Robert Louis Stevenson

Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson — Volume 2
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That fact is an adminicle of excuse for my delay.

And now, dear minister of the illegible name, thanks to you, and 
greeting to your wife, and may you have good guidance in your 
difficult labours, and a blessing on your life.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

(No just so young sae young's he was, though -
I'm awfae near forty, man.)

Address c/o CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
743 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

Don't put 'N.B.' in your paper:  put SCOTLAND, and be done with it.  
Alas, that I should be thus stabbed in the home of my friends!  The 
name of my native land is not NORTH BRITAIN, whatever may be the 
name of yours.

R. L. S.



Letter:  TO MISS FERRIER



[SARANAC LAKE, APRIL 1888.]

MY DEAREST COGGIE, - I wish I could find the letter I began to you 
some time ago when I was ill; but I can't and I don't believe there 
was much in it anyway.  We have all behaved like pigs and beasts 
and barn-door poultry to you; but I have been sunk in work, and the 
lad is lazy and blind and has been working too; and as for Fanny, 
she has been (and still is) really unwell.  I had a mean hope you 
might perhaps write again before I got up steam:  I could not have 
been more ashamed of myself than I am, and I should have had 
another laugh.

They always say I cannot give news in my letters:  I shall shake 
off that reproach.  On Monday, if she is well enough, Fanny leaves 
for California to see her friends; it is rather an anxiety to let 
her go alone; but the doctor simply forbids it in my case, and she 
is better anywhere than here - a bleak, blackguard, beggarly 
climate, of which I can say no good except that it suits me and 
some others of the same or similar persuasions whom (by all rights) 
it ought to kill.  It is a form of Arctic St. Andrews, I should 
imagine; and the miseries of forty degrees below zero, with a high 
wind, have to be felt to be appreciated.  The greyness of the 
heavens here is a circumstance eminently revolting to the soul; I 
have near forgot the aspect of the sun - I doubt if this be news; 
it is certainly no news to us.  My mother suffers a little from the 
inclemency of the place, but less on the whole than would be 
imagined.  Among other wild schemes, we have been projecting yacht 
voyages; and I beg to inform you that Cogia Hassan was cast for the 
part of passenger.  They may come off! - Again this is not news.  
The lad?  Well, the lad wrote a tale this winter, which appeared to 
me so funny that I have taken it in hand, and some of these days 
you will receive a copy of a work entitled 'A GAME OF BLUFF, by 
Lloyd Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson.'

Otherwise he (the lad) is much as usual.  There remains, I believe, 
to be considered only R. L. S., the house-bond, prop, pillar, 
bread-winner, and bully of the establishment.  Well, I do think him 
much better; he is making piles of money; the hope of being able to 
hire a yacht ere long dances before his eyes; otherwise he is not 
in very high spirits at this particular moment, though compared 
with last year at Bournemouth an angel of joy.

And now is this news, Cogia, or is it not?  It all depends upon the 
point of view, and I call it news.  The devil of it is that I can 
think of nothing else, except to send you all our loves, and to 
wish exceedingly you were here to cheer us all up.  But we'll see 
about that on board the yacht. - Your affectionate friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.



Letter:  TO SIDNEY COLVIN



[SARANAC LAKE], APRIL 9TH!! 1888

MY DEAR COLVIN, - I have been long without writing to you, but am 
not to blame, I had some little annoyances quite for a private eye, 
but they ran me so hard that I could not write without lugging them 
in, which (for several reasons) I did not choose to do.  Fanny is 
off to San Francisco, and next week I myself flit to New York:  
address Scribner's.  Where we shall go I know not, nor (I was going 
to say) care; so bald and bad is my frame of mind.  Do you know our 
- ahem! - fellow clubman, Colonel Majendie?  I had such an 
interesting letter from him.  Did you see my sermon?  It has evoked 
the worst feeling:  I fear people don't care for the truth, or else 
I don't tell it.  Suffer me to wander without purpose.  I have sent 
off twenty letters to-day, and begun and stuck at a twenty-first, 
and taken a copy of one which was on business, and corrected 
several galleys of proof, and sorted about a bushel of old letters; 
so if any one has a right to be romantically stupid it is I - and I 
am.  Really deeply stupid, and at that stage when in old days I 
used to pour out words without any meaning whatever and with my 
mind taking no part in the performance.  I suspect that is now the 
case.  I am reading with extraordinary pleasure the life of Lord 
Lawrence:  Lloyd and I have a mutiny novel -

(NEXT MORNING, AFTER TWELVE OTHER LETTERS) - mutiny novel on hand - 
a tremendous work - so we are all at Indian books.  The idea of the 
novel is Lloyd's:  I call it a novel.  'Tis a tragic romance, of 
the most tragic sort:  I believe the end will be almost too much 
for human endurance - when the hero is thrown to the ground with 
one of his own (Sepoy) soldier's knees upon his chest, and the 
cries begin in the Beebeeghar.  O truly, you know it is a howler!  
The whole last part is - well the difficulty is that, short of 
resuscitating Shakespeare, I don't know who is to write it.

I still keep wonderful.  I am a great performer before the Lord on 
the penny whistle.  Dear sir, sincerely yours,

ANDREW JACKSON.



Letter:  TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE



[SARANAC LAKE, APRIL 1888.] ADDRESS C/O MESSRS. SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
743 BROADWAY, N.Y.

MY DEAR GAMEKEEPER, - Your p. c. (proving you a good student of 
Micawber) has just arrived, and it paves the way to something I am 
anxious to say.  I wrote a paper the other day - PULVIS ET UMBRA; - 
I wrote it with great feeling and conviction:  to me it seemed 
bracing and healthful, it is in such a world (so seen by me), that 
I am very glad to fight out my battle, and see some fine sunsets, 
and hear some excellent jests between whiles round the camp fire.  
But I find that to some people this vision of mine is a nightmare, 
and extinguishes all ground of faith in God or pleasure in man.  
Truth I think not so much of; for I do not know it.  And I could 
wish in my heart that I had not published this paper, if it 
troubles folk too much:  all have not the same digestion, nor the 
same sight of things.  And it came over me with special pain that 
perhaps this article (which I was at the pains to send to her) 
might give dismalness to my GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.  Well, I cannot 
take back what I have said; but yet I may add this.  If my view be 
everything but the nonsense that it may be - to me it seems self-
evident and blinding truth - surely of all things it makes this 
world holier.  There is nothing in it but the moral side - but the 
great battle and the breathing times with their refreshments.  I 
see no more and no less.  And if you look again, it is not ugly, 
and it is filled with promise.

Pray excuse a desponding author for this apology.  My wife is away 
off to the uttermost parts of the States, all by herself.  I shall 
be off, I hope, in a week; but where?  Ah! that I know not.  I keep 
wonderful, and my wife a little better, and the lad flourishing.  
We now perform duets on two D tin whistles; it is no joke to make 
the bass; I think I must really send you one, which I wish you 
would correct . . . I may be said to live for these instrumental 
labours now, but I have always some childishness on hand. - I am, 
dear Gamekeeper, your indulgent but intemperate Squire,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.



Letter:  TO CHARLES BAXTER



UNION HOUSE, MANASQUAN, N.J., BUT ADDRESS TO SCRIBNER'S, 11TH MAY 
1888.

MY DEAR CHARLES, - I have found a yacht, and we are going the full 
pitch for seven months.  If I cannot get my health back (more or 
less), 'tis madness; but, of course, there is the hope, and I will 
play big. . . . If this business fails to set me up, well, 2000 
pounds is gone, and I know I can't get better.  We sail from San 
Francisco, June 15th, for the South Seas in the yacht CASCO. - With 
a million thanks for all your dear friendliness, ever yours 
affectionately,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.



Letter:  To HOMER ST. GAUDENS



MANASQUAN, NEW JERSEY, 27TH MAY 1888.

DEAR HOMER ST. GAUDENS, - Your father has brought you this day to 
see me, and he tells me it is his hope you may remember the 
occasion.  I am going to do what I can to carry out his wish; and 
it may amuse you, years after, to see this little scrap of paper 
and to read what I write.  I must begin by testifying that you 
yourself took no interest whatever in the introduction, and in the 
most proper spirit displayed a single-minded ambition to get back 
to play, and this I thought an excellent and admirable point in 
your character.  You were also (I use the past tense, with a view 
to the time when you shall read, rather than to that when I am 
writing) a very pretty boy, and (to my European views) startlingly 
self-possessed.  My time of observation was so limited that you 
must pardon me if I can say no more:  what else I marked, what 
restlessness of foot and hand, what graceful clumsiness, what 
experimental designs upon the furniture, was but the common 
inheritance of human youth.  But you may perhaps like to know that 
the lean flushed man in bed, who interested you so little, was in a 
state of mind extremely mingled and unpleasant:  harassed with work 
which he thought he was not doing well, troubled with difficulties 
to which you will in time succeed, and yet looking forward to no 
less a matter than a voyage to the South Seas and the visitation of 
savage and desert islands. -Your father's friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.



Letter:  TO HENRY JAMES



MANASQUAN (AHEM!), NEW JERSEY, MAY 28TH, 1888.

MY DEAR JAMES, - With what a torrent it has come at last!  Up to 
now, what I like best is the first number of a LONDON LIFE.  You 
have never done anything better, and I don't know if perhaps you 
have ever done anything so good as the girl's outburst:  tip-top.  
I have been preaching your later works in your native land.  I had 
to present the Beltraffio volume to Low, and it has brought him to 
his knees; he was AMAZED at the first part of Georgina's Reasons, 
although (like me) not so well satisfied with Part II.  It is 
annoying to find the American public as stupid as the English, but 
they will waken up in time:  I wonder what they will think of TWO 
NATIONS? . .

This, dear James, is a valedictory.  On June 15th the schooner 
yacht CASCO will (weather and a jealous providence permitting) 
steam through the Golden Gates for Honolulu, Tahiti, the Galapagos, 
Guayaquil, and - I hope NOT the bottom of the Pacific.  It will 
contain your obedient 'umble servant and party.  It seems too good 
to be true, and is a very good way of getting through the green-
sickness of maturity which, with all its accompanying ills, is now 
declaring itself in my mind and life.  They tell me it is not so 
severe as that of youth; if I (and the CASCO) are spared, I shall 
tell you more exactly, as I am one of the few people in the world 
who do not forget their own lives.

Good-bye, then, my dear fellow, and please write us a word; we 
expect to have three mails in the next two months:  Honolulu, 
Tahiti, and Guayaquil.  But letters will be forwarded from 
Scribner's, if you hear nothing more definite directly.  In 3 
(three) days I leave for San Francisco. - Ever yours most 
cordially,

R. L. S.




CHAPTER X - PACIFIC VOYAGES, JUNE 1888-NOVEMBER 1890




TO SIDNEY COLVIN



YACHT 'CASCO,' ANAHO BAY, NUKAHIVA, MARQUESAS ISLANDS [JULY 1888].

MY DEAR COLVIN, - From this somewhat (ahem) out of the way place, I 
write to say how d'ye do.  It is all a swindle:  I chose these 
isles as having the most beastly population, and they are far 
better, and far more civilised than we.  I know one old chief Ko-o-
amua, a great cannibal in his day, who ate his enemies even as he 
walked home from killing 'em, and he is a perfect gentleman and 
exceedingly amiable and simple-minded:  no fool, though.

The climate is delightful; and the harbour where we lie one of the 
loveliest spots imaginable.  Yesterday evening we had near a score 
natives on board; lovely parties.  We have a native god; very rare 
now.  Very rare and equally absurd to view.

This sort of work is not favourable to correspondence:  it takes me 
all the little strength I have to go about and see, and then come 
home and note, the strangeness around us.  I shouldn't wonder if 
there came trouble here some day, all the same.  I could name a 
nation that is not beloved in certain islands - and it does not 
know it!  Strange:  like ourselves, perhaps, in India!  Love to all 
and much to yourself.

R. L. S.



Letter:  TO CHARLES BAXTER



YACHT 'CASCO,' AT SEA, NEAR THE PAUMOTUS, 7 A.M., SEPTEMBER 6TH, 
1888, WITH A DREADFUL PEN.

MY DEAR CHARLES, - Last night as I lay under my blanket in the 
cockpit, courting sleep, I had a comic seizure.  There was nothing 
visible but the southern stars, and the steersman there out by the 
binnacle lamp; we were all looking forward to a most deplorable 
landfall on the morrow, praying God we should fetch a tuft of palms 
which are to indicate the Dangerous Archipelago; the night was as 
warm as milk, and all of a sudden I had a vision of - Drummond 
Street.  It came on me like a flash of lightning:  I simply 
returned thither, and into the past.  And when I remember all I 
hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford's in the rain and 
the east wind; how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, and yet 
timidly hoped not; how I feared I should never have a friend, far 
less a wife, and yet passionately hoped I might; how I hoped (if I 
did not take to drink) I should possibly write one little book, 
etc. etc.  And then now - what a change!  I feel somehow as if I 
should like the incident set upon a brass plate at the corner of 
that dreary thoroughfare for all students to read, poor devils, 
when their hearts are down.  And I felt I must write one word to 
you.  Excuse me if I write little:  when I am at sea, it gives me a 
headache; when I am in port, I have my diary crying 'Give, give.'  
I shall have a fine book of travels, I feel sure; and will tell you 
more of the South Seas after very few months than any other writer 
has done - except Herman Melville perhaps, who is a howling cheese.  
Good luck to you, God bless you. - Your affectionate friend,

R. L. S.



Letter:  TO SIDNEY COLVIN



FAKARAVA, LOW ARCHIPELAGO, SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1888.

MY DEAR COLVIN, - Only a word.  Get out your big atlas, and imagine 
a straight line from San Francisco to Anaho, the N.E. corner of 
Nukahiva, one of the Marquesas Islands; imagine three weeks there:  
imagine a day's sail on August 12th round the eastern end of the 
island to Tai-o-hae, the capital; imagine us there till August 
22nd:  imagine us skirt the east side of Ua-pu - perhaps Rona-Poa 
on your atlas - and through the Bondelais straits to Taaka-uku in 
Hiva-Oa, where we arrive on the 23rd; imagine us there until 
September 4th, when we sailed for Fakarava, which we reached on the 
9th, after a very difficult and dangerous passage among these 
isles.  Tuesday, we shall leave for Taiti, where I shall knock off 
and do some necessary work ashore.  It looks pretty bald in the 
atlas; not in fact; nor I trust in the 130 odd pages of diary which 
I have just been looking up for these dates:  the interest, indeed, 
has been INCREDIBLE:  I did not dream there were such places or 
such races.  My health has stood me splendidly; I am in for hours 
wading over the knees for shells; I have been five hours on 
horseback:  I have been up pretty near all night waiting to see 
where the CASCO would go ashore, and with my diary all ready - 
simply the most entertaining night of my life.  Withal I still have 
colds; I have one now, and feel pretty sick too; but not as at 
home:  instead of being in bed, for instance, I am at this moment 
sitting snuffling and writing in an undershirt and trousers; and as 
for colour, hands, arms, feet, legs, and face, I am browner than 
the berry:  only my trunk and the aristocratic spot on which I sit 
retain the vile whiteness of the north.

Please give my news and kind love to Henley, Henry James, and any 
whom you see of well-wishers.  Accept from me the very best of my 
affection:  and believe me ever yours,

THE OLD MAN VIRULENT.

TAITI, OCTOBER 7TH, 1888.

Never having found a chance to send this off, I may add more of my 
news.  My cold took a very bad turn, and I am pretty much out of 
sorts at this particular, living in a little bare one-twentieth-
furnished house, surrounded by mangoes, etc.  All the rest are 
well, and I mean to be soon.  But these Taiti colds are very severe 
and, to children, often fatal; so they were not the thing for me.  
Yesterday the brigantine came in from San Francisco, so we can get 
our letters off soon.  There are in Papeete at this moment, in a 
little wooden house with grated verandahs, two people who love you 
very much, and one of them is

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.



Letter:  TO CHARLES BAXTER



TAITI, AS EVER WAS, 6TH OCTOBER 1888.

MY DEAR CHARLES, - . . . You will receive a lot of mostly very bad 
proofs of photographs:  the paper was so bad.  Please keep them 
very private, as they are for the book.  We send them, having 
learned so dread a fear of the sea, that we wish to put our eggs in 
different baskets.  We have been thrice within an ace of being 
ashore:  we were lost (!) for about twelve hours in the Low 
Archipelago, but by God's blessing had quiet weather all the time; 
and once, in a squall, we cam' so near gaun heels ower hurdies, 
that I really dinnae ken why we didnae athegither.  Hence, as I 
say, a great desire to put our eggs in different baskets, 
particularly on the Pacific (aw-haw-haw) Pacific Ocean.

You can have no idea what a mean time we have had, owing to 
incidental beastlinesses, nor what a glorious, owing to the 
intrinsic interest of these isles.  I hope the book will be a good 
one; nor do I really very much doubt that - the stuff is so 
curious; what I wonder is, if the public will rise to it.  A copy 
of my journal, or as much of it as is made, shall go to you also; 
it is, of course, quite imperfect, much being to be added and 
corrected; but O, for the eggs in the different baskets.

All the rest are well enough, and all have enjoyed the cruise so 
far, in spite of its drawbacks.  We have had an awfae time in some 
ways, Mr. Baxter; and if I wasnae sic a verra patient man (when I 
ken that I HAVE to be) there wad hae been a braw row; and ance if I 
hadnae happened to be on deck about three in the marnin', I THINK 
there would have been MURDER done.  The American Mairchant Marine 
is a kent service; ye'll have heard its praise, I'm thinkin'; an' 
if ye never did, ye can get TWA YEARS BEFORE THE MAST, by Dana, 
whaur forbye a great deal o' pleisure, ye'll get a' the needcessary 
information.  Love to your father and all the family. - Ever your 
affectionate friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.



Letter:  TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE



TAITI, OCTOBER 10TH, 1888.

DEAR GIVER, - I am at a loss to conceive your object in giving me 
to a person so locomotory as my proprietor.  The number of thousand 
miles that I have travelled, the strange bed-fellows with which I 
have been made acquainted, I lack the requisite literary talent to 
make clear to your imagination.  I speak of bed-fellows; pocket-
fellows would be a more exact expression, for the place of my abode 
is in my master's righthand trouser-pocket; and there, as he waded 
on the resounding beaches of Nukahiva, or in the shallow tepid 
water on the reef of Fakarava, I have been overwhelmed by and 
buried among all manner of abominable South Sea shells, beautiful 
enough in their way, I make no doubt, but singular company for any 
self-respecting paper-cutter.  He, my master - or as I more justly 
call him, my bearer; for although I occasionally serve him, does 
not he serve me daily and all day long, carrying me like an African 
potentate on my subject's legs? - HE is delighted with these isles, 
and this climate, and these savages, and a variety of other things.  
He now blows a flageolet with singular effects:  sometimes the poor 
thing appears stifled with shame, sometimes it screams with agony; 
he pursues his career with truculent insensibility.  Health appears 
to reign in the party.  I was very nearly sunk in a squall.  I am 
sorry I ever left England, for here there are no books to be had, 
and without books there is no stable situation for, dear Giver, 
your affectionate

WOODEN PAPER-CUTTER.

A neighbouring pair of scissors snips a kiss in your direction.



Letter:  TO SIDNEY COLVIN



TAITI, OCTOBER 16TH, 1888.

MY DEAR COLVIN, - The cruiser for San Francisco departs to-morrow 
morning bearing you some kind of a scratch.  This much more 
important packet will travel by way of Auckland.  It contains a 
ballant; and I think a better ballant than I expected ever to do.  
I can imagine how you will wag your pow over it; and how ragged you 
will find it, etc., but has it not spirit all the same? and though 
the verse is not all your fancy painted it, has it not some life?  
And surely, as narrative, the thing has considerable merit!  Read 
it, get a typewritten copy taken, and send me that and your opinion 
to the Sandwiches.  I know I am only courting the most excruciating 
mortification; but the real cause of my sending the thing is that I 
could bear to go down myself, but not to have much MS. go down with 
me.  To say truth, we are through the most dangerous; but it has 
left in all minds a strong sense of insecurity, and we are all for 
putting eggs in various baskets.

We leave here soon, bound for Uahiva, Reiatea, Bora-Bora, and the 
Sandwiches.


O, how my spirit languishes
To step ashore on the Sanguishes;
For there my letters wait,
There shall I know my fate.
O, how my spirit languidges
To step ashore on the Sanguidges.


18TH. - I think we shall leave here if all is well on Monday.  I am 
quite recovered, astonishingly recovered. It must be owned these 
climates and this voyage have given me more strength than I could 
have thought possible.  And yet the sea is a terrible place, 
stupefying to the mind and poisonous to the temper, the sea, the 
motion, the lack of space, the cruel publicity, the villainous 
tinned foods, the sailors, the captain, the passengers - but you 
are amply repaid when you sight an island, and drop anchor in a new 
world.  Much trouble has attended this trip, but I must confess 
more pleasure.  Nor should I ever complain, as in the last few 
weeks, with the curing of my illness indeed, as if that were the 
bursting of an abscess, the cloud has risen from my spirits and to 
some degree from my temper.  Do you know what they called the CASCO 
at Fakarava?  The SILVER SHIP.  Is that not pretty?  Pray tell Mrs. 
Jenkin, DIE SILBERNE FRAU, as I only learned it since I wrote her.  
I think of calling the book by that name:  THE CRUISE OF THE SILVER 
SHIP - so there will be one poetic page at least - the title.  At 
the Sandwiches we shall say farewell to the S. S. with mingled 
feelings.  She is a lovely creature:  the most beautiful thing at 
this moment in Taiti.

Well, I will take another sheet, though I know I have nothing to 
say.  You would think I was bursting:  but the voyage is all stored 
up for the book, which is to pay for it, we fondly hope; and the 
troubles of the time are not worth telling; and our news is little.

Here I conclude (Oct. 24th, I think), for we are now stored, and 
the Blue Peter metaphorically flies.

R. L. S.



Letter:  TO WILLIAM AND THOMAS ARCHER



TAITI, OCTOBER 17TH, 1888.

DEAR ARCHER, - Though quite unable to write letters, I nobly send 
you a line signifying nothing.  The voyage has agreed well with 
all; it has had its pains, and its extraordinary pleasures; nothing 
in the world can equal the excitement of the first time you cast 
anchor in some bay of a tropical island, and the boats begin to 
surround you, and the tattooed people swarm aboard.  Tell 
Tomarcher, with my respex, that hide-and-seek is not equal to it; 
no, nor hidee-in-the-dark; which, for the matter of that, is a game 
for the unskilful:  the artist prefers daylight, a good-sized 
garden, some shrubbery, an open paddock, and - come on, Macduff.

TOMARCHER, I am now a distinguished litterytour, but that was not 
the real bent of my genius.  I was the best player of hide-and-seek 
going; not a good runner, I was up to every shift and dodge, I 
could jink very well, I could crawl without any noise through 
leaves, I could hide under a carrot plant, it used to be my 
favourite boast that I always WALKED into the den.  You may care to 
hear, Tomarcher, about the children in these parts; their parents 
obey them, they do not obey their parents; and I am sorry to tell 
you (for I dare say you are already thinking the idea a good one) 
that it does not pay one halfpenny.  There are three sorts of 
civilisation, Tomarcher:  the real old-fashioned one, in which 
children either had to find out how to please their dear papas, or 
their dear papas cut their heads off.  This style did very well, 
but is now out of fashion.  Then the modern European style:  in 
which children have to behave reasonably well, and go to school and 
say their prayers, or their dear papas WILL KNOW THE REASON WHY.  
This does fairly well.  Then there is the South Sea Island plan, 
which does not do one bit.  The children beat their parents here; 
it does not make their parents any better; so do not try it.

Dear Tomarcher, I have forgotten the address of your new house, but 
will send this to one of your papa's publishers.  Remember us all 
to all of you, and believe me, yours respectably,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.



Letter:  TO CHARLES BAXTER



TAUTIRA (THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD), OTHERWISE CALLED HANS-CHRISTIAN-
ANDERSEN-VILLE [NOVEMBER 1888].

MY DEAR CHARLES, - Whether I have a penny left in the wide world, I 
know not, nor shall know, till I get to Honolulu, where I 
anticipate a devil of an awakening.  It will be from a mighty 
pleasant dream at least:  Tautira being mere Heaven.  But suppose, 
for the sake of argument, any money to be left in the hands of my 
painful doer, what is to be done with it?  Save us from exile would 
be the wise man's choice, I suppose; for the exile threatens to be 
eternal.  But yet I am of opinion - in case there should be SOME 
dibs in the hand of the P.D., I.E. painful doer; because if there 
be none, I shall take to my flageolet on the high-road, and work 
home the best way I can, having previously made away with my family 
- I am of opinion that if - and his are in the customary state, and 
you are thinking of an offering, and there should be still some 
funds over, you would be a real good P.D. to put some in with yours 
and tak' the credit o't, like a wee man!  I know it's a beastly 
thing to ask; but it, after all, does no earthly harm, only that 
much good.  And besides, like enough there's nothing in the till, 
and there is an end.  Yet I live here in the full lustre of 
millions; it is thought I am the richest son of man that has yet 
been to Tautira:  I! - and I am secretly eaten with the fear of 
lying in pawn, perhaps for the remainder of my days, in San 
Francisco.  As usual, my colds have much hashed my finances.

Do tell Henley I write this just after having dismissed Ori the 
sub-chief, in whose house I live, Mrs. Ori, and Pairai, their 
adopted child, from the evening hour of music:  during which I 
Publickly (with a k) Blow on the Flageolet.  These are words of 
truth.  Yesterday I told Ori about W. E. H., counterfeited his 
playing on the piano and the pipe, and succeeded in sending the six 
feet four there is of that sub-chief somewhat sadly to his bed; 
feeling that his was not the genuine article after all.  Ori is 
exactly like a colonel in the Guards. - I am, dear Charles, ever 
yours affectionately,

R. L. S.



Letter:  TAUTIRA, 10TH NOVEMBER '88.



MY DEAR CHARLES, - Our mainmast is dry-rotten, and we are all to 
the devil; I shall lie in a debtor's jail.  Never mind, Tautira is 
first chop.  I am so besotted that I shall put on the back of this 
my attempt at words to Wandering Willie; if you can conceive at all 
the difficulty, you will also conceive the vanity with which I 
regard any kind of result; and whatever mine is like, it has some 
sense, and Burns's has none.


Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.
Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;
Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.
Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree.
The true word of welcome was spoken in the door -
Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.

Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;
Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,
The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.

R. L. S.



Letter:  TO J. A. SYMONDS



NOVEMBER 11TH 1888.

One November night, in the village of Tautira, we sat at the high 
table in the hall of assembly, hearing the natives sing.  It was 
dark in the hall, and very warm; though at times the land wind blew 
a little shrewdly through the chinks, and at times, through the 
larger openings, we could see the moonlight on the lawn.  As the 
songs arose in the rattling Tahitian chorus, the chief translated 
here and there a verse.  Farther on in the volume you shall read 
the songs themselves; and I am in hopes that not you only, but all 
who can find a savour in the ancient poetry of places, will read 
them with some pleasure.  You are to conceive us, therefore, in 
strange circumstances and very pleasing; in a strange land and 
climate, the most beautiful on earth; surrounded by a foreign race 
that all travellers have agreed to be the most engaging; and taking 
a double interest in two foreign arts.

We came forth again at last, in a cloudy moonlight, on the forest 
lawn which is the street of Tautira.  The Pacific roared outside 
upon the reef.  Here and there one of the scattered palm-built 
lodges shone out under the shadow of the wood, the lamplight 
bursting through the crannies of the wall.  We went homeward 
slowly, Ori a Ori carrying behind us the lantern and the chairs, 
properties with which we had just been enacting our part of the 
distinguished visitor.  It was one of those moments in which minds 
not altogether churlish recall the names and deplore the absence of 
congenial friends; and it was your name that first rose upon our 
lips.  'How Symonds would have enjoyed this evening!' said one, and 
then another.  The word caught in my mind; I went to bed, and it 
was still there.  The glittering, frosty solitudes in which your 
days are cast arose before me:  I seemed to see you walking there 
in the late night, under the pine-trees and the stars; and I 
received the image with something like remorse.

There is a modern attitude towards fortune; in this place I will 
not use a graver name.  Staunchly to withstand her buffets and to 
enjoy with equanimity her favours was the code of the virtuous of 
old.  Our fathers, it should seem, wondered and doubted how they 
had merited their misfortunes:  we, rather how we have deserved our 
happiness.  And we stand often abashed and sometimes revolted, at 
those partialities of fate by which we profit most.  It was so with 
me on that November night:  I felt that our positions should be 
changed.   It was you, dear Symonds, who should have gone upon that 
voyage and written this account.  With your rich stores of 
knowledge, you could have remarked and understood a thousand things 
of interest and beauty that escaped my ignorance; and the brilliant 
colours of your style would have carried into a thousand sickrooms 
the sea air and the strong sun of tropic islands.  It was otherwise 
decreed.  But suffer me at least to connect you, if only in name 
and only in the fondness of imagination, with the voyage of the 
'SILVER SHIP.'

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

DEAR SYMONDS, - I send you this (November 11th), the morning of its 
completion.  If I ever write an account of this voyage, may I place 
this letter at the beginning?  It represents - I need not tell you, 
for you too are an artist - a most genuine feeling, which kept me 
long awake last night; and though perhaps a little elaborate, I 
think it a good piece of writing.  We are IN HEAVEN HERE.  Do not 
forget

R. L. S.

Please keep this:  I have no perfect copy.
TAUTIRA, ON THE PENINSULA OF TAHITI.



Letter:  TO THOMAS ARCHER



TAUTIRA, ISLAND OF TAHITI [NOVEMBER 1888].

DEAR TOMARCHER, - This is a pretty state of things! seven o'clock 
and no word of breakfast!  And I was awake a good deal last night, 
for it was full moon, and they had made a great fire of cocoa-nut 
husks down by the sea, and as we have no blinds or shutters, this 
kept my room very bright.  And then the rats had a wedding or a 
school-feast under my bed.  And then I woke early, and I have 
nothing to read except Virgil's AENEID, which is not good fun on an 
empty stomach, and a Latin dictionary, which is good for naught, 
and by some humorous accident, your dear papa's article on 
Skerryvore.  And I read the whole of that, and very impudent it is, 
but you must not tell your dear papa I said so, or it might come to 
a battle in which you might lose either a dear papa or a valued 
correspondent, or both, which would be prodigal.  And still no 
breakfast; so I said 'Let's write to Tomarcher.'

This is a much better place for children than any I have hitherto 
seen in these seas.  The girls (and sometimes the boys) play a very 
elaborate kind of hopscotch.  The boys play horses exactly as we do 
in Europe; and have very good fun on stilts, trying to knock each 
other down, in which they do not often succeed.  The children of 
all ages go to church and are allowed to do what they please, 
running about the aisles, rolling balls, stealing mamma's bonnet 
and publicly sitting on it, and at last going to sleep in the 
middle of the floor.  I forgot to say that the whips to play 
horses, and the balls to roll about the church - at least I never 
saw them used elsewhere - grow ready made on trees; which is rough 
on toy-shops.  The whips are so good that I wanted to play horses 
myself; but no such luck! my hair is grey, and I am a great, big, 
ugly man.  The balls are rather hard, but very light and quite 
round.  When you grow up and become offensively rich, you can 
charter a ship in the port of London, and have it come back to you 
entirely loaded with these balls; when you could satisfy your mind 
as to their character, and give them away when done with to your 
uncles and aunts.  But what I really wanted to tell you was this:  
besides the tree-top toys (Hush-a-by, toy-shop, on the tree-top!), 
I have seen some real MADE toys, the first hitherto observed in the 
South Seas.

This was how.  You are to imagine a four-wheeled gig; one horse; in 
the front seat two Tahiti natives, in their Sunday clothes, blue 
coat, white shirt, kilt (a little longer than the Scotch) of a blue 
stuff with big white or yellow flowers, legs and feet bare; in the 
back seat me and my wife, who is a friend of yours; under our feet, 
plenty of lunch and things:  among us a great deal of fun in broken 
Tahitian, one of the natives, the sub-chief of the village, being a 
great ally of mine.  Indeed we have exchanged names; so that he is 
now called Rui, the nearest they can come to Louis, for they have 
no L and no S in their language.  Rui is six feet three in his 
stockings, and a magnificent man.  We all have straw hats, for the 
sun is strong.  We drive between the sea, which makes a great 
noise, and the mountains; the road is cut through a forest mostly 
of fruit trees, the very creepers, which take the place of our ivy, 
heavy with a great and delicious fruit, bigger than your head and 
far nicer, called Barbedine.  Presently we came to a house in a 
pretty garden, quite by itself, very nicely kept, the doors and 
windows open, no one about, and no noise but that of the sea.  It 
looked like a house in a fairy-tale, and just beyond we must ford a 
river, and there we saw the inhabitants.  Just in the mouth of the 
river, where it met the sea waves, they were ducking and bathing 
and screaming together like a covey of birds:  seven or eight 
little naked brown boys and girls as happy as the day was long; and 
on the banks of the stream beside them, real toys - toy ships, full 
rigged, and with their sails set, though they were lying in the 
dust on their beam ends.  And then I knew for sure they were all 
children in a fairy-story, living alone together in that lonely 
house with the only toys in all the island; and that I had myself 
driven, in my four-wheeled gig, into a corner of the fairy-story, 
and the question was, should I get out again?  But it was all 
right; I guess only one of the wheels of the gig had got into the 
fairy-story; and the next jolt the whole thing vanished, and we 
drove on in our sea-side forest as before, and I have the honour to 
be Tomarcher's valued correspondent, TERIITEPA, which he was 
previously known as

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.



Letter:  TO SIDNEY COLVIN



YACHT 'CASCO,' AT SEA, 14TH JANUARY, 1889.

MY DEAR COLVIN, - Twenty days out from Papeete.  Yes, sir, all 
that, and only (for a guess) in 4 degrees north or at the best 4 
degrees 30 minutes, though already the wind seems to smell a little 
of the North Pole.  My handwriting you must take as you get, for we 
are speeding along through a nasty swell, and I can only keep my 
place at the table by means of a foot against the divan, the 
unoccupied hand meanwhile gripping the ink-bottle.  As we begin (so 
very slowly) to draw near to seven months of correspondence, we are 
all in some fear; and I want to have letters written before I shall 
be plunged into that boiling pot of disagreeables which I 
constantly expect at Honolulu.  What is needful can be added there.

We were kept two months at Tautira in the house of my dear old 
friend, Ori a Ori, till both the masts of this invaluable yacht had 
been repaired.  It was all for the best:  Tautira being the most 
beautiful spot, and its people the most amiable, I have ever found.  
Besides which, the climate suited me to the ground; I actually went 
sea-bathing almost every day, and in our feasts (we are all huge 
eaters in Taiarapu) have been known to apply four times for pig.  
And then again I got wonderful materials for my book, collected 
songs and legends on the spot; songs still sung in chorus by 
perhaps a hundred persons, not two of whom can agree on their 
translation; legends, on which I have seen half a dozen seniors 
sitting in conclave and debating what came next.  Once I went a 
day's journey to the other side of the island to Tati, the high 
chief of the Tevas - MY chief that is, for I am now a Teva and 
Teriitera, at your service - to collect more and correct what I had 
already.  In the meanwhile I got on with my work, almost finished 
the MASTER OF BALLANTRAE, which contains more human work than 
anything of mine but KIDNAPPED, and wrote the half of another 
ballad, the SONG OF RAHERO, on a Taiarapu legend of my own clan, 
sir - not so much fire as the FEAST OF FAMINE, but promising to be 
more even and correct.  But the best fortune of our stay at Tautira 
was my knowledge of Ori himself, one of the finest creatures 
extant.  The day of our parting was a sad one.  We deduced from it 
a rule for travellers:  not to stay two months in one place - which 
is to cultivate regrets.

At last our contemptible ship was ready; to sea we went, bound for 
Honolulu and the letter-bag, on Christmas Day; and from then to now 
have experienced every sort of minor misfortune, squalls, calms, 
contrary winds and seas, pertinacious rains, declining stores, till 
we came almost to regard ourselves as in the case of Vanderdecken.  
Three days ago our luck seemed to improve, we struck a leading 
breeze, got creditably through the doldrums, and just as we looked 
to have the N.E. trades and a straight run, the rains and squalls 
and calms began again about midnight, and this morning, though 
there is breeze enough to send us along, we are beaten back by an 
obnoxious swell out of the north.  Here is a page of complaint, 
when a verse of thanksgiving had perhaps been more in place.  For 
all this time we must have been skirting past dangerous weather, in 
the tail and circumference of hurricanes, and getting only 
annoyance where we should have had peril, and ill-humour instead of 
fear.

I wonder if I have managed to give you any news this time, or 
whether the usual damn hangs over my letter?  'The midwife 
whispered, Be thou dull!' or at least inexplicit.  Anyway I have 
tried my best, am exhausted with the effort, and fall back into the 
land of generalities.  I cannot tell you how often we have planned 
our arrival at the Monument:  two nights ago, the 12th January, we 
had it all planned out, arrived in the lights and whirl of 
Waterloo, hailed a hansom, span up Waterloo Road, over the bridge, 
etc. etc., and hailed the Monument gate in triumph and with 
indescribable delight.  My dear Custodian, I always think we are 
too sparing of assurances:  Cordelia is only to be excused by Regan 
and Goneril in the same nursery; I wish to tell you that the longer 
I live, the more dear do you become to me; nor does my heart own 
any stronger sentiment.  If the bloody schooner didn't send me 
flying in every sort of direction at the same time, I would say 
better what I feel so much; but really, if you were here, you would 
not be writing letters, I believe; and even I, though of a more 
marine constitution, am much perturbed by this bobbery and wish - O 
ye Gods, how I wish! - that it was done, and we had arrived, and I 
had Pandora's Box (my mail bag) in hand, and was in the lively hope 
of something eatable for dinner instead of salt horse, tinned 
mutton, duff without any plums, and pie fruit, which now make up 
our whole repertory.  O Pandora's Box!  I wonder what you will 
contain.  As like as not you will contain but little money:  if 
that be so, we shall have to retire to 'Frisco in the CASCO, and 
thence by sea VIA Panama to Southampton, where we should arrive in 
April.  I would like fine to see you on the tug:  ten years older 
both of us than the last time you came to welcome Fanny and me to 
England.  If we have money, however, we shall do a little 
differently:  send the CASCO away from Honolulu empty of its high-
born lessees, for that voyage to 'Frisco is one long dead beat in 
foul and at last in cold weather; stay awhile behind, follow by 
steamer, cross the States by train, stay awhile in New York on 
business, and arrive probably by the German Line in Southampton.  
But all this is a question of money.  We shall have to lie very 
dark awhile to recruit our finances:  what comes from the book of 
the cruise, I do not want to touch until the capital is repaid.

R. L. S.



Letter:  TO E. L. BURLINGAME



HONOLULU, JANUARY 1889.

MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - Here at last I have arrived.  We could not 
get away from Tahiti till Christmas Day, and then had thirty days 
of calms and squalls, a deplorable passage.  This has thrown me all 
out of gear in every way.  I plunge into business.

1.  THE MASTER:  Herewith go three more parts.  You see he grows in 
balk; this making ten already, and I am not yet sure if I can 
finish it in an eleventh; which shall go to you QUAM PRIMUM - I 
hope by next mail.

2.  ILLUSTRATIONS TO M.  I totally forgot to try to write to Hole.  
It was just as well, for I find it impossible to forecast with 
sufficient precision.  You had better throw off all this and let 
him have it at once.  PLEASE DO:  ALL, AND AT ONCE:  SEE FURTHER; 
and I should hope he would still be in time for the later numbers.  
The three pictures I have received are so truly good that I should 
bitterly regret having the volume imperfectly equipped.  They are 
the best illustrations I have seen since I don't know when.

3.  MONEY.  To-morrow the mail comes in, and I hope it will bring 
me money either from you or home, but I will add a word on that 
point.

4.  My address will be Honolulu - no longer Yacht CASCO, which I am 
packing off - till probably April.

5.  As soon as I am through with THE MASTER, I shall finish the 
GAME OF BLUFF - now rechristened THE WRONG BOX.  This I wish to 
sell, cash down.  It is of course copyright in the States; and I 
offer it to you for five thousand dollars.  Please reply on this by 
return.  Also please tell the typewriter who was so good as to be 
amused by our follies that I am filled with admiration for his 
piece of work.

6.  MASTER again.  Please see that I haven't the name of the 
Governor of New York wrong (1764 is the date) in part ten.  I have 
no book of reference to put me right.  Observe you now have up to 
August inclusive in hand, so you should begin to feel happy.

Is this all?  I wonder, and fear not.  Henry the Trader has not yet 
turned up:  I hope he may to-morrow, when we expect a mail.  Not 
one word of business have I received either from the States or 
England, nor anything in the shape of coin; which leaves me in a 
fine uncertainty and quite penniless on these islands.  H.M. (who 
is a gentleman of a courtly order and much tinctured with letters) 
is very polite; I may possibly ask for the position of palace 
doorkeeper.  My voyage has been a singular mixture of good and ill-
fortune.  As far as regards interest and material, the fortune has 
been admirable; as far as regards time, money, and impediments of 
all kinds, from squalls and calms to rotten masts and sprung spars, 
simply detestable.  I hope you will be interested to hear of two 
volumes on the wing.  The cruise itself, you are to know, will make 
a big volume with appendices; some of it will first appear as (what 
they call) letters in some of M'Clure's papers.  I believe the book 
when ready will have a fair measure of serious interest:  I have 
had great fortune in finding old songs and ballads and stories, for 
instance, and have many singular instances of life in the last few 
years among these islands.

The second volume is of ballads.  You know TICONDEROGA.  I have 
written another:  THE FEAST OF FAMINE, a Marquesan story.  A third 
is half done:  THE SONG OF RAHERO, a genuine Tahitian legend.  A 
fourth dances before me.  A Hawaiian fellow this, THE PRIEST'S 
DROUGHT, or some such name.  If, as I half suspect, I get enough 
subjects out of the islands, TICONDEROGA shall be suppressed, and 
we'll call the volume SOUTH SEA BALLADS.  In health, spirits, 
renewed interest in life, and, I do believe, refreshed capacity for 
work, the cruise has proved a wise folly.  Still we're not home, 
and (although the friend of a crowned head) are penniless upon 
these (as one of my correspondents used to call them) 'lovely but 
FATIL islands.'  By the way, who wrote the LION OF THE NILE?  My 
dear sir, that is Something Like.  Overdone in bits, it has a true 
thought and a true ring of language.  Beg the anonymous from me, to 
delete (when he shall republish) the two last verses, and end on 
'the lion of the Nile.'  One Lampman has a good sonnet on a 'Winter 
Evening' in, I think, the same number:  he seems ill named, but I 
am tempted to hope a man is not always answerable for his name.  
For instance, you would think you knew mine.  No such matter.  It 
is - at your service and Mr. Scribner's and that of all of the 
faithful - Teriitera (pray pronounce Tayree-Tayra) or (GALLICE) 
Teri-tera.

R. L. S.

More when the mail shall come.

I am an idiot.  I want to be clear on one point.  Some of Hole's 
drawings must of course be too late; and yet they seem to me so 
excellent I would fain have the lot complete.  It is one thing for 
you to pay for drawings which are to appear in that soul-swallowing 
machine, your magazine:  quite another if they are only to 
illustrate a volume.  I wish you to take a brisk (even a fiery) 
decision on the point; and let Hole know.  To resume my desultory 
song, I desire you would carry the same fire (hereinbefore 
suggested) into your decision on the WRONG BOX; for in my present 
state of benighted ignorance as to my affairs for the last seven 
months - I know not even whether my house or my mother's house have 
been let - I desire to see something definite in front of me - 
outside the lot of palace doorkeeper.  I believe the said WRONG BOX 
is a real lark; in which, of course, I may be grievously deceived; 
but the typewriter is with me.  I may also be deceived as to the 
numbers of THE MASTER now going and already gone; but to me they 
seem First Chop, sir, First Chop.  I hope I shall pull off that 
damned ending; but it still depresses me:  this is your doing, Mr. 
Burlingame:  you would have it there and then, and I fear it - I 
fear that ending.

R. L. S.



Letter:  TO CHARLES BAXTER



HONOLULU, FEBRUARY 8TH, 1889.

MY DEAR CHARLES, - Here we are at Honolulu, and have dismissed the 
yacht, and lie here till April anyway, in a fine state of haze, 
which I am yet in hopes some letter of yours (still on the way) may 
dissipate.  No money, and not one word as to money!  However, I 
have got the yacht paid off in triumph, I think; and though we stay 
here impignorate, it should not be for long, even if you bring us 
no extra help from home.  The cruise has been a great success, both 
as to matter, fun, and health; and yet, Lord, man! we're pleased to 
be ashore!  Yon was a very fine voyage from Tahiti up here, but - 
the dry land's a fine place too, and we don't mind squalls any 
longer, and eh, man, that's a great thing.  Blow, blow, thou wintry 
wind, thou hast done me no appreciable harm beyond a few grey 
hairs!  Altogether, this foolhardy venture is achieved; and if I 
have but nine months of life and any kind of health, I shall have 
both eaten my cake and got it back again with usury.  But, man, 
there have been days when I felt guilty, and thought I was in no 
position for the head of a house.
                
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