Vailima Letters Part 23

We have given a ball; I send you a paper describing the event. We have two guests in the house, Captain-Count Wurmbrand and Monsieur Albert de Lautreppe. Lautreppe is awfully nice-a quiet, gentlemanly fellow, _gonfle de reves_, as he describes himself-once a sculptor in the atelier of Henry Crosse, he knows something of art, and is really a resource to me.

Letter from Meredith very kind. Have you seen no more of Graham?

What about my grandfather? The family history will grow to be quite a chapter.

I suppose I am growing sensitive; perhaps, by living among barbarians, I expect more civility. Look at this from the author of a very interesting and laudatory critique. He gives quite a false description of something of mine, and talks about my 'insolence.' Frankly, I supposed 'insolence'

to be a tapua word. I do not use it to a gentleman, I would not write it of a gentleman: I may be wrong, but I believe we did not write it of a gentleman in old days, and in my view he (clever fellow as he is) wants to be kicked for applying it to me. By writing a novel-even a bad one-I do not make myself a criminal for anybody to insult. This may amuse you.

But either there is a change in journalism, too gradual for you to remark it on the spot, or there is a change in me. I cannot bear these phrases; I long to resent them. My forbears, the tenant farmers of the Mains, would not have suffered such expressions unless it had been from Cauldwell, or Rowallan, or maybe Auchendrane. My Family Pride bristles.

I am like the negro, 'I just heard last night' who my great, great, great, great grandfather was.-Ever yours,

R. L. S.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

_March_ 1894.

MY DEAR COLVIN,-This is the very day the mail goes, and I have as yet written you nothing. But it was just as well-as it was all about my 'blacks and chocolates,' and what of it had relation to whites you will read some of in the _Times_. It means, as you will see, that I have at one blow quarrelled with all the officials of Samoa, the Foreign Office, and I suppose her Majesty the Queen with milk and honey blest. But you'll see in the _Times_. I am very well indeed, but just about dead and mighty glad the mail is near here, and I can just give up all hope of contending with my letters, and lie down for the rest of the day. These _Times_ letters are not easy to write. And I dare say the Consuls say, 'Why, then, does he write them?'

I had miserable luck with _St. Ives_; being already half-way through it, a book I had ordered six months ago arrives at last, and I have to change the first half of it from top to bottom! How could I have dreamed the French prisoners were watched over like a female charity school, kept in a grotesque livery, and shaved twice a week? And I had made all my points on the idea that they were unshaved and clothed anyhow. However, this last is better business; if only the book had come when I ordered it! _A propos_, many of the books you announce don't come as a matter of fact. When they are of any value, it is best to register them. Your letter, alas! is not here; I sent it down to the cottage, with all my mail, for f.a.n.n.y; on Sunday night a boy comes up with a lantern and a note from f.a.n.n.y, to say the woods are full of Atuas and I must bring a horse down that instant, as the posts are established beyond her on the road, and she does not want to have the fight going on between us. Impossible to get a horse; so I started in the dark on foot, with a revolver, and my spurs on my bare feet, leaving directions that the boy should mount after me with the horse. Try such an experience on Our Road once, and do it, if you please, after you have been down town from nine o'clock till six, on board the s.h.i.+p-of-war lunching, teaching Sunday School (I actually do) and making necessary visits; and the Sat.u.r.day before, having sat all day from half past six to half-past four, scriving at my _Times_ letter.

About half-way up, just in fact at 'point' of the outposts, I met f.a.n.n.y coming up. Then all night long I was being wakened with scares that really should be looked into, though I _knew_ there was nothing in them and no bottom to the whole story; and the drums and shouts and cries from Tanugamanono and the town keeping up an all night corybantic chorus in the moonlight-the moon rose late-and the search-light of the war-s.h.i.+p in the harbour making a jewel of brightness as it lit up the bay of Apia in the distance. And then next morning, about eight o'clock, a drum coming out of the woods and a party of patrols who had been in the woods on our left front (which is our true rear) coming up to the house, and meeting there another party who had been in the woods on our right [front / rear]

which is Vaea Mountain, and 43 of them being entertained to ava and biscuits on the verandah, and marching off at last in single file for Apia. Briefly, it is not much wonder if your letter and my whole mail was left at the cottage, and I have no means of seeing or answering particulars.

The whole thing was nothing but a bottomless scare; it was _obviously_ so; you couldn't make a child believe it was anything else, but it has made the Consuls sit up. My own private scares were really abominably annoying; as for instance after I had got to sleep for the ninth time perhaps-and that was no easy matter either, for I had a crick in my neck so agonising that I had to sleep sitting up-I heard noises as of a man being murdered in the boys' house. To be sure, said I, this is nothing again, but if a man's head was being taken, the noises would be the same!

So I had to get up, stifle my cries of agony from the crick, get my revolver, and creep out stealthily to the boys' house. And there were two of them sitting up, keeping watch of their own accord like good boys, and whiling the time over a game of Sweepi (Cascino-the whist of our islanders)-and one of them was our champion idiot, Misifolo, and I suppose he was holding bad cards, and losing all the time-and these noises were his humorous protests against Fortune!

Well, excuse this excursion into my 'blacks and chocolates.' It is the last. You will have heard from Lysaght how I failed to write last mail.

The said Lysaght seems to me a very nice fellow. We were only sorry he could not stay with us longer. Austin came back from school last week, which made a great time for the Amanuensis, you may be sure. Then on Sat.u.r.day, the _Curacoa_ came in-same commission, with all our old friends; and on Sunday, as already mentioned, Austin and I went down to service and had lunch afterwards in the wardroom. The officers were awfully nice to Austin; they are the most amiable s.h.i.+p in the world; and after lunch we had a paper handed round on which we were to guess, and sign our guess, of the number of leaves on the pine-apple; I never saw this game before, but it seems it is much practised in the Queen's Navee.

When all have betted, one of the party begins to strip the pine-apple head, and the person whose guess is furthest out has to pay for the sherry. My equanimity was disturbed by shouts of _The American Commodore_, and I found that Austin had entered and lost about a bottle of sherry! He turned with great composure and addressed me. 'I am afraid I must look to you, Uncle Louis.' The Sunday School racket is only an experiment which I took up at the request of the late American Land Commissioner; I am trying it for a month, and if I do as ill as I believe, and the boys find it only half as tedious as I do, I think it will end in a month. I have _carte blanche_, and say what I like; but does any single soul understand me?

f.a.n.n.y is on the whole very much better. Lloyd has been under the weather, and goes for a month to the South Island of New Zealand for some skating, save the mark! I get all the skating I want among officials.

Dear Colvin, please remember that my life pa.s.ses among my 'blacks or chocolates.' If I were to do as you propose, in a bit of a tiff, it would cut you off entirely from my life. You must try to exercise a trifle of imagination, and put yourself, perhaps with an effort, into some sort of sympathy with these people, or how am I to write to you? I think you are truly a little too c.o.c.kney with me.-Ever yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

_Vailima_, _May_ 18_th_, 1894.

MY DEAR COLVIN,-Your proposals for the Edinburgh edition are entirely to my mind. About the _Amateur Emigrant_, it shall go to you by this mail well slashed. If you like to slash some more on your own account, I give you permission. 'Tis not a great work; but since it goes to make up the two first volumes as proposed, I presume it has not been written in vain.-_Miscellanies_. I see with some alarm the proposal to print _Juvenilia_; does it not seem to you taking myself a little too much as Grandfather William? I am certainly not so young as I once was-a lady took occasion to remind me of the fact no later agone than last night.

'Why don't you leave that to the young men, Mr. Stevenson?' said she-but when I remember that I felt indignant at even John Ruskin when he did something of the kind I really feel myself blush from head to heel. If you want to make up the first volume, there are a good many works which I took the trouble to prepare for publication and which have never been republished. In addition to _Roads_ and _Dancing Children_, referred to by you, there is an Autumn effect in the _Portfolio_, and a paper on _Fontainebleau-Forest Notes_ is the name of it-in _Cornhill_. I have no objection to any of these being edited, say with a scythe, and reproduced. But I heartily abominate and reject the idea of reprinting the _Pentland Rising_. For G.o.d's sake let me get buried first.

_Tales and Fantasies_. Vols. I. and II. have my hearty approval. But I think III. and IV. had better be crammed into one as you suggest. I will reprint none of the stories mentioned. They are below the mark. Well, I dare say the beastly _Body-s.n.a.t.c.her_ has merit, and I am unjust to it from my recollections of the _Pall Mall_. But the other two won't do.

For vols. V. and VI., now changed into IV. and V., I propose the common t.i.tle of _South Sea Yarns_. There! These are all my differences of opinion. I agree with every detail of your arrangement, and, as you see, my objections have turned princ.i.p.ally on the question of hawking unripe fruit. I daresay it is all pretty green, but that is no reason for us to fill the barrow with trash. Think of having a new set of type cast, paper especially made, etc., in order to set up rubbish that is not fit for the _Sat.u.r.day Scotsman_. It would be the climax of shame.

I am sending you a lot of verses, which had best, I think, be called _Underwoods_ Book III., but in what order are they to go? Also, I am going on every day a little, till I get sick of it, with the attempt to get the _Emigrant_ compressed into life; I know I can-or you can after me-do it. It is only a question of time and prayer and ink, and should leave something, no, not good, but not all bad-a very genuine appreciation of these folks. You are to remember besides there is that paper of mine on Bunyan in _The Magazine of Art_. O, and then there's another thing in _Seeley_ called some spewsome name, I cannot recall it.

Well-come, here goes for _Juvenilia_. _Dancing Infants_, _Roads_, _An Autumn Effect_, _Forest Notes_ (but this should come at the end of them, as it's really rather riper), the t'other thing from _Seeley_, and I'll tell you, you may put in my letter to the Church of Scotland-it's not written amiss, and I daresay the _Philosophy of Umbrellas_ might go in, but there I stick-and remember _that_ was a collaboration with James Walter Ferrier. O, and there was a little skit called the _Charity Bazaar_, which you might see; I don't think it would do. Now, I do not think there are two other words that should be printed.-By the way, there is an article of mine called _The Day after To-morrow_ in the _Contemporary_ which you might find room for somewhere; it is no' bad.

Very busy with all these affairs and some native ones also.

CHAPTER XL

_Vailima_, June 18th, 94.

MY DEAR COLVIN,-You are to please understand that my last letter is withdrawn unconditionally. You and Baxter are having all the trouble of this Edition, and I simply put myself in your hands for you to do what you like with me, and I am sure that will be the best, at any rate.

Hence you are to conceive me withdrawing all objections to your printing anything you please. After all it is a sort of family affair. About the Miscellany Section, both plans seem to me quite good. Toss up. I think the _Old Gardener_ has to stay where I put him last. It would not do to separate John and Robert.

In short, I am only sorry I ever uttered a word about the edition, and leave you to be the judge. I have had a vile cold which has prostrated me for more than a fortnight, and even now tears me nightly with spasmodic coughs; but it has been a great victory. I have never borne a cold with so little hurt; wait till the clouds blow by, before you begin to boast! I have had no fever; and though I've been very unhappy, it is nigh over, I think. Of course, _St. Ives_ has paid the penalty. I must not let you be disappointed in _St. I._ It is a mere tissue of adventures; the central figure not very well or very sharply drawn; no philosophy, no destiny, to it; some of the happenings very good in themselves, I believe, but none of them _bildende_, none of them constructive, except in so far perhaps as they make up a kind of sham picture of the time, all in italics and all out of drawing. Here and there, I think, it is well written; and here and there it's not. Some of the episodic characters are amusing, I do believe; others not, I suppose.

However, they are the best of the thing such as it is. If it has a merit to it, I should say it was a sort of deliberation and swing to the style, which seems to me to suit the mail-coaches and post-chaises with which it sounds all through. 'Tis my most prosaic book.

I called on the two German s.h.i.+ps now in port, and we are quite friendly with them, and intensely friendly of course with our own _Curacoas_. But it is other guess work on the beach. Some one has employed, or subsidised, one of the local editors to attack me once a week. He is pretty scurrilous and pretty false. The first effect of the perusal of the weekly Beast is to make me angry; the second is a kind of deep, golden content and glory, when I seem to say to people: 'See! this is my position-I am a plain man dwelling in the bush in a house, and behold they have to get up this kind of truck against me-and I have so much influence that they are obliged to write a weekly article to say I have none.'

By this time you must have seen Lysaght and forgiven me the letter that came not at all. He was really so nice a fellow-he had so much to tell me of Meredith-and the time was so short-that I gave up the intervening days between mails entirely to entertain him.

We go on pretty nicely. f.a.n.n.y, Belle, and I have had two months alone, and it has been very pleasant. But by to-morrow or next day noon, we shall see the whole clan a.s.sembled again about Vailima table, which will be pleasant too; seven persons in all, and the Babel of voices will be heard again in the big hall so long empty and silent. Good-bye. Love to all. Time to close.-Yours ever,

R. L. S.

CHAPTER XLI

_July_, 1894.

MY DEAR COLVIN,-I have to thank you this time for a very good letter, and will announce for the future, though I cannot now begin to put in practice, good intentions for our correspondence. I will try to return to the old system and write from time to time during the month; but truly you did not much encourage me to continue! However, that is all by-past.

I do not know that there is much in your letter that calls for answer.

Your questions about _St. Ives_ were practically answered in my last; so were your wails about the edition, _Amateur Emigrant_, etc. By the end of the year _St. I._ will be practically finished, whatever it be worth, and that I know not. When shall I receive proofs of the _Magnum Opus_?

or shall I receive them at all?

The return of the Amanuensis feebly lightens my heart. You can see the heavy weather I was making of it with my unaided pen. The last month has been particularly cheery largely owing to the presence of our good friends the _Curacoas_. She is really a model s.h.i.+p, charming officers and charming seamen. They gave a ball last month, which was very rackety and joyous and naval. . . .

On the following day, about one o'clock, three hors.e.m.e.n might have been observed approaching Vailima, who gradually resolved themselves into two petty officers and a native guide. Drawing himself up and saluting, the spokesman (a corporal of Marines) addressed me thus. 'Me and my s.h.i.+pmates inwites Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, Mrs. Strong, Mr. Austin, and Mr.

Balfour to a ball to be given to-night in the self-same 'all.' It was of course impossible to refuse, though I contented myself with putting in a very brief appearance. One glance was sufficient; the ball went off like a rocket from the start. I had only time to watch Belle careering around with a gallant bluejacket of exactly her own height-the standard of the British navy-an excellent dancer and conspicuously full of small-talk-and to hear a remark from a beach-comber, 'It's a nice sight this some way, to see the officers dancing like this with the men, but I tell you, sir, these are the men that'll fight together!'