feeling. I had never seen the Samoan mask of reserve
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page433"></a>433</span>
+laid aside before, and it touched me more than anything
+else. <span class="scs">A.M.</span>]</p>
+
+<p>This morning as ever was, bright and early up came
+the whole gang of them, a lot of sturdy, common-looking
+lads they seemed to be for the most part, and fell to on
+my new road. Old Poč was in the highest of good spirits,
+and looked better in health than he has done any time
+in two years, being positively rejuvenated by the success
+of his scheme. He jested as he served out the new tools,
+and I am sorry to say damned the Government up hill
+and down dale, probably with a view to show off his
+position as a friend of the family before his workboys.
+Now, whether or not their impulse will last them through
+the road does not matter to me one hair. It is the fact
+that they have attempted it, that they have volunteered
+and are now really trying to execute a thing that was
+never before heard of in Samoa. Think of it! It is
+road-making&mdash;the most fruitful cause (after taxes) of all
+rebellions in Samoa, a thing to which they could not
+be wiled with money nor driven by punishment. It
+does give me a sense of having done something in Samoa
+after all.</p>
+
+<p>Now there&rsquo;s one long story for you about &ldquo;my blacks.&rdquo;&mdash;Yours
+ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Charles Baxter</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following was written on hearing of the death of his friend&rsquo;s
+father.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, September 1894.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,&mdash;... Well, there is no more
+Edmund Baxter now; and I think I may say I know
+how you feel. He was one of the best, the kindest, and
+the most genial men I ever knew. I shall always remember
+his brisk, cordial ways and the essential goodness which
+he showed me whenever we met with gratitude. And
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page434"></a>434</span>
+the always is such a little while now! He is another of
+the landmarks gone; when it comes to my own turn to
+lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness
+and fatigue; and whatever be my destiny afterward, I
+shall be glad to lie down with my fathers in honour. It
+is human at least, if not divine. And these deaths make
+me think of it with an ever greater readiness. Strange
+that you should be beginning a new life, when I, who
+am a little your junior, am thinking of the end of mine.
+But I have had hard lines; I have been so long waiting
+for death, I have unwrapped my thoughts from about
+life so long, that I have not a filament left to hold by;
+I have done my fiddling so long under Vesuvius, that I
+have almost forgotten to play, and can only wait for
+the eruption, and think it long of coming. Literally, no
+man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it&rsquo;s
+good fun.</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To R. A. M. Stevenson</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Stevenson had received from his cousin a letter announcing,
+among other things, the birth of a son to the writer, and rambling
+suggestively, as may be guessed from the following reply, over many
+disconnected themes: the ethnology of Scotland, paternity and
+heredity, civilisation <i>versus</i> primitive customs and instincts, the
+story of their own descent, the method of writing in collaboration,
+education, Christianity and sex, the religion of conduct, anarchism,
+etc.; all which matters are here discursively touched on. &ldquo;Old
+Skene&rdquo; is, of course, the distinguished Scottish antiquarian and
+historian, William Forbes Skene, in whose firm (Skene &amp; Edwards,
+W.S.) Stevenson had for a time served irregularly enough as an
+unpaid clerk.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, September 1894.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR BOB</span>,&mdash;You are in error about the Picts. They
+were a Gaelic race, spoke a Celtic tongue, and we have
+no evidence that I know of that they were blacker than
+other Celts. The Balfours, I take it, were plainly Celts;
+their name shows it&mdash;the &ldquo;cold croft,&rdquo; it means; so
+does their country. Where the <i>black</i> Scotch come from
+nobody knows; but I recognise with you the fact that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page435"></a>435</span>
+the whole of Britain is rapidly and progressively becoming
+more pigmented; already in one man&rsquo;s life I can
+decidedly trace a difference in the children about a school
+door. But colour is not an essential part of a man or
+a race. Take my Polynesians, an Asiatic people probably
+from the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf. They range
+through any amount of shades, from the burnt hue of the
+Low Archipelago islander, which seems half negro, to the
+&ldquo;bleached&rdquo; pretty women of the Marquesas (close by on
+the map), who come out for a festival no darker than an
+Italian; their colour seems to vary directly with the
+degree of exposure to the sun. And, as with negroes,
+the babes are born white; only it should seem a <i>little
+sack</i> of pigment at the lower part of the spine, which
+presently spreads over the whole field. Very puzzling.
+But to return. The Picts furnish to-day perhaps a third
+of the population of Scotland, say another third for Scots
+and Britons, and the third for Norse and Angles is a bad
+third. Edinburgh was a Pictish place. But the fact is,
+we don&rsquo;t know their frontiers. Tell some of your journalist
+friends with a good style to popularise old Skene;
+or say your prayers, and read him for yourself; he was
+a Great Historian, and I was his blessed clerk, and did
+not know it; and you will not be in a state of grace
+about the Picts till you have studied him. J. Horne
+Stevenson (do you know him?) is working this up with
+me, and the fact is&mdash;it&rsquo;s not interesting to the public&mdash;but
+it&rsquo;s interesting, and very interesting, in itself, and
+just now very embarrassing&mdash;this rural parish supplied
+Glasgow with such a quantity of Stevensons in the beginning
+of last century! There is just a link wanting; and
+we might be able to go back to the eleventh century,
+always undistinguished, but clearly traceable. When I
+say just a link, I guess I may be taken to mean a dozen.
+What a singular thing is this undistinguished perpetuation
+of a family throughout the centuries, and the sudden
+bursting forth of character and capacity that began with
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page436"></a>436</span>
+our grandfather! But as I go on in life, day by day,
+I become more of a bewildered child; I cannot get used
+to this world, to procreation, to heredity, to sight, to
+hearing; the commonest things are a burthen. The
+prim obliterated polite face of life, and the broad, bawdy,
+and orgiastic&mdash;or mćnadic&mdash;foundations, form a spectacle
+to which no habit reconciles me; and &ldquo;I could
+wish my days to be bound each to each&rdquo; by the same
+open-mouthed wonder. They <i>are</i> anyway, and whether
+I wish it or not.</p>
+
+<p>I remember very well your attitude to life, this conventional
+surface of it. You had none of that curiosity
+for the social stage directions, the trivial <i>ficelles</i> of the
+business; it is simian, but that is how the wild youth
+of man is captured; you wouldn&rsquo;t imitate, hence you
+kept free&mdash;a wild dog, outside the kennel&mdash;and came dam
+near starving for your pains. The key to the business is
+of course the belly; difficult as it is to keep that in view
+in the zone of three miraculous meals a day in which we
+were brought up. Civilisation has become reflex with us;
+you might think that hunger was the name of the best
+sauce; but hunger to the cold solitary under a bush of
+a rainy night is the name of something quite different.
+I defend civilisation for the thing it is, for the thing it
+has <i>come</i> to be, the standpoint of a real old Tory. My
+ideal would be the Female Clan. But how can you turn
+these crowding dumb multitudes <i>back?</i> They don&rsquo;t do
+anything <i>because</i>; they do things, write able articles,
+stitch shoes, dig, from the purely simian impulse. Go
+and reason with monkeys!</p>
+
+<p>No, I am right about Jean Lillie. Jean Lillie, our
+double great-grandmother, the daughter of David Lillie,
+sometime Deacon of the Wrights, married, first, Alan
+Stevenson, who died May 26, 1774, &ldquo;at Santt Kittes of
+a fiver,&rdquo; by whom she had Robert Stevenson, born 8th
+June 1772; and, second, in May or June 1787, Thomas
+Smith, a widower, and already the father of our grandmother.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page437"></a>437</span>
+This improbable double connection always tends
+to confuse a student of the family, Thomas Smith being
+doubly our great-grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>I looked on the perpetuation of our honoured name
+with veneration. My mother collared one of the photos,
+of course; the other is stuck up on my wall as the chief
+of our sept. Do you know any of the Gaelic-Celtic sharps?
+you might ask what the name means. It puzzles me.
+I find a <i>M&rsquo;Stein</i> and a <i>MacStephane</i>; and our own great-grandfather
+always called himself Steenson, though he
+wrote it Stevenson. There are at least three <i>places</i> called
+Stevenson&mdash;<i>Stevenson</i> in Cunningham, <i>Stevenson</i> in Peebles,
+and <i>Stevenson</i> in Haddington. And it was not the Celtic
+trick, I understand, to call places after people. I am
+going to write to Sir Herbert Maxwell about the name,
+but you might find some one.</p>
+
+<p>Get the Anglo-Saxon heresy out of your head; they
+superimposed their language, they scarce modified the
+race; only in Berwickshire and Roxburgh have they
+very largely affected the place names. The Scandinavians
+did much more to Scotland than the Angles. The Saxons
+didn&rsquo;t come.</p>
+
+<p>Enough of this sham antiquarianism. Yes, it is in the
+matter of the book<a name="FnAnchor_82" href="#Footnote_82"><span class="sp">82</span></a> of course, that collaboration shows;
+as for the manner, it is superficially all mine in the sense
+that the last copy is all in my hand. Lloyd did not even
+put pen to paper in the Paris scenes or the Barbizon
+scene; it was no good; he wrote and often rewrote all
+the rest; I had the best service from him on the character
+of Nares. You see, we had been just meeting the man,
+and his memory was full of the man&rsquo;s words and ways.
+And Lloyd is an impressionist, pure and simple. The
+great difficulty of collaboration is that you can&rsquo;t explain
+what you mean. I know what kind of effect I mean a
+character to give&mdash;what kind of <i>tache</i> he is to make;
+but how am I to tell my collaborator in words? Hence
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page438"></a>438</span>
+it was necessary to say, &ldquo;Make him So-and-so&rdquo;; and
+this was all right for Nares and Pinkerton and Loudon
+Dodd, whom we both knew, but for Bellairs, for instance&mdash;a
+man with whom I passed ten minutes fifteen years
+ago&mdash;what was I to say? and what could Lloyd do?
+I, as a personal artist, can begin a character with only
+a haze in my head, but how if I have to translate the
+haze into words before I begin? In our manner of collaboration
+(which I think the only possible&mdash;I mean that
+of one person being responsible, and giving the <i>coup de
+pouce</i> to every part of the work) I was spared the obviously
+hopeless business of trying to explain to my collaborator
+what <i>style</i> I wished a passage to be treated in. These
+are the times that illustrate to a man the inadequacy of
+spoken language. Now&mdash;to be just to written language&mdash;I
+can (or could) find a language for my every mood,
+but how could I <i>tell</i> any one beforehand what this effect
+was to be, which it would take every art that I possessed,
+and hours and hours of deliberate labour and selection
+and rejection, to produce? These are the impossibilities
+of collaboration. Its immediate advantage is to focus two
+minds together on the stuff, and to produce in consequence
+an extraordinarily greater richness of purview, consideration,
+and invention. The hardest chapter of all was
+&ldquo;Cross Questions and Crooked Answers.&rdquo; You would
+not believe what that cost us before it assumed the least
+unity and colour. Lloyd wrote it at least thrice, and I
+at least five times&mdash;this is from memory. And was that
+last chapter worth the trouble it cost? Alas, that I
+should ask the question! Two classes of men&mdash;the artist
+and the educationalist&mdash;are sworn, on soul and conscience,
+not to ask it. You get an ordinary, grinning, red-headed
+boy, and you have to educate him. Faith supports you;
+you give your valuable hours, the boy does not seem to
+profit, but that way your duty lies, for which you are
+paid, and you must persevere. Education has always
+seemed to me one of the few possible and dignified ways of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page439"></a>439</span>
+life. A sailor, a shepherd, a schoolmaster&mdash;to a less degree,
+a soldier&mdash;and (I don&rsquo;t know why, upon my soul, except
+as a sort of schoolmaster&rsquo;s unofficial assistant, and a kind
+of acrobat in tights) an artist, almost exhaust the category.</p>
+
+<p>If I had to begin again&mdash;I know not&mdash;<i>si jeunesse
+savait, si vieillesse pouvait</i> ... I know not at all&mdash;I
+believe I should try to honour Sex more religiously. The
+worst of our education is that Christianity does not recognise
+and hallow Sex. It looks askance at it, over its
+shoulder, oppressed as it is by reminiscences of hermits
+and Asiatic self-tortures. It is a terrible hiatus in our
+modern religions that they cannot see and make venerable
+that which they ought to see first and hallow most.
+Well, it is so; I cannot be wiser than my generation.</p>
+
+<p>But no doubt there is something great in the half-success
+that has attended the effort of turning into an
+emotional religion, Bald Conduct, without any appeal, or
+almost none, to the figurative, mysterious, and constitutive
+facts of life. Not that conduct is not constitutive,
+but dear! it&rsquo;s dreary! On the whole, conduct is better
+dealt with on the cast-iron &ldquo;gentleman&rdquo; and duty
+formula, with as little fervour and poetry as possible;
+stoical and short.... There is a new something or
+other in the wind, which exercises me hugely: anarchy,&mdash;I
+mean, anarchism. People who (for pity&rsquo;s sake) commit
+dastardly murders very basely, die like saints, and leave
+beautiful letters behind &rsquo;em (did you see Vaillant to his
+daughter? it was the New Testament over again); people
+whose conduct is inexplicable to me, and yet their spiritual
+life higher than that of most. This is just what the early
+Christians must have seemed to the Romans. Is this,
+then, a new <i>drive</i><a name="FnAnchor_83" href="#Footnote_83"><span class="sp">83</span></a> among the monkeys? Mind you, Bob,
+if they go on being martyred a few years more, the gross,
+dull, not unkindly bourgeois may get tired or ashamed
+or afraid of going on martyring; and the anarchists
+come out at the top just like the early Christians. That
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page440"></a>440</span>
+is, of course, they will step into power as a <i>personnel</i>, but
+God knows what they may believe when they come to
+do so; it can&rsquo;t be stranger or more improbable than
+what Christianity had come to be by the same time.</p>
+
+<p>Your letter was easily read, the pagination presented
+no difficulty, and I read it with much edification and
+gusto. To look back, and to stereotype one bygone
+humour&mdash;what a hopeless thing! The mind runs ever in a
+thousand eddies like a river between cliffs. You (the ego)
+are always spinning round in it, east, west, north, and
+south. You are twenty years old, and forty, and five,
+and the next moment you are freezing at an imaginary
+eighty; you are never the plain forty-four that you
+should be by dates. (The most philosophical language
+is the Gaelic, which has <i>no present tense</i>&mdash;and the most
+useless.) How, then, to choose some former age, and
+stick there?</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sir Herbert Maxwell</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, September 10, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR HERBERT MAXWELL</span>,&mdash;I am emboldened by
+reading your very interesting Rhind Lectures to put to
+you a question: What is my name, Stevenson?</p>
+
+<p>I find it in the forms Stevinetoun, Stevensoune, Stevensonne,
+Stenesone, Stewinsoune, M&rsquo;Stein, and MacStephane.
+My family, and (as far as I can gather) the majority of the
+inglorious clan, hailed from the borders of Cunningham
+and Renfrew, and the upper waters of the Clyde. In the
+Barony of Bothwell was the seat of the laird Stevenson
+of Stevenson; but, as of course you know, there is a
+parish in Cunningham and places in Peebles and Haddington
+bearing the same name.</p>
+
+<p>If you can at all help me, you will render me a real
+service which I wish I could think of some manner to
+repay.&mdash;Believe me, yours truly,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page441"></a>441</span></p>
+
+<p><i>P.S.</i>&mdash;I should have added that I have perfect evidence
+before me that (for some obscure reason) Stevenson was
+a favourite alias with the M&rsquo;Gregors.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, October 6th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;We have had quite an interesting
+month and mostly in consideration of that road which I
+think I told you was about to be made. It was made
+without a hitch, though I confess I was considerably
+surprised. When they got through, I wrote a speech to
+them, sent it down to a Missionary to be translated, and
+invited the lot to a feast. I thought a good deal of this
+feast. The occasion was really interesting. I wanted to
+pitch it in hot. And I wished to have as many influential
+witnesses present as possible. Well, as it drew towards
+the day I had nothing but refusals. Everybody supposed
+it was to be a political occasion, that I had made a hive
+of rebels up here, and was going to push for new hostilities.</p>
+
+<p>The Amanuensis has been ill, and after the above
+trial petered out. I must return to my own, lone Waverley.
+The captain refused, telling me why; and at last I had
+to beat up for people almost with prayers. However, I
+got a good lot, as you will see by the accompanying newspaper
+report. The road contained this inscription, drawn
+up by the chiefs themselves:</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;<span class="sc">The Road of Gratitude</span></h5>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Considering the great love of Tusitala in his loving
+care of us in our distress in the prison, we have therefore
+prepared a splendid gift. It shall never be muddy, it
+shall endure for ever, this road that we have dug.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This the newspaper reporter could not give, not knowing
+any Samoan. The same reason explains his references
+to Seumanutafa&rsquo;s speech, which was not long and <i>was</i>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page442"></a>442</span>
+important, for it was a speech of courtesy and forgiveness
+to his former enemies. It was very much applauded.
+Secondly, it was not Poč, it was Mataaf&#257; (don&rsquo;t confuse
+with Mataafa) who spoke for the prisoners. Otherwise
+it is extremely correct.</p>
+
+<p>I beg your pardon for so much upon my aboriginals.
+Even you must sympathise with me in this unheard-of
+compliment, and my having been able to deliver so severe
+a sermon with acceptance. It remains a nice point of
+conscience what I should wish done in the matter. I
+think this meeting, its immediate results, and the terms
+of what I said to them, desirable to be known. It will
+do a little justice to me, who have not had too much
+justice done me. At the same time, to send this report
+to the papers is truly an act of self-advertisement, and I
+dislike the thought. Query, in a man who has been so
+much calumniated, is that not justifiable? I do not
+know; be my judge. Mankind is too complicated for
+me; even myself. Do I wish to advertise? I think
+I do, God help me! I have had hard times here, as every
+man must have who mixes up with public business;
+and I bemoan myself, knowing that all I have done has
+been in the interest of peace and good government; and
+having once delivered my mind, I would like it, I think,
+to be made public. But the other part of me <i>regimbs</i>.<a name="FnAnchor_84" href="#Footnote_84"><span class="sp">84</span></a></p>
+
+<p>I know I am at a climacteric for all men who live by
+their wits, so I do not despair. But the truth is I am
+pretty nearly useless at literature, and I will ask you to
+spare <i>St. Ives</i> when it goes to you; it is a sort of <i>Count
+Robert of Paris</i>. But I hope rather a <i>Dombey and Son</i>,
+to be succeeded by <i>Our Mutual Friend</i> and <i>Great Expectations</i>
+and <i>A Tale of Two Cities</i>. No toil has been spared
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page443"></a>443</span>
+over the ungrateful canvas; and it <i>will not</i> come together,
+and I must live, and my family. Were it not for my
+health, which made it impossible, I could not find it in
+my heart to forgive myself that I did not stick to an
+honest, commonplace trade when I was young, which
+might have now supported me during these ill years.
+But do not suppose me to be down in anything else;
+only, for the nonce, my skill deserts me, such as it is,
+or was. It was a very little dose of inspiration, and a
+pretty little trick of style, long lost, improved by the
+most heroic industry. So far, I have managed to please
+the journalists. But I am a fictitious article and have
+long known it. I am read by journalists, by my fellow-novelists,
+and by boys; with these, <i>incipit et explicit</i>
+my vogue. Good thing anyway! for it seems to have
+sold the Edition. And I look forward confidently to an
+aftermath; I do not think my health can be so hugely
+improved, without some subsequent improvement in my
+brains. Though, of course, there is the possibility that
+literature is a morbid secretion, and abhors health! I do
+not think it is possible to have fewer illusions than I.
+I sometimes wish I had more. They are amusing. But
+I cannot take myself seriously as an artist; the limitations
+are so obvious. I did take myself seriously as a
+workman of old, but my practice has fallen off. I am
+now an idler and cumberer of the ground; it may be
+excused to me perhaps by twenty years of industry and
+ill-health, which have taken the cream off the milk.</p>
+
+<p>As I was writing this last sentence, I heard the strident
+rain drawing near across the forest, and by the time I
+was come to the word &ldquo;cream&rdquo; it burst upon my roof,
+and has since redoubled, and roared upon it. A very
+welcome change. All smells of the good wet earth,
+sweetly, with a kind of Highland touch; the crystal rods
+of the shower, as I look up, have drawn their criss-cross
+over everything; and a gentle and very welcome coolness
+comes up around me in little draughts, blessed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page444"></a>444</span>
+draughts, not chilling, only equalising the temperature.
+Now the rain is off in this spot, but I hear it roaring still
+in the nigh neighbourhood&mdash;and that moment, I was
+driven from the verandah by random raindrops, spitting
+at me through the Japanese blinds. These are not tears
+with which the page is spotted! Now the windows stream,
+the roof reverberates. It is good; it answers something
+which is in my heart; I know not what; old memories
+of the wet moorland belike.</p>
+
+<p>Well, it has blown by again, and I am in my place
+once more, with an accompaniment of perpetual dripping
+on the verandah&mdash;and very much inclined for a chat.
+The exact subject I do not know! It will be bitter at
+least, and that is strange, for my attitude is essentially
+<i>not</i> bitter, but I have come into these days when a man
+sees above all the seamy side, and I have dwelt some
+time in a small place where he has an opportunity of
+reading little motives that he would miss in the great
+world, and indeed, to-day, I am almost ready to call the
+world an error. Because? Because I have not drugged
+myself with successful work, and there are all kinds of
+trifles buzzing in my ear, unfriendly trifles, from the
+least to the&mdash;well, to the pretty big. All these that touch
+me are Pretty Big; and yet none touch me in the least,
+if rightly looked at, except the one eternal burthen to go
+on making an income for my family. That is rightly the
+root and ground of my ill. The jingling, tingling, damned
+mint sauce is the trouble always; and if I could find a
+place where I could lie down and give up for (say) two
+years, and allow the sainted public to support me, if it
+were a lunatic asylum, wouldn&rsquo;t I go, just! But we can&rsquo;t
+have both extremes at once, worse luck! I should like
+to put my savings into a proprietarian investment, and
+retire in the meanwhile into a communistic retreat, which
+is double-dealing. But you men with aries don&rsquo;t know
+how alas family weighs on a fellow&rsquo;s mind.</p>
+
+<p>I hear the article in next week&rsquo;s <i>Herald</i> is to be a great
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page445"></a>445</span>
+affair, and all the officials who came to me the other day
+are to be attacked! This is the unpleasant side of being
+(without a salary) in public life; I will leave any one to
+judge if my speech was well intended, and calculated to
+do good. It was even daring&mdash;I assure you one of the
+chiefs looked like a fiend at my description of Samoan
+warfare. Your warning was not needed; we are all
+determined to <i>keep the peace</i> and to <i>hold our peace</i>. I
+know, my dear fellow, how remote all this sounds! Kindly
+pardon your friend. I have my life to live here; these
+interests are for me immediate; and if I do not write of
+them, I might as soon not write at all. There is the difficulty
+in a distant correspondence. It is perhaps easy
+for me to enter into and understand your interests; I
+own it is difficult for you; but you must just wade through
+them for friendship&rsquo;s sake, and try to find tolerable what
+is vital for your friend. I cannot forbear challenging you
+to it, as to intellectual lists. It is the proof of intelligence,
+the proof of not being a barbarian, to be able to enter
+into something outside of oneself, something that does not
+touch one&rsquo;s next neighbour in the city omnibus.</p>
+
+<p>Good-bye, my lord. May your race continue and you
+flourish.&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Tusitala.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Alison Cunningham</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>For a fuller account of the road-making affair here mentioned, see
+pp. 431, 462.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima</i>] <i>October 8th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CUMMY</span>,&mdash;So I hear you are ailing? Think
+shame to yoursell! So you think there is nothing better
+to be done with time than that? and be sure we can all
+do much ourselves to decide whether we are to be ill or
+well! like a man on the gymnastic bars. We are all
+pretty well. As for me, there is nothing the matter with
+me in the world, beyond the disgusting circumstance that
+I am not so young as once I was. Lloyd has a gymnastic
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page446"></a>446</span>
+machine, and practises upon it every morning for an hour:
+he is beginning to be a kind of young Samson. Austin
+grows fat and brown, and gets on not so ill with his lessons,
+and my mother is in great price. We are having knock-me-down
+weather for heat; I never remember it so hot
+before, and I fancy it means we are to have a hurricane
+again this year, I think; since we came here, we have
+not had a single gale of wind! The Pacific is but a child
+to the North Sea; but when she does get excited, and
+gets up and girds herself, she can do something good. We
+have had a very interesting business here. I helped the
+chiefs who were in prison; and when they were set free,
+what should they do but offer to make a part of my road
+for me out of gratitude? Well, I was ashamed to refuse,
+and the trumps dug my road for me, and put up this
+inscription on a board:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Considering the great love of His Excellency Tusitala
+in his loving care for us in our tribulation in the prison
+we have made this great gift; it shall never be muddy, it
+shall go on for ever, this road that we have dug!</i>&rdquo; We had
+a great feast when it was done, and I read them a kind
+of lecture, which I dare say Auntie will have, and can
+let you see. Weel, guid bye to ye, and joy be wi&rsquo; ye!
+I hae nae time to say mair. They say I&rsquo;m gettin&rsquo; <i>fat</i>&mdash;a
+fact!&mdash;Your laddie, with all love,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To James Payn</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, Nov. 4, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR JAMES PAYN</span>,&mdash;I am asked to relate to you
+a little incident of domestic life at Vailima. I had read
+your <i>Gleams of Memory</i>, No. 1; it then went to my wife,
+to Osbourne, to the cousin that is within my gates, and
+to my respected amanuensis, Mrs. Strong. Sunday approached.
+In the course of the afternoon I was attracted
+to the great &rsquo;all&mdash;the winders is by Vanderputty, which
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page447"></a>447</span>
+upon entering I beheld a memorable scene. The floor
+was bestrewn with the forms of midshipmen from the
+<i>Curaçoa</i>&mdash;&ldquo;boldly say a wilderness of gunroom&rdquo;&mdash;and in
+the midst of this sat Mrs. Strong throned on the sofa
+and reading aloud <i>Gleams of Memory</i>. They had just
+come the length of your immortal definition of boyhood
+in the concrete, and I had the pleasure to see the whole
+party dissolve under its influence with inextinguishable
+laughter. I thought this was not half bad for arthritic
+gout! Depend upon it, sir, when I go into the arthritic
+gout business, I shall be done with literature, or at least
+with the funny business. It is quite true I have my battlefields
+behind me. I have done perhaps as much work
+as anybody else under the most deplorable conditions.
+But two things fall to be noticed: In the first place, I
+never was in actual pain; and in the second, I was never
+funny. I&rsquo;ll tell you the worst day that I remember. I
+had a hemorrhage, and was not allowed to speak; then,
+induced by the devil, or an errant doctor, I was led to
+partake of that bowl which neither cheers nor inebriates&mdash;the
+castor-oil bowl. Now, when castor-oil goes right,
+it is one thing; but when it goes wrong, it is another.
+And it went wrong with me that day. The waves of
+faintness and nausea succeeded each other for twelve
+hours, and I do feel a legitimate pride in thinking that
+I stuck to my work all through and wrote a good deal
+of <i>Admiral Guinea</i> (which I might just as well not have
+written for all the reward it ever brought me) in spite
+of the barbarous bad conditions. I think that is my great
+boast; and it seems a little thing alongside of your <i>Gleams
+of Memory</i> illustrated by spasms of arthritic gout. We
+really should have an order of merit in the trade of letters.
+For valour, Scott would have had it; Pope too; myself
+on the strength of that castor-oil; and James Payn
+would be a Knight Commander. The worst of it is,
+though Lang tells me you exhibit the courage of Huish,
+that not even an order can alleviate the wretched annoyance
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page448"></a>448</span>
+of the business. I have always said that there is
+nothing like pain; toothache, dumb-ague, arthritic gout,
+it does not matter what you call it, if the screw is put
+upon the nerves sufficiently strong, there is nothing left
+in heaven or in earth that can interest the sufferer. Still,
+even to this there is the consolation that it cannot last
+for ever. Either you will be relieved and have a good
+hour again before the sun goes down, or else you will
+be liberated. It is something after all (although not
+much) to think that you are leaving a brave example; that
+other literary men love to remember, as I am sure they
+will love to remember, everything about you&mdash;your sweetness,
+your brightness, your helpfulness to all of us, and
+in particular those one or two really adequate and noble
+papers which you have been privileged to write during
+these last years.&mdash;With the heartiest and kindest good-will,
+I remain, yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sidney Colvin</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>This was the last letter I received from my friend. On the
+morning of his death the following month he spoke of being behindhand
+with his December letter and of his intention to write it
+next day.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt">[<i>Vailima, November 1894.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR COLVIN</span>,&mdash;Saturday there was a ball to the ship,
+and on Sunday Gurr had a child to be baptized. Belle
+was to be godmother and had to be got down; which
+was impossible, as the jester Euclid says. However, we
+had four men of very different heights take the poles of
+a sort of bier and carry her shoulder high down the road,
+till we met a trap. On the return journey on Sunday,
+they were led by Austin playing (?) on a bugle, and you
+have no idea how picturesque a business it was; the
+four half-naked bearers, the cane lounge at that height
+from the ground, and Belle in black and pretty pale reclining
+very like a dead warrior of yore. However she
+wasn&rsquo;t dead yet. All the rest of the afternoon we hung
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page449"></a>449</span>
+about and had consultations about the baptism. Just as
+we went in to dinner, I saw the moon rise accurately full,
+looking five times greater than nature, and the face that
+we try to decipher in its silver disk wearing an obliterated
+but benignant expression. The ball followed; bluejackets
+and officers danced indiscriminately, after their pleasant
+fashion; and Belle, who lay in the hotel verandah, and
+held a sort of reception all night, had her longest visit
+from one of the blue-jackets, her partner in the last ball.
+About one on the Sunday morning all was over, and we
+went to bed&mdash;I, alas! only to get up again, my room
+being in the verandah, where a certain solemnly absurd
+family conclave (all drunk) was being held until (I suppose)
+three. By six, I was awake, and went out on the
+verandah. On the east the dawn had broken, cold and
+pink and rust colour, and the marshes were all smoking
+whitely and blowing into the bay like smoke, but on the
+west, all was golden. The street was empty, and right
+over it hung the setting moon, accurately round, yellow
+as an apricot, but slumberous, with an effect of afternoon
+you would not believe if you had not seen it. Then
+followed a couple of hours on the verandah I would be
+glad to forget. By seven X. Y. had joined me, as drunk
+as they make &rsquo;em. As he sat and talked to me, he smelt
+of the charnel house, methought. He looked so old (he
+is one month my senior); he spoke so silly; his poor
+leg is again covered with boils, which will spell death to
+him; and&mdash;enough. That interview has made me a
+teetotaller. O, it is bad to grow old. For me, it is practically
+hell. I do not like the consolations of age. I was
+born a young man; I have continued so; and before I
+end, a pantaloon, a driveller&mdash;enough again. But I don&rsquo;t
+enjoy getting elderly. Belle and I got home about three
+in the afternoon, she having in the meantime renounced
+all that makes life worth living in the name of little Miss
+Gurr, and I seriously reflecting on renouncing the kindly
+bowl in earnest! Presently after arrived the news of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page450"></a>450</span>
+Margery Ide (the C.J.&rsquo;s daughter) being seriously ill,
+alarmingly ill. Fanny wanted to go down; it was a
+difficult choice; she was not fit for it; on the other
+hand (and by all accounts) the patient would die if she
+did not get better nursing. So we made up our own
+minds, and F. and I set out about dusk, came to the
+C.J.&rsquo;s in the middle of dinner, and announced our errand.
+I am glad to say the C.J. received her very willingly;
+and I came home again, leaving her behind, where she
+was certainly much wanted.</p>
+
+<p><i>Nov. 4th.</i>&mdash;You ask about <i>St. Ives</i>. No, there is no
+Burford Bridge in it, and no Boney. He is a squire of
+dames, and there are petticoats in the story, and damned
+bad ones too, and it is of a tolerable length, a hundred
+thousand, I believe, at least. Also, since you are curious
+on the point, St. Ives learned his English from a Mr. Vicary,
+an English lawyer, a prisoner in France. He must have
+had a fine gift of languages!</p>
+
+<p>Things are going on here in their usual gently disheartening
+gait. The Treaty Officials are both good
+fellows whom I can&rsquo;t help liking, but who will never
+make a hand of Samoa.&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Professor Meiklejohn</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>Congratulating an old friend of Savile Club days (see vol. xxiii.
+p. 263) on his sailor son.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, Nov. 6th, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MEIKLEJOHN</span>,&mdash;Greeting! This is but a word
+to say how much we felicitate ourselves on having made
+the acquaintance of Hughie. He is having a famous
+good chance on board the <i>Curaçoa</i>, which is the best ship
+I have ever seen. And as for himself, he is a most engaging
+boy, of whom you may very well be proud, and I
+have no mortal manner of doubt but what you are. He
+comes up here very often, where he is a great favourite
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page451"></a>451</span>
+with my ladies, and sings me &ldquo;the melancholy airs of
+my native land&rdquo; with much acceptancy. His name has
+recently become changed in Vailima. Beginning with
+the courteous &ldquo;Mr. Meiklejohn,&rdquo; it shaded off into the
+familiar &ldquo;Hughie,&rdquo; and finally degenerated into &ldquo;the Whitrett.&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_85" href="#Footnote_85"><span class="sp">85</span></a>
+I hear good reports of him abroad and ashore,
+and I scarce need to add my own testimony.</p>
+
+<p>Hughie tells me you have gone into the publishing
+business, whereat I was much shocked. My own affairs
+with publishers are now in the most flourishing state,
+owing to my ingenuity in leaving them to be dealt with
+by a Scotch Writer to the Signet. It has produced revolutions
+in the book trade and my banking account. I
+tackled the Whitrett severely on a grammar you had
+published, which I had not seen and condemned out of
+hand and in the broadest Lallan. I even condescended
+on the part of that grammar which I thought to be the
+worst and condemned your presentation of the English
+verb unmercifully. It occurs to me, since you are a publisher,
+that the least thing you could do would be to send
+me a copy of that grammar to correct my estimate. But
+I fear I am talking too long to one of the enemy. I begin
+to hear in fancy the voice of Meiklejohn upraised in
+the Savile Club: &ldquo;No quarter to publishers!&rdquo; So I will
+ask you to present my compliments to Mrs. Meiklejohn
+upon her son, and to accept for yourself the warmest
+reminiscences of auld lang syne.&mdash;Yours sincerely,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Lieutenant Eeles</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, November 24, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR EELES</span>,&mdash;The hand, as you will perceive (and
+also the spelling!), is Teuila&rsquo;s, but the scrannel voice is
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page452"></a>452</span>
+what remains of Tusitala&rsquo;s. First of all, for business.
+When you go to London you are to charter a hansom
+cab and proceed to the Museum. It is particular fun to
+do this on Sundays when the Monument is shut up. Your
+cabman expostulates with you, you persist. The cabman
+drives up in front of the closed gates and says, &ldquo;I told
+you so, sir.&rdquo; You breathe in the porter&rsquo;s ears the mystic
+name of <i>Colvin</i>, and he immediately unfolds the iron
+barrier. You drive in, and doesn&rsquo;t your cabman think
+you&rsquo;re a swell. A lord mayor is nothing to it. Colvin&rsquo;s
+door is the only one in the eastern gable of the
+building. Send in your card to him with &ldquo;From
+R. L. S.&rdquo; in the corner, and the machinery will do the
+rest. Henry James&rsquo;s address is 34 De Vere Mansions
+West. I cannot remember where the place is; I cannot
+even remember on which side of the park. But it&rsquo;s
+one of those big Cromwell Road-looking deserted
+thoroughfares out west in Kensington or Bayswater, or
+between the two; and anyway Colvin will be able to
+put you on the direct track for Henry James. I
+do not send formal introductions, as I have taken
+the liberty to prepare both of them for seeing you
+already.</p>
+
+<p>Hoskyn is staying with us.</p>
+
+<p>It is raining dismally. The Curaçoa track is hardly
+passable, but it must be trod to-morrow by the degenerate
+feet of their successor the Wallaroos. I think it a very
+good account of these last that we don&rsquo;t think them
+either deformed or habitual criminals&mdash;they seem to be
+a kindly lot.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor will give you all the gossip. I have preferred
+in this letter to stick to the strictly solid and necessary.
+With kind messages from all in the house to all
+in the wardroom, all in the gunroom, and (may we dare
+to breathe it) to him who walks abaft, believe me, my
+dear Eeles, yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page453"></a>453</span></p>
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Sir Herbert Maxwell</span></h5>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, December 1, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR HERBERT</span>,&mdash;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&rsquo;t suppose
+it can possibly lead to anything, this connection between
+the Stevensons and M&rsquo;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.&mdash;With renewed thanks, believe me,
+dear Sir Herbert, yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Andrew Lang</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The following refers of course to <i>Weir of Hermiston</i>, the chief
+character of which was studied from the traditions of Lord Braxfield,
+and on which Stevenson was working at the full height of his powers
+when death overtook him two days later.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, December 1, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LANG</span>,&mdash;For the portrait of Braxfield, much
+thanks! It is engraved from the same Raeburn portrait
+that I saw in &rsquo;76 or &rsquo;77 with so extreme a gusto that I
+have ever since been Braxfield&rsquo;s humble servant, and am
+now trying, as you know, to stick him into a novel. Alas!
+one might as well try to stick in Napoleon. The picture
+shall be framed and hung up in my study. Not only as
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page454"></a>454</span>
+a memento of you, but as a perpetual encouragement to
+do better with his Lordship. I have not yet received the
+transcripts. They must be very interesting. Do you
+know I picked up the other day an old Longman&rsquo;s where
+I found an article of yours that I had missed, about
+Christie&rsquo;s? I read it with great delight. The year ends
+with us pretty much as it began, among wars and rumours
+of wars, and a vast and splendid exhibition of official
+incompetence.&mdash;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5><span class="sc">To Edmund Gosse</span></h5>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>The next, and last, letter is to Mr. Gosse, dated also only two
+days before the writer&rsquo;s death. It acknowledges the dedication
+&ldquo;To Tusitala&rdquo; of that gentleman&rsquo;s volume of poems, <i>In Russet and
+Silver</i>, just received.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="rt"><i>Vailima, Samoa, December 1, 1894.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">I am</span> afraid, my dear Weg, that this must be the result
+of bribery and corruption! The volume to which the
+dedication stands as preface seems to me to stand alone
+in your work; it is so natural, so personal, so sincere, so
+articulate in substance, and what you always were sure of&mdash;so
+rich in adornment.</p>
+
+<p>Let me speak first of the dedication. I thank you for
+it from the heart. It is beautifully said, beautifully and
+kindly felt; and I should be a churl indeed if I were not
+grateful, and an ass if I were not proud. I remember
+when Symonds dedicated a book to me; I wrote and told
+him of &ldquo;the pang of gratified vanity&rdquo; with which I had
+read it. The pang was present again, but how much
+more sober and autumnal&mdash;like your volume. Let me tell
+you a story, or remind you of a story. In the year of
+grace something or other, anything between &rsquo;76 and &rsquo;78,
+I mentioned to you in my usual autobiographical and
+inconsiderate manner that I was hard up. You said
+promptly that you had a balance at your banker&rsquo;s, and
+could make it convenient to let me have a cheque, and I
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page455"></a>455</span>
+accepted and got the money&mdash;how much was it?&mdash;twenty
+or perhaps thirty pounds? I know not&mdash;but it was a
+great convenience. The same evening, or the next day,
+I fell in conversation (in my usual autobiographical and
+... see above) with a denizen of the Savile Club, name
+now gone from me, only his figure and a dim three-quarter
+view of his face remaining. To him I mentioned that you
+had given me a loan, remarking easily that of course it
+didn&rsquo;t matter to you. Whereupon he read me a lecture,
+and told me how it really stood with you financially. He
+was pretty serious; fearing, as I could not help perceiving,
+that I should take too light a view of the responsibility
+and the service (I was always thought too light&mdash;the
+irresponsible jester&mdash;you remember. O, <i>quantum mutatus
+ab illo</i>!) If I remember rightly, the money was repaid
+before the end of the week&mdash;or, to be more exact and a
+trifle pedantic, the se&rsquo;nnight&mdash;but the service has never
+been forgotten; and I send you back this piece of ancient
+history, <i>consule Planco</i>, as a salute for your dedication,
+and propose that we should drink the health of the nameless
+one, who opened my eyes as to the true nature of
+what you did for me on that occasion.</p>
+
+<p>But here comes my Amanuensis, so we&rsquo;ll get on more
+swimmingly now. You will understand perhaps that
+what so particularly pleased me in the new volume, what
+seems to me to have so personal and original a note, are
+the middle-aged pieces in the beginning. The whole of
+them, I may say, though I must own an especial liking
+to&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr f90">
+
+<p>&ldquo;I yearn not for the fighting fate,</p>
+  <p class="i2">That holds and hath achieved;</p>
+<p class="i05">I live to watch and meditate</p>
+  <p class="i2">And dream&mdash;and be deceived.&rdquo;</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="noind">You take the change gallantly. Not I, I must confess.
+It is all very well to talk of renunciation, and of course
+it has to be done. But, for my part, give me a roaring
+toothache! I do like to be deceived and to dream, but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page456"></a>456</span>
+I have very little use for either watching or meditation.
+I was not born for age. And, curiously enough, I seem
+to see a contrary drift in my work from that which is so
+remarkable in yours. You are going on sedately travelling
+through your ages, decently changing with the years to
+the proper tune. And here am I, quite out of my true
+course, and with nothing in my foolish elderly head but
+love-stories. This must repose upon some curious distinction
+of temperaments. I gather from a phrase, boldly
+autobiographical, that you are&mdash;well, not precisely growing
+thin. Can that be the difference?</p>
+
+<p>It is rather funny that this matter should come up
+just now, as I am at present engaged in treating a severe
+case of middle age in one of my stories&mdash;&ldquo;The Justice-Clerk.&rdquo;
+The case is that of a woman, and I think that I
+am doing her justice. You will be interested, I believe,
+to see the difference in our treatments. <i>Secreta Vitć</i> comes
+nearer to the case of my poor Kirstie. Come to think of
+it, Gosse, I believe the main distinction is that you have
+a family growing up around you, and I am a childless,
+rather bitter, very clear-eyed, blighted youth. I have, in
+fact, lost the path that makes it easy and natural for you
+to descend the hill. I am going at it straight. And where
+I have to go down it is a precipice.</p>
+
+<p>I must not forget to give you a word of thanks for
+<i>An English Village</i>. It reminds me strongly of Keats,
+which is enough to say; and I was particularly pleased
+with the petulant sincerity of the concluding sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Well, my dear Gosse, here&rsquo;s wishing you all health
+and prosperity, as well as to the mistress and the bairns.
+May you live long, since it seems as if you would continue
+to enjoy life. May you write many more books as
+good as this one&mdash;only there&rsquo;s one thing impossible, you
+can never write another dedication that can give the
+same pleasure to the vanished</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">Tusitala.</p>
+
+<div class="pt05">&nbsp;</div>
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_74" href="#FnAnchor_74"><span class="fn">74</span></a> This question is with a view to the adventures of the hero in
+<i>St. Ives</i>, who according to Stevenson&rsquo;s original plan was to have
+been picked up from his foundered balloon by an American privateer.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_75" href="#FnAnchor_75"><span class="fn">75</span></a> As to admire <i>The Black Arrow</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_76" href="#FnAnchor_76"><span class="fn">76</span></a> The suppressed first part of the <i>Amateur Emigrant</i>, written in
+San Francisco in 1879, which it was proposed now to condense and
+to some extent recast for the Edinburgh Edition.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_77" href="#FnAnchor_77"><span class="fn">77</span></a> Word omitted in MS.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_78" href="#FnAnchor_78"><span class="fn">78</span></a> I may be allowed to quote the following sentence from a letter
+of this gentleman written when the news of our friend&rsquo;s death
+reached England:&mdash;&ldquo;So great was his power of winning love that
+though I knew him for less than a week I could have borne the loss
+of many a more intimate friend with less sorrow than Stevenson&rsquo;s.
+When I saw him, last Easter, there was no suggestion of failure of
+strength. After all I had heard of his delicacy I was astonished at
+his vigour. He was up at five, and at work soon after, and at
+eleven o&rsquo;clock at night he was dancing on the floor of the big room
+while I played Scotch and Irish reels on the rickety piano. He
+would talk to me for hours of home and old friends, but with a
+wonderful cheerfulness, knowing himself banished from them for
+life and yet brought close to them by love. I confidently counted
+on his living; he took keen interest in my own poor work, and it
+was one of my ambitions to send him a book some day which would
+better deserve his attention.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_79" href="#FnAnchor_79"><span class="fn">79</span></a> <i>Sentimental Tommy</i>: whose chief likeness to R. L. S. was meant
+to be in the literary temperament and passion for the <i>mot propre</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_80" href="#FnAnchor_80"><span class="fn">80</span></a> A proposed frontispiece for one of the volumes of the Edinburgh
+Edition.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_81" href="#FnAnchor_81"><span class="fn">81</span></a> <i>Sic</i>: query &ldquo;least&rdquo;?</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_82" href="#FnAnchor_82"><span class="fn">82</span></a> Of <i>The Wrecker</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_83" href="#FnAnchor_83"><span class="fn">83</span></a> <i>Trieb</i>, impulse.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_84" href="#FnAnchor_84"><span class="fn">84</span></a> It seemed an obvious duty to publish the speech in question
+through the English press, as the best proof both of Stevenson&rsquo;s
+wise and understanding methods of dealing with his native friends,
+and of the affection and authority which he enjoyed among them.
+I have reprinted it, as a necessary supplement to this letter, in
+Appendix II. at end of the present volume.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_85" href="#FnAnchor_85"><span class="fn">85</span></a> Whitrett or Whitrack is Scots for a weasel: why applied to
+Mr. Meiklejohn I know not.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page457"></a>457</span></p>
+<h3>APPENDIX I</h3>
+
+<h4>ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF<br />
+R. L. STEVENSON, BY LLOYD OSBOURNE</h4>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">He</span> wrote hard all that morning of the last day; his half-finished
+book, <i>Hermiston</i>, he judged the best he had ever
+written, and the sense of successful effort made him buoyant
+and happy as nothing else could. In the afternoon the
+mail fell to be answered; not business correspondence&mdash;for
+this was left till later&mdash;but replies to the long, kindly
+letters of distant friends, received but two days since, and
+still bright in memory.</p>
+
+<p>At sunset he came downstairs; rallied his wife about
+the forebodings she could not shake off; talked of a
+lecturing tour to America that he was eager to make, &ldquo;as
+he was now so well,&rdquo; and played a game at cards with
+her to drive away her melancholy. He said he was hungry;
+begged her assistance to help him make a salad for the
+evening meal; and to enhance the little feast, he brought
+up a bottle of old Burgundy from the cellar. He was
+helping his wife on the verandah, and gaily talking, when
+suddenly he put both hands to his head, and cried out,
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; Then he asked quickly, &ldquo;Do I look
+strange?&rdquo; Even as he did so he fell on his knees beside
+her. He was helped into the great hall, between his wife
+and his body-servant, Sosimo, losing consciousness instantly
+as he lay back in the arm-chair that had once been
+his grandfather&rsquo;s. Little time was lost in bringing the
+doctors&mdash;Anderson, of the man-of-war, and his friend
+Dr. Funk. They looked at him and shook their heads;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page458"></a>458</span>
+they laboured strenuously, and left nothing undone; but
+he had passed the bounds of human skill.</p>
+
+<p>The dying man lay back in the chair, breathing heavily,
+his family about him frenzied with grief, as they realised
+all hope was past. The dozen and more Samoans that
+formed part of the little clan of which he was chief sat
+in a wide semicircle on the floor, their reverent, troubled,
+sorrow-stricken faces all fixed upon their dying master.
+Some knelt on one knee, to be instantly ready for any
+command that might be laid upon them. A narrow bed
+was brought into the centre of the room, the Master was
+gently laid upon it, his head supported by a rest, the gift
+of Shelley&rsquo;s son. Slower and slower grew his respiration,
+wider the interval between the long, deep breaths. The
+Rev. Mr. Clarke was now come, an old and valued friend;
+he knelt and prayed as the life ebbed away.</p>
+
+<p>He died at ten minutes past eight on Monday evening
+the 3rd of December, in the forty-fifth year of his age.</p>
+
+<p>The great Union Jack that flew over the house was
+hauled down, and laid over the body, fit shroud for a
+loyal Scotsman. He lay in the hall which was ever his
+pride, where he had passed the gayest and most delightful
+hours of his life, a noble room with open stairway and
+mullioned windows. In it were the treasures of his far-off
+Scottish home: the old carved furniture, the paintings
+and busts that had been in his father&rsquo;s house before him.
+The Samoans passed in procession beside his bed, kneeling
+and kissing his hand, each in turn, before taking their
+places for the long night watch beside him. No entreaty
+could induce them to retire, to rest themselves for the
+painful and arduous duties of the morrow. It would
+show little love for Tusitala, they said, if they did not
+spend their last night beside him. Mournful and silent,
+they sat in deep dejection, poor, simple, loyal folk, fulfilling
+the duty they owed their chief.</p>
+
+<p>A messenger was despatched to the few chiefs connected
+with the family, to announce the tidings and bid
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page459"></a>459</span>
+them assemble their men on the morrow for the work
+there was to do.</p>
+
+<p>Sosimo asked on behalf of the Roman Catholics that
+they might be allowed to recite the prayers for the dead.
+Till midnight the solemn chants continued, the prolonged,
+sonorous prayers of the Church of Rome, in commingled
+Latin and Samoan. Later still, a chief arrived with his
+retainers, bringing a precious mat to wrap about the dead.</p>
+
+<p>He too knelt and kissed the hand of Tusitala, and
+took his place amid the sleepless watchers. Another
+arrived with a fine mat, a man of higher rank, whose
+incipient consumption had often troubled the Master.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Talofa Tusitala!&rdquo; he said as he drew nigh, and took
+a long, mournful look at the face he knew so well. When,
+later on, he was momentarily required on some business of
+the morrow, he bowed reverently before retiring. &ldquo;Tofa
+Tusitala!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Sleep, Tusitala!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The morning of the 4th of December broke cool and
+sunny, a beautiful day, rare at this season of the year.
+More fine mats were brought, until the Union Jack lay
+nigh concealed beneath them. Among the new-comers
+was an old Mataafa chief, one of the builders of the &ldquo;Road
+of the Loving Hearts,&rdquo; a man who had spent many days
+in prison for participation in the rebellion. &ldquo;I am only
+a poor Samoan, and ignorant,&rdquo; said he, as he crouched
+beside the body; &ldquo;others are rich, and can give Tusitala
+the parting presents of rich fine mats; I am poor, and
+can give nothing this last day he receives his friends. Yet
+I am not afraid to come and look the last time in my
+friend&rsquo;s face, never to see him more till we meet with
+God. Behold! Tusitala is dead; Mataafa is also dead
+to us. These two great friends have been taken by God.
+When Mataafa was taken, who was our support but Tusitala?
+We were in prison, and he cared for us. We were
+sick, and he made us well. We were hungry, and he fed
+us. The day was no longer than his kindness. You are
+great people and full of love. Yet who among you is so
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page460"></a>460</span>
+great as Tusitala? What is your love to his love? Our
+clan was Mataafa&rsquo;s clan, for whom I speak this day;
+therein was Tusitala also. We mourn them both.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A meeting of chiefs was held to apportion the work and
+divide the men into parties. Forty were sent with knives
+and axes to cut a path up the steep face of the mountain,
+and the writer himself led another party to the summit&mdash;men
+chosen from the immediate family&mdash;to dig the
+grave on a spot where it was Mr. Stevenson&rsquo;s wish that he
+should lie. Nothing more picturesque can be imagined
+than the narrow ledge that forms the summit of Vaea, a
+place no wider than a room, and flat as a table. On either
+side the land descends precipitously; in front lies the
+vast ocean and the surf-swept reefs; to the right and left
+green mountains rise, densely covered with the primeval
+forest. Two hundred years ago the eyes of another man
+turned towards that same peak of Vaea as the spot that
+should ultimately receive his war-worn body: Soalu, a
+famous chief.</p>
+
+<p>All the morning, Samoans were arriving with flowers;
+few of these were white, for they have not learned our
+foreign custom, and the room glowed with the many colours.
+There were no strangers on that day, no acquaintances;
+those only were called who would deeply feel the loss. At
+one o&rsquo;clock a body of powerful Samoans bore away the
+coffin, hid beneath a tattered red ensign that had flown
+above his vessel in many a corner of the South Seas. A
+path so steep and rugged taxed their strength to the
+utmost; for not only was the journey difficult in itself,
+but extreme care was requisite to carry the coffin shoulder-high.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later, the rest of his friends followed.
+It was a formidable ascent, and tried them hard. Nineteen
+Europeans, and some sixty Samoans, reached the
+summit. After a short rest, the Rev. W. E. Clarke read
+the burial service of the Church of England, interposing
+a prayer that Mr. Stevenson had written and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page461"></a>461</span>
+had read aloud to his family only the evening before
+his death:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -1em;">We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, folk
+of many families and nations, gathered together
+in the peace of this roof; weak men and women,
+subsisting under the covert of Thy patience.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -1em;">Be patient still; suffer us yet a while longer&mdash;with
+our broken purposes of good, and our idle endeavours
+against evil&mdash;suffer us a while longer to
+endure, and (if it may be) help us to do better.
+Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if the
+day come when these must be taken, have us
+play the man under affliction. Be with our
+friends; be with ourselves. Go with each of us
+to rest; if any awake, temper to them the dark
+hours of watching; and when the day returns to
+us, our sun and comforter, call us up with morning
+faces and with morning hearts&mdash;eager to
+labour&mdash;eager to be happy, if happiness shall
+be our portion&mdash;and if the day be marked for
+sorrow, strong to endure it.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -1em;">We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in the words
+of Him to whom this day is sacred, close our
+oblation.</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page462"></a>462</span></p>
+<h3>APPENDIX II</h3>
+
+<h4>ADDRESS OF R. L. STEVENSON TO THE CHIEFS
+ON THE OPENING OF THE ROAD OF GRATITUDE,
+OCTOBER 1894</h4>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Mr. Stevenson</span> said, &ldquo;We are met together to-day to
+celebrate an event and to do honour to certain chiefs,
+my friends,&mdash;Lelei, Mataafa, Salevao, Poč, Teleso, Tupuola
+Lotofaga, Tupuola Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo, and Fatialofa.
+You are all aware in some degree of what has happened.
+You know these chiefs to have been prisoners;
+you perhaps know that during the term of their confinement
+I had it in my power to do them certain favours.
+One thing some of you cannot know, that they were immediately
+repaid by answering attentions. They were liberated
+by the new administration; by the King, and the
+Chief Justice, and the Ta&rsquo;its&rsquo;ifono, who are here amongst
+us to-day, and to whom we all desire to tender our renewed
+and perpetual gratitude for that favour. As soon as
+they were free men&mdash;owing no man anything&mdash;instead of
+going home to their own places and families, they came to
+me; they offered to do this work for me as a free gift,
+without hire, without supplies, and I was tempted at
+first to refuse their offer. I knew the country to be poor,
+I knew famine threatening; I knew their families long
+disorganised for want of supervision. Yet I accepted,
+because I thought the lesson of that road might be more
+useful to Samoa than a thousand breadfruit trees; and
+because to myself it was an exquisite pleasure to receive
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page463"></a>463</span>
+that which was so handsomely offered. It is now done;
+you have trod it to-day in coming hither. It has been
+made for me by chiefs; some of them old, some sick, all
+newly delivered from a harassing confinement, and in spite
+of weather unusually hot and insalubrious. I have seen
+these chiefs labour valiantly with their own hands upon
+the work, and I have set up over it, now that it is finished,
+the name of &lsquo;The Road of Gratitude&rsquo; (the road of loving
+hearts) and the names of those that built it. &lsquo;In perpetuam
+memoriam,&rsquo; we say, and speak idly. At least so
+long as my own life shall be spared, it shall be here
+perpetuated; partly for my pleasure and in my gratitude;
+partly for others; to continually publish the
+lesson of this road.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Addressing himself to the chiefs, Mr. Stevenson then
+said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I will tell you, Chiefs, that, when I saw you working
+on that road, my heart grew warm; not with gratitude
+only, but with hope. It seemed to me that I read the
+promise of something good for Samoa: it seemed to me,
+as I looked at you, that you were a company of warriors
+in a battle, fighting for the defence of our common country
+against all aggression. For there is a time to fight, and
+a time to dig. You Samoans may fight, you may conquer
+twenty times, and thirty times, and all will be in vain.
+There is but one way to defend Samoa. Hear it before it
+is too late. It is to make roads, and gardens, and care
+for your trees, and sell their produce wisely, and, in one
+word, to occupy and use your country. If you do not,
+others will.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The speaker then referred to the Parable of the Talents,
+Matt. <span class="sc">xxv</span>. 14-30, and continuing, impressively asked:
+&ldquo;What are you doing with your talent, Samoa? Your
+three talents, Savaii, Upolu, and Tutuila? Have you
+buried it in a napkin? Not Upolu at least. You have
+rather given it out to be trodden under feet of swine:
+and the swine cut down food trees and burn houses, according
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page464"></a>464</span>
+to the nature of swine, or of that much worse animal,
+foolish man, acting according to his folly. &lsquo;Thou knewest
+that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I
+have not strawed.&rsquo; But God has both sown and strawed
+for you here in Samoa; He has given you a rich soil, a
+splendid sun, copious rain; all is ready to your hand,
+half done. And I repeat to you that thing which is sure:
+if you do not occupy and use your country, others will.
+It will not continue to be yours or your children&rsquo;s, if you
+occupy it for nothing. You and your children will in that
+case be cast out into outer darkness, where shall be weeping
+and gnashing of teeth; for that is the law of God which
+passeth not away. I who speak to you have seen these
+things. I have seen them with my eyes&mdash;these judgments
+of God. I have seen them in Ireland, and I have seen
+them in the mountains of my own country&mdash;Scotland&mdash;and
+my heart was sad. These were a fine people in the
+past&mdash;brave, gay, faithful, and very much like Samoans,
+except in one particular, that they were much wiser and
+better at that business of fighting of which you think so
+much. But the time came to them as it now comes to
+you, and it did not find them ready. The messenger came
+into their villages, and they did not know him; they were
+told, as you are told, to use and occupy their country,
+and they would not hear. And now you may go through
+great tracts of the land and scarce meet a man or a smoking
+house, and see nothing but sheep feeding. The other
+people that I tell you of have come upon them like a foe
+in the night, and these are the other people&rsquo;s sheep who
+browse upon the foundation of their houses. To come
+nearer; and I have seen this judgment in Oahu also. I
+have ridden there the whole day along the coast of an
+island. Hour after hour went by and I saw the face of
+no living man except that of the guide who rode with me.
+All along that desolate coast, in one bay after another, we
+saw, still standing, the churches that have been built by
+the Hawaiians of old. There must have been many
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page465"></a>465</span>
+hundreds, many thousands, dwelling there in old times,
+and worshipping God in these now empty churches. For
+to-day they were empty; the doors were closed, the villages
+had disappeared, the people were dead and gone;
+only the church stood on like a tombstone over a grave,
+in the midst of the white men&rsquo;s sugar fields. The other
+people had come and used that country, and the Hawaiians
+who occupied it for nothing had been swept away, &lsquo;where
+is weeping and gnashing of teeth.&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do not speak of this lightly, because I love Samoa
+and her people. I love the land, I have chosen it to be
+my home while I live, and my grave after I am dead;
+and I love the people, and have chosen them to be my
+people to live and die with. And I see that the day is
+come now of the great battle; of the great and the last
+opportunity by which it shall be decided whether you
+are to pass away like these other races of which I have
+been speaking, or to stand fast and have your children
+living on and honouring your memory in the land you
+received of your fathers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Land Commission and the Chief Justice will
+soon have ended their labours. Much of your land will
+be restored to you, to do what you can with. Now is
+the time the messenger is come into your villages to summon
+you; the man is come with the measuring rod; the fire
+is lighted in which you shall be tried, whether you are gold
+or dross. Now is the time for the true champions of Samoa
+to stand forth. And who is the true champion of Samoa?
+It is not the man who blackens his face, and cuts down
+trees, and kills pigs and wounded men. It is the man who
+makes roads, who plants food trees, who gathers harvests,
+and is a profitable servant before the Lord, using and
+improving that great talent that has been given him in
+trust. That is the brave soldier; that is the true champion;
+because all things in a country hang together like
+the links of the anchor cable, one by another: but the
+anchor itself is industry.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page466"></a>466</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is a friend of most of us, who is far away; not
+to be forgotten where I am, where Tupuola is, where Poč
+Lelei, Mataafa, Solevao, Poč Teleso, Tupuola Lotofaga,
+Tupuolo Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo, Fatialofa, Lemusu are.
+He knew what I am telling you; no man better. He
+saw the day was come when Samoa had to walk in a new
+path, and to be defended not only with guns and blackened
+faces, and the noise of men shouting, but by digging
+and planting, reaping and sowing. When he was still
+here amongst us, he busied himself planting cacao; he
+was anxious and eager about agriculture and commerce,
+and spoke and wrote continually; so that when we turn
+our minds to the same matters, we may tell ourselves that
+we are still obeying Mataafa. Ua tautala mai pea o ia
+ua mamao.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know that I do not speak to idle or foolish hearers.
+I speak to those who are not too proud to work for gratitude.
+Chiefs! You have worked for Tusitala, and he
+thanks you from his heart. In this, I could wish you
+could be an example to all Samoa&mdash;I wish every chief in
+these islands would turn to, and work, and build roads,
+and sow fields, and plant food trees, and educate his
+children and improve his talents&mdash;not for love of Tusitala,
+but for the love of his brothers, and his children, and the
+whole body of generations yet unborn.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Chiefs! On this road that you have made many feet
+shall follow. The Romans were the bravest and greatest
+of people! mighty men of their hands, glorious fighters
+and conquerors. To this day in Europe you may go
+through parts of the country where all is marsh and bush,
+and perhaps after struggling through a thicket, you shall
+come forth upon an ancient road, solid and useful as the
+day it was made. You shall see men and women bearing
+their burdens along that even way, and you may tell
+yourself that it was built for them perhaps fifteen hundred
+years before,&mdash;perhaps before the coming of Christ,&mdash;by
+the Romans. And the people still remember and bless
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page467"></a>467</span>
+them for that convenience, and say to one another, that
+as the Romans were the bravest men to fight, so they
+were the best at building roads.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Chiefs! Our road is not built to last a thousand
+years, yet in a sense it is. When a road is once built, it
+is a strange thing how it collects traffic, how every year,
+as it goes on, more and more people are found to walk
+thereon and others are raised up to repair and perpetuate
+it and keep it alive; so that perhaps even this road of ours
+may, from reparation to reparation, continue to exist and
+be useful hundreds and hundreds of years after we are
+mingled in the dust. And it is my hope that our far-away
+descendants may remember and bless those who
+laboured for them to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page468"></a>468</span></p>
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page469"></a>469</span></p>
+<h3>INDEX TO THE LETTERS</h3>
+
+<p class="center f80">[<i>For short Index to <span class="sc">Vols. I.-XXII.,</span> see pp. 509-519.</i>]</p>
+<div class="pt05">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<div class="index">
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">Abbé Coignard</span>&rdquo; (France), xxv. <a href="#page409">409</a>, <a href="#page410">410</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Academy, The</i>, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xvii., 166;
+  contributions to, xxiii. 184, xxv. <a href="#page364">364</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Across the Plains,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page123">123</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, xxv. <a href="#page207">207</a>, <a href="#page224">224</a>, <a href="#page301">301</a> <i>n.</i> 1;
+  dedication, xxv. <a href="#page127">127</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, xxv. <a href="#page323">323</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+  inception, xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Actor&rsquo;s Wife,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 308</p>
+
+<p>Adams, Henry, historian, xxv. <a href="#page4">4</a>, <a href="#page29">29</a>, <a href="#page41">41</a>, <a href="#page43">43</a>, <a href="#page45">45</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Address to the Unco Guid&rdquo; (Burns), xxiii. 225</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Adela Chart&rdquo; (&ldquo;The Marriages,&rdquo; H. James), xxv. <a href="#page108">108</a>-9, <a href="#page110">110</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Adelaďde,&rdquo; song (Beethoven), xxiii. 64</p>
+
+<p>Adirondack Mountains, stay in, xxiv. 234, 306 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Admiral Benbow inn (Treasure Island), xxiii. 327</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Admiral Guinea,&rdquo; play (with Henley), xxiii. 327; xxiv. 106, 119, 120, 146, 147; xxv. <a href="#page447">447</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Admiral,&rdquo; the (Story of a Lie), xxiii. 248, 249; xxiv. 90</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Adventures of David Balfour,&rdquo; proposed double volume of, xxv. <a href="#page283">283</a>, <a href="#page357">357</a>, <a href="#page366">366</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ćneid,&rdquo; reading of, xxiv. 186, 265, 306</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ćsthetic Letters&rdquo; (Schiller), xxiv. 71</p>
+
+<p>Ahab, King, xxv. <a href="#page304">304</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah perfido spergiuro,&rdquo; song, xxiii. 166</p>
+
+<p><i>Aitu fafine</i>, an, xxv. <a href="#page41">41</a>, <a href="#page135">135</a></p>
+
+<p>Alabama case, xxiii. 110</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Aladdin&rdquo; (Pyle), xxv. <a href="#page164">164</a></p>
+
+<p>Alais, visit to, xxiii. 216</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Alan Breck Stewart,&rdquo; (&ldquo;Catriona&rdquo; and &ldquo;Kidnapped&rdquo;), xxiv. 201, 203, xxv. <a href="#page46">46</a>, <a href="#page142">142</a>;
+  letter as from, xxv. <a href="#page46">46</a>-8</p>
+
+<p>Alexander, J. W., xxiv. 249, 250;
+  drawing by, of R. L. S., xxiv. 199</p>
+
+<p>Allan Ramsay, Fergusson and Burns, essay on, projected, xxiii. 191, 192, 193</p>
+
+<p>Allen, Grant, ballade by, xxiv. 248</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Amateur Emigrant,&rdquo; xxiii. 235, 237, 239, 240, 244, 252, 254, 255, 259, 260, 265, 266, 267, 277, 352; xxv. <a href="#page396">396</a>-7 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, 398, 414, 423</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Amazing Marriage&rdquo; (Meredith), R. L. S. drawn in, xxv. <a href="#page344">344</a>, <a href="#page390">390</a>-1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Amelia Balfour,&rdquo; <i>see</i> Jersey, Countess of</p>
+
+<p>American politics, xxiii. 112</p>
+
+<p>Anderson, Dr., xxv. <a href="#page457">457</a>-8</p>
+
+<p>Andrews, Mrs., xxiii. 113</p>
+
+<p>Angelo, Michael, xxiii. 32</p>
+
+<p>Angus, W. Craibe, letters to, xxv. <a href="#page69">69</a>, <a href="#page87">87</a>, <a href="#page118">118</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Annals of the Persecutions in Scotland&rdquo; (Aikman), xxiii. 18</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page470"></a>470</span></p>
+
+<p>Anser, xxiii. 22</p>
+
+<p>Anstey, F., xxv. <a href="#page275">275</a></p>
+
+<p>Anstruther, at, xxiii. 12</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Antichrist, L&rsquo;&rdquo; (Renan), xxv. <a href="#page304">304</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Antiquary, The&rdquo; (Scott), xxiv. 91</p>
+
+<p>Antwerp, xxiii. 185</p>
+
+<p>Apemama, Gilbert Islands, xxiv. 358</p>
+
+<p>Apia, at, xxiv. 293, 370, 375; xxv. <a href="#page226">226</a>;
+  famous hurricane at, xxiv. 345, 346, 369, 371; xxv. <a href="#page147">147</a>, <a href="#page172">172</a>-3, <a href="#page174">174</a>;
+  prisoners at, gratitude shown by, to R. L. S., xxv. <a href="#page367">367</a> <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Apiang, Island, xxiv. 358</p>
+
+<p>Apology, difficulty of, xxiii. 133, 134</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Apology for Idlers,&rdquo; xxiii. 203, 204, 205, 207, 210</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Appeal to the Clergy of the Church of Scotland,&rdquo; xxiii. 141, 142</p>
+
+<p>Appin case (Catriona), xxv. <a href="#page161">161</a>, <a href="#page351">351</a></p>
+
+<p>Appin country, in, xxiii. 284</p>
+
+<p>Appin Murder, xxiii. 284, 331, 332; xxv. <a href="#page161">161</a>, <a href="#page351">351</a></p>
+
+<p>Appleton, Dr., xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xvii. 143, 144, 168, 178</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Arblaster&rdquo; (Black Arrow), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx.</p>
+
+<p>Arbroath, Abbot of, xxiii. 29</p>
+
+<p>Archer, Thomas, letter to, xxiv. 305</p>
+
+<p>Archer, William, xxiv. 105, 161, 214;
+  letters to, xxiv. 147, 156, 161, 163, 247, 270, 272, 273, xxv. <a href="#page384">384</a></p>
+
+<p>Archer, William and Thomas, letter to, xxiv. 300</p>
+
+<p>Areia, chief, xxiv. 315</p>
+
+<p>Arnold, Matthew, xxiii. 15</p>
+
+<p>Arthur&rsquo;s Seat, xxiii. 71</p>
+
+<p>Artist, the, problem of, xxv. <a href="#page378">378</a>-9</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Art of Literature,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 342</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Art of Virtue,&rdquo; xxiii. 265</p>
+
+<p>Asceticism and Christianity, xxiii. 213</p>
+
+<p>Assurance of Faith, xxiii. 299, 300</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As You Like It&rdquo; (Shakespeare), xxiv. 96</p>
+
+<p><i>Atalanta</i>, magazine, contributions to, xxv. <a href="#page279">279</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page283">283</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Athenćum</i>, xxiii. 239</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At Last&rdquo; (Kingsley), xxiv. 101</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Attwater&rdquo; (Ebb Tide), xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a>, <a href="#page307">307</a>, <a href="#page350">350</a>, <a href="#page382">382</a></p>
+
+<p>Atua, bombardment of, xxv. <a href="#page424">424</a>, <a href="#page426">426</a></p>
+
+<p>Auckland, visits to, xxv. <a href="#page30">30</a>, <a href="#page34">34</a>; xxv. <a href="#page290">290</a>, <a href="#page291">291</a>, <a href="#page292">292</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Auld Licht Idylls&rdquo; (Barrie), xxv. <a href="#page264">264</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Auntie&rsquo;s  Skirts&rdquo; (Child&rsquo;s Garden of Verse), xxiii. 223</p>
+
+<p>Aurévilly, Barbey d&rsquo;, works of, xxiv. 83; xxv. <a href="#page174">174</a>, <a href="#page314">314</a>, <a href="#page379">379</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ausfürliche Erklarung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche&rdquo; (Lichtenberg), xxiii. 178</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Autolycus at Court,&rdquo; xxiii. 170</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Autumn Effect, An,&rdquo; xxiii. 155, 166; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a>-8</p>
+
+<p>Autun, xxiii. 216, 219</p>
+
+<p>Avignon, at, xxiii. 77</p>
+
+<p>Ayrshire and Galloway, walking tour in, xxiii. 182, 202</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Babington</span>, Mrs. Churchill, xxiii. 54;
+  letter to, xxiii. 30</p>
+
+<p>Babington, Professor Churchill, xxiii. 30, 54; xxiv. 130</p>
+
+<p>Bacon, Sir F., on Time, xxiii. 81</p>
+
+<p>Baildon, H. B., xxv. <a href="#page56">56</a>;
+  letters to, xxv. <a href="#page56">56</a>, <a href="#page377">377</a>, <a href="#page381">381</a></p>
+
+<p>Baker, Mrs. A., letters to, xxv. <a href="#page366">366</a>, <a href="#page413">413</a></p>
+
+<p>Baker, Shirley, of Tonga, xxv. <a href="#page40">40</a>, <a href="#page44">44</a></p>
+
+<p>Baker, Sir Samuel, xxv. <a href="#page175">175</a></p>
+
+<p>Bakewell, Dr., letter to, xxv. <a href="#page424">424</a></p>
+
+<p>Balfour, Dr. George, xxiii. 330</p>
+
+<p>Balfour, Graham, xxv. <a href="#page221">221</a>, <a href="#page251">251</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page292">292</a>, <a href="#page339">339</a>, <a href="#page348">348</a>, <a href="#page351">351</a>, <a href="#page355">355</a>, <a href="#page363">363</a>, <a href="#page406">406</a>, <a href="#page416">416</a>;
+  &ldquo;Life&rdquo; of R. L. S., by, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xix.;
+  at Vailima, xxv. <a href="#page144">144</a>, <a href="#page374">374</a>, <a href="#page401">401</a>, <a href="#page403">403</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page471"></a>471</span></p>
+
+<p>Balfour, James, xxiii. 4</p>
+
+<p>Balfour, Miss Jane, letter to, xxiii. 223</p>
+
+<p>Balfour, Mr., of the Shaws, xxv. <a href="#page47">47</a></p>
+
+<p>Balfour, Mrs. Lewis, xxiii. 4, 5</p>
+
+<p>Balfour of Burley (Old Mortality), xxiii. 130</p>
+
+<p>Balfour, Rev. Lewis, xxiii. 4</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Balfour&rsquo;s Letters,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page293">293</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ballade in Hot Weather&rdquo; (Henley), xxiv. 248</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ballades, Rondeaus, etc.&rdquo; (collected by Gleeson White), xxiv. 248</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ballads,&rdquo; xxiv. 380; xxv. <a href="#page34">34</a>, <a href="#page53">53</a>, <a href="#page57">57</a>, <a href="#page73">73</a></p>
+
+<p>Ballantyne, R., xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii.</p>
+
+<p>Balzac, xxv. <a href="#page154">154</a>;
+  on literary frenzy, xxiii. 173;
+  style of, xxiv. 60</p>
+
+<p>Bamford, Dr. W., xxiii. 271;
+  letter to, xxiii. 272</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Barbara&rdquo; (Catriona), xxv. <a href="#page294">294</a>-5</p>
+
+<p>Barbizon, visits to, xxiii. 174 <i>et seq.</i>, 183</p>
+
+<p>Barmouth, visits to, xxiii. 124, 146</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities&rdquo; (Billing), xxiv. 270</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Barrack Room Ballads&rdquo; (Kipling), xxv. <a href="#page48">48</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Barrel Organ,&rdquo; xxiii. 171</p>
+
+<p>Barrie, J. M., appreciation, xxv. <a href="#page276">276</a>-7:
+  letters to, xxv. <a href="#page154">154</a>, <a href="#page264">264</a>, <a href="#page276">276</a>, <a href="#page362">362</a>, <a href="#page416">416</a></p>
+
+<p>Barrie, Mrs. (Margaret Ogilvie), xxv. <a href="#page417">417</a></p>
+
+<p>Bartholomew, Messrs., xxv. <a href="#page177">177</a></p>
+
+<p>Basin, Thomas, xxiii. 203 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Basselin, Olivier, poems by, xxiii. 193</p>
+
+<p>Bass Rock, xxiii. 207</p>
+
+<p>Bates, &mdash;, xxiii. 89</p>
+
+<p>Bates, Edward Hugh Higlee, xxv. <a href="#page384">384</a></p>
+
+<p>Bates, E. M. G., xxv. <a href="#page384">384</a></p>
+
+<p>Bates, J. H., letter to, xxv. <a href="#page384">384</a></p>
+
+<p>Bathgate, the inn maid at, xxiii. 226, 227</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bauble Shop,&rdquo; play (H. A. Jones), xxv. <a href="#page385">385</a></p>
+
+<p>Baudelaire, &mdash;, xxiii. 160, 195</p>
+
+<p>Baxter, Charles, xxiii. 3, 159, 174, 285, 336, 341, 353, 356; xxiv. 14, 47, 79; xxv. <a href="#page174">174</a>, <a href="#page240">240</a>, <a href="#page266">266</a>, <a href="#page273">273</a>, <a href="#page306">306</a>, <a href="#page357">357</a>;
+  letters to, xxiii. 33, 34, 46, 49, 52, 92, 193, 217, 262, 285, 336, 341; xxiv. 14, 121, 122, 200, 251, 260, 268, 286, 294, 296, 301, 303, 322, 327, 343, 344, 369, 375, 384, 392; xxv. <a href="#page53">53</a>, <a href="#page82">82</a>, <a href="#page120">120</a>, <a href="#page177">177</a>, <a href="#page213">213</a>, <a href="#page270">270</a>, <a href="#page278">278</a>, <a href="#page288">288</a>, <a href="#page292">292</a>, <a href="#page337">337</a>, <a href="#page345">345</a>, <a href="#page360">360</a>, <a href="#page376">376</a>, <a href="#page392">392</a>, <a href="#page394">394</a>, <a href="#page433">433</a>;
+  literary agency of, xxiv. 252;
+  scheme of, for &ldquo;Edinburgh Edition,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page372">372</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page373">373</a></p>
+
+<p>Baxter, Edmund, xxiv. 394; xxv. <a href="#page54">54</a>;
+  death of, xxv. <a href="#page433">433</a></p>
+
+<p>Baynes, Professor Spencer, editor &ldquo;Encyclopćdia Britannica,&rdquo; xxiii, 202</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Beachcombers&rdquo; (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 361</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Beach de Mar,&rdquo; projected xxv. <a href="#page187">187</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Beach of Falesá,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page5">5</a>, <a href="#page20">20</a>, <a href="#page25">25</a>, <a href="#page76">76</a>, <a href="#page97">97</a>, <a href="#page102">102</a>, <a href="#page103">103</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page120">120</a>, <a href="#page122">122</a>, <a href="#page131">131</a>, <a href="#page138">138</a>, <a href="#page147">147</a>, <a href="#page152">152</a>, <a href="#page221">221</a>, <a href="#page224">224</a>, <a href="#page235">235</a>-6, &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page239">239</a>, <a href="#page240">240</a>, <a href="#page250">250</a>, <a href="#page266">266</a>, <a href="#page272">272</a>, <a href="#page274">274</a>, <a href="#page284">284</a>;
+  illustrations to, xxv. <a href="#page253">253</a>-4, <a href="#page288">288</a>;
+  marriage contract in, xxv. <a href="#page187">187</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+  publication, xxv. 1.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Beau Austin,&rdquo; play (with Henley), xxiv. 106</p>
+
+<p>Becker, Consul, xxv. <a href="#page139">139</a>, <a href="#page141">141</a>, <a href="#page268">268</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Becket&rdquo; (Tennyson), xxv. <a href="#page385">385</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bedtime&rdquo; projected, xxiv. 99</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Beggars&rdquo; (<i>Scribner&rsquo;s</i>), xxiv. 235, 253; xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a>, <a href="#page209">209</a>, <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>Bell Rock, book on, xxiv. 78; xxv. <a href="#page322">322</a>;
+  controversy on, xxiv. 121</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page472"></a>472</span></p>
+
+<p>Bell, the, in the Vailima woods, xxv. <a href="#page277">277</a></p>
+
+<p>Ben More, xxiii. 318</p>
+
+<p>Bennet, Dr., xxiii. 84, 101</p>
+
+<p>Bentley, publisher, xxiii. 336, 339, 346</p>
+
+<p>Béranger, article on, xxiii. 186, 191, 193</p>
+
+<p>Bereavement, xxiv. 52</p>
+
+<p>Berlin Convention, xxv. <a href="#page6">6</a></p>
+
+<p>Berlioz, paper on (Henley), xxiii. 318</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bęte Humaine&rdquo; (Zola), xxiv. 396; xxv. <a href="#page319">319</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Betteredge&rdquo; (Moonstone), xxiii. 18</p>
+
+<p>Bickford, Captain, <span class="sc">R.N.</span>, <span class="sc">C.M.G.</span>, xxv. <a href="#page334">334</a>, <a href="#page351">351</a></p>
+
+<p>Bitter Creek, xxiii. 234</p>
+
+<p><i>Black and White</i>, contributions to, xxiii. 286, 337, 341</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Black Arrow,&rdquo; xxiv. 5, 31, 56, 247, 376, 385 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+  serial issue, xxiv. 55;
+  success, xxiv. 68;
+  suggested French version, xxiv. 398</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Black Canyon&rdquo; (L. Osbourne), xxiii. 347, 348, 349</p>
+
+<p>Blackie, Professor, xxiii. 28, 30, 306</p>
+
+<p>Blacklock, Consul, xxv. <a href="#page142">142</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Black Man,&rdquo; xxiii. 308</p>
+
+<p><i>Blackwood&rsquo;s Magazine</i>, xxiv. 370</p>
+
+<p>Blair of Blairmyle (<i>see</i> &ldquo;Young Chevalier&rdquo;), xxv. <a href="#page216">216</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Blanche Amory&rdquo; (Thackeray), xxiv. 212</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bloody Wedding,&rdquo; projected, xxv. <a href="#page66">66</a>, <a href="#page97">97</a></p>
+
+<p>Board of Trade Offices, xxiv. 87</p>
+
+<p>Boccaccio, xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Body Snatchers,&rdquo; xxiii. 308, 316, 321; xxiv. 125, 130; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bondage of Brandon&rdquo; (Hemming), xxiii. 333</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bondman, The&rdquo; (Hall Caine), xxiv. 396-7</p>
+
+<p>Boodle, Miss Adelaide, xxiv. 375;
+  letters to, xxiv. 231, 259, 267, 284, 297, 339, 401; xxv. <a href="#page80">80</a>, <a href="#page147">147</a>, <a href="#page217">217</a>, <a href="#page243">243</a>, <a href="#page248">248</a>, <a href="#page410">410</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Book, A, of Stories,&rdquo; projected contents, xxiii. 171</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Book of Verses&rdquo; (Henley), xxv. <a href="#page121">121</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Book Reader</i>, notice of &ldquo;Prince Otto,&rdquo; xxiv. 195</p>
+
+<p>Books wanted, xxiii. 36, 332; xxiv. 78, 101, 130, 134, 270, 274, 338; xxv. <a href="#page111">111</a>, <a href="#page112">112</a>, <a href="#page174">174</a>, <a href="#page215">215</a>, <a href="#page271">271</a>, <a href="#page287">287</a>, <a href="#page293">293</a>, <a href="#page346">346</a>, <a href="#page361">361</a>, <a href="#page392">392</a></p>
+
+<p>Boswell, James, xxiii. 193, 203, 295</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bottle Imp,&rdquo; xxiv. 292; xxv. <a href="#page272">272</a>, <a href="#page284">284</a>, <a href="#page340">340</a>;
+  Samoan translation, xxv. <a href="#page64">64</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Bough, Sam, painter, xxiii. 24, 26-30; xxiv. 60</p>
+
+<p>Bourget, Paul, xxv. <a href="#page130">130</a>-2, <a href="#page315">315</a>, <a href="#page323">323</a></p>
+
+<p>Bourke, Captain, <span class="sc">R.N.</span>, xxv. <a href="#page263">263</a></p>
+
+<p>Bournemouth, at, xxiv. 104 <i>et seq.</i>; xxv. <a href="#page111">111</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bouroche, Major&rdquo; (Débâcle), xxv. <a href="#page250">250</a></p>
+
+<p>Braemar, at, xxiii. 282, 313, 320</p>
+
+<p>Braille, books by R. L. S., to be issued in, xxv. <a href="#page366">366</a>, <a href="#page413">413</a></p>
+
+<p>Brandeis, xxv. <a href="#page141">141</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Brashiana,&rdquo; burlesque sonnets, xxiii. 283; xxiv. 14, 38, 39</p>
+
+<p>Brash, the publican, xxiii. 336; xxiv. 14</p>
+
+<p>Braxfield (Weir of Hermiston), xxv. <a href="#page260">260</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page264">264</a>-5;
+  portrait of, xxv. <a href="#page453">453</a></p>
+
+<p>Bridge of Allan, at, xxiii. 33, 174</p>
+
+<p>British Museum, visits to, xxiv. 105, 107, 186-7, 202, 229, 365</p>
+
+<p>Bronson, &mdash;, editor, xxiii. 240</p>
+
+<p>Brooke, Rajah, xxv. <a href="#page129">129</a></p>
+
+<p>Brown, &mdash;, xxiv. 230</p>
+
+<p>Brown, Dr. John, verses to, xxiii. 296, 297</p>
+
+<p>Brown, Horatio F., xxiii. 303, 304;
+  letters to, xxiii. 303, 304</p>
+
+<p>Brown, Mrs., xxiii. 13</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page473"></a>473</span></p>
+
+<p>Brown, Rev. Dr., xxv. <a href="#page312">312</a></p>
+
+<p>Brown R. Glasgow (editor of <i>London</i>), xxiii. 184, 251;
+  illness, xxiii. 214 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Browne, Gordon, xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a>, <a href="#page305">305</a>;
+  letter to, xxv. <a href="#page252">252</a></p>
+
+<p>Browning, Robert, xxiv. 107, 202;
+  book on, by Gosse, xxv. <a href="#page74">74</a></p>
+
+<p>Bruce, Michael, xxiii. 71</p>
+
+<p>Bruno, Father, xxiv. 312, 334</p>
+
+<p>Brussels, at, xxiii. 36</p>
+
+<p>Buckinghamshire, walking tour in, xxiii. 124, 155</p>
+
+<p>Buckle, Mrs., xxiv. 176</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bucolics&rdquo; (Virgil), xxiii. 18</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bummkopf&rdquo; (typical pedant), xxiii. 225</p>
+
+<p>Bunner, &mdash;, xxiv. 64, 154</p>
+
+<p>Bunting, &mdash;, xxiv. 227</p>
+
+<p>Bunyan, John, xxiv. 29;
+  essay on, xxiii. 334; xxv. <a href="#page398">398</a></p>
+
+<p>Burford Bridge, visit to, xxiii. 183</p>
+
+<p>Burial customs, Gilbert Islanders&rsquo;, xxiv. 400-1</p>
+
+<p>Burke, Edmund, xxiii. 71</p>
+
+<p>Burlingame, E. L., editor of <i>Scribner&rsquo;s Magazine</i>, xxiv. 233; xxv. <a href="#page6">6</a>, <a href="#page138">138</a>;
+  letters to, xxiv. 253-4, 269, 273-4, 319, 338, 367, 376, 387, 394, xxv. <a href="#page24">24</a>, <a href="#page32">32</a>, <a href="#page86">86</a>, <a href="#page110">110</a>, <a href="#page128">128</a>, <a href="#page145">145</a>, <a href="#page174">174</a>, <a href="#page210">210</a>, <a href="#page215">215</a>, <a href="#page257">257</a>, <a href="#page266">266</a></p>
+
+<p>Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, xxiii. 224; xxiv. 101, 107, 202; xxv. <a href="#page394">394</a></p>
+
+<p>Burney, &ldquo;Admiral,&rdquo; <span class="sc">R.N.</span>, xxv. <a href="#page394">394</a></p>
+
+<p>Burn, Miss, xxiv. 89</p>
+
+<p>Burns Exhibition, Glasgow, xxv. <a href="#page69">69</a>, <a href="#page87">87</a> <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Burns, Robert, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii.; xxv. <a href="#page69">69</a>, <a href="#page70">70</a>, <a href="#page88">88</a>, <a href="#page395">395</a>-6;
+  articles and writings on, xxiii. 111, 151, 179, 191, 192, 193, 202, 203, 224, 226, 237, 241, 245, 250, 263, 273, 358, xxiv. 63;
+  house of, Dumfries, xxiii. 66;
+  judgment on, xxiii. 224;
+  poems of, xxiii. 4, xxiv. 256</p>
+
+<p>Burt, xxiii. 298</p>
+
+<p><i>Bussard</i>, the ship, xxv. <a href="#page425">425</a></p>
+
+<p>Butaritari, Gilbert Islands, xxiv. 358</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But still our hearts are true&rdquo; (Eglinton), xxv. <a href="#page69">69</a>, <a href="#page70">70</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But yet the Lord that is on high&rdquo;  (Scotch Psalter), xxiii. 23</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By Proxy&rdquo; (Payn), xxiv. 7</p>
+
+<p>Byron, Lord, xxiii. 132;
+  essay on (Henley), xxiii. 318; xxiv. 7</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Caldecott</span>, Randolph, xxiii. 248, 267</p>
+
+<p>California, visit to, xxiii. 228</p>
+
+<p>Calistoga, at, xxiii. 277</p>
+
+<p>Calton Hill (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216</p>
+
+<p>Calvin, John, studies in, xxiii. 126</p>
+
+<p>Cambridge, visits to, xxiii. 219; xxiv. 105</p>
+
+<p>Cameron, Captain, xxiv. 349, 350</p>
+
+<p>Campagne Defli, at, xxiv. 4, 8 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Campbell of Glenure, murder of, xxiii. 284, 331, 332</p>
+
+<p>Campbell, Rev. Professor Lewis, xxiii. 278, 316;
+  letter to, xxiv. 113</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Canadian Boat Song&rdquo; (Earl of Eglinton), xxv. <a href="#page69">69</a>, <a href="#page70">70</a></p>
+
+<p>Candlish, Dr., xxiv. 63</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cannon Mills,&rdquo; projected, xxiv. 403</p>
+
+<p>Canoe Journey in France (<i>see</i> Inland Voyage), xxiii. 204</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Canoe, The, Speaks&rdquo; (Underwoods), xxiv. 89, 231</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Canterbury Pilgrimage&rdquo; (Chaucer), illustrated, gift of, xxiv. 149</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Capitaine Fracasse, Le&rdquo; (Théophile Gautier), xxiii. 75</p>
+
+<p>Cap Martin, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxxiv., 93, 114</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Captain Singleton&rdquo; (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 102</p>
+
+<p>Carlyle, Thomas, xxiii. 302;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page474"></a>474</span>
+  xxiv. 135;
+  appreciation of, xxiii. 301, 302;
+  on Coleridge, xxiii. 220</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Carmosine&rdquo; (Musset), xxiv. 97</p>
+
+<p>Carrington, C. Howard, letter to, xxiv. 152</p>
+
+<p>Carr, T. Comyns, xxiv. 68</p>
+
+<p>Carruthers, &mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page40">40</a></p>
+
+<p>Carson, Mrs., xxiii. 252</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Carthew&rdquo; (Wrecker), xxv. <a href="#page112">112</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Casamassima&rdquo; (H. James), xxiv. 263</p>
+
+<p><i>Casco</i>, schooner, cruise in, xxiv. 234, 287 <i>et seq.</i>, 290-1, 300, 305, 310, 312-3, 316 <i>et seq.</i>, 325 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Case Bottle,&rdquo; xxiii. 281</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cashel Byron&rsquo;s Profession&rdquo; (Shaw), xxiv. 270-1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Casparidea,&rdquo; unpublished, xxiii. 283</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cassandra&rdquo; (Mrs. R. L. Stevenson), xxiv. 22</p>
+
+<p>Cassell and Co., xxiv. 110, 127; xxv. <a href="#page57">57</a>, <a href="#page110">110</a>, <a href="#page124">124</a>, <a href="#page272">272</a>, <a href="#page283">283</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Catriona&rdquo; (at first called &ldquo;David Balfour,&rdquo; <i>q.v.</i>), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii., 331; xxiv. 190, 402; xxv. <a href="#page108">108</a>, <a href="#page144">144</a>, <a href="#page155">155</a>, <a href="#page158">158</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page160">160</a>-1, <a href="#page163">163</a>, <a href="#page166">166</a>-7, <a href="#page172">172</a>, <a href="#page187">187</a>, <a href="#page192">192</a>, <a href="#page201">201</a>-2, <a href="#page211">211</a>, <a href="#page215">215</a>, <a href="#page240">240</a>, <a href="#page250">250</a>, <a href="#page264">264</a>, <a href="#page274">274</a>, <a href="#page283">283</a>, <a href="#page290">290</a>, <a href="#page298">298</a>, <a href="#page301">301</a>, <a href="#page305">305</a>, <a href="#page310">310</a>, <a href="#page316">316</a>, <a href="#page344">344</a>, <a href="#page351">351</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page352">352</a>, <a href="#page378">378</a>;
+  in Braille, xxv. <a href="#page366">366</a>;
+  characters in, xxv. <a href="#page216">216</a>;
+  draft of, xxv. <a href="#page162">162</a>;
+  maps for, xxv. <a href="#page177">177</a>-8;
+  &ldquo;my high-water mark,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page393">393</a> (but <i>see</i> <a href="#page379">379</a>);
+  projected illustrations, xxv. <a href="#page349">349</a> <i>n.</i> 1;
+  replies to remarks on, xxv. <a href="#page294">294</a> <i>et seq.</i>;
+  restraint of description in, xxv. <a href="#page367">367</a></p>
+
+<p>Cavalier (de Sonne), xxiii. 307</p>
+
+<p>Cavalier, Jean, xxiii. 306, 307</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cavalier,&rdquo; The (G. P. R. James), xxiv. 274</p>
+
+<p>Cedercrantz, Conrad, Chief Justice of Samoa, xxv. <a href="#page7">7</a>, <a href="#page13">13</a>, <a href="#page48">48</a>-9, <a href="#page67">67</a>, <a href="#page95">95</a>-6, <a href="#page98">98</a>-100, <a href="#page102">102</a>, <a href="#page124">124</a>-5, <a href="#page175">175</a>, <a href="#page188">188</a>, <a href="#page239">239</a>, <a href="#page256">256</a>, <a href="#page275">275</a>, <a href="#page278">278</a>, <a href="#page281">281</a>, <a href="#page286">286</a>, <a href="#page305">305</a>, <a href="#page364">364</a>, <a href="#page376">376</a>, <a href="#page380">380</a>-1</p>
+
+<p>Celtic blood in Britain, xxv. <a href="#page379">379</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Century Magazine</i>, xxiv. 26, 30, 55, 90, 171;
+  article in, by H. James, on R. L. S., xxiv. 250-1;
+  contributions to, xxiii. 338, xxiv. 55, 170, 171, 185;
+  critical notice in, of R. L. S., xxiv. 63, 64</p>
+
+<p>Cévennes, the tramp in (<i>see</i> &ldquo;Travels with a Donkey&rdquo;), xxiii. 183</p>
+
+<p>Ceylon, projected visit, xxv. <a href="#page98">98</a></p>
+
+<p>Chair of History and Constitutional Law, Edinburgh University, candidature for, xxiii. 282, 309 <i>et seq.</i>, 331, 335, 336</p>
+
+<p>Chalmers, Rev. J., xxv. <a href="#page30">30</a>, <a href="#page33">33</a>, <a href="#page39">39</a>, <a href="#page56">56</a>-7</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Chapter of Artistic History,&rdquo; suggested title for proposed book by Henley, xxiii. 318</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Chapter on Dreams&rdquo; (<i>Scribner&rsquo;s</i>), xxiv. 235; xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Character of Dogs&rdquo; (<i>English Illustrated</i>), xxiv. 67; xxv. <a href="#page41">41</a> <i>n.</i> 2</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Charity Bazaar,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page398">398</a></p>
+
+<p>Charles of Orleans, paper on, xxiii. 182, 191, 192, 202, 203, 204</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Charlotte&rdquo; (Sorrows of Werther), xxiii. 60, 61</p>
+
+<p>Charteris, Rev. Dr., xxiv. 276;
+  letters to, xxiv. 276, 279</p>
+
+<p>Chastity, xxiii. 338, 360</p>
+
+<p>Chateaubriand (Sainte-Beuve), xxiii. 78</p>
+
+<p>Chatto, Andrew, letter to, xxiv. 110</p>
+
+<p>Chatto and Windus, publishers, xxiii. 335; xxiv. 110; xxv. <a href="#page395">395</a>;
+  letter to, xxiv. 231</p>
+
+<p>Chepmell, Dr., xxiv. 242</p>
+
+<p>Chester visited, xxiii. 145, 146</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Chevalier Des Touches&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page475"></a>475</span>
+  (d&rsquo;Aurévilly), xxv. <a href="#page174">174</a>, <a href="#page314">314</a>, <a href="#page380">380</a></p>
+
+<p>Chicago Exhibition, xxv. <a href="#page379">379</a></p>
+
+<p>Children, feelings towards, xxiii. 99, 101, 147, 171</p>
+
+<p>Children in the [Kilburn] Cellar (<i>see also</i> Boodle), letter to, xxv. <a href="#page243">243</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Child&rsquo;s Garden of Verse,&rdquo; xxiii. 282; xxiv. 5, 17 <i>et seq.</i>, 24, 54, 55, 70, 99 <i>et seq.</i>, 106, 116, 154; xxv. <a href="#page385">385</a>;
+  dedication, xxiv. 16, 19, 27, 92;
+  illustrations, xxiv. 18 <i>et seq.</i>, 32, 115;
+  publication, xxiv. 138, 140;
+  reviews, xxiv. 147</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Child&rsquo;s Play,&rdquo; xxiv. 70; xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>Chiltern Hills, visited, xxiii. 155</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Choice of Books&rdquo; (F. Harrison), xxv. <a href="#page113">113</a></p>
+
+<p>Christianity and Asceticism, xxiii. 213</p>
+
+<p>Christmas Books (Dickens), xxiii. 148</p>
+
+<p>Christmas Day at Vailima, xxv. <a href="#page40">40</a>-1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Christmas Sermon,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page123">123</a> <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Christ&rsquo;s Hospital, xxiv. 206, 207</p>
+
+<p>Chrystal, Professor, xxiv. 118</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cimourdain&rdquo;  (Quatre-vingt Treize, by Hugo), xxiii. 130 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Clarissa Harlowe&rdquo; (Richardson), xxiii. 210</p>
+
+<p>Clarke, Mrs. W. E., xxv. <a href="#page26">26</a></p>
+
+<p>Clark, R. &amp; R., printers, xxv. <a href="#page124">124</a></p>
+
+<p>Clark, Rev. W. E., missionary, xxiv. 371; xxv. <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href="#page11">11</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page26">26</a>, <a href="#page30">30</a>, <a href="#page64">64</a> <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page101">101</a>; xxv. <a href="#page203">203</a>, <a href="#page236">236</a>, <a href="#page329">329</a>, <a href="#page330">330</a>, <a href="#page422">422</a>, <a href="#page458">458</a>, <a href="#page460">460</a></p>
+
+<p>Clark, Sir Andrew, xxiii. 55, 77, 84</p>
+
+<p>Claxton, missionary, xxv. <a href="#page64">64</a></p>
+
+<p>Clinton, &mdash;, xxiii. 332, 333</p>
+
+<p>Clouds, descriptions of, xxv. <a href="#page178">178</a>-9</p>
+
+<p>Club, at Vailima, xxv. <a href="#page168">168</a>, <a href="#page170">170</a>, <a href="#page176">176</a></p>
+
+<p>Clytie, bust of, xxiii. 170</p>
+
+<p>Cockfield Rectory, xxiii. 276;
+  at, xxiii. 54, 56</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Coggie,&rdquo; <i>see</i> Ferrier, Miss</p>
+
+<p>Coleridge, S. T., xxiii. 220</p>
+
+<p>Colinton, manse of, xxiii. 5</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Collected Essays&rdquo; (Huxley), xxiv. 219</p>
+
+<p>Collins, Wilkie, xxiii. 238</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Colonel Jack&rdquo; (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 103</p>
+
+<p>Colorado, xxiv. 110 <i>et seq.</i>, 229 <i>et seq.</i>, 234</p>
+
+<p>Colvin, Lady (<i>see also</i> Sitwell, Mrs.), xxiii. 54</p>
+
+<p>Colvin, Sir Sidney, xxiii. 88, 91, 93, 94 <i>et seq.</i>, 116, 117, 152; xxiv. 13, 47, 133, 191, 210, 216, 278, 323, 343, 396;
+  choice of, for literary executor, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xviii.;
+  introduction of Eeles to, xxv. <a href="#page452">452</a>;
+  letters to (<i>see</i> especially xxv. <a href="#page5">5</a>), xxiii. 75, 76, 105, 106, 108, 124, 127, 129, 140, 141, 143, 157, 167, 169, 173, 178, 186, 191, 195, 196, 201, 202, 206, 211, 212, 225, 230, 232, 234, 235, 241, 244, 247, 251, 253, 258, 267, 269, 272, 273, 274, 276, 284, 291, 297, 300, 308, 310, 316, 320, 339, 349; xxiv. 15, 33, 55, 69, 81, 98, 99, 101, 134, 136, 137, 186, 189, 192, 210, 219, 227, 235-6, 238, 264, 265, 275, 283, 285, 293, 295, 298, 316, 329, 336, 353, 357, 362, 385; xxv. <a href="#page9">9</a>, <a href="#page25">25</a>, <a href="#page34">34</a>, <a href="#page48">48</a>, <a href="#page54">54</a>, <a href="#page58">58</a>, <a href="#page66">66</a>, <a href="#page76">76</a>, <a href="#page83">83</a>, <a href="#page90">90</a>, <a href="#page94">94</a>, <a href="#page102">102</a>, <a href="#page112">112</a>, <a href="#page121">121</a>, <a href="#page132">132</a>, <a href="#page152">152</a>, <a href="#page156">156</a>, <a href="#page166">166</a>, <a href="#page178">178</a>, <a href="#page193">193</a>, <a href="#page211">211</a>, <a href="#page221">221</a>, <a href="#page230">230</a>, <a href="#page249">249</a>, <a href="#page258">258</a>, <a href="#page271">271</a>, <a href="#page282">282</a>, <a href="#page289">289</a>, <a href="#page291">291</a>, <a href="#page294">294</a>, <a href="#page299">299</a>, <a href="#page310">310</a>, <a href="#page324">324</a>, <a href="#page338">338</a>, <a href="#page347">347</a>, <a href="#page352">352</a>, <a href="#page367">367</a>, <a href="#page380">380</a>, <a href="#page382">382</a>, <a href="#page387">387</a>, <a href="#page396">396</a>, <a href="#page404">404</a>, <a href="#page414">414</a>, <a href="#page422">422</a>, <a href="#page430">430</a>, <a href="#page441">441</a> (the last), <a href="#page448">448</a>;
+  letters to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, xxiv. 308, 347;
+  portraits of, xxv. <a href="#page78">78</a>-9, <a href="#page80">80</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page83">83</a>-5, <a href="#page94">94</a>, <a href="#page100">100</a>;
+  testimonial from, xxiii. 316</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page476"></a>476</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come back&rdquo; (Clough), xxiii. 294</p>
+
+<p>Comines, Philippe de, xxiii. 193</p>
+
+<p>Commissioners of Northern Lights, yacht of, xxv. <a href="#page98">98</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Comtesse d&rsquo;Escarbaguas&rdquo; (Moličre), xxiv. 123</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Comtesse de Rudolstadt&rdquo; (Sand), xxiii. 135</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Confessions&rdquo; (St. Augustine), xxiv. 82-3</p>
+
+<p>Congdon, L. C., xxv. <a href="#page384">384</a></p>
+
+<p>Conrad, Joseph, xxv. <a href="#page76">76</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Consuelo&rdquo; (Sand), xxiii. 87, 135</p>
+
+<p>Consulship, xxv. <a href="#page208">208</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p><i>Contemporary Review</i>, contributions to, xxiv. 143, 181, 227; xxv. <a href="#page398">398</a></p>
+
+<p>Cook&rsquo;s &ldquo;Voyages,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page346">346</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Coolin,&rdquo; Skye terrier, xxiv. 201</p>
+
+<p>Coquelin, xxiii. 276</p>
+
+<p><i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xvii.; xxiv. 355;
+  contributions to, xxiii. 56, 104, 125, 129, 180, 184, 191, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 210, 211, 224, 237, 238, 256, 258, 264, 281, 341, 352, 355; xxiv. 90; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a>;
+  Henley&rsquo;s &ldquo;Hospital&rdquo; poems in, xxiii. 174 <i>n.</i> 1, 176</p>
+
+<p>Cornwall, Barry, xxv. <a href="#page29">29</a> <i>n.</i> 2</p>
+
+<p>Cornwall, impressions of, xxiii. 207</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Correspondence&rdquo; (Wodrow&rsquo;s), xxiii. 291</p>
+
+<p>Corsica, glimpse of, xxiii. 108</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Country Dance,&rdquo; xxiii. 171, 172</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Country Wife&rdquo; (Wycherley), Lamb&rsquo;s essay on, xxiv. 87</p>
+
+<p>Covenanters, xxiii. 65, 67;
+  rhyming by, xxv. <a href="#page363">363</a></p>
+
+<p>Craig, &mdash;, xxiii. 25</p>
+
+<p>Cramond, xxiii. 61</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cramond&rdquo; and other cousins, xxiv. 44</p>
+
+<p>Crane, Walter, xxiii. 212; xxiv. 32</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Crashaw,&rdquo; essay (Gosse), xxiii. 291</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Crime inconnu&rdquo; (Méry), xxiii. 258</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Crime, Le, et le Châtiment&rdquo; (Dostoieffsky), xxiv. 182 <i>n.</i> 1, 183</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Criminal Trials&rdquo; (Arnott), xxiii. 332</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Critical  Kitcats&rdquo; (Gosse), xxiv. 235</p>
+
+<p><i>Critic, The</i>, notice in, xxiv. 64</p>
+
+<p>Crockett, S. R., xxv. <a href="#page349">349</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 2, <a href="#page403">403</a>;
+  letters to, xxiv. 280; xxv. <a href="#page305">305</a></p>
+
+<p>Crosse, Henry, sculptor, xxv. <a href="#page383">383</a></p>
+
+<p>Cumming, Miss Gordon, xxiv. 308</p>
+
+<p>Cummy (<i>see</i> Cunningham)</p>
+
+<p>Cunningham, Alison, xxiii. 5, 69, xxiv. 100;
+  letters to, xxiii. 32, 340; xxiv. 16, 17, 44, 167, 196, 200, 202, 204, 220; xxv. <a href="#page359">359</a>, <a href="#page445">445</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Curaçoa</i>, H.M.S., xxv. <a href="#page189">189</a>, <a href="#page202">202</a>, <a href="#page234">234</a>, <a href="#page267">267</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page416">416</a>, <a href="#page425">425</a>;
+  officers of, xxv. <a href="#page374">374</a>, <a href="#page389">389</a>, <a href="#page405">405</a>-9, <a href="#page414">414</a>, <a href="#page447">447</a>, <a href="#page450">450</a>;
+  petty officers&rsquo; ball, xxv. <a href="#page414">414</a>-5</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Curate of Anstruther&rsquo;s Bottle,&rdquo; xxiii. 108, 109, 170</p>
+
+<p>Curtin, Jeremiah, widow and daughters of, xxiv. 108, 222</p>
+
+<p>Cusack-Smith, Sir Berry, xxv. <a href="#page334">334</a></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Dalgleish</span>, Dr. Scott, and the Ballantyne Memorial, xxv. <a href="#page393">393</a></p>
+
+<p>Damien, Father, xxiv. 291-2, 349, 354, 356;
+  letter on, xxiv. 383-4, 391 <i>n.</i> 1, 404; xxv. <a href="#page124">124</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Damned Ones of the Indies&rdquo; (Joseph Méry), xxiii. 258</p>
+
+<p>Damon, Rev. F., xxiv. 383</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dance of Death&rdquo; (Rowlandson&rsquo;s), xxv. <a href="#page292">292</a>-3</p>
+
+<p>Dancing Children (Notes on the Movements of Young Children), xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a>-8</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page477"></a>477</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Daniel Deronda&rdquo; (George Eliot), xxiii. 210</p>
+
+<p>Darien affair, books on, wanted, xxv. <a href="#page361">361</a></p>
+
+<p>Darwin, Charles, xxiii. 57, 122</p>
+
+<p>David Balfour, character, xxv. <a href="#page155">155</a>, <a href="#page189">189</a>-90</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;David Balfour&rdquo; (title first given both to &ldquo;Kidnapped&rdquo; and &ldquo;Catriona,&rdquo; <i>q.v.</i>), xxiv. 179, 190-1, 196, 201, 204; xxv. <a href="#page108">108</a>, <a href="#page144">144</a>, <a href="#page158">158</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page160">160</a>, <a href="#page161">161</a>-2, <a href="#page163">163</a>, <a href="#page167">167</a>, <a href="#page172">172</a>, <a href="#page177">177</a>, <a href="#page279">279</a>, <a href="#page283">283</a>, <a href="#page313">313</a>, <a href="#page316">316</a>, <a href="#page351">351</a>, <a href="#page366">366</a>, <a href="#page379">379</a>;
+  &ldquo;Catriona&rdquo; issued as, in serial form, xxv. <a href="#page294">294</a>;
+  historical introduction planned, xxv. <a href="#page376">376</a>;
+  unfinished, xxiv. 402</p>
+
+<p>Davis, Dr., of Savaii, xxv. <a href="#page32">32</a></p>
+
+<p>Davos, visits to, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxxiv., 280 <i>et seq.</i>, 331 <i>et seq.</i>;
+  papers on (<i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>), xxiii. 281, 347</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dawn of the Century&rdquo; (Ashton), xxv. <a href="#page392">392</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Day after To-morrow&rdquo; (<i>Contemporary</i>), xxv. <a href="#page398">398</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Deacon Brodie,&rdquo; play (with Henley), xxiii. 185, 257; xxiv. 119, 230, 248;
+  production, xxiv. 99, 102, 261</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dead Man&rsquo;s Letter,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 249, 308</p>
+
+<p>Deans, Jeanie, xxiii. 65</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Death in the Pot,&rdquo; projected, xxv. <a href="#page314">314</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Death, thoughts on, xxiii. 136, 275, 276; xxiv. 58, 162, 183, 227</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Débâcle&rdquo; (Zola), xxv. <a href="#page250">250</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page318">318</a>, <a href="#page319">319</a>, <a href="#page379">379</a></p>
+
+<p>Deborah and Barak, fancies on, xxiii. 154, 155</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Decisions of the Lords of Council&rdquo; (Fountainhall), xxv. <a href="#page293">293</a>, <a href="#page336">336</a>, <a href="#page360">360</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Defence of Idlers&rdquo; (<i>see</i> &ldquo;Apology for Idlers&rdquo;)</p>
+
+<p>Defoe, Daniel, works of, xxiv. 101, 103</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Delafield,&rdquo; xxiii. 350; xxv.<a href="#page55">55</a>-6 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Delhi,&rdquo; and other cousins, xxiv. 44</p>
+
+<p>de Mattos, Mrs., letters to, xxiii. 199; xxiv. 152, 167</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Demi-Monde&rdquo; (Dumas <i>fils</i>), scene in, xxiv. 273</p>
+
+<p>Depression, xxiii. 199, 200</p>
+
+<p>De Quincey, Thomas, biography of (Japp), xxiii. 321</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Derničre Aldini, La,&rdquo; xxiv. 97</p>
+
+<p>Desborough, Mrs., xxiv. 177</p>
+
+<p>Descamps, Maxime, xxiv. 405</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Descent of Man&rdquo; (Darwin), xxiii. 57</p>
+
+<p>des Ursins, Juvénal, xxiii. 192</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Devil on Cramond Sands,&rdquo; xxiii. 170, 249, 308</p>
+
+<p>Dew-Smith, A. G., xxiv. 151;
+  letter to, xxiii. 287</p>
+
+<p>Dhu Heartach lighthouse, xxiii. 10</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Diaboliques, Les&rdquo; (d&rsquo;Aurévilly), xxv. <a href="#page174">174</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dialogue of Character and Destiny,&rdquo; unfinished, xxiii. 257, 267</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dialogue on Man, Woman, and &lsquo;Clarissa Harlowe,&rsquo;&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 211</p>
+
+<p>Diana of the Ephesians, play on, planned, xxiii. 124, 125</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Diary,&rdquo; suggested publication of, xxv. <a href="#page208">208</a></p>
+
+<p>Dick, Mr., xxiv. 135; letter to, xxiv. 83</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dickon Crookback&rdquo; (Black Arrow), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dictionary of Music&rdquo; (Grove), xxiii. 151</p>
+
+<p>Didier, Father, xxv. <a href="#page67">67</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Die Judin&rdquo; at Frankfurt, xxiii. 44</p>
+
+<p>Disappointment, xxiii. 295</p>
+
+<p>Dobell, Dr., xxiv. 201, 230</p>
+
+<p>Dobson, Austin, xxiii. 307; xxiv. 205;
+  letter to, xxiv. 126</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dr. Syntax&rsquo;s Tour,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page292">292</a>-3</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page478"></a>478</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dodd&rdquo; (Wrecker), xxv. <a href="#page378">378</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dogs&rdquo; (Mayhew), xxiii. 341</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dolly&rdquo; (Way of the World), xxiii. 215</p>
+
+<p>Donadieu&rsquo;s restaurant, xxiii. 254</p>
+
+<p>Donat, &mdash;, xxiv. 312</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don Juan&rdquo; (Byron), xxiii. 354</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don Juan,&rdquo; unfinished play (with Henley), xxiii. 256, 257, 258</p>
+
+<p>Dorchester, visited, xxiv. 153</p>
+
+<p>Dostoieffsky&rsquo;s works, xxiv. 182-3</p>
+
+<p>Dover, T. W., letter to, xxv. <a href="#page209">209</a></p>
+
+<p>Dowden, Professor, xxiv, 211-12</p>
+
+<p>Dowdney, &mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page138">138</a></p>
+
+<p>Dowson, Mr., xxiii. 86, 88</p>
+
+<p>Doyle, Sir A. Conan, letters to, xxv. <a href="#page298">298</a>, <a href="#page336">336</a>, <a href="#page429">429</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dreams,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a></p>
+
+<p>Duddingston Loch, xxiii. 75, 164</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Du hast Diamanten und Perlen,&rdquo; song, xxiii. 58</p>
+
+<p>Dumas, Alexandre (<i>pęre</i>), xxiii. 347;
+  Henley&rsquo;s book on, xxiv. 54, 257</p>
+
+<p>Dumas, novels of, xxiv. 398</p>
+
+<p>Dumfries, at, xxiii. 64</p>
+
+<p>Dunblane, at, xxiii. 33</p>
+
+<p>Dunnet, &mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page106">106</a></p>
+
+<p>Dunoyer, Olympe, xxiii. 307</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Du schönes Fischermädchen,&rdquo; song (Schubert), xxiii. 139</p>
+
+<p>Dutra, Augustin, xxiii. 240</p>
+
+<p>Dutton, Mr., xxiv. 356</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dyce of Ythan,&rdquo; projected (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;The Young Chevalier&rdquo;), xxv. <a href="#page172">172</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dynamiter, The,&rdquo; xxiv. 114, 176</p>
+
+<p>Dynamite, views on, xxiv. 108</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Earraid</span>, Isle of, xxiii. 10, 24, 318</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Earthly Paradise&rdquo; (Morris), xxiii. 36</p>
+
+<p>Easter Island, images from, xxiv. 362, 367</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ebb Tide&rdquo; (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 361, 399 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, 402; xxv. <a href="#page120">120</a>, <a href="#page172">172</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page281">281</a>, <a href="#page288">288</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page290">290</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page301">301</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page307">307</a>, <a href="#page310">310</a>, <a href="#page314">314</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page318">318</a>, <a href="#page321">321</a>, <a href="#page325">325</a>, <a href="#page350">350</a>, <a href="#page353">353</a>, <a href="#page372">372</a>;
+  criticism, xxv. <a href="#page347">347</a> <i>et seq.</i>;
+  illustrations for, notes on, xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Echoes&rdquo; (Henley), xxv. <a href="#page215">215</a></p>
+
+<p>Eckenhelm, xxiii. 39</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Eclogues&rdquo; (Virgil), xxiii. 34</p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh Academy (school), old boys&rsquo; dinner, xxiii. 168, 169</p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh, at, xxiii. <i>passim</i>;
+  homes in, xxiii. 5;
+  life at, 1874-5, xxiii. 123 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh Castle, xxiii. 69, 71</p>
+
+<p><i>Edinburgh Courant</i>, wanted, xxv. <a href="#page392">392</a></p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh Edition of works, xxv. <a href="#page372">372</a>-3, <a href="#page394">394</a>, <a href="#page396">396</a>, <a href="#page404">404</a>, <a href="#page414">414</a>;
+  illustrations in, xxv. <a href="#page423">423</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+  suggested prefaces, xxv. <a href="#page376">376</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Edinburgh Eleven&rdquo; (Barrie), xxv. <a href="#page276">276</a></p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh, influence of, xxv. <a href="#page155">155</a></p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh, &ldquo;Picturesque Notes on,&rdquo; xxiii. 185, 211, 216, 218</p>
+
+<p><i>Edinburgh Review</i>, article in, on Rembrandt, by Colvin, xxiii. 225</p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh Society of Arts, medal awarded to R. L. S., xxiii. 10</p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh streets, xxiv. 100</p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh University, Speculative Society at, xxiii. 35, 64, 184; xxiii. 312; xxiv. 178
+  studies at, xxiii. 8 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Eeles, Lieutenant, <span class="sc">R.N.</span>, xxv. <a href="#page415">415</a>;
+  letters to, xxv. <a href="#page267">267</a>, <a href="#page451">451</a></p>
+
+<p>Effort, uses of, xxiv. 88</p>
+
+<p>Eglinton, Hugh, 12th Earl of, xxv. <a href="#page69">69</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Egoist, The&rdquo; (Meredith), xxiii. 353</p>
+
+<p>Eimeo, storm near, xxiv. 324</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Einst, O Wunder, einst,&rdquo; song, xxiii. 65</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Elements of Style&rdquo; (<i>Contemporary Review</i>), xxiv. 181</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page479"></a>479</span></p>
+
+<p>Elgin marbles, the, xxiii. 158-60, 163-4</p>
+
+<p>Eliot, George, works of, xxiii. 210</p>
+
+<p>Elstree murder, xxiii. 338</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Emerson&rdquo; (H. James), xxiv. 278</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Emigrant Train, The,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Encyclopćdia Britannica,&rdquo; contributions to, xxiii. 179, 186, 191, 202-3</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Endymion&rdquo; (Keats), xxiv. 170</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Engineer&rsquo;s Thumb&rdquo; (Doyle), xxv. <a href="#page340">340</a></p>
+
+<p>England and Samoa, xxv. <a href="#page6">6</a> <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>England and Scotland, contrasts between, xxiii. 56 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>English Illustrated Magazine</i>, contributions to, xxiv. 68 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;English Odes,&rdquo; edited by Gosse, xxiii. 292;
+  suggestions concerning, xxiii. 293-4</p>
+
+<p>English, the, mock definition of, xxiii. 225</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;English Village, An&rdquo; (Gosse), xxv. <a href="#page457">457</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;English Worthies&rdquo; Series, book for, xxiv. 134</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ensorcelée, L&rsquo;&rdquo; (d&rsquo;Aurévilly), xxv. <a href="#page314">314</a>, <a href="#page380">380</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Epilogue to an Inland Voyage,&rdquo; xxiv. 68</p>
+
+<p>Epitaph for himself, by R. L. S., xxiii. 269; xxv. <a href="#page375">375</a></p>
+
+<p>Epitaph (mock) on himself, xxiv. 69</p>
+
+<p><i>Equator</i>, schooner, cruise in, xxiv. 291-2, 340, 343, 347, 357-8, 369, 390; xxv. <a href="#page3">3</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Eroica&rdquo; Symphony (Beethoven), xxiii. 166</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Escape at Bedtime&rdquo; (&ldquo;Child&rsquo;s Garden&rdquo;), xxiv. 55</p>
+
+<p>Essays, xxiii. 143;
+  selected, projected volume and suggested contents, xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Essays in Art&rdquo; (Hamerton), xxiii. 242</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Essays in London&rdquo; (H. James), xxv. <a href="#page367">367</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Essays on the Art of Writing,&rdquo; xxiv. 265</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Essays on Travel,&rdquo; xxiii. 201, 281</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Etherege,&rdquo; essay (Gosse), xxiv. 45</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Evan Harrington&rdquo; (Meredith), characters in, xxiv. 97</p>
+
+<p>Evictions, Highland, xxiii. 298</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Evictions&rdquo; (Miller), xxiii. 297</p>
+
+<p>Ewing, Professor, xxiv. 226</p>
+
+<p>Exeter, visited, xxiv. 105, 153</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Expansion of England&rdquo; (Seeley), xxiv. 55, 56</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">Fables</span> in Song,&rdquo; xxiii. 127-8, 132, 141, 142</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fables&rdquo; (Lord Lytton), xxiii. 129</p>
+
+<p>Fage, xxiii. 307</p>
+
+<p>Fairchild, Blair, xxiv. 239, 405</p>
+
+<p>Fairchild, Charles, xxiv. 233, 237, 239, 250;
+  letter to, xxiv. 246</p>
+
+<p>Fairchild, Mrs. Charles, xxiv. 233, 237, 239, 250; xxv. <a href="#page379">379</a>;
+  letters to, xxiv. 403; xxv. <a href="#page163">163</a>, <a href="#page240">240</a></p>
+
+<p>Fair Isle, visit to, xxiii. 24</p>
+
+<p>Fakarava, at, xxiv. 295, 312</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Falconers, The Two, of Cairnstane,&rdquo; xxiii. 170</p>
+
+<p><i>Falke</i>, the, xxv. <a href="#page425">425</a></p>
+
+<p>Fall of Man, the, xxiii. 212</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Familiar Essays,&rdquo; xxiv. 230</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Familiar Studies of Men and Books,&rdquo; xxiii. 149, 224, 229, 351, 355;
+  publication, xxiii. 335.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Family of Engineers&rdquo; (&ldquo;History of the Stevensons&rdquo; or the &ldquo;Northern Lights&rdquo;), unfinished; xxv. <a href="#page120">120</a>, <a href="#page310">310</a>, <a href="#page315">315</a>-6, <a href="#page319">319</a>-20, <a href="#page322">322</a>, <a href="#page334">334</a>, <a href="#page339">339</a>, <a href="#page348">348</a>, <a href="#page357">357</a>;
+  germ of, xxiv. 279; xxv. <a href="#page95">95</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Family of Love,&rdquo; xxiii. 170</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fantasio&rdquo; (de Musset), xxiv. 97</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page480"></a>480</span></p>
+
+<p>Farehau, xxiv. 310, 315</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;F.A.S., In Memoriam&rdquo; (Underwoods), xxiii. 300</p>
+
+<p>Fast-day, xxiii. 153</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fastidious Brisk,&rdquo; sobriquet, xxiv. 72</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Faust&rdquo; (Goethe), xxiv. 71</p>
+
+<p>Faxon, &mdash;, xxiv. 390</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Femmes Savantes&rdquo; (Moličre), xxiv. 123</p>
+
+<p>Fenian dynamite outrages, xxiii. 320</p>
+
+<p>Fergusson, Robert, poet, xxiv. 214, 215; xxv. <a href="#page57">57</a>, <a href="#page70">70</a>-1, <a href="#page88">88</a>;
+  monument, xxv. <a href="#page395">395</a>-6</p>
+
+<p>Ferrier, James Walter, xxiii. 48, 223; xxiv. 46, 47, 63, 98;
+  appreciation of, xxiv. 46 <i>et seq.</i>;
+  collaboration with, xxv. <a href="#page398">398</a>;
+  death, xxiv. 6, 46 <i>et seq.</i>, 59, 69, 71-2, 96 <i>n.</i> 1;
+  letter to, xxiii. 269</p>
+
+<p>Ferrier, Miss, xxiv. 90;
+  letters to, xxiv. 46, 52, 71, 88, 121, 132, 282</p>
+
+<p>Festetics de Solna, Count, at Apia, xxv. <a href="#page415">415</a></p>
+
+<p>Fielding, Henry, xxiii. 129</p>
+
+<p>Fiji, xxv. <a href="#page50">50</a>, <a href="#page96">96</a>, <a href="#page102">102</a></p>
+
+<p>Fiji, High Commissioner of, proclamation by, xxv. <a href="#page280">280</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Finsbury Tontine, The&rdquo; (<i>see</i> &ldquo;Wrong Box&rdquo;)</p>
+
+<p>Flaubert, Gustave, on prose, xxv. <a href="#page71">71</a>-2</p>
+
+<p>Fleming, Marjorie, xxiv. 245 <i>n.</i> 1;
+  verses of, xxv. <a href="#page385">385</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Flint, Captain&rdquo; (&ldquo;Treasure Island&rdquo;), xxiii. 326</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Flowers of the Forest,&rdquo; air, xxiii. 113</p>
+
+<p>Folau, &mdash;, Chief Judge, xxv. <a href="#page30">30</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Folk Lore&rdquo; (Lang), xxiv. 130</p>
+
+<p>Folleté, M., xxiii. 100</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fons Bandusić&rdquo; (Macdonald), xxiv. 249</p>
+
+<p>Fontainebleau (<i>see also</i> Barbizon, <i>and</i> &ldquo;Forest Notes&rdquo;), visits to, xxiii. 124, 182, 183, 184, 189, 282, 305</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Footnote to History,&rdquo; xxiv. 362 <i>et seq.</i>, 369 <i>et seq.</i>, 386; xxv. <a href="#page5">5</a>, <a href="#page41">41</a> <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page117">117</a>, <a href="#page120">120</a>, <a href="#page122">122</a>, <a href="#page124">124</a>, <a href="#page126">126</a>, <a href="#page129">129</a>-30, <a href="#page138">138</a>, <a href="#page140">140</a>-4, <a href="#page146">146</a>, <a href="#page163">163</a>, <a href="#page172">172</a>, <a href="#page188">188</a>, <a href="#page192">192</a>, <a href="#page211">211</a>, <a href="#page250">250</a>, <a href="#page257">257</a>, <a href="#page267">267</a>, <a href="#page274">274</a>;
+  publication of, xxv. <a href="#page146">146</a>;
+  German reception of, xxv. <a href="#page346">346</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Foreigner, The, at Home,&rdquo; essay, xxiii. 56</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Forester,&rdquo; unfinished paper (J. W. Ferrier), xxiii. 269</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Forest Notes,&rdquo; essay on Fontainebleau (<i>Magazine of Art</i>), xxiii. 180, 181, 186, 198, 201, 202; xxiv. 32, 57, 58, 67, 68 <i>n.</i> 1; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a>-8</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Forest State, The: A Romance&rdquo; (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Prince Otto&rdquo;), xxiii. 259, 265, 266</p>
+
+<p>Forfeited Estates, tenants of, xxiii. 298</p>
+
+<p>Forster, &mdash;, xxiii. 321</p>
+
+<p>Forth, Firth of, xxiii. 61, 68, 69</p>
+
+<p><i>Fortnightly Review</i>, contributions to, xxiii. 127, 132, 281</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fortune by Sea and Land&rdquo; (Heywood), xxiii. 354</p>
+
+<p>Fortune, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 15</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fortunes of Nigel&rdquo; (Scott), xxiv. 91</p>
+
+<p>Foss, Captain, xxv. <a href="#page106">106</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Four Great Scotsmen,&rdquo; project for, xxiii. 111</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fra Diavolo,&rdquo; at Frankfurt, xxiii. 42</p>
+
+<p>France, Anatole, xxv. <a href="#page321">321</a>, <a href="#page409">409</a></p>
+
+<p>Franchise for working men, xxiii. 97</p>
+
+<p>François, a baker, xxiii. 240; xxiv. 42</p>
+
+<p>François Villon, xxiii. 182, 191, 192, 207; xxiv. 397;
+  Schwob&rsquo;s writings on, xxv. <a href="#page52">52</a></p>
+
+<p>Frank, &mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page330">330</a></p>
+
+<p>Frankfurt, at, xxiii. 38</p>
+
+<p>Franklin, Benjamin, article on, projected, xxiii. 253, 265, 266, 333</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page481"></a>481</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Fraser&rsquo;s Magazine</i>, contribution to, xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a>, <a href="#page123">123</a></p>
+
+<p>French possessions in the Pacific, xxiv. 293</p>
+
+<p>French translations, <i>see</i> letters to Schwob</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Friend,&rdquo; the (S. T. Coleridge), xxiii. 221</p>
+
+<p>Friends, the six, xxiv. 47</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fruits of Solitude&rdquo; (Penn), xxiii. 303</p>
+
+<p>Funk, Dr., xxv. <a href="#page416">416</a>, <a href="#page458">458</a></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Galitzin</span>, Prince Leon, xxiii. 119, 120, 121, 125, 155</p>
+
+<p>Galpin, &mdash;, xxiv. 202</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gamekeeper,&rdquo; sobriquet for Miss Boodle, xxiv. 259, 284</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Game of Bluff,&rdquo; <i>see</i> &ldquo;Wrong Box&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Garschine, Madame, xxiii. 98, 99, 102, 108, 115, 147;
+  letter from, xxiii. 128</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gauvain&rdquo; (Quatre-vingt Treize, by Hugo), xxiii. 130 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gavin Ogilvy,&rdquo; character (Barrie), xxv. <a href="#page277">277</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gavottes Célčbres&rdquo; (Litolf&rsquo;s edition), xxiv. 188</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gebir,&rdquo; line from, quoted (Landor), xxiii. 329</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Genesis of the Master of Ballantrae,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page33">33</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gentleman of France&rdquo; (Weyman), xxv. <a href="#page312">312</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;George the Pieman&rdquo; (Deacon Brodie), xxiii. 257</p>
+
+<p>German policy in Samoa, xxiv. 370; xxv. <a href="#page6">6</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page176">176</a> <i>et passim</i></p>
+
+<p>Gévaudan, xxiii. 218</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Giant Bunker,&rdquo; xxiv. 70</p>
+
+<p>Gibson, Captain, xxv. <a href="#page203">203</a></p>
+
+<p>Gilbert Islands, burial customs in, xxiv. 399, 400;
+  papers on, xxv. <a href="#page84">84</a>;
+  suggested plan and title, <a href="#page84">84</a>;
+  visited, xxiv. 291-2, 356-7 <i>et seq.</i>, 368</p>
+
+<p>Gilder, R. W., editor <i>Century Magazine</i>, xxiii. 338; xxiv. 26, 29, 30, 64, 98, 149, 185, 250</p>
+
+<p>Gilfillan, &mdash;, xxiv. 349, 352</p>
+
+<p>Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., xxiii. 113; xxiv. 136-7, 139, 192</p>
+
+<p>Glasgow, Knox memorial at, xxv. <a href="#page88">88</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gleams of Memory&rdquo; (Payn), xxv. <a href="#page447">447</a></p>
+
+<p>Glencorse Church, xxiii. 180; xxv. <a href="#page305">305</a>, <a href="#page307">307</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go Between,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page314">314</a>-5 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Goguclat&rdquo; (St. Ives), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good Boy, A&rdquo; (&ldquo;Child&rsquo;s Garden&rdquo;), xxiv. 55, 170</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gordon Darnaway&rdquo; (&ldquo;Merry Men&rdquo;), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx.</p>
+
+<p>Gordon, General C. G., xxiv. 107, 137, 139-40, 183; xxv. <a href="#page57">57</a></p>
+
+<p>Gosse, Edmund, xxiii. 311, 316, 328, 329, 341; xxiv. 36, 120, 244;
+  appointment to Clark Readership,  xxiv.  99;
+  letters to, xxiii. 219, 224, 226, 236, 243, 245, 260, 271, 292, 293, 306, 311, 313, 324, 325, 332, 338, 350, 359, 360; xxiv. 26, 29, 30, 45, 50, 87, 97, 125, 139, 173, 181, 244, 277; xxv. <a href="#page71">71</a>, <a href="#page317">317</a>, <a href="#page454">454</a>;
+  &ldquo;Life&rdquo; by, of his father, xxv. <a href="#page71">71</a>, <a href="#page130">130</a>, <a href="#page317">317</a></p>
+
+<p>Gosse, Mrs. Edmund, xxiii. 225, 227;
+  letter to, xxiii. 347</p>
+
+<p>Gosse, P. H., &ldquo;Life&rdquo; of, by E. Gosse, xxv. <a href="#page71">71</a>, <a href="#page130">130</a>, <a href="#page317">317</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gossip, A, on Romance,&rdquo; xxiii. 283, 342, 349</p>
+
+<p>Göttingen, xxiii. 118, 122, 125</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gower Woodseer&rdquo; (&ldquo;Amazing Marriage,&rdquo; by Meredith), prototype of, xxv. <a href="#page344">344</a>, <a href="#page390">390</a>-1</p>
+
+<p>Grange, Lady, xxiii. 298</p>
+
+<p>Grant, &mdash;, xxiii. 316</p>
+
+<p>Grant, Geordie, xxiii. 19</p>
+
+<p>Grant, Lady, xxiv. 53, 72</p>
+
+<p>Grant, Mrs., of Laggan, xxiii. 298</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page482"></a>482</span></p>
+
+<p>Granton, xxiii. 8</p>
+
+<p>Grant, Sir Alexander, xxiv. 53, 72, 132</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grape from a Thorn&rdquo; (Payn), xxiv. 7</p>
+
+<p>Graves, home and foreign, xxv. <a href="#page349">349</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gray, Thomas&rdquo; (&ldquo;English Men of Letters&rdquo;), by Gosse, xxiii. 350, 351, 360;
+  works of, edited by Gosse, xxiv. 140</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great Expectations&rdquo; (Dickens), xxiv. 22-3</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great North Road,&rdquo; unfinished, xxiii. 328; xxiv. 106, 127, 139, 152, 402</p>
+
+<p>Greenaway, Kate, xxiv. 32</p>
+
+<p>Green, Madame, singer, xxv. <a href="#page249">249</a></p>
+
+<p>Grey, Sir George, xxv. <a href="#page290">290</a>, <a href="#page298">298</a>-9;
+  visit to, xxv. <a href="#page292">292</a></p>
+
+<p>Grez, at, xxiii. 183, 185, 187;
+  meeting with Mrs. Osbourne at, xxii. 183, 228</p>
+
+<p>Grove, Sir George, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xviii. 151, 178, 204</p>
+
+<p>Guérin, Maurice de, xxiii. 165</p>
+
+<p>Gurr, &mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page48">48</a>, <a href="#page105">105</a>, <a href="#page116">116</a>, <a href="#page448">448</a></p>
+
+<p>Gurr, Mrs., xxv. <a href="#page107">107</a></p>
+
+<p>Guthrie, Charles J., letters to, xxiii. 312; xxiv. 178</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Guy Mannering&rdquo; (Scott), xxiv. 91; xxv. <a href="#page167">167</a></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Habakkuk</span>, prophet, xxiii. 211</p>
+
+<p>Haddon, Trevor, letters to, xxiii. 357, 360; xxiv. 10, 39, 93</p>
+
+<p>Haggard, Bazett, xxv. <a href="#page138">138</a>, <a href="#page161">161</a>, <a href="#page170">170</a>-1, <a href="#page193">193</a> <i>et passim</i></p>
+
+<p>Haggard, Rider, xxiv. 257; xxv. <a href="#page86">86</a>, <a href="#page226">226</a>-7</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Haggis, The&rdquo; (Burns), xxiv. 256</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hair Trunk,&rdquo; xxiii. 205-6</p>
+
+<p>Hake, Dr. Gordon, xxiv. 239</p>
+
+<p>Hall, Basil, xxv. <a href="#page111">111</a></p>
+
+<p>Hallé, Sir Charles, xxiii. 169, 198</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hall, Mr.&rdquo; (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 211</p>
+
+<p>Hamerton, P. G., xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xvii., 58, 216, 218, 315 <i>n.</i> 1, 316, 336;
+  letters to, xxiii. 242, 314, 335; xxiv. 143</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hamerton, P. G., An Autobiography,&rdquo; xxiii. 216</p>
+
+<p>Hamilton, Captain, death of, xxv. <a href="#page65">65</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hamlet&rdquo; (Shakespeare), xxv. <a href="#page51">51</a></p>
+
+<p>Hammond, Basil, xxiv. 13 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Hampstead, at, xxiii. 124, 133</p>
+
+<p>Hand, Captain, <span class="sc">R.N.</span>, xxv. <a href="#page139">139</a></p>
+
+<p>Handwriting, tests of, xxv. <a href="#page254">254</a>-5</p>
+
+<p>Hansome, Rufe, xxiii. 278</p>
+
+<p>Happiness, xxiv. 183-4</p>
+
+<p>Hardy, Thomas, xxiv. 153; xxv. <a href="#page266">266</a></p>
+
+<p>Hargrove, Mr., xxiii. 25, 26</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Harry Richmond&rdquo; (Meredith), characters in, xxiv. 97</p>
+
+<p>Harte, Bret, xxiii. 210</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hastie&rdquo; (Kidnapped), xxiv. 196</p>
+
+<p>Hawaiian Islands, stay in, xxiv. 291</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hawthorne&rdquo; (H. James), xxiii. 273, 277</p>
+
+<p>Hayley, &mdash;, xxiii. 252</p>
+
+<p>Hazlitt, William, xxv. <a href="#page385">385</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Heart of Midlothian&rdquo; (Scott), xxiii. 65; xxv. <a href="#page154">154</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Heathercat,&rdquo; unfinished, xxv. <a href="#page281">281</a>, <a href="#page360">360</a>-1, <a href="#page403">403</a></p>
+
+<p>Hebrides, yachting trip in, xxiii. 124, 139, 140</p>
+
+<p>Hecky, a dog, xxiv. 202</p>
+
+<p>Hegel, &mdash;, xxiv. 75</p>
+
+<p>Heintz, Dr., xxiii. 244</p>
+
+<p>Henderson, Mr., xxiii. 6, 328; xxiv. 31</p>
+
+<p>Henley, Anthony, xxiii. 238, 240</p>
+
+<p>Henley, E. J., xxiv. 261</p>
+
+<p>Henley, W. E., xxiii. 124, 171, 172, 177, 284, 285, 334, 352; xxiv. 29, 47, 52, 59, 67, 79, 99, 151, 155, 191, 202, 302, 377; xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a>, <a href="#page121">121</a>, <a href="#page123">123</a>, <a href="#page174">174</a>;
+  appreciation of, xxv. <a href="#page213">213</a>;
+  dramatic collaboration with, xxiii.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page483"></a>483</span>
+  185, 256, 257; xxiv. 99, 106, 119, 146;
+  editor of <i>London</i>, xxiii. 184;
+  in hospital, xxv. <a href="#page427">427</a>;
+  letters to, xxiii. 204, 217, 219, 221, 233, 238, 249, 255, 256, 265, 317, 319, 326, 328, 330, 334, 341, 342, 352, 362; xxiv. 17, 23, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 47, 54, 57, 65, 72, 79, 91, 96, 102, 111, 114, 120, 123, 127, 131, 133, 146, 147, 155, 229, 239, 248, 257; xxv. <a href="#page214">214</a>;
+  poems by, xxv. <a href="#page122">122</a>, <a href="#page214">214</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Henry Shovel,&rdquo; <i>see</i> &ldquo;Shovels of Newton French&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Herald</i>, ship, xxv. <a href="#page444">444</a></p>
+
+<p>Herbert, George, poetry of, xxiii. 18</p>
+
+<p>Herrick, Robert, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx.; xxiv. 36, 82</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Herrick, Robert,&rdquo; essay (Gosse), xxiv. 45</p>
+
+<p><i>Hester Noble</i>, unfinished play (with Henley), xxiii. 256, 257</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin&rsquo; yet?&rdquo; air, xxiii. 113</p>
+
+<p>Highland History, projected, xxiii. 280, 290-1, 297; xxv. <a href="#page117">117</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Highland Widow&rdquo; (Scott), xxv. <a href="#page24">24</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;High Woods of Umfanua,&rdquo; <i>see</i> &ldquo;Beach of Falesá&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Hiroshigé, prints by, xxiii. 157</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Histoire d&rsquo;Israël&rdquo; (Renan), xxv. <a href="#page304">304</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Histoire des Origines de Christianisme&rdquo; (Renan), xxv. <a href="#page304">304</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;History of America&rdquo; (Adams), xxv. <a href="#page215">215</a>, <a href="#page266">266</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;History of England&rdquo; (Macaulay), xxiii. 70</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;History of France&rdquo; (Martin), xxiii. 193</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;History of Indostani&rdquo; (Orme), xxv. <a href="#page419">419</a>, <a href="#page423">423</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;History of Notorious Pirates&rdquo; (Johnson), xxiv. 101</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;History of the Great Storm&rdquo; (Defoe), xxiv. 101</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;History of the Rebellion&rdquo; (Clarendon), xxiii. 31</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;History of the Stevensons,&rdquo; <i>see</i> &ldquo;Family of Engineers&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;History of the United States&rdquo; (Bancroft), xxiii. 246</p>
+
+<p>Hogarth, William, xxiii. 69;
+  Cambridge lectures on, by Colvin, xxiii. 178</p>
+
+<p>Hokusai (<i>Magazine of Art</i>), xxiv. 32</p>
+
+<p>Hole, W., illustrator, xxiv. 270, 319, 321-2, 346; xxv. <a href="#page349">349</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page362">362</a> <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Holy Fair&rdquo; (Burns), xxiii. 4; xxiv. 265 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Homburg, visit to, xxiii. 182</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Home is the Sailor,&rdquo; lines chosen for epitaph, xxiii. 269; xxv. <a href="#page375">375</a></p>
+
+<p>Home Rule Bill of 1885, xxiv. 192</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Homme, L&rsquo;, qui rit&rdquo; (Hugo), xxiii. 125 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Honolulu, visits to, xxiv. 291, 319 <i>et seq.</i>, 329, 353; xxv. <a href="#page281">281</a>, <a href="#page345">345</a>, <a href="#page349">349</a>, <a href="#page362">362</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Horatian Ode&rdquo; (Marvell), xxiii. 293</p>
+
+<p>Hoskin, Dr., xxv. <a href="#page268">268</a>, <a href="#page270">270</a>, <a href="#page452">452</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;House of Eld&rdquo; Fables, xxiii. 12, 141</p>
+
+<p>Houses, characteristics of, xxiii. 145, 146</p>
+
+<p>Howard Place, 8,
+  Edinburgh, birthplace, xxiii. 5</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Howe, Miss&rdquo; (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Huckleberry Finn&rdquo; (Twain), xxiv. 139</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Huguenots, Les,&rdquo; opera, xxiii. 200</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Huish&rdquo; (Ebb Tide), xxv. <a href="#page313">313</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Human Compromise,&rdquo; xxiii. 267</p>
+
+<p>Humble Apology (Longman&rsquo;s), xxiv. 181</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page484"></a>484</span></p>
+
+<p>Humble Remonstrance (Longman&rsquo;s), xxiv. 127</p>
+
+<p>Hume, David, xxiii. 4, 72, 111, 145</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Humilies et offensés&rdquo; (Dostoieffsky), xxiv. 183</p>
+
+<p>Hunter, Robert, &ldquo;portrait&rdquo; of, xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>Hurricane at Apia, the great, xxiv. 345, 346, 369; xxv. <a href="#page141">141</a>, <a href="#page172">172</a>-4;
+  chapter on, in &ldquo;Footnote,&rdquo; issued in <i>Scots Observer</i>, xxv. <a href="#page174">174</a></p>
+
+<p>Hutchinson, &mdash;, bust by, of R. L. S., xxv. <a href="#page353">353</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Hyde, Rev. Dr., and Father Damien, xxiv. 292;
+  controversy with, xxiv. 383-4, 391 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, 402, 404</p>
+
+<p>Hyéres, at, xxiv. 5, 21 <i>et seq.</i>; xxv. <a href="#page60">60</a></p>
+
+<p>Hyndman, &mdash;, xxiv. 141</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hyperion&rdquo; (Keats), xxiv. 170</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Iceland</span>, book on, by Gosse suggested, xxiii. 333</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ich unglückselige Atlas,&rdquo; song (Schubert), xxiii. 139</p>
+
+<p>Ide, Annie H., and R. L. S.&rsquo;s birthday, xxv. <a href="#page89">89</a>-90, <a href="#page118">118</a>-9;
+  letter to, xxv. <a href="#page118">118</a></p>
+
+<p>Ide, C. J., Land Commissioner and afterwards Chief Justice in Samoa, xxv. <a href="#page281">281</a>, <a href="#page298">298</a>, <a href="#page380">380</a>-1, <a href="#page450">450</a>;
+  letter to, xxv. <a href="#page88">88</a></p>
+
+<p>Ide, Margery, xxv. <a href="#page450">450</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Idler, The</i>, xxv. <a href="#page372">372</a>, <a href="#page429">429</a>;
+  contributions to, xxv. <a href="#page376">376</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Illustrated London News</i>, xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>Inchcape bell, xxiii. 29</p>
+
+<p>Income-tax, xxiii. 113, 114</p>
+
+<p>Inglis, John, Justice-General, xxiii. 181</p>
+
+<p>Ingram, John H., xxiii. 166</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Inland Voyage,&rdquo; xxiii. 183, 185, 204, 211, 212, 218, 229, 247; xxiv. 103;
+  criticisms on, xxiii. 215-6</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Inn Album&rdquo; (Robert Browning), review of, xxiii, 198, 199</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Inn, The,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page429">429</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In Russet and Silver&rdquo; (Gosse), dedication of, xxv. <a href="#page454">454</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In the Garden,&rdquo; projected, xxiv. 99</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In the South Seas,&rdquo; first published as &ldquo;The South Seas,&rdquo; xxiv. 290, 292, 297, 320-1, 358, 362, 399, 403; xxv. <a href="#page5">5</a>, <a href="#page12">12</a>, <a href="#page16">16</a>, <a href="#page22">22</a>, <a href="#page26">26</a>, <a href="#page34">34</a>, <a href="#page45">45</a>, <a href="#page54">54</a>, <a href="#page61">61</a> &amp; <i>nn.</i> 1 &amp; 2, <a href="#page68">68</a>, <a href="#page69">69</a>, <a href="#page77">77</a>, <a href="#page78">78</a>, <a href="#page80">80</a>, <a href="#page97">97</a>, <a href="#page100">100</a>;
+  criticisms, xxiv. 293, 348-9; xxv. <a href="#page76">76</a>;
+  dedication proposed, xxiv. 304</p>
+
+<p>Intimate Poems, suggested edition, xxv. <a href="#page377">377</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Iona</i>, vessel, xxiii. 24</p>
+
+<p>Ireland, Alexander, letter to, xxiii. 342</p>
+
+<p>Ireland, plan for life in, xxiv. 108, 222</p>
+
+<p>Irongray, tombs at, xxiii. 65</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Isabella and the Pot of Basil&rdquo; (Keats), xxiv. 170</p>
+
+<p>Isaiah, prophet, xxiii. 211</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is it not verse except enchanted groves&rdquo; (Herbert), xxiii. 18</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Island Nights&rsquo; Entertainments,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page64">64</a>, <a href="#page272">272</a>, <a href="#page284">284</a>, <a href="#page290">290</a>;
+  illustrations, xxv. <a href="#page312">312</a>;
+  length, xxv. <a href="#page353">353</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+  reviews xxv. <a href="#page315">315</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Isle of Voices,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page272">272</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Islet, The,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ivanhoe&rdquo; (Scott), xxiv. 31</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Jack</span>, the island horse, xxv. <a href="#page35">35</a>-6, <a href="#page41">41</a>, <a href="#page136">136</a>, <a href="#page142">142</a></p>
+
+<p>James, G. P. R., novels by, ordered by R. L. S., xxiv. 273</p>
+
+<p>James, Henry, xxiv. 105, 127, 130, 133, 143, 154, 182, 235, 250, 359; xxv. <a href="#page29">29</a>, <a href="#page317">317</a>, <a href="#page415">415</a>, <a href="#page452">452</a>;
+  letters to, xxiv. 127, 160, 214, 215, 237, 249, 262, 278, 288, 334, 382, 396;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page485"></a>485</span>
+  xxv. <a href="#page43">43</a>, <a href="#page108">108</a>, <a href="#page130">130</a>, <a href="#page274">274</a>, <a href="#page320">320</a>, <a href="#page335">335</a>, <a href="#page367">367</a>, <a href="#page406">406</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;James More,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page161">161</a>, <a href="#page216">216</a>, <a href="#page295">295</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Janet Nicoll</i>, ss., cruise in, xxiv. 292-3, 385 <i>et seq.</i>, 392, 403; xxv. <a href="#page11">11</a>, <a href="#page54">54</a>, <a href="#page304">304</a></p>
+
+<p>Japan and Japanese art, interest in, xxiii. 157, 158, 159; xxiv. 32, 57</p>
+
+<p>Japp, Dr. Alexander, xxiii. 329;
+  letters to, xxiii. 321, 327, 351</p>
+
+<p>Jeafferson, &mdash;, xxiv. 178</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jedidiah  Cleishbotham&rdquo; (Scott), xxiii. 65</p>
+
+<p>Jenkin family, xxiii. 25, 100</p>
+
+<p>Jenkin, Mrs. Fleeming, xxiii. 10, 25; xxiv. 300;
+  letters to, xxiv. 150, 151, 187, 221, 225, 258; xxv. <a href="#page273">273</a></p>
+
+<p>Jenkin,  Professor  Fleeming, xxiii. 10, 25, 118, 122, 175, 176, 183, 247, 311, 341, 353; xxiv. 48, 258, 272;
+  death, xxiv. 106, 150, 151;
+  memoir of, by R. L. S. (<i>see</i> &ldquo;Memoir&rdquo;);
+  debt to, xxiv. 331</p>
+
+<p>Jerome, Jerome K., xxv. <a href="#page372">372</a>, <a href="#page429">429</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jerry Abershaw,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 328, 329; xxiv. 152</p>
+
+<p>Jersey, Countess of, in Samoa, xxv. <a href="#page145">145</a>, <a href="#page227">227</a>, <a href="#page228">228</a>, <a href="#page325">325</a>;
+  letters to, xxv. <a href="#page228">228</a>-9;
+  on her visit to R. L. S., xxv. <a href="#page228">228</a></p>
+
+<p>Jersey, Earl of, xxv. <a href="#page288">288</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jess&rdquo; (Window in Thrums), xxv. <a href="#page277">277</a></p>
+
+<p>Jhering, Professor, xxiii. 118, 122</p>
+
+<p><i>J. L. Tiernan</i>, schooner, xxiv. 359</p>
+
+<p>Joan of Arc, Byron&rsquo;s epithet for, xxiii. 354</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jock o&rsquo; Hazeldean,&rdquo; air, xxiii. 113</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;John Peel&rdquo; of the song, xxiii. 28</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;John Silver&rdquo; (Treasure Island), xxiv. 112, 123;
+  genesis of, xxiv. 31</p>
+
+<p>Johnson, &mdash;, an American, xxiii. 108, 110, 111, 112</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Johnson,&rdquo; or &ldquo;Johnstone,&rdquo; pseudonym, xxiv. 14, 121</p>
+
+<p>Johnson, Samuel, xxiii. 298;
+  &ldquo;Life&rdquo; of, xxiii. 193, 203</p>
+
+<p>Johnstone, Marie, Mary, or May, xxiii. 94, 95, 98, 99, 101</p>
+
+<p>Johnstone, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 96, 99</p>
+
+<p><i>John  Williams</i>,  missionary barque, xxiv. 387</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jolly Beggars&rdquo; (Burns), sent for autograph, xxv. <a href="#page69">69</a>, <a href="#page87">87</a>, <a href="#page118">118</a></p>
+
+<p>Jones, Henry Arthur (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Bauble Shop&rdquo;), letter to, xxiv. 133</p>
+
+<p>Jonson, Ben, xxiii. 294</p>
+
+<p>Journalistic work, xxiii. 184</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Joy of Earth&rdquo; (Meredith), xxv. <a href="#page214">214</a></p>
+
+<p>Jura, Skye terrier, xxv. <a href="#page428">428</a>-9</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Justice Clerk,&rdquo; <i>see</i> Weir of Hermiston</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Juvenilia,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a>-8</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Kaiulani</span>, Hawaiian Princess, xxiv. 345, 346</p>
+
+<p>Kalakaua, King, xxiv. 320</p>
+
+<p>Kalaupapa, Molokai, xxiv. 351 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Kalawao, Molokai, xxiv. 353-4</p>
+
+<p><i>Katoomba</i>, H.M.S., xxv. <a href="#page334">334</a>;
+  band of, xxv. <a href="#page351">351</a></p>
+
+<p>Kava, native beverage, xxv. <a href="#page183">183</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Keats&rdquo; (&ldquo;English Men of Letters,&rdquo; by Colvin), xxiii. 349, 350-1; xxiv. 210, 211</p>
+
+<p>Keir, Jean, xxv. <a href="#page335">335</a></p>
+
+<p>Kelso, xxiii. 156</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Kenilworth&rdquo; (Scott), xxiv. 91</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Kidnapped,&rdquo; xxiii. 24, 331; xxiv. 106, 146, 147, 179, 190, 195-6, 203, 233, 265, 317, 370, 377; xxv. <a href="#page108">108</a>, <a href="#page160">160</a>, <a href="#page215">215</a>, <a href="#page250">250</a>, <a href="#page283">283</a>, <a href="#page301">301</a>, <a href="#page351">351</a>;
+  in Braille, xxv. <a href="#page366">366</a>;
+  projected
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page486"></a>486</span>
+  illustrations, xxv. <a href="#page349">349</a> <i>n.</i> 1;
+  reception, xxiv. 198;
+  reviews, xxiv. 203;
+  sequel (<i>see</i> &ldquo;Catriona&rdquo;), xxv. <a href="#page144">144</a>;
+  suggested French translation, xxv. <a href="#page52">52</a></p>
+
+<p>Killigrew, Anne, xxiii. 293 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;King Lear&rdquo; (Shakespeare), xxv. <a href="#page51">51</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;King Matthias&rsquo;s Hunting Horn&rdquo; lost, xxiii. 158, 160, 170</p>
+
+<p>Kinglake, W., xxiii. 70</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;King&rsquo;s Horn, The,&rdquo; xxiii. 308</p>
+
+<p>Kingston, W.G., xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii.</p>
+
+<p>Kingussie, at, xxiii. 284, 357</p>
+
+<p>Kipling, Rudyard, anticipated visit from, xxv. <a href="#page105">105</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1; xxv. <a href="#page163">163</a>, <a href="#page165">165</a>;
+  appreciations of, xxiv. 396; xxv. <a href="#page46">46</a>, <a href="#page213">213</a>, <a href="#page275">275</a>;
+  letter to, xxv. <a href="#page46">46</a>;
+  writings of, xxv. <a href="#page379">379</a></p>
+
+<p>Kirriemuir, xxv. <a href="#page417">417</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Kirstie Elliot&rdquo; (Weir of Hermiston), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx.; xxv. <a href="#page457">457</a></p>
+
+<p>Kitchener, Colonel, <i>ib.</i></p>
+
+<p>Kitchener, Viscount, xxv. <a href="#page236">236</a>-7</p>
+
+<p>Knappe, Consul, xxiv. 370; xxv. <a href="#page139">139</a>, <a href="#page141">141</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Knox, John, and his Relations with Women,&rdquo; xxiii. 141, 149, 150, 153, 155</p>
+
+<p>Knox, John, &ldquo;Works&rdquo; of, xxiii. 117</p>
+
+<p>Knox, John, writings on, xxiii. 55, 61, 111, 141, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 153, 155, 158, 159, 167, 170, 171, 173</p>
+
+<p>Ko-o-amua, ex-cannibal chief, xxiv. 293</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Kubla Khan&rdquo; (Coleridge), xxiii. 92, 220</p>
+
+<p>Kuniyoshi, prints by, xxiii. 157</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Labiche</span>, &mdash;, xxiii. 239</p>
+
+<p>Labour, imported, in Samoa, xxv. <a href="#page159">159</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Lacy, Mr., xxiii. 307</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lady Barberina&rdquo; (H. James), xxiv. 128</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lady Carbury&rdquo; (&ldquo;Way of the World&rdquo;), xxiii. 215</p>
+
+<p>Lafarge, John, painter, xxv. <a href="#page4">4</a>, <a href="#page29">29</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page41">41</a>, <a href="#page43">43</a>, <a href="#page45">45</a></p>
+
+<p>La Fontaine, &ldquo;Fables&rdquo; of, xxv. <a href="#page49">49</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lake Isle of Innisfree&rdquo; (Yeats), xxv. <a href="#page390">390</a></p>
+
+<p>Lamb, Charles, xxiii. 209</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lamia&rdquo; (Keats), illustrated by Low, xxiv. 142, 166; dedication of, xxiv. 169-71</p>
+
+<p>Lampman, Archibald, sonnet by, xxiv. 321 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Landor, W. S., xxiii. 302, 317, 320-1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Landscape&rdquo; (Hamerton), xxiv. 143-4</p>
+
+<p>Land&rsquo;s End, visited, xxiii. 183, 209</p>
+
+<p>Lang, Andrew, xxiii. 115, 117, 222, 311, 316; xxiv. 106, 134, 206, 257, 278, 381, 388; xxv. <a href="#page357">357</a>, <a href="#page427">427</a>;
+  letters to, xxiv. 399; xxv. <a href="#page216">216</a>, <a href="#page453">453</a>;
+  story suggested by, xxv. <a href="#page141">141</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+  on &ldquo;Treasure Island,&rdquo; xxiv. 67</p>
+
+<p>Lantenac, M. (Victor Hugo), xxiii. 130 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lantern Bearers, The&rdquo; (<i>Scribner&rsquo;s</i>), xxiv. 235, 254; xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a>, <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>Large, Miss, xxv. <a href="#page329">329</a>-31</p>
+
+<p>La Sale, Antoine, projected essay on, xxiii. 207</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Last Sinner, The,&rdquo; xxiii. 171</p>
+
+<p>Laupepa, <i>see</i> Malietoa</p>
+
+<p>Lautreppe, Albert de, xxv. <a href="#page383">383</a></p>
+
+<p>Lavenham, xxiii. 56</p>
+
+<p>Law examination passed, xxiii. 182</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lay Morals,&rdquo; 86, 185; xxiv. 62 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Leading Light, The,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 329</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Leaves of Grass&rdquo; (Whitman), xxiii. 70</p>
+
+<p>Le Gallienne, Richard, letter to, xxv. <a href="#page364">364</a></p>
+
+<p>Legal work, xxiii. 182, 184</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page487"></a>487</span></p>
+
+<p>Leigh, Hon. Capt., xxv. <a href="#page227">227</a>-8, <a href="#page231">231</a>, <a href="#page233">233</a>, <a href="#page234">234</a>, <a href="#page235">235</a></p>
+
+<p>Leith, xxiii. 159, 202</p>
+
+<p>Lemon, &mdash;, picture by, xxiv. 167</p>
+
+<p>Lenz, &mdash;, xxiv. 198</p>
+
+<p>Le Puy, xxiii. 217</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lesson, The, of the Master&rdquo; (H. James), xxiv. 382; xxv. <a href="#page108">108</a>, <a href="#page274">274</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Letter to the Church of Scotland,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page398">398</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Letter to a Young Gentleman,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page123">123</a> <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Letters and Memories of Jane Welsh Carlyle&rdquo; (Froude), xxiii, 301, 302</p>
+
+<p>Letters, desiderata in, xxiii. 259</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Letters&rdquo; (Flaubert), xxiv. 405; xxv. <a href="#page59">59</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to his Friend in London&rdquo; (Burt), xxiii. 291</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Letters to his Family and Friends,&rdquo; xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xix.</p>
+
+<p>Leven, xxiii. 61</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Library, The&rdquo; (Lang), xxiii. 307</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lieder und Balladen&rdquo; (Burns), Silbergleit&rsquo;s translation, xxiii. 39</p>
+
+<p>Life, two views on, xxiv. 158, 164, 165</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life and Death,&rdquo; xxiii. 171</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life of General Hutchinson&rdquo; (Mrs. Hutchinson), xxiii. 30, 31, 32</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life of Hazlitt,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 283, 336, 339, 345</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life of P. H. Gosse&rdquo; (Edmund Gosse), xxv. <a href="#page71">71</a>, <a href="#page130">130</a>, <a href="#page317">317</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life of R. L. S.&rdquo; (Balfour), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xix.; xxv. <a href="#page4">4</a>, <a href="#page59">59</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life of Robertson&rdquo; (Dugald Stewart), xxiii. 119</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life of Samuel Johnson&rdquo; (Boswell), xxiii. 193, 203</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life of Sir Walter Scott&rdquo; (Lockhart), xxiv. 75, 84, 170, 171</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life of Wellington&rdquo; (&ldquo;English Worthies&rdquo;), unfinished, xxiv. 106, 134, 139</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Life on the Lagoons&rdquo; (H. F. Brown), xxiii. 303</p>
+
+<p>Lillie, Jean and David, connection of, with the Stevensons, xxv. <a href="#page436">436</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lion of the Nile,&rdquo; xxiv. 321</p>
+
+<p>Lions, xxiii. 307</p>
+
+<p>Lippincott, xxiv. 54-5, 90</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Literary Recollections&rdquo; (Payn), xxiv. 381</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Little Minister&rdquo; (Barrie), xxv. <a href="#page265">265</a>, <a href="#page276">276</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lives of the Admirals&rdquo; (Southey), xxiii. 70</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lives of the Stevensons,&rdquo; <i>see</i> &ldquo;Family of Engineers&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;L. J. R.,&rdquo; Essay Club, xxiii. 46, 48; xxv. <a href="#page121">121</a></p>
+
+<p>Llandudno, visited, xxiii. 124, 148</p>
+
+<p>Locker-Lampson, Frederick, letters to, xxiv. 205, 206, 207, 208, 215</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lodging for the Night,&rdquo; xxiii. 184, 191, 248</p>
+
+<p>Logan, John, xxiii. 71, 72</p>
+
+<p><i>London</i>, contributions to, xxiii. 184</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;London Life&rdquo; (H. James), xxiv. 289</p>
+
+<p>London, visits to (see <i>also</i> British Museum), xxiii. 77, 155, 330; xxiv. 105, 107, 186-7, 189, 202, 209, 229</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;London Voluntaries&rdquo; (Henley), xxv. <a href="#page214">214</a></p>
+
+<p>Longman, &mdash;, publisher, xxiv. 30, 66, 111, 134; xxv. <a href="#page123">123</a>, <a href="#page125">125</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Longman&rsquo;s Magazine</i>, contributions to, xxiv. 127, 130, 134, 143, 181; xxv. <a href="#page454">454</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lord Nidderdale&rdquo; (Way of the World), xxiii. 215</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lord Rintoul&rdquo; (Little Minister), xxv. <a href="#page265">265</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lost Sir Massingberd&rdquo; (Payn), xxiv. 7, 177</p>
+
+<p>Loti, Pierre (M. Viaud), xxiv. 308</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page488"></a>488</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Loudon Dodd&rdquo; (Wrecker), xxv. <a href="#page24">24</a>, <a href="#page172">172</a> &amp; <i>n.</i>1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Louis <span class="sc">XIV.</span> et la Révocation de l&rsquo;Édit de Nantes&rdquo; (Michelet), xxiii. 69</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Louse, The&rdquo; (Burns), xxiv. 256</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Love in the Valley&rdquo; (Meredith), xxiv. 54; xxv. <a href="#page214">214</a>, <a href="#page390">390</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lovelace&rdquo; (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210</p>
+
+<p>Love, young, advice on, xxiii. 358</p>
+
+<p>Lowell, John Russell, xxiv. 107</p>
+
+<p>Low, Mrs. W. H., xxiv. 107, 202, 217</p>
+
+<p>Low, W. H., xxiv. 107, 202, 217, 234, 250, 251, 255, 288, 369, 390; xxv. <a href="#page25">25</a>, <a href="#page111">111</a>;
+  illustrated edition by, of &ldquo;Lamia,&rdquo; xxiv. 142, 166;
+  dedication of, xxiv. 169-71;
+  letters to, xxiv. 57, 63, 72, 89, 115, 142, 153, 166, 169, 172, 177, 185, 217, 230, 245, 346; xxv. <a href="#page378">378</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Lübeck</i>, s.s., passage on, xxiv. 375 <i>et seq.</i>; xxv. <a href="#page48">48</a>, <a href="#page50">50</a>, <a href="#page53">53</a>, <a href="#page81">81</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Ludgate Hill</i>, s.s., passage in, xxiv. 110, 230, 232; xxiv. 235 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Lully, J.B., gavotte by, xxiv. 188-9</p>
+
+<p>Lysaght, Sidney, xxv. <a href="#page385">385</a>-6, <a href="#page388">388</a>, <a href="#page405">405</a>, <a href="#page415">415</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+  books by, xxv. <a href="#page390">390</a>;
+  visit from, xxv. <a href="#page374">374</a></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><i>Macaire</i>, play (with Henley), xxiv. 146, 147</p>
+
+<p><i>Macbeth</i> (Shakespeare), xxiv. 57</p>
+
+<p>M&rsquo;Carthy, Justin, xxiv. 173</p>
+
+<p>McClure, S. S., publisher, relations with, xxiv. 234, 252, 321, 379; xxv. <a href="#page120">120</a></p>
+
+<p>McCrie, &mdash;, xxiii. 117</p>
+
+<p>Macdonald, David, xxiii. 20</p>
+
+<p>Macdonald, Flora, xxiii. 298</p>
+
+<p>Macdonald, George, xxiv. 248</p>
+
+<p>Macdonald, J. H. A., xxiii. 114</p>
+
+<p>Macgregor, clan, xxv. <a href="#page293">293</a>, <a href="#page346">346</a></p>
+
+<p>M&rsquo;Gregor-Stevenson connection, question of, xxv. <a href="#page440">440</a></p>
+
+<p>Mackay, Professor Ćneas, xxiii. 282;
+  letters to, xxiii. 309</p>
+
+<p>Mackintosh family, xxiii. 169</p>
+
+<p>M&rsquo;Laren, Duncan, xxiii. 96, 97, 114</p>
+
+<p>MacMahon, President, xxiii. 116</p>
+
+<p>Macmillan, Alexander, xxiii. 151</p>
+
+<p><i>Macmillan&rsquo;s Magazine</i>, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xvii. 204;
+  contributions to, xxiii. 125, 149, 151</p>
+
+<p>Macpherson, Miss Fanny (Lady Holroyd), xxv. <a href="#page83">83</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Madeira, plan to visit, xxiv. 328</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mademoiselle Merquem&rdquo; (Sand), xxiii. 87</p>
+
+<p><i>Magazine of Art</i>, contributions to, xxiii. 333-4; xxiv. 54, 57, 115, 181; xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a>, <a href="#page123">123</a>, <a href="#page398">398</a>, <a href="#page423">423</a></p>
+
+<p>Majendie, Colonel, xxiv. 283</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Malade Imaginaire&rdquo; (Moličre), xxiv. 123</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Malbrook s&rsquo;en va-t-en guerre,&rdquo; xxiii. 102</p>
+
+<p>Malie, abode and following of Malietoa, xxv. <a href="#page6">6</a>, <a href="#page9">9</a> <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Malietoa Laupepa, xxv. <a href="#page9">9</a>, <a href="#page176">176</a>, <a href="#page234">234</a>, <a href="#page466">466</a>;
+  friendliness with, xxv. <a href="#page10">10</a>;
+  and Mataafa, troubles concerning, xxv. <a href="#page6">6</a>-9 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Manasquan, at, xxiv. 234, 286-8</p>
+
+<p>Manchester Ship Canal, xxiv. 135</p>
+
+<p><i>Manhattan</i>, magazine, xxiv. 57, 90</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Manse, The,&rdquo; xxiii. 4; xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>Manu&rsquo;a, islands of, &ldquo;queen&rdquo; of, xxv. <a href="#page407">407</a>-8</p>
+
+<p>Marat, xxiv. 183</p>
+
+<p>Marbot, &ldquo;Memoires&rdquo; of, xxv. <a href="#page274">274</a>, 321</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Marche funčbre&rdquo; (Chopin), xxiii. 139</p>
+
+<p>Marcus Aurelius, xxiv. 183</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page489"></a>489</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Marden, Colonel&rdquo; (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Margery Bonthron,&rdquo; xxiii. 171</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Marion,&rdquo; xxiii. 307</p>
+
+<p><i>Mariposa</i>, s.s., xxv. <a href="#page346">346</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Markheim,&rdquo; xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx., xxiii.; xxiv. 125, 213</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Marmont&rsquo;s Memoirs,&rdquo; xxiv. 134</p>
+
+<p>Marot, Clement, poems by, xxiii. 108</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Marplot, The&rdquo; (Lysaght), xxv. <a href="#page390">390</a></p>
+
+<p>Marquesas Islands, visited, xxiv. 290, 293, 371</p>
+
+<p>Marryat, Captain, works by, ordered by R. L. S., xxiv. 338</p>
+
+<p>Marseilles, at, xxiv. 5, 12-14, 98</p>
+
+<p>Marshall Islands, visited, xxiv. 292</p>
+
+<p>Martial, xxiv. 82</p>
+
+<p>Martin, A. Patchett, letters to, xxiii. 208, 209</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Martin&rsquo;s Madonna,&rdquo; xxiii. 171</p>
+
+<p>Marvell, Andrew, xxv. <a href="#page46">46</a></p>
+
+<p>Mary, Queen of Scots, xxiii. 62</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mary Wollstonecraft&rdquo; (Mrs. Pennell), xxiv. 149</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Master of Ballantrae,&rdquo; xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii.; xxiv. 235, 265, 268-70, 274, 276, 278, 279, 291, 314, 317, 328, 338, 339, 346, 349, 360, 369, 370, 377, 398; xxv. <a href="#page43">43</a>, <a href="#page171">171</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 2, <a href="#page250">250</a>, <a href="#page357">357</a>;
+  illustrations, xxiv. 319, 320;
+  original plan of, xxv. <a href="#page396">396</a>;
+  paper on, xxv. <a href="#page376">376</a>;
+  suggested French translation, xxv. <a href="#page52">52</a></p>
+
+<p>Mataafa, xxiv. 370; xxv. <a href="#page176">176</a>, <a href="#page256">256</a>;
+  troubles concerning, xxv. <a href="#page6">6</a>-9 <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page93">93</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page280">280</a>, <a href="#page332">332</a>-3, <a href="#page350">350</a>;
+  visits to, xxv. <a href="#page193">193</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page242">242</a>;
+  with Lady Jersey, xxv. <a href="#page228">228</a> <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Matlock, visited, xxiv. 105, 189</p>
+
+<p>Maupassant, Guy de, xxiv. 383</p>
+
+<p>Maxwell, Sir Herbert, xxv. <a href="#page437">437</a>;
+  letters to, xxv. <a href="#page440">440</a>, <a href="#page453">453</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mazeppa&rdquo; (Byron), xxiii. 132</p>
+
+<p>Medallion portrait  by  St. Gaudens, xxv. <a href="#page410">410</a></p>
+
+<p>Medea (Ordered South), xxiii. 86 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Mediterranean, impression of, xxiii. 104, 105</p>
+
+<p>Meiklejohn, Hugh, xxv. <a href="#page269">269</a>, <a href="#page450">450</a>, <a href="#page451">451</a></p>
+
+<p>Meiklejohn,  Professor  John, xxiii. 263, 316;
+  compliments on &ldquo;Burns&rdquo; article, xxiii. 241;
+  letters to, xxiii. 263; xxv. <a href="#page450">450</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mein Herz ist im Hochland,&rdquo; xxiii. 41</p>
+
+<p>Melford, xxiii. 56</p>
+
+<p>Melville, Herman, xxiv. 295, 348, 381</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin,&rdquo; xxiv. 106-7, 150, 169, 174, 187, 225</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Memoirs  of  a  Cavalier&rdquo; (Defoe), xxiv. 101</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Memoirs of an Islet,&rdquo; essay, xxiii. 23</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Memoirs of Henry Shovel,&rdquo; unfinished, xxiv. 402</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Memorials&rdquo; (Laing), xxv. <a href="#page293">293</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Memorials of  a  Scottish Family,&rdquo; projected (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Family of Engineers&rdquo;), xxiv. 279</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Memories and Portraits,&rdquo; xxiii. 56, 318 <i>n.</i> 1; xxiv. 96 <i>n.</i> 1, 214, 215, 230, 231, 257; xxv. <a href="#page51">51</a>, <a href="#page53">53</a>, <a href="#page301">301</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men and Books,&rdquo; xxiii. 86</p>
+
+<p>Menken, Adah, xxiii. 275</p>
+
+<p>Mentone, at, xxiii. 55, 77, 81 <i>et seq.</i>, 143-4</p>
+
+<p>Meredith, George, xxiii. 183, 311; xxiv. 97, 278 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1; xxv. <a href="#page351">351</a>-2;
+  letters to, xxv. <a href="#page343">343</a>, <a href="#page390">390</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Merry Men, The,&rdquo; xxiii. 282, 316, 317, 321; xxiv. 35, 90, 125, 213, 215; xxv. <a href="#page353">353</a>;
+  criticisms on, xxiii. 319;
+  dedication, xxiv. 211;
+  germ of, xxiii. 308;
+  places described in, xxiii. 317</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page490"></a>490</span></p>
+
+<p>Michaels, barber, xxiii. 244</p>
+
+<p>Michelet, &mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page304">304</a></p>
+
+<p>Middleton, Miss, letter to, xxv. <a href="#page428">428</a></p>
+
+<p>Millais, Sir John E., xxiv. 139;
+  on R. L. S., as artist, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxx.</p>
+
+<p>Milne, Mrs., letter to, xxiv. 70</p>
+
+<p>Milson, John, xxiv. 130</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mimes&rdquo; (Schwob), xxv. <a href="#page409">409</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Misadventure in France, A,&rdquo; essay, xxiv. 67-8</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Misadventures of John Nicholson&rdquo; (<i>Yule-Tide</i>), xxiii. 12; xxiv. 211, 214; xxv. <a href="#page57">57</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miscellanies&rdquo; (Edinburgh edition), xxv. <a href="#page33">33</a>, <a href="#page376">376</a>, <a href="#page397">397</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page424">424</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Misérables, Les&rdquo; (V. Hugo), xxiii. 129 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Missions and missionary work, xxv. <a href="#page10">10</a>, <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page33">33</a>, <a href="#page56">56</a>, <a href="#page57">57</a>, <a href="#page203">203</a>, <a href="#page410">410</a>-11, <a href="#page422">422</a></p>
+
+<p>Möe, Princess, xxiv. 308, 309, 313</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mobray&rdquo; (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210</p>
+
+<p>Mödestine, the donkey of the Cévennes journey, xxiii. 218</p>
+
+<p>Moličre, xxiii. 69;
+  plays, xxiv. 96, 123</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Moll Flanders&rdquo; (Defoe), xxiv. 101</p>
+
+<p>Molokai, visited, xxiv. 291, 345, 349 <i>et seq.</i>, 356</p>
+
+<p>Monaco, at, xxiii. 93</p>
+
+<p>Monastier, visit to, xxiii. 217</p>
+
+<p>Monkhouse, Cosmo, letters to, xxiv. 85, 95</p>
+
+<p>Monroe, Miss, letters to, xxiv. 191, 193, 261</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Monsieur Auguste&rdquo; (Méry), xxiii. 257, 258</p>
+
+<p>Montagu, Basil, xxv. <a href="#page29">29</a> <i>n.</i> 2</p>
+
+<p>Montaigne, xxiv. 130, 144</p>
+
+<p>Monterey, xxiv. 36;
+  ranche life at, xxiii. 229, 234, 235, 236</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Monterey, California,&rdquo; xxiii. 241, 242</p>
+
+<p>Montpellier, at, xxiv. 4</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Moonstone,  The&rdquo; (Wilkie Collins), xxiii. 18</p>
+
+<p>Moors, H. J., xxiv. 292, 370, 371; xxv. <a href="#page10">10</a>, <a href="#page28">28</a>, <a href="#page29">29</a>, <a href="#page30">30</a>, <a href="#page31">31</a>, <a href="#page40">40</a>, <a href="#page96">96</a>, <a href="#page107">107</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Morality, the, of the Profession of Letters&rdquo; (<i>Fortnightly</i>), xxiii. 281</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;More New Arabian Nights,&rdquo; xxiv. 106, 108, 114, 127, 139, 140, 142</p>
+
+<p>Morley, Charles, of the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, xxiv. 125</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Morley Ernstein&rdquo; (G. P. R. James), xxiv. 75</p>
+
+<p>Morley, John (Viscount Morley), xxiii. 127, 132, 226, 268</p>
+
+<p><i>Morning Star</i>, missionary ship, cruise in, projected, xxiv. 337, 338-9, 340, 343, 384</p>
+
+<p>Morris, William, letter to, xxv. <a href="#page162">162</a></p>
+
+<p>Morse, Captain, xxv. <a href="#page222">222</a></p>
+
+<p>Morse, Miss, letter to, xxv. <a href="#page253">253</a></p>
+
+<p>Mount Chessie, xxiv. 44</p>
+
+<p>Mount Saint Helena, xxiii. 277</p>
+
+<p>Mount Vaea, burial-place of R. L. S., xxv. <a href="#page9">9</a>, <a href="#page10">10</a>, <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page458">458</a> <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Mulinuu, abode and party of Malietoa, xxv. <a href="#page9">9</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page107">107</a>, <a href="#page330">330</a>, <a href="#page332">332</a>, <a href="#page333">333</a>, <a href="#page370">370</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mulvaney&rdquo; (Soldiers Three), letter as from, xxv. <a href="#page46">46</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Murder of Red Colin,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 331</p>
+
+<p>Murders, famous, volume on, projected by Gosse and R. L. S., xxiii. 338, 350</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Murders in the Rue Morgue&rdquo; (Poe), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii</p>
+
+<p>Mures, the, of Caldwell, xxv. <a href="#page358">358</a></p>
+
+<p>Murphy, Tommy, a lost child, story of, xxiii. 161, 162</p>
+
+<p>Murrayfield, xxv. <a href="#page57">57</a></p>
+
+<p>Murray, Grahame, xxiii. 90</p>
+
+<p>Murray, W. C., xxv. <a href="#page69">69</a></p>
+
+<p>Musset, Alfred de, comedies of, xxiii. 212</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page491"></a>491</span></p>
+
+<p>Mutiny, Indian, novel on, projected, xxiv. 283-4</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My Boy Tammie,&rdquo; air, xxiii. 113</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My First Book,&rdquo; series in <i>Idler</i>, xxv. <a href="#page33">33</a>, <a href="#page376">376</a>, <a href="#page429">429</a></p>
+
+<p>Myers, F. W. H., letter to, xxiv. 184</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Napoleon</span> III., xxv. <a href="#page250">250</a>, <a href="#page319">319</a></p>
+
+<p>Nares, Captain (The Wrecker), xxv.<a href="#page269">269</a></p>
+
+<p>Navigator Islands, xxiii. 180, 205; xxiv, 405</p>
+
+<p>Navy, British, men of, xxv. <a href="#page351">351</a>-2</p>
+
+<p>Nebraska, aspect of, xxiii. 233-4</p>
+
+<p>Nerli, Count, xxv. <a href="#page228">228</a></p>
+
+<p>Neruda, Mme. Norman, xxiii. 169, 198</p>
+
+<p>Nether Carsewell, xxv. <a href="#page342">342</a>, <a href="#page346">346</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;New Arabian Nights,&rdquo; xxiii. 185, 218; xxiv. 7, 256</p>
+
+<p>New Caledonia, visited, xxiv. 293, 385, 392</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;New Poems&rdquo; (Edmund Gosse), xxiii. 245-6</p>
+
+<p>Newport, <span class="sc">U.S.A.</span>, at, xxiv. 233, 237-8, 255</p>
+
+<p><i>New Quarterly</i>, contributions to, xxiii. 237</p>
+
+<p><i>New Review</i>, contribution to, xxv. <a href="#page18">18</a> <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>New Year&rsquo;s wish, a, xxiii. 212</p>
+
+<p>New York, at, xxiv. 233-4, 238</p>
+
+<p><i>New York Ledger</i>, contribution to, xxiv. 361</p>
+
+<p><i>New York Tribune</i>, editor of, letter to, xxiv. 7</p>
+
+<p>New Zealand, xxiv. 405</p>
+
+<p>Nice, visits to, xxiii. 84; xxiv. 4, 6, 79, 92</p>
+
+<p>Nile Campaigns, xxiv. 81</p>
+
+<p>Noël-Pardon, M., xxiv. 394</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Noll and Nell,&rdquo; poem (Martin), xxiii. 210</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Norma,&rdquo; opera, xxiii. 252</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Northern Lights&rdquo; (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Family of Engineers&rdquo;), xxiii. 4, 10; xxv. <a href="#page322">322</a></p>
+
+<p>Norwood, at, xxiii. 57</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Note on Realism&rdquo; (<i>Magazine of Art</i>), xxiv. 59, 62, 181</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Notes on the Movements of Young Children,&rdquo; xxiii. 133, 143 &amp; <i>n.</i> 2</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Notre Dame&rdquo; (Hugo), xxiii. 129 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Noumea, visited, xxiv. 293, 392, 396</p>
+
+<p>Nukahiva Island, at, xxiv. 290, 293</p>
+
+<p>Nulivae Bridge, at, xxv. <a href="#page223">223</a></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">Ode</span> to Duty&rdquo; (Wordsworth), xxv. <a href="#page173">173</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ode to the Cuckoo,&rdquo; authorship of, xxiii. 71, 72</p>
+
+<p>O&rsquo;Donovan Rossa, xxiii. 321</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;&OElig;dipus King&rdquo; (Sophocles), xxiv. 114</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Olalla,&rdquo; xxiv. 106</p>
+
+<p>Old English History (Freeman&rsquo;s), xxv. <a href="#page117">117</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Old Gardener,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page404">404</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Old Mortality&rdquo; (Scott), xxiii. 129 <i>n.</i> 1;
+  essay on, xxiv. 6, 68, 96</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Old Pacific Capital&rdquo; (<i>Fraser&rsquo;s Magazine</i>), xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a></p>
+
+<p>Oliphant, Mrs., xxiv. 370, 382</p>
+
+<p>Omission, art of, xxiv. 60</p>
+
+<p>Omond, &mdash;, xxiv. 178</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Omoo&rdquo; (Melville), xxiv. 348</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;One of the Grenvilles&rdquo; (Lysaght), xxv. <a href="#page390">390</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Only Child,&rdquo; projected, xxiv. 99</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places,&rdquo; xxiii. 15, 151-3</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On the Principal Causes of Silting in Estuaries&rdquo; (T. Stevenson), xxiv. 135</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On some Aspects of Burns&rdquo; (<i>Cornhill</i>), xxiii. 224, 227</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On some Ghostly Companions at a Spa,&rdquo; xxiii. 285</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Operations of War&rdquo; (Hamley), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxxiv.</p>
+
+<p>Orange, at, xxiii. 80</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ordered South,&rdquo; xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxvii., 56, 77, 83, 86, 87 &amp;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page492"></a>492</span>
+  <i>n.</i> 1, 116, 122, 126, 267;
+  published, xxiii. 125</p>
+
+<p>Organ-grinder episode, xxiii. 155-6</p>
+
+<p>Ori a Ori, chief, xxiv. 291, 302, 304, 306-7, 309-10 <i>et seq.</i>, 317, 334;
+  letter from, xxiv. 332-3, 337</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Origines de la France Contemporaine&rdquo; (Taine), xxiv. 258; xxv. <a href="#page111">111</a>-2, <a href="#page319">319</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Origines&rdquo; (Renan), xxv. <a href="#page304">304</a></p>
+
+<p>Orkneys and Shetlands, tour of, xxiii. 10, 24</p>
+
+<p><i>Orlando</i>, H.M.S., xxv. <a href="#page329">329</a></p>
+
+<p>Orr, Fred, letter to, xxv. <a href="#page127">127</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Orsino&rdquo; (<i>Twelfth Night</i>), R. L. S. as, xxiii. 175, 176</p>
+
+<p>Osbourne, Lloyd, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xvii., 300, 348 <i>et seq.</i>; xxiv. 28, 139, 178, 198, 199, 201, 290, 309, 323, 330, 341, 366, 392, 396, 399, 402; xxv. <a href="#page3">3</a>, <a href="#page21">21</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 2, <a href="#page50">50</a>, <a href="#page52">52</a>, <a href="#page67">67</a>, <a href="#page78">78</a>, <a href="#page96">96</a>, <a href="#page98">98</a>, <a href="#page99">99</a>, <a href="#page390">390</a>, <a href="#page445">445</a>;
+  account by, of death of R. L. S., xxv. <a href="#page457">457</a> <i>et seq.</i>;
+  collaboration with (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Wrecker&rdquo;), xxiv. 235, 249, 250, 256, 283-4, 328, 361, 367, 379, 380, 389, 399, 402; xxv. <a href="#page347">347</a>-9, <a href="#page437">437</a>-8;
+  illness, xxv. <a href="#page152">152</a></p>
+
+<p>Osbourne, Mrs., <i>see</i> Stevenson, Mrs. R. L.</p>
+
+<p>Ossianic controversy, xxiii. 298</p>
+
+<p><i>Othello</i> (Shakespeare), xxv. <a href="#page51">51</a></p>
+
+<p>Otis, Captain, xxiv. 234, 290</p>
+
+<p>Otway, essay on (Gosse), xxiv. 45</p>
+
+<p>Our Lady of the Snows, monastery, poem on (Underwoods), xxiii. 221-2</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Owl, The,&rdquo; projected, xxv. <a href="#page315">315</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oxford Dictionary of the English Language&rdquo; (Murray), xxiv. 37</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>P&mdash;<span class="sc">N</span>, John, letter to, xxv. <a href="#page358">358</a></p>
+
+<p>P&mdash;n, Russell, letter to, xxv. <a href="#page359">359</a></p>
+
+<p>Pacific Ocean, xxiii. 240</p>
+
+<p>Pacific voyages, <i>see</i> &ldquo;In the South Seas&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Page, H. A., pseudonym for Dr. Japp, <i>q.v.</i></p>
+
+<p>Pago-pago harbour, xxv. <a href="#page8">8</a>, <a href="#page65">65</a></p>
+
+<p>Painters and their art, xxiv. 60-1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Painters&rsquo; Camp, in the Highlands&rdquo; (Hamerton), xxiii. 216</p>
+
+<p><i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, contributions to, xxiii. 281, 346; xxiv. 120, 125, 130, 131, 227; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a>;
+  Henley&rsquo;s articles in, xxiii. 238</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pan&rsquo;s Pipes,&rdquo; xxiii. 212; xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>Papeete (Tahitian Islands), xxiv. 291, 296, 308, 314</p>
+
+<p>Paperchase, Sunday, xxv. <a href="#page422">422</a></p>
+
+<p>Paris Exhibition of 1878, xxiii. 183</p>
+
+<p>Paris, visits to, xxiii. 183, 305; xxiv. 105, 107</p>
+
+<p>Parker, Lieutenant and Mrs., xxv. <a href="#page29">29</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Parliament Close&rdquo; (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216</p>
+
+<p>Parliament House, Edinburgh, verses on, xxiii. 193-4</p>
+
+<p>Parnessiens, proposed paper on, xxiii. 168</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Paston Letters,&rdquo; xxiii. 203</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pastoral&rdquo; (Longman&rsquo;s), xxiv. 221; xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>Paton, John, and Co., xxiv. 252</p>
+
+<p>Paul, C. Kegan, xxiii. 212</p>
+
+<p>Paumotus atolls, visited, xxiv. 290, 293-4</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pavilion, The, on the Links,&rdquo; xxiii. 229, 238, 249, 256, 259, 262, 267</p>
+
+<p>Payne, John, xxv. <a href="#page427">427</a></p>
+
+<p>Payn, James, xxiv. 355;
+  handwriting of, xxv. <a href="#page365">365</a>;
+  letters to, xxiv. 176, 355, 381; xxv. <a href="#page425">425</a>, <a href="#page446">446</a>;
+  novel by, xxv. <a href="#page171">171</a>;
+  works of, xxiv. 7-9</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pearl Fisher&rdquo; (with Lloyd Osbourne, <i>see</i> &ldquo;Ebb Tide&rdquo;),
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page493"></a>493</span>
+  changes of name for story, xxv. <a href="#page288">288</a> <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pegfurth Bannatyne,&rdquo; xxiii. 361, 362</p>
+
+<p>Pella, letter from, xxiii. 115, 128</p>
+
+<p>Pembroke, Earl of, xxv. <a href="#page290">290</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Penn&rdquo; (H. Dixon), xxiii. 277</p>
+
+<p>Pennell, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph, xxiv. 149;
+  letter to, xxiv. 149</p>
+
+<p>Penn, William, article on, projected, xxiii. 265</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Penny plain and Twopence coloured,&rdquo; essay, xxiv. 93</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Penny Whistles,&rdquo; <i>see</i> &ldquo;Child&rsquo;s Garden of Verse&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pentland Hills&rdquo; (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pentland Rising,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a></p>
+
+<p>Penzance, visit to, xxiii. 206</p>
+
+<p>Pepys, Samuel, xxiv. 29, 183;
+  essay on, xxiii. 281</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Petit Jehan de Saintre&rdquo; (La Sale), essay on projected, xxiii. 267</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Petits Počmes en Prose,&rdquo; xxiii. 195, 196, 197</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Petronius Arbiter,&rdquo; xxiv. 83</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pew&rdquo; (<i>Admiral Guinea</i>), xxiv. 119, 120</p>
+
+<p>Peyrat, Napoleon, xxiii. 307</p>
+
+<p><i>Pharos</i>, s.y., xxv. <a href="#page98">98</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Phasellulus loquitur,&rdquo; xxiv. 116</p>
+
+<p>Pheidias, xxiii. 159</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Philosophy of Umbrellas&rdquo; (with Ferrier), xxv. <a href="#page398">398</a></p>
+
+<p>Picts, the, xxv. <a href="#page434">434</a>-6</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh,&rdquo; xxiii. 185, 211, 216, 218</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pilgrim&rsquo;s Progress&rdquo; (Bunyan), xxiii. 203;
+  Bagster&rsquo;s edition, essay on cuts in, xxiii. 334</p>
+
+<p>Pilsach, Baron Senfft von, President of the Council, Samoa, xxv. <a href="#page7">7</a>, <a href="#page95">95</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page100">100</a>-1, <a href="#page275">275</a>, <a href="#page281">281</a>, <a href="#page286">286</a>, <a href="#page305">305</a>, <a href="#page364">364</a>, <a href="#page376">376</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pinkerton&rdquo; (Wrecker), xxiv. 368; xxv. <a href="#page141">141</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page146">146</a>, <a href="#page378">378</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pioneering in New Guinea&rdquo; (Chalmers), xxv. <a href="#page39">39</a></p>
+
+<p>Piquet, xxv. <a href="#page428">428</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pirate, The&rdquo; (Marryat), xxiii. 329</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pirate, The&rdquo; (Scott), xxiii. 318</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pirbright Smith,&rdquo; xxiii. 361</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pitcairn&rsquo;s Criminal Trials of Scotland,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page271">271</a>, <a href="#page293">293</a></p>
+
+<p>Pitlochry, at, xxiii. 282, 306</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Plain  Speaker&rdquo;  (Hazlitt), xxiv. 130</p>
+
+<p>Platz, Herr, xxiv. 194</p>
+
+<p>Poe, Edgar, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii., 166; xxiv. 83</p>
+
+<p>Poems by Baildon, technique discussed, xxv. <a href="#page377">377</a></p>
+
+<p>Poepoe, Joseph, xxiv. 330</p>
+
+<p>Poland, projected visit to, xxiii. 151, 152, 155</p>
+
+<p>Pollington, Lord, xxiv. 260</p>
+
+<p>Pollock, &mdash;&mdash;, xxiv. 36</p>
+
+<p>Pomaré V., King, xxiv. 309</p>
+
+<p>Poor folk, charity of, xxv. <a href="#page209">209</a>-10</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Thing, The,&rdquo; xxiii. 141</p>
+
+<p>Poquelin, &mdash;&mdash;, xxiv. 123</p>
+
+<p><i>Portfolio, The</i>, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xvii.;
+  contributions to, xxiii. 58, 77, 141, 146, 151, 152, 153, 164, 166, 168, 185, 216; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a>-8;
+  Colvin&rsquo;s work for, xxiii. 178</p>
+
+<p>Portobello, beach incident, xxiii. 73;
+  train incident, xxiii. 63</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Portrait of a Lady&rdquo; (H. James), xxiv. 263</p>
+
+<p>Positivism, studies in, xxiii. 159</p>
+
+<p>Pratt, &mdash;&mdash;, fables by, xxv. <a href="#page49">49</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Prince de Galles,&rdquo; xxiii., 356</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Prince of Grünewald,&rdquo; <i>see</i> &ldquo;Prince Otto&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Prince Otto&rdquo; (Forest State <i>q.v.</i>), xxiii. 229, 265, 266, 267, 278, 353; xxiv. 5, 23, 24, 34, 35, 36, 54, 66, 68, 73, 81, 106, 110, 142, 154, 173, 181; xxv. <a href="#page53">53</a>, <a href="#page376">376</a>;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page494"></a>494</span>
+  criticisms, xxiv. 191;
+  publication, xxiv. 138;
+  reviews, xxiv. 155-6</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Princess Casamassima&rdquo; (H. James), xxiv. 160 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Princes Street, Edinburgh, xxiii. 72, 74</p>
+
+<p>Pringle, Janet, xxv. <a href="#page361">361</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Printemps, Le,&rdquo; group (Rodin), xxiv. 202, 209</p>
+
+<p>Prisoners, Samoan, gratitude of, <i>see</i> &ldquo;Road of Loving Hearts&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Privateers, enquiry on, xxv. <a href="#page380">380</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Proctor, Mr. B. W., xxv. <a href="#page29">29</a>  &amp; <i>n.</i> 2</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Professor Rensselaer,&rdquo; xxiii.  249</p>
+
+<p>Pronouns, &ldquo;direct and indirect,&rdquo; quip on, xxv. <a href="#page174">174</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Providence and the Guitar,&rdquo;  xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx., 185, 219, 248, 268</p>
+
+<p>Publishers, xxv. <a href="#page123">123</a>-5</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pulvis et Umbra&rdquo; (<i>Scribner&rsquo;s</i>), xxiv. 235, 253, 264, 274,284, 384; xxv. <a href="#page123">123</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pupil, The&rdquo; (H. James), xxv. <a href="#page132">132</a></p>
+
+<p>Purcell, Rev. &mdash;&mdash;, xxiii. 332-3; xxiv. 159</p>
+
+<p>Purple passages in literature,  xxv. <a href="#page72">72</a>-3</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pye,&rdquo; &mdash;&mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page30">30</a></p>
+
+<p>Pyle, Howard, xxv. <a href="#page164">164</a> <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><i>Queen</i>, ship, xxv. <a href="#page353">353</a></p>
+
+<p>Queensferry, xxiii. 68, 69</p>
+
+<p>Queen&rsquo;s River, xxv. <a href="#page417">417</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Quentin Durward&rdquo; (Scott), xxiii. 129 <i>n.</i> 1; xxiv. 91</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">Rab</span> and his Friends&rdquo; (Brown)  xxiii. 296</p>
+
+<p>Raiatea, xxiv. 308 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Raleigh, Walter, on restrained  egoism in literature, xxiii.  <i>intro.</i> xxvi., xxvii.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Randal&rdquo; (The Ebb Tide), xxv.  <a href="#page187">187</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Random Memories: the Coast of Fife&rdquo; (<i>Scribner&rsquo;s</i>), xxiii. 12, 15; xxiv. 235, 387; xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a>, <a href="#page301">301</a></p>
+
+<p>Rarotonga, xxv. <a href="#page269">269</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Raskolnikoff&rdquo; (Le Crime et le Châtiment), xxiv. 182</p>
+
+<p>Rawlinson, Miss,
+  letters to, xxiv. 227; xxv. <a href="#page274">274</a>;
+  verses to, xxiv. 227</p>
+
+<p>Rawlinson, Mrs., xxiv. 227</p>
+
+<p>Reade, Charles, xxiii. 129 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Real Thing&rdquo; (H. James), xxv. <a href="#page322">322</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Redgauntlet&rdquo; (Scott), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii., 287 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Reformation, studies in, xxiii. 159</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Refugees&rdquo; (Doyle), xxv. <a href="#page340">340</a></p>
+
+<p>Reid, Captain Mayne, works of, xxv. <a href="#page13">13</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Reign of Law&rdquo; (Duke of Argyll), xxiii. 67 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rembrandt,&rdquo; article on, by Colvin (<i>Edinburgh Review</i>), xxiii. 225</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Reminiscences&rdquo; (Carlyle), xxiii. 301</p>
+
+<p>Rémy, Pčre, xxv. <a href="#page327">327</a></p>
+
+<p>Renaissance story, projected, xxiii. 167, 168</p>
+
+<p>Renan, Ernest, works, xxv. <a href="#page304">304</a></p>
+
+<p>Rennie, John, xxiv. 121</p>
+
+<p>Resignation, xxiv. 62, 76 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Restoration Dramatists,&rdquo; essay on (Lamb), xxiv. 85</p>
+
+<p>Retrospective musings, xxv. <a href="#page437">437</a>-8</p>
+
+<p>Revenge, Christian doctrine of, xxiii. 214</p>
+
+<p>Rhone, the, xxiii. 79</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Richard Feverel&rdquo; (Meredith), xxv. <a href="#page265">265</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Richard  III.</i> (Shakespeare), xxiv. 398; xxv. <a href="#page51">51</a></p>
+
+<p>Richardson, Samuel, novelist, xxiii. 129 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Richmond, Sir W. B., xxiv. 107;
+  portrait by, xxiv. 202</p>
+
+<p><i>Richmond</i>, s.s., xxiv. 337, 343</p>
+
+<p>Richmond, stay at, xxiv. 104</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page495"></a>495</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rideau Cramoisi, Le&rdquo; (d&rsquo;Aurévilly), xxv. <a href="#page314">314</a>, <a href="#page380">380</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Ringarooma</i>, ship, xxv. <a href="#page268">268</a>-9</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rising Sun,&rdquo; projected, xxiv. 403</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ritter von dem heiligen Geist&rdquo; (Heine), xxiii. 88 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>R. L. S. Society, Cincinnati, xxv. <a href="#page384">384</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;R. L. Stevenson in Wick&rdquo; (Margaret H. Roberton), xxiii. 15 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Roads,&rdquo; paper on, xxiii. 55, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 67, 76, 77, 117, 119, 121, 141, 143, 201; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a>-8</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Road, the, of Loving Hearts,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page374">374</a>, <a href="#page431">431</a> <i>et seq</i>., <a href="#page441">441</a>, <a href="#page442">442</a>, <a href="#page446">446</a>, <a href="#page459">459</a> <i>et seq.</i>;
+  inscription on, xxv. <a href="#page441">441</a>, <a href="#page446">446</a>;
+  speech by R. L. S. at opening of, xxv. <a href="#page441">441</a>, <a href="#page446">446</a>, <a href="#page462">462</a> <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Robert, Louis, xxiv. 28</p>
+
+<p>Roberts, Earl, xxiv. 81</p>
+
+<p>Robertson, &mdash;, xxiii. 117</p>
+
+<p>Robertson&rsquo;s Sermons, xxiv, 268</p>
+
+<p>Robinet, &mdash;, painter, xxiii. 98, 99</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Robin Run-the-Hedge,&rdquo; unfinished, xxiv. 402</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Robinson Crusoe&rdquo; (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 103</p>
+
+<p>Rob Roy, xxv. <a href="#page293">293</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rob Roy&rdquo; (Scott), xxiv. 91</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rocambole&rdquo; (Ponson du Terrail), xxiii. 254</p>
+
+<p>Roch, Valentine, xxiv. 110, 238 <i>et passim</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Roderick Hudson&rdquo; (H. James), xxiv. 262-3, 265</p>
+
+<p>Rodin, Auguste, sculptor, xxiv. 107, 202;
+  letters to, xxiv. 209, 216</p>
+
+<p>Rodriguez Albano, xxiii. 244</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rois en Exil&rdquo; (Daudet), xxiii. 346</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Romance&rdquo; (Longman&rsquo;s), xxiv. 181</p>
+
+<p>Roman Law, studies in, xxiii. 126</p>
+
+<p>Rondeaux, xxiii. 188-9</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rosa Quo Locorum,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page33">33</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rose,&rdquo; character of (Meredith), xxiv. 97</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rosen, Countess von&rdquo; (Forest State), xxiii. 266</p>
+
+<p>Ross, Dr. Fairfax, xxv. <a href="#page348">348</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page350">350</a></p>
+
+<p>Ross family, xxiii. 28</p>
+
+<p>Ross of Mull, used in &ldquo;The Merry Men,&rdquo; xxiii. 41</p>
+
+<p>Rossetti, D. G., xxiv. 239</p>
+
+<p>Ross, Rev. Alexander and Mrs., xxiii. 27</p>
+
+<p>Rothschild, Baron, xxiii. 195</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rover,&rdquo; verses (Gosse), xxiv. 27</p>
+
+<p>Rowfant, xxiv. 215</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Rowfant Rhymes&rdquo; (Locker-Lampson), xxiv. 205</p>
+
+<p>Royal Society of Edinburgh, xxiv. 118, 135</p>
+
+<p>Royat, visits to, actual and projected, xxiv. 39, 98, 99 <i>et seq.</i>; xxv. <a href="#page105">105</a>, <a href="#page131">131</a></p>
+
+<p>Ruedi, Dr., xxiii. 297</p>
+
+<p>Rui = Louis, in Samoan pronunciation, xxiv. 307, 310 <i>et alibi</i></p>
+
+<p>Ruskin, John, xxiii. 117; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a></p>
+
+<p>Russel family, xxiii. 21, 22</p>
+
+<p>Russel, Miss Sara, xxiii. 21, 22</p>
+
+<p>Russel, Mrs., xxiii. 22</p>
+
+<p>Russel, Sheriff, xxiii. 21, 22</p>
+
+<p>Ruysdael, &mdash;, painting by, xxiii. 178</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Sachsenhausen</span>, xxiii. 43</p>
+
+<p>Sagas, love of, xxiii. 332; xxiv. 207; xxv. <a href="#page162">162</a>, <a href="#page211">211</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;St. Agnes&rsquo; Eve&rdquo; (Keats), xxiv. 170</p>
+
+<p>St. Augustine, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiv.</p>
+
+<p>St. Gaudens, Augustus, sculptor, xxiv. 170, 234, 238, 390; xxv. <a href="#page25">25</a>;
+  letters to, xxv. <a href="#page308">308</a>, <a href="#page341">341</a>, <a href="#page410">410</a>;
+  medallion portrait by, xxiv. 238-9, 250, 255</p>
+
+<p>St. Gaudens, Homer, letters to, xxiv. 287</p>
+
+<p>St. Germain, at, xxiii. 305</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page496"></a>496</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;St. Ives,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page281">281</a>, <a href="#page347">347</a>-8, <a href="#page371">371</a>, <a href="#page375">375</a>, <a href="#page380">380</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page387">387</a>, <a href="#page392">392</a>, <a href="#page403">403</a>, <a href="#page405">405</a>, <a href="#page414">414</a>, <a href="#page430">430</a>, <a href="#page450">450</a>;
+  inception of, xxv. <a href="#page285">285</a>-6;
+  parallel to, xxv.  <a href="#page442">442</a>;
+  scheme for, xxv. <a href="#page287">287</a></p>
+
+<p>St. John, apostle, and the Revelation (in Renan&rsquo;s book), xxv. <a href="#page304">304</a></p>
+
+<p>St. Paul, xxv. <a href="#page304">304</a>;
+  teaching of, xxiii. 214</p>
+
+<p>Saintsbury, Professor G., xxiii. 307</p>
+
+<p>Salvini, T., article on, xxiv. 72</p>
+
+<p>Samoa and the Samoans for children (letters to Miss Boodle on), xxv. <a href="#page147">147</a>, <a href="#page217">217</a>, <a href="#page243">243</a></p>
+
+<p>Samoa, climate of, xxv. <a href="#page250">250</a>, <a href="#page278">278</a>, <a href="#page333">333</a>, <a href="#page348">348</a> <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page350">350</a>, <a href="#page419">419</a>
+  contrasted with Europe, xxv. <a href="#page355">355</a>
+  exile in, xxv. <a href="#page349">349</a>
+  letters from, xxv. <a href="#page9">9</a> <i>et seq.</i>
+  missionary work, in, interest in, xxv. <a href="#page10">10</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1; xxv. <a href="#page33">33</a>, <a href="#page56">56</a>, <a href="#page57">57</a>
+  rain in, xxv. <a href="#page443">443</a>-4
+  rivers of, xxv. <a href="#page132">132</a>-3 <i>et seq.</i>
+  visit to, and settlement in, xxiv. 290 <i>et seq.</i>
+  war trouble in, projected work on, xxiv. 370, 379, 380</p>
+
+<p>Samoan character, xxv. <a href="#page381">381</a>, <a href="#page432">432</a>
+  chiefs, road made by, <i>see</i> &ldquo;Road of Loving Hearts&rdquo;
+  history, <i>see</i> &ldquo;Footnote to History&rdquo;
+  language, xxv. <a href="#page49">49</a>;
+  study of, xxv. <a href="#page181">181</a>, <a href="#page203">203</a>
+  politics, apologies for dwelling on, xxv. <a href="#page388">388</a>, <a href="#page445">445</a>;
+  interest in. xxv. <a href="#page4">4</a> <i>et passim</i>
+  prisoners (chiefs), <i>see</i> &ldquo;Road of Loving Hearts&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Samoa Times</i>, xxiv. 392</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Samuel Pepys,&rdquo; essay (<i>Cornhill</i>), xxiii. 281</p>
+
+<p>Sanchez, Adolpho, xxiii. 240</p>
+
+<p>Sanchez, Mrs., xxv. <a href="#page257">257</a></p>
+
+<p>Sand, George, writings of, xxiii. 87</p>
+
+<p>Sandwich Islands, xxiv. 292, 340</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;San Francisco,&rdquo; xxiii. 342</p>
+
+<p>San Francisco, stay at, and visits to, xxiii. 229, 230; xxiv. 234, 283, 286, 289, 290</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sannazzaro,&rdquo; xxiii. 167</p>
+
+<p>Saône and Rhone, projected journey down and book on, xxiv. 98, 99</p>
+
+<p>Saranac Lake, at, xxiv. 233-4, 240 <i>et seq.</i>; xxv. <a href="#page123">123</a> <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Sargent, John S., artist, xxiv. 105, 167;
+  portrait by, xxiv. 117, 155</p>
+
+<p><i>Saturday Review</i>, xxiii. 58, 69, 77</p>
+
+<p>Savage Island, at, xxiv. 387</p>
+
+<p>Savile Club, the, xxiii. 124, 127, 133, 186, 263; xxiv. 187</p>
+
+<p>Schmidt, Emil, President of Council, Samoa, xxv. <a href="#page416">416</a>, <a href="#page424">424</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Schooner Farallone,&rdquo; <i>see</i> &ldquo;Ebb Tide&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Schopenhauer, studies in, xxiii. 159</p>
+
+<p>Schwob, Marcel, letters to, xxiv. 327, 397; xxv. <a href="#page51">51</a>, <a href="#page409">409</a></p>
+
+<p>Sciatica, xxiv. 92</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Scotch Church and Union&rdquo; (Defoe), xxiv. 101</p>
+
+<p>Scotch labourer and politics, xxiii. 61</p>
+
+<p>Scotch murder trials, books on, asked for, xxv. <a href="#page271">271</a></p>
+
+<p>Scotch songs, Russian pleasure in, xxiii. 113</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Scotland and the Union,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 297</p>
+
+<p>Scotland, last visit, xxiv. 227</p>
+
+<p>Scotland, whisky, etc., of, xxiii. 41</p>
+
+<p><i>Scotsman</i>, xxv. <a href="#page398">398</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Scots Observer</i>, contribution to, xxv. <a href="#page174">174</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Scots wha hae,&rdquo; air, xxiii. 113</p>
+
+<p>Scott, Dr., letter to, xxiv. 374</p>
+
+<p>Scott, Sir Walter (<i>see also</i> Waverley Novels), xxiii. 65 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page497"></a>497</span>
+  111, 130 <i>n.</i> 1, 264, 333; xxiv. 75, 76, 84, 91, 382; xxv. <a href="#page86">86</a>, <a href="#page110">110</a>, <a href="#page154">154</a>, <a href="#page164">164</a>, <a href="#page167">167</a>, <a href="#page371">371</a>;
+  love of action, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxxiv.;
+  nobility of character, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxxv.;
+  novels, xxv. <a href="#page24">24</a>;
+  novels contrasted with R. L. S.&rsquo;s, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii.</p>
+
+<p>Scribner, C., xxiv. 233, 253-4, 390; xxv. <a href="#page25">25</a>, <a href="#page380">380</a>, <a href="#page392">392</a>;
+  letters to, xxiv. 252</p>
+
+<p>Scribner, Messrs., verse published by, xxiv. 395</p>
+
+<p><i>Scribner&rsquo;s Magazine</i>, xxiv. 110, 142, 253, 258;
+  contributions, actual and suggested, xxiv. 233, 235, 239, 240, 247, 252, 268, 277, 287, 367, 377 <i>et seq.</i>, 387, 393; xxv. <a href="#page86">86</a>, <a href="#page97">97</a>, <a href="#page110">110</a>, <a href="#page115">115</a>, <a href="#page171">171</a> <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sea-Cook, The&rdquo; (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Treasure Island&rdquo;), xxiii. 326-7</p>
+
+<p>Sedan, xxv. <a href="#page250">250</a>, <a href="#page318">318</a></p>
+
+<p>Seed, Hon. J., xxiii. 179; xxiv. 405</p>
+
+<p>Seeley, Professor, style of, xxiv. 55-6</p>
+
+<p>Seeley, Richmond, publisher and editor (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Portfolio&rdquo;), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xvii., 141, 142, 143, 148, 398</p>
+
+<p>Sellar, Mrs., xxiii. 115</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sensations d&rsquo;Italie&rdquo; (Bourget), xxv. <a href="#page127">127</a>, <a href="#page130">130</a>-1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sentimental Journey&rdquo; (Sterne), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sentimental Tommy&rdquo; (Barrie), xxv. <a href="#page419">419</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Seraphina (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Prince Otto&rdquo;), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Service of Man&rdquo; (Cotter Morison), xxiv. 219-20</p>
+
+<p>Seumanutafa, Chief, of Apia, xxv. <a href="#page26">26</a>, <a href="#page48">48</a>-9, <a href="#page105">105</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Seventeenth Century Studies&rdquo; (Gosse), xxiv. 45</p>
+
+<p>Sewall, Mr., American Consul at Samoa, xxv. <a href="#page4">4</a>, <a href="#page29">29</a>, <a href="#page58">58</a>, <a href="#page65">65</a>-6</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Shadow, The, on the Bed&rdquo; (Mrs. R. L. S.), xxiii. 308, 316, 321</p>
+
+<p>Shairp, Professor, xxiii. 191, 263</p>
+
+<p>Shaltigoe, wreck at, xxiii. 22</p>
+
+<p>Shannon, W. J., xxiii. 332-3</p>
+
+<p>Shaw, Bernard, appreciation of, xxiv. 270-1</p>
+
+<p>Shelley, Lady, xxiv. 105, 149, 177, 179, 211; xxv. <a href="#page131">131</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Shelley Papers&rdquo; (Dowden), xxiv. 211, 212</p>
+
+<p>Shelley, P. B., xxiv. 177-8, 212; 372, 373-4;
+  and Keats, xxiv. 211</p>
+
+<p>Shelley, Sir P. B., xxiv. 177-8, 211, 373; xxv. <a href="#page458">458</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sherlock Holmes&rdquo; (Doyle), xxv. <a href="#page299">299</a></p>
+
+<p>Shetland, visited, xxiii. 10, 24</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Shovels of Newton French,&rdquo; projected, xxv. <a href="#page5">5</a>, <a href="#page55">55</a>-6, <a href="#page82">82</a>-3, <a href="#page172">172</a></p>
+
+<p>Sick child, episode of, xxiii. 230, 269</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sign of the ship&rdquo; causerie (Lang), xxiv. 278, 388</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sigurd&rdquo; (W. Morris), xxiii. 334; xxv. <a href="#page162">162</a></p>
+
+<p>Silverado, life at, xxiii. 278</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Silverado Squatters,&rdquo; xxiii. 230, 279, 283, 352, 355; xxiv. 5, 26, 27, 30 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, 34, 56, 66, 67, 73, 92; xxv. <a href="#page423">423</a>;
+  serial issue of, xxiv. 55</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Silver Ship,&rdquo; <i>see</i> &ldquo;Casco&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Simoneau, Jules, xxiii. 239, 240, 244; xxiv. 423;
+  letters to, xxiv. 36, 41</p>
+
+<p>Simoneau, Mrs., xxiv. 42</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Simon Fraser&rdquo; (Catriona), xxv. <a href="#page351">351</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Simpson, Sir Walter, xxiii. 36,43, 46, 49, 69, 89, 124, 159, 174, 182, 187, 259, 341, 353; xxiv. 47;
+  letter to, xxiv. 117, 229, 242;
+  yachting trip with, xxiii. 124, 139, 140</p>
+
+<p>Simson, Dr., xxiv. 91</p>
+
+<p>Sinclair, Miss Amy, xxiii. 24, 27-8</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page498"></a>498</span></p>
+
+<p>Sinclair, Sir Tollemache, xxiii. 27</p>
+
+<p>Sinico, &mdash;, singer, xxiii. 166</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sire de Malétroit&rsquo;s Door,&rdquo; xiii. 184, 206, 207, 211, 248</p>
+
+<p>Siron, aubergiste, Barbizon, xxiii. 187</p>
+
+<p>Sitwell, Mrs. (<i>see also</i> Colvin, Lady), xxiii. 54, 300; xxiv. 335; xxv. <a href="#page85">85</a>;
+  letter to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, xxiv. 331;
+  letters to, from R. L. S., xxiii. 57, 58, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 74, 77, 83, 86, 91, 93, 101, 103, 104, 110, 115, 121, 125, 127, 131, 133, 137, 139, 140, 144, 148, 149, 151, 153, 155, 156, 158, 161, 164, 166, 168, 171, 174, 175, 177, 180 <i>bis</i>, 181, 187, 189, 197, 198, 200, 203, 205, 207, 323; xxiv. 24; xxv. <a href="#page393">393</a></p>
+
+<p>Skelt, xxiv. 57, 93</p>
+
+<p>Skene, William Forbes, xxv. <a href="#page434">434</a>-5</p>
+
+<p>Skerryvore, article on (Archer), xxiv. 305</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Skerryvore&rdquo; (house), xxiv. 105, 109, 141, 196, 252; xxv. <a href="#page31">31</a> <i>n.</i> 2, <a href="#page75">75</a></p>
+
+<p>Skinner, Mr., xxv. <a href="#page413">413</a></p>
+
+<p>Slade School, xxiv. 39</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sleeper Awakened,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page314">314</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Smeoroch, Skye terrier, xxiv. 77 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1; xxv. <a href="#page429">429</a></p>
+
+<p>Smiles, Samuel, xxiv. 121</p>
+
+<p>Smith, Adam, xxiii. 72</p>
+
+<p>Smith, Captain, xxiii. 235</p>
+
+<p>Smith, Rev. George, xxiii. 4; xxiv. 265 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Soalu, Chief, xxv. <a href="#page460">460</a></p>
+
+<p>Society for Psychical Research, Journals of, xxv. <a href="#page299">299</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Soldiers Three&rdquo; (Kipling), xxv. <a href="#page46">46</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Solemn Music&rdquo; (Milton), xxiii. 294</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Solomon Crabb,&rdquo; xxiii. 343-4</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Solution, The&rdquo; (Lesson of the Master, H. James), xxiv. 382</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle&rdquo; (Wordsworth), xxiii. 315 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Song of To-morrow,&rdquo; xxiii. 141</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Songs of Scotland without words, for the Pianoforte&rdquo; (Surrenne), xxiii. 113</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Songs of Travel,&rdquo; xxiv. 190, 239, 337, 362, 375, 378, 395; xxv. <a href="#page349">349</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sonnet to England&rdquo; (Martin), xxiii. 210</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sophia Scarlett,&rdquo; proposed, xxv. <a href="#page144">144</a>, <a href="#page152">152</a>-3, <a href="#page172">172</a>, <a href="#page187">187</a>, <a href="#page281">281</a></p>
+
+<p>Sophocles, translation (Campbell), xxiv. 113</p>
+
+<p>Sorrow, discipline of, xxiv. 163</p>
+
+<p>Soudan affairs, xxiv. 107</p>
+
+<p>Southey, R., xxiii. 302</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;South Sea Ballads,&rdquo; xxiv. 298-9, 317, 321, 380, 395, 399</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;South Sea Bubble&rdquo; (Earl of Pembroke), xxv. <a href="#page153">153</a> <i>n.</i> 1;
+  on Kava, xxv. <a href="#page183">183</a> <i>n.</i> 1;
+  on Samoan streams, xxiv. 133 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;South Sea Idylls&rdquo; (Stoddard), xxiv. 180</p>
+
+<p>South Sea Islands, call of, xxiii. 180, 205</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;South Sea Letters,&rdquo; published first as &ldquo;The South Seas,&rdquo; later as &ldquo;In the South Seas,&rdquo; <i>q.v.</i>;
+  selection from, projected, xxv. <a href="#page423">423</a></p>
+
+<p>South Seas, cruises in, xxiv. 233 <i>et seq.</i>, 286 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;South Sea Yarns&rdquo; (with Lloyd Osbourne), projected, xxiv. 361, 367, 379; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a></p>
+
+<p>Spain, xxiii. 119</p>
+
+<p><i>Spectator</i>, xxiii. 239, 264; xxv. <a href="#page58">58</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Spectator&rdquo; (Addison&rsquo;s), style of, xxiii. 252</p>
+
+<p>Speculative Society, Edinburgh University, xxiii. 35, 64, 184, 312; xxiv. 178</p>
+
+<p>Speed, &mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page210">210</a></p>
+
+<p>Spencer, &mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page74">74</a>-5</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page499"></a>499</span></p>
+
+<p>Spencer, Herbert, xxiii. 169</p>
+
+<p><i>Sperber</i>, German warship, xxv. <a href="#page29">29</a></p>
+
+<p>Speyside, in, xxiii. 284</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Spring Sorrow&rdquo; (Henley), xxiii. 186</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Spring time,&rdquo; xxiii. 191, 193, 196, 197, 202</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Squaw Men,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 329</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Squire&rdquo; (Story of a Lie), xxiii. 249</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Squire Trelawney&rdquo; (Treasure Island), xxiii. 326-7</p>
+
+<p>Stansfield, &mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page269">269</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stepfather&rsquo;s Story,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 207</p>
+
+<p>Stephen, Leslie, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xvii., 174, 184, 205, 206, 207, 241, 256, 257, 264, 267, 302, 311; xxiv. 47;
+  letter from with appreciation of &ldquo;Victor Hugo,&rdquo; xxiii. 129 <i>et seq.</i> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+  introduction by, of R. L. S. and Henley, xxiii. 172;
+  on &ldquo;Forest Notes,&rdquo; xxiii. 201, 202;
+  testimonial from, xxiii. 316</p>
+
+<p>Stephenson, &mdash;, xxiii. 25</p>
+
+<p>Sterne, Laurence, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii.</p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Alan, xxv. <a href="#page335">335</a>, <a href="#page401">401</a>, <a href="#page436">436</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson family, inquiries concerning, xxv. <a href="#page293">293</a>, <a href="#page335">335</a>, <a href="#page342">342</a>, <a href="#page357">357</a>, <a href="#page399">399</a>, <a href="#page435">435</a>-7</p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Hugh, xxv. <a href="#page335">335</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, James, xxv. <a href="#page334">334</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, James S., letter to, xxv. <a href="#page334">334</a>, <a href="#page342">342</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, J. Horne, xxv. <a href="#page293">293</a>, <a href="#page345">345</a>, <a href="#page435">435</a>;
+  letter to, xxv. <a href="#page357">357</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, John, xxv. <a href="#page358">358</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Katharine (<i>see also</i> de Mattos), xxiii. 138</p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Macgregor, xxv. <a href="#page293">293</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Mrs. Alan, xxv. <a href="#page110">110</a>, <a href="#page436">436</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Mrs. R. L., xxiv. 234, 247-8, 251, 256, 258-9, 275, 282, 291-2, 323, 330-1, 341-2, 390; xxv. <a href="#page29">29</a>, <a href="#page30">30</a>, <a href="#page31">31</a>, <a href="#page38">38</a>, <a href="#page249">249</a>-50, <a href="#page371">371</a>, <a href="#page377">377</a>;
+  character, xxiii. 279-80;
+  first meeting, xxiii. 183, 228;
+  marriage, xxiii. 228 <i>et seq.</i>, 260, 262, 268, 270, 272, 274; xxiv. 105;
+  collaboration with R. L. S., xxiii. 282;
+  letter to, on avoiding the infliction of pain in literary work, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxvi.;
+  story by (<i>see</i> &ldquo;Shadow on the Bed&ldquo;);
+  ill health and illness of, xxiii. 280, 283-4, 320-1,355; xxv. <a href="#page146">146</a>, <a href="#page280">280</a>, <a href="#page297">297</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page320">320</a>-1 <i>et alibi</i>;
+  letter to, xxiv. 349;
+  letters from, to S. Colvin, xxiv. 309, 347, to Mrs. Sitwell, xxiv. 331,
+  to J. A. Symonds, xxiv. 11</p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Mrs. Thomas (<i>née</i> Balfour), xxiii. 4, 6, 148; xxiv. 39, 147, 199, 216, 220, 234, 248, 251, 258, 276, 280, 290, 291, 309, 310, 314, 323, 331, 336, 341, 343, 366, 375, 405; xxv. <a href="#page3">3</a>, <a href="#page31">31</a>, <a href="#page50">50</a>, <a href="#page53">53</a>, <a href="#page193">193</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page259">259</a>, <a href="#page282">282</a>, <a href="#page403">403</a>, <a href="#page406">406</a>, <a href="#page416">416</a>;
+  letters to, xxiii. 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 24, 36, 38, 39, 44, 56, 81, 94, 96, 97, 99, 107, 112, 116, 117, 118, 120, 187, 215, 216, 218, 298, 337, 354; xxiv. 9, 21, 66, 76, 202, 383;
+  settled in Samoa, xxv. <a href="#page76">76</a>, <a href="#page78">78</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Mrs. Thomas, and Thomas Stevenson, letters to (jointly), <i>see</i> Stevenson, Thomas, <i>infra</i></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, name, query on to Sir H. Maxwell, xxv. <a href="#page440">440</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Robert, xxiii. 4, 13, 160, 200; xxiv. 359; xxv. <a href="#page87">87</a>, <a href="#page95">95</a>, <a href="#page98">98</a>, <a href="#page120">120</a>, <a href="#page310">310</a>, <a href="#page315">315</a>, <a href="#page401">401</a>, and <i>see</i> &ldquo;Family of Engineers&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Robert (the first), xxv. <a href="#page335">335</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Robert Alan Mowbray
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page500"></a>500</span>
+  (Bob), xxiii. 49, 57, 58, 83, 103, 105, 109, 110, 124, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 149, 174, 183, 187, 239, 308, 341; xxiv. 3, 69, 89, 124, 167, 196, 328 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+  letters to, xxiii. 356; xxiv. 8, 59, 196, 198, 240, 323; xxv. <a href="#page398">398</a>, <a href="#page401">401</a>, <a href="#page434">434</a></p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Robert Louis Balfour (&ldquo;R. L. S.&rdquo;), ancestry, xxiii. 4, 5;
+    appearance, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxxviii.;
+    appreciation of, by Lysaght, xxv. <a href="#page415">415</a> <i>n.</i> 1;
+    appreciation of his own literary skill, xxv. <a href="#page443">443</a>;
+    characteristics and habitudes, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxii., xxvi. <i>et seq.</i>, 8-12, 186; xxiv. 296; xxv. <a href="#page33">33</a>, <a href="#page415">415</a>, <i>n.</i> 1;
+    charm, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii., xxvi., xxvii.-ix., xxxi., 55; xxv. <a href="#page415">415</a>;
+    conversation, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxxi., 9. 123;
+    help derived from writings of, xxii., <i>intro.</i> xxix., 253-4;
+    interest in missionary work, xxv. <a href="#page10">10</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page33">33</a>, <a href="#page56">56</a>, <a href="#page57">57</a>;
+    interest in music, xxiv. 188-9, 196 <i>et seq.</i>, 285, 302; xxv. <a href="#page85">85</a>, <a href="#page92">92</a>, <a href="#page125">125</a>, <a href="#page185">185</a>;
+    literary style and methods, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xix. <i>et seq.</i>; xxv. <a href="#page173">173</a>;
+    political views, xxiv. 107-8;
+    portraits, busts, photographs of, xxiv. 117, 154, 170, 177, 199, 202, 238-9, 250, 255; xxv. <a href="#page309">309</a>, <a href="#page310">310</a>, <a href="#page341">341</a>, <a href="#page353">353</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+    relations with his father, xxiv. 5, 6 <i>et alibi</i>;
+    religious views, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxxii., 11, 12, 53-4, 67</p>
+  <p style="padding-left: 1em;">Life, 1850-57, Birth and Early delicacy, xxiii. 5</p>
+<div style="padding-left: 2em;">
+    <p>1858-67, Education and home  life  and  early travels, xxiii. 6-8</p>
+    <p>1868-70, Engineering studies, xxiii. 10</p>
+    <p>1871-4, Law studies, religious differences with parents, xxiii. 10-12</p>
+    <p>1874-5 (May to June), Law studies, home life, experimental literature, travels, home and foreign, and friendships, xxiii. 123-4</p>
+    <p>1875-79 (July to July), Bar studies concluded, travels in France and Germany, life at the bar abandoned for literature; Fontainebleau again, xxiii. 182-3;
+      early journalistic and other writing, xxiii. 184-5</p>
+    <p>1879-1880 (July to July), Californian visit, hardships, illness, marriage, xxiii. 228-30</p>
+    <p>1880, Aug.-1882, Oct., Home from California, xxiii. 279;
+      summers in Scotland, xxiii. 279-80;
+      winters at Davos, and literary work, xxiii. 280, 283</p>
+   <p>1882, Oct.-1884, Aug., The Riviera again, Montpellier and Marseilles, Nice, xxiv. 5;
+      Hyčres home life, happier relations with parents, illness and literary work, letters, xxiv. 3-5</p>
+   <p>1874, Sept.-1887, Aug., Bournemouth homes&mdash;&ldquo;Skerryvore,&rdquo; invalid life, friendships, and literary work, xxiv. 104-9;
+      visit to Paris, schemes for life in Ireland, xxiv. 108;
+      death of his father, and departure for Colorado, xxiv. 110</p>
+   <p>1887, Aug.-1888, June, Voyage to New York and reception there, friends new and old, stay in the Adirondacks, journey to San Francisco, xxiv. 233-4</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page501"></a>501</span></p>
+
+    <p>1888, June-1890, Oct., Voyages in the Pacific, xxiv. 290-3;
+      settlement at Vailima, xxiv. 291-2;
+      controversy about Father Damien, xxiv. 292</p>
+    <p>1890, Nov.-1891, Dec., First year at Vailima, Samoan politics, letters on, to <i>The Times</i>&mdash;building of the first Vailima house, xxv. <a href="#page3">3</a>-8</p>
+    <p>1892, Jan. to Dec., Life at Vailima, second year, visitors, enlargement of the house, Samoan politics, threatened deportation, xxv. <a href="#page144">144</a>-6</p>
+    <p>1893, Jan. to Dec., Life at Vailima, third year, the addition to the house completed, Samoan politics, proclamation aimed at him, illness of Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, trips to Sydney, to Honolulu, to New Zealand, outbreak of war, financial anxieties, signs of life-weariness, xxv. <a href="#page280">280</a>-2</p>
+    <p>1894, Jan. to Dec., fourth year at Vailima, illness and recovery, loss of literary facility, financial position, visitors, xxv. <a href="#page373">373</a>-5;
+      the making of the Road of Gratitude, xxv. <a href="#page374">374</a>, <a href="#page432">432</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page441">441</a>, <a href="#page446">446</a>;
+      speech and feast to the chiefs, xxv. <a href="#page441">441</a>, <a href="#page446">446</a>, <a href="#page462">462</a> <i>et seq.</i>;
+      sudden death and burial, xxv. <a href="#page8">8</a>, <a href="#page10">10</a> <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page375">375</a>;
+      account of, by Lloyd Osbourne, xxv. <a href="#page457">457</a> <i>et seq.</i>;
+      epitaph, xxiii. 268; xxv. <a href="#page375">375</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Thomas, xxii. 4, 5, 11, 12, 20, 24, 146, 148, 180, 260, 261 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, 279, 285, 298, 328, 347, 353; xxiv. 5, 6, 39, 58, 105, 107, 108, 118, 119, 135, 138, 147, 161, 187, 188, 189, 196, 199, 210, 216, 220, 234, 276, 280, 365, 405; xxv. <a href="#page335">335</a>, <a href="#page382">382</a>, <a href="#page401">401</a>;
+  affection for Mrs. R. L. S., xxiii. 279;
+  gift to her of a Bournemouth house, xxiv. 105;
+  biographical essay on, xxiii. 21;
+  letters to, xxiii. 13, 42, 111, 113, 213, 290, 330; xxiv. 9, 22, 62, 74, 90, 118, 119, 137, 159, 179, 190, 201;
+  Memories of, xxv. <a href="#page413">413</a>;
+  misunderstandings with, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xvii., 11, 12, 55, 67;
+  religious views, xxiii. 11, 12, 52, 67; death, xxiii. 5; xxiv. 109, 227</p>
+
+<p style="padding-left: 1em;">and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson, joint letters to, xxiii. 215, 296, 305; xxiv. 27, 75, 76, 78, 100, 110, 130, 168, 199</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stewart, Alan Breck,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page46">46</a>-8</p>
+
+<p>Stewart, James (<i>see</i> Appin murder)</p>
+
+<p>Stewart, Miss (Bathgate), xxiii. 227</p>
+
+<p>Stewart, Sir Herbert, xxiv. 81</p>
+
+<p>Stewart&rsquo;s plantation, Tahiti, xxv. <a href="#page153">153</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stickit Minister&rdquo; (Crockett), dedication of, xxv. <a href="#page349">349</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Stobo Manse, at, xxiii. 284, 357</p>
+
+<p>Stockton, F. R., verse to, xxiv. 125</p>
+
+<p>Stoddard, Charles Warren, xxv. <a href="#page267">267</a>;
+  letters to, xxiii. 275, 294; xxiv, 180</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stories and Interludes&rdquo; (Barry Pain), xxv. <a href="#page215">215</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stories,&rdquo; or &ldquo;A Story Book,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 249</p>
+
+<p>Storm, ideas on, xxiii. 150</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Story of a Lie,&rdquo; xxiii. 12, 229, 230, 235, 237, 247, 249; xxiv. 90</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page502"></a>502</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Strange Adventures of Mr. Nehemiah Solny,&rdquo;  projected, xxiii. 170</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,&rdquo; xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii.; xxiv. 106, 169, 171, 182, 233, 253, 398; xxv. <a href="#page289">289</a>;
+  publication, xxiv. 166;
+  dedication, xxiv. 167;
+  criticisms, xxiv. 184</p>
+
+<p>Strathpeffer, at, xxiii. 280, 284, 285</p>
+
+<p>Streams, Samoan, peculiarities of, xxv. <a href="#page36">36</a></p>
+
+<p>Strong, Austin, xxiv. 151, 341; xxv. <a href="#page92">92</a>, <a href="#page117">117</a>, <a href="#page249">249</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page269">269</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page389">389</a>, <a href="#page403">403</a>, <a href="#page446">446</a></p>
+
+<p>Strong, Mrs., xxiv. 325 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, 341; xxv. <i>passim</i>;
+  letter to, xxiii. 286</p>
+
+<p>Stuebel, Dr., German Consul, xxv. <a href="#page35">35</a>, <a href="#page41">41</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page141">141</a></p>
+
+<p>Sturgis, Mrs., xxv. <a href="#page391">391</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Subpriorsford,&rdquo; nickname for Vailima, xxv. <a href="#page165">165</a>, <a href="#page170">170</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Such is Life,&rdquo; poem (Martin), xxiii. 209</p>
+
+<p>Sudbury, Suffolk, at, xxiii. 56</p>
+
+<p>Suffering, value of, xxiii. 251</p>
+
+<p>Suffolk, peasantry, xxiii. 61</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Suicide Club,&rdquo; xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx., 356</p>
+
+<p>Sullivan, Russell, xxv. <a href="#page25">25</a></p>
+
+<p>Sunrise, tonic of, xxv. <a href="#page401">401</a></p>
+
+<p>Sutherland, Mr., xxiii. 15</p>
+
+<p>Sutherland, Mrs., xxiii. 22</p>
+
+<p>Swan, Professor, xxiii. 193; xxiv. 143; xxv. <a href="#page315">315</a></p>
+
+<p>Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, xxiii. 8, 123, 126 <i>et seq.</i>, 312</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sweet Girl Graduate, A,&rdquo; and other poems (Martin), xxiii. 208-9</p>
+
+<p>Swift, Dr. and Mrs., of Molokai, xxiv. 351-2</p>
+
+<p>Swinburne, A. C., poems, xxv. <a href="#page390">390</a></p>
+
+<p>Sydney, <span class="sc">N.S.W.</span>, visits to, and illnesses at, xxiv. 292-3, 325, 375, 382 <i>et seq.</i>, 394; xxv. <a href="#page4">4</a>, <a href="#page38">38</a>, <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page53">53</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page61">61</a>, <a href="#page77">77</a>, <a href="#page81">81</a>, <a href="#page208">208</a>, <a href="#page288">288</a>-9, <a href="#page296">296</a></p>
+
+<p>Symonds, J. A., xxiii. 281, 304, 311, 317, 334, 341, 351, 361; xxiv. 142;
+  dedication of book by, xxv. <a href="#page454">454</a>;
+  epithet of, for R. L. S., xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxvi.;
+  letter to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, xxiv. 11;
+  letters to, xxiv. 182, 254, 304;
+  on Southey, xxiii. 302;
+  death of, xxv. <a href="#page317">317</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">Table</span> Talk&rdquo; (Hazlitt), xxiv. 130</p>
+
+<p>Tacitus, xxiv. 83</p>
+
+<p>Tahiti, xxiv. 291, 371</p>
+
+<p>Tahitian Islands, xxiv. 293;
+  stay in, xxiv. 291, 296 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Tait, Professor, xxiv. 118</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tales and Fantasies,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page397">397</a>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tales for Winter Nights,&rdquo; projected title, xxiii. 316, 318</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tales of a Grandfather&rdquo; (Scott), xxv. <a href="#page117">117</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tales of my Grandfather&rdquo; (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Family of Engineers&rdquo;), xxv. <a href="#page110">110</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Talk and Talkers&rdquo; (<i>Cornhill</i>), xxiii. 283, 341, 349; xxiv. 138</p>
+
+<p>Tamasese, xxiv. 371; xxv. <a href="#page67">67</a>, <a href="#page351">351</a></p>
+
+<p>Tamate, <i>see</i> Chalmers</p>
+
+<p>Tati, high chief of the Tevas, xxiv. 317</p>
+
+<p>Tauchnitz, Baron, and &ldquo;Footnote,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page346">346</a></p>
+
+<p>Tautira, at, xxiv. 291, 302 <i>et seq.</i>, 317</p>
+
+<p>Taylor, Ida and Una, xxiv. 105, 372, 374</p>
+
+<p>Taylor, Lady, xxiv. 105, 180; xxv. <a href="#page203">203</a>;
+  death of, xxv. <a href="#page254">254</a>;
+  letters to, xxiv. 211, 212, 286, 357, 372</p>
+
+<p>Taylor, Miss, xxv. <a href="#page364">364</a>;
+  letter to, xxv. <a href="#page254">254</a></p>
+
+<p>Taylor, Sir Henry, xxiv. 145, 180</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page503"></a>503</span></p>
+
+<p>Tembinoka, King of Apemama, xxiv. 358-9, 368, 400;
+  verses to, xxiv. 378, 380</p>
+
+<p><i>Temple Bar</i>, contributions to, xxiii. 184, 206, 207, 211</p>
+
+<p>Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Becket&rdquo;), xxiv. 205</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tentation de St. Antoine&rdquo; (Flaubert), xxiii. 150</p>
+
+<p>Teriitera, Samoan name of R. L. S., xxiv. 308, 310, 317, 321</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tess of the D&rsquo;Urbervilles&rdquo; (Hardy), xxv. <a href="#page266">266</a> <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page296">296</a></p>
+
+<p>Thackeray, W. M., xxv. <a href="#page154">154</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Theatrical World&rdquo; (Archer), xxv. <a href="#page384">384</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thérčse Raquin&rdquo; (Zola), xxiv. 57</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Tempest&rdquo; (Shakespeare), xxiv. 96</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thomas Haggard&rdquo; (Window in Thrums), xxv. <a href="#page276">276</a></p>
+
+<p>Thomson, Maggie, xxiii. 25</p>
+
+<p>Thomson, Mr., xxiii. 8</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thomson,&rdquo; pseudonym, letters in character of and as to, xxiv. 14, 121, 122</p>
+
+<p>Thoreau, Henry David, essay on (Familiar Studies), xxiii. 226, 229, 252, 255, 262, 263, 265, 273; xxiv. 149, 158;
+  criticisms on, xxiii. 322</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thoughts on Literature as an Art,&rdquo; xxiii. 266</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thrawn Janet&rdquo; (<i>Cornhill</i>), xxiii. 282, 308, 316, 321; xxiv. 90; xxv. <a href="#page295">295</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tibby Birse&rdquo; (Window in Thrums), xxv. <a href="#page276">276</a>, <a href="#page362">362</a> <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Time, Archer&rsquo;s criticisms in, xxiv. 156, 159, 160, 161</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Time&rdquo; (Milton), xxiii. 294</p>
+
+<p><i>Times, The</i>, letters to, on Samoan affairs, xxv. <a href="#page7">7</a>, <a href="#page94">94</a>, <a href="#page98">98</a>, <a href="#page119">119</a>, <a href="#page137">137</a>, <a href="#page145">145</a>, <a href="#page212">212</a>, <a href="#page376">376</a>, <a href="#page386">386</a>, <a href="#page387">387</a></p>
+
+<p>Todd, John, xxiv. 221</p>
+
+<p>Todd, Mrs., xxiv. 221</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tod Lapraik&rdquo; (Catriona), xxv. <a href="#page294">294</a>-5</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tommy Haddon&rdquo; (Wrecker), xxv. <a href="#page268">268</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Toothache, The&rdquo; (Burns), xxiv. 256</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Torn Surplice, The,&rdquo; suggested title, xxiii. 321</p>
+
+<p>Torquay, at, xxiv. 109</p>
+
+<p>Torrence, Rev. &mdash;&mdash;, xxiii. 181</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Touchstone, The,&rdquo; xxiii. 141</p>
+
+<p>Tourgenieff, &mdash;&mdash;, xxiii. 222</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tourgue, la&rdquo; (&ldquo;Quatre-vingt Treize,&rdquo; Hugo), xxiii. 130</p>
+
+<p>Trades Unions, xxiii. 97</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tragedies of the Wilderness&rdquo; (Drake), xxiv. 270</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tragic Comedians&rdquo; (Meredith), xxiii. 224</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tragic Muse, The&rdquo; (H. James), xxiv. 397; xxv. <a href="#page44">44</a>, <a href="#page130">130</a>-1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Transformation of the Scottish Highlands,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 297</p>
+
+<p>Traquair, Willie, xxiii. 20, xxiv. 70</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Travailleurs de la Mer&rdquo; (Hugo), xxiii. 129 <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Travel-books, cheap edition projected, xxiii. 294</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Travelling Companion, The,&rdquo; projected, xxiii. 321; xxiv. 68, 149</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Travels and Excursions,&rdquo; Vols. II. and III. discussed, xxv. <a href="#page423">423</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes,&rdquo; xxiii. 183, 184, 185, 216, 217, 219, 225, 229, 248, 250, 257</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Treasure Island,&rdquo; xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxxv., 282, 283, 326, 334, 352, 355; xxiv. 31, 93, 101, 112, 179, 233; xxv. <a href="#page76">76</a>, <a href="#page124">124</a>, <a href="#page289">289</a>, <a href="#page429">429</a>;
+  publication as serial, xxiii. 328;
+  in book form, xxiv. 6, 27, 35, 67;
+  criticisms, xxiv. 66;
+  genesis of, xxiv. 101;
+  illustrated edition, xxiv. 159;
+  paper on, xxv. <a href="#page376">376</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Treasure of Franchard,&rdquo; xxiv. 4, 398; xxv. <a href="#page153">153</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Trial of Joan of Arc,&rdquo; xxiii. 203</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page504"></a>504</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Trials of the Sons of Rob Roy, with Anecdotes,&rdquo; xxiii. 332</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tricoche et Cacolet,&rdquo; xxiii. 219</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tristram Shandy&rdquo; (Sterne), xxiii. 118</p>
+
+<p>Trollope, Anthony, novels of, xxiii. 215</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Trophées, Les&rdquo; (Hérédia), xxv. <a href="#page331">331</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Trudeau, Dr., xxiv. 234</p>
+
+<p>Tulloch, Principal, xxiii. 280, 290, 297, 316; xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a>, <a href="#page123">123</a></p>
+
+<p>Tupper, Martin, xxiii. 348</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tushery,&rdquo; xxiv. 6, 31, 32</p>
+
+<p>Tusitala, xxv. <a href="#page196">196</a> <i>et aliter</i></p>
+
+<p>Tutuila, visited, xxv. <a href="#page4">4</a>, <a href="#page8">8</a>, <a href="#page58">58</a>, <a href="#page65">65</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Twa Dogs&rdquo; (Burns), xxiii. 225</p>
+
+<p>Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens), xxiii. 276</p>
+
+<p><i>Twelfth Night</i> (Shakespeare) at the Jenkins&rsquo;, xxiii. 175, 176, 178</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Two Falconers, The, of Cairnstane,&rdquo; xxiii. 170</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Two St. Michael&rsquo;s Mounts,&rdquo; essay, projected, xxiii. 207</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Two Years before the Mast&rdquo; (Dana), xxiv. 297</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Typee&rdquo; (Melville), xxiv. 348</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Ulufanua</span>, island, xxv. <a href="#page97">97</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Underwoods,&rdquo; collected verses, xxiii. 222, 271, 281, 296, 300; xxiv. 36, 89, 107, 170, 173 <i>n.</i> 1, 189-<span class="correction" title="0 changed to 90">90</span>, 214, 215, 229-30, 231, 395; xxv. <a href="#page376">376</a>, <a href="#page398">398</a>;
+  dedication of, xxiv. 374;
+  review by Gosse, xxiv. 244;
+  success of, xxiv. 239, 255-6</p>
+
+<p>United States, the, and Samoa, xxv. <a href="#page6">6</a> <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Upolu and Savaii, xxv. <a href="#page8">8</a></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Vacquerie</span>, &mdash;&mdash;, xxiii. 307</p>
+
+<p>Vaea, Mount, xxv. <a href="#page9">9</a>, <a href="#page135">135</a>, <a href="#page388">388</a>;
+  burial-place, xxv. <a href="#page10">10</a> <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page460">460</a></p>
+
+<p>Vaea river, xxv. <a href="#page132">132</a> <i>et seq.</i></p>
+
+<p>Vailima, home at, xxiv. 291;
+  purchase of, xxiv. 292, 372-3, 374, 377, 390;
+  life at, xxv. <a href="#page3">3</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page148">148</a>-51, <a href="#page156">156</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#page280">280</a> <i>et seq.</i>;
+  visitors to, xxv. <a href="#page228">228</a>;
+  expenses, xxv. <a href="#page282">282</a>;
+  household staff, xxv. <a href="#page356">356</a>-7;
+  joy of colour at, xxv. <a href="#page378">378</a>;
+  new house, xxv. <a href="#page145">145</a>-6, <a href="#page251">251</a>, <a href="#page269">269</a>, <a href="#page271">271</a>, <a href="#page278">278</a>-9, <a href="#page284">284</a>, <a href="#page287">287</a>;
+  decorations for, xxv. <a href="#page308">308</a>-9;
+  feeling about, xxv. <a href="#page349">349</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Vailima Letters,&rdquo; xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xviii., xxix.; xxv. <a href="#page5">5</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Vanity Fair</i>, magazine, contributions to, xxiii. 184, 198, 199</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Vanity Fair&rdquo; (Thackeray), xxv. <a href="#page154">154</a></p>
+
+<p>Vedder, Elihu, illustrator of &ldquo;Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,&rdquo; xxiv. 116</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Velasquez&rdquo; (R. A. M. Stevenson), xxiii. 57</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Vendetta, in the West,&rdquo; unfinished, xxiii. 229, 238-9, 241, 244, 255, 256, 259, 266</p>
+
+<p>Verses, Miscellaneous and Impromptu&mdash;</p>
+<div style="padding-left: 2em; line-height: 1.2em;">
+  <p>&ldquo;Adela, Adela, Adela Chart,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page109">109</a></p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Bells upon the City are ringing in the night,&rdquo; xxiv. 167</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Blame me not that this Epistle,&rdquo; letter in verse to Baxter, xxiii. 46</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Brave lads in olden musical centuries,&rdquo; xxiii. 304</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Dear Henley, with a pig&rsquo;s snout on,&rdquo; xxiii. 330</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Do you remember&mdash;can we e&rsquo;er forget?&mdash;,&rdquo; xxiv. 376</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Far have you come, my lady, from the town,&rdquo; rondel, xxiii. 188</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Feast of Famine&rdquo; (Ballads, 1890), xxiv. 298-9, 321, 330, 395</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Figure me to yourself, I pray,&rdquo; xxiii. 287</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;He may have been this and that,&rdquo; xxiv. 190</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page505"></a>505</span></p>
+
+  <p>&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s breid an&rsquo; wine an&rsquo; kebbuck,&rdquo; xxiii. 257</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Home no more home to me, where must I wander?&rdquo; (Songs of Travel), xxiv. 303</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;I heard the pulse of the besieging sea&rdquo; (to Colvin), xxiv. 366; xxv. <a href="#page23">23</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;In the beloved hour that ushers day&rdquo;  (Songs of Travel), xxiv. 240</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;I was a barren tree before,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page366">366</a></p>
+  <p>&ldquo;I would shoot you, but I have no bow,&rdquo; xxiii. 360</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Let us who part like brothers part like bards&rdquo; (Songs of Travel), xxiv. 378, 380</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;My Stockton if I failed to like,&rdquo; xxiv. 125</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green,&rdquo; xxiii. 193</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Nor you, O Penny Whistler, grudge,&rdquo; xxiv. 20</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Not roses to the rose, I trow,&rdquo; xxiv. 205</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert,&rdquo; xxiii. 271</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Nous n&rsquo;irons plus au bois,&rdquo; rondel, xxiii. 188-9</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Of the many flowers you brought me&rdquo; (to Miss Rawlinson), xxiv. 227</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Of where or how, I nothing know,&rdquo; xxiii. 232</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;O Henley, in my hours of ease,&rdquo; xxiii. 222</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;O, how my spirit languishes,&rdquo; xxiv. 299</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page278">278</a></p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Priests&rsquo; Drought, The,&rdquo; ballad, xxiv. 321</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Song of Rahero,&rdquo; ballad, xxiv. 317, 321, 330, 395; xxv. <a href="#page58">58</a></p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Tandem Desino,&rdquo; xxiv. 79 <i>et seq.</i></p>
+  <p>&ldquo;The pleasant river gushes,&rdquo; xxiv. 32</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;There was racing and chasing in Vailima <span class="correction" title="corrected from planatation">plantation</span>, xxv. <a href="#page422">422</a></p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Though I&rsquo;ve often been touched with the volatile dart,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page109">109</a></p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Ticonderoga,&rdquo; ballad, xxiv. 321, 395</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;To Felix,&rdquo; xxiv. 189, 190</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re quarrelling, the villages,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page50">50</a></p>
+  <p>&ldquo;When from her land to mine she goes&rdquo; (Songs of Travel), xxiv. 345</p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Woodman, The&rdquo; <i>(New Review),</i> xxv. <a href="#page18">18</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page20">20</a></p>
+  <p>&ldquo;Youth now flees on feathered foot,&rdquo; xxiv. 172, 181</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Vicar of Wakefield,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page14">14</a> <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Vicomte de Bragelonne&rdquo; (Dumas), xxiv. 398; xxv. <a href="#page51">51</a></p>
+
+<p>Victor Hugo&rsquo;s romances, essay on, xxiii. 56, 124-5, 126, 127, 135</p>
+
+<p>Victoria, Queen, xxiii. 323</p>
+
+<p>Villiers, Lady Margaret, xxv. <a href="#page228">228</a>, <a href="#page236">236</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Viol and Flute&rdquo; (Gosse), xxiv. 98</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Virginibus Puerisque,&rdquo; xxiii. 184, 185, 203, 204, 208, 212, 284, 294; xxv. <a href="#page301">301</a> <i>n.</i> 1;
+  publication, xxiii. 281;
+  new edition, xxiv. 195, 216;
+  reprint, xxiv. 230</p>
+
+<p>Vitrolles, Baron de, xxv. <a href="#page288">288</a> <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page321">321</a></p>
+
+<p>Viviani, Emillia, xxiv. 212</p>
+
+<p>Vogelweide, Walther von der (Studies in the Literature of Modern Europe), Gosse&rsquo;s introduction to, xxiii. 221</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Volsungs&rdquo; (Morris), xxiii. 334</p>
+
+<p>Voltaire, xxiii. 297; on &OElig;dipus, xxiv. 114</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page506"></a>506</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Vossische Zeitung</i>, xxv. <a href="#page263">263</a></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Wachtmeister</span>, Count, xxv. <a href="#page96">96</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Waif Woman, The,&rdquo; xxv. <a href="#page272">272</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Walker, Patrick, xxiv. 91</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Walking Tours,&rdquo; xxiii. 202</p>
+
+<p><i>Wallaroo</i>, H.M.S., officers, xxv. <a href="#page452">452</a></p>
+
+<p>Walter, the Skye terrier, and his sobriquets, xxiii. 280, 281, 318; xxv. <a href="#page41">41</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 2, <i>et alibi</i></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wandering Willie,&rdquo; air, xxiii. 113</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wandering Willie&rsquo;s Tale&rdquo; (Redgauntlet), xxiii. 287</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Washington&rdquo; (Irving), xxv. <a href="#page30">30</a></p>
+
+<p>Watts-Dunton, T., letter to, xxiv. 203</p>
+
+<p>Waverley Novels (Scott), xxiv. 75, 76, 84, 91; xxv. <a href="#page228">228</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Waverley&rdquo; (Scott), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii.; xxiv. 91</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Way of the World&rdquo; (Trollope), xxiii. 215</p>
+
+<p>Weather and the old woman, xxiii. 175</p>
+
+<p>Webster, essay on (Gosse), xxiv. 45</p>
+
+<p>Week, The, xxiv. 45</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wegg, Silas,&rdquo; (Our Mutual Friend), xxiii. 226</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Weg,&rdquo; nickname for Gosse, xxiii. 224, 226, 227</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Weir of Hermiston,&rdquo; unfinished, xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xx., 12; xxv. <a href="#page144">144</a>, <a href="#page170">170</a>, <a href="#page264">264</a>-5, <a href="#page274">274</a>, <a href="#page281">281</a>, <a href="#page284">284</a>, <a href="#page287">287</a>, <a href="#page293">293</a>, <a href="#page306">306</a>-7, <a href="#page338">338</a>, <a href="#page350">350</a>, <a href="#page375">375</a>, <a href="#page383">383</a>, <a href="#page392">392</a>, <a href="#page403">403</a>, <a href="#page453">453</a>, <a href="#page456">456</a>-7;
+  scheme for, xxv. <a href="#page258">258</a>, <a href="#page260">260</a>-1, <a href="#page270">270</a>-1</p>
+
+<p>Wellington, Duke of (<i>see also</i> &ldquo;Life&rdquo; of), xxiv. 34 <i>n.</i> 1;
+  Tennyson&rsquo;s &ldquo;Ode&rdquo; on, xxiii. 293</p>
+
+<p>Went, George, xxv. <a href="#page23">23</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page100">100</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Werther&rdquo; (Goethe&rsquo;s &ldquo;Sorrows of Werther&rdquo;), xxiii. 60</p>
+
+<p>Western Islands, trip among, xxiii. 124</p>
+
+<p>West Highlands, visit to, xxiii. 183</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What was on the Slate,&rdquo; xxiii. 222, 267</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When the Devil was well,&rdquo; xxiii. 167, 168, 186</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rdquo; and &ldquo;Whereas,&rdquo; use discussed, xxv. <a href="#page163">163</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;White Company&rdquo; (Doyle), xxv. <a href="#page336">336</a></p>
+
+<p>Whitman, Walt, essays on, xxiii. 55, 70, 72, 86, 89, 103, 104, 139, 140;
+  works of, xxiii. 70, 72, 357-8; xxiv. 183</p>
+
+<p>Whitmee, Rev. S. J., missionary xxv. <a href="#page174">174</a>, <a href="#page180">180</a>, <a href="#page202">202</a>, <a href="#page203">203</a>;
+  letter to, xxv. <a href="#page174">174</a></p>
+
+<p>Wick, at, xxiii. 12, 15</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Widdicombe Fair,&rdquo; song, xxv. <a href="#page391">391</a></p>
+
+<p>Wiesbaden, visit to, xxiii. 182</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wild Man of the Woods,&rdquo; xxiii. 249</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Will o&rsquo; the Mill,&rdquo; xxiii. 184, 207, 248, 268</p>
+
+<p>Williams, Dr., of Nice, xxiv. 59</p>
+
+<p>Williams, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 353</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;William Wilson&rdquo; (Poe), xxiii. <i>intro.</i> xxiii.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wiltshire&rdquo; (Beach of Falesá), xxv. <a href="#page187">187</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Window in Thrums&rdquo; (Barrie), xxv. <a href="#page276">276</a>, <a href="#page362">362</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1</p>
+
+<p>Winslow Reef, xxiv. 362</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Winter and New Year&rdquo; (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Winter&rsquo;s Walk, The,&rdquo; unfinished, xxiii. 201, 202</p>
+
+<p>Wise, &mdash;&mdash;, xxv. <a href="#page55">55</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Witch of Prague&rdquo; (Crawford), xxv. <a href="#page275">275</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wogg&rdquo; (<i>see</i> Walter), other names for, xxiii. 280-1, 318</p>
+
+<p>Wolseley, Viscount, xxiv. 81</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Woman killed with Kindness&rdquo; (Heywood), xxiii. 354</p>
+
+<p>Women characters, dissatisfaction with, xxiv. 398</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page507"></a>507</span></p>
+
+<p>Women, thoughts on (<i>see also</i> Elgin marbles), xxiii. 162-4, 358</p>
+
+<p>Wood, Sir Evelyn, xxiv. 81</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wrecker&rdquo; (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiii. 12, 275; xxiv. 362, 367-8, 379, 380, 389, 396, 399, 402; xxv. <a href="#page5">5</a>, <a href="#page11">11</a>, <a href="#page24">24</a>, <a href="#page33">33</a>, <a href="#page84">84</a>, <a href="#page87">87</a>, <a href="#page108">108</a>, <a href="#page110">110</a>, <a href="#page115">115</a>, <a href="#page128">128</a>, <a href="#page138">138</a>, <a href="#page141">141</a>, <a href="#page152">152</a>, <a href="#page171">171</a>, <a href="#page210">210</a>, <a href="#page215">215</a>, <a href="#page221">221</a>, <a href="#page224">224</a>, <a href="#page274">274</a>, <a href="#page376">376</a>, <a href="#page378">378</a>;
+  finished, xxv. <a href="#page111">111</a>-2 &amp; <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page113">113</a>, <a href="#page115">115</a>, <a href="#page120">120</a>, <a href="#page122">122</a>;
+  comments, xxv. <a href="#page156">146</a>;
+  discussed, xxv. <a href="#page437">437</a> &amp; <i>n.</i> 1;
+  publication of, xxv. <a href="#page87">87</a>, <a href="#page144">144</a>;
+  success of, xxv. <a href="#page238">238</a>, <a href="#page258">258</a>, <a href="#page357">357</a></p>
+
+<p>Wreck of the <i>Susannah</i>, xxiii. 308</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wrong Box, The,&rdquo; or &ldquo;The Finsbury Tontine,&rdquo; or &ldquo;The Game of Bluff&rdquo; (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 235, 249-50, 256, 258, 282, 291, 320, 322, 328, 360, 370</p>
+
+<p>Wurmbrand, Captain Count, xxv. <a href="#page354">354</a>, <a href="#page369">369</a>, <a href="#page370">370</a>, <a href="#page383">383</a>, <a href="#page415">415</a></p>
+
+<p>Wyatt, Mr., xxiii. 6</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Yeats</span>, W. B., letter to, xxv. <a href="#page390">390</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yellow Paint,&rdquo; xxiii. 141</p>
+
+<p>Yelverton, &mdash;&mdash;, xxiii. 275</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum&rdquo; (Treasure Island), xxiii. 326</p>
+
+<p>Yoshida Torajiro, essay on (Familiar Studies), xxiii. 229, 262, 264, 265</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Young Chevalier,&rdquo; unfinished, xxv. <a href="#page144">144</a>, <a href="#page171">171</a> <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page187">187</a>-8, <a href="#page189">189</a>, <a href="#page192">192</a>, <a href="#page216">216</a>-7, <a href="#page264">264</a>, <a href="#page281">281</a>, <a href="#page305">305</a>;
+  characters in, xxv. <a href="#page190">190</a>-1</p>
+
+<p><i>Young Folks</i>, contributions to, xxiii. 328, 329, 332, 339; xxiv. 31, 55, 148</p>
+
+<p><i>Yule-Tide</i>, contribution to, xxv. <a href="#page57">57</a></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Zassetsky</span>, Madame, xxiii. 97, 99, 102, 105, 108, 110, 113, 114, 115, 118, 122</p>
+
+<p>Zassetsky, Nelitchka, xxiii. 98, 102, 104, 107, 108, 112, 114, 115, 116</p>
+
+<p>Zola, Emile, xxiii. 346-7; xxiv. 396; xxv. <a href="#page250">250</a> <i>n.</i> 1, <a href="#page318">318</a>, <a href="#page319">319</a>, <a href="#page379">379</a></p>
+</div>
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page508"></a>508</span></p>
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page509"></a>509</span></p>
+<h3>INDEX TO VOLUMES I-XXII</h3>
+
+<p class="center f80">[<i>For Index to the</i> <span class="sc">Letters</span>, <i>see pp. 469-507 of this Volume.</i>]</p>
+
+<div class="index">
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">A birdie</span> with a yellow bill,&rdquo; xiv. 23</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A child should always say what&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; xiv. 5</p>
+
+<p>Additional Memories and Portraits, xvi. 155</p>
+
+<p>Additional Poems, xiv. 259</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Adela, Adela, Adela Chart,&rdquo; xiv. 276</p>
+
+<p>Admiral Guinea, xv. 145</p>
+
+<p>Advertisement of &ldquo;Moral Emblems,&rdquo; Edition de Luxe, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>Advertisement of &ldquo;Moral Emblems,&rdquo; Second Collection, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>Advertisement of &ldquo;The Graver and the Pen,&rdquo; xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>Ćs Triplex, ii. 358</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All night long, and every night,&rdquo; xiv. 4</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All round the house is the jet-black night,&rdquo; xiv. 28</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All the names I know from nurse,&rdquo; xiv. 46</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A lover of the moorland bare,&rdquo; xiv. 74</p>
+
+<p>Alpine Diversions, xxii. 248</p>
+
+<p>Alps, The Stimulation of the, xxii., 252</p>
+
+<p>Amateur Emigrant, The: Part I., From the Clyde to Sandy Hook: The Second Cabin, ii. 7;
+  Early Impressions, ii. 15;
+  Steerage Scenes, ii. 24;
+  Steerage Types, ii. 32;
+  The Sick Man, ii. 43;
+  The Stowaways, ii. 53;
+  Personal Experiences and Review, ii. 66;
+  New York, ii. 77. Part II., Across the Plains: Notes by the Way to Council Bluffs, ii. 93;
+  The Emigrant Train, ii. 107;
+  The Plain of Nebraska, ii. 115;
+  The Desert of Wyoming, ii. 119;
+  Fellow Passengers, ii. 124;
+  Despised Races, ii. 129;
+  To the Golden Gates, ii. 133</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A mile an&rsquo; a bittock, a mile or twa,&rdquo; xiv. 110</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>A naked house, a naked moor</i>,&rdquo; xiv. 71</p>
+
+<p>Antwerp to Boom, i. 7</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A picture-frame for you to fill,&rdquo; xiv. 74</p>
+
+<p>Apology, An, for Idlers, ii. 334</p>
+
+<p>Appeal, An, to the Clergy of the Church of Scotland, xxii. 199</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As from the house your mother sees,&rdquo; xiv. 59</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As the single pang of the blow, when the metal is mingled well,&rdquo; xiv. 254</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At evening when the lamp is lit,&rdquo; xiv. 36</p>
+
+<p>Autumn Effect, An, xxii. 112</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Back</span> to the World, i. 120</p>
+
+<p>Bagster&rsquo;s &ldquo;Pilgrim&rsquo;s Progress,&rdquo; xxii. 186</p>
+
+<p>Balfour, David, xi. 1</p>
+
+<p>Ballads, xiv. 139</p>
+
+<p>Ballantrae, The Master of, xii. 5;
+  its genesis, xvi. 341</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page510"></a>510</span></p>
+
+<p>Beach, The, of Falesá: A South Sea Bridal, xvii. 193;
+  The Ban, xvii. 206;
+  The Missionary, xvii. 228;
+  Devil-work, xvii. 240;
+  Night in the Bush, xvii. 258;
+  The Bottle Imp, xvii. 277;
+  The Isle of Voices, xvii. 311</p>
+
+<p>Beau Austin, xv. 91</p>
+
+<p>Beggars, xvi. 190</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Berried brake and reedy island,&rdquo; xiv. 226</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Birds all the sunny day,&rdquo; xiv. 44</p>
+
+<p>Black Arrow, The: Prologue, viii. 7;
+  Book I. The Two Lads, viii. 25;
+  Book II. The Moat House, viii. 83;
+  Book III. My Lord Foxham, viii. 123;
+  Book IV. The Disguise, viii. 165;
+  Book V. Crookback, viii. 217</p>
+
+<p>Black Canyon, Advertisement of, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>Black Canyon or Wild Adventures in the Far West, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Blame me not that this epistle,&rdquo; xiv. 261</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying,&rdquo; xiv. 257</p>
+
+<p>Boarders, The, i. 195</p>
+
+<p>Body-snatcher, The, iii. 277</p>
+
+<p>Books which have Influenced Me, xvi. 272</p>
+
+<p>Bottle Imp, The, xvii. 275</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Brave lads in olden musical centuries,&rdquo; xiv. 270</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bright is the ring of words,&rdquo; xiv. 227</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bring the comb and play upon it,&rdquo; xiv. 15</p>
+
+<p>Builder&rsquo;s Doom, The, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>Burns, Robert, Some Aspects of, iii. 43</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By Lyne and Tyne, by Thames and Tees,&rdquo; xiv. 133</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Calton</span> Hill, Edinburgh, i. 314</p>
+
+<p>Camisards, The Country of the, i. 211</p>
+
+<p>Camp, A, in the Dark, i. 167</p>
+
+<p>Catriona: Part I. The Lord Advocate, xi. 7;
+  Part II. Father and Daughter, xi. 203</p>
+
+<p>Changed Times, i. 99</p>
+
+<p>Character, A, xxii. 37</p>
+
+<p>Character, The, of Dogs, ix. 105</p>
+
+<p>Charity Bazaar, The, xxii. 213</p>
+
+<p>Charles of Orleans, iii. 171</p>
+
+<p>Cheylard and Luc, i. 177</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Chief of our aunts</i>, not only I,&rdquo; xiv. 56</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Children, you are very little,&rdquo; xiv. 18</p>
+
+<p>Child&rsquo;s Garden, A, of Verses, xiv. 1</p>
+
+<p>Child&rsquo;s Play, ii. 394</p>
+
+<p>Christmas at Sea, xiv. 207</p>
+
+<p>Christmas Sermon, A, xvi. 306</p>
+
+<p>Cockermouth and Keswick, xxii. 80</p>
+
+<p>College Magazine, A, ix. 36</p>
+
+<p>College Memories, Some, ix. 19</p>
+
+<p>College  Papers:  Edinburgh Students in 1824, xxii. 41;
+  The Modern Student considered generally, xxii. 45;
+  Debating Societies, xxii. 53;
+  The Philosophy of Umbrellas, xxii. 58;
+  The Philosophy of Nomenclature, xxii. 63</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come up here, O dusty feet,&rdquo; xiv. 24</p>
+
+<p>Compičgne, At, i. 94</p>
+
+<p>Crabbed Age and Youth, ii. 321</p>
+
+<p>Criticisms: Lord Lytton&rsquo;s &ldquo;Fables in Song,&rdquo; xxii. 171;
+  Salvini&rsquo;s &ldquo;Macbeth,&rdquo; xxii. 180;
+  Bagster&rsquo;s &ldquo;Pilgrim&rsquo;s Progress,&rdquo; xxii. 186</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">Dark</span> brown is the river,&rdquo; xiv. 10</p>
+
+<p>Davos in Winter, xxii. 241</p>
+
+<p>Davos Press, The, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>Day, The, after To-morrow, xvi. 279</p>
+
+<p>Deacon Brodie, or the Double Life, xv. 1</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page511"></a>511</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair,&rdquo; xiv. 79</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dear Thamson class, whaure&rsquo;er I gang,&rdquo; xiv. 121</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dear Uncle Jim, this garden ground,&rdquo; xiv. 50</p>
+
+<p>Debating Societies, xxii. 53</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you remember&mdash;can we e&rsquo;er forget?&rdquo; xiv. 242</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Strange Case of, v. 227</p>
+
+<p>Donkey, the Pack, and the Pack Saddle, i. 143</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Down by a shining water well,&rdquo; xiv. 32</p>
+
+<p>Dreams, A Chapter on, xvi. 177</p>
+
+<p>Dynamiter, The:
+  Prologue of the Cigar Divan, v. 7;
+  Challoner&rsquo;s Adventure, v. 15;
+  Somerset&rsquo;s Adventure, v. 73;
+  Desborough&rsquo;s Adventure, v. 149;
+  Epilogue of the Cigar Divan, v. 212</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Ebb-Tide, The</span>:
+  Note by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, xix. 3;
+  Part I. The Trio, xix. 7;
+  Part II. The Quartette, xix. 81</p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh:
+  Picturesque Notes, i. 269;
+  Introductory, i. 271</p>
+
+<p>Edinburgh Students in 1824, xxii. 41</p>
+
+<p>Education, The, of an Engineer, xvi. 167</p>
+
+<p>El Dorado, ii. 368</p>
+
+<p>Engineers, Records of a Family of, xvi. 3</p>
+
+<p>English Admirals, The, ii. 372</p>
+
+<p>Enjoyment, The, of Unpleasant Places, xxii. 103</p>
+
+<p>Epilogue to An Inland Voyage, i. 122</p>
+
+<p>Episodes in the Story of a Mine, ii. 254</p>
+
+<p>Essays of Travel:
+  Davos in Winter, xxii. 241;
+  Health and Mountains, xxii. 244;
+  Alpine Diversions, xxii. 248;
+  The Stimulation of the Alps, xxii. 252</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Even in the bluest noonday of July,&rdquo; xiv. 77</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Every night my prayers I say,&rdquo; xiv. 13</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Fables</span>:
+  The Persons of the Tale, xxi. 269;
+  The Sinking Ship, xxi. 272;
+  The Two Matches, xxi. 274;
+  The Sick Man and the Fireman, xxi. 275;
+  The Devil and the Inn-keeper, xxi. 276;
+  The Penitent, xxi. 277;
+  The Yellow Paint, xxi. 277;
+  The House of Eld, xxi. 280;
+  The Four Reformers, xxi. 286;
+  The Man and His Friend, xxi. 287;
+  The Reader, xxi. 287;
+  The Citizen and the Traveller, xxi. 288;
+  The Distinguished Stranger, xxi. 289;
+  The Cart-horses and the Saddle-horse, xxi. 290;
+  The Tadpole and the Frog, xxi. 291;
+  Something in it, xxi. 291;
+  Faith, Half-faith, and No Faith at all, xxi. 295;
+  The Touchstone, xxi. 297;
+  The Poor Thing, xxi. 304;
+  The Song of the Morrow, xxi. 310</p>
+
+<p>Falling in Love, On, ii. 302</p>
+
+<p>Familiar Studies of Men and Books:
+  Preface by Way of Criticism, iii. 5;
+  Victor Hugo&rsquo;s Romances, iii. 19;
+  Some Aspects of Robert Burns, iii. 43;
+  Walt Whitman, iii. 77;
+  Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions, iii. 101;
+  Yoshida-Torajiro, iii. 129;
+  François Villon, Student, Poet, and Housebreaker, iii. 142;
+  Charles of Orleans, iii. 171;
+  Samuel Pepys, iii. 206;
+  John Knox and his Relations to Women, iii. 230</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Far from the loud sea beaches,&rdquo; xiv. 72</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Far have you come, my lady, from the town,&rdquo; xiv. 263</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page512"></a>512</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Farewell, fair day and fading light,&rdquo; xiv. 233</p>
+
+<p>Farewell, Modestine! i. 253</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Far &rsquo;yont amang the years to be,&rdquo; xiv. 105</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Faster than fairies, faster than witches,&rdquo; xiv. 24</p>
+
+<p>Father Apollinaris, i. 183</p>
+
+<p>Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu, xvi. 315</p>
+
+<p>Feast, The, of Famine;
+  Marquesan Manners, xiv. 167;
+  The Priest&rsquo;s Vigil, xiv. 169;
+  The Lovers, xiv. 172;
+  The Feast, xiv. 176;
+  The Raid, xiv. 182;
+  Notes, xiv. 213</p>
+
+<p>Fife, The Coast of, xvi. 155</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Figure me to yourself, I pray,&rdquo; xiv. 268</p>
+
+<p>Fleeming Jenkin, Memoir of, ix. 165</p>
+
+<p>Florac, i. 234</p>
+
+<p>Fontainebleau: Village Communities of Painters, xvi. 215</p>
+
+<p>Footnote, A, to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa:
+  The Elements of Discord, I. Native, xvii. 5;
+    II. Foreign, xvii. 15;
+  The Sorrows of Laupepa, xvii. 27;
+  Brandeis, xvii. 53;
+  The Battle of Matautu, xvii. 70;
+  Last Exploits of Becker, xvii. 83;
+  The Samoan Camps, xvii. 103;
+  Affairs of Laulii and Fangalii, xvii. 112;
+  &ldquo;Furor Consularis,&rdquo; xvii. 128;
+  The Hurricane, xvii. 142;
+  Laupepa and Mataafa, xvii. 156</p>
+
+<p>Foreigner, The, at Home, ix. 7</p>
+
+<p>Forest Notes, xxii. 142</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For love of lovely words, and for the sake,&rdquo; xiv. 97</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Forth from her land to mine she goes,&rdquo; xiv. 239</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Frae nirly, nippin&rsquo;, Eas&rsquo;lan&rsquo; breeze,&rdquo; xiv. 106</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Friend, in my mountain-side demesne,&rdquo; xiv. 73</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;From breakfast on all through the day,&rdquo; xiv. 12</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Genesis</span>, The, of &ldquo;The Master of Ballantrae,&rdquo; xvi. 341</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Give to me the life I love,&rdquo; xiv. 219</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;God, if this were enough,&rdquo; xiv. 234</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go, little book, and wish to all,&rdquo; xiv. 67</p>
+
+<p>Gossip, A, on a Novel of Dumas&rsquo;s, ix. 124</p>
+
+<p>Gossip, A, on Romance, ix. 134</p>
+
+<p>Goulet, Across the, i. 203</p>
+
+<p>Graver, The, and the Pen, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great is the sun, and wide he goes,&rdquo; xiv. 46</p>
+
+<p>Great North Road, The, xxi. 203</p>
+
+<p>Green Donkey Driver, The, i. 149</p>
+
+<p>Greyfriars, Edinburgh, i. 298</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Health</span> and Mountains, xxii. 244</p>
+
+<p>Heart of the Country, The, i. 7</p>
+
+<p>Heather Ale:
+  A Galloway Legend, xiv. 201;
+  Notes, xiv. 215</p>
+
+<p>Heathercat, xxi. 177</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He hears with gladdened heart the thunder,&rdquo; xiv. 233</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Here all is sunny, and when the truant gull,&rdquo; xiv. 97</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Here, from the forelands of the tideless sea,&rdquo; xiv. 273</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?&rdquo; xiv. 229</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How do you like to go up in a swing?&rdquo; xiv. 22</p>
+
+<p>Hugo&rsquo;s, Victor, Romances, iii. 19</p>
+
+<p>Human Life, Reflections and Remarks on, xvi. 354</p>
+
+<p>Humble Remonstrance, A, ix. 148</p>
+
+<p>Hunter&rsquo;s Family, The, ii. 230</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">I am</span> a kind of farthing dip,&rdquo; xiv. 95</p>
+
+<p>Ideal House, The, xvi. 370</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I have faltered more or less,&rdquo; xiv. 86</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page513"></a>513</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If two may read aright,&rdquo; xiv. 55</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have a goad,&rdquo; i. 158</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,&rdquo; xiv. 12</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have trod the upward and the downward slope,&rdquo; xiv. 233</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I heard the pulse of the besieging sea,&rdquo; xiv. 244</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I knew a silver head was bright beyond compare,&rdquo; xiv. 240</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I knew thee strong and quiet like the hills,&rdquo; xiv. 232</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know not how it is with you,&rdquo; xiv. 225</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In all the grove, nor stream nor bird,&rdquo; xiv. 249</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In ancient tales, O friend, thy spirit dwelt,&rdquo; xiv. 80</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In dreams unhappy I behold you stand,&rdquo; xiv. 221</p>
+
+<p>Inland Voyage, An, i. 7;
+  Epilogue to, i. 122</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In mony a foreign pairt I&rsquo;ve been,&rdquo; xiv. 125</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In rigorous hours, when down the iron lane,&rdquo; xiv. 230</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In the belovčd hour that ushers day,&rdquo; xiv. 231</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In the highlands, in the country places,&rdquo; xiv. 228</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In the other gardens,&rdquo; xiv. 49</p>
+
+<p>Introduction, by Andrew Lang, to the Swanston Edition, i. ix.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In winter I get up at night,&rdquo; xiv. 3</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I read, dear friend, in your dear face,&rdquo; xiv. 85</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I saw you toss the kites on high,&rdquo; xiv. 16</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I should like to rise and go,&rdquo; xiv. 7</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I sit and wait a pair of oars,&rdquo; xiv. 78</p>
+
+<p>Island Nights&rsquo; Entertainments, xvii. 193</p>
+
+<p>Isle, The, of Voices, xvii. 311</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not yours, O mother, to complain,&rdquo; xiv. 90</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is the season now to go,&rdquo; xiv. 70</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is very nice to think,&rdquo; xiv. 4</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an owercome sooth for age an&rsquo; youth,&rdquo; xiv. 135</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s rainin&rsquo;. Weet&rsquo;s the gairden sod,&rdquo; xiv. 116</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s strange that God should fash to frame,&rdquo; xiv. 120</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was a barren tree before,&rdquo; xiv. 276</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I will make you brooches and toys for your delight,&rdquo; xiv. 225</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day,&rdquo; xiv. 14</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Juvenilia</span>, and other Papers, xxii. 3</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Kidnapped</span>, x. 77</p>
+
+<p>Knox, John, and his Relations to Women, iii. 230</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">La Fčre</span>, of Cursed Memory, i. 79</p>
+
+<p>Landrecies, At, i. 46</p>
+
+<p>Lantern-Bearers, The, xvi. 200</p>
+
+<p>Last Day, The, i. 248</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Last, to the chamber where I lie,&rdquo; xiv. 28</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Late in the nicht in bed I lay,&rdquo; xiv. 129</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,&rdquo; xiv. 25</p>
+
+<p>Later Essays, xvi. 215</p>
+
+<p>Lay Morals, xvi. 379</p>
+
+<p>Legends, Edinburgh, i. 291</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams,&rdquo; xiv. 224</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let now your soul in this substantial world,&rdquo; xiv. 255</p>
+
+<p>Letter to a Young Gentleman who proposes to embrace the Career of Art, xvi. 290</p>
+
+<p>Letters from Samoa, xviii. 351</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let us, who part like brothers part like bards,&rdquo; xvi. 245</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Light foot and tight foot,&rdquo; xiv. 277</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page514"></a>514</span></p>
+
+<p>Light-keeper, The, xxii. 217</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Little Indian, Sioux or Crow,&rdquo; xiv. 19</p>
+
+<p>Lodging, A, for the Night, iv. 227</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Long must elapse ere you behold again,&rdquo; xiv. 241</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lytton&rsquo;s &ldquo;Fables in Song,&rdquo; xxii. 171</p>
+
+<p>Lozčre, Across the, i. 213</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Macaire</span>, xv. 205</p>
+
+<p>Manse, The, ix. 61</p>
+
+<p>Markheim, viii. 273</p>
+
+<p>Martial Elegy, A, for some Lead Soldiers, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>Master, The, of Ballantrae, xii. 5;
+  its genesis, xvi. 341</p>
+
+<p>Maubeuge, At, i. 21</p>
+
+<p>Memoirs of an Islet, ix. 68</p>
+
+<p>Memories and Portraits, ix. 7;
+  Additional Memories and Portraits, xvi. 155</p>
+
+<p>Merry Men, The, xxi. 69</p>
+
+<p>Mimente, In the Valley of the, i. 237</p>
+
+<p>Monks, The, i. 188</p>
+
+<p>Montvert, Pont de, i. 218</p>
+
+<p>Moral Emblems, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>Moral Emblems: Second Collection, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>Morality, The, of the Profession of Letters, xvi. 260</p>
+
+<p>More New Arabian Nights, v. 7</p>
+
+<p>Mountain Town, A, in France, i. 257</p>
+
+<p>Movements of Young Children, Notes on the, xxii. 97</p>
+
+<p>Moy, Down the Oise to, i. 74</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My bed is like a little boat,&rdquo; xiv. 21</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My body which my dungeon is,&rdquo; xiv. 98</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My bonny man, the warld, it&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; xiv. 118</p>
+
+<p>My First Book, &ldquo;Treasure Island,&rdquo; xvi. 331</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>My house</i>,&rsquo; I say. But hark to the sunny doves,&rdquo; xiv. 98</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky,&rdquo; xiv. 2</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">New Arabian Nights</span>, iv. 3;
+  More New Arabian Nights, v. 7</p>
+
+<p>New Form of Intermittent Light for Lighthouses, xxii. 220</p>
+
+<p>New Town, Edinburgh: Town and Country, i. 305</p>
+
+<p>Nicholson, John, The Misadventures of, x. 3</p>
+
+<p>Nomenclature, The Philosophy of, xxii. 63</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green,&rdquo; xiv. 265</p>
+
+<p>Note, A, on Realism, xvi. 234</p>
+
+<p>Notes and Essays, chiefly of the Road:
+  A Retrospect, xxii. 71;
+  Cockermouth and Keswick, xxii. 80;
+  Roads, xxii. 90;
+  Notes on the Movements of Young Children, xxii. 97;
+  On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places, xxii. 103;
+  An Autumn Effect, xxii. 112;
+  A Winter&rsquo;s Walk in Carrick and Galloway, xxii. 132;
+  Forest Notes, xxii. 142</p>
+
+<p>Not I, and other Poems, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert,&rdquo; xiv. 89</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nous n&rsquo;irons plus au bois,&rdquo; xiv. 263</p>
+
+<p>Noyon Cathedral, i. 86</p>
+
+<p>Nuits Blanches, xxii. 27</p>
+
+<p>Nurses, xxii. 34</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">Of</span> a&rsquo; the ills that flesh can fear,&rdquo; xiv. 131</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of his pitiable transformation,&rdquo; xiv. 263</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of speckled eggs, the birdie sings,&rdquo; xiv. 9</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of where or how, I nothing know,&rdquo; xiv. 267</p>
+
+<p>Oise, The, in Flood, i. 55;
+  Down the Oise to Moy, i. 74;
+  Through the Golden Valley, i. 84;
+  To Compičgne, i. 91
+  Church Interiors, i. 105</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O it&rsquo;s I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,&rdquo; xiv. 32</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page515"></a>515</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, I wad like to ken&mdash;to the beggar-wife says I,&rdquo; xiv. 116</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O mother, lay your hand on my brow,&rdquo; xiv. 92</p>
+
+<p>Olalla, xxi. 127</p>
+
+<p>Old Mortality, ix. 26</p>
+
+<p>Old Scots Gardener, An, ix. 46</p>
+
+<p>Old Town, Edinburgh: The Lands, i. 278</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Once only by the garden gate,&rdquo; xiv. 220</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On the great streams the ships may go,&rdquo; xiv. 68</p>
+
+<p>Ordered South, ii. 345</p>
+
+<p>Origny Sainte-Benoîte: A By-Day, i. 62;
+  The Company at Table, i. 68</p>
+
+<p>Our Lady of the Snows, i. 181</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Out of the sun, out of the blast,&rdquo; xiv. 87</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Over the borders, a sin without pardon,&rdquo; xiv. 17</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Pacific</span> Capitals, The Old and New:
+  Monterey, ii. 141;
+  San Francisco, ii. 159</p>
+
+<p>Pan&rsquo;s Pipes, ii. 415</p>
+
+<p>Parliament Close, Edinburgh, i. 285</p>
+
+<p>Pastoral, ix. 53</p>
+
+<p>Pavilion on the Links, The:
+  Tells how I camped in Graden Sea-wood, and beheld a Light in the Pavilion, iv. 167;
+  Tells of the Nocturnal Landing from the Yacht, iv. 174;
+  Tells how I became Acquainted with my Wife, iv. 180;
+  Tells in what a Startling Manner I learned that I was not alone in Graden Sea-wood, iv. 189;
+  Tells of an Interview between Northmour, Clara, and myself, iv. 197;
+  Tells of my Introduction to the Tall Man, iv. 202;
+  Tells how a Word was cried through the Pavilion Window, iv. 208;
+  Tells the last of the Tall Man, iv. 214;
+  Tells how Northmour carried out his Threat, iv. 221</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Peace and her huge invasion to these shores,&rdquo; xiv. 93</p>
+
+<p>Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured, xi. 116</p>
+
+<p>Pentland Hills, To the, Edinburgh, i. 327</p>
+
+<p>Pentland Rising, The:
+  The Causes of the Revolt, xxii. 3;
+  The Beginning, xxii. 6;
+  The March of the Rebels, xxii. 8;
+  Rullion Green, xxii. 13;
+  A Record of Blood, xxii. 17</p>
+
+<p>Pepys, Samuel, iii. 206</p>
+
+<p>Pines, A Night among the, i. 206</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Plain as the glistering planets shine,&rdquo; xiv. 223</p>
+
+<p>Plea, A, for Gas Lamps, ii. 420</p>
+
+<p>Pont-sur-Sambre: We are Pedlars, i. 31;
+  The Travelling Merchant, i. 36</p>
+
+<p>Portraits, Some, by Raeburn, ii. 385</p>
+
+<p>Prayers written for Family Use at Vailima, xvi. 431</p>
+
+<p>Précy and the Marionnettes, i. 111</p>
+
+<p>Prince Otto:
+  Book I. Prince Errant, vii. 7;
+  Book II. Of Love and Politics, vii. 49;
+  Book III. Fortunate Misfortune, vii. 171</p>
+
+<p>Providence and the Guitar, iv. 273</p>
+
+<p>Pulvis et Umbra, xvi. 299</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Raeburn</span>, Some Portraits, by, ii. 385</p>
+
+<p>Rajah&rsquo;s Diamond, The:
+  Story of the Bandbox, iv. 86;
+  Story of the Young Man in Holy Orders, iv. 111;
+  The Story of the House with the Green Blinds, iv. 127;
+  The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a Detective, iv. 159</p>
+
+<p>Random Memories:
+  I. The Coast of Fife, xvi. 155; II.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page516"></a>516</span>
+  The Education of an Engineer, xvi. 167;
+  <i>Rosa quo Locorum</i>, xvi. 345</p>
+
+<p>Realism, A Note on, xvi. 234</p>
+
+<p>Records of a Family of Engineers, xvi. 3</p>
+
+<p>Reflections and Remarks on Human Life, xvi. 354</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Resign the rhapsody, the dream,&rdquo; xiv. 236</p>
+
+<p>Retrospect, A, xxii. 71</p>
+
+<p>Roads, xxii. 90</p>
+
+<p>Robin and Ben, or the Pirate and the Apothecary, xxii. (end)</p>
+
+<p><i>Rosa quo Locorum</i>, xvi. 345</p>
+
+<p>Royal Sport Nautique, The, i. 16</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">St. Ives</span>, xx. 3</p>
+
+<p>Salvini&rsquo;s &ldquo;Macbeth,&rdquo; xxii. 180</p>
+
+<p>Sambre and Oise Canal: Canal Boats, i. 50</p>
+
+<p>Sambre Canalised, On the:
+  To Quartes, i. 26;
+  To Landrecies, i. 41</p>
+
+<p>Satirist, The, xxii. 25</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Say not of me that weakly I declined,&rdquo; xiv. 99</p>
+
+<p>Scots Gardener, An old, ix. 46</p>
+
+<p>Sea-Fogs, The, ii. 239</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She rested by the Broken Brook,&rdquo; xiv. 222</p>
+
+<p>Silverado Squatters, The, ii. 173;
+  In the Valley:
+    1, Calistoga, ii. 179;
+    2, The Petrified Forest, ii. 184;
+    3, Napa Wine, ii. 188;
+    4, The Scot Abroad, ii. 194.
+  &mdash;With the Children of Israel:
+    1, To Introduce Mr. Kelmar, ii. 201;
+    2, First Impressions of Silverado, ii. 205;
+    3, The Return, ii. 215</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Since I am sworn to live my life,&rdquo; xiv. 263</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Since long ago, a child at home,&rdquo; xiv. 237</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sing clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still,&rdquo; xiv. 96</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,&rdquo; xiv. 256</p>
+
+<p>Sire de Malétroit&rsquo;s Door, The, iv. 250</p>
+
+<p>Sketches:
+  The Satirist, xxii. 25;
+  Nuits Blanches, xxii. 27;
+  The Wreath of Immortelles, xxii. 30;
+  Nurses, xxii. 34;
+  A Character, xxii. 37</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Smooth it slides upon its travel,&rdquo; xiv. 23</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed,&rdquo; xiv. 58</p>
+
+<p>Songs of Travel, xiv. 217</p>
+
+<p>Song, The, of Rahéro:
+  A Legend of Tahiti, xiv. 139;
+  The Slaying of Támatéa, xiv. 139;
+  The Venging of Támatéa, xiv. 148;
+  Rahéro, xiv. 159;
+  Notes, xiv. 211</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Son of my woman&rsquo;s body, you go, to the drum and fife,&rdquo; xiv. 227</p>
+
+<p>South Seas, In the:
+  Part I. The Marquesas.&mdash;An Island Landfall, xviii. 5;
+    Making Friends, xviii. 12;
+    The Maroon, xviii. 21;
+    Death, xviii. 28;
+    Depopulation, xviii. 36;
+    Chiefs and Tapus, xviii. 44;
+    Hatiheu, xviii. 53;
+    The Port of Entry, xviii. 61;
+    The House of Temoana, xviii. 69;
+    A Portrait and a Story, xviii. 77;
+    Long Pig&mdash;A Cannibal High Place, xviii. 85;
+    The Story of a Plantation, xviii. 95;
+    Characters, xviii. 105;
+    In a Cannibal Valley, xviii. 112;
+    The Two Chiefs of Atuona, xviii, 119.
+  Part II. The Paumotus.&mdash;The Dangerous Archipelago&mdash;Atolls at a Distance, xviii. 129;
+    Fakarava: An Atoll at Hand, xviii. 137;
+    A House to Let in a Low Island, xviii. 146;
+    Traits and Sects in the Paumotus, xviii. 155;
+    A Paumotuan Funeral, xviii. 165;
+    Graveyard Stories, xviii. 170.
+ Part III. The
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page517"></a>517</span>
+  Eight Islands.&mdash;The Kona Coast, xviii. 187;
+    A Ride in the Forest, xviii. 197;
+    The City of Refuge, xviii. 203;
+    Koahumanu, xviii. 209;
+    The Lepers of Kona, xviii. 215.
+  Part IV. The Gilberts.&mdash;Butaritari, xviii. 223;
+    The Four Brothers, xviii. 229;
+    Around Our House, xviii. 237;
+    A Tale of a Tapu, xviii. 247, 255;
+    The Five Days&rsquo; Festival, xviii. 265;
+    Husband and Wife, xviii. 278.
+  Part V. The Gilberts&mdash;Apemama.&mdash;The King of Apemama:
+    The Royal Trader, xviii. 289;
+    Foundation of Equator Town, xviii. 298;
+    The Palace of Many Women, xviii. 306;
+    Equator Town and the Palace, xviii. 313;
+    King and Commons, xviii. 321;
+    Devil-work, xviii. 320;
+    The King of Apemama, xviii. 342</p>
+
+<p>Squatting, The Act of, ii. 221</p>
+
+<p>Starry Drive, A, ii. 250</p>
+
+<p>Stevenson at Play:
+  Introduction by Lloyd Osbourne, xxii. 259;
+  War Correspondence from Stevenson&rsquo;s Note-book, xxii. 263</p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Thomas, ix. 75</p>
+
+<p>Story, The, of a Lie, xxi. 3</p>
+
+<p>Student, The Modern, considered generally, xxii. 45</p>
+
+<p>Suicide Club, The, iv. 3;
+  Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts, iv. 5;
+  The Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk, iv. 37;
+  The Adventure of the Hansom Cabs, iv. 65</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Summer fading, winter comes,&rdquo; xiv. 33</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Talk and Talkers</span>: I., ix. 81; II., ix. 94</p>
+
+<p>Tarn, In the Valley of the, i. 224</p>
+
+<p>Technical Elements, Some, of Style in Literature, xvi. 241</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The bed was made, the room was fit,&rdquo; xiv. 96</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The clinkum-clank o&rsquo; Sabbath bells,&rdquo; xiv. 111</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The coach is at the door at last,&rdquo; xiv. 26</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thee, Mackintosh, artificer of light,&rdquo; xiv. 273</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The embers of the day are red,&rdquo; xiv. 257</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The friendly cow, all red and white,&rdquo; xiv. 16</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The ganger walked with willing foot,&rdquo; xiv. 67</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The gardener does not love to talk,&rdquo; xiv. 49</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The infinite shining heavens,&rdquo; xiv. 222</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The jolly English Yellowboy,&rdquo; xiv. 274</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The lamps now glitter down the street,&rdquo; xiv. 37</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out,&rdquo; xiv. 14</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Lord Himsel&rsquo; in former days,&rdquo; xiv. 123</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The moon has a face like the clock in the hall,&rdquo; xiv. 22</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The morning drum-call on my eager ear,&rdquo; xiv. 233</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The pleasant river gushes,&rdquo; xiv. 272</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The rain is raining all around,&rdquo; xiv. 5</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The red room with the giant bed,&rdquo; xiv. 56</p>
+
+<p>Thermal Influence of Forests, xxii. 225</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Silver Ship, my King&mdash;that was her name,&rdquo; xiv. 238</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The stormy evening closes now in vain,&rdquo; xiv. 230</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The sun is not a-bed when I,&rdquo; xiv. 20</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The tropics vanish, and meseems that I,&rdquo; xiv. 243</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears,&rdquo; xiv. 75</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page518"></a>518</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest,&rdquo; xiv. 34</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The world is so full of a number of things,&rdquo; xiv. 16</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The year runs through her phases; rain and sun,&rdquo; xiv. 82</p>
+
+<p>Thoreau, Henry David: His Character and Opinions, iii. 101</p>
+
+<p>Thrawn Janet, v. 305</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,&rdquo; xiv. 6</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Through all the pleasant meadow side,&rdquo; xiv. 26</p>
+
+<p>Ticonderoga:
+  A Legend of the West Islands, xiv. 187;
+  The Saying of the Name, xiv. 189;
+  The Seeking of the Name, xiv. 194;
+  The Place of the Name, xiv. 196;
+  Notes, xiv. 214</p>
+
+<p>Toils and Pleasures, ii. 264</p>
+
+<p>Toll House, The, ii. 245</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To see the infinite pity of this place,&rdquo; xiv. 240</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To the heart of youth the world is a highway side,&rdquo; xiv. 221</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To you, let snow and roses,&rdquo; xiv. 224</p>
+
+<p>Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, i. 141</p>
+
+<p>Treasure Island&mdash;
+  Part I. The Old Buccaneer, vi. 9;
+  Part II. The Sea-Cook, vi. 49;
+  Part III. My Shore Adventure, vi. 87;
+  Part IV. The Stockade, vi. 109;
+  Part V. My Sea Adventure, vi. 145;
+  Part VI. Captain Silver, vi. 185;
+  My First Book, xvi. 331</p>
+
+<p>Treasure, The, of Franchard, vi. 267</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,&rdquo; xiv. 235</p>
+
+<p>Truth of Intercourse, ii. 311</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Umbrellas</span>, The Philosophy of, xxii. 58</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Under the wide and starry sky,&rdquo; xiv. 86</p>
+
+<p>Underwoods:
+  I. In English, xiv. 67;
+  II. In Scots, xiv. 105</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Up into the cherry-tree,&rdquo; xiv. 6</p>
+
+<p>Upper Gévaudan, i. 165, 201</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Velay</span>, i. 141</p>
+
+<p>Villa Quarters, Edinburgh, i. 311</p>
+
+<p>Villon, François: Student, Poet, and Housebreaker, iii. 142</p>
+
+<p>Virginibus Puerisque, I., ii. 281; II., ii. 292;
+  On Falling in Love, ii. 302;
+  Truth of Intercourse, ii. 311;
+  Crabbed Age and Youth, ii. 321;
+  An Apology for Idlers, ii. 334;
+  Ordered South, ii. 345;
+  Ćs Triplex, ii. 358;
+  El Dorado, ii. 368;
+  The English Admirals, ii. 372;
+  Some Portraits by Raeburn, ii. 385;
+  Child&rsquo;s Play, ii. 394;
+  Walking Tours, ii. 406;
+  Pan&rsquo;s Pipes, ii. 415;
+  A Plea for Gas Lamps, ii. 420</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p><span class="sc">Walking</span> Tours, ii. 406</p>
+
+<p>Walt Whitman, iii. 77</p>
+
+<p>War Correspondence from Stevenson&rsquo;s Note-book, xxii. 263</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We built a ship upon the stairs,&rdquo; xiv. 9</p>
+
+<p>Weir of Hermiston, xix. 159;
+  Sir Sidney Colvin&rsquo;s Note, xix. 284;
+  Glossary of Scots Words, xix. 297</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We see you as we see a face,&rdquo; xiv. 85</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We travelled in the print of olden wars,&rdquo; xiv. 96</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We uncommiserate pass into the night,&rdquo; xiv. 255</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What are you able to build with your blocks?&rdquo; xiv. 35</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When aince Aprile has fairly come,&rdquo; xiv. 109</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When at home alone I sit,&rdquo; xiv. 38</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When children are playing alone on the green,&rdquo; xiv. 31</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When chitterin&rsquo; cauld the day sail daw,&rdquo; xiv. 275</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page519"></a>519</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whenever  Auntie  moves around,&rdquo; xiv. 11</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whenever the moon and stars are set,&rdquo; xiv. 7</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When I am grown to man&rsquo;s estate,&rdquo; xiv. 9</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When I was sick and lay a-bed,&rdquo; xiv. 11</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When the bright lamp is carried in,&rdquo; xiv. 27</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When the golden day is done,&rdquo; xiv. 43</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When the grass was closely mown,&rdquo; xiv. 47</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where the bells peal far at sea,&rdquo; xiv. 84</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who comes to-night?  We ope the doors in vain,&rdquo; xiv. 83</p>
+
+<p>Willebrock Canal, On the, i. 11</p>
+
+<p>Will o&rsquo; the Mill, vi. 235</p>
+
+<p>Winter and New Year, Edinburgh, i. 320</p>
+
+<p>Winter&rsquo;s Walk, A, in Carrick and Galloway, xxii. 132</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;With half a heart I wander here,&rdquo; xiv. 94</p>
+
+<p>Wreath, The, of Immortelles, xxii. 30</p>
+
+<p>Wrecker, The:
+  Prologue, xiii. 5;
+  The Yarn, xiii. 19;
+  Epilogue, xiii. 427</p>
+
+<p>Wrong Box, The, vii. 219</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">Yet</span>, O stricken heart, remember, O remember,&rdquo; xiv. 93</p>
+
+<p>Yoshida-Torajiro, iii. 129</p>
+
+<p>Young Chevalier, The, xxi. 253</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Youth now flees on feathered foot,&rdquo; xiv. 76</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You, too, my mother, read my rhymes,&rdquo; xiv. 55</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5>THE END.</h5>
+
+<div style="padding-top: 2em; ">&nbsp;</div>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p class="center noind" style="font-size: 65%;">PRINTED BY CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
+Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON ***
+
+***** This file should be named 30714-h.htm or 30714-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/7/1/30714/
+
+Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img1.jpg b/30714-h/images/img1.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a28a075
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img1.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img10.jpg b/30714-h/images/img10.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e6aa4e5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img10.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img11.jpg b/30714-h/images/img11.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..62a22e3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img11.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img12.jpg b/30714-h/images/img12.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..67b75db
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img12.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img13.jpg b/30714-h/images/img13.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a6e2653
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img13.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img14.jpg b/30714-h/images/img14.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1464a78
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img14.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img2.jpg b/30714-h/images/img2.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..76cd600
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img2.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img3.jpg b/30714-h/images/img3.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3bec947
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img3.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img4.jpg b/30714-h/images/img4.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..15d4b47
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img4.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img5.jpg b/30714-h/images/img5.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0143819
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img5.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img6.jpg b/30714-h/images/img6.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..37aedd0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img6.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img7.jpg b/30714-h/images/img7.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..caaa846
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img7.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img8.jpg b/30714-h/images/img8.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f63138f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img8.jpg
diff --git a/30714-h/images/img9.jpg b/30714-h/images/img9.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e13d80e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714-h/images/img9.jpg
diff --git a/30714.txt b/30714.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bf09943
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,21564 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
+Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25)
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+Other: Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: December 19, 2009 [EBook #30714]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       THE WORKS OF
+
+  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+     SWANSTON EDITION
+
+        VOLUME XXV
+
+
+  _Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five
+  Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS
+  STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies
+  have been printed, of which only Two Thousand
+  Copies are for sale._
+
+  _This is No._ .......
+
+
+  [Illustration: Yours truly
+                 Robert Louis Stevenson]
+
+
+  THE WORKS OF
+
+  ROBERT LOUIS
+   STEVENSON
+
+
+  VOLUME TWENTY-FIVE
+
+
+  LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND
+  WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL
+  AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM
+  HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN
+  AND COMPANY       MDCCCCXII
+
+
+  _For permission to use the_ LETTERS _in the_
+  SWANSTON EDITION OF STEVENSON'S WORKS
+  _the Publishers are indebted to the kindness of_
+  MESSRS. METHUEN & CO., LTD.
+
+
+  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+
+
+      THE LETTERS OF
+  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+        EDITED BY
+      SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+      PARTS XI--XIV
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+XI. LIFE IN SAMOA
+
+  FIRST YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+                                      PAGE
+  INTRODUCTORY                           3
+
+  LETTERS--
+    To Sidney Colvin                     9
+    To E. L. Burlingame                 24
+    To Sidney Colvin                    25
+    To E. L. Burlingame                 32
+    To Sidney Colvin                    34
+    To Henry James                      43
+    To Rudyard Kipling                  46
+    To Sidney Colvin                    48
+    To Marcel Schwob                    51
+    To Charles Baxter                   53
+    To Sidney Colvin                    54
+    To H. B. Baildon                    56
+    To Sidney Colvin                    58
+    To the Same                         66
+    To W. Craibe Angus                  69
+    To Edmund Gosse                     71
+    To Miss Rawlinson                   74
+    To Sidney Colvin                    76
+    To Miss Adelaide Boodle             80
+    To Charles Baxter                   82
+    To Sidney Colvin                    83
+    To E. L. Burlingame                 86
+    To W. Craibe Angus                  87
+    To H. C. Ide                        88
+    To Sidney Colvin                    90
+    To the Same                         94
+    To the Same                        102
+    To Henry James                     108
+    To E. L. Burlingame                110
+    To the Same                        111
+    To Sidney Colvin                   112
+    To W. Craibe Angus                 118
+    To Miss Annie H. Ide               118
+    To Charles Baxter                  120
+    To Sidney Colvin                   121
+    To Fred Orr                        127
+    To E. L. Burlingame                128
+    To Henry James                     130
+    To Sidney Colvin                   132
+
+
+XII. LIFE IN SAMOA--_continued_
+
+  SECOND YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+  INTRODUCTORY                         144
+
+  LETTERS--
+    To E. L. Burlingame                146
+    To Miss Adelaide Boodle            147
+    To Sidney Colvin                   152
+    To J. M. Barrie                    154
+    To Sidney Colvin                   156
+    To William Morris                  162
+    To Mrs. Charles Fairchild          163
+    To Sidney Colvin                   166
+    To E. L. Burlingame                174
+    To the Rev. S. J. Whitmee          174
+    To Charles Baxter                  177
+    To Sidney Colvin                   178
+    To the Same                        193
+    To T. W. Dover                     209
+    To E. L. Burlingame                210
+    To Sidney Colvin                   211
+    To Charles Baxter                  213
+    To W. E. Henley                    214
+    To E. L. Burlingame                215
+    To Andrew Lang                     216
+    To Miss Adelaide Boodle            217
+    To Sidney Colvin                   221
+    To the Countess of Jersey          228
+    To the Same                        229
+    To Sidney Colvin                   230
+    To Mrs. Charles Fairchild          240
+    To the Children in the Cellar      243
+    To Sidney Colvin                   249
+    To Gordon Browne                   252
+    To Miss Morse                      253
+    To Miss Taylor                     254
+    To E. L. Burlingame                257
+    To Sidney Colvin                   258
+    To J. M. Barrie                    264
+    To E. L. Burlingame                266
+    To Lieutenant Eeles                267
+    To Charles Baxter                  270
+    To Sidney Colvin                   271
+    To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin            273
+    To Henry James                     274
+    To J. M. Barrie                    276
+    To Charles Baxter                  278
+
+
+XIII. LIFE IN SAMOA--_continued_
+
+  THIRD YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+  INTRODUCTORY                         280
+
+  LETTERS--
+    To Sidney Colvin                   282
+    To Charles Baxter                  288
+    To Sidney Colvin                   289
+    To the Same                        291
+    To Charles Baxter                  292
+    To Sidney Colvin                   294
+    To A. Conan Doyle                  299
+    To Sidney Colvin                   299
+    To S. R. Crockett                  305
+    To Augustus St. Gaudens            308
+    To Sidney Colvin                   310
+    To Edmund Gosse                    317
+    To Henry James                     320
+    To Sidney Colvin                   324
+    To James S. Stevenson              334
+    To Henry James                     335
+    To A. Conan Doyle                  336
+    To Charles Baxter                  337
+    To Sidney Colvin                   338
+    To A. Conan Doyle                  339
+    To Augustus St. Gaudens            341
+    To James S. Stevenson              342
+    To George Meredith                 343
+    To Charles Baxter                  345
+    To Sidney Colvin                   347
+    To the Same                        352
+    To J. Horne Stevenson              357
+    To John P----n                     358
+    To Russell P----n                  359
+    To Alison Cunningham               359
+    To Charles Baxter                  360
+    To J. M. Barrie                    362
+    To R. Le Gallienne                 364
+    To Mrs. A. Baker                   366
+    To Henry James                     367
+    To Sidney Colvin                   367
+
+
+XIV. LIFESAMOA--_concluded_
+
+  FOURTH YEAR AT VAILIMA--THE END
+
+  INTRODUCTORY                         373
+
+  LETTERS--
+    To Charles Baxter                  376
+    To H. B. Baildon                   377
+    To W. H. Low                       378
+    To Sidney Colvin                   380
+    To H. B. Baildon                   381
+    To Sidney Colvin                   382
+    To J. H. Bates                     384
+    To William Archer                  384
+    To Sidney Colvin                   386
+    To W. B. Yeats                     390
+    To George Meredith                 390
+    To Charles Baxter                  392
+    To Mrs. Sitwell                    393
+    To Charles Baxter                  394
+    To Sidney Colvin                   396
+    To R. A. M. Stevenson              398
+    To Sidney Colvin                   404
+    To Henry James                     406
+    To Marcel Schwob                   409
+    To A. St. Gaudens                  410
+    To Miss Adelaide Boodle            410
+    To Mrs. A. Baker                   413
+    To Sidney Colvin                   414
+    To J. M. Barrie                    416
+    To Sidney Colvin                   422
+    To Dr. Bakewell                    424
+    To James Payn                      425
+    To Miss Middleton                  428
+    To A. Conan Doyle                  429
+    To Sidney Colvin                   430
+    To Charles Baxter                  433
+    To R. A. M. Stevenson              434
+    To Sir Herbert Maxwell             440
+    To Sidney Colvin                   441
+    To Alison Cunningham               445
+    To James Payn                      446
+    To Sidney Colvin                   448
+    To Professor Meiklejohn            450
+    To Lieutenant Eeles                451
+    To Sir Herbert Maxwell             453
+    To Andrew Lang                     453
+    To Edmund Gosse                    454
+
+
+  APPENDIX I--Account of the Death and
+     Burial of R. L. Stevenson, by
+     Lloyd Osbourne                    457
+
+  APPENDIX II--Address of R. L.
+     Stevenson to the Chiefs on the
+     Opening of the Road of Gratitude,
+     October 1894                      462
+
+  INDEX TO THE LETTERS:
+     VOLUMES XXIII-XXV                 469
+
+  INDEX TO VOLUMES I-XXII             509
+
+
+
+
+         THE LETTERS
+  OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+         1890--1894
+
+
+
+
+         THE LETTERS
+  OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+LIFE IN SAMOA
+
+FIRST YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+
+NOVEMBER 1890-DECEMBER 1891
+
+Returning from Sydney at the end of October 1890, Stevenson and his wife
+at once took up their abode in the wooden four-roomed cottage, or "rough
+barrack," as he calls it, which had been built for them in the clearing
+at Vailima during the months of their absence at Sydney and on their
+cruise in the _Equator_. Mr. Lloyd Osbourne in the meantime had started
+for England to wind up the family affairs at Bournemouth. During the
+first few months, as will be seen by the following letters, the
+conditions of life at Vailima were rough to the point of hardship. But
+matters soon mended; the work of clearing and planting went on under the
+eye of the master and mistress diligently and in the main successfully,
+though not of course without complications and misadventures. Ways and
+means of catering were found, and abundance began to reign in place of
+the makeshifts and privations of the first days. By April a better
+house, fit to receive the elder Mrs. Stevenson, had been built; and
+later in the year plans for further extension were considered, but for
+the present held over. The attempt made at first to work the
+establishment by means of white servants and head-men indoors and out
+proved unsatisfactory, and was gradually superseded by the formation of
+an efficient native staff, which in course of time developed itself into
+something like a small, devoted feudal clan.
+
+During the earlier months of 1891 Stevenson was not in continuous
+residence on his new property, but went away on two excursions, the
+first to Sydney to meet his mother; the second, in company of the
+American Consul Mr. Sewall, to Tutuila, a neighbouring island of the
+Samoan group. Of the latter, to him very interesting, trip, the
+correspondence contains only the beginning of an account abruptly broken
+off: more, will be found in the extracts from his diary given in Mr.
+Graham Balfour's _Life_ (ed. 1906, pp. 312 f.). During part of the
+spring he was fortunate in having the company of two distinguished
+Americans, the painter Lafarge and the historian Henry Adams, in
+addition to that of the local planters, traders, and officials, a
+singular and singularly mixed community. After some half-year's
+residence he began to realise that the arrangements made for the
+government of Samoa by treaty between the three powers England, Germany,
+and America were not working nor promising to work well. Stevenson was
+no abstracted student or dreamer; the human interests and human duties
+lying immediately about him were ever the first in his eyes; and he
+found himself drawn deeply into the complications of local politics, as
+so active a spirit could not fail to be drawn, however little taste he
+might have for the work.
+
+He kept in the meantime at a fair level of health, and among the
+multitude of new interests was faithful in the main business of his
+life--that is, to literature. He did not cease to toil uphill at the
+heavy task of preparing for serial publication the letters, or more
+properly chapters, on the South Seas. He planned and began delightedly
+his happiest tale of South Sea life, _The High Woods of Ulufanua_,
+afterwards changed to _The Beach of Falesa_; conceived the scheme, which
+was never carried out, of working two of his old conceptions into one
+long genealogical novel or fictitious family history to be called _The
+Shovels of Newton French_; and in the latter part of the year worked
+hard in continuation of _The Wrecker_. Having completed this during
+November, he turned at once, from a sense of duty rather than from any
+literary inspiration, to the _Footnote to History_, a laboriously
+prepared and minutely conscientious account of recent events in Samoa.
+
+From his earliest days at Vailima, determined that our intimacy should
+suffer no diminution by absence, Stevenson began, to my great pleasure,
+the practice of writing me a monthly budget containing a full account of
+his doings and interests. At first the pursuits of the enthusiastic
+farmer, planter, and overseer filled these letters delightfully, to the
+exclusion of almost everything else except references to his books
+projected or in hand. Later these interests began to give place in his
+letters to those of the local politician, immersed in affairs which
+seemed to me exasperatingly petty and obscure, however grave the
+potential European complications which lay behind them. At any rate,
+they were hard to follow intelligently from the other side of the globe;
+and it was a relief whenever his correspondence turned to matters
+literary or domestic, or humours of his own mind and character. These
+letters, or so much of them as seemed suitable for publication, were
+originally printed separately, in the year following the writer's
+death, under the title _Vailima Letters_. They are here placed, with
+some additions, in chronological order among those addressed to other
+friends or acquaintances. During this first year at Vailima his general
+correspondence was not nearly so large as it afterwards became; Mr.
+Burlingame, as representative of the house of Scribner, receiving the
+lion's share next to myself.
+
+For the love of Stevenson I will ask readers to take the small amount of
+pains necessary to grasp and remember the main facts of Samoan politics
+in the ten years 1889-99. At the date when he settled in Vailima the
+government of the islands had lately been re-ordered between the three
+powers interested--namely, Germany, England, and the United States--at
+the Convention of Berlin (July 14, 1889). The rivalries and jealousies
+of these three powers, complicated with the conflicting claims of
+various native kings or chiefs, had for some time kept the affairs of
+the islands dangerously embroiled. Under the Berlin Convention, Malietoa
+Laupepa, who had previously been deposed and deported by the Germans in
+favour of a nominee of their own, was reinstated as king, to the
+exclusion of his kinsman, the powerful and popular Mataafa, whose titles
+were equally good and abilities certainly greater, but who was
+especially obnoxious to the Germans owing to his resistance to them
+during the troubles of the preceding years. In the course of that
+resistance a small German force had been worsted in a petty skirmish at
+Fagalii, and resentment at this affront to the national pride was for
+several years one of the chief obstacles to the reconciliation of
+contending interests. For a time the two kinsmen, Laupepa and Mataafa,
+lived on amicable terms, but presently differences arose between them.
+Mataafa had expected to occupy a position of influence in the
+government: finding himself ignored, he withdrew to a camp (Malie) a
+few miles outside the town of Apia, where he lived in semi-royal state
+as a sort of passive rebel or rival to the recognised king. In the
+meantime, in the course of the year 1891, the two white officials
+appointed under the Berlin Convention--namely, the Chief Justice, a
+Swedish gentleman named Cedercrantz, and the President of the Council,
+Baron Senfft von Pilsach--had come out to the islands and entered on
+their duties. These gentlemen soon proved themselves unfitted for their
+task to a degree both disastrous and grotesque. Almost the entire white
+community were soon against them; with the native population they had no
+influence or credit; affairs both political and municipal went from bad
+to worse; and the consuls of the three powers, acting as an official
+board of advisers to the king, could do very little to mend them.
+
+To the impropriety of some of the official proceedings Stevenson felt
+compelled to call attention in a series of letters to the Times, the
+first of which appeared in 1891, the remainder in 1892. He had formed
+the conviction that for the cure of Samoan troubles two things were
+necessary: first and above all, the reconciliation of Laupepa and
+Mataafa; secondly, the supersession of the unlucky Chief Justice and
+President by men better qualified for their tasks. To effect the former
+purpose, he made his only practical intromission in local politics, and
+made it unsuccessfully. The motive of his letters to the Times was the
+hope to effect the second. In this matter, after undergoing the risk,
+which was at one moment serious, of deportation, he in the end saw his
+wishes fulfilled. The first Chief Justice and President were replaced by
+better qualified persons in the course of 1893. But meantime the muddle
+had grown to a head. In the autumn of that year war broke out between
+the partisans of Laupepa and Mataafa: the latter were defeated, and
+Mataafa exiled to a distant island. At the close of the following year
+Stevenson died. Three years later followed the death of Laupepa: then
+came more confused rivalries between various claimants to the kingly
+title. The Germans, having by this time come round to Stevenson's
+opinion, backed the claims of Mataafa, which they had before stubbornly
+disallowed, while the English and Americans stood for another candidate.
+In 1899 these differences resulted in a calamitous and unjustifiable
+action, the bombardment of native villages for several successive days
+by English and American war-ships. As a matter of urgent necessity, to
+avert worse things, new negotiations were set on foot between the three
+powers, with the result that England withdrew her claims in Samoa
+altogether, America was satisfied with the small island of Tutuila with
+its fine harbour of Pago-pago, while the two larger islands of Upolu and
+Savaii were ceded to Germany. German officials have governed them well
+and peacefully ever since, having allowed the restored Mataafa, as long
+as he lived, a recognised position of headship among the native chiefs.
+Stevenson during his lifetime was obnoxious to the German official
+world. But his name and memory are now held in honour by them, his
+policy to a large extent practically followed, and he would have been
+the first to acknowledge the merits of the new order had he lived to
+witness it.
+
+These remarks, following the subject down to what remains for the
+present its historic conclusion, will, I hope, be enough to clear it for
+the present purpose out of the reader's way and enable him to understand
+as much as is necessary of the political allusions in this and the
+following sections of the correspondence.
+
+It need only be added that in reading the following pages it must be
+borne in mind that Mulinuu and Malie, the places respectively of
+Laupepa's and Mataafa's residence, are also used to signify their
+respective parties and followings.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   During the absence of the Stevensons at Sydney some eight acres of
+   the Vailima property had been cleared of jungle, a cottage roughly
+   built on the clearing, and something done towards making the track up
+   the hill from Apia into a practicable road. They occupied the cottage
+   at once, and the following letters narrate of the sequel.
+
+    _In the Mountain, Apia, Samoa, Monday, November 2nd, 1890._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is a hard and interesting and beautiful life that
+we lead now. Our place is in a deep cleft of Vaea Mountain, some six
+hundred feet above the sea, embowered in forest, which is our strangling
+enemy, and which we combat with axes and dollars. I went crazy over
+outdoor work, and had at last to confine myself to the house, or
+literature must have gone by the board. _Nothing_ is so interesting as
+weeding, clearing, and path-making; the oversight of labourers becomes a
+disease; it is quite an effort not to drop into the farmer; and it does
+make you feel so well. To come down covered with mud and drenched with
+sweat and rain after some hours in the bush, change, rub down, and take
+a chair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet conscience. And the strange
+thing that I mark is this: If I go out and make sixpence, bossing my
+labourers and plying the cutlass or the spade, idiot conscience applauds
+me; if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds, idiot conscience wails
+over my neglect and the day wasted. For near a fortnight I did not go
+beyond the verandah; then I found my rush of work run out, and went down
+for the night to Apia; put in Sunday afternoon with our consul, "a nice
+young man," dined with my friend H. J. Moors in the evening, went to
+church--no less--at the white and half-white church--I had never been
+before, and was much interested; the woman I sat next _looked_ a
+full-blood native, and it was in the prettiest and readiest English that
+she sang the hymns; back to Moors', where we yarned of the islands,
+being both wide wanderers, till bedtime; bed, sleep, breakfast, horse
+saddled; round to the mission, to get Mr. Clarke to be my interpreter;
+over with him to the King's, whom I have not called on since my return;
+received by that mild old gentleman; have some interesting talk with him
+about Samoan superstitions and my land--the scene of a great battle in
+his (Malietoa Laupepa's) youth--the place which we have cleared the
+platform of his fort--the gulley of the stream full of dead bodies--the
+fight rolled off up Vaea mountain-side; back with Clarke to the mission;
+had a bit of lunch and consulted over a queer point of missionary policy
+just arisen, about our new Town Hall and the balls there--too long to go
+into, but a quaint example of the intricate questions which spring up
+daily in the missionary path.[1]
+
+Then off up the hill; Jack very fresh, the sun (close on noon) staring
+hot, the breeze very strong and pleasant; the ineffable green country
+all round--gorgeous little birds (I think they are humming-birds, but
+they say not) skirmishing in the wayside flowers. About a quarter way up
+I met a native coming down with the trunk of a cocoa palm across his
+shoulder; his brown breast glittering with sweat and oil:
+"Talofa"--"Talofa, alii--You see that white man? He speak for you."
+"White man he gone up here?"--"Ioe" (Yes)--"Tofa, alii"--"Tofa, soifua!"
+I put on Jack up the steep path, till he is all as white as shaving
+stick--Brown's euxesis, wish I had some--past Tanugamanono, a bush
+village--see into the houses as I pass--they are open sheds scattered on
+a green--see the brown folk sitting there, suckling kids, sleeping on
+their stiff wooden pillows--then on through the wood path--and here I
+find the mysterious white man (poor devil!) with his twenty years'
+certificate of good behaviour as a book-keeper, frozen out by the
+strikes in the colonies, come up here on a chance, no work to be found,
+big hotel bill, no ship to leave in--and come up to beg twenty dollars
+because he heard I was a Scotchman, offering to leave his portmanteau in
+pledge. Settle this, and on again; and here my house comes in view, and
+a war whoop fetches my wife and Henry (or Simele), our Samoan boy, on
+the front balcony; and I am home again, and only sorry that I shall have
+to go down again to Apia this day week. I could, and would, dwell here
+unmoved, but there are things to be attended to.
+
+Never say I don't give you details and news. That is a picture of a
+letter.
+
+I have been hard at work since I came; three chapters of _The Wrecker_,
+and since that, eight of the South Sea book, and, along and about and in
+between, a hatful of verses. Some day I'll send the verse to you, and
+you'll say if any of it is any good. I have got in a better vein with
+the South Sea book, as I think you will see; I think these chapters will
+do for the volume without much change. Those that I did in the _Janet
+Nicoll_, under the most ungodly circumstances, I fear will want a lot of
+suppling and lightening, but I hope to have your remarks in a month or
+two upon that point. It seems a long while since I have heard from you.
+I do hope you are well. I am wonderful, but tired from so much work;
+'tis really immense what I have done; in the South Sea book I have fifty
+pages copied fair, some of which has been four times, and all twice
+written; certainly fifty pages of solid scriving inside a fortnight, but
+I was at it by seven a.m. till lunch, and from two till four or five
+every day; between whiles, verse and blowing on the flageolet; never
+outside. If you could see this place! but I don't want any one to see it
+till my clearing is done, and my house built. It will be a home for
+angels.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  * Point referred to in text.
+  ........ Paths.
+  ======== Our boundary.
+
+  _a. Garden._             _b. Present house._
+  _c. Banana Patch._       _d. Waterfall._
+  _e. Large waterfall into deep gorge where the heat of the fight was._]
+
+So far I wrote after my bit of dinner, some cold meat and bananas, on
+arrival. Then out to see where Henry and some of the men were clearing
+the garden; for it was plain there was to be no work to-day indoors, and
+I must set in consequence to farmering. I stuck a good while on the way
+up, for the path there is largely my own handiwork, and there were a lot
+of sprouts and saplings and stones to be removed. Then I reached our
+clearing just where the streams join in one; it had a fine autumn smell
+of burning, the smoke blew in the woods, and the boys were pretty merry
+and busy. Now I had a private design:--The Vaita'e I had explored
+pretty far up; not yet the other stream, the Vaituliga (g=nasal n, as ng
+in sing); and up that, with my wood knife, I set off alone. It is here
+quite dry; it went through endless woods; about as broad as a Devonshire
+lane, here and there crossed by fallen trees; huge trees overhead in the
+sun, dripping lianas and tufted with orchids, tree ferns, ferns
+depending with air roots from the steep banks, great arums--I had not
+skill enough to say if any of them were the edible kind, one of our
+staples here!--hundreds of bananas--another staple--and alas! I had
+skill enough to know all of these for the bad kind that bears no fruit.
+My Henry moralised over this the other day; how hard it was that the bad
+banana flourished wild, and the good must be weeded and tended; and I
+had not the heart to tell him how fortunate they were here, and how
+hungry were other lands by comparison. The ascent of this lovely lane of
+my dry stream filled me with delight. I could not but be reminded of old
+Mayne Reid, as I have been more than once since I came to the tropics;
+and I thought, if Reid had been still living, I would have written to
+tell him that, for me, _it had come true_; and I thought, forbye, that,
+if the great powers go on as they are going, and the Chief Justice
+delays, it would come truer still; and the war-conch will sound in the
+hills, and my home will be inclosed in camps, before the year is ended.
+And all at once--mark you, how Mayne Reid is on the spot--a strange
+thing happened. I saw a liana stretch across the bed of the brook about
+breast-high, swung up my knife to sever it, and--behold, it was a wire!
+On either hand it plunged into thick bush; to-morrow I shall see where
+it goes and get a guess perhaps of what it means. To-day I know no more
+than--there it is. A little higher the brook began to trickle, then to
+fill. At last, as I meant to do some work upon the homeward trail, it
+was time to turn. I did not return by the stream; knife in hand, as long
+as my endurance lasted, I was to cut a path in the congested bush.
+
+At first it went ill with me; I got badly stung as high as the elbows by
+the stinging plant; I was nearly hung in a tough liana--a rotten trunk
+giving way under my feet; it was deplorable bad business. And an axe--if
+I dared swing one--would have been more to the purpose than my cutlass.
+Of a sudden things began to go strangely easier; I found stumps, bushing
+out again; my body began to wonder, then my mind; I raised my eyes and
+looked ahead; and, by George, I was no longer pioneering, I had struck
+an old track overgrown, and was restoring an old path. So I laboured
+till I was in such a state that Carolina Wilhelmina Skeggs[2] could
+scarce have found a name for it. Thereon desisted; returned to the
+stream; made my way down that stony track to the garden, where the smoke
+was still hanging and the sun was still in the high tree-tops, and so
+home. Here, fondly supposing my long day was over, I rubbed down;
+exquisite agony; water spreads the poison of these weeds; I got it all
+over my hands, on my chest, in my eyes, and presently, while eating an
+orange, _a la_ Rarotonga, burned my lip and eye with orange juice. Now
+all day, our three small pigs had been adrift, to the mortal peril of
+our corn, lettuce, onions, etc., and as I stood smarting on the back
+verandah, behold the three piglings issuing from the wood just opposite.
+Instantly I got together as many boys as I could--three, and got the
+pigs penned against the rampart of the sty, till the others joined;
+whereupon we formed a cordon, closed, captured the deserters, and
+dropped them, squeaking amain, into their strengthened barracks where,
+please God, they may now stay!
+
+Perhaps you may suppose the day now over; you are not the head of a
+plantation, my juvenile friend. Politics succeeded: Henry got adrift in
+his English, Bene was too cowardly to tell me what he was after: result,
+I have lost seven good labourers, and had to sit down and write to you
+to keep my temper. Let me sketch my lads.--Henry--Henry has gone down to
+town or I could not be writing to you--this were the hour of his English
+lesson else, when he learns what he calls "long explessions" or "your
+chief's language" for the matter of an hour and a half--Henry is a
+chiefling from Savaii; I once loathed, I now like and--pending fresh
+discoveries--have a kind of respect for Henry. He does good work for us;
+goes among the labourers, bossing and watching; helps Fanny; is civil,
+kindly, thoughtful; _O si sic semper!_ But will he be "his sometime self
+throughout the year"? Anyway, he has deserved of us, and he must
+disappoint me sharply ere I give him up.--Bene--or Peni--Ben, in plain
+English--is supposed to be my ganger; the Lord love him! God made a
+truckling coward, there is his full history. He cannot tell me what he
+wants; he dares not tell me what is wrong; he dares not transmit my
+orders or translate my censures. And with all this, honest, sober,
+industrious, miserably smiling over the miserable issue of his own
+unmanliness.--Paul--a German--cook and steward--a glutton of work--a
+splendid fellow; drawbacks, three: (1) no cook; (2) an inveterate
+bungler; a man with twenty thumbs, continually falling in the dishes,
+throwing out the dinner, preserving the garbage; (3) a dr----, well,
+don't let us say that--but we daren't let him go to town, and he--poor,
+good soul--is afraid to be let go.--Lafaele (Raphael), a strong, dull,
+deprecatory man; splendid with an axe, if watched; the better for a
+rowing, when he calls me "Papa" in the most wheedling tones; desperately
+afraid of ghosts, so that he dare not walk alone up in the banana
+patch--see map. The rest are changing labourers; and to-night, owing to
+the miserable cowardice of Peni, who did not venture to tell me what the
+men wanted--and which was no more than fair--all are gone--and my
+weeding in the article of being finished! Pity the sorrows of a planter.
+
+I am, Sir, yours, and be jowned to you, The Planter,
+
+    R. L. S.
+
+_Tuesday, 3rd._--I begin to see the whole scheme of letter-writing; you
+sit down every day and pour out an equable stream of twaddle.
+
+This morning all my fears were fled, and all the trouble had fallen to
+the lot of Peni himself, who deserved it; my field was full of weeders;
+and I am again able to justify the ways of God. All morning I worked at
+the _South Seas_, and finished the chapter I had stuck upon on Saturday.
+Fanny, awfully hove-to with rheumatics and injuries received upon the
+field of sport and glory, chasing pigs, was unable to go up and down
+stairs, so she sat upon the back verandah, and my work was chequered by
+her cries. "Paul, you take a spade to do that--dig a hole first. If you
+do that, you'll cut your foot off! Here, you boy, what you do there? You
+no get work? You go find Simele; he give you work. Peni, you tell this
+boy he go find Simele; suppose Simele no give him work, you tell him go
+'way. I no want him here. That boy no good."--_Peni_ (from the distance
+in reassuring tones), "All right, sir!"--_Fanny_ (after a long pause),
+"Peni, you tell that boy go find Simele! I no want him stand here all
+day. I no pay that boy. I see him all day. He no do nothing."--Luncheon,
+beef, soda-scones, fried bananas, pine-apple in claret, coffee. Try to
+write a poem; no go. Play the flageolet. Then sneakingly off to
+farmering and pioneering. Four gangs at work on our place; a lively
+scene; axes crashing and smoke blowing; all the knives are out. But I
+rob the garden party of one without a stock, and you should see my
+hand--cut to ribbons. Now I want to do my path up the Vaituliga
+single-handed, and I want it to burst on the public complete. Hence,
+with devilish ingenuity, I begin it at different places; so that if you
+stumble on one section, you may not even then suspect the fulness of my
+labours. Accordingly, I started in a new place, below the wire, and
+hoping to work up to it. It was perhaps lucky I had so bad a cutlass,
+and my smarting hand bid me stay before I had got up to the wire, but
+just in season, so that I was only the better of my activity, not dead
+beat as yesterday.
+
+A strange business it was, and infinitely solitary; away above, the sun
+was in the high tree-tops; the lianas noosed and sought to hang me; the
+saplings struggled, and came up with that sob of death that one gets to
+know so well; great, soft, sappy trees fell at a lick of the cutlass,
+little tough switches laughed at and dared my best endeavour. Soon,
+toiling down in that pit of verdure, I heard blows on the far side, and
+then laughter. I confess a chill settled on my heart. Being so dead
+alone, in a place where by rights none should be beyond me, I was aware,
+upon interrogation, if those blows had drawn nearer, I should (of course
+quite unaffectedly) have executed a strategic movement to the rear; and
+only the other day I was lamenting my insensibility to superstition! Am
+I beginning to be sucked in? Shall I become a midnight twitterer like my
+neighbours? At times I thought the blows were echoes; at times I thought
+the laughter was from birds. For our birds are strangely human in their
+calls. Vaea mountain about sundown sometimes rings with shrill cries,
+like the hails of merry, scattered children. As a matter of fact, I
+believe stealthy wood-cutters from Tanugamanono were above me in the
+wood and answerable for the blows; as for the laughter, a woman and two
+children had come and asked Fanny's leave to go up shrimp-fishing in the
+burn; beyond doubt, it was these I heard. Just at the right time I
+returned; to wash down, change, and begin this snatch of letter before
+dinner was ready, and to finish it afterwards, before Henry has yet put
+in an appearance for his lesson in "long explessions."
+
+Dinner: stewed beef and potatoes, baked bananas, new loaf-bread hot from
+the oven, pine-apple in claret. These are great days; we have been low
+in the past; but now are we as belly-gods, enjoying all things.
+
+_Wednesday_, (_Hist. Vailima resumed._)--A gorgeous evening of
+after-glow in the great tree-tops and behind the mountain, and full moon
+over the lowlands and the sea, inaugurated a night of horrid cold. To
+you effete denizens of the so-called temperate zone, it had seemed
+nothing; neither of us could sleep; we were up seeking extra coverings,
+I know not at what hour--it was as bright as day. The moon right over
+Vaea--near due west, the birds strangely silent, and the wood of the
+house tingling with cold; I believe it must have been 60 deg.! Consequence:
+Fanny has a headache and is wretched, and I could do no work. (I am
+trying all round for a place to hold my pen; you will hear why later on;
+this to explain penmanship.) I wrote two pages, very bad, no movement,
+no life or interest; then I wrote a business letter; then took to
+tootling on the flageolet, till glory should call me farmering.
+
+I took up at the fit time Lafaele and Mauga--Mauga, accent on the first,
+is a mountain, I don't know what Mauga means--mind what I told you of
+the value of g--to the garden, and set them digging, then turned my
+attention to the path. I could not go into my bush path for two reasons:
+1st, sore hands; 2nd, had on my trousers and good shoes. Lucky it was.
+Right in the wild lime hedge which cuts athwart us just homeward of the
+garden, I found a great bed of kuikui--sensitive plant--our deadliest
+enemy. A fool brought it to this island in a pot, and used to lecture
+and sentimentalise over the tender thing. The tender thing has now taken
+charge of this island, and men fight it, with torn hands, for bread and
+life. A singular, insidious thing, shrinking and biting like a weasel;
+clutching by its roots as a limpet clutches to a rock. As I fought him,
+I bettered some verses in my poem, _The Woodman_;[3] the only thought I
+gave to letters. Though the kuikui was thick, there was but a small
+patch of it, and when I was done I attacked the wild lime, and had a
+hand-to-hand skirmish with its spines and elastic suckers. All this
+time, close by, in the cleared space of the garden, Lafaele and Mauga
+were digging. Suddenly quoth Lafaele, "Somebody he sing out."--"Somebody
+he sing out? All right. I go." And I went and found they had been
+whistling and "singing out" for long, but the fold of the hill and the
+uncleared bush shuts in the garden so that no one heard, and I was late
+for dinner, and Fanny's headache was cross; and when the meal was over,
+we had to cut up a pineapple which was going bad, to make jelly of; and
+the next time you have a handful of broken blood-blisters, apply
+pine-apple juice, and you will give me news of it, and I request a
+specimen of your hand of write five minutes after--the historic moment
+when I tackled this history. My day so far.
+
+Fanny was to have rested. Blessed Paul began making a duck-house; she
+let him be; the duck-house fell down, and she had to set her hand to it.
+He was then to make a drinking-place for the pigs; she let him be
+again--he made a stair by which the pigs will probably escape this
+evening, and she was near weeping. Impossible to blame the indefatigable
+fellow; energy is too rare and goodwill too noble a thing to discourage;
+but it's trying when she wants a rest. Then she had to cook the dinner;
+then, of course--like a fool and a woman--must wait dinner for me, and
+make a flurry of herself. Her day so far. _Cetera adhuc desunt._
+
+_Friday_--_I think._--I have been too tired to add to this chronicle,
+which will at any rate give you some guess of our employment. All goes
+well; the kuikui--(think of this mispronunciation having actually
+infected me to the extent of misspelling! tuitui is the word by
+rights)--the tuitui is all out of the paddock--a fenced park between the
+house and boundary; Peni's men start to-day on the road; the garden is
+part burned, part dug; and Henry, at the head of a troop of underpaid
+assistants, is hard at work clearing. The part clearing you will see
+from the map; from the house run down to the stream side, up the stream
+nearly as high as the garden; then back to the star which I have just
+added to the map.
+
+My long, silent contests in the forest have had a strange effect on me.
+The unconcealed vitality of these vegetables, their exuberant number and
+strength, the attempts--I can use no other word--of lianas to enwrap and
+capture the intruder, the awful silence, the knowledge that all my
+efforts are only like the performance of an actor, the thing of a
+moment, and the wood will silently and swiftly heal them up with fresh
+effervescence; the cunning sense of the tuitui, suffering itself to be
+touched with wind-swayed grasses and not minding--but let the grass be
+moved by a man, and it shuts up; the whole silent battle, murder, and
+slow death of the contending forest; weigh upon the imagination. My poem
+_The Woodman_ stands; but I have taken refuge in a new story, which just
+shot through me like a bullet in one of my moments of awe, alone in that
+tragic jungle:--
+
+  _The High Woods of Ulufanua_[4]
+
+   1. A South Sea Bridal.
+   2. Under the Ban.
+   3. Savao and Faavao.
+   4. Cries in the High Wood.
+   5. Rumour full of Tongues.
+   6. The Hour of Peril.
+   7. The Day of Vengeance.
+
+It is very strange, very extravagant, I dare say; but it's varied, and
+picturesque, and has a pretty love affair, and ends well. Ulufanua is a
+lovely Samoan word, ulu = grove; fanua = land; grove-land--"the tops of
+the high trees." Savao, "sacred to the wood," and Faavao, "wood-ways,"
+are the names of two of the characters, Ulufanua the name of the
+supposed island.
+
+I am very tired, and rest off to-day from all but letters. Fanny is
+quite done up; she could not sleep last night, something it seemed like
+asthma--I trust not. I suppose Lloyd will be about, so you can give him
+the benefit of this long scrawl.[5] Never say that I _can't_ write a
+letter, say that I don't.--Yours ever, my dearest fellow,
+
+    R. L. S.
+
+_Later on Friday._--The guidwife had bread to bake, and she baked it in
+a pan, O! But between whiles she was down with me weeding sensitive in
+the paddock. The men have but now passed over it; I was round in that
+very place to see the weeding was done thoroughly, and already the
+reptile springs behind our heels. Tuitui is a truly strange beast, and
+gives food for thought. I am nearly sure--I cannot yet be quite, I mean
+to experiment, when I am less on the hot chase of the beast--that, even
+at the instant he shrivels up his leaves, he strikes his prickles
+downward so as to catch the uprooting finger; instinctive, say the
+gabies; but so is man's impulse to strike out. One thing that takes and
+holds me is to see the strange variation in the propagation of alarm
+among these rooted beasts; at times it spreads to a radius (I speak by
+the guess of the eye) of five or six inches; at times only one
+individual plant appears frightened at a time. We tried how long it took
+one to recover; 'tis a sanguine creature; it is all abroad again before
+(I guess again) two minutes. It is odd how difficult in this world it is
+to be armed. The double armour of this plant betrays it. In a thick
+tuft, where the leaves disappear, I thrust In my hand, and the bite of
+the thorns betrays the top-most stem. In the open again, and when I
+hesitate if it be clover, a touch on the leaves, and its fine sense and
+retractile action betrays its identity at once. Yet it has one gift
+incomparable. Rome had virtue and knowledge; Rome perished. The
+sensitive plant has indigestible seeds--so they say--and it will
+flourish for ever. I give my advice thus to a young plant--have a strong
+root, a weak stem, and an indigestible seed; so you will outlast the
+eternal city, and your progeny will clothe mountains, and the irascible
+planter will blaspheme in vain. The weak point of tuitui is that its
+stem is strong.
+
+_Supplementary Page._--Here beginneth the third lesson, which is not
+from the planter but from a less estimable character, the writer of
+books.
+
+I want you to understand about this South Sea Book. The job is immense;
+I stagger under material. I have seen the first big _tache_. It was
+necessary to see the smaller ones; the letters were at my hand for the
+purpose, but I was not going to lose this experience; and, instead of
+writing mere letters, have poured out a lot of stuff for the book. How
+this works and fits, time is to show. But I believe, in time, I shall
+get the whole thing in form. Now, up to date, that is all my design, and
+I beg to warn you till we have the whole (or much) of the stuff
+together, you can hardly judge--and I can hardly judge. Such a mass of
+stuff is to be handled, if possible without repetition--so much foreign
+matter to be introduced--if possible with perspicuity--and, as much as
+can be, a spirit of narrative to be preserved. You will find that come
+stronger as I proceed, and get the explanations worked through. Problems
+of style are (as yet) dirt under my feet; my problem is architectural,
+creative--to get this stuff jointed and moving. If I can do that, I will
+trouble you for style; anybody might write it, and it would be splendid;
+well-engineered, the masses right, the blooming thing travelling--twig?
+
+This I wanted you to understand, for lots of the stuff sent home is, I
+imagine, rot--and slovenly rot--and some of it pompous rot; and I want
+you to understand it's a _lay-in_.
+
+Soon, if the tide of poeshie continues, I'll send you a whole lot to
+damn. You never said thank you for the handsome tribute addressed to
+you from Apemama;[6] such is the gratitude of the world to the God-sent
+poick. Well, well:--"Vex not thou the poick's mind, With thy coriaceous
+ingratitude, The P. will be to your faults more than a little blind, And
+yours is a far from handsome attitude." Having thus dropped into poetry
+in a spirit of friendship, I have the honour to subscribe myself, Sir,
+your obedient humble servant,
+
+    SILAS WEGG.
+
+
+I suppose by this you will have seen the lad--and his feet will have
+been in the Monument--and his eyes beheld the face of George.[7] Well!
+
+  There is much eloquence in a well!
+      I am, Sir,
+          Yours
+              The Epigrammatist
+
+           ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+        R                         N
+        O                        O
+         B                       S
+         E                       N
+          R                     E
+          T                     V
+                               E
+          L                    T
+          O                   S
+           U
+           I                  S
+            S                 I
+                             U
+            S                O
+            T               L
+             E
+             V              T
+              E            R
+              N            E
+               S          B
+               O         O
+                N        R
+             FINIS--EXPLICIT
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   The opening sentences of the following refer of course to _The
+   Wrecker_, and particularly to a suggestion of mine concerning the
+   relation of the main narrative to the prologue:--
+
+     _Vailima, Apia, Samoa, Nov. 7, 1890._
+
+I wish you to add to the words at the end of the prologue; they run, I
+think, thus, "And this is the yarn of Loudon Dodd"; add, "not as he
+told, but as he wrote it afterwards for his diversion." This becomes the
+more needful, because, when all is done, I shall probably revert to
+Tai-o-hae, and give final details about the characters in the way of a
+conversation between Dodd and Havers. These little snippets of
+information and _faits-divers_ have always a disjointed, broken-backed
+appearance; yet, readers like them. In this book we have introduced so
+many characters, that this kind of epilogue will be looked for; and I
+rather hope, looking far ahead, that I can lighten it in dialogue.
+
+We are well past the middle now. How does it strike you? and can you
+guess my mystery? It will make a fattish volume!
+
+I say, have you ever read the _Highland Widow_? I never had till
+yesterday: I am half inclined, bar a trip or two, to think it Scott's
+masterpiece; and it has the name of a failure! Strange things are
+readers.
+
+I expect proofs and revises in duplicate.
+
+We have now got into a small barrack at our place. We see the sea six
+hundred feet below filling the end of two vales of forest. On one hand
+the mountain runs above us some thousand feet higher; great trees stand
+round us in our clearing; there is an endless voice of birds; I have
+never lived in such a heaven; just now, I have fever, which mitigates
+but not destroys my gusto in my circumstances.--You may envy
+
+    ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+... O, I don't know if I mentioned that having seen your new tail to the
+magazine, I cried off interference, at least for this trip. Did I ask
+you to send me my books and papers, and all the bound volumes of the
+mag.? _quorum pars_. I might add that were there a good book or
+so--new--I don't believe there is--such would be welcome.
+
+I desire--I positively begin to awake--to be remembered to Scribner,
+Low, St. Gaudens, Russell Sullivan. Well, well, you fellows have the
+feast of reason and the flow of soul; I have a better-looking place and
+climate: you should hear the birds on the hill now! The day has just
+wound up with a shower; it is still light without, though I write within
+here at the cheek of a lamp; my wife and an invaluable German are
+wrestling about bread on the back verandah; and how the birds and the
+frogs are rattling, and piping, and hailing from the woods! Here and
+there a throaty chuckle; here and there, cries like those of jolly
+children who have lost their way; here and there, the ringing
+sleigh-bell of the tree frog. Out and away down below me on the sea it
+is still raining; it will be wet under foot on schooners, and the house
+will leak; how well I know that! Here the showers only patter on the
+iron roof, and sometimes roar; and within, the lamp burns steady on the
+tafa-covered walls, with their dusky tartan patterns, and the
+book-shelves with their thin array of books; and no squall can rout my
+house or bring my heart into my mouth.--The well-pleased South Sea
+Islander,
+
+    R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima, Tuesday, November 25th,1890._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I wanted to go out bright and early to go on with my
+survey. You never heard of that. The world has turned, and much water
+run under bridges, since I stopped my diary. I have written six more
+chapters of the book, all good I potently believe, and given up, as a
+deception of the devil's, the _High Woods_. I have been once down to
+Apia, to a huge native feast at Seumanutafa's, the chief of Apia. There
+was a vast mass of food, crowds of people, the police charging among
+them with whips, the whole in high good humour on both sides; infinite
+noise; and a historic event--Mr. Clarke, the missionary, and his wife,
+assisted at a native dance. On my return from this function, I found
+work had stopped; no more _South Seas_ in my belly. Well, Henry had
+cleared a great deal of our bush on a contract, and it ought to be
+measured. I set myself to the task with a tape-line; it seemed a dreary
+business; then I borrowed a prismatic compass, and tackled the task
+afresh. I have no books; I had not touched an instrument nor given a
+thought to the business since the year of grace 1871; you can imagine
+with what interest I sat down yesterday afternoon to reduce my
+observations; five triangles I had taken; all five came right, to my
+ineffable joy. Our dinner--the lowest we have ever been--consisted of
+_one avocado pear_ between Fanny and me, a ship's biscuit for the
+guidman, white bread for the Missis, and red wine for the twa. No salt
+horse, even, in all Vailima! After dinner Henry came, and I began to
+teach him decimals; you wouldn't think I knew them myself after so long
+desuetude!
+
+I could not but wonder how Henry stands his evenings here; the
+Polynesian loves gaiety--I feed him with decimals, the mariner's
+compass, derivations, grammar, and the like; delecting myself, after the
+manner of my race, _moult tristement_. I suck my paws; I live for my
+dexterities and by my accomplishments; even my clumsinesses are my
+joy--my woodcuts, my stumbling on the pipe, this surveying even--and
+even weeding sensitive; anything to do with the mind, with the eye, with
+the hand--with a part of _me_; diversion flows in these ways for the
+dreary man. But gaiety is what these children want; to sit in a crowd,
+tell stories and pass jests, to hear one another laugh and scamper with
+the girls. It's good fun, too, I believe, but not for R.L.S., _aetat._
+40. Which I am now past forty, Custodian, and not one penny the worse
+that I can see; as amusable as ever; to be on board ship is reward
+enough for me; give me the wages of going on--in a schooner! Only, if
+ever I were gay, which I misremember, I am gay no more. And here is poor
+Henry passing his evenings on my intellectual husks, which the
+professors masticated; keeping the accounts of the estate--all wrong I
+have no doubt--I keep no check, beyond a very rough one; marching in
+with a cloudy brow, and the day-book under his arm; tackling decimals,
+coming with cases of conscience--how would an English chief behave in
+such a case? etc.; and, I am bound to say, on any glimmer of a jest,
+lapsing into native hilarity as a tree straightens itself after the wind
+is by. The other night I remembered my old friend--I believe yours
+also--Scholastikos, and administered the crow and the anchor--they were
+quite fresh to Samoan ears (this implies a very early severance)--and I
+thought the anchor would have made away with my Simele altogether.
+
+Fanny's time, in this interval, has been largely occupied in contending
+publicly with wild swine. We have a black sow; we call her Jack
+Sheppard; impossible to confine her--impossible also for her to be
+confined! To my sure knowledge she has been in an interesting condition
+for longer than any other sow in story; else she had long died the
+death; as soon as she is brought to bed, she shall count her days. I
+suppose that sow has cost us in days' labour from thirty to fifty
+dollars; as many as eight boys (at a dollar a day) have been twelve
+hours in chase of her. Now it is supposed that Fanny has outwitted her;
+she grins behind broad planks in what was once the cook-house. She is a
+wild pig; far handsomer than any tame; and when she found the cook-house
+was too much for her methods of evasion, she lay down on the floor and
+refused food and drink for a whole Sunday. On Monday morning she
+relapsed, and now eats and drinks like a little man. I am reminded of an
+incident. Two Sundays ago, the sad word was brought that the sow was out
+again; this time she had carried another in her flight. Moors and I and
+Fanny were strolling up to the garden, and there by the waterside we saw
+the black sow, looking guilty. It seemed to me beyond words; but Fanny's
+_cri du coeur_ was delicious: "G-r-r!" she cried; "nobody loves you!"
+
+I would I could tell you the moving story of our cart and cart-horses;
+the latter are dapple-grey, about sixteen hands, and of enormous
+substance; the former was a kind of red and green shandrydan with a
+driving bench; plainly unfit to carry lumber or to face our road.
+(Remember that the last third of my road, about a mile, is all made out
+of a bridle-track by my boys--and my dollars.) It was supposed a white
+man had been found--an ex-German artilleryman--to drive this last; he
+proved incapable and drunken; the gallant Henry, who had never driven
+before, and knew nothing about horses--except the rats and weeds that
+flourish on the islands--volunteered; Moors accepted, proposing to
+follow and supervise: despatched his work and started after. No cart! he
+hurried on up the road--no cart. Transfer the scene to Vailima, where on
+a sudden, to Fanny and me, the cart appears, apparently at a hard
+gallop, some two hours before it was expected; Henry radiantly ruling
+chaos from the bench. It stopped: it was long before we had time to
+remark that the axle was twisted like the letter L. Our first care was
+the horses. There they stood, black with sweat, the sweat raining from
+them--literally raining--their heads down, their feet apart--and blood
+running thick from the nostrils of the mare. We got out Fanny's
+under-clothes--couldn't find anything else but our blankets--to rub them
+down, and in about half an hour we had the blessed satisfaction to see
+one after the other take a bite or two of grass. But it was a toucher;
+a little more and these steeds would have been foundered.
+
+_Monday, 31st(?) November._--Near a week elapsed, and no journal. On
+Monday afternoon, Moors rode up and I rode down with him, dined, and
+went over in the evening to the American consulate; present,
+Consul-General Sewall, Lieut. Parker and Mrs. Parker, Lafarge the
+American decorator, Adams an American historian; we talked late, and it
+was arranged I was to write up for Fanny, and we should both dine on the
+morrow.
+
+On the Friday, I was all forenoon in the mission house, lunched at the
+German consulate, went on board the _Sperber_(German war-ship) in the
+afternoon, called on my lawyer on my way out to American Consulate, and
+talked till dinner time with Adams, whom I am supplying with
+introductions and information for Tahiti and the Marquesas. Fanny
+arrived a wreck, and had to lie down. The moon rose, one day past full,
+and we dined in the verandah, a good dinner on the whole; talk with
+Lafarge about art and the lovely dreams of art students.[8] Remark by
+Adams, which took me briskly home to the Monument--"I only liked one
+_young_ woman--and that was Mrs. Procter."[9] Henry James would like
+that. Back by moonlight in the consulate boat--Fanny being too tired to
+walk--to Moors's. Saturday, I left Fanny to rest, and was off early to
+the Mission, where the politics are thrilling just now. The native
+pastors (to every one's surprise) have moved of themselves in the
+matter of the native dances, desiring the restrictions to be removed, or
+rather to be made dependent on the character of the dance. Clarke, who
+had feared censure and all kinds of trouble, is, of course, rejoicing
+greatly. A characteristic feature: the argument of the pastors was
+handed in in the form of a fictitious narrative of the voyage of one Mr.
+Pye, an English traveller, and his conversation with a chief; there are
+touches of satire in this educational romance. Mr. Pye, for instance,
+admits that he knows nothing about the Bible. At the Mission I was
+sought out by Henry in a devil of an agitation; he has been made the
+victim of a forgery--a crime hitherto unknown in Samoa. I had to go to
+Folau, the chief judge here, in the matter. Folau had never heard of the
+offence, and begged to know what was the punishment; there may be lively
+times in forgery ahead. It seems the sort of crime to tickle a
+Polynesian. After lunch--you can see what a busy three days I am
+describing--we set off to ride home. My Jack was full of the devil of
+corn and too much grass, and no work. I had to ride ahead and leave
+Fanny behind. He is a most gallant little rascal is my Jack, and takes
+the whole way as hard as the rider pleases. Single incident: half-way
+up, I find my boys upon the road and stop and talk with Henry in his
+character of ganger, as long as Jack will suffer me. Fanny drones in
+after; we make a show of eating--or I do--she goes to bed about
+half-past six! I write some verses, read Irving's _Washington_, and
+follow about half-past eight. O, one thing more I did, in a prophetic
+spirit. I had made sure Fanny was not fit to be left alone, and wrote
+before turning in a letter to Chalmers, telling him I could not meet him
+in Auckland at this time. By eleven at night, Fanny got me wakened--she
+had tried twice in vain--and I found her very bad. Thence till three, we
+laboured with mustard poultices, laudanum, soda and ginger--Heavens!
+wasn't it cold; the land breeze was as cold as a river; the moon was
+glorious in the paddock, and the great boughs and the black shadows of
+our trees were inconceivable. But it was a poor time.
+
+Sunday morning found Fanny, of course, a complete wreck, and myself not
+very brilliant. Paul had to go to Vailele _re_ cocoa-nuts; it was
+doubtful if he could be back by dinner; never mind, said I, I'll take
+dinner when you return. Off set Paul. I did an hour's work, and then
+tackled the house work. I did it beautiful: the house was a picture, it
+resplended of propriety. Presently Mr. Moors' Andrew rode up; I heard
+the doctor was at the Forest House and sent a note to him; and when he
+came, I heard my wife telling him she had been in bed all day, and that
+was why the house was so dirty! Was it grateful? Was it politic? Was it
+TRUE?--Enough! In the interval, up marched little L. S., one of my
+neighbours, all in his Sunday white linens; made a fine salute, and
+demanded the key of the kitchen in German and English. And he cooked
+dinner for us, like a little man, and had it on the table and the coffee
+ready by the hour. Paul had arranged me this surprise. Some time later,
+Paul returned himself with a fresh surprise on hand; he was almost
+sober; nothing but a hazy eye distinguished him from Paul of the week
+days: _vivat!_
+
+On the evening I cannot dwell. All the horses got out of the paddock,
+went across, and smashed my neighbour's garden into a big hole. How
+little the amateur conceives a farmer's troubles. I went out at once
+with a lantern, staked up a gap in the hedge, was kicked at by a
+chestnut mare, who straightway took to the bush; and came back. A little
+after, they had found another gap, and the crowd were all abroad again.
+What has happened to our own garden nobody yet knows.
+
+Fanny had a fair night, and we are both tolerable this morning, only the
+yoke of correspondence lies on me heavy. I beg you will let this go on
+to my mother. I got such a good start in your letter, that I kept on at
+it, and I have neither time nor energy for more.--Yours ever,
+
+    R. L. S.
+
+_Something new_.--I was called from my letters by the voice of Mr. ----,
+who had just come up with a load of wood, roaring, "Henry! Henry! Bring
+six boys!" I saw there was something wrong, and ran out. The cart, half
+unloaded, had upset with the mare in the shafts; she was all cramped
+together and all tangled up in harness and cargo, the off shaft pushing
+her over, the carter holding her up by main strength, and right
+along-side of her--where she must fall if she went down--a deadly stick
+of a tree like a lance. I could not but admire the wisdom and faith of
+this great brute; I never saw the riding-horse that would not have lost
+its life in such a situation; but the cart-elephant patiently waited and
+was saved. It was a stirring three minutes, I can tell you.
+
+I forgot in talking of Saturday to tell of one incident which will
+particularly interest my mother. I met Dr. Davis from Savaii, and had an
+age-long talk about Edinburgh folk; it was very pleasant. He has been
+studying in Edinburgh, along with his son; a pretty relation. He told me
+he knew nobody but college people: "I was altogether a student," he said
+with glee. He seems full of cheerfulness and thick-set energy. I feel as
+if I could put him in a novel with effect; and ten to one, if I know
+more of him, the image will be only blurred.
+
+_Tuesday, Dec. 2nd._--I should have told you yesterday that all my boys
+were got up for their work in moustaches and side-whiskers of some sort
+of blacking--I suppose wood-ash. It was a sight of joy to see them
+return at night, axe on shoulder, feigning to march like soldiers, a
+choragus with a loud voice singing out, "March--step! March--step!" in
+imperfect recollection of some drill.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   The intention here announced was only carried out to the extent of
+   finishing one paper, _My First Book_, and beginning a few
+   others--_Genesis of the Master of Ballantrae, Rosa Quo Locorum_,
+   etc.; see Edinburgh edition, _Miscellanies_, vol. iv. The "long
+   experience of gambling places" is a phrase which must not be
+   misunderstood. Stevenson loved risk to life and limb, but hated
+   gambling for money, and had known the tables only as a looker-on
+   during holiday or invalid travels as a boy and young man. "Tamate" is
+   the native (Rarotongan) word for trader, used especially as a name
+   for the famous missionary pioneer, the Rev. James Chalmers, for whom
+   Stevenson had an unbounded respect.
+
+     [_Vailima, December 1890._]
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--By some diabolical accident, I have mislaid your
+last. What was in it? I know not, and here I am caught unexpectedly by
+the American mail, a week earlier than by computation. The computation,
+not the mail, is supposed to be in error. The vols. of Scribner's have
+arrived, and present a noble appearance in my house, which is not a
+noble structure at present. But by autumn we hope to be sprawling in our
+verandah, twelve feet, sir, by eighty-eight in front, and seventy-two on
+the flank; view of the sea and mountains, sunrise, moonrise, and the
+German fleet at anchor three miles away in Apia harbour. I hope some day
+to offer you a bowl of kava there, or a slice of a pine-apple, or some
+lemonade from my own hedge. "I know a hedge where the lemons
+grow"--_Shakespeare_. My house at this moment smells of them strong; and
+the rain, which a while ago roared there, now rings in minute drops upon
+the iron roof. I have no _Wrecker_ for you this mail, other things
+having engaged me. I was on the whole rather relieved you did not vote
+for regular papers, as I feared the traces. It is my design from time to
+time to write a paper of a reminiscential (beastly word) description;
+some of them I could scarce publish from different considerations; but
+some of them--for instance, my long experience of gambling
+places--Homburg, Wiesbaden, Baden-Baden, old Monaco, and new Monte
+Carlo--would make good magazine padding, if I got the stuff handled the
+right way. I never could fathom why verse was put in magazines; it has
+something to do with the making-up, has it not? I am scribbling a lot
+just now; if you are taken badly that way, apply to the South Seas. I
+could send you some, I believe, anyway, only none of it is thoroughly
+ripe. If you have kept back the volume of ballads, I'll soon make it of
+a respectable size if this fit continue. By the next mail you may expect
+some more _Wrecker_, or I shall be displeased. Probably no more than a
+chapter, however, for it is a hard one, and I am denuded of my proofs,
+my collaborator having walked away with them to England; hence some
+trouble in catching the just note.
+
+I am a mere farmer: my talk, which would scarce interest you on
+Broadway, is all of fuafua and tuitui and black boys, and planting and
+weeding, and axes and cutlasses; my hands are covered with blisters and
+full of thorns; letters are, doubtless, a fine thing, so are beer and
+skittles, but give me farmering in the tropics for real interest. Life
+goes in enchantment; I come home to find I am late for dinner; and when
+I go to bed at night, I could cry for the weariness of my loins and
+thighs. Do not speak to me of vexation, the life brims with it, but with
+living interest fairly.
+
+Christmas I go to Auckland, to meet Tamate, the New Guinea missionary, a
+man I love. The rest of my life is a prospect of much rain, much weeding
+and making of paths, a little letters, and devilish little to eat.--I
+am, my dear Burlingame, with messages to all whom it may concern, very
+sincerely yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Monday, twenty-somethingth of December 1890._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I do not say my Jack is anything extraordinary; he is
+only an island horse; and the profane might call him a Punch; and his
+face is like a donkey's; and natives have ridden him, and he has no
+mouth in consequence, and occasionally shies. But his merits are equally
+surprising; and I don't think I should ever have known Jack's merits if
+I had not been riding up of late on moonless nights. Jack is a bit of a
+dandy; he loves to misbehave in a gallant manner, above all on Apia
+Street, and when I stop to speak to people, they say (Dr. Stuebel the
+German consul said about three days ago), "O what a wild horse! it
+cannot be safe to ride him." Such a remark is Jack's reward, and
+represents his ideal of fame. Now when I start out of Apia on a dark
+night, you should see my changed horse; at a fast steady walk, with his
+head down, and sometimes his nose to the ground--when he wants to do
+that, he asks for his head with a little eloquent polite movement
+indescribable--he climbs the long ascent and threads the darkest of the
+wood. The first night I came it was starry; and it was singular to see
+the starlight drip down into the crypt of the wood, and shine in the
+open end of the road, as bright as moonlight at home; but the crypt
+itself was proof, blackness lived in it. The next night it was raining.
+We left the lights of Apia and passed into limbo. Jack finds a way for
+himself, but he does not calculate for my height above the saddle; and I
+am directed forward, all braced up for a crouch and holding my switch
+upright in front of me. It is curiously interesting. In the forest, the
+dead wood is phosphorescent; some nights the whole ground is strewn with
+it, so that it seems like a grating over a pale hell; doubtless this is
+one of the things that feed the night fears of the natives; and I am
+free to confess that in a night of trackless darkness where all else is
+void, these pallid _ignes suppositi_ have a fantastic appearance, rather
+bogey even. One night, when it was very dark, a man had put out a little
+lantern by the wayside to show the entrance to his ground. I saw the
+light, as I thought, far ahead, and supposed it was a pedestrian coming
+to meet me; I was quite taken by surprise when it struck in my face and
+passed behind me. Jack saw it, and he was appalled; do you think he
+thought of shying? No, sir, not in the dark; in the dark Jack knows he
+is on duty; and he went past that lantern steady and swift; only, as he
+went, he groaned and shuddered. For about 2500 of Jack's steps we only
+passed one house--that where the lantern was; and about 1500 of these
+are in the darkness of the pit. But now the moon is on tap again, and
+the roads lighted.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  1. _Three posts._        5. _Sink of the Tuluiga._
+  2. _Leather Bottle._     6. _Silent Falls._
+  3. _Old Walls._          7. _Garden._
+  4. _Wreck Hill._]
+
+I have been exploring up the Vaituluiga; see your map. It comes down a
+wonderful fine glen; at least 200 feet of cliffs on either hand, winding
+like a corkscrew, great forest trees filling it. At the top there ought
+to be a fine double fall; but the stream evades it by a fault and
+passes underground. Above the fall it runs (at this season) full and
+very gaily in a shallow valley, some hundred yards before the head of
+the glen. Its course is seen full of grasses, like a flooded meadow;
+that is the sink! beyond the grave of the grasses, the bed lies dry.
+Near this upper part there is a great show of ruinous pig-walls; a
+village must have stood near by.
+
+To walk from our house to Wreck Hill (when the path is buried in fallen
+trees) takes one about half an hour, I think; to return, not more than
+twenty minutes; I dare say fifteen. Hence I should guess it was
+three-quarters of a mile. I had meant to join on my explorations passing
+eastward by the sink; but, Lord! how it rains.
+
+_Later._--I went out this morning with a pocket compass and walked in a
+varying direction, perhaps on an average S. by W., 1754 paces. Then I
+struck into the bush, N.W. by N., hoping to strike the Vaituluiga above
+the falls. Now I have it plotted out I see I should have gone W. or even
+W. by S.; but it is not easy to guess. For 600 weary paces I struggled
+through the bush, and then came on the stream below the gorge, where it
+was comparatively easy to get down to it. In the place where I struck
+it, it made cascades about a little isle, and was running about N.E., 20
+to 30 feet wide, as deep as to my knee, and piercing cold. I tried to
+follow it down, and keep the run of its direction and my paces; but when
+I was wading to the knees and the waist in mud, poison brush, and rotted
+wood, bound hand and foot in lianas, shovelled unceremoniously off the
+one shore and driven to try my luck upon the other--I saw I should have
+hard enough work to get my body down, if my mind rested. It was a
+damnable walk; certainly not half a mile as the crow flies, but a real
+bucketer for hardship. Once I had to pass the stream where it flowed
+between banks about three feet high. To get the easier down, I swung
+myself by a wild-cocoanut--(so called, it bears bunches of scarlet
+nutlets)--which grew upon the brink. As I so swung, I received a crack
+on the head that knocked me all abroad. Impossible to guess what tree
+had taken a shy at me. So many towered above, one over the other, and
+the missile, whatever it was, dropped in the stream and was gone before
+I had recovered my wits. (I scarce know what I write, so hideous a
+Niagara of rain roars, shouts, and demonizes on the iron roof--it is
+pitch dark too--the lamp lit at 5!) It was a blessed thing when I struck
+my own road; and I got home, neat for lunch time, one of the most
+wonderful mud statues ever witnessed. In the afternoon I tried again,
+going up the other path by the garden, but was early drowned out; came
+home, plotted out what I had done, and then wrote this truck to you.
+
+Fanny has been quite ill with ear-ache. She won't go,[10] hating the sea
+at this wild season; I don't like to leave her; so it drones on, steamer
+after steamer, and I guess it'll end by no one going at all. She is in a
+dreadful misfortune at this hour; a case of kerosene having burst in the
+kitchen. A little while ago it was the carpenter's horse that trod in a
+nest of fourteen eggs, and made an omelette of our hopes. The farmer's
+lot is not a happy one. And it looks like some real uncompromising bad
+weather too. I wish Fanny's ear were well. Think of parties in
+Monuments! think of me in Skerryvore, and now of this. It don't look
+like a part of the same universe to me. Work is quite laid aside; I have
+worked myself right out.
+
+_Christmas Eve._--Yesterday, who could write? My wife near crazy with
+ear-ache; the rain descending in white crystal rods and playing hell's
+tattoo, like a _tutti_ of battering rams, on our sheet-iron roof; the
+wind passing high overhead with a strange dumb mutter, or striking us
+full, so that all the huge trees in the paddock cried aloud, and wrung
+their hands, and brandished their vast arms. The horses stood in the
+shed like things stupid. The sea and the flagship lying on the jaws of
+the bay vanished in sheer rain. All day it lasted; I locked up my papers
+in the iron box, in case it was a hurricane, and the house might go. We
+went to bed with mighty uncertain feelings; far more than on shipboard,
+where you have only drowning ahead--whereas here you have a smash of
+beams, a shower of sheet-iron, and a blind race in the dark and through
+a whirlwind for the shelter of an unfinished stable--and my wife with
+ear-ache! Well, well, this morning, we had word from Apia; a hurricane
+was looked for, the ships were to leave the bay by 10 A.M.; it is now
+3.30, and the flagship is still a fixture, and the wind round in the
+blessed east, so I suppose the danger is over. But heaven is still
+laden; the day dim, with frequent rattling bucketfuls of rain; and just
+this moment (as I write) a squall went overhead, scarce striking us,
+with that singular, solemn noise of its passage, which is to me
+dreadful. I have always feared the sound of wind beyond everything. In
+my hell it would always blow a gale.
+
+I have been all day correcting proofs, and making out a new plan for our
+house. The other was too dear to be built now, and it was a hard task to
+make a smaller house that would suffice for the present, and not be a
+mere waste of money in the future. I believe I have succeeded; I have
+taken care of my study anyway.
+
+Two favours I want to ask of you. First, I wish you to get _Pioneering
+in New Guinea_, by J. Chalmers. It's a missionary book, and has less
+pretensions to be literature than Spurgeon's sermons. Yet I think even
+through that, you will see some of the traits of the hero that wrote it;
+a man that took me fairly by storm for the most attractive, simple,
+brave, and interesting man in the whole Pacific. He is away now to go up
+the Fly River; a desperate venture, it is thought; he is quite a
+Livingstone card.
+
+Second, try and keep yourself free next winter; and if my means can be
+stretched so far, I'll come to Egypt and we'll meet at Shepheard's
+Hotel, and you'll put me in my place, which I stand in need of badly by
+this time. Lord, what bully times! I suppose I'll come per British Asia,
+or whatever you call it, and avoid all cold, and might be in Egypt about
+November as ever was--eleven months from now or rather less. But do not
+let us count our chickens.
+
+Last night three piglings were stolen from one of our pig-pens. The
+great Lafaele appeared to my wife uneasy, so she engaged him in
+conversation on the subject, and played upon him the following engaging
+trick. You advance your two forefingers towards the sitter's eyes; he
+closes them, whereupon you substitute (on his eyelids) the fore and
+middle fingers of the left hand; and with your right (which he supposes
+engaged) you tap him on the head and back. When you let him open his
+eyes, he sees you withdrawing the two forefingers. "What that?" asked
+Lafaele. "My devil," says Fanny. "I wake um, my devil. All right now. He
+go catch the man that catch my pig." About an hour afterwards, Lafaele
+came for further particulars. "O, all right," my wife says. "By and by,
+that man he sleep, devil go sleep same place. By and by, that man plenty
+sick. I no care. What for he take my pig?" Lafaele cares plenty; I don't
+think he is the man, though he may be; but he knows him, and most likely
+will eat some of that pig to-night. He will not eat with relish.
+
+_Saturday, 27th._--It cleared up suddenly after dinner, and my wife and
+I saddled up and off to Apia, whence we did not return till yesterday
+morning. Christmas Day I wish you could have seen our party at table. H.
+J. Moors at one end with my wife, I at the other with Mrs. M., between
+us two native women, Carruthers the lawyer, Moors's two
+shop-boys--Walters and A. M. the quadroon--and the guests of the
+evening, Shirley Baker, the defamed and much-accused man of Tonga, and
+his son, with the artificial joint to his arm--where the assassins shot
+him in shooting at his father. Baker's appearance is not unlike John
+Bull on a cartoon; he is highly interesting to speak to, as I had
+expected; I found he and I had many common interests, and were engaged
+in puzzling over many of the same difficulties. After dinner it was
+quite pretty to see our Christmas party, it was so easily pleased and
+prettily behaved. In the morning I should say I had been to lunch at the
+German consulate, where I had as usual a very pleasant time. I shall
+miss Dr. Stuebel[11] much when he leaves, and when Adams and Lafarge go
+also, it will be a great blow. I am getting spoiled with all this good
+society.
+
+On Friday morning, I had to be at my house affairs before seven; and
+they kept me in Apia till past ten, disputing, and consulting about
+brick and stone and native and hydraulic lime, and cement and sand, and
+all sorts of otiose details about the chimney--just what I fled from in
+my father's office twenty years ago; I should have made a languid
+engineer. Rode up with the carpenter. Ah, my wicked Jack! on Christmas
+Eve, as I was taking the saddle bag off, he kicked at me, and fetched me
+too, right on the shin. On Friday, being annoyed at the carpenter's
+horse having a longer trot, he uttered a shrill cry and tried to bite
+him! Alas, alas, these are like old days; my dear Jack is a Bogue,[12]
+but I cannot strangle Jack into submission.
+
+I have given up the big house for just now; we go ahead right away with
+a small one, which should be ready in two months, and I suppose will
+suffice for just now.
+
+O I know I haven't told you about our _aitu_, have I? It is a lady,
+_aitu fafine_: she lives on the mountain-side; her presence is heralded
+by the sound of a gust of wind; a sound very common in the high woods;
+when she catches you, I do not know what happens; but in practice she
+is avoided, so I suppose she does more than pass the time of day. The
+great _aitu Saumai-afe_ was once a living woman, and became an _aitu_,
+no one understands how; she lives in a stream at the well-head, her hair
+is red, she appears as a lovely young lady, her bust particularly
+admired, to handsome young men; these die, her love being fatal;--as a
+handsome youth she has been known to court damsels with the like result,
+but this is very rare; as an old crone she goes about and asks for
+water, and woe to them who are uncivil! _Saumai-afe_ means literally,
+"Come here a thousand!" A good name for a lady of her manners. My _aitu
+fafine_ does not seem to be in the same line of business. It is unsafe
+to be a handsome youth in Samoa; a young man died from her favours last
+month--so we said on this side of the island; on the other, where he
+died, it was not so certain. I, for one, blame it on Madam _Saumai-afe_
+without hesitation.
+
+Example of the farmer's sorrows. I slipped out on the balcony a moment
+ago. It is a lovely morning, cloudless, smoking hot, the breeze not yet
+arisen. Looking west, in front of our new house, I saw two heads of
+Indian corn wagging, and the rest and all nature stock still. As I
+looked, one of the stalks subsided and disappeared. I dashed out to the
+rescue; two small pigs were deep in the grass--quite hid till within a
+few yards--gently but swiftly demolishing my harvest. Never be a farmer.
+
+12.30 _p.m._--I while away the moments of digestion by drawing you a
+faithful picture of my morning. When I had done writing as above it was
+time to clean our house. When I am working, it falls on my wife alone,
+but to-day we had it between us; she did the bedroom, I the
+sitting-room, in fifty-seven minutes of really most unpalatable labour.
+Then I changed every stitch, for I was wet through, and sat down and
+played on my pipe till dinner was ready, mighty pleased to be in a
+mildly habitable spot once more. The house had been neglected for near a
+week, and was a hideous spot; my wife's ear and our visit to Apia being
+the causes: our Paul we prefer not to see upon that theatre, and God
+knows he has plenty to do elsewhere.
+
+I am glad to look out of my back door and see the boys smoothing the
+foundations of the new house; this is all very jolly, but six months of
+it has satisfied me; we have too many things for such close quarters; to
+work in the midst of all the myriad misfortunes of the planter's life,
+seated in a Dyonisius' (can't spell him) ear, whence I catch every
+complaint, mishap and contention, is besides the devil; and the hope of
+a cave of my own inspires me with lust. O to be able to shut my own door
+and make my own confusion! O to have the brown paper and the matches and
+"make a hell of my own" once more!
+
+I do not bother you with all my troubles in these outpourings; the
+troubles of the farmer are inspiriting--they are like difficulties out
+hunting--a fellow rages at the time and rejoices to recall and to
+commemorate them. My troubles have been financial. It is hard to arrange
+wisely interests so distributed. America, England, Samoa, Sydney,
+everywhere I have an end of liability hanging out and some shelf of
+credit hard by; and to juggle all these and build a dwelling-place here,
+and check expense--a thing I am ill fitted for--you can conceive what a
+nightmare it is at times. Then God knows I have not been idle. But since
+_The Master_ nothing has come to raise any coins. I believe the springs
+are dry at home, and now I am worked out, and can no more at all. A
+holiday is required.
+
+_Dec. 28th._--I have got unexpectedly to work again, and feel quite
+dandy. Good-bye.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+   Mr. Lafarge the artist and Mr. Henry Adams the historian have been
+   mentioned already. The pinch in the matter of eatables only lasted
+   for a little while, until Mrs. Stevenson had taken her bearings and
+   made her arrangements in the matter of marketing, etc.
+
+     _Vailima, Apia, Samoa, December 29th, 1890._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--It is terrible how little everybody writes, and
+how much of that little disappears in the capacious maw of the Post
+Office. Many letters, both from and to me, I now know to have been lost
+in transit: my eye is on the Sydney Post Office, a large ungainly
+structure with a tower, as being not a hundred miles from the scene of
+disappearance; but then I have no proof. The _Tragic Muse_ you announced
+to me as coming; I had already ordered it from a Sydney bookseller:
+about two months ago he advised me that his copy was in the post; and I
+am still tragically museless.
+
+News, news, news. What do we know of yours? What do you care for ours?
+We are in the midst of the rainy season, and dwell among alarms of
+hurricanes, in a very unsafe little two-storied wooden box 650 feet
+above and about three miles from the sea-beach. Behind us, till the
+other slope of the island, desert forest, peaks, and loud torrents; in
+front green slopes to the sea, some fifty miles of which we dominate. We
+see the ships as they go out and in to the dangerous roadstead of Apia;
+and if they lie far out, we can even see their topmasts while they are
+at anchor. Of sounds of men, beyond those of our own labourers, there
+reach us, at very long intervals, salutes from the warships in harbour,
+the bell of the cathedral church, and the low of the conch-shell calling
+the labour boys on the German plantations. Yesterday, which was
+Sunday--the _quantieme_ is most likely erroneous; you can now correct
+it--we had a visitor--Baker of Tonga. Heard you ever of him? He is a
+great man here: he is accused of theft, rape, judicial murder, private
+poisoning, abortion, misappropriation of public moneys--oddly enough,
+not forgery, nor arson; you would be amused if you knew how thick the
+accusations fly in this South Sea world. I make no doubt my own
+character is something illustrious; or if not yet, there is a good time
+coming.
+
+But all our resources have not of late been Pacific. We have had
+enlightened society: Lafarge the painter, and your friend Henry Adams: a
+great privilege--would it might endure. I would go oftener to see them,
+but the place is awkward to reach on horseback. I had to swim my horse
+the last time I went to dinner; and as I have not yet returned the
+clothes I had to borrow, I dare not return in the same plight: it seems
+inevitable--as soon as the wash comes in, I plump straight into the
+American consul's shirt or trousers! They, I believe, would come oftener
+to see me but for the horrid doubt that weighs upon our commissariat
+department; we have _often_ almost nothing to eat; a guest would simply
+break the bank; my wife and I have dined on one avocado pear; I have
+several times dined on hard bread and onions. What would you do with a
+guest at such narrow seasons?--eat him? or serve up a labour boy
+fricasseed?
+
+Work? work is now arrested, but I have written, I should think, about
+thirty chapters of the South Sea book; they will all want rehandling, I
+dare say. Gracious, what a strain is a long book! The time it took me to
+design this volume, before I could dream of putting pen to paper, was
+excessive; and then think of writing a book of travels on the spot, when
+I am continually extending my information, revising my opinions, and
+seeing the most finely finished portions of my work come part by part in
+pieces. Very soon I shall have no opinions left. And without an opinion,
+how to string artistically vast accumulations of fact? Darwin said no
+one could observe without a theory; I suppose he was right; 'tis a fine
+point of metaphysic; but I will take my oath, no man can write without
+one--at least the way he would like to, and my theories melt, melt,
+melt, and as they melt the thaw-waters wash down my writing, and leave
+unideal tracts--wastes instead of cultivated farms.
+
+Kipling is by far the most promising young man who has appeared
+since--ahem--I appeared. He amazes me by his precocity and various
+endowment. But he alarms me by his copiousness and haste. He should
+shield his fire with both hands "and draw up all his strength and
+sweetness in one ball." ("Draw all his strength and all His sweetness up
+into one ball"? I cannot remember Marvell's words.) So the critics have
+been saying to me: but I was never capable of--and surely never guilty
+of--such a debauch of production. At this rate his works will soon fill
+the habitable globe; and surely he was armed for better conflicts than
+these succinct sketches and flying leaves of verse? I look on, I admire,
+I rejoice for myself; but in a kind of ambition we all have for our
+tongue and literature I am wounded. If I had this man's fertility and
+courage, it seems to me I could heave a pyramid.
+
+Well, we begin to be the old fogies now; and it was high time
+_something_ rose to take our places. Certainly Kipling has the gifts;
+the fairy godmothers were all tipsy at his christening: what will he do
+with them?
+
+Good-bye, my dear James; find an hour to write to us, and register your
+letter.--Yours affectionately,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO RUDYARD KIPLING
+
+
+   In 1890, on first becoming acquainted with Mr. Kipling's _Soldiers
+   Three_, Stevenson had written off his congratulations red-hot. "Well
+   and indeed, Mr. Mulvaney," so ran the first sentences of his note,
+   "but it's as good as meat to meet in with you, sir. They tell me it
+   was a man of the name of Kipling made ye; but indeed and they can't
+   fool me; it was the Lord God Almighty that made you." Taking the cue
+   thus offered, Mr. Kipling had written back in the character of his
+   own Irishman, Thomas Mulvaney, addressing Stevenson's Highlander,
+   Alan Breck Stewart. In the following letter, which belongs to an
+   uncertain date in 1891, Alan Breck is made to reply. "The gentleman I
+   now serve with" means, of course, R. L. S. himself.
+
+     [_Vailima, 1891._]
+
+SIR,--I cannot call to mind having written you, but I am so throng with
+occupation this may have fallen aside. I never heard tell I had any
+friends in Ireland, and I am led to understand you are come of no
+considerable family. The gentleman I now serve with assures me, however,
+you are a very pretty fellow and your letter deserves to be remarked.
+It's true he is himself a man of a very low descent upon the one side;
+though upon the other he counts cousinship with a gentleman, my very
+good friend, the late Mr. Balfour of the Shaws, in the Lothian; which I
+should be wanting in good fellowship to forget. He tells me besides you
+are a man of your hands; I am not informed of your weapon; but if all be
+true it sticks in my mind I would be ready to make exception in your
+favour, and meet you like one gentleman with another. I suppose this'll
+be your purpose in your favour, which I could very ill make out; it's
+one I would be sweir to baulk you of. It seems, Mr. McIlvaine, which I
+take to be your name, you are in the household of a gentleman of the
+name of Coupling: for whom my friend is very much engaged. The distances
+being very uncommodious, I think it will be maybe better if we leave it
+to these two to settle all that's necessary to honour. I would have you
+to take heed it's a very unusual condescension on my part, that bear a
+King's name; and for the matter of that I think shame to be mingled with
+a person of the name of Coupling, which is doubtless a very good house
+but one I never heard tell of, any more than Stevenson. But your purpose
+being laudable, I would be sorry (as the word goes) to cut off my nose
+to spite my face.--I am, Sir, your humble servant,
+
+       A. STEWART,
+     _Chevalier de St. Louis_.
+
+
+  _To Mr. M'Ilvaine,
+      Gentleman Private in a foot regiment,
+           under cover to Mr. Coupling._
+
+He has read me some of your Barrack Room Ballants, which are not of so
+noble a strain as some of mine in the Gaelic, but I could set some of
+them to the pipes if this rencounter goes as it's to be desired. Let's
+first, as I understand you to move, do each other this rational
+courtesy; and if either will survive, we may grow better acquaint. For
+your tastes for what's martial and for poetry agree with mine.
+
+     A. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This is the first appearance in Stevenson's letters of the Swedish
+   Chief Justice of Samoa, Mr. Conrad Cedercrantz, of whom we shall hear
+   enough and more than enough in the sequel.
+
+     _S.S. Luebeck, between Apia and Sydney, Jan. 17th, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--The Faamasino Sili, or Chief Justice, to speak your low
+language, has arrived. I had ridden down with Henry and Lafaele; the sun
+was down, the night was close at hand, so we rode fast; just as I came
+to the corner of the road before Apia, I heard a gun fire; and lo, there
+was a great crowd at the end of the pier, and the troops out, and a
+chief or two in the height of Samoa finery, and Seumanu coming in his
+boat (the oarsmen all in uniform), bringing the Faamasino Sili sure
+enough. It was lucky he was no longer; the natives would not have waited
+many weeks. But think of it, as I sat in the saddle at the outside of
+the crowd (looking, the English consul said, as if I were commanding the
+manoeuvres), I was nearly knocked down by a stampede of the three
+consuls; they had been waiting their guest at the Matafele end, and some
+wretched intrigue among the whites had brought him to Apia, and the
+consuls had to run all the length of the town and come too late.
+
+The next day was a long one; I was at a marriage of Gurr the banker to
+Fanua, the virgin of Apia. Bride and bridesmaids were all in the old
+high dress; the ladies were all native; the men, with the exception of
+Seumanu, all white.
+
+It was quite a pleasant party, and while we were writing, we had a
+bird's-eye view of the public reception of the Chief Justice. The best
+part of it were some natives in war array; with blacked faces, turbans,
+tapa kilts, and guns, they looked very manly and purposelike. No, the
+best part was poor old drunken Joe, the Portuguese boatman, who seemed
+to think himself specially charged with the reception, and ended by
+falling on his knees before the Chief Justice on the end of the pier and
+in full view of the whole town and bay. The natives pelted him with
+rotten bananas; how the Chief Justice took it I was too far off to see;
+but it was highly absurd.
+
+I have commemorated my genial hopes for the regimen of the Faamasino
+Sili in the following canine verses, which, if you at all guess how to
+read them, are very pretty in movement, and (unless he be a mighty good
+man) too true in sense.
+
+  We're quarrelling, the villages, we've beaten the wooden drums,
+  Sa femisai o nu'u, sa taia o pate,
+  Is confounded thereby the justice,
+  Ua atuatuvale a le faamasino e,
+  The chief justice, the terrified justice,
+  Le faamasino sili, le faamasino se,
+  Is on the point of running away the justice,
+  O le a solasola le faamasino e,
+  The justice denied any influence, the terrified justice,
+  O le faamasino le ai a, le faamasino se,
+  O le a solasola le faamasino e.
+
+Well, after this excursion into tongues that have never been
+alive--though I assure you we have one capital book in the language, a
+book of fables by an old missionary of the unpromising name of Pratt,
+which is simply the best and the most literary version of the fables
+known to me. I suppose I should except La Fontaine, but L. F. takes a
+long time; these are brief as the books of our childhood, and full of
+wit and literary colour; and O, Colvin, what a tongue it would be to
+write, if one only knew it--and there were only readers. Its curse in
+common use is an incredible left-handed wordiness; but in the hands of a
+man like Pratt it is succinct as Latin, compact of long rolling
+polysyllables and little and often pithy particles, and for beauty of
+sound a dream. Listen, I quote from Pratt--this is good Samoan, not
+canine--
+
+            1     2     3         4    1
+  O le afa, ua taalili ai le ulu vao, ua pa mai le faititili.
+  \__ ___/  \_____ _____/ \____ ___/  \___ ___/ \_____ ____/
+     V            V            V          V           V
+
+1 almost _wa_, 2 the two _a's_ just distinguished, 3 the _ai_ is
+practically suffixed to the verb, 4 almost _vow_. The excursion has
+prolonged itself.
+
+I started by the _Luebeck_ to meet Lloyd and my mother; there were many
+reasons for and against; the main reason against was the leaving of
+Fanny alone in her blessed cabin, which has been somewhat remedied by my
+carter, Mr. ----, putting up in the stable and messing with her; but
+perhaps desire of change decided me not well, though I do think I ought
+to see an oculist, being very blind indeed, and sometimes unable to
+read. Anyway I left, the only cabin passenger, four and a kid in the
+second cabin, and a dear voyage it had like to have proved. Close to
+Fiji (choose a worse place on the map) we broke our shaft early one
+morning; and when or where we might expect to fetch land or meet with
+any ship, I would like you to tell me. The Pacific is absolutely desert.
+I have sailed there now some years; and scarce ever seen a ship except
+in port or close by; I think twice. It was the hurricane season besides,
+and hurricane waters. Well, our chief engineer got the shaft--it was the
+middle crank shaft--mended; thrice it was mended, and twice broke down;
+but now keeps up--only we dare not stop, for it is almost impossible to
+start again. The captain in the meanwhile crowded her with sail;
+fifteen sails in all, every stay being gratified with a stay-sail, a
+boat-boom sent aloft for a maintop-gallant yard, and the derrick of a
+crane brought in service as bowsprit. All the time we have had a fine,
+fair wind and a smooth sea; to-day at noon our run was 203 miles (if you
+please!), and we are within some 360 miles of Sydney. Probably there has
+never been a more gallant success; and I can say honestly it was well
+worked for. No flurry, no high words, no long faces; only hard work and
+honest thought; a pleasant, manly business to be present at. All the
+chances were we might have been six weeks--ay, or three months at
+sea--or never turned up at all, and now it looks as though we should
+reach our destination some five days too late.
+
+
+
+
+TO MARCEL SCHWOB
+
+
+     _Sydney, January 19th, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--_Sapristi, comme vous y allez!_ Richard III. and Dumas,
+with all my heart: but not Hamlet. Hamlet is great literature; Richard
+III. a big, black, gross, sprawling melodrama, writ with infinite spirit
+but with no refinement or philosophy by a man who had the world,
+himself, mankind, and his trade still to learn. I prefer the Vicomte de
+Bragelonne to Richard III.; it is better done of its kind: I simply do
+not mention the Vicomte in the same part of the building with Hamlet, or
+Lear, or Othello, or any of those masterpieces that Shakespeare survived
+to give us.
+
+Also, _comme vous y allez_ in my commendation! I fear my _solide
+education classique_ had best be described, like Shakespeare's, as
+"little Latin and no Greek" and I was educated, let me inform you, for
+an engineer. I shall tell my bookseller to send you a copy of _Memories
+and Portraits_, where you will see something of my descent and
+education, as it was, and hear me at length on my dear Vicomte. I give
+you permission gladly to take your choice out of my works, and translate
+what you shall prefer, too much honoured that so clever a young man
+should think it worth the pains. My own choice would lie between
+_Kidnapped_ and the _Master of Ballantrae_. Should you choose the
+latter, pray do not let Mrs. Henry thrust the sword up to the hilt in
+the frozen ground--one of my inconceivable blunders, an exaggeration to
+stagger Hugo. Say "she sought to thrust it in the ground." In both these
+works you should be prepared for Scotticisms used deliberately.
+
+I fear my stepson will not have found time to get to Paris; he was
+overwhelmed with occupation, and is already on his voyage back. We live
+here in a beautiful land, amid a beautiful and interesting people. The
+life is still very hard: my wife and I live in a two-roomed cottage,
+about three miles and six hundred and fifty feet above the sea; we have
+had to make the road to it; our supplies are very imperfect; in the wild
+weather of this (the hurricane) season we have much discomfort: one
+night the wind blew in our house so outrageously that we must sit in the
+dark; and as the sound of the rain on the roof made speech inaudible,
+you may imagine we found the evening long. All these things, however,
+are pleasant to me. You say _l'artiste inconscient_ set off to travel:
+you do not divide me right. 0.6 of me is artist; 0.4, adventurer. First,
+I suppose, come letters; then adventure; and since I have indulged the
+second part, I think the formula begins to change: 0.55 of an artist,
+0.45 of the adventurer were nearer true. And if it had not been for my
+small strength, I might have been a different man in all things.
+
+Whatever you do, do not neglect to send me what you publish on Villon: I
+look forward to that with lively interest. I have no photograph at hand,
+but I will send one when I can. It would be kind if you would do the
+like, for I do not see much chance of our meeting in the flesh: and a
+name, and a handwriting, and an address, and even a style? I know about
+as much of Tacitus, and more of Horace; it is not enough between
+contemporaries, such as we still are. I have just remembered another of
+my books, which I re-read the other day, and thought in places
+good--_Prince Otto_. It is not as good as either of the others; but it
+has one recommendation--it has female parts, so it might perhaps please
+better in France.
+
+I will ask Chatto to send you, then--_Prince Otto_, _Memories and
+Portraits_, _Underwoods_, and _Ballads_, none of which you seem to have
+seen. They will be too late for the New Year: let them be an Easter
+present.
+
+You must translate me soon; you will soon have better to do than to
+transvase the work of others.--Yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
+
+    With the worst pen in the South Pacific.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   Stevenson had been indignant with an old friend at Edinburgh, who had
+   received much kindness from his mother, for neglecting to call on her
+   after her return from her wanderings in the Pacific.
+
+     _S.S. Luebeck, at sea [on the return voyage from Sydney, February
+     1891]._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--Perhaps in my old days I do grow irascible; "the old
+man virulent" has long been my pet name for myself. Well, the temper is
+at least all gone now; time is good at lowering these distemperatures;
+far better is a sharp sickness, and I am just (and scarce) afoot again
+after a smoking hot little malady at Sydney. And the temper being gone,
+I still think the same.... We have not our parents for ever; we are
+never very good to them; when they go and we have lost our front-file
+man we begin to feel all our neglects mighty sensibly. I propose a
+proposal. My mother is here on board with me; to-day for once I mean to
+make her as happy as I am able, and to do that which I know she likes.
+You, on the other hand, go and see your father, and do ditto, and give
+him a real good hour or two. We shall both be glad hereafter.--Yours
+ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   Stevenson had been sharply ailing as usual at Sydney, and was now on
+   his way back. Having received proofs of some of his _South Sea_
+   chapters, he had begun to realise that they were not what he had
+   hoped to make them.
+
+     [_On Board Ship between Sydney and Apia, February 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--The _Janet Nicoll_ stuff was rather worse than I had
+looked for; you have picked out all that is fit to stand, bar two others
+(which I don't dislike)--the Port of Entry and the House of Temoana;
+that is for a present opinion; I may condemn these also ere I have done.
+By this time you should have another Marquesan letter, the worst of the
+lot, I think; and seven Paumotu letters, which are not far out of the
+vein, as I wish it; I am in hopes the Hawaiian stuff is better yet: time
+will show, and time will make perfect. Is something of this sort
+practicable for the dedication?
+
+      TERRA MARIQUE
+  PER PERICULA PER ARDUA
+      AMICAE COMITI
+           D.D.
+      AMANS VIATOR
+
+'Tis a first shot concocted this morning in my berth: I had always
+before been trying it in English, which insisted on being either
+insignificant or fulsome: I cannot think of a better word than _comes_,
+there being not the shadow of a Latin book on board; yet sure there is
+some other. Then _viator_ (though it _sounds_ all right) is doubtful; it
+has too much, perhaps, the sense of wayfarer? Last, will it mark
+sufficiently that I mean my wife? And first, how about blunders? I
+scarce wish it longer.
+
+Have had a swingeing sharp attack in Sydney; beating the fields[13] for
+two nights, Saturday and Sunday. Wednesday was brought on board, _tel
+quel_, a wonderful wreck; and now, Wednesday week, am a good deal picked
+up, but yet not quite a Samson, being still groggy afoot and vague in
+the head. My chess, for instance, which is usually a pretty strong game,
+and defies all rivalry aboard, is vacillating, devoid of resource and
+observation, and hitherto not covered with customary laurels. As for
+work, it is impossible. We shall be in the saddle before long, no doubt,
+and the pen once more couched. You must not expect a letter under these
+circumstances, but be very thankful for a note. Once at Samoa, I shall
+try to resume my late excellent habits, and delight you with journals,
+you unaccustomed, I unaccustomed; but it is never too late to mend.
+
+It is vastly annoying that I cannot go even to Sydney without an attack;
+and heaven knows my life was anodyne. I only once dined with anybody; at
+the club with Wise; worked all morning--a terrible dead pull; a month
+only produced the imperfect embryos of two chapters; lunched in the
+boarding-house, played on my pipe; went out and did some of my messages;
+dined at a French restaurant, and returned to play draughts, whist, or
+Van John with my family. This makes a cheery life after Samoa; but it
+isn't what you call burning the candle at both ends, is it? (It appears
+to me not one word of this letter will be legible by the time I am done
+with it, this dreadful ink rubs off.) I have a strange kind of novel
+under construction; it begins about 1660 and ends 1830, or perhaps I may
+continue it to 1875 or so, with another life. One, two, three, four,
+five, six generations, perhaps seven, figure therein; two of my old
+stories, "Delafield" and "Shovel," are incorporated; it is to be told in
+the third person, with some of the brevity of history, some of the
+detail of romance. _The Shovels of Newton French_ will be the name. The
+idea is an old one; it was brought to birth by an accident; a friend in
+the islands who picked up F. Jenkin,[14] read a part, and said: "Do you
+know, that's a strange book? I like it; I don't believe the public will;
+but I like it." He thought it was a novel! "Very well," said I, "we'll
+see whether the public will like it or not; they shall have the
+chance."--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. B. BAILDON
+
+
+   The late Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, for some time Lecturer on English
+   Literature at the University of Vienna and afterwards at Dundee, had
+   been an old schoolmate and fellow-aspirant in literature with
+   Stevenson at Edinburgh. "Chalmers," of course, is the Rev. James
+   Chalmers of Rarotonga and New Guinea already referred to above, the
+   admirable missionary, explorer, and administrator, whom Stevenson
+   sometimes expressed a desire to survive, for the sake only of writing
+   his life.
+
+     _Vailima, Upolu [Spring 1891]._
+
+MY DEAR BAILDON,--This is a real disappointment. It was so long since we
+had met, I was anxious to see where time had carried and stranded us.
+Last time we saw each other--it must have been all ten years ago, as we
+were new to the thirties--it was only for a moment, and now we're in the
+forties, and before very long we shall be in our graves. Sick and well,
+I have had a splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very
+little--and then only some little corners of misconduct for which I
+deserve hanging, and must infallibly be damned--and, take it all over,
+damnation and all, would hardly change with any man of my time, unless
+perhaps it were Gordon or our friend Chalmers: a man I admire for his
+virtues, love for his faults, and envy for the really A1 life he has,
+with everything heart--my heart, I mean--could wish. It is curious to
+think you will read this in the grey metropolis; go the first grey,
+east-windy day into the Caledonian Station, if it looks at all as it did
+of yore: I met Satan there. And then go and stand by the cross, and
+remember the other one--him that went down--my brother, Robert
+Fergusson. It is a pity you had not made me out, and seen me as
+patriarch and planter. I shall look forward to some record of your time
+with Chalmers: you can't weary me of that fellow, he is as big as a
+house and far bigger than any church, where no man warms his hands. Do
+you know anything of Thomson? Of A----, B----, C----, D----, E----,
+F----, at all? As I write C.'s name mustard rises in my nose; I have
+never forgiven that weak, amiable boy a little trick he played me when I
+could ill afford it: I mean that whenever I think of it, some of the old
+wrath kindles, not that I would hurt the poor soul, if I got the world
+with it. And Old X----? Is he still afloat? Harmless bark! I gather you
+ain't married yet, since your sister, to whom I ask to be remembered,
+goes with you. Did you see a silly tale, _John Nicholson's
+Predicament_,[15] or some such name, in which I made free with your home
+at Murrayfield? There is precious little sense in it, but it might
+amuse. Cassell's published it in a thing called _Yule-Tide_ years ago,
+and nobody that ever I heard of read or has ever seen _Yule-Tide_. It is
+addressed to a class we never met--readers of Cassell's series and that
+class of conscientious chaff, and my tale was dull, though I don't
+recall that it was conscientious. Only, there's the house at Murrayfield
+and a dead body in it. Glad the _Ballads_ amused you. They failed to
+entertain a coy public, at which I wondered; not that I set much
+account by my verses, which are the verses of Prosator; but I do know
+how to tell a yarn, and two of the yarns are great. _Rahero_ is for its
+length a perfect folk-tale: savage and yet fine, full of tailforemost
+morality, ancient as the granite rocks; if the historian, not to say the
+politician, could get that yarn into his head, he would have learned
+some of his ABC. But the average man at home cannot understand
+antiquity; he is sunk over the ears in Roman civilisation; and a tale
+like that of _Rahero_ falls on his ears inarticulate. The Spectator said
+there was no psychology in it; that interested me much: my grandmother
+(as I used to call that able paper, and an able paper it is, and a fair
+one) cannot so much as observe the existence of savage psychology when
+it is put before it. I am at bottom a psychologist and ashamed of it;
+the tale seized me one-third because of its picturesque features,
+two-thirds because of its astonishing psychology, and the Spectator says
+there's none. I am going on with a lot of island work, exulting in the
+knowledge of a new world, "a new created world" and new men; and I am
+sure my income will DECLINE and FALL off; for the effort of
+comprehension is death to the intelligent public, and sickness to the
+dull.
+
+I do not know why I pester you with all this trash, above all as you
+deserve nothing. I give you my warm _talofa_ ("my love to you," Samoan
+salutation). Write me again when the spirit moves you. And some day, if
+I still live, make out the trip again and let us hob-a-nob with our grey
+pows on my verandah.--Yours sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The latter part of this letter was written in the course of an
+   expedition on which Stevenson had been invited by the American
+   Consul, Mr. Sewall, to the neighbouring island of Tutuila. Unluckily
+   the letter breaks off short, and the only record of this trip occurs
+   in the diary partly quoted in Mr. Balfour's _Life_, ch. xiv.
+
+     _Vailima, Friday, March 19th [1891]._
+
+MY DEAR S. C.,--You probably expect that now I am back at Vailima I
+shall resume the practice of the diary letter. A good deal is changed.
+We are more; solitude does not attend me as before; the night is passed
+playing Van John for shells; and, what is not less important, I have
+just recovered from a severe illness, and am easily tired.
+
+I will give you to-day. I sleep now in one of the lower rooms of the new
+house, where my wife has recently joined me. We have two beds, an empty
+case for a table, a chair, a tin basin, a bucket and a jug; next door in
+the dining-room, the carpenters camp on the floor, which is covered with
+their mosquito nets. Before the sun rises, at 5.45 or 5.50, Paul brings
+me tea, bread, and a couple of eggs; and by about six I am at work. I
+work in bed--my bed is of mats, no mattress, sheets, or filth--mats, a
+pillow, and a blanket--and put in some three hours. It was 9.5 this
+morning when I set off to the stream-side to my weeding; where I toiled,
+manuring the ground with the best enricher, human sweat, till the
+conch-shell was blown from our verandah at 10.30. At eleven we dine;
+about half-past twelve I tried (by exception) to work again, could make
+nothing on't, and by one was on my way to the weeding, where I wrought
+till three. Half-past five is our next meal, and I read Flaubert's
+Letters till the hour came round; dined, and then, Fanny having a cold,
+and I being tired, came over to my den in the unfinished house, where I
+now write to you, to the tune of the carpenters' voices, and by the
+light--I crave your pardon--by the twilight of three vile candles
+filtered through the medium of my mosquito bar. Bad ink being of the
+party, I write quite blindfold, and can only hope you may be granted to
+read that which I am unable to see while writing.
+
+I said I was tired; it is a mild phrase; my back aches like toothache;
+when I shut my eyes to sleep, I know I shall see before them--a
+phenomenon to which both Fanny and I are quite accustomed--endless vivid
+deeps of grass and weed, each plant particular and distinct, so that I
+shall lie inert in body, and transact for hours the mental part of my
+day business, choosing the noxious from the useful. And in my dreams I
+shall be hauling on recalcitrants, and suffering stings from nettles,
+stabs from citron thorns, fiery bites from ants, sickening resistances
+of mud and slime, evasions of slimy roots, dead weight of heat, sudden
+puffs of air, sudden starts from bird-calls in the contiguous
+forest--some mimicking my name, some laughter, some the signal of a
+whistle, and living over again at large the business of my day.
+
+Though I write so little, I pass all my hours of field-work in continual
+converse and imaginary correspondence. I scarce pull up a weed, but I
+invent a sentence on the matter to yourself; it does not get written;
+_autant en emportent les vents_; but the intent is there, and for me (in
+some sort) the companionship. To-day, for instance, we had a great talk.
+I was toiling, the sweat dripping from my nose, in the hot fit after a
+squall of rain: methought you asked me--frankly, was I happy. Happy
+(said I); I was only happy once; that was at Hyeres; it came to an end
+from a variety of reasons, decline of health, change of place, increase
+of money, age with his stealing steps; since then, as before then, I
+know not what it means. But I know pleasure still; pleasure with a
+thousand faces, and none perfect, a thousand tongues all broken, a
+thousand hands, and all of them with scratching nails. High among these
+I place this delight of weeding out here alone by the garrulous water,
+under the silence of the high wood, broken by incongruous sounds of
+birds. And take my life all through, look at it fore and back, and
+upside down,--though I would very fain change myself--I would not change
+my circumstances, unless it were to bring you here. And yet God knows
+perhaps this intercourse of writing serves as well; and I wonder, were
+you here indeed, would I commune so continually with the thought of you.
+I say "I wonder" for a form; I know, and I know I should not.
+
+So far, and much further, the conversation went, while I groped in slime
+after viscous roots, nursing and sparing little spears of grass, and
+retreating (even with outcry) from the prod of the wild lime. I wonder
+if any one had ever the same attitude to Nature as I hold, and have held
+for so long? This business fascinates me like a tune or a passion; yet
+all the while I thrill with a strong distaste. The horror of the thing,
+objective and subjective, is always present to my mind; the horror of
+creeping things, a superstitious horror of the void and the powers about
+me, the horror of my own devastation and continual murders. The life of
+the plants comes through my finger-tips, their struggles go to my heart
+like supplications. I feel myself blood-boltered; then I look back on my
+cleared grass, and count myself an ally in a fair quarrel, and make
+stout my heart.
+
+It is but a little while since I lay sick in Sydney, beating the fields
+about the navy and Dean Swift and Dryden's Latin hymns; judge if I love
+this reinvigorating climate, where I can already toil till my head swims
+and every string in the poor jumping Jack (as he now lies in bed) aches
+with a kind of yearning strain, difficult to suffer in quiescence.
+
+As for my damned literature,[16] God knows what a business it is,
+grinding along without a scrap of inspiration or a note of style. But it
+has to be ground, and the mill grinds exceeding slowly though not
+particularly small. The last two chapters have taken me considerably
+over a month, and they are still beneath pity. This I cannot continue,
+time not sufficing; and the next will just have to be worse. All the
+good I can express is just this; some day, when style revisits me, they
+will be excellent matter to rewrite. Of course, my old cure of a change
+of work would probably answer, but I cannot take it now. The treadmill
+turns; and, with a kind of desperate cheerfulness, I mount the idle
+stair. I haven't the least anxiety about the book; unless I die, I shall
+find the time to make it good; but the Lord deliver me from the thought
+of the Letters! However, the Lord has other things on hand; and about
+six to-morrow, I shall resume the consideration practically, and face
+(as best I may) the fact of my incompetence and disaffection to the
+task. Toil I do not spare; but fortune refuses me success. We can do
+more, Whatever-his-name-was, we can deserve it. But my misdesert began
+long since, by the acceptation of a bargain quite unsuitable to all my
+methods.[17]
+
+To-day I have had a queer experience. My carter has from the first been
+using my horses for his own ends; when I left for Sydney, I put him on
+his honour to cease, and my back was scarce turned ere he was forfeit. I
+have only been waiting to discharge him; and to-day an occasion arose. I
+am so much _the old man virulent_, so readily stumble into anger, that I
+gave a deal of consideration to my bearing, and decided at last to
+imitate that of the late ----. Whatever he might have to say, this
+eminently effective controversialist maintained a frozen demeanour and a
+jeering smile. The frozen demeanour is beyond my reach; but I could try
+the jeering smile; did so, perceived its efficacy, kept in consequence
+my temper, and got rid of my friend, myself composed and smiling still,
+he white and shaking like an aspen. He could explain everything; I said
+it did not interest me. He said he had enemies; I said nothing was more
+likely. He said he was calumniated; with all my heart, said I, but there
+are so many liars, that I find it safer to believe them. He said, in
+justice to himself, he must explain: God forbid I should interfere with
+you, said I, with the same factitious grin, but it can change nothing.
+So I kept my temper, rid myself of an unfaithful servant, found a method
+of conducting similar interviews in the future, and fell in my own
+liking. One thing more: I learned a fresh tolerance for the dead ----;
+he too had learned--perhaps had invented--the trick of this manner; God
+knows what weakness, what instability of feeling, lay beneath. _Ce que
+c'est que de nous!_ poor human nature; that at past forty I must adjust
+this hateful mask for the first time, and rejoice to find it effective;
+that the effort of maintaining an external smile should confuse and
+embitter a man's soul.
+
+To-day I have not weeded; I have written instead from six till eleven,
+from twelve till two; with the interruption of the interview aforesaid;
+a damned Letter is written for the third time; I dread to read it, for I
+dare not give it a fourth chance--unless it be very bad indeed. Now I
+write you from my mosquito curtain, to the song of saws and planes and
+hammers, and wood clumping on the floor above; in a day of heavenly
+brightness; a bird twittering near by; my eye, through the open door,
+commanding green meads, two or three forest trees casting their boughs
+against the sky, a forest-clad mountain-side beyond, and close in by the
+door-jamb a nick of the blue Pacific. It is March in England, bleak
+March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors wide open in an
+undershirt and p'jama trousers, and melt in the closure of mosquito
+bars, and burn to be out in the breeze. A few torn clouds--not white,
+the sun has tinged them a warm pink--swim in heaven. In which blessed
+and fair day, I have to make faces and speak bitter words to a man--who
+has deceived me, it is true--but who is poor, and older than I, and a
+kind of a gentleman too. On the whole, I prefer the massacre of weeds.
+
+_Sunday._--When I had done talking to you yesterday, I played on my
+pipe till the conch sounded, then went over to the old house for dinner,
+and had scarce risen from table ere I was submerged with visitors. The
+first of these despatched, I spent the rest of the evening going over
+the Samoan translation of my _Bottle Imp_[18] with Claxton the
+missionary; then to bed, but being upset, I suppose, by these
+interruptions, and having gone all day without my weeding, not to sleep.
+For hours I lay awake and heard the rain fall, and saw faint, far-away
+lightning over the sea, and wrote you long letters which I scorn to
+reproduce. This morning Paul was unusually early; the dawn had scarce
+begun when he appeared with the tray and lit my candle; and I had
+breakfasted and read (with indescribable sinkings) the whole of
+yesterday's work before the sun had risen. Then I sat and thought, and
+sat and better thought. It was not good enough, nor good; it was as
+slack as journalism, but not so inspired; it was excellent stuff
+misused, and the defects stood gross on it like humps upon a camel. But
+could I, in my present disposition, do much more with it? in my present
+pressure for time, were I not better employed doing another one about as
+ill, than making this some thousandth fraction better? Yes, I thought;
+and tried the new one, and behold, I could do nothing: my head swims,
+words do not come to me, nor phrases, and I accepted defeat, packed up
+my traps, and turned to communicate the failure to my esteemed
+correspondent. I think it possible I overworked yesterday. Well, we'll
+see to-morrow--perhaps try again later. It is indeed the hope of trying
+later that keeps me writing to you. If I take to my pipe, I know
+myself--all is over for the morning. Hurray, I'll correct proofs!
+
+_Pago-Pago, Wednesday._--After I finished on Sunday I passed a miserable
+day; went out weeding, but could not find peace. I do not like to steal
+my dinner, unless I have given myself a holiday in a canonical manner;
+and weeding after all is only fun, the amount of its utility small, and
+the thing capable of being done faster and nearly as well by a hired
+boy. In the evening Sewall came up (American consul) and proposed to
+take me on a malaga,[19] which I accepted. Monday I rode down to Apia,
+was nearly all day fighting about drafts and money; the silver problem
+does not touch you, but it is (in a strange and I hope passing phase)
+making my situation difficult in Apia.
+
+About eleven, the flags were all half-masted; it was old Captain
+Hamilton (Samasoni the natives called him) who had passed away. In the
+evening I walked round to the U.S. consulate; it was a lovely night with
+a full moon; and as I got round to the hot corner of Matautu I heard
+hymns in front. The balcony of the dead man's house was full of women
+singing; Mary (the widow, a native) sat on a chair by the doorstep, and
+I was set beside her on a bench, and next to Paul the carpenter; as I
+sat down I had a glimpse of the old captain, who lay in a sheet on his
+own table. After the hymn was over, a native pastor made a speech which
+lasted a long while; the light poured out of the door and windows; the
+girls were sitting clustered at my feet; it was choking hot. After the
+speech was ended, Mary carried me within; the captain's hands were
+folded on his bosom, his face and head were composed; he looked as if he
+might speak at any moment; I have never seen this kind of waxwork so
+express or more venerable; and when I went away, I was conscious of a
+certain envy for the man who was out of the battle. All night it ran in
+my head, and the next day when we sighted Tutuila, and ran into this
+beautiful landlocked loch of Pago Pago (whence I write), Captain
+Hamilton's folded hands and quiet face said a great deal more to me
+than the scenery.
+
+I am living here in a trader's house; we have a good table, Sewall doing
+things in style; and I hope to benefit by the change, and possibly get
+more stuff for Letters. In the meanwhile, I am seized quite
+_mal-a-propos_ with desire to write a story, _The Bloody Wedding_,
+founded on fact--very possibly true, being an attempt to read a murder
+case--not yet months old, in this very place and house where I now
+write. The indiscretion is what stops me; but if I keep on feeling as I
+feel just now it will have to be written. Three Star Nettison, Kit
+Nettison, Field the Sailor, these are the main characters: old Nettison,
+and the captain of the man of war, the secondary. Possible scenario.
+Chapter I....
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Saturday, April 18th [1891]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I got back on Monday night, after twenty-three hours in
+an open boat; the keys were lost; the consul (who had promised us a
+bottle of Burgundy) nobly broke open his storeroom, and we got to bed
+about midnight. Next morning the blessed consul promised us horses for
+the daybreak; forgot all about it, worthy man; set us off at last in the
+heat of the day, and by a short cut which caused infinite trouble, and
+we were not home till dinner. I was extenuated, and have had a high
+fever since, or should have been writing before. To-day for the first
+time, I risk it. Tuesday I was pretty bad; Wednesday had a fever to kill
+a horse; Thursday I was better, but still out of ability to do aught but
+read awful trash. This is the time one misses civilisation; I wished to
+send out for some police novels; Montepin would have about suited my
+frozen brain. It is a bother when all one's thought turns on one's work
+in some sense or other; I could not even think yesterday; I took to
+inventing dishes by way of entertainment. Yesterday, while I lay asleep
+in the afternoon, a very lucky thing happened; the Chief Justice came to
+call; met one of our employes on the road; and was shown what I had done
+to the road.
+
+"Is this the road across the island?" he asked.
+
+"The only one," said Innes.
+
+"And has one man done all this?"
+
+"Three times," said the trusty Innes. "It has had to be made three
+times, and when Mr. Stevenson came, it was a track like what you see
+beyond."
+
+"This must be put right," said the Chief Justice.
+
+_Sunday._--The truth is, I broke down yesterday almost as soon as I
+began, and have been surreptitiously finishing the entry to-day. For all
+that I was much better, ate all the time, and had no fever. The day was
+otherwise uneventful. I am reminded; I had another visitor on Friday;
+and Fanny and Lloyd, as they returned from a forest raid, met in our
+desert, untrodden road, first Father Didier, Keeper of the conscience of
+Mataafa, the rising star; and next the Chief Justice, sole stay of
+Laupepa, the present and unsteady star, and remember, a few days before
+we were close to the sick bed and entertained by the amateur physician
+of Tamasese, the late and sunken star. "That is the fun of this place,"
+observed Lloyd; "everybody you meet is so important." Everybody is also
+so gloomy. It will come to war again, is the opinion of all the well
+informed--and before that to many bankruptcies; and after that, as
+usual, to famine. Here, under the microscope, we can see history at
+work.
+
+_Wednesday._--I have been very neglectful. A return to work, perhaps
+premature, but necessary, has used up all my possible energies, and made
+me acquainted with the living headache. I just jot down some of the past
+notabilia. Yesterday B., a carpenter, and K., my (unsuccessful) white
+man, were absent all morning from their work; I was working myself,
+where I hear every sound with morbid certainty, and I can testify that
+not a hammer fell. Upon inquiry I found they had passed the morning
+making ice with our ice machine and taking the horizon with a spirit
+level! I had no sooner heard this than--a violent headache set in; I am
+a real employer of labour now, and have much of the ship captain when
+aroused; and if I had a headache, I believe both these gentlemen had
+aching hearts. I promise you, the late ---- was to the front; and K.,
+who was the most guilty, yet (in a sense) the least blameable, having
+the brains and character of a canary-bird, fared none the better for
+B.'s repartees. I hear them hard at work this morning, so the menace may
+be blessed. It was just after my dinner, just before theirs, that I
+administered my redoubtable tongue--it is really redoubtable--to these
+skulkers. (Paul used to triumph over Mr. J. for weeks. "I am very sorry
+for you," he would say; "you're going to have a talk with Mr. Stevenson
+when he comes home: you don't know what that is!") In fact, none of them
+do, till they get it. I have known K., for instance, for months; he has
+never heard me complain, or take notice, unless it were to praise; I
+have used him always as my guest, and there seems to be something in my
+appearance which suggests endless, ovine long-suffering! We sat in the
+upper verandah all evening, and discussed the price of iron roofing, and
+the state of the draught-horses, with Innes, a new man we have taken,
+and who seems to promise well.
+
+One thing embarrasses me. No one ever seems to understand my attitude
+about that book; the stuff sent was never meant for other than a first
+state; I never meant it to appear as a book. Knowing well that I have
+never had one hour of inspiration since it was begun, and have only
+beaten out my metal by brute force and patient repetition, I hoped some
+day to get a "spate of style" and burnish it--fine mixed metaphor. I am
+now so sick that I intend, when the Letters are done and some more
+written that will be wanted, simply to make a book of it by the
+pruning-knife. I cannot fight longer; I am sensible of having done worse
+than I hoped, worse than I feared; all I can do now is to do the best I
+can for the future, and clear the book, like a piece of bush, with axe
+and cutlass. Even to produce the MS. of this will occupy me, at the most
+favourable opinion, till the middle of next year; really five years were
+wanting, when I could have made a book; but I have a family,
+and--perhaps I could not make the book after all.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
+
+
+   The late Mr. Craibe Angus of Glasgow was one of the chief organisers
+   of the Burns Exhibition in that city, and had proposed to send out to
+   Samoa a precious copy of the _Jolly Beggars_ to receive the autograph
+   of R. L. S. and be returned for the purposes of that Exhibition. The
+   line quoted, "But still our hearts are true," etc., should, it
+   appears, run, "But still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland."
+   The author of the _Canadian Boat Song_ which opens thus was Hugh,
+   twelfth Earl of Eglinton. The first quotation is of course from
+   Burns.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, April_ 1891.
+
+DEAR MR. ANGUS,--Surely I remember you! It was W. C. Murray who made us
+acquainted, and we had a pleasant crack. I see your poet is not yet
+dead. I remember even our talk--or you would not think of trusting that
+invaluable _Jolly Beggars_ to the treacherous posts, and the perils of
+the sea, and the carelessness of authors. I love the idea, but I could
+not bear the risk. However--
+
+  "Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle--"
+
+it was kindly thought upon.
+
+My interest in Burns is, as you suppose, perennial. I would I could be
+present at the exhibition, with the purpose of which I heartily
+sympathise; but the _Nancy_ has not waited in vain for me, I have
+followed my chest, the anchor is weighed long ago, I have said my last
+farewell to the hills and the heather and the lynns: like Leyden, I
+have gone into far lands to die, not stayed like Burns to mingle in the
+end with Scottish soil. I shall not even return like Scott for the last
+scene. Burns Exhibitions are all over. 'Tis a far cry to Lochow from
+tropical Vailima.
+
+  "But still our hearts are true, our hearts are Highland,
+   And we in dreams behold the Hebrides."
+
+When your hand is in, will you remember our poor Edinburgh Robin? Burns
+alone has been just to his promise; follow Burns, he knew best, he knew
+whence he drew fire--from the poor, white-faced, drunken, vicious boy
+that raved himself to death in the Edinburgh madhouse. Surely there is
+more to be gleaned about Fergusson, and surely it is high time the task
+was set about. I may tell you (because your poet is not dead) something
+of how I feel: we are three Robins who have touched the Scots lyre this
+last century. Well, the one is the world's; he did it, he came off, he
+is for ever; but I and the other--ah! what bonds we have--born in the
+same city; both sickly, both pestered, one nearly to madness, one to the
+madhouse, with a damnatory creed; both seeing the stars and the dawn,
+and wearing shoe-leather on the same ancient stones, under the same
+pends, down the same closes, where our common ancestors clashed in their
+armour, rusty or bright. And the old Robin, who was before Burns and the
+flood, died in his acute, painful youth, and left the models of the
+great things that were to come; and the new, who came after, outlived
+his green-sickness, and has faintly tried to parody the finished work.
+If you will collect the strays of Robin Fergusson, fish for material,
+collect any last re-echoing of gossip, command me to do what you
+prefer--to write the preface--to write the whole if you prefer:
+anything, so that another monument (after Burns's) be set up to my
+unhappy predecessor on the causey of Auld Reekie. You will never know,
+nor will any man, how deep this feeling is: I believe Fergusson lives
+in me. I do, but tell it not in Gath; every man has these fanciful
+superstitions, coming, going, but yet enduring; only most men are so
+wise (or the poet in them so dead) that they keep their follies for
+themselves.--I am, yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO EDMUND GOSSE
+
+
+     _Vailima, April 1891._
+
+MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have to thank you and Mrs. Gosse for many mementoes,
+chiefly for your _Life_ of your father. There is a very delicate task,
+very delicately done. I noted one or two carelessnesses, which I meant
+to point out to you for another edition; but I find I lack the time, and
+you will remark them for yourself against a new edition. There were two,
+or perhaps three, flabbinesses of style which (in your work) amazed me.
+Am I right in thinking you were a shade bored over the last chapters? or
+was it my own fault that made me think them susceptible of a more
+athletic compression? (The flabbinesses were not there, I think, but in
+the more admirable part, where they showed the bigger.) Take it all
+together, the book struck me as if you had been hurried at the last, but
+particularly hurried over the proofs, and could still spend a very
+profitable fortnight in earnest revision and (towards the end) heroic
+compression. The book, in design, subject, and general execution, is
+well worth the extra trouble. And even if I were wrong in thinking it
+specially wanted, it will not be lost; for do we not know, in Flaubert's
+dread confession, that "prose is never done"? What a medium to work in,
+for a man tired, perplexed among different aims and subjects, and
+spurred by the immediate need of "siller"! However, it's mine for what
+it's worth; and it's one of yours, the devil take it; and you know, as
+well as Flaubert, and as well as me, that it is _never done_; in other
+words, it is a torment of the pit, usually neglected by the bards who
+(lucky beggars!) approached the Styx in measure. I speak bitterly at the
+moment, having just detected in myself the last fatal symptom, three
+blank verses in succession--and I believe, God help me, a hemistich at
+the tail of them; hence I have deposed the labourer, come out of hell by
+my private trap, and now write to you from my little place in purgatory.
+But I prefer hell: would I could always dig in those red coals--or else
+be at sea in a schooner, bound for isles unvisited: to be on shore and
+not to work is emptiness--suicidal vacancy.
+
+I was the more interested in your _Life_ of your father, because I
+meditate one of mine, or rather of my family. I have no such materials
+as you, and (our objections already made) your attack fills me with
+despair; it is direct and elegant, and your style is always admirable to
+me--lenity, lucidity, usually a high strain of breeding, an elegance
+that has a pleasant air of the accidental. But beware of purple
+passages. I wonder if you think as well of your purple passages as I do
+of mine? I wonder if you think as ill of mine as I do of yours? I
+wonder; I can tell you at least what is wrong with yours--they are
+treated in the spirit of verse. The spirit--I don't mean the measure, I
+don't mean you fall into bastard cadences; what I mean is that they seem
+vacant and smoothed out, ironed, if you like. And in a style which (like
+yours) aims more and more successfully at the academic, one purple word
+is already much; three--a whole phrase--is inadmissible. Wed yourself to
+a clean austerity: that is your force. Wear a linen ephod, splendidly
+candid. Arrange its folds, but do not fasten it with any brooch. I swear
+to you, in your talking robes, there should be no patch of adornment;
+and where the subject forces, let it force you no further than it must;
+and be ready with a twinkle of your pleasantry. Yours is a fine tool,
+and I see so well how to hold it; I wonder if you see how to hold mine?
+But then I am to the neck in prose, and just now in the "dark
+_interstylar_ cave," all methods and effects wooing me, myself in the
+midst impotent to follow any. I look for dawn presently, and a full
+flowing river of expression, running whither it wills. But these useless
+seasons, above all, when a man _must_ continue to spoil paper, are
+infinitely weary.
+
+We are in our house after a fashion; without furniture, 'tis true,
+camping there, like the family after a sale. But the bailiff has not yet
+appeared; he will probably come after. The place is beautiful beyond
+dreams; some fifty miles of the Pacific spread in front; deep woods all
+round; a mountain making in the sky a profile of huge trees upon our
+left; about us, the little island of our clearing, studded with brave
+old gentlemen (or ladies, or "the twa o' them") whom we have spared. It
+is a good place to be in; night and morning, we have Theodore Rousseaus
+(always a new one) hung to amuse us on the walls of the world; and the
+moon--this is our good season, we have a moon just now--makes the night
+a piece of heaven. It amazes me how people can live on in the dirty
+north; yet if you saw our rainy season (which is really a caulker for
+wind, wet, and darkness--howling showers, roaring winds, pit-blackness
+at noon) you might marvel how we could endure that. And we can't. But
+there's a winter everywhere; only ours is in the summer. Mark my words:
+there will be a winter in heaven--and in hell. _Cela rentre dans les
+procedes du bon Dieu; et vous verrez!_ There's another very good thing
+about Vailima, I am away from the little bubble of the literary life. It
+is not all beer and skittles, is it? By the by, my _Ballads_ seem to
+have been dam bad; all the crickets sing so in their crickety papers;
+and I have no ghost of an idea on the point myself: verse is always to
+me the unknowable. You might tell me how it strikes a professional bard:
+not that it really matters, for, of course, good or bad, I don't think I
+shall get into _that_ galley any more. But I should like to know if you
+join the shrill chorus of the crickets. The crickets are the devil in
+all to you: 'tis a strange thing, they seem to rejoice like a strong
+man in their injustice. I trust you got my letter about your Browning
+book. In case it missed, I wish to say again that your publication of
+Browning's kind letter, as an illustration of _his_ character, was
+modest, proper, and in radiant good taste.--In Witness whereof, etc.
+etc.,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS RAWLINSON
+
+
+   The next is written to a young friend and visitor of Bournemouth days
+   (see vol. xxiv. p. 227) on the news of her engagement to Mr. Alfred
+   Spender.
+
+     _Vailima, Apia, Samoa, April 1891._
+
+MY DEAR MAY,--I never think of you by any more ceremonial name, so I
+will not pretend. There is not much chance that I shall forget you until
+the time comes for me to forget all this little turmoil in a corner
+(though indeed I have been in several corners) of an inconsiderable
+planet. You remain in my mind for a good reason, having given me (in so
+short a time) the most delightful pleasure. I shall remember, and you
+must still be beautiful. The truth is, you must grow more so, or you
+will soon be less. It is not so easy to be a flower, even when you bear
+a flower's name. And if I admired you so much, and still remember you,
+it is not because of your face, but because you were then worthy of it,
+as you must still continue.
+
+Will you give my heartiest congratulations to Mr. Spender? He has my
+admiration; he is a brave man; when I was young, I should have run away
+from the sight of you, pierced with the sense of my unfitness. He is
+more wise and manly. What a good husband he will have to be! And
+you--what a good wife! Carry your love tenderly. I will never forgive
+him--or you--it is in both your hands--if the face that once gladdened
+my heart should be changed into one sour or sorrowful.
+
+What a person you are to give flowers! It was so I first heard of you;
+and now you are giving the May flower!
+
+Yes, Skerryvore has passed; it was, for us. But I wish you could see us
+in our new home on the mountain, in the middle of great woods, and
+looking far out over the Pacific. When Mr. Spender is very rich, he must
+bring you round the world and let you see it, and see the old gentleman
+and the old lady. I mean to live quite a long while yet, and my wife
+must do the same, or else I couldn't manage it; so, you see, you will
+have plenty of time; and it's a pity not to see the most beautiful
+places, and the most beautiful people moving there, and the real stars
+and moon overhead, instead of the tin imitations that preside over
+London. I do not think my wife very well; but I am in hopes she will now
+have a little rest. It has been a hard business, above all for her; we
+lived four months in the hurricane season in a miserable house,
+overborne with work, ill-fed, continually worried, drowned in perpetual
+rain, beaten upon by wind, so that we must sit in the dark in the
+evenings; and then I ran away, and she had a month of it alone. Things
+go better now; the back of the work is broken; and we are still foolish
+enough to look forward to a little peace. I am a very different person
+from the prisoner of Skerryvore. The other day I was three-and-twenty
+hours in an open boat; it made me pretty ill; but fancy its not killing
+me half-way! It is like a fairy story that I should have recovered
+liberty and strength, and should go round again among my fellow-men,
+boating, riding, bathing, toiling hard with a wood-knife in the forest.
+I can wish you nothing more delightful than my fortune in life; I wish
+it you; and better, if the thing be possible.
+
+Lloyd is tinkling below me on the typewriter; my wife has just left the
+room; she asks me to say she would have written had she been well
+enough, and hopes to do it still.--Accept the best wishes of your
+admirer,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This letter announces (1) the arrival of Mrs. Thomas Stevenson from
+   Sydney, to take up her abode in her son's island home now that the
+   conditions of life there had been made fairly comfortable; and (2)
+   the receipt of a letter from me expressing the disappointment felt by
+   Stevenson's friends at home at the impersonal and even tedious
+   character of some portions of the South Sea Letters that had reached
+   us. As a corrective of this opinion, I may perhaps mention here that
+   there is a certain many-voyaged master-mariner as well as
+   master-writer--no less a person than Mr. Joseph Conrad--who does not
+   at all share it, and prefers _In the South Seas_ to _Treasure
+   Island_.
+
+     _[Vailima] April 29th, '91._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I begin again. I was awake this morning about half-past
+four. It was still night, but I made my fire, which is always a
+delightful employment, and read Lockhart's _Scott_ until the day began
+to peep. It was a beautiful and sober dawn, a dove-coloured dawn,
+insensibly brightening to gold. I was looking at it some while over the
+down-hill profile of our eastern road when I chanced to glance
+northward, and saw with extraordinary pleasure the sea lying outspread.
+It seemed as smooth as glass, and yet I knew the surf was roaring all
+along the reef, and indeed, if I had listened, I could have heard
+it--and saw the white sweep of it outside Matautu.
+
+I am out of condition still, and can do nothing, and toil to be at my
+pen, and see some ink behind me. I have taken up again _The High Woods
+of Ulufanua_. I still think the fable too fantastic and far-fetched.
+But, on a re-reading, fell in love with my first chapter, and for good
+or evil I must finish it. It is really good, well fed with facts, true
+to the manners, and (for once in my works) rendered pleasing by the
+presence of a heroine who is pretty. Miss Uma is pretty; a fact. All my
+other women have been as ugly as sin, and like Falconet's horse (I have
+just been reading the anecdote in Lockhart), _mortes_ forbye.
+
+News: our old house is now half demolished; it is to be rebuilt on a new
+site; now we look down upon and through the open posts of it like a
+bird-cage, to the woods beyond. My poor Paulo has lost his father and
+succeeded to thirty thousand thalers (I think); he had to go down to the
+consulate yesterday to send a legal paper; got drunk, of course, and is
+still this morning in so bemused a condition that our breakfasts all went
+wrong. Lafaele is absent at the deathbed of his fair spouse; fair she
+was, but not in deed, acting as harlot to the wreckers at work on the
+warships, to which society she probably owes her end, having fallen off a
+cliff, or been thrust off it--_inter pocula_. Henry is the same, our
+stand-by. In this transition stage he has been living in Apia; but the
+other night he stayed up, and sat with us about the chimney in my room.
+It was the first time he had seen a fire in a hearth; he could not look
+at it without smiles, and was always anxious to put on another stick. We
+entertained him with the fairy tales of civilisation--theatres, London,
+blocks in the street, Universities, the Underground, newspapers, etc.,
+and projected once more his visit to Sydney. If we can manage, it will be
+next Christmas. (I see it will be impossible for me to afford a further
+journey _this_ winter.) We have spent since we have been here about
+L2,500, which is not much if you consider we have built on that three
+houses, one of them of some size, and a considerable stable, made two
+miles of road some three times, cleared many acres of bush, made some
+miles of path, planted quantities of food, and enclosed a horse paddock
+and some acres of pig run; but 'tis a good deal of money regarded simply
+as money. K. is bosh; I have no use for him; but we must do what we can
+with the fellow meanwhile; he is good-humoured and honest, but
+inefficient, idle himself, the cause of idleness in others, grumbling, a
+self-excuser--all the faults in a bundle. He owes us thirty weeks'
+service--the wretched Paul about half as much. Henry is almost the only
+one of our employes who has a credit.
+
+_May 17th._--Well, am I ashamed of myself? I do not think so. I have
+been hammering letters ever since, and got three ready and a fourth
+about half through; all four will go by the mail, which is what I wish,
+for so I keep at least my start. Days and days of unprofitable stubbing
+and digging, and the result still poor as literature, left-handed,
+heavy, unillumined, but I believe readable and interesting as matter. It
+has been no joke of a hard time, and when my task was done, I had little
+taste for anything but blowing on the pipe. A few necessary letters
+filled the bowl to overflowing.
+
+My mother has arrived, young, well, and in good spirits. By desperate
+exertions, which have wholly floored Fanny, her room was ready for her,
+and the dining-room fit to eat in. It was a famous victory. Lloyd never
+told me of your portrait till a few days ago; fortunately, I had no
+pictures hung yet; and the space over my chimney waits your counterfeit
+presentment. I have not often heard anything that pleased me more; your
+severe head shall frown upon me and keep me to the mark. But why has it
+not come? Have you been as forgetful as Lloyd?
+
+_18th._--Miserable comforters are ye all! I read your esteemed pages
+this morning by lamplight and the glimmer of the dawn, and as soon as
+breakfast was over, I must turn to and tackle these despised labours!
+Some courage was necessary, but not wanting. There is one thing at least
+by which I can avenge myself for my drubbing, for on one point you seem
+impenetrably stupid. Can I find no form of words which will at last
+convey to your intelligence the fact that _these letters were never
+meant, and are not now meant, to be other than a quarry of materials
+from which the book may be drawn_? There seems something incommunicable
+in this (to me) simple idea; I know Lloyd failed to comprehend it, I
+doubt if he has grasped it now; and I despair, after all these efforts,
+that you should ever be enlightened. Still, oblige me by reading that
+form of words once more, and see if a light does not break. You may be
+sure, after the friendly freedoms of your criticism (necessary I am
+sure, and wholesome I know, but untimely to the poor labourer in his
+landslip) that mighty little of it will stand.
+
+Our Paul has come into a fortune, and wishes to go home to the Hie
+Germanie. This is a tile on our head, and if a shower, which is now
+falling, lets up, I must go down to Apia, and see if I can find a
+substitute of any kind. This is, from any point of view, disgusting;
+above all, from that of work; for, whatever the result, the mill has to
+be kept turning; apparently dust, and not flour, is the proceed. Well,
+there is gold in the dust, which is a fine consolation, since--well, I
+can't help it; night or morning, I do my darndest, and if I cannot
+charge for merit, I must e'en charge for toil, of which I have plenty
+and plenty more ahead before this cup is drained; sweat and hyssop are
+the ingredients.
+
+We are clearing from Carruthers' Road to the pig fence, twenty-eight
+powerful natives with Catholic medals about their necks, all swiping in
+like Trojans; long may the sport continue!
+
+The invoice to hand. Ere this goes out, I hope to see your expressive,
+but surely not benignant countenance! Adieu, O culler of offensive
+expressions--'and a' to be a posy to your ain dear May!'--Fanny seems a
+little revived again after her spasm of work. Our books and furniture
+keep slowly draining up the road, in a sad state of scatterment and
+disrepair; I wish the devil had had K. by his red beard before he had
+packed my library. Odd leaves and sheets and boards--a thing to make a
+bibliomaniac shed tears--are fished out of odd corners. But I am no
+bibliomaniac, praise Heaven, and I bear up, and rejoice when I find
+anything safe.
+
+_19th._--However, I worked five hours on the brute, and finished my
+Letter all the same, and couldn't sleep last night by consequence.
+Haven't had a bad night since I don't know when; dreamed a large
+handsome man (a New Orleans planter) had insulted my wife, and, do what
+I pleased, I could not make him fight me; and woke to find it was the
+eleventh anniversary of my marriage. A letter usually takes me from a
+week to three days; but I'm sometimes two days on a page--I was once
+three--and then my friends kick me. _C'est-y-bete!_ I wish letters of
+that charming quality could be so timed as to arrive when a fellow
+wasn't working at the truck in question; but, of course, that can't be.
+Did not go down last night. It showered all afternoon, and poured heavy
+and loud all night.
+
+You should have seen our twenty-five popes (the Samoan phrase for a
+Catholic, lay or cleric) squatting when the day's work was done on the
+ground outside the verandah, and pouring in the rays of forty-eight eyes
+through the back and the front door of the dining-room, while Henry and
+I and the boss pope signed the contract. The second boss (an old man)
+wore a kilt (as usual) and a Balmoral bonnet with a little tartan edging
+and the tails pulled off. I told him that hat belong to my
+country--Sekotia; and he said, yes, that was the place that he belonged
+to right enough. And then all the Papists laughed till the woods rang;
+he was slashing away with a cutlass as he spoke.
+
+The pictures[20] have decidedly not come; they may probably arrive
+Sunday.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
+
+
+   The reference in the first paragraph is to a previous letter
+   concerning private matters, in which Stevenson had remonstrated with
+   his correspondent on what seemed to him her mistaken reasons for a
+   certain course of conduct.
+
+     [_Vailima, May 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR ADELAIDE,--I will own you just did manage to tread on my gouty
+toe; and I beg to assure you with most people I should simply have
+turned away and said no more. My cudgelling was therefore in the nature
+of a caress or testimonial.
+
+God forbid, I should seem to judge for you on such a point; it was what
+you seemed to set forth as your reasons that fluttered my old
+Presbyterian spirit--for, mind you, I am a child of the
+Covenanters--whom I do not love, but they are mine after all, my
+father's and my mother's--and they had their merits too, and their ugly
+beauties, and grotesque heroisms, that I love them for, the while I
+laugh at them; but in their name and mine do what you think right, and
+let the world fall. That is the privilege and the duty of private
+persons; and I shall think the more of you at the greater distance,
+because you keep a promise to your fellow-man, your helper and creditor
+in life, by just so much as I was tempted to think the less of you (O
+not much, or I would never have been angry) when I thought you were the
+swallower of a (tinfoil) formula.
+
+I must say I was uneasy about my letter, not because it was too strong
+as an expression of my unregenerate sentiments, but because I knew full
+well it should be followed by something kinder. And the mischief has
+been in my health. I fell sharply sick in Sydney, was put aboard the
+_Luebeck_ pretty bad, got to Vailima, hung on a month there, and didn't
+pick up as well as my work needed; set off on a journey, gained a great
+deal, lost it again; and am back at Vailima, still no good at my
+necessary work. I tell you this for my imperfect excuse that I should
+not have written you again sooner to remove the bad taste of my last.
+
+A road has been called Adelaide Road; it leads from the back of our
+house to the bridge, and thence to the garden, and by a bifurcation to
+the pig pen. It is thus much traversed, particularly by Fanny. An
+oleander, the only one of your seeds that prospered in this climate,
+grows there; and the name is now some week or ten days applied and
+published. ADELAIDE ROAD leads also into the bush, to the banana patch
+and by a second bifurcation over the left branch of the stream to the
+plateau and the right hand of the gorges. In short, it leads to all
+sorts of good, and is, besides, in itself a pretty winding path, bound
+downhill among big woods to the margin of the stream.
+
+What a strange idea, to think me a Jew-hater! Isaiah and David and Heine
+are good enough for me; and I leave more unsaid. Were I of Jew blood, I
+do not think I could ever forgive the Christians; the ghettos would get
+in my nostrils like mustard or lit gunpowder. Just so you, as being a
+child of the Presbytery, I retain--I need not dwell on that. The
+ascendant hand is what I feel most strongly; I am bound in and in with
+my forbears; were he one of mine, I should not be struck at all by Mr.
+Moss of Bevis Marks, I should still see behind him Moses of the Mount
+and the Tables and the shining face. We are all nobly born; fortunate
+those who know it; blessed those who remember.
+
+I am, my dear Adelaide, most genuinely yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+Write by return to say you are better, and I will try to do the same.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   The following refers again to the project of a long genealogical novel
+   expanded from the original idea of _Henry Shovel_.
+
+     _[Vailima] Tuesday, 19th May '91._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--I don't know what you think of me, not having written
+to you at all during your illness. I find two sheets begun with your
+name, but that is no excuse.... I am keeping bravely; getting about
+better every day, and hope soon to be in my usual fettle. My books begin
+to come; and I fell once more on the Old Bailey session papers. I have
+1778, 1784, and 1786. Should you be able to lay hands on any other
+volumes, above all a little later, I should be very glad you should buy
+them for me. I particularly want _one_ or _two_ during the course of the
+Peninsular War. Come to think, I ought rather to have communicated this
+want to Bain. Would it bore you to communicate to that effect with the
+great man? The sooner I have them, the better for me. 'Tis for _Henry
+Shovel_. But _Henry Shovel_ has now turned into a work called _The
+Shovels of Newton French: including Memoirs of Henry Shovel, a Private
+in the Peninsular War_, which work is to begin in 1664 with the marriage
+of Skipper, afterwards Alderman Shovel of Bristol, Henry's
+great-great-grandfather, and end about 1832 with his own second marriage
+to the daughter of his runaway aunt. Will the public ever stand such an
+opus? Gude kens, but it tickles me. Two or three historical personages
+will just appear: Judge Jeffreys, Wellington, Colquhoun, Grant, and I
+think Townsend the runner. I know the public won't like it; let 'em lump
+it then; I mean to make it good; it will be more like a saga.
+
+Adieu.--Yours ever affectionately,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] June 1891._
+
+SIR,--To you, under your portrait, which is, in expression, your true,
+breathing self, and up to now saddens me; in time, and soon, I shall be
+glad to have it there; it is still only a reminder of your absence.
+Fanny wept when we unpacked it, and you know how little she is given to
+that mood; I was scarce Roman myself, but that does not count--I lift up
+my voice so readily. These are good compliments to the artist.[21] I
+write in the midst of a wreck of books, which have just come up, and
+have for once defied my labours to get straight. The whole floor is
+filled with them, and (what's worse) most of the shelves forbye; and
+where they are to go to, and what is to become of the librarian, God
+knows. It is hot to-night, and has been airless all day, and I am out of
+sorts, and my work sticks, the devil fly away with it and me. We had an
+alarm of war since last I wrote my screeds to you, and it blew over, and
+is to blow on again, and the rumour goes they are to begin by killing
+all the whites. I have no belief in this, and should be infinitely sorry
+if it came to pass--I do not mean for us, that were otiose--but for the
+poor, deluded schoolboys, who should hope to gain by such a step.
+
+_Letter resumed, June 20th._--No diary this time. Why? you ask. I have
+only sent out four Letters, and two chapters of _The Wrecker_. Yes, but
+to get these I have written 132 pp., 66,000 words in thirty days; 2200
+words a day; the labours of an elephant. God knows what it's like, and
+don't ask me, but nobody shall say I have spared pains. I thought for
+some time it wouldn't come at all. I was days and days over the first
+letter of the lot--days and days writing and deleting and making no
+headway whatever, till I thought I should have gone bust; but it came at
+last after a fashion, and the rest went a thought more easily, though I
+am not so fond as to fancy any better.
+
+Your opinion as to the Letters as a whole is so damnatory that I put
+them by. But there is a "hell of a want of" money this year. And these
+Gilbert Island papers, being the most interesting in matter, and forming
+a compact whole, and being well illustrated, I did think of as a
+possible resource.
+
+It would be called
+
+  _Six Months in Melanesia,
+  Two Island Kings,
+  ---- Monarchies,
+  Gilbert Island Kings,
+  ---- Monarchies_,
+
+and I dare say I'll think of a better yet--and would divide thus:--
+
+    _Butaritari_
+
+    I. A Town Asleep.
+   II. The Three Brothers.
+  III. Around our House.
+   IV. A Tale of a Tapu.
+    V. The Five Days' Festival.
+   VI. Domestic Life--(which might be omitted, but not well, better be
+         recast).
+
+    _The King of Apemama_
+
+  VII. The Royal Traders.
+ VIII. Foundation of Equator Town.
+   IX. The Palace of Mary Warren.
+    X. Equator Town and the Palace.
+   XI. King and Commons.
+  XII. The Devil Work Box.
+ XIII. The Three Corslets.
+  XIV. Tail piece; the Court upon a Journey.
+
+I wish you to watch these closely, judging them as a whole, and treating
+them as I have asked you, and favour me with your damnatory advice. I
+look up at your portrait, and it frowns upon me. You seem to view me
+with reproach. The expression is excellent; Fanny wept when she saw it,
+and you know she is not given to the melting mood. She seems really
+better; I have a touch of fever again, I fancy overwork, and to-day,
+when I have overtaken my letters, I shall blow on my pipe. Tell Mrs.
+Sitwell I have been playing _Le Chant d'Amour_ lately, and have arranged
+it, after awful trouble, rather prettily for two pipes; and it brought
+her before me with an effect scarce short of hallucination. I could hear
+her voice in every note; yet I had forgot the air entirely, and began to
+pipe it from notes as something new, when I was brought up with a round
+turn by this reminiscence. We are now very much installed; the
+dining-room is done, and looks lovely. Soon we shall begin to photograph
+and send you our circumstances. My room is still a howling wilderness. I
+sleep on a platform in a window, and strike my mosquito bar and roll up
+my bedclothes every morning, so that the bed becomes by day a divan. A
+great part of the floor is knee-deep in books, yet nearly all the
+shelves are filled, alas! It is a place to make a pig recoil, yet here
+are my interminable labours begun daily by lamp-light, and sometimes not
+yet done when the lamp has once more to be lighted. The effect of
+pictures in this place is surprising. They give great pleasure.
+
+_June 21st._--A word more. I had my breakfast this morning at 4.30! My
+new cook has beaten me and (as Lloyd says) revenged all the cooks in the
+world. I have been hunting them to give me breakfast early since I was
+twenty; and now here comes Mr. Ratke, and I have to plead for mercy. I
+cannot stand 4.30; I am a mere fevered wreck; it is now half-past eight,
+and I can no more, and four hours divide me from lunch, the devil take
+the man! Yesterday it was about 5.30, which I can stand; day before 5,
+which is bad enough; to-day, I give out. It is like a London season, and
+as I do not take a siesta once in a month, and then only five minutes, I
+am being worn to the bones, and look aged and anxious.
+
+We have Rider Haggard's brother here as a Land Commissioner; a nice kind
+of a fellow; indeed, all the three Land Commissioners are very
+agreeable.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   For the result of the suggestion made in the following, see
+   Scribner's Magazine, October 1893, p. 494.
+
+     _Vailima [Summer 1891]._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--I find among my grandfather's papers his own
+reminiscences of his voyage round the north with Sir Walter, eighty
+years ago, _labuntur anni!_ They are not remarkably good, but he was not
+a bad observer, and several touches seem to me speaking. It has occurred
+to me you might like them to appear in the Magazine. If you would,
+kindly let me know, and tell me how you would like it handled. My
+grandad's MS. runs to between six and seven thousand words, which I
+could abbreviate of anecdotes that scarce touch Sir W. Would you like
+this done? Would you like me to introduce the old gentleman? I had
+something of the sort in my mind, and could fill a few columns rather _a
+propos_. I give you the first offer of this, according to your request;
+for though it may forestall one of the interests of my biography, the
+thing seems to me particularly suited for prior appearance in a
+magazine.
+
+I see the first number of _The Wrecker_; I thought it went lively
+enough; and by a singular accident, the picture is not unlike Tai-o-hae!
+
+Thus we see the age of miracles, etc.--Yours very sincerely,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+Proofs for next mail.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
+
+
+   Referring again to the Burns Exhibition and to his correspondent's
+   request for an autograph in a special copy of _The Jolly Beggars_.
+
+     _[Summer 1891.]_
+
+DEAR MR. ANGUS,--You can use my letter as you will. The parcel has not
+come; pray Heaven the next post bring it safe. Is it possible for me to
+write a preface here? I will try if you like, if you think I must:
+though surely there are Rivers in Assyria. Of course you will send me
+sheets of the catalogue; I suppose it (the preface) need not be long;
+perhaps it should be rather very short? Be sure you give me your views
+upon these points. Also tell me what names to mention among those of
+your helpers, and do remember to register everything, else it is not
+safe.
+
+The true place (in my view) for a monument to Fergusson were the
+churchyard of Haddington. But as that would perhaps not carry many
+votes, I should say one of the two following sites:--First, either as
+near the site of the old Bedlam as we could get, or, second, beside the
+Cross, the heart of his city. Upon this I would have a fluttering
+butterfly, and, I suggest, the citation,
+
+  Poor butterfly, thy case I mourn.
+
+For the case of Fergusson is not one to pretend about. A more miserable
+tragedy the sun never shone upon, or (in consideration of our climate) I
+should rather say refused to brighten.--Yours truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+Where Burns goes will not matter. He is no local poet, like your Robin
+the First; he is general as the casing air. Glasgow, as the chief city
+of Scottish men, would do well; but for God's sake, don't let it be like
+the Glasgow memorial to Knox; I remember, when I first saw this,
+laughing for an hour by Shrewsbury clock.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. C. IDE
+
+
+   The following is written to the American Land Commissioner (later
+   Chief Justice for a term) in Samoa, whose elder daughter, then at
+   home in the States, had been born on a Christmas Day, and
+   consequently regarded herself as defrauded of her natural rights to a
+   private anniversary of her own.
+
+     _[Vailima, June 19, 1891.]_
+
+DEAR MR. IDE,--Herewith please find the DOCUMENT, which I trust will
+prove sufficient in law. It seems to me very attractive in its
+eclecticism; Scots, English, and Roman law phrases are all indifferently
+introduced, and a quotation from the works of Haynes Bayly can hardly
+fail to attract the indulgence of the Bench.--Yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar, author of _The
+Master of Ballantrae_ and _Moral Emblems_, stuck civil engineer, sole
+owner and patentee of the Palace and Plantation known as Vailima in the
+island of Upolu, Samoa, a British Subject, being in sound mind, and
+pretty well, I thank you, in body;
+
+In consideration that Miss Annie H. Ide, daughter of H. C. Ide, in the
+town of Saint Johnsbury, in the county of Caledonia, in the state of
+Vermont, United States of America, was born, out of all reason, upon
+Christmas Day, and is therefore out of all justice denied the
+consolation and profit of a proper birthday;
+
+And considering that I, the said Robert Louis Stevenson, have attained
+an age when O, we never mention it, and that I have now no further use
+for a birthday of any description;
+
+And in consideration that I have met H. C. Ide, the father of the said
+Annie H. Ide, and found him about as white a land commissioner as I
+require;
+
+_Have transferred_, and _do hereby transfer_, to the said Annie H. Ide,
+_all and whole_ my rights and privileges in the thirteenth day of
+November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby, and henceforth, the
+birthday of the said Annie H. Ide, to have, hold, exercise, and enjoy
+the same in the customary manner, by the sporting of fine raiment,
+eating of rich meats, and receipt of gifts, compliments, and copies of
+verse, according to the manner of our ancestors;
+
+_And I direct_ the said Annie H. Ide to add to the said name of Annie H.
+Ide the name Louisa--at least in private; and I charge her to use my
+said birthday with moderation and humanity, _et tamquam bona filia
+familiae_, the said birthday not being so young as it once was, and
+having carried me in a very satisfactory manner since I can remember;
+
+And in case the said Annie H. Ide shall neglect or contravene either of
+the above conditions, I hereby revoke the donation and transfer my
+rights in the said birthday to the President of the United States of
+America for the time being;
+
+In witness whereof I have hereto set my hand and seal this nineteenth
+day of June in the year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-one.
+
+    [Illustration: SEAL]
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+_Witness_, LLOYD OSBOURNE,
+_Witness_, HAROLD WATTS.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The misgivings herein expressed about the imminence of a native war
+   were not realised until two years later, and the plans of defence
+   into which Stevenson here enters with characteristic gusto were not
+   put to the test.
+
+     [_Vailima, June and July 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am so hideously in arrears that I know not where to
+begin. However, here I am a prisoner in my room, unfit for work,
+incapable of reading with interest, and trying to catch up a bit. We
+have a guest here: a welcome guest: my Sydney music master, whose health
+broke down, and who came with his remarkable simplicity, to ask a
+month's lodging. He is newly married, his wife in the family way:
+beastly time to fall sick. I have found, by good luck, a job for him
+here which will pay some of his way: and in the meantime he is a
+pleasant guest, for he plays the flute with little sentiment but great
+perfection, and endears himself by his simplicity. To me, especially; I
+am so weary of finding people approach me with precaution, pick their
+words, flatter, and twitter; but the muttons of the good God are not at
+all afraid of the lion. They take him as he comes, and he does not
+bite--at least not hard. This makes us a party of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
+8, at table; deftly waited on by Mary Carter, a very nice Sydney girl,
+who served us at a boarding-house and has since come on--how long she
+will endure this exile is another story; and gauchely waited on by
+Faauma, the new left-handed wife of the famed Lafaele, a little creature
+in native dress of course and as beautiful as a bronze candlestick, so
+fine, clean and dainty in every limb; her arms and her little hips in
+particular masterpieces. The rest of the crew may be stated briefly: the
+great Henry Simele, still to the front; King, of the yellow beard,
+rather a disappointment--I am inclined on this point to republican
+opinions: Ratke, a German cook, good--and Germanly bad, he don't make
+_my_ kitchen; Paul, now working out his debts outdoor; Emma, a strange
+weird creature--I suspect (from her colour) a quarter white--widow of a
+white man, ugly, capable, a really good laundress; Java--yes, that is
+the name--they spell it Siava, but pronounce it, and explain it
+Java--her assistant, a creature I adore from her plain, wholesome,
+bread-and-butter beauty. An honest, almost ugly, bright, good-natured
+face; the rest (to my sense) merely exquisite. She comes steering into
+my room of a morning, like Mrs. Nickleby, with elaborate precaution;
+unlike her, noiseless. If I look up from my work, she is ready with an
+explosive smile. I generally don't, and wait to look at her as she
+stoops for the bellows, and trips tiptoe off again, a miracle of
+successful womanhood in every line. I am amused to find plain, healthy
+Java pass in my fancy so far before pretty young Faauma. I observed
+Lloyd the other day to say that Java must have been lovely "when she was
+young"; and I thought it an odd word, of a woman in the height of
+health, not yet touched with fat, though (to be just) a little slack of
+bust.
+
+Our party you know: Fanny, Lloyd, my mother, Belle, and "the babe"--as
+we call him--Austin. We have now three instruments; Boehm flageolet,
+flute, and Bb clarinet; and we expect in a few days our piano. This is a
+great pleasure to me; the band-mastering, the playing and all. As soon
+as I am done with this stage of a letter, I shall return, not being
+allowed to play, to band-master, being engaged in an attempt to arrange
+an air with effect for the three pipes. And I'll go now, by jabers.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_July 3rd._--A long pause: occasioned, first by some days of hard work:
+next by a vile quinsey--if that be the way to spell it. But to-day I
+must write. For we have all kinds of larks on hand. The wars and rumours
+of wars begin to take consistency, insomuch that we have landed the
+weapons this morning, and inspected the premises with a view to defence.
+Of course it will come to nothing; but as in all stories of massacres,
+the one you don't prepare for is the one that comes off. All our natives
+think ill of the business; none of the whites do. According to our
+natives the demonstration threatened for to-day or to-morrow is one of
+vengeance on the whites--small wonder--and if that begins--where will it
+stop? Anyway I don't mean to go down for nothing, if I can help it; and
+to amuse you I will tell you our plans.
+
+There is the house, upper story. Our weak point is of course the sides
+AB, AH; so we propose to place half our garrison in the space HGFD and
+half in the opposite corner, BB'CD. We shall communicate through the
+interior, there is a water-tank in the angle C, my mother and Austin are
+to go in the loft. The holding of only these two corners and deserting
+the corner C' is for economy and communication, two doors being in the
+sides GF and CD; so that any one in the corner C' could only communicate
+or be reinforced by exposure. Besides we are short of mattresses.
+Garrison: R. L. S., Lloyd, Fanny, King, Ratke--doubtful, he may
+go--Emma, Mary, Belle; weapons: eight revolvers and a shot gun, and
+swords galore; but we're pretty far gone when we come to the swords. It
+has been rather a lark arranging; but I find it a bore to write, and I
+doubt it will be cruel stale to read about, when all's over and done, as
+it will be ere this goes, I fancy: far more ere it reaches you.
+
+_Date unknown._--Well, nothing as yet, though I don't swear by it yet.
+There has been a lot of trouble, and there still is a lot of doubt as to
+the future; and those who sit in the chief seats, who are all excellent,
+pleasant creatures, are not, perhaps, the most wise of mankind. They
+actually proposed to kidnap and deport Mataafa; a scheme which would
+have loosed the avalanche at once. But some human being interfered and
+choked off this pleasing scheme. You ask me in yours just received, what
+will become of us if it comes to a war? Well, if it is a war of the old
+sort, nothing. It will mean a little bother, and a great deal of theft,
+and more amusement. But if it comes to the massacre lark, I can only
+answer with the Bell of Old Bow. You are to understand that, in my
+reading of the native character, every day that passes is a solid gain.
+They put in the time public speaking; so wear out their energy, develop
+points of difference and exacerbate internal ill-feeling. Consequently,
+I feel less apprehension of difficulty now, by about a hundredfold. All
+that I stick to, is that if war begins, there are ten chances to one we
+shall have it bad. The natives have been scurvily used by all the white
+powers without exception; and they labour under the belief, of which
+they can't be cured, that they defeated Germany. This makes an awkward
+complication.
+
+I was extremely vexed to hear you were ill again. I hope you are better.
+'Tis a long time we have known each other now, to be sure. Well, well!
+you say you are sure to catch fever in the bush; so we do continually;
+but you are to conceive Samoa fever as the least formidable malady under
+heaven: implying only a day or so of slight headache and languor and ill
+humour, easily reduced by quinine or antipyrine. The hot fever I had was
+from over-exertion and blood poisoning, no doubt, and irritation of the
+bladder; it went of its own accord and with rest. I have had since a bad
+quinsey which knocked me rather useless for about a week, but I stuck to
+my work, with great difficulty and small success.
+
+_Date unknown._--But it's fast day and July, and the rude inclement
+depth of winter, and the thermometer was 68 this morning and a few days
+ago it was 63, and we have all been perishing with cold. All still seems
+quiet. Your counterfeit presentments are all round us: the pastel over
+my bed, the Dew-Smith photograph over my door, and the "celebrity" on
+Fanny's table. My room is now done, and looks very gay, and chromatic
+with its blue walls and my coloured lines of books.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This is the first letter in which Stevenson expresses the opinion
+   which had been forcing itself upon him, and which he felt it his duty
+   in the following year to express publicly in letters to the Times, of
+   the unwisdom of the government established under the treaty between
+   the Three Powers and the incompetence of the officials appointed to
+   carry it out.
+
+     _[Vailima] Sunday, Sept. 5(?), 1891._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Yours from Lochinver has just come. You ask me if I am
+ever homesick for the Highlands and the Isles. Conceive that for the
+last month I have been living there between 1786 and 1850, in my
+grandfather's diaries and letters. I _had_ to take a rest; no use
+talking; so I put in a month over my _Lives of the Stevensons_ with
+great pleasure and profit and some advance; one chapter and a part
+drafted. The whole promises well. Chapter I. Domestic Annals. Chapter
+II. The Northern Lights. Chapter III. The Bell Rock. Chapter IV. A
+Family of Boys. Chap. V. The Grandfather. VI. Alan Stevenson. VII.
+Thomas Stevenson. My materials for my great-grandfather are almost null;
+for my grandfather copious and excellent. Name, a puzzle. _A Scottish
+Family_, _A Family of Engineers_, _Northern Lights_, _The Engineers of
+the Northern Lights: A Family History_. Advise; but it will take long.
+Now, imagine if I have been homesick for Barrahead and Island Glass, and
+Kirkwall, and Cape Wrath, and the Wells of the Pentland Firth; I could
+have wept.
+
+Now for politics. I am much less alarmed; I believe the _malo_ (= _raj_,
+government) will collapse and cease like an overlain infant, without a
+shot fired. They have now been months here on their big salaries--and
+Cedercrantz, whom I specially like as a man, has done nearly nothing,
+and the Baron, who is well-meaning, has done worse. They have these
+large salaries, and they have all the taxes; they have made scarce a
+foot of road; they have not given a single native a position--all to
+white men; they have scarce laid out a penny on Apia, and scarce a penny
+on the King; they have forgot they were in Samoa, or that such a thing
+as Samoans existed, and had eyes and some intelligence. The Chief
+Justice has refused to pay his customs! The President proposed to have
+an expensive house built for himself, while the King, his master, has
+none! I had stood aside, and been a loyal, and, above all, a silent
+subject, up to then; but now I snap my fingers at their _malo_. It is
+damned, and I'm damned glad of it. And this is not all. Last "_Wainiu_,"
+when I sent Fanny off to Fiji, I hear the wonderful news that the Chief
+Justice is going to Fiji and the Colonies to improve his mind. I showed
+my way of thought to his guest, Count Wachtmeister, whom I have sent to
+you with a letter--he will tell you all the news. Well, the Chief
+Justice stayed, but they said he was to leave yesterday. I had intended
+to go down, and see and warn him! But the President's house had come up
+in the meanwhile, and I let them go to their doom, which I am only
+anxious to see swiftly and (if it may be) bloodlessly fall.
+
+Thus I have in a way withdrawn my unrewarded loyalty. Lloyd is down
+to-day with Moors to call on Mataafa; the news of the excursion made a
+considerable row in Apia, and both the German and the English consuls
+besought Lloyd not to go. But he stuck to his purpose, and with my
+approval. It's a poor thing if people are to give up a pleasure party
+for a _malo_ that has never done anything for us but draw taxes, and is
+going to go pop, and leave us at the mercy of the identical Mataafa,
+whom I have not visited for more than a year, and who is probably
+furious.
+
+The sense of my helplessness here has been rather bitter; I feel it
+wretched to see this dance of folly and injustice and unconscious
+rapacity go forward from day to day, and to be impotent. I was not
+consulted--or only by one man, and that on particular points; I did not
+choose to volunteer advice till some pressing occasion; I have not even
+a vote, for I am not a member of the municipality.
+
+What ails you, miserable man, to talk of saving material? I have a whole
+world in my head, a whole new society to work, but I am in no hurry; you
+will shortly make the acquaintance of the Island of Ulufanua, on which
+I mean to lay several stories; the _Bloody Wedding_, possibly the _High
+Woods_--(O, it's so good, the _High Woods_, but the story is craziness;
+that's the trouble)--a political story, the _Labour Slave_, etc.
+Ulufanua is an imaginary island; the name is a beautiful Samoan word for
+the _top_ of a forest; ulu=leaves or hair, fanua=land. The ground or
+country of the leaves. "Ulufanua the isle of the sea," read that verse
+dactylically and you get the beat; the u's are like our double oo; did
+ever you hear a prettier word?
+
+I do not feel inclined to make a volume of Essays,[22] but if I did, and
+perhaps the idea is good--and any idea is better than the _South
+Seas_--here would be my choice of the Scribner articles: _Dreams_,
+_Beggars_, _Lantern-Bearers_, _Random Memories_. There was a paper
+called the _Old Pacific Capital_ in Fraser, in Tulloch's time, which had
+merit; there were two on Fontainebleau in the Magazine of Art in
+Henley's time. I have no idea if they're any good; then there's the
+_Emigrant Train_. _Pulvis et Umbra_ is in a different key, and wouldn't
+hang on with the rest.
+
+I have just interrupted my letter and read through the chapter of the
+_High Woods_ that is written, a chapter and a bit, some sixteen pages,
+really very fetching, but what do you wish? the story is so wilful, so
+steep, so silly--it's a hallucination I have outlived, and yet I never
+did a better piece of work, horrid, and pleasing, and extraordinarily
+_true_; it's sixteen pages of the South Seas; their essence. What am I
+to do? Lose this little gem--for I'll be bold, and that's what I think
+it--or go on with the rest, which I don't believe in, and don't like,
+and which can never make aught but a silly yarn? Make another end to it?
+Ah, yes, but that's not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I
+never use an effect, when I can help it, unless it prepares the effects
+that are to follow; that's what a story consists in. To make another
+end, that is to make the beginning all wrong. The denouement of a long
+story is nothing; it is just a "full close," which you may approach and
+accompany as you please--it is a coda, not an essential member in the
+rhythm; but the body and end of a short story is bone of the bone and
+blood of the blood of the beginning. Well, I shall end by finishing it
+against my judgment; that fragment is my Delilah. Golly, it's good. I am
+not shining by modesty; but I do just love the colour and movement of
+that piece so far as it goes.
+
+I was surprised to hear of your fishing. And you saw the _Pharos_,[23]
+thrice fortunate man; I wish I dared go home, I would ask the
+Commissioners to take me round for old sake's sake, and see all my
+family pictures once more from the Mull of Galloway to Unst. However,
+all is arranged for our meeting in Ceylon, except the date and the
+blooming pounds. I have heard of an exquisite hotel in the country,
+airy, large rooms, good cookery, not dear; we shall have a couple of
+months there, if we can make it out, and converse or--as my grandfather
+always said--"commune." "Communings with Mr. Kennedy as to Lighthouse
+Repairs." He was a fine old fellow, but a droll.
+
+_Evening._--Lloyd has returned. Peace and war were played before his
+eyes at heads or tails. A German was stopped with levelled guns; he
+raised his whip; had it fallen, we might have been now in war. Excuses
+were made by Mataafa himself. Doubtless the thing was done--I mean the
+stopping of the German--a little to show off before Lloyd. Meanwhile
+---- was up here, telling how the Chief Justice was really gone for five
+or eight weeks, and begging me to write to the Times and denounce the
+state of affairs; many strong reasons he advanced; and Lloyd and I have
+been since his arrival and ----'s departure, near half an hour, debating
+what should be done. Cedercrantz is gone; it is not my fault; he knows
+my views on that point--alone of all points;--he leaves me with my mouth
+sealed. Yet this is a nice thing that because he is guilty of a fresh
+offence--his flight--the mouth of the only possible influential witness
+should be closed? I do not like this argument. I look like a cad, if I
+do in the man's absence what I could have done in a more manly manner in
+his presence. True; but why did he go? It is his last sin. And I, who
+like the man extremely--that is the word--I love his society--he is
+intelligent, pleasant, even witty, a gentleman--and you know how that
+attaches--I loathe to seem to play a base part; but the poor
+natives--who are like other folk, false enough, lazy enough, not heroes,
+not saints--ordinary men damnably misused--are they to suffer because I
+like Cedercrantz, and Cedercrantz has cut his lucky? This is a little
+tragedy, observe well--a tragedy! I may be right, I may be wrong in my
+judgment, but I am in treaty with my honour. I know not how it will seem
+to-morrow. Lloyd thought the barrier of honour insurmountable, and it is
+an ugly obstacle. He (Cedercrantz) will likely meet my wife three days
+from now, may travel back with her, will be charming if he does; suppose
+this, and suppose him to arrive and find that I have sprung a mine--or
+the nearest approach to it I could find--behind his back? My position is
+pretty. Yes, I am an aristocrat. I have the old petty, personal view of
+honour? I should blush till I die if I do this; yet it is on the cards
+that I may do it. So much I have written you in bed, as a man writes or
+talks, in a _bittre Wahl_. Now I shall sleep, and see if I am more
+clear. I will consult the missionaries at least--I place some reliance
+in M. also--or I should if he were not a partisan; but a partisan he is.
+There's a pity. To sleep! A fund of wisdom in the prostrate body and the
+fed brain. Kindly observe R. L. S. in the talons of politics! 'Tis
+funny--'tis sad. Nobody but these cursed idiots could have so driven me;
+I cannot bear idiots.
+
+My dear Colvin, I must go to sleep; it is long past ten--a dreadful hour
+for me. And here am I lingering (so I feel) in the dining-room at the
+Monument, talking to you across the table, both on our feet, and only
+the two stairs to mount, and get to bed, and sleep, and be waked by dear
+old George--to whom I wish my kindest remembrances--next morning. I look
+round, and there is my blue room, and my long lines of shelves, and the
+door gaping on a moonless night, and no word of S. C. but his twa
+portraits on the wall. Good-bye, my dear fellow, and good-night. Queer
+place the world!
+
+_Monday._--No clearness of mind with the morning; I have no guess what I
+should do. 'Tis easy to say that the public duty should brush aside
+these little considerations of personal dignity; so it is that
+politicians begin, and in a month you find them rat and flatter and
+intrigue with brows of brass. I am rather of the old view, that a man's
+first duty is to these little laws; the big he does not, he never will,
+understand; I may be wrong about the Chief Justice and the Baron and the
+state of Samoa; I cannot be wrong about the vile attitude I put myself
+in if I blow the gaff on Cedercrantz behind his back.
+
+_Tuesday._--One more word about the _South Seas_, in answer to a
+question I observed I have forgotten to answer. The Tahiti part has
+never turned up, because it has never been written. As for telling you
+where I went or when, or anything about Honolulu, I would rather die;
+that is fair and plain. How can anybody care when or how I left
+Honolulu? A man of upwards of forty cannot waste his time in
+communicating matter of that indifference. The letters, it appears, are
+tedious; they would be more tedious still if I wasted my time upon such
+infantile and sucking-bottle details. If ever I put in any such detail,
+it is because it leads into something or serves as a transition. To
+tell it for its own sake, never! The mistake is all through that I have
+told too much; I had not sufficient confidence in the reader, and have
+overfed him; and here are you anxious to learn how I--O Colvin! Suppose
+it had made a book, all such information is given to one glance of an
+eye by a map with a little dotted line upon it. But let us forget this
+unfortunate affair.
+
+_Wednesday._--Yesterday I went down to consult Clarke, who took the view
+of delay. Has he changed his mind already? I wonder: here at least is
+the news. Some little while back some men of Manono--what is Manono?--a
+Samoan rotten borough, a small isle of huge political importance, heaven
+knows why, where a handful of chiefs make half the trouble in the
+country. Some men of Manono (which is strong Mataafa) burned down the
+houses and destroyed the crops of some Malietoa neighbours. The
+President went there the other day and landed alone on the island, which
+(to give him his due) was plucky. Moreover, he succeeded in persuading
+the folks to come up and be judged on a particular day in Apia. That day
+they did not come; but did come the next, and, to their vast surprise,
+were given six months' imprisonment and clapped in gaol. Those who had
+accompanied them cried to them on the streets as they were marched to
+prison, "Shall we rescue you?" The condemned, marching in the hands of
+thirty men with loaded rifles, cried out "No"! And the trick was done.
+But it was ardently believed a rescue would be attempted; the gaol was
+laid about with armed men day and night; but there was some question of
+their loyalty, and the commandant of the forces, a very nice young
+beardless Swede, became nervous, and conceived a plan. How if he should
+put dynamite under the gaol, and in case of an attempted rescue blow up
+prison and all? He went to the President, who agreed; he went to the
+American man-of-war for the dynamite and machine, was refused, and got
+it at last from the Wreckers. The thing began to leak out, and there
+arose a muttering in town. People had no fancy for amateur explosions,
+for one thing. For another, it did not clearly appear that it was legal;
+the men had been condemned to six months' prison, which they were
+peaceably undergoing; they had not been condemned to death. And lastly,
+it seemed a somewhat advanced example of civilisation to set before
+barbarians. The mutter in short became a storm, and yesterday, while I
+was down, a cutter was chartered, and the prisoners were suddenly
+banished to the Tokelaus. Who has changed the sentence? We are going to
+stir in the dynamite matter; we do not want the natives to fancy us
+consenting to such an outrage.
+
+Fanny has returned from her trip, and on the whole looks better. The
+_High Woods_ are under way, and their name is now the _Beach of Falesa_,
+and the yarn is cured. I have about thirty pages of it done; it will be
+fifty to seventy I suppose. No supernatural trick at all; and escaped
+out of it quite easily; can't think why I was so stupid for so long.
+Mighty glad to have Fanny back to this "Hell of the South Seas," as the
+German Captain called it. What will Cedercrantz think when he comes
+back? To do him justice, had he been here, this Manono hash would not
+have been.
+
+Here is a pretty thing. When Fanny was in Fiji all the Samoa and Tokelau
+folks were agog about our "flash" house; but the whites had never heard
+of it.
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
+      Author of _The Beach of Falesa_.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+    _[Vailima], Sept. 28, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Since I last laid down my pen, I have written and
+rewritten _The Beach of Falesa_; something like sixty thousand words of
+sterling domestic fiction (the story, you will understand, is only half
+that length); and now I don't want to write any more again for ever, or
+feel so; and I've got to overhaul it once again to my sorrow. I was all
+yesterday revising, and found a lot of slacknesses and (what is worse in
+this kind of thing) some literaryisms. One of the puzzles is this: It is
+a first person story--a trader telling his own adventure in an island.
+When I began I allowed myself a few liberties, because I was afraid of
+the end; now the end proved quite easy, and could be done in the pace;
+so the beginning remains about a quarter tone out (in places); but I
+have rather decided to let it stay so. The problem is always delicate;
+it is the only thing that worries me in first person tales, which
+otherwise (quo' Alan) "set better wi' my genius." There is a vast deal
+of fact in the story, and some pretty good comedy. It is the first
+realistic South Sea story; I mean with real South Sea character and
+details of life. Everybody else who has tried, that I have seen, got
+carried away by the romance, and ended in a kind of sugar candy sham
+epic, and the whole effect was lost--there was no etching, no human
+grin, consequently no conviction. Now I have got the smell and look of
+the thing a good deal. You will know more about the South Seas after you
+have read my little tale than if you had read a library. As to whether
+any one else will read it, I have no guess. I am in an off time, but
+there is just the possibility it might make a hit; for the yarn is good
+and melodramatic, and there is quite a love affair--for me; and Mr.
+Wiltshire (the narrator) is a huge lark, though I say it. But there is
+always the exotic question, and everything, the life, the place, the
+dialects--trader's talk, which is a strange conglomerate of literary
+expressions and English and American slang, and Beach de Mar, or native
+English,--the very trades and hopes and fears of the characters, are all
+novel, and may be found unwelcome to that great, hulking, bullering
+whale, the public.
+
+Since I wrote, I have been likewise drawing up a document to send in to
+the President; it has been dreadfully delayed, not by me, but to-day
+they swear it will be sent in. A list of questions about the dynamite
+report are herein laid before him, and considerations suggested why he
+should answer.
+
+_October 5th._--Ever since my last snatch I have been much chivied about
+over the President business; his answer has come, and is an evasion
+accompanied with schoolboy insolence, and we are going to try to answer
+it. I drew my answer and took it down yesterday; but one of the
+signatories wants another paragraph added, which I have not yet been
+able to draw, and as to the wisdom of which I am not yet convinced.
+
+_Next day, Oct. 7th the right day._--We are all in rather a muddled
+state with our President affair. I do loathe politics, but at the same
+time, I cannot stand by and have the natives blown in the air
+treacherously with dynamite. They are still quiet; how long this may
+continue I do not know, though of course by mere prescription the
+Government is strengthened, and is probably insured till the next taxes
+fall due. But the unpopularity of the whites is growing. My native
+overseer, the great Henry Simele, announced to-day that he was "weary of
+whites upon the beach. All too proud," said this veracious witness. One
+of the proud ones had threatened yesterday to cut off his head with a
+bush knife! These are "native outrages"; honour bright, and setting
+theft aside, in which the natives are active, this is the main stream of
+irritation. The natives are generally courtly, far from always civil,
+but really gentle, and with a strong sense of honour of their own, and
+certainly quite as much civilised as our dynamiting President.
+
+We shall be delighted to see Kipling.[24] I go to bed usually about
+half-past eight, and my lamp is out before ten; I breakfast at six. We
+may say roughly we have no soda water on the island, and just now
+truthfully no whisky. I _have_ heard the chimes at midnight; now no
+more, I guess. _But_--Fanny and I, as soon as we can get coins for it,
+are coming to Europe, not to England: I am thinking of Royat. Bar wars.
+If not, perhaps the Apennines might give us a mountain refuge for two
+months or three in summer. How is that for high? But the money must be
+all in hand first.
+
+_October 13th._--How am I to describe my life these last few days? I
+have been wholly swallowed up in politics, a wretched business, with
+fine elements of farce in it too, which repay a man in passing,
+involving many dark and many moonlight rides, secret counsels which are
+at once divulged, sealed letters which are read aloud in confidence to
+the neighbours, and a mass of fudge and fun, which would have driven me
+crazy ten years ago, and now makes me smile.
+
+On Friday, Henry came and told us he must leave and go to "my poor old
+family in Savaii"; why? I do not quite know--but, I suspect, to be
+tattooed--if so, then probably to be married, and we shall see him no
+more. I told him he must do what he thought his duty; we had him to
+lunch, drank his health, and he and I rode down about twelve. When I got
+down, I sent my horse back to help bring down the family later. My own
+afternoon was cut out for me; my last draft for the President had been
+objected to by some of the signatories. I stood out, and one of our
+small number accordingly refused to sign. Him I had to go and persuade,
+which went off very well after the first hottish moments; you have no
+idea how stolid my temper is now. By about five the thing was done; and
+we sat down to dinner at the Chinaman's--the Verrey or Doyen of
+Apia--Gurr and I at each end as hosts; Gurr's wife--Fanua, late maid of
+the village; her (adopted) father and mother, Seumanu and Faatulia,
+Fanny, Belle, Lloyd, Austin, and Henry Simele, his last appearance.
+Henry was in a kilt of grey shawl, with a blue jacket, white shirt, and
+black necktie, and looked like a dark genteel guest in a Highland
+shooting-box. Seumanu (opposite Fanny, next G.) is chief of Apia, a
+rather big gun in this place, looking like a large, fatted, military
+Englishman, bar the colour. Faatulia, next me, is a bigger chief than
+her husband. Henry is a chief too--his chief name, Iiga (Ee-eeng-a), he
+has not yet "taken" because of his youth. We were in fine society, and
+had a pleasant meal-time, with lots of fun. Then to the Opera--I beg
+your pardon, I mean the Circus. We occupied the first row in the
+reserved seats, and there in the row behind were all our
+friends--Captain Foss and his Captain-Lieutenant, three of the American
+officers, very nice fellows, the Dr., etc., so we made a fine show of
+what an embittered correspondent of the local paper called "the shoddy
+aristocracy of Apia"; and you should have seen how we carried on, and
+how I clapped, and Captain Foss hollered "_wunderschoen!_" and threw
+himself forward in his seat, and how we all in fact enjoyed ourselves
+like school-children, Austin not a shade more than his neighbours. Then
+the Circus broke up, and the party went home, but I stayed down, having
+business on the morrow.
+
+Yesterday, October 12th, great news reaches me, and Lloyd and I, with
+the mail just coming in, must leave all, saddle, and ride down. True
+enough, the President had resigned! Sought to resign his presidency of
+the council, and keep his advisership to the King; given way to the
+consuls' objections and resigned all--then fell out with them about the
+disposition of the funds, and was now trying to resign from his
+resignation! Sad little President, so trim to look at, and I believe so
+kind to his little wife! Not only so, but I meet Dunnet on the beach.
+Dunnet calls me in consultation, and we make with infinite difficulty a
+draft of a petition to the King.... Then to dinner at Moors's, a very
+merry meal, interrupted before it was over by the arrival of the
+committee. Slight sketch of procedure agreed upon, self appointed
+spokesman, and the deputation sets off. Walk all through Matafele, all
+along Mulinuu, come to the King's house; he has verbally refused to see
+us in answer to our letter, swearing he is gasegase (chief sickness, not
+common man's) and indeed we see him inside in bed. It is a miserable low
+house, better houses by the dozen in the little hamlet (Tanugamanono) of
+bushmen on our way to Vailima; and the President's house in process of
+erection just opposite! We are told to return to-morrow; I refuse; and
+at last we are very sourly received, sit on the mats, and I open out,
+through a very poor interpreter, and sometimes hampered by unacceptable
+counsels from my backers. I can speak fairly well in a plain way now. C.
+asked me to write out my harangue for him this morning; I have done so,
+and couldn't get it near as good. I suppose (talking and interpreting) I
+was twenty minutes or half an hour on the deck; then his majesty replied
+in the dying whisper of a big chief; a few words of rejoinder
+(approving), and the deputation withdrew, rather well satisfied.
+
+A few days ago this intervention would have been a deportable offence;
+not now, I bet; I would like them to try. A little way back along
+Mulinuu, Mrs. Gurr met us with her husband's horse; and he and she and
+Lloyd and I rode back in a heavenly moonlight. Here ends a chapter in
+the life of an island politician! Catch me at it again; 'tis easy to go
+in, but it is not a pleasant trade. I have had a good team, as good as I
+could get on the beach; but what trouble even so, and what fresh
+troubles shaping. But I have on the whole carried all my points; I
+believe all but one, and on that (which did not concern me) I had no
+right to interfere. I am sure you would be amazed if you knew what a
+good hand I am at keeping my temper, talking people over, and giving
+reasons which are not my reasons, but calculated for the meridian of
+the particular objection; so soon does falsehood await the politician
+in his whirling path.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+   Stevenson had again been reading Mr. James's _Lesson of the Master_;
+   Adela Chart is the heroine of the second story in that collection,
+   called _The Marriages_.
+
+     [_Vailima, October 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--From this perturbed and hunted being expect but a
+line, and that line shall be but a whoop for Adela. O she's delicious,
+delicious; I could live and die with Adela--die, rather the better of
+the two; you never did a straighter thing, and never will.
+
+_David Balfour_, second part of _Kidnapped_, is on the stocks at last;
+and is not bad, I think. As for _The Wrecker_, it's a machine, you
+know--don't expect aught else--a machine, and a police machine; but I
+believe the end is one of the most genuine butcheries in literature; and
+we point to our machine with a modest pride, as the only police machine
+without a villain. Our criminals are a most pleasing crew, and leave the
+dock with scarce a stain upon their character.
+
+What a different line of country to be trying to draw Adela, and trying
+to write the last four chapters of _The Wrecker_! Heavens, it's like two
+centuries; and ours is such rude, transpontine business, aiming only at
+a certain fervour of conviction and sense of energy and violence in the
+men; and yours is so neat and bright and of so exquisite a surface!
+Seems dreadful to send such a book to such an author; but your name is
+on the list. And we do modestly ask you to consider the chapters on the
+_Norah Creina_ with the study of Captain Nares, and the forementioned
+last four, with their brutality of substance and the curious (and
+perhaps unsound) technical manoeuvre of running the story together to
+a point as we go along, the narrative becoming more succinct and the
+details fining off with every page.--Sworn affidavit of
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+_No person now alive has beaten Adela: I adore Adela and her maker. Sic
+subscrib._
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+    A Sublime Poem to follow.
+
+  Adela, Adela, Adela Chart,
+  What have you done to my elderly heart?
+  Of all the ladies of paper and ink
+  I count you the paragon, call you the pink.
+  The word of your brother depicts you in part:
+  "You raving maniac!" Adela Chart;
+  But in all the asylums that cumber the ground,
+  So delightful a maniac was ne'er to be found.
+
+  I pore on you, dote on you, clasp you to heart,
+  I laud, love, and laugh at you, Adela Chart,
+  And thank my dear maker the while I admire
+  That I can be neither your husband nor sire.
+
+  Your husband's, your sire's were a difficult part;
+  You're a byway to suicide, Adela Chart;
+  But to read of, depicted by exquisite James,
+  O, sure you're the flower and quintessence of dames.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+    _Eructavit cor meum_
+
+My heart was inditing a goodly matter about Adela Chart.
+
+  Though oft I've been touched by the volatile dart,
+  To none have I grovelled but Adela Chart,
+  There are passable ladies, no question, in art--
+  But where is the marrow of Adela Chart?
+
+  I dreamed that to Tyburn I passed in the cart--
+  I dreamed I was married to Adela Chart:
+  From the first I awoke with a palpable start,
+  The second dumbfoundered me, Adela Chart!
+
+Another verse bursts from me, you see; no end to the violence of the
+Muse.
+
+
+
+
+To E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+    _[Vailima], October 8th, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--All right, you shall have the _Tales of my
+Grandfather_ soon, but I guess we'll try and finish off _The Wrecker_
+first. _A propos_ of whom, please send some advanced sheets to
+Cassell's--away ahead of you--so that they may get a dummy out.
+
+Do you wish to illustrate _My Grandfather_? He mentions as excellent a
+portrait of Scott by Basil Hall's brother. I don't think I ever saw this
+engraved; would it not, if you could get track of it, prove a taking
+embellishment? I suggest this for your consideration and inquiry. A new
+portrait of Scott strikes me as good. There is a hard, tough,
+constipated old portrait of my grandfather hanging in my aunt's house,
+Mrs. Alan Stevenson, 16 St. Leonard's Terrace, Chelsea, which has never
+been engraved--the better portrait, Joseph's bust, has been reproduced,
+I believe, twice--and which, I am sure, my aunt would let you have a
+copy of. The plate could be of use for the book when we get so far, and
+thus to place it in the Magazine might be an actual saving.
+
+I am swallowed up in politics for the first, I hope for the last, time
+in my sublunary career. It is a painful, thankless trade; but one thing
+that came up I could not pass in silence. Much drafting, addressing,
+deputationising has eaten up all my time, and again (to my contrition)
+I leave you Wreckerless. As soon as the mail leaves I tackle it
+straight.--Yours very sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+     [_Vailima, October 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--The time draws nigh, the mail is near due, and I
+snatch a moment of collapse so that you may have at least some sort of a
+scratch of note along with the
+
+  \ end
+   \ of
+    \ _The_
+     \ _Wrecker_.     Hurray!
+
+which I mean to go herewith. It has taken me a devil of a pull, but I
+think it's going to be ready. If I did not know you were on the stretch
+waiting for it and trembling for your illustrations, I would keep it for
+another finish; but things being as they are, I will let it go the best
+way I can get it. I am now within two pages of the end of Chapter XXV.,
+which is the last chapter, the end with its gathering up of loose
+threads, being the dedication to Low, and addressed to him; this is my
+last and best expedient for the knotting up of these loose cards. 'Tis
+possible I may not get that finished in time, in which case you'll
+receive only Chapters XXII. to XXV. by this mail, which is all that can
+be required for illustration.
+
+I wish you would send me _Memoirs of Baron Marbot_ (French);
+_Introduction to the Study of the History of Language_, Strong, Logeman
+& Wheeler; _Principles of Psychology_, William James; Morris &
+Magnusson's _Saga Library_, any volumes that are out; George Meredith's
+_One of our Conquerors_; _La Bas_, by Huysmans (French); O'Connor
+Morris's _Great Commanders of Modern Times_; _Life's Handicap_, by
+Kipling; of Taine's _Origines de la France Contemporaine_, I have only
+as far as _la Revolution_, vol. iii.; if another volume is out, please
+add that. There is for a book-box.
+
+I hope you will like the end; I think it is rather strong meat. I have
+got into such a deliberate, dilatory, expansive turn, that the effort to
+compress this last yarn was unwelcome; but the longest yarn has to come
+to an end some time. Please look it over for carelessnesses, and tell me
+if it had any effect upon your jaded editorial mind. I'll see if ever I
+have time to add more.
+
+I add to my book-box list Adams' _Historical Essays_; the Plays of A. W.
+Pinero--all that have appeared, and send me the rest in course as they
+do appear; _Noughts and Crosses_ by Q.; Robertson's _Scotland under her
+Early Kings_.
+
+_Sunday._--The deed is done, didst thou not hear a noise? "The end" has
+been written to this endless yarn, and I am once more a free man. What
+will he do with it?
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Monday, October 24th._
+
+MY DEAR CARTHEW,[25]--See what I have written, but it's Colvin I'm
+after--I have written two chapters, about thirty pages of _Wrecker_
+since the mail left, which must be my excuse, and the bother I've had
+with it is not to be imagined; you might have seen me the day before
+yesterday weighing British sov.'s and Chili dollars to arrange my
+treasure chest. And there was such a calculation, not for that only, but
+for the ship's position and distances when--but I am not going to tell
+you the yarn--and then, as my arithmetic is particularly lax, Lloyd had
+to go over all my calculations; and then, as I had changed the amount
+of money, he had to go over all _his_ as to the amount of the lay; and
+altogether, a bank could be run with less effusion of figures than it
+took to shore up a single chapter of a measly yarn. However, it's done,
+and I have but one more, or at the outside two, to do, and I am Free!
+and can do any damn thing I like.
+
+Before falling on politics, I shall give you my day. Awoke somewhere
+about the first peep of day, came gradually to, and had a turn on the
+verandah before 5.55, when "the child" (an enormous Wallis Islander)
+brings me an orange; at 6, breakfast; 6.10, to work; which lasts till,
+at 10.30, Austin comes for his history lecture; this is rather
+dispiriting, but education must be gone about in faith--and charity,
+both of which pretty nigh failed me to-day about (of all things)
+Carthage; 11, luncheon; after luncheon in my mother's room, I read
+Chapter XXIII. of _The Wrecker_, then Belle, Lloyd, and I go up and make
+music furiously till about 2 (I suppose), when I turn into work again
+till 4; fool from 4 to half-past, tired out and waiting for the bath
+hour; 4.30, bath; 4.40, eat two heavenly mangoes on the verandah, and
+see the boys arrive with the pack-horses; 5, dinner; smoke, chat on
+verandah, then hand of cards, and at last at 8 come up to my room with a
+pint of beer and a hard biscuit, which I am now consuming, and as soon
+as they are consumed I shall turn in.
+
+Such are the innocent days of this ancient and outworn sportsman; to-day
+there was no weeding, usually there is however, edged in somewhere. My
+books for the moment are a crib to Phaedo, and the second book of
+Montaigne; and a little while back I was reading Frederic Harrison,
+_Choice of Books_, etc.--very good indeed, a great deal of sense and
+knowledge in the volume, and some very true stuff, _contra_ Carlyle,
+about the eighteenth century. A hideous idea came over me that perhaps
+Harrison is now getting _old_. Perhaps you are. Perhaps I am. Oh, this
+infidelity must be stared firmly down. I am about twenty-three--say
+twenty-eight; you about thirty, or, by'r lady, thirty-four; and as
+Harrison belongs to the same generation, there is no good bothering
+about him.
+
+Here has just been a fine alert; I gave my wife a dose of chlorodyne.
+"Something wrong," says she. "Nonsense," said I. "Embrocation," said
+she. I smelt it, and--it smelt very funny. "I think it's just gone bad,
+and to-morrow will tell." Proved to be so.
+
+_Wednesday._--History of Tuesday.--Woke at usual time, very little work,
+for I was tired, and had a job for the evening--to write parts for a new
+instrument, a violin. Lunch, chat, and up to my place to practise; but
+there was no practising for me--my flageolet was gone wrong, and I had
+to take it all to pieces, clean it, and put it up again. As this is a
+most intricate job--the thing dissolves into seventeen separate members,
+most of these have to be fitted on their individual springs as fine as
+needles, and sometimes two at once with the springs shoving different
+ways--it took me till two. Then Lloyd and I rode forth on our errands;
+first to Motootua, where we had a really instructive conversation on
+weeds and grasses. Thence down to Apia, where we bought a fresh bottle
+of chlorodyne and conversed on politics.
+
+My visit to the King, which I thought at the time a particularly
+nugatory and even schoolboy step, and only consented to because I had
+held the reins so tight over my little band before, has raised a deuce
+of a row--new proclamation, no one is to interview the sacred puppet
+without consuls' permission, two days' notice, and an approved
+interpreter--read (I suppose) spy. Then back; I should have said I was
+trying the new horse; a tallish piebald, bought from the circus; he
+proved steady and safe, but in very bad condition, and not so much the
+wild Arab steed of the desert as had been supposed. The height of his
+back, after commodious Jack, astonished me, and I had a great
+consciousness of exercise and florid action, as I posted to his long,
+emphatic trot. We had to ride back easy; even so he was hot and blown;
+and when we set a boy to lead him to and fro, our last character for
+sanity perished. We returned just neat for dinner; and in the evening
+our violinist arrived, a young lady, no great virtuoso truly, but
+plucky, industrious, and a good reader; and we played five pieces with
+huge amusement, and broke up at nine. This morning I have read a
+splendid piece of Montaigne, written this page of letter, and now turn
+to _The Wrecker_.
+
+_Wednesday._--November 16th or 17th--and I am ashamed to say mail day.
+_The Wrecker_ is finished, that is the best of my news; it goes by this
+mail to Scribner's; and I honestly think it a good yarn on the whole and
+of its measly kind. The part that is genuinely good is Nares, the
+American sailor; that is a genuine figure; had there been more Nares it
+would have been a better book; but of course it didn't set up to be a
+book, only a long tough yarn with some pictures of the manners of to-day
+in the greater world--not the shoddy sham world of cities, clubs, and
+colleges, but the world where men still live a man's life. The worst of
+my news is the influenza; Apia is devastate; the shops closed, a ball
+put off, etc. As yet we have not had it at Vailima, and, who knows? we
+may escape. None of us go down, but of course the boys come and go.
+
+Your letter had the most wonderful "I told you so" I ever heard in the
+course of my life. Why, you madman, I wouldn't change my present
+installation for any post, dignity, honour, or advantage conceivable to
+me. It fills the bill; I have the loveliest time. And as for wars and
+rumours of wars, you surely know enough of me to be aware that I like
+that also a thousand times better than decrepit peace in Middlesex? I do
+not quite like politics; I am too aristocratic, I fear, for that. God
+knows I don't care who I chum with; perhaps like sailors best; but to go
+round and sue and sneak to keep a crowd together--never. My
+imagination, which is not the least damped by the idea of having my head
+cut off in the bush, recoils aghast from the idea of a life like
+Gladstone's, and the shadow of the newspaper chills me to the bone.
+Hence my late eruption was interesting, but not what I like. All else
+suits me in this (killed a mosquito) A1 abode.
+
+About politics. A determination was come to by the President that he had
+been an idiot; emissaries came to Gurr and me to kiss and be friends. My
+man proposed I should have a personal interview; I said it was quite
+useless, I had nothing to say; I had offered him the chance to inform
+me, had pressed it on him, and had been very unpleasantly received, and
+now "Time was." Then it was decided that I was to be made a culprit
+against Germany; the German Captain--a delightful fellow and our
+constant visitor--wrote to say that as "a German officer" he could not
+come even to say farewell. We all wrote back in the most friendly
+spirit, telling him (politely) that some of these days he would be
+sorry, and we should be delighted to see our friend again. Since then I
+have seen no German shadow.
+
+Mataafa has been proclaimed a rebel; the President did this act, and
+then resigned. By singular good fortune, Mataafa has not yet moved; no
+thanks to our idiot governors. They have shot their bolt; they have made
+a rebel of the only man (_to their own knowledge, on the report of their
+own spy_) who held the rebel party in check; and having thus called on
+war to fall, they can do no more, sit equally "expertes" of _vis_ and
+counsel, regarding their handiwork. It is always a cry with these folks
+that he (Mataafa) had no ammunition. I always said it would be found;
+and we know of five boat-loads that have found their way to Malie
+already. Where there are traders, there will be ammunition; aphorism by
+R. L. S.
+
+Now what am I to do next?
+
+Lives of the Stevensons? _Historia Samoae_? A History for Children?
+Fiction? I have had two hard months at fiction; I want a change.
+Stevensons? I am expecting some more material; perhaps better wait.
+Samoa? rather tempting; might be useful to the islands--and to me; for
+it will be written in admirable temper; I have never agreed with any
+party, and see merits and excuses in all; should do it (if I did) very
+slackly and easily, as if half in conversation. History for Children?
+This flows from my lessons to Austin; no book is any good. The best I
+have seen is Freeman's _Old English History_; but his style is so
+rasping, and a child can learn more, if he's clever. I found my sketch
+of general Aryan history, given in conversation, to have been
+practically correct--at least what I mean is, Freeman had very much the
+same stuff in his early chapters, only not so much, and I thought not so
+well placed; and the child remembered some of it. Now the difficulty is
+to give this general idea of main place, growth, and movement; it is
+needful to tack it on a yarn. Now Scotch is the only history I know; it
+is the only history reasonably represented in my library; it is a very
+good one for my purpose, owing to two civilisations having been face to
+face throughout--or rather Roman civilisation face to face with our
+ancient barbaric life and government, down to yesterday, to 1750 anyway.
+But the _Tales of a Grandfather_ stand in my way; I am teaching them to
+Austin now, and they have all Scott's defects and all Scott's hopeless
+merit. I cannot compete with that; and yet, so far as regards teaching
+History, how he has missed his chances! I think I'll try; I really have
+some historic sense, I feel that in my bones. Then there's another
+thing. Scott never knew the Highlands; he was always a Borderer. He has
+missed that whole, long, strange, pathetic story of our savages, and,
+besides, his style is not very perspicuous to childhood. Gad, I think
+I'll have a flutter. Buridan's Ass! Whither to go, what to attack. Must
+go to other letters; shall add to this, if I have time.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, November 1891._
+
+MY DEAR MR. ANGUS,--Herewith the invaluable sheets. They came months
+after your letter, and I trembled; but here they are, and I have
+scrawled my vile name on them, and "thocht shame" as I did it. I am
+expecting the sheets of your catalogue, so that I may attack the
+preface. Please give me all the time you can. The sooner the better; you
+might even send me early proofs as they are sent out, to give me more
+incubation. I used to write as slow as judgment; now I write rather
+fast; but I am still "a slow study," and sit a long while silent on my
+eggs. Unconscious thought, there is the only method: macerate your
+subject, let it boil slow, then take the lid off and look in--and there
+your stuff is, good or bad. But the journalist's method is the way to
+manufacture lies; it is will-worship--if you know the luminous quaker
+phrase; and the will is only to be brought in the field for study and
+again for revision. The essential part of work is not an act, it is a
+state.
+
+I do not know why I write you this trash.
+
+Many thanks for your handsome dedication. I have not yet had time to do
+more than glance at Mrs. Begg; it looks interesting.--Yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS ANNIE H. IDE
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa [November 1891]._
+
+MY DEAR LOUISA,--Your picture of the church, the photograph of yourself
+and your sister, and your very witty and pleasing letter, came all in a
+bundle, and made me feel I had my money's worth for that birthday. I am
+now, I must be, one of your nearest relatives; exactly what we are to
+each other, I do not know, I doubt if the case has ever happened
+before--your papa ought to know, and I don't believe he does; but I
+think I ought to call you in the meanwhile, and until we get the advice
+of counsel learned in the law, my name-daughter. Well, I was extremely
+pleased to see by the church that my name-daughter could draw; by the
+letter, that she was no fool; and by the photograph, that she was a
+pretty girl, which hurts nothing. See how virtues are rewarded! My first
+idea of adopting you was entirely charitable; and here I find that I am
+quite proud of it, and of you, and that I chose just the kind of
+name-daughter I wanted. For I can draw too, or rather I mean to say I
+could before I forgot how; and I am very far from being a fool myself,
+however much I may look it; and I am as beautiful as the day, or at
+least I once hoped that perhaps I might be going to be. And so I might.
+So that you see we are well met, and peers on these important points. I
+am very glad also that you are older than your sister. So should I have
+been, if I had had one. So that the number of points and virtues which
+you have inherited from your name-father is already quite surprising.
+
+I wish you would tell your father--not that I like to encourage my
+rival--that we have had a wonderful time here of late, and that they are
+having a cold day on Mulinuu, and the consuls are writing reports, and I
+am writing to the Times, and if we don't get rid of our friends this
+time I shall begin to despair of everything but my name-daughter.
+
+You are quite wrong as to the effect of the birthday on your age. From
+the moment the deed was registered (as it was in the public press with
+every solemnity), the 13th of November became your own _and only_
+birthday, and you ceased to have been born on Christmas Day. Ask your
+father: I am sure he will tell you this is sound law. You are thus
+become a month and twelve days younger than you were, but will go on
+growing older for the future in the regular and human manner from one
+13th November to the next. The effect on me is more doubtful; I may, as
+you suggest, live for ever; I might, on the other hand, come to pieces
+like the one-horse shay at a moment's notice; doubtless the step was
+risky, but I do not the least regret that which enables me to sign
+myself your revered and delighted name-father,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+     [_Vailima, November 1891._]
+
+DEAR CHARLES,--[After dealing with some matters of business] I believe
+that's a'. By this time, I suppose you will have heard from McClure, and
+the _Beach of Falesa_ will be decided on for better for worse. The end
+of _The Wrecker_ goes by this mail, an awfae relief. I am now free and
+can do what I please. What do I please? I kenna. I'll bide a wee.
+There's a child's history in the wind; and there's my grandfather's life
+begun; and there's a hist^{ry} of Samoa in the last four or five years
+begun--there's a kind of sense to this book; it may help the Samoans, it
+may help me, for I am bound on the altar here for anti-Germanism. Then
+there's _The Pearl Fisher_ about a quarter done; and there's various
+short stories in various degrees of incompleteness. De'il, there's
+plenty grist; but the mill's unco slaw! To-morrow or next day, when the
+mail's through, I'll attack one or other, or maybe something else. All
+these schemes begin to laugh at me, for the day's far through, and I
+believe the pen grows heavy. However, I believe _The Wrecker_ is a good
+yarn of its poor sort, and it is certainly well nourished with facts; no
+realist can touch me there; for by this time I do begin to know
+something of life in the XIXth century, which no novelist either in
+France or England seems to know much of. You must have great larks over
+masonry. You're away up in the ranks now and (according to works that I
+have read) doubtless design assassinations. But I am an outsider; and I
+have a certain liking for a light unto my path which would deter me from
+joining the rank and file of so vast and dim a confraternity. At your
+altitude it becomes (of course) amusing and perhaps useful. Yes, I
+remember the L.J.R.,[26] and the constitution, and my homily on Liberty,
+and yours on Reverence, which was never written--so I never knew what
+reverence was. I remember I wanted to write Justice also; but I forget
+who had the billet. My dear papa was in a devil of a taking; and I had
+to go and lunch at Ferrier's in a strangely begrutten state, which was
+_infra dig_. for a homilist on liberty. It was about four, I suppose,
+that we met in the Lothian Road,--had we the price of two bitters
+between us? questionable!
+
+Your bookseller (I have lost his letter, I mean the maid has, arranging
+my room, and so have to send by you) wrote me a letter about Old Bailey
+Papers. Gosh, I near swarfed; dam'd, man, I near had dee'd o't. It's
+only yin or twa volumes I want; say 500 or 1000 pages of the stuff; and
+the worthy man (much doubting) proposed to bury me in volumes. Please
+allay his rage, and apologise that I have not written him direct. His
+note was civil and purposelike. And please send me a copy of Henley's
+_Book of Verses_; mine has disappeared.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Nov. 25th, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN, MY DEAR COLVIN,--I wonder how often I'm going to write
+it. In spite of the loss of three days, as I have to tell, and a lot of
+weeding and cacao planting, I have finished since the mail left four
+chapters, forty-eight pages of my Samoa history. It is true that the
+first three had been a good deal drafted two years ago, but they had all
+to be written and re-written, and the fourth chapter is all new. Chapter
+I. Elements of Discord--Native. II. Elements of Discord--Foreign. III.
+The Success of Laupepa. IV. Brandeis. V. Will probably be called "The
+Rise of Mataafa." VI. _Furor Consularis_--a devil of a long chapter.
+VII. Stuebel the Pacificator. VIII. Government under the Treaty of
+Berlin. IX. Practical Suggestions. Say three-sixths of it are done,
+maybe more; by this mail five chapters should go, and that should be a
+good half of it; say sixty pages. And if you consider that I sent by
+last mail the end of _The Wrecker_, coming on for seventy or eighty
+pages, and the mail before that the entire tale of the _Beach of Falesa,
+_ I do not think I can be accused of idleness. This is my season; I
+often work six and seven, and sometimes eight hours; and the same day I
+am perhaps weeding or planting for an hour or two more--and I dare say
+you know what hard work weeding is--and it all agrees with me at this
+time of the year--like--like idleness, if a man of my years could be
+idle.
+
+My first visit to Apia was a shock to me; every second person the ghost
+of himself, and the place reeking with infection. But I have not got the
+thing yet, and hope to escape. This shows how much stronger I am; think
+of me flitting through a town of influenza patients seemingly unscathed.
+We are all on the cacao planting.
+
+The next day my wife and I rode over to the German plantation, Vailele,
+whose manager is almost the only German left to speak to us. Seventy
+labourers down with influenza! It is a lovely ride, half-way down our
+mountain towards Apia, then turn to the right, ford the river, and three
+miles of solitary grass and cocoa palms, to where the sea beats and the
+wild wind blows unceasingly about the plantation house. On the way down
+Fanny said, "Now what would you do if you saw Colvin coming up?"
+
+Next day we rode down to Apia to make calls.
+
+Yesterday the mail came, and the fat was in the fire.
+
+_Nov. 29th_ (?).--Book.[27] All right. I must say I like your order. And
+the papers are some of them up to dick, and no mistake. I agree with you
+the lights seem a little turned down. The truth is, I was far through
+(if you understand Scots), and came none too soon to the South Seas,
+where I was to recover peace of body and mind. No man but myself knew
+all my bitterness in those days. Remember that, the next time you think
+I regret my exile. And however low the lights are, the stuff is true,
+and I believe the more effective; after all, what I wish to fight is the
+best fought by a rather cheerless presentation of the truth. The world
+must return some day to the word duty, and be done with the word reward.
+There are no rewards, and plenty duties. And the sooner a man sees that
+and acts upon it like a gentleman or a fine old barbarian, the better
+for himself.
+
+There is my usual puzzle about publishers. Chatto ought to have it, as
+he has all the other essays; these all belong to me, and Chatto
+publishes on terms. Longman has forgotten the terms we are on; let him
+look up our first correspondence, and he will see I reserved explicitly,
+as was my habit, the right to republish as I choose. Had the same
+arrangement with Henley, Magazine of Art, and with Tulloch,
+Fraser's.--For any necessary note or preface, it would be a real service
+if you would undertake the duty yourself. I should love a preface by
+you, as short or as long as you choose, three sentences, thirty pages,
+the thing I should like is your name. And the excuse of my great
+distance seems sufficient. I shall return with this the sheets corrected
+as far as I have them; the rest I will leave, if you will, to you
+entirely; let it be your book, and disclaim what you dislike in the
+preface. You can say it was at my eager prayer. I should say I am the
+less willing to pass Chatto over, because he behaved the other day in a
+very handsome manner. He asked leave to reprint _Damien_; I gave it to
+him as a present, explaining I could receive no emolument for a personal
+attack. And he took out my share of profits, and sent them in my name to
+the Leper Fund. I could not bear after that to take from him any of that
+class of books which I have always given him. Tell him the same terms
+will do. Clark to print, uniform with the others.
+
+I have lost all the days since this letter began rehandling Chapter IV.
+of the Samoa racket. I do not go in for literature; address myself to
+sensible people rather than to sensitive. And, indeed, it is a kind of
+journalism, I have no right to dally; if it is to help, it must come
+soon. In two months from now it shall be done, and should be published
+in the course of March. I propose Cassell gets it. I am going to call it
+_A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa_, I believe. I
+recoil from serious names; they seem so much too pretentious for a
+pamphlet. It will be about the size of _Treasure Island_, I believe. Of
+course, as you now know, my case of conscience cleared itself off, and I
+began my intervention directly to one of the parties. The other, the
+Chief Justice, I am to inform of my book the first occasion. God knows
+if the book will do any good--or harm; but I judge it right to try.
+There is one man's life certainly involved; and it may be all our lives.
+I must not stand and slouch, but do my best as best I can. But you may
+conceive the difficulty of a history extending to the present week, at
+least, and where almost all the actors upon all sides are of my personal
+acquaintance. The only way is to judge slowly, and write boldly, and
+leave the issue to fate.... I am far indeed from wishing to confine
+myself to creative work; that is a loss, the other repairs; the one
+chance for a man, and, above all, for one who grows elderly, ahem, is to
+vary drainage and repair. That is the one thing I understand--the
+cultivation of the shallow solum of my brain. But I would rather, from
+soon on, be released from the obligation to write. In five or six years
+this plantation--suppose it and us still to exist--should pretty well
+support us and pay wages; not before, and already the six years seem
+long to me. If literature were but a pastime!
+
+I have interrupted myself to write the necessary notification to the
+Chief Justice.
+
+I see in looking up Longman's letter that it was as usual the letter of
+an obliging gentleman; so do not trouble him with my reminder. I wish
+all my publishers were not so nice. And I have a fourth and a fifth
+baying at my heels; but for these, of course, they must go wanting.
+
+_Dec. 2nd._--No answer from the Chief Justice, which is like him, but
+surely very wrong in such a case. The lunch bell! I have been off work,
+playing patience and weeding all morning. Yesterday and the day before I
+drafted eleven and revised nine pages of Chapter V., and the truth is, I
+was extinct by lunch-time, and played patience sourly the rest of the
+day. To-morrow or next day I hope to go in again and win. Lunch 2nd
+Bell.
+
+_Dec. 2nd, afternoon._--I have kept up the idleness; blew on the pipe to
+Belle's piano; then had a ride in the forest all by my nainsel; back and
+piped again, and now dinner nearing. Take up this sheet with nothing to
+say. The weird figure of Faauma is in the room washing my windows, in a
+black lavalava (kilt) with a red handkerchief hanging from round her
+neck between her breasts; not another stitch; her hair close cropped and
+oiled; when she first came here she was an angelic little stripling, but
+she is now in full flower--or half-flower--and grows buxom. As I write,
+I hear her wet cloth moving and grunting with some industry; for I had a
+word this day with her husband on the matter of work and meal-time, when
+she is always late. And she has a vague reverence for Papa, as she and
+her enormous husband address me when anything is wrong. Her husband is
+Lafaele, sometimes called the archangel, of whom I have writ you often.
+Rest of our household, Talolo, cook; Pulu, kitchen boy, good, steady,
+industrious lads; Henry, back again from Savaii, where his love affair
+seems not to have prospered, with what looks like a spear-wound in the
+back of his head, of which Mr. Reticence says nothing; Simi, Manuele,
+and two other labourers outdoors. Lafaele is provost of the live-stock,
+whereof now, three milk-cows, one bull-calf, one heifer, Jack,
+Macfarlane, the mare, Harold, Tifaga Jack, Donald and Edinburgh--seven
+horses--O, and the stallion--eight horses; five cattle; total, if my
+arithmetic be correct, thirteen head of beasts; I don't know how the
+pigs stand, or the ducks, or the chickens; but we get a good many eggs,
+and now and again a duckling or a chickling for the table; the pigs are
+more solemn, and appear only on birthdays and sich.
+
+_Monday, Dec. 7._--On Friday morning about eleven 1500 cacao seeds
+arrived, and we set to and toiled from twelve that day to six, and went
+to bed pretty tired. Next day I got about an hour and a half at my
+History, and was at it again by 8.10, and except an hour for lunch kept
+at it till four P.M. Yesterday, I did some History in the morning, and
+slept most of the afternoon; and to-day, being still averse from
+physical labour, and the mail drawing nigh, drew out of the squad, and
+finished for press the fifth chapter of my History; fifty-nine pages in
+one month; which (you will allow me to say) is a devil of a large order;
+it means at least 177 pages of writing; 89,000 words! and hours going to
+and fro among my notes. However, this is the way it has to be done; the
+job must be done fast, or it is of no use. And it is a curious yarn.
+Honestly, I think people should be amused and convinced, if they could
+be at the pains to look at such a damned outlandish piece of machinery,
+which of course they won't. And much I care.
+
+When I was filling baskets all Saturday, in my dull mulish way, perhaps
+the slowest worker there, surely the most particular, and the only one
+that never looked up or knocked off, I could not but think I should have
+been sent on exhibition as an example to young literary men. Here is how
+to learn to write, might be the motto. You should have seen us; the
+verandah was like an Irish bog; our hands and faces were bedaubed with
+soil; and Faauma was supposed to have struck the right note when she
+remarked (_a propos_ of nothing), "Too much _eleele_ (soil) for me!" The
+cacao (you must understand) has to be planted at first in baskets of
+plaited cocoa-leaf. From four to ten natives were plaiting these in the
+wood-shed. Four boys were digging up soil and bringing it by the boxful
+to the verandah. Lloyd and I and Belle, and sometimes S. (who came to
+bear a hand), were filling the baskets, removing stones and lumps of
+clay; Austin and Faauma carried them when full to Fanny, who planted a
+seed in each, and then set them, packed close, in the corners of the
+verandah. From twelve on Friday till five P.M. on Saturday we planted
+the first 1500, and more than 700 of a second lot. You cannot dream how
+filthy we were, and we were all properly tired. They are all at it again
+to-day, bar Belle and me, not required, and glad to be out of it. The
+Chief Justice has not yet replied, and I have news that he received my
+letter. What a man!
+
+I have gone crazy over Bourget's _Sensations d'Italie_; hence the
+enclosed dedication,[28] a mere cry of gratitude for the best fun I've
+had over a new book this ever so!
+
+
+
+
+TO FRED ORR
+
+
+   The following is in answer to an application for an autograph from a
+   young gentleman in the United  States:--
+
+     _Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, November 28th, 1891._
+
+DEAR SIR,--Your obliging communication is to hand. I am glad to find
+that you have read some of my books, and to see that you spell my name
+right. This is a point (for some reason) of great difficulty; and I
+believe that a gentleman who can spell Stevenson with a v at sixteen,
+should have a show for the Presidency before fifty. By that time
+
+  I, nearer to the wayside inn,
+
+predict that you will have outgrown your taste for autographs, but
+perhaps your son may have inherited the collection, and on the morning
+of the great day will recall my prophecy to your mind. And in the papers
+of 1921 (say) this letter may arouse a smile.
+
+Whatever you do, read something else besides novels and newspapers; the
+first are good enough when they are good; the second, at their best, are
+worth nothing. Read great books of literature and history; try to
+understand the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages; be sure you do not
+understand when you dislike them; condemnation is non-comprehension. And
+if you know something of these two periods, you will know a little more
+about to-day, and may be a good President.
+
+I send you my best wishes, and am yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
+
+  _Author of a vast quantity of little books_.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   The next letter announces to his New York publishers the beginning of
+   his volume on the troubles of Samoa, _A Footnote to History_.
+
+     [_Vailima, December 1891._]
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--The end of _The Wrecker_ having but just come in,
+you will, I dare say, be appalled to receive three (possibly four)
+chapters of a new book of the least attractive sort: a history of
+nowhere in a corner, or no time to mention, running to a volume! Well,
+it may very likely be an illusion; it is very likely no one could
+possibly wish to read it, but I wish to publish it. If you don't cotton
+to the idea, kindly set it up at my expense, and let me know your terms
+for publishing. The great affair to me is to have per return (if it
+might be) four or five--better say half a dozen--sets of the roughest
+proofs that can be drawn. There are a good many men here whom I want to
+read the blessed thing, and not one would have the energy to read MS. At
+the same time, if you care to glance at it, and have the time, I should
+be very glad of your opinion as to whether I have made any step at all
+towards possibly inducing folk at home to read matter so extraneous and
+outlandish. I become heavy and owlish; years sit upon me; it begins to
+seem to me to be a man's business to leave off his damnable faces and
+say his say. Else I could have made it pungent and light and lively. In
+considering, kindly forget that I am R. L. S.; think of the four
+chapters as a book you are reading, by an inhabitant of our "lovely but
+fatil" islands; and see if it could possibly amuse the hebetated public.
+I have to publish anyway, you understand; I have a purpose beyond; I am
+concerned for some of the parties to this quarrel. What I want to hear
+is from curiosity; what I want you to judge of is what we are to do with
+the book in a business sense. To me it is not business at all; I had
+meant originally to lay all the profits to the credit of Samoa; when it
+comes to the pinch of writing, I judge this unfair--I give too much--and
+I mean to keep (if there be any profit at all) one-half for the artisan;
+the rest I shall hold over to give to the Samoans _for that which I
+choose and against work done_. I think I have never heard of greater
+insolence than to attempt such a subject; yet the tale is so strange and
+mixed, and the people so oddly charactered--above all, the whites--and
+the high note of the hurricane and the warships is so well prepared to
+take popular interest, and the latter part is so directly in the day's
+movement, that I am not without hope that some may read it; and if they
+don't, a murrain on them! Here is, for the first time, a tale of
+Greeks--Homeric Greeks--mingled with moderns, and all true; Odysseus
+along-side of Rajah Brooke, _proportion gardee_; and all true. Here is
+for the first time since the Greeks (that I remember) the history of a
+handful of men, where all know each other in the eyes, and live close in
+a few acres, narrated at length, and with the seriousness of history.
+Talk of the modern novel; here is a modern history. And if I had the
+misfortune to found a school, the legitimate historian might lie down
+and die, for he could never overtake his material. Here is a little tale
+that has not "caret"-ed its "vates"; "sacer" is another point.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+   Mr. Henry James was in the habit of sending out for Stevenson's
+   reading books that seemed likely to interest him, and among the last
+   had been M. Paul Bourget's _Sensations d'Italie_.
+
+     _December 7th, 1891._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--Thanks for yours; your former letter was lost; so
+it appears was my long and masterly treatise on the _Tragic Muse_. I
+remember sending it very well, and there went by the same mail a long
+and masterly tractate to Gosse about his daddy's life, for which I have
+been long expecting an acknowledgment, and which is plainly gone to the
+bottom with the other. If you see Gosse, please mention it. These gems
+of criticism are now lost literature, like the tomes of Alexandria. I
+could not do 'em again. And I must ask you to be content with a dull
+head, a weary hand, and short commons, for to-day, as I am physically
+tired with hard work of every kind, the labours of the planter and the
+author both piled upon me mountain deep. I am delighted beyond
+expression by Bourget's book: he has phrases which affect me almost like
+Montaigne; I had read ere this a masterly essay of his on Pascal; this
+book does it; I write for all his essays by this mail, and shall try to
+meet him when I come to Europe. The proposal is to pass a summer in
+France, I think in Royat, where the faithful could come and visit me;
+they are now not many. I expect Henry James to come and break a crust or
+two with us. I believe it will be only my wife and myself; and she will
+go over to England, but not I, or possibly incog. to Southampton, and
+then to Boscombe to see poor Lady Shelley. I am writing--trying to write
+in a Babel fit for the bottomless pit; my wife, her daughter, her
+grandson and my mother, all shrieking at each other round the house--not
+in war, thank God! but the din is ultra martial, and the note of Lloyd
+joins in occasionally, and the cause of this to-do is simply cacao,
+whereof chocolate comes. You may drink of our chocolate perhaps in five
+or six years from now, and not know it. It makes a fine bustle, and
+gives us some hard work, out of which I have slunk for to-day.
+
+I have a story coming out: God knows when or how; it answers to the name
+of the _Beach of Falesa_, and I think well of it. I was delighted with
+the _Tragic Muse_; I thought the Muse herself one of your best works; I
+was delighted also to hear of the success of your piece, as you know I
+am a dam failure,[29] and might have dined with the dinner club that
+Daudet and these parties frequented.
+
+_Next day._--I have just been breakfasting at Baiae and Brindisi, and
+the charm of Bourget hag-rides me. I wonder if this exquisite fellow,
+all made of fiddle-strings and scent and intelligence, could bear any of
+my bald prose. If you think he could, ask Colvin to send him a copy of
+these last essays of mine when they appear; and tell Bourget they go to
+him from a South Sea Island as literal homage. I have read no new book
+for years that gave me the same literary thrill as his _Sensations
+d'Italie_. If (as I imagine) my cut-and-dry literature would be death to
+him, and worse than death--journalism--be silent on the point. For I
+have a great curiosity to know him, and if he doesn't know my work, I
+shall have the better chance of making his acquaintance. I read _The
+Pupil_ the other day with great joy; your little boy is admirable; why
+is there no little boy like that unless he hails from the Great
+Republic?
+
+Here I broke off, and wrote Bourget a dedication; no use resisting; it's
+a love affair. O, he's exquisite, I bless you for the gift of him. I
+have really enjoyed this book as I--almost as I--used to enjoy books
+when I was going twenty-twenty-three; and these are the years for
+reading!
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Tuesday, Dec. 1891._
+
+SIR,--I have the honour to report further explorations of the course of
+the river Vaea, with accompanying sketch plan. The party under my
+command consisted of one horse, and was extremely insubordinate and
+mutinous, owing to not being used to go into the bush, and being
+half-broken anyway--and that the wrong half. The route indicated for my
+party was up the bed of the so-called river Vaea, which I accordingly
+followed to a distance of perhaps two or three furlongs eastward from
+the house of Vailima, where the stream being quite dry, the bush thick,
+and the ground very difficult, I decided to leave the main body of the
+force under my command tied to a tree, and push on myself with the point
+of the advance guard, consisting of one man. The valley had become very
+narrow and airless; foliage close shut above; dry bed of the stream much
+excavated, so that I passed under fallen trees without stooping.
+Suddenly it turned sharply to the north, at right angles to its former
+direction; I heard living water, and came in view of a tall face of rock
+and the stream spraying down it; it might have been climbed, but it
+would have been dangerous, and I had to make my way up the steep earth
+banks, where there is nowhere any looting for man, only for trees, which
+made the rounds of my ladder. I was near the top of this climb, which
+was very hot and steep, and the pulses were buzzing all over my body,
+when I made sure there was one external sound in my ears, and paused to
+listen. No mistake; a sound of a mill-wheel thundering, I thought, close
+by, yet below me, a huge mill-wheel, yet not going steadily, but with a
+_schottische_ movement, and at each fresh impetus shaking the mountain.
+There, where I was, I just put down the sound to the mystery of the
+bush; where no sound now surprises me--and any sound alarms; I only
+thought it would give Jack a fine fright, down where he stood tied to a
+tree by himself, and he was badly enough scared when I left him. The
+good folks at home identified it; it was a sharp earthquake.
+
+[Illustration:
+  1. _Mepi tree._                 4, 4. _Banana patches_
+  2. _Carruthers' Road._             5. _Waterfall._
+  3. _Vailima Plantation House._     6. _Banyan tree._]
+
+At the top of the climb I made my way again to the watercourse; it is
+here running steady and pretty full; strange these intermittencies--and
+just a little below the main stream is quite dry, and all the original
+brook has gone down some lava gallery of the mountain--and just a little
+further below, it begins picking up from the left hand in little boggy
+tributaries, and in the inside of a hundred yards has grown a brook
+again.[30] The general course of the brook was, I guess, S.E.; the
+valley still very deep and whelmed in wood. It seemed a swindle to have
+made so sheer a climb and still find yourself at the bottom of a well.
+But gradually the thing seemed to shallow, the trees to seem poorer and
+smaller; I could see more and more of the silver sprinkles of sky among
+the foliage, instead of the sombre piling up of tree behind tree. And
+here I had two scares--first, away up on my right hand I heard a bull
+low; I think it was a bull from the quality of the low, which was
+singularly songful and beautiful; the bulls belong to me, but how did I
+know that the bull was aware of that? and my advance guard not being at
+all properly armed, we advanced with great precaution until I was
+satisfied that I was passing eastward of the enemy. It was during this
+period that a pool of the river suddenly boiled up in my face in a
+little fountain. It was in a very dreary, marshy part among dilapidated
+trees that you see through holes in the trunks of; and if any kind of
+beast or elf or devil had come out of that sudden silver ebullition, I
+declare I do not think I should have been surprised. It was perhaps a
+thing as curious--a fish, with which these head waters of the stream
+are alive. They are some of them as long as my finger, should be easily
+caught in these shallows, and some day I'll have a dish of them.
+
+Very soon after I came to where the stream collects in another banana
+swamp, with the bananas bearing well. Beyond, the course is again quite
+dry; it mounts with a sharp turn a very steep face of the mountain, and
+then stops abruptly at the lip of a plateau, I suppose the top of Vaea
+mountain: plainly no more springs here--there was no smallest furrow of
+a watercourse beyond--and my task might be said to be accomplished. But
+such is the animated spirit in the service that the whole advance guard
+expressed a sentiment of disappointment that an exploration, so far
+successfully conducted, should come to a stop in the most promising view
+of fresh successes. And though unprovided either with compass or
+cutlass, it was determined to push some way along the plateau, marking
+our direction by the laborious process of bending down, sitting upon,
+and thus breaking the wild cocoanut trees. This was the less regretted
+by all from a delightful discovery made of a huge banyan growing here in
+the bush, with flying-buttressed flying buttresses, and huge arcs of
+trunk hanging high overhead and trailing down new complications of root.
+I climbed some way up what seemed the original beginning; it was easier
+to climb than a ship's rigging, even rattled; everywhere there was
+foot-hold and hand-hold. It was judged wise to return and rally the main
+body, who had now been left alone for perhaps forty minutes in the bush.
+
+The return was effected in good order, but unhappily I only arrived
+(like so many other explorers) to find my main body or rear-guard in a
+condition of mutiny; the work, it is to be supposed, of terror. It is
+right I should tell you the Vaea has a bad name, an _aitu
+fafine_--female devil of the woods--succubus--haunting it, and doubtless
+Jack had heard of her; perhaps, during my absence, saw her; lucky Jack!
+Anyway, he was neither to hold nor to bind, and finally, after nearly
+smashing me by accident, and from mere scare and insubordination several
+times, deliberately set in to kill me; but poor Jack! the tree he
+selected for that purpose was a banana! I jumped off and gave him the
+heavy end of my whip over the buttocks! Then I took and talked in his
+ear in various voices; you should have heard my alto--it was a dreadful,
+devilish note--I _knew_ Jack _knew_ it was an _aitu_. Then I mounted him
+again, and he carried me fairly steadily. He'll learn yet. He has to
+learn to trust absolutely to his rider; till he does, the risk is always
+great in thick bush, where a fellow must try different passages, and put
+back and forward, and pick his way by hair's-breadths.
+
+The expedition returned to Vailima in time to receive the visit of the
+R. C. Bishop. He is a superior man, much above the average of priests.
+
+_Thursday._--Yesterday the same expedition set forth to the southward by
+what is known as Carruthers' Road. At a fallen tree which completely
+blocks the way, the main body was as before left behind, and the advance
+guard of one now proceeded with the exploration. At the great tree known
+as _Mepi Tree_, after Maben the surveyor, the expedition struck forty
+yards due west till it struck the top of a steep bank which it
+descended. The whole bottom of the ravine is filled with sharp lava
+blocks quite unrolled and very difficult and dangerous to walk among; no
+water in the course, scarce any sign of water. And yet surely water must
+have made this bold cutting in the plateau. And if so, why is the lava
+sharp? My science gave out; but I could not but think it ominous and
+volcanic. The course of the stream was tortuous, but with a resultant
+direction a little by west of north; the sides the whole way exceeding
+steep, the expedition buried under fathoms of foliage. Presently water
+appeared in the bottom, a good quantity; perhaps thirty or forty cubic
+feet, with pools and waterfalls. A tree that stands all along the banks
+here must be very fond of water; its roots lie close-packed down the
+stream, like hanks of guts, so as to make often a corrugated walk, each
+root ending in a blunt tuft of filaments, plainly to drink water. Twice
+there came in small tributaries from the left or western side--the whole
+plateau having a smartish inclination to the east; one of the
+tributaries in a handsome little web of silver hanging in the forest.
+Twice I was startled by birds; one that barked like a dog; another that
+whistled loud ploughman's signals, so that I vow I was thrilled, and
+thought I had fallen among runaway blacks, and regretted my cutlass
+which I had lost and left behind while taking bearings. A good many
+fishes in the brook, and many crayfish; one of the last with a queer
+glow-worm head. Like all our brooks, the water is pure as air, and runs
+over red stones like rubies. The foliage along both banks very thick and
+high, the place close, the walking exceedingly laborious. By the time
+the expedition reached the fork, it was felt exceedingly questionable
+whether the _moral_ of the force were sufficiently good to undertake
+more extended operations. A halt was called, the men refreshed with
+water and a bath, and it was decided at a drumhead council of war to
+continue the descent of the Embassy Water straight for Vailima, whither
+the expedition returned, in rather poor condition, and wet to the waist,
+about 4 P.M.
+
+Thus in two days the two main watercourses of this country have been
+pretty thoroughly explored, and I conceive my instructions fully carried
+out. The main body of the second expedition was brought back by another
+officer despatched for that purpose from Vailima. Casualties: one horse
+wounded; one man bruised; no deaths--as yet, but the bruised man feels
+to-day as if his case was mighty serious.
+
+_Dec. 25, '91._--Your note with a very despicable bulletin of health
+arrived only yesterday, the mail being a day behind. It contained also
+the excellent Times article, which was a sight for sore eyes. I am
+still _taboo_; the blessed Germans will have none of me; and I only hope
+they may enjoy the Times article. 'Tis my revenge! I wish you had sent
+the letter too, as I have no copy, and do not even know what I wrote the
+last day, with a bad headache, and the mail going out. However, it must
+have been about right, for the Times article was in the spirit I wished
+to arouse. I hope we can get rid of the man before it is too late. He
+has set the natives to war; but the natives, by God's blessing, do not
+want to fight, and I think it will fizzle out--no thanks to the man who
+tried to start it. But I did not mean to drift into these politics;
+rather to tell you what I have done since I last wrote.
+
+Well, I worked away at my _History_ for a while, and only got one
+chapter done; no doubt this spate of work is pretty low now, and will be
+soon dry; but, God bless you, what a lot I have accomplished; _Wrecker_
+done, _Beach of Falesa_ done, half the _History: c'est etonnant_. (I
+hear from Burlingame, by the way, that he likes the end of the
+_Wrecker_; 'tis certainly a violent, dark yarn with interesting, plain
+turns of human nature), then Lloyd and I went down to live in Haggard's
+rooms, where Fanny presently joined us. Haggard's rooms are in a strange
+old building--old for Samoa, and has the effect of the antique like some
+strange monastery; I would tell you more of it, but I think I'm going to
+use it in a tale. The annexe close by had its door sealed; poor Dowdney
+lost at sea in a schooner. The place is haunted. The vast empty sheds,
+the empty store, the airless, hot, long, low rooms, the claps of wind
+that set everything flying--a strange uncanny house to spend Christmas
+in.
+
+_Jan. 1st,'92._--For a day or two I have sat close and wrought hard at
+the _History_, and two more chapters are all but done. About thirty
+pages should go by this mail, which is not what should be, but all I
+could overtake. Will any one ever read it? I fancy not; people don't
+read history for reading, but for education and display--and who
+desires education in the history of Samoa, with no population, no past,
+no future, or the exploits of Mataafa, Malietoa, and Consul Knappe?
+Colkitto and Galasp are a trifle to it. Well, it can't be helped, and it
+must be done, and, better or worse, it's capital fun. There are two to
+whom I have not been kind--German Consul Becker and the English Captain
+Hand, R.N.
+
+On Dec. 30th I rode down with Belle to go to (if you please) the Fancy
+Ball. When I got to the beach, I found the barometer was below 29 deg., the
+wind still in the east and steady, but a huge offensive continent of
+clouds and vapours forming to leeward. It might be a hurricane; I dared
+not risk getting caught away from my work, and, leaving Belle, returned
+at once to Vailima. Next day--yesterday--it was a tearer; we had storm
+shutters up; I sat in my room and wrote by lamplight--ten pages, if you
+please, seven of them draft, and some of these compiled authorities, so
+that was a brave day's work. About two a huge tree fell within sixty
+paces of our house; a little after, a second went; and we sent out boys
+with axes and cut down a third, which was too near the house, and
+buckling like a fishing rod. At dinner we had the front door closed and
+shuttered, the back door open, the lamp lit. The boys in the cook-house
+were all out at the cook-house door, where we could see them looking in
+and smiling. Lauilo and Faauma waited on us with smiles. The excitement
+was delightful. Some very violent squalls came as we sat there, and
+every one rejoiced; it was impossible to help it; a soul of putty had to
+sing. All night it blew; the roof was continually sounding under
+missiles; in the morning the verandahs were half full of branches torn
+from the forest. There was a last very wild squall about six; the rain,
+like a thick white smoke, flying past the house in volleys, and as
+swift, it seemed, as rifle balls; all with a strange, strident hiss,
+such as I have only heard before at sea, and, indeed, thought to be a
+marine phenomenon. Since then the wind has been falling with a few
+squalls, mostly rain. But our road is impassable for horses; we hear a
+schooner has been wrecked and some native houses blown down in Apia,
+where Belle is still and must remain a prisoner. Lucky I returned while
+I could! But the great good is this; much bread-fruit and bananas have
+been destroyed; if this be general through the islands, famine will be
+imminent; and _whoever blows the coals, there can be no war_. Do I then
+prefer a famine to a war? you ask. Not always, but just now. I am sure
+the natives do not want a war; I am sure a war would benefit no one but
+the white officials, and I believe we can easily meet the famine--or at
+least that it can be met. That would give our officials a legitimate
+opportunity to cover their past errors.
+
+_Jan. 2nd._--I woke this morning to find the blow quite ended. The
+heaven was all a mottled grey; even the east quite colourless; the
+downward slope of the island veiled in wafts of vapour, blue like smoke;
+not a leaf stirred on the tallest tree; only, three miles away below me
+on the barrier reef, I could see the individual breakers curl and fall,
+and hear their conjunct roaring rise, as it still rises at 1 P.M., like
+the roar of a thoroughfare close by. I did a good morning's work,
+correcting and clarifying my draft, and have now finished for press
+eight chapters, ninety-one pages, of this piece of journalism. Four more
+chapters, say fifty pages, remain to be done; I should gain my wager and
+finish this volume in three months, that is to say, the end should leave
+me per February mail; I cannot receive it back till the mail of April.
+Yes, it can be out in time; pray God that it be in time to help.
+
+How do journalists fetch up their drivel? I aim only at clearness and
+the most obvious finish, positively at no higher degree of merit, not
+even at brevity--I am sure it could have been all done, with double the
+time, in two-thirds of the space. And yet it has taken me two months to
+write 45,500 words; and, be damned to my wicked prowess, I am proud of
+the exploit! The real journalist must be a man not of brass only, but
+bronze. Chapter IX. gapes for me, but I shrink on the margin, and go on
+chattering to you. This last part will be much less offensive (strange
+to say) to the Germans. It is Becker they will never forgive me for;
+Knappe I pity and do not dislike; Becker I scorn and abominate. Here is
+the tableau. I. Elements of Discord: Native. II. Elements of Discord:
+Foreign. III. The Sorrows of Laupepa. IV. Brandeis. V. The Battle of
+Matautu. VI. Last Exploits of Becker. VII. The Samoan Camps. VIII.
+Affairs of Lautii and Fangalii. IX. "_Furor Consularis_." X. The
+Hurricane. XI. Stuebel Recluse. XII. The Present Government. I estimate
+the whole roughly at 70,000 words. Should anybody ever dream of reading
+it, it would be found amusing. 70000/300 = 233 printed pages; a
+respectable little five-bob volume, to bloom unread in shop windows.
+After that, I'll have a spank at fiction. And rest? I shall rest in the
+grave, or when I come to Italy. If only the public will continue to
+support me! I lost my chance not dying; there seems blooming little fear
+of it now. I worked close on five hours this morning; the day before,
+close on nine; and unless I finish myself off with this letter, I'll
+have another hour and a half, or _aiblins twa_, before dinner. Poor man,
+how you must envy me, as you hear of these orgies of work, and you
+scarce able for a letter. But Lord, Colvin, how lucky the situations are
+not reversed, for I have no situation, nor am fit for any. Life is a
+steigh brae. Here, have at Knappe, and no more clavers!
+
+_Jan. 3rd._--There was never any man had so many irons in the fire,
+except Jim Pinkerton.[31] I forgot to mention I have the most gallant
+suggestion from Lang, with an offer of MS. authorities, which turns my
+brain. It's all about the throne of Poland and buried treasure in the
+Mackay country, and Alan Breck can figure there in glory.
+
+Yesterday, J. and I set off to Blacklock's (American Consul) who lives
+not far from that little village I have so often mentioned as lying
+between us and Apia. I had some questions to ask him for my _History_;
+thence we must proceed to Vailele, where I had also to cross-examine the
+plantation manager about the battle there. We went by a track I had
+never before followed down the hill to Vaisigano, which flows here in a
+deep valley, and was unusually full, so that the horses trembled in the
+ford. The whole bottom of the valley is full of various streams posting
+between strips of forest with a brave sound of waters. In one place we
+had a glimpse of a fall some way higher up, and then sparkling in
+sunlight in the midst of the green valley. Then up by a winding path
+scarce accessible to a horse for steepness, to the other side, and the
+open cocoanut glades of the plantation. Here we rode fast, did a mighty
+satisfactory afternoon's work at the plantation house, and still faster
+back. On the return Jack fell with me, but got up again; when I felt him
+recovering I gave him his head, and he shoved his foot through the rein;
+I got him by the bit however, and all was well; he had mud over all his
+face, but his knees were not broken. We were scarce home when the rain
+began again; that was luck. It is pouring now in torrents; we are in the
+height of the bad season. Lloyd leaves along with this letter on a
+change to San Francisco; he had much need of it, but I think this will
+brace him up. I am, as you see, a tower of strength. I can remember
+riding not so far and not near so fast when I first came to Samoa, and
+being shattered next day with fatigue; now I could not tell I have done
+anything; have re-handled my battle of Fangalii according to yesterday's
+information--four pages rewritten; and written already some half-dozen
+pages of letters.
+
+I observe with disgust that while of yore, when I own I was guilty, you
+never spared me abuse--but now, when I am so virtuous, where is the
+praise? Do admit that I have become an excellent letter-writer--at least
+to you, and that your ingratitude is imbecile.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [1] "In the missionary work which is being done among the Samoans,
+    Mr. Stevenson was especially interested. He was an observant,
+    shrewd, yet ever generous critic of all our religious and
+    educational organisations. His knowledge of native character and
+    life enabled him to understand missionary difficulties, while his
+    genial contact with all sorts and conditions of men made him keen to
+    detect deficiencies in men and methods, and apt in useful
+    suggestion." The above is the testimony of the Mr. Clarke here
+    mentioned (Rev. W. E. Clarke of the London Missionary Society). This
+    gentleman was from the first one of the most valued friends of Mr.
+    Stevenson and his family in Samoa, and, when the end came, read the
+    funeral service beside his grave on Mount Vaea.
+
+  [2] The lady in the _Vicar of Wakefield_ who declares herself "all
+    in a muck of sweat."
+
+  [3] First published in the New Review, January 1895.
+
+  [4] Afterwards changed into _The Beach of Falesa_.
+
+  [5] Mr. Lloyd Osbourne had come to England to pack and wind up affairs
+    at Skerryvore.
+
+  [6] The lines beginning "I heard the pulse of the besieging sea"; see
+    Vol. xxiv., p. 366.
+
+  [7] "The Monument" was his name for my house at the British Museum,
+    and George was my old faithful servant, George Went.
+
+  [8] The late Mr. John Lafarge, long an honoured _doyen_ among New
+    York artists, whose record of his holiday in the South Seas, in the
+    shape of a series of water-colour sketches of the scenery and people
+    (with a catalogue full of interesting notes and observations), was
+    one of the features of the Champ de Mars Salon in 1895.
+
+  [9] Mrs. B. W. Procter, the stepdaughter of Basil Montagu and widow
+    of Barry Cornwall. The death of this spirited veteran in 1888
+    snapped one of the last links with the days and memories of Keats
+    and Coleridge. A shrewd and not too indulgent judge of character,
+    she took R. L. S. into warm favour at first sight, and never spoke of
+    or inquired after him but with unwonted tenderness.
+
+  [10] On a projected expedition to Sydney.
+
+  [11] See _A Footnote to History_ for more in praise of Dr. Stuebel,
+    and of his exceptional deserts among white officials in Samoa.
+
+  [12] One of the many aliases of the wicked Skye-terrier of Hyeres,
+    Davos, and Bournemouth days, celebrated in the essay _On the
+    Character of Dogs_.
+
+  [13] _Battre les champs_, to wander in mind.
+
+  [14] _Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin_, by R. L. S., prefixed to _Papers
+    Literary, Scientific, etc., by the late Fleeming Jenkin, F.R.S.,
+    LL.D._; 2 vols. London, Longmans, 1887. The first chapters consist
+    of a genealogical history of the family. This, to my mind one of the
+    best works of R. L. S., has lately been separately reprinted, having
+    long been accessible only in the Edinburgh and Pentland editions. Of
+    _Delafleld_ I never heard; the plan of _Shovel_, which was to be in
+    great part a story of the Peninsular War, had been sketched out and
+    a few chapters written as long ago as the seventies.
+
+  [15] _The Misadventures of John Nicholson._
+
+  [16] The South Sea Letters.
+
+  [17] The price advanced for these Letters was among the considerations
+    which originally induced the writer to set out on his Pacific voyage.
+
+
+  [18] The first serial tale, says Mr. Clarke, ever read by Samoans in
+    their own language was the story of the _Bottle Imp_, "which found
+    its way into print at Samoa, and was read with wonder and delight in
+    many a thatched Samoan hut before it won the admiration of readers
+    at home." In the English form the story was published first in Black
+    and White, and afterwards in the volume called _Island Nights'
+    Entertainments_.
+
+  [19] Boating expedition: pronounce _malanga_.
+
+  [20] Portraits of myself for which he had asked.
+
+  [21] Miss Fanny Macpherson, now Lady Holroyd.
+
+  [22] In reply to a suggestion which ultimately took effect in the
+    shape of the volume called _Across the Plains_ (Chatto & Windus,
+    1892).
+
+  [23] The steam-yacht of the Commissioners of Northern Lights, on
+    which he had been accustomed as a lad to accompany his father on the
+    official trips of inspection round the coast.
+
+  [24] Mr. Rudyard Kipling was at this time planning a trip to Samoa,
+    but the plan was unfortunately not carried out, and he and Stevenson
+    never met.
+
+  [25] Readers of _The Wrecker_ will not need to be reminded that this
+    is the name of the personage on whom the mystery in that story
+    hinges.
+
+  [26] See vol. xxiii. pp. 46, 48.
+
+  [27] _Across the Plains._ The papers specially referred to in the
+    next lines are those written at Saranac Lake in the winter of
+    1887-88, including _A Letter to a Young Gentleman_, _Pulvis et
+    Umbra_, _A Christmas Sermon_.
+
+  [28] For the volume _Across the Plains_.
+
+  [29] _i.e._ on the stage.
+
+  [30] As to this peculiar intermittency of the Samoan streams, full
+    in their upper course, but below in many places dry or lost, compare
+    the late Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_, p. 212:--"One odd
+    thing connected with these ravines is the fact that the higher you
+    go the more water you find. Unlike the Thames, which begins, I
+    believe, in half a mile of dusty lane, and expands in its brimming
+    breadth as it approaches the sea, a Samoan stream begins in bubbling
+    plenty and ends in utter drought a mile or two from the salt water.
+    Gradually as you ascend you become more and more hopeful; moist
+    patches of sand appear here and there, then tiny pools that a fallen
+    leaf might cover, then larger ones with little thread-like runs of
+    water between them; larger and larger, till at last you reach some
+    hard ledge of trap, over which a glorious stream gurgles and
+    splashes into a pool ample enough for the bath of an elephant."
+
+  [31] In _The Wrecker_. As to the story thus suggested by Mr. Andrew
+    Lang, see below, pp. 171, 187, etc.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+LIFE IN SAMOA--_Continued_
+
+SECOND YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+JANUARY-DECEMBER 1892
+
+
+The New Year found Stevenson down with his first attack of the influenza
+epidemic, then virulent all over the world. But the illness was not
+sufficient to stop his work, and in the first two months of the year he
+was busy continuing his conscientious labours on _The Footnote to
+History_, seeing _The Wrecker_ and _The Beach of Falesa_ through the
+press, planning the South Sea plantation novel _Sophia Scarlet_, which
+never got beyond that inchoate stage, and writing the continuation to
+_Kidnapped_, first intended to bear the name of the hero, David Balfour,
+and afterwards changed to _Catriona_. With this he proceeded swimmingly,
+completing it between February and September, in a shorter time than any
+other of his sustained narratives; and on publication its success was
+great. By May he had finished the _Footnote_, and then had a dash at the
+first chapters of _The Young Chevalier_, which stand in their truncated
+state a piece of work as vivid and telling as he had ever done. Early in
+the autumn he struck a still fuller note in the draft of the first
+chapters of _Weir of Hermiston_.
+
+During this year the household at Vailima received a new temporary
+inmate in the person of Mr. Graham Balfour, a cousin whom Stevenson had
+not previously known, but with whom he soon formed the closest and most
+confidential friendship of his later life. In the summer and early
+autumn he was much taken up both with politics and with hospitalities.
+As hereinafter narrated, he made, and was thwarted in, a serious attempt
+to effect a reconciliation between the two rival chiefs; and continued
+his series of letters to the Times showing up the incompetence, and
+worse, of the responsible Treaty officials. In August he took lively
+pleasure in a visit paid to the islands by Lady Jersey and some members
+of her family from Australia. During the course of their stay he
+conducted the visitors to the rebel camp under aliases, as the needs of
+the time required, and in a manner that seemed like the realisation of a
+chapter of a Waverley novel. A month or two later he became aware, with
+more amusement than alarm, of measures for his deportation set on foot
+but not carried through by the Treaty officials. For a man of his
+temper, the political muddle and mismanagement of which the Samoan
+Islands were the scene--and not only these, however much he might lament
+them for the sake of the inhabitants, but even the risks he ran of
+serious personal consequences from his own action,--added to life at
+least as much of zest and excitement as of annoyance.
+
+In October he determined, not without serious financial misgivings and
+chiefly in deference to his mother's urgency, to enlarge his house at
+Vailima by putting up a new block adjoining and communicating with that
+which he had hitherto inhabited. The work was promptly and efficiently
+carried out by the German Firm and completed by the end of the year.
+Quite towards the close of December, copies of _The Footnote to
+History_ reached Samoa, and the book, so far from being a cause of
+offence to his friends the managers of that firm, as both he and they
+had feared, was found acceptable and devoid of offence by them: a result
+celebrated in the convivial manner described in the last letter of this
+section. On the whole the year had been a prosperous one, full of
+successful work and eager interests, although darkened in its later
+months by disquietude on account of his wife's health. He had himself
+well maintained the improved strength and the renewed capacity both for
+literary work and outdoor activity which life in the South Seas had
+brought him from the first.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Jan, 2nd, '92._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Overjoyed you were pleased with _The Wrecker_, and
+shall consider your protests. There is perhaps more art than you think
+for in the peccant chapter, where I have succeeded in packing into one a
+dedication, an explanation, and a termination. Surely you had not
+recognised the phrase about boodle? It was a quotation from Jim
+Pinkerton, and seemed to me agreeably skittish. However, all shall be
+prayerfully considered.
+
+To come to a more painful subject. Herewith go three more chapters of
+the wretched History; as you see, I approach the climax. I expect the
+book to be some 70,000 words, of which you have now 45. Can I finish it
+for next mail? I am going to try! 'Tis a long piece of journalism, and
+full of difficulties here and there, of this kind and that, and will
+make me a power of friends to be sure. There is one Becker who will
+probably put up a window to me in the church where he was baptized; and
+I expect a testimonial from Captain Hand.
+
+Sorry to let the mail go without the Scott; this has been a bad month
+with me, and I have been below myself. I shall find a way to have it
+come by next, or know the reason why. The mail after, anyway.
+
+A bit of a sketch map appears to me necessary for my History; perhaps
+two. If I do not have any, 'tis impossible any one should follow; and I,
+even when not at all interested, demand that I shall be able to follow;
+even a tourist book without a map is a cross to me; and there must be
+others of my way of thinking. I inclose the very artless one that I
+think needful. Vailima, in case you are curious, is about as far again
+behind Tanugamanono as that is from the sea.
+
+M'Clure is publishing a short story of mine, some 50,000 words, I think,
+_The Beach of Falesa_; when he's done with it, I want you and Cassell to
+bring it out in a little volume; I shall send you a dedication for it; I
+believe it good; indeed, to be honest, very good. Good gear that pleases
+the merchant.
+
+The other map that I half threaten is a chart for the hurricane. Get me
+Kimberley's report of the hurricane: not to be found here. It is of most
+importance; I _must_ have it with my proofs of that part, if I cannot
+have it earlier, which now seems impossible.--Yours in hot haste,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
+
+
+   At the news that his correspondent was occupied teaching and
+   entertaining a class of children in a Kilburn basement, Stevenson
+   bethinks himself of helping her by writing an account of Samoa and
+   Samoan life for children.
+
+     _Vailima, January 4th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR ADELAIDE,--We were much pleased with your letter and the news of
+your employment. Admirable, your method. But will you not run dry of
+fairy stories? Please salute your pupils, and tell them that a long,
+lean, elderly man who lives right through on the under side of the
+world, so that down in your cellar you are nearer him than the people in
+the street, desires his compliments. This man lives in an island which
+is not very long, and extremely narrow. The sea beats round it very
+hard, so that it is difficult to get to shore. There is only one harbour
+where ships come, even that is very wild and dangerous; four ships of
+war were broken there a little while ago, and one of them is still lying
+on its side on a rock clean above water, where the sea threw it as you
+might throw your fiddle bow on the table. All round the harbour the town
+is strung out, it is nothing but wooden houses, only there are some
+churches built of stone, not very large, but the people have never seen
+such fine buildings. Almost all the houses are of one story. Away at one
+end lives the king of the whole country. His palace has a thatched roof
+which stands upon posts; it has no walls, but when it blows and rains,
+they have Venetian blinds which they let down between the posts and make
+it very snug. There is no furniture, and the king and queen and the
+courtiers sit and eat on the floor, which is of gravel: the lamp stands
+there too, and every now and then it is upset. These good folks wear
+nothing but a kilt about their waists, unless to go to church or for a
+dance, or the New Year, or some great occasion. The children play
+marbles all along the street; and though they are generally very jolly,
+yet they get awfully cross over their marbles, and cry and fight like
+boys and girls at home. Another amusement in country places is to shoot
+fish with a bow and arrow. All round the beach there is bright shallow
+water where fishes can be seen darting or lying in shoals. The child
+trots round the shore, and wherever he sees a fish, lets fly an arrow
+and misses, and then wades in after his arrow. It is great fun (I have
+tried it) for the child, and I never heard of it doing any harm to the
+fishes: so what could be more jolly? The road up to this lean man's
+house is uphill all the way and through forests; the forests are of
+great trees, not so much unlike the trees at home, only here and there
+are some very queer ones mixed with them, cocoa-nut palms, and great
+forest trees that are covered with blossom like red hawthorn, but not
+near so bright; and from all the trees thick creepers hang down like
+ropes, and nasty-looking weeds that they call orchids grow in the forks
+of the branches; and on the ground many prickly things are dotted which
+they call pine-apples: I suppose every one has eaten pineapple drops.
+
+On the way up to the lean man's house you pass a little village, all of
+houses like the king's house, so that as you ride through you can see
+everybody sitting at dinner, or if it be night, lying in their beds by
+lamplight; for all these people are terribly afraid of ghosts, and would
+not lie in the dark for any favour. After the village, there is only one
+more house, and that is the lean man's. For the people are not very
+many, and live all by the sea, and the whole inside of the island is
+desert woods and mountains. When the lean man goes into this forest, he
+is very much ashamed to say it, but he is always in a terrible fright.
+The wood is so great and empty and hot, and it is always filled with
+curious noises; birds cry like children and bark like dogs, and he can
+hear people laughing and felling trees; and the other day (when he was
+far in the woods) he heard a great sound like the biggest mill-wheel
+possible going with a kind of dot-and-carry-one movement like a dance.
+That was the noise of an earthquake away down below him in the bowels of
+the earth, and that is the same thing as to say away up towards you in
+your cellar in Kilburn. All these noises make him feel lonely and
+scared, and he doesn't quite know what he is scared of. Once when he was
+just about to cross a river, a blow struck him on the top of his head
+and knocked him head-foremost down the bank and splash into the water.
+It was a nut, I fancy, that had fallen from a tree, by which accidents
+people are sometimes killed. But at the time he thought it was a black
+boy.
+
+Aha, say you, and what is a black boy? Well, there are here a lot of
+poor people who are brought here from distant islands to labour as
+slaves for the Germans. They are not at all like the king or his people,
+who are brown and very pretty; but these are black as negroes and as
+ugly as sin, poor souls, and in their own lands they live all the time
+at war and cook and eat men's flesh. The Germans thrash them with whips
+to make them work, and every now and then some run away into the Bush,
+as the forest is called, and build little sheds of leaves, and eat nuts
+and roots and fruit, and dwell there by themselves in the great desert.
+Sometimes they are bad and wild and come down in the villages and steal
+and kill; and people whisper to each other that some of them have gone
+back to their horrid old habits, and catch men and women in order to eat
+them. But it is very likely not true; and the most of them are only
+poor, stupid, trembling, half-starved, pitiful creatures like frightened
+dogs. Their life is all very well when the sun shines, as it does eight
+or nine months in the year. But it is very different the rest of the
+time. The wind rages here most violently. The great trees thrash about
+like whips; the air is filled with leaves and great branches flying
+about like birds; and the sound of the trees falling shakes the earth.
+It rains too as it never rains at home. You can hear a shower while it
+is yet half a mile away, hissing like a shower-bath in the forest; and
+when it comes to you, the water blinds your eyes, and the cold drenching
+takes your breath away as though some one had struck you. In that kind
+of weather it must be dreadful indeed to live in the woods, one man
+alone by himself. And you must know that, if the lean man feels afraid
+to be in the forest, the people of the island and the black boys are
+much more afraid than he. For they believe the woods to be quite filled
+with spirits; some are like pigs, and some are like flying things; but
+others (and these are thought the most dangerous) come in the shape of
+beautiful young women and young men, beautifully dressed in the island
+manner, with fine kilts and fine necklaces and crowns of scarlet seeds
+and flowers. Woe betide he or she who gets to speak with one of these!
+They will be charmed out of their wits, and come home again quite silly,
+and go mad and die. So that the poor black boy must be always trembling
+and looking about for the coming of the women-devils.
+
+Sometimes the women-devils go down out of the woods into the villages,
+and here is a tale the lean man heard last year. One of the islanders
+was sitting in his house, and he had cooked fish. There came along the
+road two beautiful young women, dressed as I told you, who came into his
+house and asked for some of his fish. It is the fashion in the islands
+always to give what is asked, and never to ask folk's names. So the man
+gave them fish and talked to them in the island jesting way. And
+presently he asked one of the women for her red necklace, which is good
+manners and their way; he had given the fish, and he had a right to ask
+for something back. "I will give it you by and by," said the woman, and
+she and her companion went away; but he thought they were gone very
+suddenly, and the truth is they had vanished. The night was nearly come,
+when the man heard the voice of the woman crying that he should come to
+her and she would give the necklace. And he looked out, and behold she
+was standing calling him from the top of the sea, on which she stood as
+you might on the table. At that, fear came on the man; he fell on his
+knees and prayed, and the woman disappeared. It was known afterwards
+that this was once a woman indeed, but should have died a thousand years
+ago, and has lived all that while as a devil in the woods beside the
+spring of a river. Saumai-afe (Sow-my-affy) is her name, in case you
+want to write to her.--Ever your friend Tusitala (tale-writer),
+
+     _alias_ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The South Sea novel here mentioned, _Sophia Scarlet_, never got
+   beyond the rough draft of an opening chapter or two.
+
+     _[Vailima] Jan. 31st, '92._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--No letter at all from you, and this scratch from me!
+Here is a year that opens ill. Lloyd is off to "the coast" sick--_the
+coast_ means California over most of the Pacific--I have been down all
+month with influenza, and am just recovering--I am overlaid with proofs,
+which I am just about half fit to attend to. One of my horses died this
+morning, and another is now dying on the front lawn--Lloyd's horse and
+Fanny's. Such is my quarrel with destiny. But I am mending famously,
+come and go on the balcony, have perfectly good nights, and though I
+still cough, have no oppression and no hemorrhage and no fever. So if I
+can find time and courage to add no more, you will know my news is not
+altogether of the worst; a year or two ago, and what a state I should
+have been in now! Your silence, I own, rather alarms me. But I tell
+myself you have just miscarried; had you been too ill to write, some one
+would have written me. Understand, I send this brief scratch not because
+I am unfit to write more, but because I have 58 galleys of _The Wrecker_
+and 102 of _The Beach of Falesa_ to get overhauled somehow or other in
+time for the mail, and for three weeks I have not touched a pen with my
+finger.
+
+_Feb. 1st._--The second horse is still alive, but I still think dying.
+The first was buried this morning. My proofs are done; it was a rough
+two days of it, but done. _Consummatum est; ua uma_. I believe _The
+Wrecker_ ends well; if I know what a good yarn is, the last four
+chapters make a good yarn--but pretty horrible. _The Beach of Falesa_ I
+still think well of, but it seems it's immoral and there's a to-do, and
+financially it may prove a heavy disappointment. The plaintive request
+sent to me, to make the young folks married properly before "that
+night," I refused; you will see what would be left of the yarn, had I
+consented.[32] This is a poison bad world for the romancer, this
+Anglo-Saxon world; I usually get out of it by not having any women in it
+at all; but when I remember I had _The Treasure of Franchard_ refused as
+unfit for a family magazine, I feel despair weigh upon my wrists.
+
+As I know you are always interested in novels, I must tell you that a
+new one is now entirely planned. It is to be called _Sophia Scarlet_,
+and is in two parts. Part I. The Vanilla Planter. Part II. The
+Overseers. No chapters, I think; just two dense blocks of narrative, the
+first of which is purely sentimental, but the second has some rows and
+quarrels, and winds up with an explosion, if you please! I am just
+burning to get at _Sophia_, but I _must_ do this Samoan
+journalism--that's a cursed duty. The first part of _Sophia_, bar the
+first twenty or thirty pages, writes itself; the second is more
+difficult, involving a good many characters--about ten, I think--who
+have to be kept all moving, and give the effect of a society. I have
+three women to handle, out and well-away! but only Sophia is in full
+tone. Sophia and two men, Windermere, the Vanilla Planter, who dies at
+the end of Part I., and Rainsforth, who only appears in the beginning of
+Part II. The fact is, I blush to own it, but Sophia is a _regular
+novel_; heroine and hero, and false accusation, and love, and marriage,
+and all the rest of it--all planted in a big South Sea plantation run by
+ex-English officers--_a la_ Stewart's plantation in Tahiti.[33] There is
+a strong undercurrent of labour trade which gives it a kind of Uncle Tom
+flavour, _absit omen!_
+
+The first start is hard; it is hard to avoid a little tedium here, but I
+think by beginning with the arrival of the three Miss Scarlets hot from
+school and society in England, I may manage to slide in the information.
+The problem is exactly a Balzac one, and I wish I had his fist--for I
+have already a better method--the kinetic, whereas he continually
+allowed himself to be led into the static. But then he had the fist, and
+the most I can hope is to get out of it with a modicum of grace and
+energy, but for sure without the strong impression, the full, dark
+brush. Three people have had it, the real creator's brush: Scott, see
+much of _The Antiquary_ and _The Heart of Midlothian_ (especially all
+round the trial, before, during, and after)--Balzac--and Thackeray in
+_Vanity Fair_. Everybody else either paints _thin_, or has to stop to
+paint, or paints excitedly, so that you see the author skipping before
+his canvas. Here is a long way from poor Sophia Scarlet!
+
+  This day is published
+    _Sophia Scarlet_
+
+          By
+ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+
+
+
+To J. M. BARRIE
+
+
+   The following is the first of several letters to Mr. J. M. Barrie,
+   for whose work Stevenson had a warm admiration, and with whom he soon
+   established by correspondence a cordial friendship.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, February 1892._
+
+DEAR MR. BARRIE,--This is at least the third letter I have written you,
+but my correspondence has a bad habit of not getting so far as the post.
+That which I possess of manhood turns pale before the business of the
+address and envelope. But I hope to be more fortunate with this: for,
+besides the usual and often recurrent desire to thank you for your
+work--you are one of four that have come to the front since I was
+watching and had a corner of my own to watch, and there is no reason,
+unless it be in these mysterious tides that ebb and flow, and make and
+mar and murder the works of poor scribblers, why you should not do work
+of the best order. The tides have borne away my sentence, of which I was
+weary at any rate, and between authors I may allow myself so much
+freedom as to leave it pending. We are both Scots besides, and I suspect
+both rather Scotty Scots; my own Scotchness tends to intermittency, but
+is at times erisypelitous--if that be rightly spelt. Lastly, I have
+gathered we had both made our stages in the metropolis of the winds: our
+Virgil's "grey metropolis," and I count that a lasting bond. No place so
+brands a man.
+
+Finally, I feel it a sort of duty to you to report progress. This may be
+an error, but I believed I detected your hand in an article--it may be
+an illusion, it may have been by one of those industrious insects who
+catch up and reproduce the handling of each emergent man--but I'll still
+hope it was yours--and hope it may please you to hear that the
+continuation of _Kidnapped_ is under way. I have not yet got to Alan, so
+I do not know if he is still alive, but David seems to have a kick or
+two in his shanks. I was pleased to see how the Anglo-Saxon theory fell
+into the trap: I gave my Lowlander a Gaelic name, and even commented on
+the fact in the text; yet almost all critics recognised in David and
+Alan a Saxon and a Celt. I know not about England; in Scotland at least,
+where Gaelic was spoken in Fife little over the century ago, and in
+Galloway not much earlier, I deny that there exists such a thing as a
+pure Saxon, and I think it more than questionable if there be such a
+thing as a pure Celt.
+
+But what have you to do with this? and what have I? Let us continue to
+inscribe our little bits of tales, and let the heathen rage!--Yours,
+with sincere interest in your career,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Feb. 1892._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This has been a busyish month for a sick man. First,
+Faauma--the bronze candlestick, whom otherwise I called my
+butler--bolted from the bed and bosom of Lafaele, the Archangel
+Hercules, prefect of the cattle. There was a deuce to pay, and Hercules
+was inconsolable, and immediately started out after a new wife, and has
+had one up on a visit, but says she has "no conversation"; and I think
+he will take back the erring and possibly repentant candlestick; whom we
+all devoutly prefer, as she is not only highly decorative, but
+good-natured, and if she does little work makes no rows. I tell this
+lightly, but it really was a heavy business; many were accused of
+complicity, and Rafael was really very sorry. I had to hold beds of
+justice--literally--seated in my bed and surrounded by lying Samoans
+seated on the floor; and there were many picturesque and still
+inexplicable passages. It is hard to reach the truth in these islands.
+
+The next incident overlapped with this. S. and Fanny found three strange
+horses in the paddock: for long now the boys have been forbidden to
+leave their horses here one hour because our grass is over-grazed. S.
+came up with the news, and I saw I must now strike a blow. "To the pound
+with the lot," said I. He proposed taking the three himself, but I
+thought that too dangerous an experiment, said I should go too, and
+hurried into my boots so as to show decision taken, in the necessary
+interviews. They came of course--the interviews--and I explained what I
+was going to do at huge length, and stuck to my guns. I am glad to say
+the natives, with their usual (purely speculative) sense of justice,
+highly approved the step after reflection. Meanwhile off went S. and I
+with the three _corpora delicti_; and a good job I went! Once, when our
+circus began to kick, we thought all was up; but we got them down all
+sound in wind and limb. I judged I was much fallen off from my Elliot
+forefathers, who managed this class of business with neatness and
+despatch.
+
+As we got down to town, we met the mother and daughter of my friend
+----, bathed in tears; they had left the house over a row, which I have
+not time or spirits to describe. This matter dashed me a good deal, and
+the first decent-looking day I mounted and set off to see if I could not
+patch things up. Half-way down it came on to rain tropic style, and I
+came back from my second outing drenched like a drowned man--I was
+literally blinded as I came back among these sheets of water; and the
+consequence was I was laid down with diarrhoea and threatenings of
+Samoa colic for the inside of another week. Meanwhile up came
+Laulii,[34] in whose house Mrs. and Miss ---- have taken refuge. One of
+Mrs. ----'s grievances is that her son has married one of these
+"pork-eaters and cannibals." (As a matter of fact there is no memory of
+cannibalism in Samoa.) And a strange thing it was to hear the "cannibal"
+Laulii describe her sorrows. She is singularly pretty and sweet, her
+training reflects wonderful credit on her husband; and when she began to
+describe to us--to act to us, in the tone of an actress walking through
+a rehearsal--the whole bearing of her angry guests; indicating the
+really tragic notes when they came in, so that Fanny and I were ashamed
+to laugh, and touching off the merely ludicrous with infinite tact and
+sly humour; showing, in fact, in her whole picture of a couple of irate
+barbarian women, the whole play and sympathy of what we call the
+civilised mind; the contrast was seizing. I speak with feeling. To-day
+again, being the first day humanly possible for me, I went down to Apia
+with Fanny, and between two and three hours did I argue with that old
+woman--not immovable, would she had been! but with a mechanical mind
+like a piece of a musical snuff-box, that returned always to the same
+starting-point; not altogether base, for she was long-suffering with me
+and professed even gratitude, and was just (in a sense) to her son, and
+showed here and there moments of genuine and not undignified emotion;
+but O! on the other side, what lapses--what a mechanical movement of the
+brain, what occasional trap-door devils of meanness, what a wooden front
+of pride! I came out damped and saddened and (to say truth) a trifle
+sick. My wife had better luck with the daughter; but O, it was a weary
+business!
+
+To add to my grief--but that's politics. Before I sleep to-night I have
+a confession to make. When I was sick I tried to get to work to finish
+that Samoa thing; wouldn't go; and at last, in the colic time, I slid
+off into _David Balfour_,[35] some 50 pages of which are drafted, and
+like me well. Really I think it is spirited; and there's a heroine that
+(up to now) seems to have attractions: _absit omen!_ David, on the
+whole, seems excellent. Alan does not come in till the tenth chapter,
+and I am only at the eighth, so I don't know if I can find him again;
+but David is on his feet, and doing well, and very much in love, and
+mixed up with the Lord Advocate and the (untitled) Lord Lovat, and all
+manner of great folk. And the tale interferes with my eating and
+sleeping. The join is bad; I have not thought to strain too much for
+continuity; so this part be alive, I shall be content. But there's no
+doubt David seems to have changed his style, de'il ha'e him! And much I
+care, if the tale travel!
+
+_Friday, Feb.?? 19th?_--Two incidents to-day which I must narrate. After
+lunch, it was raining pitilessly; we were sitting in my mother's
+bedroom, and I was reading aloud Kinglake's Charge of the Light Brigade,
+and we had just been all seized by the horses aligning with Lord George
+Paget, when a figure appeared on the verandah; a little, slim, small
+figure of a lad, with blond (_i.e._ limed) hair, a propitiatory smile,
+and a nose that alone of all his features grew pale with anxiety. "I
+come here stop," was about the outside of his English; and I began at
+once to guess that he was a runaway labourer,[36] and that the
+bush-knife in his hand was stolen. It proved he had a mate, who had
+lacked his courage, and was hidden down the road; they had both made up
+their minds to run away, and had "come here stop." I could not turn out
+the poor rogues, one of whom showed me marks on his back, into the
+drenching forest; I could not reason with them, for they had not enough
+English, and not one of our boys spoke their tongue; so I bade them feed
+and sleep here to-night, and to-morrow I must do what the Lord shall bid
+me.
+
+Near dinner time, I was told that a friend of Lafaele's had found human
+remains in my bush. After dinner, a figure was seen skulking across
+towards the waterfall, which produced from the verandah a shout, in my
+most stentorian tones: "_O ai le ingoa?_" literally "Who the name?"
+which serves here for "What's your business?" as well. It proved to be
+Lafaele's friend; I bade a kitchen boy, Lauilo, go with him to see the
+spot, for though it had ceased raining, the whole island ran and
+dripped. Lauilo was willing enough, but the friend of the archangel
+demurred; he had too much business; he had no time. "All right," I said,
+"you too much frightened, I go along," which of course produced the
+usual shout of delight from all those who did not require to go. I got
+into my Saranac snow boots; Lauilo got a cutlass; Mary Carter, our
+Sydney maid, joined the party for a lark, and off we set. I tell you our
+guide kept us moving; for the dusk fell swift. Our woods have an
+infamous reputation at the best, and our errand (to say the least of it)
+was grisly. At last they found the remains; they were old, which was
+all I cared to be sure of; it seemed a strangely small "pickle-banes" to
+stand for a big, flourishing, buck-islander, and their situation in the
+darkening and dripping bush was melancholy. All at once, I found there
+was a second skull, with a bullet-hole I could have stuck my two thumbs
+in--say anybody else's one thumb. My Samoans said it could not be, there
+were not enough bones; I put the two pieces of skull together, and at
+last convinced them. Whereupon, in a flash, they found the not
+unromantic explanation. This poor brave had succeeded in the height of a
+Samoan warrior's ambition; he had taken a head, which he was never
+destined to show to his applauding camp. Wounded himself, he had crept
+here into the bush to die with his useless trophy by his side. His date
+would be about fifteen years ago, in the great battle between Laupepa
+and Talavou, which took place on My Land, Sir. To-morrow we shall bury
+the bones and fire a salute in honour of unfortunate courage.
+
+Do you think I have an empty life? or that a man jogging to his club has
+so much to interest and amuse him?--touch and try him too, but that goes
+along with the others: no pain, no pleasure, is the iron law. So here I
+stop again, and leave, as I left yesterday, my political business
+untouched. And lo! here comes my pupil, I believe, so I stop in time.
+
+_March 2nd._--Since I last wrote, fifteen chapters of _David Balfour_
+have been drafted, and five _tires au clair_. I think it pretty good;
+there's a blooming maiden that costs anxiety--she is as virginal as
+billy; but David seems there and alive, and the Lord Advocate is good,
+and so I think is an episodic appearance of the Master of Lovat. In
+Chapter XVII. I shall get David abroad--Alan went already in Chapter
+XII. The book should be about the length of _Kidnapped_; this early part
+of it, about D.'s evidence in the Appin case, is more of a story than
+anything in _Kidnapped_, but there is no doubt there comes a break in
+the middle, and the tale is practically in two divisions. In the first
+James More and the M'Gregors, and Catriona, only show; in the second,
+the Appin case being disposed of, and James Stewart hung, they rule the
+roast and usurp the interest--should there be any left. Why did I take
+up _David Balfour_? I don't know. A sudden passion.
+
+Monday, I went down in the rain with a colic to take the chair at a
+public meeting; dined with Haggard; sailed off to my meeting, and fought
+with wild beasts for three anxious hours. All was lost that any sensible
+man cared for, but the meeting did not break up--thanks a good deal to
+R. L. S.--and the man who opposed my election, and with whom I was all
+the time wrangling, proposed the vote of thanks to me with a certain
+handsomeness; I assure you I had earned it.... Haggard and the great
+Abdul, his high-caste Indian servant, imported by my wife, were sitting
+up for me with supper, and I suppose it was twelve before I got to bed.
+Tuesday raining, my mother rode down, and we went to the Consulate to
+sign a Factory and Commission. Thence, I to the lawyers, to the printing
+office, and to the mission. It was dinner time when I returned home.
+
+This morning, our cook-boy having suddenly left--injured feelings--the
+archangel was to cook breakfast. I found him lighting the fire before
+dawn; his eyes blazed, he had no word of any language left to use, and I
+saw in him (to my wonder) the strongest workings of gratified ambition.
+Napoleon was no more pleased to sign his first treaty with Austria than
+was Lafaele to cook that breakfast. All morning, when I had hoped to be
+at this letter, I slept like one drugged, and you must take this (which
+is all I can give you) for what it is worth--
+
+   D. B.
+
+   _Memoirs of his Adventures at Home and Abroad. The Second Part;
+   wherein are set forth the misfortunes in which he was involved upon
+   the Appin Murder; his troubles with Lord Advocate Prestongrange;
+   captivity on the Bass Rock; journey into France and Holland; and
+   singular relations with James More Drummond or Macgregor, a son of
+   the notorious Rob Roy._
+
+Chapters.--I. A Beggar on Horseback. II. The Highland Writer. III. I go
+to Pilrig. IV. Lord Advocate Prestongrange. V. Butter and Thunder. VI. I
+make a fault in honour. VII. The Bravo. VIII. The Heather on Fire. IX. I
+begin to be haunted with a red-headed man. X. The Wood by Silvermills.
+XI. On the march again with Alan. XII. Gillane Sands. XIII. The Bass
+Rock. XIV. Black Andie's Tale of Tod Lapraik. XV. I go to Inveraray.
+
+That is it, as far as drafted. Chapters IV. V. VII. IX. and XIV. I am
+specially pleased with; the last being an episodical bogie story about
+the Bass Rock told there by the Keeper.
+
+
+
+
+TO WILLIAM MORRIS
+
+
+   The following draft letter addressed to Mr. William Morris was found
+   among Stevenson's papers after his death. It has touches of
+   affectation and constraint not usual with him, and it is no doubt on
+   that account that he did not send it; but though not in his best
+   manner, it seems worth printing as illustrating the variety of his
+   interests and admirations in literature.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, Feb. 1892._
+
+MASTER,--A plea from a place so distant should have some weight, and
+from a heart so grateful should have some address. I have been long in
+your debt, Master, and I did not think it could be so much increased as
+you have now increased it. I was long in your debt and deep in your debt
+for many poems that I shall never forget, and for _Sigurd_ before all,
+and now you have plunged me beyond payment by the Saga Library. And so
+now, true to human nature, being plunged beyond payment, I come and bark
+at your heels.
+
+For surely, Master, that tongue that we write, and that you have
+illustrated so nobly, is yet alive. She has her rights and laws, and is
+our mother, our queen, and our instrument. Now in that living tongue
+_where_ has one sense, _whereas_ another. In the _Heathslayings Story_,
+p. 241, line 13, it bears one of its ordinary senses. Elsewhere and
+usually through the two volumes, which is all that has yet reached me of
+this entrancing publication, _whereas_ is made to figure for _where_.
+
+For the love of God, my dear and honoured Morris, use _where_, and let
+us know _whereas_ we are, wherefore our gratitude shall grow, whereby
+you shall be the more honoured wherever men love clear language, whereas
+now, although we honour, we are troubled.
+
+Whereunder, please find inscribed to this very impudent but yet very
+anxious document, the name of one of the most distant but not the
+youngest or the coldest of those who honour you
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
+
+
+   The projected visit of Mr. Kipling, with his wife and brother-in-law,
+   to Samoa, which is mentioned towards the close of this letter, never
+   took place, much to the regret of both authors.
+
+     [_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_[37] capital fun; but why, in fortune, did he pretend
+it was moral at the end? The so-called nineteenth century, _ou 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 house-folk 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,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] March 9th [1892]._
+
+MY DEAR S. C.,--Take it not amiss if this is a wretched letter. I am
+eaten up with business. Every day this week I have had some business
+impediment--I am even now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the
+road--and my precious morning was shattered by a polite old scourge of a
+_faipule_--parliament man--come begging. All the time _David Balfour_ is
+skelping along. I began it the 13th of last month; I have now 12
+chapters, 79 pages ready for press, or within an ace, and, by the time
+the month is out, one-half should be completed, and I'll be back at
+drafting the second half. What makes me sick is to think of Scott
+turning out _Guy Mannering_ in three weeks! What a pull of work:
+heavens, what thews and sinews! And here am I, my head spinning from
+having only re-written seven not very difficult pages--and not very good
+when done. Weakling generation. It makes me sick of myself, to make such
+a fash and bobbery over a rotten end of an old nursery yarn, not worth
+spitting on when done. Still, there is no doubt I turn out my work more
+easily than of yore; and I suppose I should be singly glad of that. And
+if I got my book done in six weeks, seeing it will be about half as long
+as a Scott, and I have to write everything twice, it would be about the
+same rate of industry. It is my fair intention to be done with it in
+three months, which would make me about one-half the man Sir Walter was
+for application and driving the dull pen. Of the merit we shall not
+talk; but I don't think Davie is _without_ merit.
+
+_March 12th._--And I have this day triumphantly finished 15 chapters,
+100 pages--being exactly one-half (as near as anybody can guess) of
+_David Balfour_; the book to be about a fifth as long again (altogether)
+as _Treasure Island:_ could I but do the second half in another month!
+But I can't, I fear; I shall have some belated material arriving by next
+mail, and must go again at the History. Is it not characteristic of my
+broken tenacity of mind, that I should have left Davie Balfour some five
+years in the British Linen Company's Office, and then follow him at last
+with such vivacity? But I leave you again; the last (15th) chapter ought
+to be re-wrote, or part of it, and I want the half completed in the
+month, and the month is out by midnight; though, to be sure, last month
+was February, and I might take grace. These notes are only to show I
+hold you in mind, though I know they can have no interest for man or God
+or animal.
+
+I should have told you about the Club. We have been asked to try and
+start a sort of weekly ball for the half-castes and natives, ourselves
+to be the only whites; and we consented, from a very heavy sense of
+duty, and with not much hope. Two nights ago we had twenty people up,
+received them in the front verandah, entertained them on cake and
+lemonade, and I made a speech--embodying our proposals, or conditions,
+if you like--for I suppose thirty minutes. No joke to speak to such an
+audience, but it is believed I was thoroughly intelligible. I took the
+plan of saying everything at least twice in a different form of words,
+so that if the one escaped my hearers, the other might be seized. One
+white man came with his wife, and was kept rigorously on the front
+verandah below! You see what a sea of troubles this is like to prove;
+but it is the only chance--and when it blows up, it must blow up! I have
+no more hope in anything than a dead frog; I go into everything with a
+composed despair, and don't mind--just as I always go to sea with the
+conviction I am to be drowned, and like it before all other pleasures.
+But you should have seen the return voyage, when nineteen horses had to
+be found in the dark, and nineteen bridles, all in a drench of rain, and
+the club, just constituted as such, sailed away in the wet, under a
+cloudy moon like a bad shilling, and to descend a road through the
+forest that was at that moment the image of a respectable mountain
+brook. My wife, who is president _with power to expel_, had to begin her
+functions....
+
+_25th March._--Heaven knows what day it is, but I am ashamed, all the
+more as your letter from Bournemouth of all places--poor old
+Bournemouth!--is to hand, and contains a statement of pleasure in my
+letters which I wish I could have rewarded with a long one. What has
+gone on? A vast of affairs, of a mingled, strenuous, inconclusive,
+desultory character; much waste of time, much riding to and fro, and
+little transacted or at least peracted.
+
+Let me give you a review of the present state of our live stock.--Six
+boys in the bush; six souls about the house. Talolo, the cook, returns
+again to-day, after an absence which has cost me about twelve hours of
+riding, and I suppose eight hours' solemn sitting in council. "I am
+sorry indeed for the Chief Justice of Samoa," I said; "it is more than I
+am fit for to be Chief Justice of Vailima."--Lauilo is steward. Both
+these are excellent servants; we gave a luncheon party when we buried
+the Samoan bones, and I assure you all was in good style, yet we never
+interfered. The food was good, the wine and dishes went round as by
+mechanism.--Steward's assistant and washman, Arrick, a New Hebridee
+black boy, hired from the German firm; not so ugly as most, but not
+pretty neither; not so dull as his sort are, but not quite a Crichton.
+When he came first, he ate so much of our good food that he got a
+prominent belly. Kitchen assistant, Tomas (Thomas in English), a Fiji
+man, very tall and handsome, moving like a marionette with sudden
+bounds, and rolling his eyes with sudden effort.--Washerwoman and
+precentor, Helen, Tomas's wife. This is our weak point; we are ashamed
+of Helen; the cook-house blushes for her; they murmur there at her
+presence. She seems all right; she is not a bad-looking, strapping
+wench, seems chaste, is industrious, has an excellent taste in
+hymns--you should have heard her read one aloud the other day, she
+marked the rhythm with so much gloating, dissenter sentiment. What is
+wrong, then? says you. Low in your ear--and don't let the papers get
+hold of it--she is of no family. None, they say; literally a common
+woman. Of course, we have out-islanders, who _may_ be villeins; but we
+give them the benefit of the doubt, which is impossible with Helen of
+Vailima; our blot, our pitted speck. The pitted speck I have said is our
+precentor. It is always a woman who starts Samoan song; the men who sing
+second do not enter for a bar or two. Poor, dear Faauma, the unchaste,
+the extruded Eve of our Paradise, knew only two hymns; but Helen seems
+to know the whole repertory, and the morning prayers go far more lively
+in consequence.--Lafaele, provost of the cattle. The cattle are Jack, my
+horse, quite converted, my wife rides him now, and he is as steady as a
+doctor's cob; Tifaga Jack, a circus horse, my mother's piebald, bought
+from a passing circus; Belle's mare, now in childbed or next door,
+confound the slut! Musu--amusingly translated the other day "don't want
+to," literally cross, but always in the sense of stubbornness and
+resistance--my wife's little dark-brown mare, with a white star on her
+forehead, whom I have been riding of late to steady her--she has no
+vices, but is unused, skittish and uneasy, and wants a lot of attention
+and humouring; lastly (of saddle horses) Luna--not the Latin _moon_, the
+Hawaiian _overseer_, but it's pronounced the same--a pretty little mare
+too, but scarce at all broken, a bad bucker, and has to be ridden with a
+stock-whip and be brought back with her rump criss-crossed like a clan
+tartan; the two cart horses, now only used with pack-saddles; two cows,
+one in the straw (I trust) to-morrow, a third cow, the Jersey--whose
+milk and temper are alike subjects of admiration--she gives good
+exercise to the farming saunterer, and refreshes him on his return with
+cream; two calves, a bull, and a cow; God knows how many ducks and
+chickens, and for a wager not even God knows how many cats; twelve
+horses, seven horses, five kine: is not this Babylon the Great which I
+have builded? Call it _Subpriorsford_.
+
+Two nights ago the club had its first meeting; only twelve were present,
+but it went very well. I was not there, I had ridden down the night
+before after dinner on my endless business, took a cup of tea in the
+mission like an ass, then took a cup of coffee like a fool at Haggard's,
+then fell into a discussion with the American Consul.... I went to bed
+at Haggard's, came suddenly broad awake, and lay sleepless the live
+night. It felt chill, I had only a sheet, and had to make a light and
+range the house for a cover--I found one in the hall, a macintosh. So
+back to my sleepless bed, and to lie there till dawn. In the morning I
+had a longish ride to take in a day of a blinding, staggering sun, and
+got home by eleven, our luncheon hour, with my head rather swimmy; the
+only time I have _feared_ the sun since I was in Samoa. However, I got
+no harm, but did not go to the club, lay off, lazied, played the pipe,
+and read a novel by James Payn--sometimes quite interesting, and in one
+place really very funny with the quaint humour of the man. Much
+interested the other day. As I rode past a house, I saw where a Samoan
+had written a word on a board, and there was an [inverted A], perfectly
+formed, but upside down. You never saw such a thing in Europe; but it is
+as common as dirt in Polynesia. Men's names are tattooed on the forearm;
+it is common to find a subverted letter tattooed there. Here is a
+tempting problem for psychologists.
+
+I am now on terms again with the German consulate, I know not for how
+long; not, of course, with the President, which I find a relief; still,
+with the Chief Justice and the English consul. For Haggard, I have a
+genuine affection; he is a loveable man.
+
+Wearyful man! "Here is the yarn of Loudon Dodd, _not as he told it, but
+as it was afterwards written_."[38] These words were left out by some
+carelessness, and I think I have been thrice tackled about them. Grave
+them in your mind and wear them on your forehead.
+
+The Lang story will have very little about the treasure; the Master[39]
+will appear; and it is to a great extent a tale of Prince Charlie
+_after_ the '45, and a love story forbye: the hero is a melancholy
+exile, and marries a young woman who interests the prince, and there is
+the devil to pay. I think the Master kills him in a duel, but don't know
+yet, not having yet seen my second heroine. No--the Master doesn't kill
+him, they fight, he is wounded, and the Master plays _deus ex machina_.
+_I think_ just now of calling it _The Tail of the Race_; no--heavens! I
+never saw till this moment--but of course nobody but myself would ever
+understand Mill-Race, they would think of a quarter-mile. So--I am
+nameless again. My melancholy young man is to be quite a Romeo. Yes,
+I'll name the book from him: _Dyce of Ythan_--pronounce Eethan.
+
+  Dyce of Ythan
+   by R. L. S.
+
+O, Shovel--Shovel waits his turn, he and his ancestors. I would have
+tackled him before, but my _State Trials_ have never come. So that I
+have now quite planned:--
+
+  Dyce of Ythan. (Historical, 1750.)
+
+  Sophia Scarlet. (To-day.)
+
+  The Shovels of Newton French. (Historical, 1650 to 1830.)
+
+And quite planned and part written:--
+
+  The Pearl Fisher. (To-day.) (With Lloyd: a machine.)[40]
+
+  David Balfour. (Historical, 1751.)
+
+And, by a strange exception for R. L. S., all in the third person except
+D. B.
+
+
+I don't know what day this is now (the 29th), but I have finished my two
+chapters, ninth and tenth, of _Samoa_ in time for the mail, and feel
+almost at peace. The tenth was the hurricane, a difficult problem; it so
+tempted one to be literary; and I feel sure the less of that there is in
+my little handbook, the more chance it has of some utility. Then the
+events are complicated, seven ships to tell of, and sometimes three of
+them together; O, it was quite a job. But I think I have my facts pretty
+correct, and for once, in my sickening yarn, they are handsome facts:
+creditable to all concerned; not to be written of--and I should think,
+scarce to be read--without a thrill. I doubt I have got no hurricane
+into it, the intricacies of the yarn absorbing me too much. But
+there--it's done somehow, and time presses hard on my heels. The book,
+with my best expedition, may come just too late to be of use. In which
+case I shall have made a handsome present of some months of my life for
+nothing and to nobody. Well, through Her the most ancient heavens are
+fresh and strong.[41]
+
+_30th._--After I had written you, I re-read my hurricane, which is very
+poor; the life of the journalist is hard, another couple of writings and
+I could make a good thing, I believe, and it must go as it is! But, of
+course, this book is not written for honour and glory, and the few who
+will read it may not know the difference. Very little time. I go down
+with the mail shortly, dine at the Chinese restaurant, and go to the
+club to dance with islandresses. Think of my going out once a week to
+dance.
+
+Politics are on the full job again, and we don't know what is to come
+next. I think the whole treaty _raj_ seems quite played out! They have
+taken to bribing the _faipule_ men (parliament men) to stay in Mulinuu,
+we hear; but I have not yet sifted the rumour. I must say I shall be
+scarce surprised if it prove true; these rumours have the knack of being
+right.--Our weather this last month has been tremendously hot, not by
+the thermometer, which sticks at 86 deg., but to the sensation: no rain, no
+wind, and this the storm month. It looks ominous, and is certainly
+disagreeable.
+
+No time to finish.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   The first sentences of the following refer to _A Footnote to
+   History_, Chapter x. of which, relating to the hurricane of 1889, was
+   first published in the Scots Observer, edited by Mr. Henley.
+
+     [_Vailima, March 1892._]
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Herewith Chapters IX. and X., and I am left face to
+face with the horrors and dilemmas of the present regimen: pray for
+those that go down to the sea in ships. I have promised Henley shall
+have a chance to publish the hurricane chapter if he like, so please let
+the slips be sent _quam primum_ to C. Baxter, W.S., 11 S. Charlotte
+Street, Edinburgh. I got on mighty quick with that chapter--about five
+days of the toughest kind of work. God forbid I should ever have such
+another pirn to wind! When I invent a language, there shall be a direct
+and an indirect pronoun differently declined--then writing would be some
+fun.
+
+  DIRECT            INDIRECT
+
+   He                  Tu
+   Him                 Tum
+   His                 Tus
+
+Ex.: _He_ seized _tum_ by _tus_ throat; but _tu_ at the same moment
+caught _him_ by his hair. A fellow could write hurricanes with an
+inflection like that! Yet there would be difficulties too.
+
+Please add to my former orders--
+
+  _Le Chevalier Des Touches_ } by Barbey d'Aurevilly.
+  _Les Diabohques_           }
+  _Correspondence de Henri Beyle_ (Stendahl).
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE REV. S. J. WHITMEE
+
+
+   In this letter the essential points of Stevenson's policy for Samoa
+   are defined more clearly than anywhere else. His correspondent, an
+   experienced missionary who had been absent from the islands and
+   lately returned, and whom Stevenson describes as being of a nature
+   essentially "childlike and candid," had been induced to support the
+   idea of a one-man power as necessary for putting an end to the
+   existing confusion, and to suggest the Chief Justice, Mr.
+   Cedercrantz, as the person to wield such power. In the present letter
+   and a subsequent conversation Stevenson was able to persuade his
+   correspondent to abandon at least that part of his proposal which
+   concerned the Chief Justice.
+
+     _[Vailima] Sunday. Better Day, Better Deed. April 24th, 1892._
+
+     Private and confidential.
+
+DEAR MR. WHITMEE,--I have reflected long and fully on your paper, and at
+your kind request give you the benefit of my last thoughts.
+
+I. I cannot bring myself to welcome your idea of one man. I fear we are
+too far away from any moderative influence; and suppose it to be true
+that the paper is bought, we should not even have a voice. Could we be
+sure to get a Gordon or a Lawrence, ah! very well. But in this
+out-of-the-way place, are these extreme experiments wise? Remember
+Baker; with much that he has done, I am in full sympathy; and the man,
+though wholly insincere, is a thousand miles from ill-meaning; and see
+to what excesses he was forced or led.
+
+II. But I willingly admit the idea is possible with the right man, and
+this brings me with greater conviction to my next point. I cannot
+endorse, and I would rather beg of you to reconsider, your
+recommendation of the Chief Justice. I told you the man has always
+attracted me, yet as I have earnestly reconsidered the points against
+him, I find objection growing....
+
+But there is yet another argument I have to lay before you. We are both
+to write upon this subject. Many of our opinions coincide, and, as I
+said the other day, on these we may reasonably suppose that we are not
+far wrong. Now here is a point on which we shall directly counter. No
+doubt but this will lessen the combined weight of our arguments where
+they coincide. And to avoid this effect, it might seem worth while to
+you to modify or cancel the last paragraph of your article.
+
+III. But I now approach what seems to me by far the most important.
+White man here, white man there, Samoa is to stand or fall (bar actual
+seizure) on the Samoan question. And upon this my mind is now really
+made up. I do not believe in Laupepa alone; I do not believe in Mataafa
+alone. I know that their conjunction implies peace; I am persuaded that
+their separation means either war or paralysis. It is the result of the
+past, which we cannot change, but which we must accept and use or suffer
+by. I have now made up my mind to do all that I may be able--little as
+it is--to effect a reconciliation between these two men Laupepa and
+Mataafa; persuaded as I am that there is the one door of hope. And it is
+my intention before long to approach both in this sense. Now, from the
+course of our interview, I was pleased to see that you were, if not
+equally strong with myself, at least inclined to much the same opinion.
+And in a carefully weighed paper, such as that you read me, I own I
+should be pleased to have this cardinal matter touched upon. At home it
+is not, it cannot be, understood: Mataafa is thought a rebel; the
+Germans profit by the thought to pursue their career of vengeance for
+Fagalii; the two men are perpetually offered as alternatives--they are
+no such thing--they are complementary; authority, supposing them to
+survive, will be impossible without both. They were once friends, fools
+and meddlers set them at odds, they must be friends again or have so
+much wisdom and public virtue as to pretend a friendship. There is my
+policy for Samoa. And I wish you would at least touch upon that point, I
+care not how; because, although I am far from supposing you feel it to
+be necessary in the same sense or to the same degree as I do, I am well
+aware that no man knows Samoa but must see its huge advantages. Excuse
+this long and tedious lecture, which I see I have to mark private and
+confidential, or I might get into deep water, and believe me, yours very
+truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   The maps herein bespoken do not adorn the ordinary editions of
+   _Catriona_, only the Edinburgh edition, for which they were executed
+   by Messrs. Bartholomew in a manner that would have rejoiced the
+   writer's heart.
+
+     _[Vailima] April 28, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have just written the dedication of _David Balfour_
+to you, and haste to put a job in your hands. This is a map of the
+environs of Edinburgh _circa_ 1750. It must contain Hope Park, Hunter's
+Bog, Calton Hill, the Mouter Hill, Lang Dykes, Nor' Loch, West Kirk,
+Village of Dean, pass down the water to Stockbridge, Silver Mills, the
+two mill lakes there, with a wood on the south side of the south one
+which I saw marked on a plan in the British Museum, Broughton, Picardy,
+Leith Walk, Leith, Pilrig, Lochend, Figgate Whins. And I would like a
+piece in a corner, giving for the same period Figgate Whins,
+Musselburgh, Inveresk, Prestonpans, battlefield of Gladsmuir, Cockenzie,
+Gullane--which I spell Gillane--Fidra, Dirleton, North Berwick Law,
+Whitekirk, Tantallon Castle and Castleton, Scougal and Auldhame, the
+Bass, the Glenteithy rocks, Satan's Bush, Wildfire rocks, and, if
+possible, the May. If need were, I would not stick at two maps. If there
+is but one, say, _Plan to illustrate David Balfour's adventures in the
+Lothians_. If two, call the first _Plan to illustrate David Balfour's
+adventures about the city of Edinburgh_, and the second, _Plan to
+illustrate David Balfour's adventures in East Lothian_. I suppose there
+must be a map-maker of some taste in Edinburgh; I wish few other names
+in, but what I have given, as far as possible. As soon as may be I will
+let you have the text, when you might even find some amusement in
+seeing that the maps fill the bill. If your map-maker be a poor
+creature, plainness is best; if he were a fellow of some genuine go, he
+might give it a little of the bird's-eye quality. I leave this to your
+good taste. If I have time I will copy the dedication to go herewith; I
+am pleased with it. The first map (suppose we take two) would go in at
+the beginning, the second at Chapter XI. The topography is very much
+worked into the story, and I have alluded in the dedication to our
+common fancy for exploring Auld Reekie.
+
+The list of books came duly, for which many thanks. I am plunged to the
+nostrils in various business.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] May 1st, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--As I rode down last night about six, I saw a sight I
+must try to tell you of. In front of me, right over the top of the
+forest into which I was descending, was a vast cloud. The front of it
+accurately represented the somewhat rugged, long-nosed, and
+beetle-browed profile of a man, crowned by a huge Kalmuck cap; the flesh
+part was of a heavenly pink, the cap, the moustache, the eyebrows were
+of a bluish grey; to see this with its childish exactitude of design and
+colour, and hugeness of scale--it covered at least 25 deg.--held me
+spell-bound. As I continued to gaze, the expression began to change; he
+had the exact air of closing one eye, dropping his jaw, and drawing down
+his nose; had the thing not been so imposing, I could have smiled; and
+then almost in a moment, a shoulder of leaden-coloured bank drove in
+front and blotted it. My attention spread to the rest of the cloud, and
+it was a thing to worship. It rose from the horizon, and its top was
+within thirty degrees of the zenith; the lower parts were like a glacier
+in shadow, varying from dark indigo to a clouded white in exquisite
+gradations. The sky behind, so far as I could see, was all of a blue
+already enriched and darkened by the night, for the hill had what
+lingered of the sunset. But the top of my Titanic cloud flamed in broad
+sunlight, with the most excellent softness and brightness of fire and
+jewels, enlightening all the world. It must have been far higher than
+Mount Everest, and its glory, as I gazed up at it out of the night, was
+beyond wonder. Close by rode the little crescent moon; and right over
+its western horn, a great planet of about equal lustre with itself. The
+dark woods below were shrill with that noisy business of the birds'
+evening worship. When I returned, after eight, the moon was near down;
+she seemed little brighter than before, but now that the cloud no longer
+played its part of a nocturnal sun, we could see that sight, so rare
+with us at home that it was counted a portent, so customary in the
+tropics, of the dark sphere with its little gilt band upon the belly.
+The planet had been setting faster, and was now below the crescent. They
+were still of an equal brightness.
+
+I could not resist trying to reproduce this in words, as a specimen of
+these incredibly beautiful and imposing meteors of the tropic sky that
+make so much of my pleasure here; though a ship's deck is the place to
+enjoy them. O what _awful_ scenery, from a ship's deck, in the tropics!
+People talk about the Alps, but the clouds of the trade wind are alone
+for sublimity.
+
+Now to try and tell you what has been happening. The state of these
+islands, and of Mataafa and Laupepa (Malietoas _ambo_), had been much on
+my mind. I went to the priests and sent a message to Mataafa, at a time
+when it was supposed he was about to act. He did not act, delaying in
+true native style, and I determined I should go to visit him. I have
+been very good not to go sooner; to live within a few miles of a rebel
+camp, to be a novelist, to have all my family forcing me to go, and to
+refrain all these months, counts for virtue. But hearing that several
+people had gone and the government done nothing to punish them, and
+having an errand there which was enough to justify myself in my own
+eyes, I half determined to go, and spoke of it with the half-caste
+priest. And here (confound it) up came Laupepa and his guards to call on
+me; we kept him to lunch, and the old gentleman was very good and
+amiable. He asked me why I had not been to see him? I reminded him a law
+had been made, and told him I was not a small boy to go and ask leave of
+the consuls, and perhaps be refused. He told me to pay no attention to
+the law but come when I would, and begged me to name a day to lunch. The
+next day (I think it was) early in the morning, a man appeared; he had
+metal buttons like a policeman--but he was none of our Apia force; he
+was a rebel policeman, and had been all night coming round inland
+through the forest from Malie. He brought a letter addressed
+
+  _I lana susuga_   To his Excellency
+    _Misi Mea_.           Mr. Thingumbob.
+
+(So as not to compromise me.) I can read Samoan now, though not speak
+it. It was to ask me for last Wednesday. My difficulty was great; I had
+no man here who was fit, or who would have cared, to write for me; and I
+had to postpone the visit. So I gave up half-a-day with a groan, went
+down to the priests, arranged for Monday week to go to Malie, and named
+Thursday as my day to lunch with Laupepa. I was sharply ill on
+Wednesday, mail day. But on Thursday I had to trail down and go through
+the dreary business of a feast, in the King's wretched shanty, full in
+view of the President's fine new house; it made my heart burn.
+
+This gave me my chance to arrange a private interview with the king, and
+I decided to ask Mr. Whitmee to be my interpreter. On Friday, being too
+much exhausted to go down, I begged him to come up. He did. I told him
+the heads of what I meant to say; and he not only consented, but said,
+if we got on well with the king, he would even proceed with me to Malie.
+Yesterday, in consequence, I rode down to W.'s house by eight in the
+morning; waited till ten; received a message that the king was stopped
+by a meeting with the president and _faipule_; made another engagement
+for seven at night; came up; went down; waited till eight, and came away
+again, _bredouille_, and a dead body. The poor, weak, enslaved king had
+not dared to come to me even in secret. Now I have to-day for a rest,
+and to-morrow to Malie. Shall I be suffered to embark? It is very
+doubtful; they are on the trail. On Thursday, a policeman came up to me
+and began that a boy had been to see him, and said I was going to see
+Mataafa.--"And what did you say?" said I.--"I told him I did not know
+about where you were going," said he.--"A very good answer," said I, and
+turned away. It is lashing rain to-day, but to-morrow, rain or shine, I
+must at least make the attempt; and I am so weary, and the weather looks
+so bad. I could half wish they would arrest me on the beach. All this
+bother and pother to try and bring a little chance of peace; all this
+opposition and obstinacy in people who remain here by the mere
+forbearance of Mataafa, who has a great force within six miles of their
+government buildings, which are indeed only the residences of white
+officials. To understand how I have been occupied, you must know that
+"Misi Mea" has had another letter, and this time had to answer himself;
+think of doing so in a language so obscure to me, with the aid of a
+Bible, concordance, and dictionary! What a wonderful Baboo compilation
+it must have been! I positively expected to hear news of its arrival in
+Malie by the sound of laughter. I doubt if you will be able to read this
+scrawl, but I have managed to scramble somehow up to date; and
+to-morrow, one way or another, should be interesting. But as for me, I
+am a wreck, as I have no doubt style and handwriting both testify.
+
+8 P.M.--Wonderfully rested; feel almost fit for to-morrow's dreary
+excursion--not that it will be dreary if the weather favour, but
+otherwise it will be death; and a native feast, and I fear I am in for a
+big one, is a thing I loathe. I wonder if you can really conceive me as
+a politician in this extra-mundane sphere--presiding at public meetings,
+drafting proclamations, receiving mis-addressed letters that have been
+carried all night through tropical forests? It seems strange indeed, and
+to you, who know me really, must seem stranger. I do not say I am free
+from the itch of meddling, but God knows this is no tempting job to
+meddle in; I smile at picturesque circumstances like the Misi Mea
+(_Monsieur Chose_ is the exact equivalent) correspondence, but the
+business as a whole bores and revolts me. I do nothing and say nothing;
+and then a day comes, and I say "this can go on no longer."
+
+9.30 P.M.--The wretched native dilatoriness finds me out. News has just
+come that we must embark at six to-morrow; I have divided the night in
+watches, and hope to be called to-morrow at four and get under way by
+five. It is a great chance if it be managed; but I have given directions
+and lent my own clock to the boys, and hope the best. If I get called at
+four we shall do it nicely. Good-night; I must turn in.
+
+_May 3rd._--Well, we did get off by about 5.30, or, by'r lady! quarter
+to six; myself on Donald, the huge grey cart-horse, with a ship-bag
+across my saddle bow, Fanny on Musu and Belle on Jack. We were all
+feeling pretty tired and sick, and I looked like heaven knows what on
+the cart-horse: "death on the pale horse," I suggested--and young Hunt
+the missionary, who met me to-day on the same charger, squinted up at my
+perch and remarked, "There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft."
+The boat was ready and we set off down the lagoon about seven, four
+oars, and Talolo, my cook, steering.
+
+_May 9th_ (_Monday anyway_).--And see what good resolutions came to!
+Here is all this time past, and no speed made. Well, we got to Malie and
+were received with the most friendly consideration by the rebel chief.
+Belle and Fanny were obviously thought to be my two wives; they were
+served their kava together, as were Mataafa and myself. Talolo utterly
+broke down as interpreter; long speeches were made to me by Mataafa and
+his orators, of which he could make nothing but they were "very much
+surprised"--his way of pronouncing obliged--and as he could understand
+nothing that fell from me except the same form of words, the dialogue
+languished and all business had to be laid aside. We had kava,[42] and
+then a dish of arrowroot; one end of the house was screened off for us
+with a fine tapa, and we lay and slept, the three of us, heads and
+tails, upon the mats till dinner. After dinner his illegitimate majesty
+and myself had a walk, and talked as well as my twopenny Samoan would
+admit. Then there was a dance to amuse the ladies before the house, and
+we came back by moonlight, the sky piled full of high faint clouds that
+long preserved some of the radiance of the sunset. The lagoon was very
+shallow; we continually struck, for the moon was young and the light
+baffling; and for a long time we were accompanied by, and passed and
+repassed, a huge whale-boat from Savaii, pulling perhaps twelve oars,
+and containing perhaps forty people who sang in time as they went. So
+to the hotel, where we slept, and returned the next Tuesday morning on
+the three same steeds.
+
+Meanwhile my business was still untransacted. And on Saturday morning, I
+sent down and arranged with Charlie Taylor to go down that afternoon. I
+had scarce got the saddle-bags fixed and had not yet mounted, when the
+rain began. But it was no use delaying now; off I went in a wild
+waterspout to Apia; found Charlie (Sale) Taylor--a sesquipedalian young
+half-caste--not yet ready, had a snack of bread and cheese at the hotel
+while waiting him, and then off to Malie. It rained all the way, seven
+miles; the road, which begins in triumph, dwindles down to a nasty,
+boggy, rocky footpath with weeds up to a horseman's knees; and there are
+eight pig fences to jump, nasty beastly jumps--the next morning we found
+one all messed with blood where a horse had come to grief--but my Jack
+is a clever fencer; and altogether we made good time, and got to Malie
+about dark. It is a village of very fine native houses, high, domed,
+oval buildings, open at the sides, or only closed with slatted
+Venetians. To be sure, Mataafa's is not the worst. It was already quite
+dark within, only a little fire of cocoa-shell blazed in the midst and
+showed us four servants; the chief was in his chapel, whence we heard
+the sound of chaunting. Presently he returned; Taylor and I had our
+soaking clothes changed, family worship was held, kava brewed, I was
+exhibited to the chiefs as a man who had ridden through all that rain
+and risked deportation to serve their master; they were bidden learn my
+face, and remember upon all occasions to help and serve me. Then dinner,
+and politics, and fine speeches until twelve at night--O, and some more
+kava--when I could sit up no longer; my usual bed-time is eight, you
+must remember. Then one end of the house was screened off for me alone,
+and a bed made--you never saw such a couch--I believe of nearly fifty
+(half at least) fine mats, by Mataafa's daughter, Kalala. Here I
+reposed alone; and on the other side of the tapa, Majesty and his
+household. Armed guards and a drummer patrolled about the house all
+night; they had no shift, poor devils; but stood to arms from sun-down
+to sun-up.
+
+About four in the morning, I was awakened by the sound of a whistle pipe
+blown outside on the dark, very softly and to a pleasing simple air; I
+really think I have hit the first phrase:
+
+[Illustration: Andante tranquillo]
+
+It sounded very peaceful, sweet and strange in the dark; and I found
+this was a part of the routine of my rebel's night, and it was done (he
+said) to give good dreams. By a little before six, Taylor and I were in
+the saddle again fasting. My riding boots were so wet I could not get
+them on, so I must ride barefoot. The morning was fair but the roads
+very muddy, the weeds soaked us nearly to the waist, Sale was twice
+spilt at the fences, and we got to Apia a bedraggled enough pair. All
+the way along the coast, the pate (small wooden drum) was beating in the
+villages and the people crowding to the churches in their fine clothes.
+Thence through the mangrove swamp, among the black mud and the green
+mangroves, and the black and scarlet crabs, to Mulinuu, to the doctor's,
+where I had an errand, and so to the inn to breakfast about nine. After
+breakfast I rode home. Conceive such an outing, remember the pallid
+brute that lived in Skerryvore like a weevil in a biscuit, and receive
+the intelligence that I was rather the better for my journey. Twenty
+miles' ride, sixteen fences taken, ten of the miles in a drenching rain,
+seven of them fasting and in the morning chill, and six stricken hours'
+political discussions by an interpreter; to say nothing of sleeping in
+a native house, at which many of our excellent literati would look
+askance of itself.
+
+You are to understand: if I take all this bother, it is not only from a
+sense of duty, or a love of meddling--damn the phrase, take your
+choice--but from a great affection for Mataafa. He is a beautiful, sweet
+old fellow, and he and I grew quite fulsome on Saturday night about our
+sentiments. I had a messenger from him to-day with a flannel undershirt
+which I had left behind like a gibbering idiot; and perpetrated in reply
+another Baboo letter. It rains again to-day without mercy; blessed,
+welcome rains, making up for the paucity of the late wet season; and
+when the showers slacken, I can hear my stream roaring in the hollow,
+and tell myself that the cacaos are drinking deep. I am desperately
+hunted to finish my Samoa book before the mail goes; this last chapter
+is equally delicate and necessary. The prayers of the congregation are
+requested. Eheu! and it will be ended before this letter leaves and
+printed in the States ere you can read this scribble. The first dinner
+gong has sounded; _je vous salue, monsieur et cher confrere. Tofa,
+soifua!_ Sleep! long life! as our Samoan salutation of farewell runs.
+
+_Friday, May_ 13_th._--Well, the last chapter, by far the most difficult
+and ungrateful, is well under way, I have been from six to seven hours
+upon it daily since I last wrote; and that is all I have done forbye
+working at Samoan rather hard, and going down on Wednesday evening to
+the club. I make some progress now at the language; I am teaching Belle,
+which clears and exercises myself. I am particularly taken with the
+_finesse_ of the pronouns. The pronouns are all dual and plural, and the
+first person, both in the dual and plural, has a special exclusive and
+inclusive form. You can conceive what fine effects of precision and
+distinction can be reached in certain cases. Take Ruth, i. _vv._ 8 to
+13, and imagine how those pronouns come in; it is exquisitely elegant,
+and makes the mouth of the _litterateur_ to water. I am going to
+exercitate my pupil over those verses to-day for pronoun practice.
+
+_Tuesday._--Yesterday came yours. Well, well, if the dears prefer a
+week, why, I'll give them ten days, but the real document, from which I
+have scarcely varied, ran for one night.[43] I think you seem scarcely
+fair to Wiltshire, who had surely, under his beast-ignorant ways, right
+noble qualities. And I think perhaps you scarce do justice to the fact
+that this is a place of realism _a outrance_; nothing extenuated or
+coloured. Looked at so, is it not, with all its tragic features,
+wonderfully idyllic, with great beauty of scene and circumstance? And
+will you please to observe that almost all that is ugly is in the
+whites? I'll apologise for Papa Randal if you like; but if I told you
+the whole truth--for I did extenuate there!--and he seemed to me
+essential as a figure, and essential as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire's
+disgust for him being one of the small, efficient motives in the story.
+Now it would have taken a fairish dose to disgust Wiltshire.--Again, the
+idea of publishing the _Beach_ substantively is dropped--at once, both
+on account of expostulation, and because it measured shorter than I had
+expected. And it was only taken up, when the proposed volume, _Beach de
+Mar_, petered out. It petered out thus: the chief of the short stories
+got sucked into _Sophia Scarlet_--and _Sophia_ is a book I am much taken
+with, and mean to get to, as soon as--but not before--I have done _David
+Balfour_ and _The Young Chevalier_. So you see you are like to hear no
+more of the Pacific or the nineteenth century for a while. _The Young
+Chevalier_ is a story of sentiment and passion, which I mean to write a
+little differently from what I have been doing--if I can hit the key;
+rather more of a sentimental tremolo to it. It may thus help to prepare
+me for _Sophia_, which is to contain three ladies, and a kind of a love
+affair between the heroine and a dying planter who is a poet! large
+orders for R. L. S.
+
+O the German taboo is quite over; no soul attempts to support the C. J.
+or the President, they are past hope; the whites have just refused their
+taxes--I mean the council has refused to call for them, and if the
+council consented, nobody would pay; 'tis a farce, and the curtain is
+going to fall briefly. Consequently in my History, I say as little as
+may be of the two dwindling stars. Poor devils! I liked the one, and the
+other has a little wife, now lying in! There was no man born with so
+little animosity as I. When I heard the C. J. was in low spirits and
+never left his house, I could scarce refrain from going to him.
+
+It was a fine feeling to have finished the History; there ought to be a
+future state to reward that grind! It's not literature, you know; only
+journalism, and pedantic journalism. I had but the one desire, to get
+the thing as right as might be, and avoid false concords--even if that!
+And it was more than there was time for. However, there it is: done. And
+if Samoa turns up again, my book has to be counted with, being the only
+narrative extant. Milton and I--if you kindly excuse the
+juxtaposition--harnessed ourselves to strange waggons, and I at least
+will be found to have plodded very soberly with my load. There is not
+even a good sentence in it, but perhaps--I don't know--it may be found
+an honest, clear volume.
+
+_Wednesday._--Never got a word set down, and continues on Thursday, 19th
+May, his own marriage day as ever was. News; yes. The C. J. came up to
+call on us! After five months' cessation on my side, and a decidedly
+painful interchange of letters, I could not go down--_could_ not--to see
+him. My three ladies received him, however; he was very agreeable as
+usual, but refused wine, beer, water, lemonade, chocolate, and at last a
+cigarette. Then my wife asked him, "So you refuse to break bread?" and
+he waved his hands amiably in answer. All my three ladies received the
+same impression that he had serious matters in his mind: now we hear he
+is quite cock-a-hoop since the mail came, and going about as before his
+troubles darkened. But what did he want with me? 'Tis thought he had
+received a despatch--and that he misreads it (so we fully believe) to
+the effect that they are to have war ships at command and can make their
+little war after all. If it be so, and they do it, it will be the
+meanest wanton slaughter of poor men for the salaries of two white
+failures. But what was his errand with me? Perhaps to warn me that
+unless I behave he now hopes to be able to pack me off in the _Curacoa_
+when she comes.
+
+I have celebrated my holiday from _Samoa_ by a plunge at the beginning
+of _The Young Chevalier_. I am afraid my touch is a little broad in a
+love story; I can't mean one thing and write another. As for women, I am
+no more in any fear of them; I can do a sort all right; age makes me
+less afraid of a petticoat, but I am a little in fear of grossness.
+However, this David Balfour's love affair, that's all right--might be
+read out to a mother's meeting--or a daughters' meeting. The difficulty
+in a love yarn, which dwells at all on love, is the dwelling on one
+string; it is manifold, I grant, but the root fact is there unchanged,
+and the sentiment being very intense, and already very much handled in
+letters, positively calls for a little pawing and gracing. With a writer
+of my prosaic literalness and pertinency of point of view, this all
+shoves toward grossness--positively even toward the far more damnable
+_closeness_. This has kept me off the sentiment hitherto, and now I am
+to try: Lord! Of course Meredith can do it, and so could Shakespeare;
+but with all my romance, I am a realist and a prosaist, and a most
+fanatical lover of plain physical sensations plainly and expressly
+rendered; hence my perils. To do love in the same spirit as I did (for
+instance) D. Balfour's fatigue in the heather; my dear sir, there were
+grossness--ready made! And hence, how to sugar? However, I have nearly
+done with Marie-Madeleine, and am in good hopes of Marie-Salome, the
+real heroine; the other is only a prologuial heroine to introduce the
+hero.
+
+_Friday._--Anyway, the first prologuial episode is done, and Fanny likes
+it. There are only four characters: Francis Blair of Balmile (Jacobite
+Lord Gladsmuir) my hero; the Master of Ballantrae; Paradou, a
+wine-seller of Avignon; Marie-Madeleine his wife. These two last I am
+now done with, and I think they are successful, and I hope I have
+Balmile on his feet; and the style seems to be found. It is a little
+charged and violent; sins on the side of violence; but I think will
+carry the tale. I think it is a good idea so to introduce my hero, being
+made love to by an episodic woman. This queer tale--I mean queer for
+me--has taken a great hold upon me. Where the devil shall I go next?
+This is simply the tale of a _coup de tete_ of a young man and a young
+woman; with a nearly, perhaps a wholly, tragic sequel, which I desire to
+make thinkable right through, and sensible; to make the reader, as far
+as I shall be able, eat and drink and breathe it. Marie-Salome des
+Saintes-Maries is, I think, the heroine's name; she has got to _be_ yet:
+_sursum corda_! So has the young Chevalier, whom I have not yet touched,
+and who comes next in order. Characters: Balmile, or Lord Gladsmuir,
+_comme vous voulez_; Prince Charlie; Earl Marischal; Master of
+Ballantrae; and a spy, and Dr. Archie Campbell, and a few nondescripts;
+then, of women, Marie-Salome and Flora Blair; seven at the outside;
+really four full lengths, and I suppose a half-dozen episodic profiles.
+How I must bore you with these ineptitudes! Have patience. I am going to
+bed; it is (of all hours) eleven. I have been forced in (since I began
+to write to you) to blatter to Fanny on the subject of my heroine, there
+being two _cruces_ as to her life and history: how came she alone? and
+how far did she go with the Chevalier? The second must answer itself
+when I get near enough to see. The first is a back-breaker. Yet I know
+there are many reasons why a _fille de famille_, romantic, adventurous,
+ambitious, innocent of the world, might run from her home in these days;
+might she not have been threatened with a convent? might there not be
+some Huguenot business mixed in? Here am I, far from books; if you can
+help me with a suggestion, I shall say God bless you. She has to be new
+run away from a strict family, well-justified in her own wild but honest
+eyes, and meeting these three men, Charles Edward, Marischal, and
+Balmile, through the accident of a fire at an inn. She must not run from
+a marriage, I think; it would bring her in the wrong frame of mind. Once
+I can get her, _sola_, on the highway, all were well with my narrative.
+Perpend. And help if you can.
+
+Lafaele, long (I hope) familiar to you, has this day received the visit
+of his _son_ from Tonga; and the _son_ proves to be a very pretty,
+attractive young daughter! I gave all the boys kava in honour of her
+arrival; along with a lean, side-whiskered Tongan, dimly supposed to be
+Lafaele's step-father; and they have been having a good time; in the end
+of my verandah, I hear Simi, my present incapable steward, talking
+Tongan with the nondescript papa. Simi, our out-door boy, burst a
+succession of blood-vessels over our work, and I had to make a position
+for the wreck of one of the noblest figures of a man I ever saw. I
+believe I may have mentioned the other day how I had to put my horse to
+the trot, the canter and (at last) the gallop to run him down. In a
+photograph I hope to send you (perhaps with this) you will see Simi
+standing in the verandah in profile. As a steward, one of his chief
+points is to break crystal; he is great on fracture--what do I
+say?--explosion! He cleans a glass, and the shards scatter like a
+comet's bowels.
+
+_N.B._--If I should by any chance be deported, the first of the rules
+hung up for that occasion is to communicate with you by
+telegraph.--Mind, I do not fear it, but it _is_ possible.
+
+_Monday, 25th._--We have had a devil of a morning of upset and bustle;
+the bronze candlestick Faauma has returned to the family, in time to
+take her position of step-mamma, and it is pretty to see how the child
+is at once at home, and all her terrors ended.
+
+_27th. Mail day._--And I don't know that I have much to report. I may
+have to leave for Malie as soon as these mail packets are made up. 'Tis
+a necessity (if it be one) I rather deplore. I think I should have liked
+to lazy; but I dare say all it means is the delay of a day or so in
+harking back to David Balfour; that respectable youth chides at being
+left (where he is now) in Glasgow with the Lord Advocate, and after five
+years in the British Linen, who shall blame him? I was all forenoon
+yesterday down in Apia, dictating, and Lloyd typewriting, the conclusion
+of _Samoa_; and then at home correcting till the dinner bell; and in the
+evening again till eleven of the clock. This morning I have made up most
+of my packets, and I think my mail is all ready but two more, and the
+tag of this. I would never deny (as D. B. might say) that I was rather
+tired of it. But I have a damned good dose of the devil in my pipe-stem
+atomy; I have had my little holiday outing in my kick at _The Young
+Chevalier_, and I guess I can settle to _David Balfour_ to-morrow or
+Friday like a little man. I wonder if any one had ever more energy upon
+so little strength?--I know there is a frost; the Samoa book can only
+increase that--I can't help it, that book is not written for me but for
+Miss Manners; but I mean to break that frost inside two years, and pull
+off a big success, and Vanity whispers in my ear that I have the
+strength. If I haven't, whistle ower the lave o't! I can do without
+glory and perhaps the time is not far off when I can do without coin. It
+is a time coming soon enough, anyway; and I have endured some two and
+forty years without public shame, and had a good time as I did it. If
+only I could secure a violent death, what a fine success! I wish to die
+in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be
+shot, to be thrown from a horse--ay, to be hanged, rather than pass
+again through that slow dissolution.
+
+I fancy this gloomy ramble is caused by a twinge of age; I put on an
+under-shirt yesterday (it was the only one I could find) that barely
+came under my trousers; and just below it, a fine healthy rheumatism has
+now settled like a fire in my hip. From such small causes do these
+valuable considerations flow!
+
+I shall now say adieu, dear Sir, having ten rugged miles before me and
+the horrors of a native feast and parliament without an interpreter, for
+to-day I go alone.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+  Describing a family expedition to visit Mataafa at Malie.
+
+
+     _[Vailima] Sunday, 29th May [1892]._
+
+How am I to overtake events? On Wednesday, as soon as my mail was
+finished, I had a wild whirl to look forward to. Immediately after
+dinner, Belle, Lloyd, and I set out on horseback, they to the club, I to
+Haggard's, thence to the hotel, where I had supper ready for them. All
+next day we hung round Apia with our whole house-crowd in Sunday array,
+hoping for the mail steamer with a menagerie on board. No such luck; the
+ship delayed; and at last, about three, I had to send them home again, a
+failure of a day's pleasuring that does not bear to be discussed. Lloyd
+was so sickened that he returned the same night to Vailima, Belle and I
+held on, sat most of the evening on the hotel verandah stricken silly
+with fatigue and disappointment, and genuine sorrow for our poor boys
+and girls, and got to bed with rather dismal appreciations of the
+morrow.
+
+These were more than justified, and yet I never had a jollier day than
+Friday 27th. By 7.30 Belle and I had breakfast; we had scarce done
+before my mother was at the door on horseback, and a boy at her heels to
+take her not very dashing charger home again. By 8.10 we were all on the
+landing pier, and it was 9.20 before we had got away in a boat with two
+inches of green wood on the keel of her, no rudder, no mast, no sail, no
+boat flag, two defective rowlocks, two wretched apologies for oars, and
+two boys--one a Tongan half-caste, one a white lad, son of the Tonga
+schoolmaster, and a sailor lad--to pull us. All this was our first taste
+of the tender mercies of Taylor (the sesquipedalian half-caste
+introduced two letters back, I believe). We had scarce got round Mulinuu
+when Sale Taylor's heart misgave him; he thought we had missed the tide;
+called a halt, and set off ashore to find canoes. Two were found; in one
+my mother and I were embarked with the two biscuit tins (my present to
+the feast), and the bag with our dry clothes, on which my mother was
+perched--and her cap was on the top of it--feminine hearts please
+sympathise; all under the guidance of Sale. In the other Belle and our
+guest; Tauilo, a chief-woman, the mother of my cook, were to have
+followed. And the boys were to have been left with the boat. But Tauilo
+refused. And the four, Belle, Tauilo, Frank the sailor-boy, and Jimmie
+the Tongan half-caste, set off in the boat across that rapidly shoaling
+bay of the lagoon.
+
+How long the next scene lasted, I could never tell. Sale was always
+trying to steal away with our canoe and leave the other four, probably
+for six hours, in an empty, leaky boat, without so much as an orange or
+a cocoanut on board, and under the direct rays of the sun. I had at last
+to stop him by taking the spare paddle off the outrigger and sticking it
+in the ground--depth, perhaps two feet--width of the bay, say three
+miles. At last I bid him land me and my mother and go back for the other
+ladies. "The coast is so rugged," said Sale.--"What?" I said, "all
+these villages and no landing-place?"--"Such is the nature of Samoans,"
+said he. Well, I'll find a landing-place, I thought; and presently I
+said, "Now we are going to land there."--"We can but try," said the
+bland Sale, with resignation. Never saw a better landing-place in my
+life. Here the boat joined us. My mother and Sale continued in the canoe
+alone, and Belle and I and Tauilo set off on foot for Malie. Tauilo was
+about the size of both of us put together and a piece over; she used us
+like a nurse with children. I had started barefoot; Belle had soon to
+pull off her gala shoes and stockings; the mud was as deep as to our
+knees, and so slippery that (moving, as we did, in Indian file, between
+dense scratching tufts of sensitive) Belle and I had to take hands to
+support each other, and Tauilo was steadying Belle from the rear. You
+can conceive we were got up to kill, Belle in an embroidered white dress
+and white hat, I in a suit of Bedford cords hot from the Sydney tailors;
+and conceive us, below, ink-black to the knees with adhesive clay, and
+above, streaming with heat. I suppose it was better than three miles,
+but at last we made the end of Malie. I asked if we could find no water
+to wash our feet; and our nursemaid guided us to a pool. We sat down on
+the pool side, and our nursemaid washed our feet and legs for us--ladies
+first, I suppose out of a sudden respect to the insane European fancies:
+such a luxury as you can scarce imagine. I felt a new man after it. But
+before we got to the King's house we were sadly muddied once more. It
+was 1 P.M. when we arrived, the canoe having beaten us by about five
+minutes, so we made fair time over our bog-holes.
+
+But the war dances were over, and we came in time to see only the tail
+end (some two hours) of the food presentation. In Mataafa's house three
+chairs were set for us covered with fine mats. Of course, a native house
+without the blinds down is like a verandah. All the green in front was
+surrounded with sheds, some of flapping canvas, some of green palm
+boughs, where (in three sides of a huge oblong) the natives sat by
+villages in a fine glow of many-hued array. There were folks in tapa,
+and folks in patchwork; there was every colour of the rainbow in a spot
+or a cluster; there were men with their heads gilded with powdered
+sandal-wood, others with heads all purple, stuck full of the petals of a
+flower. In the midst there was a growing field of outspread food,
+gradually covering acres; the gifts were brought in, now by chanting
+deputations, now by carriers in a file; they were brandished aloft and
+reclaimed over, with polite sacramental exaggerations, by the official
+receiver. He, a stalwart, well-oiled quadragenarian, shone with sweat
+from his exertions, brandishing cooked pigs. At intervals, from one of
+the squatted villages, an orator would arise. The field was almost
+beyond the reach of any human speaking voice; the proceedings besides
+continued in the midst; yet it was possible to catch snatches of this
+elaborate and cut-and-dry oratory--it was possible for me, for instance,
+to catch the description of my gift and myself as the _alii Tusitala, O
+le alii o malo tetele_--the chief Write Information, the chief of the
+great Governments. Gay designation? In the house, in our three curule
+chairs, we sat and looked on. On our left a little group of the family.
+In front of us, at our feet, an ancient Talking-man, crowned with green
+leaves, his profile almost exactly Dante's; Popo his name. He had
+worshipped idols in his youth; he had been full grown before the first
+missionary came hither from Tahiti; this makes him over eighty. Near by
+him sat his son and colleague. In the group on our left, his little
+grandchild sat with her legs crossed and her hands turned, the model
+already (at some three years old) of Samoan etiquette. Still further off
+to our right, Mataafa sat on the ground through all the business; and
+still I saw his lips moving, and the beads of his rosary slip stealthily
+through his hand. We had kava, and the King's drinking was hailed by the
+Popos (father and son) with a singular ululation, perfectly new to my
+ears; it means, to the expert, "Long live Tuiatua"; to the inexpert, is
+a mere voice of barbarous wolves. We had dinner, retired a bit behind
+the central pillar of the house; and, when the King was done eating, the
+ululation was repeated. I had my eyes on Mataafa's face, and I saw pride
+and gratified ambition spring to life there and be instantly sucked in
+again. It was the first time, since the difference with Laupepa, that
+Popo and his son had openly joined him, and given him the due cry as
+Tuiatua--one of the eight royal names of the islands, as I hope you will
+know before this reaches you.
+
+Not long after we had dined, the food-bringing was over. The gifts
+(carefully noted and tallied as they came in) were now announced by a
+humorous orator, who convulsed the audience, introducing singing notes,
+now on the name of the article, now on the number; six thousand odd
+heads of taro, three hundred and nineteen cooked pigs; and one thing
+that particularly caught me (by good luck), a single turtle "for the
+king"--_le tasi mo le tupu_. Then came one of the strangest sights I
+have yet witnessed. The two most important persons there (bar Mataafa)
+were Popo and his son. They rose, holding their long shod rods of
+talking men, passed forth from the house, broke into a strange dance,
+the father capering with outstretched arms and rod, the son crouching
+and gambolling beside him in a manner indescribable, and presently began
+to extend the circle of this dance among the acres of cooked food.
+_Whatever they leaped over, whatever they called for, became theirs._ To
+see mediaeval Dante thus demean himself struck a kind of a chill of
+incongruity into our Philistine souls; but even in a great part of the
+Samoan concourse, these antique and (I understand) quite local manners
+awoke laughter. One of my biscuit tins and a live calf were among the
+spoils he claimed, but the large majority of the cooked food (having
+once proved his dignity) he re-presented to the king.
+
+Then came the turn of _le alii Tusitala_. He would not dance, but he
+was given--five live hens, four gourds of oil, four fine tapas, a
+hundred heads of taro, two cooked pigs, a cooked shark, two or three
+cocoanut branches strung with kava, and the turtle, who soon after
+breathed his last, I believe, from sunstroke. It was a royal present for
+"the chief of the great powers." I should say the gifts were, on the
+proper signal, dragged out of the field of food by a troop of young men,
+all with their lava-lavas kilted almost into a loin-cloth. The art is to
+swoop on the food-field, pick up with unerring swiftness the right
+things and quantities, swoop forth again on the open, and separate,
+leaving the gifts in a new pile: so you may see a covey of birds in a
+corn-field. This reminds me of a very inhumane but beautiful passage I
+had forgotten in its place. The gift-giving was still in full swing,
+when there came a troop of some ninety men all in tapa lava-lavas of a
+purplish colour; they paused, and of a sudden there went up from them
+high into the air a flight of live chickens, which, as they came down
+again, were sent again into the air, for perhaps a minute, from the
+midst of a singular turmoil of flying arms and shouting voices; I assure
+you, it was very beautiful to see, but how many chickens were killed?
+
+No sooner was my food set out than I was to be going. I had a little
+serious talk with Mataafa on the floor, and we went down to the boat,
+where we got our food aboard, such a cargo--like the Swiss Family
+Robinson, we said. However, a squall began, Tauilo refused to let us go,
+and we came back to the house for half an hour or so, when my ladies
+distinguished themselves by walking through a Fono (council), my mother
+actually taking up a position between Mataafa and Popo! It was about
+five when we started--turtle, pigs, taro, etc., my mother, Belle,
+myself, Tauilo, a portly friend of hers with the voice of an angel, and
+a pronunciation so delicate and true that you could follow Samoan as she
+sang, and the two tired boys Frank and Jimmie, with the two bad oars and
+the two slippery rowlocks to impel the whole. Sale Taylor took the
+canoe and a strong Samoan to paddle him. Presently after he went
+inshore, and passed us a little after, with his arms folded, and _two_
+strong Samoans impelling him Apia-ward. This was too much for Belle, who
+hailed, taunted him, and made him return to the boat with one of the
+Samoans, setting Jimmie instead in the canoe. Then began our torment,
+Sale and the Samoan took the oars, sat on the same thwart (where they
+could get no swing on the boat had they tried), and deliberately ladled
+at the lagoon. We lay enchanted. Night fell; there was a light visible
+on shore; it did not move. The two women sang, Belle joining them in the
+hymns she has learned at family worship. Then a squall came up; we sat a
+while in roaring midnight under rivers of rain, and, when it blew by,
+there was the light again, immovable. A second squall followed, one of
+the worst I was ever out in; we could scarce catch our breath in the
+cold, dashing deluge. When it went, we were so cold that the water in
+the bottom of the boat (which I was then baling) seemed like a warm
+footbath in comparison, and Belle and I, who were still barefoot, were
+quite restored by laving in it.
+
+All this time I had kept my temper, and refrained as far as might be
+from any interference, for I saw (in our friend's mulish humour) he
+always contrived to twist it to our disadvantage. But now came the acute
+point. Young Frank now took an oar. He was a little fellow, near as
+frail as myself, and very short; if he weighed nine stone, it was the
+outside; but his blood was up. He took stroke, moved the big Samoan
+forward to bow, and set to work to pull him round in fine style.
+Instantly, a kind of race competition--almost race hatred--sprang up. We
+jeered the Samoan. Sale declared it was the trim of the boat; "if this
+lady was aft" (Tauilo's portly friend) "he would row round Frank." We
+insisted on her coming aft, and Frank still rowed round the Samoan. When
+the Samoan caught a crab (the thing was continual with these wretched
+oars and rowlocks), _we_ shouted and jeered; when Frank caught one, Sale
+and the Samoan jeered and yelled. But anyway the boat moved, and
+presently we got up with Mulinuu, where I finally lost my temper, when I
+found that Sale proposed to go ashore and make a visit--in fact, we all
+three did. It is not worth while going into, but I must give you one
+snatch of the subsequent conversation as we pulled round Apia bay. "This
+Samoan," said Sale, "received seven German bullets in the field of
+Fangalii." "I am delighted to hear it," said Belle. "His brother was
+killed there," pursued Sale; and Belle, prompt as an echo, "Then there
+are no more of the family? how delightful!" Sale was sufficiently
+surprised to change the subject; he began to praise Frank's rowing with
+insufferable condescension: "But it is after all not to be wondered at,"
+said he, "because he has been for some time a sailor. My good man, is it
+three or five years that you have been to sea?" And Frank, in a defiant
+shout: "Two!" Whereupon, so high did the ill-feeling run, that we three
+clapped and applauded and shouted, so that the President (whose house we
+were then passing) doubtless started at the sounds. It was nine when we
+got to the hotel; at first no food was to be found, but we skirmished up
+some bread and cheese and beer and brandy; and (having changed our wet
+clothes for the rather less wet in our bags) supped on the verandah.
+
+On Saturday, 28th, I was wakened about 6.30, long past my usual hour, by
+a benevolent passer-by. My turtle lay on the verandah at my door, and
+the man woke me to tell me it was dead, as it had been when we put it on
+board the day before. All morning I ran the gauntlet of men and women
+coming up to me: "Mr. Stevenson, your turtle is dead." I gave half of it
+to the hotel keeper, so that his cook should cut it up; and we got a
+damaged shell, and two splendid meals, beefsteak one day and soup the
+next. The horses came for us about 9.30. It was waterspouting; we were
+drenched before we got out of the town; the road was a fine going
+Highland trout stream; it thundered deep and frequent, and my mother's
+horse would not better on a walk. At last she took pity on us, and very
+nobly proposed that Belle and I should ride ahead. We were mighty glad
+to do so, for we were cold. Presently, I said I should ride back for my
+mother, but it thundered again; Belle is afraid of thunder, and I
+decided to see her through the forest before I returned for my other
+hen--I may say, my other wet hen. About the middle of the wood, where it
+is roughest and steepest, we met three pack-horses with barrels of
+lime-juice. I piloted Belle past these--it is not very easy in such a
+road--and then passed them again myself, to pilot my mother. This
+effected, it began to thunder again, so I rode on hard after Belle. When
+I caught up with her, she was singing Samoan hymns to support her
+terrors! We were all back, changed, and at table by lunch time, 11 A.M.
+Nor have any of us been the worse for it sin-syne. That is pretty good
+for a woman of my mother's age and an invalid of my standing; above all,
+as Tauilo was laid up with a bad cold, probably increased by rage.
+
+_Friday, 3rd June._--On Wednesday the club could not be held, and I must
+ride down town and to and fro all afternoon delivering messages, then
+dined and rode up by the young moon. I had plenty news when I got back;
+there is great talk in town of my deportation: it is thought they have
+written home to Downing Street requesting my removal, which leaves me
+not much alarmed; what I do rather expect is that H. J. Moors and I may
+be haled up before the C. J. to stand a trial for _lese_-majesty. Well,
+we'll try and live it through.
+
+The rest of my history since Monday has been unadulterated _David
+Balfour_. In season and out of season, night and day, David and his
+innocent harem--let me be just, he never has more than the two--are on
+my mind. Think of David Balfour with a pair of fair ladies--very nice
+ones too--hanging round him. I really believe David is as good a
+character as anybody has a right to ask for in a novel. I have finished
+drafting Chapter XX. to-day, and feel it all ready to froth when the
+spigot is turned.
+
+O, I forgot--and do forget. What did I mean? A waft of cloud has fallen
+on my mind, and I will write no more.
+
+_Wednesday, I believe, 8th June._--Lots of David, and lots of David, and
+the devil any other news. Yesterday we were startled by great guns
+firing a salute, and to-day Whitmee (missionary) rode up to lunch, and
+we learned it was the _Curacoa_ come in, the ship (according to rumour)
+in which I was to be deported. I went down to meet my fate, and the
+captain is to dine with me Saturday, so I guess I am not going this
+voyage. Even with the particularity with which I write to you, how much
+of my life goes unexpressed; my troubles with a madman by the name of
+----, a genuine living lunatic, I believe, and jolly dangerous; my
+troubles about poor ----, all these have dropped out; yet for moments
+they were very instant, and one of them is always present with me.
+
+I have finished copying Chapter XXI. of David--"_solus cum sola_; we
+travel together." Chapter XXII., "_Solus cum sola_; we keep house
+together," is already drafted. To the end of XXI. makes more than 150
+pages of my manuscript--damn this hair--and I only designed the book to
+run to about 200; but when you introduce the female sect, a book does
+run away with you. I am very curious to see what you will think of my
+two girls. My own opinion is quite clear; I am in love with both. I
+foresee a few pleasant years of spiritual flirtations. The creator (if I
+may name myself, for the sake of argument, by such a name) is
+essentially unfaithful. For the duration of the two chapters in which I
+dealt with Miss Grant, I totally forgot my heroine, and even--but this
+is a flat secret--tried to win away David. I think I must try some day
+to marry Miss Grant. I'm blest if I don't think I've got that hair out!
+which seems triumph enough; so I conclude.
+
+_Tuesday._--Your infinitesimal correspondence has reached me, and I have
+the honour to refer to it with scorn. It contains only one statement of
+conceivable interest, that your health is better; the rest is null, and
+so far as disquisitory unsound. I am all right, but David Balfour is
+ailing; this came from my visit to the man-of-war, where I had a cup of
+tea, and the most of that night walked the verandah with extraordinary
+convictions of guilt and ruin, many of which (but not all) proved to
+have fled with the day, taking David along with them; he R.I.P. in
+Chapter XXII.
+
+On Saturday I went down to the town, and fetched up Captain Gibson to
+dinner; Sunday I was all day at Samoa, and had a pile of visitors.
+Yesterday got my mail, including your despicable sheet; was fooled with
+a visit from the high chief Asi, went down at 4 P.M. to my Samoan lesson
+from Whitmee--I think I shall learn from him, he does not fool me with
+cockshot rules that are demolished next day, but professes ignorance
+like a man; the truth is, the grammar has still to be expiscated--dined
+with Haggard, and got home about nine.
+
+_Wednesday._--The excellent Clarke up here almost all day yesterday, a
+man I esteem and like to the soles of his boots; I prefer him to any one
+in Samoa, and to most people in the world; a real good missionary, with
+the inestimable advantage of having grown up a layman. Pity they all
+can't get that! It recalls my old proposal, which delighted Lady Taylor
+so much, that every divinity student should be thirty years old at least
+before he was admitted. Boys switched out of college into a pulpit, what
+chance have they? That any should do well amazes me, and the most are
+just what was to be expected.
+
+_Saturday._--I must tell you of our feast. It was long promised to the
+boys, and came off yesterday in one of their new houses. My good Simele
+arrived from Savaii that morning asking for political advice; then we
+had Tauilo; Elena's father, a talking man of Tauilo's family; Talolo's
+cousin; and a boy of Simele's family, who attended on his dignity; then
+Metu, the meat-man--you have never heard of him, but he is a great
+person in our household--brought a lady and a boy--and there was another
+infant--eight guests in all. And we sat down thirty strong. You should
+have seen our procession, going (about two o'clock), all in our best
+clothes, to the hall of feasting! All in our Sunday's best. The new
+house had been hurriedly finished; the rafters decorated with flowers;
+the floor spread, native style, with green leaves; we had given a big
+porker, twenty-five pounds of fresh beef, a tin of biscuit, cocoanuts,
+etc. Our places were all arranged with much care; the native ladies of
+the house facing our party; the sides filled up by the men; the guests,
+please observe: the two chief people, male and female, were placed with
+our family, the rest between S. and the native ladies. After the feast
+was over, we had kava, and the calling of the kava was a very elaborate
+affair, and I thought had like to have made Simele very angry; he is
+really a considerable chief, but he and Tauilo were not called till
+after all our family, _and the guests_, I suppose the principle being
+that he was still regarded as one of the household. I forgot to say that
+our black boy did not turn up when the feast was ready. Off went the two
+cooks, found him, decorated him with huge red hibiscus flowers--he was
+in a very dirty undershirt--brought him back between them like a
+reluctant maid, and thrust him into a place between Faauma and Elena,
+where he was petted and ministered to. When his turn came in the kava
+drinking--and you may be sure, in their contemptuous, affectionate
+kindness for him, as for a good dog, it came rather earlier than it
+ought--he was cried under a new name. _Aleki_ is what they make of his
+own name Arrick; but instead of {the cup of / "le ipu a} Aleki!" it was
+called "le ipu a _Vailima_," and it was explained that he had "taken his
+chief-name"! a jest at which the plantation still laughs. Kava done, I
+made a little speech, Henry translating. If I had been well, I should
+have alluded to all, but I was scarce able to sit up; so only alluded to
+my guest of all this month, the Tongan, Tomas, and to Simele, partly for
+the jest of making him translate compliments to himself. The talking man
+replied with many handsome compliments to me, in the usual flood of
+Samoan fluent neatness; and we left them to an afternoon of singing and
+dancing. Must stop now, as my right hand is very bad again. I am trying
+to write with my left.
+
+_Sunday._--About half-past eight last night, I had gone to my own room,
+Fanny and Lloyd were in Fanny's, every one else in bed, only two boys on
+the premises--the two little brown boys Mitaiele (Michael), age I
+suppose 11 or 12, and the new steward, a Wallis islander, speaking no
+English and about fifty words of Samoan, recently promoted from the bush
+work, and a most good, anxious, timid lad of 15 or 16--looks like 17 or
+18, of course--they grow fast here. In comes Mitaiele to Lloyd, and told
+some rigmarole about Paatalise (the steward's name) wanting to go and
+see his family in the bush.--"But he has no family in the bush," said
+Lloyd. "No," said Mitaiele. They went to the boy's bed (they sleep in
+the walled-in compartment of the verandah, once my dressing-room) and
+called at once for me. He lay like one asleep, talking in drowsy tones
+but without excitement, and at times "cheeping" like a frightened mouse;
+he was quite cool to the touch, and his pulse not fast; his breathing
+seemed wholly ventral; the bust still, the belly moving strongly.
+Presently he got from his bed, and ran for the door, with his head down
+not three feet from the floor and his body all on a stretch forward,
+like a striking snake: I say "ran," but this strange movement was not
+swift. Lloyd and I mastered him and got him back in bed. Soon there was
+another and more desperate attempt to escape, in which Lloyd had his
+ring broken. Then we bound him to the bed humanely with sheets, ropes,
+boards, and pillows. He lay there and sometimes talked, sometimes
+whispered, sometimes wept like an angry child; his principal word was
+"Faamolemole"--"Please"--and he kept telling us at intervals that his
+family were calling him. During this interval, by the special grace of
+God, my boys came home; we had already called in Arrick, the black boy;
+now we had that Hercules, Lafaele, and a man Savea, who comes from
+Paatalise's own island and can alone communicate with him freely. Lloyd
+went to bed, I took the first watch, and sat in my room reading, while
+Lafaele and Arrick watched the madman. Suddenly Arrick called me; I ran
+into the verandah; there was Paatalise free of all his bonds and Lafaele
+holding him. To tell what followed is impossible. We were five people at
+him--Lafaele and Savea, very strong men, Lloyd, I and Arrick, and the
+struggle lasted until 1 A.M. before we had him bound. One detail for a
+specimen: Lloyd and I had charge of one leg, we were both sitting on it
+and lo! we were both tossed into the air--I, I dare say, a couple of
+feet. At last we had him spread-eagled to the iron bedstead, by his
+wrists and ankles, with matted rope; a most inhumane business, but what
+could we do? it was all we could do to manage it even so. The strength
+of the paroxysms had been steadily increasing, and we trembled for the
+next. And now I come to pure Rider Haggard. Lafaele announced that the
+boy was very bad, and he would get "some medicine" which was a family
+secret of his own. Some leaves were brought mysteriously in; chewed,
+placed on the boy's eyes, dropped in his ears (see _Hamlet_) and stuck
+up his nostrils; as he did this, the weird doctor partly smothered the
+patient with his hand; and by about 2 A.M. he was in a deep sleep, and
+from that time he showed no symptom of dementia whatever. The medicine
+(says Lafaele) is principally used for the wholesale slaughter of
+families; he himself feared last night that his dose was fatal; only one
+other person, on this island, knows the secret; and she, Lafaele darkly
+whispers, has abused it. This remarkable tree we must try to identify.
+
+The man-of-war doctor came up to-day, gave us a strait-waistcoat, taught
+us to bandage, examined the boy and saw he was apparently well--he
+insisted on doing his work all morning, poor lad, and when he first came
+down kissed all the family at breakfast! The doctor was greatly excited,
+as may be supposed, about Lafaele's medicine.
+
+_Tuesday._--All yesterday writing my mail by the hand of Belle, to save
+my wrist. This is a great invention, to which I shall stick, if it can
+be managed. We had some alarm about Paatalise, but he slept well all
+night for a benediction. This lunatic asylum exercise has no attractions
+for any of us.
+
+I don't know if I remembered to say how much pleased I was with _Across
+the Plains_ in every way, inside and out, and you and me. The critics
+seem to taste it, too, as well as could be hoped, and I believe it will
+continue to bring me in a few shillings a year for a while. But such
+books pay only indirectly.
+
+To understand the full horror of the mad scene, and how well my boys
+behaved, remember that they _believed P.'s ravings_, they _knew_ that
+his dead family, thirty strong, crowded the front verandah and called on
+him to come to the other world. They _knew_ that his dead brother had
+met him that afternoon in the bush and struck him on both temples. And
+remember! we are fighting the dead, and they had to go out again in the
+black night, which is the dead man's empire. Yet last evening, when I
+thought P. was going to repeat the performance, I sent down for Lafaele,
+who had leave of absence, and he and his wife came up about eight
+o'clock with a lighted brand. These are the things for which I have to
+forgive my old cattle-man his manifold shortcomings; they are heroic--so
+are the shortcomings, to be sure.
+
+It came over me the other day suddenly that this diary of mine to you
+would make good pickings after I am dead, and a man could make some kind
+of a book out of it without much trouble. So, for God's sake, don't lose
+them, and they will prove a piece of provision for my "poor old family,"
+as Simele calls it.
+
+About my coming to Europe, I get more and more doubtful, and rather
+incline to Ceylon again as place of meeting. I am so absurdly well here
+in the tropics, that it seems like affectation. Yet remember I have
+never once stood Sydney. Anyway, I shall have the money for it all
+ahead, before I think of such a thing.
+
+We had a bowl of punch on your birthday, which my incredible mother
+somehow knew and remembered.
+
+By the time you receive this, my Samoan book will I suppose be out and
+the worst known. If I am burned in effigy for it no more need be said;
+if on the other hand I get off cheap with the authorities, this is to
+say that, supposing a vacancy to occur, I would condescend to accept the
+office of H.B.M.'s consul with parts, pendicles and appurtenances. There
+is a very little work to do except some little entertaining, to which I
+am bound to say my family and in particular the amanuensis who now
+guides the pen look forward with delight; I with manly resignation. The
+real reasons for the step would be three: 1st, possibility of being able
+to do some good, or at least certainty of not being obliged to stand
+always looking on helplessly at what is bad: 2nd, larks for the family:
+3rd, and perhaps not altogether least, a house in town and a boat and a
+boat's crew.[44]
+
+But I find I have left out another reason: 4th, growing desire on the
+part of the old man virulent for anything in the nature of a
+salary--years seem to invest that idea with new beauty.
+
+I sometimes sit and yearn for anything in the nature of an income that
+would come in--mine has all got to be gone and fished for with the
+immortal mind of man. What I want is the income that really comes in of
+itself while all you have to do is just to blossom and exist and sit on
+chairs. Think how beautiful it would be not to have to mind the critics,
+and not even the darkest of the crowd--Sidney Colvin. I should probably
+amuse myself with works that would make your hair curl, if you had any
+left.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO T. W. DOVER
+
+
+   Stevenson's correspondent in this case is an artisan, who had been
+   struck by the truth of a remark in his essay on _Beggars_ that it is
+   only or mainly the poor who habitually give to the poor; and who
+   wrote to ask whether it was from experience that Stevenson knew this.
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa, June 20th, 1892._
+
+SIR,--In reply to your very interesting letter, I cannot fairly say that
+I have ever been poor, or known what it was to want a meal. I have been
+reduced, however, to a very small sum of money, with no apparent
+prospect of increasing it; and at that time I reduced myself to
+practically one meal a day, with the most disgusting consequences to my
+health. At this time I lodged in the house of a working-man, and
+associated much with others. At the same time, from my youth up, I have
+always been a good deal and rather intimately thrown among the
+working-classes, partly as a civil engineer in out-of-the-way places,
+partly from a strong and, I hope, not ill-favoured sentiment of
+curiosity. But the place where, perhaps, I was most struck with the fact
+upon which you comment was the house of a friend, who was exceedingly
+poor, in fact, I may say destitute, and who lived in the attic of a very
+tall house entirely inhabited by persons in varying stages of poverty.
+As he was also in ill-health, I made a habit of passing my afternoon
+with him, and when there it was my part to answer the door. The steady
+procession of people begging, and the expectant and confident manner in
+which they presented themselves, struck me more and more daily; and I
+could not but remember with surprise that though my father lived but a
+few streets away in a fine house, beggars scarce came to the door once a
+fortnight or a month. From that time forward I made it my business to
+inquire, and in the stories which I am very fond of hearing from all
+sorts and conditions of men, learned that in the time of their distress
+it was always from the poor they sought assistance, and almost always
+from the poor they got it.
+
+Trusting I have now satisfactorily answered your question, which I thank
+you for asking, I remain, with sincere compliments,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+     _Vailima, Summer 1892._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--First of all, _you have all the corrections on The
+Wrecker_. I found I had made what I meant and forgotten it, and was so
+careless as not to tell you.
+
+Second, of course, and by all means, charge corrections on the Samoa
+book to me; but there are not near so many as I feared. The Lord hath
+dealt bountifully with me, and I believe all my advisers were amazed to
+see how nearly correct I had got the truck, at least I was. With this
+you will receive the whole revise and a type-written copy of the last
+chapter. And the thing now is Speed, to catch a possible revision of the
+treaty. I believe Cassells are to bring it out, but Baxter knows, and
+the thing has to be crammed through _prestissimo, a la chasseur_.
+
+You mention the belated Barbeys; what about the equally belated Pineros?
+And I hope you will keep your bookshop alive to supplying me
+continuously with the _Saga Library_. I cannot get enough of _Sagas_; I
+wish there were nine thousand; talk about realism!
+
+All seems to flourish with you; I also prosper; none the less for being
+quit of that abhorred task, Samoa. I could give a supper party here were
+there any one to sup. Never was such a disagreeable task, but the thing
+had to be told....
+
+There, I trust I am done with this cursed chapter of my career, bar the
+rotten eggs and broken bottles that may follow, of course. Pray
+remember, speed is now all that can be asked, hoped, or wished. I give
+up all hope of proofs, revises, proof of the map, or sic like; and you
+on your side will try to get it out as reasonably seemly as may be.
+
+Whole Samoa book herewith. Glory be to God.--Yours very sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The following consists of scraps merely, taken from a letter almost
+   entirely occupied with private family affairs.
+
+     _[Vailima] Saturday, 2nd July 1892._
+
+The character of my handwriting is explained, alas! by scrivener's
+cramp. This also explains how long I have let the paper lie plain.
+
+1 P.M.--I was busy copying _David Balfour_ with my left hand--a most
+laborious task--Fanny was down at the native house superintending the
+floor, Lloyd down in Apia, and Belle in her own house cleaning, when I
+heard the latter calling on my name. I ran out on the verandah; and
+there on the lawn beheld my crazy boy with an axe in his hand and
+dressed out in green ferns, dancing. I ran downstairs and found all my
+house boys on the back verandah, watching him through the dining-room. I
+asked what it meant?--"Dance belong his place," they said.--"I think
+this no time to dance," said I. "Has he done his work?"--"No," they told
+me, "away bush all morning." But there they all stayed on the back
+verandah. I went on alone through the dining-room, and bade him stop. He
+did so, shouldered the axe, and began to walk away; but I called him
+back, walked up to him, and took the axe out of his unresisting hands.
+The boy is in all things so good, that I can scarce say I was afraid;
+only I felt it had to be stopped ere he could work himself up by dancing
+to some craziness. Our house boys protested they were not afraid; all I
+know is they were all watching him round the back door and did not
+follow me till I had the axe. As for the out boys, who were working with
+Fanny in the native house, they thought it a very bad business, and made
+no secret of their fears.
+
+_Wednesday, 6th._--I have no account to give of my stewardship these
+days, and there's a day more to account for than mere arithmetic would
+tell you. For we have had two Monday Fourths, to bring us at last on the
+right side of the meridian, having hitherto been an exception in the
+world and kept our private date. Business has filled my hours sans
+intermission.
+
+_Tuesday, 12th._--I am doing no work and my mind is in abeyance. Fanny
+and Belle are sewing-machining in the next room; I have been pulling
+down their hair, and Fanny has been kicking me, and now I am driven out.
+Austin I have been chasing about the verandah; now he has gone to his
+lessons, and I make believe to write to you in despair. But there is
+nothing in my mind; I swim in mere vacancy, my head is like a rotten
+nut; I shall soon have to begin to work again or I shall carry away some
+part of the machinery. I have got your insufficient letter, for which I
+scorn to thank you. I have had no review by Gosse, none by Birrell;
+another time, if I have a letter in the Times, you might send me the
+text as well; also please send me a cricket bat and a cake, and when I
+come home for the holidays, I should like to have a pony.--I am, sir,
+your obedient servant,
+
+     JACOB TONSON.
+
+_P.S._--I am quite well; I hope you are quite well. The world is too
+much with us, and my mother bids me bind my hair and lace my bodice
+blue.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoan Islands, 18th July 1892._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,-- ... I have been now for some time contending with
+powers and principalities, and I have never once seen one of my own
+letters to the Times. So when you see something in the papers that you
+think might interest the exiles of Upolu, do not think twice, out with
+your saxpence, and send it flying to Vailima. Of what you say of the
+past, eh, man, it was a queer time, and awful miserable, but there's no
+sense in denying it was awful fun. Do you mind the youth in highland
+garb and the tableful of coppers? Do you mind the SIGNAL of Waterloo
+Place?--Hey, how the blood stands to the heart at such a memory!--Hae ye
+the notes o't? Gie's them.--Gude's sake, man, gie's the notes o't; I
+mind ye made a tuene o't an' played it on your pinanny; gie's the notes.
+Dear Lord, that past.
+
+Glad to hear Henley's prospects are fair: his new volume is the work of
+a real poet. He is one of those who can make a noise of his own with
+words, and in whom experience strikes an individual note. There is
+perhaps no more genuine poet living, bar the Big Guns. In case I cannot
+overtake an acknowledgment to himself by this mail, please let him hear
+of my pleasure and admiration. How poorly Kipling compares! He is all
+smart journalism and cleverness: it is all bright and shallow and
+limpid, like a business paper--a good one, _s'entend_; but there is no
+blot of heart's blood and the Old Night: there are no harmonics, there
+is scarce harmony to his music; and in Henley--all of these; a touch, a
+sense within sense, a sound outside the sound, the shadow of the
+inscrutable, eloquent beyond all definition. The First London Voluntary
+knocked me wholly.--Ever yours affectionately, my dear Charles,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+Kind memories to your father and all friends.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. E. HENLEY
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa, August 1st, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR HENLEY,--It is impossible to let your new volume pass in
+silence. I have not received the same thrill of poetry since G. M.'s
+_Joy of Earth_ volume and _Love in a Valley_; and I do not know that
+even that was so intimate and deep. Again and again, I take the book
+down, and read, and my blood is fired as it used to be in youth.
+_Andante con moto_ in the _Voluntaries_, and the thing about the trees
+at night (No. XXIV. I think) are up to date my favourites. I did not
+guess you were so great a magician; these are new tunes, this is an
+undertone of the true Apollo; these are not verse, they are
+poetry--inventions, creations, in language. I thank you for the joy you
+have given me, and remain your old friend and present huge admirer,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+The hand is really the hand of Esau, but under a course of threatened
+scrivener's cramp.
+
+For the next edition of the Book of Verses, pray accept an emendation.
+Last three lines of Echoes No. XLIV. read--
+
+  "But life in act? How should the grave
+   Be victor over these,
+   Mother, a mother of men?"
+
+The two vocatives scatter the effect of this inimitable close. If you
+insist on the longer line, equip "grave" with an epithet.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+   Accompanying the MS. of the article giving extracts from the record
+   kept by Robert Stevenson the elder of the trip on which Sir Walter
+   Scott sailed in his company on board the Northern Lights yacht:
+   printed in Scribner's Magazine, 1893.
+
+     _Vailima, Upolu, August 1st, '92._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Herewith _My Grandfather_. I have had rather a bad
+time suppressing the old gentleman, who was really in a very garrulous
+stage; as for getting him _in order_, I could do but little towards
+that; however, there are one or two points of interest which may justify
+us in printing. The swinging of his stick and not knowing the sailor of
+Coruiskin, in particular, and the account of how he wrote the lives in
+the Bell Book particularly please me. I hope my own little introduction
+is not egoistic; or rather I do not care if it is. It was that old
+gentleman's blood that brought me to Samoa.
+
+By the by, vols. vii., viii., and ix. of Adams's _History_ have never
+come to hand; no more have the dictionaries.
+
+Please send me _Stonehenge on the Horse_, _Stories and Interludes_ by
+Barry Pain, and _Edinburgh Sketches and Memoirs_ by David Masson. _The
+Wrecker_ has turned up. So far as I have seen, it is very satisfactory,
+but on pp. 548, 549, there has been a devil of a miscarriage. The two
+Latin quotations instead of following each other being separated
+(doubtless for printing considerations) by a line of prose. My
+compliments to the printers; there is doubtless such a thing as good
+printing, but there is such a thing as good sense.
+
+The sequel to _Kidnapped_, _David Balfour_ by name, is about
+three-quarters done and gone to press for serial publication. By what I
+can find out it ought to be through hand with that and ready for volume
+form early next spring.--Yours very sincerely,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO ANDREW LANG
+
+
+   Mr. Andrew Lang had been supplying Stevenson with some books and
+   historical references for his proposed novel _The Young Chevalier_.
+
+     [_Vailima, August 1892._]
+
+MY DEAR LANG,--I knew you would prove a trusty purveyor. The books you
+have sent are admirable. I got the name of my hero out of Brown--Blair
+of Balmyle--Francie Blair. But whether to call the story _Blair of
+Balmyle_, or whether to call it _The Young Chevalier_, I have not yet
+decided. The admirable Cameronian tract--perhaps you will think this a
+cheat--is to be boned into _David Balfour_, where it will fit better,
+and really furnishes me with a desired foothold over a boggy place.
+
+_Later_; no, it won't go in, and I fear I must give up "the idolatrous
+occupant upon the throne," a phrase that overjoyed me beyond expression.
+I am in a deuce of a flutter with politics, which I hate, and in which I
+certainly do not shine; but a fellow cannot stand aside and look on at
+such an exhibition as our government. 'Tain't decent; no gent can hold a
+candle to it. But it's a grind to be interrupted by midnight messengers
+and pass your days writing proclamations (which are never proclaimed)
+and petitions (which ain't petited) and letters to the Times, which it
+makes my jaw yawn to re-read, and all your time have your heart with
+David Balfour; he has just left Glasgow this morning for Edinburgh,
+James More has escaped from the castle; it is far more real to me than
+the Behring Sea or the Baring brothers either--he got the news of James
+More's escape from the Lord Advocate, and started off straight to
+comfort Catriona. You don't know her; she's James More's daughter, and a
+respectable young wumman; the Miss Grants think so--the Lord Advocate's
+daughters--so there can't be anything really wrong. Pretty soon we all
+go to Holland, and be hanged; thence to Dunkirk, and be damned; and the
+tale concludes in Paris, and be Poll-parrotted. This is the last
+authentic news. You are not a real hard-working novelist; not a
+practical novelist; so you don't know the temptation to let your
+characters maunder. Dumas did it, and lived. But it is not war; it ain't
+sportsmanlike, and I have to be stopping their chatter all the time.
+Brown's appendix is great reading.
+
+  My only grief is that I can't
+  Use the idolatrous occupant.
+
+Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+Blessing and praising you for a useful (though idolatrous) occupant of
+Kensington.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
+
+
+   Samoa and the Samoans for children, continued after an eight months'
+   pause.
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, August 14th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--The lean man is exceedingly ashamed of himself,
+and offers his apologies to the little girls in the cellar just above.
+If they will be so good as to knock three times upon the floor, he will
+hear it on the other side of his floor, and will understand that he is
+forgiven. I believe I got you and the children--or rather left you and
+the children--still on the road to the lean man's house. When you get up
+there a great part of the forest has been cleared away. It comes back
+again pretty quick, though not quite so high; but everywhere, except
+where the weeders have been kept busy, young trees have sprouted up, and
+the cattle and the horses cannot be seen as they feed. In this clearing
+there are two or three houses scattered about, and between the two
+biggest I think the little girls in the cellar would first notice a sort
+of thing like a gridiron on legs made of logs and wood. Sometimes it
+has a flag flying on it made of rags of old clothes. It is a fort (so I
+am told) built by the person here who would be much the most interesting
+to the girls in the cellar. This is a young gentleman of eleven years of
+age answering to the name of Austin. It was after reading a book about
+the Red Indians that he thought it more prudent to create this place of
+strength. As the Red Indians are in North America, and this fort seems
+to me a very useless kind of building, I am anxious to hope that the two
+may never be brought together. When Austin is not engaged in building
+forts, nor on his lessons, which are just as annoying to him as other
+children's lessons are to them, he walks sometimes in the bush, and if
+anybody is with him, talks all the time. When he is alone I don't think
+he says anything, and I dare say he feels very lonely and frightened,
+just as the lean man does, at the queer noises and the endless lines of
+the trees. He finds the strangest kinds of seeds, some of them bright
+coloured like lollipops, or really like precious stones; some of them in
+odd cases like tobacco-pouches. He finds and collects all kinds of
+little shells with which the whole ground is scattered, and which,
+though they are the shells of land animals like our snails, are nearly
+of as many shapes and colours as the shells on our sea-beaches. In the
+streams that come running down out of the mountains, and which are all
+as clear and bright as mirror glass, he sees eels and little bright fish
+that sometimes jump together out of the surface of the brook in a little
+knot of silver, and fresh-water prawns which lie close under the stones,
+and can be seen looking up at him with eyes of the colour of a jewel. He
+sees all kinds of beautiful birds, some of them blue and white, some of
+them blue and white and red, and some of them coloured like our pigeons
+at home, and these last the little girls in the cellar may like to know
+live almost entirely on nutmegs as they fall ripe off the trees. Another
+little bird he may sometimes see, as the lean man saw him only this
+morning, a little fellow not so big as a man's hand, exquisitely neat,
+of a pretty bronze black like ladies' shoes, and who sticks up behind
+him (much as a peacock does) his little tail shaped and fluted like a
+scallop shell.
+
+Here are a lot of curious and interesting things that Austin sees round
+him every day; and when I was a child at home in the old country I used
+to play and pretend to myself that I saw things of the same kind. That
+the rooms were full of orange and nutmeg trees, and the cold town
+gardens outside the windows were alive with parrots and with lions. What
+do the little girls in the cellar think that Austin does? He makes
+believe just the other way: he pretends that the strange great trees
+with their broad leaves and slab-sided roots are European oaks; and the
+places on the road up (where you and I and the little girls in the
+cellar have already gone) he calls by old-fashioned, far-away European
+names, just as if you were to call the cellar stair and the corner of
+the next street--if you could only manage to pronounce the names--Upolu
+and Savaii. And so it is with all of us, with Austin and the lean man
+and the little girls in the cellar; wherever we are it is but a stage on
+the way to somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we do it, it
+is only a preparation to do something else that shall be different.
+
+But you must not suppose that Austin does nothing but build forts and
+walk among the woods and swim in the rivers. On the contrary, he is
+sometimes a very busy and useful fellow; and I think the little girls in
+the cellar would have admired him very nearly as much as he admired
+himself if they had seen him setting off on horseback with his hand on
+his hip and his pockets full of letters and orders, at the head of quite
+a procession of huge white cart-horses with pack-saddles, and big brown
+native men with nothing on but gaudy kilts. Mighty well he managed all
+his commissions; and those who saw him ordering and eating his
+single-handed luncheon in the queer little Chinese restaurant on the
+beach declare he looked as if the place, and the town, and the whole
+archipelago belonged to him. But I am not going to let you suppose that
+this great gentleman at the head of all his horses and his men, like the
+King of France in the old rhyme, would be thought much of a dandy on the
+streets of London. On the contrary, if he could be seen there with his
+dirty white cap, and his faded purple shirt, and his little brown breeks
+that do not reach his knees, and the bare shanks below, and the bare
+feet stuck in the stirrup leathers, for he is not quite long enough to
+reach the irons, I am afraid the little boys and girls in your part of
+the town might feel very much inclined to give him a penny in charity.
+So you see that a very, very big man in one place might seem very small
+potatoes in another, just as the king's palace here (of which I told you
+in my last) would be thought rather a poor place of residence by a
+Surrey gipsy. And if you come to that, even the lean man himself, who is
+no end of an important person, if he were picked up from the chair where
+he is now sitting, and slung down, feet foremost, in the neighbourhood
+of Charing Cross, would probably have to escape into the nearest shop,
+or take the consequences of being mobbed. And the ladies of his family,
+who are very pretty ladies, and think themselves uncommonly well-dressed
+for Samoa, would (if the same thing were done to them) be extremely glad
+to get into a cab.
+
+I write to you by the hands of another, because I am threatened again
+with scrivener's cramp. My health is beyond reproach; I wish I could say
+as much for my wife's, which is far from the thing. Give us some news of
+yours, and even when none of us write, do not suppose for a moment that
+we are forgetful of our old gamekeeper. Our prettiest walk, an alley of
+really beautiful green sward which leads through Fanny's garden to the
+river and the bridge and the beginning of the high woods on the
+mountain-side, where the Tapu a fafine (or spirit of the land) has her
+dwelling, and the work-boys fear to go alone, is called by a name that I
+think our gamekeeper has heard before--Adelaide Road.
+
+With much love from all of us to yourself, and all good wishes for your
+future, and the future of the children in the cellar, believe me your
+affectionate friend,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima [August 1892]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--You will have no letter at all this month and it is
+really not my fault. I have been saving my hand as much as possible for
+Davy Balfour; only this morning I was getting on first rate with him,
+when about half-past nine there came a prick in the middle of the ball
+of my thumb, and I had to take to the left hand and two words a minute.
+I fear I slightly exaggerate the speed of my left hand; about a word and
+a half in the minute--which is dispiriting to the last degree. Your last
+letter with the four excellent reviews and the good news about _The
+Wrecker_ was particularly welcome. I have already written to Charles
+Baxter about the volume form appearance of _The Beach of Falesa_. In
+spite of bad thumbs and other interruptions I hope to send to Baxter by
+this mail the whole first part (a good deal more than half) of David
+Balfour ready for press. This is pretty satisfactory, and I think ought
+to put us beyond the reach of financial catastrophe for the year.
+
+A cousin of mine, Graham Balfour, arrived along with your last. It was
+rather a lark. Fanny, Belle and I stayed down at the hotel two nights
+expecting the steamer, and we had seven horses down daily for the party
+and the baggage. These were on one occasion bossed by Austin, age
+eleven. "I'm afraid I cannot do that now," said he in answer to some
+communication, "as I am taking charge of the men here." In the course of
+the forenoon he took "his" men to get their lunch, and had his own by
+himself at the Chinese restaurant. What a day for a boy. The steamer
+came in at last on Saturday morning after breakfast. We three were out
+at the place of anchorage in the hotel boat as she came up, spotting
+rather anxiously for our guest, whom none of us had ever seen. We chose
+out some rather awful cads and tried to make up our mind to them; they
+were the least offensive yet observed among an awful crew of cabin
+passengers; but when the Simon Pure appeared at last upon the scene he
+was as nice a young fellow as you would want. Followed a time of giddy
+glory--one crowded hour of glorious life--when I figured about the deck
+with attendant shemales in the character of _the_ local celebrity, was
+introduced to the least unpresentable of the ruffians on board, dogged
+about the deck by a diminutive Hebrew with a Kodak, the click of which
+kept time to my progress like a pair of castanets, and filled up in the
+Captain's room on iced champagne at 8.30 of God's morning. The Captain
+in question, Cap. Morse, is a great South Sea character, like the side
+of a house and the green-room of a music-hall, but with all the saving
+qualities of the seaman. The celebrity was a great success with this
+untutored observer. He was kind enough to announce that he expected
+(rather with awe) a much more "thoughtful" person; and I think I pleased
+him much with my parting salutation, "Well, Captain, I suppose you and I
+are the two most notorious men in the Pacific." I think it will enable
+you to see the Captain if I tell you that he recited to us in cold blood
+the _words_ of a new comic song; doubtless a tribute to my literary
+character. I had often heard of Captain Morse and always had detested
+all that I was told, and detested the man in confidence, just as you are
+doing; but really he has a wonderful charm of strength, loyalty, and
+simplicity. The whole celebrity business was particularly
+characteristic; the Captain has certainly never read a word of mine; and
+as for the Jew with the Kodak, he had never heard of me till he came on
+board. There was a third admirer who sent messages in to the Captain's
+cabin asking if the Lion would accept a gift of Webster's _Unabridged_.
+I went out to him and signified a manly willingness to accept a gift of
+anything. He stood and bowed before me, his eyes danced with excitement.
+"Mr. Stevenson," he said and his voice trembled, "your name is very well
+known to me. I have been in the publishing line in Canada and I have
+handled many of your works for the trade." "Come," I said, "here's
+genuine appreciation."
+
+From this gaudy scene we descended into the hotel boat with our new
+second cousin, got to horse and returned to Vailima, passing shot of
+Kodak once more on the Nulivae bridge, where the little Jew was posted
+with his little Jew wife, each about three feet six in stature and as
+vulgar as a lodging house clock.
+
+We were just writing this when another passenger from the ship arrived
+up here at Vailima. This is a nice quiet simple blue-eyed little boy of
+Pennsylvania Quaker folk. Threatened with consumption of my sort, he has
+been sent here by his doctor on the strength of my case. I am sure if
+the case be really parallel he could not have been better done by. As we
+had a roast pig for dinner we kept him for that meal; and the rain
+coming on just when the moon should have risen kept him again for the
+night. So you see it is now to-morrow.
+
+Graham Balfour the new cousin and Lloyd are away with Clark the
+Missionary on a school inspecting _malaga_, really perhaps the prettiest
+little bit of opera in real life that can be seen, and made all the
+prettier by the actors being children. I have come to a collapse this
+morning on D.B.: wrote a chapter one way, half re-copied it in another,
+and now stand halting between the two like Buridan's donkey. These sorts
+of cruces always are to me the most insoluble, and I should not wonder
+if D.B. stuck there for a week or two. This is a bother, for I
+understand McClure talks of beginning serial publication in December. If
+this could be managed, what with D.B., the apparent success of _The
+Wrecker_, _Falesa_, and some little pickings from _Across the
+Plains_--not to mention, as quite hopeless, _The History of Samoa_--this
+should be rather a profitable year, as it must be owned it has been
+rather a busy one. The trouble is, if I miss the December publication,
+it may take the devil and all of a time to start another syndicate. I am
+really tempted to curse my conscientiousness. If I hadn't recopied Davie
+he would now be done and dead and buried; and here I am stuck about the
+middle, with an immediate publication threatened and the fear before me
+of having after all to scamp the essential business of the end. At the
+same time, though I love my Davy, I am a little anxious to get on again
+on _The Young Chevalier_. I have in nearly all my works been trying one
+racket: to get out the facts of life as clean and naked and sharp as I
+could manage it. In this other book I want to try and megilp them
+together in an atmosphere of sentiment, and I wonder whether twenty-five
+years of life spent in trying this one thing will not make it impossible
+for me to succeed in the other. However it is the only way to attempt a
+love story. You can't tell any of the facts, and the only chance is to
+paint an atmosphere.
+
+It is a very warm morning--the parrot is asleep on the door (she heard
+her name, and immediately awakened)--and my brains are completely addled
+by having come to grief over Davy.
+
+Hurray! a subject discovered! The parrot is a little white cockatoo of
+the small variety. It belongs to Belle, whom it guards like a watch dog.
+It chanced that when she was sick some months ago I came over and
+administered some medicine. Unnecessary to say Belle bleated, whereupon
+the parrot bounded upon me and buried his neb in my backside. From that
+day on the little wretch attacked me on every possible occasion, usually
+from the rear, though she would also follow me along the verandah and as
+I went downstairs attack my face. This was far from funny. I am a person
+of average courage, but I don't think I was ever more cordially afraid
+of anything than of this miserable atomy, and the deuce of it was that I
+could not but admire her appalling courage and there was no means of
+punishing such a thread-paper creature without destroying it entirely.
+Act II. On Graham's arrival I gave him my room and came out to Lloyd's
+in the lower floor of Belle's--I beg your pardon--the _parrot's_--house.
+The first morning I was to wake Belle early so that breakfast should be
+seen to for our guest. It was a mighty pretty dawn, the birds were
+singing extraordinary strong, all was peace, and there was the damned
+parrot hanging to the knob of Belle's door. Courage, my heart! On I went
+and Cockie buried her bill in the joint of my thumb. I believe that Job
+would have killed that bird; but I was more happily inspired--I caught
+it up and flung it over the verandah as far as I could throw. I must say
+it was violently done, and I looked with some anxiety to see in what
+state of preservation it would alight. Down it came however on its two
+feet, uttered a few oaths in a very modified tone of voice, and set
+forth on the return journey to its mansion. Its wings being cut and its
+gait in walking having been a circumstance apparently not thoroughly
+calculated by its maker, it took about twenty-five minutes to get home
+again. Now here is this remarkable point--that bird has never bitten me
+since. When I have early breakfast she and the cat come down and join
+me, and she sits on the back of my chair. When I am at work with the
+door shut she sits outside and demolishes the door with that same beak
+which was so recently reddened with my heart's blood--and in the evening
+she does her business all over my clothes in the most friendly manner
+in the world. I ought to add a word about the parrot and the cat. Three
+cats were brought by Belle from Sydney. This one alone remains faithful
+and domestic. One of the funniest things I have ever seen was Polly and
+Maud over a piece of bacon. Polly stood on one leg, held the bacon in
+the other, regarded Maudie with a secret and sinister look and very
+slowly and quietly--far too quietly for the word I have to use--gnashed
+her bill at her. Maudie came up quite close; there she stuck--she was
+afraid to come nearer, to go away she was ashamed; and she assisted at
+the final and very deliberate consumption of the bacon, making about as
+poor a figure as a cat can make.
+
+_Next day._--Date totally unknown, or rather it is now known but is
+reserved because it would certainly prove inconsistent with dates
+previously given. I went down about two o'clock in company with a couple
+of chance visitors to Apia. It was smoking hot, not a sign of any wind
+and the sun scorching your face. I found the great Haggard in hourly
+expectation of Lady Jersey, surrounded by crowds of very indifferent
+assistants, and I must honestly say--the only time I ever saw him
+so--cross. He directed my attention to all the new paint, his own
+handiwork he said, and made me visit the bathroom which he has just
+fixed up. I think I never saw a man more miserable and happy at the same
+time. Had some hock and a seltzer, went down town, met Fanny and Belle,
+and so home in time for a magnificent dinner of prawns and an eel cooked
+in oil, both from our own river.
+
+This morning the overseer--the new overseer Mr. Austin Strong--went down
+in charge of the pack-horses and a squad of men, himself riding a white
+horse with extreme dignity and what seemed to onlookers a perhaps
+somewhat theatrical air of command. He returned triumphantly, all his
+commissions apparently executed with success, bringing us a mail--not
+your mail, Colonial ways--and the news of Lady Jersey's arrival and
+reception among flying flags and banging guns.
+
+As soon as I had concluded my flattering description of Polly she bit
+one of my toes to the blood. But put not your trust in shemales, though
+to say the truth she looks more like a Russian colonel.
+
+_Aug. 15th._--On the Saturday night Fanny and I went down to Haggard's
+to dine and be introduced to Lady Jersey. She is there with her daughter
+Lady Margaret and her brother Captain Leigh, a very nice kind of
+glass-in-his-eye kind of fellow. It is to be presumed I made a good
+impression; for the meeting has had a most extraordinary sequel. Fanny
+and I slept in Haggard's billiard room, which happens to be Lloyd's
+bungalow. In the morning she and I breakfasted in the back parts with
+Haggard and Captain Leigh, and it was then arranged that the Captain
+should go with us to Malie on the Tuesday under a false name; so that
+Government House at Sydney might by no possibility be connected with a
+rebel camp. On Sunday afternoon up comes Haggard in a state of huge
+excitement: Lady J. insists on going too, in the character of my cousin;
+I write her a letter under the name of Miss Amelia Balfour, proposing
+the excursion; and this morning up comes a copy of verses from Amelia. I
+wrote to Mataafa announcing that I should bring two cousins instead of
+one, that the second was a lady, unused to Samoan manners, and it would
+be a good thing if she could sleep in another house with Ralala. Sent a
+copy of this to Amelia, and at the same time made all arrangements,
+dating my letter 1745. We shall go on ahead on the Malie Road; she is to
+follow with Haggard and Captain Leigh, and overtake us at the ford of
+the Gasi-gasi, whence Haggard will return and the rest of us pursue our
+way to the rebeldom.
+
+This lark is certainly huge. It is all nonsense that it can be
+concealed; Miss Amelia Balfour will be at once identified with the Queen
+of Sydney, as they call her; and I would not in the least wonder if the
+visit proved the signal of war. With this I have no concern, and the
+thing wholly suits my book and fits my predilections for Samoa. What a
+pity the mail leaves, and I must leave this adventure to be continued in
+our next! But I need scarcely say that all this is deadly private--I
+expect it all to come out, not without explosion; only it must not be
+through me or you. We had a visit yesterday from a person by the name of
+Count Nerli, who is said to be a good painter. Altogether the
+aristocracy clusters thick about us. In which radiant light, as the mail
+must now be really put up, I leave myself until next month,--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY
+
+
+   Following up the last letter, Stevenson here tells the story of the
+   visit paid to Apia by the Countess of Jersey, who had come over from
+   Sydney with her brother Captain Leigh and her young daughter Lady
+   Margaret Villiers. "A warm friendship," writes Lady Jersey, "was the
+   immediate result; we constantly met, either in the hospitable abode
+   of our host Mr. Bazett Haggard, or in Mr. Stevenson's delightful
+   mountain home, and passed many happy hours in riding, walking, and
+   conversation." The previous letter has shown how it was arranged that
+   the party should pay a visit of curiosity to the "rebel king," or
+   more properly the rival claimant to the kingly power, Mataafa, in his
+   camp at Malie, and how Stevenson at once treated the adventure as a
+   chapter out of a Waverley novel. "The wife of the new Governor of New
+   South Wales," writes Lady Jersey on her part, "could not pay such a
+   visit in her own name, so Mr. Stevenson adopted me as his cousin,
+   'Amelia Balfour.' This transparent disguise was congenial to his
+   romantic instincts, and he writes concerning the arrangements made
+   for the expedition, carefully dating his letter 'Aug. 14, 1745.'"
+
+     _August 14, 1745._
+
+To MISS AMELIA BALFOUR--MY DEAR COUSIN,--We are going an expedition to
+leeward on Tuesday morning. If a lady were perhaps to be encountered on
+horseback--say, towards the Gasi-gasi river--about six A.M., I think we
+should have an episode somewhat after the style of the '45. What a
+misfortune, my dear cousin, that you should have arrived while your
+cousin Graham was occupying my only guest-chamber--for Osterley Park is
+not so large in Samoa as it was at home--but happily our friend Haggard
+has found a corner for you!
+
+The King over the Water--the Gasi-gasi water--will be pleased to see the
+clan of Balfour mustering so thick around his standard.
+
+I have (one serious word) been so lucky as to get a really secret
+interpreter, so all is for the best in our little adventure into the
+Waverley Novels.--I am, your affectionate cousin,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+Observe the stealth with which I have blotted my signature, but we must
+be political _a outrance_.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY
+
+
+MY DEAR COUSIN,--I send for your information a copy of my last letter to
+the gentleman in question. 'Tis thought more wise, in consideration of
+the difficulty and peril of the enterprise, that we should leave the
+town in the afternoon, and by several detachments. If you would start
+for a ride with the Master of Haggard and Captain Lockhart of Lee, say
+at three o'clock of the afternoon, you would make some rencounters by
+the wayside which might be agreeable to your political opinions. All
+present will be staunch.
+
+The Master of Haggard might extend his ride a little, and return through
+the marsh and by the nuns' house (I trust that has the proper flavour),
+so as a little to diminish the effect of separation.--I remain your
+affectionate cousin to command,
+
+     O TUSITALA.
+
+_P.S._--It is to be thought this present year of grace will be
+historical.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This letter tells without preface the story of the expedition planned
+   in the preceding.
+
+     [_Vailima, August 1892._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is Friday night, the (I believe) 18th or 20th
+August or September. I shall probably regret to-morrow having written
+you with my own hand like the Apostle Paul. But I am alone over here in
+the workman's house, where I and Belle and Lloyd and Austin are pigging;
+the rest are at cards in the main residence. I have not joined them
+because "belly belong me" has been kicking up, and I have just taken 15
+drops of laudanum.
+
+On Tuesday, the party set out--self in white cap, velvet coat, cords and
+yellow half boots, Belle in a white kind of suit and white cap to match
+mine, Lloyd in white clothes and long yellow boots and a straw hat,
+Graham in khakis and gaiters, Henry (my old overseer) in blue coat and
+black kilt, and the great Lafaele with a big ship-bag on his saddle-bow.
+We left the mail at the P.O., had lunch at the hotel, and about 1.50 set
+out westward to the place of tryst. This was by a little shrunken brook
+in a deep channel of mud, on the far side of which, in a thicket of low
+trees, all full of moths of shadow and butterflies of sun, we lay down
+to await her ladyship. Whisky and water, then a sketch of the encampment
+for which we all posed to Belle, passed off the time until 3.30. Then I
+could hold on no longer. 30 minutes late. Had the secret oozed out? Were
+they arrested? I got my horse, crossed the brook again, and rode hard
+back to the Vaea cross roads, whence I was aware of white clothes
+glancing in the other long straight radius of the quadrant. I turned at
+once to return to the place of tryst; but D. overtook me, and almost
+bore me down, shouting "Ride, ride!" like a hero in a ballad. Lady
+Margaret and he were only come to shew the place; they returned, and the
+rest of our party, reinforced by Captain Leigh and Lady Jersey, set on
+for Malie. The delay was due to D.'s infinite precautions, leading them
+up lanes, by back ways, and then down again to the beach road a hundred
+yards further on.
+
+It was agreed that Lady Jersey existed no more; she was now my cousin
+Amelia Balfour. That relative and I headed the march; she is a charming
+woman, all of us like her extremely after trial on this somewhat rude
+and absurd excursion. And we Amelia'd or Miss Balfour'd her with great
+but intermittent fidelity. When we came to the last village, I sent
+Henry on ahead to warn the King of our approach and amend his
+discretion, if that might be. As he left I heard the villagers asking
+_which was the great lady_? And a little further, at the borders of
+Malie itself, we found the guard making a music of bugles and conches.
+Then I knew the game was up and the secret out. A considerable guard of
+honour, mostly children, accompanied us; but, for our good fortune, we
+had been looked for earlier, and the crowd was gone.
+
+Dinner at the king's; he asked me to say grace, I could think of
+none--never could; Graham suggested _Benedictus Benedicat_, at which I
+leaped. We were nearly done, when old Popo inflicted the Atua howl (of
+which you have heard already) right at Lady Jersey's shoulder. She
+started in fine style.--"There," I said, "we have been giving you a
+chapter of Scott, but this goes beyond the Waverley Novels." After
+dinner, kava. Lady J. was served before me, and the king _drank last_;
+it was the least formal kava I ever saw in that house,--no names called,
+no show of ceremony. All my ladies are well trained, and when Belle
+drained her bowl, the King was pleased to clap his hands. Then he and I
+must retire for our private interview, to another house. He gave me his
+own staff and made me pass before him; and in the interview, which was
+long and delicate, he twice called me _afioga_. Ah, that leaves you
+cold, but I am Samoan enough to have been moved. _Susuga_ is my
+accepted rank; to be called _afioga_--Heavens! what an advance--and it
+leaves Europe cold. But it staggered my Henry. The first time it was
+complicated "lana susuga _ma_ lana afioga--his excellency _and_ his
+majesty" the next time plain Majesty. Henry then begged to interrupt the
+interview and tell who he was--he is a small family chief in Savaii, not
+very small--"I do not wish the king," says he, "to think me a boy from
+Apia." On our return to the palace, we separated. I had asked for the
+ladies to sleep alone--that was understood; but that Tusitala--his
+afioga Tusitala--should go out with the other young men, and not sleep
+with the highborn females of his family--was a doctrine received with
+difficulty. Lloyd and I had one screen, Graham and Leigh another, and we
+slept well.
+
+In the morning I was first abroad before dawn; not very long, already
+there was a stir of birds. A little after, I heard singing from the
+King's chapel--exceeding good--and went across in the hour when the east
+is yellow and the morning bank is breaking up, to hear it nearer. All
+about the chapel, the guards were posted, and all saluted Tusitala. I
+could not refrain from smiling: "So there is a place too," I thought,
+"where sentinels salute me." Mine has been a queer life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Breakfast was rather a protracted business. And that was scarce over
+when we were called to the great house (now finished--recall your
+earlier letters) to see a royal kava. This function is of rare use; I
+know grown Samoans who have never witnessed it. It is, besides, as you
+are to hear, a piece of prehistoric history, crystallised in figures,
+and the facts largely forgotten; an acted hieroglyph. The house is
+really splendid; in the rafters in the midst, two carved and coloured
+model birds are posted; the only thing of the sort I have ever remarked
+in Samoa, the Samoans being literal observers of the second commandment.
+At one side of the egg our party sat. a=Mataafa, b = Lady J., c =
+Belle, d = Tusitala, e =Graham, f = Lloyd, g = Captain Leigh, h = Henry,
+i = Popo. The x's round are the high chiefs, each man in his historical
+position. One side of the house is set apart for the king alone; we were
+allowed there as his guests and Henry as our interpreter. It was a huge
+trial to the lad, when a speech was made to me which he must translate,
+and I made a speech in answer which he had to orate, full-breathed, to
+that big circle; he blushed through his dark skin, but looked and acted
+like a gentleman and a young fellow of sense; then the kava came to the
+king; he poured one drop in libation, drank another, and flung the
+remainder outside the house behind him. Next came the turn of the old
+shapeless stone marked T. It stands for one of the king's titles,
+Tamasoalii; Mataafa is Tamasoalii this day, but cannot drink for it; and
+the stone must first be washed with water, and then have the bowl
+emptied on it. Then--the order I cannot recall--came the turn of y and
+z, two orators of the name of Malietoa; the first took his kava down
+plain, like an ordinary man; the second must be packed to bed under a
+big sheet of tapa, and be massaged by anxious assistants and rise on his
+elbow groaning to drink his cup. W., a great hereditary war man, came
+next; five times the cup-bearers marched up and down the house and
+passed the cup on, five times it was filled and the general's name and
+titles heralded at the bowl, and five times he refused it (after
+examination) as too small. It is said this commemorates a time when
+Malietoa at the head of his army suffered much for want of supplies.
+Then this same military gentleman must _drink_ five cups, one from each
+of the great names: all which took a precious long time. He acted very
+well, haughtily and in a society tone _outlining_ the part. The
+difference was marked when he subsequently made a speech in his own
+character as a plain God-fearing chief. A few more high chiefs, then
+Tusitala; one more, and then Lady Jersey; one more, and then Captain
+Leigh, and so on with the rest of our party--Henry of course excepted.
+You see in public, Lady Jersey followed me--just so far was the secret
+kept.
+
+Then we came home; Belle, Graham, and Lloyd to the Chinaman's, I with
+Lady Jersey, to lunch; so, severally home. Thursday I have forgotten:
+Saturday, I began again on Davie; on Sunday, the Jersey party came up to
+call and carried me to dinner. As I came out, to ride home, the
+search-lights of the _Curacoa_ were lightening on the horizon from many
+miles away, and next morning she came in. Tuesday was huge fun: a
+reception at Haggard's. All our party dined there; Lloyd and I, in the
+absence of Haggard and Leigh, had to play aide-de-camp and host for
+about twenty minutes, and I presented the population of Apia at random
+but (luck helping) without one mistake. Wednesday we had two middies to
+lunch. Thursday we had Eeles and Hoskyn (lieutenant and doctor--very,
+very nice fellows--simple, good and not the least dull) to dinner.
+Saturday, Graham and I lunched on board; Graham, Belle, Lloyd dined at
+the G.'s; and Austin and the _whole_ of our servants went with them to
+an evening entertainment; the more bold returning by lantern-light.
+Yesterday, Sunday, Belle and I were off by about half past eight, left
+our horses at a public house, and went on board the _Curacoa_, in the
+wardroom skiff; were entertained in the wardroom; thence on deck to the
+service, which was a great treat; three fiddles and a harmonium and
+excellent choir, and the great ship's company joining: on shore in
+Haggard's big boat to lunch with the party. Thence all together to
+Vailima, where we read aloud a Ouida Romance we have been secretly
+writing; in which Haggard was the hero, and each one of the authors had
+to draw a portrait of him or herself in a Ouida light. Leigh, Lady J.,
+Fanny, R. L. S., Belle and Graham were the authors.
+
+In the midst of this gay life, I have finally recopied two chapters, and
+drafted for the first time three of Davie Balfour. But it is not a life
+that would continue to suit me, and if I have not continued to write to
+you, you will scarce wonder. And to-day we all go down again to dinner,
+and to-morrow they all come up to lunch! The world is too much with us.
+But it now nears an end, to-day already the _Curacoa_ has sailed; and on
+Saturday or Sunday Lady Jersey will follow them in the mail steamer. I
+am sending you a wire by her hands as far as Sydney, that is to say
+either you or Cassell, about _Falesa_: I will not allow it to be called
+_Uma_ in book form, that is not the logical name of the story. Nor can I
+have the marriage contract omitted; and the thing is full of misprints
+abominable. In the picture, Uma is rot; so is the old man and the negro;
+but Wiltshire is splendid, and Case will do. It seems badly illuminated,
+but this may be printing. How have I seen this first number? Not through
+your attention, guilty one! Lady Jersey had it, and only mentioned it
+yesterday.[45]
+
+I ought to say how much we all like the Jersey party. Leigh is very
+amusing in his way. Lady Margaret is a charming girl. And Lady Jersey is
+in all ways admirable, so unfussy, so plucky, so very kind and gracious.
+My boy Henry was enraptured with the manners of the _Tamaitai Sili_
+(chief lady). Among our other occupations, I did a bit of a supposed
+epic describing our tryst at the ford of the Gasegase; and Belle and I
+made a little book of caricatures and verses about incidents on the
+visit.
+
+_Tuesday._--The wild round of gaiety continues. After I had written to
+you yesterday, the brain being wholly extinct, I played piquet all
+morning with Graham. After lunch down to call on the U.S. consul, hurt
+in a steeplechase; thence back to the new girls' school which Lady J.
+was to open, and where my ladies met me. Lady J. is really an orator,
+with a voice of gold; the rest of us played our unremarked parts;
+missionaries, Haggard, myself, a Samoan chief, holding forth in turn;
+myself with (at least) a golden brevity. Thence, Fanny, Belle, and I to
+town, to our billiard room in Haggard's back garden, where we found
+Lloyd and where Graham joined us. The three men first dressed, with the
+ladies in a corner; and then, to leave them a free field, we went off to
+Haggard and Leigh's quarters, whereafter all to dinner, where our two
+parties, a brother of Colonel Kitchener's, a passing globe-trotter, and
+Clarke the missionary. A very gay evening, with all sorts of chaff and
+mirth, and a moonlit ride home, and to bed before 12.30. And now to-day,
+we have the Jersey-Haggard troupe to lunch, and I must pass the morning
+dressing ship.
+
+_Thursday, Sept. 1st._--I sit to write to you now, 7.15, all the world
+in bed except myself, accounted for, and Belle and Graham, down at
+Haggard's at dinner. Not a leaf is stirring here; but the moon overhead
+(now of a good bigness) is obscured and partly revealed in a whirling
+covey of thin storm-clouds. By Jove, it blows above.
+
+From 8 till 11.15 on Tuesday, I dressed ship, and in particular cleaned
+crystal, my specialty. About 11.30 the guests began to arrive before I
+was dressed, and between while I had written a parody for Lloyd to sing.
+Yesterday, Wednesday, I had to start out about 3 for town, had a long
+interview with the head of the German Firm about some work in my new
+house, got over to Lloyd's billiard-room about six, on the way whither I
+met Fanny and Belle coming down with one Kitchener, a brother of the
+Colonel's. Dined in the billiard-room, discovered we had forgot to order
+oatmeal; whereupon in the moonlit evening, I set forth in my tropical
+array, mess jacket and such, to get the oatmeal, and meet a young fellow
+C.--and not a bad young fellow either, only an idiot--as drunk as
+Croesus. He wept with me, he wept for me; he talked like a bad
+character in an impudently bad farce; I could have laughed aloud to
+hear, and could make you laugh by repeating, but laughter was not
+uppermost.
+
+This morning at about seven, I set off after the lost sheep. I could
+have no horse; all that could be mounted--we have one girth-sore and one
+dead-lame in the establishment--were due at a picnic about 10.30. The
+morning was very wet, and I set off barefoot, with my trousers over my
+knees, and a macintosh. Presently I had to take a side path in the bush;
+missed it; came forth in a great oblong patch of taro solemnly
+surrounded by forest--no soul, no sign, no sound--and as I stood there
+at a loss, suddenly between the showers out broke the note of a
+harmonium and a woman's voice singing an air that I know very well, but
+have (as usual) forgot the name of. 'Twas from a great way off, but
+seemed to fill the world. It was strongly romantic, and gave me a point
+which brought me, by all sorts of forest wading, to an open space of
+palms. These were of all ages, but mostly at that age when the branches
+arch from the ground level, range themselves, with leaves exquisitely
+green. The whole interspace was overgrown with convolvulus, purple,
+yellow and white, often as deep as to my waist, in which I floundered
+aimlessly. The very mountain was invisible from here. The rain came and
+went; now in sunlit April showers, now with the proper tramp and rattle
+of the tropics. All this while I met no sight or sound of man, except
+the voice which was now silent, and a damned pig-fence that headed me
+off at every corner. Do you know barbed wire? Think of a fence of it on
+rotten posts, and you barefoot. But I crossed it at last with my heart
+in my mouth and no harm done. Thence at last to C.'s.: no C. Next place
+I came to was in the zone of woods. They offered me a buggy and set a
+black boy to wash my legs and feet. "Washum legs belong that fellow
+whiteman" was the command. So at last I ran down my son of a gun in the
+hotel, sober, and with no story to tell; penitent, I think. As I sat and
+looked at him, I knew from my inside the biggest truth in life: there is
+only one thing that we cannot forgive, and that is ugliness--_our_
+ugliness. There is no ugliness, no beauty; only that which makes me
+(_ipse_) sicken or rejoice. And poor C. makes me sicken. Yet, according
+to canons, he is not amiss. Home, by buggy and my poor feet, up three
+miles of root, boulder, gravel, and liquid mud, slipping back at every
+step.
+
+_Sunday, Sept. 4th._--Hope you will be able to read a word of the last,
+no joke writing by a bad lantern with a groggy hand and your glasses
+mislaid. Not that the hand is not better, as you see by the absence of
+the amanuensis hitherto. Mail came Friday, and a communication from
+yourself much more decent than usual, for which I thank you. Glad the
+_Wrecker_ should so hum; but Lord, what fools these mortals be!
+
+So far yesterday, the citation being wrung from me by remembrance of
+many reviews. I have now received all _Falesa_, and my admiration for
+that tale rises; I believe it is in some ways my best work; I am pretty
+sure, at least, I have never done anything better than Wiltshire.
+
+_Monday, 13th September 1892._--On Wednesday the Spinsters of Apia gave
+a ball to a select crowd. Fanny, Belle, Lloyd, and I rode down, met
+Haggard by the way and joined company with him. Dinner with Haggard, and
+thence to the ball. The Chief Justice appeared; it was immediately
+remarked, and whispered from one to another, that he and I had the only
+red sashes in the room,--and they were both of the hue of blood, sir,
+blood. He shook hands with myself and all the members of my family. Then
+the cream came, and I found myself in the same set of a quadrille with
+his honour. We dance here in Apia a most fearful and wonderful
+quadrille, I don't know where the devil they fished it from; but it is
+rackety and prancing and embraceatory beyond words; perhaps it is best
+defined in Haggard's expression of a gambado. When I and my great enemy
+found ourselves involved in this gambol, and crossing hands, and kicking
+up, and being embraced almost in common by large and quite respectable
+females, we--or I--tried to preserve some rags of dignity, but not for
+long. The deuce of it is that, personally, I love this man; his eye
+speaks to me, I am pleased in his society. We exchanged a glance, and
+then a grin; the man took me in his confidence; and through the
+remainder of that prance we pranced for each other. Hard to imagine any
+position more ridiculous; a week before he had been trying to rake up
+evidence against me by brow-beating and threatening a half-white
+interpreter; that very morning I had been writing most villainous
+attacks upon him for the Times; and we meet and smile, and--damn
+it!--like each other. I do my best to damn the man and drive him from
+these islands; but the weakness endures--I love him. This is a thing I
+would despise in anybody else; but he is so jolly insidious and
+ingratiating! No, sir, I can't dislike him; but if I don't make hay of
+him, it shall not be for want of trying.
+
+Yesterday, we had two Germans and a young American boy at lunch; and in
+the afternoon, Vailima was in a state of siege; ten white people on the
+front verandah, at least as many brown in the cook-house, and countless
+blacks to see the black boy Arrick.
+
+Which reminds me, Arrick was sent Friday was a week to the German Firm
+with a note, and was not home on time. Lloyd and I were going bedward,
+it was late with a bright moon--ah, poor dog, you know no such moons as
+these!--when home came Arrick with his head in a white bandage and his
+eyes shining. He had had a fight with other blacks, Malaita boys; many
+against one, and one with a knife: "I KNICKED 'EM DOWN, three four!" he
+cried; and had himself to be taken to the doctor's and bandaged. Next
+day, he could not work, glory of battle swelled too high in his
+threadpaper breast; he had made a one-stringed harp for Austin, borrowed
+it, came to Fanny's room, and sang war-songs and danced a war dance in
+honour of his victory. And it appears, by subsequent advices, that it
+was a serious victory enough; four of his assailants went to hospital,
+and one is thought in danger. All Vailima rejoiced at this news.
+
+Five more chapters of David, 22 to 27, go to Baxter. All love affair;
+seems pretty good to me. Will it do for the young person? I don't know:
+since the Beach, I know nothing, except that men are fools and
+hypocrites, and I know less of them than I was fond enough to fancy.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
+
+
+     [_Vailima, August 1892._]
+
+MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,--Thank you a thousand times for your letter. You
+are the Angel of (the sort of) Information (that I care about): I
+appoint you successor to the newspaper press; and I beg of you,
+whenever you wish to gird at the age, or think the bugs out of
+proportion to the roses, or despair, or enjoy any cosmic or epochal
+emotion, to sit down again and write to the Hermit of Samoa. What do I
+think of it all? Well, I love the romantic solemnity of youth; and even
+in this form, although not without laughter, I have to love it still.
+They are such ducks! But what are they made of? We were just as solemn
+as that about atheism and the stars and humanity; but we were all for
+belief anyway--we held atheism and sociology (of which none of us, nor
+indeed anybody, knew anything) for a gospel and an iron rule of life;
+and it was lucky enough, or there would have been more windows broken.
+What is apt to puzzle one at first sight in the New Youth is that, with
+such rickety and risky problems always at heart, they should not plunge
+down a Niagara of Dissolution. But let us remember the high practical
+timidity of youth. I was a particularly brave boy--this I think of
+myself, looking back--and plunged into adventures and experiments, and
+ran risks that it still surprises me to recall. But, dear me, what a
+fear I was in of that strange blind machinery in the midst of which I
+stood; and with what a compressed heart and what empty lungs I would
+touch a new crank and await developments! I do not mean to say I do not
+fear life still; I do; and that terror (for an adventurer like myself)
+is still one of the chief joys of living.
+
+But it was different indeed while I was yet girt with the priceless
+robes of inexperience; then the fear was exquisite and infinite. And so,
+when you see all these little Ibsens, who seem at once so dry and so
+excitable, and faint in swathes over a play (I suppose--for a wager)
+that would seem to me merely tedious, smile behind your hand, and
+remember the little dears are all in a blue funk. It must be very funny,
+and to a spectator like yourself I almost envy it. But never get
+desperate; human nature is human nature; and the Roman Empire, since the
+Romans founded it and made our European human nature what it is, bids
+fair to go on and to be true to itself. These little bodies will all
+grow up and become men and women, and have heaps of fun; nay, and are
+having it now; and whatever happens to the fashion of the age, it makes
+no difference--there are always high and brave and amusing lives to be
+lived; and a change of key, however exotic, does not exclude melody.
+Even Chinamen, hard as we find it to believe, enjoy being Chinese. And
+the Chinaman stands alone to be unthinkable; natural enough, as the
+representative of the only other great civilisation. Take my people here
+at my doors; their life is a very good one; it is quite thinkable, quite
+acceptable to us. And the little dears will be soon skating on the other
+foot; sooner or later, in each generation, the one-half of them at least
+begin to remember all the material they had rejected when first they
+made and nailed up their little theory of life; and these become
+reactionaries or conservatives, and the ship of man begins to fill upon
+the other tack.
+
+Here is a sermon, by your leave! It is your own fault, you have amused
+and interested me so much by your breath of the New Youth, which comes
+to me from so far away, where I live up here in my mountain, and secret
+messengers bring me letters from rebels, and the government sometimes
+seizes them, and generally grumbles in its beard that Stevenson should
+really be deported. O my life is the more lively, never fear!
+
+It has recently been most amusingly varied by a visit from Lady Jersey.
+I took her over mysteriously (under the pseudonym of my cousin, Miss
+Amelia Balfour) to visit Mataafa, our rebel; and we had great fun, and
+wrote a Ouida novel on our life here, in which every author had to
+describe himself in the Ouida glamour, and of which--for the Jerseys
+intend printing it--I must let you have a copy. My wife's chapter, and
+my description of myself, should, I think, amuse you. But there were
+finer touches still; as when Belle and Lady Jersey came out to brush
+their teeth in front of the rebel King's palace, and the night guard
+squatted opposite on the grass and watched the process; or when I and my
+interpreter, and the King with his secretary, mysteriously disappeared
+to conspire.--Ever yours sincerely,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE CHILDREN IN THE CELLAR
+
+
+   This time the children in the Kilburn cellar are addressed direct,
+   with only a brief word at the end to their instructress.
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, September 4th, 1892._
+
+DEAR CHILDREN IN THE CELLAR,--I told you before something of the black
+boys who come here for work on the plantations, and some of whom run
+away and live a wild life in the forests of the islands. Now I want to
+tell you of one who lived in the house of the lean man. Like the rest of
+them here, he is a little fellow, and when he goes about in old,
+battered, cheap European clothes, looks very small and shabby. When
+first he came he was as lean as a tobacco-pipe, and his smile (like that
+of almost all the others) was the sort that makes you half wish to smile
+yourself, and half wish to cry. However, the boys in the kitchen took
+him in hand and fed him up. They would set him down alone to table and
+wait upon him till he had his fill, which was a good long time to wait;
+and the first thing we noticed was that his little stomach began to
+stick out like a pigeon's breast; and then the food got a little wider
+spread and he started little calves to his legs; and last of all he
+began to get quite saucy and impudent, so that we could know what sort
+of a fellow he really was when he was no longer afraid of being
+thrashed. He is really what you ought to call a young man, though I
+suppose nobody in the whole wide world has any idea of his age; and, as
+far as his behaviour goes, you can only think of him as a big little
+child with a good deal of sense. When Austin built his fort against the
+Indians, Arick (for that is the black boy's name) liked nothing so much
+as to help him. And this is very funny, when you think that of all the
+dangerous savages in this island Arick is one of the most dangerous. The
+other day, besides, he made Austin a musical instrument of the sort they
+use in his own country, a harp with only one string. He took a stick
+about three feet long, and perhaps four inches round. The under side he
+hollowed out in a deep trench to serve as sounding box; the two ends of
+the upper side he made to curve upward like the ends of a canoe, and
+between these he stretched the single string. He plays upon it with a
+match or a little piece of stick, and sings to it songs of his own
+country, of which no person here can understand a single word, and which
+are very likely all about fighting with his enemies in battle, and
+killing them, and I am sorry to say cooking them in a ground oven and
+eating them for supper when the fight is over.
+
+For Arick is really what you might call a savage, though a savage is a
+very different person in reality, and a very much nicer, from what he is
+made to appear in little books. He is the sort of person that everybody
+smiles to, or makes faces at, or gives a smack to as he goes by; the
+sort of person that all the girls on the plantation give the best seat
+to, and help first, and love to decorate with flowers and ribbons, and
+yet all the while are laughing at him; the sort of person who likes best
+to play with Austin, and whom Austin perhaps (when he is allowed) likes
+best to play with. He is all grins and giggles, and little steps out of
+dances, and little droll ways, to attract people's attention and set
+them laughing. And yet when you come to look at him closer, you will
+find that his body is all covered with scars. This was when he was a
+child. There was a war, as is the way in these wild islands, between his
+village and the next, much as if there were war in London between one
+street and another; and all the children ran about playing in the
+middle of the trouble, and I dare say took no more notice of the war
+than you children in London do of a general election. But sometimes, at
+general elections, English children may get run over by processions in
+the street; and it chanced that as little Arick was running about in the
+bush, and very busy about his playing, he ran into the midst of the
+warriors on the other side. These speared him with a poisoned spear; and
+his own people, when they had found him lying for dead, and in order to
+cure him of the poison, cut him up with knives that were probably made
+of fish-bones.
+
+This is a very savage piece of child-life, and Arick, for all his
+good-nature, is still a very savage person. I have told you how the
+black boys sometimes run away from the plantations, and live behind
+alone in the forest, building little sheds to protect them from the
+rain, and sometimes planting little gardens of food, but for the most
+part living the best they can upon the nuts of the trees and yams that
+they dig with their hands out of the earth. I do not think there can be
+anywhere in the world people more wretched than these runaways. They
+cannot return, for they would only return to be punished. They can never
+hope to see again their own land or their own people--indeed, I do not
+know what they can hope, but just to find enough yams every day to keep
+them from starvation. And in the wet season of the year, which is our
+summer and your winter, and the rain falls day after day far harder and
+louder than the loudest thunder-plump that ever fell in England, and the
+noon is sometimes so dark that the lean man is glad to light his lamp to
+write by, I can think of nothing so dreary as the state of these poor
+runaway slaves in the houseless bush. You are to remember, besides, that
+the people of this island hate and fear them because they are cannibals,
+sit and tell tales of them about their lamps at night in their own
+comfortable houses, and are sometimes afraid to lie down to sleep if
+they think there is a lurking black boy in the neighbourhood. Well now,
+Arick is of their own race and language, only he is a little more lucky
+because he has not run away; and how do you think that he proposed to
+help them? He asked if he might not have a gun. "What do you want with a
+gun, Arick?" was asked. And he said quite simply, and with his nice
+good-natured smile, that if he had a gun he would go up into the high
+bush and shoot black boys as men shoot pigeons. He said nothing about
+eating them, nor do I think he really meant to. I think all he wanted
+was to clear the property of vermin as gamekeepers at home kill weasels,
+or housewives mice.
+
+The other day he was sent down on an errand to the German Firm where
+many of the black boys live. It was very late when he came home on a
+bright moonlight night. He had a white bandage round his head, his eyes
+shone, and he could scarcely speak for excitement. It seems some of the
+black boys who were his enemies at home had attacked him, and one with a
+knife. By his own account he had fought very well, but the odds were
+heavy; the man with the knife had cut him both in the head and back, he
+had been struck down, and if some of the black boys of his own side had
+not come to the rescue, he must certainly have been killed. I am sure no
+Christmas-box could make any of you children so happy as this fight made
+Arick. A great part of the next day he neglected his work to play upon
+the one-stringed harp and sing songs about his great victory. And
+to-day, when he is gone upon his holiday, he has announced that he is
+going back to the German Firm to have another battle and another
+triumph. I do not think he will go all the same, or I should be more
+uneasy, for I do not want to have my Arick killed; and there is no doubt
+that if he begins to fight again, he will be likely to go on with it
+very far. For I have seen him once when he saw, or thought he saw, an
+enemy. It was one of our dreadful days of rain, the sound of it like a
+great waterfall or like a tempest of wind blowing in the forest; and
+there came to our door two runaway black boys seeking work. In such
+weather as that my enemy's dog (as Shakespeare says) should have had a
+right to shelter. But when Arick saw these two poor rogues coming with
+their empty bellies and drenched clothes, and one of them with a stolen
+cutlass in his hand, through that world of falling water, he had no
+thought of pity in his heart. Crouching behind one of the pillars of the
+verandah, which he held in his two hands, his mouth drew back into a
+strange sort of smile, his eyes grew bigger and bigger, and his whole
+face was just like the one word Murder in big capitals.
+
+Now I have told you a great deal too much about poor Arick's savage
+nature, and now I must tell you about a great amusement he had the other
+day. There came an English ship of war in the harbour, and the officers
+very good naturedly gave an entertainment of songs and dances and a
+magic-lantern, to which Arick and Austin were allowed to go. At the door
+of the hall there were crowds of black boys waiting and trying to peep
+in, the way children at home lie about and peep under the tent of a
+circus; and you may be sure Arick was a very proud person when he passed
+them all by and entered the hall with his ticket. I wish I knew what he
+thought of the whole performance; but the housekeeper of the lean man,
+who sat just in front of him, tells me what seemed to startle him the
+most. The first thing was when two of the officers came out with
+blackened faces like Christy minstrel boys and began to dance. Arick was
+sure that they were really black and his own people, and he was
+wonderfully surprised to see them dance this new European style of
+dance. But the great affair was the magic-lantern. The hall was made
+quite dark, which was very little to Arick's taste. He sat there behind
+the housekeeper, nothing to be seen of him but eyes and teeth, and his
+heart beating finely in his little scarred breast. And presently there
+came out on the white sheet that great bright eye of light that I am
+sure all you children must have often seen. It was quite new to Arick,
+he had no idea what would happen next; and in his fear and excitement,
+he laid hold with his little slim black fingers like a bird's claws on
+the neck of the housekeeper in front of him. All through the rest of the
+show, as one picture followed another on the white sheet, he sat there
+gasping and clutching at the housekeeper's neck, and goodness knows
+whether he were more pleased or frightened. Doubtless it was a very fine
+thing to see all these bright pictures coming out and dying away again
+one after another; but doubtless it was rather alarming also, for how
+was it done? And at last, when there appeared upon the screen the head
+of a black woman (as it might be his own mother or sister), and the
+black woman of a sudden began to roll her eyes, the fear or the
+excitement, whichever it was, wrung out of him a loud shuddering sob.
+And I think we all ought to admire his courage when, after an evening
+spent in looking on at such wonderful miracles, he and Austin set out
+alone through the forest to the lean man's house. It was late at night
+and pitch dark when some of the party overtook the little white boy and
+the big black boy marching among the trees with their lantern. I have
+told you the wood has an ill name, and all the people of the island
+believe it to be full of devils; but even if you do not believe in the
+devils, it is a pretty dreadful place to walk in by the moving light of
+a lantern, with nothing about you but a curious whirl of shadows and the
+black night above and beyond. But Arick kept his courage up, and I dare
+say Austin's too, with a perpetual chatter, so that the people coming
+after heard his voice long before they saw the shining of the lantern.
+
+My dear Miss Boodle,--will I be asking too much that you should send me
+back my letters to the Children, or copies, if you prefer; I have an
+idea that they may perhaps help in time to make up a book on the South
+Seas for children. I have addressed the Cellar so long this time that
+you must take this note for yourself and excuse, yours most sincerely,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Thursday, 15th September [1892]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--On Tuesday, we had our young adventurer[46] ready, and
+Fanny, Belle, he and I set out about three of a dark, deadly hot, and
+deeply unwholesome afternoon. Belle had the lad behind her; I had a pint
+of champagne in either pocket, a parcel in my hands, and as Jack had a
+girth sore and I rode without a girth, I might be said to occupy a very
+unstrategic position. On the way down, a little dreary, beastly drizzle
+beginning to come out of the darkness, Fanny put up an umbrella, her
+horse bounded, reared, cannoned into me, cannoned into Belle and the
+lad, and bolted for home. It really might and ought to have been an A1
+catastrophe; but nothing happened beyond Fanny's nerves being a good
+deal shattered; of course, she could not tell what had happened to us
+until she got her horse mastered.
+
+Next day, Haggard went off to the Commission and left us in charge of
+his house; all our people came down in wreaths of flowers; we had a boat
+for them; Haggard had a flag in the Commission boat for us; and when at
+last the steamer turned up, the young adventurer was carried on board in
+great style, with a new watch and chain, and about three pound ten of
+tips, and five big baskets of fruit as free-will offerings to the
+captain. Captain Morse had us all to lunch; champagne flowed, so did
+compliments; and I did the affable celebrity life-sized. It made a great
+send-off for the young adventurer. As the boat drew off, he was standing
+at the head of the gangway, supported by three handsome ladies--one of
+them a real full-blown beauty, Madame Green, the singer--and looking
+very engaging himself, between smiles and tears. Not that he cried in
+public. My, but we were a tired crowd! However, it is always a blessing
+to get home, and this time it was a sort of wonder to ourselves that we
+got back alive. Casualties: Fanny's back jarred, horse incident; Belle,
+bad headache, tears, and champagne; self, idiocy, champagne, fatigue;
+Lloyd, ditto, ditto. As for the adventurer, I believe he will have a
+delightful voyage for his little start in life. But there is always
+something touching in a mite's first launch.
+
+_Date unknown._--I am now well on with the third part of the
+_Debacle_.[47] The two first I liked much; the second completely
+knocking me; so far as it has gone, this third part appears the
+ramblings of a dull man who has forgotten what he has to say--he reminds
+me of an M.P. But Sedan was really great, and I will pick no holes. The
+batteries under fire, the red-cross folk, the county charge--perhaps,
+above all, Major Bouroche and the operations, all beyond discussion; and
+every word about the Emperor splendid.
+
+_September 30th._--_David Balfour_ done, and its author along with it,
+or nearly so. Strange to think of even our doctor here repeating his
+nonsense about debilitating climate. Why, the work I have been doing the
+last twelve months, in one continuous spate, mostly with annoying
+interruptions and without any collapse to mention, would be incredible
+in Norway. But I _have_ broken down now, and will do nothing as long as
+I possibly can. With _David Balfour_ I am very well pleased; in fact
+these labours of the last year--I mean _Falesa_ and _D. B._, not Samoa,
+of course--seem to me to be nearer what I mean than anything I have ever
+done; nearer what I mean by fiction; the nearest thing before was
+_Kidnapped_. I am not forgetting the _Master of Ballantrae_, but that
+lacked all pleasurableness, and hence was imperfect in essence. So you
+see, if I am a little tired, I do not repent.
+
+The third part of the _Debacle_ may be all very fine; but I cannot read
+it. It suffers from _impaired vitality_, and _uncertain aim_; two deadly
+sicknesses. Vital--that's what I am at, first: wholly vital, with a
+buoyancy of life. Then lyrical, if it may be, and picturesque, always
+with an epic value of scenes, so that the figures remain in the mind's
+eye for ever.
+
+_October 8th._--Suppose you sent us some of the catalogues of the
+parties what vends statutes? I don't want colossal Herculeses, but about
+quarter size and less. If the catalogues were illustrated it would
+probably be found a help to weak memories. These may be found to
+alleviate spare moments, when we sometimes amuse ourselves by thinking
+how fine we shall make the palace if we do not go pop. Perhaps in the
+same way it might amuse you to send us any pattern of wall paper that
+might strike you as cheap, pretty, and suitable for a room in a hot and
+extremely bright climate. It should be borne in mind that our climate
+can be extremely dark too. Our sitting-room is to be in varnished wood.
+The room I have particularly in mind is a sort of bed and sitting-room,
+pretty large, lit on three sides, and the colour in favour of its
+proprietor at present is a topazy yellow. But then with what colour to
+relieve it? For a little work-room of my own at the back, I should
+rather like to see some patterns of unglossy--well, I'll be hanged if I
+can describe this red--it's not Turkish and it's not Roman and it's not
+Indian, but it seems to partake of the two last, and yet it can't be
+either of them, because it ought to be able to go with vermillion. Ah,
+what a tangled web we weave--anyway, with what brains you have left
+choose me and send me some--many--patterns of this exact shade.
+
+A few days ago it was Haggard's birthday and we had him and his cousin
+to dinner--bless me if I ever told you of his cousin!--he is here
+anyway, and a fine, pleasing specimen, so that we have concluded (after
+our own happy experience) that the climate of Samoa must be favourable
+to cousins.[48] Then we went out on the verandah in a lovely moonlight,
+drinking port, hearing the cousin play and sing, till presently we were
+informed that our boys had got up a siva in Lafaele's house to which we
+were invited. It was entirely their own idea. The house, you must
+understand, is one-half floored, and one-half bare earth, and the dais
+stands a little over knee high above the level of the soil. The dais was
+the stage, with three footlights. We audience sat on mats on the floor,
+and the cook and three of our work-boys, sometimes assisted by our two
+ladies, took their places behind the footlights and began a topical
+Vailima song. The burden was of course that of a Samoan popular song
+about a white man who objects to all that he sees in Samoa. And there
+was of course a special verse for each one of the party--Lloyd was
+called the dancing man (practically the Chief's handsome son) of
+Vailima; he was also, in his character I suppose of overseer, compared
+to a policeman--Belle had that day been the almoner in a semi-comic
+distribution of wedding rings and thimbles (bought cheap at an auction)
+to the whole plantation company, fitting a ring on every man's finger,
+and a ring and a thimble on both the women's. This was very much in
+character with her native name _Teuila_, the adorner of the ugly--so of
+course this was the point of her verse and at a given moment all the
+performers displayed the rings upon their fingers. Pelema (the
+cousin--our cousin) was described as watching from the house and
+whenever he saw any boy not doing anything, running and doing it
+himself. Fanny's verse was less intelligible, but it was accompanied in
+the dance with a pantomime of terror well-fitted to call up her
+haunting, indefatigable and diminutive presence in a blue gown.
+
+
+
+
+TO GORDON BROWNE
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa [Autumn 1892]._
+
+  _To the Artist who did the illustrations to "Uma."_
+
+DEAR SIR,--I only know you under the initials G. B., but you have done
+some exceedingly spirited and satisfactory illustrations to my story
+_The Beach of Falesa_, and I wish to write and thank you expressly for
+the care and talent shown. Such numbers of people can do good black and
+whites! So few can illustrate a story, or apparently read it. You have
+shown that you can do both, and your creation of Wiltshire is a real
+illumination of the text. It was exactly so that Wiltshire dressed and
+looked, and you have the line of his nose to a nicety. His nose is an
+inspiration. Nor should I forget to thank you for Case, particularly in
+his last appearance. It is a singular fact--which seems to point still
+more directly to inspiration in your case--that your missionary actually
+resembles the flesh-and-blood person from whom Mr. Tarleton was drawn.
+The general effect of the islands is all that could be wished; indeed I
+have but one criticism to make, that in the background of Case taking
+the dollar from Mr. Tarleton's head--head--not hand, as the fools have
+printed it--the natives have a little too much the look of Africans.
+
+But the great affair is that you have been to the pains to illustrate my
+story instead of making conscientious black and whites of people sitting
+talking. I doubt if you have left unrepresented a single pictorial
+incident. I am writing by this mail to the editor in the hopes that I
+may buy from him the originals, and I am, dear sir, your very much
+obliged,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS MORSE
+
+
+   The next is an answer to an acknowledgment from a lady in the United
+   States, one of many similar which he from time to time received, of
+   help and encouragement derived from his writings.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoan Islands, October 7th, 1892._
+
+DEAR MADAM,--I have a great diffidence in answering your valued letter.
+It would be difficult for me to express the feelings with which I read
+it--and am now trying to re-read it as I dictate this.
+
+You ask me to forgive what you say "must seem a liberty," and I find
+that I cannot thank you sufficiently or even find a word with which to
+qualify your letter. Dear Madam, such a communication even the vainest
+man would think a sufficient reward for a lifetime of labour. That I
+should have been able to give so much help and pleasure to your sister
+is the subject of my grateful wonder.
+
+That she, being dead, and speaking with your pen, should be able to
+repay the debt with such a liberal interest, is one of those things that
+reconcile us with the world and make us take hope again. I do not know
+what I have done to deserve so beautiful and touching a compliment; and
+I feel there is but one thing fit for me to say here, that I will try
+with renewed courage to go on in the same path, and to deserve, if not
+to receive, a similar return from others.
+
+You apologise for speaking so much about yourselves. Dear Madam, I
+thought you did so too little. I should have wished to have known more
+of those who were so sympathetic as to find a consolation in my work,
+and so graceful and so tactful as to acknowledge it in such a letter as
+was yours.
+
+Will you offer to your mother the expression of a sympathy which (coming
+from a stranger) must seem very airy, but which yet is genuine; and
+accept for yourself my gratitude for the thought which inspired you to
+write to me and the words which you found to express it.
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS TAYLOR
+
+
+   Lady Taylor had died soon after the settlement of the Stevenson
+   family at Vailima. The second paragraph refers to a test which had
+   been set before an expert in the reading of character by handwriting.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoan Islands, October 7th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR IDA,--I feel very much the implied reproof in yours just
+received; but I assure you there is no fear of our forgetting either
+Una or yourself, or your dear mother, who was one of the women I have
+most admired and loved in the whole of my way through life. The truth is
+that Fanny writes to nobody and that I am on the whole rather
+overworked. I compose lots of letters to lots of unforgotten friends,
+but when it comes to taking the pen between my fingers there are many
+impediments. Hence it comes that I am now writing to you by an
+amanuensis, at which I know you will be very angry. Well, it was
+Hobson's choice. A little while ago I had very bad threatenings of
+scrivener's cramp; and if Belle (Fanny's daughter, of whom you remember
+to have heard) had not taken up the pen for my correspondence, I doubt
+you would never have heard from me again except in the way of books. I
+wish you and Una would be so good as to write to us now and then even
+without encouragement. An unsolicited letter would be almost certain
+(sooner or later, depending on the activity of the conscience) to
+produce some sort of an apology for an answer.
+
+All this upon one condition: that you send me your friend's description
+of my looks, age and character. The character of my work I am not so
+careful about. But did you ever hear of anything so tantalizing as for
+you to tell me the story and not send me your notes? I expect it was a
+device to extract an answer; and, as you see, it has succeeded. Let me
+suggest (if your friend be handy) that the present letter would be a
+very delicate test. It is in one person's handwriting, it expresses the
+ideas of another, of the writer herself you know nothing. I should be
+very curious to know what the sibyl will make of such a problem.
+
+If you carry out your design of settling in London you must be sure and
+let us have the new address. I swear we shall write some time--and if
+the interval be long you must just take it on your own head for
+prophesying horrors. You remember how you always said we were but an
+encampment of Bedouins, and that you would awake some morning to find
+us fled for ever. Nothing unsettled me more than these ill-judged
+remarks. I was doing my best to be a sedentary semi-respectable man in a
+suburban villa; and you were always shaking your head at me and assuring
+me (what I knew to be partly true) that it was all a farce. Even here,
+when I have sunk practically all that I possess, and have good health
+and my fill of congenial fighting, and could not possibly get away if I
+wanted ever so--even here and now the recollection of these infidel
+prophesies rings in my ears like an invitation to the sea. _Tu l'as
+voulu!_
+
+I know you want some of our news, and it is all so far away that I know
+not when to begin. We have a big house and we are building another--pray
+God that we can pay for it. I am just reminded that we have no less than
+eight several places of habitation in this place, which was a piece of
+uncleared forest some three years ago. I think there are on my pay rolls
+at the present moment thirteen human souls, not counting two washerwomen
+who come and go. In addition to this I am at daggers drawn with the
+Government, have had my correspondence stopped and opened by the Chief
+Justice--it was correspondence with the so-called Rebel King,--and have
+had boys examined and threatened with deportation to betray the secrets
+of my relations with the same person. In addition to this I might direct
+attention to those trifling exercises of the fancy, my literary works,
+and I hope you won't think that I am likely to suffer from ennui. Nor is
+Fanny any less active. Ill or well, rain or shine, a little blue
+indefatigable figure is to be observed howking about certain patches of
+garden. She comes in heated and bemired up to the eyebrows, late for
+every meal. She has reached a sort of tragic placidity. Whenever she
+plants anything new the boys weed it up. Whenever she tries to keep
+anything for seed the house-boys throw it away. And she has reached that
+pitch of a kind of noble dejection that she would almost say she did not
+mind. Anyway, her cabbages have succeeded. Talolo (our native cook, and
+a very good one too) likened them the other day to the head of a German;
+and even this hyperbolical image was grudging. I remember all the
+trouble you had with servants at the Roost. The most of them were
+nothing to the trances that we have to go through here at times, when I
+have to hold a bed of justice, and take evidence which is never twice
+the same, and decide, practically blindfold, and after I have decided
+have the accuser take back the accusation in block and beg for mercy for
+the culprit. Conceive the annoyance of all this when you are very fond
+of both.--Your affectionate friend,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, Oct. 10th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--It is now, as you see, the 10th of October, and
+there has not reached the Island of Upolu one single copy, or rag of a
+copy, of the Samoa book. I lie; there has come one, and that in the
+pocket of a missionary man who is at daggers drawn with me, who lends it
+to all my enemies, conceals it from all my friends, and is bringing a
+lawsuit against me on the strength of expressions in the same which I
+have forgotten, and now cannot see. This is pretty tragic, I think you
+will allow; and I was inclined to fancy it was the fault of the Post
+Office. But I hear from my sister-in-law Mrs. Sanchez that she is in the
+same case, and has received no _Footnote_. I have also to consider that
+I had no letter from you last mail, although you ought to have received
+by that time "My Grandfather and Scott," and "Me and my Grandfather."
+Taking one consideration with another, therefore, I prefer to conceive
+that No. 743 Broadway has fallen upon gentle and continuous slumber, and
+is become an enchanted palace among publishing houses. If it be not so,
+if the _Footnotes_ were really sent, I hope you will fall upon the Post
+Office with all the vigour you possess. How does _The Wrecker_ go in the
+States? It seems to be doing exceptionally well in England.--Yours
+sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This letter contains the first announcement of the scheme of _Weir of
+   Hermiston_.
+
+     _Vailima, October 28th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is very late to begin the monthly budget, but I
+have a good excuse this time, for I have had a very annoying fever with
+symptoms of sore arm, and in the midst of it a very annoying piece of
+business which suffered no delay or idleness....
+
+The consequence of all this was that my fever got very much worse and
+your letter has not been hitherto written. But, my dear fellow, do
+compare these little larky fevers with the fine, healthy, prostrating
+colds of the dear old dead days at home. Here was I, in the middle of a
+pretty bad one, and I was able to put it in my pocket, and go down day
+after day, and attend to and put my strength into this beastly business.
+Do you see me doing that with a catarrh? And if I had done so, what
+would have been the result?
+
+Last night, about four o'clock, Belle and I set off to Apia, whither my
+mother had preceded us. She was at the Mission; we went to Haggard's.
+There we had to wait the most unconscionable time for dinner. I do not
+wish to speak lightly of the Amanuensis, who is unavoidably present, but
+I may at least say for myself that I was as cross as two sticks. Dinner
+came at last, we had the tinned soup which is usually the _piece de
+resistance_ in the halls of Haggard, and we pitched into it. Followed an
+excellent salad of tomatoes and crayfish, a good Indian curry, a tender
+joint of beef, a dish of pigeons, a pudding, cheese and coffee. I was so
+over-eaten after this "hunger and burst" that I could scarcely move; and
+it was my sad fate that night in the character of the local author to
+eloquute before the public--"Mr. Stevenson will read a selection from
+his own works"--a degrading picture. I had determined to read them the
+account of the hurricane; I do not know if I told you that my book has
+never turned up here, or rather only one copy has, and that in the
+unfriendly hands of ----. It has therefore only been seen by enemies;
+and this combination of mystery and evil report has been greatly
+envenomed by some ill-judged newspaper articles from the States.
+Altogether this specimen was listened to with a good deal of
+uncomfortable expectation on the part of the Germans, and when it was
+over was applauded with unmistakable relief. The public hall where these
+revels came off seems to be unlucky for me; I never go there but to some
+stone-breaking job. Last time it was the public meeting of which I must
+have written you; this time it was this uneasy but not on the whole
+unsuccessful experiment. Belle, my mother, and I rode home about
+midnight in a fine display of lightning and witch-fires. My mother is
+absent, so that I may dare to say that she struck me as voluble. The
+Amanuensis did not strike me the same way; she was probably thinking,
+but it was really rather a weird business, and I saw what I have never
+seen before, the witch-fires gathered into little bright blue points
+almost as bright as a night-light.
+
+_Saturday._--This is the day that should bring your letter; it is gray
+and cloudy and windless; thunder rolls in the mountain; it is a quarter
+past six, and I am alone, sir, alone in this workman's house, Belle and
+Lloyd having been down all yesterday to meet the steamer; they were
+scarce gone with most of the horses and all the saddles, than there
+began a perfect picnic of the sick and maim; Iopu with a bad foot,
+Faauma with a bad shoulder, Fanny with yellow spots. It was at first
+proposed to carry all these to the doctor, particularly Faauma, whose
+shoulder bore an appearance of erysipelas, that sent the amateur below.
+No horses, no saddle. Now I had my horse and I could borrow Lafaele's
+saddle; and if I went alone I could do a job that had long been waiting;
+and that was to interview the doctor on another matter. Off I set in a
+hazy moonlight night; windless, like to-day; the thunder rolling in the
+mountain, as to-day; in the still groves, these little mushroom lamps
+glowing blue and steady, singly or in pairs. Well, I had my interview,
+said everything as I had meant, and with just the result I hoped for.
+The doctor and I drank beer together and discussed German literature
+until nine, and we parted the best of friends. I got home to a silent
+house of sleepers, only Fanny awaiting me; we talked awhile, in
+whispers, on the interview; then, I got a lantern and went across to the
+workman's house, now empty and silent, myself sole occupant. So to bed,
+prodigious tired but mighty content with my night's work, and to-day,
+with a headache and a chill, have written you this page, while my new
+novel waits. Of this I will tell you nothing, except the various names
+under consideration. First, it ought to be called--but of course that is
+impossible--
+
+  _Braxfield._[49]
+
+Then it _is_ to be called either
+
+      _Weir of Hermiston,
+      The Lord-Justice Clerk,
+  The Two Kirsties of the Cauldstaneslap_,
+
+                  or
+
+       _The Four Black Brothers_.
+
+Characters:
+
+  Adam Weir, Lord-Justice Clerk, called Lord Hermiston.
+  Archie, his son.
+  Aunt Kirstie Elliott, his housekeeper at Hermiston.
+  Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap, her brother.
+  Kirstie Elliott, his daughter.
+  Jim,    \
+  Gib,     |
+  Hob       > his sons.
+  &        |
+  Dandie, /
+  Patrick Innes, a young advocate.
+  The Lord-Justice General.
+
+Scene, about Hermiston in the Lammermuirs and in Edinburgh. Temp. 1812.
+So you see you are to have another holiday from copra! The rain begins
+softly on the iron roof, and I will do the reverse and--dry up.
+
+_Sunday._--Yours with the diplomatic private opinion received. It is
+just what I should have supposed. _Ca m'est bien egal._--The name is to
+be
+
+  _The Lord-Justice Clerk._
+
+None others are genuine. Unless it be
+
+  _Lord-Justice Clerk Hermiston._
+
+_Nov. 2nd._--On Saturday we expected Captain Morse of the _Alameda_ to
+come up to lunch, and on Friday with genuine South Sea hospitality had a
+pig killed. On the Saturday morning no pig. Some of the boys seemed to
+give a doubtful account of themselves; our next neighbour below in the
+wood is a bad fellow and very intimate with some of our boys, for whom
+his confounded house is like a fly-paper for flies. To add to all this,
+there was on the Saturday a great public presentation of food to the
+king and parliament men, an occasion on which it is almost dignified for
+a Samoan to steal anything, and entirely dignified for him to steal a
+pig.
+
+(The Amanuensis went to the _talolo_, as it is called, and saw something
+so very pleasing she begs to interrupt the letter to tell it. The
+different villagers came in in bands--led by the maid of the village,
+followed by the young warriors. It was a very fine sight, for some three
+thousand people are said to have assembled. The men wore nothing but
+magnificent head-dresses and a bunch of leaves, and were oiled and
+glistening in the sunlight. One band had no maid but was led by a tiny
+child of about five--a serious little creature clad in a ribbon of grass
+and a fine head-dress, who skipped with elaborate leaps in front of the
+warriors, like a little kid leading a band of lions.      A.M.)
+
+The A.M. being done, I go on again. All this made it very possible that
+even if none of our boys had stolen the pig, some of them might know the
+thief. Besides, the theft, as it was a theft of meat prepared for a
+guest, had something of the nature of an insult, and "my face," in
+native phrase, "was ashamed." Accordingly, we determined to hold a bed
+of justice. It was done last night after dinner. I sat at the head of
+the table, Graham on my right hand, Henry Simele at my left, Lloyd
+behind him. The house company sat on the floor around the walls--twelve
+all told. I am described as looking as like Braxfield as I could manage
+with my appearance; Graham, who is of a severe countenance, looked like
+Rhadamanthus; Lloyd was hideous to the view; and Simele had all the fine
+solemnity of a Samoan chief. The proceedings opened by my delivering a
+Samoan prayer, which may be translated thus--"Our God, look down upon us
+and shine into our hearts. Help us to be far from falsehood so that each
+one of us may stand before Thy Face in his integrity."--Then, beginning
+with Simele, every one came up to the table, laid his hand on the Bible,
+and repeated clause by clause after me the following oath--I fear it may
+sound even comic in English, but it is a very pretty piece of Samoan,
+and struck direct at the most lively superstitions of the race. "This is
+the Holy Bible here that I am touching. Behold me, O God! If I know who
+it was that took away the pig, or the place to which it was taken, or
+have heard anything relating to it, and shall not declare the same--be
+made an end of by God this life of mine!" They all took it with so much
+seriousness and firmness that (as Graham said) if they were not innocent
+they would make invaluable witnesses. I was so far impressed by their
+bearing that I went no further, and the funny and yet strangely solemn
+scene came to an end.
+
+_Sunday, Nov. 6th._--Here is a long story to go back upon, and I wonder
+if I have either time or patience for the task?
+
+Wednesday I had a great idea of match-making, and proposed to Henry that
+Faale would make a good wife for him. I wish I had put this down when it
+was fresher in my mind, it was so interesting an interview. My gentleman
+would not tell if I were on or not. "I do not know yet; I will tell you
+next week. May I tell the sister of my father? No, better not, tell her
+when it is done."--"But will not your family be angry if you marry
+without asking them?"--"My village? What does my village want? Mats!" I
+said I thought the girl would grow up to have a great deal of sense, and
+my gentleman flew out upon me; she had sense now, he said.
+
+Thursday, we were startled by the note of guns, and presently after
+heard it was an English warship. Graham and I set off at once, and as
+soon as we met any towns-folk they began crying to me that I was to be
+arrested. It was the _Vossische Zeitung_ article which had been quoted
+in a paper. Went on board and saw Captain Bourke; he did not even
+know--not even guess--why he was here; having been sent off by cablegram
+from Auckland. It is hoped the same ship that takes this off Europewards
+may bring his orders and our news. But which is it to be? Heads or
+tails? If it is to be German, I hope they will deport me; I should
+prefer it so; I do not think that I could bear a German officialdom, and
+should probably have to leave _sponte mea_, which is only less
+picturesque and more expensive.
+
+_8th._--Mail day. All well, not yet put in prison, whatever may be in
+store for me. No time even to sign this lame letter.
+
+
+
+
+To J. M. BARRIE
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, November 1st, 1892._
+
+DEAR MR. BARRIE,--I can scarce thank you sufficiently for your extremely
+amusing letter. No, _The Auld Licht Idyls_ never reached me--I wish it
+had, and I wonder extremely whether it would not be good for me to have
+a pennyworth of the Auld Licht pulpit. It is a singular thing that I
+should live here in the South Seas under conditions so new and so
+striking, and yet my imagination so continually inhabit that cold old
+huddle of grey hills from which we come. I have just finished _David
+Balfour_; I have another book on the stocks, _The Young Chevalier_,
+which is to be part in France and part in Scotland, and to deal with
+Prince Charlie about the year 1749; and now what have I done but begun a
+third which is to be all moorland together, and is to have for a
+centre-piece a figure that I think you will appreciate--that of the
+immortal Braxfield--Braxfield himself is my _grand premier_, or, since
+you are so much involved in the British drama, let me say my heavy
+lead....
+
+Your descriptions of your dealings with Lord Rintoul are frightfully
+unconscientious. You should never write about anybody until you persuade
+yourself at least for the moment that you love him, above all anybody on
+whom your plot revolves. It will always make a hole in the book; and, if
+he has anything to do with the mechanism, prove a stick in your
+machinery. But you know all this better than I do, and it is one of your
+most promising traits that you do not take your powers too seriously.
+_The Little Minister_ ought to have ended badly; we all know it did; and
+we are infinitely grateful to you for the grace and good feeling with
+which you lied about it. If you had told the truth, I for one could
+never have forgiven you. As you had conceived and written the earlier
+parts, the truth about the end, though indisputably true to fact, would
+have been a lie, or what is worse, a discord in art. If you are going to
+make a book end badly, it must end badly from the beginning. Now your
+book began to end well. You let yourself fall in love with, and fondle,
+and smile at your puppets. Once you had done that, your honour was
+committed--at the cost of truth to life you were bound to save them. It
+is the blot on _Richard Feverel_, for instance, that it begins to end
+well; and then tricks you and ends ill. But in that case there is worse
+behind, for the ill-ending does not inherently issue from the plot--the
+story _had_, in fact, _ended well_ after the great last interview
+between Richard and Lucy--and the blind, illogical bullet which smashes
+all has no more to do between the boards than a fly has to do with the
+room into whose open window it comes buzzing. It _might_ have so
+happened; it needed not; and unless needs must, we have no right to pain
+our readers. I have had a heavy case of conscience of the same kind
+about my Braxfield story. Braxfield--only his name is Hermiston--has a
+son who is condemned to death; plainly, there is a fine tempting fitness
+about this; and I meant he was to hang. But now on considering my minor
+characters, I saw there were five people who would--in a sense who
+must--break prison and attempt his rescue. They were capable, hardy
+folks, too, who might very well succeed. Why should they not then? Why
+should not young Hermiston escape clear out of the country? and be
+happy, if he could, with his----. But soft! I will not betray my secret
+or my heroine. Suffice it to breathe in your ear that she was what
+Hardy calls (and others in their plain way don't) a Pure Woman.[50] Much
+virtue in a capital letter, such as yours was.
+
+Write to me again in my infinite distance. Tell me about your new book.
+No harm in telling _me_; I am too far off to be indiscreet; there are
+too few near me who would care to hear. I am rushes by the riverside,
+and the stream is in Babylon: breathe your secrets to me fearlessly; and
+if the Trade Wind caught and carried them away, there are none to catch
+them nearer than Australia, unless it were the Tropic Birds. In the
+unavoidable absence of my amanuensis, who is buying eels for dinner, I
+have thus concluded my dispatch, like St. Paul, with my own hand.
+
+And in the inimitable words of Lord Kames, Faur ye weel, ye
+bitch.--Yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. L. BURLINGAME
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Nov. 2nd, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--In the first place, I have to acknowledge receipt
+of your munificent cheque for three hundred and fifty dollars. Glad you
+liked the Scott voyage; rather more than I did upon the whole. As the
+proofs have not turned up at all, there can be no question of returning
+them, and I am therefore very much pleased to think you have arranged
+not to wait. The volumes of Adams arrived along with yours of October
+6th. One of the dictionaries has also blundered home, apparently from
+the Colonies; the other is still to seek. I note and sympathise with
+your bewilderment as to _Falesa_. My own direct correspondence with Mr.
+Baxter is now about three months in abeyance. Altogether you see how
+well it would be if you could do anything to wake up the Post Office.
+Not a single copy of the _Footnote_ has yet reached Samoa, but I hear of
+one having come to its address in Hawaii. Glad to hear good news of
+Stoddard.--Yours sincerely,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+_P.S._--Since the above was written an aftermath of post matter came in,
+among which were the proofs of _My Grandfather_. I shall correct and
+return them, but as I have lost all confidence in the Post Office, I
+shall mention here: first galley, 4th line from the bottom, for "AS"
+read "OR."
+
+Should I ever again have to use my work without waiting for proofs, bear
+in mind this golden principle. From a congenital defect, I must suppose,
+I am unable to write the word OR--wherever I write it the printer
+unerringly puts AS--and those who read for me had better, wherever it is
+possible, substitute _or_ for _as_. This the more so since many writers
+have a habit of using as which is death to my temper and confusion to my
+face.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO LIEUTENANT EELES
+
+
+   The following is addressed to one of Stevenson's best friends among
+   the officers of H.M.S. the Curacoa, which had been for some time on
+   the South Pacific station.
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoan Islands, November 15th, 1892._
+
+DEAR EELES,--In the first place, excuse me writing to you by another
+hand, as that is the way in which alone all my correspondence gets
+effected. Before I took to this method, or rather before I found a
+victim, it simply didn't get effected.
+
+Thank you again and again, first for your kind thought of writing to me,
+and second for your extremely amusing and interesting letter. You can
+have no guess how immediately interesting it was to our family. First of
+all, the poor soul at Nukufetau is an old friend of ours, and we have
+actually treated him ourselves on a former visit to the island. I don't
+know if Hoskin would approve of our treatment; it consisted, I believe,
+mostly in a present of stout and a recommendation to put nails in his
+watertank. We also (as you seem to have done) recommended him to leave
+the island; and I remember very well how wise and kind we thought his
+answer. He had half-caste children (he said) who would suffer and
+perhaps be despised if he carried them elsewhere; if he left them there
+alone, they would almost certainly miscarry; and the best thing was that
+he should stay and die with them. But the cream of the fun was your
+meeting with Buckland. We not only know him, but (as the French say) we
+don't know anybody else; he is our intimate and adored original;
+and--prepare your mind--he was, is, and ever will be, TOMMY HADDON![51]
+As I don't believe you to be inspired, I suspect you to have suspected
+this. At least it was a mighty happy suspicion. You are quite right:
+Tommy is really "a good chap," though about as comic as they make them.
+
+I was extremely interested in your Fiji legend, and perhaps even more so
+in your capital account of the _Curacoa's_ misadventure. Alas! we have
+nothing so thrilling to relate. All hangs and fools on in this isle of
+mis-government, without change, though not without novelty, but wholly
+without hope, unless perhaps you should consider it hopeful that I am
+still more immediately threatened with arrest. The confounded thing is,
+that if it comes off, I shall be sent away in the _Ringarooma_ instead
+of the _Curacoa_. The former ship burst upon us by the run--she had been
+sent off by despatch and without orders--and to make me a little more
+easy in my mind she brought newspapers clamouring for my incarceration.
+Since then I have had a conversation with the German Consul. He said he
+had read a review of my Samoa book, and if the review were fair, must
+regard it as an insult, and one that would have to be resented. At the
+same time, I learn that letters addressed to the German squadron lie for
+them here in the Post Office. Reports are current of other English ships
+being on the way--I hope to goodness yours will be among the number. And
+I gather from one thing and another that there must be a holy row going
+on between the powers at home, and that the issue (like all else
+connected with Samoa) is on the knees of the gods. One thing, however,
+is pretty sure--_if_ that issue prove to be a German protectorate, I
+shall have to tramp. Can you give us any advice as to a fresh field of
+energy? We have been searching the atlas, and it seems difficult to fill
+the bill. How would Rarotonga do? I forget if you have been there. The
+best of it is that my new house is going up like winking, and I am
+dictating this letter to the accompaniment of saws and hammers. A
+hundred black boys and about a score draught oxen perished, or at least
+barely escaped with their lives, from the mud holes on our road,
+bringing up the materials. It will be a fine legacy to H.I.G.M.'s
+protectorate, and doubtless the Governor will take it for his country
+house.[51] The Ringarooma people, by the way, seem very nice. I liked
+Stansfield particularly.
+
+Our middy[53] has gone up to San Francisco in pursuit of the phantom
+Education. We have good word of him, and I hope he will not be in
+disgrace again, as he was when the hope of the British Navy--need I say
+that I refer to Admiral Burney?--honoured us last. The next time you
+come, as the new house will be finished, we shall be able to offer you a
+bed. Nares and Meiklejohn may like to hear that our new room is to be
+big enough to dance in. It will be a very pleasant day for me to see the
+_Curacoa_ in port again and at least a proper contingent of her officers
+"skipping in my 'all."
+
+We have just had a feast on my birthday at which we had three of the
+Ringaroomas, and I wish they had been three Curacoas--say yourself,
+Hoskin, and Burney the ever Great. (Consider this an invitation.) Our
+boys had got the thing up regardless. There were two huge sows--O,
+brutes of animals that would have broken down a hansom cab--four smaller
+pigs, two barrels of beef, and a horror of vegetables and fowls. We sat
+down between forty and fifty in a big new native house behind the
+kitchen that you have never seen, and ate and public spoke till all was
+blue. Then we had about half an hour's holiday with some beer and sherry
+and brandy and soda to restrengthen the European heart, and then out to
+the old native house to see a siva. Finally, all the guests were packed
+off in a trackless black night and down a road that was rather fitted
+for the _Curacoa_ than any human pedestrian, though to be sure I do not
+know the draught of the _Curacoa_. My ladies one and all desire to be
+particularly remembered to our friends on board, and all look forward,
+as I do myself, in the hope of your return.--Yours sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+And let me hear from you again!
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   The following extract gives a hint of Stevenson's intended management
+   of one of the most difficult points in the plot of _Weir of
+   Hermiston_.
+
+     _1st Dec. '92._
+
+... I have a novel on the stocks to be called _The Justice-Clerk_. It is
+pretty Scotch, the Grand Premier is taken from Braxfield--(Oh, by the
+by, send me Cockburn's _Memorials_)--and some of the story
+is--well--queer. The heroine is seduced by one man, and finally
+disappears with the other man who shot him.... Mind you, I expect _The
+Justice-Clerk_ to be my masterpiece. My Braxfield is already a thing of
+beauty and a joy for ever, and so far as he has gone _far_ my best
+character.
+
+[_Later._]--Second thought. I wish Pitcairn's _Criminal Trials quam
+primum_. Also, an absolutely correct text of the Scots judiciary oath.
+
+Also, in case Pitcairn does not come down late enough, I wish as full a
+report as possible of a Scotch murder trial between 1790-1820.
+Understand, _the fullest possible_.
+
+Is there any book which would guide me as to the following facts?
+
+The Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally on circuit. Certain
+evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to the J.-C.'s own son.
+Of course, in the next trial the J.-C. is excluded, and the case is
+called before the Lord-Justice General.
+
+Where would this trial have to be? I fear in Edinburgh, which would not
+suit my view. Could it be again at the circuit town?
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     [_Nov. 30, 1892._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Another grimy little odd and end of paper, for which
+you shall be this month repaid in kind, and serve you jolly well
+right.... This is a strange life I live, always on the brink of
+deportation, men's lives in the scale--and, well, you know my character:
+if I were to pretend to you that I was not amused, you would justly
+scorn me. The new house is roofed; it will be a braw house, and what is
+better, I have my yearly bill in, and I find I can pay for it. For all
+which mercies, etc. I must have made close on L4,000 this year all told;
+but, what is not so pleasant, I seem to have come near to spending them.
+I have been in great alarm, with this new house on the cards, all
+summer, and came very near to taking in sail, but I live here so
+entirely on credit, that I determined to hang on.
+
+_Dec. 1st._--I was saying yesterday that my life was strange and did not
+think how well I spoke. Yesterday evening I was briefed to defend a
+political prisoner before the Deputy Commissioner. What do you think of
+that for a vicissitude?
+
+_Dec. 3rd._--Now for a confession. When I heard you and Cassells had
+decided to print _The Bottle Imp_ along with _Falesa_, I was too much
+disappointed to answer. _The Bottle Imp_ was the _piece de resistance_
+for my volume, _Island Nights' Entertainments_. However, that volume
+might have never got done; and I send you two others in case they should
+be in time.
+
+First have _The Beach of Falesa_.
+
+Then a fresh false title: ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS; and then
+
+_The Bottle Imp_: a cue from an old melodrama.
+
+_The Isle of Voices._
+
+_The Waif Woman_; a cue from a _saga_.
+
+Of course these two others are not up to the mark of _The Bottle Imp_;
+but they each have a certain merit, and they fit in style. By saying "a
+cue from an old melodrama" after the _B. I._, you can get rid of my
+note. If this is in time, it will be splendid, and will make quite a
+volume.
+
+Should you and Cassells prefer, you can call the whole volume _I. N.
+E._--though the _Beach of Falesa_ is the child of a quite different
+inspiration. They all have a queer realism, even the most extravagant,
+even the _Isle of Voices_; the manners are exact.
+
+Should they come too late, have them type-written and return to me here
+the type-written copies.
+
+_Sunday, Dec 4th._--3rd start,--But now more humbly and with the aid of
+an Amanuensis. First one word about page 2. My wife protests against
+_The Waif Woman_ and I am instructed to report the same to you.[54]...
+
+_Dec. 5th._--A horrid alarm rises that our October mail was burned
+crossing the Plains. If so, you lost a beautiful long letter--I am sure
+it was beautiful though I remember nothing about it--and I must say I
+think it serves you properly well. That I should continue writing to you
+at such length is simply a vicious habit for which I blush. At the same
+time, please communicate at once with Charles Baxter whether you have or
+have not received a letter posted here Oct. 12th, as he is going to
+cable me the fate of my mail.
+
+Now to conclude my news. The German Firm have taken my book like angels,
+and the result is that Lloyd and I were down there at dinner on
+Saturday, where we partook of fifteen several dishes and eight distinct
+forms of intoxicating drink. To the credit of Germany, I must say there
+was not a shadow of a headache the next morning. I seem to have done as
+well as my neighbours, for I hear one of the clerks expressed the next
+morning a gratified surprise that Mr. Stevenson stood his drink so well.
+It is a strange thing that any race can still find joy in such athletic
+exercises. I may remark in passing that the mail is due and you have had
+far more than you deserve.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN
+
+
+     _December 5th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--... So much said, I come with guilty speed to
+what more immediately concerns myself. Spare us a month or two for old
+sake's sake, and make my wife and me happy and proud. We are only
+fourteen days from San Francisco, just about a month from Liverpool; we
+have our new house almost finished. The thing _can_ be done; I believe
+we can make you almost comfortable. It is the loveliest climate in the
+world, our political troubles seem near an end. It can be done, _it
+must_! Do, please, make a virtuous effort, come and take a glimpse of a
+new world I am sure you do not dream of, and some old friends who do
+often dream of your arrival.
+
+Alas, I was just beginning to get eloquent, and there goes the lunch
+bell, and after lunch I must make up the mail.
+
+Do come. You must not come in February or March--bad months. From April
+on it is delightful.--Your sincere friend,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+     _December 5th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR JAMES,--How comes it so great a silence has fallen? The still
+small voice of self-approval whispers me it is not from me. I have
+looked up my register, and find I have neither written to you nor heard
+from you since June 22nd, on which day of grace that invaluable work
+began. This is not as it should be. How to get back? I remember
+acknowledging with rapture _The Lesson of the Master_, and I remember
+receiving _Marbot_: was that our last relation?
+
+Hey, well! anyway, as you may have probably gathered from the papers, I
+have been in devilish hot water, and (what may be new to you) devilish
+hard at work. In twelve calendar months I finished _The Wrecker_, wrote
+all of _Falesa_ but the first chapter, (well, much of) _The History of
+Samoa_, did something here and there to my Life of my Grandfather, and
+began And Finished _David Balfour_. What do you think of it for a year?
+Since then I may say I have done nothing beyond draft three chapters of
+another novel, _The Justice-Clerk_, which ought to be a snorter and a
+blower--at least if it don't make a spoon, it will spoil the horn of an
+Aurochs (if that's how it should be spelt).
+
+On the hot water side it may entertain you to know that I have been
+actually sentenced to deportation by my friends on Mulinuu, C.J.
+Cedercrantz, and Baron Senfft von Pilsach. The awful doom, however,
+declined to fall, owing to Circumstances over Which. I only heard of it
+(so to speak) last night. I mean officially, but I had walked among
+rumours. The whole tale will be some day put into my hand, and I shall
+share it with humorous friends.
+
+It is likely, however, by my judgment, that this epoch of gaiety in
+Samoa will soon cease; and the fierce white light of history will beat
+no longer on Yours Sincerely and his fellows here on the beach. We ask
+ourselves whether the reason will more rejoice over the end of a
+disgraceful business, or the unregenerate man more sorrow over the
+stoppage of the fun. For, say what you please, it has been a deeply
+interesting time. You don't know what news is, nor what politics, nor
+what the life of man, till you see it on so small a scale and with your
+own liberty on the board for stake. I would not have missed it for much.
+And anxious friends beg me to stay at home and study human nature in
+Brompton drawing-rooms! _Farceurs!_ And anyway you know that such is not
+my talent. I could never be induced to take the faintest interest in
+Brompton _qua_ Brompton or a drawing-room _qua_ a drawing-room. I am an
+Epick Writer with a k to it, but without the necessary genius.
+
+Hurry up with another book of stories. I am now reduced to two of my
+contemporaries, you and Barrie--O, and Kipling--you and Barrie and
+Kipling are now my Muses Three. And with Kipling, as you know, there are
+reservations to be made. And you and Barrie don't write enough. I should
+say I also read Anstey when he is serious, and can almost always get a
+happy day out of Marion Crawford--_ce n'est pas toujours la guerre_, but
+it's got life to it and guts, and it moves. Did you read the _Witch of
+Prague_? Nobody could read it twice, of course; and the first time even
+it was necessary to skip. _E pur si muove._ But Barrie is a beauty, the
+_Little Minister_ and the _Window in Thrums_, eh? Stuff in that young
+man; but he must see and not be too funny. Genius in him, but there's a
+journalist at his elbow--there's the risk. Look, what a page is the
+glove business in the _Window_! knocks a man flat; that's guts, if you
+please.
+
+Why have I wasted the little time that is left with a sort of naked
+review article? I don't know, I'm sure. I suppose a mere ebullition of
+congested literary talk. I am beginning to think a visit from friends
+would be due. Wish you could come!
+
+Let us have your news anyway, and forgive this silly stale
+effusion.--Yours ever,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+To J. M. BARRIE
+
+     [_Vailima, December 1892._]
+
+DEAR J. M. BARRIE,--You will be sick of me soon; I cannot help it. I
+have been off my work for some time, and re-read the _Edinburgh Eleven_,
+and had a great mind to write a parody and give you all your sauce back
+again, and see how you would like it yourself. And then I read (for the
+first time--I know not how) the _Window in Thrums_; I don't say that it
+is better than the _Minister_; it's less of a tale--and there is a
+beauty, a material beauty, of the tale _ipse_, which clever critics
+nowadays long and love to forget; it has more real flaws; but somehow it
+is--well, I read it last anyway, and it's by Barrie. And he's the man
+for my money. The glove is a great page; it is startlingly original, and
+as true as death and judgment. Tibbie Birse in the Burial is great, but
+I think it was a journalist that got in the word "official." The same
+character plainly had a word to say to Thomas Haggard. Thomas affects me
+as a lie--I beg your pardon; doubtless he was somebody you knew; that
+leads people so far astray. The actual is not the true.
+
+I am proud to think you are a Scotchman--though to be sure I know
+nothing of that country, being only an English tourist, quo' Gavin
+Ogilvy. I commend the hard case of Mr. Gavin Ogilvy to J. M. Barrie,
+whose work is to me a source of living pleasure and heartfelt national
+pride. There are two of us now that the Shirra might have patted on the
+head. And please do not think when I thus seem to bracket myself with
+you, that I am wholly blinded with vanity. Jess is beyond my frontier
+line; I could not touch her skirt; I have no such glamour of twilight on
+my pen. I am a capable artist; but it begins to look to me as if you
+were a man of genius. Take care of yourself for my sake. It's a devilish
+hard thing for a man who writes so many novels as I do, that I should
+get so few to read. And I can read yours, and I love them.
+
+A pity for you that my amanuensis is not on stock to-day, and my own
+hand perceptibly worse than usual.--Yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+     _December 5th, 1892._
+
+_P.S._--They tell me your health is not strong. Man, come out here and
+try the Prophet's chamber. There's only one bad point to us--we do rise
+early. The Amanuensis states that you are a lover of silence--and that
+ours is a noisy house--and she is a chatterbox--I am not answerable for
+these statements, though I do think there is a touch of garrulity about
+my premises. We have so little to talk about, you see. The house is
+three miles from town, in the midst of great silent forests. There is a
+burn close by, and when we are not talking you can hear the burn, and
+the birds, and the sea breaking on the coast three miles away and six
+hundred feet below us, and about three times a month a bell--I don't
+know where the bell is, nor who rings it; it may be the bell in Hans
+Andersen's story for all I know. It is never hot here--86 in the shade
+is about our hottest--and it is never cold except just in the early
+mornings. Take it for all in all, I suppose this island climate to be by
+far the healthiest in the world--even the influenza entirely lost its
+sting. Only two patients died, and one was a man nearly eighty, and the
+other a child below four months. I won't tell you if it is beautiful,
+for I want you to come here and see for yourself. Everybody on the
+premises except my wife has some Scotch blood in their veins--I beg your
+pardon--except the natives--and then my wife is a Dutchwoman--and the
+natives are the next thing conceivable to Highlanders before the
+forty-five. We would have some grand cracks!
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+Come, it will broaden your mind, and be the making of me.
+
+
+
+
+To CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   This correspondent had lately been on a tour in Sweden.
+
+     _[Vailima] December 28th, 1892._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--Your really decent letter to hand. And here I am
+answering it, to the merry note of the carpenter's hammer, in an upper
+room of the New House. This upper floor is almost done now, but the
+Grrrrrreat 'All below is still unlined; it is all to be varnished
+redwood. I paid a big figure but do not repent; the trouble has been so
+minimised, the work has been so workmanlike, and all the parties have
+been so obliging. What a pity when you met the Buried Majesty of
+Sweden--the sovereign of my Cedercrantz--you did not breathe in his ear
+a word of Samoa!
+
+  O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,
+  Conceive how his plump carcase pants
+  To leave the spot he now is tree'd in,
+  And skip with all the dibbs to Sweden.
+  O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,
+  The lowly plea I now advantz;
+  Remove this man of light and leadin'
+  From us to more congenial Sweden.
+
+This kind of thing might be kept up a Lapland night. "Let us bury the
+great joke"--Shade of Tennyson, forgive!
+
+I am glad to say, you can scarce receive the second bill for the house
+until next mail, which gives more room to turn round in. Yes, my rate of
+expenditure is hellish. It is funny, it crept up and up; and when we sat
+upon one vent another exploded. Lloyd and I grew grey over the monthly
+returns; but every damned month, there is a new extra. However, we
+always hope the next will prove less recalcitrant; in which faith we
+advance trembling.
+
+The desiderated advertisement, I think I have told you, was mighty near
+supplied: that is, if deportation would suit your view: the ship was
+actually sought to be hired. Yes, it would have been an advertisement,
+and rather a lark, and yet a blooming nuisance. For my part, I shall try
+to do without.
+
+No one has thought fit to send me Atalanta[55]; and I have no proof at
+all of _D. Balfour_, which is far more serious. How about the _D. B._
+map? As soon as there is a proof it were well I should see it to accord
+the text thereto--or t'other way about if needs must. Remember I had to
+go much on memory in writing that work. Did you observe the dedication?
+and how did you like it? If it don't suit you, I am to try my hand
+again.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [32] Editors and publishers (since those days we have been _deniaises_
+    with a vengeance) had actually been inclined to shy at the terms of
+    the fraudulent marriage contract, which is the pivot of the whole
+    story; see below, p. 187.
+
+  [33] For a lively account of this plantation and its history, see
+    Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_, chap. i.
+
+  [34] The native wife of a carpenter in Apia.
+
+  [35] The sequel to _Kidnapped_, published in the following year under
+    the title _Catriona_.
+
+  [36] Most of the work on the plantations in Samoa is done by "black
+    boys," _i.e._ imported labourers from other (Melanesian) islands.
+
+  [37] By Howard Pyle.
+
+  [38] In answer to the obvious remark that the length and style of
+    _The Wrecker_, then running in Scribner's Magazine, were out of
+    keeping with what professed at the outset to be a spoken yarn.
+
+  [39] Of Ballantrae: the story is the unfinished _Young Chevalier_.
+
+  [40] Afterwards changed into _The Ebb Tide_.
+
+  [41] Wordsworth's _Ode to Duty_, a shade misquoted.
+
+  [42] "Kava, properly Ava, is a drink more or less intoxicating, made
+    from the root of the _Piper Methysticum_, a Pepper plant. The root
+    is grated: formerly it was chewed by fair damsels. The root thus
+    broken up is rubbed about in a great pail, with water slowly added.
+    A strainer of bark cloth is plunged into it at times, and wrung out
+    so as to carry away the small fragments of root. The drink is made
+    and used in ceremony. Every detail is regulated by rules, and the
+    manner of the mixture of the water, the straining, the handling of
+    the cup, the drinking out of it and returning, should all be done
+    according to a well-established manner and in certain cadences." I
+    borrow this explanation from the late Mr. Lafarge's notes to his
+    catalogue of South Sea Drawings. It may serve to make clearer
+    several passages in later letters of the present collection. Readers
+    of the late Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_ will remember the
+    account of this beverage and its preparation in Chap. viii. of that
+    volume.
+
+  [43] Referring to the marriage contract in the _Beach of Falesa:_ see
+    above, p. 152.
+
+  [44] This about the consulship was only a passing notion on the part
+    of R. L. S. No vacancy occurred, and in his correspondence he does
+    not recur to the subject.
+
+  [45] I had not cared to send him the story as thus docked and
+    rechristened in its serial shape.
+
+  [46] Austin Strong, on his way to school in California.
+
+  [47] By Emile Zola.
+
+  [48] The reference is to the writer's maternal cousin, Mr. Graham
+    Balfour (_Samoice_, "Pelema"), who during these months and again
+    later was an inmate of the home at Vailima: see above, p. 223.
+
+  [49] Robert MacQueen, Lord Braxfield, the "Hanging Judge,"
+    (1722-1799). This historical personage furnished the conception of
+    the chief character, but by no means the details or incidents of the
+    story, which is indeed dated some years after his death.
+
+  [50] The allusion is to _Tess_: a book R. L. S. did not like.
+
+  [51] A character in _The Wrecker_.
+
+  [52] Exactly what in the end actually happened.
+
+  [53] Austin Strong.
+
+  [54] This tale was withheld from the volume accordingly.
+
+  [55] The magazine in which _Catriona_ first appeared in this
+    country, under the title _David Balfour_.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+LIFE IN SAMOA--_Continued_
+
+THIRD YEAR AT VAILIMA
+
+JANUARY-DECEMBER 1893
+
+
+By the New Year of 1893 the fine addition to the house at Vailima was
+finished, and its pleasantness and comfort went far to console Stevenson
+for the cost. But the year was on the whole a less fortunate one for the
+inmates than the last. A proclamation concerning penalties for sedition
+in the Samoan Islands, which from its tenor could have been aimed at no
+one else but Stevenson, had been issued at the close of 1892 by the High
+Commissioner at Fiji; and with its modification and practical
+withdrawal, by order of the Foreign Office at home, the last threat of
+unpleasant consequences in connection with his political action
+disappeared. But a sharp second attack of influenza in January lowered
+his vitality, and from a trip which the family took for the sake of
+change to Sydney, in the month of February, they returned with health
+unimproved. In April the illness of Mrs. Stevenson caused her husband
+some weeks of acute distress and anxiety. In August he suffered the
+chagrin of witnessing the outbreak of the war which he had vainly
+striven to prevent between the two rival kings, and the defeat and
+banishment of Mataafa, whom he knew to be the one man of governing
+capacity among the native chiefs, and whom, in the interest alike of
+whites and natives, he had desired to see the Powers not crush, but
+conciliate. On the other hand, he had the satisfaction of seeing the
+Chief Justice and President removed from the posts they had so
+incompetently filled, and superseded by new and better men. The task
+imposed by the three Powers upon these officials was in truth an
+impossible one; but their characters and endeavours earned respect, and
+with the American Chief Justice in particular, Mr. C. J. Ide (whom he
+had already known as one of the Land Commissioners), and with his family
+the Vailima household lived on terms of cordial friendship. In September
+Stevenson took a health-trip to Honolulu, which again turned out
+unsuccessful. For some weeks he was down with a renewed attack of fever
+and prostration, and his wife had to come from Samoa to nurse and fetch
+him home. Later in the autumn he mended again.
+
+During no part of the year were Stevenson's working powers up to the
+mark. In the early summer he finished _The Ebb Tide_, but on a plan much
+abridged from its original intention, and with an unusual degree of
+strain and effort. With _St. Ives_ and his own family history he made
+fair progress, but both of these he regarded as in a manner holiday
+tasks, not calling for any very serious exercise of his powers. In
+connection with the latter, he took an eager interest, as his
+correspondence will show, in the researches which friends and kinsmen
+undertook for him in Scotland. He fell into arrears in regard to one or
+two magazine stories for which he had contracted; and with none of his
+more ambitious schemes of romance, _Sophia Scarlet_, _The Young
+Chevalier_, _Heathercat_, and _Weir of Hermiston_, did he feel himself
+well able to cope. This falling-off of his power of production brought
+with it no small degree of inward strain and anxiety. He had not yet
+put by any provision for his wife and step-family (the income from the
+moderate fortune left by his father naturally going to his mother during
+her life). His earnings had since 1887 been considerable, at the rate of
+L4,000 a year or thereabouts; but his building expenses and large mode
+of life at Vailima, together with his habitual generosity, which scarce
+knew check or limit, towards the less fortunate of his friends and
+acquaintances in various parts of the world, made his expenditure about
+equal to his income. The idea originally entertained of turning part of
+the Vailima estate into a profitable plantation turned out chimerical.
+The thought began to haunt him, What if his power of earning were soon
+to cease? And occasional signs of inward depression and life-weariness
+began to appear in his correspondence. But it was only in writing, and
+then but rarely, that he let such signs appear: to those about him he
+retained the old affectionate charm and inspiring gaiety undiminished,
+fulfilling without failure the words of his own prayer, "Give us to
+awake with smiles, give us to labour smiling; as the sun lightens the
+world, so let our loving-kindness make bright this house of our
+habitation."
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] January 1893._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--You are properly paid at last, and it is like you will
+have but a shadow of a letter. I have been pretty thoroughly out of
+kilter; first a fever that would neither come on nor go off, then acute
+dyspepsia, in the weakening grasp of which I get wandering between the
+waking state and one of nightmare. Why the devil does no one send me
+Atalanta? And why are there no proofs of _D. Balfour_? Sure I should
+have had the whole, at least the half, of them by now; and it would be
+all for the advantage of the Atalantans. I have written to Cassell & Co.
+(matter of _Falesa_) "you will please arrange with him" (meaning you).
+"What he may decide I shall abide." So consider your hand free, and act
+for me without fear or favour. I am greatly pleased with the
+illustrations. It is very strange to a South-Seayer to see Hawaiian
+women dressed like Samoans, but I guess that's all one to you in
+Middlesex. It's about the same as if London city men were shown going to
+the Stock Exchange as _pifferari_; but no matter, none will sleep worse
+for it. I have accepted Cassell's proposal as an amendment to one of
+mine; that _D. B._ is to be brought out first under the title _Catriona_
+without pictures; and, when the hour strikes, _Kidnapped_ and _Catriona_
+are to form vols. I. and II. of the heavily illustrated _Adventures of
+David Balfour_ at 7s. 6d. each, sold separately.
+
+----'s letter was vastly sly and dry and shy.[56] I am not afraid now.
+Two attempts have been made, both have failed, and I imagine these
+failures strengthen me. Above all this is true of the last, where my
+weak point was attempted. On every other, I am strong. Only force can
+dislodge me, for public opinion is wholly on my side. All races and
+degrees are united in heartfelt opposition to the Men of Mulinuu. The
+news of the fighting was of no concern to mortal man; it was made much
+of because men love talk of battles, and because the Government pray God
+daily for some scandal not their own; but it was only a brisk episode in
+a clan fight which has grown apparently endemic in the west of Tutuila.
+At the best it was a twopenny affair, and never occupied my mind five
+minutes.
+
+I am so weary of reports that are without foundation and threats that go
+without fulfilment, and so much occupied besides by the raging troubles
+of my own wame, that I have been very slack on politics, as I have been
+in literature. With incredible labour, I have rewritten the First
+Chapter of the _Justice-Clerk_; it took me about ten days, and requires
+another athletic dressing after all. And that is my story for the month.
+The rest is grunting and grutching.
+
+Consideranda for _The Beach_:--
+
+I. Whether to add one or both the tales I sent you?
+
+II. Whether to call the whole volume _Island Nights' Entertainments_?
+
+III. Whether, having waited so long, it would not be better to give me
+another mail, in case I could add another member to the volume and a
+little better justify the name?
+
+If I possibly can draw up another story, I will. What annoyed me about
+the use of _The Bottle Imp_ was that I had always meant it for the
+centre-piece of a volume of _Maerchen_ which I was slowly to elaborate.
+You always had an idea that I depreciated the _B. I._; I can't think
+wherefore; I always particularly liked it--one of my best works, and ill
+to equal; and that was why I loved to keep it in portfolio till I had
+time to grow up to some other fruit of the same _venue_. However, that
+is disposed of now, and we must just do the best we can.
+
+I am not aware that there is anything to add; the weather is hellish,
+waterspouts, mists, chills, the foul fiend's own weather, following on a
+week of expurgated heaven; so it goes at this bewildering season. I
+write in the upper floor of my new house, of which I will send you some
+day a plan to measure. 'Tis an elegant structure, surely, and the proid
+of me oi. Was asked to pay for it just now, and genteelly refused, and
+then agreed, in view of general good-will, to pay a half of what is
+still due.
+
+_24th January 1893._--This ought to have gone last mail and was
+forgotten. My best excuse is that I was engaged in starting an
+influenza, to which class of exploit our household has been since then
+entirely dedicated. We had eight cases, one of them very bad, and
+one--mine--complicated with my old friend Bluidy Jack.[57] Luckily
+neither Fanny, Lloyd, or Belle took the confounded thing, and they were
+able to run the household and nurse the sick to admiration.
+
+Some of our boys behaved like real trumps. Perhaps the prettiest
+performance was that of our excellent Henry Simele, or, as we sometimes
+call him, Davy Balfour. Henry, I maun premeese, is a chief; the humblest
+Samoan recoils from emptying slops as you would from cheating at cards;
+now the last nights of our bad time, when we had seven down together, it
+was enough to have made anybody laugh or cry to see Henry going the
+rounds with a slop-bucket and going inside the mosquito net of each of
+the sick, Protestant and Catholic alike, to pray with them.
+
+I must tell you that in my sickness I had a huge alleviation and began a
+new story. This I am writing by dictation, and really think it is an art
+I can manage to acquire. The relief is beyond description; it is just
+like a school-treat to me, and the amanuensis bears up extraordinar'.
+The story is to be called _St. Ives_; I give you your choice whether or
+not it should bear the sub-title, "Experiences of a French prisoner in
+England." We were just getting on splendidly with it, when this cursed
+mail arrived and requires to be attended to. It looks to me very like as
+if _St. Ives_ would be ready before any of the others, but you know me
+and how impossible it is I should predict. The Amanuensis has her head
+quite turned and believes herself to be the author of this novel (and is
+to some extent)--and as the creature (!) has not been wholly useless in
+the matter (I told you so! A.M.) I propose to foster her vanity by a
+little commemoration gift! The name of the hero is Anne de St. Yves--he
+Englishes his name to St. Ives during his escape. It is my idea to get a
+ring made which shall either represent _Anne_ or A. S. Y. A., of course,
+would be Amethyst and S. Sapphire, which is my favourite stone anyway
+and was my father's before me. But what would the ex-Slade professor do
+about the letter Y? Or suppose he took the other version, how would he
+meet the case, the two N.'s? These things are beyond my knowledge, which
+it would perhaps be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I place the
+matter in the meanwhile under your consideration and beg to hear your
+views. I shall tell you on some other occasion and when the A.M. is out
+of hearing how _very_ much I propose to invest in this testimonial; but
+I may as well inform you at once that I intend it to be cheap, sir,
+damned cheap! My idea of running amanuenses is by praise, not pudding,
+flattery and not coins! I shall send you when the time is ripe a ring to
+measure by.
+
+To resume our sad tale. After the other seven were almost wholly
+recovered Henry lay down to influenza on his own account. He is but just
+better and it looks as though Fanny were about to bring up the rear. As
+for me, I am all right, though I _was_ reduced to dictating _Anne_ in
+the deaf-and-dumb alphabet, which I think you will admit is a _comble_.
+
+Politics leave me extraordinary cold. It seems that so much of my
+purpose has come off, and Cedercrantz and Pilsach are sacked. The rest
+of it has all gone to water. The triple-headed ass at home, in his
+plenitude of ignorance, prefers to collect the taxes and scatter the
+Mataafas by force or the threat of force. It may succeed, and I suppose
+it will. It is none the less for that expensive, harsh, unpopular and
+unsettling. I am young enough to have been annoyed, and altogether eject
+and renegate the whole idea of political affairs. Success in that field
+appears to be the organisation of failure enlivened with defamation of
+character; and, much as I love pickles and hot water (in your true
+phrase) I shall take my pickles in future from Crosse and Blackwell and
+my hot water with a dose of good Glenlivat.
+
+Do not bother at all about the wall-papers. We have had the whole of our
+new house varnished, and it looks beautiful. I wish you could see the
+hall; poor room, it had to begin life as an infirmary during our recent
+visitation; but it is really a handsome comely place, and when we get
+the furniture, and the pictures, and what is so very much more
+decorative, the picture frames, will look sublime.
+
+_Jan. 30th._--I have written to Charles asking for Rowlandson's _Syntax_
+and _Dance of Death_ out of our house, and begging for anything about
+fashions and manners (fashions particularly) for 1814. Can you help?
+Both the Justice Clerk and St. Ives fall in that fated year. Indeed I
+got into St. Ives while going over the Annual Register for the other.
+There is a kind of fancy list of Chaps. of St. Ives. (It begins in
+Edin^b Castle.) I. Story of a lion rampant (that was a toy he had made,
+and given to a girl visitor). II. Story of a pair of scissors. III. St.
+Ives receives a bundle of money. IV. St. Ives is shown a house. V. The
+Escape. VI. The Cottage (Swanston Cottage). VII. The Hen-house. VIII.
+Three is company and four none. IX. The Drovers. X. The Great North
+Road. XI. Burchell Fenn. XII. The covered cart. XIII. The doctor. XIV.
+The Luddites. XV. Set a thief to catch a thief. XVI. M. le Comte de
+Kerouaille (his uncle, the rich _emigre_, whom he finds murdered). XVII.
+The cousins. XVIII. Mr. Sergeant Garrow. XIX. A meeting at the Ship,
+Dover. XX. Diane. XXI. The Duke's Prejudices. XXII. The False Messenger.
+XXIII. The gardener's ladder. XXIV. The officers. XXV. Trouble with the
+Duke. XXVI. Fouquet again. XXVII. The Aeronaut. XXVIII. The True-Blooded
+Yankee. XXIX. In France. I don't know where to stop. Apropos, I want a
+book about Paris, and the _first return_ of the _emigres_ and all up to
+the _Cent Jours_: d'ye ken anything in my way? I want in particular to
+know about them and the Napoleonic functionaries and officers, and to
+get the colour and some vital details of the business of exchange of
+departments from one side to the other.[58] Ten chapters are drafted,
+and VIII. re-copied by me, but will want another dressing for luck. It
+is merely a story of adventure, rambling along; but that is perhaps the
+guard that "sets my genius best," as Alan might have said. I wish I
+could feel as easy about the other! But there, all novels are a heavy
+burthen while they are doing, and a sensible disappointment when they
+are done.
+
+For God's sake, let me have a copy of the new German Samoa White Book.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   Telling how the projected tale, _The Pearl Fisher_, had been cut down
+   and in its new form was to be called _The Schooner Farallone_
+   (afterwards changed to _The Ebb Tide_).
+
+     [_Vailima, February 1893._]
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have had the influenza, as I believe you know: this
+has been followed by two goes of my old friend Bloodie Jacke, and I have
+had fefe--the island complaint--for the second time in two months. All
+this, and the fact that both my womenkind require to see a doctor: and
+some wish to see Lord Jersey before he goes home: all send me off on a
+month's holiday to Sydney. I may get my mail: or I may not: depends on
+freight, weather, and the captain's good-nature--he is one of those who
+most religiously fear Apia harbour: it is quite a superstition with
+American captains. (Odd note: American sailors, who make British hair
+grey by the way they carry canvas, appear to be actually _more_ nervous
+when it comes to coast and harbour work.) This is the only holiday I
+have had for more than 2 years; I dare say it will be as long again
+before I take another. And I am going to spend a lot of money. Ahem!
+
+On the other hand, you can prepare to dispose of the serial rights of
+the _Schooner Farallone:_ a most grim and gloomy tale. It will run to
+something between _Jekyll and Hyde_ and _Treasure Island_. I will not
+commit myself beyond this, but I anticipate from 65 to 70,000 words,
+could almost pledge myself not shorter than 65,000, but won't. The tale
+can be sent as soon as you have made arrangements; I hope to finish it
+in a month; six weeks, bar the worst accidents, for certain. I should
+say this is the butt end of what was once _The Pearl Fisher_. There is a
+peculiarity about this tale in its new form: it ends with a conversion!
+We have been tempted rather to call it _The Schooner Farallone: a tract
+by R. L. S._ and _L. O._ It would make a boss tract; the three main
+characters--and there are only four--are barats, insurance frauds,
+thieves and would-be murderers; so the company's good. Devil a woman
+there, by good luck; so it's "pure." 'Tis a most--what's the
+expression?--unconventional work.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _At Sea, s.s._ Mariposa, _Feb. 19th, '93_.
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--You will see from this heading that I am not dead yet
+nor likely to be. I was pretty considerably out of sorts, and that is
+indeed one reason why Fanny, Belle, and I have started out for a month's
+lark. To be quite exact, I think it will be about five weeks before we
+get home. We shall stay between two and three in Sydney. Already, though
+we only sailed yesterday, I am feeling as fit as a fiddle. Fanny ate a
+whole fowl for breakfast, to say nothing of a tower of hot cakes. Belle
+and I floored another hen betwixt the pair of us, and I shall be no
+sooner done with the present amanuensing racket than I shall put myself
+outside a pint of Guinness. If you think this looks like dying of
+consumption in Apia I can only say I differ from you. In the matter of
+_David_, I have never yet received my proofs at all, but shall certainly
+wait for your suggestions. Certainly, Chaps. 17 to 20 are the hitch, and
+I confess I hurried over them with both wings spread. This is doubtless
+what you complain of. Indeed, I placed my single reliance on Miss Grant.
+If she couldn't ferry me over, I felt I had to stay there.
+
+About _Island Nights' Entertainments_ all you say is highly
+satisfactory. Go in and win.
+
+The extracts from the Times I really cannot trust myself to comment
+upon. They were infernally satisfactory; so, and perhaps still more so,
+was a letter I had at the same time from Lord Pembroke. If I have time
+as I go through Auckland, I am going to see Sir George Grey.
+
+Now I really think that's all the business. I have been rather sick and
+have had two small hemorrhages, but the second I believe to have been
+accidental. No good denying that this annoys, because it do. However,
+you must expect influenza to leave some harm, and my spirits, appetite,
+peace on earth and goodwill to men are all on a rising market. During
+the last week the amanuensis was otherwise engaged, whereupon I took up,
+pitched into, and about one half demolished another tale, once intended
+to be called _The Pearl Fisher_, but now razeed and called _The Schooner
+Farallone_.[59] We had a capital start, the steamer coming in at
+sunrise, and just giving us time to get our letters ere she sailed
+again. The manager of the German Firm (O strange, changed days!) danced
+attendance upon us all morning; his boat conveyed us to and from the
+steamer.
+
+_Feb. 21st._--All continues well. Amanuensis bowled over for a day, but
+afoot again and jolly; Fanny enormously bettered by the voyage; I have
+been as jolly as a sand-boy as usual at sea. The Amanuensis sits
+opposite to me writing to her offspring. Fanny is on deck. I have just
+supplied her with the Canadian Pacific Agent, and so left her in good
+hands. You should hear me at table with the Ulster purser and a little
+punning microscopist called Davis. Belle does some kind of abstruse
+Boswell-ising; after the first meal, having gauged the kind of jests
+that would pay here, I observed, "Boswell is Barred during this cruise."
+
+_23rd._--We approach Auckland and I must close my mail. All goes well
+with the trio. Both the ladies are hanging round a beau--the same--that
+I unearthed for them: I am general provider, and especially great in the
+beaux business. I corrected some proofs for Fanny yesterday afternoon,
+fell asleep over them in the saloon--and the whole ship seems to have
+been down beholding me. After I woke up, had a hot bath, a whisky punch
+and a cigarette, and went to bed, and to sleep too, at 8.30; a
+recrudescence of Vailima hours. Awoke to-day, and had to go to the
+saloon clock for the hour--no sign of dawn--all heaven grey rainy fog.
+Have just had breakfast, written up one letter, register and close this.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+  Bad pen, bad ink,      _S.S._ Mariposa, _at Sea_.
+  bad light, bad         _Apia due by daybreak to-morrow,
+  blotting-paper.     9 p.m._ [_March 1st, 1893._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Have had an amusing but tragic holiday, from which we
+return in disarray. Fanny quite sick, but I think slowly and steadily
+mending; Belle in a terrific state of dentistry troubles which now seem
+calmed; and myself with a succession of gentle colds out of which I at
+last succeeded in cooking up a fine pleurisy. By stopping and stewing in
+a perfectly airless state-room I seem to have got rid of the pleurisy.
+Poor Fanny had very little fun of her visit, having been most of the
+time on a diet of maltine and slops--and this while the rest of us were
+rioting on oysters and mushrooms. Belle's only devil in the hedge was
+the dentist. As for me, I was entertained at the General Assembly of the
+Presbyterian Church, likewise at a sort of artistic club; made speeches
+at both, and may therefore be said to have been, like Saint Paul, all
+things to all men. I have an account of the latter racket which I meant
+to have enclosed in this.... Had some splendid photos taken, likewise a
+medallion by a French sculptor; met Graham, who returned with us as far
+as Auckland. Have seen a good deal too of Sir George Grey; what a
+wonderful old historic figure to be walking on your arm and recalling
+ancient events and instances! It makes a man small, and yet the extent
+to which he approved what I had done--or rather have tried to
+do--encouraged me. Sir George is an expert at least, he knows these
+races: he is not a small employe with an ink-pot and a Whitaker.
+
+Take it for all in all, it was huge fun: even Fanny had some lively
+sport at the beginning; Belle and I all through. We got Fanny a dress on
+the sly, gaudy black velvet and Duchesse lace. And alas! she was only
+able to wear it once. But we'll hope to see more of it at Samoa; it
+really is lovely. Both dames are royally outfitted in silk stockings,
+etc. We return, as from a raid, with our spoils and our wounded. I am
+now very dandy: I announced two years ago that I should change. Slovenly
+youth, all right--not slovenly age. So really now I am pretty spruce;
+always a white shirt, white necktie, fresh shave, silk socks, O a great
+sight!--No more possible.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   Of the books mentioned below, _Dr. Syntax's Tour_ and Rowlandson's
+   _Dance of Death_ had been for use in furnishing customs and manners
+   in the English part of _St. Ives_; _Pitcairn_ is Pitcairn's _Criminal
+   Trials of Scotland from 1488 to 1624_. As to the name of Stevenson
+   and its adoption by some members of the proscribed clan of Macgregor,
+   Stevenson had been greatly interested by the facts laid before him by
+   his correspondent here mentioned, Mr. Macgregor Stevenson of New
+   York, and had at first delightedly welcomed the idea that his own
+   ancestors might have been fellow-clansmen of Rob Roy. But further
+   correspondence on the subject of his own descent held with a trained
+   genealogist, his namesake Mr. J. Horne Stevenson of Edinburgh,
+   convinced him that the notion must be abandoned.
+
+     [_April 1893._]
+
+... About _The Justice-Clerk_, I long to go at it, but will first try to
+get a short story done. Since January I have had two severe illnesses,
+my boy, and some heartbreaking anxiety over Fanny; and am only now
+convalescing. I came down to dinner last night for the first time, and
+that only because the service had broken down, and to relieve an
+inexperienced servant. Nearly four months now I have rested my brains;
+and if it be true that rest is good for brains, I ought to be able to
+pitch in like a giant refreshed. Before the autumn, I hope to send you
+some _Justice-Clerk_, or _Weir of Hermiston_, as Colvin seems to prefer;
+I own to indecision. Received _Syntax_, _Dance of Death_, and
+_Pitcairn_, which last I have read from end to end since its arrival,
+with vast improvement. What a pity it stops so soon! I wonder is there
+nothing that seems to prolong the series? Why doesn't some young man
+take it up? How about my old friend Fountainhall's _Decisions?_ I
+remember as a boy that there was some good reading there. Perhaps you
+could borrow me that, and send it on loan; and perhaps Laing's
+_Memorials_ therewith; and a work I'm ashamed to say I have never read,
+_Balfour's Letters_.... I have come by accident, through a
+correspondent, on one very curious and interesting fact--namely, that
+Stevenson was one of the names adopted by the Macgregors at the
+proscription. The details supplied by my correspondent are both
+convincing and amusing; but it would be highly interesting to find out
+more of this.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   These notes are in reply to a set of queries and suggestions as to
+   points that seemed to need clearing in the tale of _Catriona_, as
+   first published in Atalanta under the title _David Balfour_.
+
+     _[Vailima] April 1893._
+
+1. _Slip_ 3. Davie would be _attracted_ into a similar dialect, as he is
+later--_e.g._ with Doig, chapter XIX. This is truly Scottish.
+
+4, _to lightly_; correct; "to lightly" is a good regular Scots verb.
+
+15. See Allan Ramsay's works.
+
+15, 16. Ay, and that is one of the pigments with which I am trying to
+draw the character of Prestongrange. 'Tis a most curious thing to render
+that kind, insignificant mask. To make anything precise is to risk my
+effect. And till the day he died, Davie was never sure of what P. was
+after. Not only so; very often P. didn't know himself. There was an
+element of mere liking for Davie; there was an element of being
+determined, in case of accidents, to keep well with him. He hoped his
+Barbara would bring him to her feet, besides, and make him manageable.
+That was why he sent him to Hope Park with them. But Davie cannot
+_know_; I give you the inside of Davie, and my method condemns me to
+give only the outside both of Prestongrange and his policy.
+
+- -I'll give my mind to the technicalities. Yet to me they seem a part
+of the story, which is historical, after all.
+
+- -I think they wanted Alan to escape. But when or where to say so? I
+will try.
+
+- -20, _Dean_. I'll try and make that plainer.
+
+_Chap._ XIII., I fear it has to go without blows. If I could get the
+pair--No, can't be.
+
+- -XIV. All right, will abridge.
+
+- -XV. I'd have to put a note to every word; and he who can't read Scots
+can _never_ enjoy Tod Lapraik.
+
+- -XVII. Quite right. I _can_ make this plainer, and will.
+
+- -XVIII. I know, but I have to hurry here; this is the broken back of
+my story; some business briefly transacted, I am leaping for Barbara's
+apron-strings.
+
+_Slip_ 57. Quite right again; I shall make it plain.
+
+_Chap._ XX. I shall make all these points clear. About Lady
+Prestongrange (not _Lady_ Grant, only _Miss_ Grant, my dear, though
+_Lady_ Prestongrange, quoth the dominie) I am taken with your idea of
+her death, and have a good mind to substitute a featureless aunt.
+
+_Slip_ 78. I don't see how to lessen this effect. There is really not
+much said of it; and I know Catriona did it. But I'll try.
+
+- -89. I know. This is an old puzzle of mine. You see C.'s dialect is not
+wholly a bed of roses. If only I knew the Gaelic. Well, I'll try for
+another expression.
+
+_The end._ I shall try to work it over. James was at Dunkirk ordering
+post-horses for his own retreat. Catriona did have her suspicions
+aroused by the letter, and careless gentleman, I told you so--or she did
+at least.--Yes, the blood money.--I am bothered about the portmanteau;
+it is the presence of Catriona that bothers me; the rape of the
+pockmantie is historic....
+
+To me, I own, it seems in the proof a very pretty piece of workmanship.
+David himself I refuse to discuss; he _is_. The Lord Advocate I think a
+strong sketch of a very difficult character, James More, sufficient; and
+the two girls very pleasing creatures. But O dear me, I came near losing
+my heart to Barbara! I am not quite so constant as David, and even
+he--well, he didn't know it, anyway! _Tod Lapraik_ is a piece of living
+Scots: if I had never writ anything but that and _Thrawn Janet_, still
+I'd have been a writer. The defects of _D. B._ are inherent, I fear. But
+on the whole, I am far indeed from being displeased with the tailie. One
+thing is sure, there has been no such drawing of Scots character since
+Scott; and even he never drew a full length like Davie, with his
+shrewdness and simplicity, and stockishness and charm. Yet, you'll see,
+the public won't want it; they want more Alan! Well, they can't get it.
+And readers of _Tess_ can have no use for my David, and his innocent but
+real love affairs.
+
+I found my fame much grown on this return to civilisation. _Digito
+monstrari_ is a new experience; people all looked at me in the streets
+in Sydney; and it was very queer. Here, of course, I am only the white
+chief in the Great House to the natives; and to the whites, either an
+ally or a foe. It is a much healthier state of matters. If I lived in an
+atmosphere of adulation, I should end by kicking against the pricks. O
+my beautiful forest, O my beautiful shining, windy house, what a joy it
+was to behold them again! No chance to take myself too seriously here.
+
+The difficulty of the end is the mass of matter to be attended to, and
+the small time left to transact it in. I mean from Alan's danger of
+arrest. But I have just seen my way out, I do believe.
+
+_Easter Sunday._--I have now got as far as slip 28, and finished the
+chapter of the law technicalities. Well, these seemed to me always of
+the essence of the story, which is the story of a _cause celebre_;
+moreover, they are the justification of my inventions; if these men went
+so far (granting Davie sprung on them) would they not have gone so much
+further? But of course I knew they were a difficulty; determined to
+carry them through in a conversation; approached this (it seems) with
+cowardly anxiety; and filled it with gabble, sir, gabble. I have left
+all my facts, but have removed 42 lines. I should not wonder but what
+I'll end by re-writing it. It is not the technicalities that shocked
+you, it was my bad art. It is very strange that X. should be so good a
+chapter and IX. and XI. so uncompromisingly bad. It looks as if XI. also
+would have to be re-formed. If X. had not cheered me up, I should be in
+doleful dumps, but X. is alive anyway, and life is all in all.
+
+_Thursday, April 5th._--Well, there's no disguise possible; Fanny is not
+well, and we are miserably anxious....
+
+_Friday, 7th._--I am thankful to say the new medicine relieved her at
+once. A crape has been removed from the day for all of us. To make
+things better, the morning is ah! such a morning as you have never seen;
+heaven upon earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of
+unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment only by
+the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the rich piping of a single bird.
+You can't conceive what a relief this is; it seems a new world. She has
+such extraordinary recuperative power that I do hope for the best. I am
+as tired as man can be. This is a great trial to a family, and I thank
+God it seems as if ours was going to bear it well. And O! if it only
+lets up, it will be but a pleasant memory. We are all seedy, bar Lloyd:
+Fanny, as per above; self nearly extinct; Belle, utterly overworked and
+bad toothache; Cook, down with a bad foot; Butler, prostrate with a bad
+leg. Eh, what a faim'ly!
+
+_Sunday._--Grey heaven, raining torrents of rain; occasional thunder and
+lightning. Everything to dispirit; but my invalids are really on the
+mend. The rain roars like the sea; in the sound of it there is a strange
+and ominous suggestion of an approaching tramp; something nameless and
+measureless seems to draw near, and strikes me cold, and yet is welcome.
+I lie quiet in bed to-day, and think of the universe with a good deal of
+equanimity. I have, at this moment, but the one objection to it; the
+_fracas_ with which it proceeds. I do not love noise; I am like my
+grandfather in that; and so many years in these still islands has
+ingrained the sentiment perhaps. Here are no trains, only men pacing
+barefoot. No cars or carriages; at worst the rattle of a horse's shoes
+among the rocks. Beautiful silence; and so soon as this robustious rain
+takes off, I am to drink of it again by oceanfuls.
+
+_April 16th._--Several pages of this letter destroyed as beneath scorn;
+the wailings of a crushed worm; matter in which neither you nor I can
+take stock. Fanny is distinctly better, I believe all right now; I too
+am mending, though I have suffered from crushed wormery, which is not
+good for the body, and damnation to the soul. I feel to-night a baseless
+anxiety to write a lovely poem _a propos des bottes de ma grand'mere,
+qui etaient a revers_. I see I am idiotic. I'll try the poem.
+
+_17th._--The poem did not get beyond plovers and lovers. I am still,
+however, harassed by the unauthentic Muse; if I cared to encourage
+her--but I have not the time, and anyway we are at the vernal equinox.
+It is funny enough, but my pottering verses are usually made (like the
+God-gifted organ voice's) at the autumnal; and this seems to hold at the
+Antipodes. There is here some odd secret of Nature. I cannot speak of
+politics; we wait and wonder. It seems (this is partly a guess) Ide
+won't take the C. J. ship, unless the islands are disarmed; and that
+England hesitates and holds off. By my own idea, strongly corroborated
+by Sir George, I am writing no more letters. But I have put as many
+irons in against this folly of the disarming as I could manage. It did
+not reach my ears till nearly too late. What a risk to take! What an
+expense to incur! And for how poor a gain! Apart from the treachery of
+it. My dear fellow, politics is a vile and a bungling business. I used
+to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!
+
+_Thursday._--A general, steady advance; Fanny really quite chipper and
+jolly--self on the rapid mend, and with my eye on _forests_ that are to
+fall--and my finger on the axe, which wants stoning.
+
+_Saturday_, 22.--Still all for the best; but I am having a heartbreaking
+time over _David_. I have nearly all corrected. But have to consider
+_The Heather on Fire_, _The Wood by Silvermills_, and the last chapter.
+They all seem to me off colour; and I am not fit to better them yet. No
+proof has been sent of the title, contents, or dedication.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+   The reference in the postscript here is, I believe, to the Journals
+   of the Society for Psychical Research.
+
+     _Vailima, Apia, Samoa, April 5th, 1893._
+
+DEAR SIR,--You have taken many occasions to make yourself very agreeable
+to me, for which I might in decency have thanked you earlier. It is now
+my turn; and I hope you will allow me to offer you my compliments on
+your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
+That is the class of literature that I like when I have the toothache.
+As a matter of fact, it was a pleurisy I was enjoying when I took the
+volume up; and it will interest you as a medical man to know that the
+cure was for the moment effectual. Only the one thing troubles me; can
+this be my old friend Joe Bell?--I am, yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+_P.S._--And lo, here is your address supplied me here in Samoa! But do
+not take mine, O frolic fellow Spookist, from the same source; mine is
+wrong.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The outbreak of hostilities was at this date imminent between Mulinuu
+   (the party of Laupepa, recognised and supported by the Three Powers)
+   and Malie (the party of Mataafa).
+
+     _[Vailima] 25th April [1893]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--To-day early I sent down to Maben (Secretary of State)
+an offer to bring up people from Malie, keep them in my house, and bring
+them down day by day for so long as the negotiation should last. I have
+a favourable answer so far. This I would not have tried, had not old Sir
+George Grey put me on my mettle; "Never despair," was his word; and "I
+am one of the few people who have lived long enough to see how true that
+is." Well, thereupon I plunged in; and the thing may do me great harm,
+but yet I do not think so--for I think jealousy will prevent the trial
+being made. And at any rate it is another chance for this distracted
+archipelago of children, sat upon by a clique of fools. If, by the gift
+of God, I can do--I am allowed to try to do--and succeed: but no, the
+prospect is too bright to be entertained.
+
+To-day we had a ride down to Tanugamanono, and then by the new wood
+paths. One led us to a beautiful clearing, with four native houses;
+taro, yams, and the like, excellently planted, and old Folau--"the
+Samoan Jew"--sitting and whistling there in his new-found and
+well-deserved well-being. It was a good sight to see a Samoan thus
+before the world. Further up, on our way home, we saw the world clear,
+and the wide die of the shadow lying broad; we came but a little
+further, and found in the borders of the bush a banyan. It must have
+been 150 feet in height; the trunk, and its acolytes, occupied a great
+space; above that, in the peaks of the branches, quite a forest of ferns
+and orchids were set; and over all again the huge spread of the boughs
+rose against the bright west, and sent their shadow miles to the
+eastward. I have not often seen anything more satisfying than this vast
+vegetable.
+
+_Sunday._--A heavenly day again! the world all dead silence, save when,
+from far down below us in the woods, comes up the crepitation of the
+little wooden drum that beats to church. Scarce a leaf stirs; only now
+and again a great, cool gush of air that makes my papers fly, and is
+gone.--The king of Samoa has refused my intercession between him and
+Mataafa; and I do not deny this is a good riddance to me of a difficult
+business, in which I might very well have failed. What else is to be
+done for these silly folks?
+
+_May 12th._--And this is where I had got to, before the mail arrives
+with, I must say, a real gentlemanly letter from yourself. Sir, that is
+the sort of letter I want! Now, I'll make my little proposal.[60] I will
+accept _Child's Play_ and _Pan's Pipes_. Then I want _Pastoral_, _The
+Manse_, _The Islet_, leaving out if you like all the prefacial matter
+and beginning at I. Then the portrait of Robert Hunter, beginning
+"Whether he was originally big or little," and ending "fearless and
+gentle." So much for _Mem. and Portraits_. _Beggars_, sections I. and
+II., _Random Memories_ II., and _Lantern Bearers_; I'm agreeable. These
+are my selections. I don't know about _Pulvis et Umbra_ either, but must
+leave that to you. But just what you please.
+
+About _Davie_ I elaborately wrote last time, but still _Davie_ is not
+done; I am grinding singly at _The Ebb Tide_, as we now call the
+_Farallone_; the most of it will go this mail. About the following, let
+there be no mistake: I will not write the abstract of _Kidnapped_; write
+it who will, I will not. Boccaccio must have been a clever fellow to
+write both argument and story; I am not, _et je me recuse_.
+
+We call it _The Ebb Tide: a Trio and Quartette_; but that secondary name
+you may strike out if it seems dull to you. The book, however, falls in
+two halves, when the fourth character appears. I am on p. 82 if you want
+to know, and expect to finish on I suppose 110 or so; but it goes
+slowly, as you may judge from the fact that this three weeks past, I
+have only struggled from p. 58 to p. 82: twenty-four pages, _et encore_
+sure to be re-written, in twenty-one days. This is no prize-taker; not
+much Waverley Novels about this!
+
+_May 16th._--I believe it will be ten chapters of _The Ebb Tide_ that go
+to you; the whole thing should be completed in I fancy twelve; and the
+end will follow punctually next mail. It is my great wish that this
+might get into The Illustrated London News for Gordon Browne to
+illustrate. For whom, in case he should get the job, I give you a few
+notes. A purao is a tree giving something like a fig with flowers. He
+will find some photographs of an old marine curiosity shop in my
+collection, which may help him. Attwater's settlement is to be entirely
+overshadowed everywhere by tall palms; see photographs of Fakarava: the
+verandahs of the house are 12 ft. wide. Don't let him forget the Figure
+Head, for which I have a great use in the last chapter. It stands just
+clear of the palms on the crest of the beach at the head of the pier;
+the flag-staff not far off; the pier he will understand is perhaps three
+feet above high water, not more at any price. The sailors of the
+_Farallone_ are to be dressed like white sailors of course. For other
+things, I remit this excellent artist to my photographs.
+
+I can't think what to say about the tale, but it seems to me to go off
+with a considerable bang; in fact, to be an extraordinary work: but
+whether popular! Attwater is a no end of a courageous attempt, I think
+you will admit; how far successful is another affair. If my island ain't
+a thing of beauty, I'll be damned. Please observe Wiseman and Wishart;
+for incidental grimness, they strike me as in it. Also, kindly observe
+the Captain and _Adar_; I think that knocks spots. In short, as you see,
+I'm a trifle vainglorious. But O, it has been such a grind! The devil
+himself would allow a man to brag a little after such a crucifixion! And
+indeed I'm only bragging for a change before I return to the darned
+thing lying waiting for me on p. 88, where I last broke down. I break
+down at every paragraph, I may observe; and lie here and sweat, till I
+can get one sentence wrung out after another. Strange doom; after having
+worked so easily for so long! Did ever anybody see such a story of four
+characters?
+
+_Later, 2.30._--It may interest you to know that I am entirely _tapu_,
+and live apart in my chambers like a caged beast. Lloyd has a bad cold,
+and Graham and Belle are getting it. Accordingly, I dwell here without
+the light of any human countenance or voice, and strap away at _The Ebb
+Tide_ until (as now) I can no more. Fanny can still come, but is gone to
+glory now, or to her garden. Page 88 is done, and must be done over
+again to-morrow, and I confess myself exhausted. Pity a man who can't
+work on along when he has nothing else on earth to do! But I have
+ordered Jack, and am going for a ride in the bush presently to refresh
+the machine; then back to a lonely dinner and durance vile. I acquiesce
+in this hand of fate; for I think another cold just now would just about
+do for me. I have scarce yet recovered the two last.
+
+_May 18th._--My progress is crabwise, and I fear only IX. chapters will
+be ready for the mail. I am on p. 88 again, and with half an idea of
+going back again to 85. We shall see when we come to read: I used to
+regard reading as a pleasure in my old light days. All the house are
+down with the iffluenza in a body, except Fanny and me. The Iffluenza
+appears to become endemic here, but it has always been a scourge in the
+islands. Witness the beginning of _The Ebb Tide_, which was observed
+long before the Iffle had distinguished himself at home by such
+Napoleonic conquests. I am now of course "quite a recluse," and it is
+very stale, and there is no amanuensis to carry me over my mail, to
+which I shall have to devote many hours that would have been more
+usefully devoted to _The Ebb Tide_. For you know you can dictate at all
+hours of the day and at any odd moment; but to sit down and write with
+your red right hand is a very different matter.
+
+_May 20th._--Well, I believe I've about finished the thing, I mean as
+far as the mail is to take it. Chapter X. is now in Lloyd's hands for
+remarks, and extends in its present form to p. 93 incl. On the 12th of
+May, I see by looking back, I was on p. 82, not for the first time; so
+that I have made 11 pages in nine livelong days. Well! up a high hill he
+heaved a huge round stone. But this Flaubert business must be resisted
+in the premises. Or is it the result of iffluenza God forbid. Fanny is
+down now, and the last link that bound me to my fellow men is severed. I
+sit up here, and write, and read Renan's _Origines_, which is certainly
+devilish interesting; I read his Nero yesterday, it is very good, O,
+very good! But he is quite a Michelet; the general views, and such a
+piece of character painting, excellent; but his method sheer lunacy. You
+can see him take up the block which he had just rejected, and make of it
+the corner-stone: a maddening way to deal with authorities; and the
+result so little like history that one almost blames oneself for wasting
+time. But the time is not wasted; the conspectus is always good, and the
+blur that remains on the mind is probably just enough. I have been
+enchanted with the unveiling of Revelations. Grigsby! what a lark! And
+how picturesque that return of the false Nero! The Apostle John is
+rather discredited. And to think how one had read the thing so often,
+and never understood the attacks upon St. Paul! I remember when I was a
+child, and we came to the Four Beasts that were all over eyes, the
+sickening terror with which I was filled. If that was Heaven, what, in
+the name of Davy Jones and the aboriginal night-mare, could Hell be?
+Take it for all in all, _L'Antechrist_ is worth reading. The _Histoire
+d' Israel_ did not surprise me much; I had read those Hebrew sources
+with more intelligence than the New Testament, and was quite prepared to
+admire Ahab and Jezebel, etc. Indeed, Ahab has always been rather a hero
+of mine; I mean since the years of discretion.
+
+_May 21st._--And here I am back again on p. 85! the last chapter
+demanding an entire revision, which accordingly it is to get. And where
+my mail is to come in, God knows! This forced, violent, alembicated
+style is most abhorrent to me; it can't be helped; the note was struck
+years ago on the _Janet Nicoll_, and has to be maintained somehow; and
+I can only hope the intrinsic horror and pathos, and a kind of fierce
+glow of colour there is to it, and the surely remarkable wealth of
+striking incident, may guide our little shallop into port. If Gordon
+Browne is to get it, he should see the Brassey photographs of Papeete.
+But mind, the three waifs were never in the town; only on the beach and
+in the calaboose. By George, but it's a good thing to illustrate for a
+man like that! Fanny is all right again. False alarm! I was down
+yesterday afternoon at Papauta, and heard much growling of war, and the
+delightful news that the C. J. and the President are going to run away
+from Mulinuu and take refuge in the Tivoli hotel.
+
+_23rd. Mail day._--_The Ebb Tide_, all but (I take it) fifteen pages, is
+now in your hands--possibly only about eleven pp. It is hard to say. But
+there it is, and you can do your best with it. Personally, I believe I
+would in this case make even a sacrifice to get Gordon Browne and
+copious illustration. I guess in ten days I shall have finished with it;
+then I go next to _D. Balfour_, and get the proofs ready: a nasty job
+for me, as you know. And then? Well, perhaps I'll take a go at the
+family history. I think that will be wise, as I am so much off work. And
+then, I suppose, _Weir of Hermiston_, but it may be anything. I am
+discontented with _The Ebb Tide_, naturally; there seems such a veil of
+words over it; and I like more and more naked writing; and yet sometimes
+one has a longing for full colour and there comes the veil again. _The
+Young Chevalier_ is in very full colour, and I fear it for that
+reason.--Ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO S. R. CROCKETT
+
+
+   Glencorse Church in the Pentlands, mentioned by Stevenson with so
+   much emotion in the course of this letter, served him for the scene
+   of Chapter VI. in _Weir of Hermiston_, where his old associations and
+   feelings in connection with the place have so admirably inspired him.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, May 17th, 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,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+_P.S._--Be it known to this fluent generation that I, R. L. S., in the
+forty-third of my age and the twentieth of my professional life, wrote
+twenty-four pages in twenty-one days, working from six to eleven, and
+again in the afternoon from two to four or so, without fail or
+interruption. Such are the gifts the gods have endowed us withal: such
+was the facility of this prolific writer!
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, May 29th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR GOD-LIKE SCULPTOR,--I wish in the most delicate manner in the
+world to insinuate a few commissions:--
+
+No. 1. Is for a couple of copies of my medallion, as gilt-edged and
+high-toned as it is possible to make them. One is for our house here,
+and should be addressed as above. The other is for my friend Sidney
+Colvin, and should be addressed--Sidney Colvin, Esq., Keeper of the
+Print Room, British Museum, London.
+
+No. 2. This is a rather large order, and demands some explanation. Our
+house is lined with varnished wood of a dark ruddy colour, very
+beautiful to see; at the same time, it calls very much for gold; there
+is a limit to picture frames, and really you know there has to be a
+limit to the pictures you put inside of them. Accordingly, we have had
+an idea of a certain kind of decoration, which, I think, you might help
+us to make practical. What we want is an alphabet of gilt letters (very
+much such as people play with), and all mounted on spikes like
+drawing-pins; say two spikes to each letter, one at top, and I one at
+bottom. Say that they were this height, I I and that you chose a model
+of some really exquisitely fine, clear type from some Roman monument,
+and that they were made either of metal or some composition gilt--the
+point is, could not you, in your land of wooden houses, get a
+manufacturer to take the idea and manufacture them at a venture, so that
+I could get two or three hundred pieces or so at a moderate figure? You
+see, suppose you entertain an honoured guest, when he goes he leaves his
+name in gilt letters on your walls; an infinity of fun and decoration
+can be got out of hospitable and festive mottoes; and the doors of every
+room can be beautified by the legend of their names. I really think
+there is something in the idea, and you might be able to push it with
+the brutal and licentious manufacturer, using my name if necessary,
+though I should think the name of the god-like sculptor would be more
+germane. In case you should get it started, I should tell you that we
+should require commas in order to write the Samoan language, which is
+full of words written thus: la'u, ti'e ti'e. As the Samoan language uses
+but a very small proportion of the consonants, we should require a
+double or treble stock of all vowels, and of F, G, L, U, N, P, S, T, and
+V.
+
+The other day in Sydney, I think you might be interested to hear, I was
+sculpt a second time by a man called ----, as well as I can remember and
+read. I mustn't criticise a present, and he had very little time to do
+it in. It is thought by my family to be an excellent likeness of Mark
+Twain. This poor fellow, by the by, met with the devil of an accident. A
+model of a statue which he had just finished with a desperate effort was
+smashed to smithereens on its way to exhibition.
+
+Please be sure and let me know if anything is likely to come of this
+letter business, and the exact cost of each letter, so that I may count
+the cost before ordering.--Yours sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+  Relating the toilsome completion of _The Ebb Tide_, and beginning
+  of the account of his grandfather, Robert Stevenson, in _History of a
+  Family of Engineers_.
+
+     _[Vailima] 29th May [1893]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Still grinding at Chap. XI. I began many days ago on p.
+93, and am still on p. 93, which is exhilarating, but the thing takes
+shape all the same and should make a pretty lively chapter for an end of
+it. For XIII. is only a footnote _ad explicandum_.
+
+_June the 1st._--Back on p. 93. I was on 100 yesterday, but read it over
+and condemned it.
+
+_10 a.m._--I have worked up again to 97, but how? The deuce fly away
+with literature, for the basest sport in creation. But it's got to come
+straight! and if possible, so that I may finish _D. Balfour_ in time for
+the same mail. What a getting upstairs! This is Flaubert out-done.
+Belle, Graham, and Lloyd leave to-day on a malaga down the coast; to be
+absent a week or so: this leaves Fanny, me, and ----, who seems a nice,
+kindly fellow.
+
+_June 2nd._--I am nearly dead with dyspepsia, over-smoking, and
+unremunerative overwork. Last night, I went to bed by seven; woke up
+again about ten for a minute to find myself light-headed and altogether
+off my legs; went to sleep again, and woke this morning fairly fit. I
+have crippled on to p. 101, but I haven't read it yet, so do not boast.
+What kills me is the frame of mind of one of the characters; I cannot
+get it through. Of course that does not interfere with my total
+inability to write; so that yesterday I was a living half-hour upon a
+single clause and have a gallery of variants that would surprise you.
+And this sort of trouble (which I cannot avoid) unfortunately produces
+nothing when done but alembication and the far-fetched. Well, read it
+with mercy!
+
+_8 a.m._--Going to bed. Have read it, and believe the chapter
+practically done at last. But Lord! it has been a business.
+
+_June 3rd_, 8.15.--The draft is finished, the end of Chapter XII. and
+the tale, and I have only eight pages _wiederzuarbeiten_. This is just a
+cry of joy in passing.
+
+10.30.--Knocked out of time. Did 101 and 102. Alas, no more to-day, as I
+have to go down town to a meeting. Just as well though, as my thumb is
+about done up.
+
+_Sunday, June 4th._--Now for a little snippet of my life. Yesterday,
+12.30, in a heavenly day of sun and trade, I mounted my horse and set
+off. A boy opens my gate for me. "Sleep and long life! A blessing on
+your journey," says he. And I reply "Sleep, long life! A blessing on the
+house!" Then on, down the lime lane, a rugged, narrow, winding way, that
+seems almost as if it was leading you into Lyonesse, and you might see
+the head and shoulders of a giant looking in. At the corner of the road
+I meet the inspector of taxes, and hold a diplomatic interview with him;
+he wants me to pay taxes on the new house; I am informed I should not
+till next year; and we part, _re infecta_, he promising to bring me
+decisions, I assuring him that, if I find any favouritism, he will find
+me the most recalcitrant tax-payer on the island. Then I have a talk
+with an old servant by the wayside. A little further I pass two children
+coming up. "Love!" say I; "are you two chiefly-proceeding inland?" and
+they say, "Love! yes!" and the interesting ceremony is finished. Down to
+the post office, where I find Vitrolles and (Heaven reward you!) the
+White Book, just arrived per _Upolu_, having gone the wrong way round,
+by Australia; also six copies of _Island Nights' Entertainments_. Some
+of Weatherall's illustrations are very clever; but O Lord! the lagoon! I
+did say it was "shallow," but, O dear, not so shallow as that a man
+could stand up in it! I had still an hour to wait for my meeting, so
+Postmaster Davis let me sit down in his room and I had a bottle of beer
+in, and read _A Gentleman of France_. Have you seen it coming out in
+Longman's? My dear Colvin! 'tis the most exquisite pleasure; a real
+chivalrous yarn, like the Dumas' and yet unlike. Thereafter to the
+meeting of the five newspaper proprietors. Business transacted, I have
+to gallop home and find the boys waiting to be paid at the doorstep.
+
+_Monday, 5th._--Yesterday, Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Brown, secretary to the
+Wesleyan Mission, and the man who made the war in the Western Islands
+and was tried for his life in Fiji, came up, and we had a long,
+important talk about Samoa. O, if I could only talk to the home men! But
+what would it matter? none of them know, none of them care. If we could
+only have Macgregor here with his schooner, you would hear of no more
+troubles in Samoa. That is what we want; a man that knows and likes the
+natives, _qui paye de sa personne_, and is not afraid of hanging when
+necessary. We don't want bland Swedish humbugs, and fussy, footering
+German barons. That way the maelstrom lies, and we shall soon be in it.
+
+I have to-day written 103 and 104, all perfectly wrong, and shall have
+to rewrite them. This tale is devilish, and Chapter XI. the worst of the
+lot. The truth is of course that I am wholly worked out; but it's nearly
+done, and shall go somehow according to promise. I go against all my
+gods, and say it is _not worth while_ to massacre yourself over the last
+few pages of a rancid yarn, that the reviewers will quite justly tear to
+bits. As for _D. B._, no hope, I fear, this mail, but we'll see what the
+afternoon does for me.
+
+4.15.--Well, it's done. Those tragic 16 pp. are at last finished, and I
+have put away thirty-two pages of chips, and have spent thirteen days
+about as nearly in Hell as a man could expect to live through. It's
+done, and of course it ain't worth while, and who cares? There it is,
+and about as grim a tale as was ever written, and as grimy, and as
+hateful.
+
+   _______________________________________
+  |                                       |
+  |                 SACRED                |
+  |                                       |
+  |             TO THE MEMORY             |
+  |                                       |
+  |                  OF                   |
+  |                                       |
+  |             J. L. HUISH,              |
+  |                                       |
+  |     BORN 1856, AT HACKNEY, LONDON     |
+  |                                       |
+  | Accidentally killed upon this Island, |
+  |                                       |
+  |        10th September 1889.           |
+  |_______________________________________|
+
+_Tuesday, 6th._--I am exulting to do nothing. It pours with rain from
+the westward, very unusual kind of weather; I was standing out on the
+little verandah in front of my room this morning, and there went through
+me or over me a wave of extraordinary and apparently baseless emotion. I
+literally staggered. And then the explanation came, and I knew I had
+found a frame of mind and body that belonged to Scotland, and
+particularly to the neighbourhood of Callander. Very odd these
+identities of sensation, and the world of connotations implied;
+highland huts, and peat smoke, and the brown, swirling rivers, and wet
+clothes, and whisky, and the romance of the past, and that indescribable
+bite of the whole thing at a man's heart, which is--or rather lies at
+the bottom of--a story.
+
+I don't know if you are a Barbey d'Aurevilly-an. I am. I have a great
+delight in his Norman stories. Do you know the _Chevalier des Touches_
+and _L'Ensorcelee_? They are admirable, they reek of the soil and the
+past. But I was rather thinking just now of _Le Rideau Cramoisi_, and
+its adorable setting of the stopped coach, the dark street, the
+home-going in the inn yard, and the red blind illuminated. Without
+doubt, _there_ was an identity of sensation; one of those conjunctions
+in life that had filled Barbey full to the brim, and permanently bent
+his memory.
+
+I wonder exceedingly if I have done anything at all good; and who can
+tell me? and why should I wish to know? In so little a while, I, and the
+English language, and the bones of my descendants, will have ceased to
+be a memory! And yet--and yet--one would like to leave an image for a
+few years upon men's minds--for fun. This is a very dark frame of mind,
+consequent on overwork and the conclusion of the excruciating _Ebb
+Tide_. Adieu.
+
+What do you suppose should be done with _The Ebb Tide_? It would make a
+volume of 200 pp.; on the other hand, I might likely have some more
+stories soon: _The Owl_, _Death in the Pot_, _The Sleeper Awakened_; all
+these are possible. _The Owl_ might be half as long; _The Sleeper
+Awakened_, ditto; _Death in the Pot_ a deal shorter, I believe. Then
+there's the _Go-Between_, which is not impossible altogether. _The Owl_,
+_The Sleeper Awakened_, and the _Go-Between_ end reasonably well; _Death
+in the Pot_ is an ungodly massacre. O, well, _The Owl_ only ends well in
+so far as some lovers come together, and nobody is killed at the
+moment, but you know they are all doomed, they are Chouan fellows.[61]
+
+_Friday, 9th._--Well, the mail is in; no Blue-book, depressing letter
+from C.; a long, amusing ramble from my mother; vast masses of Romeike;
+they _are_ going to war now; and what will that lead to? and what has
+driven them to it but the persistent misconduct of these two officials?
+I know I ought to rewrite the end of this bloody _Ebb Tide_: well, I
+can't. _C'est plus fort que moi_; it has to go the way it is, and be
+jowned to it! From what I make out of the reviews,[62] I think it would
+be better not to republish _The Ebb Tide_: but keep it for other tales,
+if they should turn up. Very amusing how the reviews pick out one story
+and damn the rest! and it is always a different one. Be sure you send me
+the article from Le Temps. Talking of which, ain't it manners in France
+to acknowledge a dedication? I have never heard a word from Le Sieur
+Bourget.
+
+_Saturday, 17th._--Since I wrote this last, I have written a whole
+chapter of my Grandfather, and read it to-night; it was on the whole
+much appreciated, and I kind of hope it ain't bad myself. 'Tis a third
+writing, but it wants a fourth. By next mail, I believe I might send you
+3 chapters. That is to say _Family Annals_, _The Service of the Northern
+Lights_, and _The Building of the Bell Rock._ Possibly even 4--_A
+Houseful of Boys_. I could finish my Grandfather very easy now; my
+father and Uncle Alan stop the way. I propose to call the book:
+_Northern Lights: Memoirs of a Family of Engineers_. I tell you, it is
+going to be a good book. My idea in sending MS. would be to get it set
+up; two proofs to me, one to Professor Swan, Ardchapel,
+Helensburgh--mark it private and confidential--one to yourself; and
+come on with criticisms! But I'll have to see. The total plan of the
+book is this--
+
+     I. Domestic Annals.
+
+    II. The Service of the Northern Lights.
+
+   III. The Building of the Bell Rock.
+
+    IV. A Houseful of Boys (or the Family in Baxter's Place).
+
+     V. Education of an Engineer.
+
+    VI. The Grandfather.
+
+   VII. Alan Stevenson.
+
+  VIII. Thomas Stevenson.
+
+  There will be an Introduction 'The Surname of Stevenson' which has
+  proved a mighty queer subject of inquiry. But, Lord! if I were among
+  libraries.
+
+_Sunday, 18th._--I shall put in this envelope the end of the
+ever-to-be-execrated _Ebb Tide_, or Stevenson's Blooming Error. Also, a
+paper apart for _David Balfour_. The slips must go in another enclosure,
+I suspect, owing to their beastly bulk. Anyway, there are two pieces of
+work off my mind, and though I could wish I had rewritten a little more
+of _David_, yet it was plainly to be seen it was impossible. All the
+points indicated by you have been brought out; but to rewrite the end,
+in my present state of over-exhaustion and fiction-phobia, would have
+been madness; and I let it go as it stood. My grandfather is good enough
+for me, these days. I do not work any less; on the whole, if anything, a
+little more. But it is different.
+
+The slips go to you in four packets; I hope they are what they should
+be, but do not think so. I am at a pitch of discontent with fiction in
+all its form--or _my_ forms--that prevents me being able to be even
+interested. I have had to stop all drink; smoking I am trying to stop
+also. It annoys me dreadfully: and yet if I take a glass of claret, I
+have a headache the next day! O, and a good headache too; none of your
+trifles.
+
+Well, sir, here's to you, and farewell.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO EDMUND GOSSE
+
+
+     _June 10th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR GOSSE,--My mother tells me you never received the very long and
+careful letter that I sent you more than a year ago; or is it two years?
+
+I was indeed so much surprised at your silence that I wrote to Henry
+James and begged him to inquire if you had received it; his reply was an
+(if possible) higher power of the same silence; whereupon I bowed my
+head and acquiesced. But there is no doubt the letter was written and
+sent; and I am sorry it was lost, for it contained, among other things,
+an irrecoverable criticism of your father's _Life_, with a number of
+suggestions for another edition, which struck me at the time as
+excellent.
+
+Well, suppose we call that cried off, and begin as before? It is
+fortunate indeed that we can do so, being both for a while longer in the
+day. But, alas! when I see "works of the late J. A. S.,"[63] I can see
+no help and no reconciliation possible. I wrote him a letter, I think,
+three years ago, heard in some roundabout way that he had received it,
+waited in vain for an answer (which had probably miscarried), and in a
+humour between frowns and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the
+strange, poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the night,
+and the voice is silent that uttered so much excellent discourse; and I
+am sorry that I did not write to him again. Yet I am glad for him; light
+lie the turf! The Saturday is the only obituary I have seen, and I
+thought it very good upon the whole. I should be half tempted to write
+an _In Memoriam_, but I am submerged with other work. Are you going to
+do it? I very much admire your efforts that way; you are our only
+academician.
+
+So you have tried fiction? I will tell you the truth: when I saw it
+announced, I was so sure you would send it to me, that I did not order
+it! But the order goes this mail, and I will give you news of it. Yes,
+honestly, fiction is very difficult; it is a terrible strain to _carry_
+your characters all that time. And the difficulty of according the
+narrative and the dialogue (in a work in the third person) is extreme.
+That is one reason out of half a dozen why I so often prefer the first.
+It is much in my mind just now, because of my last work, just off the
+stocks three days ago, _The Ebb Tide_: a dreadful, grimy business in the
+third person, where the strain between a vilely realistic dialogue and a
+narrative style pitched about (in phrase) 'four notes higher' than it
+should have been, has sown my head with grey hairs; or I believe so--if
+my head escaped, my heart has them.
+
+The truth is, I have a little lost my way, and stand bemused at the
+cross-roads. A subject? Ay, I have dozens; I have at least four novels
+begun, they are none good enough; and the mill waits, and I'll have to
+take second best. _The Ebb Tide_ I make the world a present of; I
+expect, and, I suppose, deserve to be torn to pieces; but there was all
+that good work lying useless, and I had to finish it!
+
+All your news of your family is pleasant to hear. My wife has been very
+ill, but is now better; I may say I am ditto, _The Ebb Tide_ having left
+me high and dry, which is a good example of the mixed metaphor. Our
+home, and estate, and our boys, and the politics of the island, keep us
+perpetually amused and busy; and I grind away with an odd, dogged, down
+sensation--and an idea _in petto_ that the game is about played out. I
+have got too realistic, and I must break the trammels--I mean I would if
+I could; but the yoke is heavy. I saw with amusement that Zola says the
+same thing; and truly the _Debacle_ was a mighty big book, I have no
+need for a bigger, though the last part is a mere mistake in my opinion.
+But the Emperor, and Sedan, and the doctor at the ambulance, and the
+horses in the field of battle, Lord, how gripped it is! What an epical
+performance! According to my usual opinion, I believe I could go over
+that book and leave a masterpiece by blotting and no ulterior art. But
+that is an old story, ever new with me. Taine gone, and Renan, and
+Symonds, and Tennyson, and Browning; the suns go swiftly out, and I see
+no suns to follow, nothing but a universal twilight of the
+demi-divinities, with parties like you and me and Lang beating on toy
+drums and playing on penny whistles about glow-worms. But Zola is big
+anyway; he has plenty in his belly; too much, that is all; he wrote the
+_Debacle_ and he wrote _La Bete humaine_, perhaps the most
+excruciatingly silly book that I ever read to an end. And why did I read
+it to an end, W. E. G.? Because the animal in me was interested in the
+lewdness. Not sincerely, of course, my mind refusing to partake in it;
+but the flesh was slightly pleased. And when it was done, I cast it from
+me with a peal of laughter, and forgot it, as I would forget a Montepin.
+Taine is to me perhaps the chief of these losses; I did luxuriate in his
+_Origines_; it was something beyond literature, not quite so good, if
+you please, but so much more systematic, and the pages that had to be
+"written" always so adequate. Robespierre, Napoleon, were both excellent
+good.
+
+_June 18th, '93._--Well, I have left fiction wholly, and gone to my
+Grandfather, and on the whole found peace. By next month my Grandfather
+will begin to be quite grown up. I have already three chapters about as
+good as done; by which, of course, as you know, I mean till further
+notice or the next discovery. I like biography far better than fiction
+myself: fiction is too free. In biography you have your little handful
+of facts, little bits of a puzzle, and you sit and think, and fit 'em
+together this way and that, and get up and throw 'em down, and say damn,
+and go out for a walk. And it's real soothing; and when done, gives an
+idea of finish to the writer that is very peaceful. Of course, it's not
+really so finished as quite a rotten novel; it always has and always
+must have the incurable illogicalities of life about it, the fathoms of
+slack and the miles of tedium. Still, that's where the fun comes in; and
+when you have at last managed to shut up the castle spectre (dulness),
+the very outside of his door looks beautiful by contrast. There are
+pages in these books that may seem nothing to the reader; but you
+_remember what they were, you know what they might have been_, and they
+seem to you witty beyond comparison. In my Grandfather I've had (for
+instance) to give up the temporal order almost entirely; doubtless the
+temporal order is the great foe of the biographer; it is so tempting, so
+easy, and lo! there you are in the bog!--Ever yours,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+With all kind messages from self and wife to you and yours. My wife is
+very much better, having been the early part of this year alarmingly
+ill. She is now all right, only complaining of trifles, annoying to her,
+but happily not interesting to her friends. I am in a hideous state,
+having stopped drink and smoking; yes, both. No wine, no tobacco; and
+the dreadful part of it is that--looking forward--I have--what shall I
+say?--nauseating intimations that it ought to be for ever.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+  _Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, June 17th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--I believe I have neglected a mail in answering
+yours. You will be very sorry to hear that my wife was exceedingly ill,
+and very glad to hear that she is better. I cannot say that I feel any
+more anxiety about her. We shall send you a photograph of her taken in
+Sydney in her customary island habit as she walks and gardens and
+shrilly drills her brown assistants. She was very ill when she sat for
+it, which may a little explain the appearance of the photograph. It
+reminds me of a friend of my grandmother's who used to say when talking
+to younger women, "Aweel, when I was young, I wasnae just exactly what
+ye wad call _bonny_, but I was pale, penetratin', and interestin'." I
+would not venture to hint that Fanny is "no bonny," but there is no
+doubt but that in this presentment she is "pale, penetratin', and
+interestin'."
+
+As you are aware, I have been wading deep waters and contending with the
+great ones of the earth, not wholly without success. It is, you may be
+interested to hear, a dreary and infuriating business. If you can get
+the fools to admit one thing, they will always save their face by
+denying another. If you can induce them to take a step to the right
+hand, they generally indemnify themselves by cutting a caper to the
+left. I always held (upon no evidence whatever, from a mere sentiment or
+intuition) that politics was the dirtiest, the most foolish, and the
+most random of human employments. I always held, but now I know it!
+Fortunately, you have nothing to do with anything of the kind, and I may
+spare you the horror of further details.
+
+I received from you a book by a man by the name of Anatole France. Why
+should I disguise it? I have no use for Anatole. He writes very
+prettily, and then afterwards? Baron Marbot was a different pair of
+shoes. So likewise is the Baron de Vitrolles, whom I am now perusing
+with delight. His escape in 1814 is one of the best pages I remember
+anywhere to have read. But Marbot and Vitrolles are dead, and what has
+become of the living? It seems as if literature were coming to a stand.
+I am sure it is with me; and I am sure everybody will say so when they
+have the privilege of reading _The Ebb Tide_. My dear man, the grimness
+of that story is not to be depicted in words. There are only four
+characters, to be sure, but they are such a troop of swine! And their
+behaviour is really so deeply beneath any possible standard, that on a
+retrospect I wonder I have been able to endure them myself until the
+yarn was finished. Well, there is always one thing; it will serve as a
+touchstone. If the admirers of Zola admire him for his pertinent
+ugliness and pessimism, I think they should admire this; but if, as I
+have long suspected, they neither admire nor understand the man's art,
+and only wallow in his rancidness like a hound in offal, then they will
+certainly be disappointed in _The Ebb Tide_. Alas! poor little tale, it
+is not _even_ rancid.
+
+By way of an antidote or febrifuge, I am going on at a great rate with
+my History of the Stevensons, which I hope may prove rather amusing, in
+some parts at least. The excess of materials weighs upon me. My
+grandfather is a delightful comedy part; and I have to treat him besides
+as a serious and (in his way) a heroic figure, and at times I lose my
+way, and I fear in the end will blur the effect. However, _a la grace de
+Dieu!_ I'll make a spoon or spoil a horn. You see, I have to do the
+Building of the Bell Rock by cutting down and packing my grand-sire's
+book, which I rather hope I have done, but do not know. And it makes a
+huge chunk of a very different style and quality between Chapters II.
+and IV. And it can't be helped! It is just a delightful and exasperating
+necessity. You know, the stuff is really excellent narrative: only,
+perhaps there's too much of it! There is the rub. Well, well, it will be
+plain to you that my mind is affected; it might be with less. _The Ebb
+Tide_ and _Northern Lights_ are a full meal for any plain man.
+
+I have written and ordered your last book, _The Real Thing_, so be sure
+and don't send it. What else are you doing or thinking of doing? News I
+have none, and don't want any. I have had to stop all strong drink and
+all tobacco, and am now in a transition state between the two, which
+seems to be near madness. You never smoked, I think, so you can never
+taste the joys of stopping it. But at least you have drunk, and you can
+enter perhaps into my annoyance when I suddenly find a glass of claret
+or a brandy-and-water give me a splitting headache the next morning. No
+mistake about it; drink anything, and there's your headache. Tobacco
+just as bad for me. If I live through this breach of habit, I shall be a
+white-livered puppy indeed. Actually I am so made, or so twisted, that I
+do not like to think of a life without the red wine on the table and the
+tobacco with its lovely little coal of fire. It doesn't amuse me from a
+distance. I may find it the Garden of Eden when I go in, but I don't
+like the colour of the gate-posts. Suppose somebody said to you, you are
+to leave your home, and your books, and your clubs, and go out and camp
+in mid-Africa, and command an expedition, you would howl, and kick, and
+flee. I think the same of a life without wine and tobacco; and if this
+goes on, I've got to go and do it, sir, in the living flesh!
+
+I thought Bourget was a friend of yours? And I thought the French were a
+polite race? He has taken my dedication with a stately silence that has
+surprised me into apoplexy. Did I go and dedicate my book[64] to the
+nasty alien, and the 'norrid Frenchman, and the Bloody Furrineer? Well,
+I wouldn't do it again; and unless his case is susceptible of
+explanation, you might perhaps tell him so over the walnuts and the
+wine, by way of speeding the gay hours. Sincerely, I thought my
+dedication worth a letter.
+
+If anything be worth anything here below! Do you know the story of the
+man who found a button in his hash, and called the waiter? "What do you
+call that?" says he. "Well," said the waiter, "what d'you expect? Expect
+to find a gold watch and chain?" Heavenly apologue, is it not? I
+expected (rather) to find a gold watch and chain; I expected to be able
+to smoke to excess and drink to comfort all the days of my life; and I
+am still indignantly staring on this button! It's not even a button;
+it's a teetotal badge!--Ever yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Saturday, 24th (?) June [1893]._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Yesterday morning, after a day of absolute temperance,
+I awoke to the worst headache I had had yet. Accordingly, temperance was
+said farewell to, quinine instituted, and I believe my pains are soon to
+be over. We wait, with a kind of sighing impatience, for war to be
+declared, or to blow finally off, living in the meanwhile in a kind of
+children's hour of firelight and shadow and preposterous tales; the king
+seen at night galloping up our road upon unknown errands and covering
+his face as he passes our cook; Mataafa daily surrounded (when he
+awakes) with fresh "white man's boxes" (query, ammunition?) and
+professing to be quite ignorant of where they come from; marches of
+bodies of men across the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the
+coming on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and
+rag-tag as the devil himself could not unwind.
+
+_Wednesday, 28 June._--Yesterday it rained with but little intermission,
+but I was jealous of news. Graham and I got into the saddle about 1
+o'clock and off down to town. In town, there was nothing but rumours
+going; in the night drums had been beat, the men had run to arms on
+Mulinuu from as far as Vaiala, and the alarm proved false. There were no
+signs of any gathering in Apia proper, and the Secretary of State had no
+news to give. I believed him, too, for we are brither Scots. Then the
+temptation came upon me strong to go on to the ford and see the Mataafa
+villages, where we heard there was more afoot. Off we rode. When we came
+to Vaimusu, the houses were very full of men, but all seemingly unarmed.
+Immediately beyond is that river over which we passed in our scamper
+with Lady Jersey; it was all solitary. Three hundred yards beyond is a
+second ford; and there--I came face to face with war. Under the trees on
+the further bank sat a picket of seven men with Winchesters; their faces
+bright, their eyes ardent. As we came up, they did not speak or move;
+only their eyes followed us. The horses drank, and we passed the ford.
+"Talofa!" I said, and the commandant of the picket said "Talofa"; and
+then, when we were almost by, remembered himself and asked where we were
+going. "To Faamuina," I said, and we rode on. Every house by the wayside
+was crowded with armed men. There was the European house of a Chinaman
+on the right-hand side: a flag of truce flying over the gate--indeed we
+saw three of these in what little way we penetrated into Mataafa's
+lines--all the foreigners trying to protect their goods; and the
+Chinaman's verandah overflowed with men and girls and Winchesters. By
+the way we met a party of about ten or a dozen marching with their guns
+and cartridge-belts, and the cheerful alacrity and brightness of their
+looks set my head turning with envy and sympathy. Arrived at Vaiusu, the
+houses about the _malae_ (village green) were thronged with men, all
+armed. On the outside of the council-house (which was all full within)
+there stood an orator; he had his back turned to his audience, and
+seemed to address the world at large; all the time we were there his
+strong voice continued unabated, and I heard snatches of political
+wisdom rising and falling.
+
+The house of Faamuina stands on a knoll in the _malae_. Thither we
+mounted, a boy ran out and took our horses, and we went in. Faamuina was
+there himself, his wife Palepa, three other chiefs, and some attendants;
+and here again was this exulting spectacle as of people on their
+marriage day. Faamuina (when I last saw him) was an elderly, limping
+gentleman, with much of the debility of age; it was a bright-eyed boy
+that greeted me; the lady was no less excited; all had cartridge-belts.
+We stayed but a little while to smoke a selui; I would not have kava
+made, as I thought my escapade was already dangerous (perhaps even
+blameworthy) enough. On the way back, we were much greeted, and on
+coming to the ford, the commandant came and asked me if there were many
+on the other side. "Very many," said I; not that I knew, but I would not
+lead them on the ice. "That is well!" said he, and the little picket
+laughed aloud as we splashed into the river. We returned to Apia,
+through Apia, and out to windward as far as Vaiala, where the word went
+that the men of the Vaimauga had assembled. We met two boys carrying
+pigs, and saw six young men busy cooking in a cook-house; but no sign of
+an assembly; no arms, no blackened faces. (I forgot! As we turned to
+leave Faamuina's, there ran forward a man with his face blackened, and
+the back of his lava-lava girded up so as to show his tattooed hips
+naked; he leaped before us, cut a wonderful caper, and flung his knife
+high in the air, and caught it. It was strangely savage and fantastic
+and high-spirited. I have seen a child doing the same antics long before
+in a dance, so that it is plainly an _accepted solemnity_. I should say
+that for weeks the children have been playing with spears.) Up by the
+plantation I took a short cut, which shall never be repeated, through
+grass and weeds over the horses' heads and among rolling stones; I
+thought we should have left a horse there, but fortune favoured us. So
+home, a little before six, in a dashing squall of rain, to a bowl of
+kava and dinner. But the impression on our minds was extraordinary; the
+sight of that picket at the ford, and those ardent, happy faces whirls
+in my head; the old aboriginal awoke in both of us and knickered like a
+stallion.
+
+It is dreadful to think that I must sit apart here and do nothing; I do
+not know if I can stand it out. But you see, I may be of use to these
+poor people, if I keep quiet, and if I threw myself in, I should have a
+bad job of it to save myself. There; I have written this to you; and it
+is still but 7.30 in the day, and the sun only about one hour up; can I
+go back to my old grandpapa, and men sitting with Winchesters in my
+mind's eye? No; war is a huge _entrainement_; there is no other
+temptation to be compared to it, not one. We were all wet, we had been
+about five hours in the saddle, mostly riding hard; and we came home
+like schoolboys, with such a lightness of spirits, and I am sure such a
+brightness of eye, as you could have lit a candle at!
+
+Do you appreciate the height and depth of my temptation? that I have
+about nine miles to ride, and I can become a general officer? and
+to-night I might seize Mulinuu and have the C. J. under arrest? And yet
+I stay here! It seems incredible, so huge is the empire of prudence and
+the second thought.
+
+_Thursday, 29th._--I had two priests to luncheon yesterday: the Bishop
+and Pere Remy. They were very pleasant, and quite clean too, which has
+been known sometimes not to be--even with bishops. Monseigneur is not
+unimposing; with his white beard and his violet girdle he looks
+splendidly episcopal, and when our three waiting lads came up one after
+another and kneeled before him in the big hall, and kissed his ring, it
+did me good for a piece of pageantry. Remy is very engaging; he is a
+little, nervous, eager man, like a governess, and brimful of laughter
+and small jokes. So is the bishop indeed, and our luncheon party went
+off merrily--far more merrily than many a German spread, though with so
+much less liquor. One trait was delicious. With a complete ignorance of
+the Protestant that I would scarce have imagined, he related to us (as
+news) little stories from the gospels, and got the names all wrong! His
+comments were delicious, and to our ears a thought irreverent. "_Ah! il
+connaissait son monde, allez!_" "_Il etait fin, notre Seigneur!_" etc.
+
+_Friday._--Down with Fanny and Belle, to lunch at the International.
+Heard there about the huge folly of the hour, all the Mulinuu
+ammunition having been yesterday marched openly to vaults in Matafele;
+and this morning, on a cry of protest from the whites, openly and
+humiliatingly disinterred and marched back again. People spoke of it
+with a kind of shrill note that did not quite satisfy me. They seemed
+not quite well at ease. Luncheon over, we rode out on the Malie road.
+All was quiet in Vaiusu, and when we got to the second ford, alas! there
+was no picket--which was just what Belle had come to sketch. On through
+quite empty roads; the houses deserted, never a gun to be seen; and at
+last a drum and a penny whistle playing in Vaiusu, and a cricket match
+on the _malae_! Went up to Faamuina's; he is a trifle uneasy, though he
+gives us kava. I cannot see what ails him, then it appears that he has
+an engagement with the Chief Justice at half-past two to sell a piece of
+land. Is this the reason why war has disappeared? We ride back, stopping
+to sketch here and there the fords, a flag of truce, etc. I ride on to
+Public Hall Committee and pass an hour with my committees very heavily.
+To the hotel to dinner, then to the ball, and home by eleven, very
+tired. At the ball I heard some news, of how the chief of Letonu said
+that I was the source of all this trouble, and should be punished, and
+my family as well. This, and the rudeness of the man at the ford of the
+Gase-gase, looks but ill; I should have said that Faamuina, as he
+approached the first ford, was spoken to by a girl, and immediately said
+good-bye and plunged into the bush; the girl had told him there was a
+war party out from Mulinuu; and a little further on, as we stopped to
+sketch a flag of truce, the beating of drums and the sound of a bugle
+from that direction startled us. But we saw nothing, and I believe
+Mulinuu is (at least at present) incapable of any act of offence. One
+good job, these threats to my home and family take away all my childish
+temptation to go out and fight. Our force must be here, to protect
+ourselves. I see panic rising among the whites; I hear the shrill note
+of it in their voices, and they talk already about a refuge on the war
+ships. There are two here, both German; and the _Orlando_ is expected
+presently.
+
+_Sunday, 9th July._--Well, the war has at last begun. For four or five
+days, Apia has been filled by these poor children with their faces
+blacked, and the red handkerchief about their brows, that makes the
+Malietoa uniform, and the boats have been coming in from the windward,
+some of them 50 strong, with a drum and a bugle on board--the bugle
+always ill-played--and a sort of jester leaping and capering on the
+sparred nose of the boat, and the whole crew uttering from time to time
+a kind of menacing ululation. Friday they marched out to the bush; and
+yesterday morning we heard that some had returned to their houses for
+the night, as they found it "so uncomfortable." After dinner a messenger
+came up to me with a note, that the wounded were arriving at the Mission
+House. Fanny, Lloyd and I saddled and rode off with a lantern; it was a
+fine starry night, though pretty cold. We left the lantern at
+Tanugamanono, and then down in the starlight. I found Apia, and myself,
+in a strange state of flusteration; my own excitement was gloomy and (I
+may say) truculent; others appeared imbecile; some sullen. The best
+place in the whole town was the hospital. A longish frame-house it was,
+with a big table in the middle for operations, and ten Samoans, each
+with an average of four sympathisers, stretched along the walls. Clarke
+was there, steady as a die; Miss Large, little spectacled angel, showed
+herself a real trump; the nice, clean, German orderlies in their white
+uniforms looked and meant business. (I hear a fine story of Miss
+Large--a cast-iron teetotaller--going to the public-house for a bottle
+of brandy.)
+
+The doctors were not there when I arrived; but presently it was observed
+that one of the men was going cold. He was a magnificent Samoan, very
+dark, with a noble aquiline countenance, like an Arab, I suppose, and
+was surrounded by seven people, fondling his limbs as he lay: he was
+shot through both lungs. And an orderly was sent to the town for the
+(German naval) doctors, who were dining there. Meantime I found an
+errand of my own. Both Clarke and Miss Large expressed a wish to have
+the public hall, of which I am chairman, and I set off down town, and
+woke people out of their beds, and got a committee together, and (with a
+great deal of difficulty from one man, whom we finally overwhelmed) got
+the public hall for them. Bar the one man, the committee was splendid,
+and agreed in a moment to share the expense if the shareholders object.
+Back to the hospital about 11.30; found the German doctors there. Two
+men were going now, one that was shot in the bowels--he was dying rather
+hard, in a gloomy stupor of pain and laudanum, silent, with contorted
+face. The chief, shot through the lungs, was lying on one side, awaiting
+the last angel; his family held his hands and legs: they were all
+speechless, only one woman suddenly clasped his knee, and "keened" for
+the inside of five seconds, and fell silent again. Went home, and to bed
+about two A.M. What actually passed seems undiscoverable; but the
+Mataafas were surely driven back out of Vaitele; that is a blow to them,
+and the resistance was far greater than had been anticipated--which is a
+blow to the Laupepas. All seems to indicate a long and bloody war.
+
+Frank's house in Mulinuu was likewise filled with wounded; many dead
+bodies were brought in; I hear with certainty of five, wrapped in mats;
+and a pastor goes to-morrow to the field to bring others. The Laupepas
+brought in eleven heads to Mulinuu, and to the great horror and
+consternation of the native mind, one proved to be a girl, and was
+identified as that of a Taupou--or Maid of the Village--from Savaii. I
+hear this morning, with great relief, that it has been returned to
+Malie, wrapped in the most costly silk handkerchiefs, and with an
+apologetic embassy. This could easily happen. The girl was of course
+attending on her father with ammunition, and got shot; her hair was cut
+short to make her father's war head-dress--even as our own Sina's is at
+this moment; and the decollator was probably, in his red flurry of
+fight, wholly unconscious of her sex. I am sorry for him in the future;
+he must make up his mind to many bitter jests--perhaps to vengeance. But
+what an end to one chosen for her beauty and, in the time of peace,
+watched over by trusty crones and hunchbacks!
+
+_Evening._--Can I write or not? I played lawn tennis in the morning, and
+after lunch down with Graham to Apia. Ulu, he that was shot in the
+lungs, still lives; he that was shot in the bowels is gone to his
+fathers, poor, fierce child! I was able to be of some very small help,
+and in the way of helping myself to information, to prove myself a mere
+gazer at meteors. But there seems no doubt the Mataafas for the time are
+scattered; the most of our friends are involved in this disaster, and
+Mataafa himself--who might have swept the islands a few months ago--for
+him to fall so poorly, doubles my regret. They say the Taupou had a gun
+and fired; probably an excuse manufactured _ex post facto_. I go down
+to-morrow at 12, to stay the afternoon, and help Miss Large. In the
+hospital to-day, when I first entered it, there were no attendants; only
+the wounded and their friends, all equally sleeping and their heads
+poised upon the wooden pillows. There is a pretty enough boy there,
+slightly wounded, whose fate is to be envied: two girls, and one of the
+most beautiful, with beaming eyes, tend him and sleep upon his pillow.
+In the other corner, another young man, very patient and brave, lies
+wholly deserted. Yet he seems to me far the better of the two; but not
+so pretty! Heavens, what a difference that makes; in our not very well
+proportioned bodies and our finely hideous faces, the 1-32nd--rather the
+1-64th--this way or that! Sixteen heads in all at Mulinuu. I am so stiff
+I can scarce move without a howl.
+
+_Monday, 10th._--Some news that Mataafa is gone to Savaii by way of
+Manono: this may mean a great deal more warfaring, and no great issue.
+(When Sosimo came in this morning with my breakfast he had to lift me
+up. It is no joke to play lawn tennis after carrying your right arm in a
+sling so many years.) What a hard, unjust business this is! On the 28th,
+if Mataafa had moved, he could have still swept Mulinuu. He waited, and
+I fear he is now only the stick of a rocket.
+
+_Wednesday, 12th._--No more political news; but many rumours. The
+government troops are off to Manono; no word of Mataafa. O, there is a
+passage in my mother's letter which puzzles me as to a date. Is it next
+Christmas you are coming? or the Christmas after? This is most
+important, and must be understood at once. If it is next Christmas, I
+could not go to Ceylon, for lack of gold, and you would have to adopt
+one of the following alternatives: 1st, either come straight on here and
+pass a month with us; 'tis the rainy season, but we have often lovely
+weather. Or (2nd) come to Hawaii and I will meet you there. Hawaii is
+only a week's sail from S. Francisco, making only about sixteen days on
+the heaving ocean; and the steamers run once a fortnight, so that you
+could turn round; and you could thus pass a day or two in the States--a
+fortnight even--and still see me. But I have sworn to take no further
+excursions till I have money saved to pay for them; and to go to Ceylon
+and back would be torture unless I had a lot. You must answer this at
+once, please; so that I may know what to do. We would dearly like you to
+come on here. I'll tell you how it can be done; I can come up and meet
+you at Hawaii, and if you had at all got over your sea-sickness, I could
+just come on board and we could return together to Samoa, and you could
+have a month of our life here, which I believe you could not help
+liking. Our horses are the devil, of course, miserable screws, and some
+of them a little vicious. I had a dreadful fright--the passage in my
+mother's letter is recrossed and I see it says the end of /94: so much
+the better, then; but I would like to submit to you my alternative plan.
+I could meet you at Hawaii, and reconduct you to Hawaii, so that we
+could have a full six weeks together and I believe a little over, and
+you would see this place of mine, and have a sniff of native life,
+native foods, native houses--and perhaps be in time to see the German
+flag raised, who knows?--and we could generally yarn for all we were
+worth. I should like you to see Vailima; and I should be curious to know
+how the climate affected you. It is quite hit or miss; it suits me, it
+suits Graham, it suits all our family; others it does not suit at all.
+It is either gold or poison. I rise at six, the rest at seven; lunch is
+at 12; at five we go to lawn tennis till dinner at six; and to roost
+early.
+
+A man brought in a head to Mulinuu in great glory; they washed the black
+paint off, and behold! it was his brother. When I last heard he was
+sitting in his house, with the head upon his lap, and weeping. Barbarous
+war is an ugly business; but I believe the civilised is fully uglier;
+but Lord! what fun!
+
+I should say we now have definite news that there are _three_ women's
+heads; it was difficult to get it out of the natives, who are all
+ashamed, and the women all in terror of reprisals. Nothing has been done
+to punish or disgrace these hateful innovators. It was a false report
+that the head had been returned.
+
+_Thursday, 13th._--Maatafa driven away from Savaii. I cannot write about
+this, and do not know what should be the end of it.
+
+_Monday, 17th._--Haggard and Ahrens (a German clerk) to lunch yesterday.
+There is no real certain news yet: I must say, no man could _swear_ to
+any result; but the sky looks horribly black for Mataafa and so many of
+our friends along with him. The thing has an abominable, a beastly,
+nightmare interest. But it's wonderful generally how little one cares
+about the wounded; hospital sights, etc.; things that used to murder me.
+I was far more struck with the excellent way in which things were
+managed; as if it had been a peep-show; I held some of the things at an
+operation, and did not care a dump.
+
+_Tuesday, 18th._--Sunday came the _Katoomba_, Captain Bickford, C.M.G.
+Yesterday, Graham and I went down to call, and find he has orders to
+suppress Mataafa at once, and has to go down to-day before daybreak to
+Manono. He is a very capable, energetic man; if he had only come ten
+days ago, all this would have gone by; but now the questions are thick
+and difficult. (1) Will Mataafa surrender? (2) Will his people allow
+themselves to be disarmed? (3) What will happen to them if they do? (4)
+What will any of them believe after former deceptions? The three consuls
+were scampering on horseback to Leulumoega to the king; no Cusack-Smith,
+without whose accession I could not send a letter to Mataafa. I rode up
+here, wrote my letter in the sweat of the concordance and with the
+able-bodied help of Lloyd--and dined. Then down in continual showers and
+pitchy darkness, and to Cusack-Smith's; not returned. Back to the inn
+for my horse, and to C.-S.'s, when I find him just returned and he
+accepts my letter. Thence home, by 12.30, jolly tired and wet. And
+to-day have been in a crispation of energy and ill-temper, raking my
+wretched mail together. It is a hateful business, waiting for the news;
+it may come to a fearful massacre yet.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES S. STEVENSON
+
+
+   This is addressed to a very remote cousin in quest of information
+   about the origins of the family.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, June 19th, 1893._
+
+DEAR MR. STEVENSON,--I am reminded by coming across some record of
+relations between my grandfather, Robert Stevenson, C.E., Edinburgh,
+and Robert Stevenson, Esq., Secretary to the Royal Exchange, Glasgow,
+and I presume a son of Hugh Stevenson who died in Tobago 16th April
+1774, that I have not yet consulted my cousins in Glasgow.
+
+I am engaged in writing a Life of my grandfather, my uncle Alan, and my
+father, Thomas, and I find almost inconceivable difficulty in placing
+and understanding their (and my) descent.
+
+Might I ask if you have any material to go upon? The smallest notes
+would be like found gold to me; and an old letter invaluable.
+
+I have not got beyond James Stevenson and Jean Keir his spouse, to whom
+Robert the First (?) was born in 1675. Could you get me further back?
+Have you any old notes of the trouble in the West Indian business which
+took Hugh and Alan to their deaths? How had they acquired so
+considerable a business at an age so early? You see how the queries pour
+from me; but I will ask nothing more in words. Suffice it to say that
+any information, however insignificant, as to our common forbears, will
+be very gratefully received. In case you should have any original
+documents, it would be better to have copies sent to me in this
+outlandish place, for the expense of which I will account to you as soon
+as you let me know the amount, and it will be wise to register your
+letter.--Believe me, in the old, honoured Scottish phrase, your
+affectionate cousin,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+     _Apia, July 1893._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--Yes. _Les Trophees_ is, on the whole, a book.[65]
+It is excellent; but is it a life's work? I always suspect _you_ of a
+volume of sonnets up your sleeve; when is it coming down? I am in one of
+my moods of wholesale impatience with all fiction and all verging on it,
+reading instead, with rapture, _Fountainhall's Decisions_. You never
+read it: well, it hasn't much form, and is inexpressibly dreary, I
+should suppose, to others--and even to me for pages. It's like walking
+in a mine underground, and with a damned bad lantern, and picking out
+pieces of ore. This, and war, will be my excuse for not having read your
+(doubtless) charming work of fiction. The revolving year will bring me
+round to it; and I know, when fiction shall begin to feel a little
+_solid_ to me again, that I shall love it, because it's James. Do you
+know, when I am in this mood, I would rather try to read a bad book?
+It's not so disappointing, anyway. And _Fountainhall_ is prime, two big
+folio volumes, and all dreary, and all true, and all as terse as an
+obituary; and about one interesting fact on an average in twenty pages,
+and ten of them unintelligible for technicalities. There's literature,
+if you like! It feeds; it falls about you genuine like rain. Rain:
+nobody has done justice to rain in literature yet: surely a subject for
+a Scot. But then you can't do rain in that ledger-book style that I am
+trying for--or between a ledger-book and an old ballad. How to get over,
+how to escape from, the besotting _particularity_ of fiction. "Roland
+approached the house; it had green doors and window blinds; and there
+was a scraper on the upper step." To hell with Roland and the
+scraper!--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+     _Vailima, July 12, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE,--The _White Company_ has not yet turned up; but
+when it does--which I suppose will be next mail--you shall hear news of
+me. I have a great talent for compliment, accompanied by a hateful,
+even a diabolic frankness.
+
+Delighted to hear I have a chance of seeing you and Mrs. Doyle; Mrs.
+Stevenson bids me say (what is too true) that our rations are often
+spare. Are you Great Eaters? Please reply.
+
+As to ways and means, here is what you will have to do. Leave San
+Francisco by the down mail, get off at Samoa, and twelve days or a
+fortnight later, you can continue your journey to Auckland per Upolu,
+which will give you a look at Tonga and possibly Fiji by the way. Make
+this a _first part of your plans_. A fortnight, even of Vailima diet,
+could kill nobody.
+
+We are in the midst of war here; rather a nasty business, with the
+head-taking; and there seems signs of other trouble. But I believe you
+need make no change in your design to visit us. All should be well over;
+and if it were not, why! you need not leave the steamer.--Yours very
+truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+     _19th July '93._
+
+... We are in the thick of war--see Illustrated London News--we have
+only two outside boys left to us. Nothing is doing, and _per contra_
+little paying.... My life here is dear; but I can live within my income
+for a time at least--so long as my prices keep up--and it seems a clear
+duty to waste none of it on gadding about. ... My Life of my family
+fills up intervals, and should be an excellent book when it is done, but
+big, damnably big.
+
+My dear old man, I perceive by a thousand signs that we grow old, and
+are soon to pass away; I hope with dignity; if not, with courage at
+least. I am myself very ready; or would be--will be--when I have made a
+little money for my folks. The blows that have fallen upon you are
+truly terrifying; I wish you strength to bear them. It is strange, I
+must seem to you to blaze in a Birmingham prosperity and happiness; and
+to myself I seem a failure. The truth is, I have never got over the last
+influenza yet, and am miserably out of heart and out of kilter. Lungs
+pretty right, stomach nowhere, spirits a good deal overshadowed; but
+we'll come through it yet, and cock our bonnets. (I confess with sorrow
+that I am not yet quite sure about the _intellects_; but I hope it is
+only one of my usual periods of non-work. They are more unbearable now,
+because I cannot rest. _No rest but the grave for Sir Walter!_ O the
+words ring in a man's head.)
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _[Vailima] August 1893._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Quite impossible to write. Your letter is due to-day; a
+nasty, rainy-like morning with huge blue clouds, and a huge indigo
+shadow on the sea, and my lamp still burning at near 7. Let me humbly
+give you news. Fanny seems on the whole the most, or the only, powerful
+member of the family; for some days she has been the Flower of the
+Flock. Belle is begging for quinine. Lloyd and Graham have both been
+down with "belly belong him" (Black Boy speech). As for me, I have to
+lay aside my lawn tennis, having (as was to be expected) had a smart but
+eminently brief hemorrhage. I am also on the quinine flask. I have been
+re-casting the beginning of the _Hanging Judge_ or _Weir of Hermiston_;
+then I have been cobbling on my Grandfather, whose last chapter (there
+are only to be four) is in the form of pieces of paper, a huge welter of
+inconsequence, and that glimmer of faith (or hope) which one learns at
+this trade, that somehow and some time, by perpetual staring and
+glowering and re-writing, order will emerge. It is indeed a queer hope;
+there is one piece for instance that I want in--I cannot put it one
+place for a good reason--I cannot put it another for a better--and every
+time I look at it, I turn sick and put the MS. away.
+
+Well, your letter hasn't come, and a number of others are missing. It
+looks as if a mail-bag had gone on, so I'll blame nobody, and proceed to
+business.
+
+It looks as if I was going to send you the first three chapters of my
+Grandfather.... If they were set up, it would be that much anxiety off
+my mind. I have a strange feeling of responsibility, as if I had my
+ancestors' _souls_ in my charge, and might miscarry with them.
+
+There's a lot of work gone into it, and a lot more is needed. Still
+Chapter I. seems about right to me, and much of Chapter II. Chapter III.
+I know nothing of, as I told you. And Chapter IV. is at present all ends
+and beginnings; but it can be pulled together.
+
+This is all I have been able to screw up to you for this month, and I
+may add that it is not only more than you deserve, but just about more
+than I was equal to. I have been and am entirely useless; just able to
+tinker at my Grandfather. The three chapters--perhaps also a little of
+the fourth--will come home to you next mail by the hand of my cousin
+Graham Balfour, a very nice fellow whom I recommend to you warmly--and
+whom I think you will like. This will give you time to consider my
+various and distracted schemes.
+
+All our wars are over in the meantime, to begin again as soon as the
+war-ships leave. Adieu.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+     _Vailima, August 23rd, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE,--I am reposing after a somewhat severe
+experience upon which I think it my duty to report to you. Immediately
+after dinner this evening it occurred to me to re-narrate to my native
+overseer Simele your story of _The Engineer's Thumb_. And, sir, I have
+done it. It was necessary, I need hardly say, to go somewhat farther
+afield than you have done. To explain (for instance) what a railway is,
+what a steam hammer, what a coach and horse, what coining, what a
+criminal, and what the police. I pass over other and no less necessary
+explanations. But I did actually succeed; and if you could have seen the
+drawn, anxious features and the bright, feverish eyes of Simele, you
+would have (for the moment at least) tasted glory. You might perhaps
+think that, were you to come to Samoa, you might be introduced as the
+Author of _The Engineer's Thumb_. Disabuse yourself. They do not know
+what it is to make up a story. _The Engineer's Thumb_ (God forgive me)
+was narrated as a piece of actual and factual history. Nay, and more, I
+who write to you have had the indiscretion to perpetrate a trifling
+piece of fiction entitled _The Bottle Imp_. Parties who come up to visit
+my unpretentious mansion, after having admired the ceilings by
+Vanderputty and the tapestry by Gobbling, manifest towards the end a
+certain uneasiness which proves them to be fellows of an infinite
+delicacy. They may be seen to shrug a brown shoulder, to roll up a
+speaking eye, and at last secret burst from them: "Where is the bottle?"
+Alas, my friends (I feel tempted to say), you will find it by the
+Engineer's Thumb! Talofa-soifua.
+
+O a'u, o lau uo moni, O Tusitala. More commonly known as
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+Have read the _Refugees_; Conde and old P. Murat very good; Louis xiv.
+and Louvois with the letter bag very rich. You have reached a trifle
+wide perhaps; too _many_ celebrities? Though I was delighted to
+re-encounter my old friend Du Chaylu. Old Murat is perhaps your
+high-water mark; 'tis excellently human, cheerful and real. Do it
+again. Madame de Maintenon struck me as quite good. Have you any
+document for the decapitation? It sounds steepish. The devil of all that
+first part is that you see old Dumas; yet your Louis XIV. is _distinctly
+good_. I am much interested with this book, which fulfils a good deal,
+and promises more. Question: How far a Historical Novel should be wholly
+episodic? I incline to that view, with trembling. I shake hands with you
+on old Murat.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS
+
+
+   Mr. St. Gaudens' large medallion portrait in bronze, executed from
+   sittings given in 1887, had at last found its way to Apia, but not
+   yet to Vailima.
+
+     _Vailima, September 1893._
+
+MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,--I had determined not to write to you till I had
+seen the medallion, but it looks as if that might mean the Greek Kalends
+or the day after to-morrow. Reassure yourself, your part is done, it is
+ours that halts--the consideration of conveyance over our sweet little
+road on boys' backs, for we cannot very well apply the horses to this
+work; there is only one; you cannot put it in a panier; to put it on the
+horse's back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty of R. L. S., to
+say nothing of his verses, which the publishers find heavy enough, and
+the genius of the god-like sculptor, the spine would snap and the
+well-knit limbs of the (ahem) cart-horse would be loosed by death. So
+you are to conceive me, sitting in my house, dubitative, and the
+medallion chuckling in the warehouse of the German firm, for some days
+longer; and hear me meanwhile on the golden letters.
+
+Alas! they are all my fancy painted, but the price is prohibitive. I
+cannot do it. It is another day-dream burst. Another gable of Abbotsford
+has gone down, fortunately before it was builded, so there's nobody
+injured--except me. I had a strong conviction that I was a great hand
+at writing inscriptions, and meant to exhibit and test my genius on the
+walls of my house; and now I see I can't. It is generally thus. The
+Battle of the Golden Letters will never be delivered. On making
+preparation to open the campaign, the King found himself face to face
+with invincible difficulties, in which the rapacity of a mercenary
+soldiery and the complaints of an impoverished treasury played an equal
+part.--Ever yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+I enclose a bill for the medallion; have been trying to find your
+letter, quite in vain, and therefore must request you to pay for the
+bronze letters yourself and let me know the damage.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES S. STEVENSON
+
+
+     _Vailima Plantation, Island of Upolu, Samoa, Sept. 4th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR COUSIN,--I thank you cordially for your kinsmanlike reply to my
+appeal. Already the notes from the family Bible have spared me one
+blunder, which I had from some notes in my grandfather's own hand; and
+now, like the daughters of the horseleech, my voice is raised again to
+put you to more trouble. "Nether Carsewell, Neilston," I read. My
+knowledge of Scotland is fairly wide, but it does not include Neilston.
+
+However, I find by the (original) Statistical Account, it is a parish in
+Renfrew. Do you know anything of it? Have you identified Nether
+Carsewell? Have the Neilston parish registers been searched? I see whole
+vistas of questions arising, and here am I in Samoa!
+
+I shall write by this mail to my lawyer to have the records searched,
+and to my mother to go and inquire in the parish itself. But perhaps you
+may have some further information, and if so I should be glad of it. If
+you have not, pray do not trouble to answer. As to your father's blunder
+of "Stevenson of Cauldwell," it is now explained: _Carse_well may have
+been confounded with _Cauldwell_: and it seems likely our man may have
+been a tenant or retainer of Mure of Cauldwell, a very ancient and
+honourable family, who seems to have been at least a neighbouring laird
+to the parish of Neilston. I was just about to close this, when I
+observed again your obliging offer of service, and I take you promptly
+at your word.
+
+Do you think that you or your son could find a day to visit Neilston and
+try to identify Nether Carsewell, find what size of a farm it is, to
+whom it belonged, etc.? I shall be very much obliged. I am pleased
+indeed to learn some of my books have given pleasure to your family; and
+with all good wishes, I remain, your affectionate cousin,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+The registers I shall have seen to, through my lawyer.
+
+
+
+
+TO GEORGE MEREDITH
+
+
+     _Sept. 5th,1893, Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa._
+
+MY DEAR MEREDITH,--I have again and again taken up the pen to write to
+you, and many beginnings have gone into the waste paper basket (I have
+one now--for the second time in my life--and feel a big man on the
+strength of it). And no doubt it requires some decision to break so long
+a silence. My health is vastly restored, and I am now living
+patriarchally in this place six hundred feet above the sea on the
+shoulder of a mountain of 1500. Behind me, the unbroken bush slopes up
+to the backbone of the island (3 to 4000) without a house, with no
+inhabitants save a few runaway black boys, wild pigs and cattle, and
+wild doves and flying foxes, and many parti-coloured birds, and many
+black, and many white: a very eerie, dim, strange place and hard to
+travel. I am the head of a household of five whites, and of twelve
+Samoans, to all of whom I am the chief and father: my cook comes to me
+and asks leave to marry--and his mother, a fine old chief woman, who has
+never lived here, does the same. You may be sure I granted the petition.
+It is a life of great interest, complicated by the Tower of Babel, that
+old enemy. And I have all the time on my hands for literary work.
+
+My house is a great place; we have a hall fifty feet long with a great
+redwood stair ascending from it, where we dine in state--myself usually
+dressed in a singlet and a pair of trousers--and attended on by servants
+in a single garment, a kind of kilt--also flowers and leaves--and their
+hair often powdered with lime. The European who came upon it suddenly
+would think it was a dream. We have prayers on Sunday night--I am a
+perfect pariah in the island not to have them oftener, but the spirit is
+unwilling and the flesh proud, and I cannot go it more. It is strange to
+see the long line of the brown folk crouched along the wall with
+lanterns at intervals before them in the big shadowy hall, with an oak
+cabinet at one end of it and a group of Rodin's (which native taste
+regards as _prodigieusement leste_) presiding over all from the top--and
+to hear the long rambling Samoan hymn rolling up (God bless me, what
+style)! But I am off business to-day, and this is not meant to be
+literature.
+
+I have asked Colvin to send you a copy of _Catriona_, which I am
+sometimes tempted to think is about my best work. I hear word
+occasionally of the _Amazing Marriage_. It will be a brave day for me
+when I get hold of it. Gower Woodseer is now an ancient, lean, grim,
+exiled Scot, living and labouring as for a wager in the tropics; still
+active, still with lots of fire in him, but the youth--ah, the youth
+where is it? For years after I came here, the critics (those genial
+gentlemen) used to deplore the relaxation of my fibre and the idleness
+to which I had succumbed. I hear less of this now; the next thing is
+they will tell me I am writing myself out! and that my unconscientious
+conduct is bringing their grey hairs with sorrow to the dust. I do not
+know--I mean I do know one thing. For fourteen years I have not had a
+day's real health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have
+done my work unflinchingly. I have written in bed, and written out of
+it, written in hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by
+coughing, written when my head swam for weakness; and for so long, it
+seems to me I have won my wager and recovered my glove. I am better now,
+have been rightly speaking since first I came to the Pacific; and still,
+few are the days when I am not in some physical distress. And the battle
+goes on--ill or well, is a trifle; so as it goes. I was made for a
+contest, and the Powers have so willed that my battlefield should be
+this dingy, inglorious one of the bed and the physic bottle. At least I
+have not failed, but I would have preferred a place of trumpetings and
+the open air over my head.
+
+This is a devilish egotistical yarn. Will you try to imitate me in that
+if the spirit ever moves you to reply? And meantime be sure that away in
+the midst of the Pacific there is a house on a wooded island where the
+name of George Meredith is very dear, and his memory (since it must be
+no more) is continually honoured.--Ever your friend,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+Remember me to Mariette, if you please; and my wife sends her most kind
+remembrances to yourself.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   Finished on the way to Honolulu for a health change which turned out
+   unfortunate. With the help of Mr. J.H. Stevenson and other
+   correspondents he had now, as we have seen, been able (regretfully
+   giving up the possibility of a Macgregor lineage) to identify his
+   forbears as having about 1670 been tenant farmers at Nether Carsewell
+   in Renfrewshire. The German government at home had taken his
+   _Footnote to History_ much less kindly than his German neighbours on
+   the spot, and the Tauchnitz edition had been confiscated and
+   destroyed and its publisher fined.
+
+     [_Vailima, and s.s. Mariposa, September 1893._]
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--Here is a job for you. It appears that about 1665, or
+earlier, James Stevenson {in / of} Nether Carsewell, parish of Neilston,
+flourished. Will you kindly send an able-bodied reader to compulse the
+parish registers of Neilston, if they exist or go back as far? Also
+could any trace be found through Nether-Carsewell? I expect it to have
+belonged to Mure of Cauldwell. If this be so, might not the Cauldwell
+charter chest contain some references to their Stevenson tenantry?
+Perpend upon it. But clap me on the judicious, able-bodied reader on the
+spot. Can I really have found the tap-root of my illustrious ancestry at
+last? Souls of my fathers! What a giggle-iggle-orious moment! I have
+drawn on you for L400. Also I have written to Tauchnitz announcing I
+should bear one-half part of his fines and expenses, amounting to L62,
+10s. The L400 includes L160 which I have laid out here in land. Vanu
+Manutagi--the vale of crying birds (the wild dove)--is now mine: it was
+Fanny's wish and she is to buy it from me again when she has made that
+much money.
+
+Will you please order for me through your bookseller the _Mabinogion_ of
+Lady Charlotte Guest--if that be her name--and the original of Cook's
+voyages lately published? Also, I see announced a map of the Great North
+Road: you might see what it is like: if it is highly detailed, or has
+any posting information, I should like it.
+
+This is being finished on board the _Mariposa_ going north. I am making
+the run to Honolulu and back for health's sake. No inclination to write
+more.--As ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   On a first reading of the incomplete MS. of _The Ebb Tide_, without
+   its concluding chapters, which are the strongest, dislike of the
+   three detestable--or rather two detestable and one
+   contemptible--chief characters had made me unjust to the imaginative
+   force and vividness of the treatment.
+
+     _[Vailima] 23rd August._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Your pleasing letter _re The Ebb Tide_, to hand. I
+propose, if it be not too late, to delete Lloyd's name. He has nothing
+to do with the last half. The first we wrote together, as the beginning
+of a long yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather
+unfair on the young man to couple his name with so infamous a work.
+Above all, as you had not read the two last chapters, which seem to me
+the most ugly and cynical of all.
+
+You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I am not. It is not
+because of your letter, but because of the complicated miseries that
+surround me and that I choose to say nothing of.... Life is not all Beer
+and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white
+to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on.
+Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an
+ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still
+believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my own share in the
+missteps, and can bow my head to the result, like an old, stern, unhappy
+devil of a Norseman, as my ultimate character is....
+
+Well, _il faut cultiver son jardin_. That last expression of poor,
+unhappy human wisdom I take to my heart and go to _St. Ives_.
+
+_24th Aug._--And did, and worked about 2 hours and got to sleep
+ultimately and "a' the clouds has blawn away." "Be sure we'll have some
+pleisand weather, When a' the clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone?) away."
+Verses that have a quite inexplicable attraction for me, and I believe
+had for Burns. They have no merit, but are somehow good. I am now in a
+most excellent humour.
+
+I am deep in _St. Ives_ which, I believe, will be the next novel done.
+But it is to be clearly understood that I promise nothing, and may throw
+in your face the very last thing you expect--or I expect. _St. Ives_
+will (to my mind) not be wholly bad. It is written in rather a funny
+style; a little stilted and left-handed; the style of St. Ives; also, to
+some extent, the style of R. L. S. dictating. _St. Ives_ is
+unintellectual, and except as an adventure novel, dull. But the
+adventures seem to me sound and pretty probable; and it is a love story.
+Speed his wings!
+
+_Sunday night._--_De coeur un peu plus dispos, monsieur et cher
+confrere, je me remets a vous ecrire._ _St. Ives_ is now in the 5th
+chapter copying; in the 14th chapter of the dictated draft. I do not
+believe I shall end by disliking it.
+
+_Monday._--Well, here goes again for the news. Fanny is _very well_
+indeed, and in good spirits; I am in good spirits, but not _very_ well;
+Lloyd is in good spirits and very well; Belle has a real good fever
+which has put her pipe out wholly. Graham goes back this mail. He takes
+with him three chapters of _The Family_, and is to go to you as soon as
+he can. He cannot be much the master of his movements, but you grip him
+when you can and get all you can from him, as he has lived about six
+months with us and he can tell you just what is true and what is
+not--and not the dreams of dear old Ross.[66] He is a good fellow, is he
+not?
+
+Since you rather revise your views of _The Ebb Tide_, I think Lloyd's
+name might stick, but I'll leave it to you. I'll tell you just how it
+stands. Up to the discovery of the champagne, the tale was all planned
+between us and drafted by Lloyd; from that moment he has had nothing to
+do with it except talking it over. For we changed our plan, gave up the
+projected Monte Cristo, and cut it down for a short story. My
+impression--(I beg your pardon--this is a local joke--a firm here had on
+its beer labels, "sole importers")--is that it will never be popular,
+but might make a little _succes de scandale_. However, I'm done with it
+now, and not sorry, and the crowd may rave and mumble its bones for what
+I care.
+
+Hole essential.[67] I am sorry about the maps; but I want 'em for next
+edition, so see and have proofs sent. You are quite right about the
+bottle and the great Huish, I must try to make it clear. No, I will not
+write a play for Irving nor for the devil. Can you not see that the work
+of _falsification_ which a play demands is of all tasks the most
+ungrateful? And I have done it a long while--and nothing ever came of
+it.
+
+Consider my new proposal, I mean Honolulu. You would get the Atlantic
+and the Rocky Mountains, would you not? for bracing. And so much less
+sea! And then you could actually see Vailima, which I _would_ like you
+to, for it's beautiful and my home and tomb that is to be; though it's a
+wrench not to be planted in Scotland--that I can never deny--if I could
+only be buried in the hills, under the heather and a table tombstone
+like the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers are crying! Did you see a
+man who wrote the _Stickit Minister_,[68] and dedicated it to me, in
+words that brought the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them.
+"Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying. _His_
+heart remembers how." Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should fulfil
+the Scots destiny throughout, and live a voluntary exile, and have my
+head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time!
+
+And now a word as regards the delusions of the dear Ross, who remembers,
+I believe, my letters and Fanny's when we were first installed, and were
+really hoeing a hard row. We have salad, beans, cabbages, tomatoes,
+asparagus, kohl-rabi, oranges, limes, barbadines, pine-apples, Cape
+gooseberries--galore; pints of milk and cream; fresh meat five days a
+week. It is the rarest thing for any of us to touch a tin; and the
+gnashing of teeth when it has to be done is dreadful--for no one who has
+not lived on them for six months knows what the Hatred of the Tin is. As
+for exposure, my weakness is certainly the reverse; I am sometimes a
+month without leaving the verandah--for my sins, be it said! Doubtless,
+when I go about and, as the Doctor says, "expose myself to malaria," I
+am in far better health; and I would do so more too--for I do not mean
+to be silly--but the difficulties are great. However, you see how much
+the dear Doctor knows of my diet and habits! Malaria practically does
+not exist in these islands; it is a negligeable quantity. What really
+bothers us a little is the mosquito affair--the so-called
+elephantiasis--ask Ross about it. A real romance of natural history,
+_quoi_!
+
+Hi! stop! you say _The Ebb Tide_ is the "working out of an artistic
+problem of a kind." Well, I should just bet it was! You don't like
+Attwater. But look at my three rogues; they're all there, I'll go bail.
+Three types of the bad man, the weak man, and the strong man with a
+weakness, that are gone through and lived out.
+
+Yes, of course I was sorry for Mataafa, but a good deal sorrier and
+angrier about the mismanagement of all the white officials. I cannot
+bear to write about that. Manono all destroyed, one house standing in
+Apolima, the women stripped, the prisoners beaten with whips--and the
+women's heads taken--all under white auspices. And for upshot and result
+of so much shame to the white powers--Tamasese already conspiring! as I
+knew and preached in vain must be the case! Well, well, it is no fun to
+meddle in politics!
+
+I suppose you're right about Simon.[69] But it is Symon throughout in
+that blessed little volume my father bought for me in Inverness in the
+year of grace '81, I believe--the trial of James Stewart, with the
+Jacobite pamphlet and the dying speech appended--out of which the whole
+of _Davie_ has already been begotten, and which I felt it a kind of
+loyalty to follow. I really ought to have it bound in velvet and gold,
+if I had any gratitude! and the best of the lark is, that the name of
+David Balfour is not anywhere within the bounds of it. A pretty curious
+instance of the genesis of a book. I am delighted at your good word for
+_David_; I believe the two together make up much the best of my work and
+perhaps of what is in me. I am not ashamed of them, at least. There is
+one hitch; instead of three hours between the two parts, I fear there
+have passed three years over Davie's character; but do not tell anybody;
+see if they can find it out for themselves; and no doubt his experiences
+in _Kidnapped_ would go far to form him. I would like a copy to go to G.
+Meredith.
+
+_Wednesday._--Well, here is a new move. It is likely I may start with
+Graham next week and go to Honolulu to meet the other steamer and
+return: I do believe a fortnight at sea would do me good; yet I am not
+yet certain. The crowded _up_-steamer sticks in my throat.
+
+_Tuesday, 12th Sept._--Yesterday was perhaps the brightest in the annals
+of Vailima. I got leave from Captain Bickford to have the band of the
+_Katoomba_ come up, and they came, fourteen of 'em, with drum, fife,
+cymbals and bugles, blue jackets, white caps, and smiling faces. The
+house was all decorated with scented greenery above and below. We had
+not only our own nine out-door workers, but a contract party that we
+took on in charity to pay their war-fine; the band besides, as it came
+up the mountain, had collected a following of children by the way, and
+we had a picking of Samoan ladies to receive them. Chicken, ham, cake
+and fruits were served out with coffee and lemonade, and all the
+afternoon we had rounds of claret negus flavoured with rum and limes.
+They played to us, they danced, they sang, they tumbled. Our boys came
+in the end of the verandah and gave _them_ a dance for a while. It was
+anxious work getting this stopped once it had begun, but I knew the band
+was going on a programme. Finally they gave three cheers for Mr. and
+Mrs. Stevens, shook hands, formed up and marched off playing--till a
+kicking horse in the paddock put their pipes out something of the
+suddenest--we thought the big drum was gone, but Simele flew to the
+rescue. And so they wound away down the hill with ever another call of
+the bugle, leaving us extinct with fatigue, but perhaps the most
+contented hosts that ever watched the departure of successful guests.
+Simply impossible to tell how well these blue-jackets behaved; a most
+interesting lot of men; this education of boys for the navy is making a
+class, wholly apart--how shall I call them?--a kind of lower-class
+public school boy, well-mannered, fairly intelligent, sentimental as a
+sailor. What is more shall be writ on board ship if anywhere.
+
+Please send _Catriona_ to G. Meredith.
+
+_S.S. Mariposa._--To-morrow I reach Honolulu. Good-morning to your
+honour.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   In the interval between the last letter and this, the writer had been
+   down with a sharp and prolonged attack of fever at Honolulu, and Mrs.
+   Stevenson had come from Samoa to nurse and take him home.
+
+     _Waikiki, Honolulu, H. I., Oct. 23rd, 1893._
+
+DEAR COLVIN,--My wife came up on the steamer and we go home together in
+2 days. I am practically all right, only sleepy and tired easily, slept
+yesterday from 11 to 11.45, from 1 to 2.50, went to bed at 8 P.M., and
+with an hour's interval slept till 6 A.M., close upon 14 hours out of
+the 24. We sail to-morrow. I am anxious to get home, though this has
+been an interesting visit, and politics have been curious indeed to
+study. We go to P.P.C. on the "Queen" this morning; poor, recluse lady,
+_abreuvee d'injures qu'elle est_. Had a rather annoying lunch on board
+the American man-of-war, with a member of the P.G. (provisional
+government); and a good deal of anti-royalist talk, which I had to sit
+out--not only for my host's sake, but my fellow guests. At last, I took
+the lead and changed the conversation.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+I am being busted here by party named Hutchinson.[70] Seems good.
+
+
+[_Vailima--November._]--Home again, and found all well, thank God. I am
+perfectly well again and ruddier than the cherry. Please note that 8000
+is not bad for a volume of short stories;[71] the _Merry Men_ did a good
+deal worse; the short story never sells. I hope _Catriona_ will do; that
+is the important. The reviews seem mixed and perplexed, and one had the
+peculiar virtue to make me angry. I am in a fair way to expiscate my
+family history. Fanny and I had a lovely voyage down, with our new C.J.
+and the American Land Commissioner, and on the whole, and for these
+disgusting steamers, a pleasant ship's company. I cannot understand why
+you don't take to the Hawaii scheme. Do you understand? You cross the
+Atlantic in six days, and go from 'Frisco to Honolulu in seven. Thirteen
+days at sea _in all_.--I have no wish to publish _The Ebb Tide_ as a
+book, let it wait. It will look well in the portfolio. I would like a
+copy, of course, for that end; and to "look upon't again"--which I
+scarce dare.
+
+[_Later._]--This is disgraceful. I have done nothing; neither work nor
+letters. On the Me (May) day, we had a great triumph; our Protestant
+boys, instead of going with their own villages and families, went of
+their own accord in the Vailima uniform; Belle made coats for them on
+purpose to complete the uniform, they having bought the stuff; and they
+were hailed as they marched in as the Tama-ona--the rich man's children.
+This is really a score; it means that Vailima is publicly taken as a
+family. Then we had my birthday feast a week late, owing to diarrhoea
+on the proper occasion. The feast was laid in the Hall, and was a
+singular mass of food: 15 pigs, 100 lbs. beef, 100 lbs. pork, and the
+fruit and filigree in a proportion. We had sixty horse-posts driven in
+the gate paddock; how many guests I cannot guess, perhaps 150. They came
+between three and four and left about seven. Seumanu gave me one of his
+names; and when my name was called at the ava drinking, behold, it was
+_Au mai taua ma manu-vao!_ You would scarce recognise me, if you heard
+me thus referred to!
+
+Two days after, we hired a carriage in Apia, Fanny, Belle, Lloyd and I,
+and drove in great style, with a native outrider, to the prison; a huge
+gift of ava and tobacco under the seats. The prison is now under the
+_pule_ of an Austrian, Captain Wurmbrand, a soldier of fortune in Servia
+and Turkey, a charming, clever, kindly creature, who is adored "by _his_
+chiefs" (as he calls them) meaning _our_ political prisoners. And we
+came into the yard, walled about with tinned iron, and drank ava with
+the prisoners and the captain. It may amuse you to hear how it is proper
+to drink ava. When the cup is handed you, you reach your arm out
+somewhat behind you, and slowly pour a libation, saying with somewhat
+the manner of prayer, "_Ia taumafa e le atua. Ua matagofie le fesilafaga
+nei._" "Be it (high-chief) partaken of by the God. How (high chief)
+beautiful to view is this (high chief) gathering." This pagan practice
+is very queer. I should say that the prison ava was of that not very
+welcome form that we elegantly call spit-ava, but of course there was no
+escape, and it had to be drunk. Fanny and I rode home, and I moralised
+by the way. Could we ever stand Europe again? did she appreciate that if
+we were in London, we should be _actually jostled_ in the street? and
+there was nobody in the whole of Britain who knew how to take ava like a
+gentleman? 'Tis funny to be thus of two civilisations--or, if you like,
+of one civilisation and one barbarism. And, as usual, the barbarism is
+the more engaging.
+
+Colvin, you have to come here and see us in our {native / mortal} spot.
+I just don't seem to be able to make up my mind to your not coming. By
+this time, you will have seen Graham, I hope, and he will be able to
+tell you something about us, and something reliable. I shall feel for
+the first time as if you knew a little about Samoa after that. Fanny
+seems to be in the right way now. I must say she is very, very well for
+her, and complains scarce at all. Yesterday, she went down _sola_(at
+least accompanied by a groom) to pay a visit; Belle, Lloyd and I went a
+walk up the mountain road--the great public highway of the island, where
+you have to go single file. The object was to show Belle that gaudy
+valley of the Vaisigano which the road follows. If the road is to be
+made and opened, as our new Chief Justice promises, it will be one of
+the most beautiful roads in the world. But the point is this: I forgot I
+had been three months in civilisation, wearing shoes and stockings, and
+I tell you I suffered on my soft feet; coming home, down hill, on that
+stairway of loose stones, I could have cried. O yes, another story, I
+knew I had. The house boys had not been behaving well, so the other
+night I announced a _fono_, and Lloyd and I went into the boys'
+quarters, and I talked to them I suppose for half an hour, and Talolo
+translated; Lloyd was there principally to keep another ear on the
+interpreter; else there may be dreadful misconceptions. I rubbed all
+their ears, except two whom I particularly praised; and one man's wages
+I announced I had cut down by one half. Imagine his taking this smiling!
+Ever since, he has been specially attentive and greets me with a face of
+really heavenly brightness. This is another good sign of their really
+and fairly accepting me as a chief. When I first came here, if I had
+fined a man a sixpence, he would have quit work that hour, and now I
+remove half his income, and he is glad to stay on--nay, does not seem to
+entertain the possibility of leaving. And this in the face of one
+particular difficulty--I mean our house in the bush, and no society, and
+no women society within decent reach.
+
+I think I must give you our staff in a tabular form.
+
+          HOUSE                  KITCHEN                  OUTSIDE
+
+  + o _Sosimo_, provost   + o _Talolo_, provost     + o _Henry Simele_,
+   and butler, and my      and chief cook.           provost and overseer
+   valet.                                            of outside
+                          + o _Iopu_, second cook.   boys.
+  o _Misifolo_, who
+   is Fanny and           _Tali_, his wife, no      _L[=u]_.
+   Belle's chamberlain.    wages.
+                                                    _Tasi Sele_.
+                          _Ti'a_, Samoan cook.
+                                                    _Maiele_.
+                          _Feiloa'i_, his child,
+                           no wages, likewise no    _Pulu_, who is also
+                           work--Belle's pet.        our talking man
+                                                     and cries the ava.
+                          + o _Leuelu_, Fanny's
+                           boy, gardener, odd jobs.
+
+                                IN APIA
+
+                          + _Eliga_, washman and
+                           daily errand man.
+
+The crosses mark out the really excellent boys. Ti'a is the man who has
+just been fined 1/2 his wages; he is a beautiful old man, the living
+image of "Fighting Gladiator," my favourite statue--but a dreadful
+humbug. I think we keep him on a little on account of his looks. This
+sign o marks those who have been two years or upwards in the family. I
+note all my old boys have the cross of honour, except Misifolo; well,
+poor dog, he does his best, I suppose. You should see him scour. It is a
+remark that has often been made by visitors: you never see a Samoan run,
+except at Vailima. Do you not suppose that makes me proud?
+
+I am pleased to see what a success _The Wrecker_ was, having already in
+little more than a year outstripped _The Master of Ballantrae_.
+
+About _David Balfour_ in two volumes, do see that they make it a
+decent-looking book, and tell me, do you think a little historical
+appendix would be of service? Lang bleats for one, and I thought I might
+address it to him as a kind of open letter.
+
+_Dec. 4th._--No time after all. Good-bye.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. HORNE STEVENSON
+
+
+   The following refers again to the introduction to the history of his
+   own family which Stevenson was then preparing under the title _A
+   Family of Engineers_. The correspondent was a specialist in
+   genealogical research. I give this letter as a sample of many which
+   passed between these two namesakes on this subject; omitting the
+   remainder as too technical to be of general interest.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, November 5th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR STEVENSON,--A thousand thanks for your voluminous and delightful
+collections. Baxter--so soon as it is ready--will let you see a proof of
+my introduction, which is only sent out as a sprat to catch whales. And
+you will find I have a good deal of what you have, only mine in a
+perfectly desultory manner, as is necessary to an exile. My uncle's
+pedigree is wrong; there was never a Stevenson of Caldwell, of course,
+but they were tenants of the Mures; the farm held by them is in my
+introduction; and I have already written to Charles Baxter to have a
+search made in the Register House. I hope he will have had the
+inspiration to put it under your surveillance. Your information as to
+your own family is intensely interesting, and I should not wonder but
+what you and we and old John Stevenson, "land labourer in the parish of
+Dailly," came all of the same stock. Ayrshire--and probably
+Cunningham--seems to be the home of the race--our part of it. From the
+distribution of the name--which your collections have so much extended
+without essentially changing my knowledge of--we seem rather pointed to
+a British origin. What you say of the Engineers is fresh to me, and must
+be well thrashed out. This introduction of it will take a long while to
+walk about!--as perhaps I may be tempted to let it become long; after
+all, I am writing _this_ for my own pleasure solely. Greetings to you
+and other Speculatives of our date, long bygone, alas!--Yours very
+sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+_P.S._--I have a different version of my grandfather's arms--or my
+father had if I could find it.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO JOHN P----N
+
+
+   The next two numbers are in answer to letters of appreciation
+   received from two small boys in England, whose mother desires that
+   they should remain nameless.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893._
+
+DEAR JOHNNIE,--Well, I must say you seem to be a tremendous fellow!
+Before I was eight I used to write stories--or dictate them at
+least--and I had produced an excellent history of Moses, for which I got
+L1 from an uncle; but I had never gone the length of a play, so you
+have beaten me fairly on my own ground. I hope you may continue to do
+so, and thanking you heartily for your nice letter, I shall beg you to
+believe me yours truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO RUSSELL P----N
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893._
+
+DEAR RUSSELL,--I have to thank you very much for your capital letter,
+which came to hand here in Samoa along with your mother's. When you
+"grow up and write stories like me," you will be able to understand that
+there is scarce anything more painful than for an author to hold a pen;
+he has to do it so much that his heart sickens and his fingers ache at
+the sight or touch of it; so that you will excuse me if I do not write
+much, but remain (with compliments and greetings from one Scot to
+another--though I was not born in Ceylon--you're ahead of me
+there).--Yours very truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
+
+
+     _Vailima, December 5, 1893._
+
+MY DEAREST CUMMY,--This goes to you with a Merry Christmas and a Happy
+New Year. The Happy New Year anyway, for I think it should reach you
+about _Noor's Day_. I dare say it may be cold and frosty. Do you
+remember when you used to take me out of bed in the early morning, carry
+me to the back windows, show me the hills of Fife, and quote to me
+
+  "A' the hills are covered wi' snaw,
+    An' winter's noo come fairly"?
+
+There is not much chance of that here! I wonder how my mother is going
+to stand the winter. It she can, it will be a very good thing for her.
+We are in that part of the year which I like the best--the Rainy or
+Hurricane Season. "When it is good, it is very, very good; and when it
+is bad, it is horrid," and our fine days are certainly fine like heaven;
+such a blue of the sea, such green of the trees, and such crimson of the
+hibiscus flowers, you never saw; and the air as mild and gentle as a
+baby's breath, and yet not hot!
+
+The mail is on the move, and I must let up.--With much love, I am, your
+laddie,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   The following quotes the extract, from Fountainhall's "Decisions of
+   the Lords of Council, etc.," which suggested to Stevenson the romance
+   of Cameronian days and the Darien adventure of which, under the title
+   of _Heathercat_, he only lived to write the first few introductory
+   chapters (see vol. xxi. p. 177, of this edition).
+
+     _6th December 1893._
+
+"_October 25, 1685._--At Privy Council, George Murray, Lieutenant of the
+King's Guard, and others, did, on the 21st of September last, obtain a
+clandestine order of Privy Council to apprehend the person of Janet
+Pringle, daughter to the late Clifton, and she having retired out of the
+way upon information, he got an order against Andrew Pringle, her uncle,
+to produce her.... But she having married Andrew Pringle, her uncle's
+son (to disappoint all their designs of selling her), a boy of thirteen
+years old." But my boy is to be fourteen, so I extract no
+further.--FOUNTAINHALL, i. 320.
+
+"_May 6, 1685._--Wappus Pringle of Clifton was still alive after all,
+and in prison for debt, and transacts with Lieutenant Murray, giving
+security for 7000 marks."--i. 372.
+
+No, it seems to have been _her_ brother who had succeeded.
+
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES.--The above is my story, and I wonder if any light can
+be thrown on it. I prefer the girl's father dead; and the question is,
+How in that case could Lieutenant George Murray get his order to
+"apprehend" and his power to "sell" her in marriage?
+
+Or--might Lieutenant G. be her tutor, and she fugitive to the Pringles,
+and on the discovery of her whereabouts hastily married?
+
+A good legal note on these points is very ardently desired by me; it
+will be the corner-stone of my novel.
+
+This is for--I am quite wrong to tell you--for you will tell others--and
+nothing will teach you that all my schemes are in the air, and vanish
+and reappear again like shapes in the clouds--it is for _Heathercat_:
+whereof the first volume will be called _The Killing Time_, and I
+believe I have authorities ample for that. But the second volume is to
+be called (I believe) _Darien_, and for that I want, I fear, a good deal
+of truck:--
+
+  _Darien Papers_,
+  _Carstairs Papers_,
+  _Marchmont Papers_,
+  _Jerviswoode Correspondence_,
+
+I hope may do me. Some sort of general history of the Darien affair (if
+there is a decent one, which I misdoubt), it would also be well to
+have--the one with most details, if possible. It is singular how obscure
+to me this decade of Scots history remains, 1690-1700--a deuce of a want
+of light and grouping to it! However, I believe I shall be mostly out of
+Scotland in my tale; first in Carolina, next in Darien. I want also--I
+am the daughter of the horseleech truly--"Black's new large map of
+Scotland," sheets 3, 4, and 5, a 7s. 6d. touch. I believe, if you can
+get the
+
+  _Caldwell Papers_,
+
+they had better come also; and if there be any reasonable work--but no,
+I must call a halt....
+
+I fear the song looks doubtful, but I'll consider of it, and I can
+promise you some reminiscences which it will amuse me to write, whether
+or not it will amuse the public to read of them. But it's an unco
+business to supply deid-heid coapy.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. M. BARRIE
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 7th, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR BARRIE,--I have received duly the _magnum opus_, and it really
+is a _magnum opus_.[72] 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.
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO R. LE GALLIENNE
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 28th, 1893._
+
+DEAR MR. LE GALLIENNE,--I have received some time ago, through our
+friend Miss Taylor, a book of yours. But that was by no means my first
+introduction to your name. The same book had stood already on my
+shelves; I had read articles of yours in the Academy; and by a piece of
+constructive criticism (which I trust was sound) had arrived at the
+conclusion that you were "Log-roller." Since then I have seen your
+beautiful verses to your wife. You are to conceive me, then, as only
+too ready to make the acquaintance of a man who loved good literature
+and could make it. I had to thank you, besides, for a triumphant
+exposure of a paradox of my own: the literary-prostitute disappeared
+from view at a phrase of yours--"The essence is not in the pleasure but
+the sale." True you are right, I was wrong; the author is not the whore
+but the libertine; and yet I shall let the passage stand. It is an
+error, but it illustrated the truth for which I was contending, that
+literature--painting--all art , are no other than pleasures, which we
+turn into trades.
+
+And more than all this, I had, and I have to thank you for the intimate
+loyalty you have shown to myself; for the eager welcome you give to what
+is good--for the courtly tenderness with which you touch on my defects.
+I begin to grow old; I have given my top note, I fancy;--and I have
+written too many books. The world begins to be weary of the old booth;
+and if not weary, familiar with the familiarity that breeds contempt. I
+do not know that I am sensitive to criticism, if it be hostile; I am
+sensitive indeed, when it is friendly; and when I read such criticism as
+yours, I am emboldened to go on and praise God.
+
+You are still young, and you may live to do much. The little artificial
+popularity of style in England tends, I think, to die out; the British
+pig returns to his true love, the love of the styleless, of the
+shapeless, of the slapdash and the disorderly. There is trouble coming,
+I think; and you may have to hold the fort for us in evil days.
+
+Lastly, let me apologise for the crucifixion that I am inflicting on you
+(_bien a contre-coeur_) by my bad writing. I was once the best of
+writers; landladies, puzzled as to my "trade," used to have their honest
+bosoms set at rest by a sight of a page of manuscript.--"Ah," they would
+say, "no wonder they pay you for that";--and when I sent it in to the
+printers, it was given to the boys! I was about thirty-nine, I think,
+when I had a turn of scrivener's palsy; my hand got worse; and for the
+first time, I received clean proofs. But it has gone beyond that now. I
+know I am like my old friend James Payn, a terror to correspondents; and
+you would not believe the care with which this has been
+written.--Believe me to be, very sincerely yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. A. BAKER
+
+
+   The next is in answer to a request for permission to print some of
+   the writings of R. L. S. in Braille type for the use of the blind.
+
+     _December 1893._
+
+DEAR MADAM,--There is no trouble, and I wish I could help instead. As it
+is, I fear I am only going to put you to trouble and vexation. This
+Braille writing is a kind of consecration, and I would like if I could
+to have your copy perfect. The two volumes are to be published as Vols.
+I. and II. of _The Adventures of David Balfour_. 1st, _Kidnapped_; 2nd,
+_Catriona_. I am just sending home a corrected _Kidnapped_ for this
+purpose to Messrs. Cassell, and in order that I may if possible be in
+time, I send it to you first of all. Please, as soon as you have noted
+the changes, forward the same to Cassell and Co., La Belle Sauvage Yard,
+Ludgate Hill.
+
+I am writing to them by this mail to send you _Catriona_.
+
+You say, dear madam, you are good enough to say, it is "a keen pleasure"
+to you to bring my book within the reach of the blind.
+
+Conceive then what it is to me! and believe me, sincerely yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+  I was a barren tree before,
+    I blew a quenched coal,
+  I could not, on their midnight shore,
+    The lonely blind console.
+
+  A moment, lend your hand, I bring
+    My sheaf for you to bind,
+  And you can teach my words to sing
+    In the darkness of the blind.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+     _Apia, December, 1893._
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--The mail has come upon me like an armed man three
+days earlier than was expected; and the Lord help me! It is impossible I
+should answer anybody the way they should be. Your jubilation over
+_Catriona_ did me good, and still more the subtlety and truth of your
+remark on the starving of the visual sense in that book. 'Tis true, and
+unless I make the greater effort--and am, as a step to that, convinced
+of its necessity--it will be more true I fear in the future. I _hear_
+people talking, and I _feel_ them acting, and that seems to me to be
+fiction. My two aims may be described as--
+
+  _1st._ War to the adjective.
+  _2nd._ Death to the optic nerve.
+
+Admitted we live in an age of the optic nerve in literature. For how
+many centuries did literature get along without a sign of it? However,
+I'll consider your letter.
+
+How exquisite is your character of the critic in _Essays in London_! I
+doubt if you have done any single thing so satisfying as a piece of
+style and of insight--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   Recounting a scene of gratitude for bounty shown by him to the
+   prisoners in Apia gaol.
+
+     [_Vailima, December 1893._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--One page out of my picture book I must give you. Fine
+burning day; 1/2 past two P.M. We four begin to rouse up from reparatory
+slumbers, yawn, and groan, get a cup of tea, and miserably dress: we
+have had a party the day before, X'mas Day, with all the boys absent
+but one, and latterly two; we had cooked all day long, a cold dinner,
+and lo! at two our guests began to arrive, though dinner was not till
+six; they were sixteen, and fifteen slept the night and breakfasted.
+Conceive, then, how unwillingly we climb on our horses and start off in
+the hottest part of the afternoon to ride 4 1/2 miles, attend a native
+feast in the gaol, and ride four and a half miles back. But there is no
+help for it. I am a sort of father of the political prisoners, and have
+_charge d'ames_ in that riotously absurd establishment, Apia Gaol. The
+twenty-three (I think it is) chiefs act as under gaolers. The other day
+they told the Captain of an attempt to escape. One of the lesser
+political prisoners the other day effected a swift capture, while the
+Captain was trailing about with the warrant; the man came to see what
+was wanted; came, too, flanked by the former gaoler; my prisoner offers
+to show him the dark cell, shoves him in, and locks the door. "Why do
+you do that?" cries the former gaoler. "A warrant," says he. Finally,
+the chiefs actually feed the soldiery who watch them!
+
+The gaol is a wretched little building, containing a little room, and
+three cells, on each side of a central passage; it is surrounded by a
+fence of corrugated iron, and shows, over the top of that, only a gable
+end with the inscription _O le Fale Puipui_. It is on the edge of the
+mangrove swamp, and is reached by a sort of causeway of turf. When we
+drew near, we saw the gates standing open and a prodigious crowd
+outside--I mean prodigious for Apia, perhaps a hundred and fifty people.
+The two sentries at the gate stood to arms passively, and there seemed
+to be a continuous circulation inside and out. The captain came to meet
+us; our boy, who had been sent ahead was there to take the horses; and
+we passed inside the court which was full of food, and rang continuously
+to the voice of the caller of gifts; I had to blush a little later when
+my own present came, and I heard my one pig and eight miserable
+pine-apples being counted out like guineas. In the four corners of the
+yard and along one wall, there are make-shift, dwarfish, Samoan houses
+or huts, which have been run up since Captain Wurmbrand came to
+accommodate the chiefs. Before that they were all crammed into the six
+cells, and locked in for the night, some of them with dysentery. They
+are wretched constructions enough, but sanctified by the presence of
+chiefs. We heard a man corrected loudly to-day for saying "_Fale_" of
+one of them; "_Maota_," roared the highest chief present--"palace."
+About eighteen chiefs, gorgeously arrayed, stood up to greet us, and led
+us into one of these _maotas_, where you may be sure we had to crouch,
+almost to kneel, to enter, and where a row of pretty girls occupied one
+side to make the ava (kava). The highest chief present was a magnificent
+man, as high chiefs usually are; I find I cannot describe him; his face
+is full of shrewdness and authority; his figure like Ajax; his name
+Auilua. He took the head of the building and put Belle on his right
+hand. Fanny was called first for the ava (kava). Our names were called
+in English style, the high-chief wife of Mr. St--(an unpronounceable
+something); Mrs. Straw, and the like. And when we went into the other
+house to eat, we found we were seated alternately with chiefs about
+the--table, I was about to say, but rather floor. Everything was to be
+done European style with a vengeance! We were the only whites present,
+except Wurmbrand, and still I had no suspicion of the truth. They began
+to take off their ulas (necklaces of scarlet seeds) and hang them about
+our necks; we politely resisted, and were told that the king (who had
+stopped off their _siva_) had sent down to the prison a message to the
+effect that he was to give a dinner to-morrow, and wished their
+second-hand ulas for it. Some of them were content; others not. There
+was a ring of anger in the boy's voice, as he told us we were to wear
+them past the king's house. Dinner over, I must say they are moderate
+eaters at a feast, we returned to the ava house; and then the curtain
+drew suddenly up upon the set scene. We took our seats, and Auilua began
+to give me a present, recapitulating each article as he gave it out,
+with some appropriate comment. He called me several times "their only
+friend," said they were all in slavery, had no money, and these things
+were all made by the hands of their families--nothing bought; he had one
+phrase, in which I heard his voice rise up to a note of triumph: "This
+is a present from the poor prisoners to the rich man." Thirteen pieces
+of tapa, some of them surprisingly fine, one I think unique; thirty fans
+of every shape and colour; a kava cup, etc., etc. At first Auilua
+conducted the business with weighty gravity; but before the end of the
+thirty fans, his comments began to be humorous. When it came to a little
+basket, he said: "Here was a little basket for Tusitala to put sixpence
+in, when he could get hold of one"--with a delicious grimace. I answered
+as best as I was able through a miserable interpreter; and all the
+while, as I went on, I heard the crier outside in the court calling my
+gift of food, which I perceived was to be Gargantuan. I had brought but
+three boys with me. It was plain that they were wholly overpowered. We
+proposed to send for our gifts on the morrow; but no, said the
+interpreter, that would never do; they must go away to-day, Mulinuu must
+see my porters taking away the gifts,--"make 'em jella," quoth the
+interpreter. And I began to see the reason of this really splendid gift;
+one half, gratitude to me--one half, a wipe at the king.
+
+And now, to introduce darker colours, you must know this visit of mine
+to the gaol was just a little bit risky; we had several causes for
+anxiety; it _might_ have been put up, to connect with a Tamasese rising.
+Tusitala and his family would be good hostages. On the other hand, there
+were the Mulinuu people all about. We could see the anxiety of Captain
+Wurmbrand, no less anxious to have us go, than he had been to see us
+come; he was deadly white and plainly had a bad headache, in the noisy
+scene. Presently, the noise grew uproarious; there was a rush at the
+gate--a rush _in_, not a rush _out_--where the two sentries still stood
+passive; Auilua leaped from his place (it was then that I got the name
+of Ajax for him) and the next moment we heard his voice roaring and saw
+his mighty figure swaying to and fro in the hurly-burly. As the deuce
+would have it, we could not understand a word of what was going on. It
+might be nothing more than the ordinary "grab racket" with which a feast
+commonly concludes; it might be something worse. We made what
+arrangements we could for my tapa, fans, etc., as well as for my five
+pigs, my masses of fish, taro, etc., and with great dignity, and
+ourselves laden with ulas and other decorations, passed between the
+sentries among the howling mob to our horses. All's well that ends well.
+Owing to Fanny and Belle, we had to walk; and, as Lloyd said, "he had at
+last ridden in a circus." The whole length of Apia we paced our
+triumphal progress, past the king's palace, past the German firm at
+Sogi--you can follow it on the map--amidst admiring exclamations of
+"_Mawaia_"--beautiful--it may be rendered "O my! ain't they
+dandy"--until we turned up at last into our road as the dusk deepened
+into night. It was really exciting. And there is one thing sure: no such
+feast was ever made for a single family, and no such present ever given
+to a single white man. It is something to have been the hero of it. And
+whatever other ingredients there were, undoubtedly gratitude was
+present. As money value I have actually gained on the transaction!
+
+Your note arrived; little profit, I must say. Scott has already put his
+nose in, in _St. Ives_, sir; but his appearance is not yet complete;
+nothing is in that romance, except the story. I have to announce that I
+am off work, probably for six months. I must own that I have overworked
+bitterly--overworked--there, that's legible. My hand is a thing that
+was, and in the meanwhile so are my brains. And here, in the very midst,
+comes a plausible scheme to make Vailima pay, which will perhaps let me
+into considerable expense just when I don't want it. You know the vast
+cynicism of my view of affairs, and how readily and (as some people say)
+with how much gusto I take the darker view?
+
+Why do you not send me Jerome K. Jerome's paper, and let me see _The Ebb
+Tide_ as a serial? It is always very important to see a thing in
+different presentments. I want every number. Politically we begin the
+new year with every expectation of a bust in 2 or 3 days, a bust which
+may spell destruction to Samoa. I have written to Baxter about his
+proposal.[73]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [56] The correspondent whose letter I had sent on was a high official
+    at the Foreign Office: the subject, Stevenson and Samoa.
+
+  [57] Hemorrhage from the lungs.
+
+  [58] Vitrolle's _Memoires_ and the "1814" and "1815" of M. Henri
+    Houssaye were sent accordingly.
+
+  [59] Ultimately _The Ebb Tide_.
+
+  [60] For a volume of selected _Essays_, containing the pick of
+    _Virginibus Puerisque_, _Memories and Portraits_, and _Across the
+    Plains_.
+
+  [61] _The Owl_ was to be a Breton story of the Revolution; _Death in
+    the Pot_, a tale of the Sta. Lucia mountains in California; the
+    scene of _The Go-Between_ was laid in the Pacific Islands; of _The
+    Sleeper Awakened_ I know nothing.
+
+  [62] Of _Island Nights' Entertainments_.
+
+  [63] John Addington Symonds.
+
+  [64] _Across the Plains._
+
+  [65] Volume of sonnets by Jose Maria de Heredia.
+
+  [66] Dr. Fairfax Ross, a distinguished physician of Sydney, and
+    friend of the Stevenson family, who during a visit to England this
+    summer had conveyed to me no very reassuring impression as to the
+    healthfulness of the island life and climate.
+
+  [67] W. Hole, R.S.A.: essential for the projected illustrations to
+    _Kidnapped_ and _Catriona_.
+
+  [68] Mr. S. R. Crockett. The words quoted from this gentleman's
+    dedication were worked by Stevenson into a very moving and
+    metrically original set of verses, addressed to him in
+    acknowledgment (_Songs of Travel_, xlii.).
+
+  [69] Simon Fraser, the Master of Lovat, in _Catriona_: the spelling
+    of his name.
+
+  [70] The bust was exhibited in the New Gallery Summer Exhibition, 1895.
+
+  [71] _Island Nights' Entertainments._
+
+  [72] _The Window in Thrums_, with illustrations by W. Hole, R.S.A.
+    Hodder and Stoughton. 1892.
+
+  [73] The scheme of the Edinburgh Edition.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+LIFE IN SAMOA--_Concluded_
+
+FOURTH YEAR AT VAILIMA--THE END
+
+JANUARY-DECEMBER 1894
+
+
+This new year began for Stevenson with an illness which seemed to leave
+none of the usual lowering consequences, and for Samoa with fresh
+rumours of war, which were not realised until the autumn, and then--at
+least in the shape of serious hostilities--in the district of Atua only
+and not in his own. On the whole Stevenson's bodily health and vigour
+kept at a higher level than during the previous year. But for serious
+imaginative writing he found himself still unfit, and the sense that his
+old facility had for the time being failed him caused him much inward
+misgiving. In his correspondence the misgiving mood was allowed to
+appear pretty freely; but in personal intercourse his high spirits
+seemed to his family and visitors as unfailing as ever. Several things
+happened during the year to give him peculiar pleasure: first, at the
+beginning of the year, the news of Mr. Baxter's carefully prepared
+scheme of the Edinburgh Edition, and of its acceptance by the publishers
+concerned. On this subject much correspondence naturally passed between
+him and Mr. Baxter and myself, over and above that which is here
+published; and finally he resolved to leave all the details of the
+execution to us. By the early autumn the financial success of the scheme
+was fully assured and made known to him by cable; but he did not seem
+altogether to realise the full measure of relief from money anxieties
+which the assurance was meant to convey to him. Other pleasurable
+circumstances were the return of Mr. Graham Balfour after a prolonged
+absence; the visit of a spirited and accomplished young English man of
+business and of letters, Mr. Sidney Lysaght (see below, pp. 385, 388,
+etc.); and the frequent society of the officers of H.M.S. _Curacoa_,
+with whom he was on terms of particular regard and cordiality. Lastly,
+he was very deeply touched and gratified by the action of the native
+political prisoners, towards whom he had shown much thoughtful kindness
+during their months of detention, in volunteering as a testimony of
+gratitude after their release to re-make with their own hands the branch
+road leading to his house: "the Road of Loving Hearts," as it came to be
+christened. Soon afterwards, the anniversaries of his own birthday and
+of the American Thanks-giving feast brought evidences hardly less
+welcome, after so much contention and annoyance as the island affairs
+and politics had involved him in, of the honour and affection in which
+he was held by all that was best in the white community. By each
+succeeding mail came stronger proofs from home of the manner in which
+men of letters of the younger generation had come to regard him as a
+master, an example, and a friend.
+
+But in spite of all these causes of pleasure, his letters showed that
+his old invincible spirit of inward cheerfulness was beginning not
+infrequently to give way to moods of depression and overstrained
+feeling. The importunity of these moods was no doubt due to some
+physical premonition that his vital powers, so frail from the cradle and
+always with so cheerful a courage overtaxed, were near exhaustion.
+During the first months of the year he attempted little writing; in the
+late spring and early summer his work was chiefly on the annals of his
+family and on the tale _St. Ives_. The latter he found uphill work:
+after the first ten or twelve chapters, which are in his happiest vein,
+the narrative, as he himself was painfully aware, began to flag. Towards
+the end of October he gave it up for the time being and turned to a more
+arduous task, the tragic _Weir of Hermiston_. On this theme he felt his
+inspiration return, and during the month of November and the first days
+of December wrought once more at the full pitch of his powers and in the
+conscious delight of their exercise. On the third of December, after a
+morning of happy work and pleasant correspondence, he was seen gazing
+long and wistfully toward the forest-clad mountain, on a ledge of which
+he had desired that he should be buried. In the afternoon he brought his
+morning's work to his wife, the most exacting of his critics; asked her
+whether it was not well done; and in her glow of admiring assent found
+his confirmation and his reward. Nevertheless she could not throw off an
+oppressive sense of coming calamity. He was reassuring her with gay and
+laughing talk when the sudden rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain
+laid him almost in a moment unconscious at her feet; and before two
+hours were over he had passed away. All the world knows how his body was
+carried by the loving hands of his native servants to the burial-place
+of his choice, and rests there with the words of his own requiem
+engraved on his tomb--the words which we have seen him putting on paper
+when he was at grips with death fifteen years before in California--
+
+  "Home is the sailor, home from sea,
+   And the hunter home from the hill."
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   Mr. Baxter, after much preliminary consideration and inquiry, had
+   matured and submitted to Stevenson the scheme of the Edinburgh
+   edition, to which this letter is his reply. The paper on _Treasure
+   Island_ appeared in the Idler for August 1889, and was afterwards
+   reprinted in the miscellany _My First Book_ (Chatto and Windus,
+   1894). See Edinburgh edition, _Miscellanies_, vol. iv. p. 285.
+
+     _1st January '94._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--I am delighted with your idea, and first, I will here
+give an amended plan and afterwards give you a note of some of the
+difficulties.
+
+  [Plan of the Edinburgh edition--14 vols.]
+
+... It may be a question whether my Times letters might not be appended
+to the _Footnote_ with a note of the dates of discharge of Cedercrantz
+and Pilsach.
+
+I am particularly pleased with this idea of yours, because I am come to
+a dead stop. I never can remember how bad I have been before, but at any
+rate I am bad enough just now, I mean as to literature; in health I am
+well and strong. I take it I shall be six months before I'm heard of
+again, and this time I could put in to some advantage in revising the
+text and (if it were thought desirable) writing prefaces. I do not know
+how many of them might be thought desirable. I have written a paper on
+_Treasure Island_, which is to appear shortly. _Master of Ballantrae_--I
+have one drafted. _The Wrecker_ is quite sufficiently done already with
+the last chapter, but I suppose an historic introduction to _David
+Balfour_ is quite unavoidable. _Prince Otto_ I don't think I could say
+anything about, and _Black Arrow_ don't want to. But it is probable I
+could say something to the volume of _Travels_. In the verse business I
+can do just what I like better than anything else, and extend
+_Underwoods_ with a lot of unpublished stuff. _A propos_, if I were to
+get printed off a very few poems which are somewhat too intimate for the
+public, could you get them run up in some luxuous manner, so that fools
+might be induced to buy them in just a sufficient quantity to pay
+expenses and the thing remain still in a manner private? We could supply
+photographs of the illustrations--and the poems are of Vailima and the
+family--I should much like to get this done as a surprise for Fanny.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. B. BAILDON
+
+
+     _Vailima, January 15th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR BAILDON,--Last mail brought your book and its Dedication.
+"Frederick Street and the gardens, and the short-lived Jack o' Lantern,"
+are again with me--and the note of the east wind, and Froebel's voice,
+and the smell of soup in Thomson's stair. Truly, you had no need to put
+yourself under the protection of any other saint, were that saint our
+Tamate himself! Yourself were enough, and yourself coming with so rich a
+sheaf.
+
+For what is this that you say about the Muses? They have certainly never
+better inspired you than in "Jael and Sisera," and "Herodias and John
+the Baptist," good stout poems, fiery and sound. "'Tis but a mask and
+behind it chuckles the God of the Garden," I shall never forget. By the
+by, an error of the press, page 49, line 4, "No infant's lesson are the
+ways of God." _The_ is dropped.
+
+And this reminds me you have a bad habit which is to be comminated in my
+theory of letters. Same page, two lines lower: "But the vulture's track"
+is surely as fine to the ear as "But vulture's track," and this latter
+version has a dreadful baldness. The reader goes on with a sense of
+impoverishment, of unnecessary sacrifice; he has been robbed by
+footpads, and goes scouting for his lost article! Again, in the second
+Epode, these fine verses would surely sound much finer if they began,
+"As a hardy climber who has set his heart," than with the jejune "As
+hardy climber." I do not know why you permit yourself this licence with
+grammar; you show, in so many pages, that you are superior to the paltry
+sense of rhythm which usually dictates it--as though some poetaster had
+been suffered to correct the poet's text. By the way, I confess to a
+heartfelt weakness for _Auriculas_.--Believe me the very grateful and
+characteristic pick-thank, but still sincere and affectionate,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. H. LOW
+
+
+     _Vailima, January 15th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR LOW,-- ... Pray you, stoop your proud head, and sell yourself to
+some Jew magazine, and make the visit out. I assure you, this is the
+spot for a sculptor or painter. This, and no other--I don't say to stay
+there, but to come once and get the living colour into them. I am used
+to it; I do not notice it; rather prefer my grey, freezing recollections
+of Scotland; but there it is, and every morning is a thing to give
+thanks for, and every night another--bar when it rains, of course.
+
+About _The Wrecker_--rather late days, and I still suspect I had somehow
+offended you; however, all's well that ends well, and I am glad I am
+forgiven--did you not fail to appreciate the attitude of Dodd? He was a
+fizzle and a stick, he knew it, he knew nothing else, and there is an
+undercurrent of bitterness in him. And then the problem that Pinkerton
+laid down: why the artist can _do nothing else_? is one that continually
+exercises myself. He cannot: granted. But Scott could. And Montaigne.
+And Julius Caesar. And many more. And why can't R. L. S.? Does it not
+amaze you? It does me. I think of the Renaissance fellows, and their
+all-round human sufficiency, and compare it with the ineffable smallness
+of the field in which we labour and in which we do so little. I think
+_David Balfour_ a nice little book, and very artistic, and just the
+thing to occupy the leisure of a busy man; but for the top flower of a
+man's life it seems to me inadequate. Small is the word; it is a small
+age, and I am of it. I could have wished to be otherwise busy in this
+world. I ought to have been able to build lighthouses and write _David
+Balfours_ too. _Hinc illae lacrymae._ I take my own case as most handy,
+but it is as illustrative of my quarrel with the age. We take all these
+pains, and we don't do as well as Michael Angelo or Leonardo, or even
+Fielding, who was an active magistrate, or Richardson, who was a busy
+bookseller. _J'ai honte pour nous_; my ears burn.
+
+I am amazed at the effect which this Chicago exhibition has produced
+upon you and others. It set Mrs. Fairchild literally mad--to judge by
+her letters. And I wish I had seen anything so influential. I suppose
+there was an aura, a halo, some sort of effulgency about the place; for
+here I find you louder than the rest. Well, it may be there is a time
+coming; and I wonder, when it comes, whether it will be a time of
+little, exclusive, one-eyed rascals like you and me, or parties of the
+old stamp who can paint and fight, and write and keep books of double
+entry, and sculp, and scalp. It might be. You have a lot of stuff in the
+kettle, and a great deal of it Celtic. I have changed my mind
+progressively about England: practically the whole of Scotland is
+Celtic, and the western half of England, and all Ireland, and the Celtic
+blood makes a rare blend for art. If it is stiffened up with Latin
+blood, you get the French. We were less lucky: we had only
+Scandinavians, themselves decidedly artistic, and the Low-German lot.
+However, that is a good starting-point, and with all the other elements
+in your crucible, it may come to something great very easily. I wish you
+would hurry up and let me see it. Here is a long while I have been
+waiting for something _good_ in art; and what have I seen? Zola's
+_Debacle_ and a few of Kipling's tales. Are you a reader of Barbey
+d'Aurevilly? He is a never-failing source of pleasure to me, for my
+sins, I suppose. What a work is the _Rideau Cramoisi!_ and
+_L'Ensorcelee!_ and _Le Chevalier Des Touches!_
+
+This is degenerating into mere twaddle. So please remember us all most
+kindly to Mrs. Low, and believe me ever yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+_P.S._--Were all your privateers voiceless in the war of 1812? Did _no
+one_ of them write memoirs? I shall have to do my privateer from chic,
+if you can't help me.[74] My application to Scribner has been quite in
+vain. See if you can get hold of some historic sharp in the club, and
+tap him; they must some of them have written memoirs or notes of some
+sort; perhaps still unprinted; if that be so, get them copied for me.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima, Jan. 29th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I had fully intended for your education and moral
+health to fob you off with the meanest possible letter this month, and
+unfortunately I find I will have to treat you to a good long account of
+matters here. I believe I have told you before about Tui-ma-le-alii-fano
+and my taking him down to introduce him to the Chief Justice. Well, Tui
+came back to Vailima one day in the blackest sort of spirits, saying the
+war was decided, that he also must join in the fight, and that there was
+no hope whatever of success. He must fight as a point of honour for his
+family and country; and in his case, even if he escaped on the field of
+battle, deportation was the least to be looked for. He said he had a
+letter of complaint from the Great Council of A'ana which he wished to
+lay before the Chief Justice; and he asked me to accompany him as if I
+were his nurse. We went down about dinner time; and by the way received
+from a lurking native the famous letter in an official blue envelope
+gummed up to the edges. It proved to be a declaration of war, quite
+formal, but with some variations that really made you bounce. White
+residents were directly threatened, bidden to have nothing to do with
+the King's party, not to receive their goods in their houses, etc.,
+under pain of an accident. However, the Chief Justice took it very
+wisely and mildly, and between us, he and I and Tui made up a plan which
+has proved successful--so far. The war is over--fifteen chiefs are this
+morning undergoing a curious double process of law, comparable to a
+court martial; in which their complaints are to be considered, and if
+possible righted, while their conduct is to be criticised, perhaps
+punished. Up to now, therefore, it has been a most successful policy;
+but the danger is before us. My own feeling would decidedly be that all
+would be spoiled by a single execution. The great hope after all lies in
+the knotless, rather flaccid character of the people. These are no
+Maoris. All the powers that Cedercrantz let go by disuse the new C. J.
+is stealthily and boldly taking back again; perhaps some others also. He
+has shamed the chiefs in Mulinuu into a law against taking heads, with a
+punishment of six years' imprisonment and, for a chief, degradation. To
+him has been left the sole conduct of this anxious and decisive inquiry.
+If the natives stand it, why, well! But I am nervous.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. B. BAILDON
+
+
+     _Vailima, January 30th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR BAILDON,--"Call not blessed."--Yes, if I could die just now, or
+say in half a year, I should have had a splendid time of it on the
+whole. But it gets a little stale, and my work will begin to senesce;
+and parties to shy bricks at me; and now it begins to look as if I
+should survive to see myself impotent and forgotten. It's a pity suicide
+is not thought the ticket in the best circles.
+
+But your letter goes on to congratulate me on having done the one thing
+I am a little sorry for; a little--not much--for my father himself lived
+to think that I had been wiser than he. But the cream of the jest is
+that I have lived to change my mind; and think that he was wiser than I.
+Had I been an engineer, and literature my amusement, it would have been
+better perhaps. I pulled it off, of course, I won the wager, and it is
+pleasant while it lasts; but how long will it last? I don't know, say
+the Bells of Old Bow.
+
+All of which goes to show that nobody is quite sane in judging himself.
+Truly, had I given way and gone in for engineering, I should be dead by
+now. Well, the gods know best.
+
+... I hope you got my letter about the _Rescue_.--Adieu.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+True for you about the benefit: except by kisses, jests, song, _et hoc
+genus omne_, man _cannot_ convey benefit to another. The universal
+benefactor has been there before him.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Feb. 1894._
+
+DEAR COLVIN,--By a reaction, when your letter is a little decent, mine
+is to be naked and unashamed. We have been much exercised. No one can
+prophesy here, of course, and the balance still hangs trembling, but I
+_think_ it will go for peace.
+
+The mail was very late this time: hence the paltriness of this note.
+When it came and I had read it, I retired with _The Ebb Tide_ and read
+it all before I slept. I did not dream it was near as good; I am afraid
+I think it excellent. A little indecision about Attwater, not much. It
+gives me great hope, as I see I _can_ work in that constipated, mosaic
+manner, which is what I have to do just now with _Weir of Hermiston_.
+
+We have given a ball; I send you a paper describing the event. We have
+two guests in the house, Captain-Count Wurmbrand and Monsieur Albert de
+Lautreppe. Lautreppe is awfully nice--a quiet, gentlemanly fellow,
+_gonfle de reves_, as he describes himself--once a sculptor in the
+atelier of Henry Crosse, he knows something of art, and is really a
+resource to me.
+
+Letter from Meredith very kind. Have you seen no more of Graham?
+
+What about my Grandfather? The family history will grow to be quite a
+chapter.
+
+I suppose I am growing sensitive; perhaps, by living among barbarians, I
+expect more civility. Look at this from the author of a very interesting
+and laudatory critique. He gives quite a false description of something
+of mine, and talks about my "insolence." Frankly, I supposed "insolence"
+to be a tapu word. I do not use it to a gentleman, I would not write it
+of a gentleman: I may be wrong, but I believe we did not write it of a
+gentleman in old days, and in my view he (clever fellow as he is) wants
+to be kicked for applying it to me. By writing a novel--even a bad
+one--I do not make myself a criminal for anybody to insult. This may
+amuse you. But either there is a change in journalism, too gradual for
+you to remark it on the spot, or there is a change in me. I cannot bear
+these phrases; I long to resent them. My forbears, the tenant farmers of
+the Mures, would not have suffered such expressions unless it had been
+from Cauldwell, or Rowallan, or maybe Auchendrane. My Family Pride
+bristles. I am like the negro, "I just heard last night" who my great,
+great, great, great grandfather was.--Ever yours,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. H. BATES
+
+
+   The next is to a correspondent in Cincinnati, who had been the
+   founder of an R. L. S. Society in that city, "originally," he writes
+   me, under date April 7, 1895, "the outcome of a boyish fancy, but it
+   has now grown into something more substantial."
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, March 25th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR MR. JOE H. BATES,--I shall have the greatest pleasure in
+acceding to your complimentary request. I shall think it an honour to be
+associated with your chapter, and I need not remind you (for you have
+said it yourself) how much depends upon your own exertions whether to
+make it to me a real honour or only a derision. This is to let you know
+that I accept the position that you have seriously offered to me in a
+quite serious spirit. I need scarce tell you that I shall always be
+pleased to receive reports of your proceedings; and if I do not always
+acknowledge them, you are to remember that I am a man very much occupied
+otherwise, and not at all to suppose that I have lost interest in my
+chapter.
+
+In this world, which (as you justly say) is so full of sorrow and
+suffering, it will always please me to remember that my name is
+connected with some efforts after alleviation, nor less so with purposes
+of innocent recreation which, after all, are the only certain means at
+our disposal for bettering human life.
+
+With kind regards, to yourself, to Mr. L. C. Congdon, to E. M. G. Bates,
+and to Mr. Edward Hugh Higlee Bates, and the heartiest wishes for the
+future success of the chapter, believe me, yours cordially.
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO WILLIAM ARCHER
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, March 27th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR ARCHER,--Many thanks for your _Theatrical World_. Do you know,
+it strikes me as being really very good? I have not yet read much of
+it, but so far as I have looked, there is not a dull and not an empty
+page in it. Hazlitt, whom you must often have thought of, would have
+been pleased. Come to think of it, I shall put this book upon the
+Hazlitt shelf. You have acquired a manner that I can only call august;
+otherwise, I should have to call it such amazing impudence. The _Bauble
+Shop_ and _Becket_ are examples of what I mean. But it "sets you weel."
+
+Marjorie Fleming I have known, as you surmise, for long. She was
+possibly--no, I take back possibly--she was one of the greatest works of
+God. Your note about the resemblance of her verses to mine gave me great
+joy, though it only proved me a plagiarist. By the by, was it not over
+_The Child's Garden of Verses_ that we first scraped acquaintance? I am
+sorry indeed to hear that my esteemed correspondent Tomarcher has such
+poor taste in literature.[75] I fear he cannot have inherited this trait
+from his dear papa. Indeed, I may say I know it, for I remember the
+energy of papa's disapproval when the work passed through his hands on
+its way to a second birth, which none regrets more than myself. It is an
+odd fact, or perhaps a very natural one; I find few greater pleasures
+than reading my own works, but I never, O I never read _The Black
+Arrow_. In that country Tomarcher reigns supreme. Well, and after all,
+if Tomarcher likes it, it has not been written in vain.
+
+We have just now a curious breath from Europe. A young fellow just
+beginning letters, and no fool, turned up here with a letter of
+introduction in the well-known blue ink and decorative hieroglyphs of
+George Meredith. His name may be known to you. It is Sidney Lysaght. He
+is staying with us but a day or two, and it is strange to me and not
+unpleasant to hear all the names, old and new, come up again. But oddly
+the new are so much more in number. If I revisited the glimpses of the
+moon on your side of the ocean, I should know comparatively few of
+them.
+
+My amanuensis deserts me--I should have said you, for yours is the loss,
+my script having lost all bond with humanity. One touch of nature makes
+the whole world kin: that nobody can read my hand. It is a humiliating
+circumstance that thus evens us with printers!
+
+You must sometimes think it strange--or perhaps it is only I that should
+so think it--to be following the old round, in the gas lamps and the
+crowded theatres, when I am away here in the tropical forest and the
+vast silences!
+
+My dear Archer, my wife joins me in the best wishes to yourself and Mrs.
+Archer, not forgetting Tom; and I am yours very cordially,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   Partly concerning a fresh rising, this time of the partisans of
+   Tamasese from the district of Atua, which had occurred and was after
+   some time suppressed; partly in reference to the visit of Mr. Sidney
+   Lysaght; partly in reply to a petition that his letters might be less
+   entirely taken up with native affairs, of relatively little meaning
+   to his correspondent.
+
+     [_Vailima, April 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is the very day the mail goes, and I have as yet
+written you nothing. But it was just as well--as it was all about my
+"blacks and chocolates," and what of it had relation to whites you will
+read some of in the Times. It means, as you will see, that I have at one
+blow quarrelled with _all_ the officials of Samoa, the Foreign Office,
+and I suppose her Majesty the Queen with milk and honey blest. But
+you'll see in the Times. I am very well indeed, but just about dead and
+mighty glad the mail is near here, and I can just give up all hope of
+contending with my letters, and lie down for the rest of the day. These
+Times letters are not easy to write. And I dare say the consuls say,
+"Why, then, does he write them?"
+
+I had miserable luck with _St. Ives_; being already half-way through it,
+a book I had ordered six months ago arrives at last, and I have to
+change the first half of it from top to bottom! How could I have dreamed
+the French prisoners were watched over like a female charity school,
+kept in a grotesque livery, and shaved twice a week? And I had made all
+my points on the idea that they were unshaved and clothed anyhow.
+However, this last is better business; if only the book had come when I
+ordered it! _A propos_, many of the books you announce don't come as a
+matter of fact. When they are of any value, it is best to register them.
+Your letter, alas! is not here; I sent it down to the cottage, with all
+my mail, for Fanny; on Sunday night a boy comes up with a lantern and a
+note from Fanny, to say the woods are full of Atuas and I must bring a
+horse down that instant, as the posts are established beyond her on the
+road, and she does not want to have the fight going on between us.
+Impossible to get a horse; so I started in the dark on foot, with a
+revolver, and my spurs on my bare feet, leaving directions that the boy
+should mount after me with the horse. Try such an experience on Our Road
+once, and do it, if you please, after you have been down town from nine
+o'clock till six, on board the ship-of-war lunching, teaching Sunday
+School (I actually do) and making necessary visits; and the Saturday
+before, having sat all day from 1/2-past six to 1/2-past four, scriving
+at my Times letter. About half-way up, just in fact at "point" of the
+outposts, I met Fanny coming up. Then all night long I was being wakened
+with scares that really should be looked into, though I _knew_ there was
+nothing in them and no bottom to the whole story; and the drums and
+shouts and cries from Tanugamanono and the town keeping up an all-night
+corybantic chorus in the moonlight--the moon rose late--and the
+search-light of the war-ship in the harbour making a jewel of brightness
+as it lit up the bay of Apia in the distance. And then next morning,
+about eight o'clock, a drum coming out of the woods and a party of
+patrols who had been in the woods on our left front (which is our true
+rear) coming up to the house, and meeting there another party who had
+been in the woods on our right {front / rear} which is Vaea Mountain,
+and 43 of them being entertained to ava and biscuits on the verandah,
+and marching off at last in single file for Apia. Briefly, it is not
+much wonder if your letter and my whole mail was left at the cottage,
+and I have no means of seeing or answering particulars.
+
+The whole thing was nothing but a bottomless scare; it was _obviously_
+so; you couldn't make a child believe it was anything else, but it has
+made the consuls sit up. My own private scares were really abominably
+annoying; as for instance after I had got to sleep for the ninth time
+perhaps--and that was no easy matter either, for I had a crick in my
+neck so agonising that I had to sleep sitting up--I heard noises as of a
+man being murdered in the boys' house. To be sure, said I, this is
+nothing again, but if a man's head was being taken, the noises would be
+the same! So I had to get up, stifle my cries of agony from the crick,
+get my revolver, and creep out stealthily to the boys' house. And there
+were two of them sitting up, keeping watch of their own accord like good
+boys, and whiling the time over a game of Sweepi (Cascino--the whist of
+our islanders)--and one of them was our champion idiot, Misifolo, and I
+suppose he was holding bad cards, and losing all the time--and these
+noises were his humorous protests against Fortune!
+
+Well, excuse this excursion into my "blacks and chocolates." It is the
+last. You will have heard from Lysaght how I failed to write last mail.
+The said Lysaght seems to me a very nice fellow. We were only sorry he
+could not stay with us longer. Austin came back from school last week,
+which made a great time for the Amanuensis, you may be sure. Then on
+Saturday, the _Curacoa_ came in--same commission, with all our old
+friends; and on Sunday, as already mentioned, Austin and I went down to
+service and had lunch afterwards in the wardroom. The officers were
+awfully nice to Austin; they are the most amiable ship in the world; and
+after lunch we had a paper handed round on which we were to guess, and
+sign our guess, of the number of leaves on the pine-apple; I never saw
+this game before, but it seems it is much practised in the Queen's
+Navee. When all have betted, one of the party begins to strip the
+pine-apple head, and the person whose guess is furthest out has to pay
+for the sherry. My equanimity was disturbed by shouts of _The American
+Commodore_, and I found that Austin had entered and lost about a bottle
+of sherry! He turned with great composure and addressed me. "I am afraid
+I must look to you, Uncle Louis." The Sunday School racket is only an
+experiment which I took up at the request of the late American Land
+Commissioner; I am trying it for a month, and if I do as ill as I
+believe, and the boys find it only half as tedious as I do, I think it
+will end in a month. I have _carte blanche_, and say what I like; but
+does any single soul understand me?
+
+Fanny is on the whole very much better. Lloyd has been under the
+weather, and goes for a month to the South Island of New Zealand for
+some skating, save the mark! I get all the skating I want among
+officials.
+
+Dear Colvin, please remember that my life passes among my "blacks or
+chocolates." If I were to do as you propose, in a bit of a tiff, it
+would cut you off entirely from my life. You must try to exercise a
+trifle of imagination, and put yourself, perhaps with an effort, into
+some sort of sympathy with these people, or how am I to write to you? I
+think you are truly a little too Cockney with me.--Ever yours,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. B. YEATS
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, April 14, 1894._
+
+DEAR SIR,--Long since when I was a boy I remember the emotions with
+which I repeated Swinburne's poems and ballads. Some ten years ago, a
+similar spell was cast upon me by Meredith's _Love in the Valley_; the
+stanzas beginning "When her mother tends her" haunted me and made me
+drunk like wine; and I remember waking with them all the echoes of the
+hills about Hyeres. It may interest you to hear that I have a third time
+fallen in slavery: this is to your poem called the _Lake Isle of
+Innisfree_. It is so quaint and airy, simple, artful, and eloquent to
+the heart--but I seek words in vain. Enough that "always night and day I
+hear lake water lapping with low sounds on the shore," and am, yours
+gratefully,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO GEORGE MEREDITH
+
+
+   The young lady referred to in the following is Mr. Meredith's
+   daughter, now Mrs. H. Sturgis; the bearer of the introduction, Mr.
+   Sidney Lysaght, author of _The Marplot_ and _One of the Grenvilles._
+   It is only in the first few chapters of Mr. Meredith's _Amazing
+   Marriage_ that the character of Gower Woodseer has been allowed to
+   retain any likeness to that of R. L. S.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, April 17th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR MEREDITH,--Many good things have the gods sent to me of late.
+First of all there was a letter from you by the kind hand of Mariette,
+if she is not too great a lady to be remembered in such a style; and
+then there came one Lysaght with a charming note of introduction in the
+well-known hand itself. We had but a few days of him, and liked him
+well. There was a sort of geniality and inward fire about him at which I
+warmed my hands. It is long since I have seen a young man who has left
+in me such a favourable impression; and I find myself telling myself,
+"O, I must tell this to Lysaght," or, "This will interest him," in a
+manner very unusual after so brief an acquaintance. The whole of my
+family shared in this favourable impression, and my halls have re-echoed
+ever since, I am sure he will be amused to know, with _Widdicombe Fair_.
+
+He will have told you doubtless more of my news than I could tell you
+myself; he has your European perspective, a thing long lost to me. I
+heard with a great deal of interest the news of Box Hill. And so I
+understand it is to be enclosed! Allow me to remark, that seems a far
+more barbaric trait of manners than the most barbarous of ours. We
+content ourselves with cutting off an occasional head.
+
+I hear we may soon expect _The Amazing Marriage_. You know how long, and
+with how much curiosity, I have looked forward to the book. Now, in so
+far as you have adhered to your intention, Gower Woodseer will be a
+family portrait, age twenty-five, of the highly respectable and slightly
+influential and fairly aged _Tusitala_. You have not known that
+gentleman; console yourself, he is not worth knowing. At the same time,
+my dear Meredith, he is very sincerely yours--for what he is worth, for
+the memories of old times, and in the expectation of many pleasures
+still to come. I suppose we shall never see each other again; flitting
+youths of the Lysaght species may occasionally cover these
+unconscionable leagues and bear greetings to and fro. But we ourselves
+must be content to converse on an occasional sheet of notepaper, and I
+shall never see whether you have grown older, and you shall never
+deplore that Gower Woodseer should have declined into the pantaloon
+_Tusitala_. It is perhaps better so. Let us continue to see each other
+as we were, and accept, my dear Meredith, my love and respect.
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+_P.S._--My wife joins me in the kindest messages to yourself and
+Mariette.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+     _[Vailima], April 17, '94._
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--_St. Ives_ is now well on its way into the second
+volume. There remains no mortal doubt that it will reach the
+three-volume standard.
+
+I am very anxious that you should send me--
+
+1st. _Tom and Jerry_, a cheap edition.
+
+2nd. The book by Ashton--the _Dawn of the Century_, I think it was
+called--which Colvin sent me, and which has miscarried, and
+
+3rd. If it is possible, a file of the Edinburgh Courant for the years
+1811, 1812, 1813, or 1814. I should not care for a whole year. If it
+were possible to find me three months, winter months by preference, it
+would do my business not only for _St. Ives_, but for the
+_Justice-Clerk_ as well. Suppose this to be impossible, perhaps I could
+get the loan of it from somebody; or perhaps it would be possible to
+have some one read a file for me and make notes. This would be extremely
+bad, as unhappily one man's food is another man's poison, and the reader
+would probably leave out everything I should choose. But if you are
+reduced to that, you might mention to the man who is to read for me that
+balloon ascensions are in the order of the day.
+
+4th. It might be as well to get a book on balloon ascension,
+particularly in the early part of the century.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+III. At last this book has come from Scribner, and, alas! I have the
+first six or seven chapters of _St. Ives_ to recast entirely. Who could
+foresee that they clothed the French prisoners in yellow? But that one
+fatal fact--and also that they shaved them twice a week--damns the whole
+beginning. If it had been sent in time, it would have saved me a deal of
+trouble....
+
+I have had a long letter from Dr. Scott Dalgleish, 25 Mayfield Terrace,
+asking me to put my name down to the Ballantyne Memorial Committee. I
+have sent him a pretty sharp answer in favour of cutting down the
+memorial and giving more to the widow and children. If there is to be
+any foolery in the way of statues or other trash, please send them a
+guinea; but if they are going to take my advice and put up a simple
+tablet with a few heartfelt words, and really devote the bulk of the
+subscriptions to the wife and family, I will go to the length of twenty
+pounds, if you will allow me (and if the case of the family be at all
+urgent), and at least I direct you to send ten pounds. I suppose you had
+better see Scott Dalgleish himself on the matter. I take the opportunity
+here to warn you that my head is simply spinning with a multitude of
+affairs, and I shall probably forget a half of my business at last.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. SITWELL
+
+
+     [_Vailima, April 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have at last got some photographs, and hasten to send
+you, as you asked, a portrait of Tusitala. He is a strange person; not
+so lean, say experts, but infinitely battered; mighty active again on
+the whole; going up and down our break-neck road at all hours of the day
+and night on horseback; holding meetings with all manner of chiefs;
+quite a political personage--God save the mark!--in a small way, but at
+heart very conscious of the inevitable flat failure that awaits every
+one. I shall never do a better book than _Catriona_, that is my
+high-water mark, and the trouble of production increases on me at a
+great rate--and mighty anxious about how I am to leave my family: an
+elderly man, with elderly preoccupations, whom I should be ashamed to
+show you for your old friend; but not a hope of my dying soon and
+cleanly, and "winning off the stage." Rather I am daily better in
+physical health. I shall have to see this business out, after all; and I
+think, in that case, they should have--they might have--spared me all my
+ill-health this decade past, if it were not to unbar the doors. I have
+no taste for old age, and my nose is to be rubbed in it in spite of my
+face. I was meant to die young, and the gods do not love me.
+
+This is very like an epitaph, bar the handwriting, which is anything but
+monumental, and I dare say I had better stop. Fanny is down at her own
+cottage planting or deplanting or replanting, I know not which, and she
+will not be home till dinner, by which time the mail will be all closed,
+else she would join me in all good messages and remembrances of love. I
+hope you will congratulate Burne Jones from me on his baronetcy. I
+cannot make out to be anything but raspingly, harrowingly sad; so I will
+close, and not affect levity which I cannot feel. Do not altogether
+forget me; keep a corner of your memory for the exile
+
+     LOUIS.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+     [_Vailima, May 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--My dear fellow, I wish to assure you of the greatness
+of the pleasure that this Edinburgh Edition gives me. I suppose it was
+your idea to give it that name. No other would have affected me in the
+same manner. Do you remember, how many years ago--I would be afraid to
+hazard a guess--one night when I communicated to you certain intimations
+of early death and aspiration after fame? I was particularly maudlin;
+and my remorse the next morning on a review of my folly has written the
+matter very deeply in my mind; from yours it may easily have fled. If
+any one at that moment could have shown me the Edinburgh Edition, I
+suppose I should have died. It is with gratitude and wonder that I
+consider "the way in which I have been led." Could a more preposterous
+idea have occurred to us in those days when we used to search our
+pockets for coppers, too often in vain, and combine forces to produce
+the threepence necessary for two glasses of beer, or wander down the
+Lothian Road without any, than that I should be strong and well at the
+age of forty-three in the island of Upolu, and that you should be at
+home bringing out the Edinburgh Edition? If it had been possible, I
+should almost have preferred the Lothian Road Edition, say, with a
+picture of the old Dutch smuggler on the covers. I have now something
+heavy on my mind. I had always a great sense of kinship with poor Robert
+Fergusson--so clever a boy, so wild, of such a mixed strain, so
+unfortunate, born in the same town with me, and, as I always felt,
+rather by express intimation than from evidence, so like myself. Now the
+injustice with which the one Robert is rewarded and the other left out
+in the cold sits heavy on me, and I wish you could think of some way in
+which I could do honour to my unfortunate namesake. Do you think it
+would look like affectation to dedicate the whole edition to his memory?
+I think it would. The sentiment which would dictate it to me is too
+abstruse; and besides, I think my wife is the proper person to receive
+the dedication of my life's work. At the same time, it is very odd--it
+really looks like the transmigration of souls--I feel that I must do
+something for Fergusson; Burns has been before me with the gravestone.
+It occurs to me you might take a walk down the Canongate and see in what
+condition the stone is. If it be at all uncared for, we might repair it,
+and perhaps add a few words of inscription.
+
+I must tell you, what I just remembered in a flash as I was walking
+about dictating this letter--there was in the original plan of the
+_Master of Ballantrae_ a sort of introduction describing my arrival in
+Edinburgh on a visit to yourself and your placing in my hands the papers
+of the story. I actually wrote it, and then condemned the idea--as being
+a little too like Scott, I suppose. Now I must really find the MS. and
+try to finish it for the E.E. It will give you, what I should so much
+like you to have, another corner of your own in that lofty monument.
+
+Suppose we do what I have proposed about Fergusson's monument, I wonder
+if an inscription like this would look arrogant--
+
+  This stone originally erected
+  by Robert Burns has been
+  repaired at the
+  charges of Robert Louis Stevenson,
+  and is by him re-dedicated to
+  the memory of Robert Fergusson,
+  as the gift of one Edinburgh
+  lad to another.
+
+In spacing this inscription I would detach the names of Fergusson and
+Burns, but leave mine in the text.
+
+Or would that look like sham modesty, and is it better to bring out the
+three Roberts?
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima, May 18th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--Your proposals for the Edinburgh Edition are entirely
+to my mind. About the _Amateur Emigrant_, it shall go to you by this
+mail well slashed. If you like to slash some more on your own account, I
+give you permission. 'Tis not a great work; but since it goes to make up
+the two first volumes as proposed, I presume it has not been written in
+vain.[76]--_Miscellanies_. I see with some alarm the proposal to print
+_Juvenilia_; does it not seem to you taking myself a little too much as
+Grandfather William? I am certainly not so young as I once was--a lady
+took occasion to remind me of the fact no later agone than last night.
+"Why don't you leave that to the young men, Mr. Stevenson?" said
+she--but when I remember that I felt indignant at even John Ruskin when
+he did something of the kind I really feel myself blush from head to
+heel. If you want to make up the first volume, there are a good many
+works which I took the trouble to prepare for publication and which have
+never been republished. In addition to _Roads_ and _Dancing Children_,
+referred to by you, there is _An Autumn Effect_ in the Portfolio, and a
+paper on Fontainebleau--_Forest Notes_ is the name of it--in Cornhill. I
+have no objection to any of these being edited, say with a scythe, and
+reproduced. But I heartily abominate and reject the idea of reprinting
+_The Pentland Rising_. For God's sake let me get buried first.
+
+_Tales and Fantasies._ Vols. I. and II. have my hearty approval. But I
+think III. and IV. had better be crammed into one as you suggest. I will
+reprint none of the stories mentioned. They are below the mark. Well, I
+dare say the beastly _Body-Snatcher_ has merit, and I am unjust to it
+from my recollections of the Pall Mall. But the other two won't do. For
+vols. V. and VI., now changed into IV. and V., I propose the common
+title of _South Sea Yarns_. There! These are all my differences of
+opinion. I agree with every detail of your arrangement, and, as you see,
+my objections have turned principally on the question of hawking unripe
+fruit. I dare say it is all pretty green, but that is no reason for us
+to fill the barrow with trash. Think of having a new set of type cast,
+paper especially made, etc., in order to set up rubbish that is not fit
+for the Saturday Scotsman. It would be the climax of shame.
+
+I am sending you a lot of verses, which had best, I think, be called
+_Underwoods_ Book III., but in what order are they to go? Also, I am
+going on every day a little, till I get sick of it, with the attempt to
+get _The Emigrant_ compressed into life; I know I can--or you can after
+me--do it. It is only a question of time and prayer and ink, and should
+leave something, no, not good, but not all bad--a very genuine
+appreciation of these folks. You are to remember besides there is that
+paper of mine on Bunyan in the Magazine of Art. O, and then there's
+another thing in Seeley called some spewsome name, I cannot recall it.
+
+Well--come, here goes for _Juvenilia_. _Dancing Infants_, _Roads_, _An
+Autumn Effect_, _Forest Notes_ (but this should come at the end of them,
+as it's really rather riper), the t'other thing from Seeley, and I'll
+tell you, you may put in my letter to the Church of Scotland--it's not
+written amiss, and I dare say _The Philosophy of Umbrellas_ might go in,
+but there I stick--and remember _that_ was a collaboration with James
+Walter Ferrier. O, and there was a little skit called _The Charity
+Bazaar_, which you might see; I don't think it would do. Now, I do not
+think there are two other words that should be printed.--By the way,
+there is an article of mine called _The Day after To-morrow_ in the
+Contemporary which you might find room for somewhere; it's no' bad.
+
+Very busy with all these affairs and some native ones also.
+
+
+
+
+TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
+
+
+     [_Vailima, June 17th, 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR BOB,--I must make out a letter this mail or perish in the
+attempt. All the same, I am deeply stupid, in bed with a cold, deprived
+of my amanuensis, and conscious of the wish but not the furnished will.
+You may be interested to hear how the family inquiries go. It is now
+quite certain that we are a second-rate lot, and came out of Cunningham
+or Clydesdale, therefore _British_ folk; so that you are Cymry on both
+sides, and I Cymry and Pict. We may have fought with King Arthur and
+known Merlin. The first of the family, Stevenson of Stevenson, was quite
+a great party, and dates back to the wars of Edward First. The last male
+heir of Stevenson of Stevenson died 1670, L220, 10s. to the bad, from
+drink. About the same time the Stevensons, who were mostly in Cunningham
+before, crop up suddenly in the parish of Neilston, over the border in
+Renfrewshire. Of course, they may have been there before, but there is
+no word of them in that parish till 1675 in any extracts I have. Our
+first traceable ancestor was a tenant farmer of Mure of
+Cauldwell's--James in Nether Carsewell. Presently two families of
+maltmen are found in Glasgow, both, by re-duplicated proofs, related to
+James (the son of James) in Nether Carsewell. We descend by his second
+marriage from Robert; one of these died 1733. It is not very romantic up
+to now, but has interested me surprisingly to fish out, always hoping
+for more--and occasionally getting at least a little clearness and
+confirmation. But the earliest date, 1655, apparently the marriage of
+James in Nether Carsewell, cannot as yet be pushed back. From which of
+any number of dozen little families in Cunningham we should derive, God
+knows! Of course, it doesn't matter a hundred years hence, an argument
+fatal to all human enterprise, industry, or pleasure. And to me it will
+be a deadly disappointment if I cannot roll this stone away! One
+generation further might be nothing, but it is my present object of
+desire, and we are so near it! There is a man in the same parish called
+Constantine; if I could only trace to him, I could take you far afield
+by that one talisman of the strange Christian name of Constantine. But
+no such luck! And I kind of fear we shall stick at James.
+
+  I. JAMES, a tenant of the Mures, in Nether-Carsewell,
+          ||             Neilston, married (1665?) Jean Keir.
+          ||                                             |
+           ----------------------------------------------
+                |
+      II. ROBERT (Maltman in Glasgow), died 1733,
+                |      married 1st;      married second,
+                |      Elizabeth Cumming.
+                |                ||
+                |                 ------------------------------
+                |                                               |
+  WILLIAM (Maltman in Glasgow).                   III. ROBERT (Maltman in
+                 |                                   Glasgow), married
+      --------------------                           Margaret Fulton (had
+     |       |            |                          a large family).
+     |       |            |                                     ||
+  ROBERT, MARION, ELIZABETH.                       IV. ALAN, West India
+                                                      merchant, married
+                                                      Jean Lillie.
+                                                                ||
+                                                    V. ROBERT, married
+                                                      Jean Smith.
+                                                                |
+                                                         -------
+                                                        |
+                                                VI. ALAN.--Margaret Jones.
+                                                        |
+                                               VII. R. A. M. S.
+
+  NOTE.--Between 1730-1766 flourished in Glasgow Alan the Coppersmith,
+  who acts as a kind of a pin to the whole Stevenson system there. He
+  was caution to Robert the Second's will, and to William's will, and to
+  the will of a John, another maltman.
+
+So much, though all inchoate, I trouble you with, knowing that you, at
+least, must take an interest in it. So much is certain of that strange
+Celtic descent, that the past has an interest for it apparently
+gratuitous, but fiercely strong. I wish to trace my ancestors a thousand
+years, if I trace them by gallowses. It is not love, not pride, not
+admiration; it is an expansion of the identity, intimately pleasing, and
+wholly uncritical; I can expend myself in the person of an inglorious
+ancestor with perfect comfort; or a disgraced, if I could find one. I
+suppose, perhaps, it is more to me who am childless, and refrain with a
+certain shock from looking forwards. But, I am sure, in the solid
+grounds of race, that you have it also in some degree.
+
+Enough genealogy. I do not know if you will be able to read my hand.
+Unhappily, Belle, who is my amanuensis, is out of the way on other
+affairs, and I have to make the unwelcome effort. (O this is beautiful,
+I am quite pleased with myself.) Graham has just arrived last night (my
+mother is coming by the other steamer in three days), and has told me of
+your meeting, and he said you looked a little older than I did; so that
+I suppose we keep step fairly on the downward side of the hill. He
+thought you looked harassed, and I could imagine that too. I sometimes
+feel harassed. I have a great family here about me, a great anxiety. The
+loss (to use my grandfather's expression), the "loss" of our family is
+that we are disbelievers in the morrow--perhaps I should say, rather, in
+next year. The future is _always_ black to us; it was to Robert
+Stevenson; to Thomas; I suspect to Alan; to R. A. M. S. it was so almost
+to his ruin in youth; to R. L. S., who had a hard hopeful strain in him
+from his mother, it was not so much so once, but becomes daily more so.
+Daily so much more so, that I have a painful difficulty in believing I
+can ever finish another book, or that the public will ever read it.
+
+I have so huge a desire to know exactly what you are doing, that I
+suppose I should tell you what I am doing by way of an example. I have a
+room now, a part of the twelve-foot verandah sparred in, at the most
+inaccessible end of the house. Daily I see the sunrise out of my bed,
+which I still value as a tonic, a perpetual tuning fork, a look of God's
+face once in the day. At six my breakfast comes up to me here, and I
+work till eleven. If I am quite well, I sometimes go out and bathe in
+the river before lunch, twelve. In the afternoon I generally work again,
+now alone drafting, now with Belle dictating. Dinner is at six, and I am
+often in bed by eight. This is supposing me to stay at home. But I must
+often be away, sometimes all day long, sometimes till twelve, one, or
+two at night, when you might see me coming home to the sleeping house,
+sometimes in a trackless darkness, sometimes with a glorious tropic
+moon, everything drenched with dew--unsaddling and creeping to bed; and
+you would no longer be surprised that I live out in this country, and
+not in Bournemouth--in bed.
+
+My great recent interruptions have (as you know) come from politics; not
+much in my line, you will say. But it is impossible to live here and not
+feel very sorely the consequences of the horrid white mismanagement. I
+tried standing by and looking on, and it became too much for me. They
+are such illogical fools; a logical fool in an office, with a lot of red
+tape, is conceivable. Furthermore, he is as much as we have any reason
+to expect of officials--a thoroughly common-place, unintellectual lot.
+But these people are wholly on wires; laying their ears down, skimming
+away, pausing as though shot, and presto! full spread on the other tack.
+I observe in the official class mostly an insane jealousy of the
+smallest kind, as compared to which the artist's is of a grave, modest
+character--the actor's, even; a desire to extend his little authority,
+and to relish it like a glass of wine, that is _impayable_. Sometimes,
+when I see one of these little kings strutting over one of his
+victories--wholly illegal, perhaps, and certain to be reversed to his
+shame if his superiors ever heard of it--I could weep. The strange thing
+is that they _have nothing else_. I auscultate them in vain; no real
+sense of duty, no real comprehension, no real attempt to comprehend, no
+wish for information--you cannot offend one of them more bitterly than
+by offering information, though it is certain that you have _more_, and
+obvious that you have _other_, information than they have; and talking
+of policy, they could not play a better stroke than by listening to you,
+and it need by no means influence their action. _Tenez_, you know what a
+French post office or railway official is? That is the diplomatic card
+to the life. Dickens is not in it; caricature fails.
+
+All this keeps me from my work, and gives me the unpleasant side of the
+world. When your letters are disbelieved it makes you angry, and that
+is rot; and I wish I could keep out of it with all my soul. But I have
+just got into it again, and farewell peace!
+
+My work goes along but slowly. I have got to a crossing place, I
+suppose; the present book, _St. Ives_, is nothing; it is in no style in
+particular, a tissue of adventures, the central character not very well
+done, no philosophic pith under the yarn; and, in short, if people will
+read it, that's all I ask; and if they won't, damn them! I like doing it
+though; and if you ask me why! After that I am on _Weir of Hermiston_
+and _Heathercat_, two Scotch stories, which will either be something
+different, or I shall have failed. The first is generally designed, and
+is a private story of two or three characters in a very grim vein. The
+second--alas! the thought--is an attempt at a real historical novel, to
+present a whole field of time; the race--our own race--the west land and
+Clydesdale blue bonnets, under the influence of their last trial, when
+they got to a pitch of organisation in madness that no other peasantry
+has ever made an offer at. I was going to call it _The Killing Time_,
+but this man Crockett has forestalled me in that. Well, it'll be a big
+smash if I fail in it; but a gallant attempt. All my weary reading as a
+boy, which you remember well enough, will come to bear on it; and if my
+mind will keep up to the point it was in a while back, perhaps I can
+pull it through.
+
+For two months past, Fanny, Belle, Austin (her child), and I have been
+alone; but yesterday, as I mentioned, Graham Balfour arrived, and on
+Wednesday my mother and Lloyd will make up the party to its full
+strength. I wish you could drop in for a month or a week, or two hours.
+That is my chief want. On the whole, it is an unexpectedly pleasant
+corner I have dropped into for an end of it, which I could scarcely have
+foreseen from Wilson's shop, or the Princes Street Gardens, or the
+Portobello Road. Still, I would like to hear what my _alter ego_ thought
+of it; and I would sometimes like to have my old _maitre-es-arts_
+express an opinion on what I do. I put this very tamely, being on the
+whole a quiet elderly man; but it is a strong passion with me, though
+intermittent. Now, try to follow my example and tell me something about
+yourself, Louisa, the Bab, and your work; and kindly send me some
+specimens of what you're about. I have only seen one thing by you, about
+Notre Dame in the Westminster or St. James's, since I left England, now
+I suppose six years ago.
+
+I have looked this trash over, and it is not at all the letter I wanted
+to write--not truck about officials, ancestors, and the like
+rancidness--but you have to let your pen go in its own broken-down gait,
+like an old butcher's pony, stop when it pleases, and go on again as it
+will.--Ever, my dear Bob, your affectionate cousin,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima, June 18th, '94._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--You are to please understand that my last letter is
+withdrawn unconditionally. You and Baxter are having all the trouble of
+this Edition, and I simply put myself in your hands for you to do what
+you like with me, and I am sure that will be the best, at any rate.
+Hence you are to conceive me withdrawing all objections to your printing
+anything you please. After all, it is a sort of family affair. About the
+Miscellany Section, both plans seem to me quite good. Toss up. I think
+the _Old Gardener_ has to stay where I put him last. It would not do to
+separate John and Robert.
+
+In short, I am only sorry I ever uttered a word about the edition, and
+leave you to be the judge. I have had a vile cold which has prostrated
+me for more than a fortnight, and even now tears me nightly with
+spasmodic coughs; but it has been a great victory. I have never borne a
+cold with so little hurt; wait till the clouds blow by, before you begin
+to boast! I have had no fever; and though I've been very unhappy, it is
+nigh over, I think. Of course, _St. Ives_ has paid the penalty. I must
+not let you be disappointed in _St. I._ It is a mere tissue of
+adventures; the central figure not very well or very sharply drawn; no
+philosophy, no destiny, to it; some of the happenings very good in
+themselves, I believe, but none of them _bildende_, none of them
+constructive, except in so far perhaps as they make up a kind of sham
+picture of the time, all in italics and all out of drawing. Here and
+there, I think, it is well written; and here and there it's not. Some of
+the episodic characters are amusing, I do believe; others not, I
+suppose. However, they are the best of the thing such as it is. If it
+has a merit to it, I should say it was a sort of deliberation and swing
+to the style, which seems to me to suit the mail-coaches and
+post-chaises with which it sounds all through. 'Tis my most prosaic
+book.
+
+I called on the two German ships now in port, and we are quite friendly
+with them, and intensely friendly of course with our own _Curacoas_. But
+it is other guess work on the beach. Some one has employed, or
+subsidised, one of the local editors to attack me once a week. He is
+pretty scurrilous and pretty false. The first effect of the perusal of
+the weekly Beast is to make me angry; the second is a kind of deep,
+golden content and glory, when I seem to say to people: "See! this is my
+position--I am a plain man dwelling in the bush in a house, and behold
+they have to get up this kind of truck against me--and I have so much
+influence that they are obliged to write a weekly article to say I have
+none."
+
+By this time you must have seen Lysaght and forgiven me the letter that
+came not at all. He was really so nice a fellow--he had so much to tell
+me of Meredith--and the time was so short--that I gave up the
+intervening days between mails entirely to entertain him.
+
+We go on pretty nicely. Fanny, Belle, and I have had two months alone,
+and it has been very pleasant. But by to-morrow or next day noon, we
+shall see the whole clan assembled again about Vailima table, which will
+be pleasant too; seven persons in all, and the Babel of voices will be
+heard again in the big hall so long empty and silent. Good-bye. Love to
+all. Time to close.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO HENRY JAMES
+
+
+     _Vailima, July 7th, 1894._
+
+DEAR HENRY JAMES,--I am going to try and dictate to you a letter or a
+note, and begin the same without any spark of hope, my mind being
+entirely in abeyance. This malady is very bitter on the literary man. I
+have had it now coming on for a month, and it seems to get worse instead
+of better. If it should prove to be softening of the brain, a melancholy
+interest will attach to the present document. I heard a great deal about
+you from my mother and Graham Balfour; the latter declares that you
+could take a First in any Samoan subject. If that be so, I should like
+to hear you on the theory of the constitution. Also to consult you on
+the force of the particles _o lo'o_ and _ua_, which are the subject of a
+dispute among local pundits. You might, if you ever answer this, give me
+your opinion on the origin of the Samoan race, just to complete the
+favour.
+
+They both say that you are looking well, and I suppose I may conclude
+from that that you are feeling passably. I wish I was. Do not suppose
+from this that I am ill in body; it is the numskull that I complain of.
+And when that is wrong, as you must be very keenly aware, you begin
+every day with a smarting disappointment, which is not good for the
+temper. I am in one of the humours when a man wonders how any one can be
+such an ass as to embrace the profession of letters, and not get
+apprenticed to a barber or keep a baked-potato stall. But I have no
+doubt in the course of a week, or perhaps to-morrow, things will look
+better.
+
+We have at present in port the model warship of Great Britain. She is
+called the _Curacoa_, and has the nicest set of officers and men
+conceivable. They, the officers, are all very intimate with us, and the
+front verandah is known as the Curacoa Club, and the road up to Vailima
+is known as the Curacoa Track. It was rather a surprise to me; many
+naval officers have I known, and somehow had not learned to think
+entirely well of them, and perhaps sometimes ask myself a little
+uneasily how that kind of men could do great actions? and behold! the
+answer comes to me, and I see a ship that I would guarantee to go
+anywhere it was possible for men to go, and accomplish anything it was
+permitted man to attempt. I had a cruise on board of her not long ago to
+Manu'a, and was delighted. The goodwill of all on board; the grim
+playfulness of[77]       quarters, with the wounded falling down at the
+word; the ambulances hastening up and carrying them away; the Captain
+suddenly crying, "Fire in the ward-room!" and the squad hastening
+forward with the hose; and, last and most curious spectacle of all, all
+the men in their dust-coloured fatigue clothes, at a note of the bugle,
+falling simultaneously flat on deck, and the ship proceeding with its
+prostrate crew--_quasi_ to ram an enemy; our dinner at night in a wild
+open anchorage, the ship rolling almost to her gunwales, and showing us
+alternately her bulwarks up in the sky, and then the wild broken cliffy
+palm-crested shores of the island with the surf thundering and leaping
+close aboard. We had the ward-room mess on deck, lit by pink wax tapers,
+everybody, of course, in uniform but myself, and the first lieutenant
+(who is a rheumaticky body) wrapped in a boat cloak. Gradually the
+sunset faded out, the island disappeared from the eye, though it
+remained menacingly present to the ear with the voice of the surf; and
+then the captain turned on the searchlight and gave us the coast, the
+beach, the trees, the native houses, and the cliffs by glimpses of
+daylight, a kind of deliberate lightning. About which time, I suppose,
+we must have come as far as the dessert, and were probably drinking our
+first glass of port to Her Majesty. We stayed two days at the island,
+and had, in addition, a very picturesque snapshot at the native life.
+The three islands of Manu'a are independent, and are ruled over by a
+little slip of a half-caste girl about twenty, who sits all day in a
+pink gown, in a little white European house with about a quarter of an
+acre of roses in front of it, looking at the palm-trees on the village
+street, and listening to the surf. This, so far as I could discover, was
+all she had to do. "This is a very dull place," she said. It appears she
+could go to no other village for fear of raising the jealousy of her own
+people in the capital. And as for going about "tafatafaoing," as we say
+here, its cost was too enormous. A strong able-bodied native must walk
+in front of her and blow the conch shell continuously from the moment
+she leaves one house until the moment she enters another. Did you ever
+blow the conch shell? I presume not; but the sweat literally hailed off
+that man, and I expected every moment to see him burst a blood-vessel.
+We were entertained to kava in the guest-house with some very original
+features. The young men who run for the _kava_ have a right to
+misconduct themselves _ad libitum_ on the way back; and though they were
+told to restrain themselves on the occasion of our visit, there was a
+strange hurly-burly at their return, when they came beating the trees
+and the posts of the houses, leaping, shouting, and yelling like
+Bacchants.
+
+I tasted on that occasion what it is to be great. My name was called
+next after the captain's, and several chiefs (a thing quite new to me,
+and not at all Samoan practice) drank to me by name.
+
+And now, if you are not sick of the _Curacoa_ and Manu'a, I am, at least
+on paper. And I decline any longer to give you examples of how not to
+write.
+
+By the by, you sent me long ago a work by Anatole France, which I
+confess I did not _taste_. Since then I have made the acquaintance of
+the _Abbe Coignard_, and have become a faithful adorer. I don't think a
+better book was ever written.
+
+And I have no idea what I have said, and I have no idea what I ought to
+have said, and I am a total ass, but my heart is in the right place, and
+I am, my dear Henry James, yours,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO MARCEL SCHWOB
+
+
+     _Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, July 7, 1894._
+
+DEAR MR. MARCEL SCHWOB,--Thank you for having remembered me in my exile.
+I have read _Mimes_ twice as a whole; and now, as I write, I am reading
+it again as it were by accident, and a piece at a time, my eye catching
+a word and travelling obediently on through the whole number. It is a
+graceful book, essentially graceful, with its haunting agreeable
+melancholy, its pleasing savoury of antiquity. At the same time, by its
+merits, it shows itself rather as the promise of something else to come
+than a thing final in itself. You have yet to give us--and I am
+expecting it with impatience--something of a larger gait; something
+daylit, not twilit; something with the colours of life, not the flat
+tints of a temple illumination; something that shall be _said_ with all
+the clearnesses and the trivialities of speech, not _sung_ like a
+semi-articulate lullaby. It will not please yourself as well, when you
+come to give it us, but it will please others better. It will be more of
+a whole, more worldly, more nourished, more commonplace--and not so
+pretty, perhaps not even so beautiful. No man knows better than I that,
+as we go on in life, we must part from prettiness and the graces. We
+but attain qualities to lose them; life is a series of farewells, even
+in art; even our proficiencies are deciduous and evanescent. So here
+with these exquisite pieces the XVIIth, XVIIIth, and IVth of the present
+collection. You will perhaps never excel them; I should think the
+"Hermes," never. Well, you will do something else, and of that I am in
+expectation.--Yours cordially,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. ST. GAUDENS
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, July 8, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,--This is to tell you that the medallion has been at
+last triumphantly transported up the hill and placed over my
+smoking-room mantelpiece. It is considered by everybody a first-rate but
+flattering portrait. We have it in a very good light, which brings out
+the artistic merits of the god-like sculptor to great advantage. As for
+my own opinion, I believe it to be a speaking likeness, and not
+flattered at all; possibly a little the reverse. The verses (curse the
+rhyme) look remarkably well.
+
+Please do not longer delay, but send me an account for the expense of
+the gilt letters. I was sorry indeed that they proved beyond the means
+of a small farmer.--Yours very sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
+
+
+     _Vailima, July 14, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR ADELAIDE,--... So, at last, you are going into mission work?
+where I think your heart always was. You will like it in a way, but
+remember it is dreary long. Do you know the story of the American tramp
+who was offered meals and a day's wage to chop with the back of an axe
+on a fallen trunk. "Damned if I can go on chopping when I can't see the
+chips fly!" You will never see the chips fly in mission work, never; and
+be sure you know it beforehand. The work is one long dull
+disappointment, varied by acute revulsions; and those who are by nature
+courageous and cheerful, and have grown old in experience, learn to rub
+their hands over infinitesimal successes. However, as I really believe
+there is some good done in the long run--_gutta cavat lapidem non vi_ in
+this business--it is a useful and honourable career in which no one
+should be ashamed to embark. Always remember the fable of the sun, the
+storm, and the traveller's cloak. Forget wholly and for ever all small
+pruderies, and remember that _you cannot change ancestral feelings of
+right and wrong without what is practically soul-murder_. Barbarous as
+the customs may seem, always hear them with patience, always judge them
+with gentleness, always find in them some seed of good; see that you
+always develop them; remember that all you can do is to civilise the man
+in the line of his own civilisation, such as it is. And never expect,
+never believe in, thaumaturgic conversions. They may do very well for
+St. Paul; in the case of an Andaman islander they mean less than
+nothing. In fact, what you have to do is to teach the parents in the
+interests of their great-grandchildren.
+
+Now, my dear Adelaide, dismiss from your mind the least idea of fault
+upon your side; nothing is further from the fact. I cannot forgive you,
+for I do not know your fault. My own is plain enough, and the name of it
+is cold-hearted neglect; and you may busy yourself more usefully in
+trying to forgive me. But ugly as my fault is, you must not suppose it
+to mean more than it does; it does not mean that we have at all
+forgotten you, that we have become at all indifferent to the thought of
+you. See, in my life of Jenkin, a remark of his, very well expressed, on
+the friendships of men who do not write to each other. I can honestly
+say that I have not changed to you in any way; though I have behaved
+thus ill, thus cruelly. Evil is done by want of--well, principally by
+want of industry. You can imagine what I would say (in a novel) of any
+one who had behaved as I have done. _Deteriora sequor_. And you must
+somehow manage to forgive your old friend; and if you will be so very
+good, continue to give us news of you, and let us share the knowledge of
+your adventures, sure that it will be always followed with
+interest--even if it is answered with the silence of ingratitude. For I
+am not a fool; I know my faults, I know they are ineluctable, I know
+they are growing on me. I know I may offend again, and I warn you of it.
+But the next time I offend, tell me so plainly and frankly like a lady,
+and don't lacerate my heart and bludgeon my vanity with imaginary faults
+of your own and purely gratuitous penance. I might suspect you of irony!
+
+We are all fairly well, though I have been off work and off--as you know
+very well--letter-writing. Yet I have sometimes more than twenty
+letters, and sometimes more than thirty, going out each mail. And Fanny
+has had a most distressing bronchitis for some time, which she is only
+now beginning to get over. I have just been to see her; she is
+lying--though she had breakfast an hour ago, about seven--in her big
+cool, mosquito-proof room, ingloriously asleep. As for me, you see that
+a doom has come upon me: I cannot make marks with a pen--witness
+"ingloriously" above; and my amanuensis not appearing so early in the
+day, for she is then immersed in household affairs, and I can hear her
+"steering the boys" up and down the verandahs--you must decipher this
+unhappy letter for yourself and, I fully admit, with everything against
+you. A letter should be always well written; how much more a letter of
+apology! Legibility is the politeness of men of letters, as punctuality
+of kings and beggars. By the punctuality of my replies, and the beauty
+of my hand-writing, judge what a fine conscience I must have!
+
+Now, my dear gamekeeper, I must really draw to a close. For I have much
+else to write before the mail goes out three days hence. Fanny being
+asleep, it would not be conscientious to invent a message from her, so
+you must just imagine her sentiments. I find I have not the heart to
+speak of your recent loss. You remember perhaps, when my father died,
+you told me those ugly images of sickness, decline, and impaired reason,
+which then haunted me day and night, would pass away and be succeeded by
+things more happily characteristic. I have found it so. He now haunts
+me, strangely enough, in two guises; as a man of fifty, lying on a
+hillside and carving mottoes on a stick, strong and well; and as a
+younger man, running down the sands into the sea near North Berwick,
+myself--_aetat. 11_--somewhat horrified at finding him so beautiful when
+stripped! I hand on your own advice to you in case you have forgotten
+it, as I know one is apt to do in seasons of bereavement.--Ever yours,
+with much love and sympathy,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. A. BAKER
+
+
+   This refers again to the printing of some of his books in Braille
+   type for the blind.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, July 16, 1894._
+
+DEAR MRS. BAKER,--I am very much obliged to you for your letter and the
+enclosure from Mr. Skinner. Mr. Skinner says he "thinks Mr. Stevenson
+must be a very kind man"; he little knows me. But I am very sure of one
+thing, that you are a very kind woman. I envy you--my amanuensis being
+called away, I continue in my own hand, or what is left of it--unusually
+legible, I am thankful to see--I envy you your beautiful choice of an
+employment. There must be no regrets at least for a day so spent; and
+when the night falls you need ask no blessing on your work. "Inasmuch as
+ye have done it unto one of these."--Yours truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _July, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have to thank you this time for a very good letter,
+and will announce for the future, though I cannot now begin to put in
+practice, good intentions for our correspondence. I will try to return
+to the old system and write from time to time during the month; but
+truly you did not much encourage me to continue! However, that is all
+by-past. I do not know that there is much in your letter that calls for
+answer. Your questions about _St. Ives_ were practically answered in my
+last; so were your wails about the edition, _Amateur Emigrant_, etc. By
+the end of the year _St. I._ will be practically finished, whatever it
+be worth, and that I know not. When shall I receive proofs of the Magnum
+Opus? or shall I receive them at all?
+
+The return of the Amanuensis feebly lightens my heart. You can see the
+heavy weather I was making of it with my unaided pen. The last month has
+been particularly cheery largely owing to the presence of our good
+friends the Curacoas. She is really a model ship, charming officers and
+charming seamen. They gave a ball last month, which was very rackety and
+joyous and naval....
+
+On the following day, about one o'clock, three horsemen might have been
+observed approaching Vailima, who gradually resolved themselves into two
+petty officers and a native guide. Drawing himself up and saluting, the
+spokesman (a corporal of Marines) addressed me thus. "Me and my
+shipmates inwites Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, Mrs. Strong, Mr. Austin, and Mr.
+Balfour to a ball to be given to-night in the self-same 'all." It was of
+course impossible to refuse, though I contented myself with putting in a
+very brief appearance. One glance was sufficient; the ball went off like
+a rocket from the start. I had only time to watch Belle careering around
+with a gallant bluejacket of exactly her own height--the standard of
+the British navy--an excellent dancer and conspicuously full of
+small-talk--and to hear a remark from a beach-comber, "It's a nice sight
+this some way, to see the officers dancing like this with the men, but I
+tell you, sir, these are the men that'll fight together!"
+
+I tell you, Colvin, the acquaintance of the men--and boys--makes me feel
+patriotic. Eeles in particular is a man whom I respect. I am half in a
+mind to give him a letter of introduction to you when he goes home. In
+case you feel inclined to make a little of him, give him a dinner, ask
+Henry James to come to meet him, etc.--you might let me know. I don't
+know that he would show his best, but he is a remarkably fine fellow, in
+every department of life.
+
+We have other visitors in port. A Count Festetics de Tolna, an Austrian
+officer, a very pleasant, simple, boyish creature, with his young wife,
+daughter of an American millionaire; he is a friend of our own Captain
+Wurmbrand, and it is a great pity Wurmbrand is away.
+
+Glad you saw and liked Lysaght. He has left in our house a most cheerful
+and pleasing memory, as a good, pleasant, brisk fellow with good health
+and brains, and who enjoys himself and makes other people happy. I am
+glad he gave you a good report of our surroundings and way of life; but
+I knew he would, for I believe he had a glorious time--and gave one.[78]
+
+I am on fair terms with the two Treaty officials, though all such
+intimacies are precarious; with the consuls, I need not say, my position
+is deplorable. The President (Herr Emil Schmidt) is a rather dreamy man,
+whom I like. Lloyd, Graham and I go to breakfast with him to-morrow; the
+next day the whole party of us lunch on the _Curacoa_ and go in the
+evening to a _Bierabend_ at Dr. Funk's. We are getting up a paper-chase
+for the following week with some of the young German clerks, and have in
+view a sort of child's party for grown-up persons with kissing games,
+etc., here at Vailima. Such is the gay scene in which we move. Now I
+have done something, though not as much as I wanted, to give you an idea
+of how we are getting on, and I am keenly conscious that there are other
+letters to do before the mail goes.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. M. BARRIE
+
+
+     _Vailima, July 13, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR BARRIE,--This is the last effort of an ulcerated conscience. I
+have been so long owing you a letter, I have heard so much of you, fresh
+from the press, from my mother and Graham Balfour, that I have to write
+a letter no later than to-day, or perish in my shame. But the deuce of
+it is, my dear fellow, that you write such a very good letter that I am
+ashamed to exhibit myself before my junior (which you are, after all) in
+the light of the dreary idiot I feel. Understand that there will be
+nothing funny in the following pages. If I can manage to be rationally
+coherent, I shall be more than satisfied.
+
+In the first place, I have had the extreme satisfaction to be shown that
+photograph of your mother. It bears evident traces of the hand of an
+amateur. How is it that amateurs invariably take better photographs than
+professionals? I must qualify invariably. My own negatives have always
+represented a province of chaos and old night in which you might dimly
+perceive fleecy spots of twilight, representing nothing; so that, if I
+am right in supposing the portrait of your mother to be yours, I must
+salute you as my superior. Is that your mother's breakfast? Or is it
+only afternoon tea? If the first, do let me recommend to Mrs. Barrie to
+add an egg to her ordinary. Which, if you please, I will ask her to eat
+to the honour of her son, and I am sure she will live much longer for
+it, to enjoy his fresh successes. I never in my life saw anything more
+deliciously characteristic. I declare I can hear her speak. I wonder my
+mother could resist the temptation of your proposed visit to Kirriemuir,
+which it was like your kindness to propose. By the way, I was twice in
+Kirriemuir, I believe in the year '71, when I was going on a visit to
+Glenogil. It was Kirriemuir, was it not? I have a distinct recollection
+of an inn at the end--I think the upper end--of an irregular open place
+or square, in which I always see your characters evolve. But, indeed, I
+did not pay much attention; being all bent upon my visit to a
+shooting-box, where I should fish a real trout-stream, and I believe
+preserved. I did, too, and it was a charming stream, clear as crystal,
+without a trace of peat--a strange thing in Scotland--and alive with
+trout; the name of it I cannot remember, it was something like the
+Queen's River, and in some hazy way connected with memories of Mary
+Queen of Scots. It formed an epoch in my life, being the end of all my
+trout-fishing. I had always been accustomed to pause and very
+laboriously to kill every fish as I took it. But in the Queen's River I
+took so good a basket that I forgot these niceties; and when I sat down,
+in a hard rain shower, under a bank, to take my sandwiches and sherry,
+lo! and behold, there was the basketful of trouts still kicking in their
+agony.
+
+I had a very unpleasant conversation with my conscience. All that
+afternoon I persevered in fishing, brought home my basket in triumph,
+and sometime that night, "in the wee sma' hours ayont the twal," I
+finally forswore the gentle craft of fishing. I dare say your local
+knowledge may identify this historic river; I wish it could go farther
+and identify also that particular Free kirk in which I sat and groaned
+on Sunday. While my hand is in I must tell you a story. At that antique
+epoch you must not fall into the vulgar error that I was myself ancient.
+I was, on the contrary, very young, very green, and (what you will
+appreciate, Mr. Barrie) very shy. There came one day to lunch at the
+house two very formidable old ladies--or one very formidable, and the
+other what you please--answering to the honoured and historic name of
+the Miss C---- A----'s of Balnamoon. At table I was exceedingly funny,
+and entertained the company with tales of geese and bubbly-jocks. I was
+great in the expression of my terror for these bipeds, and suddenly this
+horrid, severe, and eminently matronly old lady put up a pair of gold
+eye-glasses, looked at me awhile in silence, and pronounced in a
+clangorous voice her verdict. "You give me very much the effect of a
+coward, Mr. Stevenson!" I had very nearly left two vices behind me at
+Glenogil--fishing and jesting at table. And of one thing you may be very
+sure, my lips were no more opened at that meal.
+
+_July 29th._--No, Barrie, 'tis in vain they try to alarm me with their
+bulletins. No doubt, you're ill, and unco ill, I believe; but I have
+been so often in the same case that I know pleurisy and pneumonia are in
+vain against Scotsmen who can write. (I once could.) You cannot imagine
+probably how near me this common calamity brings you. _Ce que j'ai
+tousse dans ma vie!_ How often and how long have I been on the rack at
+night and learned to appreciate that noble passage in the Psalms when
+somebody or other is said to be more set on something than they "who dig
+for hid treasures--yea, than those who long for the morning"--for all
+the world, as you have been racked and you have longed. Keep your heart
+up, and you'll do. Tell that to your mother, if you are still in any
+danger or suffering. And by the way, if you are at all like me--and I
+tell myself you are very like me--be sure there is only one thing good
+for you, and that is the sea in hot climates. Mount, sir, into "a little
+frigot" of 5000 tons or so, and steer peremptorily for the tropics; and
+what if the ancient mariner, who guides your frigot, should startle the
+silence of the ocean with the cry of land ho!--say, when the day is
+dawning--and you should see the turquoise mountain tops of Upolu coming
+hand over fist above the horizon? Mr. Barrie, sir, 'tis then there would
+be larks! And though I cannot be certain that our climate would suit you
+(for it does not suit some), I am sure as death the voyage would do you
+good--would do you _Best_--and if Samoa didn't do, you needn't stay
+beyond the month, and I should have had another pleasure in my life,
+which is a serious consideration for me. I take this as the hand of the
+Lord preparing your way to Vailima--in the desert, certainly--in the
+desert of Cough and by the ghoul-haunted woodland of Fever--but whither
+that way points there can be no question--and there will be a meeting of
+the twa Hoasting Scots Makers in spite of fate, fortune and the Devil.
+_Absit omen!_
+
+My dear Barrie, I am a little in the dark about this new work of yours:[79]
+what is to become of me afterwards? You say carefully--methought
+anxiously--that I was no longer me when I grew up? I cannot bear this
+suspense: what is it? It's no forgery? And AM I HANGIT? These are the
+elements of a very pretty lawsuit which you had better come to Samoa to
+compromise. I am enjoying a great pleasure that I had long looked
+forward to, reading Orme's _History of Indostan_; I had been looking out
+for it everywhere; but at last, in four volumes, large quarto,
+beautiful type and page, and with a delectable set of maps and plans,
+and all the names of the places wrongly spelled--it came to Samoa,
+little Barrie. I tell you frankly, you had better come soon. I am sair
+failed a'ready; and what I may be if you continue to dally, I dread to
+conceive. I may be speechless; already, or at least for a month or so,
+I'm little better than a teetoller--I beg pardon, a teetotaller. It is
+not exactly physical, for I am in good health, working four or five
+hours a day in my plantation, and intending to ride a paper-chase next
+Sunday--ay, man, that's a fact, and I havena had the hert to breathe it
+to my mother yet--the obligation's poleetical, for I am trying every
+means to live well with my German neighbours--and, O Barrie, but it's no
+easy!... To be sure, there are many exceptions. And the whole of the
+above must be regarded as private--strictly private. Breathe it not in
+Kirriemuir: tell it not to the daughters of Dundee! What a nice extract
+this would make for the daily papers! and how it would facilitate my
+position here!
+
+_August 5th._--This is Sunday, the Lord's Day. "The hour of attack
+approaches." And it is a singular consideration what I risk; I may yet
+be the subject of a tract, and a good tract too--such as one which I
+remember reading with recreant awe and rising hair in my youth, of a boy
+who was a very good boy, and went to Sunday Schule, and one day kipped
+from it, and went and actually bathed, and was dashed over a waterfall,
+and he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A dangerous
+trade, that, and one that I have to practise. I'll put in a word when I
+get home again, to tell you whether I'm killed or not. "Accident in the
+(Paper) Hunting Field: death of a notorious author. We deeply regret to
+announce the death of the most unpopular man in Samoa, who broke his
+neck, at the descent of Magiagi, from the misconduct of his little
+raving lunatic of an old beast of a pony. It is proposed to commemorate
+the incident by the erection of a suitable pile. The design (by our
+local architect, Mr. Walker) is highly artificial, with a rich and
+voluminous Crockett at each corner, a small but impervious Barrieer at
+the entrance, an arch at the top, an Archer of a pleasing but solid
+character at the bottom; the colour will be genuine William-Black; and
+Lang, lang may the ladies sit wi' their fans in their hands." Well,
+well, they may sit as they sat for me, and little they'll reck, the
+ungrateful jauds! Muckle they cared about Tusitala when they had him!
+But now ye can see the difference; now leddies, ye can repent, when ower
+late, o' your former cauldness and what ye'll perhaps allow me to ca'
+your _tepeedity_! He was beautiful as the day, but his day is done! And
+perhaps, as he was maybe gettin' a wee thing fly-blown, it's nane too
+shuene.
+
+_Monday, August 6th._--Well, sir, I have escaped the dangerous
+conjunction of the widow's only son and the Sabbath Day. We had a most
+enjoyable time, and Lloyd and I were 3 and 4 to arrive; I will not tell
+here what interval had elapsed between our arrival and the arrival of 1
+and 2; the question, sir, is otiose and malign; it deserves, it shall
+have no answer. And now without further delay to the main purpose of
+this hasty note. We received and we have already in fact distributed the
+gorgeous fahbrics of Kirriemuir. Whether from the splendour of the robes
+themselves, or from the direct nature of the compliments with which you
+had directed us to accompany the presentations, one young lady blushed
+as she received the proofs of your munificence.... Bad ink, and the
+dregs of it at that, but the heart in the right place. Still very
+cordially interested in my Barrie and wishing him well through his
+sickness, which is of the body, and long defended from mine, which is of
+the head, and by the impolite might be described as idiocy. The whole
+head is useless, and the whole sitting part painful: reason, the recent
+Paper Chase.
+
+  There was racing and chasing in Vailele plantation,
+      And vastly we enjoyed it,
+  But, alas! for the state of my foundation,
+      For it wholly has destroyed it.
+
+Come, my mind is looking up. The above is wholly impromptu.--On oath,
+
+     TUSITALA.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   The missionary view of the Sunday paper-chase, with an account of
+   Stevenson's apologies to the ladies and gentlemen of the mission,
+   have been printed by Mr. W. E. Clarke in the Chronicle of the London
+   Missionary Society for April and May 1908.
+
+     _[Vailima] Aug. 7th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is to inform you, sir, that on Sunday last (and
+this is Tuesday) I attained my ideal here, and we had a paper-chase in
+Vailele Plantation, about 15 miles, I take it, from us; and it was all
+that could be wished. It is really better fun than following the hounds,
+since you have to be your own hound, and a precious bad hound I was,
+following every false scent on the whole course to the bitter end; but I
+came in 3rd at the last on my little Jack, who stuck to it gallantly,
+and awoke the praises of some discriminating persons. (5 + 7 + 2-1/2 =
+14-1/2 miles; yes, that is the count.) We had quite the old sensations
+of exhilaration, discovery, an appeal to a savage instinct; and I felt
+myself about 17 again, a pleasant experience. However, it was on the
+Sabbath Day, and I am now a pariah among the English, as if I needed any
+increment of unpopularity. I must not go again; it gives so much
+unnecessary tribulation to poor people, and, sure, we don't want to make
+tribulation. I have been forbidden to work, and have been instead doing
+my two or three hours in the plantation every morning. I only wish
+somebody would pay me L10 a day for taking care of cacao, and I could
+leave literature to others. Certainly, if I have plenty of exercise, and
+no work, I feel much better; but there is Biles the butcher! him we
+have always with us.
+
+I do not much like novels, I begin to think, but I am enjoying
+exceedingly Orme's _History of Hindostan_, a lovely book in its way, in
+large quarto, with a quantity of maps, and written in a very lively and
+solid eighteenth century way, never picturesque except by accident and
+from a kind of conviction, and a fine sense of order. No historian I
+have ever read is so minute; yet he never gives you a word about the
+people; his interest is entirely limited in the concatenation of events,
+into which he goes with a lucid, almost superhuman, and wholly ghostly
+gusto. "By the ghost of a mathematician" the book might be announced. A
+very brave, honest book.
+
+Your letter to hand.
+
+Fact is, I don't like the picter.[80] O, it's a good picture, but if you
+_ask_ me, you know, I believe, stoutly believe, that mankind, including
+you, are going mad. I am not in the midst with the other frenzy dancers,
+so I don't catch it wholly; and when you show me a thing--and ask me,
+don't you know--Well, well! Glad to get so good an account of the
+_Amateur Emigrant_. Talking of which, I am strong for making a volume
+out of selections from the South Sea letters; I read over again the King
+of Apemama, and it is good in spite of your teeth, and a real curiosity,
+a thing that can never be seen again, and the group is annexed and
+Tembinoka dead. I wonder, couldn't you send out to me the _first_ five
+Butaritari letters and the Low Archipelago ones (both of which I have
+lost or mislaid) and I can chop out a perfectly fair volume of what I
+wish to be preserved. It can keep for the last of the series.
+
+_Travels and Excursions_, vol. II. Should it not include a paper on S. F.
+from the Mag. of Art? The A. E., the New Pacific capital, the Old ditto.
+_Silver._ _Squat._ This would give all my works on the States; and though
+it ain't very good, it's not so very bad. _Travels and Excursions_, vol.
+III., to be these resuscitated letters--_Miscellanies_, vol. II.--_comme
+vous voudrez, cher monsieur!_
+
+_Monday, Aug. 13th._--I have a sudden call to go up the coast and must
+hurry up with my information. There has suddenly come to our naval
+commanders the need of action, they're away up the coast bombarding the
+Atua rebels. All morning on Saturday the sound of the bombardment of
+Luatuanu'u kept us uneasy. To-day again the big guns have been sounding
+further along the coast. One delicious circumstance must not be
+forgotten. Our blessed President of the Council--a kind of hoary-headed
+urchin, with the dim, timid eyes of extreme childhood and a kind of
+beautiful simplicity that endears him to me beyond words--has taken the
+head of the army--honour to him for it, for his place is really
+there--and gone up the coast in the congenial company of his
+housekeeper, a woman coming on for sixty with whom he takes his walks
+abroad in the morning in his shirt-sleeves, whom he reads to at night
+(in a kind of Popular History of Germany) in the silence of the
+Presidential mansion, and with whom (and a couple of camp stools) he
+walked out last Sunday to behold the paper-chase. I cannot tell you how
+taken I am with this exploit of the President's and the housekeeper's.
+It is like Don Quixote, but infinitely superior. If I could only do it
+without offence, what a subject it would make!
+
+To-morrow morning early I am off up the coast myself. Therefore you must
+allow me to break off here without further ceremony.--Yours ever,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO DR. BAKEWELL
+
+
+   The following is to a physician in Australia.
+
+     _Vailima, August 7, 1894._
+
+DEAR DR. BAKEWELL,--I am not more than human. I am more human than is
+wholly convenient, and your anecdote was welcome. What you say about
+_unwilling work_, my dear sir, is a consideration always present with
+me, and yet not easy to give its due weight to. You grow gradually into
+a certain income; without spending a penny more, with the same sense of
+restriction as before when you painfully scraped two hundred a year
+together, you find you have spent, and you cannot well stop spending, a
+far larger sum; and this expense can only be supported by a certain
+production. However, I am off work this month, and occupy myself instead
+in weeding my cacao, paper-chases, and the like. I may tell you, my
+average of work in favourable circumstances is far greater than you
+suppose: from six o'clock till eleven at latest,[81] and often till
+twelve, and again in the afternoon from two to four. My hand is quite
+destroyed, as you may perceive, to-day to a really unusual extent. I can
+sometimes write a decent fist still; but I have just returned with my
+arms all stung from three hours' work in the cacao.--Yours, etc.,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES PAYN
+
+
+     _Vailima, Upolu, Samoa [August 11, 1894]._
+
+MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--I hear from Lang that you are unwell, and it
+reminds me of two circumstances: First, that it is a very long time
+since you had the exquisite pleasure of hearing from me; and second,
+that I have been very often unwell myself and sometimes had to thank you
+for a grateful anodyne.
+
+They are not good, the circumstances, to write an anodyne letter. The
+hills and my house at less than (boom) a minute's interval quake with
+thunder; and though I cannot hear that part of it, shells are falling
+thick into the fort of Luatuanu'u (boom). It is my friends of the
+_Curacoa_, the _Falke_, and the _Bussard_ bombarding (after all
+these--boom--months) the rebels of Atua. (Boom-boom.) It is most
+distracting in itself; and the thought of the poor devils in their fort
+(boom) with their bits of rifles far from pleasant. (Boom-boom.) You can
+see how quick it goes, and I'll say no more about Mr. Bow-wow, only you
+must understand the perpetual accompaniment of this discomfortable
+sound, and make allowances for the value of my copy. It is odd, though,
+I can well remember, when the Franco-Prussian war began, and I was in
+Eilean Earraid, far enough from the sound of the loudest cannonade, I
+could _hear_ the shots fired, and I felt the pang in my breast of a man
+struck. It was sometimes so distressing, so instant, that I lay in the
+heather on the top of the island, with my face hid, kicking my heels for
+agony. And now, when I can hear the actual concussion of the air and
+hills, when I _know_ personally the people who stand exposed to it, I am
+able to go on _taut bien que mal_ with a letter to James Payn! The
+blessings of age, though mighty small, are tangible. I have heard a
+great deal of them since I came into the world, and now that I begin to
+taste of them--Well! But this is one, that people do get cured of the
+excess of sensibility; and I had as lief these people were shot at as
+myself--or almost, for then I should have some of the fun, such as it
+is.
+
+You are to conceive me, then, sitting in my little gallery room, shaken
+by these continual spasms of cannon, and with my eye more or less singly
+fixed on the imaginary figure of my dear James Payn. I try to see him in
+bed; no go. I see him instead jumping up in his room in Waterloo Place
+(where _ex hypothesi_ he is not), sitting on the table, drawing out a
+very black briar-root pipe, and beginning to talk to a slim and
+ill-dressed visitor in a voice that is good to hear and with a smile
+that is pleasant to see. (After a little more than half an hour, the
+voice that was ill to hear has ceased, the cannonade is over.) And I am
+thinking how I can get an answering smile wafted over so many leagues
+of land and water, and can find no way.
+
+I have always been a great visitor of the sick; and one of the sick I
+visited was W. E. Henley, which did not make very tedious visits, so
+I'll not get off much purgatory for them. That was in the Edinburgh
+Infirmary, the old one, the true one, with Georgius Secundus standing
+and pointing his toe in a niche of the facade; and a mighty fine
+building it was! And I remember one winter's afternoon, in that place of
+misery, that Henley and I chanced to fall in talk about James Payn
+himself. I am wishing you could have heard that talk! I think that would
+make you smile. We had mixed you up with John Payne, for one thing, and
+stood amazed at your extraordinary, even painful, versatility; and for
+another, we found ourselves each students so well prepared for
+examinations on the novels of the real Mackay. Perhaps, after all, this
+is worth something in life--to have given so much pleasure to a pair so
+different in every way as were Henley and I, and to be talked of with so
+much interest by two such (beg pardon) clever lads!
+
+The cheerful Lang has neglected to tell me what is the matter with you;
+so, I'm sorry to say, I am cut off from all the customary consolations.
+I can't say, "Think how much worse it would be if you had a broken leg!"
+when you may have the crushing repartee up your sleeve, "But it is my
+leg that is broken." This is a pity. But there are consolations. You are
+an Englishman (I believe); you are a man of letters; you have never been
+made C.B.; you hair was not red; you have played cribbage and whist; you
+did not play either the fiddle or the banjo; you were never an aesthete;
+you never contributed to ----'s Journal; your name is not Jabez Balfour;
+you are totally unconnected with the Army and Navy departments; I
+understand you to have lived within your income--why, cheer up! here are
+many legitimate causes of congratulation. I seem to be writing an
+obituary notice. _Absit omen!_ But I feel very sure that these
+considerations will have done you more good than medicine.
+
+By the by, did you ever play piquet? I have fallen a victim to this
+debilitating game. It is supposed to be scientific; God save the mark,
+what self-deceivers men are! It is distinctly less so than cribbage. But
+how fascinating! There is such material opulence about it, such vast
+ambitions may be realised--and are not; it may be called the Monte
+Cristo of games. And the thrill with which you take five cards partakes
+of the nature of lust--and you draw four sevens and a nine, and the
+seven and nine of a suit that you discarded, and O! but the world is a
+desert! You may see traces of discouragement in my letter: all due to
+piquet! There has been a disastrous turn of the luck against me; a month
+or two ago I was two thousand ahead; now, and for a week back, I have
+been anything from four thousand eight hundred to five thousand two
+hundred astern. I have a sixieme, my beast of a partner has a septieme;
+and if I have three aces, three kings, three queens, and three knaves
+(excuse the slight exaggeration), the devil holds quatorze of tens!--I
+remain, my dear James Payn, your sincere and obliged friend--old friend
+let me say,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO MISS MIDDLETON
+
+
+   A letter from the lady to whom this is addressed, and who had been a
+   friend of the Stevenson family in Edinburgh, had called up some
+   memories of a Skye terrier, Jura, of whom readers have heard
+   something already.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, September 9, 1894._
+
+DEAR MISS MIDDLETON,--Your letter has been like the drawing up of a
+curtain. Of course I remember you very well, and the Skye terrier to
+which you refer--a heavy, dull, fatted, graceless creature he grew up to
+be--was my own particular pet. It may amuse you, perhaps, as much as
+"The Inn" amused me, if I tell you what made this dog particularly mine.
+My father was the natural god of all the dogs in our house, and poor
+Jura took to him of course. Jura was stolen, and kept in prison
+somewhere for more than a week, as I remember. When he came back
+Smeoroch had come and taken my father's heart from him. He took his
+stand like a man, and positively never spoke to my father again from
+that day until the day of his death. It was the only sign of character
+he ever showed. I took him up to my room and to be my dog in
+consequence, partly because I was sorry for him, and partly because I
+admired his dignity in misfortune.
+
+With best regards and thanks for having reminded me of so many pleasant
+days, old acquaintances, dead friends, and--what is perhaps as pathetic
+as any of them--dead dogs, I remain, yours truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+   The following refers to the papers originally contributed by various
+   writers to Mr. Jerome's periodical The Idler, under the title _My
+   First Book_, and afterwards republished in a volume. The references
+   towards the end are to the illustrations in the pages of The Idler.
+
+     _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!).
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     [_Vailima, September 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--This must be a very measly letter. I have been trying
+hard to get along with _St. Ives_. I should now lay it aside for a year
+and I dare say I should make something of it after all. Instead of that,
+I have to kick against the pricks, and break myself, and spoil the book,
+if there were anything to spoil, which I am far from saying. I'm as sick
+of the thing as ever any one can be; it's a rudderless hulk; it's a
+pagoda, and you can just feel--or I can feel--that it might have been a
+pleasant story, if it had been only blessed at baptism.
+
+Our politics have gone on fairly well, but the result is still doubtful.
+
+_Sept. 10th._--I know I have something else to say to you, but
+unfortunately I awoke this morning with colly-wobbles, and had to take a
+small dose of laudanum with the usual consequences of dry throat,
+intoxicated legs, partial madness and total imbecility; and for the
+life of me I cannot remember what it is. I have likewise mislaid your
+letter amongst the accumulations on my table, not that there was
+anything in it. Altogether I am in a poor state. I forgot to tell Baxter
+that the dummy had turned up and is a fine, personable-looking volume
+and very good reading. Please communicate this to him.
+
+I have just remembered an incident that I really must not let pass. You
+have heard a great deal more than you wanted about our political
+prisoners. Well, one day, about a fortnight ago, the last of them was
+set free--Old Poe, whom I think I must have mentioned to you, the
+father-in-law of my cook, was one that I had had a great deal of trouble
+with. I had taken the doctor to see him, got him out on sick leave, and
+when he was put back again gave bail for him. I must not forget that my
+wife ran away with him out of the prison on the doctor's orders and with
+the complicity of our friend the gaoler, who really and truly got the
+sack for the exploit. As soon as he was finally liberated, Poe called a
+meeting of his fellow-prisoners. All Sunday they were debating what they
+were to do, and on Monday morning I got an obscure hint from Talolo that
+I must expect visitors during the day who were coming to consult me.
+These consultations I am now very well used to, and seeing first, that I
+generally don't know what to advise, and second that they sometimes
+don't take my advice--though in some notable cases they have taken it,
+generally to my own wonder with pretty good results--I am not very fond
+of these calls. They minister to a sense of dignity, but not peace of
+mind, and consume interminable time, always in the morning too, when I
+can't afford it. However, this was to be a new sort of consultation. Up
+came Poe and some eight other chiefs, squatted in a big circle around
+the old dining-room floor, now the smoking-room. And the family, being
+represented by Lloyd, Graham, Belle, Austin and myself, proceeded to
+exchange the necessary courtesies. Then their talking man began. He
+said that they had been in prison, that I had always taken an interest
+in them, that they had now been set at liberty without condition,
+whereas some of the other chiefs who had been liberated before them were
+still under bond to work upon the roads, and that this had set them
+considering what they might do to testify their gratitude. They had
+therefore agreed to work upon my road as a free gift. They went on to
+explain that it was only to be on my road, on the branch that joins my
+house with the public way.
+
+Now I was very much gratified at this compliment, although (to one used
+to natives) it seemed rather a hollow one. It meant only that I should
+have to lay out a good deal of money on tools and food and to give wages
+under the guise of presents to some workmen who were most of them old
+and in ill-health. Conceive how much I was surprised and touched when I
+heard the whole scheme explained to me. They were to return to their
+provinces, and collect their families; some of the young men were to
+live in Apia with a boat, and ply up and down the coast to A'ana and
+Atua (our own Tuamasaga being quite drained of resources) in order to
+supply the working squad with food. Tools they did ask for, but it was
+especially mentioned that I was to make no presents. In short, the whole
+of this little "presentation" to me had been planned with a good deal
+more consideration than goes usually with a native campaign.
+
+[I sat on the opposite side of the circle to the talking man. His face
+was quite calm and high-bred as he went through the usual Samoan
+expressions of politeness and compliment, but when he came on to the
+object of their visit, on their love and gratitude to Tusitala, how his
+name was always in their prayers, and his goodness to them when they had
+no other friend, was their most cherished memory, he warmed up to real,
+burning, genuine feeling. I had never seen the Samoan mask of reserve
+laid aside before, and it touched me more than anything else. A.M.]
+
+This morning as ever was, bright and early up came the whole gang of
+them, a lot of sturdy, common-looking lads they seemed to be for the
+most part, and fell to on my new road. Old Poe was in the highest of
+good spirits, and looked better in health than he has done any time in
+two years, being positively rejuvenated by the success of his scheme. He
+jested as he served out the new tools, and I am sorry to say damned the
+Government up hill and down dale, probably with a view to show off his
+position as a friend of the family before his workboys. Now, whether or
+not their impulse will last them through the road does not matter to me
+one hair. It is the fact that they have attempted it, that they have
+volunteered and are now really trying to execute a thing that was never
+before heard of in Samoa. Think of it! It is road-making--the most
+fruitful cause (after taxes) of all rebellions in Samoa, a thing to
+which they could not be wiled with money nor driven by punishment. It
+does give me a sense of having done something in Samoa after all.
+
+Now there's one long story for you about "my blacks."--Yours ever,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO CHARLES BAXTER
+
+
+   The following was written on hearing of the death of his friend's
+   father.
+
+     [_Vailima, September 1894._]
+
+MY DEAR CHARLES,--... Well, there is no more Edmund Baxter now; and I
+think I may say I know how you feel. He was one of the best, the
+kindest, and the most genial men I ever knew. I shall always remember
+his brisk, cordial ways and the essential goodness which he showed me
+whenever we met with gratitude. And the always is such a little while
+now! He is another of the landmarks gone; when it comes to my own turn
+to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue; and
+whatever be my destiny afterward, I shall be glad to lie down with my
+fathers in honour. It is human at least, if not divine. And these deaths
+make me think of it with an ever greater readiness. Strange that you
+should be beginning a new life, when I, who am a little your junior, am
+thinking of the end of mine. But I have had hard lines; I have been so
+long waiting for death, I have unwrapped my thoughts from about life so
+long, that I have not a filament left to hold by; I have done my
+fiddling so long under Vesuvius, that I have almost forgotten to play,
+and can only wait for the eruption, and think it long of coming.
+Literally, no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it's
+good fun.
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
+
+
+   Stevenson had received from his cousin a letter announcing, among
+   other things, the birth of a son to the writer, and rambling
+   suggestively, as may be guessed from the following reply, over many
+   disconnected themes: the ethnology of Scotland, paternity and
+   heredity, civilisation _versus_ primitive customs and instincts, the
+   story of their own descent, the method of writing in collaboration,
+   education, Christianity and sex, the religion of conduct, anarchism,
+   etc.; all which matters are here discursively touched on. "Old Skene"
+   is, of course, the distinguished Scottish antiquarian and historian,
+   William Forbes Skene, in whose firm (Skene & Edwards, W.S.) Stevenson
+   had for a time served irregularly enough as an unpaid clerk.
+
+     [_Vailima, September 1894._]
+
+DEAR BOB,--You are in error about the Picts. They were a Gaelic race,
+spoke a Celtic tongue, and we have no evidence that I know of that they
+were blacker than other Celts. The Balfours, I take it, were plainly
+Celts; their name shows it--the "cold croft," it means; so does their
+country. Where the _black_ Scotch come from nobody knows; but I
+recognise with you the fact that the whole of Britain is rapidly and
+progressively becoming more pigmented; already in one man's life I can
+decidedly trace a difference in the children about a school door. But
+colour is not an essential part of a man or a race. Take my Polynesians,
+an Asiatic people probably from the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf.
+They range through any amount of shades, from the burnt hue of the Low
+Archipelago islander, which seems half negro, to the "bleached" pretty
+women of the Marquesas (close by on the map), who come out for a
+festival no darker than an Italian; their colour seems to vary directly
+with the degree of exposure to the sun. And, as with negroes, the babes
+are born white; only it should seem a _little sack_ of pigment at the
+lower part of the spine, which presently spreads over the whole field.
+Very puzzling. But to return. The Picts furnish to-day perhaps a third
+of the population of Scotland, say another third for Scots and Britons,
+and the third for Norse and Angles is a bad third. Edinburgh was a
+Pictish place. But the fact is, we don't know their frontiers. Tell some
+of your journalist friends with a good style to popularise old Skene; or
+say your prayers, and read him for yourself; he was a Great Historian,
+and I was his blessed clerk, and did not know it; and you will not be in
+a state of grace about the Picts till you have studied him. J. Horne
+Stevenson (do you know him?) is working this up with me, and the fact
+is--it's not interesting to the public--but it's interesting, and very
+interesting, in itself, and just now very embarrassing--this rural
+parish supplied Glasgow with such a quantity of Stevensons in the
+beginning of last century! There is just a link wanting; and we might be
+able to go back to the eleventh century, always undistinguished, but
+clearly traceable. When I say just a link, I guess I may be taken to
+mean a dozen. What a singular thing is this undistinguished perpetuation
+of a family throughout the centuries, and the sudden bursting forth of
+character and capacity that began with our grandfather! But as I go on
+in life, day by day, I become more of a bewildered child; I cannot get
+used to this world, to procreation, to heredity, to sight, to hearing;
+the commonest things are a burthen. The prim obliterated polite face of
+life, and the broad, bawdy, and orgiastic--or maenadic--foundations, form
+a spectacle to which no habit reconciles me; and "I could wish my days
+to be bound each to each" by the same open-mouthed wonder. They _are_
+anyway, and whether I wish it or not.
+
+I remember very well your attitude to life, this conventional surface of
+it. You had none of that curiosity for the social stage directions, the
+trivial _ficelles_ of the business; it is simian, but that is how the
+wild youth of man is captured; you wouldn't imitate, hence you kept
+free--a wild dog, outside the kennel--and came dam near starving for
+your pains. The key to the business is of course the belly; difficult as
+it is to keep that in view in the zone of three miraculous meals a day
+in which we were brought up. Civilisation has become reflex with us; you
+might think that hunger was the name of the best sauce; but hunger to
+the cold solitary under a bush of a rainy night is the name of something
+quite different. I defend civilisation for the thing it is, for the
+thing it has _come_ to be, the standpoint of a real old Tory. My ideal
+would be the Female Clan. But how can you turn these crowding dumb
+multitudes _back?_ They don't do anything _because_; they do things,
+write able articles, stitch shoes, dig, from the purely simian impulse.
+Go and reason with monkeys!
+
+No, I am right about Jean Lillie. Jean Lillie, our double
+great-grandmother, the daughter of David Lillie, sometime Deacon of the
+Wrights, married, first, Alan Stevenson, who died May 26, 1774, "at
+Santt Kittes of a fiver," by whom she had Robert Stevenson, born 8th
+June 1772; and, second, in May or June 1787, Thomas Smith, a widower,
+and already the father of our grandmother. This improbable double
+connection always tends to confuse a student of the family, Thomas Smith
+being doubly our great-grandfather.
+
+I looked on the perpetuation of our honoured name with veneration. My
+mother collared one of the photos, of course; the other is stuck up on
+my wall as the chief of our sept. Do you know any of the Gaelic-Celtic
+sharps? you might ask what the name means. It puzzles me. I find a
+_M'Stein_ and a _MacStephane_; and our own great-grandfather always
+called himself Steenson, though he wrote it Stevenson. There are at
+least three _places_ called Stevenson--_Stevenson_ in Cunningham,
+_Stevenson_ in Peebles, and _Stevenson_ in Haddington. And it was not
+the Celtic trick, I understand, to call places after people. I am going
+to write to Sir Herbert Maxwell about the name, but you might find some
+one.
+
+Get the Anglo-Saxon heresy out of your head; they superimposed their
+language, they scarce modified the race; only in Berwickshire and
+Roxburgh have they very largely affected the place names. The
+Scandinavians did much more to Scotland than the Angles. The Saxons
+didn't come.
+
+Enough of this sham antiquarianism. Yes, it is in the matter of the
+book[82] of course, that collaboration shows; as for the manner, it is
+superficially all mine in the sense that the last copy is all in my
+hand. Lloyd did not even put pen to paper in the Paris scenes or the
+Barbizon scene; it was no good; he wrote and often rewrote all the rest;
+I had the best service from him on the character of Nares. You see, we
+had been just meeting the man, and his memory was full of the man's
+words and ways. And Lloyd is an impressionist, pure and simple. The
+great difficulty of collaboration is that you can't explain what you
+mean. I know what kind of effect I mean a character to give--what kind
+of _tache_ he is to make; but how am I to tell my collaborator in words?
+Hence it was necessary to say, "Make him So-and-so"; and this was all
+right for Nares and Pinkerton and Loudon Dodd, whom we both knew, but
+for Bellairs, for instance--a man with whom I passed ten minutes fifteen
+years ago--what was I to say? and what could Lloyd do? I, as a personal
+artist, can begin a character with only a haze in my head, but how if I
+have to translate the haze into words before I begin? In our manner of
+collaboration (which I think the only possible--I mean that of one
+person being responsible, and giving the _coup de pouce_ to every part
+of the work) I was spared the obviously hopeless business of trying to
+explain to my collaborator what _style_ I wished a passage to be treated
+in. These are the times that illustrate to a man the inadequacy of
+spoken language. Now--to be just to written language--I can (or could)
+find a language for my every mood, but how could I _tell_ any one
+beforehand what this effect was to be, which it would take every art
+that I possessed, and hours and hours of deliberate labour and selection
+and rejection, to produce? These are the impossibilities of
+collaboration. Its immediate advantage is to focus two minds together on
+the stuff, and to produce in consequence an extraordinarily greater
+richness of purview, consideration, and invention. The hardest chapter
+of all was "Cross Questions and Crooked Answers." You would not believe
+what that cost us before it assumed the least unity and colour. Lloyd
+wrote it at least thrice, and I at least five times--this is from
+memory. And was that last chapter worth the trouble it cost? Alas, that
+I should ask the question! Two classes of men--the artist and the
+educationalist--are sworn, on soul and conscience, not to ask it. You
+get an ordinary, grinning, red-headed boy, and you have to educate him.
+Faith supports you; you give your valuable hours, the boy does not seem
+to profit, but that way your duty lies, for which you are paid, and you
+must persevere. Education has always seemed to me one of the few
+possible and dignified ways of life. A sailor, a shepherd, a
+schoolmaster--to a less degree, a soldier--and (I don't know why, upon
+my soul, except as a sort of schoolmaster's unofficial assistant, and a
+kind of acrobat in tights) an artist, almost exhaust the category.
+
+If I had to begin again--I know not--_si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse
+pouvait_ ... I know not at all--I believe I should try to honour Sex
+more religiously. The worst of our education is that Christianity does
+not recognise and hallow Sex. It looks askance at it, over its shoulder,
+oppressed as it is by reminiscences of hermits and Asiatic
+self-tortures. It is a terrible hiatus in our modern religions that they
+cannot see and make venerable that which they ought to see first and
+hallow most. Well, it is so; I cannot be wiser than my generation.
+
+But no doubt there is something great in the half-success that has
+attended the effort of turning into an emotional religion, Bald Conduct,
+without any appeal, or almost none, to the figurative, mysterious, and
+constitutive facts of life. Not that conduct is not constitutive, but
+dear! it's dreary! On the whole, conduct is better dealt with on the
+cast-iron "gentleman" and duty formula, with as little fervour and
+poetry as possible; stoical and short.... There is a new something or
+other in the wind, which exercises me hugely: anarchy,--I mean,
+anarchism. People who (for pity's sake) commit dastardly murders very
+basely, die like saints, and leave beautiful letters behind 'em (did you
+see Vaillant to his daughter? it was the New Testament over again);
+people whose conduct is inexplicable to me, and yet their spiritual life
+higher than that of most. This is just what the early Christians must
+have seemed to the Romans. Is this, then, a new _drive_[83] among the
+monkeys? Mind you, Bob, if they go on being martyred a few years more,
+the gross, dull, not unkindly bourgeois may get tired or ashamed or
+afraid of going on martyring; and the anarchists come out at the top
+just like the early Christians. That is, of course, they will step into
+power as a _personnel_, but God knows what they may believe when they
+come to do so; it can't be stranger or more improbable than what
+Christianity had come to be by the same time.
+
+Your letter was easily read, the pagination presented no difficulty, and
+I read it with much edification and gusto. To look back, and to
+stereotype one bygone humour--what a hopeless thing! The mind runs ever
+in a thousand eddies like a river between cliffs. You (the ego) are
+always spinning round in it, east, west, north, and south. You are
+twenty years old, and forty, and five, and the next moment you are
+freezing at an imaginary eighty; you are never the plain forty-four that
+you should be by dates. (The most philosophical language is the Gaelic,
+which has _no present tense_--and the most useless.) How, then, to
+choose some former age, and stick there?
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIR HERBERT MAXWELL
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, September 10, 1894._
+
+DEAR SIR HERBERT MAXWELL,--I am emboldened by reading your very
+interesting Rhind Lectures to put to you a question: What is my name,
+Stevenson?
+
+I find it in the forms Stevinetoun, Stevensoune, Stevensonne, Stenesone,
+Stewinsoune, M'Stein, and MacStephane. My family, and (as far as I can
+gather) the majority of the inglorious clan, hailed from the borders of
+Cunningham and Renfrew, and the upper waters of the Clyde. In the Barony
+of Bothwell was the seat of the laird Stevenson of Stevenson; but, as of
+course you know, there is a parish in Cunningham and places in Peebles
+and Haddington bearing the same name.
+
+If you can at all help me, you will render me a real service which I
+wish I could think of some manner to repay.--Believe me, yours truly,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+_P.S._--I should have added that I have perfect evidence before me that
+(for some obscure reason) Stevenson was a favourite alias with the
+M'Gregors.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, October 6th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR COLVIN,--We have had quite an interesting month and mostly in
+consideration of that road which I think I told you was about to be
+made. It was made without a hitch, though I confess I was considerably
+surprised. When they got through, I wrote a speech to them, sent it down
+to a Missionary to be translated, and invited the lot to a feast. I
+thought a good deal of this feast. The occasion was really interesting.
+I wanted to pitch it in hot. And I wished to have as many influential
+witnesses present as possible. Well, as it drew towards the day I had
+nothing but refusals. Everybody supposed it was to be a political
+occasion, that I had made a hive of rebels up here, and was going to
+push for new hostilities.
+
+The Amanuensis has been ill, and after the above trial petered out. I
+must return to my own, lone Waverley. The captain refused, telling me
+why; and at last I had to beat up for people almost with prayers.
+However, I got a good lot, as you will see by the accompanying newspaper
+report. The road contained this inscription, drawn up by the chiefs
+themselves:
+
+  "THE ROAD OF GRATITUDE
+
+"Considering the great love of Tusitala in his loving care of us in our
+distress in the prison, we have therefore prepared a splendid gift. It
+shall never be muddy, it shall endure for ever, this road that we have
+dug."
+
+This the newspaper reporter could not give, not knowing any Samoan. The
+same reason explains his references to Seumanutafa's speech, which was
+not long and _was_ important, for it was a speech of courtesy and
+forgiveness to his former enemies. It was very much applauded. Secondly,
+it was not Poe, it was Mataaf[=a] (don't confuse with Mataafa) who spoke
+for the prisoners. Otherwise it is extremely correct.
+
+I beg your pardon for so much upon my aboriginals. Even you must
+sympathise with me in this unheard-of compliment, and my having been
+able to deliver so severe a sermon with acceptance. It remains a nice
+point of conscience what I should wish done in the matter. I think this
+meeting, its immediate results, and the terms of what I said to them,
+desirable to be known. It will do a little justice to me, who have not
+had too much justice done me. At the same time, to send this report to
+the papers is truly an act of self-advertisement, and I dislike the
+thought. Query, in a man who has been so much calumniated, is that not
+justifiable? I do not know; be my judge. Mankind is too complicated for
+me; even myself. Do I wish to advertise? I think I do, God help me! I
+have had hard times here, as every man must have who mixes up with
+public business; and I bemoan myself, knowing that all I have done has
+been in the interest of peace and good government; and having once
+delivered my mind, I would like it, I think, to be made public. But the
+other part of me _regimbs_.[84]
+
+I know I am at a climacteric for all men who live by their wits, so I do
+not despair. But the truth is I am pretty nearly useless at literature,
+and I will ask you to spare _St. Ives_ when it goes to you; it is a sort
+of _Count Robert of Paris_. But I hope rather a _Dombey and Son_, to be
+succeeded by _Our Mutual Friend_ and _Great Expectations_ and _A Tale of
+Two Cities_. No toil has been spared over the ungrateful canvas; and it
+_will not_ come together, and I must live, and my family. Were it not
+for my health, which made it impossible, I could not find it in my heart
+to forgive myself that I did not stick to an honest, commonplace trade
+when I was young, which might have now supported me during these ill
+years. But do not suppose me to be down in anything else; only, for the
+nonce, my skill deserts me, such as it is, or was. It was a very little
+dose of inspiration, and a pretty little trick of style, long lost,
+improved by the most heroic industry. So far, I have managed to please
+the journalists. But I am a fictitious article and have long known it. I
+am read by journalists, by my fellow-novelists, and by boys; with these,
+_incipit et explicit_ my vogue. Good thing anyway! for it seems to have
+sold the Edition. And I look forward confidently to an aftermath; I do
+not think my health can be so hugely improved, without some subsequent
+improvement in my brains. Though, of course, there is the possibility
+that literature is a morbid secretion, and abhors health! I do not think
+it is possible to have fewer illusions than I. I sometimes wish I had
+more. They are amusing. But I cannot take myself seriously as an artist;
+the limitations are so obvious. I did take myself seriously as a workman
+of old, but my practice has fallen off. I am now an idler and cumberer
+of the ground; it may be excused to me perhaps by twenty years of
+industry and ill-health, which have taken the cream off the milk.
+
+As I was writing this last sentence, I heard the strident rain drawing
+near across the forest, and by the time I was come to the word "cream"
+it burst upon my roof, and has since redoubled, and roared upon it. A
+very welcome change. All smells of the good wet earth, sweetly, with a
+kind of Highland touch; the crystal rods of the shower, as I look up,
+have drawn their criss-cross over everything; and a gentle and very
+welcome coolness comes up around me in little draughts, blessed
+draughts, not chilling, only equalising the temperature. Now the rain
+is off in this spot, but I hear it roaring still in the nigh
+neighbourhood--and that moment, I was driven from the verandah by random
+raindrops, spitting at me through the Japanese blinds. These are not
+tears with which the page is spotted! Now the windows stream, the roof
+reverberates. It is good; it answers something which is in my heart; I
+know not what; old memories of the wet moorland belike.
+
+Well, it has blown by again, and I am in my place once more, with an
+accompaniment of perpetual dripping on the verandah--and very much
+inclined for a chat. The exact subject I do not know! It will be bitter
+at least, and that is strange, for my attitude is essentially _not_
+bitter, but I have come into these days when a man sees above all the
+seamy side, and I have dwelt some time in a small place where he has an
+opportunity of reading little motives that he would miss in the great
+world, and indeed, to-day, I am almost ready to call the world an error.
+Because? Because I have not drugged myself with successful work, and
+there are all kinds of trifles buzzing in my ear, unfriendly trifles,
+from the least to the--well, to the pretty big. All these that touch me
+are Pretty Big; and yet none touch me in the least, if rightly looked
+at, except the one eternal burthen to go on making an income for my
+family. That is rightly the root and ground of my ill. The jingling,
+tingling, damned mint sauce is the trouble always; and if I could find a
+place where I could lie down and give up for (say) two years, and allow
+the sainted public to support me, if it were a lunatic asylum, wouldn't
+I go, just! But we can't have both extremes at once, worse luck! I
+should like to put my savings into a proprietarian investment, and
+retire in the meanwhile into a communistic retreat, which is
+double-dealing. But you men with aries don't know how alas family weighs
+on a fellow's mind.
+
+I hear the article in next week's _Herald_ is to be a great affair, and
+all the officials who came to me the other day are to be attacked! This
+is the unpleasant side of being (without a salary) in public life; I
+will leave any one to judge if my speech was well intended, and
+calculated to do good. It was even daring--I assure you one of the
+chiefs looked like a fiend at my description of Samoan warfare. Your
+warning was not needed; we are all determined to _keep the peace_ and to
+_hold our peace_. I know, my dear fellow, how remote all this sounds!
+Kindly pardon your friend. I have my life to live here; these interests
+are for me immediate; and if I do not write of them, I might as soon not
+write at all. There is the difficulty in a distant correspondence. It is
+perhaps easy for me to enter into and understand your interests; I own
+it is difficult for you; but you must just wade through them for
+friendship's sake, and try to find tolerable what is vital for your
+friend. I cannot forbear challenging you to it, as to intellectual
+lists. It is the proof of intelligence, the proof of not being a
+barbarian, to be able to enter into something outside of oneself,
+something that does not touch one's next neighbour in the city omnibus.
+
+Good-bye, my lord. May your race continue and you flourish.--Yours ever,
+
+     TUSITALA.
+
+
+
+
+TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
+
+
+   For a fuller account of the road-making affair here mentioned, see
+   pp. 431, 462.
+
+     _[Vailima] October 8th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR CUMMY,--So I hear you are ailing? Think shame to yoursell! So
+you think there is nothing better to be done with time than that? and be
+sure we can all do much ourselves to decide whether we are to be ill or
+well! like a man on the gymnastic bars. We are all pretty well. As for
+me, there is nothing the matter with me in the world, beyond the
+disgusting circumstance that I am not so young as once I was. Lloyd has
+a gymnastic machine, and practises upon it every morning for an hour:
+he is beginning to be a kind of young Samson. Austin grows fat and
+brown, and gets on not so ill with his lessons, and my mother is in
+great price. We are having knock-me-down weather for heat; I never
+remember it so hot before, and I fancy it means we are to have a
+hurricane again this year, I think; since we came here, we have not had
+a single gale of wind! The Pacific is but a child to the North Sea; but
+when she does get excited, and gets up and girds herself, she can do
+something good. We have had a very interesting business here. I helped
+the chiefs who were in prison; and when they were set free, what should
+they do but offer to make a part of my road for me out of gratitude?
+Well, I was ashamed to refuse, and the trumps dug my road for me, and
+put up this inscription on a board:--
+
+"_Considering the great love of His Excellency Tusitala in his loving
+care for us in our tribulation in the prison we have made this great
+gift; it shall never be muddy, it shall go on for ever, this road that
+we have dug!_" We had a great feast when it was done, and I read them a
+kind of lecture, which I dare say Auntie will have, and can let you see.
+Weel, guid bye to ye, and joy be wi' ye! I hae nae time to say mair.
+They say I'm gettin' _fat_--a fact!--Your laddie, with all love,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES PAYN
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, Nov. 4, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--I am asked to relate to you a little incident of
+domestic life at Vailima. I had read your _Gleams of Memory_, No. 1; it
+then went to my wife, to Osbourne, to the cousin that is within my
+gates, and to my respected amanuensis, Mrs. Strong. Sunday approached.
+In the course of the afternoon I was attracted to the great 'all--the
+winders is by Vanderputty, which upon entering I beheld a memorable
+scene. The floor was bestrewn with the forms of midshipmen from the
+_Curacoa_--"boldly say a wilderness of gunroom"--and in the midst of
+this sat Mrs. Strong throned on the sofa and reading aloud _Gleams of
+Memory_. They had just come the length of your immortal definition of
+boyhood in the concrete, and I had the pleasure to see the whole party
+dissolve under its influence with inextinguishable laughter. I thought
+this was not half bad for arthritic gout! Depend upon it, sir, when I go
+into the arthritic gout business, I shall be done with literature, or at
+least with the funny business. It is quite true I have my battlefields
+behind me. I have done perhaps as much work as anybody else under the
+most deplorable conditions. But two things fall to be noticed: In the
+first place, I never was in actual pain; and in the second, I was never
+funny. I'll tell you the worst day that I remember. I had a hemorrhage,
+and was not allowed to speak; then, induced by the devil, or an errant
+doctor, I was led to partake of that bowl which neither cheers nor
+inebriates--the castor-oil bowl. Now, when castor-oil goes right, it is
+one thing; but when it goes wrong, it is another. And it went wrong with
+me that day. The waves of faintness and nausea succeeded each other for
+twelve hours, and I do feel a legitimate pride in thinking that I stuck
+to my work all through and wrote a good deal of _Admiral Guinea_ (which
+I might just as well not have written for all the reward it ever brought
+me) in spite of the barbarous bad conditions. I think that is my great
+boast; and it seems a little thing alongside of your _Gleams of Memory_
+illustrated by spasms of arthritic gout. We really should have an order
+of merit in the trade of letters. For valour, Scott would have had it;
+Pope too; myself on the strength of that castor-oil; and James Payn
+would be a Knight Commander. The worst of it is, though Lang tells me
+you exhibit the courage of Huish, that not even an order can alleviate
+the wretched annoyance of the business. I have always said that there
+is nothing like pain; toothache, dumb-ague, arthritic gout, it does not
+matter what you call it, if the screw is put upon the nerves
+sufficiently strong, there is nothing left in heaven or in earth that
+can interest the sufferer. Still, even to this there is the consolation
+that it cannot last for ever. Either you will be relieved and have a
+good hour again before the sun goes down, or else you will be liberated.
+It is something after all (although not much) to think that you are
+leaving a brave example; that other literary men love to remember, as I
+am sure they will love to remember, everything about you--your
+sweetness, your brightness, your helpfulness to all of us, and in
+particular those one or two really adequate and noble papers which you
+have been privileged to write during these last years.--With the
+heartiest and kindest good-will, I remain, yours ever,
+
+     R. L. S.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIDNEY COLVIN
+
+
+   This was the last letter I received from my friend. On the morning of
+   his death the following month he spoke of being behindhand with his
+   December letter and of his intention to write it next day.
+
+     [_Vailima, November 1894._]
+
+DEAR COLVIN,--Saturday there was a ball to the ship, and on Sunday Gurr
+had a child to be baptized. Belle was to be godmother and had to be got
+down; which was impossible, as the jester Euclid says. However, we had
+four men of very different heights take the poles of a sort of bier and
+carry her shoulder high down the road, till we met a trap. On the return
+journey on Sunday, they were led by Austin playing (?) on a bugle, and
+you have no idea how picturesque a business it was; the four half-naked
+bearers, the cane lounge at that height from the ground, and Belle in
+black and pretty pale reclining very like a dead warrior of yore.
+However she wasn't dead yet. All the rest of the afternoon we hung
+about and had consultations about the baptism. Just as we went in to
+dinner, I saw the moon rise accurately full, looking five times greater
+than nature, and the face that we try to decipher in its silver disk
+wearing an obliterated but benignant expression. The ball followed;
+bluejackets and officers danced indiscriminately, after their pleasant
+fashion; and Belle, who lay in the hotel verandah, and held a sort of
+reception all night, had her longest visit from one of the blue-jackets,
+her partner in the last ball. About one on the Sunday morning all was
+over, and we went to bed--I, alas! only to get up again, my room being
+in the verandah, where a certain solemnly absurd family conclave (all
+drunk) was being held until (I suppose) three. By six, I was awake, and
+went out on the verandah. On the east the dawn had broken, cold and pink
+and rust colour, and the marshes were all smoking whitely and blowing
+into the bay like smoke, but on the west, all was golden. The street was
+empty, and right over it hung the setting moon, accurately round, yellow
+as an apricot, but slumberous, with an effect of afternoon you would not
+believe if you had not seen it. Then followed a couple of hours on the
+verandah I would be glad to forget. By seven X. Y. had joined me, as
+drunk as they make 'em. As he sat and talked to me, he smelt of the
+charnel house, methought. He looked so old (he is one month my senior);
+he spoke so silly; his poor leg is again covered with boils, which will
+spell death to him; and--enough. That interview has made me a
+teetotaller. O, it is bad to grow old. For me, it is practically hell. I
+do not like the consolations of age. I was born a young man; I have
+continued so; and before I end, a pantaloon, a driveller--enough again.
+But I don't enjoy getting elderly. Belle and I got home about three in
+the afternoon, she having in the meantime renounced all that makes life
+worth living in the name of little Miss Gurr, and I seriously reflecting
+on renouncing the kindly bowl in earnest! Presently after arrived the
+news of Margery Ide (the C.J.'s daughter) being seriously ill,
+alarmingly ill. Fanny wanted to go down; it was a difficult choice; she
+was not fit for it; on the other hand (and by all accounts) the patient
+would die if she did not get better nursing. So we made up our own
+minds, and F. and I set out about dusk, came to the C.J.'s in the middle
+of dinner, and announced our errand. I am glad to say the C.J. received
+her very willingly; and I came home again, leaving her behind, where she
+was certainly much wanted.
+
+_Nov. 4th._--You ask about _St. Ives_. No, there is no Burford Bridge in
+it, and no Boney. He is a squire of dames, and there are petticoats in
+the story, and damned bad ones too, and it is of a tolerable length, a
+hundred thousand, I believe, at least. Also, since you are curious on
+the point, St. Ives learned his English from a Mr. Vicary, an English
+lawyer, a prisoner in France. He must have had a fine gift of languages!
+
+Things are going on here in their usual gently disheartening gait. The
+Treaty Officials are both good fellows whom I can't help liking, but who
+will never make a hand of Samoa.--Yours ever,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO PROFESSOR MEIKLEJOHN
+
+
+   Congratulating an old friend of Savile Club days (see vol. xxiii. p.
+   263) on his sailor son.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, Nov. 6th, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR MEIKLEJOHN,--Greeting! This is but a word to say how much we
+felicitate ourselves on having made the acquaintance of Hughie. He is
+having a famous good chance on board the _Curacoa_, which is the best
+ship I have ever seen. And as for himself, he is a most engaging boy, of
+whom you may very well be proud, and I have no mortal manner of doubt
+but what you are. He comes up here very often, where he is a great
+favourite with my ladies, and sings me "the melancholy airs of my
+native land" with much acceptancy. His name has recently become changed
+in Vailima. Beginning with the courteous "Mr. Meiklejohn," it shaded off
+into the familiar "Hughie," and finally degenerated into "the
+Whitrett."[85] I hear good reports of him abroad and ashore, and I
+scarce need to add my own testimony.
+
+Hughie tells me you have gone into the publishing business, whereat I
+was much shocked. My own affairs with publishers are now in the most
+flourishing state, owing to my ingenuity in leaving them to be dealt
+with by a Scotch Writer to the Signet. It has produced revolutions in
+the book trade and my banking account. I tackled the Whitrett severely
+on a grammar you had published, which I had not seen and condemned out
+of hand and in the broadest Lallan. I even condescended on the part of
+that grammar which I thought to be the worst and condemned your
+presentation of the English verb unmercifully. It occurs to me, since
+you are a publisher, that the least thing you could do would be to send
+me a copy of that grammar to correct my estimate. But I fear I am
+talking too long to one of the enemy. I begin to hear in fancy the voice
+of Meiklejohn upraised in the Savile Club: "No quarter to publishers!"
+So I will ask you to present my compliments to Mrs. Meiklejohn upon her
+son, and to accept for yourself the warmest reminiscences of auld lang
+syne.--Yours sincerely,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO LIEUTENANT EELES
+
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, November 24, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR EELES,--The hand, as you will perceive (and also the spelling!),
+is Teuila's, but the scrannel voice is what remains of Tusitala's.
+First of all, for business. When you go to London you are to charter a
+hansom cab and proceed to the Museum. It is particular fun to do this on
+Sundays when the Monument is shut up. Your cabman expostulates with you,
+you persist. The cabman drives up in front of the closed gates and says,
+"I told you so, sir." You breathe in the porter's ears the mystic name
+of _Colvin_, and he immediately unfolds the iron barrier. You drive in,
+and doesn't your cabman think you're a swell. A lord mayor is nothing to
+it. Colvin's door is the only one in the eastern gable of the building.
+Send in your card to him with "From R. L. S." in the corner, and the
+machinery will do the rest. Henry James's address is 34 De Vere Mansions
+West. I cannot remember where the place is; I cannot even remember on
+which side of the park. But it's one of those big Cromwell Road-looking
+deserted thoroughfares out west in Kensington or Bayswater, or between
+the two; and anyway Colvin will be able to put you on the direct track
+for Henry James. I do not send formal introductions, as I have taken the
+liberty to prepare both of them for seeing you already.
+
+Hoskyn is staying with us.
+
+It is raining dismally. The Curacoa track is hardly passable, but it
+must be trod to-morrow by the degenerate feet of their successor the
+Wallaroos. I think it a very good account of these last that we don't
+think them either deformed or habitual criminals--they seem to be a
+kindly lot.
+
+The doctor will give you all the gossip. I have preferred in this letter
+to stick to the strictly solid and necessary. With kind messages from
+all in the house to all in the wardroom, all in the gunroom, and (may we
+dare to breathe it) to him who walks abaft, believe me, my dear Eeles,
+yours ever,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO SIR HERBERT MAXWELL
+
+
+     _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,
+
+     ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO ANDREW LANG
+
+
+   The following refers of course to _Weir of Hermiston_, the chief
+   character of which was studied from the traditions of Lord Braxfield,
+   and on which Stevenson was working at the full height of his powers
+   when death overtook him two days later.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 1, 1894._
+
+MY DEAR LANG,--For the portrait of Braxfield, much thanks! It is
+engraved from the same Raeburn portrait that I saw in '76 or '77 with so
+extreme a gusto that I have ever since been Braxfield's humble servant,
+and am now trying, as you know, to stick him into a novel. Alas! one
+might as well try to stick in Napoleon. The picture shall be framed and
+hung up in my study. Not only as a memento of you, but as a perpetual
+encouragement to do better with his Lordship. I have not yet received
+the transcripts. They must be very interesting. Do you know I picked up
+the other day an old Longman's where I found an article of yours that I
+had missed, about Christie's? I read it with great delight. The year
+ends with us pretty much as it began, among wars and rumours of wars,
+and a vast and splendid exhibition of official incompetence.--Yours
+ever,
+
+     R. L. STEVENSON.
+
+
+
+
+TO EDMUND GOSSE
+
+
+   The next, and last, letter is to Mr. Gosse, dated also only two days
+   before the writer's death. It acknowledges the dedication "To
+   Tusitala" of that gentleman's volume of poems, _In Russet and
+   Silver_, just received.
+
+     _Vailima, Samoa, December 1, 1894._
+
+I AM afraid, my dear Weg, that this must be the result of bribery and
+corruption! The volume to which the dedication stands as preface seems
+to me to stand alone in your work; it is so natural, so personal, so
+sincere, so articulate in substance, and what you always were sure
+of--so rich in adornment.
+
+Let me speak first of the dedication. I thank you for it from the heart.
+It is beautifully said, beautifully and kindly felt; and I should be a
+churl indeed if I were not grateful, and an ass if I were not proud. I
+remember when Symonds dedicated a book to me; I wrote and told him of
+"the pang of gratified vanity" with which I had read it. The pang was
+present again, but how much more sober and autumnal--like your volume.
+Let me tell you a story, or remind you of a story. In the year of grace
+something or other, anything between '76 and '78, I mentioned to you in
+my usual autobiographical and inconsiderate manner that I was hard up.
+You said promptly that you had a balance at your banker's, and could
+make it convenient to let me have a cheque, and I accepted and got the
+money--how much was it?--twenty or perhaps thirty pounds? I know
+not--but it was a great convenience. The same evening, or the next day,
+I fell in conversation (in my usual autobiographical and ... see above)
+with a denizen of the Savile Club, name now gone from me, only his
+figure and a dim three-quarter view of his face remaining. To him I
+mentioned that you had given me a loan, remarking easily that of course
+it didn't matter to you. Whereupon he read me a lecture, and told me how
+it really stood with you financially. He was pretty serious; fearing, as
+I could not help perceiving, that I should take too light a view of the
+responsibility and the service (I was always thought too light--the
+irresponsible jester--you remember. O, _quantum mutatus ab illo_!) If I
+remember rightly, the money was repaid before the end of the week--or,
+to be more exact and a trifle pedantic, the se'nnight--but the service
+has never been forgotten; and I send you back this piece of ancient
+history, _consule Planco_, as a salute for your dedication, and propose
+that we should drink the health of the nameless one, who opened my eyes
+as to the true nature of what you did for me on that occasion.
+
+But here comes my Amanuensis, so we'll get on more swimmingly now. You
+will understand perhaps that what so particularly pleased me in the new
+volume, what seems to me to have so personal and original a note, are
+the middle-aged pieces in the beginning. The whole of them, I may say,
+though I must own an especial liking to--
+
+  "I yearn not for the fighting fate,
+    That holds and hath achieved;
+  I live to watch and meditate
+    And dream--and be deceived."
+
+You take the change gallantly. Not I, I must confess. It is all very
+well to talk of renunciation, and of course it has to be done. But, for
+my part, give me a roaring toothache! I do like to be deceived and to
+dream, but I have very little use for either watching or meditation. I
+was not born for age. And, curiously enough, I seem to see a contrary
+drift in my work from that which is so remarkable in yours. You are
+going on sedately travelling through your ages, decently changing with
+the years to the proper tune. And here am I, quite out of my true
+course, and with nothing in my foolish elderly head but love-stories.
+This must repose upon some curious distinction of temperaments. I gather
+from a phrase, boldly autobiographical, that you are--well, not
+precisely growing thin. Can that be the difference?
+
+It is rather funny that this matter should come up just now, as I am at
+present engaged in treating a severe case of middle age in one of my
+stories--"The Justice-Clerk." The case is that of a woman, and I think
+that I am doing her justice. You will be interested, I believe, to see
+the difference in our treatments. _Secreta Vitae_ comes nearer to the
+case of my poor Kirstie. Come to think of it, Gosse, I believe the main
+distinction is that you have a family growing up around you, and I am a
+childless, rather bitter, very clear-eyed, blighted youth. I have, in
+fact, lost the path that makes it easy and natural for you to descend
+the hill. I am going at it straight. And where I have to go down it is a
+precipice.
+
+I must not forget to give you a word of thanks for _An English Village_.
+It reminds me strongly of Keats, which is enough to say; and I was
+particularly pleased with the petulant sincerity of the concluding
+sentiment.
+
+Well, my dear Gosse, here's wishing you all health and prosperity, as
+well as to the mistress and the bairns. May you live long, since it
+seems as if you would continue to enjoy life. May you write many more
+books as good as this one--only there's one thing impossible, you can
+never write another dedication that can give the same pleasure to the
+vanished
+
+     TUSITALA.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [74] This question is with a view to the adventures of the hero in
+    _St. Ives_, who according to Stevenson's original plan was to have
+    been picked up from his foundered balloon by an American privateer.
+
+  [75] As to admire _The Black Arrow_.
+
+  [76] The suppressed first part of the _Amateur Emigrant_, written in
+    San Francisco in 1879, which it was proposed now to condense and to
+    some extent recast for the Edinburgh Edition.
+
+  [77] Word omitted in MS.
+
+  [78] I may be allowed to quote the following sentence from a letter
+    of this gentleman written when the news of our friend's death
+    reached England:--"So great was his power of winning love that
+    though I knew him for less than a week I could have borne the loss
+    of many a more intimate friend with less sorrow than Stevenson's.
+    When I saw him, last Easter, there was no suggestion of failure of
+    strength. After all I had heard of his delicacy I was astonished at
+    his vigour. He was up at five, and at work soon after, and at eleven
+    o'clock at night he was dancing on the floor of the big room while I
+    played Scotch and Irish reels on the rickety piano. He would talk to
+    me for hours of home and old friends, but with a wonderful
+    cheerfulness, knowing himself banished from them for life and yet
+    brought close to them by love. I confidently counted on his living;
+    he took keen interest in my own poor work, and it was one of my
+    ambitions to send him a book some day which would better deserve his
+    attention."
+
+  [79] _Sentimental Tommy_: whose chief likeness to R. L. S. was meant
+    to be in the literary temperament and passion for the _mot propre_.
+
+  [80] A proposed frontispiece for one of the volumes of the Edinburgh
+    Edition.
+
+  [81] _Sic_: query "least"?
+
+  [82] Of _The Wrecker_.
+
+  [83] _Trieb_, impulse.
+
+  [84] It seemed an obvious duty to publish the speech in question
+    through the English press, as the best proof both of Stevenson's
+    wise and understanding methods of dealing with his native friends,
+    and of the affection and authority which he enjoyed among them. I
+    have reprinted it, as a necessary supplement to this letter, in
+    Appendix II. at end of the present volume.
+
+  [85] Whitrett or Whitrack is Scots for a weasel: why applied to Mr.
+    Meiklejohn I know not.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I
+
+ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF R. L. STEVENSON, BY LLOYD OSBOURNE
+
+
+He wrote hard all that morning of the last day; his half-finished book,
+_Hermiston_, he judged the best he had ever written, and the sense of
+successful effort made him buoyant and happy as nothing else could. In
+the afternoon the mail fell to be answered; not business
+correspondence--for this was left till later--but replies to the long,
+kindly letters of distant friends, received but two days since, and
+still bright in memory.
+
+At sunset he came downstairs; rallied his wife about the forebodings she
+could not shake off; talked of a lecturing tour to America that he was
+eager to make, "as he was now so well," and played a game at cards with
+her to drive away her melancholy. He said he was hungry; begged her
+assistance to help him make a salad for the evening meal; and to enhance
+the little feast, he brought up a bottle of old Burgundy from the
+cellar. He was helping his wife on the verandah, and gaily talking, when
+suddenly he put both hands to his head, and cried out, "What's that?"
+Then he asked quickly, "Do I look strange?" Even as he did so he fell on
+his knees beside her. He was helped into the great hall, between his
+wife and his body-servant, Sosimo, losing consciousness instantly as he
+lay back in the arm-chair that had once been his grandfather's. Little
+time was lost in bringing the doctors--Anderson, of the man-of-war, and
+his friend Dr. Funk. They looked at him and shook their heads; they
+laboured strenuously, and left nothing undone; but he had passed the
+bounds of human skill.
+
+The dying man lay back in the chair, breathing heavily, his family about
+him frenzied with grief, as they realised all hope was past. The dozen
+and more Samoans that formed part of the little clan of which he was
+chief sat in a wide semicircle on the floor, their reverent, troubled,
+sorrow-stricken faces all fixed upon their dying master. Some knelt on
+one knee, to be instantly ready for any command that might be laid upon
+them. A narrow bed was brought into the centre of the room, the Master
+was gently laid upon it, his head supported by a rest, the gift of
+Shelley's son. Slower and slower grew his respiration, wider the
+interval between the long, deep breaths. The Rev. Mr. Clarke was now
+come, an old and valued friend; he knelt and prayed as the life ebbed
+away.
+
+He died at ten minutes past eight on Monday evening the 3rd of December,
+in the forty-fifth year of his age.
+
+The great Union Jack that flew over the house was hauled down, and laid
+over the body, fit shroud for a loyal Scotsman. He lay in the hall which
+was ever his pride, where he had passed the gayest and most delightful
+hours of his life, a noble room with open stairway and mullioned
+windows. In it were the treasures of his far-off Scottish home: the old
+carved furniture, the paintings and busts that had been in his father's
+house before him. The Samoans passed in procession beside his bed,
+kneeling and kissing his hand, each in turn, before taking their places
+for the long night watch beside him. No entreaty could induce them to
+retire, to rest themselves for the painful and arduous duties of the
+morrow. It would show little love for Tusitala, they said, if they did
+not spend their last night beside him. Mournful and silent, they sat in
+deep dejection, poor, simple, loyal folk, fulfilling the duty they owed
+their chief.
+
+A messenger was despatched to the few chiefs connected with the family,
+to announce the tidings and bid them assemble their men on the morrow
+for the work there was to do.
+
+Sosimo asked on behalf of the Roman Catholics that they might be allowed
+to recite the prayers for the dead. Till midnight the solemn chants
+continued, the prolonged, sonorous prayers of the Church of Rome, in
+commingled Latin and Samoan. Later still, a chief arrived with his
+retainers, bringing a precious mat to wrap about the dead.
+
+He too knelt and kissed the hand of Tusitala, and took his place amid
+the sleepless watchers. Another arrived with a fine mat, a man of higher
+rank, whose incipient consumption had often troubled the Master.
+
+"Talofa Tusitala!" he said as he drew nigh, and took a long, mournful
+look at the face he knew so well. When, later on, he was momentarily
+required on some business of the morrow, he bowed reverently before
+retiring. "Tofa Tusitala!" he said, "Sleep, Tusitala!"
+
+The morning of the 4th of December broke cool and sunny, a beautiful
+day, rare at this season of the year. More fine mats were brought, until
+the Union Jack lay nigh concealed beneath them. Among the new-comers was
+an old Mataafa chief, one of the builders of the "Road of the Loving
+Hearts," a man who had spent many days in prison for participation in
+the rebellion. "I am only a poor Samoan, and ignorant," said he, as he
+crouched beside the body; "others are rich, and can give Tusitala the
+parting presents of rich fine mats; I am poor, and can give nothing this
+last day he receives his friends. Yet I am not afraid to come and look
+the last time in my friend's face, never to see him more till we meet
+with God. Behold! Tusitala is dead; Mataafa is also dead to us. These
+two great friends have been taken by God. When Mataafa was taken, who
+was our support but Tusitala? We were in prison, and he cared for us. We
+were sick, and he made us well. We were hungry, and he fed us. The day
+was no longer than his kindness. You are great people and full of love.
+Yet who among you is so great as Tusitala? What is your love to his
+love? Our clan was Mataafa's clan, for whom I speak this day; therein
+was Tusitala also. We mourn them both."
+
+A meeting of chiefs was held to apportion the work and divide the men
+into parties. Forty were sent with knives and axes to cut a path up the
+steep face of the mountain, and the writer himself led another party to
+the summit--men chosen from the immediate family--to dig the grave on a
+spot where it was Mr. Stevenson's wish that he should lie. Nothing more
+picturesque can be imagined than the narrow ledge that forms the summit
+of Vaea, a place no wider than a room, and flat as a table. On either
+side the land descends precipitously; in front lies the vast ocean and
+the surf-swept reefs; to the right and left green mountains rise,
+densely covered with the primeval forest. Two hundred years ago the eyes
+of another man turned towards that same peak of Vaea as the spot that
+should ultimately receive his war-worn body: Soalu, a famous chief.
+
+All the morning, Samoans were arriving with flowers; few of these were
+white, for they have not learned our foreign custom, and the room glowed
+with the many colours. There were no strangers on that day, no
+acquaintances; those only were called who would deeply feel the loss. At
+one o'clock a body of powerful Samoans bore away the coffin, hid beneath
+a tattered red ensign that had flown above his vessel in many a corner
+of the South Seas. A path so steep and rugged taxed their strength to
+the utmost; for not only was the journey difficult in itself, but
+extreme care was requisite to carry the coffin shoulder-high.
+
+Half an hour later, the rest of his friends followed. It was a
+formidable ascent, and tried them hard. Nineteen Europeans, and some
+sixty Samoans, reached the summit. After a short rest, the Rev. W. E.
+Clarke read the burial service of the Church of England, interposing a
+prayer that Mr. Stevenson had written and had read aloud to his family
+only the evening before his death:--
+
+   We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, folk of many
+   families and nations, gathered together in the peace of this roof;
+   weak men and women, subsisting under the covert of Thy patience.
+
+   Be patient still; suffer us yet a while longer--with our broken
+   purposes of good, and our idle endeavours against evil--suffer us a
+   while longer to endure, and (if it may be) help us to do better.
+   Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if the day come when these
+   must be taken, have us play the man under affliction. Be with our
+   friends; be with ourselves. Go with each of us to rest; if any awake,
+   temper to them the dark hours of watching; and when the day returns
+   to us, our sun and comforter, call us up with morning faces and with
+   morning hearts--eager to labour--eager to be happy, if happiness
+   shall be our portion--and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to
+   endure it.
+
+   We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in the words of Him to whom this
+   day is sacred, close our oblation.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II
+
+ADDRESS OF R. L. STEVENSON TO THE CHIEFS ON THE OPENING OF THE ROAD OF
+GRATITUDE, OCTOBER 1894
+
+
+Mr. Stevenson said, "We are met together to-day to celebrate an event
+and to do honour to certain chiefs, my friends,--Lelei, Mataafa,
+Salevao, Poe, Teleso, Tupuola Lotofaga, Tupuola Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo,
+and Fatialofa. You are all aware in some degree of what has happened.
+You know these chiefs to have been prisoners; you perhaps know that
+during the term of their confinement I had it in my power to do them
+certain favours. One thing some of you cannot know, that they were
+immediately repaid by answering attentions. They were liberated by the
+new administration; by the King, and the Chief Justice, and the
+Ta'its'ifono, who are here amongst us to-day, and to whom we all desire
+to tender our renewed and perpetual gratitude for that favour. As soon
+as they were free men--owing no man anything--instead of going home to
+their own places and families, they came to me; they offered to do this
+work for me as a free gift, without hire, without supplies, and I was
+tempted at first to refuse their offer. I knew the country to be poor, I
+knew famine threatening; I knew their families long disorganised for
+want of supervision. Yet I accepted, because I thought the lesson of
+that road might be more useful to Samoa than a thousand breadfruit
+trees; and because to myself it was an exquisite pleasure to receive
+that which was so handsomely offered. It is now done; you have trod it
+to-day in coming hither. It has been made for me by chiefs; some of them
+old, some sick, all newly delivered from a harassing confinement, and in
+spite of weather unusually hot and insalubrious. I have seen these
+chiefs labour valiantly with their own hands upon the work, and I have
+set up over it, now that it is finished, the name of 'The Road of
+Gratitude' (the road of loving hearts) and the names of those that built
+it. 'In perpetuam memoriam,' we say, and speak idly. At least so long as
+my own life shall be spared, it shall be here perpetuated; partly for my
+pleasure and in my gratitude; partly for others; to continually publish
+the lesson of this road."
+
+Addressing himself to the chiefs, Mr. Stevenson then said:--
+
+"I will tell you, Chiefs, that, when I saw you working on that road, my
+heart grew warm; not with gratitude only, but with hope. It seemed to me
+that I read the promise of something good for Samoa: it seemed to me, as
+I looked at you, that you were a company of warriors in a battle,
+fighting for the defence of our common country against all aggression.
+For there is a time to fight, and a time to dig. You Samoans may fight,
+you may conquer twenty times, and thirty times, and all will be in vain.
+There is but one way to defend Samoa. Hear it before it is too late. It
+is to make roads, and gardens, and care for your trees, and sell their
+produce wisely, and, in one word, to occupy and use your country. If you
+do not, others will."
+
+The speaker then referred to the Parable of the Talents, Matt. xxv.
+14-30, and continuing, impressively asked: "What are you doing with your
+talent, Samoa? Your three talents, Savaii, Upolu, and Tutuila? Have you
+buried it in a napkin? Not Upolu at least. You have rather given it out
+to be trodden under feet of swine: and the swine cut down food trees and
+burn houses, according to the nature of swine, or of that much worse
+animal, foolish man, acting according to his folly. 'Thou knewest that I
+reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed.' But God
+has both sown and strawed for you here in Samoa; He has given you a rich
+soil, a splendid sun, copious rain; all is ready to your hand, half
+done. And I repeat to you that thing which is sure: if you do not occupy
+and use your country, others will. It will not continue to be yours or
+your children's, if you occupy it for nothing. You and your children
+will in that case be cast out into outer darkness, where shall be
+weeping and gnashing of teeth; for that is the law of God which passeth
+not away. I who speak to you have seen these things. I have seen them
+with my eyes--these judgments of God. I have seen them in Ireland, and I
+have seen them in the mountains of my own country--Scotland--and my
+heart was sad. These were a fine people in the past--brave, gay,
+faithful, and very much like Samoans, except in one particular, that
+they were much wiser and better at that business of fighting of which
+you think so much. But the time came to them as it now comes to you, and
+it did not find them ready. The messenger came into their villages, and
+they did not know him; they were told, as you are told, to use and
+occupy their country, and they would not hear. And now you may go
+through great tracts of the land and scarce meet a man or a smoking
+house, and see nothing but sheep feeding. The other people that I tell
+you of have come upon them like a foe in the night, and these are the
+other people's sheep who browse upon the foundation of their houses. To
+come nearer; and I have seen this judgment in Oahu also. I have ridden
+there the whole day along the coast of an island. Hour after hour went
+by and I saw the face of no living man except that of the guide who rode
+with me. All along that desolate coast, in one bay after another, we
+saw, still standing, the churches that have been built by the Hawaiians
+of old. There must have been many hundreds, many thousands, dwelling
+there in old times, and worshipping God in these now empty churches. For
+to-day they were empty; the doors were closed, the villages had
+disappeared, the people were dead and gone; only the church stood on
+like a tombstone over a grave, in the midst of the white men's sugar
+fields. The other people had come and used that country, and the
+Hawaiians who occupied it for nothing had been swept away, 'where is
+weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
+
+"I do not speak of this lightly, because I love Samoa and her people. I
+love the land, I have chosen it to be my home while I live, and my grave
+after I am dead; and I love the people, and have chosen them to be my
+people to live and die with. And I see that the day is come now of the
+great battle; of the great and the last opportunity by which it shall be
+decided whether you are to pass away like these other races of which I
+have been speaking, or to stand fast and have your children living on
+and honouring your memory in the land you received of your fathers.
+
+"The Land Commission and the Chief Justice will soon have ended their
+labours. Much of your land will be restored to you, to do what you can
+with. Now is the time the messenger is come into your villages to summon
+you; the man is come with the measuring rod; the fire is lighted in
+which you shall be tried, whether you are gold or dross. Now is the time
+for the true champions of Samoa to stand forth. And who is the true
+champion of Samoa? It is not the man who blackens his face, and cuts
+down trees, and kills pigs and wounded men. It is the man who makes
+roads, who plants food trees, who gathers harvests, and is a profitable
+servant before the Lord, using and improving that great talent that has
+been given him in trust. That is the brave soldier; that is the true
+champion; because all things in a country hang together like the links
+of the anchor cable, one by another: but the anchor itself is industry.
+
+"There is a friend of most of us, who is far away; not to be forgotten
+where I am, where Tupuola is, where Poe Lelei, Mataafa, Solevao, Poe
+Teleso, Tupuola Lotofaga, Tupuolo Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo, Fatialofa,
+Lemusu are. He knew what I am telling you; no man better. He saw the day
+was come when Samoa had to walk in a new path, and to be defended not
+only with guns and blackened faces, and the noise of men shouting, but
+by digging and planting, reaping and sowing. When he was still here
+amongst us, he busied himself planting cacao; he was anxious and eager
+about agriculture and commerce, and spoke and wrote continually; so that
+when we turn our minds to the same matters, we may tell ourselves that
+we are still obeying Mataafa. Ua tautala mai pea o ia ua mamao.
+
+"I know that I do not speak to idle or foolish hearers. I speak to those
+who are not too proud to work for gratitude. Chiefs! You have worked for
+Tusitala, and he thanks you from his heart. In this, I could wish you
+could be an example to all Samoa--I wish every chief in these islands
+would turn to, and work, and build roads, and sow fields, and plant food
+trees, and educate his children and improve his talents--not for love of
+Tusitala, but for the love of his brothers, and his children, and the
+whole body of generations yet unborn.
+
+"Chiefs! On this road that you have made many feet shall follow. The
+Romans were the bravest and greatest of people! mighty men of their
+hands, glorious fighters and conquerors. To this day in Europe you may
+go through parts of the country where all is marsh and bush, and perhaps
+after struggling through a thicket, you shall come forth upon an ancient
+road, solid and useful as the day it was made. You shall see men and
+women bearing their burdens along that even way, and you may tell
+yourself that it was built for them perhaps fifteen hundred years
+before,--perhaps before the coming of Christ,--by the Romans. And the
+people still remember and bless them for that convenience, and say to
+one another, that as the Romans were the bravest men to fight, so they
+were the best at building roads.
+
+"Chiefs! Our road is not built to last a thousand years, yet in a sense
+it is. When a road is once built, it is a strange thing how it collects
+traffic, how every year, as it goes on, more and more people are found
+to walk thereon and others are raised up to repair and perpetuate it and
+keep it alive; so that perhaps even this road of ours may, from
+reparation to reparation, continue to exist and be useful hundreds and
+hundreds of years after we are mingled in the dust. And it is my hope
+that our far-away descendants may remember and bless those who laboured
+for them to-day."
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO THE LETTERS
+
+[_For short Index to VOLS. I.-XXII., see pp. 509-519._]
+
+
+  "Abbe Coignard" (France), xxv. 409, 410
+
+  _Academy, The_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 166; contributions to, xxiii.
+    184, xxv. 364
+
+  "Across the Plains," xxv. 123 & _n._ 1, xxv. 207, 224, 301 _n._ 1;
+    dedication, xxv. 127 & _n._ 1, xxv. 323 & _n._ 1; inception, xxv. 97 &
+    _n._ 1
+
+  "Actor's Wife," projected, xxiii. 308
+
+  Adams, Henry, historian, xxv. 4, 29, 41, 43, 45
+
+  "Address to the Unco Guid" (Burns), xxiii. 225
+
+  "Adela Chart" ("The Marriages," H. James), xxv. 108-9, 110
+
+  "Adelaide," song (Beethoven), xxiii. 64
+
+  Adirondack Mountains, stay in, xxiv. 234, 306 _et seq._
+
+  Admiral Benbow inn (Treasure Island), xxiii. 327
+
+  "Admiral Guinea," play (with Henley), xxiii. 327; xxiv. 106, 119, 120,
+    146, 147; xxv. 447
+
+  "Admiral," the (Story of a Lie), xxiii. 248, 249; xxiv. 90
+
+  "Adventures of David Balfour," proposed double volume of, xxv. 283,
+    357, 366
+
+  "AEneid," reading of, xxiv. 186, 265, 306
+
+  "AEsthetic Letters" (Schiller), xxiv. 71
+
+  Ahab, King, xxv. 304
+
+  "Ah perfido spergiuro," song, xxiii. 166
+
+  _Aitu fafine_, an, xxv. 41, 135
+
+  Alabama case, xxiii. 110
+
+  "Aladdin" (Pyle), xxv. 164
+
+  Alais, visit to, xxiii. 216
+
+  "Alan Breck Stewart," ("Catriona" and "Kidnapped"), xxiv. 201, 203,
+    xxv. 46, 142; letter as from, xxv. 46-8
+
+  Alexander, J. W., xxiv. 249, 250; drawing by, of R. L. S., xxiv. 199
+
+  Allan Ramsay, Fergusson and Burns, essay on, projected, xxiii. 191,
+    192, 193
+
+  Allen, Grant, ballade by, xxiv. 248
+
+  "Amateur Emigrant," xxiii. 235, 237, 239, 240, 244, 252, 254, 255,
+    259, 260, 265, 266, 267, 277, 352; xxv. 396-7 & _n._ 1, 398, 414, 423
+
+  "Amazing Marriage" (Meredith), R. L. S. drawn in, xxv. 344, 390-1
+
+  "Amelia Balfour," _see_ Jersey, Countess of
+
+  American politics, xxiii. 112
+
+  Anderson, Dr., xxv. 457-8
+
+  Andrews, Mrs., xxiii. 113
+
+  Angelo, Michael, xxiii. 32
+
+  Angus, W. Craibe, letters to, xxv. 69, 87, 118
+
+  "Annals of the Persecutions in Scotland" (Aikman), xxiii. 18
+
+  Anser, xxiii. 22
+
+  Anstey, F., xxv. 275
+
+  Anstruther, at, xxiii. 12
+
+  "Antichrist, L'" (Renan), xxv. 304
+
+  "Antiquary, The" (Scott), xxiv. 91
+
+  Antwerp, xxiii. 185
+
+  Apemama, Gilbert Islands, xxiv. 358
+
+  Apia, at, xxiv. 293, 370, 375; xxv. 226; famous hurricane at, xxiv.
+    345, 346, 369, 371; xxv. 147, 172-3, 174; prisoners at, gratitude
+    shown by, to R. L. S., xxv. 367 _et seq._
+
+  Apiang, Island, xxiv. 358
+
+  Apology, difficulty of, xxiii. 133, 134
+
+  "Apology for Idlers," xxiii. 203, 204, 205, 207, 210
+
+  "Appeal to the Clergy of the Church of Scotland," xxiii. 141, 142
+
+  Appin case (Catriona), xxv. 161, 351
+
+  Appin country, in, xxiii. 284
+
+  Appin Murder, xxiii. 284, 331, 332; xxv. 161, 351
+
+  Appleton, Dr., xxiii. _intro._ xvii. 143, 144, 168, 178
+
+  "Arblaster" (Black Arrow), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
+
+  Arbroath, Abbot of, xxiii. 29
+
+  Archer, Thomas, letter to, xxiv. 305
+
+  Archer, William, xxiv. 105, 161, 214; letters to, xxiv. 147, 156, 161,
+    163, 247, 270, 272, 273, xxv. 384
+
+  Archer, William and Thomas, letter to, xxiv. 300
+
+  Areia, chief, xxiv. 315
+
+  Arnold, Matthew, xxiii. 15
+
+  Arthur's Seat, xxiii. 71
+
+  Artist, the, problem of, xxv. 378-9
+
+  "Art of Literature," projected, xxiii. 342
+
+  "Art of Virtue," xxiii. 265
+
+  Asceticism and Christianity, xxiii. 213
+
+  Assurance of Faith, xxiii. 299,300
+
+  "As You Like It" (Shakespeare), xxiv. 96
+
+  _Atalanta_, magazine, contributions to, xxv. 279 & _n._ 1, 283
+
+  _Athenaeum_, xxiii. 239
+
+  "At Last" (Kingsley), xxiv. 101
+
+  "Attwater" (Ebb Tide), xxv. 301, 307, 350, 382
+
+  Atua, bombardment of, xxv. 424, 426
+
+  Auckland, visits to, xxv. 30, 34; xxv. 290, 291, 292
+
+  "Auld Licht Idylls" (Barrie), xxv. 264
+
+  "Auntie's Skirts" (Child's Garden of Verse), xxiii. 223
+
+  Aurevilly, Barbey d', works of, xxiv. 83; xxv. 174, 314, 379
+
+  "Ausfuerliche Erklarung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche" (Lichtenberg),
+    xxiii. 178
+
+  "Autolycus at Court," xxiii. 170
+
+  "Autumn Effect, An," xxiii. 155, 166; xxv. 397-8
+
+  Autun, xxiii. 216, 219
+
+  Avignon, at, xxiii. 77
+
+  Ayrshire and Galloway, walking tour in, xxiii. 182, 202
+
+
+  Babington, Mrs. Churchill, xxiii. 54; letter to, xxiii. 30
+
+  Babington, Professor Churchill, xxiii. 30, 54; xxiv. 130
+
+  Bacon, Sir F., on Time, xxiii. 81
+
+  Baildon, H. B., xxv. 56; letters to, xxv. 56, 377, 381
+
+  Baker, Mrs. A., letters to, xxv. 366, 413
+
+  Baker, Shirley, of Tonga, xxv. 40, 44
+
+  Baker, Sir Samuel, xxv. 175
+
+  Bakewell, Dr., letter to, xxv. 424
+
+  Balfour, Dr. George, xxiii. 330
+
+  Balfour, Graham, xxv. 221, 251 & _n._ 1, 292, 339, 348, 351, 355, 363,
+    406, 416; "Life" of R. L. S., by, xxiii. _intro._ xix.; at Vailima,
+    xxv. 144, 374, 401, 403
+
+  Balfour, James, xxiii. 4
+
+  Balfour, Miss Jane, letter to, xxiii. 223
+
+  Balfour, Mr., of the Shaws, xxv. 47
+
+  Balfour, Mrs. Lewis, xxiii. 4, 5
+
+  Balfour of Burley (Old Mortality), xxiii. 130
+
+  Balfour, Rev. Lewis, xxiii. 4
+
+  "Balfour's Letters," xxv. 293
+
+  "Ballade in Hot Weather" (Henley), xxiv. 248
+
+  "Ballades, Rondeaus, etc." (collected by Gleeson White), xxiv. 248
+
+  "Ballads," xxiv. 380; xxv. 34, 53, 57, 73
+
+  Ballantyne, R., xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  Balzac, xxv. 154; on literary frenzy, xxiii. 173; style of, xxiv. 60
+
+  Bamford, Dr. W., xxiii. 271; letter to, xxiii. 272
+
+  "Barbara" (Catriona), xxv. 294-5
+
+  Barbizon, visits to, xxiii. 174 _et seq._, 183
+
+  Barmouth, visits to, xxiii. 124, 146
+
+  "Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities" (Billing), xxiv. 270
+
+  "Barrack Room Ballads" (Kipling), xxv. 48
+
+  "Barrel Organ," xxiii. 171
+
+  Barrie, J. M., appreciation, xxv. 276-7: letters to, xxv. 154, 264,
+    276, 362, 416
+
+  Barrie, Mrs. (Margaret Ogilvie), xxv. 417
+
+  Bartholomew, Messrs., xxv. 177
+
+  Basin, Thomas, xxiii. 203 & _n._ 1
+
+  Basselin, Olivier, poems by, xxiii. 193
+
+  Bass Rock, xxiii. 207
+
+  Bates, --, xxiii. 89
+
+  Bates, Edward Hugh Higlee, xxv. 384
+
+  Bates, E. M. G., xxv. 384
+
+  Bates, J. H., letter to, xxv. 384
+
+  Bathgate, the inn maid at, xxiii. 226, 227
+
+  "Bauble Shop," play (H. A. Jones), xxv. 385
+
+  Baudelaire, --, xxiii. 160, 195
+
+  Baxter, Charles, xxiii. 3, 159, 174, 285, 336, 341, 353, 356; xxiv.
+    14, 47, 79; xxv. 174, 240, 266, 273, 306, 357; letters to, xxiii. 33,
+    34, 46, 49, 52, 92, 193, 217, 262, 285, 336, 341; xxiv. 14, 121, 122,
+    200, 251, 260, 268, 286, 294, 296, 301, 303, 322, 327, 343, 344, 369,
+    375, 384, 392; xxv. 53, 82, 120, 177. 213, 270, 278, 288, 292, 337,
+    345, 360, 376, 392, 394, 433; literary agency of, xxiv. 252; scheme
+    of, for "Edinburgh Edition," xxv. 372 & _n._ 1, 373
+
+  Baxter, Edmund, xxiv. 394; xxv. 54; death of, xxv. 433
+
+  Baynes, Professor Spencer, editor "Encyclopaedia Britannica," xxiii,
+    202
+
+  "Beachcombers" (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 361
+
+  "Beach de Mar," projected xxv. 187
+
+  "Beach of Falesa," xxv. 5, 20, 25, 76, 97, 102, 103 & _n._ 1, 120,
+    122, 131, 138, 147, 152, 221, 224, 235-6, & _n._ 1, 239, 240, 250,
+    266, 272, 274, 284; illustrations to, xxv. 253-4, 288; marriage
+    contract in, xxv. 187 & _n._ 1; publication, xxv. 1.
+
+  "Beau Austin," play (with Henley), xxiv. 106
+
+  Becker, Consul, xxv. 139, 141, 268
+
+  "Becket" (Tennyson), xxv. 385
+
+  "Bedtime" projected, xxiv. 99
+
+  "Beggars" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235, 253; xxv. 97, 209, 301
+
+  Bell Rock, book on, xxiv. 78; xxv. 322; controversy on, xxiv. 121
+
+  Bell, the, in the Vailima woods, xxv. 277
+
+  Ben More, xxiii. 318
+
+  Bennet, Dr., xxiii. 84, 101
+
+  Bentley, publisher, xxiii. 336, 339, 346
+
+  Beranger, article on, xxiii. 186, 191, 193
+
+  Bereavement, xxiv. 52
+
+  Berlin Convention, xxv. 6
+
+  Berlioz, paper on (Henley), xxiii. 318
+
+  "Bete Humaine" (Zola), xxiv. 396; xxv. 319
+
+  "Betteredge" (Moonstone), xxiii. 18
+
+  Bickford, Captain, R.N., C.M.G., xxv. 334, 351
+
+  Bitter Creek, xxiii. 234
+
+  _Black and White_, contributions to, xxiii. 286, 337, 341
+
+  "Black Arrow," xxiv. 5, 31, 56, 247, 376, 385 & _n._ 1; serial issue,
+    xxiv. 55; success, xxiv. 68; suggested French version, xxiv. 398
+
+  "Black Canyon" (L. Osbourne), xxiii. 347, 348, 349
+
+  Blackie, Professor, xxiii. 28, 30, 306
+
+  Blacklock, Consul, xxv. 142
+
+  "Black Man," xxiii. 308
+
+  _Blackwood's Magazine_, xxiv. 370
+
+  Blair of Blairmyle (_see_ "Young Chevalier"), xxv. 216
+
+  "Blanche Amory" (Thackeray), xxiv. 212
+
+  "Bloody Wedding," projected, xxv. 66, 97
+
+  Board of Trade Offices, xxiv. 87
+
+  Boccaccio, xxv. 301
+
+  "Body Snatchers," xxiii. 308, 316, 321; xxiv. 125, 130; xxv. 397
+
+  "Bondage of Brandon" (Hemming), xxiii. 333
+
+  "Bondman, The" (Hall Caine), xxiv. 396-7
+
+  Boodle, Miss Adelaide, xxiv. 375; letters to, xxiv. 231, 259, 267,
+    284, 297, 339, 401; xxv. 80, 147, 217, 243, 248, 410
+
+  "Book, A, of Stories," projected contents, xxiii. 171
+
+  "Book of Verses" (Henley), xxv. 121
+
+  _Book Reader_, notice of "Prince Otto," xxiv. 195
+
+  Books wanted, xxiii. 36, 332; xxiv. 78, 101, 130, 134, 270, 274, 338;
+    xxv. 111, 112, 174, 215, 271, 287, 293, 346, 361, 392
+
+  Boswell, James, xxiii. 193, 203, 295
+
+  "Bottle Imp," xxiv. 292; xxv. 272, 284, 340; Samoan translation, xxv.
+    64 & _n._ 1
+
+  Bough, Sam, painter, xxiii. 24, 26-30; xxiv. 60
+
+  Bourget, Paul, xxv. 130-2, 315, 323
+
+  Bourke, Captain, R.N., xxv. 263
+
+  Bournemouth, at, xxiv. 104 _et seq._; xxv. 111
+
+  "Bouroche, Major" (Debacle), xxv. 250
+
+  Braemar, at, xxiii. 282, 313, 320
+
+  Braille, books by R. L. S., to be issued in, xxv. 366, 413
+
+  Brandeis, xxv. 141
+
+  "Brashiana," burlesque sonnets, xxiii. 283; xxiv. 14, 38, 39
+
+  Brash, the publican, xxiii. 336; xxiv. 14
+
+  Braxfield (Weir of Hermiston), xxv. 260 & _n._ 1, 264-5; portrait of,
+    xxv. 453
+
+  Bridge of Allan, at, xxiii. 33, 174
+
+  British Museum, visits to, xxiv. 105, 107, 186-7, 202, 229, 365
+
+  Bronson, --, editor, xxiii. 240
+
+  Brooke, Rajah, xxv. 129
+
+  Brown, --, xxiv. 230
+
+  Brown, Dr. John, verses to, xxiii. 296, 297
+
+  Brown, Horatio F., xxiii. 303, 304; letters to, xxiii. 303, 304
+
+  Brown, Mrs., xxiii. 13
+
+  Brown, Rev. Dr., xxv. 312
+
+  Brown R. Glasgow (editor of _London_), xxiii. 184, 251; illness,
+    xxiii. 214 & _n._ 1
+
+  Browne, Gordon, xxv. 301, 305; letter to, xxv. 252
+
+  Browning, Robert, xxiv. 107, 202; book on, by Gosse, xxv. 74
+
+  Bruce, Michael, xxiii. 71
+
+  Bruno, Father, xxiv. 312, 334
+
+  Brussels, at, xxiii. 36
+
+  Buckinghamshire, walking tour in, xxiii. 124, 155
+
+  Buckle, Mrs., xxiv. 176
+
+  "Bucolics" (Virgil), xxiii. 18
+
+  "Bummkopf" (typical pedant), xxiii. 225
+
+  Bunner, --, xxiv. 64, 154
+
+  Bunting, --, xxiv. 227
+
+  Bunyan, John, xxiv. 29; essay on, xxiii. 334; xxv. 398
+
+  Burford Bridge, visit to, xxiii. 183
+
+  Burial customs, Gilbert Islanders', xxiv. 400-1
+
+  Burke, Edmund, xxiii. 71
+
+  Burlingame, E. L., editor of _Scribner's Magazine_, xxiv. 233; xxv. 6,
+    138; letters to, xxiv. 253-4, 269, 273-4, 319, 338, 367, 376, 387,
+    394, xxv. 24, 32, 86, 110, 128, 145, 174, 210, 215, 257, 266
+
+  Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, xxiii. 224; xxiv. 101, 107, 202; xxv. 394
+
+  Burney, "Admiral," R.N., xxv. 394
+
+  Burn, Miss, xxiv. 89
+
+  Burns Exhibition, Glasgow, xxv. 69, 87 _et seq._
+
+  Burns, Robert, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.; xxv. 69, 70, 88, 395-6;
+    articles and writings on, xxiii. 111, 151, 179, 191, 192, 193, 202,
+    203, 224, 226, 237, 241, 245, 250, 263, 273, 358, xxiv. 63; house of,
+    Dumfries, xxiii. 66; judgment on, xxiii. 224; poems of, xxiii. 4,
+    xxiv. 256
+
+  Burt, xxiii. 298
+
+  _Bussard_, the ship, xxv. 425
+
+  Butaritari, Gilbert Islands, xxiv. 358
+
+  "But still our hearts are true" (Eglinton), xxv. 69, 70
+
+  "But yet the Lord that is on high" (Scotch Psalter), xxiii. 23
+
+  "By Proxy" (Payn), xxiv. 7
+
+  Byron, Lord, xxiii. 132; essay on (Henley), xxiii. 318; xxiv. 7
+
+
+  Caldecott, Randolph, xxiii. 248, 267
+
+  California, visit to, xxiii. 228
+
+  Calistoga, at, xxiii. 277
+
+  Calton Hill (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
+
+  Calvin, John, studies in, xxiii. 126
+
+  Cambridge, visits to, xxiii. 219; xxiv. 105
+
+  Cameron, Captain, xxiv. 349, 350
+
+  Campagne Defli, at, xxiv. 4, 8 _et seq._
+
+  Campbell of Glenure, murder of, xxiii. 284, 331, 332
+
+  Campbell, Rev. Professor Lewis, xxiii. 278, 316; letter to, xxiv. 113
+
+  "Canadian Boat Song" (Earl of Eglinton), xxv. 69, 70
+
+  Candlish, Dr., xxiv. 63
+
+  "Cannon Mills," projected, xxiv. 403
+
+  Canoe Journey in France (_see_ Inland Voyage), xxiii. 204
+
+  "Canoe, The, Speaks" (Underwoods), xxiv. 89, 231
+
+  "Canterbury Pilgrimage" (Chaucer), illustrated, gift of, xxiv. 149
+
+  "Capitaine Fracasse, Le" (Theophile Gautier), xxiii. 75
+
+  Cap Martin, xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv., 93, 114
+
+  "Captain Singleton" (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 102
+
+  Carlyle, Thomas, xxiii. 302;  xxiv. 135; appreciation of, xxiii. 301,
+    302; on Coleridge, xxiii. 220
+
+  "Carmosine" (Musset), xxiv. 97
+
+  Carrington, C. Howard, letter to, xxiv. 152
+
+  Carr, T. Comyns, xxiv. 68
+
+  Carruthers, --, xxv. 40
+
+  Carson, Mrs., xxiii. 252
+
+  "Carthew" (Wrecker), xxv. 112 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Casamassima" (H. James), xxiv. 263
+
+  _Casco_, schooner, cruise in, xxiv. 234, 287 _et seq._, 290-1, 300,
+    305, 310, 312-3, 316 _et seq._, 325 _et seq._
+
+  "Case Bottle," xxiii. 281
+
+  "Cashel Byron's Profession" (Shaw), xxiv. 270-1
+
+  "Casparidea," unpublished, xxiii. 283
+
+  "Cassandra" (Mrs. R. L. Stevenson), xxiv. 22
+
+  Cassell and Co., xxiv. 110, 127; xxv. 57, 110, 124, 272, 283
+
+  "Catriona" (at first called "David Balfour," _q.v._), xxiii. _intro._
+    xxiii., 331; xxiv. 190, 402; xxv. 108, 144, 155, 158 & _n._ 1, 160-1,
+    163, 166-7, 172, 187, 192, 201-2, 211, 215, 240, 250, 264, 274, 283,
+    290, 298, 301, 305, 310, 316, 344, 351 & _n._ 1, 352, 378; in Braille,
+    xxv. 366; characters in, xxv. 216; draft of, xxv. 162; maps for, xxv.
+    177-8; "my high-water mark," xxv. 393 (but _see_ 379); projected
+    illustrations, xxv. 349 _n._ 1; replies to remarks on, xxv. 294 _et
+    seq._; restraint of description in, xxv. 367
+
+  Cavalier (de Sonne), xxiii. 307
+
+  Cavalier, Jean, xxiii. 306, 307
+
+  "Cavalier," The (G. P. R. James), xxiv. 274
+
+  Cedercrantz, Conrad, Chief Justice of Samoa, xxv. 7, 13, 48-9, 67,
+    95-6, 98-100, 102, 124-5, 175, 188, 239, 256, 275, 278, 281, 286, 305,
+    364, 376, 380-1
+
+  Celtic blood in Britain, xxv. 379
+
+  _Century Magazine_, xxiv. 26, 30, 55, 90, 171; article in, by H.
+    James, on R. L. S., xxiv. 250-1; contributions to, xxiii. 338, xxiv.
+    55, 170, 171, 185; critical notice in, of R. L. S., xxiv. 63, 64
+
+  Cevennes, the tramp in (_see_ "Travels with a Donkey"), xxiii. 183
+
+  Ceylon, projected visit, xxv. 98
+
+  Chair of History and Constitutional Law, Edinburgh University,
+    candidature for, xxiii. 282, 309 _et seq._, 331, 335, 336
+
+  Chalmers, Rev. J., xxv. 30, 33, 39, 56-7
+
+  "Chapter of Artistic History," suggested title for proposed book by
+    Henley, xxiii. 318
+
+  "Chapter on Dreams" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235; xxv. 97
+
+  "Character of Dogs" (_English Illustrated_), xxiv. 67; xxv. 41 _n._ 2
+
+  "Charity Bazaar," xxv. 398
+
+  Charles of Orleans, paper on, xxiii. 182, 191, 192, 202, 203, 204
+
+  "Charlotte" (Sorrows of Werther), xxiii. 60, 61
+
+  Charteris, Rev. Dr., xxiv. 276; letters to, xxiv. 276, 279
+
+  Chastity, xxiii. 338, 360
+
+  Chateaubriand (Sainte-Beuve), xxiii. 78
+
+  Chatto, Andrew, letter to, xxiv. 110
+
+  Chatto and Windus, publishers, xxiii. 335; xxiv. 110; xxv. 395; letter
+    to, xxiv. 231
+
+  Chepmell, Dr., xxiv. 242
+
+  Chester visited, xxiii. 145, 146
+
+  "Chevalier Des Touches"  (d'Aurevilly), xxv. 174, 314, 380
+
+  Chicago Exhibition, xxv. 379
+
+  Children, feelings towards, xxiii. 99, 101, 147, 171
+
+  Children in the [Kilburn] Cellar (_see also_ Boodle), letter to, xxv.
+    243
+
+  "Child's Garden of Verse," xxiii. 282; xxiv. 5, 17 _et seq._, 24, 54,
+    55, 70, 99 _et seq._, 106, 116, 154; xxv. 385; dedication, xxiv. 16,
+    19, 27, 92; illustrations, xxiv. 18 _et seq._, 32, 115; publication,
+    xxiv. 138, 140; reviews, xxiv. 147
+
+  "Child's Play," xxiv. 70; xxv. 301
+
+  Chiltern Hills, visited, xxiii. 155
+
+  "Choice of Books" (F. Harrison), xxv. 113
+
+  Christianity and Asceticism, xxiii. 213
+
+  Christmas Books (Dickens), xxiii. 148
+
+  Christmas Day at Vailima, xxv. 40-1
+
+  "Christmas Sermon," xxv. 123 _n._ 1
+
+  Christ's Hospital, xxiv. 206, 207
+
+  Chrystal, Professor, xxiv. 118
+
+  "Cimourdain" (Quatre-vingt Treize, by Hugo), xxiii. 130 _n._ 1
+
+  "Clarissa Harlowe" (Richardson), xxiii. 210
+
+  Clarke, Mrs. W. E., xxv. 26
+
+  Clark, R. & R., printers, xxv. 124
+
+  Clark, Rev. W. E., missionary, xxiv. 371; xxv. 10, 11 & _n._ 1, 26,
+    30, 64 _n._ 1, 101; xxv. 203, 236, 329, 330, 422, 458, 460
+
+  Clark, Sir Andrew, xxiii. 55, 77, 84
+
+  Claxton, missionary, xxv. 64
+
+  Clinton, --, xxiii. 332, 333
+
+  Clouds, descriptions of, xxv. 178-9
+
+  Club, at Vailima, xxv. 168, 170, 176
+
+  Clytie, bust of, xxiii. 170
+
+  Cockfield Rectory, xxiii. 276; at, xxiii. 54, 56
+
+  "Coggie," _see_ Ferrier, Miss
+
+  Coleridge, S. T., xxiii. 220
+
+  Colinton, manse of, xxiii. 5
+
+  "Collected Essays" (Huxley), xxiv. 219
+
+  Collins, Wilkie, xxiii. 238
+
+  "Colonel Jack" (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 103
+
+  Colorado, xxiv. 110 _et seq._, 229 _et seq._, 234
+
+  Colvin, Lady (_see also_ Sitwell, Mrs.), xxiii. 54
+
+  Colvin, Sir Sidney, xxiii. 88, 91, 93, 94 _et seq._, 116, 117, 152;
+    xxiv. 13, 47, 133, 191, 210, 216, 278, 323, 343, 396; choice of, for
+    literary executor, xxiii. _intro._ xviii.; introduction of Eeles to,
+    xxv. 452; letters to (_see_ especially xxv. 5), xxiii. 75, 76, 105,
+    106, 108, 124, 127, 129, 140, 141, 143, 157, 167, 169, 173, 178, 186,
+    191, 195, 196, 201, 202, 206, 211, 212, 225, 230, 232, 234, 235, 241,
+    244, 247, 251, 253, 258, 267, 269, 272, 273, 274, 276, 284, 291, 297,
+    300, 308, 310, 316, 320, 339, 349; xxiv. 15, 33, 55, 69, 81, 98, 99,
+    101, 134, 136, 137, 186, 189, 192, 210, 219, 227, 235-6, 238, 264,
+    265, 275, 283, 285, 293, 295, 298, 316, 329, 336, 353, 357, 362, 385;
+    xxv. 9, 25, 34, 48, 54, 58, 66, 76, 83, 90, 94, 102, 112, 121, 132,
+    152, 156, 166, 178, 193, 211, 221, 230, 249, 258, 271, 282, 289, 291,
+    294, 299, 310, 324, 338, 347, 352, 367, 380, 382, 387, 396, 404, 414,
+    422, 430, 441 (the last), 448; letters to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson,
+    xxiv. 308, 347; portraits of, xxv. 78-9, 80 & _n._ 1, 83-5, 94, 100;
+    testimonial from, xxiii. 316
+
+  "Come back" (Clough), xxiii. 294
+
+  Comines, Philippe de, xxiii. 193
+
+  Commissioners of Northern Lights, yacht of, xxv. 98 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Comtesse d'Escarbaguas" (Moliere), xxiv. 123
+
+  "Comtesse de Rudolstadt" (Sand), xxiii. 135
+
+  "Confessions" (St. Augustine), xxiv. 82-3
+
+  Congdon, L. C., xxv. 384
+
+  Conrad, Joseph, xxv. 76
+
+  "Consuelo" (Sand), xxiii. 87, 135
+
+  Consulship, xxv. 208 & _n._ 1
+
+  _Contemporary Review_, contributions to, xxiv. 143, 181, 227; xxv. 398
+
+  Cook's "Voyages," xxv. 346
+
+  "Coolin," Skye terrier, xxiv. 201
+
+  Coquelin, xxiii. 276
+
+  _Cornhill Magazine_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii.; xxiv. 355; contributions
+    to, xxiii. 56, 104, 125, 129, 180, 184, 191, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206,
+    208, 210, 211, 224, 237, 238, 256, 258, 264, 281, 341, 352, 355; xxiv.
+    90; xxv. 397; Henley's "Hospital" poems in, xxiii. 174 _n._ 1, 176
+
+  Cornwall, Barry, xxv. 29 _n._ 2
+
+  Cornwall, impressions of, xxiii. 207
+
+  "Correspondence" (Wodrow's), xxiii. 291
+
+  Corsica, glimpse of, xxiii. 108
+
+  "Country Dance," xxiii. 171, 172
+
+  "Country Wife" (Wycherley), Lamb's essay on, xxiv. 87
+
+  Covenanters, xxiii. 65, 67; rhyming by, xxv. 363
+
+  Craig, --, xxiii. 25
+
+  Cramond, xxiii. 61
+
+  "Cramond" and other cousins, xxiv. 44
+
+  Crane, Walter, xxiii. 212; xxiv. 32
+
+  "Crashaw," essay (Gosse), xxiii. 291
+
+  "Crime inconnu" (Mery), xxiii. 258
+
+  "Crime, Le, et le Chatiment" (Dostoieffsky), xxiv. 182 _n._ 1, 183
+
+  "Criminal Trials" (Arnott), xxiii. 332
+
+  "Critical Kitcats" (Gosse), xxiv. 235
+
+  _Critic, The_, notice in, xxiv. 64
+
+  Crockett, S. R., xxv. 349 & _n._ 2, 403; letters to, xxiv. 280; xxv.
+    305
+
+  Crosse, Henry, sculptor, xxv. 383
+
+  Cumming, Miss Gordon, xxiv. 308
+
+  Cummy (_see_ Cunningham)
+
+  Cunningham, Alison, xxiii. 5, 69, xxiv. 100; letters to, xxiii. 32,
+    340; xxiv. 16, 17, 44, 167, 196, 200, 202, 204, 220; xxv. 359, 445
+
+  _Curacoa_, H.M.S., xxv. 189, 202, 234, 267 _et seq._, 416, 425;
+    officers of, xxv. 374, 389, 405-9, 414, 447, 450; petty officers'
+    ball, xxv. 414-5
+
+  "Curate of Anstruther's Bottle," xxiii. 108, 109, 170
+
+  Curtin, Jeremiah, widow and daughters of, xxiv. 108, 222
+
+  Cusack-Smith, Sir Berry, xxv. 334
+
+
+  Dalgleish, Dr. Scott, and the Ballantyne Memorial, xxv. 393
+
+  Damien, Father, xxiv. 291-2, 349, 354, 356; letter on, xxiv. 383-4,
+    391 _n._ 1, 404; xxv. 124
+
+  "Damned Ones of the Indies" (Joseph Mery), xxiii. 258
+
+  Damon, Rev. F., xxiv. 383
+
+  "Dance of Death" (Rowlandson's), xxv. 292-3
+
+  Dancing Children (Notes on the Movements of Young Children), xxv.
+    397-8
+
+  "Daniel Deronda" (George Eliot), xxiii. 210
+
+  Darien affair, books on, wanted, xxv. 361
+
+  Darwin, Charles, xxiii. 57, 122
+
+  David Balfour, character, xxv. 155, 189-90
+
+  "David Balfour" (title first given both to "Kidnapped" and "Catriona,"
+    _q.v._), xxiv. 179, 190-1, 196, 201, 204; xxv. 108, 144, 158 & _n._ 1,
+    160, 161-2, 163, 167, 172, 177, 279, 283, 313, 316, 351, 366, 379;
+    "Catriona" issued as, in serial form, xxv. 294; historical
+    introduction planned, xxv. 376; unfinished, xxiv. 402
+
+  Davis, Dr., of Savaii, xxv. 32
+
+  Davos, visits to, xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv., 280 _et seq._, 331 _et
+    seq._; papers on (_Pall Mall Gazette_), xxiii. 281, 347
+
+  "Dawn of the Century" (Ashton), xxv. 392
+
+  "Day after To-morrow" (_Contemporary_), xxv. 398
+
+  "Deacon Brodie," play (with Henley), xxiii. 185, 257; xxiv. 119, 230,
+    248; production, xxiv. 99, 102, 261
+
+  "Dead Man's Letter," projected, xxiii. 249, 308
+
+  Deans, Jeanie, xxiii. 65
+
+  "Death in the Pot," projected, xxv. 314 & _n._ 1
+
+  Death, thoughts on, xxiii. 136, 275, 276; xxiv. 58, 162, 183, 227
+
+  "Debacle" (Zola), xxv. 250 & _n._ 1, 318, 319, 379
+
+  Deborah and Barak, fancies on, xxiii. 154, 155
+
+  "Decisions of the Lords of Council" (Fountainhall), xxv. 293, 336, 360
+
+  "Defence of Idlers" (_see_ "Apology for Idlers")
+
+  Defoe, Daniel, works of, xxiv. 101, 103
+
+  "Delafield," xxiii. 350; xxv. 55-6 _n._ 1
+
+  "Delhi," and other cousins, xxiv. 44
+
+  de Mattos, Mrs., letters to, xxiii. 199; xxiv. 152, 167
+
+  "Demi-Monde" (Dumas _fils_), scene in, xxiv. 273
+
+  Depression, xxiii. 199, 200
+
+  De Quincey, Thomas, biography of (Japp), xxiii. 321
+
+  "Derniere Aldini, La," xxiv. 97
+
+  Desborough, Mrs., xxiv. 177
+
+  Descamps, Maxime, xxiv. 405
+
+  "Descent of Man" (Darwin), xxiii. 57
+
+  des Ursins, Juvenal, xxiii. 192
+
+  "Devil on Cramond Sands," xxiii. 170, 249, 308
+
+  Dew-Smith, A. G., xxiv. 151; letter to, xxiii. 287
+
+  Dhu Heartach lighthouse, xxiii. 10
+
+  "Diaboliques, Les" (d'Aurevilly), xxv. 174
+
+  "Dialogue of Character and Destiny," unfinished, xxiii. 257, 267
+
+  "Dialogue on Man, Woman, and 'Clarissa Harlowe,'" projected, xxiii.
+  211
+
+  Diana of the Ephesians, play on, planned, xxiii. 124, 125
+
+  "Diary," suggested publication of, xxv. 208
+
+  Dick, Mr., xxiv. 135; letter to, xxiv. 83
+
+  "Dickon Crookback" (Black Arrow), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
+
+  "Dictionary of Music" (Grove), xxiii. 151
+
+  Didier, Father, xxv. 67
+
+  "Die Judin" at Frankfurt, xxiii. 44
+
+  Disappointment, xxiii. 295
+
+  Dobell, Dr., xxiv. 201, 230
+
+  Dobson, Austin, xxiii. 307; xxiv. 205; letter to, xxiv. 126
+
+  "Dr. Syntax's Tour," xxv. 292-3
+
+  "Dodd" (Wrecker), xxv. 378
+
+  "Dogs" (Mayhew), xxiii. 341
+
+  "Dolly" (Way of the World), xxiii. 215
+
+  Donadieu's restaurant, xxiii. 254
+
+  Donat, --, xxiv. 312
+
+  "Don Juan" (Byron), xxiii. 354
+
+  "Don Juan," unfinished play (with Henley), xxiii. 256, 257, 258
+
+  Dorchester, visited, xxiv. 153
+
+  Dostoieffsky's works, xxiv. 182-3
+
+  Dover, T. W., letter to, xxv. 209
+
+  Dowden, Professor, xxiv, 211-12
+
+  Dowdney, --, xxv. 138
+
+  Dowson, Mr., xxiii. 86, 88
+
+  Doyle, Sir A. Conan, letters to, xxv. 298, 336, 429
+
+  "Dreams," xxv. 97
+
+  Duddingston Loch, xxiii. 75, 164
+
+  "Du hast Diamanten und Perlen," song, xxiii. 58
+
+  Dumas, Alexandre (_pere_), xxiii. 347; Henley's book on, xxiv. 54, 257
+
+  Dumas, novels of, xxiv. 398
+
+  Dumfries, at, xxiii. 64
+
+  Dunblane, at, xxiii. 33
+
+  Dunnet, --, xxv. 106
+
+  Dunoyer, Olympe, xxiii. 307
+
+  "Du schoenes Fischermaedchen," song (Schubert), xxiii. 139
+
+  Dutra, Augustin, xxiii. 240
+
+  Dutton, Mr., xxiv. 356
+
+  "Dyce of Ythan," projected (_see also_ "The Young Chevalier"), xxv. 172
+
+  "Dynamiter, The," xxiv. 114, 176
+
+  Dynamite, views on, xxiv. 108
+
+
+  Earraid, Isle of, xxiii. 10, 24, 318
+
+  "Earthly Paradise" (Morris), xxiii. 36
+
+  Easter Island, images from, xxiv. 362, 367
+
+  "Ebb Tide" (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 361, 399 & _n._ 1, 402; xxv.
+    120, 172 & _n._ 1, 281, 288 _et seq._, 290 & _n._ 1, 301 _et seq._,
+    307, 310, 314 _et seq._, 318, 321, 325, 350, 353, 372; criticism, xxv.
+    347 _et seq._; illustrations for, notes on, xxv. 301
+
+  "Echoes" (Henley), xxv. 215
+
+  Eckenhelm, xxiii. 39
+
+  "Eclogues" (Virgil), xxiii. 34
+
+  Edinburgh Academy (school), old boys' dinner, xxiii. 168, 169
+
+  Edinburgh, at, xxiii. _passim_; homes in, xxiii. 5; life at, 1874-5,
+    xxiii. 123 _et seq._
+
+  Edinburgh Castle, xxiii. 69, 71
+
+  _Edinburgh Courant_, wanted, xxv. 392
+
+  Edinburgh Edition of works, xxv. 372-3, 394, 396, 404, 414;
+    illustrations in, xxv. 423 & _n._ 1; suggested prefaces, xxv. 376
+
+  "Edinburgh Eleven" (Barrie), xxv. 276
+
+  Edinburgh, influence of, xxv. 155
+
+  Edinburgh, "Picturesque Notes on," xxiii. 185, 211, 216, 218
+
+  _Edinburgh Review_, article in, on Rembrandt, by Colvin, xxiii. 225
+
+  Edinburgh Society of Arts, medal awarded to R. L. S., xxiii. 10
+
+  Edinburgh streets, xxiv. 100
+
+  Edinburgh University, Speculative Society at, xxiii. 35, 64, 184;
+    xxiii. 312; xxiv. 178 studies at, xxiii. 8 _et seq._
+
+  Eeles, Lieutenant, R.N., xxv. 415; letters to, xxv. 267, 451
+
+  Effort, uses of, xxiv. 88
+
+  Eglinton, Hugh, 12th Earl of, xxv. 69
+
+  "Egoist, The" (Meredith), xxiii. 353
+
+  Eimeo, storm near, xxiv. 324
+
+  "Einst, O Wunder, einst," song, xxiii. 65
+
+  "Elements of Style" (_Contemporary Review_), xxiv. 181
+
+  Elgin marbles, the, xxiii. 158-60, 163-4
+
+  Eliot, George, works of, xxiii. 210
+
+  Elstree murder, xxiii. 338
+
+  "Emerson" (H. James), xxiv. 278
+
+  "Emigrant Train, The," xxv. 97
+
+  "Encyclopaedia Britannica," contributions to, xxiii. 179, 186, 191,
+    202-3
+
+  "Endymion" (Keats), xxiv. 170
+
+  "Engineer's Thumb" (Doyle), xxv. 340
+
+  England and Samoa, xxv. 6 _et seq._
+
+  England and Scotland, contrasts between, xxiii. 56 _et seq._
+
+  _English Illustrated Magazine_, contributions to, xxiv. 68 & _n._ 1
+
+  "English Odes," edited by Gosse, xxiii. 292; suggestions concerning,
+    xxiii. 293-4
+
+  English, the, mock definition of, xxiii. 225
+
+  "English Village, An" (Gosse), xxv. 457
+
+  "English Worthies" Series, book for, xxiv. 134
+
+  "Ensorcelee, L'" (d'Aurevilly), xxv. 314, 380
+
+  "Epilogue to an Inland Voyage," xxiv. 68
+
+  Epitaph for himself, by R. L. S., xxiii. 269; xxv. 375
+
+  Epitaph (mock) on himself, xxiv. 69
+
+  _Equator_, schooner, cruise in, xxiv. 291-2, 340, 343, 347, 357-8,
+    369, 390; xxv. 3
+
+  "Eroica" Symphony (Beethoven), xxiii. 166
+
+  "Escape at Bedtime" ("Child's Garden"), xxiv. 55
+
+  Essays, xxiii. 143; selected, projected volume and suggested contents,
+    xxv. 301 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Essays in Art" (Hamerton), xxiii. 242
+
+  "Essays in London" (H. James), xxv. 367
+
+  "Essays on the Art of Writing," xxiv. 265
+
+  "Essays on Travel," xxiii. 201, 281
+
+  "Etherege," essay (Gosse), xxiv. 45
+
+  "Evan Harrington" (Meredith), characters in, xxiv. 97
+
+  Evictions, Highland, xxiii. 298
+
+  "Evictions" (Miller), xxiii. 297
+
+  Ewing, Professor, xxiv. 226
+
+  Exeter, visited, xxiv. 105, 153
+
+  "Expansion of England" (Seeley), xxiv. 55, 56
+
+
+  "Fables in Song," xxiii. 127-8, 132, 141, 142
+
+  "Fables" (Lord Lytton), xxiii. 129
+
+  Fage, xxiii. 307
+
+  Fairchild, Blair, xxiv. 239, 405
+
+  Fairchild, Charles, xxiv. 233, 237, 239, 250; letter to, xxiv. 246
+
+  Fairchild, Mrs. Charles, xxiv. 233, 237, 239, 250; xxv. 379; letters
+  to, xxiv. 403; xxv. 163, 240
+
+  Fair Isle, visit to, xxiii. 24
+
+  Fakarava, at, xxiv. 295, 312
+
+  "Falconers, The Two, of Cairnstane," xxiii. 170
+
+  _Falke_, the, xxv. 425
+
+  Fall of Man, the, xxiii. 212
+
+  "Familiar Essays," xxiv. 230
+
+  "Familiar Studies of Men and Books," xxiii. 149, 224, 229, 351, 355;
+    publication, xxiii. 335.
+
+  "Family of Engineers" ("History of the Stevensons" or the "Northern
+    Lights"), unfinished; xxv. 120, 310, 315-6, 319-20, 322, 334, 339,
+    348, 357; germ of, xxiv. 279; xxv. 95
+
+  "Family of Love," xxiii. 170
+
+  "Fantasio" (de Musset), xxiv. 97
+
+  Farehau, xxiv. 310, 315
+
+  "F.A.S., In Memoriam" (Underwoods), xxiii. 300
+
+  Fast-day, xxiii. 153
+
+  "Fastidious Brisk," sobriquet, xxiv. 72
+
+  "Faust" (Goethe), xxiv. 71
+
+  Faxon, --, xxiv. 390
+
+  "Femmes Savantes" (Moliere), xxiv. 123
+
+  Fenian dynamite outrages, xxiii. 320
+
+  Fergusson, Robert, poet, xxiv. 214, 215; xxv. 57, 70-1, 88; monument,
+    xxv. 395-6
+
+  Ferrier, James Walter, xxiii. 48, 223; xxiv. 46, 47, 63, 98;
+    appreciation of, xxiv. 46 _et seq._; collaboration with, xxv. 398;
+    death, xxiv. 6, 46 _et seq._, 59, 69, 71-2, 96 _n._ 1; letter to,
+    xxiii. 269
+
+  Ferrier, Miss, xxiv. 90; letters to, xxiv. 46, 52, 71, 88, 121, 132,
+    282
+
+  Festetics de Solna, Count, at Apia, xxv. 415
+
+  Fielding, Henry, xxiii. 129
+
+  Fiji, xxv. 50, 96, 102
+
+  Fiji, High Commissioner of, proclamation by, xxv. 280
+
+  "Finsbury Tontine, The" (_see_ "Wrong Box")
+
+  Flaubert, Gustave, on prose, xxv. 71-2
+
+  Fleming, Marjorie, xxiv. 245 _n._ 1; verses of, xxv. 385
+
+  "Flint, Captain" ("Treasure Island"), xxiii. 326
+
+  "Flowers of the Forest," air, xxiii. 113
+
+  Folau, --, Chief Judge, xxv. 30
+
+  "Folk Lore" (Lang), xxiv. 130
+
+  Follete, M., xxiii. 100
+
+  "Fons Bandusiae" (Macdonald), xxiv. 249
+
+  Fontainebleau (_see also_ Barbizon, _and_ "Forest Notes"), visits to,
+    xxiii. 124, 182, 183, 184, 189, 282, 305
+
+  "Footnote to History," xxiv. 362 _et seq._, 369 _et seq._, 386; xxv.
+    5, 41 _n._ 1, 117, 120, 122, 124, 126, 129-30, 138, 140-4, 146, 163,
+    172, 188, 192, 211, 250, 257, 267, 274; publication of, xxv. 146;
+    German reception of, xxv. 346
+
+  "Foreigner, The, at Home," essay, xxiii. 56
+
+  "Forester," unfinished paper (J. W. Ferrier), xxiii. 269
+
+  "Forest Notes," essay on Fontainebleau (_Magazine of Art_), xxiii.
+    180, 181, 186, 198, 201, 202; xxiv. 32, 57, 58, 67, 68 _n._ 1; xxv.
+    397-8
+
+  "Forest State, The: A Romance" (_see also_ "Prince Otto"), xxiii. 259,
+    265, 266
+
+  Forfeited Estates, tenants of, xxiii. 298
+
+  Forster, --, xxiii. 321
+
+  Forth, Firth of, xxiii. 61, 68, 69
+
+  _Fortnightly Review_, contributions to, xxiii. 127, 132, 281
+
+  "Fortune by Sea and Land" (Heywood), xxiii. 354
+
+  Fortune, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 15
+
+  "Fortunes of Nigel" (Scott), xxiv. 91
+
+  Foss, Captain, xxv. 106
+
+  "Four Great Scotsmen," project for, xxiii. 111
+
+  "Fra Diavolo," at Frankfurt, xxiii. 42
+
+  France, Anatole, xxv. 321, 409
+
+  Franchise for working men, xxiii. 97
+
+  Francois, a baker, xxiii. 240; xxiv. 42
+
+  Francois Villon, xxiii. 182, 191, 192, 207; xxiv. 397; Schwob's
+    writings on, xxv. 52
+
+  Frank, --, xxv. 330
+
+  Frankfurt, at, xxiii. 38
+
+  Franklin, Benjamin, article on, projected, xxiii. 253, 265, 266, 333
+
+  _Fraser's Magazine_, contribution to, xxv. 97, 123
+
+  French possessions in the Pacific, xxiv. 293
+
+  French translations, _see_ letters to Schwob
+
+  "Friend," the (S. T. Coleridge), xxiii. 221
+
+  Friends, the six, xxiv. 47
+
+  "Fruits of Solitude" (Penn), xxiii. 303
+
+  Funk, Dr., xxv. 416, 458
+
+
+  Galitzin, Prince Leon, xxiii. 119, 120, 121, 125, 155
+
+  Galpin, --, xxiv. 202
+
+  "Gamekeeper," sobriquet for Miss Boodle, xxiv. 259, 284
+
+  "Game of Bluff," _see_ "Wrong Box"
+
+  Garschine, Madame, xxiii. 98, 99, 102, 108, 115, 147; letter from,
+    xxiii. 128
+
+  "Gauvain" (Quatre-vingt Treize, by Hugo), xxiii. 130 _n._ 1
+
+  "Gavin Ogilvy," character (Barrie), xxv. 277
+
+  "Gavottes Celebres" (Litolf's edition), xxiv. 188
+
+  "Gebir," line from, quoted (Landor), xxiii. 329
+
+  "Genesis of the Master of Ballantrae," xxv. 33
+
+  "Gentleman of France" (Weyman), xxv. 312
+
+  "George the Pieman" (Deacon Brodie), xxiii. 257
+
+  German policy in Samoa, xxiv. 370; xxv. 6 _et seq._, 176 _et passim_
+
+  Gevaudan, xxiii. 218
+
+  "Giant Bunker," xxiv. 70
+
+  Gibson, Captain, xxv. 203
+
+  Gilbert Islands, burial customs in, xxiv. 399, 400; papers on, xxv.
+    84; suggested plan and title, 84; visited, xxiv. 291-2, 356-7 _et
+    seq._, 368
+
+  Gilder, R. W., editor _Century Magazine_, xxiii. 338; xxiv. 26, 29,
+    30, 64, 98, 149, 185, 250
+
+  Gilfillan, --, xxiv. 349, 352
+
+  Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., xxiii. 113; xxiv. 136-7, 139, 192
+
+  Glasgow, Knox memorial at, xxv. 88
+
+  "Gleams of Memory" (Payn), xxv. 447
+
+  Glencorse Church, xxiii. 180; xxv. 305, 307
+
+  "Go Between," xxv. 314-5 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Goguclat" (St. Ives), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
+
+  "Good Boy, A" ("Child's Garden"), xxiv. 55, 170
+
+  "Gordon Darnaway" ("Merry Men"), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
+
+  Gordon, General C. G., xxiv. 107, 137, 139-40, 183; xxv. 57
+
+  Gosse, Edmund, xxiii. 311, 316, 328, 329, 341; xxiv. 36, 120, 244;
+    appointment to Clark Readership, xxiv. 99; letters to, xxiii. 219,
+    224, 226, 236, 243, 245, 260, 271, 292, 293, 306, 311, 313, 324, 325,
+    332, 338, 350, 359, 360; xxiv. 26, 29, 30, 45, 50, 87, 97, 125, 139,
+    173, 181, 244, 277; xxv. 71, 317, 454; "Life" by, of his father, xxv.
+    71, 130, 317
+
+  Gosse, Mrs. Edmund, xxiii. 225, 227; letter to, xxiii. 347
+
+  Gosse, P. H., "Life" of, by E. Gosse, xxv. 71, 130, 317
+
+  "Gossip, A, on Romance," xxiii. 283, 342, 349
+
+  Goettingen, xxiii. 118, 122, 125
+
+  "Gower Woodseer" ("Amazing Marriage," by Meredith), prototype of, xxv.
+    344, 390-1
+
+  Grange, Lady, xxiii. 298
+
+  Grant, --, xxiii. 316
+
+  Grant, Geordie, xxiii. 19
+
+  Grant, Lady, xxiv. 53, 72
+
+  Grant, Mrs., of Laggan, xxiii. 298
+
+  Granton, xxiii. 8
+
+  Grant, Sir Alexander, xxiv. 53, 72, 132
+
+  "Grape from a Thorn" (Payn), xxiv. 7
+
+  Graves, home and foreign, xxv. 349 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Gray, Thomas" ("English Men of Letters"), by Gosse, xxiii. 350, 351,
+    360; works of, edited by Gosse, xxiv. 140
+
+  "Great Expectations" (Dickens), xxiv. 22-3
+
+  "Great North Road," unfinished, xxiii. 328; xxiv. 106, 127, 139, 152,
+    402
+
+  Greenaway, Kate, xxiv. 32
+
+  Green, Madame, singer, xxv. 249
+
+  Grey, Sir George, xxv. 290, 298-9; visit to, xxv. 292
+
+  Grez, at, xxiii. 183, 185, 187; meeting with Mrs. Osbourne at, xxii.
+    183, 228
+
+  Grove, Sir George, xxiii. _intro._ xviii. 151, 178, 204
+
+  Guerin, Maurice de, xxiii. 165
+
+  Gurr, --, xxv. 48, 105, 116, 448
+
+  Gurr, Mrs., xxv. 107
+
+  Guthrie, Charles J., letters to, xxiii. 312; xxiv. 178
+
+  "Guy Mannering" (Scott), xxiv. 91; xxv. 167
+
+
+  Habakkuk, prophet, xxiii. 211
+
+  Haddon, Trevor, letters to, xxiii. 357, 360; xxiv. 10, 39, 93
+
+  Haggard, Bazett, xxv. 138, 161, 170-1, 193 _et passim_
+
+  Haggard, Rider, xxiv. 257; xxv. 86, 226-7
+
+  "Haggis, The" (Burns), xxiv. 256
+
+  "Hair Trunk," xxiii. 205-6
+
+  Hake, Dr. Gordon, xxiv. 239
+
+  Hall, Basil, xxv. 111
+
+  Halle, Sir Charles, xxiii. 169, 198
+
+  "Hall, Mr." (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 211
+
+  Hamerton, P. G., xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 58, 216, 218, 315 _n._ 1, 316,
+    336; letters to, xxiii. 242, 314, 335; xxiv. 143
+
+  "Hamerton, P. G., An Autobiography," xxiii. 216
+
+  Hamilton, Captain, death of, xxv. 65
+
+  "Hamlet" (Shakespeare), xxv. 51
+
+  Hammond, Basil, xxiv. 13 & _n._ 1
+
+  Hampstead, at, xxiii. 124, 133
+
+  Hand, Captain, R.N., xxv. 139
+
+  Handwriting, tests of, xxv. 254-5
+
+  Hansome, Rufe, xxiii. 278
+
+  Happiness, xxiv. 183-4
+
+  Hardy, Thomas, xxiv. 153; xxv. 266
+
+  Hargrove, Mr., xxiii. 25, 26
+
+  "Harry Richmond" (Meredith), characters in, xxiv. 97
+
+  Harte, Bret, xxiii. 210
+
+  "Hastie" (Kidnapped), xxiv. 196
+
+  Hawaiian Islands, stay in, xxiv. 291
+
+  "Hawthorne" (H. James), xxiii. 273, 277
+
+  Hayley, --, xxiii. 252
+
+  Hazlitt, William, xxv. 385
+
+  "Heart of Midlothian" (Scott), xxiii. 65; xxv. 154
+
+  "Heathercat," unfinished, xxv. 281, 360-1, 403
+
+  Hebrides, yachting trip in, xxiii. 124, 139, 140
+
+  Hecky, a dog, xxiv. 202
+
+  Hegel, --, xxiv. 75
+
+  Heintz, Dr., xxiii. 244
+
+  Henderson, Mr., xxiii. 6, 328; xxiv. 31
+
+  Henley, Anthony, xxiii. 238, 240
+
+  Henley, E. J., xxiv. 261
+
+  Henley, W. E., xxiii. 124, 171, 172, 177, 284, 285, 334, 352; xxiv.
+    29, 47, 52, 59, 67, 79, 99, 151, 155, 191, 202, 302, 377; xxv. 97,
+    121, 123, 174; appreciation of, xxv. 213; dramatic collaboration with,
+    xxiii.  185, 256, 257; xxiv. 99, 106, 119, 146; editor of _London_,
+    xxiii. 184; in hospital, xxv. 427; letters to, xxiii. 204, 217, 219,
+    221, 233, 238, 249, 255, 256, 265, 317, 319, 326, 328, 330, 334, 341,
+    342, 352, 362; xxiv. 17, 23, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 47, 54, 57, 65, 72,
+    79, 91, 96, 102, 111, 114, 120, 123, 127, 131, 133, 146, 147, 155,
+    229, 239, 248, 257; xxv. 214; poems by, xxv. 122, 214
+
+  "Henry Shovel," _see_ "Shovels of Newton French"
+
+  _Herald_, ship, xxv. 444
+
+  Herbert, George, poetry of, xxiii. 18
+
+  Herrick, Robert, xxiii. _intro._ xx.; xxiv. 36, 82
+
+  "Herrick, Robert," essay (Gosse), xxiv. 45
+
+  _Hester Noble_, unfinished play (with Henley), xxiii. 256, 257
+
+  "Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin' yet?" air, xxiii. 113
+
+  Highland History, projected, xxiii. 280, 290-1, 297; xxv. 117
+
+  "Highland Widow" (Scott), xxv. 24
+
+  "High Woods of Umfanua," _see_ "Beach of Falesa"
+
+  Hiroshige, prints by, xxiii. 157
+
+  "Histoire d'Israel" (Renan), xxv. 304
+
+  "Histoire des Origines de Christianisme" (Renan), xxv. 304
+
+  "History of America" (Adams), xxv. 215, 266
+
+  "History of England" (Macaulay), xxiii. 70
+
+  "History of France" (Martin), xxiii. 193
+
+  "History of Indostani" (Orme), xxv. 419, 423
+
+  "History of Notorious Pirates" (Johnson), xxiv. 101
+
+  "History of the Great Storm" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
+
+  "History of the Rebellion" (Clarendon), xxiii. 31
+
+  "History of the Stevensons," _see_ "Family of Engineers"
+
+  "History of the United States" (Bancroft), xxiii. 246
+
+  Hogarth, William, xxiii. 69; Cambridge lectures on, by Colvin, xxiii.
+    178
+
+  Hokusai (_Magazine of Art_), xxiv. 32
+
+  Hole, W., illustrator, xxiv. 270, 319, 321-2, 346; xxv. 349 & _n._ 1,
+    362 _n._ 1
+
+  "Holy Fair" (Burns), xxiii. 4; xxiv. 265 _n._ 1
+
+  Homburg, visit to, xxiii. 182
+
+  "Home is the Sailor," lines chosen for epitaph, xxiii. 269; xxv. 375
+
+  Home Rule Bill of 1885, xxiv. 192
+
+  "Homme, L', qui rit" (Hugo), xxiii. 125 & _n._ 1
+
+  Honolulu, visits to, xxiv. 291, 319 _et seq._, 329, 353; xxv. 281,
+    345, 349, 362
+
+  "Horatian Ode" (Marvell), xxiii. 293
+
+  Hoskin, Dr., xxv. 268, 270, 452
+
+  "House of Eld" Fables, xxiii. 12, 141
+
+  Houses, characteristics of, xxiii. 145, 146
+
+  Howard Place, 8, Edinburgh, birthplace, xxiii. 5
+
+  "Howe, Miss" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
+
+  "Huckleberry Finn" (Twain), xxiv. 139
+
+  "Huguenots, Les," opera, xxiii. 200
+
+  "Huish" (Ebb Tide), xxv. 313
+
+  "Human Compromise," xxiii. 267
+
+  Humble Apology (Longman's), xxiv. 181
+
+  Humble Remonstrance (Longman's), xxiv. 127
+
+  Hume, David, xxiii. 4, 72, 111, 145
+
+  "Humilies et offenses" (Dostoieffsky), xxiv. 183
+
+  Hunter, Robert, "portrait" of, xxv. 301
+
+  Hurricane at Apia, the great, xxiv. 345, 346, 369; xxv. 141, 172-4;
+    chapter on, in "Footnote," issued in _Scots Observer_, xxv. 174
+
+  Hutchinson, --, bust by, of R. L. S., xxv. 353 & _n._ 1
+
+  Hyde, Rev. Dr., and Father Damien, xxiv. 292; controversy with, xxiv.
+    383-4, 391 & _n._ 1, 402, 404
+
+  Hyeres, at, xxiv. 5, 21 _et seq._; xxv. 60
+
+  Hyndman, --, xxiv. 141
+
+  "Hyperion" (Keats), xxiv. 170
+
+
+  Iceland, book on, by Gosse suggested, xxiii. 333
+
+  "Ich unglueckselige Atlas," song (Schubert), xxiii. 139
+
+  Ide, Annie H., and R. L. S.'s birthday, xxv. 89-90, 118-9; letter to,
+    xxv. 118
+
+  Ide, C. J., Land Commissioner and afterwards Chief Justice in Samoa,
+    xxv. 281, 298, 380-1, 450; letter to, xxv. 88
+
+  Ide, Margery, xxv. 450
+
+  _Idler, The_, xxv. 372, 429; contributions to, xxv. 376
+
+  _Illustrated London News_, xxv. 301
+
+  Inchcape bell, xxiii. 29
+
+  Income-tax, xxiii. 113, 114
+
+  Inglis, John, Justice-General, xxiii. 181
+
+  Ingram, John H., xxiii. 166
+
+  "Inland Voyage," xxiii. 183, 185, 204, 211, 212, 218, 229, 247; xxiv.
+    103; criticisms on, xxiii. 215-6
+
+  "Inn Album" (Robert Browning), review of, xxiii, 198, 199
+
+  "Inn, The," xxv. 429
+
+  "In Russet and Silver" (Gosse), dedication of, xxv. 454
+
+  "In the Garden," projected, xxiv. 99
+
+  "In the South Seas," first published as "The South Seas," xxiv. 290,
+    292, 297, 320-1, 358, 362, 399, 403; xxv. 5, 12, 16, 22, 26, 34, 45,
+    54, 61 & _nn._ 1 & 2, 68, 69, 77, 78, 80, 97, 100; criticisms, xxiv.
+    293, 348-9; xxv. 76; dedication proposed, xxiv. 304
+
+  Intimate Poems, suggested edition, xxv. 377
+
+  _Iona_, vessel, xxiii. 24
+
+  Ireland, Alexander, letter to, xxiii. 342
+
+  Ireland, plan for life in, xxiv. 108, 222
+
+  Irongray, tombs at, xxiii. 65
+
+  "Isabella and the Pot of Basil" (Keats), xxiv. 170
+
+  Isaiah, prophet, xxiii. 211
+
+  "Is it not verse except enchanted groves" (Herbert), xxiii. 18
+
+  "Island Nights' Entertainments," xxv. 64, 272, 284, 290;
+    illustrations, xxv. 312; length, xxv. 353 & _n._ 1; reviews xxv.
+    315 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Isle of Voices," xxv. 272
+
+  "Islet, The," xxv. 301
+
+  "Ivanhoe" (Scott), xxiv. 31
+
+
+  Jack, the island horse, xxv. 35-6, 41, 136, 142
+
+  James, G. P. R., novels by, ordered by R. L. S., xxiv. 273
+
+  James, Henry, xxiv. 105, 127, 130, 133, 143, 154, 182, 235, 250, 359;
+    xxv. 29, 317, 415, 452; letters to, xxiv. 127, 160, 214, 215, 237,
+    249, 262, 278, 288, 334, 382, 396;  xxv. 43, 108, 130, 274, 320, 335,
+    367, 406
+
+  "James More," xxv. 161, 216, 295
+
+  _Janet Nicoll_, ss., cruise in, xxiv. 292-3, 385 _et seq._, 392, 403;
+    xxv. 11, 54, 304
+
+  Japan and Japanese art, interest in, xxiii. 157, 158, 159; xxiv. 32,
+    57
+
+  Japp, Dr. Alexander, xxiii. 329; letters to, xxiii. 321, 327, 351
+
+  Jeafferson, --, xxiv. 178
+
+  "Jedidiah Cleishbotham" (Scott), xxiii. 65
+
+  Jenkin family, xxiii. 25, 100
+
+  Jenkin, Mrs. Fleeming, xxiii. 10, 25; xxiv. 300; letters to, xxiv.
+    150, 151, 187, 221, 225, 258; xxv. 273
+
+  Jenkin, Professor Fleeming, xxiii. 10, 25, 118, 122, 175, 176, 183,
+    247, 311, 341, 353; xxiv. 48, 258, 272; death, xxiv. 106, 150, 151;
+    memoir of, by R. L. S. (_see_ "Memoir"); debt to, xxiv. 331
+
+  Jerome, Jerome K., xxv. 372, 429
+
+  "Jerry Abershaw," projected, xxiii. 328, 329; xxiv. 152
+
+  Jersey, Countess of, in Samoa, xxv. 145, 227, 228, 325; letters to,
+    xxv, 228-9; on her visit to R. L. S., xxv. 228
+
+  Jersey, Earl of, xxv. 288
+
+  "Jess" (Window in Thrums), xxv. 277
+
+  Jhering, Professor, xxiii. 118, 122
+
+  _J. L. Tiernan_, schooner, xxiv. 359
+
+  Joan of Arc, Byron's epithet for, xxiii. 354
+
+  "Jock o' Hazeldean," air, xxiii. 113
+
+  "John Peel" of the song, xxiii. 28
+
+  "John Silver" (Treasure Island), xxiv. 112, 123; genesis of, xxiv. 31
+
+  Johnson, --, an American, xxiii. 108, 110, 111, 112
+
+  "Johnson," or "Johnstone," pseudonym, xxiv. 14, 121
+
+  Johnson, Samuel, xxiii. 298; "Life" of, xxiii. 193, 203
+
+  Johnstone, Marie, Mary, or May, xxiii. 94, 95, 98, 99, 101
+
+  Johnstone, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 96, 99
+
+  _John Williams_, missionary barque, xxiv. 387
+
+  "Jolly Beggars" (Burns), sent for autograph, xxv. 69, 87, 118
+
+  Jones, Henry Arthur (_see also_ "Bauble Shop"), letter to, xxiv. 133
+
+  Jonson, Ben, xxiii. 294
+
+  Journalistic work, xxiii. 184
+
+  "Joy of Earth" (Meredith), xxv. 214
+
+  Jura, Skye terrier, xxv. 428-9
+
+  "Justice Clerk," _see_ Weir of Hermiston
+
+  "Juvenilia," xxv. 397-8
+
+
+  Kaiulani, Hawaiian Princess, xxiv. 345, 346
+
+  Kalakaua, King, xxiv. 320
+
+  Kalaupapa, Molokai, xxiv. 351 _et seq._
+
+  Kalawao, Molokai, xxiv. 353-4
+
+  _Katoomba_, H.M.S., xxv. 334; band of, xxv. 351
+
+  Kava, native beverage, xxv. 183 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Keats" ("English Men of Letters," by Colvin), xxiii. 349, 350-1;
+    xxiv. 210, 211
+
+  Keir, Jean, xxv. 335
+
+  Kelso, xxiii. 156
+
+  "Kenilworth" (Scott), xxiv. 91
+
+  "Kidnapped," xxiii. 24, 331; xxiv. 106, 146, 147, 179, 190, 195-6,
+    203, 233, 265, 317, 370, 377; xxv. 108, 160, 215, 250, 283, 301, 351;
+    in Braille, xxv. 366; projected  illustrations, xxv. 349 _n._ 1;
+    reception, xxiv. 198; reviews, xxiv. 203; sequel (_see_ "Catriona"),
+    xxv. 144; suggested French translation, xxv. 52
+
+  Killigrew, Anne, xxiii. 293 _n._ 1
+
+  "King Lear" (Shakespeare), xxv. 51
+
+  "King Matthias's Hunting Horn" lost, xxiii. 158, 160, 170
+
+  Kinglake, W., xxiii. 70
+
+  "King's Horn, The," xxiii. 308
+
+  Kingston, W.G., xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  Kingussie, at, xxiii. 284, 357
+
+  Kipling, Rudyard, anticipated visit from, xxv. 105 & _n._ 1; xxv. 163,
+    165; appreciations of, xxiv. 396; xxv. 46, 213, 275; letter to, xxv.
+    46; writings of, xxv. 379
+
+  Kirriemuir, xxv. 417
+
+  "Kirstie Elliot" (Weir of Hermiston), xxiii. _intro._ xx.; xxv. 457
+
+  Kitchener, Colonel, _ib._
+
+  Kitchener, Viscount, xxv. 236-7
+
+  Knappe, Consul, xxiv. 370; xxv. 139, 141
+
+  "Knox, John, and his Relations with Women," xxiii. 141, 149, 150, 153,
+    155
+
+  Knox, John, "Works" of, xxiii. 117
+
+  Knox, John, writings on, xxiii. 55, 61, 111, 141, 146, 147, 148, 149,
+    150, 153, 155, 158, 159, 167, 170, 171, 173
+
+  Ko-o-amua, ex-cannibal chief, xxiv. 293
+
+  "Kubla Khan" (Coleridge), xxiii. 92, 220
+
+  Kuniyoshi, prints by, xxiii. 157
+
+
+  Labiche, --, xxiii. 239
+
+  Labour, imported, in Samoa, xxv. 159 & _n._ 1
+
+  Lacy, Mr., xxiii. 307
+
+  "Lady Barberina" (H. James), xxiv. 128
+
+  "Lady Carbury" ("Way of the World"), xxiii. 215
+
+  Lafarge, John, painter, xxv. 4, 29 & _n._ 1, 41, 43, 45
+
+  La Fontaine, "Fables" of, xxv. 49
+
+  "Lake Isle of Innisfree" (Yeats), xxv. 390
+
+  Lamb, Charles, xxiii. 209
+
+  "Lamia" (Keats), illustrated by Low, xxiv. 142, 166; dedication of,
+    xxiv. 169-71
+
+  Lampman, Archibald, sonnet by, xxiv. 321 & _n._ 1
+
+  Landor, W. S., xxiii. 302, 317, 320-1
+
+  "Landscape" (Hamerton), xxiv. 143-4
+
+  Land's End, visited, xxiii. 183, 209
+
+  Lang, Andrew, xxiii. 115, 117, 222, 311, 316; xxiv. 106, 134, 206,
+    257, 278, 381, 388; xxv. 357, 427; letters to, xxiv. 399; xxv. 216,
+    453; story suggested by, xxv. 141 & _n._ 1; on "Treasure Island,"
+    xxiv. 67
+
+  Lantenac, M. (Victor Hugo), xxiii. 130 _n._ 1
+
+  "Lantern Bearers, The" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235, 254; xxv. 97, 301
+
+  Large, Miss, xxv. 329-31
+
+  La Sale, Antoine, projected essay on, xxiii. 207
+
+  "Last Sinner, The," xxiii. 171
+
+  Laupepa, _see_ Malietoa
+
+  Lautreppe, Albert de, xxv. 383
+
+  Lavenham, xxiii. 56
+
+  Law examination passed, xxiii. 182
+
+  "Lay Morals," 86, 185; xxiv. 62 _et seq._
+
+  "Leading Light, The," projected, xxiii. 329
+
+  "Leaves of Grass" (Whitman), xxiii. 70
+
+  Le Gallienne, Richard, letter to, xxv. 364
+
+  Legal work, xxiii. 182, 184
+
+  Leigh, Hon. Capt., xxv. 227-8, 231, 233, 234, 235
+
+  Leith, xxiii. 159, 202
+
+  Lemon, --, picture by, xxiv. 167
+
+  Lenz, --, xxiv. 198
+
+  Le Puy, xxiii. 217
+
+  "Lesson, The, of the Master" (H. James), xxiv. 382; xxv. 108, 274
+
+  "Letter to the Church of Scotland," xxv. 398
+
+  "Letter to a Young Gentleman," xxv. 123 _n._ 1
+
+  "Letters and Memories of Jane Welsh Carlyle" (Froude), xxiii, 301, 302
+
+  Letters, desiderata in, xxiii. 259
+
+  "Letters" (Flaubert), xxiv. 405; xxv. 59
+
+  "Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to his Friend in
+    London" (Burt), xxiii. 291
+
+  "Letters to his Family and Friends," xxiii. _intro._ xix.
+
+  Leven, xxiii. 61
+
+  "Library, The" (Lang), xxiii. 307
+
+  "Lieder und Balladen" (Burns), Silbergleit's translation, xxiii. 39
+
+  Life, two views on, xxiv. 158, 164, 165
+
+  "Life and Death," xxiii. 171
+
+  "Life of General Hutchinson" (Mrs. Hutchinson), xxiii. 30, 31, 32
+
+  "Life of Hazlitt," projected, xxiii. 283, 336, 339, 345
+
+  "Life of P. H. Gosse" (Edmund Gosse), xxv. 71, 130, 317
+
+  "Life of R. L. S." (Balfour), xxiii. _intro._ xix.; xxv. 4, 59
+
+  "Life of Robertson" (Dugald Stewart), xxiii. 119
+
+  "Life of Samuel Johnson" (Boswell), xxiii. 193, 203
+
+  "Life of Sir Walter Scott" (Lockhart), xxiv. 75, 84, 170, 171
+
+  "Life of Wellington" ("English Worthies"), unfinished, xxiv. 106, 134,
+  139
+
+  "Life on the Lagoons" (H. F. Brown), xxiii. 303
+
+  Lillie, Jean and David, connection of, with the Stevensons, xxv. 436
+
+  "Lion of the Nile," xxiv. 321
+
+  Lions, xxiii. 307
+
+  Lippincott, xxiv. 54-5, 90
+
+  "Literary Recollections" (Payn), xxiv. 381
+
+  "Little Minister" (Barrie), xxv. 265, 276
+
+  "Lives of the Admirals" (Southey), xxiii. 70
+
+  "Lives of the Stevensons," _see_ "Family of Engineers"
+
+  "L. J. R.," Essay Club, xxiii. 46, 48; xxv. 121
+
+  Llandudno, visited, xxiii. 124, 148
+
+  Locker-Lampson, Frederick, letters to, xxiv. 205, 206, 207, 208, 215
+
+  "Lodging for the Night," xxiii. 184, 191, 248
+
+  Logan, John, xxiii. 71, 72
+
+  _London_, contributions to, xxiii. 184
+
+  "London Life" (H. James), xxiv. 289
+
+  London, visits to (see _also_ British Museum), xxiii. 77, 155, 330;
+    xxiv. 105, 107, 186-7, 189, 202, 209, 229
+
+  "London Voluntaries" (Henley), xxv. 214
+
+  Longman, --, publisher, xxiv. 30, 66, 111, 134; xxv. 123, 125
+
+  _Longman's Magazine_, contributions to, xxiv. 127, 130, 134, 143, 181;
+    xxv. 454
+
+  "Lord Nidderdale" (Way of the World), xxiii. 215
+
+  "Lord Rintoul" (Little Minister), xxv. 265
+
+  "Lost Sir Massingberd" (Payn), xxiv. 7, 177
+
+  Loti, Pierre (M. Viaud), xxiv. 308
+
+  "Loudon Dodd" (Wrecker), xxv. 24, 172 & _n._1
+
+  "Louis XIV. et la Revocation de l'Edit de Nantes" (Michelet), xxiii.
+    69
+
+  "Louse, The" (Burns), xxiv. 256
+
+  "Love in the Valley" (Meredith), xxiv. 54; xxv. 214, 390
+
+  "Lovelace" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
+
+  Love, young, advice on, xxiii. 358
+
+  Lowell, John Russell, xxiv. 107
+
+  Low, Mrs. W. H., xxiv. 107, 202, 217
+
+  Low, W. H., xxiv. 107, 202, 217, 234, 250, 251, 255, 288, 369, 390;
+    xxv. 25, 111; illustrated edition by, of "Lamia," xxiv. 142, 166;
+    dedication of, xxiv. 169-71; letters to, xxiv. 57, 63, 72, 89, 115,
+    142, 153, 166, 169, 172, 177, 185, 217, 230, 245, 346; xxv. 378
+
+  _Luebeck_, s.s., passage on, xxiv. 375 _et seq._; xxv. 48, 50, 53, 81
+
+  _Ludgate Hill_, s.s., passage in, xxiv. 110, 230, 232; xxiv. 235 _et
+    seq._
+
+  Lully, J.B., gavotte by, xxiv. 188-9
+
+  Lysaght, Sidney, xxv. 385-6, 388, 405, 415 & _n._ 1; books by, xxv.
+    390; visit from, xxv. 374
+
+
+  _Macaire_, play (with Henley), xxiv. 146, 147
+
+  _Macbeth_ (Shakespeare), xxiv. 57
+
+  M'Carthy, Justin, xxiv. 173
+
+  McClure, S. S., publisher, relations with, xxiv. 234, 252, 321, 379;
+    xxv. 120
+
+  McCrie, --, xxiii. 117
+
+  Macdonald, David, xxiii. 20
+
+  Macdonald, Flora, xxiii. 298
+
+  Macdonald, George, xxiv. 248
+
+  Macdonald, J. H. A., xxiii. 114
+
+  Macgregor, clan, xxv. 293, 346
+
+  M'Gregor-Stevenson connection, question of, xxv. 440
+
+  Mackay, Professor AEneas, xxiii. 282; letters to, xxiii. 309
+
+  Mackintosh family, xxiii. 169
+
+  M'Laren, Duncan, xxiii. 96, 97, 114
+
+  MacMahon, President, xxiii. 116
+
+  Macmillan, Alexander, xxiii. 151
+
+  _Macmillan's Magazine_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii. 204; contributions to,
+    xxiii. 125, 149, 151
+
+  Macpherson, Miss Fanny (Lady Holroyd), xxv. 83 & _n._ 1
+
+  Madeira, plan to visit, xxiv. 328
+
+  "Mademoiselle Merquem" (Sand), xxiii. 87
+
+  _Magazine of Art_, contributions to, xxiii. 333-4; xxiv. 54, 57, 115,
+    181; xxv. 97, 123, 398, 423
+
+  Majendie, Colonel, xxiv. 283
+
+  "Malade Imaginaire" (Moliere), xxiv. 123
+
+  "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre," xxiii. 102
+
+  Malie, abode and following of Malietoa, xxv. 6, 9 _et seq._
+
+  Malietoa Laupepa, xxv. 9, 176, 234, 466; friendliness with, xxv. 10;
+    and Mataafa, troubles concerning, xxv. 6-9 _et seq._
+
+  Manasquan, at, xxiv. 234, 286-8
+
+  Manchester Ship Canal, xxiv. 135
+
+  _Manhattan_, magazine, xxiv. 57, 90
+
+  "Manse, The," xxiii. 4; xxv. 301
+
+  Manu'a, islands of, "queen" of, xxv. 407-8
+
+  Marat, xxiv. 183
+
+  Marbot, "Memoires" of, xxv. 274, 321
+
+  "Marche funebre" (Chopin), xxiii. 139
+
+  Marcus Aurelius, xxiv. 183
+
+  "Marden, Colonel" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
+
+  "Margery Bonthron," xxiii. 171
+
+  "Marion," xxiii. 307
+
+  _Mariposa_, s.s., xxv. 346
+
+  "Markheim," xxiii. _intro._ xx., xxiii.; xxiv. 125, 213
+
+  "Marmont's Memoirs," xxiv. 134
+
+  Marot, Clement, poems by, xxiii. 108
+
+  "Marplot, The" (Lysaght), xxv. 390
+
+  Marquesas Islands, visited, xxiv. 290, 293, 371
+
+  Marryat, Captain, works by, ordered by R. L. S., xxiv. 338
+
+  Marseilles, at, xxiv. 5, 12-14, 98
+
+  Marshall Islands, visited, xxiv. 292
+
+  Martial, xxiv. 82
+
+  Martin, A. Patchett, letters to, xxiii. 208, 209
+
+  "Martin's Madonna," xxiii. 171
+
+  Marvell, Andrew, xxv. 46
+
+  Mary, Queen of Scots, xxiii. 62
+
+  "Mary Wollstonecraft" (Mrs. Pennell), xxiv. 149
+
+  "Master of Ballantrae," xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.; xxiv. 235, 265,
+    268-70, 274, 276, 278, 279, 291, 314, 317, 328, 338, 339, 346, 349,
+    360, 369, 370, 377, 398; xxv. 43, 171 & _n._ 2, 250, 357;
+    illustrations, xxiv. 319, 320; original plan of, xxv. 396; paper on,
+    xxv. 376; suggested French translation, xxv. 52
+
+  Mataafa, xxiv. 370; xxv. 176, 256; troubles concerning, xxv. 6-9 _et
+    seq._, 93 _et seq._, 280, 332-3, 350; visits to, xxv. 193 _et seq._,
+    242; with Lady Jersey, xxv. 228 _et seq._
+
+  Matlock, visited, xxiv. 105, 189
+
+  Maupassant, Guy de, xxiv. 383
+
+  Maxwell, Sir Herbert, xxv. 437; letters to, xxv. 440, 453
+
+  "Mazeppa" (Byron), xxiii. 132
+
+  Medallion portrait by St. Gaudens, xxv. 410
+
+  Medea (Ordered South), xxiii. 86 & _n._ 1
+
+  Mediterranean, impression of, xxiii. 104, 105
+
+  Meiklejohn, Hugh, xxv. 269, 450, 451
+
+  Meiklejohn, Professor John, xxiii. 263, 316; compliments on "Burns"
+    article, xxiii. 241; letters to, xxiii. 263; xxv. 450
+
+  "Mein Herz ist im Hochland," xxiii. 41
+
+  Melford, xxiii. 56
+
+  Melville, Herman, xxiv. 295, 348, 381
+
+  "Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin," xxiv. 106-7, 150, 169, 174, 187, 225
+
+  "Memoirs of a Cavalier" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
+
+  "Memoirs of an Islet," essay, xxiii. 23
+
+  "Memoirs of Henry Shovel," unfinished, xxiv. 402
+
+  "Memorials" (Laing), xxv. 293
+
+  "Memorials of a Scottish Family," projected (_see also_ "Family of
+    Engineers"), xxiv. 279
+
+  "Memories and Portraits," xxiii. 56, 318 _n._ 1; xxiv. 96 _n._ 1, 214,
+    215, 230, 231, 257; xxv. 51, 53, 301 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Men and Books," xxiii. 86
+
+  Menken, Adah, xxiii. 275
+
+  Mentone, at, xxiii. 55, 77, 81 _et seq._, 143-4
+
+  Meredith, George, xxiii. 183, 311; xxiv. 97, 278 & _n._ 1; xxv. 351-2;
+    letters to, xxv. 343, 390
+
+  "Merry Men, The," xxiii. 282, 316, 317, 321; xxiv. 35, 90, 125, 213,
+    215; xxv. 353; criticisms on, xxiii. 319; dedication, xxiv. 211; germ
+    of, xxiii. 308; places described in, xxiii. 317
+
+  Michaels, barber, xxiii. 244
+
+  Michelet, --, xxv. 304
+
+  Middleton, Miss, letter to, xxv. 428
+
+  Millais, Sir John E., xxiv. 139; on R. L. S., as artist, xxiii.
+    _intro._ xxx.
+
+  Milne, Mrs., letter to, xxiv. 70
+
+  Milson, John, xxiv. 130
+
+  "Mimes" (Schwob), xxv. 409
+
+  "Misadventure in France, A," essay, xxiv. 67-8
+
+  "Misadventures of John Nicholson" (_Yule-Tide_), xxiii. 12; xxiv. 211,
+    214; xxv. 57 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Miscellanies" (Edinburgh edition), xxv. 33, 376, 397 & _n._ 1, 424
+
+  "Miserables, Les" (V. Hugo), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
+
+  Missions and missionary work, xxv. 10, _n._ 1, 33, 56, 57, 203,
+    410-11, 422
+
+  Moee, Princess, xxiv. 308, 309, 313
+
+  "Mobray" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
+
+  Moedestine, the donkey of the Cevennes journey, xxiii. 218
+
+  Moliere, xxiii. 69; plays, xxiv. 96, 123
+
+  "Moll Flanders" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
+
+  Molokai, visited, xxiv. 291, 345, 349 _et seq._, 356
+
+  Monaco, at, xxiii. 93
+
+  Monastier, visit to, xxiii. 217
+
+  Monkhouse, Cosmo, letters to, xxiv. 85, 95
+
+  Monroe, Miss, letters to, xxiv. 191, 193, 261
+
+  "Monsieur Auguste" (Mery), xxiii. 257, 258
+
+  Montagu, Basil, xxv. 29 _n._ 2
+
+  Montaigne, xxiv. 130, 144
+
+  Monterey, xxiv. 36; ranche life at, xxiii. 229, 234, 235, 236
+
+  "Monterey, California," xxiii. 241, 242
+
+  Montpellier, at, xxiv. 4
+
+  "Moonstone, The" (Wilkie Collins), xxiii. 18
+
+  Moors, H. J., xxiv. 292, 370, 371; xxv. 10, 28, 29, 30, 31, 40, 96,
+    107
+
+  "Morality, the, of the Profession of Letters" (_Fortnightly_), xxiii.
+    281
+
+  "More New Arabian Nights," xxiv. 106, 108, 114, 127, 139, 140, 142
+
+  Morley, Charles, of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, xxiv. 125
+
+  "Morley Ernstein" (G. P. R. James), xxiv. 75
+
+  Morley, John (Viscount Morley), xxiii. 127, 132, 226, 268
+
+  _Morning Star_, missionary ship, cruise in, projected, xxiv. 337,
+    338-9, 340, 343, 384
+
+  Morris, William, letter to, xxv. 162
+
+  Morse, Captain, xxv. 222
+
+  Morse, Miss, letter to, xxv. 253
+
+  Mount Chessie, xxiv. 44
+
+  Mount Saint Helena, xxiii. 277
+
+  Mount Vaea, burial-place of R. L. S., xxv. 9, 10, _n._ 1, 458 _et
+    seq._
+
+  Mulinuu, abode and party of Malietoa, xxv. 9 _et seq._, 107, 330, 332,
+    333, 370
+
+  "Mulvaney" (Soldiers Three), letter as from, xxv. 46
+
+  "Murder of Red Colin," projected, xxiii. 331
+
+  Murders, famous, volume on, projected by Gosse and R. L. S., xxiii.
+    338, 350
+
+  "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (Poe), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii
+
+  Mures, the, of Caldwell, xxv. 358
+
+  Murphy, Tommy, a lost child, story of, xxiii. 161, 162
+
+  Murrayfield, xxv. 57
+
+  Murray, Grahame, xxiii. 90
+
+  Murray, W. C., xxv. 69
+
+  Musset, Alfred de, comedies of, xxiii. 212
+
+  Mutiny, Indian, novel on, projected, xxiv. 283-4
+
+  "My Boy Tammie," air, xxiii. 113
+
+  "My First Book," series in _Idler_, xxv. 33, 376, 429
+
+  Myers, F. W. H., letter to, xxiv. 184
+
+
+  Napoleon III., xxv. 250, 319
+
+  Nares, Captain (The Wrecker), xxv. 269
+
+  Navigator Islands, xxiii. 180, 205; xxiv, 405
+
+  Navy, British, men of, xxv. 351-2
+
+  Nebraska, aspect of, xxiii. 233-4
+
+  Nerli, Count, xxv. 228
+
+  Neruda, Mme. Norman, xxiii. 169, 198
+
+  Nether Carsewell, xxv. 342, 346
+
+  "New Arabian Nights," xxiii. 185, 218; xxiv. 7, 256
+
+  New Caledonia, visited, xxiv. 293, 385, 392
+
+  "New Poems" (Edmund Gosse), xxiii. 245-6
+
+  Newport, U.S.A., at, xxiv. 233, 237-8, 255
+
+  _New Quarterly_, contributions to, xxiii. 237
+
+  _New Review_, contribution to, xxv. 18 _n._ 1
+
+  New Year's wish, a, xxiii. 212
+
+  New York, at, xxiv. 233-4, 238
+
+  _New York Ledger_, contribution to, xxiv. 361
+
+  _New York Tribune_, editor of, letter to, xxiv. 7
+
+  New Zealand, xxiv. 405
+
+  Nice, visits to, xxiii. 84; xxiv. 4, 6, 79, 92
+
+  Nile Campaigns, xxiv. 81
+
+  Noel-Pardon, M., xxiv. 394
+
+  "Noll and Nell," poem (Martin), xxiii. 210
+
+  "Norma," opera, xxiii. 252
+
+  "Northern Lights" (_see also_ "Family of Engineers"), xxiii. 4, 10;
+    xxv. 322
+
+  Norwood, at, xxiii. 57
+
+  "Note on Realism" (_Magazine of Art_), xxiv. 59, 62, 181
+
+  "Notes on the Movements of Young Children," xxiii. 133, 143 & _n._ 2
+
+  "Notre Dame" (Hugo), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
+
+  Noumea, visited, xxiv. 293, 392, 396
+
+  Nukahiva Island, at, xxiv. 290, 293
+
+  Nulivae Bridge, at, xxv. 223
+
+
+  "Ode to Duty" (Wordsworth), xxv. 173 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Ode to the Cuckoo," authorship of, xxiii. 71, 72
+
+  O'Donovan Rossa, xxiii. 321
+
+  "OEdipus King" (Sophocles), xxiv. 114
+
+  "Olalla," xxiv. 106
+
+  Old English History (Freeman's), xxv. 117
+
+  "Old Gardener," xxv. 404
+
+  "Old Mortality" (Scott), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1; essay on, xxiv. 6, 68, 96
+
+  "Old Pacific Capital" (_Fraser's Magazine_), xxv. 97
+
+  Oliphant, Mrs., xxiv. 370, 382
+
+  Omission, art of, xxiv. 60
+
+  Omond, --, xxiv. 178
+
+  "Omoo" (Melville), xxiv. 348
+
+  "One of the Grenvilles" (Lysaght), xxv. 390
+
+  "Only Child," projected, xxiv. 99
+
+  "On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places," xxiii. 15, 151-3
+
+  "On the Principal Causes of Silting in Estuaries" (T. Stevenson),
+    xxiv. 135
+
+  "On some Aspects of Burns" (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 224, 227
+
+  "On some Ghostly Companions at a Spa," xxiii. 285
+
+  "Operations of War" (Hamley), xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv.
+
+  Orange, at, xxiii. 80
+
+  "Ordered South," xxiii. _intro._ xxvii., 56, 77, 83, 86, 87 &  _n._
+    1, 116, 122, 126, 267; published, xxiii. 125
+
+  Organ-grinder episode, xxiii. 155-6
+
+  Ori a Ori, chief, xxiv. 291, 302, 304, 306-7, 309-10 _et seq._, 317,
+    334; letter from, xxiv. 332-3, 337
+
+  "Origines de la France Contemporaine" (Taine), xxiv. 258; xxv. 111-2,
+    319
+
+  "Origines" (Renan), xxv. 304
+
+  Orkneys and Shetlands, tour of, xxiii. 10, 24
+
+  _Orlando_, H.M.S., xxv. 329
+
+  Orr, Fred, letter to, xxv. 127
+
+  "Orsino" (_Twelfth Night_), R. L. S. as, xxiii. 175, 176
+
+  Osbourne, Lloyd, xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 300, 348 _et seq._; xxiv. 28,
+    139, 178, 198, 199, 201, 290, 309, 323, 330, 341, 366, 392, 396, 399,
+    402; xxv. 3, 21 & _n._ 2, 50, 52, 67, 78, 96, 98, 99, 390, 445;
+    account by, of death of R. L. S., xxv. 457 _et seq._; collaboration
+    with (_see also_ "Wrecker"), xxiv. 235, 249, 250, 256, 283-4, 328,
+    361, 367, 379, 380, 389, 399, 402; xxv. 347-9, 437-8; illness, xxv.
+    152
+
+  Osbourne, Mrs., _see_ Stevenson, Mrs. R. L.
+
+  Ossianic controversy, xxiii. 298
+
+  _Othello_ (Shakespeare), xxv. 51
+
+  Otis, Captain, xxiv. 234, 290
+
+  Otway, essay on (Gosse), xxiv. 45
+
+  Our Lady of the Snows, monastery, poem on (Underwoods), xxiii. 221-2
+
+  "Owl, The," projected, xxv. 315 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Oxford Dictionary of the English Language" (Murray), xxiv. 37
+
+
+  P--N, John, letter to, xxv. 358
+
+  P--n, Russell, letter to, xxv. 359
+
+  Pacific Ocean, xxiii. 240
+
+  Pacific voyages, _see_ "In the South Seas"
+
+  Page, H. A., pseudonym for Dr. Japp, _q.v._
+
+  Pago-pago harbour, xxv. 8, 65
+
+  Painters and their art, xxiv. 60-1
+
+  "Painters' Camp, in the Highlands" (Hamerton), xxiii. 216
+
+  _Pall Mall Gazette_, contributions to, xxiii. 281, 346; xxiv. 120,
+    125, 130, 131, 227; xxv. 397; Henley's articles in, xxiii. 238
+
+  "Pan's Pipes," xxiii. 212; xxv. 301
+
+  Papeete (Tahitian Islands), xxiv. 291, 296, 308, 314
+
+  Paperchase, Sunday, xxv. 422
+
+  Paris Exhibition of 1878, xxiii. 183
+
+  Paris, visits to, xxiii. 183, 305; xxiv. 105, 107
+
+  Parker, Lieutenant and Mrs., xxv. 29
+
+  "Parliament Close" (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
+
+  Parliament House, Edinburgh, verses on, xxiii. 193-4
+
+  Parnessiens, proposed paper on, xxiii. 168
+
+  "Paston Letters," xxiii. 203
+
+  "Pastoral" (Longman's), xxiv. 221; xxv. 301
+
+  Paton, John, and Co., xxiv. 252
+
+  Paul, C. Kegan, xxiii. 212
+
+  Paumotus atolls, visited, xxiv. 290, 293-4
+
+  "Pavilion, The, on the Links," xxiii. 229, 238, 249, 256, 259, 262,
+    267
+
+  Payne, John, xxv. 427
+
+  Payn, James, xxiv. 355; handwriting of, xxv. 365; letters to, xxiv.
+    176, 355, 381; xxv. 425, 446; novel by, xxv. 171; works of, xxiv. 7-9
+
+  "Pearl Fisher" (with Lloyd Osbourne, _see_ "Ebb Tide"),  changes of
+    name for story, xxv. 288 _et seq._
+
+  "Pegfurth Bannatyne," xxiii. 361, 362
+
+  Pella, letter from, xxiii. 115, 128
+
+  Pembroke, Earl of, xxv. 290
+
+  "Penn" (H. Dixon), xxiii. 277
+
+  Pennell, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph, xxiv. 149; letter to, xxiv. 149
+
+  Penn, William, article on, projected, xxiii. 265
+
+  "Penny plain and Twopence coloured," essay, xxiv. 93
+
+  "Penny Whistles," _see_ "Child's Garden of Verse"
+
+  "Pentland Hills" (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
+
+  "Pentland Rising," xxv. 397
+
+  Penzance, visit to, xxiii. 206
+
+  Pepys, Samuel, xxiv. 29, 183; essay on, xxiii. 281
+
+  "Petit Jehan de Saintre" (La Sale), essay on projected, xxiii. 267
+
+  "Petits Poemes en Prose," xxiii. 195, 196, 197
+
+  "Petronius Arbiter," xxiv. 83
+
+  "Pew" (_Admiral Guinea_), xxiv. 119, 120
+
+  Peyrat, Napoleon, xxiii. 307
+
+  _Pharos_, s.y., xxv. 98 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Phasellulus loquitur," xxiv. 116
+
+  Pheidias, xxiii. 159
+
+  "Philosophy of Umbrellas" (with Ferrier), xxv. 398
+
+  Picts, the, xxv. 434-6
+
+  "Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh," xxiii. 185, 211, 216, 218
+
+  "Pilgrim's Progress" (Bunyan), xxiii. 203; Bagster's edition, essay on
+    cuts in, xxiii. 334
+
+  Pilsach, Baron Senfft von, President of the Council, Samoa, xxv. 7, 95
+    _et seq._, 100-1, 275, 281, 286, 305, 364, 376
+
+  "Pinkerton" (Wrecker), xxiv. 368; xxv. 141 & _n._ 1, 146, 378
+
+  "Pioneering in New Guinea" (Chalmers), xxv. 39
+
+  Piquet, xxv. 428
+
+  "Pirate, The" (Marryat), xxiii. 329
+
+  "Pirate, The" (Scott), xxiii. 318
+
+  "Pirbright Smith," xxiii. 361
+
+  "Pitcairn's Criminal Trials of Scotland," xxv. 271, 293
+
+  Pitlochry, at, xxiii. 282, 306
+
+  "Plain Speaker" (Hazlitt), xxiv. 130
+
+  Platz, Herr, xxiv. 194
+
+  Poe, Edgar, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii., 166; xxiv. 83
+
+  Poems by Baildon, technique discussed, xxv. 377
+
+  Poepoe, Joseph, xxiv. 330
+
+  Poland, projected visit to, xxiii. 151, 152, 155
+
+  Pollington, Lord, xxiv. 260
+
+  Pollock, ----, xxiv. 36
+
+  Pomare V., King, xxiv. 309
+
+  Poor folk, charity of, xxv. 209-10
+
+  "Poor Thing, The," xxiii. 141
+
+  Poquelin, ----, xxiv. 123
+
+  _Portfolio, The_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii.; contributions to, xxiii. 58,
+    77, 141, 146, 151, 152, 153, 164, 166, 168, 185, 216; xxv. 397-8;
+    Colvin's work for, xxiii. 178
+
+  Portobello, beach incident, xxiii. 73; train incident, xxiii. 63
+
+  "Portrait of a Lady" (H. James), xxiv. 263
+
+  Positivism, studies in, xxiii. 159
+
+  Pratt, ----, fables by, xxv. 49
+
+  "Prince de Galles," xxiii., 356
+
+  "Prince of Gruenewald," _see_ "Prince Otto"
+
+  "Prince Otto" (Forest State _q.v._), xxiii. 229, 265, 266, 267, 278,
+    353; xxiv. 5, 23, 24, 34, 35, 36, 54, 66, 68, 73, 81, 106, 110, 142,
+    154, 173, 181; xxv. 53, 376;  criticisms, xxiv. 191; publication,
+    xxiv. 138; reviews, xxiv. 155-6
+
+  "Princess Casamassima" (H. James), xxiv. 160 _n._ 1
+
+  Princes Street, Edinburgh, xxiii. 72, 74
+
+  Pringle, Janet, xxv. 361
+
+  "Printemps, Le," group (Rodin), xxiv. 202, 209
+
+  Prisoners, Samoan, gratitude of, _see_ "Road of Loving Hearts"
+
+  Privateers, enquiry on, xxv. 380 & _n._ 1
+
+  Proctor, Mr. B. W., xxv. 29 & _n._ 2
+
+  "Professor Rensselaer," xxiii. 249
+
+  Pronouns, "direct and indirect," quip on, xxv. 174
+
+  "Providence and the Guitar," xxiii. _intro._ xx., 185, 219, 248, 268
+
+  Publishers, xxv. 123-5
+
+  "Pulvis et Umbra" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235, 253, 264, 274,284, 384;
+    xxv. 123 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Pupil, The" (H. James), xxv. 132
+
+  Purcell, Rev. ----, xxiii. 332-3; xxiv. 159
+
+  Purple passages in literature, xxv. 72-3
+
+  "Pye," ----, xxv. 30
+
+  Pyle, Howard, xxv. 164 _n._ 1
+
+
+  _Queen_, ship, xxv. 353
+
+  Queensferry, xxiii. 68, 69
+
+  Queen's River, xxv. 417
+
+  "Quentin Durward" (Scott), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1; xxiv. 91
+
+
+  "RAB and his Friends" (Brown) xxiii. 296
+
+  Raiatea, xxiv. 308 _et seq._
+
+  Raleigh, Walter, on restrained egoism in literature, xxiii. _intro._
+    xxvi., xxvii.
+
+  "Randal" (The Ebb Tide), xxv. 187
+
+  "Random Memories: the Coast of Fife" (_Scribner's_), xxiii. 12, 15;
+    xxiv. 235, 387; xxv. 97, 301
+
+  Rarotonga, xxv. 269
+
+  "Raskolnikoff" (Le Crime et le Chatiment), xxiv. 182
+
+  Rawlinson, Miss, letters to, xxiv. 227; xxv. 274; verses to, xxiv. 227
+
+  Rawlinson, Mrs., xxiv. 227
+
+  Reade, Charles, xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
+
+  "Real Thing" (H. James), xxv. 322
+
+  "Redgauntlet" (Scott), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii., 287 _n._ 1
+
+  Reformation, studies in, xxiii. 159
+
+  "Refugees" (Doyle), xxv. 340
+
+  Reid, Captain Mayne, works of, xxv. 13
+
+  "Reign of Law" (Duke of Argyll), xxiii. 67 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Rembrandt," article on, by Colvin (_Edinburgh Review_), xxiii. 225
+
+  "Reminiscences" (Carlyle), xxiii. 301
+
+  Remy, Pere, xxv. 327
+
+  Renaissance story, projected, xxiii. 167, 168
+
+  Renan, Ernest, works, xxv. 304
+
+  Rennie, John, xxiv. 121
+
+  Resignation, xxiv. 62, 76 _et seq._
+
+  "Restoration Dramatists," essay on (Lamb), xxiv. 85
+
+  Retrospective musings, xxv. 437-8
+
+  Revenge, Christian doctrine of, xxiii. 214
+
+  Rhone, the, xxiii. 79
+
+  "Richard Feverel" (Meredith), xxv. 265
+
+  _Richard III._ (Shakespeare), xxiv. 398; xxv. 51
+
+  Richardson, Samuel, novelist, xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
+
+  Richmond, Sir W. B., xxiv. 107; portrait by, xxiv. 202
+
+  _Richmond_, s.s., xxiv. 337, 343
+
+  Richmond, stay at, xxiv. 104
+
+  "Rideau Cramoisi, Le" (d'Aurevilly), xxv. 314, 380
+
+  _Ringarooma_, ship, xxv. 268-9
+
+  "Rising Sun," projected, xxiv. 403
+
+  "Ritter von dem heiligen Geist" (Heine), xxiii. 88 & _n._ 1
+
+  R. L. S. Society, Cincinnati, xxv. 384
+
+  "R. L. Stevenson in Wick" (Margaret H. Roberton), xxiii. 15 _n._ 1
+
+  "Roads," paper on, xxiii. 55, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 67, 76, 77, 117,
+    119, 121, 141, 143, 201; xxv. 397-8
+
+  "Road, the, of Loving Hearts," xxv. 374, 431 _et seq_., 441, 442, 446,
+    459 _et seq._; inscription on, xxv. 441, 446; speech by R. L. S. at
+    opening of, xxv. 441, 446, 462 _et seq._
+
+  Robert, Louis, xxiv. 28
+
+  Roberts, Earl, xxiv. 81
+
+  Robertson, --, xxiii. 117
+
+  Robertson's Sermons, xxiv, 268
+
+  Robinet, --, painter, xxiii. 98, 99
+
+  "Robin Run-the-Hedge," unfinished, xxiv. 402
+
+  "Robinson Crusoe" (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 103
+
+  Rob Roy, xxv. 293
+
+  "Rob Roy" (Scott), xxiv. 91
+
+  "Rocambole" (Ponson du Terrail), xxiii. 254
+
+  Roch, Valentine, xxiv. 110, 238 _et passim_
+
+  "Roderick Hudson" (H. James), xxiv. 262-3, 265
+
+  Rodin, Auguste, sculptor, xxiv. 107, 202; letters to, xxiv. 209, 216
+
+  Rodriguez Albano, xxiii. 244
+
+  "Rois en Exil" (Daudet), xxiii. 346
+
+  "Romance" (Longman's), xxiv. 181
+
+  Roman Law, studies in, xxiii. 126
+
+  Rondeaux, xxiii. 188-9
+
+  "Rosa Quo Locorum," xxv. 33
+
+  "Rose," character of (Meredith), xxiv. 97
+
+  "Rosen, Countess von" (Forest State), xxiii. 266
+
+  Ross, Dr. Fairfax, xxv. 348 & _n._ 1, 350
+
+  Ross family, xxiii. 28
+
+  Ross of Mull, used in "The Merry Men," xxiii. 41
+
+  Rossetti, D. G., xxiv. 239
+
+  Ross, Rev. Alexander and Mrs., xxiii. 27
+
+  Rothschild, Baron, xxiii. 195
+
+  "Rover," verses (Gosse), xxiv. 27
+
+  Rowfant, xxiv. 215
+
+  "Rowfant Rhymes" (Locker-Lampson), xxiv. 205
+
+  Royal Society of Edinburgh, xxiv. 118, 135
+
+  Royat, visits to, actual and projected, xxiv. 39, 98, 99 _et seq._;
+    xxv. 105, 131
+
+  Ruedi, Dr., xxiii. 297
+
+  Rui = Louis, in Samoan pronunciation, xxiv. 307, 310 _et alibi_
+
+  Ruskin, John, xxiii. 117; xxv. 397
+
+  Russel family, xxiii. 21, 22
+
+  Russel, Miss Sara, xxiii. 21, 22
+
+  Russel, Mrs., xxiii. 22
+
+  Russel, Sheriff, xxiii. 21, 22
+
+  Ruysdael, --, painting by, xxiii. 178
+
+
+  Sachsenhausen, xxiii. 43
+
+  Sagas, love of, xxiii. 332; xxiv. 207; xxv. 162, 211
+
+  "St. Agnes' Eve" (Keats), xxiv. 170
+
+  St. Augustine, xxiii. _intro._ xxiv.
+
+  St. Gaudens, Augustus, sculptor, xxiv. 170, 234, 238, 390; xxv. 25;
+    letters to, xxv. 308, 341, 410; medallion portrait by, xxiv. 238-9,
+    250, 255
+
+  St. Gaudens, Homer, letters to, xxiv. 287
+
+  St. Germain, at, xxiii. 305
+
+  "St. Ives," xxv. 281, 347-8, 371, 375, 380 & _n._ 1, 387, 392, 403,
+    405, 414, 430, 450; inception of, xxv. 285-6; parallel to, xxv. 442;
+    scheme for, xxv. 287
+
+  St. John, apostle, and the Revelation (in Renan's book), xxv. 304
+
+  St. Paul, xxv. 304; teaching of, xxiii. 214
+
+  Saintsbury, Professor G., xxiii. 307
+
+  Salvini, T., article on, xxiv. 72
+
+  Samoa and the Samoans for children (letters to Miss Boodle on), xxv.
+    147, 217, 243
+
+  Samoa, climate of, xxv. 250, 278, 333, 348 _n._ 1, 350, 419 contrasted
+    with Europe, xxv. 355 exile in, xxv. 349 letters from, xxv. 9 _et
+    seq._ missionary work, in, interest in, xxv. 10 & _n._ 1; xxv. 33, 56,
+    57 rain in, xxv. 443-4 rivers of, xxv. 132-3 _et seq._ visit to, and
+    settlement in, xxiv. 290 _et seq._ war trouble in, projected work on,
+    xxiv. 370, 379, 380
+
+  Samoan character, xxv. 381, 432 chiefs, road made by, _see_ "Road of
+    Loving Hearts" history, _see_ "Footnote to History" language, xxv. 49;
+    study of, xxv. 181, 203 politics, apologies for dwelling on, xxv. 388,
+    445; interest in. xxv. 4 _et passim_ prisoners (chiefs), _see_ "Road
+    of Loving Hearts"
+
+  _Samoa Times_, xxiv. 392
+
+  "Samuel Pepys," essay (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 281
+
+  Sanchez, Adolpho, xxiii. 240
+
+  Sanchez, Mrs., xxv. 257
+
+  Sand, George, writings of, xxiii. 87
+
+  Sandwich Islands, xxiv. 292, 340
+
+  "San Francisco," xxiii. 342
+
+  San Francisco, stay at, and visits to, xxiii. 229, 230; xxiv. 234,
+    283, 286, 289, 290
+
+  "Sannazzaro," xxiii. 167
+
+  Saone and Rhone, projected journey down and book on, xxiv. 98, 99
+
+  Saranac Lake, at, xxiv. 233-4, 240 _et seq._; xxv. 123 _n._ 1
+
+  Sargent, John S., artist, xxiv. 105, 167; portrait by, xxiv. 117, 155
+
+  _Saturday Review_, xxiii. 58, 69, 77
+
+  Savage Island, at, xxiv. 387
+
+  Savile Club, the, xxiii. 124, 127, 133, 186, 263; xxiv. 187
+
+  Schmidt, Emil, President of Council, Samoa, xxv. 416, 424
+
+  "Schooner Farallone," _see_ "Ebb Tide"
+
+  Schopenhauer, studies in, xxiii. 159
+
+  Schwob, Marcel, letters to, xxiv. 327, 397; xxv. 51, 409
+
+  Sciatica, xxiv. 92
+
+  "Scotch Church and Union" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
+
+  Scotch labourer and politics, xxiii. 61
+
+  Scotch murder trials, books on, asked for, xxv. 271
+
+  Scotch songs, Russian pleasure in, xxiii. 113
+
+  "Scotland and the Union," projected, xxiii. 297
+
+  Scotland, last visit, xxiv. 227
+
+  Scotland, whisky, etc., of, xxiii. 41
+
+  _Scotsman_, xxv. 398
+
+  _Scots Observer_, contribution to, xxv. 174
+
+  "Scots wha hae," air, xxiii. 113
+
+  Scott, Dr., letter to, xxiv. 374
+
+  Scott, Sir Walter (_see also_ Waverley Novels), xxiii. 65 & _n._ 1,
+    111, 130 _n._ 1, 264, 333; xxiv. 75, 76, 84, 91, 382; xxv. 86, 110,
+    154, 164, 167,371; love of action, xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv.; nobility of
+    character, xxiii. _intro._ xxxv.; novels, xxv. 24; novels contrasted
+    with R. L. S.'s, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  Scribner, C., xxiv. 233, 253-4, 390; xxv. 25, 380, 392; letters to,
+    xxiv. 252
+
+  Scribner, Messrs., verse published by, xxiv. 395
+
+  _Scribner's Magazine_, xxiv. 110, 142, 253, 258; contributions, actual
+    and suggested, xxiv. 233, 235, 239, 240, 247, 252, 268, 277, 287, 367,
+    377 _et seq._, 387, 393; xxv. 86, 97, 110, 115, 171 _n._ 1
+
+  "Sea-Cook, The" (_see also_ "Treasure Island"), xxiii. 326-7
+
+  Sedan, xxv. 250, 318
+
+  Seed, Hon. J., xxiii. 179; xxiv. 405
+
+  Seeley, Professor, style of, xxiv. 55-6
+
+  Seeley, Richmond, publisher and editor (_see also_ "Portfolio"),
+    xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 141, 142, 143, 148, 398
+
+  Sellar, Mrs., xxiii. 115
+
+  "Sensations d'Italie" (Bourget), xxv. 127, 130-1
+
+  "Sentimental Journey" (Sterne), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  "Sentimental Tommy" (Barrie), xxv. 419 & _n._ 1
+
+  Seraphina (_see also_ "Prince Otto"), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
+
+  "Service of Man" (Cotter Morison), xxiv. 219-20
+
+  Seumanutafa, Chief, of Apia, xxv. 26, 48-9, 105
+
+  "Seventeenth Century Studies" (Gosse), xxiv. 45
+
+  Sewall, Mr., American Consul at Samoa, xxv. 4, 29, 58, 65-6
+
+  "Shadow, The, on the Bed" (Mrs. R. L. S.), xxiii. 308, 316, 321
+
+  Shairp, Professor, xxiii. 191, 263
+
+  Shaltigoe, wreck at, xxiii. 22
+
+  Shannon, W. J., xxiii. 332-3
+
+  Shaw, Bernard, appreciation of, xxiv. 270-1
+
+  Shelley, Lady, xxiv. 105, 149, 177, 179, 211; xxv. 131
+
+  "Shelley Papers" (Dowden), xxiv. 211, 212
+
+  Shelley, P. B., xxiv. 177-8, 212; 372, 373-4; and Keats, xxiv. 211
+
+  Shelley, Sir P. B., xxiv. 177-8, 211, 373; xxv. 458
+
+  "Sherlock Holmes" (Doyle), xxv. 299
+
+  Shetland, visited, xxiii. 10, 24
+
+  "Shovels of Newton French," projected, xxv. 5, 55-6, 82-3, 172
+
+  Sick child, episode of, xxiii. 230, 269
+
+  "Sign of the ship" causerie (Lang), xxiv. 278, 388
+
+  "Sigurd" (W. Morris), xxiii. 334; xxv. 162
+
+  Silverado, life at, xxiii. 278
+
+  "Silverado Squatters," xxiii. 230, 279, 283, 352, 355; xxiv. 5, 26,
+    27, 30 & _n._ 1, 34, 56, 66, 67, 73, 92; xxv. 423; serial issue of,
+    xxiv. 55
+
+  "Silver Ship," _see_ "Casco"
+
+  Simoneau, Jules, xxiii. 239, 240, 244; xxiv. 423; letters to, xxiv.
+    36, 41
+
+  Simoneau, Mrs., xxiv. 42
+
+  "Simon Fraser" (Catriona), xxv. 351 & _n._ 1
+
+  Simpson, Sir Walter, xxiii. 36,43, 46, 49, 69, 89, 124, 159, 174, 182,
+    187, 259, 341, 353; xxiv. 47; letter to, xxiv. 117, 229, 242; yachting
+    trip with, xxiii. 124, 139, 140
+
+  Simson, Dr., xxiv. 91
+
+  Sinclair, Miss Amy, xxiii. 24, 27-8
+
+  Sinclair, Sir Tollemache, xxiii. 27
+
+  Sinico, --, singer, xxiii. 166
+
+  "Sire de Maletroit's Door," xiii. 184, 206, 207, 211, 248
+
+  Siron, aubergiste, Barbizon, xxiii. 187
+
+  Sitwell, Mrs. (_see also_ Colvin, Lady), xxiii. 54, 300; xxiv. 335;
+    xxv. 85; letter to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, xxiv. 331; letters to,
+    from R. L. S., xxiii. 57, 58, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 74, 77, 83, 86, 91,
+    93, 101, 103, 104, 110, 115, 121, 125, 127, 131, 133, 137, 139, 140,
+    144, 148, 149, 151, 153, 155, 156, 158, 161, 164, 166, 168, 171, 174,
+    175, 177, 180 _bis_, 181, 187, 189, 197, 198, 200, 203, 205, 207, 323;
+    xxiv. 24; xxv. 393
+
+  Skelt, xxiv. 57, 93
+
+  Skene, William Forbes, xxv. 434-5
+
+  Skerryvore, article on (Archer), xxiv. 305
+
+  "Skerryvore" (house), xxiv. 105, 109, 141, 196, 252; xxv. 31 _n._ 2,
+    75
+
+  Skinner, Mr., xxv. 413
+
+  Slade School, xxiv. 39
+
+  "Sleeper Awakened," xxv. 314 & _n._ 1
+
+  Smeoroch, Skye terrier, xxiv. 77 & _n._ 1; xxv. 429
+
+  Smiles, Samuel, xxiv. 121
+
+  Smith, Adam, xxiii. 72
+
+  Smith, Captain, xxiii. 235
+
+  Smith, Rev. George, xxiii. 4; xxiv. 265 _n._ 1
+
+  Soalu, Chief, xxv. 460
+
+  Society for Psychical Research, Journals of, xxv. 299
+
+  "Soldiers Three" (Kipling), xxv. 46
+
+  "Solemn Music" (Milton), xxiii. 294
+
+  "Solomon Crabb," xxiii. 343-4
+
+  "Solution, The" (Lesson of the Master, H. James), xxiv. 382
+
+  "Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle" (Wordsworth), xxiii. 315 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Song of To-morrow," xxiii. 141
+
+  "Songs of Scotland without words, for the Pianoforte" (Surrenne),
+    xxiii. 113
+
+  "Songs of Travel," xxiv. 190, 239, 337, 362, 375, 378, 395; xxv. 349 &
+    _n._ 1
+
+  "Sonnet to England" (Martin), xxiii. 210
+
+  "Sophia Scarlett," proposed, xxv. 144, 152-3, 172, 187, 281
+
+  Sophocles, translation (Campbell), xxiv. 113
+
+  Sorrow, discipline of, xxiv. 163
+
+  Soudan affairs, xxiv. 107
+
+  Southey, R., xxiii. 302
+
+  "South Sea Ballads," xxiv. 298-9, 317, 321, 380, 395, 399
+
+  "South Sea Bubble" (Earl of Pembroke), xxv. 153 _n._ 1; on Kava, xxv.
+    183 _n._ 1; on Samoan streams, xxiv. 133 _n._ 1
+
+  "South Sea Idylls" (Stoddard), xxiv. 180
+
+  South Sea Islands, call of, xxiii. 180, 205
+
+  "South Sea Letters," published first as "The South Seas," later as "In
+    the South Seas," _q.v._; selection from, projected, xxv. 423
+
+  South Seas, cruises in, xxiv. 233 _et seq._, 286 _et seq._
+
+  "South Sea Yarns" (with Lloyd Osbourne), projected, xxiv. 361, 367,
+    379; xxv. 397
+
+  Spain, xxiii. 119
+
+  _Spectator_, xxiii. 239, 264; xxv. 58
+
+  "Spectator" (Addison's), style of, xxiii. 252
+
+  Speculative Society, Edinburgh University, xxiii. 35, 64, 184, 312;
+    xxiv. 178
+
+  Speed, --, xxv. 210
+
+  Spencer, --, xxv. 74-5
+
+  Spencer, Herbert, xxiii. 169
+
+  _Sperber_, German warship, xxv. 29
+
+  Speyside, in, xxiii. 284
+
+  "Spring Sorrow" (Henley), xxiii. 186
+
+  "Spring time," xxiii. 191, 193, 196, 197, 202
+
+  "Squaw Men," projected, xxiii. 329
+
+  "Squire" (Story of a Lie), xxiii. 249
+
+  "Squire Trelawney" (Treasure Island), xxiii. 326-7
+
+  Stansfield, --, xxv. 269
+
+  "Stepfather's Story," projected, xxiii. 207
+
+  Stephen, Leslie, xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 174, 184, 205, 206, 207, 241,
+    256, 257, 264, 267, 302, 311; xxiv. 47; letter from with appreciation
+    of "Victor Hugo," xxiii. 129 _et seq._ & _n._ 1; introduction by, of
+    R. L. S. and Henley, xxiii. 172; on "Forest Notes," xxiii. 201, 202;
+    testimonial from, xxiii. 316
+
+  Stephenson, --, xxiii. 25
+
+  Sterne, Laurence, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  Stevenson, Alan, xxv. 335, 401, 436
+
+  Stevenson family, inquiries concerning, xxv. 293, 335, 342, 357, 399,
+    435-7
+
+  Stevenson, Hugh, xxv. 335
+
+  Stevenson, James, xxv. 334
+
+  Stevenson, James S., letter to, xxv. 334, 342
+
+  Stevenson, J. Horne, xxv. 293, 345, 435; letter to, xxv. 357
+
+  Stevenson, John, xxv. 358
+
+  Stevenson, Katharine (_see also_ de Mattos), xxiii. 138
+
+  Stevenson, Macgregor, xxv. 293
+
+  Stevenson, Mrs. Alan, xxv. 110, 436
+
+  Stevenson, Mrs. R. L., xxiv. 234, 247-8, 251, 256, 258-9, 275, 282,
+    291-2, 323, 330-1, 341-2, 390; xxv. 29, 30, 31, 38, 249-50, 371, 377;
+    character, xxiii. 279-80; first meeting, xxiii. 183, 228; marriage,
+    xxiii. 228 _et seq._, 260, 262, 268, 270, 272, 274; xxiv. 105;
+    collaboration with R. L. S., xxiii. 282; letter to, on avoiding the
+    infliction of pain in literary work, xxiii. _intro._ xxvi.; story by
+    (_see_ "Shadow on the Bed"); ill health and illness of, xxiii. 280,
+    283-4, 320-1,355; xxv. 146, 280, 297 _et seq._, 320-1 _et alibi_;
+    letter to, xxiv. 349; letters from, to S. Colvin, xxiv. 309, 347, to
+    Mrs. Sitwell, xxiv. 331, to J. A. Symonds, xxiv. 11
+
+  Stevenson, Mrs. Thomas (_nee_ Balfour), xxiii. 4, 6, 148; xxiv. 39,
+    147, 199, 216, 220, 234, 248, 251, 258, 276, 280, 290, 291, 309, 310,
+    314, 323, 331, 336, 341, 343, 366, 375, 405; xxv. 3, 31, 50, 53, 193
+    _et seq._, 259, 282, 403, 406, 416; letters to, xxiii. 14, 15, 17, 19,
+    21, 24, 36, 38, 39, 44, 56, 81, 94, 96, 97, 99, 107, 112, 116, 117,
+    118, 120, 187, 215, 216, 218, 298, 337, 354; xxiv. 9, 21, 66, 76, 202,
+    383; settled in Samoa, xxv. 76, 78
+
+  Stevenson, Mrs. Thomas, and Thomas Stevenson, letters to (jointly),
+    _see_ Stevenson, Thomas, _infra_
+
+  Stevenson, name, query on to Sir H. Maxwell, xxv. 440
+
+  Stevenson, Robert, xxiii. 4, 13, 160, 200; xxiv. 359; xxv. 87, 95, 98,
+    120, 310, 315, 401, and _see_ "Family of Engineers"
+
+  Stevenson, Robert (the first), xxv. 335
+
+  Stevenson, Robert Alan Mowbray (Bob), xxiii. 49, 57, 58, 83, 103,
+    105, 109, 110, 124, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 149, 174, 183, 187, 239,
+    308, 341; xxiv. 3, 69, 89, 124, 167, 196, 328 & _n._ 1; letters to,
+    xxiii. 356; xxiv. 8, 59, 196, 198, 240, 323; xxv. 398, 401, 434
+
+  Stevenson, Robert Louis Balfour ("R. L. S."), ancestry, xxiii. 4, 5;
+    appearance, xxiii. _intro._ xxxviii.; appreciation of, by Lysaght,
+    xxv. 415 _n._ 1; appreciation of his own literary skill, xxv. 443;
+    characteristics and habitudes, xxiii. _intro._ xxii., xxvi. _et seq._,
+    8-12, 186; xxiv. 296; xxv. 33, 415, _n._ 1; charm, xxiii. _intro._
+    xxiii., xxvi., xxvii.-ix., xxxi., 55; xxv. 415; conversation, xxiii.
+    _intro._ xxxi., 9. 123; help derived from writings of, xxii., _intro._
+    xxix., 253-4; interest in missionary work, xxv. 10 & _n._ 1, 33, 56,
+    57; interest in music, xxiv. 188-9, 196 _et seq._, 285, 302; xxv. 85,
+    92, 125, 185; literary style and methods, xxiii. _intro._ xix. _et
+    seq._; xxv. 173; political views, xxiv. 107-8; portraits, busts,
+    photographs of, xxiv. 117, 154, 170, 177, 199, 202, 238-9, 250, 255;
+    xxv. 309, 310, 341, 353 & _n._ 1; relations with his father, xxiv. 5,
+    6 _et alibi_; religious views, xxiii. _intro._ xxxii., 11, 12, 53-4,
+    67
+
+   Life, 1850-57, Birth and Early delicacy, xxiii. 5
+
+    1858-67, Education and home life and early travels, xxiii. 6-8
+
+    1868-70, Engineering studies, xxiii. 10
+
+    1871-4, Law studies, religious differences with parents, xxiii.
+      10-12
+
+    1874-5 (May to June), Law studies, home life, experimental
+      literature, travels, home and foreign, and friendships, xxiii. 123-4
+
+    1875-79 (July to July), Bar studies concluded, travels in France and
+      Germany, life at the bar abandoned for literature; Fontainebleau
+      again, xxiii. 182-3; early journalistic and other writing, xxiii.
+      184-5
+
+    1879-1880 (July to July), Californian visit, hardships, illness,
+      marriage, xxiii. 228-30
+
+    1880, Aug.-1882, Oct., Home from California, xxiii. 279; summers in
+      Scotland, xxiii. 279-80; winters at Davos, and literary work, xxiii.
+      280, 283
+
+    1882, Oct.-1884, Aug., The Riviera again, Montpellier and
+      Marseilles, Nice, xxiv. 5; Hyeres home life, happier relations with
+      parents, illness and literary work, letters, xxiv. 3-5
+
+    1874, Sept.-1887, Aug., Bournemouth homes--"Skerryvore," invalid
+      life, friendships, and literary work, xxiv. 104-9; visit to Paris,
+      schemes for life in Ireland, xxiv. 108; death of his father, and
+      departure for Colorado, xxiv. 110
+
+    1887, Aug.-1888, June, Voyage to New York and reception there,
+      friends new and old, stay in the Adirondacks, journey to San
+      Francisco, xxiv. 233-4
+
+    1888, June-1890, Oct., Voyages in the Pacific, xxiv. 290-3;
+      settlement at Vailima, xxiv. 291-2; controversy about Father Damien,
+      xxiv. 292
+
+    1890, Nov.-1891, Dec., First year at Vailima, Samoan politics,
+      letters on, to _The Times_--building of the first Vailima house,
+      xxv. 3-8
+
+    1892, Jan. to Dec., Life at Vailima, second year, visitors,
+      enlargement of the house, Samoan politics, threatened deportation,
+      xxv. 144-6
+
+    1893, Jan. to Dec., Life at Vailima, third year, the addition to the
+      house completed, Samoan politics, proclamation aimed at him, illness
+      of Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, trips to Sydney, to Honolulu, to New
+      Zealand, outbreak of war, financial anxieties, signs of
+      life-weariness, xxv. 280-2
+
+    1894, Jan. to Dec., fourth year at Vailima, illness and recovery,
+      loss of literary facility, financial position, visitors, xxv. 373-5;
+      the making of the Road of Gratitude, xxv. 374, 432 _et seq._, 441,
+      446; speech and feast to the chiefs, xxv. 441, 446, 462 _et seq._;
+      sudden death and burial, xxv. 8, 10 _n._ 1, 375; account of, by
+      Lloyd Osbourne, xxv. 457 _et seq._; epitaph, xxiii. 268; xxv. 375
+
+  Stevenson, Thomas, xxii. 4, 5, 11, 12, 20, 24, 146, 148, 180, 260, 261
+    & _n._ 1, 279, 285, 298, 328, 347, 353; xxiv. 5, 6, 39, 58, 105, 107,
+    108, 118, 119, 135, 138, 147, 161, 187, 188, 189, 196, 199, 210, 216,
+    220, 234, 276, 280, 365, 405; xxv. 335, 382, 401; affection for Mrs.
+    R. L. S., xxiii. 279; gift to her of a Bournemouth house, xxiv. 105;
+    biographical essay on, xxiii. 21; letters to, xxiii. 13, 42, 111, 113,
+    213, 290, 330; xxiv. 9, 22, 62, 74, 90, 118, 119, 137, 159, 179, 190,
+    201; Memories of, xxv. 413; misunderstandings with, xxiii. _intro._
+    xvii., 11, 12, 55, 67; religious views, xxiii. 11, 12, 52, 67; death,
+    xxiii. 5; xxiv. 109, 227
+
+   and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson, joint letters to, xxiii. 215, 296, 305;
+    xxiv. 27, 75, 76, 78, 100, 110, 130, 168, 199
+
+  "Stewart, Alan Breck," xxv. 46-8
+
+  Stewart, James (_see_ Appin murder)
+
+  Stewart, Miss (Bathgate), xxiii. 227
+
+  Stewart, Sir Herbert, xxiv. 81
+
+  Stewart's plantation, Tahiti, xxv. 153 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Stickit Minister" (Crockett), dedication of, xxv. 349 & _n._ 1
+
+  Stobo Manse, at, xxiii. 284, 357
+
+  Stockton, F. R., verse to, xxiv. 125
+
+  Stoddard, Charles Warren, xxv. 267; letters to, xxiii. 275, 294; xxiv,
+    180
+
+  "Stories and Interludes" (Barry Pain), xxv. 215
+
+  "Stories," or "A Story Book," projected, xxiii. 249
+
+  Storm, ideas on, xxiii. 150
+
+  "Story of a Lie," xxiii. 12, 229, 230, 235, 237, 247, 249; xxiv. 90
+
+  "Strange Adventures of Mr. Nehemiah Solny," projected, xxiii. 170
+
+  "Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.;
+    xxiv. 106, 169, 171, 182, 233, 253, 398; xxv. 289; publication, xxiv.
+    166; dedication, xxiv. 167; criticisms, xxiv. 184
+
+  Strathpeffer, at, xxiii. 280, 284, 285
+
+  Streams, Samoan, peculiarities of, xxv. 36
+
+  Strong, Austin, xxiv. 151, 341; xxv. 92, 117, 249 & _n._ 1, 269 & _n._
+    1, 389, 403, 446
+
+  Strong, Mrs., xxiv. 325 & _n._ 1, 341; xxv. _passim_; letter to,
+    xxiii. 286
+
+  Stuebel, Dr., German Consul, xxv. 35, 41 & _n._ 1, 141
+
+  Sturgis, Mrs., xxv. 391
+
+  "Subpriorsford," nickname for Vailima, xxv. 165, 170
+
+  "Such is Life," poem (Martin), xxiii. 209
+
+  Sudbury, Suffolk, at, xxiii. 56
+
+  Suffering, value of, xxiii. 251
+
+  Suffolk, peasantry, xxiii. 61
+
+  "Suicide Club," xxiii. _intro._ xx., 356
+
+  Sullivan, Russell, xxv. 25
+
+  Sunrise, tonic of, xxv. 401
+
+  Sutherland, Mr., xxiii. 15
+
+  Sutherland, Mrs., xxiii. 22
+
+  Swan, Professor, xxiii. 193; xxiv. 143; xxv. 315
+
+  Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, xxiii. 8, 123, 126 _et seq._, 312
+
+  "Sweet Girl Graduate, A," and other poems (Martin), xxiii. 208-9
+
+  Swift, Dr. and Mrs., of Molokai, xxiv. 351-2
+
+  Swinburne, A. C., poems, xxv. 390
+
+  Sydney, N.S.W., visits to, and illnesses at, xxiv. 292-3, 325, 375,
+    382 _et seq._, 394; xxv. 4, 38, _n._ 1, 53 _et seq._, 61, 77, 81, 208,
+    288-9, 296
+
+  Symonds, J. A., xxiii. 281, 304, 311, 317, 334, 341, 351, 361; xxiv.
+    142; dedication of book by, xxv. 454; epithet of, for R. L. S., xxiii.
+    _intro._ xxvi.; letter to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, xxiv. 11;
+    letters to, xxiv. 182, 254, 304; on Southey, xxiii. 302; death of,
+    xxv. 317 & _n._ 1
+
+
+  "Table Talk" (Hazlitt), xxiv. 130
+
+  Tacitus, xxiv. 83
+
+  Tahiti, xxiv. 291, 371
+
+  Tahitian Islands, xxiv. 293; stay in, xxiv. 291, 296 _et seq._
+
+  Tait, Professor, xxiv. 118
+
+  "Tales and Fantasies," xxv. 397.
+
+  "Tales for Winter Nights," projected title, xxiii. 316, 318
+
+  "Tales of a Grandfather" (Scott), xxv. 117
+
+  "Tales of my Grandfather" (_see also_ "Family of Engineers"), xxv. 110
+
+  "Talk and Talkers" (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 283, 341, 349; xxiv. 138
+
+  Tamasese, xxiv. 371; xxv. 67, 351
+
+  Tamate, _see_ Chalmers
+
+  Tati, high chief of the Tevas, xxiv. 317
+
+  Tauchnitz, Baron, and "Footnote," xxv. 346
+
+  Tautira, at, xxiv. 291, 302 _et seq._, 317
+
+  Taylor, Ida and Una, xxiv. 105, 372, 374
+
+  Taylor, Lady, xxiv. 105, 180; xxv. 203; death of, xxv. 254; letters
+    to, xxiv. 211, 212, 286, 357, 372
+
+  Taylor, Miss, xxv. 364; letter to, xxv. 254
+
+  Taylor, Sir Henry, xxiv. 145, 180
+
+  Tembinoka, King of Apemama, xxiv. 358-9, 368, 400; verses to, xxiv.
+    378, 380
+
+  _Temple Bar_, contributions to, xxiii. 184, 206, 207, 211
+
+  Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (_see also_ "Becket"), xxiv. 205
+
+  "Tentation de St. Antoine" (Flaubert), xxiii. 150
+
+  Teriitera, Samoan name of R. L. S., xxiv. 308, 310, 317, 321
+
+  "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" (Hardy), xxv. 266 _n._ 1, 296
+
+  Thackeray, W. M., xxv. 154
+
+  "Theatrical World" (Archer), xxv. 384
+
+  "Therese Raquin" (Zola), xxiv. 57
+
+  "The Tempest" (Shakespeare), xxiv. 96
+
+  "Thomas Haggard" (Window in Thrums), xxv. 276
+
+  Thomson, Maggie, xxiii. 25
+
+  Thomson, Mr., xxiii. 8
+
+  "Thomson," pseudonym, letters in character of and as to, xxiv. 14,
+    121, 122
+
+  Thoreau, Henry David, essay on (Familiar Studies), xxiii. 226, 229,
+    252, 255, 262, 263, 265, 273; xxiv. 149, 158; criticisms on, xxiii.
+    322
+
+  "Thoughts on Literature as an Art," xxiii. 266
+
+  "Thrawn Janet" (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 282, 308, 316, 321; xxiv. 90; xxv.
+    295
+
+  "Tibby Birse" (Window in Thrums), xxv. 276, 362 _n._ 1
+
+  Time, Archer's criticisms in, xxiv. 156, 159, 160, 161
+
+  "Time" (Milton), xxiii. 294
+
+  _Times, The_, letters to, on Samoan affairs, xxv. 7, 94, 98, 119, 137,
+    145, 212, 376, 386, 387
+
+  Todd, John, xxiv. 221
+
+  Todd, Mrs., xxiv. 221
+
+  "Tod Lapraik" (Catriona), xxv. 294-5
+
+  "Tommy Haddon" (Wrecker), xxv. 268 & _n._ 1
+
+  "Toothache, The" (Burns), xxiv. 256
+
+  "Torn Surplice, The," suggested title, xxiii. 321
+
+  Torquay, at, xxiv. 109
+
+  Torrence, Rev. ----, xxiii. 181
+
+  "Touchstone, The," xxiii. 141
+
+  Tourgenieff, ----, xxiii. 222
+
+  "Tourgue, la" ("Quatre-vingt Treize," Hugo), xxiii. 130
+
+  Trades Unions, xxiii. 97
+
+  "Tragedies of the Wilderness" (Drake), xxiv. 270
+
+  "Tragic Comedians" (Meredith), xxiii. 224
+
+  "Tragic Muse, The" (H. James), xxiv. 397; xxv. 44, 130-1
+
+  "Transformation of the Scottish Highlands," projected, xxiii. 297
+
+  Traquair, Willie, xxiii. 20, xxiv. 70
+
+  "Travailleurs de la Mer" (Hugo), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
+
+  Travel-books, cheap edition projected, xxiii. 294
+
+  "Travelling Companion, The," projected, xxiii. 321; xxiv. 68, 149
+
+  "Travels and Excursions," Vols. II. and III. discussed, xxv. 423
+
+  "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes," xxiii. 183, 184, 185, 216,
+    217, 219, 225, 229, 248, 250, 257
+
+  "Treasure Island," xxiii. _intro._ xxxv., 282, 283, 326, 334, 352,
+    355; xxiv. 31, 93, 101, 112, 179, 233; xxv. 76, 124, 289, 429;
+    publication as serial, xxiii. 328; in book form, xxiv. 6, 27, 35, 67;
+    criticisms, xxiv. 66; genesis of, xxiv. 101; illustrated edition,
+    xxiv. 159; paper on, xxv. 376
+
+  "Treasure of Franchard," xxiv. 4, 398; xxv. 153
+
+  "Trial of Joan of Arc," xxiii. 203
+
+  "Trials of the Sons of Rob Roy, with Anecdotes," xxiii. 332
+
+  "Tricoche et Cacolet," xxiii. 219
+
+  "Tristram Shandy" (Sterne), xxiii. 118
+
+  Trollope, Anthony, novels of, xxiii. 215
+
+  "Trophees, Les" (Heredia), xxv. 331 & _n._ 1
+
+  Trudeau, Dr., xxiv. 234
+
+  Tulloch, Principal, xxiii. 280, 290, 297, 316; xxv. 97, 123
+
+  Tupper, Martin, xxiii. 348
+
+  "Tushery," xxiv. 6, 31, 32
+
+  Tusitala, xxv. 196 _et aliter_
+
+  Tutuila, visited, xxv. 4, 8, 58, 65
+
+  "Twa Dogs" (Burns), xxiii. 225
+
+  Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens), xxiii. 276
+
+  _Twelfth Night_ (Shakespeare) at the Jenkins', xxiii. 175, 176, 178
+
+  "Two Falconers, The, of Cairnstane," xxiii. 170
+
+  "Two St. Michael's Mounts," essay, projected, xxiii. 207
+
+  "Two Years before the Mast" (Dana), xxiv. 297
+
+  "Typee" (Melville), xxiv. 348
+
+
+  Ulufanua, island, xxv. 97
+
+  "Underwoods," collected verses, xxiii. 222, 271, 281, 296, 300; xxiv.
+    36, 89, 107, 170, 173 _n._ 1, 189-90, 214, 215, 229-30, 231, 395; xxv.
+    376, 398; dedication of, xxiv. 374; review by Gosse, xxiv. 244;
+    success of, xxiv. 239, 255-6
+
+  United States, the, and Samoa, xxv. 6 _et seq._
+
+  Upolu and Savaii, xxv. 8
+
+
+  Vacquerie, ----, xxiii. 307
+
+  Vaea, Mount, xxv. 9, 135, 388; burial-place, xxv. 10 _n._ 1, 460
+
+  Vaea river, xxv. 132 _et seq._
+
+  Vailima, home at, xxiv. 291; purchase of, xxiv. 292, 372-3, 374, 377,
+    390; life at, xxv. 3 _et seq._, 148-51, 156 _et seq._, 280 _et seq._;
+    visitors to, xxv. 228; expenses, xxv. 282; household staff, xxv.
+    356-7; joy of colour at, xxv. 378; new house, xxv. 145-6, 251, 269,
+    271, 278-9, 284, 287; decorations for, xxv. 308-9; feeling about, xxv.
+    349
+
+  "Vailima Letters," xxiii. _intro._ xviii., xxix.; xxv. 5
+
+  _Vanity Fair_, magazine, contributions to, xxiii. 184, 198, 199
+
+  "Vanity Fair" (Thackeray), xxv. 154
+
+  Vedder, Elihu, illustrator of "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam," xxiv. 116
+
+  "Velasquez" (R. A. M. Stevenson), xxiii. 57
+
+  "Vendetta, in the West," unfinished, xxiii. 229, 238-9, 241, 244, 255,
+    256, 259, 266
+
+  Verses, Miscellaneous and Impromptu--
+
+    "Adela, Adela, Adela Chart," xxv. 109
+
+    "Bells upon the City are ringing in the night," xxiv. 167
+
+    "Blame me not that this Epistle," letter in verse to Baxter, xxiii.
+      46
+
+    "Brave lads in olden musical centuries," xxiii. 304
+
+    "Dear Henley, with a pig's snout on," xxiii. 330
+
+    "Do you remember--can we e'er forget?--," xxiv. 376
+
+    "Far have you come, my lady, from the town," rondel, xxiii. 188
+
+    "Feast of Famine" (Ballads, 1890), xxiv. 298-9, 321, 330, 395
+
+    "Figure me to yourself, I pray," xxiii. 287
+
+    "He may have been this and that," xxiv. 190
+
+    "Here's breid an' wine an' kebbuck," xxiii. 257
+
+    "Home no more home to me, where must I wander?" (Songs of Travel),
+      xxiv. 303
+
+    "I heard the pulse of the besieging sea" (to Colvin), xxiv. 366;
+      xxv. 23 & _n._ 1
+
+    "In the beloved hour that ushers day" (Songs of Travel), xxiv. 240
+
+    "I was a barren tree before," xxv. 366
+
+    "I would shoot you, but I have no bow," xxiii. 360
+
+    "Let us who part like brothers part like bards" (Songs of Travel),
+      xxiv. 378, 380
+
+    "My Stockton if I failed to like," xxiv. 125
+
+    "Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green," xxiii. 193
+
+    "Nor you, O Penny Whistler, grudge," xxiv. 20
+
+    "Not roses to the rose, I trow," xxiv. 205
+
+    "Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert," xxiii. 271
+
+    "Nous n'irons plus au bois," rondel, xxiii. 188-9
+
+    "Of the many flowers you brought me" (to Miss Rawlinson), xxiv. 227
+
+    "Of where or how, I nothing know," xxiii. 232
+
+    "O Henley, in my hours of ease," xxiii. 222
+
+    "O, how my spirit languishes," xxiv. 299
+
+    "O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz," xxv. 278
+
+    "Priests' Drought, The," ballad, xxiv. 321
+
+    "Song of Rahero," ballad, xxiv. 317, 321, 330, 395; xxv. 58
+
+    "Tandem Desino," xxiv. 79 _et seq._ "The pleasant river gushes,"
+      xxiv. 32
+
+    "There was racing and chasing in Vailima plantation," xxv. 422
+
+    "Though I've often been touched with the volatile dart," xxv. 109
+
+    "Ticonderoga," ballad, xxiv. 321, 395
+
+    "To Felix," xxiv. 189, 190 "We're quarrelling, the villages," xxv. 50
+
+    "When from her land to mine she goes" (Songs of Travel), xxiv. 345
+
+    "Woodman, The" _(New Review)_, xxv. 18 & _n._ 1, 20
+
+    "Youth now flees on feathered foot," xxiv. 172, 181
+
+  "Vicar of Wakefield," xxv. 14 _n._ 1
+
+  "Vicomte de Bragelonne" (Dumas), xxiv. 398; xxv. 51
+
+  Victor Hugo's romances, essay on, xxiii. 56, 124-5, 126, 127, 135
+
+  Victoria, Queen, xxiii. 323
+
+  Villiers, Lady Margaret, xxv. 228, 236
+
+  "Viol and Flute" (Gosse), xxiv. 98
+
+  "Virginibus Puerisque," xxiii. 184, 185, 203, 204, 208, 212, 284, 294;
+    xxv. 301 _n._ 1; publication, xxiii. 281; new edition, xxiv. 195, 216;
+    reprint, xxiv. 230
+
+  Vitrolles, Baron de, xxv. 288 _n._ 1, 321
+
+  Viviani, Emillia, xxiv. 212
+
+  Vogelweide, Walther von der (Studies in the Literature of Modern
+    Europe), Gosse's introduction to, xxiii. 221
+
+  "Volsungs" (Morris), xxiii. 334
+
+  Voltaire, xxiii. 297; on OEdipus, xxiv. 114
+
+  _Vossische Zeitung_, xxv. 263
+
+
+  Wachtmeister, Count, xxv. 96
+
+  "Waif Woman, The," xxv. 272 & _n._ 1
+
+  Walker, Patrick, xxiv. 91
+
+  "Walking Tours," xxiii. 202
+
+  _Wallaroo_, H.M.S., officers, xxv. 452
+
+  Walter, the Skye terrier, and his sobriquets, xxiii. 280, 281, 318;
+    xxv. 41 & _n._ 2, _et alibi_
+
+  "Wandering Willie," air, xxiii. 113
+
+  "Wandering Willie's Tale" (Redgauntlet), xxiii. 287
+
+  "Washington" (Irving), xxv. 30
+
+  Watts-Dunton, T., letter to, xxiv. 203
+
+  Waverley Novels (Scott), xxiv. 75, 76, 84, 91; xxv. 228
+
+  "Waverley" (Scott), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.; xxiv. 91
+
+  "Way of the World" (Trollope), xxiii. 215
+
+  Weather and the old woman, xxiii. 175
+
+  Webster, essay on (Gosse), xxiv. 45
+
+  Week, The, xxiv. 45
+
+  "Wegg, Silas," (Our Mutual Friend), xxiii. 226
+
+  "Weg," nickname for Gosse, xxiii. 224, 226, 227
+
+  "Weir of Hermiston," unfinished, xxiii. _intro._ xx., 12; xxv. 144,
+    170, 264-5, 274, 281, 284, 287, 293, 306-7, 338, 350, 375, 383, 392,
+    403, 453, 456-7; scheme for, xxv. 258, 260-1, 270-1
+
+  Wellington, Duke of (_see also_ "Life" of), xxiv. 34 _n._ 1;
+    Tennyson's "Ode" on, xxiii. 293
+
+  Went, George, xxv. 23 & _n._ 1, 100
+
+  "Werther" (Goethe's "Sorrows of Werther"), xxiii. 60
+
+  Western Islands, trip among, xxiii. 124
+
+  West Highlands, visit to, xxiii. 183
+
+  "What was on the Slate," xxiii. 222, 267
+
+  "When the Devil was well," xxiii. 167, 168, 186
+
+  "Where" and "Whereas," use discussed, xxv. 163
+
+  "White Company" (Doyle), xxv. 336
+
+  Whitman, Walt, essays on, xxiii. 55, 70, 72, 86, 89, 103, 104, 139,
+    140; works of, xxiii. 70, 72, 357-8; xxiv. 183
+
+  Whitmee, Rev. S. J., missionary xxv. 174, 180, 202, 203; letter to,
+    xxv. 174
+
+  Wick, at, xxiii. 12, 15
+
+  "Widdicombe Fair," song, xxv. 391
+
+  Wiesbaden, visit to, xxiii. 182
+
+  "Wild Man of the Woods," xxiii. 249
+
+  "Will o' the Mill," xxiii. 184, 207, 248, 268
+
+  Williams, Dr., of Nice, xxiv. 59
+
+  Williams, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 353
+
+  "William Wilson" (Poe), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
+
+  "Wiltshire" (Beach of Falesa), xxv. 187
+
+  "Window in Thrums" (Barrie), xxv. 276, 362 & _n._ 1
+
+  Winslow Reef, xxiv. 362
+
+  "Winter and New Year" (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
+
+  "Winter's Walk, The," unfinished, xxiii. 201, 202
+
+  Wise, ----, xxv. 55
+
+  "Witch of Prague" (Crawford), xxv. 275
+
+  "Wogg" (_see_ Walter), other names for, xxiii. 280-1, 318
+
+  Wolseley, Viscount, xxiv. 81
+
+  "Woman killed with Kindness" (Heywood), xxiii. 354
+
+  Women characters, dissatisfaction with, xxiv. 398
+
+  Women, thoughts on (_see also_ Elgin marbles), xxiii. 162-4, 358
+
+  Wood, Sir Evelyn, xxiv. 81
+
+  "Wrecker" (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiii. 12, 275; xxiv. 362, 367-8,
+    379, 380, 389, 396, 399, 402; xxv. 5, 11, 24, 33, 84, 87, 108, 110,
+    115, 128, 138,141, 152, 171, 210, 215, 221, 224, 274, 376, 378;
+    finished, xxv. 111-2 & _n._ 1, 113, 115, 120, 122; comments, xxv. 146;
+    discussed, xxv. 437 & _n._ 1; publication of, xxv. 87, 144; success
+    of, xxv. 238, 258, 357
+
+  Wreck of the _Susannah_, xxiii. 308
+
+  "Wrong Box, The," or "The Finsbury Tontine," or "The Game of Bluff"
+    (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 235, 249-50, 256, 258, 282, 291, 320,
+    322, 328, 360, 370
+
+  Wurmbrand, Captain Count, xxv. 354, 369, 370, 383, 415
+
+  Wyatt, Mr., xxiii. 6
+
+
+  Yeats, W. B., letter to, xxv. 390
+
+  "Yellow Paint," xxiii. 141
+
+  Yelverton, ----, xxiii. 275
+
+  "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum" (Treasure Island), xxiii. 326
+
+  Yoshida Torajiro, essay on (Familiar Studies), xxiii. 229, 262, 264,
+    265
+
+  "Young Chevalier," unfinished, xxv. 144, 171 _n._ 1, 187-8, 189, 192,
+    216-7, 264, 281, 305; characters in, xxv. 190-1
+
+  _Young Folks_, contributions to, xxiii. 328, 329, 332, 339; xxiv. 31,
+    55, 148
+
+  _Yule-Tide_, contribution to, xxv. 57
+
+
+  Zassetsky, Madame, xxiii. 97, 99, 102, 105, 108, 110, 113, 114, 115,
+    118, 122
+
+  Zassetsky, Nelitchka, xxiii. 98, 102, 104, 107, 108, 112, 114, 115,
+    116
+
+  Zola, Emile, xxiii. 346-7; xxiv. 396; xxv. 250 _n._ 1, 318, 319, 379
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO VOLUMES I-XXII
+
+[_For Index to the_ LETTERS, _see pp. 469-507 of this Volume._]
+
+
+  "A birdie with a yellow bill," xiv. 23
+
+  "A child should always say what's true," xiv. 5
+
+  Additional Memories and Portraits, xvi. 155
+
+  Additional Poems, xiv. 259
+
+  "Adela, Adela, Adela Chart," xiv. 276
+
+  Admiral Guinea, xv. 145
+
+  Advertisement of "Moral Emblems," Edition de Luxe, xxii. (end)
+
+  Advertisement of "Moral Emblems," Second Collection, xxii. (end)
+
+  Advertisement of "The Graver and the Pen," xxii. (end)
+
+  AEs Triplex, ii. 358
+
+  "All night long, and every night," xiv. 4
+
+  "All round the house is the jet-black night," xiv. 28
+
+  "All the names I know from nurse," xiv. 46
+
+  "A lover of the moorland bare," xiv. 74
+
+  Alpine Diversions, xxii. 248
+
+  Alps, The Stimulation of the, xxii., 252
+
+  Amateur Emigrant, The: Part I., From the Clyde to Sandy Hook: The
+    Second Cabin, ii. 7; Early Impressions, ii. 15; Steerage Scenes, ii.
+    24; Steerage Types, ii. 32; The Sick Man, ii. 43; The Stowaways, ii.
+    53; Personal Experiences and Review, ii. 66; New York, ii. 77. Part
+    II., Across the Plains: Notes by the Way to Council Bluffs, ii. 93;
+    The Emigrant Train, ii. 107; The Plain of Nebraska, ii. 115; The
+    Desert of Wyoming, ii. 119; Fellow Passengers, ii. 124; Despised
+    Races, ii. 129; To the Golden Gates, ii. 133
+
+  "A mile an' a bittock, a mile or twa," xiv. 110
+
+  "_A naked house, a naked moor_," xiv. 71
+
+  Antwerp to Boom, i. 7
+
+  "A picture-frame for you to fill," xiv. 74
+
+  Apology, An, for Idlers, ii. 334
+
+  Appeal, An, to the Clergy of the Church of Scotland, xxii. 199
+
+  "As from the house your mother sees," xiv. 59
+
+  "As the single pang of the blow, when the metal is mingled well," xiv.
+    254
+
+  "At evening when the lamp is lit," xiv. 36
+
+  Autumn Effect, An, xxii. 112
+
+
+  Back to the World, i. 120
+
+  Bagster's "Pilgrim's Progress," xxii. 186
+
+  Balfour, David, xi. 1
+
+  Ballads, xiv. 139
+
+  Ballantrae, The Master of, xii. 5; its genesis, xvi. 341
+
+  Beach, The, of Falesa: A South Sea Bridal, xvii. 193; The Ban, xvii.
+    206; The Missionary, xvii. 228; Devil-work, xvii. 240; Night in the
+    Bush, xvii. 258; The Bottle Imp, xvii. 277; The Isle of Voices, xvii.
+    311
+
+  Beau Austin, xv. 91
+
+  Beggars, xvi. 190
+
+  "Berried brake and reedy island," xiv. 226
+
+  "Birds all the sunny day," xiv. 44
+
+  Black Arrow, The: Prologue, viii. 7; Book I. The Two Lads, viii. 25;
+    Book II. The Moat House, viii. 83; Book III. My Lord Foxham, viii.
+    123; Book IV. The Disguise, viii. 165; Book V. Crookback, viii. 217
+
+  Black Canyon, Advertisement of, xxii. (end)
+
+  Black Canyon or Wild Adventures in the Far West, xxii. (end)
+
+  "Blame me not that this epistle," xiv. 261
+
+  "Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying," xiv. 257
+
+  Boarders, The, i. 195
+
+  Body-snatcher, The, iii. 277
+
+  Books which have Influenced Me, xvi. 272
+
+  Bottle Imp, The, xvii. 275
+
+  "Brave lads in olden musical centuries," xiv. 270
+
+  "Bright is the ring of words," xiv. 227
+
+  "Bring the comb and play upon it," xiv. 15
+
+  Builder's Doom, The, xxii. (end)
+
+  Burns, Robert, Some Aspects of, iii. 43
+
+  "By Lyne and Tyne, by Thames and Tees," xiv. 133
+
+
+  Calton Hill, Edinburgh, i. 314
+
+  Camisards, The Country of the, i. 211
+
+  Camp, A, in the Dark, i. 167
+
+  Catriona: Part I. The Lord Advocate, xi. 7; Part II. Father and
+    Daughter, xi. 203
+
+  Changed Times, i. 99
+
+  Character, A, xxii. 37
+
+  Character, The, of Dogs, ix. 105
+
+  Charity Bazaar, The, xxii. 213
+
+  Charles of Orleans, iii. 171
+
+  Cheylard and Luc, i. 177
+
+  "_Chief of our aunts_, not only I," xiv. 56
+
+  "Children, you are very little," xiv. 18
+
+  Child's Garden, A, of Verses, xiv. 1
+
+  Child's Play, ii. 394
+
+  Christmas at Sea, xiv. 207
+
+  Christmas Sermon, A, xvi. 306
+
+  Cockermouth and Keswick, xxii. 80
+
+  College Magazine, A, ix. 36
+
+  College Memories, Some, ix. 19
+
+  College Papers: Edinburgh Students in 1824, xxii. 41; The Modern
+    Student considered generally, xxii. 45; Debating Societies, xxii. 53;
+    The Philosophy of Umbrellas, xxii. 58; The Philosophy of Nomenclature,
+    xxii. 63
+
+  "Come up here, O dusty feet," xiv. 24
+
+  Compiegne, At, i. 94
+
+  Crabbed Age and Youth, ii. 321
+
+  Criticisms: Lord Lytton's "Fables in Song," xxii. 171; Salvini's
+    "Macbeth," xxii. 180; Bagster's "Pilgrim's Progress," xxii. 186
+
+
+  "Dark brown is the river," xiv. 10
+
+  Davos in Winter, xxii. 241
+
+  Davos Press, The, xxii. (end)
+
+  Day, The, after To-morrow, xvi. 279
+
+  Deacon Brodie, or the Double Life, xv. 1
+
+  "Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair," xiv. 79
+
+  "Dear Thamson class, whaure'er I gang," xiv. 121
+
+  "Dear Uncle Jim, this garden ground," xiv. 50
+
+  Debating Societies, xxii. 53
+
+  "Do you remember--can we e'er forget?" xiv. 242
+
+  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Strange Case of, v. 227
+
+  Donkey, the Pack, and the Pack Saddle, i. 143
+
+  "Down by a shining water well," xiv. 32
+
+  Dreams, A Chapter on, xvi. 177
+
+  Dynamiter, The: Prologue of the Cigar Divan, v. 7; Challoner's
+    Adventure, v. 15; Somerset's Adventure, v. 73; Desborough's
+    Adventure, v. 149; Epilogue of the Cigar Divan, v. 212
+
+
+  Ebb-Tide, The: Note by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, xix. 3; Part I. The Trio,
+    xix. 7; Part II. The Quartette, xix. 81
+
+  Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, i. 269; Introductory, i. 271
+
+  Edinburgh Students in 1824, xxii. 41
+
+  Education, The, of an Engineer, xvi. 167
+
+  El Dorado, ii. 368
+
+  Engineers, Records of a Family of, xvi. 3
+
+  English Admirals, The, ii. 372
+
+  Enjoyment, The, of Unpleasant Places, xxii. 103
+
+  Epilogue to An Inland Voyage, i. 122
+
+  Episodes in the Story of a Mine, ii. 254
+
+  Essays of Travel: Davos in Winter, xxii. 241; Health and Mountains,
+    xxii. 244; Alpine Diversions, xxii. 248; The Stimulation of the
+    Alps, xxii. 252
+
+  "Even in the bluest noonday of July," xiv. 77
+
+  "Every night my prayers I say," xiv. 13
+
+
+  Fables: The Persons of the Tale, xxi. 269; The Sinking Ship, xxi.
+    272; The Two Matches, xxi. 274; The Sick Man and the Fireman, xxi.
+    275; The Devil and the Inn-keeper, xxi. 276; The Penitent, xxi. 277;
+    The Yellow Paint, xxi. 277; The House of Eld, xxi. 280; The Four
+    Reformers, xxi. 286; The Man and His Friend, xxi. 287; The Reader,
+    xxi. 287; The Citizen and the Traveller, xxi. 288; The Distinguished
+    Stranger, xxi. 289; The Cart-horses and the Saddle-horse, xxi. 290;
+    The Tadpole and the Frog, xxi. 291; Something in it, xxi. 291;
+    Faith, Half-faith, and No Faith at all, xxi. 295; The Touchstone,
+    xxi. 297; The Poor Thing, xxi. 304; The Song of the Morrow, xxi. 310
+
+  Falling in Love, On, ii. 302
+
+  Familiar Studies of Men and Books: Preface by Way of Criticism, iii.
+    5; Victor Hugo's Romances, iii. 19; Some Aspects of Robert Burns,
+    iii. 43; Walt Whitman, iii. 77; Henry David Thoreau: His Character
+    and Opinions, iii. 101; Yoshida-Torajiro, iii. 129; Francois Villon,
+    Student, Poet, and Housebreaker, iii. 142; Charles of Orleans, iii.
+    171; Samuel Pepys, iii. 206; John Knox and his Relations to Women,
+    iii. 230
+
+  "Far from the loud sea beaches," xiv. 72
+
+  "Far have you come, my lady, from the town," xiv. 263
+
+  "Farewell, fair day and fading light," xiv. 233
+
+  Farewell, Modestine! i. 253
+
+  "Far 'yont amang the years to be," xiv. 105
+
+  "Faster than fairies, faster than witches," xiv. 24
+
+  Father Apollinaris, i. 183
+
+  Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu, xvi.
+  315
+
+  Feast, The, of Famine; Marquesan Manners, xiv. 167; The Priest's
+    Vigil, xiv. 169; The Lovers, xiv. 172; The Feast, xiv. 176; The
+    Raid, xiv. 182; Notes, xiv. 213
+
+  Fife, The Coast of, xvi. 155
+
+  "Figure me to yourself, I pray," xiv. 268
+
+  Fleeming Jenkin, Memoir of, ix. 165
+
+  Florac, i. 234
+
+  Fontainebleau: Village Communities of Painters, xvi. 215
+
+  Footnote, A, to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa: The
+    Elements of Discord, I. Native, xvii. 5; II. Foreign, xvii. 15; The
+    Sorrows of Laupepa, xvii. 27; Brandeis, xvii. 53; The Battle of
+    Matautu, xvii. 70; Last Exploits of Becker, xvii. 83; The Samoan
+    Camps, xvii. 103; Affairs of Laulii and Fangalii, xvii. 112; "Furor
+    Consularis," xvii. 128; The Hurricane, xvii. 142; Laupepa and
+    Mataafa, xvii. 156
+
+  Foreigner, The, at Home, ix. 7
+
+  Forest Notes, xxii. 142
+
+  "For love of lovely words, and for the sake," xiv. 97
+
+  "Forth from her land to mine she goes," xiv. 239
+
+  "Frae nirly, nippin', Eas'lan' breeze," xiv. 106
+
+  "Friend, in my mountain-side demesne," xiv. 73
+
+  "From breakfast on all through the day," xiv. 12
+
+
+  Genesis, The, of "The Master of Ballantrae," xvi. 341
+
+  "Give to me the life I love," xiv. 219
+
+  "God, if this were enough," xiv. 234
+
+  "Go, little book, and wish to all," xiv. 67
+
+  Gossip, A, on a Novel of Dumas's, ix. 124
+
+  Gossip, A, on Romance, ix. 134
+
+  Goulet, Across the, i. 203
+
+  Graver, The, and the Pen, xxii. (end)
+
+  "Great is the sun, and wide he goes," xiv. 46
+
+  Great North Road, The, xxi. 203
+
+  Green Donkey Driver, The, i. 149
+
+  Greyfriars, Edinburgh, i. 298
+
+
+  Health and Mountains, xxii. 244
+
+  Heart of the Country, The, i. 7
+
+  Heather Ale: A Galloway Legend, xiv. 201; Notes, xiv. 215
+
+  Heathercat, xxi. 177
+
+  "He hears with gladdened heart the thunder," xiv. 233
+
+  "Here all is sunny, and when the truant gull," xiv. 97
+
+  "Here, from the forelands of the tideless sea," xiv. 273
+
+  "Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?" xiv. 229
+
+  "How do you like to go up in a swing?" xiv. 22
+
+  Hugo's, Victor, Romances, iii. 19
+
+  Human Life, Reflections and Remarks on, xvi. 354
+
+  Humble Remonstrance, A, ix. 148
+
+  Hunter's Family, The, ii. 230
+
+
+  "I am a kind of farthing dip," xiv. 95
+
+  Ideal House, The, xvi. 370
+
+  "If I have faltered more or less," xiv. 86
+
+  "If two may read aright," xiv. 55
+
+  "I have a goad," i. 158
+
+  "I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me," xiv. 12
+
+  "I have trod the upward and the downward slope," xiv. 233
+
+  "I heard the pulse of the besieging sea," xiv. 244
+
+  "I knew a silver head was bright beyond compare," xiv. 240
+
+  "I knew thee strong and quiet like the hills," xiv. 232
+
+  "I know not how it is with you," xiv. 225
+
+  "In all the grove, nor stream nor bird," xiv. 249
+
+  "In ancient tales, O friend, thy spirit dwelt," xiv. 80
+
+  "In dreams unhappy I behold you stand," xiv. 221
+
+  Inland Voyage, An, i. 7; Epilogue to, i. 122
+
+  "In mony a foreign pairt I've been," xiv. 125
+
+  "In rigorous hours, when down the iron lane," xiv. 230
+
+  "In the beloved hour that ushers day," xiv. 231
+
+  "In the highlands, in the country places," xiv. 228
+
+  "In the other gardens," xiv. 49
+
+  Introduction, by Andrew Lang, to the Swanston Edition, i. ix.
+
+  "In winter I get up at night," xiv. 3
+
+  "I read, dear friend, in your dear face," xiv. 85
+
+  "I saw you toss the kites on high," xiv. 16
+
+  "I should like to rise and go," xiv. 7
+
+  "I sit and wait a pair of oars," xiv. 78
+
+  Island Nights' Entertainments, xvii. 193
+
+  Isle, The, of Voices, xvii. 311
+
+  "It is not yours, O mother, to complain," xiv. 90
+
+  "It is the season now to go," xiv. 70
+
+  "It is very nice to think," xiv. 4
+
+  "It's an owercome sooth for age an' youth," xiv. 135
+
+  "It's rainin'. Weet's the gairden sod," xiv. 116
+
+  "It's strange that God should fash to frame," xiv. 120
+
+  "I was a barren tree before," xiv. 276
+
+  "I will make you brooches and toys for your delight," xiv. 225
+
+  "I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day," xiv. 14
+
+
+  Juvenilia, and other Papers, xxii. 3
+
+
+  Kidnapped, x. 77
+
+  Knox, John, and his Relations to Women, iii. 230
+
+
+  La Fere, of Cursed Memory, i. 79
+
+  Landrecies, At, i. 46
+
+  Lantern-Bearers, The, xvi. 200
+
+  Last Day, The, i. 248
+
+  "Last, to the chamber where I lie," xiv. 28
+
+  "Late in the nicht in bed I lay," xiv. 129
+
+  "Late lies the wintry sun a-bed," xiv. 25
+
+  Later Essays, xvi. 215
+
+  Lay Morals, xvi. 379
+
+  Legends, Edinburgh, i. 291
+
+  "Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams," xiv. 224
+
+  "Let now your soul in this substantial world," xiv. 255
+
+  Letter to a Young Gentleman who proposes to embrace the Career of Art,
+    xvi. 290
+
+  Letters from Samoa, xviii. 351
+
+  "Let us, who part like brothers part like bards," xvi. 245
+
+  "Light foot and tight foot," xiv. 277
+
+  Light-keeper, The, xxii. 217
+
+  "Little Indian, Sioux or Crow," xiv. 19
+
+  Lodging, A, for the Night, iv. 227
+
+  "Long must elapse ere you behold again," xiv. 241
+
+  Lord Lytton's "Fables in Song," xxii. 171
+
+  Lozere, Across the, i. 213
+
+
+  Macaire, xv. 205
+
+  Manse, The, ix. 61
+
+  Markheim, viii. 273
+
+  Martial Elegy, A, for some Lead Soldiers, xxii. (end)
+
+  Master, The, of Ballantrae, xii. 5; its genesis, xvi. 341
+
+  Maubeuge, At, i. 21
+
+  Memoirs of an Islet, ix. 68
+
+  Memories and Portraits, ix. 7; Additional Memories and Portraits, xvi.
+    155
+
+  Merry Men, The, xxi. 69
+
+  Mimente, In the Valley of the, i. 237
+
+  Monks, The, i. 188
+
+  Montvert, Pont de, i. 218
+
+  Moral Emblems, xxii. (end)
+
+  Moral Emblems: Second Collection, xxii. (end)
+
+  Morality, The, of the Profession of Letters, xvi. 260
+
+  More New Arabian Nights, v. 7
+
+  Mountain Town, A, in France, i. 257
+
+  Movements of Young Children, Notes on the, xxii. 97
+
+  Moy, Down the Oise to, i. 74
+
+  "My bed is like a little boat," xiv. 21
+
+  "My body which my dungeon is," xiv. 98
+
+  "My bonny man, the warld, it's true," xiv. 118
+
+  My First Book, "Treasure Island," xvi. 331
+
+  "'_My house_,' I say. But hark to the sunny doves," xiv. 98
+
+  "My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky," xiv. 2
+
+
+  New Arabian Nights, iv. 3; More New Arabian Nights, v. 7
+
+  New Form of Intermittent Light for Lighthouses, xxii. 220
+
+  New Town, Edinburgh: Town and Country, i. 305
+
+  Nicholson, John, The Misadventures of, x. 3
+
+  Nomenclature, The Philosophy of, xxii. 63
+
+  "Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green," xiv. 265
+
+  Note, A, on Realism, xvi. 234
+
+  Notes and Essays, chiefly of the Road: A Retrospect, xxii. 71;
+    Cockermouth and Keswick, xxii. 80; Roads, xxii. 90; Notes on the
+    Movements of Young Children, xxii. 97; On the Enjoyment of
+    Unpleasant Places, xxii. 103; An Autumn Effect, xxii. 112; A
+    Winter's Walk in Carrick and Galloway, xxii. 132; Forest Notes,
+    xxii. 142
+
+  Not I, and other Poems, xxii. (end)
+
+  "Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert," xiv. 89
+
+  "Nous n'irons plus au bois," xiv. 263
+
+  Noyon Cathedral, i. 86
+
+  Nuits Blanches, xxii. 27
+
+  Nurses, xxii. 34
+
+
+  "Of a' the ills that flesh can fear," xiv. 131
+
+  "Of his pitiable transformation," xiv. 263
+
+  "Of speckled eggs, the birdie sings," xiv. 9
+
+  "Of where or how, I nothing know," xiv. 267
+
+  Oise, The, in Flood, i. 55; Down the Oise to Moy, i. 74; Through the
+    Golden Valley, i. 84; To Compiegne, i. 91 Church Interiors, i. 105
+
+  "O it's I that am the captain of a tidy little ship," xiv. 32
+
+  "O, I wad like to ken--to the beggar-wife says I," xiv. 116
+
+  "O mother, lay your hand on my brow," xiv. 92
+
+  Olalla, xxi. 127
+
+  Old Mortality, ix. 26
+
+  Old Scots Gardener, An, ix. 46
+
+  Old Town, Edinburgh: The Lands, i. 278
+
+  "Once only by the garden gate," xiv. 220
+
+  "On the great streams the ships may go," xiv. 68
+
+  Ordered South, ii. 345
+
+  Origny Sainte-Benoite: A By-Day, i. 62; The Company at Table, i. 68
+
+  Our Lady of the Snows, i. 181
+
+  "Out of the sun, out of the blast," xiv. 87
+
+  "Over the borders, a sin without pardon," xiv. 17
+
+
+  Pacific Capitals, The Old and New: Monterey, ii. 141; San Francisco,
+    ii. 159
+
+  Pan's Pipes, ii. 415
+
+  Parliament Close, Edinburgh, i. 285
+
+  Pastoral, ix. 53
+
+  Pavilion on the Links, The: Tells how I camped in Graden Sea-wood,
+    and beheld a Light in the Pavilion, iv. 167; Tells of the Nocturnal
+    Landing from the Yacht, iv. 174; Tells how I became Acquainted with
+    my Wife, iv. 180; Tells in what a Startling Manner I learned that I
+    was not alone in Graden Sea-wood, iv. 189; Tells of an Interview
+    between Northmour, Clara, and myself, iv. 197; Tells of my
+    Introduction to the Tall Man, iv. 202; Tells how a Word was cried
+    through the Pavilion Window, iv. 208; Tells the last of the Tall
+    Man, iv. 214; Tells how Northmour carried out his Threat, iv. 221
+
+  "Peace and her huge invasion to these shores," xiv. 93
+
+  Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured, xi. 116
+
+  Pentland Hills, To the, Edinburgh, i. 327
+
+  Pentland Rising, The: The Causes of the Revolt, xxii. 3; The
+    Beginning, xxii. 6; The March of the Rebels, xxii. 8; Rullion Green,
+    xxii. 13; A Record of Blood, xxii. 17
+
+  Pepys, Samuel, iii. 206
+
+  Pines, A Night among the, i. 206
+
+  "Plain as the glistering planets shine," xiv. 223
+
+  Plea, A, for Gas Lamps, ii. 420
+
+  Pont-sur-Sambre: We are Pedlars, i. 31; The Travelling Merchant, i. 36
+
+  Portraits, Some, by Raeburn, ii. 385
+
+  Prayers written for Family Use at Vailima, xvi. 431
+
+  Precy and the Marionnettes, i. 111
+
+  Prince Otto: Book I. Prince Errant, vii. 7; Book II. Of Love and
+    Politics, vii. 49; Book III. Fortunate Misfortune, vii. 171
+
+  Providence and the Guitar, iv. 273
+
+  Pulvis et Umbra, xvi. 299
+
+
+  Raeburn, Some Portraits, by, ii. 385
+
+  Rajah's Diamond, The: Story of the Bandbox, iv. 86; Story of the
+    Young Man in Holy Orders, iv. 111; The Story of the House with the
+    Green Blinds, iv. 127; The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a
+    Detective, iv. 159
+
+  Random Memories: I. The Coast of Fife, xvi. 155; II.  The Education
+    of an Engineer, xvi. 167; _Rosa quo Locorum_, xvi. 345
+
+  Realism, A Note on, xvi. 234
+
+  Records of a Family of Engineers, xvi. 3
+
+  Reflections and Remarks on Human Life, xvi. 354
+
+  "Resign the rhapsody, the dream," xiv. 236
+
+  Retrospect, A, xxii. 71
+
+  Roads, xxii. 90
+
+  Robin and Ben, or the Pirate and the Apothecary, xxii. (end)
+
+  _Rosa quo Locorum_, xvi. 345
+
+  Royal Sport Nautique, The, i. 16
+
+
+  St. Ives, xx. 3
+
+  Salvini's "Macbeth," xxii. 180
+
+  Sambre and Oise Canal: Canal Boats, i. 50
+
+  Sambre Canalised, On the: To Quartes, i. 26; To Landrecies, i. 41
+
+  Satirist, The, xxii. 25
+
+  "Say not of me that weakly I declined," xiv. 99
+
+  Scots Gardener, An old, ix. 46
+
+  Sea-Fogs, The, ii. 239
+
+  "She rested by the Broken Brook," xiv. 222
+
+  Silverado Squatters, The, ii. 173; In the Valley: 1, Calistoga, ii.
+    179; 2, The Petrified Forest, ii. 184; 3, Napa Wine, ii. 188; 4, The
+    Scot Abroad, ii. 194. --With the Children of Israel: 1, To Introduce
+    Mr. Kelmar, ii. 201; 2, First Impressions of Silverado, ii. 205; 3,
+    The Return, ii. 215
+
+  "Since I am sworn to live my life," xiv. 263
+
+  "Since long ago, a child at home," xiv. 237
+
+  "Sing clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still," xiv. 96
+
+  "Sing me a song of a lad that is gone," xiv. 256
+
+  Sire de Maletroit's Door, The, iv. 250
+
+  Sketches: The Satirist, xxii. 25; Nuits Blanches, xxii. 27; The Wreath
+    of Immortelles, xxii. 30; Nurses, xxii. 34; A Character, xxii. 37
+
+  "Smooth it slides upon its travel," xiv. 23
+
+  "Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed,"
+    xiv. 58
+
+  Songs of Travel, xiv. 217
+
+  Song, The, of Rahero: A Legend of Tahiti, xiv. 139; The Slaying of
+    Tamatea, xiv. 139; The Venging of Tamatea, xiv. 148; Rahero, xiv.
+    159; Notes, xiv. 211
+
+  "Son of my woman's body, you go, to the drum and fife," xiv. 227
+
+  South Seas, In the: Part I. The Marquesas.--An Island Landfall,
+    xviii. 5; Making Friends, xviii. 12; The Maroon, xviii. 21; Death,
+    xviii. 28; Depopulation, xviii. 36; Chiefs and Tapus, xviii. 44;
+    Hatiheu, xviii. 53; The Port of Entry, xviii. 61; The House of
+    Temoana, xviii. 69; A Portrait and a Story, xviii. 77; Long Pig--A
+    Cannibal High Place, xviii. 85; The Story of a Plantation, xviii.
+    95; Characters, xviii. 105; In a Cannibal Valley, xviii. 112; The
+    Two Chiefs of Atuona, xviii, 119. Part II. The Paumotus.--The
+    Dangerous Archipelago--Atolls at a Distance, xviii. 129; Fakarava:
+    An Atoll at Hand, xviii. 137; A House to Let in a Low Island, xviii.
+    146; Traits and Sects in the Paumotus, xviii. 155; A Paumotuan
+    Funeral, xviii. 165; Graveyard Stories, xviii. 170. Part III. The
+    Eight Islands.--The Kona Coast, xviii. 187; A Ride in the Forest,
+    xviii. 197; The City of Refuge, xviii. 203; Koahumanu, xviii. 209;
+    The Lepers of Kona, xviii. 215. Part IV. The Gilberts.--Butaritari,
+    xviii. 223; The Four Brothers, xviii. 229; Around Our House, xviii.
+    237; A Tale of a Tapu, xviii. 247, 255; The Five Days' Festival,
+    xviii. 265; Husband and Wife, xviii. 278. Part V. The
+    Gilberts--Apemama.--The King of Apemama: The Royal Trader, xviii.
+    289; Foundation of Equator Town, xviii. 298; The Palace of Many
+    Women, xviii. 306; Equator Town and the Palace, xviii. 313; King and
+    Commons, xviii. 321; Devil-work, xviii. 320; The King of Apemama,
+    xviii. 342
+
+  Squatting, The Act of, ii. 221
+
+  Starry Drive, A, ii. 250
+
+  Stevenson at Play: Introduction by Lloyd Osbourne, xxii. 259; War
+    Correspondence from Stevenson's Note-book, xxii. 263
+
+  Stevenson, Thomas, ix. 75
+
+  Story, The, of a Lie, xxi. 3
+
+  Student, The Modern, considered generally, xxii. 45
+
+  Suicide Club, The, iv. 3; Story of the Young Man with the Cream
+    Tarts, iv. 5; The Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk, iv.
+    37; The Adventure of the Hansom Cabs, iv. 65
+
+  "Summer fading, winter comes," xiv. 33
+
+
+  Talk and Talkers: I., ix. 81; II., ix. 94
+
+  Tarn, In the Valley of the, i. 224
+
+  Technical Elements, Some, of Style in Literature, xvi. 241
+
+  "The bed was made, the room was fit," xiv. 96
+
+  "The clinkum-clank o' Sabbath bells," xiv. 111
+
+  "The coach is at the door at last," xiv. 26
+
+  "Thee, Mackintosh, artificer of light," xiv. 273
+
+  "The embers of the day are red," xiv. 257
+
+  "The friendly cow, all red and white," xiv. 16
+
+  "The ganger walked with willing foot," xiv. 67
+
+  "The gardener does not love to talk," xiv. 49
+
+  "The infinite shining heavens," xiv. 222
+
+  "The jolly English Yellowboy," xiv. 274
+
+  "The lamps now glitter down the street," xiv. 37
+
+  "The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out," xiv. 14
+
+  "The Lord Himsel' in former days," xiv. 123
+
+  "The moon has a face like the clock in the hall," xiv. 22
+
+  "The morning drum-call on my eager ear," xiv. 233
+
+  "The pleasant river gushes," xiv. 272
+
+  "The rain is raining all around," xiv. 5
+
+  "The red room with the giant bed," xiv. 56
+
+  Thermal Influence of Forests, xxii. 225
+
+  "The Silver Ship, my King--that was her name," xiv. 238
+
+  "The stormy evening closes now in vain," xiv. 230
+
+  "The sun is not a-bed when I," xiv. 20
+
+  "The tropics vanish, and meseems that I," xiv. 243
+
+  "The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears," xiv. 75
+
+  "These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest," xiv. 34
+
+  "The world is so full of a number of things," xiv. 16
+
+  "The year runs through her phases; rain and sun," xiv. 82
+
+  Thoreau, Henry David: His Character and Opinions, iii. 101
+
+  Thrawn Janet, v. 305
+
+  "Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing," xiv. 6
+
+  "Through all the pleasant meadow side," xiv. 26
+
+  Ticonderoga: A Legend of the West Islands, xiv. 187; The Saying of
+    the Name, xiv. 189; The Seeking of the Name, xiv. 194; The Place of
+    the Name, xiv. 196; Notes, xiv. 214
+
+  Toils and Pleasures, ii. 264
+
+  Toll House, The, ii. 245
+
+  "To see the infinite pity of this place," xiv. 240
+
+  "To the heart of youth the world is a highway side," xiv. 221
+
+  "To you, let snow and roses," xiv. 224
+
+  Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, i. 141
+
+  Treasure Island-- Part I. The Old Buccaneer, vi. 9; Part II. The
+    Sea-Cook, vi. 49; Part III. My Shore Adventure, vi. 87; Part IV. The
+    Stockade, vi. 109; Part V. My Sea Adventure, vi. 145; Part VI.
+    Captain Silver, vi. 185; My First Book, xvi. 331
+
+  Treasure, The, of Franchard, vi. 267
+
+  "Trusty, dusky, vivid, true," xiv. 235
+
+  Truth of Intercourse, ii. 311
+
+
+  Umbrellas, The Philosophy of, xxii. 58
+
+  "Under the wide and starry sky," xiv. 86
+
+  Underwoods: I. In English, xiv. 67; II. In Scots, xiv. 105
+
+  "Up into the cherry-tree," xiv. 6
+
+  Upper Gevaudan, i. 165, 201
+
+
+  Velay, i. 141
+
+  Villa Quarters, Edinburgh, i. 311
+
+  Villon, Francois: Student, Poet, and Housebreaker, iii. 142
+
+  Virginibus Puerisque, I., ii. 281; II., ii. 292; On Falling in Love,
+    ii. 302; Truth of Intercourse, ii. 311; Crabbed Age and Youth, ii.
+    321; An Apology for Idlers, ii. 334; Ordered South, ii. 345; AEs
+    Triplex, ii. 358; El Dorado, ii. 368; The English Admirals, ii. 372;
+    Some Portraits by Raeburn, ii. 385; Child's Play, ii. 394; Walking
+    Tours, ii. 406; Pan's Pipes, ii. 415; A Plea for Gas Lamps, ii. 420
+
+
+  Walking Tours, ii. 406
+
+  Walt Whitman, iii. 77
+
+  War Correspondence from Stevenson's Note-book, xxii. 263
+
+  "We built a ship upon the stairs," xiv. 9
+
+  Weir of Hermiston, xix. 159; Sir Sidney Colvin's Note, xix. 284;
+    Glossary of Scots Words, xix. 297
+
+  "We see you as we see a face," xiv. 85
+
+  "We travelled in the print of olden wars," xiv. 96
+
+  "We uncommiserate pass into the night," xiv. 255
+
+  "What are you able to build with your blocks?" xiv. 35
+
+  "When aince Aprile has fairly come," xiv. 109
+
+  "When at home alone I sit," xiv. 38
+
+  "When children are playing alone on the green," xiv. 31
+
+  "When chitterin' cauld the day sail daw," xiv. 275
+
+  "Whenever Auntie moves around," xiv. 11
+
+  "Whenever the moon and stars are set," xiv. 7
+
+  "When I am grown to man's estate," xiv. 9
+
+  "When I was sick and lay a-bed," xiv. 11
+
+  "When the bright lamp is carried in," xiv. 27
+
+  "When the golden day is done," xiv. 43
+
+  "When the grass was closely mown," xiv. 47
+
+  "Where the bells peal far at sea," xiv. 84
+
+  "Who comes to-night? We ope the doors in vain," xiv. 83
+
+  Willebrock Canal, On the, i. 11
+
+  Will o' the Mill, vi. 235
+
+  Winter and New Year, Edinburgh, i. 320
+
+  Winter's Walk, A, in Carrick and Galloway, xxii. 132
+
+  "With half a heart I wander here," xiv. 94
+
+  Wreath, The, of Immortelles, xxii. 30
+
+  Wrecker, The: Prologue, xiii. 5; The Yarn, xiii. 19; Epilogue, xiii.
+    427
+
+  Wrong Box, The, vii. 219
+
+
+  "Yet, O stricken heart, remember, O remember," xiv. 93
+
+  Yoshida-Torajiro, iii. 129
+
+  Young Chevalier, The, xxi. 253
+
+  "Youth now flees on feathered foot," xiv. 76
+
+  "You, too, my mother, read my rhymes," xiv. 55
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
+Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON ***
+
+***** This file should be named 30714.txt or 30714.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/7/1/30714/
+
+Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/30714.zip b/30714.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ef29b69
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30714.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0210ffb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #30714 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30714)