This is a devilish egotistical yarn. Will you try to imitate me in that if the spirit ever moves you to reply? And meantime be sure that away in the midst of the Pacific there is a house on a wooded island where the name of George Meredith is very dear, and his memory (since it must be no more) is continually honoured. — Ever your friend,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
Remember me to Mariette, if you please; and my wife sends her most kind remembrances to yourself.
R. L. S.
To Charles Baxter
Finished on the way to Honolulu for a health change which turned out unfortunate. With the help of Mr. J.H. Stevenson and other correspondents he had now, as we have seen, been able (regretfully 346 giving up the possibility of a Macgregor lineage) to identify his forbears as having about 1670 been tenant farmers at Nether Carsewell in Renfrewshire. The German government at home had taken his Footnote to History much less kindly than his German neighbours on the spot, and the Tauchnitz edition had been confiscated and destroyed and its publisher fined.
[Vailima, and s.s. Mariposa, September 1893.]
MY DEAR CHARLES, — Here is a job for you. It appears that about 1665, or earlier, James Stevenson {in of} Nether Carsewell, parish of Neilston, flourished. Will you kindly send an able-bodied reader to compulse the parish registers of Neilston, if they exist or go back as far? Also could any trace be found through Nether-Carsewell? I expect it to have belonged to Mure of Cauldwell. If this be so, might not the Cauldwell charter chest contain some references to their Stevenson tenantry? Perpend upon it. But clap me on the judicious, able-bodied reader on the spot. Can I really have found the tap-root of my illustrious ancestry at last? Souls of my fathers! What a giggle-iggle-orious moment! I have drawn on you for £400. Also I have written to Tauchnitz announcing I should bear one-half part of his fines and expenses, amounting to £62, 10s. The £400 includes £160 which I have laid out here in land. Vanu Manutagi — the vale of crying birds (the wild dove) — is now mine: it was Fanny’s wish and she is to buy it from me again when she has made that much money.
Will you please order for me through your bookseller the Mabinogion of Lady Charlotte Guest — if that be her name — and the original of Cook’s voyages lately published? Also, I see announced a map of the Great North Road: you might see what it is like: if it is highly detailed, or has any posting information, I should like it.
This is being finished on board the Mariposa going north. I am making the run to Honolulu and back for health’s sake. No inclination to write more. — As ever,
R. L. S.
To Sidney Colvin
On a first reading of the incomplete MS. of The Ebb Tide, without its concluding chapters, which are the strongest, dislike of the three detestable — or rather two detestable and one contemptible — chief characters had made me unjust to the imaginative force and vividness of the treatment.
[Vailima] 23rd August.
MY DEAR COLVIN, — Your pleasing letter re The Ebb Tide, to hand. I propose, if it be not too late, to delete Lloyd’s name. He has nothing to do with the last half. The first we wrote together, as the beginning of a long yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather unfair on the young man to couple his name with so infamous a work. Above all, as you had not read the two last chapters, which seem to me the most ugly and cynical of all.
You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I am not. It is not because of your letter, but because of the complicated miseries that surround me and that I choose to say nothing of.... Life is not all Beer and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on. Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my own share in the missteps, and can bow my head to the result, like an old, stern, unhappy devil of a Norseman, as my ultimate character is....
Well, il faut cultiver son jardin. That last expression of poor, unhappy human wisdom I take to my heart and go to St. Ives.
24th Aug. — And did, and worked about 2 hours and got to sleep ultimately and “a’ the clouds has blawn away.” “Be sure we’ll have some pleisand weather, When a’ the clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone?) away.” 348 Verses that have a quite inexplicable attraction for me, and I believe had for Burns. They have no merit, but are somehow good. I am now in a most excellent humour.
I am deep in St. Ives which, I believe, will be the next novel done. But it is to be clearly understood that I promise nothing, and may throw in your face the very last thing you expect — or I expect. St. Ives will (to my mind) not be wholly bad. It is written in rather a funny style; a little stilted and left-handed; the style of St. Ives; also, to some extent, the style of R. L. S. dictating. St. Ives is unintellectual, and except as an adventure novel, dull. But the adventures seem to me sound and pretty probable; and it is a love story. Speed his wings!
Sunday night. — De cœur un peu plus dispos, monsieur et cher confrère, je me remets à vous écrire. St. Ives is now in the 5th chapter copying; in the 14th chapter of the dictated draft. I do not believe I shall end by disliking it.
Monday. — Well, here goes again for the news. Fanny is very well indeed, and in good spirits; I am in good spirits, but not very well; Lloyd is in good spirits and very well; Belle has a real good fever which has put her pipe out wholly. Graham goes back this mail. He takes with him three chapters of The Family, and is to go to you as soon as he can. He cannot be much the master of his movements, but you grip him when you can and get all you can from him, as he has lived about six months with us and he can tell you just what is true and what is not — and not the dreams of dear old Ross. He is a good fellow, is he not?
Since you rather revise your views of The Ebb Tide, I think Lloyd’s name might stick, but I’ll leave it to you. I’ll tell you just how it stands. Up to the discovery of the champagne, the tale was all planned between 349 us and drafted by Lloyd; from that moment he has had nothing to do with it except talking it over. For we changed our plan, gave up the projected Monte Cristo, and cut it down for a short story. My impression — (I beg your pardon — this is a local joke — a firm here had on its beer labels, “sole importers”) — is that it will never be popular, but might make a little succès de scandale. However, I’m done with it now, and not sorry, and the crowd may rave and mumble its bones for what I care.
Hole essential. I am sorry about the maps; but I want ‘em for next edition, so see and have proofs sent. You are quite right about the bottle and the great Huish, I must try to make it clear. No, I will not write a play for Irving nor for the devil. Can you not see that the work of falsification which a play demands is of all tasks the most ungrateful? And I have done it a long while — and nothing ever came of it.
Consider my new proposal, I mean Honolulu. You would get the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, would you not? for bracing. And so much less sea! And then you could actually see Vailima, which I would like you to, for it’s beautiful and my home and tomb that is to be; though it’s a wrench not to be planted in Scotland — that I can never deny — if I could only be buried in the hills, under the heather and a table tombstone like the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers are crying! Did you see a man who wrote the Stickit Minister, and dedicated it to me, in words that brought the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them. “Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying. His heart remembers how.” Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should fulfil the Scots destiny throughout, and live a voluntary 350 exile, and have my head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time!
And now a word as regards the delusions of the dear Ross, who remembers, I believe, my letters and Fanny’s when we were first installed, and were really hoeing a hard row. We have salad, beans, cabbages, tomatoes, asparagus, kohl-rabi, oranges, limes, barbadines, pine-apples, Cape gooseberries — galore; pints of milk and cream;
fresh meat five days a week. It is the rarest thing for any of us to touch a tin; and the gnashing of teeth when it has to be done is dreadful — for no one who has not lived on them for six months knows what the Hatred of the Tin is. As for exposure, my weakness is certainly the reverse; I am sometimes a month without leaving the verandah — for my sins, be it said! Doubtless, when I go about and, as the Doctor says, “expose myself to malaria,” I am in far better health; and I would do so more too — for I do not mean to be silly — but the difficulties are great. However, you see how much the dear Doctor knows of my diet and habits! Malaria practically does not exist in these islands; it is a negligeable quantity. What really bothers us a little is the mosquito affair — the so-called elephantiasis — ask Ross about it. A real romance of natural history, quoi!
Hi! stop! you say The Ebb Tide is the “working out of an artistic problem of a kind.” Well, I should just bet it was! You don’t like Attwater. But look at my three rogues; they’re all there, I’ll go bail. Three types of the bad man, the weak man, and the strong man with a weakness, that are gone through and lived out.
Yes, of course I was sorry for Mataafa, but a good deal sorrier and angrier about the mismanagement of all the white officials. I cannot bear to write about that. Manono all destroyed, one house standing in Apolima, the women stripped, the prisoners beaten with whips — and the women’s heads taken — all under white auspices. And for upshot and result of so much shame to the white 351 powers — Tamasese already conspiring! as I knew and preached in vain must be the case! Well, well, it is no fun to meddle in politics!
I suppose you’re right about Simon. But it is Symon throughout in that blessed little volume my father bought for me in Inverness in the year of grace ‘81, I believe — the trial of James Stewart, with the Jacobite pamphlet and the dying speech appended — out of which the whole of Davie has already been begotten, and which I felt it a kind of loyalty to follow. I really ought to have it bound in velvet and gold, if I had any gratitude! and the best of the lark is, that the name of David Balfour is not anywhere within the bounds of it. A pretty curious instance of the genesis of a book. I am delighted at your good word for David; I believe the two together make up much the best of my work and perhaps of what is in me. I am not ashamed of them, at least. There is one hitch; instead of three hours between the two parts, I fear there have passed three years over Davie’s character; but do not tell anybody; see if they can find it out for themselves; and no doubt his experiences in Kidnapped would go far to form him. I would like a copy to go to G. Meredith.
Wednesday. — Well, here is a new move. It is likely I may start with Graham next week and go to Honolulu to meet the other steamer and return: I do believe a fortnight at sea would do me good; yet I am not yet certain. The crowded up-steamer sticks in my throat.
Tuesday, 12th Sept. — Yesterday was perhaps the brightest in the annals of Vailima. I got leave from Captain Bickford to have the band of the Katoomba come up, and they came, fourteen of ‘em, with drum, fife, cymbals and bugles, blue jackets, white caps, and smiling faces. The house was all decorated with scented greenery above and below. We had not only our own nine out-door workers, but a contract party that we took on in charity to pay 352 their war-fine; the band besides, as it came up the mountain, had collected a following of children by the way, and we had a picking of Samoan ladies to receive them. Chicken, ham, cake and fruits were served out with coffee and lemonade, and all the afternoon we had rounds of claret negus flavoured with rum and limes. They played to us, they danced, they sang, they tumbled. Our boys came in the end of the verandah and gave them a dance for a while. It was anxious work getting this stopped once it had begun, but I knew the band was going on a programme. Finally they gave three cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, shook hands, formed up and marched off playing — till a kicking horse in the paddock put their pipes out something of the suddenest — we thought the big drum was gone, but Simelé flew to the rescue. And so they wound away down the hill with ever another call of the bugle, leaving us extinct with fatigue, but perhaps the most contented hosts that ever watched the departure of successful guests. Simply impossible to tell how well these blue-jackets behaved; a most interesting lot of men; this education of boys for the navy is making a class, wholly apart — how shall I call them? — a kind of lower-class public school boy, well-mannered, fairly intelligent, sentimental as a sailor. What is more shall be writ on board ship if anywhere.
Please send Catriona to G. Meredith.
S.S. Mariposa. — To-morrow I reach Honolulu. Good-morning to your honour.
R. L. S.
To Sidney Colvin
In the interval between the last letter and this, the writer had been down with a sharp and prolonged attack of fever at Honolulu, and Mrs. Stevenson had come from Samoa to nurse and take him home.
Waikiki, Honolulu, H. I., Oct. 23rd, 1893.
DEAR COLVIN, — My wife came up on the steamer and we go home together in 2 days. I am practically all right, 353 only sleepy and tired easily, slept yesterday from 11 to 11.45, from 1 to 2.50, went to bed at 8 P.M., and with an hour’s interval slept till 6 A.M., close upon 14 hours out of the 24. We sail to-morrow. I am anxious to get home, though this has been an interesting visit, and politics have been curious indeed to study. We go to P.P.C. on the “Queen” this morning; poor, recluse lady, abreuvée d’injures qu’elle est. Had a rather annoying lunch on board the American man-of-war, with a member of the P.G. (provisional government); and a good deal of anti-royalist talk, which I had to sit out — not only for my host’s sake, but my fellow guests. At last, I took the lead and changed the conversation.
R. L. S.
I am being busted here by party named Hutchinson. Seems good.
[Vailima — November.] — Home again, and found all well, thank God. I am perfectly well again and ruddier than the cherry. Please note that 8000 is not bad for a volume of short stories; the Merry Men did a good deal worse; the short story never sells. I hope Catriona will do; that is the important. The reviews seem mixed and perplexed, and one had the peculiar virtue to make me angry. I am in a fair way to expiscate my family history. Fanny and I had a lovely voyage down, with our new C.J. and the American Land Commissioner, and on the whole, and for these disgusting steamers, a pleasant ship’s company. I cannot understand why you don’t take to the Hawaii scheme. Do you understand? You cross the Atlantic in six days, and go from ‘Frisco to Honolulu in seven. Thirteen days at sea in all. — I have no wish to publish The Ebb Tide as a book, let it wait. It will look well in the portfolio. I would like a copy, of course, for that end; and to “look upon’t again” — which I scarce dare.
[Later.] — This is disgraceful. I have done nothing; neither work nor letters. On the Mé (May) day, we had a great triumph; our Protestant boys, instead of going with their own villages and families, went of their own accord in the Vailima uniform; Belle made coats for them on purpose to complete the uniform, they having bought the stuff; and they were hailed as they marched in as the Tama-ona — the rich man’s children. This is really a score; it means that Vailima is publicly taken as a family. Then we had my birthday feast a week late, owing to diarrhœa on the proper occasion. The feast was laid in the Hall, and was a singular mass of food: 15 pigs, 100 lbs. beef, 100 lbs. pork, and the fruit and filigree in a proportion. We had sixty horse-posts driven in the gate paddock; how many guests I cannot guess, perhaps 150. They came between three and four and left about seven. Seumanu gave me one of his names; and when my name was called at the ava drinking, behold, it was Au mai taua ma manu-vao! You would scarce recognise me, if you heard me thus referred to!
Two days after, we hired a carriage in Apia, Fanny, Belle, Lloyd and I, and drove in great style, with a native outrider, to the prison; a huge gift of ava and tobacco under the seats. The prison is now under the pule of an Austrian, Captain Wurmbrand, a soldier of fortune in Servia and Turkey, a charming, clever, kindly creature, who is adored “by his chiefs” (as he calls them) meani
ng our political prisoners. And we came into the yard, walled about with tinned iron, and drank ava with the prisoners and the captain. It may amuse you to hear how it is proper to drink ava. When the cup is handed you, you reach your arm out somewhat behind you, and slowly pour a libation, saying with somewhat the manner of prayer, “Ia taumafa e le atua. Ua matagofie le fesilafaga nei.” “Be it (high-chief) partaken of by the God. How (high chief) beautiful to view is this (high chief) gathering.” This pagan practice is very queer. I should say that the 355 prison ava was of that not very welcome form that we elegantly call spit-ava, but of course there was no escape, and it had to be drunk. Fanny and I rode home, and I moralised by the way. Could we ever stand Europe again? did she appreciate that if we were in London, we should be actually jostled in the street? and there was nobody in the whole of Britain who knew how to take ava like a gentleman? ‘Tis funny to be thus of two civilisations — or, if you like, of one civilisation and one barbarism. And, as usual, the barbarism is the more engaging. Colvin, you have to come here and see us in our {native mortal} spot. I just don’t seem to be able to make up my mind to your not coming. By this time, you will have seen Graham, I hope, and he will be able to tell you something about us, and something reliable. I shall feel for the first time as if you knew a little about Samoa after that. Fanny seems to be in the right way now. I must say she is very, very well for her, and complains scarce at all. Yesterday, she went down sola(at least accompanied by a groom) to pay a visit; Belle, Lloyd and I went a walk up the mountain road — the great public highway of the island, where you have to go single file. The object was to show Belle that gaudy valley of the Vaisigano which the road follows. If the road is to be made and opened, as our new Chief Justice promises, it will be one of the most beautiful roads in the world. But the point is this: I forgot I had been three months in civilisation, wearing shoes and stockings, and I tell you I suffered on my soft feet; coming home, down hill, on that stairway of loose stones, I could have cried. O yes, another story, I knew I had. The house boys had not been behaving well, so the other night I announced a fono, and Lloyd and I went into the boys’ quarters, and I talked to them I suppose for half an hour, and Talolo translated; Lloyd was there principally to keep another ear on the interpreter; else there may be dreadful misconceptions. I rubbed all 356 their ears, except two whom I particularly praised; and one man’s wages I announced I had cut down by one half. Imagine his taking this smiling! Ever since, he has been specially attentive and greets me with a face of really heavenly brightness. This is another good sign of their really and fairly accepting me as a chief. When I first came here, if I had fined a man a sixpence, he would have quit work that hour, and now I remove half his income, and he is glad to stay on — nay, does not seem to entertain the possibility of leaving. And this in the face of one particular difficulty — I mean our house in the bush, and no society, and no women society within decent reach.
Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) Page 798
