CHAPTER XXXVII
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 paltryness 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 tapua 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 Mains, 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.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
MARCH 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 half past six to half-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.
CHAPTER XXXIX
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. - 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 daresay 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 daresay 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 is no' bad.
Very busy with all these affairs and some native ones also.
CHAPTER XL
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.
CHAPTER XLI
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 Solna,
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.
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.
CHAPTER XLII
AUG. 7TH
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 + 2.5 = 14.5 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
10 pounds 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. 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 Lotuanu'u kept us uneasy. To-day
again the big guns have been sounding further along the
coast.
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.
CHAPTER XLIII
VAILIMA, 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 daresay 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 collywobbles, 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 A'tua (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 work-boys. 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.
CHAPTER XLIV
VAILIMA, SAMOA,
OCT. 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 Mataafa
(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.
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, common-place 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 rain drops, 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. 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 salaries
don't know how a 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 anyone 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.
