We are in our house after a fashion; without furniture, 'tis true,
camping there, like the family after a sale. But the bailiff has
not yet appeared; he will probably come after. The place is
beautiful beyond dreams; some fifty miles of the Pacific spread in
front; deep woods all round; a mountain making in the sky a profile
of huge trees upon our left; about us, the little island of our
clearing, studded with brave old gentlemen (or ladies, or 'the twa
o' them') whom we have spared. It is a good place to be in; night
and morning, we have Theodore Rousseaus (always a new one) hung to
amuse us on the walls of the world; and the moon - this is our good
season, we have a moon just now - makes the night a piece of
heaven. It amazes me how people can live on in the dirty north;
yet if you saw our rainy season (which is really a caulker for
wind, wet, and darkness - howling showers, roaring winds, pit-
blackness at noon) you might marvel how we could endure that. And
we can't. But there's a winter everywhere; only ours is in the
summer. Mark my words: there will be a winter in heaven - and in
hell. CELA RENTRE DANS LES PROCEDES DU BON DIEU; ET VOUS VERREZ!
There's another very good thing about Vailima, I am away from the
little bubble of the literary life. It is not all beer and
skittles, is it? By the by, my BALLADS seem to have been dam bad;
all the crickets sing so in their crickety papers; and I have no
ghost of an idea on the point myself: verse is always to me the
unknowable. You might tell me how it strikes a professional bard:
not that it really matters, for, of course, good or bad, I don't
think I shall get into THAT galley any more. But I should like to
know if you join the shrill chorus of the crickets. The crickets
are the devil in all to you: 'tis a strange thing, they seem to
rejoice like a strong man in their injustice. I trust you got my
letter about your Browning book. In case it missed, I wish to say
again that your publication of Browning's kind letter, as an
illustration of HIS character, was modest, proper, and in radiant
good taste. - In Witness whereof, etc., etc.,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MISS RAWLINSON
VAILIMA, APIA, SAMOA, APRIL 1891.
MY DEAR MAY, - I never think of you by any more ceremonial name, so
I will not pretend. There is not much chance that I shall forget
you until the time comes for me to forget all this little turmoil
in a corner (though indeed I have been in several corners) of an
inconsiderable planet. You remain in my mind for a good reason,
having given me (in so short a time) the most delightful pleasure.
I shall remember, and you must still be beautiful. The truth is,
you must grow more so, or you will soon be less. It is not so easy
to be a flower, even when you bear a flower's name. And if I
admired you so much, and still remember you, it is not because of
your face, but because you were then worthy of it, as you must
still continue.
Will you give my heartiest congratulations to Mr. S.? He has my
admiration; he is a brave man; when I was young, I should have run
away from the sight of you, pierced with the sense of my unfitness.
He is more wise and manly. What a good husband he will have to be!
And you - what a good wife! Carry your love tenderly. I will
never forgive him - or you - it is in both your hands - if the face
that once gladdened my heart should be changed into one sour or
sorrowful.
What a person you are to give flowers! It was so I first heard of
you; and now you are giving the May flower!
Yes, Skerryvore has passed; it was, for us. But I wish you could
see us in our new home on the mountain, in the middle of great
woods, and looking far out over the Pacific. When Mr. S. is very
rich, he must bring you round the world and let you see it, and see
the old gentleman and the old lady. I mean to live quite a long
while yet, and my wife must do the same, or else I couldn't manage
it; so, you see, you will have plenty of time; and it's a pity not
to see the most beautiful places, and the most beautiful people
moving there, and the real stars and moon overhead, instead of the
tin imitations that preside over London. I do not think my wife
very well; but I am in hopes she will now have a little rest. It
has been a hard business, above all for her; we lived four months
in the hurricane season in a miserable house, overborne with work,
ill-fed, continually worried, drowned in perpetual rain, beaten
upon by wind, so that we must sit in the dark in the evenings; and
then I ran away, and she had a month of it alone. Things go better
now; the back of the work is broken; and we are still foolish
enough to look forward to a little peace. I am a very different
person from the prisoner of Skerryvore. The other day I was three-
and-twenty hours in an open boat; it made me pretty ill; but fancy
its not killing me half-way! It is like a fairy story that I
should have recovered liberty and strength, and should go round
again among my fellow-men, boating, riding, bathing, toiling hard
with a wood-knife in the forest. I can wish you nothing more
delightful than my fortune in life; I wish it you; and better, if
the thing be possible.
Lloyd is tinkling below me on the typewriter; my wife has just left
the room; she asks me to say she would have written had she been
well enough, and hopes to do it still. - Accept the best wishes of
your admirer,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
[VAILIMA, MAY 1891.]
MY DEAR ADELAIDE, - I will own you just did manage to tread on my
gouty toe; and I beg to assure you with most people I should simply
have turned away and said no more. My cudgelling was therefore in
the nature of a caress or testimonial.
God forbid, I should seem to judge for you on such a point; it was
what you seemed to set forth as your reasons that fluttered my old
Presbyterian spirit - for, mind you, I am a child of the
Covenanters - whom I do not love, but they are mine after all, my
father's and my mother's - and they had their merits too, and their
ugly beauties, and grotesque heroisms, that I love them for, the
while I laugh at them; but in their name and mine do what you think
right, and let the world fall. That is the privilege and the duty
of private persons; and I shall think the more of you at the
greater distance, because you keep a promise to your fellow-man,
your helper and creditor in life, by just so much as I was tempted
to think the less of you (O not much, or I would never have been
angry) when I thought you were the swallower of a (tinfoil)
formula.
I must say I was uneasy about my letter, not because it was too
strong as an expression of my unregenerate sentiments, but because
I knew full well it should be followed by something kinder. And
the mischief has been in my health. I fell sharply sick in Sydney,
was put aboard the LUBECK pretty bad, got to Vailima, hung on a
month there, and didn't pick up as well as my work needed; set off
on a journey, gained a great deal, lost it again; and am back at
Vailima, still no good at my necessary work. I tell you this for
my imperfect excuse that I should not have written you again sooner
to remove the bad taste of my last.
A road has been called Adelaide Road; it leads from the back of our
house to the bridge, and thence to the garden, and by a bifurcation
to the pig pen. It is thus much traversed, particularly by Fanny.
An oleander, the only one of your seeds that prospered in this
climate, grows there; and the name is now some week or ten days
applied and published. ADELAIDE ROAD leads also into the bush, to
the banana patch, and by a second bifurcation over the left branch
of the stream to the plateau and the right hand of the gorges. In
short, it leads to all sorts of good, and is, besides, in itself a
pretty winding path, bound downhill among big woods to the margin
of the stream.
What a strange idea, to think me a Jew-hater! Isaiah and David and
Heine are good enough for me; and I leave more unsaid. Were I of
Jew blood, I do not think I could ever forgive the Christians; the
ghettos would get in my nostrils like mustard or lit gunpowder.
Just so you as being a child of the Presbytery, I retain - I need
not dwell on that. The ascendant hand is what I feel most
strongly; I am bound in and in with my forbears; were he one of
mine, I should not be struck at all by Mr. Moss of Bevis Marks, I
should still see behind him Moses of the Mount and the Tables and
the shining face. We are all nobly born; fortunate those who know
it; blessed those who remember.
I am, my dear Adelaide, most genuinely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Write by return to say you are better, and I will try to do the
same.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
[VAILIMA], TUESDAY, 19TH MAY '91.
MY DEAR CHARLES, - I don't know what you think of me, not having
written to you at all during your illness. I find two sheets begun
with your name, but that is no excuse. . . . I am keeping bravely;
getting about better, every day, and hope soon to be in my usual
fettle. My books begin to come; and I fell once more on the Old
Bailey session papers. I have 1778, 1784, and 1786. Should you be
able to lay hands on any other volumes, above all a little later, I
should be very glad you should buy them for me. I particularly
want ONE or TWO during the course of the Peninsular War. Come to
think, I ought rather to have communicated this want to Bain.
Would it bore you to communicate to that effect with the great man?
The sooner I have them, the better for me. 'Tis for Henry Shovel.
But Henry Shovel has now turned into a work called 'The Shovels of
Newton French: Including Memoirs of Henry Shovel, a Private in the
Peninsular War,' which work is to begin in 1664 with the marriage
of Skipper, afterwards Alderman Shovel of Bristol, Henry's great-
great-grandfather, and end about 1832 with his own second marriage
to the daughter of his runaway aunt. Will the public ever stand
such an opus? Gude kens, but it tickles me. Two or three
historical personages will just appear: Judge Jeffreys,
Wellington, Colquhoun, Grant, and I think Townsend the runner. I
know the public won't like it; let 'em lump it then; I mean to make
it good; it will be more like a saga. - Adieu, yours ever
affectionately,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
VAILIMA [SUMMER 1891].
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - I find among my grandfather's papers his own
reminiscences of his voyage round the north with Sir Walter, eighty
years ago, LABUNTUR ANNI! They are not remarkably good, but he was
not a bad observer, and several touches seem to me speaking. It
has occurred to me you might like them to appear in the MAGAZINE.
If you would, kindly let me know, and tell me how you would like it
handled. My grandad's MS. runs to between six and seven thousand
words, which I could abbreviate of anecdotes that scarce touch Sir
W. Would you like this done? Would you like me to introduce the
old gentleman? I had something of the sort in my mind, and could
fill a few columns rather A PROPOS. I give you the first offer of
this, according to your request; for though it may forestall one of
the interests of my biography, the thing seems to me particularly
suited for prior appearance in a magazine.
I see the first number of the WRECKER; I thought it went lively
enough; and by a singular accident, the picture is not unlike Tai-
o-hae!
Thus we see the age of miracles, etc. - Yours very sincerely,
R. L. S.
Proofs for next mail.
Letter: TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
[SUMMER 1891.]
DEAR MR. ANGUS, - You can use my letter as you will. The parcel
has not come; pray Heaven the next post bring it safe. Is it
possible for me to write a preface here? I will try if you like,
if you think I must: though surely there are Rivers in Assyria.
Of course you will send me sheets of the catalogue; I suppose it
(the preface) need not be long; perhaps it should be rather very
short? Be sure you give me your views upon these points. Also
tell me what names to mention among those of your helpers, and do
remember to register everything, else it is not safe.
The true place (in my view) for a monument to Fergusson were the
churchyard of Haddington. But as that would perhaps not carry many
votes, I should say one of the two following sites:- First, either
as near the site of the old Bedlam as we could get, or, second,
beside the Cross, the heart of his city. Upon this I would have a
fluttering butterfly, and, I suggest, the citation,
Poor butterfly, thy case I mourn.
For the case of Fergusson is not one to pretend about. A more
miserable tragedy the sun never shone upon, or (in consideration of
our climate) I should rather say refused to brighten. - Yours
truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Where Burns goes will not matter. He is no local poet, like your
Robin the First; he is general as the casing air. Glasgow, as the
chief city of Scottish men, would do well; but for God's sake,
don't let it be like the Glasgow memorial to Knox: I remember,
when I first saw this, laughing for an hour by Shrewsbury clock.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO H. C. IDE
[VAILIMA, JUNE 19, 1891.]
DEAR MR. IDE, - Herewith please find the DOCUMENT, which I trust
will prove sufficient in law. It seems to me very attractive in
its eclecticism; Scots, English, and Roman law phrases are all
indifferently introduced, and a quotation from the works of Haynes
Bayly can hardly fail to attract the indulgence of the Bench. -
Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar, author of THE
MASTER OF BALLANTRAE and MORAL EMBLEMS, stuck civil engineer, sole
owner and patentee of the Palace and Plantation known as Vailima in
the island of Upolu, Samoa, a British Subject, being in sound mind,
and pretty well, I thank you, in body:
In consideration that Miss Annie H. Ide, daughter of H. C. Ide, in
the town of Saint Johnsbury, in the county of Caledonia, in the
state of Vermont, United States of America, was born, out of all
reason, upon Christmas Day, and is therefore out of all justice
denied the consolation and profit of a proper birthday;
And considering that I, the said Robert Louis Stevenson, have
attained an age when O, we never mention it, and that I have now no
further use for a birthday of any description;
And in consideration that I have met H. C. Ide, the father of the
said Annie H. Ide, and found him about as white a land commissioner
as I require:
HAVE TRANSFERRED, and DO HEREBY TRANSFER, to the said Annie H. Ide,
ALL AND WHOLE my rights and priviledges in the thirteenth day of
November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby, and henceforth, the
birthday of the said Annie H. Ide, to have, hold, exercise, and
enjoy the same in the customary manner, by the sporting of fine
raiment, eating of rich meats, and receipt of gifts, compliments,
and copies of verse, according to the manner of our ancestors;
AND I DIRECT the said Annie H. Ide to add to the said name of Annie
H. Ide the name Louisa - at least in private; and I charge her to
use my said birthday with moderation and humanity, ET TAMQUAM BONA
FILIA FAMILIAE, the said birthday not being so young as it once
was, and having carried me in a very satisfactory manner since I
can remember;
And in case the said Annie H. Ide shall neglect or contravene
either of the above conditions, I hereby revoke the donation and
transfer my rights in the said birthday to the President of the
United States of America for the time being:
In witness whereof I have hereto set my hand and seal this
nineteenth day of June in the year of grace eighteen hundred and
ninety-one.
[SEAL.]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
WITNESS, LLOYD OSBOURNE,
WITNESS, HAROLD WATTS.
Letter: TO HENRY JAMES
[VAILIMA, OCTOBER 1891.]
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES, - From this perturbed and hunted being expect
but a line, and that line shall be but a whoop for Adela. O she's
delicious, delicious; I could live and die with Adela - die, rather
the better of the two; you never did a straighter thing, and never
will.
DAVID BALFOUR, second part of KIDNAPPED, is on the stocks at last;
and is not bad, I think. As for THE WRECKER, it's a machine, you
know - don't expect aught else - a machine, and a police machine;
but I believe the end is one of the most genuine butcheries in
literature; and we point to our machine with a modest pride, as the
only police machine without a villain. Our criminals are a most
pleasing crew, and leave the dock with scarce a stain upon their
character.
What a different line of country to be trying to draw Adela, and
trying to write the last four chapters of THE WRECKER! Heavens,
it's like two centuries; and ours is such rude, transpontine
business, aiming only at a certain fervour of conviction and sense
of energy and violence in the men; and yours is so neat and bright
and of so exquisite a surface! Seems dreadful to send such a book
to such an author; but your name is on the list. And we do
modestly ask you to consider the chapters on the NORAH CREINA with
the study of Captain Nares, and the forementioned last four, with
their brutality of substance and the curious (and perhaps unsound)
technical manoeuvre of running the story together to a point as we
go along, the narrative becoming more succinct and the details
fining off with every page. - Sworn affidavit of
R. L. S.
NO PERSON NOW ALIVE HAS BEATEN ADELA: I ADORE ADELA AND HER MAKER.
SIC SUBSCRIB.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
A Sublime Poem to follow.
Adela, Adela, Adela Chart,
What have you done to my elderly heart?
Of all the ladies of paper and ink
I count you the paragon, call you the pink.
The word of your brother depicts you in part:
'You raving maniac!' Adela Chart;
But in all the asylums that cumber the ground,
So delightful a maniac was ne'er to be found.
I pore on you, dote on you, clasp you to heart,
I laud, love, and laugh at you, Adela Chart,
And thank my dear maker the while I admire
That I can be neither your husband nor sire.
Your husband's, your sire's were a difficult part;
You're a byway to suicide, Adela Chart;
But to read of, depicted by exquisite James,
O, sure you're the flower and quintessence of dames.
R. L. S.
ERUCTAVIT COR MEUM.
My heart was inditing a goodly matter about Adela Chart.
Though oft I've been touched by the volatile dart,
To none have I grovelled but Adela Chart,
There are passable ladies, no question, in art -
But where is the marrow of Adela Chart?
I dreamed that to Tyburn I passed in the cart -
I dreamed I was married to Adela Chart:
From the first I awoke with a palpable start,
The second dumfoundered me, Adela Chart!
Another verse bursts from me, you see; no end to the violence of
the Muse.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
OCTOBER 8TH, 1891.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - All right, you shall have the TALES OF MY
GRANDFATHER soon, but I guess we'll try and finish off THE WRECKER
first. A PROPOS of whom, please send some advanced sheets to
Cassell's - away ahead of you - so that they may get a dummy out.
Do you wish to illustrate MY GRANDFATHER? He mentions as excellent
a portrait of Scott by Basil Hall's brother. I don't think I ever
saw this engraved; would it not, if you could get track of it,
prove a taking embellishment? I suggest this for your
consideration and inquiry. A new portrait of Scott strikes me as
good. There is a hard, tough, constipated old portrait of my
grandfather hanging in my aunt's house, Mrs. Alan Stevenson, 16 St.
Leonard's Terrace, Chelsea, which has never been engraved - the
better portrait, Joseph's bust has been reproduced, I believe,
twice - and which, I am sure, my aunt would let you have a copy of.
The plate could be of use for the book when we get so far, and thus
to place it in the MAGAZINE might be an actual saving.
I am swallowed up in politics for the first, I hope for the last,
time in my sublunary career. It is a painful, thankless trade; but
one thing that came up I could not pass in silence. Much drafting,
addressing, deputationising has eaten up all my time, and again (to
my contrition) I leave you Wreckerless. As soon as the mail leaves
I tackle it straight. - Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
VAILIMA [AUTUMN 1891].
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - The time draws nigh, the mail is near due,
and I snatch a moment of collapse so that you may have at least
some sort of a scratch of note along with the
\ end
\ of
\ THE
\ WRECKER.
Hurray!
which I mean to go herewith. It has taken me a devil of a pull,
but I think it's going to be ready. If I did not know you were on
the stretch waiting for it and trembling for your illustrations, I
would keep it for another finish; but things being as they are, I
will let it go the best way I can get it. I am now within two
pages of the end of Chapter XXV., which is the last chapter, the
end with its gathering up of loose threads, being the dedication to
Low, and addressed to him: this is my last and best expedient for
the knotting up of these loose cards. 'Tis possible I may not get
that finished in time, in which case you'll receive only Chapters
XXII. to XXV. by this mail, which is all that can be required for
illustration.
I wish you would send me MEMOIRS OF BARON MARBOT (French);
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF LANGUAGE, Strong,
Logeman & Wheeler; PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY, William James; Morris
& Magnusson's SAGA LIBRARY, any volumes that are out; George
Meredith's ONE OF OUR CONQUERORS; LA BAS, by Huysmans (French);
O'Connor Morris's GREAT COMMANDERS OF MODERN TIMES; LIFE'S
HANDICAP, by Kipling; of Taine's ORIGINES DE LA FRANCE
CONTEMPORAINE, I have only as far as LA REVOLUTION, vol. iii.; if
another volume is out, please add that. There is for a book-box.
I hope you will like the end; I think it is rather strong meat. I
have got into such a deliberate, dilatory, expansive turn, that the
effort to compress this last yarn was unwelcome; but the longest
yarn has to come to an end sometime. Please look it over for
carelessnesses, and tell me if it had any effect upon your jaded
editorial mind. I'll see if ever I have time to add more.
I add to my book-box list Adams' HISTORICAL ESSAYS; the Plays of A.
W. Pinero - all that have appeared, and send me the rest in course
as they do appear; NOUGHTS AND CROSSES by Q.; Robertson's SCOTLAND
UNDER HER EARLY KINGS.
SUNDAY.
The deed is done, didst thou not hear a noise? 'The end' has been
written to this endless yarn, and I am once more a free man. What
will he do with it?
Letter: TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
VAILIMA, SAMOA, NOVEMBER 1891.
MY DEAR MR. ANGUS, - Herewith the invaluable sheets. They came
months after your letter, and I trembled; but here they are, and I
have scrawled my vile name on them, and 'thocht shame' as I did it.
I am expecting the sheets of your catalogue, so that I may attack
the preface. Please give me all the time you can. The sooner the
better; you might even send me early proofs as they are sent out,
to give me more incubation. I used to write as slow as judgment;
now I write rather fast; but I am still 'a slow study,' and sit a
long while silent on my eggs. Unconscious thought, there is the
only method: macerate your subject, let it boil slow, then take
the lid off and look in - and there your stuff is, good or bad.
But the journalist's method is the way to manufacture lies; it is
will-worship - if you know the luminous quaker phrase; and the will
is only to be brought in the field for study, and again for
revision. The essential part of work is not an act, it is a state.
I do not know why I write you this trash.
Many thanks for your handsome dedication. I have not yet had time
to do more than glance at Mrs. Begg; it looks interesting. - Yours
very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MISS ANNIE H. IDE
VAILIMA, SAMOA [NOVEMBER 1891].
MY DEAR LOUISA, - Your picture of the church, the photograph of
yourself and your sister, and your very witty and pleasing letter,
came all in a bundle, and made me feel I had my money's worth for
that birthday. I am now, I must be, one of your nearest relatives;
exactly what we are to each other, I do not know, I doubt if the
case has ever happened before - your papa ought to know, and I
don't believe he does; but I think I ought to call you in the
meanwhile, and until we get the advice of counsel learned in the
law, my name-daughter. Well, I was extremely pleased to see by the
church that my name-daughter could draw; by the letter, that she
was no fool; and by the photograph, that she was a pretty girl,
which hurts nothing. See how virtues are rewarded! My first idea
of adopting you was entirely charitable; and here I find that I am
quite proud of it, and of you, and that I chose just the kind of
name-daughter I wanted. For I can draw too, or rather I mean to
say I could before I forgot how; and I am very far from being a
fool myself, however much I may look it; and I am as beautiful as
the day, or at least I once hoped that perhaps I might be going to
be. And so I might. So that you see we are well met, and peers on
these important points. I am VERY glad also that you are older
than your sister. So should I have been, if I had had one. So
that the number of points and virtues which you have inherited from
your name-father is already quite surprising.
I wish you would tell your father - not that I like to encourage my
rival - that we have had a wonderful time here of late, and that
they are having a cold day on Mulinuu, and the consuls are writing
reports, and I am writing to the TIMES, and if we don't get rid of
our friends this time I shall begin to despair of everything but my
name-daughter.
You are quite wrong as to the effect of the birthday on your age.
From the moment the deed was registered (as it was in the public
press with every solemnity), the 13th of November became your own
AND ONLY birthday, and you ceased to have been born on Christmas
Day. Ask your father: I am sure he will tell you this is sound
law. You are thus become a month and twelve days younger than you
were, but will go on growing older for the future in the regular
and human manner from one 13th November to the next. The effect on
me is more doubtful; I may, as you suggest, live for ever; I might,
on the other hand, come to pieces like the one-horse shay at a
moment's notice; doubtless the step was risky, but I do not the
least regret that which enables me to sign myself your revered and
delighted name-father,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO FRED ORR
VAILIMA, UPOLU, SAMOA, NOVEMBER 28TH, 1891.
DEAR SIR, - Your obliging communication is to hand. I am glad to
find that you have read some of my books, and to see that you spell
my name right. This is a point (for some reason) of great
difficulty; and I believe that a gentleman who can spell Stevenson
with a v at sixteen, should have a show for the Presidency before
fifty. By that time
I, nearer to the wayside inn,
predict that you will have outgrown your taste for autographs, but
perhaps your son may have inherited the collection, and on the
morning of the great day will recall my prophecy to your mind. And
in the papers of 1921 (say) this letter may arouse a smile.
Whatever you do, read something else besides novels and newspapers;
the first are good enough when they are good; the second, at their
best, are worth nothing. Read great books of literature and
history; try to understand the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages; be
sure you do not understand when you dislike them; condemnation is
non-comprehension. And if you know something of these two periods,
you will know a little more about to-day, and may be a good
President.
I send you my best wishes, and am yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
AUTHOR OF A VAST QUANTITY OF LITTLE BOOKS.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[VAILIMA, DECEMBER 1891.]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - The end of THE WRECKER having but just come
in, you will, I dare say, be appalled to receive three (possibly
four) chapters of a new book of the least attractive sort: a
history of nowhere in a corner, for no time to mention, running to
a volume! Well, it may very likely be an illusion; it is very
likely no one could possibly wish to read it, but I wish to publish
it. If you don't cotton to the idea, kindly set it up at my
expense, and let me know your terms for publishing. The great
affair to me is to have per return (if it might be) four or five -
better say half a dozen - sets of the roughest proofs that can be
drawn. There are a good many men here whom I want to read the
blessed thing, and not one would have the energy to read MS. At
the same time, if you care to glance at it, and have the time, I
should be very glad of your opinion as to whether I have made any
step at all towards possibly inducing folk at home to read matter
so extraneous and outlandish. I become heavy and owlish; years sit
upon me; it begins to seem to me to be a man's business to leave
off his damnable faces and say his say. Else I could have made it
pungent and light and lively. In considering, kindly forget that I
am R. L. S.; think of the four chapters as a book you are reading,
by an inhabitant of our 'lovely but fatil' islands; and see if it
could possibly amuse the hebetated public. I have to publish
anyway, you understand; I have a purpose beyond; I am concerned for
some of the parties to this quarrel. What I want to hear is from
curiosity; what I want you to judge of is what we are to do with
the book in a business sense. To me it is not business at all; I
had meant originally to lay all the profits to the credit of Samoa;
when it comes to the pinch of writing, I judge this unfair - I give
too much - and I mean to keep (if there be any profit at all) one-
half for the artisan; the rest I shall hold over to give to the
Samoans FOR THAT WHICH I CHOOSE AND AGAINST WORK DONE. I think I
have never heard of greater insolence than to attempt such a
subject; yet the tale is so strange and mixed, and the people so
oddly charactered - above all, the whites - and the high note of
the hurricane and the warships is so well prepared to take popular
interest, and the latter part is so directly in the day's movement,
that I am not without hope but some may read it; and if they don't,
a murrain on them! Here is, for the first time, a tale of Greeks -
Homeric Greeks - mingled with moderns, and all true; Odysseus
alongside of Rajah Brooke, PROPORTION GARDEE; and all true. Here
is for the first time since the Greeks (that I remember) the
history of a handful of men, where all know each other in the eyes,
and live close in a few acres, narrated at length, and with the
seriousness of history. Talk of the modern novel; here is a modern
history. And if I had the misfortune to found a school, the
legitimate historian might lie down and die, for he could never
overtake his material. Here is a little tale that has not 'caret'-
ed its 'vates'; 'sacer' is another point.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO HENRY JAMES
DECEMBER 7TH, 1891.
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES, - Thanks for yours; your former letter was
lost; so it appears was my long and masterly treatise on the TRAGIC
MUSE. I remember sending it very well, and there went by the same
mail a long and masterly tractate to Gosse about his daddy's life,
for which I have been long expecting an acknowledgment, and which
is plainly gone to the bottom with the other. If you see Gosse,
please mention it. These gems of criticism are now lost
literature, like the tomes of Alexandria. I could not do 'em
again. And I must ask you to be content with a dull head, a weary
hand, and short commons, for to-day, as I am physically tired with
hard work of every kind, the labours of the planter and the author
both piled upon me mountain deep. I am delighted beyond expression
by Bourget's book: he has phrases which affect me almost like
Montaigne; I had read ere this a masterly essay of his on Pascal;
this book does it; I write for all his essays by this mail, and
shall try to meet him when I come to Europe. The proposal is to
pass a summer in France, I think in Royat, where the faithful could
come and visit me; they are now not many. I expect Henry James to
come and break a crust or two with us. I believe it will be only
my wife and myself; and she will go over to England, but not I, or
possibly incog. to Southampton, and then to Boscombe to see poor
Lady Shelley. I am writing - trying to write in a Babel fit for
the bottomless pit; my wife, her daughter, her grandson and my
mother, all shrieking at each other round the house - not in war,
thank God! but the din is ultra martial, and the note of Lloyd
joins in occasionally, and the cause of this to-do is simply cacao,
whereof chocolate comes. You may drink of our chocolate perhaps in
five or six years from now, and not know it. It makes a fine
bustle, and gives us some hard work, out of which I have slunk for
to-day.
I have a story coming out: God knows when or how; it answers to
the name of the BEACH OF FALESA, and I think well of it. I was
delighted with the TRAGIC MUSE; I thought the Muse herself one of
your best works; I was delighted also to hear of the success of
your piece, as you know I am a dam failure, and might have dined
with the dinner club that Daudet and these parties frequented.
NEXT DAY.
I have just been breakfasting at Baiae and Brindisi, and the charm
of Bourget hag-rides me. I wonder if this exquisite fellow, all
made of fiddle-strings and scent and intelligence, could bear any
of my bald prose. If you think he could, ask Colvin to send him a
copy of these last essays of mine when they appear; and tell
Bourget they go to him from a South Sea Island as literal homage.
I have read no new book for years that gave me the same literary
thrill as his SENSATIONS D'ITALIE. If (as I imagine) my cut-and-
dry literature would be death to him, and worse than death -
journalism - be silent on the point. For I have a great curiosity
to know him, and if he doesn't know my work, I shall have the
better chance of making his acquaintance. I read THE PUPIL the
other day with great joy; your little boy is admirable; why is
there no little boy like that unless he hails from the Great
Republic?
Here I broke off, and wrote Bourget a dedication; no use resisting;
it's a love affair. O, he's exquisite, I bless you for the gift of
him. I have really enjoyed this book as I - almost as I - used to
enjoy books when I was going twenty - twenty-three; and these are
the years for reading!
R. L. S.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[VAILIMA] JAN 2ND, '92.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - Overjoyed you were pleased with WRECKER, and
shall consider your protests. There is perhaps more art than you
think for in the peccant chapter, where I have succeeded in packing
into one a dedication, an explanation, and a termination. Surely
you had not recognised the phrase about boodle? It was a quotation
from Jim Pinkerton, and seemed to me agreeably skittish. However,
all shall be prayerfully considered.
To come to a more painful subject. Herewith go three more chapters
of the wretched HISTORY; as you see, I approach the climax. I
expect the book to be some 70,000 words, of which you have now 45.
Can I finish it for next mail? I am going to try! 'Tis a long
piece of journalism, and full of difficulties here and there, of
this kind and that, and will make me a power of friends to be sure.
There is one Becker who will probably put up a window to me in the
church where he was baptized; and I expect a testimonial from
Captain Hand.
Sorry to let the mail go without the Scott; this has been a bad
month with me, and I have been below myself. I shall find a way to
have it come by next, or know the reason why. The mail after,
anyway.
A bit of a sketch map appears to me necessary for my HISTORY;
perhaps two. If I do not have any, 'tis impossible any one should
follow; and I, even when not at all interested, demand that I shall
be able to follow; even a tourist book without a map is a cross to
me; and there must be others of my way of thinking. I inclose the
very artless one that I think needful. Vailima, in case you are
curious, is about as far again behind Tanugamanono as that is from
the sea.
M'Clure is publishing a short story of mine, some 50,000 words, I
think, THE BEACH OF FALESA; when he's done with it, I want you and
Cassell to bring it out in a little volume; I shall send you a
dedication for it; I believe it good; indeed, to be honest, very
good. Good gear that pleases the merchant.
The other map that I half threaten is a chart for the hurricane.
Get me Kimberley's report of the hurricane: not to be found here.
It is of most importance; I MUST have it with my proofs of that
part, if I cannot have it earlier, which now seems impossible. -
Yours in hot haste,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO J. M. BARRIE
VAILIMA, SAMOA, FEBRUARY 1892.
DEAR MR. BARRIE, - This is at least the third letter I have written
you, but my correspondence has a bad habit of not getting so far as
the post. That which I possess of manhood turns pale before the
business of the address and envelope. But I hope to be more
fortunate with this: for, besides the usual and often recurrent
desire to thank you for your work-you are one of four that have
come to the front since I was watching and had a corner of my own
to watch, and there is no reason, unless it be in these mysterious
tides that ebb and flow, and make and mar and murder the works of
poor scribblers, why you should not do work of the best order. The
tides have borne away my sentence, of which I was weary at any
rate, and between authors I may allow myself so much freedom as to
leave it pending. We are both Scots besides, and I suspect both
rather Scotty Scots; my own Scotchness tends to intermittency, but
is at times erisypelitous - if that be rightly spelt. Lastly, I
have gathered we had both made our stages in the metropolis of the
winds: our Virgil's 'grey metropolis,' and I count that a lasting
bond. No place so brands a man.
Finally, I feel it a sort of duty to you to report progress. This
may be an error, but I believed I detected your hand in an article
- it may be an illusion, it may have been by one of those
industrious insects who catch up and reproduce the handling of each
emergent man - but I'll still hope it was yours - and hope it may
please you to hear that the continuation of KIDNAPPED is under way.
I have not yet got to Alan, so I do not know if he is still alive,
but David seems to have a kick or two in his shanks. I was pleased
to see how the Anglo-Saxon theory fell into the trap: I gave my
Lowlander a Gaelic name, and even commented on the fact in the
text; yet almost all critics recognised in Alan and David a Saxon
and a Celt. I know not about England; in Scotland at least, where
Gaelic was spoken in Fife little over the century ago, and in
Galloway not much earlier, I deny that there exists such a thing as
a pure Saxon, and I think it more than questionable if there be
such a thing as a pure Celt.
But what have you to do with this? and what have I? Let us
continue to inscribe our little bits of tales, and let the heathen
rage! Yours, with sincere interest in your career,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO WILLIAM MORRIS
VAILIMA, SAMOA, FEB. 1892.
MASTER, - A plea from a place so distant should have some weight,
and from a heart so grateful should have some address. I have been
long in your debt, Master, and I did not think it could be so much
increased as you have now increased it. I was long in your debt
and deep in your debt for many poems that I shall never forget, and
for SIGURD before all, and now you have plunged me beyond payment
by the Saga Library. And so now, true to human nature, being
plunged beyond payment, I come and bark at your heels.
For surely, Master, that tongue that we write, and that you have
illustrated so nobly, is yet alive. She has her rights and laws,
and is our mother, our queen, and our instrument. Now in that
living tongue WHERE has one sense, WHEREAS another. In the
HEATHSLAYINGS STORY, p. 241, line 13, it bears one of its ordinary
senses. Elsewhere and usually through the two volumes, which is
all that has yet reached me of this entrancing publication, WHEREAS
is made to figure for WHERE.
For the love of God, my dear and honoured Morris, use WHERE, and
let us know WHEREAS we are, wherefore our gratitude shall grow,
whereby you shall be the more honoured wherever men love clear
language, whereas now, although we honour, we are troubled.
Whereunder, please find inscribed to this very impudent but yet
very anxious document, the name of one of the most distant but not
the youngest or the coldest of those who honour you.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
[VAILIMA, MARCH 1892.]
MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD, - I am guilty in your sight, but my affairs
besiege me. The chief-justiceship of a family of nineteen
persons is in itself no sinecure, and sometimes occupies me for
days: two weeks ago for four days almost entirely, and for two
days entirely. Besides which, I have in the last few months
written all but one chapter of a HISTORY OF SAMOA for the last
eight or nine years; and while I was unavoidably delayed in the
writing of this, awaiting material, put in one-half of DAVID
BALFOUR, the sequel to KIDNAPPED. Add the ordinary impediments of
life, and admire my busyness. I am now an old, but healthy
skeleton, and degenerate much towards the machine. By six at work:
stopped at half-past ten to give a history lesson to a step-
grandson; eleven, lunch; after lunch we have a musical performance
till two; then to work again; bath, 4.40, dinner, five; cards in
the evening till eight; and then to bed - only I have no bed, only
a chest with a mat and blankets - and read myself to sleep. This
is the routine, but often sadly interrupted. Then you may see me
sitting on the floor of my verandah haranguing and being harangued
by squatting chiefs on a question of a road; or more privately
holding an inquiry into some dispute among our familiars, myself on
my bed, the boys on the floor - for when it comes to the judicial I
play dignity - or else going down to Apia on some more or less
unsatisfactory errand. Altogether it is a life that suits me, but
it absorbs me like an ocean. That is what I have always envied and
admired in Scott; with all that immensity of work and study, his
mind kept flexible, glancing to all points of natural interest.
But the lean hot spirits, such as mine, become hypnotised with
their bit occupations - if I may use Scotch to you - it is so far
more scornful than any English idiom. Well, I can't help being a
skeleton, and you are to take this devious passage for an apology.
I thought ALADDIN capital fun; but why, in fortune, did he pretend
it was moral at the end? The so-called nineteenth century, OU VA-
T-IL SE NICHER? 'Tis a trifle, but Pyle would do well to knock the
passage out, and leave his boguey tale a boguey tale, and a good
one at that.
The arrival of your box was altogether a great success to the
castaways. You have no idea where we live. Do you know, in all
these islands there are not five hundred whites, and no postal
delivery, and only one village - it is no more - and would be a
mean enough village in Europe? We were asked the other day if
Vailima were the name of our post town, and we laughed. Do you
know, though we are but three miles from the village metropolis, we
have no road to it, and our goods are brought on the pack-saddle?
And do you know - or I should rather say, can you believe - or (in
the famous old Tichborne trial phrase) would you be surprised to
learn, that all you have read of Vailima - or Subpriorsford, as I
call it - is entirely false, and we have no ice-machine, and no
electric light, and no water supply but the cistern of the heavens,
and but one public room, and scarce a bedroom apiece? But, of
course, it is well known that I have made enormous sums by my
evanescent literature, and you will smile at my false humility.
The point, however, is much on our minds just now. We are
expecting an invasion of Kiplings; very glad we shall be to see
them; but two of the party are ladies, and I tell you we had to
hold a council of war to stow them. You European ladies are so
particular; with all of mine, sleeping has long become a public
function, as with natives and those who go down much into the sea
in ships.
Dear Mrs. Fairchild, I must go to my work. I have but two words to
say in conclusion.
First, civilisation is rot.
Second, console a savage with more of the milk of that over
civilised being, your adorable schoolboy.
As I wrote these remarkable words, I was called down to eight
o'clock prayers, and have just worked through a chapter of Joshua
and five verses, with five treble choruses of a Samoan hymn; but
the music was good, our boys and precentress ('tis always a woman
that leads) did better than I ever heard them, and to my great
pleasure I understood it all except one verse. This gave me the
more time to try and identify what the parts were doing, and
further convict my dull ear. Beyond the fact that the soprano rose
to the tonic above, on one occasion I could recognise nothing.
This is sickening, but I mean to teach my ear better before I am
done with it or this vile carcase.
I think it will amuse you (for a last word) to hear that our
precentress - she is the washerwoman - is our shame. She is a
good, healthy, comely, strapping young wench, full of energy and
seriousness, a splendid workwoman, delighting to train our chorus,
delighting in the poetry of the hymns, which she reads aloud (on
the least provocation) with a great sentiment of rhythm. Well,
then, what is curious? Ah, we did not know! but it was told us in
a whisper from the cook-house - she is not of good family. Don't
let it get out, please; everybody knows it, of course, here; there
is no reason why Europe and the States should have the advantage of
me also. And the rest of my housefolk are all chief-people, I
assure you. And my late overseer (far the best of his race) is a
really serious chief with a good 'name.' Tina is the name; it is
not in the Almanach de Gotha, it must have got dropped at press.
The odd thing is, we rather share the prejudice. I have almost
always - though not quite always - found the higher the chief the
better the man through all the islands; or, at least, that the best
man came always from a highish rank. I hope Helen will continue to
prove a bright exception.
With love to Fairchild and the Huge Schoolboy, I am, my dear Mrs.
Fairchild, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[VAILIMA, MARCH 1892.]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - Herewith Chapters IX. and X., and I am left
face to face with the horrors and dilemmas of the present regimen:
pray for those that go down to the sea in ships. I have promised
Henley shall have a chance to publish the hurricane chapter if he
like, so please let the slips be sent QUAM PRIMUM to C. Baxter,
W.S., 11 S. Charlotte Street, Edinburgh. I got on mighty quick
with that chapter - about five days of the toughest kind of work.
God forbid I should ever have such another pirn to wind! When I
invent a language, there shall be a direct and an indirect pronoun
differently declined - then writing would be some fun.
DIRECT INDIRECT
He Tu
Him Tum
His Tus
Ex.: HE seized TUM by TUS throat; but TU at the same moment caught
HIM by HIS hair. A fellow could write hurricanes with an
inflection like that! Yet there would he difficulties too.
Do what you please about THE BEACH; and I give you CARTE BLANCHE to
write in the matter to Baxter - or telegraph if the time press - to
delay the English contingent. Herewith the two last slips of THE
WRECKER. I cannot go beyond. By the way, pray compliment the
printers on the proofs of the Samoa racket, but hint to them that
it is most unbusiness-like and unscholarly to clip the edges of the
galleys; these proofs should really have been sent me on large
paper; and I and my friends here are all put to a great deal of
trouble and confusion by the mistake. - For, as you must conceive,
in a matter so contested and complicated, the number of corrections
and the length of explanations is considerable.
Please add to my former orders -
LE CHEVALIER DES TOUCHES } by Barbey d'Aurevilly.
LES DIABOLIQUES . . . }
CORRESPONDANCE DE HENRI BEYLE (Stendahl).
Yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO T. W. DOVER
VAILIMA PLANTATION, UPOLU, SAMOA, JUNE 20TH, 1892.
SIR, - In reply to your very interesting letter, I cannot fairly
say that I have ever been poor, or known what it was to want a
meal. I have been reduced, however, to a very small sum of money,
with no apparent prospect of increasing it; and at that time I
reduced myself to practically one meal a day, with the most
disgusting consequences to my health. At this time I lodged in the
house of a working man, and associated much with others. At the
same time, from my youth up, I have always been a good deal and
rather intimately thrown among the working-classes, partly as a
civil engineer in out-of-the-way places, partly from a strong and,
I hope, not ill-favoured sentiment of curiosity. But the place
where, perhaps, I was most struck with the fact upon which you
comment was the house of a friend, who was exceedingly poor, in
fact, I may say destitute, and who lived in the attic of a very
tall house entirely inhabited by persons in varying stages of
poverty. As he was also in ill-health, I made a habit of passing
my afternoon with him, and when there it was my part to answer the
door. The steady procession of people begging, and the expectant
and confident manner in which they presented themselves, struck me
more and more daily; and I could not but remember with surprise
that though my father lived but a few streets away in a fine house,
beggars scarce came to the door once a fortnight or a month. From
that time forward I made it my business to inquire, and in the
stories which I am very fond of hearing from all sorts and
conditions of men, learned that in the time of their distress it
was always from the poor they sought assistance, and almost always
from the poor they got it.
