Chapter I: seems about right to me, and much of Chapter II. Chapter III (1)

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.