Vailima Letters Part 19

_Sunday_, _June_ 4_th_.

Now for a little snippet of my life. Yesterday, 12.30, in a heavenly day of sun and trade, I mounted my horse and set off. A boy opens my gate for me. 'Sleep and long life! A blessing on your journey,' says he.

And I reply 'Sleep, long life! A blessing on the house!' Then on, down the lime lane, a rugged, narrow, winding way, that seems almost as if it was leading you into Lyonesse, and you might see the head and shoulders of a giant looking in. At the corner of the road I meet the inspector of taxes, and hold a diplomatic interview with him; he wants me to pay taxes on the new house; I am informed I should not till next year; and we part, _re infecta_, he promising to bring me decisions, I a.s.suring him that, if I find any favouritism, he will find me the most recalcitrant tax-payer on the island. Then I have a talk with an old servant by the wayside. A little further I pa.s.s two children coming up. 'Love!' say I; 'are you two chiefly-proceeding inland?' and they say, 'Love! yes!' and the interesting ceremony is finished. Down to the post office, where I find Vitrolles and (Heaven reward you!) the White Book, just arrived per _Upolu_, having gone the wrong way round, by Australia; also six copies of _Island Nights' Entertainments_. Some of Weatherall's ill.u.s.trations are very clever; but O Lord! the lagoon! I did say it was 'shallow,'

but, O dear, not so shallow as that a man could stand up in it! I had still an hour to wait for my meeting, so Postmaster Davis let me sit down in his room and I had a bottle of beer in, and read _A Gentleman of France_. Have you seen it coming out in _Longman's_? My dear Colvin!

'tis the most exquisite pleasure; a real chivalrous yarn, like the Dumas'

and yet unlike. Thereafter to the meeting of the five newspaper proprietors. Business transacted, I have to gallop home and find the boys waiting to be paid at the doorstep.

_Monday_, 5_th_.

Yesterday, Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Browne, secretary to the Wesleyan Mission, and the man who made the war in the Western Islands and was tried for his life in Fiji, came up, and we had a long, important talk about Samoa. O, if I could only talk to the home men! But what would it matter? none of them know, none of them care. If we could only have Macgregor here with his schooner, you would hear of no more troubles in Samoa. That is what we want; a man that knows and likes the natives, _qui paye de sa personne_, and is not afraid of hanging when necessary.

We don't want bland Swedish humbugs, and fussy, fostering German barons.

That way the maelstrom lies, and we shall soon be in it.

I have to-day written 103 and 104, all perfectly wrong, and shall have to rewrite them. This tale is devilish, and Chapter XI. the worst of the lot. The truth is of course that I am wholly worked out; but it's nearly done, and shall go somehow according to promise. I go against all my G.o.ds, and say it is _not worth while_ to ma.s.sacre yourself over the last few pages of a rancid yarn, that the reviewers will quite justly tear to bits. As for D.B., no hope, I fear, this mail, but we'll see what the afternoon does for me.

4.15.

Well, it's done. Those tragic 16 pp. are at last finished, and I have put away thirty-two pages of chips, and have spent thirteen days about as nearly in h.e.l.l as a man could expect to live through. It's done, and of course it ain't worth while, and who cares? There it is, and about as grim a tale as was ever written, and as grimy, and as hateful.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY

OF

J. L. HUISH,

BORN 1856, AT HACKNEY,

LONDON,

Accidentally killed upon this

Island,

10th September, 1889.

_Tuesday_, 6.

I am exulting to do nothing. It pours with rain from the westward, very unusual kind of weather; I was standing out on the little verandah in front of my room this morning, and there went through me or over me a wave of extraordinary and apparently baseless emotion. I literally staggered. And then the explanation came, and I knew I had found a frame of mind and body that belonged to Scotland, and particularly to the neighbourhood of Callander. Very odd these ident.i.ties of sensation, and the world of connotations implied; highland huts, and peat smoke, and the brown, swirling rivers, and wet clothes, and whiskey, and the romance of the past, and that indescribable bite of the whole thing at a man's heart, which is-or rather lies at the bottom of-a story.

I don't know if you are a Barbey d'Aurevilly-an. I am. I have a great delight in his Norman stories. Do you know the _Chevalier des Touches_ and _L'Ensorcelee_? They are admirable, they reek of the soil and the past. But I was rather thinking just now of _Le Rideau Cramoisi_, and its adorable setting of the stopped coach, the dark street, the home-going in the inn yard, and the red blind illuminated. Without doubt, _there_ was an ident.i.ty of sensation; one of those conjunctions in life that had filled Barbey full to the brim, and permanently bent his memory.

I wonder exceedingly if I have done anything at all good; and who can tell me? and why should I wish to know? In so little a while, I, and the English language, and the bones of my descendants, will have ceased to be a memory! And yet-and yet-one would like to leave an image for a few years upon men's minds-for fun. This is a very dark frame of mind, consequent on overwork and the conclusion of the excruciating _Ebb Tide_.

Adieu.

What do you suppose should be done with _The Ebb Tide_? It would make a volume of 200 pp.; on the other hand, I might likely have some more stories soon: _The Owl_, _Death in the Pot_, _The Sleeper Awakened_; all these are possible. _The Owl_ might be half as long; _The Sleeper Awakened_, ditto; _Death in the Pot_ a deal shorter, I believe. Then there's the _Go-Between_, which is not impossible altogether. _The Owl_, _The Sleeper Awakened_, and the _Go-Between_ end reasonably well; _Death in the Pot_ is an unG.o.dly ma.s.sacre. O, well, _The Owl_ only ends well in so far as some lovers come together, and n.o.body is killed at the moment, but you know they are all doomed, they are Chouan fellows.

_Friday_, 9_th_.

Well, the mail is in; no Blue-book, depressing letter from C.; a long, amusing ramble from my mother; vast ma.s.ses of Romeike; they _are_ going to war now; and what will that lead to? and what has driven, them to it but the persistent misconduct of these two officials? I know I ought to rewrite the end of this bluidy _Ebb Tide_: well, I can't. _Cest plus fort que moi_; it has to go the way it is, and be jowned to it! From what I make out of the reviews, I think it would be better not to republish _The Ebb Tide_: but keep it for other tales, if they should turn up. Very amusing how the reviews pick out one story and d.a.m.n the rest I and it is always a different one. Be sure you send me the article from _Le Temps_.

_Sat.u.r.day_, 17_th_.

Since I wrote this last, I have written a whole chapter of my grandfather, and read it to-night; it was on the whole much appreciated, and I kind of hope it ain't bad myself. 'Tis a third writing, but it wants a fourth. By next mail, I believe I might send you 3 chapters.

That is to say _Family Annals_, _The Service of the Northern Lights_, and _The Building of the Bell Rock_. Possibly even 4-_A Houseful of Boys_.

I could finish my grandfather very easy now; my father and Uncle Alan stop the way. I propose to call the book: _Northern Lights_: _Memoirs of a Family of Engineers_. I tell you, it is going to be a good book. My idea in sending Ms. would be to get it set up; two proofs to me, one to Professor Swan, Ardchapel, Helensburgh-mark it private and confidential-one to yourself; and come on with criticisms! But I'll have to see. The total plan of the book is this-

I. Domestic Annals.

II. The Service of the Northern Lights.

III. The Building of the Bell Rock.

IV. A Houseful of Boys (or, the Family in Baxter's Place).

V. Education of an Engineer.

VI. The Grandfather.

VII. Alan Stevenson.

VIII. Thomas Stevenson.

There will be an Introduction 'The Surname of Stevenson' which has proved a mighty queer subject of inquiry. But, Lord! if I were among libraries.

_Sunday_, 18_th_.

I shall put in this envelope the end of the ever-to-be-execrated _Ebb Tide_, or Stevenson's Blooming Error. Also, a paper apart for _David Balfour_. The slips must go in another enclosure, I suspect, owing to their beastly bulk. Anyway, there are two pieces of work off my mind, and though I could wish I had rewritten a little more of _David_, yet it was plainly to be seen it was impossible. All the points indicated by you have been brought out; but to rewrite the end, in my present state of over-exhaustion and fiction-phobia, would have been madness; and I let it go as it stood. My grandfather is good enough for me, these days. I do not work any less; on the whole, if anything, a little more. But it is different.

The slips go to you in four packets; I hope they are what they should be, but do not think so. I am at a pitch of discontent with fiction in all its form-or my forms-that prevents me being able to be even interested.

I have had to stop all drink; smoking I am trying to stop also. It annoys me dreadfully: and yet if I take a gla.s.s of claret,-I have a headache the next day! O, and a good headache too; none of your trifles.

Well, sir, here's to you, and farewell.-Yours ever.

R. L. S.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

_Sat.u.r.day_, 24_th_ (?) _June_.