THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 \p-
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS 
 STEVENSON 
 
 BY 
 
 GRAHAM BALFOUR 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOLUME n 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1901
 
 Copyright, 1901, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published October, 1901. 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS
 
 Colleg* 
 Library 
 
 ff/f 
 
 CONTENTS ' 
 
 CHAP. * * ^~ PAGB 
 
 xi. BOURNEMOUTH 1884-87. . . . . . I 
 
 xii. THE UNITED STATES 1887-88. ..... 30 
 
 xiii. THE EASTERN PACIFIC 1888-89 ..... 50 
 
 xiv. THE CENTRAL PACIFIC 1889-91 ..... 89 
 
 xv. VAILIMA 1891-94 ........ 124 
 
 xvi. THE END 1894 ........ 173 
 
 XVH. R. L. S .......... .194 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 A. ADDRESS TO SAMOAN STUDENTS, 1890 .... 223 
 
 B. ADDRESS ON MISSIONS, 1893 ...... 229 
 
 c. VAILIMA PRAYERS ........ 232 
 
 D. SAMOAN AFFAIRS ........ 237 
 
 E. FOUR DRAFTS OF THE BEGINNING OF " WEIR OF HERMISTON " 244 
 
 F. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE WRITINGS OF ROBERT Louis 
 
 STEVENSON ........ 248 
 
 G. INFLUENCES AFFECTING STEVENSON'S STYLE .... 262 
 INDEX .......... 265
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 BOURNEMOUTH 1 884-87 
 
 " This is the study where a smiling God 
 Beholds each day my stage of labour trod, 
 And smiles and praises, and I hear him say: 
 ' The day is brief ; be diligent in play.' " 
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 '"T"*HE next three years Stevenson was to spend in Eng- 
 1 land the only time he was ever resident in this 
 country and then Europe was to see him no more. At 
 first sight the chronicle of this time would seem to be 
 more full of interest than any other period of his life. 
 Treasure Island, his "first book," had just been given 
 to the world ; the year after his return A Child's Gar- 
 den of Verses and Prince Otto were published, and 
 Jekyll and Hyde and Kidnapped appeared in the follow- 
 ing year. To have written almost any one of these 
 brilliant yet widely dissimilar books would be to chal- 
 lenge the attention of the most distinguished contem- 
 porary men of letters; and to meet Stevenson at this 
 time was instantly to acknowledge the quality and 
 charm of the man and the strong fascination of his talk. 
 For the whole of the period he made his home at 
 Bournemouth, within easy reach of London visitors; 
 and in London itself Mr. Colvin (who had now become 
 Keeper of Prints at the British Museum) not only had a 
 house always open to him, but delighted to bring 
 together those who by their own powers were best 
 fitted to appreciate his society.
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Yet the reality is disappointing. To produce brilliant 
 writings it is not necessary at the time to live an excit- 
 ing or even a very full life, and Stevenson's health de- 
 prived him more and more of the ordinary incidents 
 which happen to most men in their daily course. 
 Looking back on this period in after-days, he cries out: 
 " Remember the pallid brute that lived in Skerryvore 
 like a weevil in a biscuit." Nearly all the time which 
 was not devoted to contending with illness was taken 
 up with his work, and as he rarely left home without 
 returning in a more or less disabled condition, he stayed 
 in his own house and led the most retired of lives. 
 Even there it was no uncommon experience for a visitor 
 who had come to Bournemouth specially to see him to 
 find himself put to the door, either on the ground of 
 having a cold, to the contagion of which it was unsafe 
 for Stevenson to be exposed, or because his host was 
 already too ill to receive him. 
 
 But this is to anticipate matters. On his return from 
 Royat he was unable to be present at the matinee on 
 July 2nd, at the Prince's Theatre, 1 when the Deacon 
 was played by Mr. Henley's brother. The play had 
 been given at Bradford eighteen months before, and 
 during the summer of 1883 had been acted by a travel- 
 ling company some forty times in Scotland and the 
 North of England without any marked success. It was 
 in the gallery of one of the houses where it was per- 
 formed that the complaint was heard during the per- 
 formance of another piece : " A dunna what 's coom to 
 Thayter Royal. Thar 's been na good moorder there for 
 last six months " ; and the Deacon's fate may not have 
 
 * Now the Prince of Wales' Theatre.
 
 BOURNEMOUTH 1884-87 
 
 been up to the usual standard. The play was now 
 received in London with interest, and regarded as full 
 of promise by critics who knew better what to expect 
 of it, but the lack of stage experience told against it, 
 and it has not been revived in this country. 
 
 Having passed a few days in a hotel at Richmond, 
 Stevenson and his wife went down to Bournemouth, 
 where Lloyd Osbourne had for some months past been 
 at school. After staying at a hotel, and trying first one 
 and then another set of lodgings on the West Cliff, at 
 the end of October they migrated into a furnished house 
 in Branksome Park. The doctors whom he consulted 
 were equally divided in their opinions, two saying it 
 would be safe for him to stay in this country, while 
 two advised him to go abroad; and in the end he 
 yielded only to the desire to be near his father, who, 
 though still at work, was evidently failing fast. 
 
 Meanwhile the first two months at Bournemouth 
 were spent chiefly in the company of Mr. Henley, and 
 were devoted to collaboration over two new plays. 
 The reception of Deacon Brodie had been sufficiently 
 promising to serve as an incentive to write a piece 
 which should be a complete success, and so to grasp 
 some of the rewards which now seemed within reach 
 of the authors. They had never affected to disregard 
 the fact that in this country the prizes of the dramatist 
 are out of all proportion to the payment of the man of 
 letters, and already in 1883 Stevenson had written to 
 his father: "The theatre is the gold-mine; and on that 
 1 must keep an eye." Now that they were again able 
 to meet, and to be constantly together, the friends em- 
 barked upon some of the schemes they had projected 
 
 3
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 long ago, and no doubt had talked over at Nice at the 
 beginning of the year. By October the drafts of Beau 
 Austin and Admiral Guinea 1 were completed and set 
 up in type; and in the following spring, at the sugges- 
 tion of Mr. Beerbohm Tree, the two collaborators again 
 set to work and produced their English version of 
 Macaire. 
 
 These were to have been but the beginning of their 
 labours, but more necessary work intervened, and the 
 plays were never resumed. 2 
 
 It may be convenient here to round off the history of 
 Stevenson's dramatic writings: early in 1887 he helped 
 his wife with a play, The Hanging Judge, which was 
 not completed at the time and has never yet been 
 printed. Except for an unfinished fragment, intended 
 for home representation at Vailima, he never again 
 turned his hand to any work for the stage. Beau 
 Austin was produced at the Haymarket Theatre in 
 1890, Admiral Guinea and Macaire have since been 
 performed, and all the plays written in partnership with 
 Mr. Henley have thus been seen upon the stage, though 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 362. 
 
 2 A list in Stevenson's writing shows some of their projects at the 
 time, though it is certain that these had not been worked out, and we 
 may doubt whether they would ever have been seriously considered. 
 " Farmer George" was to have covered the whole reign of George the 
 Third, ending with a scene in which the mad king recovered for a 
 while his reason : 
 
 Deacon Brodie : Drama in Four Acts and Ten Tableaux. 
 Beau Austin : Play in Four Acts. 
 Admiral Guinea : Melodrama in Four Acts. 
 Honour and Arms : Drama in Three Acts and Five Tableaux. 
 The King of Clubs : Drama in Four Acts. 
 4
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 none of them have kept it. The want of practical 
 stage-craft may partly be to blame, and it must be re- 
 membered that Stevenson, at any rate, had not been 
 inside a theatre since his return from America; but 
 their chief interest lies in their literary quality, and it is 
 to be feared that Mr. Archer was premature in his 
 declaration that the production of Beau Austin showed 
 triumphantly that "the aroma of literature can be 
 brought over the footlights with stimulating and ex- 
 hilarating effect." 1 
 
 As soon as the two finished plays were laid aside, 
 husband and wife began to put together the second 
 series of New Arabian Nights from the stories which 
 Mrs. Stevenson had made up to while away the hours 
 of illness at Hyeres. Stevenson wrote the passages 
 relating to Prince Florizel and collaborated in the re- 
 mainder; but the only complete story of his invention 
 in the book was " The Explosive Bomb " : by which he 
 designed " to make dynamite ridiculous, if he could not 
 make it horrible." 
 
 Meanwhile, on receiving an application from the pro- 
 
 Pepys' Diary : Comedy. 
 
 The Admirable Crichton : Romantic Comedy in Five Acts. 
 Ajax : Drama in Four Acts. 
 
 The Passing of Vanderdecken : (Legend!) in Four Acts. 
 Farmer George: Historical Play in Five Acts. 
 The Gunpowder Plot : Historical Play in 
 Marcus Aurelius: Historical Play 
 The Atheists : Comedy. 
 The Mother-in-Law : Drama. 
 Madam Fate: Drama in a Prologue and Four Acts. 
 Madam Destiny : 
 
 1 The World, i2th November, 1890. 
 
 5
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 prietor of the Pall Mall Gazette for a Christmas story, 
 he attempted to produce a new tale for the occasion. 
 It proved, however, what, in the slang of the studio, 
 he called a "machine," and "Markheim," which was 
 now ready, being too short, as a last resource he be- 
 thought himself of "The Body Snatcher," one of the 
 "tales of horror" written at Pitlochry in 1881, and 
 then "laid aside in a justifiable disgust." It was not 
 one of his greater achievements, and would probably 
 have excited little comment, had it not been for the 
 gruesome and unauthorized methods of advertisement. 
 Soon afterwards he successfully concluded negotia- 
 tions for a Life of the Duke of Wellington, which he 
 was commissioned to write for the series of " Eng- 
 lish Worthies," edited by Mr. Andrew Lang. The 
 military genius of the strategist had long dazzled 
 Stevenson, who had also been deeply fascinated by the 
 study of his character. I will not say that to him the 
 man who wrote the Letters to Miss J. was as remark- 
 able as the victor of Waterloo, but it is certain that the 
 great soldier became twice as interesting on account of 
 that marvellous correspondence. According to Mr. 
 Gosse, special emphasis was to be given to the humour 
 of Wellington, and certainly the biography was by no 
 means to be restricted to his military career. Three 
 years before, Stevenson had written to his father about 
 a book on George the Fourth, perhaps the Greville 
 Memoirs : " What a picture of Hell ! Yet the punish- 
 ment of the end seemed more, if possible, than he had 
 deserved. Iron-handed Wellington crushing him in 
 his fingers; contempt, insult, disease, terror what a 
 haunted, despicable scene!" 
 
 6
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 The book, however, although it was in Stevenson's 
 mind for several years and was advertised as " in prepa- 
 ration," was never written, or, so far as I know, even 
 begun. Not the least interesting part of the whole 
 story is the picture of Stevenson sitting down to ad- 
 dress a letter of inquiries to Mr. Gladstone, for whose 
 political career he had always the most complete 
 aversion, and finding himself, somewhat to his dis- 
 may, overcome with an involuntary reverence for 
 the statesman who embodied so much of England's 
 past. 
 
 Casting about for a new story, he turned in February 
 to the highroad, that to him and to his father before 
 him had for long been one of the richest fields of ro- 
 mance. When, to his delight, he had first found his 
 powers of narrative in Treasure Island, and discovered 
 what possibilities |lay before him of writing for boys 
 the kind of stories he liked himself, he announced with 
 glee to Mr. Henley that his next book was to be "Jerry 
 Abershaw : A Tale of Putney Heath." x He was also to 
 write "The Squaw Men: or, The Wild West," and of 
 this one chapter was actually drafted. The new ven- 
 ture was, however, called "The Great North Road," 
 but, like St. Ives in later days, it rapidly increased in 
 proportions and in difficulty of management. So at the 
 end of the eighth chapter it was relinquished for Kid- 
 napped and apparently dropped out of sight. Already 
 in its beginnings it showed an increase of skill in 
 dealing with Nance Holdaway, who foreshadowed 
 other heroines yet to come. 
 
 By the end of January so successful had the winter 
 
 1 Letters, i. 223. Cf. "A Gossip on Romance." 
 7
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 been that Thomas Stevenson bought a house at Bourne- 
 mouth as a present for his daughter-in-law. Its 
 name was forthwith changed to Skerryvore, in com- 
 memoration of the most difficult and beautiful of all the 
 lighthouses erected by the family. 1 It was no great 
 distance from where they were already living: a mod- 
 ern brick house, closely covered with ivy; and from 
 the top windows it was possible to catch a glimpse of 
 the sea. There was half an acre of ground, very charm- 
 ingly arranged, running down from the lawn at the 
 back, past a bank of heather, into a chine or small 
 ravine full of rhododendrons, and at the bottom a tiny 
 stream. 
 
 Mrs. Stevenson at once started off for Hyeres, whence 
 she returned with their books and other belongings. 
 The new house, however, was not ready for their oc- 
 cupation until the end of April, and when the move 
 was made, to no one did it bring greater satisfaction 
 than to Stevenson. 
 
 Wanderer as he was, and still gave the impression 
 of being, he entered into his new property with a keen- 
 ness of delight that must have amused those of his 
 friends who remembered his former disparagement of 
 all household possessions. 2 "Our drawing-room is 
 now a place so beautiful that it 's like eating to sit in it. 
 No other room is so lovely in the world; there I sit like 
 an old Irish beggarman's cast-off bauchle in a palace 
 throne-room. Incongruity never went so far; I blush 
 for the figure I cut in such a bower." 
 
 The large dovecot is commemorated in Underwoods ; 
 the garden was an endless pleasure to Mrs. Stevenson, , 
 
 1 See vol. i. p. n. 2 Vol. i. p. 176. 
 
 8
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 and having long been the domain of " Boguey " in his 
 lifetime, became at last his resting-place. Having been 
 sent to hospital to recover from wounds received in 
 battle, he broke loose, in his maimed state attacked 
 another dog more powerful than himself, and so per- 
 ished. His master and mistress were inconsolable, and 
 never, even in Samoa, could bring themselves to allow 
 any successor. 
 
 I have already referred to the easy access to Bourne- 
 mouth, which was, of course, a prime consideration 
 with his parents. But Stevenson's friends had seen 
 little of him for several years past, so in this also there 
 was a welcome change from Hyeres. Nearly all the 
 old and tried companions whom I have mentioned 
 came to Skerryvore during these years: R. A. M. 
 Stevenson and his wife, and his sister, Mrs. de Mattos, 
 and her children; Miss Ferrier, Mr. Baxter, Professor 
 Jenkin and Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Colvin, and Mr. Henley all 
 paid more or less frequent visits. Among the new- 
 comers were Mr. Sargent, who twice came to paint his 
 host's portrait; Mr. James Sully, an old friend at the 
 Savile Club; Mr. William Archer, who owed his first 
 coming to his severe but inspiring analysis of Steven- 
 son, and remained as one of the most valued of his 
 critics and appreciative of his friends; and last and most 
 welcome of the admissions into the inmost circle, his 
 very dear friend, Mr. Henry James. 
 
 One of the most frequent visitors was R. A. M. 
 Stevenson, who had, after some time, decided to give 
 up the thankless task of producing pictures for the 
 public which were not those he wanted to paint, and 
 to use his technical knowledge and matchless powers 
 
 9
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 of exposition in the criticism of art. That other art of 
 writing, however, which Louis had spent his life in 
 learning, could not be mastered in a day for the pur- 
 poses of journalism even by so brilliant a talker as Bob, 
 and it fell to Louis and Mr. Henley to give him many 
 hints and put him through an apprenticeship in the 
 technical part of the new profession in which he so 
 rapidly made his mark. 
 
 Nor were the residents of Bournemouth to be over- 
 looked, although (besides Dr. Scott, to whom Under- 
 woods was chiefly dedicated, and Mrs. Boodle and her 
 daughter, the " Gamekeeper " of the Letters) close 
 friendship was confined to two families Sir Henry 
 Taylor and his wife and daughters, and Sir Percy and 
 Lady Shelley. Sir Percy, the son of the poet, was 
 devoted to yachting and the theatre (especially melo- 
 drama), and his genial, kindly nature, in which shrewd- 
 ness and simplicity were most attractively blended, 
 endeared him to his new as to all his old friends, while 
 Lady Shelley, no less warm-hearted, took the greatest 
 fancy to Louis, and discovering in him a close likeness 
 to her renowned father-in-law, she forthwith claimed 
 him as her son. 
 
 But it was the Taylors with whom he lived in more 
 intimate relations in spite of the impression he seems 
 here again to have produced of a being wholly transi- 
 tory and detached, a bird of passage resting in his flight 
 from some strange source to regions yet more un- 
 known. Sir Henry indeed died almost before the 
 friendship had commenced, but Lady Taylor and her 
 daughters continued to live at Bournemouth until long 
 after Skerryvore was transferred to other hands. 
 
 10
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 But before Sir Henry Taylor passed away, Stevenson 
 had suffered a more unexpected and a heavier blow in 
 the death of his friend Fleeming Jenkin on June I2th, 
 1885. Only once again in his life was he to lose one 
 very near to him, and the subsequent task of writing 
 his friend's life not only raised his great admiration, but 
 even deepened the regret for his loss. 
 
 To some of his friends in these days, and chiefly to 
 Miss Una Taylor, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Henley, and his 
 cousin Bob, he owed the revival of his interest in music, 
 which now laid greater hold upon him than ever before. 
 He began to learn the piano, though he never reached 
 even a moderate degree of skill; he flung himself with 
 the greatest zeal into the mysteries of composition, 
 wherein it is but honest to say that he failed to master 
 the rudiments. " Books are of no use, " he says ; " they 
 tell you how to write in four parts, and that cannot be 
 done by man. Or do you know a book that really tells 
 a fellow? I suppose people are expected to have ears. 
 To my ear a fourth is delicious, and consecutive fifths 
 the music of the spheres. As for hidden fifths, those 
 who pretend to dislike 'em I can never acquit of affec- 
 tation. Besides (this in your ear) there is nothing else 
 in music; I know; I have tried to write four parts." 
 
 His delight and eagerness were enhanced rather than 
 decreased by difficulties, and in a period of his life 
 when nearly all pleasures were taken away from him, 
 he was able at least to sit at the piano and create for the 
 ear of his imagination some of the heavenly joys it is 
 the prerogative of music to bestow. ' 
 
 Besides enjoying the company of his friends, he made 
 good use of his few other opportunities. Since at
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Bournemouth his health hardly ever allowed him to pass 
 beyond the gate of Skerryvore, the chance seldom pre- 
 sented itself to him of meeting men of any other class 
 whose lives lay outside his own, but those who fell in 
 his way received unusual attention at his hands, more 
 especially if they possessed originality or any indepen- 
 dence of character. Thus, the barber that came to cut 
 his hair, the picture-framer, the "vet" who attended 
 " Boguey," each in their different way were originals to 
 a man whose life was so secluded; their coming was 
 welcomed, they invariably stayed to meals, and, sooner 
 or later, told the story of their lives. 
 
 Such was his own life, and such were his surround- 
 ings at this period; and yet to leave the picture without 
 a word of warning would be wholly to misrepresent 
 Stevenson. A popular novelist, toiling incessantly at 
 his writing, and confined by ill-health almost entirely 
 within the walls of a suburban villa at an English 
 watering-place, is about as dreary a figure as could be 
 formed from the facts. The details are as accurate as 
 if they were in a realistic novel, and yet the essence is 
 wholly untrue to life. It is necessary to insist again 
 and again on the " spirit intense and rare," the courage, 
 the vivacity, the restless intellect ever forming new 
 schemes with unceasing profusion. There are people 
 who might live a life of the wildest adventure, of the 
 most picturesque diversity, and yet be dull. Stevenson 
 could lie in a sick-room for weeks without speaking, 
 and yet declare truly, as he asserted to Mr. Archer, " I 
 never was bored in my life." When everything else 
 failed, and he was entirely incapable of work, he would 
 build card-houses, or lie in bed modelling small figures 
 
 12
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 of wax or clay, taking the keenest interest in either 
 process. On being told that a friend of his " has fallen 
 in love with stagnation," from his invalid chair he pro- 
 tests that the dream of his life is to be " the leader of a 
 great horde of irregular cavalry," and his favourite atti- 
 tude " turning in the saddle to look back at my whole 
 command (some five thousand strong) following me at 
 the hand-gallop up the road out of the burning valley 
 by moonlight." 1 In him at least the romantic day- 
 dream called out as completely the splendid virtues of 
 courage and enterprise and resolution as he could ever 
 have displayed them on the field of battle. 
 
 Illness and anxiety had, as he afterwards said, put an 
 end to the happiness of Hyeres, but he was maintain- 
 ing the unequal fight with much of the spirit and gaiety 
 that he always showed; his sufferings did not dull the 
 kindliness and sympathy which largely formed the fas- 
 cination of his character, unique, perhaps, in being at 
 once so lovable and so brilliant. 
 
 In the meantime he was hard at work. His interest 
 in all questions relating to the methods of literature was 
 unfailing. A lecture from Sir Walter Besant and an 
 answer by Mr. Henry James brought Stevenson in his 
 turn into the pages of Longman's Magazine for Decem- 
 ber, 1884. In " A Humble Remonstrance " he urged the 
 paramount claims of the " story " in fiction, and dwelt 
 on the problems involved for the student of method. 
 Several months later he followed this up by a most in- 
 spiring but more strictly professional disquisition on 
 "The Technical Elements of Style," "the work of five 
 days in bed," which appeared in the Contemporary 
 
 1 Letters, i. 311.
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Review for April. At the time it was ill received and 
 generally misunderstood: it is, however, the result of 
 long and close study, and is a singularly suggestive in- 
 quiry into a subject which has been considered too 
 vague and difficult for analysis, at any rate since the 
 days of the classical writers on rhetoric, whom Steven- 
 son had never read. He continued to meditate and to 
 develop his ideas, and during 1886 had even planned a 
 course of lectures to be delivered in London to students 
 of his art. So full of the subject was he that when this 
 project was peremptorily forbidden by the doctors, he 
 could not rest until he found a pupil to whom he could 
 disburden himself of the ideas with which he was over- 
 flowing. 
 
 In March, 1885, A Child's Garden of Verses was pub- 
 lished at last, after having been set up twice in proof. 
 In April Prince Otto began to run in Longman's Maga- 
 %ine, coming out as a book in October, and by May 
 More New Arabian Nights appeared. Soon after the 
 issue of Prince Otto, Stevenson wrote to Mr. Henley: 
 " I had yesterday a letter from George Meredith, which 
 was one of the events of my life. He cottoned (for one 
 thing), though with differences, to Otto; cottoned more 
 than my rosiest visions had inspired me to hope; said 
 things that (from him) I would blush to quote." Mr. 
 Meredith's letter unfortunately has disappeared, but in 
 another from the same source there occur these words : 
 " I have read pieces of Prince Otto, admiring the royal 
 manner of your cutting away of the novelist's lumber. 
 Straight to matter is the secret. Also approvingly your 
 article on style." 
 
 Still, with all this production, and with praise from 
 
 '4
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 so high a quarter, it must not be supposed that Steven- 
 son's writing as yet brought in any very extravagant 
 payment. His professional income for this year, in 
 point of fact, was exactly the same as that which he 
 had averaged for the three years preceding, and 
 amounted to less than four hundred pounds. Nor were 
 his receipts materially increased before he reached 
 America. 
 
 A subject much in his thoughts at this time was the 
 duality of man's nature and the alternation of good and 
 evil; and he was for a long while casting about for a 
 story to embody this central idea. Out of this frame 
 of mind had come the sombre imagination of " Mark- 
 heim," but that was not what he required. The true 
 story still delayed, till suddenly one night he had a 
 dream. He awoke, and found himself in possession of 
 two, or rather three, of the scenes in The Strange Case 
 of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 
 
 Its waking existence, however, was by no mear.. 
 without incident. He dreamed these scenes in consid- 
 erable detail, including the circumstance of the trans- 
 forming powders, and so vivid was the impression that 
 he wrote the story off at a red heat, just as it had pre- 
 sented itself to him in his sleep. 
 
 " In the small hours of one morning," says Mrs. Ste- 
 venson, " I was awakened by cries of horror from Louis. 
 Thinking he had a nightmare, I awakened him. He 
 said angrily : ' Why did you wake me ? I was dreaming 
 a fine bogey tale.' I had awakened him at the first 
 transformation scene." 
 
 Mr. Osbourne writes : " I don't believe that there was 
 ever such a literary feat before as the writing of Dr. 
 
 '5
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Jekyll. I remember the first reading as though it were 
 yesterday. Louis came downstairs in a fever; read 
 nearly half the book aloud; and then, while we were 
 still gasping, he was away again, and busy writing. I 
 doubt if the first draft took so long as three days." 
 
 He had lately had a hemorrhage, and was strictly 
 forbidden all discussion or excitement. No doubt the 
 reading aloud was contrary to the doctor's orders; at 
 any rate Mrs. Stevenson, according to the custom then 
 in force, wrote her detailed criticism of the story as it 
 then stood, pointing out her chief objection that it 
 was really an allegory, whereas he had treated it purely 
 as if it were a story. In the first draft Jekyll's nature 
 was bad all through, and the Hyde change was worked 
 only for the sake of a disguise. She gave the paper to 
 her husband and left the room. After a while his bell 
 rang; on her return she found him sitting up in bed 
 (the clinical thermometer in his mouth), pointing with a 
 long denunciatory finger to a pile of ashes. He had 
 burned the entire draft. Having realised that he had 
 taken the wrong point of view, that the tale was an al- 
 legory and not another "Markheim," he at once de- 
 stroyed his manuscript, acting not out of pique, but from 
 a fear that he might be tempted to make too much use 
 of it, and not rewrite the whole from a new standpoint. 
 
 It was written again in three days (" I drive on with 
 Jekyll : bankruptcy at my heels ") ; but the fear of losing 
 the story altogether prevented much further criticism. 
 The powder was condemned as too material an agency, 
 but this he could not eliminate, because in the dream it 
 had made so strong an impression upon him. 
 
 "The mere physical feat," Mr. Osbourne continues, 
 
 16
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 "was tremendous; and instead of harming him, it 
 roused and cheered him inexpressibly." Of course it 
 must not be supposed that these three days represent 
 all the time that Stevenson spent upon the story, for 
 after this he was working hard for a month or six 
 weeks in bringing it into its present form. 
 
 The manuscript was then offered to Messrs. Long- 
 mans for their magazine; and on their judgment the 
 decision was taken not to break it up into monthly sec- 
 tions, but to issue it as a shilling book in paper covers. 
 The chief drawbacks of this plan to the author were 
 the loss of immediate payment and the risk of total fail- 
 ure, but these were generously met by an advance pay- 
 ment from the publishers on account of royalties. 
 "The little book was printed," says Mr. Charles Long- 
 man, " but when it was ready the bookstalls were al- 
 ready full of Christmas numbers, etc., and the trade 
 would [not look at it. We therefore withdrew it till 
 after Christmas. In January it was launched not with- 
 out difficulty. The trade did not feel inclined to take 
 it up, till a review appeared in the Times l calling atten- 
 tion to the story. This gave it a start, and in the next 
 six months close on forty thousand copies were sold in 
 this country alone." Besides the authorised edition in 
 America, the book was widely pirated, and probably 
 not less than a quarter of a million copies in all have 
 been sold in the United States. 
 
 Its success was probably due rather to the moral in- 
 stincts of the public than to any conscious perception of 
 the merits of its art. It was read by those who never 
 read fiction, it was quoted in pulpits, and made the sub- 
 
 1 The Times, January 25th, 1886. 
 ii 17
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 ject of leading articles in religious newspapers. But 
 the praise, though general, was not always according 
 to knowledge, as, for example, in one panegyric, which 
 lauded " a new writer, following in some detail, perhaps 
 more of style than matter, the much regretted Hugh 
 Con way." Yet even this criticism by no means repre- 
 sents the extreme range of its circulation. 
 
 But as literature also it was justly received with en- 
 thusiasm. Even Symonds, though he doubted " whether 
 any one had the right so to scrutinise the abysmal 
 depths of personality," admitted, "The art is burning 
 and intense"; and the cry of horror and pain which he 
 raised was in another sense a tribute to its success. 
 " How had you the ilia dura f err o et cere triplici duri- 
 ora to write Dr. Jekyll ? I know now what was meant 
 when you were called a sprite." 1 
 
 In his " Chapter on Dreams," Stevenson has told his 
 readers how the " brownies " suddenly became useful 
 in providing him with stories for his books, but in spite 
 of this statement it appears that besides Jekyll and Hyde 
 there is only one other plot thus furnished which he 
 ever actually completed. This was " Olalla," which ap- 
 peared in the Christmas number of the Court and Society 
 Review; in connection with it there arises an interesting 
 point an apparent plagiarism from the Strange Story 
 by Lord Lytton. In either tale a squirrel is caught in 
 the boughs of a tree by a semi-human youth and is 
 shortly afterwards killed. It is true that Margrave slays 
 the animal in revenge for a bite, whereas Stevenson's 
 Felipe deliberately tortures the innocent creature, but the 
 
 l jobn /tddington Symonds: a Biography. By Horatio F. Brown. 
 London, Nimmo, 1895. 
 
 18
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 agility and the lack of humanity are the gist of both 
 episodes. Beside the account in " Dreams " must be set 
 Stevenson's own statement that his invention of Felipe 
 was in part deliberate, 1 and it is impossible now to say 
 whether (if the resemblance was more than accidental) 
 the incident came back into the author's mind in his 
 sleep or in his waking hours. 
 
 With the general result he was never well satisfied. 
 To Lady Taylor he wrote : " The trouble with ' Olalla ' 
 is, that it somehow sounds false. . . . The odd prob- 
 lem is : What makes a story true ? ' Markheim ' is true ; 
 'Olalla' false; and I don't know why, nor did I feel it 
 while I worked at them ; indeed I had more inspiration 
 with 'Olalla,' as the style shows. I am glad you 
 thought that young Spanish woman well dressed; I ad- 
 mire the style of it myself, more than is perhaps good 
 for me ; it is so solidly written. And that again brings 
 back (almost with the voice of despair) my unanswer- 
 able: Why is it false ? " 
 
 Kidnapped was begun in March, 1885, as another story 
 for boys, and with as little premeditation as afterwards 
 sufficed for its sequel. But when once the hero had 
 been started upon his voyage, the tale was laid aside 
 and not resumed until the following January, just after 
 the publication ofjekyll and Hyde. No greater contrast 
 can be imagined than the strong, healthy, open-air life 
 of the new book and the dark fancies of the allegory 
 which preceded it. Though the former was the product 
 of his waking hours, it was no less spontaneous than a 
 dream. 
 
 " In one of my books, and in one only, the characters 
 
 1 In tbe Soutb Seas, p. 353. 
 9
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 took the bit in their teeth ; all at once, they became de- 
 tached from the flat paper, they turned their backs on 
 me and walked off bodily; and from that time my task 
 was stenographic it was they who spoke, it was they 
 who wrote the remainder of the story." J 
 
 But within two months Stevenson began to flag, and 
 not long after a visit for his father's sake to Matlock, 
 where he had made small progress with the writing, he 
 decided, at Mr. Colvin's suggestion, to break off with 
 David's return to Edinburgh and leave the tale half told. 
 Mr. Henderson gladly accepted the story for Young 
 Folks, where it ran under Stevenson's own name from 
 May to July, and was then published by Messrs. Cassell 
 & Co. 
 
 It was dedicated to Mr. Baxter, whose permission 
 was asked in a letter indicating its character and show- 
 ing its author's capacity in dialect, if he had ever had a 
 mind to let it run riot in his pages. " It 's Sc&tch, sir: 
 no strong, for the sake o' thae pock-puddens, but jist a 
 kitchen o't, to leaven the wersh, sapless, fushionless, 
 stotty, stytering South Scotch they think sae muckle o'." 
 
 The whole took him, as he said, " probably five 
 months' actual working; one of these months entirely 
 over the last chapters, which had to be put together 
 without interest or inspiration, almost word for word, 
 for I was entirely worked out." But as a whole, the 
 author thought it the best and most human work he 
 had yet done, and its success was immediate with all 
 readers. To mention two instances only: Matthew 
 Arnold, who apparently knew Stevenson's work little, 
 if at all, before this, was at once filled with delight, and 
 
 1 Scribner's Magazine, 1888, p. 764. 
 20
 
 BOURNEMOUTH 1884-87 
 
 we are told that it was the last book Lord Iddesleigh 
 was able to read with pleasure" a volume," continues 
 Mr. Lang, " containing more of the spirit of Scott than 
 any other in English fiction." 
 
 The elder Stevenson had for several years, as we have 
 seen, been declining in health and spirits, and the shad- 
 ows began to close about his path. In 1885 he grad- 
 ually reduced the amount of his work, though he still 
 continued his practice, and could not altogether refuse 
 the solicitations he received to appear as a scientific 
 witness before Parliamentary Committees. 
 
 The tenderness of the relation between father and son 
 now became pathetic in the extreme. As the old man's 
 powers began to fail, he would speak to Louis as 
 though he were still a child. When they went to the 
 theatre together, and Louis stood up in his place, the 
 father put his arm round him, saying: "Take care, 
 my dearie, you might fall." At night, as he kissed his 
 son, he would say reassuringly: " You '11 see me in the 
 morning, dearie." "It was, "says his daughter-in-law, 
 " just like a mothei with a young child." 
 
 It was chiefly in the summers and autumns that Louis 
 left Bournemouth, but even then he rarely travelled any 
 distance or was absent for any length of time. In 1885 
 he went to London in June, and then accompanied his 
 wife on a last visit to Cambridge, to stay with Mr. 
 Colvin, who was now resigning his professorship. In 
 August he started for Dartmoor, but after meeting Mr. 
 Thomas Hardy and his wife at Dorchester, was laid up 
 with a violent hemorrhage at Exeter, in the hotel, and 
 was compelled to remain there for several weeks before 
 he was able to return home. In the following year he
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 went to town in June, and again in August, the latter 
 time extending his journey to Paris in the company of 
 his wife and Mr. Henley, to see their friends Mr. and 
 Mrs. W. H. Low, then, after a long interval, revisiting 
 France for the first time. 
 
 Meeting once more in their early haunts, the old 
 friends revived many memories. One trivial reminis- 
 cence of this occasion is yet so characteristic of Steven- 
 son, and so illustrates the working of his mind, that it 
 may find a place here. The two friends, painter and 
 writer, both possessing a fine palate for certain wines, 
 had always laughed at one another's pretensions to such 
 taste. In 1875 or 1876, soon after Mr. Low's marriage, 
 he and his wife had gone to dine with Stevenson at the 
 Musee de Cluny in the Boulevard St. Michel. Mr. Low 
 hesitating for a moment in his choice of a wine, Steven- 
 son turned to Mrs. Low, and on the spot made up and 
 elaborately embellished a story of how her husband had 
 once gone with him to dine at a restaurant, and had 
 tasted and rejected every vintage the establishment 
 was able to offer. At last so the tale ran the pro- 
 prietor confessed that there was one bottle even finer 
 in his cellar, which had lain there forty years, but that 
 he was ready to give it up to such a master, although 
 it was like surrendering a part of his life. A procession 
 was formed, first the proprietor, then the cellarman, 
 then the waiters of the establishment, and they all went 
 down to the cellar to get the famous bottle. Back they 
 came in the same order with the priceless treasure borne 
 tenderly in the arms of the cellarman, a man with a long 
 beard down to his waist, who had been so much in the 
 cellar that the light made him blink. Slowly and rev- 
 
 22
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 erently they approached the table, and then they all 
 sighed. The bottle was deliberately and ceremoniously 
 uncorked, and the wine poured into small glasses, while 
 the waiters looked on with breathless reverence. The 
 two connoisseurs touched glasses and slowly carried 
 them to their lips. There was absolute silence. All 
 eyes were upon them, and when they drank deeply and 
 expressed their satisfaction, the whole establishment 
 heaved a sigh of relief. 
 
 Mrs. Low now reminded Stevenson of this story, and 
 he, declaring it was no "story," but an historical ac- 
 count of what had actually happened, repeated it word 
 for word as he had originally told it. When he came 
 to the end, he added, " And the cellarman, overcome 
 with emotion, dropped dead." As he said these words, 
 he saw by his hearers' faces that this was a divergence 
 from the original tale, and added quickly, " That about 
 the cellarman is not really true!" 
 
 The quickness with which he caught the first sign of 
 surprise at the only variation, and the readiness with 
 which he recovered himself, were no less characteristic 
 of Stevenson, as Mr. Low truly says, than the fact 
 that the story of his invention took so concrete a form 
 in his mind that, perhaps without its having recurred 
 to his memory in all the interval, he was able to give 
 the identical words and details as they had originally 
 presented themselves to him. 
 
 An old project had this year been revived by Mr. 
 Gilder of a boat-voyage down the Rhone to be written 
 by Stevenson and illustrated by Mr. Low, but the 
 former's health was now too precarious for even the 
 most luxurious of such journeys. His visit to Paris, 
 
 23
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 however, was most successful, its chief event being a 
 visit to Rodin the sculptor, to whom Mr. Henley intro- 
 duced him. He came home in what was for him ex- 
 ceptionally good health; but returning in October to 
 The Monument his invariable name for Mr. Colvin's 
 house at the British Museum he did not escape so 
 easily. The second holiday began delightfully, for it 
 was on this occasion that he met some of the most dis- 
 tinguished of his elders in the world of letters and 
 of art especially, as Mr. Colvin records, Browning, 
 Lowell, and Burne-Jones. But soon the visitor was 
 taken ill, confined to bed, and unable to return home 
 until the very end of November, when a succession of 
 fogs made the danger of remaining in London greater 
 than the risk of any journey. 
 
 This autumn there occurred a curious event in Steven- 
 son's literary career, which is recorded only in a letter to 
 his mother, "fib Sept., 1886. ... I have just 
 written a French (if you please!) story for a French 
 magazine! Heaven knows what it's like; but they 
 asked me to do it, and I was only too pleased to try." 
 
 Mr. Osbourne and Mrs. de Mattos alone of the inti- 
 mates of that time remember the fact, but whether the 
 tale was ever despatched to its destination, or what that 
 destination was, are questions that can no longer be 
 answered. Although Stevenson had a wide and full 
 vocabulary, and spoke French with a good accent and 
 complete fluency, it seems certain that he had not the 
 perfect knowledge of the language nee ssary for serious 
 composition. He once wrote a French dedication in a 
 book which he presented to Mrs. Low, prefacing it 
 with the statement" I am now going to make several 
 
 24
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 mistakes," as in fact, says her husband, he immediately 
 proceeded to do. 
 
 By this time he had begun to write the Memoir of 
 his friend Jenkin, the only biography which he ever 
 actually carried to an end. A few months later Mrs. 
 Jenkin came to Skerry vore to afford him what assistance 
 he needed, and of his method of dealing with the work, 
 she has given us a description. 
 
 " I used to go to his room after tea, and tell him all I 
 could remember of certain times and circumstances. 
 He would listen intently, every now and then checking 
 me while he made a short note, or asking me to repeat 
 or amplify what I had said, if it had not been quite 
 clear. Next morning I went to him again, and he read 
 aloud to me what he had written my two hours of 
 talk compressed into a page, and yet, as it seemed to 
 me, all there, all expressed. He would make me note 
 what he had written word by word, asking me, ' Does 
 this express quite exactly what you mean ? ' Some- 
 times he offered me alternative words, ' Does this ex- 
 press it more truly? ' If I objected to any sentence as 
 not conveying my meaning, he would alter it again and 
 again unwearied in taking pains." 
 
 His life in England led him to take both in home and 
 in foreign politics a closer interest than he had felt be- 
 fore. He was deeply moved during these years by two 
 events, though neither in the end led to any action on 
 his part, nor even an open Declaration of his views. 
 These were the death of Gordon and a case of boycot- 
 ting women in Ireland. 
 
 In 1884 he had felt acutely the withdrawal of the 
 garrisons from the Soudan. " When I read at Nice that 
 
 25
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Graham was recalled from Suakim after all that butch- 
 ery, I died to politics. I saw that they did not regard 
 what I regarded, and regarded what I despised; and I 
 closed my account. If ever I could do anything, I sup- 
 pose I ought to do it; but till that hour comes, I will 
 not vex my soul." 
 
 This was no passing wave of sentiment; Gordon's 
 fate was laid even more deeply to heart, and one of the 
 motives which induced Stevenson to begin his letters 
 to the Times upon Samoan affairs was the memory that 
 in 1884 he had stood by in silence while a brave man 
 was being deserted and a population dependent for help 
 on the government of this country was handed over to 
 the mercies of barbarism. So when he finally came to 
 the point of writing the letter to Mr. Gladstone about 
 the Iron Duke, 1 he could think of no other signature 
 open to him than "Your fellow-criminal in the eyes of 
 God," and forbore. 
 
 But although the passionate indignation and "that 
 chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound " 
 were highly characteristic of Stevenson, at the most 
 they could have led to nothing more than a series of 
 letters to the papers. They might have stirred the 
 public conscience, but though Stevenson would have 
 been dealing with matters less remote from the know- 
 ledge of his readers, yet his part in any agitation or 
 protest would not have differed greatly from his efforts 
 in the cause of Samoa. The other project, on the con- 
 trary, would, if he had been able to carry it out, have led 
 to a definite and entire change of the whole course of 
 his life. On November I3th, 1885, Mr. John Curtin had 
 
 1 See vol. ii. p. 7. 
 26
 
 BOURNEMOUTH - 1 884-87 
 
 been murdered by a party of moonlighters in his house, 
 Castle Farm, at Castle Island, County Kerry. His 
 grown-up sons and daughters had shown the greatest 
 courage, and one of the murderers had been shot. For 
 this the family were cut off as far as possible from all 
 the necessaries of life, and in April, 1887, the boycott 
 still continued. Stevenson, while admitting the wrongs 
 of Ireland, had always the most profound regard for the 
 paramount claims of the law, and had long been shocked 
 both by the disregard of it in Ireland and by the callous 
 indifference of the English to the needs of those en- 
 gaged in its support. He now pitched upon the case 
 of the Curtin family as a concrete instance in which it 
 behoved England to do her duty, and since no one else 
 was forthcoming for the task, he prepared to offer him- 
 self as an agent, and, if need were, a martyr in the 
 cause. As a man of letters he was not tied down to 
 any one place to do his work, so he proposed to take 
 the Curtins' farm and there live with his wife and his 
 stepson. His wife added her protests to those of all 
 his friends who heard of the project, but in vain, and 
 so without sharing his illusions she cheerfully prepared 
 to accompany him. 
 
 It is impossible to conceive a more quixotic design. 
 Many of the objections to it Stevenson realised himself, 
 or was told by his friends. 1 But perhaps he never sus- 
 pected how little he understood the Irish, or how utterly 
 futile his action would have proved. As a matter of 
 fact he hardly ever came into contact with Irishmen at 
 any time during his life, was probably misled by false 
 inferences from the Highlanders as to Celtic peculiari- 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 27. This letter belongs, however, to 1887. 
 
 27
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 ties, and in the principal Irishman whom he drew 
 Colonel Burke in The Master of Ballantraehe has not 
 carried conviction. 1 But these considerations, even if 
 they had been brought home to him, would equally 
 have failed to move him, and it was nothing but his 
 father's illness which kept him for the time in this 
 country. He abandoned the design with reluctance, 
 and, as Mr. Colvin says, " to the last he was never well 
 satisfied that he had done right in giving way." 
 
 It was driven from his mind, however, by events 
 which touched him more nearly. In the autumn his 
 parents had taken a house in Bournemouth for the 
 winter, that Mr. Stevenson might have the companion- 
 ship of his son. For some time after they came Louis 
 was laid up in London, and even when he returned he 
 was too ill to see much of his father or to have any 
 cheering influence upon him. In February Thomas 
 Stevenson was taken by his wife to Torquay, but came 
 back to Bournemouth on the ist of April. By the 
 2ist he was so ill that it was thought better to bring 
 him home, and he returned to Edinburgh. The ac- 
 counts of him grew so alarming that Louis followed 
 on the 6th of May, but was too late for his coming to 
 be of any use, and on the 8th all was over. 
 
 Of the son's affection and of his appreciation for his 
 father enough has been said to show how great the 
 sense of his loss must have been. The shock of having 
 found his father no longer able to recognise him preyed 
 upon his mind, and for some time to come he was 
 haunted day and night with " ugly images of sickness, 
 
 1 Mac, the Ulsterman in The Wrecker, is better, but would not have 
 helped his creator much in Kerry. 
 
 28
 
 BOURNEMOUTH- 1884-87 
 
 decline, and impaired reason," which increased yet 
 further his sadness and the physical depression that 
 weighed him down. 
 
 In the meantime he took cold, was not allowed to 
 attend the funeral, and never left the house until, at the 
 end of May, he was able to return to Bournemouth, and 
 quitted Scotland for the last time.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE UNITED STATES 1887-88 
 
 " But, indeed, I think we all belong to many countries. I am a 
 Scotchman, touch me and you will find the thistle; 1 am a Briton, and 
 live and move and have my being in the greatness of our national 
 achievements; but am I to forget the long hospitality of that beautiful 
 and kind country, France ? Or has not America done me favours to 
 confound my gratitude? Nay, they are all my relatives; 1 love them all 
 dearly; and should they fall out among themselves (which God in his 
 mercy forbid !), I believe 1 should be driven mad with their conflicting 
 claims upon my heart." R. L. S., MS. of The Silverado Squatters. 
 
 THE chief link which bound Stevenson to this country 
 was now broken, for his mother was free to follow 
 him and his wife to whatever climate the advice of 
 the doctors might send him. Year after year the 
 struggle with ill-health was becoming more painful; 
 "an enemy who was exciting at first, but has now, by 
 the iteration of his strokes, become merely annoying 
 and inexpressibly irksome." He seemed condemned to 
 a life in the sick-room, and even there to be steadily 
 losing ground. Under the altered circumstances, his 
 uncle, Dr. George Balfour, peremptorily insisted on a 
 complete change of climate for a year, suggesting a trial 
 of either one of the Indian hill-stations or Colorado; this 
 advice was reinforced by his Bournemouth physician, 
 Dr. Scott, and for several obvious reasons America was 
 preferred. As soon as his mother's promise to accom- 
 pany the party was obtained, Skerry vore was let, and by 
 the middle of July their tickets were taken for New York. 
 
 30
 
 THE UNITED STATES- 1887-88 
 
 Early in the same month he had written to his mother : 
 ". . . I can let you have a cheque for i oo to-morrow, 
 which is certainly a pleasant thing to be able to say. I 
 wish it had happened while my father was still here; I 
 should have liked to help him once perhaps even from 
 a mean reason : that he might see I had not been wrong 
 in taking to letters. But all this, I daresay, he observes, 
 or, in some other way, feels. And he, at least, is out 
 of his warfare, as I could sometimes wish I were out of 
 mine. The mind of the survivor is mean; it sees the 
 loss, it does not always feel the deliverance. Yet 
 about our loss, I feel it more than I can say every 
 day more that it is a happy thing that he is now 
 at peace." 
 
 But the invalid was not to escape from England 
 without another illness ; worn as he was by his recent 
 experiences, he once more broke down, and was laid 
 up again with hemorrhage. 
 
 On the soth August, however, he left Bournemouth 
 for London, and spent Sunday in the city, at Armfield's 
 Hotel. Here those of his closest friends who at that 
 season were within reach came to bid him farewell, a 
 last good-bye as it proved for all, since he never saw 
 any one of them again. " In one way or another," he 
 had written, "life forces men apart and breaks up the 
 goodly fellowships for ever," and he himself was now 
 to become " no more than a name, a reminiscence, and 
 an occasional crossed letter very laborious to read." l 
 
 As Mr. Colvin had been the first to welcome him on 
 his return from America, so he was the last to take 
 leave of him the next day, when the party of five for 
 
 1 yirginibus Puerisque, chap. i. 
 3
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Valentine Roch accompanied them embarked on the 
 steamship Ludgate Hill. 
 
 The beginning of their voyage was an unpleasant 
 surprise, for their passages had been taken in ignorance 
 that the ship was used as a cattle-boat, and it was only 
 when the family came on board that they learned that 
 they were going to put in at Havre for their cargo before 
 sailing for America. But Stevenson, ill as he was, did 
 not allow mere discomfort to affect him. His mother's 
 diary contains an entry highly characteristic both of 
 herself and of her son : "We discover that it is a 
 cattle-ship, and that we are going to Havre to take in 
 horses. We agree to look upon it as an adventure and 
 make the best of it. ... It is very amusing and like a 
 circus to see the horses come on board." Not only was 
 there a shipload of horses, but the vessel resembled the 
 fleet of Ophir at least in this, that she carried a consign- 
 ment of apes; of which "the big monkey, Jacko, 
 scoured about the ship," and took a special fancy to 
 Stevenson. The other passengers were not unenter- 
 taining, and the voyage itself was to him a pure delight, 
 until they came to the Banks of Newfoundland, where 
 he again caught cold. " I was so happy on board that 
 ship," he wrote to his cousin Bob; "I could not have 
 believed it possible. We had the beastliest weather, 
 and many discomforts; but the mere fact of its being 
 a tramp-ship gave us many comforts; we could cut 
 about with the men and officers, stay in the wheel- 
 house, discuss all manner of things, and really be a 
 little at sea. And truly there is nothing else. I had 
 literally forgotten what happiness was, and the full 
 mind full of external and physical things, not full of 
 
 32
 
 THE UNITED STATES- 1887-88 
 
 cares and labours and rot about a fellow's behaviour. 
 My heart literally sang; I truly care for nothing so much 
 as for that." 1 
 
 By this time his reputation had crossed the Atlantic, 
 and, chiefly by means of Jekyll and Hyde, had spread 
 there to an extent which he had probably not yet 
 realised. The first indication reached him, however, 
 before he had sighted the coast-line of the States, for, 
 on September 6th, when the pilot came on board, it 
 turned out that he was known on his boat as Hyde, 
 while his better-tempered partner was called Jekyll. 
 
 The next day the Ludgate Hill arrived at New York, 
 where Stevenson was met by a crowd of reporters, 
 and what was more to his taste by his old friend, 
 Mr. Will H. Low. He was forthwith carried off to an 
 hotel where Mr. and Mrs. Charles Fairchild had made 
 all arrangements for his reception, and the next day he 
 proceeded to their house at Newport. But on the 
 journey he caught fresh cold, and spent a fortnight there 
 chiefly in bed. 
 
 On his return to New York he saw a few people, 
 mostly old friends like Mr. Low and his wife, and first 
 made the personal acquaintance of Mr. Charles Scribner 
 and Mr. Burlingame. Mr. St. Gaudens, the eminent 
 American sculptor, now began to make the necessary 
 studies for the large medallion, which was not com- 
 pleted until five years later. It is the most satisfactory 
 of all the portraits of Stevenson, and has been repro- 
 duced with one or two slight modifications for the 
 memorial in St. Giles" Cathedral. The artist was a great 
 admirer of Stevenson's writings, and had said that if he 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 67. 
 33
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 ever had the chance he would gladly go a thousand 
 miles for the sake of a sitting. The opportunity came 
 to his doors, and he made a sketch of the head and one 
 hand, though it was not until the following spring that 
 he was able to complete his drawings. 
 
 At this time the popularity of Stevenson's work in 
 America was attested also by its appearance on the 
 stage; not only were there two dramatised versions of 
 Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde upon the boards, but Deacon 
 Brodie was shortly afterwards produced in Philadelphia 
 by an English company. 
 
 For the dramatisation of his story Stevenson was of 
 course in no way responsible, but the publicity and the 
 advertisement of his name had naturally the effect of 
 enabling publishers to offer better terms for his work. 
 He had already contributed to American magazines for 
 several years, in the first instance to the Century, and 
 then to the new periodical of Messrs. Scribner, for which 
 he now undertook to write a series of twelve articles 
 during the ensuing year. For this he was to receive 
 ^700, and this bargain was followed shortly afterwards 
 by an offer of ; 1600 from another firm for the Ameri- 
 can serial rights of his next story. The first proposal 
 of all, from the New York World, was ^2000 for an 
 article every week for a year; but this he had refused. 
 In February, 1883, he had written to his mother: "My 
 six books (since 1878) have brought me in upwards of 
 ;6oo, about ^400 of which came from magazines." 
 So great was the change in four years. It must be re- 
 membered that in England also he had now reached 
 the turning-point of his fortunes; and early in the fol- 
 lowing year he became a member of the Athenaeum 
 
 34
 
 THE UNITED STATES- 1887-88 
 
 Club in London under the rule permitting the commit- 
 tee to elect nine persons annually "as being of distin- 
 guished eminence in Science, Literature or the Arts, or 
 for Public Services." In this very year it had been found 
 worth while to collect and republish with additions such 
 of his stories, essays, and verse as had hitherto appeared 
 only in magazines. But though the change was not 
 solely due to the greater enterprise of American pub- 
 lishers, it is none the less striking. 
 
 His first need, however, for the present was to select 
 a climate where he could best pass the winter. He 
 had come to America in search of health, but the infor- 
 mation he received in New York dissuaded him from 
 Colorado Springs, which, situated as it is nearly six 
 thousand feet above the sea, would have deprive4 him 
 of the company of his wife, to whom such high alti- 
 tudes were no longer possible. He turned instead to a 
 place at a lower elevation in the Adirondack Mountains, 
 close to the Canadian border, where a sanatorium for 
 consumptive patients had recently been established near 
 the shores of Saranac lake. 
 
 Thither went accordingly Mrs. Louis Stevenson and 
 her son, and there they succeeded in finding a house 
 which would serve as winter-quarters for the family. 
 Stevenson arrived with his mother on October ^rd, 
 and here he remained until the middle of the following 
 April. It was no very pleasant spot, at all events in the 
 winter months, and formed a curious contrast to his 
 experience in the tropics. The climate comprised every 
 variety of unpleasantness: it rained, it snowed, it 
 sleeted, it blew, it was thick fog; it froze the cold was 
 Arctic; it thawed the discomfort was worse; and it 
 
 35
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 combined these different phases in every possible way. 
 Two things only could be advanced in its favour, the 
 first and vital fact that Stevenson's health did not suffer, 
 but actually improved; and secondly, it served at times 
 to remind him of Scotland a Scotland " without peat 
 and without heather" but that is no very hard task 
 with the true Scot, as may be seen with Stevenson him- 
 self in the Pacific. 
 
 The place was still somewhat undeveloped ; the rail- 
 way was opened to Saranac itself only during the course 
 of the winter. It was nevertheless so far accessible 
 that visitors not unfrequently found their way there to 
 make Stevenson's acquaintance, and occasionally even 
 stayed a few days, though there was in the house but 
 one spare attic of limited capacity. In Dr. Trudeau, the 
 physician, Stevenson found an agreeable companion, 
 and he also enjoyed the society of some of the resident 
 patients, though he went but little beyond the limits of 
 his own family. They occupied a house belonging to 
 a guide, a frame-house of the usual kind with a veran- 
 dah ; here, with the services of Valentine and a cook, 
 and a boy to chop wood and draw water, they made 
 themselves as comfortable as possible during the winter. 
 
 The younger Mrs. Stevenson began the campaign by 
 a hasty visit to Canada to lay in a supply of furs for 
 the family, and her foresight was well rewarded. In 
 December the cold began, and by January the ther- 
 mometer was sometimes nearly 30 degrees below zero. 
 There was a stove in each chamber, and an open fire- 
 place for logs in the central living-room, but these were 
 of little avail. " Fires do not radiate," wrote Stevenson ; 
 "you burn your hands all the time on what seem to be 
 
 36
 
 THE UNITED STATES- 1887-88 
 
 cold stones." His mother gives an illustration: " Cold 
 venison was crunching with ice after being an hour in 
 the oven, and I saw a large lump of ice still unmelted 
 in a pot where water was steaming all round it" 
 
 Stevenson himself stood the cold better than any of 
 his family, and, arrayed in a buffalo coat, astrakhan cap, 
 and Indian boots, used to go out daily. He would 
 take short walks on a hill behind the house, and skated 
 on the lake when the ice could be kept clear. But both 
 the ladies were ordered away for their health at differ- 
 ent times, while in February the maid was laid up with 
 a severe attack of influenza, the next victim being 
 Stevenson himself. 
 
 In the meantime he had not been idle. By December 
 he had written four of the essays for the magazine, and 
 was already on the threshold of a new Scotch story. 
 
 "I was walking one night in the verandah of a small 
 house in which I lived, outside the hamlet of Saranac. 
 It was winter; the night was very dark; the air extraor- 
 dinary clear and cold, and sweet with the purity of 
 forests. From a good way below, the river was to be 
 heard contending with ice and boulders: a few lights 
 appeared, scattered unevenly among the darkness, but 
 so far away as not to lessen the sense of isolation. For 
 the making of a story here were fine conditions. I was 
 besides moved with the spirit of emulation, for I had 
 just finished my third or fourth perusal of The Phantom 
 Ship. 'Come,' said I to my engine, 'let us make a 
 tale, a story of many years and countries, of the sea 
 and the land, savagery and civilisation; a story that 
 shall have the same large features, and may be treated 
 in the same summary elliptic method as the book you 
 
 37
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 have been reading and admiring.' . . . There cropped 
 up in my memory a singular case of a buried and resus- 
 citated fakir, which I had often been told by an uncle of 
 mine, then lately dead, Inspector-General John Balfour. 
 On such a fine frosty night, with no wind and the 
 thermometer below zero, the brain works with much 
 vivacity; and the next moment I had seen the circum- 
 stance transplanted from India and the tropics to the 
 Adirondack wilderness and the stringent cold of the 
 Canadian border. . . . If the idea was to be of any use 
 at all for me, I had to create a kind of evil genius to his 
 friends and family, take him through many disappear- 
 ances, and make this final restoration from the pit of 
 death, in the icy American wilderness, the last and 
 grimmest of the series. I need not tell my brothers of 
 the craft that I was now in the most interesting moment 
 of an author's life ; the hours that followed that night 
 upon the balcony, and the following nights and days, 
 whether walking abroad or lying wakeful in my bed, 
 were hours of unadulterated joy. My mother, who was 
 then living with me alone, perhaps had less enjoyment; 
 for, in the absence of my wife, who is my usual helper 
 in these times of parturition, I must spur her up at all 
 seasons to hear me relate and try to clarify my un- 
 formed fancies. 
 
 "And while I was groping for the fable and the 
 character required, behold I found them lying ready and 
 nine years old in my memory. . . . Here, thinking of 
 quite other things, I had stumbled on the solution, or 
 perhaps I should rather say (in stagewright phrase) the 
 Curtain or final Tableau of a story conceived long before 
 on the moors between Pitlochry and Strathairdle, con- 
 
 38
 
 THE UNITED STATES- 1887-88 
 
 ceived in Highland rain, in the blend of the smell of 
 heather and bog-plants, and with a mind full of the 
 Athole correspondence and the Memoirs of the Cheva- 
 lier de Johnstone. So long ago, so far away it was, 
 that I had first evoked the faces and the mutual tragic 
 situation of the men of Durrisdeer." 1 
 
 The accessibility of his winter-quarters had its advan- 
 tages, but was not without its dangers for Stevenson, 
 now that publishers recognised him as a writer for 
 whose works they must contend in advance. " Acute 
 and capable as he was when confronted with any piece 
 of business, the moment it was done he dismissed it 
 from his mind, and allowed its details, if not its very 
 existence, to fade from his memory. Having promised 
 Messrs. Scribner the control of all his work which might 
 appear in America, he shortly afterwards, in sheer for- 
 getfulness, sold the serial rights of his next story to Mr. 
 M'Clure. Nobody could have been more sincerely or 
 more deeply distressed over the matter than Stevenson 
 himself, and, fortunately for his peace of mind, nobody 
 seems ever for one instant to have thought him capable 
 of any act of bad faith. But it must have been as much 
 of a relief to every one concerned, as it was very greatly 
 to his own advantage, when shortly afterwards he 
 handed over the disposal of his writings to the manage- 
 ment of his old and trusted friend, Mr. Charles Baxter. 
 
 At Saranac Mr. Osbourne wrote entirely on his own 
 account a story called at first The Finsbury Tontine and 
 afterwards The Game of Bluff, which, after the lapse of 
 many months and a course of collaboration with his 
 stepfather, was to appear as The Wrong Box. At first 
 
 1 " Genesis of ' The Master of Ballantrae,' "Juvenilia, p. 197. 
 39
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 this was an independent book, but as soon as the idea 
 of collaboration had occurred to them, several projects 
 were speedily set on foot, since the joint books would 
 have this advantage, that, Mr. Osbourne being an 
 American citizen, they could be copyrighted in the 
 United States. The New York Ledger is a paper which 
 had long a reputation for sensational stories of the fine 
 old melodramatic kind, and as the editor was willing to 
 give Stevenson a commission, it seemed to him highly 
 entertaining to try his hand at this style of narrative. 
 A plot was drawn out, and then: "Study of the Ledger 
 convinced me that ' Fighting the Ring ' would not do. 
 Accordingly, at about nine one night Lloyd and I began, 
 and next day before lunch we had finished the design 
 of a new and more sensational tale, 'The Gaol Bird.' 
 T is the correct Ledger subject of a noble criminal, 
 who returns to prove his innocence; but it seems pictu- 
 resquely designed, and we flatter ourselves that the rela- 
 tions between the criminal and the man whom he 
 suspects (Donald, first Baron DrummondofDrummond 
 and Raracaroo, late Governor-General of India) are 
 essentially original, and should quite blind all but the 
 most experienced." 
 
 Mr. Osbourne laboured at this tale by himself for many 
 a long day in vain ; but the plot was hardly sketched 
 before the collaborators were again deep in the plan of 
 a new novel dealing with the Indian Mutiny "a tragic 
 romance of the most tragic sort. . . . The whole last 
 part is well, the difficulty is that, short of resuscitat- 
 ing Shakespeare, I don't know who is to write it." 
 
 Of their methods Mr. Osbourne writes: "When an 
 idea for a book was started, we used to talk it over 
 
 40
 
 THE UNITED STATES 1887-88 
 
 together, and generally carried the tale on from one in- 
 vention to another, until, in accordance with Louis' own 
 practice, we had drawn out a complete list of the chap- 
 ters. In all our collaborations I always wrote the first 
 draft, to break the ground, and it is a pleasure to me 
 to recall how pleased Louis was, for instance, with the 
 first three chapters of The Ebb Tide. As a rule, he was 
 a man chary of praise, but he fairly overflowed toward 
 those early chapters, and I shall never forget the elation 
 his praise gave me. The draft was then written and 
 rewritten by Louis and myself in turn, and was worked 
 over and over again by each of us as often as was ne- 
 cessary. For instance, the chapter in The Wrecker at 
 Honolulu, where Dodd goes out to the lighthouse, must 
 have been written and rewritten eleven times. Natu- 
 rally it came about that it was the bad chapters that 
 took the most rewriting. After this, how could any- 
 body but Louis or myself pretend to know which of 
 us wrote any given passage ? The Paris parts of The 
 Wrecker and the end of The Ebb Tide (as it stands) I 
 never even touched. 1 The collaboration was, of course, 
 a mistake for me, nearly as much as for him; but I 
 don't believe Louis ever enjoyed any work more. He 
 liked the comradeship my work coming in just as his 
 energy flagged, or "vice -versa; and he liked my ap- 
 plause when he as he always did pulled us mag- 
 nificently out of sloughs. In a way, I was well fitted 
 to help him. I had a knack for dialogue I mean, of 
 the note-taking kind. I was a kodaker: he an artist 
 and a man of genius. I managed the petty makeshifts 
 and inventions which were constantly necessary; I 
 
 1 Cf. Letters, ii. 357. 
 4'
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 was the practical man, so to speak, the one who paced 
 the distances, and used the weights and measures; 
 in Tbe Wrecker, the storm was mine; so were the 
 fight and the murders on the Currency Lass; the 
 picnics in San Francisco, and the commercial details of 
 Loudon's partnership. Nares was mine and Pinkerton 
 to a great degree, and Captain Brown was mine through- 
 out. But although the first four chapters of Tbe Ebb 
 Tide remain, save for the text of Herrick's letter to his 
 sweetheart, almost as I first wrote them, yet Tbe 
 Wrong Box was more mine as a whole than either of 
 the others. It was written and then rewritten before 
 there was any thought of collaboration, and was actually 
 finished and ready for the press. There was, in conse- 
 quence, far less give and take between us in this book 
 than in the others. Louis had to follow the text very 
 closely, being unable to break away without jeopardis- 
 ing the succeeding chapters. He breathed into it, of 
 course, his own incomparable power, humour, and 
 vivacity, and forced the thing to live as it had never 
 lived before; but, even in his transforming hands, it 
 still retains (it seems to me) a sense of failure; and this 
 verdict has so far been sustained by the public's reluc- 
 tance to buy the book. Tbe Wrecker, on the other 
 hand, has always been in excellent demand, rivalling 
 Kidnapped, Tbe Master of Ballantrae, and Catriona, 
 and still continues to earn ^200 a year with unvarying 
 regularity." 
 
 At Saranac Stevenson carried on his music under dis- 
 advantages, and his chief solace lay in the pleasures of 
 adaptation. "All my spare time," he wrote, "is spent 
 in trying to set words to music. My last attempt is the 
 
 42
 
 THE UNITED STATES 1887-88 
 
 divine theme of Beethoven's six variations faciles. 
 
 will know it; and if she does not like it well, she 
 knows nothing of music, or sorrow, or consolation, or 
 religion. . . . That air has done me more good than all 
 the churches of Christendom." 
 
 Meanwhile, as an interpreter, he fell from the piano- 
 forte to the more portable penny whistle. " T is true 
 my whistle explodes with sharp noises, and has to be 
 patched with court-plaster like a broken nose; but its 
 notes are beginning to seem pretty sweet to the player 
 The Penny Piper." 
 
 But already, in the heart of the mountains, he had 
 been laying plans of travel, which were to lead him far 
 and wide across the seas and to end in a continued 
 exile of which at this time he had never dreamed. He 
 had always nourished a passion for the sea, whether in 
 romance or in real life; it ran in his blood, and came to 
 him from both his father and his grandfather. 1 As a boy, 
 on Saturday afternoons, he would make a party to go 
 down to Leith to see the ships, for in those days, as 
 always, he loved a ship "as a man loves Burgundy or 
 daybreak." The sea was to him the redeeming feature 
 of engineering, and a year or two after he had given 
 up the profession he wrote with eager anticipation of 
 a projected trip in the Pharos, the lighthouse steamer. 
 Then for ten years he hardly mentioned the sea again, 
 and even in crossing the Atlantic as an amateur emi- 
 grant, he seems to have taken more interest in his 
 fellow-passengers than in the ocean. But his feelings 
 were unchanged: in 1883 his idea of a fortune is to "end 
 
 1 " It was that old gentleman's blood that brought me to Samoa." 
 Letters, ii. 258. 
 
 43
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 with horses and yachts and all the fun of the fair " ; 
 and in some verses written at Hyeres, contrasting his 
 wife's aspirations with his own, he declares 
 
 " She vows in ardour for a horse to trot, 
 I stake my votive prayers upon a yacht." 
 
 We have seen how he enjoyed his voyage across the 
 Atlantic; and to this pleasure he was perpetually re- 
 curring: "I have been made a lot of here, . . . but I 
 
 could give it all up, and agree that was the author of 
 
 my works, for a good seventy-ton schooner and the 
 coins to keep her on. And to think there are parties 
 with yachts who would make the exchange! I know 
 a little about fame now; it is no good compared to a 
 yacht; and anyway there is more fame in a yacht, more 
 genuine fame." 1 And no doubt his envy had been 
 excited at Newport by hearing of Mr. Osbourne's expe- 
 riences in learning to sail a cat-boat. 2 
 
 It was therefore no unexpected development, no 
 outbreak of any new taste, when it became a favourite 
 diversion of the winter nights at Saranac to plan a 
 yachting cruise. So far indeed were the discussions 
 carried, that the place for the piano in the saloon and 
 the number and disposition of the small-arms were 
 already definitely settled. At first, in spite of the 
 severity of the climate and the proverbial roughness of 
 the weather, they had looked chiefly to the Atlantic 
 seaboard, but in the end of March, when Mrs. Stevenson 
 left Saranac for California on a visit to her people, she 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 68. 
 
 2 A rather broad and shallow boat, round-bottomed, with a centre 
 board, and a single mast stepped at the extreme point of the bow. 
 
 44
 
 THE UNITED STATES 1887-88 
 
 was instructed to report if she could find any craft suit- 
 able for their purpose at San Francisco. 
 
 At last, by the middle of April, Stevenson was free to 
 return to the "cities if he chose. He made a heroic 
 effort to deal with the arrears of his correspondence: 
 "In three of my last days I sent away upwards of 
 seventy letters"; and then turning his steps to New 
 York, he there spent about a fortnight. The time to 
 which he recurred with the greatest pleasure was an 
 afternoon he spent on a seat in Washington Square 
 enjoying the company and conversation of "Mark 
 Twain." But of the city he soon wearied; in the 
 beginning of May he crossed the Hudson, and went to 
 an hotel near the mouth of the Manasquan, a river in 
 New Jersey, where with his mother and stepson he 
 spent nearly a month. The place had been recom- 
 mended to him by Mr. Low, who was able to spend 
 some time there, and who says: "Though it was 
 early spring and the weather was far from good, Louis 
 (pretending that, in comparison with Scotland at least, 
 it was fine spring weather) was unusually well, and we 
 had many a pleasant sail on the river and some rather 
 long walks. Louis was much interested in the 'cat- 
 boat,' and, with the aid of various works on sailing- 
 vessels, tried to master the art of sailing it with some 
 success. 
 
 " He was here at Manasquan when a telegram arrived 
 from his wife, who had been in San Francisco for a few 
 weeks, announcing that the yacht Casco might be hired 
 for a trip among the islands of the South Seas. I was 
 there at the time, and Louis made that decision to go 
 which exiled him from his dearest friends though he 
 
 45
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 little suspected at the time while the messenger 
 waited." 
 
 The decision taken, Stevenson returned to New York 
 on the 28th, and by the 7th of June he had reached 
 California. Who that has read his description of cross- 
 ing the mountains on his first journey to the West but 
 remembers the phrase "It was like meeting one's 
 wife!" ? And this time his wife herself was at Sacra- 
 mento to meet him. 
 
 It was a busy time. The Casco was the first ques- 
 tipn a topsail schooner, ninety-five feet in length, of 
 seventy tons burden, built for racing in Californian wa- 
 ters, though she had once been taken as far as Tahiti' She 
 had most graceful lines, and with her lofty masts, 
 white sails and decks, and glittering brasswork, was a 
 lovely craft to the eye, as she sat like a bird upon the 
 water. Her saloon was fitted most luxuriously with 
 silk and velvet of gaudy colours, for no money had 
 been spared in her construction; nevertheless her cock- 
 pit was none too safe, her one pump was inadequate in 
 size and almost worthless ; the sail-plan forward was 
 meant for racing and not for cruising, and even if the 
 masts were still in good condition, they were quite un- 
 fitted for hurricane weather. 
 
 Nevertheless the vessel was chartered and all prep- 
 arations were put in hand. The owner, Dr. Merritt, 
 an eccentric Californian millionaire, was at first most 
 backward about the. whole affair, and, without having 
 seen him, displayed the greatest distrust of Stevenson. 
 The latter was very unwell, and getting rapidly worse, 
 for San Francisco disagreed with him. Matters hung 
 fire, but at last his wife discovered that Dr. Merritt 
 
 46
 
 THE UNITED STATES 1887-88 
 
 wanted to meet him. An interview took place and all 
 difficulties vanished. "I '11 go ahead now with the 
 yacht," said the doctor: "I 'd read things in the 
 papers about Stevenson, and thought he was a kind of 
 crank; but he 's a plain, sensible man that knows what 
 he 's talking about just as well as I do." 
 
 If any fears had existed in his mind about the solvency 
 of his lessee they were unfounded. Under the terms 
 of his father's marriage settlement Stevenson had six 
 months before received a sum of .3000, an d it was in 
 the first instance upon the strength of this that he 
 planned the voyage. As he wrote to Mr. Baxter, "If 
 this business fails to set me up, well, ^2000 is gone, 
 and I know I can't get better." On the other hand, if it 
 restored his health, he had received a most liberal offer 
 from Messrs. M'Clure for a series of letters describing 
 his experiences in the Pacific. 
 
 Along with the yacht, at the owner's request, they 
 gladly engaged his skipper, Captain Otis, who knew 
 the Casco well, and the cook, a Chinaman, who passed 
 himself off as a Japanese. The former choice they had 
 no reason to regret, for the captain showed himself a 
 bold and skilful seaman, who, beginning the voyage 
 with a supreme contempt for his new employers, ended 
 it as an intimate and valued friend, whose portrait for 
 the rest may be found in the pages of The Wrecker. A 
 crew of four deck-hands, "three Swedes and the 
 inevitable Finn," was engaged by the captain, and 
 four "sea-lawyers" they proved to be; a reporter, 
 trying to ship himself as a hand, was ejected, and a 
 passage was with great difficulty refused to a Seventh- 
 Day Adventist, who afterwards with a crew of his 
 
 47
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 fellow-believers travelled over the whole of the South 
 Seas. 
 
 The destination of the Casco was next to be settled. 
 Stevenson himself was anxious to begin with a long 
 voyage, "counting," says his wife, "on the warm sea 
 air as the strongest factor in his cure, if cure it was to be. 
 If, on the other hand, it was to be death, he wished it 
 to be so- far away from land that burial at sea should be 
 certain. With this in view, the Galapagos and Mar- 
 quesas were at the right distance. If he arrived alive at 
 either of these places, then he must have recovered a 
 certain amount of health, and would be able to go fur- 
 ther to any place he chose. It turned out that he really 
 knew a great deal about the islands. Before we started, 
 he told me a lot about them all, their appearance, the 
 names of places, habits of the natives, and other details. 
 On visiting them I got no further general knowledge 
 than Louis had already given me. He now preferred 
 the Galapagos, but when he told me that we must pass 
 through a belt of calms where we might knock about 
 in the heat of the tropics for weeks, perhaps for months, 
 before we could make land, and that the islands were 
 barren of vegetation, I insisted on the Marquesas. So 
 to the Marquesas we went." 
 
 In the meantime they were living at the Occidental 
 Hotel in San Francisco. Virgil Williams was now dead, 
 but Mrs. Williams was indefatigable in their service, 
 and other friends gathered round them, among whom 
 Stevenson was especially drawn to Dr. George Chis- 
 more, alike for his Scotch blood, his love of literature, 
 and the force and tenderness of his character. But as 
 he himself had known trouble in this city, here least of 
 
 48
 
 THE UNITED STATES 1887-88 
 
 all was he likely to disregard the misfortunes of others. 
 An Australian journalist seven years afterwards wrote 
 to the Times : 
 
 "Some years ago I lay ill in San Francisco, an obscure 
 journalist, quite friendless. Stevenson, who knew me 
 slightly, came to my bedside and said, ' I suppose you are 
 like all of us, you don't keep your money. Now, if a little 
 loan, as between one man of letters and another eh ?' 
 
 " This to a lad writing rubbish for a vulgar sheet in 
 California." 
 
 At last, on June 26th, the party took up their quarters 
 on the Casco, and at the dawn of the 28th she was 
 towed outside the Golden Gate, and headed for the 
 south across the long swell of the Pacific. 
 
 So with his household he sailed away beyond the 
 sunset, and America, like Europe, was to see him no 
 more. 
 
 49
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES THE EASTERN PACIFIC, 
 JUNE, 1888 JUKE, 1889 
 
 "This donate; these voyagings; these landfalls at dawn; new 
 islands peeking from the morning bank; new forested harbours; new 
 passing alarms of squaBs and surf ; new interests of gentle natives 
 the whole tale of my Be is better to me than any poem." 
 
 Lftttrs,n. 1 60. 
 
 FOR nearly three years to come Stevenson wandered 
 up and down the face of the Pacific, spending most of 
 his time in the Hawaiian Islands and the Gilberts, in 
 Tahiti, and in Samoa, his future home; during this 
 period he visited, however cursorily, almost every group 
 of importance in the Eastern and Central Pacific. 
 
 The delight these experiences kindled for him can 
 never be expressed, since, apart from one or two phrases 
 in his letters, he has failed to convey any image of it 
 himself. It is hardly too much to say that nobody else 
 in the world would have derived such keen or such 
 varied enjoyment from cruising through these islands, so 
 wild, so beautiful among their inhabitants so attrac- 
 tive, so remote from experience in these waters, so 
 fascinating and so dangerous. The very romance that 
 hangs about the South Seas is fatal to any attempt to 
 sustain, among the mazes of detail and necessary ex- 
 planation, the charm suggested by their name. Ste- 
 venson himself set out to write an account of his 
 wanderings and adventures among the islands it had 
 
 50
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -1888-89 
 
 for years been the dream of his life to see, but as soon 
 as he essayed the task, he was overwhelmed with a 
 mass of legend and history and anthropology. It is 
 hard for people at their own firesides to realise the dif- 
 ferences between the islands visited in one cruise in the 
 same ocean. Perhaps some vague and general concep- 
 tion of the diversity of Stevenson's experiences might 
 be formed by imagining a rapid visit to the islands of 
 Sardinia, Sicily, Majorca, and Tenerife, a fresh depar- 
 ture for Jersey and the lies d'Or, ending with a passing 
 glimpse at the West Indies. 
 
 The point now to be considered is not, however, the 
 customs and character of the natives whom Stevenson 
 encountered, but rather how he was affected and in- 
 fluenced by what he saw, the characteristics which were 
 called out in him during the course of his travel, and the 
 impressions which he himself produced. His chapters 
 In the South Seas have now been collected and pub- 
 lished, and from them I shall only quote one or two of 
 the most striking passages, relying rather on his origi- 
 nal rough journal at the time, which naturally strikes a 
 more personal note and deals to a greater extent with 
 his individual experience. 
 
 The first point, as we have seen, was the Marquesas, 
 a group of high l islands of extreme beauty, occupied 
 by the French and but seldom visited by travellers, 
 
 1 Islands in the Pacific are usually divided into " high " and " low "; 
 the former being, generally speaking, islands of volcanic origin, often 
 rising several thousand feet above the sea, densely wooded and beau- 
 tiful in the extreme. These frequently have a barrier reef of coral, 
 protecting what would otherwise be an ironbound coast, but their 
 main structure is igneous rock. "Low" islands are atolls or mere 
 
 5
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 remote from any other group and out of the track of 
 ships and steamers. For these the Casco now steered 
 a course of three thousand miles across the open sea. 
 Fortunately the main object of the cruise seemed likely 
 to be gained without delay; the warmer climate and 
 the sea air suited Stevenson at once, and he grew 
 stronger day by day. The voyage was pleasant but 
 without event other than the passing squalls, and is thus 
 recorded in his diary : 
 
 "Since on the fifth day we were left ignominiously 
 behind by a full-rigged English ship, our quondam 
 comrade, bound round the Horn, we have not spied a 
 sail, nor a land bird, nor a shred of seaweed. In im- 
 pudent isolation, the toy-schooner has ploughed her 
 path of snow across the empty deep, far from all track 
 of commerce, far from any hand of help : now to the 
 sound of slatting sails and stamping sheet-blocks, stag- 
 gering in the turmoil of that business falsely called a 
 calm, now, in the assault of squalls, burying her lee- 
 rail in the sea. To the limit of the north-east trades we 
 carried some attendant pilot birds, silent, brown-suited, 
 quakerish fellows, infinitely graceful on the wing; 
 dropping at times in comfortable sheltered hollows of 
 the swell; running awhile in the snowy footmarks on 
 the water before they rise again in flight. Scarce had 
 these dropped us, ere the Boatswains took their place, 
 birds of an ungainly shape, but beautiful against the 
 heavens in their white plumage. Late upon a starry 
 
 banks built by the coral insect, never more than twenty feet above 
 water, and owing any beauty they possess to the sea, the sun, and the 
 palm-tree. The Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa, and the Hawaiian group 
 are high islands; the Paumotus, the Gilberts, and the Marshalls are low. 
 
 52
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1 888-89 
 
 night, as they fly invisible overhead, the strange voices 
 of these co-voyagers fall about us strangely. Flying- 
 fish, a skimming silver rain on the blue sea; a turtle 
 fast asleep in the early morning sunshine; the Southern 
 Cross hung thwart in the fore-rigging like the frame of 
 a wrecked kite the pole star and the familiar Plough 
 dropping ever lower in the wake: these build up thus 
 far the history of our voyage. It is singular to come so 
 far and to see so infinitely little." 
 
 "July igtb. The morning was hot, the wind steady, 
 the sky filled with such clouds as, on a pleasant Eng- 
 lish day, might promise a cool rain. One of these had 
 been visible for some time, a continental isle of sun and 
 shadow, moving innocuously on the skyline far to 
 windward; when upon a sudden this harmless-looking 
 monster, seeming to smell a quarry, paused, hung 
 awhile as if in stays, and breaking off five points, 1 fell 
 like an armed man upon the Casco. Next moment, the 
 inhabitants of the cabin were piled one upon another, 
 the sea was pouring into the cockpit and spouting in 
 fountains through forgotten deadlights, and the steers- 
 man stood spinning the wheel for his life in a halo of 
 tropical rain. 
 
 " I chronicle this squall, first, for the singularity and 
 
 apparent malignancy of its behaviour, as though it had 
 
 been sent express to cruise after the Casco; and, second, 
 
 because of the nonsense people write upon the climate 
 
 of these seas. Every day for a week or so, in defiance 
 
 of authorities, we have had from three to four squalls; 
 
 and as for this last, no one who saw it desires to see a 
 
 worse. Sailing a ship, even in these so-called fine- 
 
 1 I.e. of the points of the compass, sixty-four in number. 
 
 53
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 weather latitudes, may be compared to walking the 
 tight-rope; so constant is the care required. On our 
 heavenly nights, when we sit late on deck, the trade- 
 wind still chariots overhead an endless company of 
 attenuated clouds. These shine in the moonlight faintly 
 bright, affect strange and semi-human forms like the 
 more battered of the antique statues, blot out the 
 smaller stars, and are themselves pierced by the radiance 
 of the greater. ' Is there any wind in them ? ' so goes 
 the regular sea question. A capful at least, and even 
 in the least substantial; but for the most part in these 
 latitudes they fly far above man's concerns, perhaps out 
 of all reach, so that not even the lowest fringe of wind 
 shall breathe upon the mainmasthead." 
 
 After two-and-twenty days at sea they made their 
 landfall. " The first experience can never be repeated. 
 The first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea 
 island, are memories apart and touched a virginity of 
 sense. On the 28th of July, 1888, the moon was an hour 
 down by four in the morning, . . . and it was half- 
 past five before we could distinguish our expected 
 islands from the clouds on the horizon. The interval 
 was passed on deck in the silence of expectation, the 
 customary thrill of landfall heightened by the strange- 
 ness of the shores that we were then approaching. 
 Slowly they took shape in the attenuating darkness. 
 Uahuna, piling up to a truncated summit, appeared the 
 first upon the starboard bow; almost abeam arose our 
 destination, Nukahiva, whelmed in cloud ; and betwixt, 
 and to the southward, the first rays of the sun displayed 
 the needles of Uapu. These pricked about the line of 
 the horizon, like the pinnacles of some ornate and mon- 
 
 54
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1 888-89 
 
 strous church; they stood there, in the sparkling bright- 
 ness of the morning, the fit signboard of a world of 
 wonders. . . . The land heaved up in peaks and rising 
 vales; it fell in cliffs and buttresses; its colour ran 
 through fifty modulations in a scale of pearl and rose 
 and olive; and it was crowned above by opalescent 
 clouds. The suffusion of vague hues deceived the eye; 
 the shadows of clouds were confounded with the artic- 
 ulations of the mountain; and the isle and its unsub- 
 stantial canopy rose and shimmered before us like a 
 single mass. There was no beacon, no smoke of towns 
 to be expected, no plying pilot. . . . 
 
 "We bore away along the shore. On our port- 
 beam we might hear the explosions of the surf; a few 
 birds flew fishing under the prow; there was no other 
 sound or mark of life, whether of man or beast, in all 
 that quarter of the island. Winged by her own impetus 
 and the dying breeze, the Casco skimmed under cliffs, 
 opened out a cove, showed us a beach and some green 
 trees, and flitted by again, bowing to the swell. . . . 
 Again the cliff yawned, but now with a deeper entry; 
 and the Casco, hauling her wind, began to slide into the 
 bay of Anaho. Rude and bare hills embraced the inlet 
 upon either hand ; it was enclosed to the landward by 
 a bulk of shattered mountains. In every crevice of that 
 barrier the forest harboured, roosting and nesting there 
 like birds about a ruin; and far above, it greened and 
 roughened the razor edges of the summit. 
 
 "Under the eastern shore, our schooner, now bereft 
 of any breeze, continued to creep in ; the smart crea- 
 ture, when once under way, appearing motive in her- 
 self. From close aboard arose the bleating of young 
 
 55
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 lambs; a bird sang in the hillside; the scent of the land 
 and of a hundred fruits or flowers flowed forth to meet 
 us; and, presently, a house or two appeared. . . . 
 The mark of anchorage was a blow-hole in the rocks, 
 near the south-easterly corner of the bay. Punctually 
 to our use, the blow-hole spouted; the schooner turned 
 upon her heel; the anchor plunged. It was a small 
 sound, a great event; my soul went down with these 
 moorings whence no windlass may extract nor any 
 diver fish it up ; and I, and some part of my ship's com- 
 pany, were from that hour the bond-slaves of the isles 
 of Vivien." 1 
 
 This was Nukahiva, the island of Herman Melville's 
 Typee, and here for three weeks they lay in Anaho Bay, 
 where there lived only natives and one white trader. 
 They then sailed round to the south coast of the same 
 island, to Taiohae, the port of entry and the capital of 
 the group. 
 
 The two special features of the Marquesas which 
 differentiate them from the other islands which Steven- 
 son saw are, first, that the natives were till very recently 
 the most inveterate cannibals of Polynesia, and second, 
 that their population was melting away like snow off a 
 dyke, so that extinction seemed imminent within the 
 next few years. 
 
 Into the details of his visit I have no intention of 
 going partly they may be read in his own volume In 
 the South Seas but I would draw attention to Steven- 
 son's attitude toward the native races, for though I 
 shall have occasion to return to it again in Samoa, there 
 was but little growth or development of his essential 
 
 In the South Seas, pp. 2-6. 
 56
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1888-89 
 
 feelings or principles in dealing with them. Intelligent 
 sympathy was the keynote, and the same kindliness to 
 them as to all men. He never idealised them, and his 
 view was but rarely affected by sentiment. His sense 
 of history, combined with his power of seeing things in 
 a new light and the refusal to accept commonplaces 
 without examination, here stood him in good stead. 
 
 Five years before, in the Riviera, he had written : l 
 "There is no form of conceit more common or more 
 silly than to look down on barbarous codes of morals. 
 Barbarous virtues, the chivalrous point of honour, the 
 fidelity of the wild Highlander or the two-sworded 
 Japanese, are of a generous example. We may question 
 the utility of what is done; the whole-hearted sincerity 
 of the actors shuts our mouth. Nor can that idea be 
 merely dishonourable for which men relinquish the 
 comforts and consideration of society, the love of wife 
 and child and parent, the light of the sun, and the pro- 
 tection of the laws. The seductions of life are strong 
 in every age and station ; we make idols of our affec- 
 tions, idols of our customary virtues; we are content to 
 avoid the inconvenient wrong and to forego the incon- 
 venient right with almost equal self-approval, until at 
 last we make a home for our conscience among the 
 negative virtues and the cowardly vices." 
 
 This was of the Japanese in their recent feudal period : 
 here is one of his earliest notes in the Marquesas, after 
 meeting the natives face to face : 
 
 ' ' August jrd. Tropical Night Thoughts. I awoke 
 this morning about three; the night was heavenly in 
 
 1 Magazine of Art, November, 1883, apropos of the story of the 
 " Forty-seven Ronins." 
 
 57
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 scent and temperature; the long swell brimmed into 
 the bay and seemed to fill it full and then subside; 
 silently, gently, and deeply the Casco rolled; only at 
 times a block piped like a bird. I sat and looked sea- 
 ward toward the mouth of the bay at the headlands and 
 the stars ; at the constellation of diamonds, each infi- 
 nitesimally small, each individual and of equal lustre, and 
 all shining together in heaven like some old-fashioned 
 clasp; at the planet with the visible moon, as though he 
 were beginning to re-people heaven by the process of 
 gemination; at many other lone lamps and marshalled 
 clusters. And upon a sudden it ran into my mind, even 
 with shame, that these were lovelier than our nights in 
 the north, the planets softer and brighter, and the con- 
 stellations more handsomely arranged. I felt shame, I 
 say, as at an ultimate infidelity : that I should desert the 
 stars that shone upon my father; and turning to the 
 shore-side, where there were some high squalls over- 
 head, and the mountains loomed up black, I could have 
 fancied I had slipped ten thousand miles away and was 
 anchored in a Highland loch ; that when day came and 
 made clear the superimpending slopes, it would show 
 pine and the red heather and the green fern, and roofs 
 of turf sending up the smoke of peats, and the alien 
 speech that should next greet my ears should be Gaelic, 
 not Kanaka. 1 
 
 " The singular narrowness of this world's range, and, 
 above all, the paucity of human combinations, are forced 
 alike upon the reader and the traveller. The one rang- 
 
 1 Kanaka, the Hawaiian word for a man, is used by white men 
 throughout the Pacific as equivalent to "native," " Polynesian." In 
 Australia and Fiji it generally means Melanesian black boy. 
 
 58
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 888- 89 
 
 ing through books, the other over peopled space, 
 comes with astonishment on the same scenery, the same 
 merry stories, the same fashion, the same stage of social 
 evolution. Under cover of darkness here might be a 
 Hebridean harbour; and if I am to call these men sav- 
 ages (which no bribe would induce me to do), what 
 name should I find for Hebridean man ? The Highlands 
 and Islands somewhat more than a century back were 
 in much the same convulsive and transitionary state 
 as the Marquesas to-day. In the one, the cherished 
 habit of tattooing; in the other, a cherished costume, 
 proscribed; in both, the men disarmed, the chiefs dis- 
 honoured, new fashions introduced, and chiefly that 
 new pernicious fashion of regarding money as the be-all 
 and end-all of existence; the commercial age, in each 
 case, succeeding at a bound to the age militant: war, 
 with its truces and its courtesies, succeeded by peace, 
 with its meanness and its unending effort: the means 
 of life no longer wrested with a bare face from heredi- 
 tary enemies, but ground or cheated out of next-door 
 neighbours and old family friends ; in each case, a man's 
 luxury cut off, beef driven under cover of night from 
 lowland pastures denied to the meat-loving Highlander, 
 long-pig pirated from the next village to the man-eating 
 Kanaka." 
 
 And here is the practical outcome of his experience 
 as a traveller, written in 1890, a passage specially se- 
 lected for praise by so able and original an investigator 
 as Mary Kingsley : 
 
 "When I desired any detail of savage custom, or of 
 superstitious belief, I cast back in the story of my 
 fathers, and fished for what I wanted with some trait 
 
 59
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 of equal barbarism: Michael Scott, Lord Derwent- 
 water's head, the second-sight, the Water Kelpie, 
 each of these I have found to be a killing bait; the black 
 bull's head of Stirling procured me the legend of Rahero ; 
 and what I knew of the Cluny Macphersons, or the 
 Appin Stewarts, enabled me to learn, and helped me to 
 understand, about the Tevas of Tahiti. The native was 
 no longer ashamed, his sense of kinship grew warmer, 
 and his lips were opened. It is this sense of kinship 
 that the traveller must rouse and share; or he had better 
 content himself with travels from the blue bed to the 
 brown." l 
 
 It is interesting to compare his portrait of Vaekehu, 
 the refined and aged queen of the Marquesas spending 
 a devout old age after a stormy youth of cannibalism, 
 with the similar picture in the Manage de Loti. 2 
 
 " Her house is on the European plan: a table in the 
 midst of the chief room; photographs and religious 
 pictures on the wall. It commands to either hand a 
 charming vista: through the iront door, a peep of green 
 lawn, scurrying pigs, the pendent fans of the coco- 
 palm, and the splendour of the bursting surf; through 
 the back, mounting forest glades and coronals of preci- 
 pice. Here, in the strong through-draught, her Majesty 
 received us in a simple gown of print, and with no 
 mark of royalty but the exquisite finish of her tattooed 
 mittens, the elaboration of her manners, and the gentle 
 falsetto in which all the highly refined among Mar- 
 quesan ladies (and Vaekehu above all others) delight to 
 
 1 In the South Seas, p. 14. 
 
 2 Lf Mariage de Loti, 49th edition, p. 101. Paris, Calmann- 
 Levy, 1893. 
 
 60
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 888-89 
 
 sing their language. . . . Vaekehu is very deaf; merci 
 is her only word of French ; and I do not know that she 
 seemed clever. An exquisite, kind refinement, with a 
 shade of quietism, gathered perhaps from the nuns, 
 was what chiefly struck us. ... She came with 
 Stanilao (her son) and his little girl to dine on board the 
 Casco. She had dressed for the occasion : wore white, 
 which very well became her strong brown face; and 
 sat among us, eating or smoking her cigarette, quite cut 
 off from all society, or only now and then included 
 through the intermediary of her son. It was a position 
 that might have been ridiculous, and she made it orna- 
 mental; making believe to hear and to be entertained; 
 her face, whenever she met our eyes, lighted with the 
 smile of good society; her contributions to the talk, 
 when she made any, and that was seldom, always 
 complimentary and pleasing. No attention was paid 
 to the child, for instance, but what she remarked and 
 thanked us for. Her parting with each when she came 
 to leave was gracious and pretty, as had been every 
 step of her behaviour. When Mrs. Stevenson held out 
 her hand to say good-bye, Vaekehu took it, held it, 
 and a moment smiled upon her; dropped it, and then, 
 as upon a kindly afterthought, and with a sort of 
 warmth of condescension, held out both hands and 
 kissed my wife upon both cheeks. Given the same 
 relation of years and rank, the thing would have been 
 so done upon the boards of the Com6die Francaise; 
 just so might Madame Brohan have warmed and con- 
 descended to Madame Broisat in the Marquis de Villc- 
 mer. It was my part to accompany our guests ashore: 
 when I kissed the little girl good-bye at the pier-steps, 
 
 61
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Vaekehu gave a cry of gratification, reached down her 
 hand into the boat, took mine, and pressed it with that 
 flattering softness which seems the coquetry of the old 
 lady in every quarter of the earth. The next moment 
 she had taken Stanilao's arm, and they moved off along 
 the pier in the moonlight, leaving me bewildered. 
 This was a queen of cannibals; she was tattooed from 
 hand to foot, and perhaps the greatest masterpiece of 
 that art now extant, so that a while ago, before she 
 was grown prim, her leg was one of the sights of 
 Taiohae ; she had been passed from chief to chief; she 
 had been fought for and taken in war; perhaps, being 
 so great a lady, she had sat on the high place, and 
 throned it there, alone of her sex, while the drums 
 were going twenty strong and the priests carried up the 
 blood-stained baskets of long-pig. And now behold 
 her, out of that past of violence and sickening feasts, 
 step forth in her age, a quiet, smooth, elaborate old 
 lady, such as you might find at home (mittened also, 
 but not often so well-mannered) in a score of country- 
 houses. Only Vaekehu's mittens were of dye, not of 
 silk ; and they had been paid for, not in money, but the 
 cooked flesh of men. It came in my mind like a clap, 
 what she could think of it herself, and whether at heart, 
 perhaps, she might not regret and aspire after the bar- 
 barous and stirring past. But when I asked Stanilao: 
 'Ah,' said he, 'she is content; she is religious, she 
 passes all her days with the sisters/ " l 
 
 And here was the farewell of Prince Stanilao, an in- 
 telligent and educated gentleman, from whom Steven- 
 son had learned much of the history and condition of 
 
 1 In tbe South Seas, p. 81. 
 62
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 888-89 
 
 the islands, and with whom he had spent a long after- 
 noon, telling him the story of Gordon, "and many 
 episodes of the Indian Mutiny, Lucknow, the second 
 battle of Cawnpore, the relief of Arrah, the death of 
 poor Spottiswoode and Sir Hugh Rose's hotspur mid- 
 land campaign." How many white men would have 
 been at the pains to give so much instruction or so 
 much pleasure to a native in a foreign possession ? This 
 is the result: "Ah, vous devriez rester ici, mon cher 
 ami. Vous etes les gens qu'il faut pour les Kanaques; 
 vous etes doux, vous et votre famille; vous seriez obeis 
 dans toutes les lies." 1 
 
 It was the same at Anaho, the same afterwards in 
 Atuona: he understood the natives; he treated them 
 with understanding, and they liked him. The higher 
 the rank, for the most part, the greater the liking, the 
 more complete the appreciation. Vaekehu and Stanilao 
 were the great folk of the archipelago; Stevenson, to 
 whom snobbishness was unknown, found them also 
 the most estimable. 
 
 " This is the rule in Polynesia* with few exceptions; 
 the higher the family, the better the man better in 
 sense, better in manners, and usually taller and stronger 
 in body. A stranger advances blindfold. He scrapes 
 acquaintance as he can. Save the tattoo in the Mar- 
 quesas, nothing indicates the difference in rank; and 
 yet almost invariably we found, after we had made 
 them, that our friends were persons of station." 
 
 But his attention was by no means limited to natives; 
 the behaviour that he enjoined on missionaries 2 he 
 
 i In the South Seas, pp. 81, 87. 
 a Appendix B, vol. ii. p. 229 
 63
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 exercised freely himself; to white men and half-castes 
 he was equally genial and accessible. The governor 
 and the gendarmes, the priests and the lay-brothers, 
 the traders and the " Beach," all found him kindly and 
 courteous, and the best of company. 
 
 The Resident carried him off to show him the prison, 
 but it was empty ; the women were gone calling and 
 the men were shooting goats upon the mountains. The 
 gendarmes told him stories of the Franco-German war, 
 and gave him charming French meals. Of the mis- 
 sionaries, the portraits of the great and good Dordillon, 
 the veteran bishop only just dead, and of Frere Michel, 
 the architect, may be found in the South Sea volume ; 
 from Stevenson's notes I give the charming picture of 
 Pere Simeon : 
 
 " Pere Simeon, the small frail figure in the black robe 
 drawing near under the palms; the girlish, kind and 
 somewhat pretty face under the straw hat; the strong 
 rustic Gascon accent; the sudden lively doffing of the 
 hat, at once so French and so ecclesiastical ; he was a 
 man you could not look upon without visions of his 
 peasant ancestors, worthy folk, sitting at home to-day 
 in France, and rejoiced (I hope often) with letters from 
 their boy. Down we sat together under the eaves of 
 the house of Taipi-Kikino, and were presently deep in 
 talk. I had feared to meet a missionary, feared to find 
 the narrowness and the self-sufficiency that deface their 
 publications, that too often disgrace their behaviour. 
 There was no fear of it here ; Pere Simeon admired these 
 natives as I do myself, admired them with spiritual 
 envy ; the superior of his congregation had said to him 
 on his departure: 'You are going among a people 
 
 64
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -1888 -89 
 
 more civilised than we peut-ttre plus civilists que 
 nous-mimes': in spite of which warning, having read 
 some books of travel on his voyage, he came to these 
 shores (like myself) expecting to find them peopled 
 with lascivious monkeys. Good Bishop Dordillon had 
 opened his eyes : ' There are nothing but lies in books 
 of travel,' said the bishop. 
 
 "What then was Pere Simeon doing here? The 
 question rose in my mind, and I could see that he read 
 the thought. Truly they were a people, on the whole, 
 of a mind far liker Christ's than any of the races of 
 Europe; no spiritual life, almost no family life, but a 
 kindness, a generosity, a readiness to give and to for- 
 give, without parallel; to some extent that was the 
 bishop's doing; some of it had been since undone; 
 death runs so busy in their midst, total extinction so 
 instantly impended, that it seemed a hopeless task to 
 combat their vices; as they were, they would go down 
 in the abyss of things past; the watchers were already 
 looking at the clock; Pere Simeon's business was the 
 visitation of the sick, to smooth the pillows of this 
 dying family of man." 
 
 In contrast to this melancholy vigil were Stevenson's 
 ecstasy of life and the joy with which he entered into 
 gathering shells upon the shore. Charles Kingsley was 
 not happier when landed at last upon the tropical 
 beach he had been longing all his life to see. 
 
 " Ashore to the cove and hunted shells, according to 
 my prevision; but the delight of it was a surprise. To 
 stand in the silver margin of the sea, now dry-shod, 
 now buried to the ankle in the thrilling coolness, now 
 higher than the knee; to watch, as the reflux drew 
 H 65
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 down, wonderful marvels of colour and design fleeting 
 between my feet, to grasp at, to miss, to seize them ; 
 and now to find them what they promised, and now to 
 catch only maya of coloured sand, pounded fragments, 
 and pebbles, that, as soon as they were dry, became as 
 dull and homely as the flint upon a garden path. I 
 toiled about this childish pleasure in the strong sun for 
 hours, sharply conscious of my incurable ignorance, 
 and yet too much pleased to be ashamed. Presently I 
 came round upon the shelves that line the bottom of 
 the cliff; and there, in a pool where the last of the surf 
 sometimes irrupted, making it bubble like a spring, I 
 found my best, that is, my strangest, shell. It was 
 large, as large as a woman's head, rugged as rock, in 
 colour variegated with green and orange; but alas, the 
 ' poor inhabitant ' was at home. On the struggles of 
 conscience that ensued I scorn to dwell; but my 
 curiosity, after several journeys in my hand, returned 
 finally to his rock home, of whose sides he greedily 
 laid hold, and he gained a second term of the pleasures 
 of existence." 
 
 On August 22nd the Casco left Nukahiva, and arrived 
 the following day at Taahauku in the island of Hiva-oa, 
 a more remote and even more thinly populated island. 
 Here they stayed twelve days, and here Stevenson and 
 his family went through the ceremony of adoption into 
 the family of Paa-aeua, the official chief of Atuona, 
 while Mr. Osbourne "made brothers " also with the 
 deposed hereditary chief, Moipu. 
 
 These observances meant anything or nothing, ac- 
 cording to the desire of the initiated. I single them out 
 for mention here because (apart from white men living 
 
 66
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1888-89 
 
 among the Kanakas) they were offered to and accepted 
 by those only who, like Bishop Dordillon, had a close 
 intimacy and sympathy with the natives. 
 
 Here is the rough sketch of their last berth in the 
 Marquesas: 
 
 " 24tb August. Taahauku is a very little anchorage, 
 set between low points sparsely wooded with young 
 palms, and opening above upon a woody valley. The 
 next bay, Atuona, is set in a theatre of lofty mountains 
 which dominate the more immediate setting of Taa- 
 hauku and give the salient character of the scene. In 
 the morning, when the sun falls directly on their front, 
 they stand like a vast wall greened to the summit, 
 watercourses here and there delineated on their face as 
 narrow as cracks. But towards afternoon the light 
 comes more obliquely, gorges yawn in undecipherable 
 shadow, spurs and buttresses stand out, carved in sun- 
 light; the whole range looks higher and more solemn, 
 and wears a stern appearance of romance. It looks, 
 and it very nearly is, impassable : shutting off the south- 
 west corner of the island save by way of sea. A great 
 part of the charm of Taahauku itself lies in the dominant 
 contrast of that mountain barrier. 
 
 "The climate is that of the trade- winds; all night 
 long, in fine weather, the same attenuated snowy clouds 
 fleet over the moonlit heaven, or hang in mists upon 
 the mountain, and day and night, save for the chill 
 draughts of the land breeze, the same slightly varying 
 and squally wind blows overhead. On one side of the 
 anchorage the surf leaps white upon the rocks and 
 keeps a certain blow-hole sounding and smoking like a 
 cannon. The other side is smoother but still rocky; 
 
 67
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 and the accepted landing-place is on the narrow beach 
 at the shore end, where, after a race through the break- 
 ing waves, the seaman is landed in a somewhat damp 
 condition. In front of him a little copra warehouse 
 stands in the shadow of some trees, flitted about for 
 ever by a clan of dwarfish swallows. A line of rails 
 bends out of the mouth of the valley and comes to the 
 bend of the beach ; walking on which the ne wly arrived 
 traveller presently becomes aware of a beautiful fresh- 
 water lagoon, with a boat-house, and behind that a grove 
 of noble cocos." 
 
 But the time had come to start for Tahiti by a course 
 lying through the Paumotus or Dangerous Archipelago, 
 a group of numerous low islands, unlighted save for 
 one or two pier-head lamps, and most inadequately 
 laid down upon the chart. 
 
 For this reason at Taiohae they had shipped a mate 
 who knew those waters well. The much-travelled 
 Japanese cook had been returned to his home, and his 
 place taken by a genuine Chinaman. Ah Fu came to 
 the Marquesas as a child and had grown up among the 
 natives; he now followed the fortunes of his new mas- 
 ters with entire devotion for two years, until the claims 
 of his family were asserted and took him home reluc- 
 tantly to China. 1 
 
 1 Mrs. Stevenson writes: " In fact it broke his heart to go. Ah Fu 
 had as strong a sense of romance as Louis himself. He returned to 
 China with a belt of gold round his waist, a ninety-dollar breech- 
 loader given him by Louis, and a boxful of belongings. His intention 
 was to leave these great riches with a member of the family who lived 
 outside the village, dress himself in beggar's rags, and go to his 
 mother's house to solicit alms. He would draw from her the account 
 of the son who had been lost when he was a little child; at the psy- 
 
 68
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 888-89 
 
 On September 4th the Casco sailed, and three days 
 later, before sunset, the captain expected to sight the 
 first of the Paumotus. 
 
 It was not, however, till sunrise on the following 
 morning that they saw land, and then it was not the 
 island they had expected to make; in place of having 
 been driven to the west, they had been swept by a cur- 
 rent some thirty miles in the opposite direction. The 
 first atoll was "flat as a plate in the sea, and spiked 
 with palms of disproportioned altitude." The next, 
 seen some hours later, was " lost in blue sea and sky: 
 a ring of white beach, green underwood, and tossing 
 palms, gem-like in colour; of a fairy, of a heavenly 
 prettiness. The surf was all round it, white as snow, 
 and broke at one point, far to seaward, on what seems 
 an uncharted reef." 
 
 Night fell again, and found them amid a wilderness of 
 reefs corresponding so little with the maps that the 
 schooner must lie to and wait for the morning. 
 
 The next day they ran on to Fakarava, and entered 
 
 chological moment, when the poor lady was weeping, Ah Fu would 
 cry out: ' Behold your son returned to you, not a beggar, as I appear, 
 but a man of wealth ! ' Ah Fu's last speech to me was very unlike 
 what one expects from a Chinaman. As well as I can recollect, he 
 said: ' You think I no solly go way? I too much solly. My mother 
 she forget me. You heart my mother. You my mother, not that 
 woman. When boss go way to Molokai, you look see me? I no 
 smile, no smile, alleetime, worklittee, go see ship come work littee, 
 go look see. Boss come, 1 make big feast. You go way, I no go look 
 see ship; I no can, I no see, too much cly allee time in my eyes. 
 You come, 1 smile, smile, no can make feast; my heart too muchee 
 glad, no can cook. 1 " 
 
 Then China reabsorbed him, and he was seen no more. 
 
 69
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 the lagoon in safety. It was a typical low island, some 
 eighty miles in circumference by a couple of hundred 
 yards broad, chosen to be the headquarters of the gov- 
 ernment only on account of two excellent passages in 
 the barrier reef, one of which was sure to be always 
 available. 
 
 In one respect they were fortunate : " We were scarce 
 well headed for the pass before all heads were craned 
 over the rail. For the water, shoaling under our board, 
 became changed in a moment to surprising hues of blue 
 and grey; and in its transparency the coral branched 
 and blossomed, and the fish of the inland sea cruised 
 visibly below us, stained and striped, and even beaked 
 like parrots. ... I have since entered, I suppose, some 
 dozen atolls in different parts of the Pacific, and the 
 experience has never been repeated. That exquisite 
 hue and transparency of submarine day, and these shoals 
 of rainbow fish, have not enraptured me again." 1 
 
 A fortnight spent in Fakarava passed uneventfully 
 away. There were few inhabitants left on the island, 
 which was never very populous at any time. Steven- 
 son lived ashore in a house among the palms, where he 
 learned much of the natives and their customs and beliefs 
 from the half-caste Vice-Resident, M. Donat 
 
 The chief wealth of the group lay in the beds of pearl- 
 shell, but of this there was nothing to be seen at Faka- 
 rava. "In the lagoon was little pearl-shell, and there 
 were many sharks. . . . There was no fishing, and 
 it seemed unfit to leave the archipelago of pearls and 
 have no sight of that romantic industry. On all 
 other sides were isles, if I could only reach them, where 
 
 1 In the South Seas, p. 167. 
 70
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 888-89 
 
 divers were at work ; but Captain Otis properly enough 
 refused to approach them with the Casco, and my at- 
 tempts to hire another vessel failed. The last was upon 
 Francois' cutter, where she lay down-up from her late 
 shipwreck. She might be compared for safety to a New 
 York cat-boat fortified with a bowsprit and a jib ; and 
 as I studied her lines and spars, desire to sail in her upon 
 the high seas departed from my mind. 'Je le pensais 
 bien,' said Francois." 
 
 In the last week of September they left for Tahiti, and 
 in two days were anchored safely at Papeete, the capi- 
 tal and port of entry of the Society group. Beautiful as all 
 the high islands of the South Seas are, it is in Tahiti and 
 its neighbours the Otaheite of Captain Cook that 
 the extreme point of sublimity and luxuriance is reached. 
 The vegetation is not less lovely, nor the streams and 
 waterfalls less beautiful or less abundant than elsewhere, 
 but the crags and pinnacles of the lofty mountains there 
 are far more picturesque, and so abrupt that they are 
 not smothered in the greenery which gives an appear- 
 ance of tameness to other islands in the same latitudes. 
 
 Stevenson and his wife lived ashore in a small house, 
 where he prepared his correspondence for the outgoing 
 mail. He was very unwell; he went nowhere, saw no 
 one of any interest, native or foreign, and soon grew 
 tired of Papeete. A cold caught at Fakarava increased, 
 with access of fever and an alarming cough. He 
 mended a little, but Papeete was not a success, so after 
 a time the Casco, with a pilot on board, took the party 
 round to Taravao, on the south side of the island. On 
 this passage they were twice nearly lost. The first 
 day they had a long beat off the lee-shore of the island 
 
 7'
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 of Eimeo; and the following day were suddenly be- 
 calmed, and began to drift towards the barrier reef of 
 Tahiti. "The reefs were close in," wrote Stevenson, 1 
 "with, my eye! what a surf! The pilot thought we 
 were gone, and the captain had a boat cleared, when a 
 lucky squall came to our rescue. My wife, hearing the 
 order given about the boats, remarked to my mother, 
 'Is n't that nice? We shall soon be ashore!' Thus 
 does the female mind unconsciously skirt along the 
 verge of eternity." Their danger was undoubtedly 
 great, greater far than they suspected. 
 
 The atmosphere at Taravao was close, and mos- 
 quitoes were numerous; by this time Stevenson was so 
 ill that it was necessary, without a moment's delay, to 
 secure more healthy quarters. Accordingly his wife 
 went ashore, and following a path, discovered the 
 shanty of a Chinaman who owned a wagon and a pair 
 of horses. These she hired to take them to Tautira, 
 the nearest village of any size, a distance of sixteen 
 miles over a road crossed by one-and-twenty streams. 
 Stevenson was placed in the cart, and, sustained by 
 small doses of coca, managed, with the help of his wife 
 and Valentine, to reach his destination before he col- 
 lapsed altogether. Being introduced at Tautira by the 
 gendarme, they were asked an exorbitant rent for a 
 suitable house, but they secured it, and there made the 
 patient as comfortable as possible. The next day there 
 arrived the Princess Moe, ex-Queen of Raiatea, one of 
 the kindest and most charming of Tahitians, who lives 
 in the pages of Pierre Loti and Miss Gordon Gumming. 
 She had come to the village, and hearing there was a 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 137. 
 72
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1 888-89 
 
 white man very ill, she came over to the house. "I 
 feel that she saved Louis' life," writes Mrs. Stevenson. 
 " He was lying in a deep stupor when she first saw 
 him, suffering from congestion of the lungs and in a 
 burning fever. As soon as he was well enough, she 
 invited us to live with her in the house of Ori, the sub- 
 chief of the village, and we gladly accepted her invita- 
 tion." 
 
 Meanwhile, at Taravao, it was discovered that the 
 schooner's jib-boom was sprung; it was duly spliced, 
 and when Stevenson was really better, the Casco came 
 round to Tautira. Here a more startling discovery was 
 made, and the party learned what their true position 
 had been two or three weeks before. The elder Mrs. 
 Stevenson gave a feast on board to the women of 
 Tautira, and one old lady offered up a prayer, asking 
 that if anything were wrong with the masts it might be 
 discovered in time. As soon as the guests were gone, 
 the Yankee skipper, acting no doubt on the principle 
 of keeping his powder dry, went aloft, and subjected 
 the masts to a close examination. They were both 
 almost eaten out with dry-rot. Had either of them 
 gone by the board during the voyage in the Moorea 
 channel, or off the reefs in any of the islands, nothing 
 could have saved the Casco, even if her passengers and 
 crew had escaped in one of the boats. It was now 
 considered hardly safe for any one to remain on deck; 
 but, with many reefs in her mainsail, the schooner was 
 sent to Papeete, where the masts were patched up as 
 far as was possible, no new spars of sufficient size 
 being obtainable. 
 
 The intended visit to the neighbouring islands of 
 73
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Huahine, Raiatea, and Borabora was abandoned, Steven- 
 son and his party remaining at Tautira until the Casco 
 should be ready to take them back to civilisation. His 
 health again recovered, and he enjoyed the new condi- 
 tions of life beyond words scenery, climate, and 
 company. Tautira was " the most beautiful spot " and 
 "its people the most amiable " he had ever encountered. 
 Except for the French gendarme and Pere Bruno, the 
 priest, a Dutchman from Amsterdam who had forgotten 
 his own language, the travellers had passed beyond the 
 range of Europeans and lived in a Tahiti touched as 
 little as might be by any foreign influence. They dwelt 
 in one of the curious "bird-cage " houses of the island, 
 and were on the friendliest terms with all the village. 
 
 Their host, Ori, was a perpetual delight to them all. 
 "A Life-guardsman in appearance," as Mr. Osbourne 
 describes him, "six foot three in bare feet; deep and 
 broad in proportion; unconsciously English to an 
 absurd extent; feared, respected, and loved." 
 
 It was one of the happiest periods in the exile's life, 
 and perhaps in consequence his "journal," an irregu- 
 larly kept notebook, was dropped, never to be resumed. 
 And so it happens that to this passage in his life he never 
 returned, pen in hand, and of it he has left no other record 
 than one or two pages in his correspondence. 
 
 He "actually went sea-bathing almost every day"; 
 he collected songs and legends, materials for the great 
 book; he began to work once more at his novel, The 
 Master of Ballantrae, and "almost finished" it. At 
 Moe's instance special exhibitions of the old songs and 
 dances of Tahiti were given for him in the hall of 
 assembly in Tautira. He was adopted into the clan of 
 
 74
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1 888-89 
 
 the Tevas, to which Ori belonged, and exchanged 
 names with that chief, who thenceforward signed him- 
 self as "Rui," 1 Louis himself receiving also, in more 
 formal fashion, the name of Teriitera. 
 
 He now wrote the greater part of his two Poly- 
 nesian ballads, The Feast of Famine, relating to the 
 Marquesas, and The Song of Rahtro, a genuine legend 
 of the Tevas. In the same days, however, his music 
 brought him to write for the old Scots tune of " Wan- 
 dering Willie " that most pathetic cry of his exile 
 
 " Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?" 
 
 almost the only complaint, even in a dramatic form, 
 that he ever allowed himself to make. 
 
 The repairs of the Casco took an unexpected time; 
 the weather became bad, and a stormy sea and rivers 
 in flood prevented any communication between Tautira 
 and Papeete. The visitors used up all their money: 
 Ori had taken charge of it for them and doled it out, 
 a small piece at a time, until all was gone. Their sup- 
 plies of food being exhausted, they were reduced to 
 living on the bounty of the natives, and though Steven- 
 son himself continued to eat sucking-pig with continual 
 enjoyment, the others pined for a change. When time 
 passed and no ship came, the whole country-side began 
 to join in their anxiety. Each morning, as soon as the 
 dawn lifted, a crowd ran to the beach, and the cry 
 came back: " E ita pabi ! " (No ship.) 
 
 At last Ori took a party of young men in a whale- 
 boat, although the weather was still bad, and went to 
 Papeete to find out the cause of the delay. " When 
 
 1 I.e. Louis : there being no L in Tahitian. 
 75
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Ori left," says Mrs. Stevenson, " we besought him not 
 to go, for we knew he was risking the lives of himself 
 and his men. Then he was gone a week overtime, 
 which made us heart-sick. He brought back the neces- 
 sary money and a store of provisions, and a letter from 
 the captain telling us when to look for him. Amongst 
 the food was a basket of champagne. The next day 
 we gave a commemoration dinner to Ori, when we 
 produced the champagne. Ori drank his glass and 
 announced it beyond excellence, a drink for chiefs. ' I 
 shall drink it continually,' he added, pouring out a 
 fresh glass. ' What is the cost of it by the bottle ? ' 
 Louis told him, whereupon Ori solemnly replaced his 
 full glass, saying, ' It is not fit that even kings should 
 drink a wine so expensive ! ' It took him days to re- 
 cover from the shock." 
 
 At last the Casco was ready for sea, and on Christmas 
 Day the party embarked for Honolulu. The farewell 
 with Ori was heart-breaking, and all vowed never again 
 to stay so long as two months in one place, or to form 
 so deep and yet so brief a friendship. 
 
 They sighted the outlying Paumotus and the mail 
 schooner, and after that their voyage was without other 
 incident than squalls and calms. For a while they 
 skirted hurricane weather, though nothing came of it; 
 but between calms and contrary winds their progress 
 was slow, and they nearly ran out of provisions. " We 
 were nearly a week hanging about the Hawaiian group," 
 says Mr. Osbourne, " drifting here and there with differ- 
 ent faint slants of wind. We had little luxuries kept 
 back for our farewell dinner which took place at least 
 three times with a diminishing splendour that finally 
 
 76
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 888-89 
 
 struck bottom on salt horse. It was a strange experience 
 to see the distant lights of Honolulu, and then go to bed 
 hungry; to rise again in the morning and find ourselves, 
 not nearer, but further off. When at last the weather 
 altered and we got our wind, it was a snoring Trade, 
 and we ran into the harbour like a steamboat. It was 
 a dramatic entry for the overdue and much-talked-of 
 Casco, flashing past the buoys and men-of-war, with 
 the pilot in a panic of alarm. If the Casco ever did 
 thirteen knots, she did it then." 
 
 Arrived at Honolulu they found that their safety had 
 been despaired of by all, including even Mrs. Stevenson's 
 daughter, Mrs. Strong, who was then living there with 
 her husband and child. 
 
 Of the capital city of the Hawaiian kingdom it is diffi- 
 cult to give any true impression, so curious in those 
 days was the mixture of native life and civilisation. To 
 any one coming from the islands it seemed a purely 
 American city not of the second or even of the third 
 rank, modified only by its position in the verge of the 
 tropics; for any one who entered these latitudes and 
 saw a native population for the first time, it must have 
 been picturesque and exotic beyond words. 
 
 Stevenson sent the yacht back to San Francisco, and 
 took a house at Waikiki, some four miles from Honolulu 
 along the coast. Here he took up his abode in a lanai 
 a sort of large pavilion, off which the bedrooms opened, 
 built on native lines, and provided only with jalousied 
 shutters; and here he settled down in earnest to finish 
 The Master of Ballantrae "the hardest job I ever had 
 to do" already running in Scribner's Magazine, and 
 to be completed within a given time. 
 
 77
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 He did not end his task till May " The Master is 
 finished, and I am quite a wreck and do not care for 
 literature " for it went against the grain, with the result 
 that the Canadian scenes have the effect rather of a 
 hasty expedient than of the deliberate climax of the 
 plot. 1 So careful was Stevenson in his workmanship, 
 and so accurate in his knowledge of Scotland, that it is 
 curious to find him stumbling at the very outset of his 
 tale, and giving an impossible title to his hero, for by 
 invariable Scottish usage James Durie would have been 
 " Master of Durrisdeer" and not "of Ballantrae." Ste- 
 venson was afterwards aware of the slip, but had fancied 
 that there were instances to the contrary. However, 
 his cousin, Sir James Balfour Paul, Lyon King-at-Arms, 
 tells me that he can find "no exact precedent for the 
 eldest son of a baron assuming a title as Master differ- 
 ing in name from that which his father bore." 2 
 
 But this was a point of mere antiquarian detail, which 
 in no way interfered with the appreciation of his read- 
 
 1 Compare vol. ii. p. 38. 
 
 2 The only other slip in reference to Scotland which, so far as I am 
 aware, has been found in Stevenson's works, is the statement that 
 Gaelic was still spoken in Fife as late as the middle of the eighteenth 
 century (Catriona, p. 191; Letters, ii. 248). This was based on a 
 statement of Burt to the effect that the families of Fife, when their sons 
 went to the Lowlands as apprentices, made it a condition in the inden- 
 tures of apprenticeship that they should be taught English. Sheriff 
 /Eneas Mackay, the chief historical authority on Fife, very kindly 
 informs me that he doubts the fact and the authority of Burt, and 
 after adducing various evidence against the possibility of this survival, 
 concludes: "The Ochils bordered on the Celtic line, and I should not 
 like to affirm that Gaelic may not have lingered there till the sixteenth 
 century. I don't think it did later, or that it was habitually spoken 
 after the twelfth or thirteenth century." 
 
 78
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 888-89 
 
 ers; and when the story was finally published in the 
 autumn, it was at once recognised on all hands as the 
 sternest and loftiest note of tragedy which its author 
 had yet delivered. "I 'm not strong enough to stand 
 writing of that kind," said Sir Henry Yule, on his death- 
 bed, to Mr. Crockett, who had been reading it to him ; 
 "it 's grim as the road to Lucknow." 
 
 In the meantime, though Stevenson was constantly 
 unwell, even his want of health at the worst of these 
 times was very different from his invalid life at Bourne- 
 mouth. He retired with his wife to a small and less 
 draughty cottage about a hundred yards from the lanai, 
 and there continued his work as before. 
 
 The little colony was very comfortably settled. Valen- 
 tine had left their service and departed to America, but 
 Ah Fu had established himself in the kitchen with his 
 pots and pans. 
 
 In spite of his worse health, Stevenson was able to 
 go about as usual, and saw a good many people, es- 
 pecially in the large circle of his stepdaughter's ac- 
 quaintance. Through this connection he found from 
 the beginning a ready entrte to the Royal Palace, where 
 Kalakaua, the last of the Hawaiian kings, held his court 
 of Yvetot: a large, handsome, genial, dissipated mon- 
 arch, a man of real ability and iron constitution, versed 
 beyond any of his subjects in the history and legends of 
 his kingdom. From the very beginning of the acquain- 
 tance his relations with Stevenson were most friendly 
 in no conventional sense. They genuinely liked one 
 another from the start, and Kalakaua, holding out every 
 inducement, really tried very hard to get his visitor to 
 settle in Hawaii. 
 
 79
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 At Honolulu Stevenson already began to hear a good 
 deal of Samoa and its troubles, for several of his new 
 friends had formed part of the amazing embassy 
 Kalakaua had sent to Apia in the preceding year to 
 propose a native federation of the Polynesian Islands. 
 It was on the information now received that he was 
 driven to write the first of his letters to the Times. 
 
 The letter appeared on the nth March, and before 
 the week was out there occurred the great Samoan 
 hurricane which sunk or stranded six men-of-war in 
 the harbour of Apia, when the Calliope alone, by virtue 
 of her engines, steamed out of the gap in the very teeth 
 of the gale. 
 
 Immediately afterwards, Stevenson records a curious 
 episode at Honolulu in a letter to Mr. Baxter: 
 
 " 2jtb April, 1889. A pretty touch of seaman man- 
 ners: the English and American Jacks are deadly rivals: 
 well, after all this hammering of both sides by the 
 Germans, and then the news of the hurricane from 
 Samoa, a singular scene occurred here the Sunday be- 
 fore last. The two church parties sponte propria fell in 
 line together, one Englishman to one American, and 
 marched down to the harbour like one ship's company. 
 None were more surprised than their own officers. I 
 have seen a hantle of the seaman on this cruise ; I al- 
 ways liked him before; my first crew on the Casco 
 (five sea-lawyers) near cured me; but 1 have returned 
 to my first love." 
 
 At Samoa we shal! see that he had many friends in 
 the navy; and in nothing did he take more delight than 
 in their company and friendship. Of this there was 
 already a beginning at Honolulu with the wardroom of 
 
 80
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -1888 -89 
 
 H. B. M. S. Cormorant. "I had been twice to lunch 
 on board, and H. B. M.'s seamen are making us ham- 
 mocks; so we are very naval. But alas, the Cor- 
 morant is only waiting her relief, and I fear there are 
 not two ships of that stamp in all the navies of the 
 world." 
 
 The hammocks were part of his preparations for a 
 new cruise. He had arrived with the intention of cross- 
 ing America during the course of the summer, and so 
 returning to England, with ultimate views of Madeira 
 as a winter refuge. But even Honolulu was too cold 
 for him, and by the end of March he was full of another 
 scheme of South Sea travel. This time his voyage was 
 to be to the Gilbert Islands to the southwest, on board 
 the vessel belonging to the Boston Mission or whatever 
 other craft he could induce to take him. His mother 
 decided to return to Scotland and visit her sister, but 
 his wife and stepson looked eagerly forward to sharing 
 with him this new experience. 
 
 In the end of April he paid a visit by himself to the 
 lee-shore of the island of Hawaii, which is seen by 
 tourists only, if at all, upon their way to the active 
 crater of Kilauea, situated on the slopes of the lofty 
 volcano of Mauna Loa. Even the lower crater is four 
 thousand feet above the sea, and the climate in that 
 region is often bleak and rainy. Accordingly Stevenson 
 did not turn his steps in its direction, but spent a week 
 on the coast-lands, living with a native judge, taking 
 long rides, and seeing and learning as much of native 
 life and characteristics as lay within his reach; the most 
 thrilling event of the visit being the departure of some 
 natives to be immured in the lazaretto of Molokai. 
 
 H 81
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 A month later he visited the island of Molokai itself, 
 and spent by special permission a week in the leper 
 settlement. Father Damien had died on the i$th of 
 April, so that Stevenson heard only by report of the 
 man whose memory he did so much to vindicate. 
 
 The scene of Damien's labours is one of the most 
 striking places in the world. A low promontory, some 
 three miles long, with a village upon either side of it, 
 lies at the foot of a beetling precipice that shuts it off 
 from the remainder of the island, to which there is no 
 access except by a most difficult bridle-track. Hither, 
 since 1865, have been sent all persons in the group who 
 are found to have contracted leprosy, and here they are 
 tended by doctor and priest, by officers and sisters and 
 nurses, until they die. Who can do justice to such a 
 place, to such a scene ? Here Stevenson spent a week, 
 and afterwards wrote a fragmentary and incomplete 
 account of his visit. The best record of it is contained 
 in the letters written at the time to his wife, and shortly 
 afterwards to James Payn and Mr. Colvin. The de- 
 scription of his landing cannot be omitted. 
 
 "Our lepers were sent [from the steamer] in the first 
 boat, about a dozen, one poor child very horrid, one 
 white man leaving a large grown family behind him in 
 Honolulu, and then into the second stepped the sisters 
 and myself. I do not know how it would have been 
 with me had the sisters not been there. My horror of 
 the horrible is about my weakest point; but the moral 
 loveliness at my elbow blotted all else out; and when I 
 found that one of them was crying, poor soul, quietly 
 under her veil, I cried a lir.le myself; then I felt as right 
 as a trivet, only a little crushed to be there so uselessly. 
 
 8a
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 888-89 
 
 I thought it was a sin and a shame she should feel un- 
 happy; I turned round to her, and said something like 
 this : ' Ladies, God himself is here to give you wel- 
 come. I 'm sure it is good for me to be beside you; I 
 hope it will be blessed to me; I thank you for myself 
 and the good you do me.' It seemed to cheer her up; 
 but indeed I had scarce said it when we were at the 
 landing-stairs, and there was a great crowd, hundreds 
 of (God save us!) pantomime masks in poor human 
 flesh, waiting to receive the sisters and the new patients. 
 
 "... Gilfillan, a good fellow, I think, and far from 
 a stupid, kept up his hard Lowland Scottish talk in the 
 boat while the sister was covering her face; but I believe 
 he knew, and did it (partly) in embarrassment, and 
 part perhaps in mistaken kindness. And that was one 
 reason, too, why I made my speech to them. Partly, 
 too, I did it because I was ashamed to do so, and re- 
 membered one of my golden rules, 'When you are 
 ashamed to speak, speak up at once.' But, mind you, 
 that rule is only golden with strangers; with your own 
 folks, there are other considerations." 1 
 
 His general conclusions at the time were thus ex- 
 pressed: "On the whole, the spectacle of life in this 
 marred and moribund community, with its idleness, its 
 furnished table, its horse-riding, music, and gallantries 
 under the shadow of death, confounds the expectations 
 of the visitor. He cannot observe with candour, but 
 he must see it is not only good for the world, but best 
 for the lepers themselves to be thus set apart. The 
 place is a huge hospital, but a hospital under extraor- 
 dinary conditions; in which the disease, though both 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 154-156. 
 
 8?
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 ugly and incurable, is of a slow advance; in which the 
 patients are rarely in pain, often capable of violent exer- 
 tion, all bent on pleasure, and all, within the limits of 
 the precinct, free. . . . The case of the children is by 
 far the most sad; and yet (thanks to Damien, and that 
 great Hawaiian lady, the kind Mrs. Bishop, and to the 
 kind sisters) their hardship has been minimised. Even 
 the boys in the still rude boys' home at Kalawao ap- 
 peared cheerful and youthful ; they interchange diver- 
 sions in the boy's way; one week are all for football, 
 and the next the devotees of marbles or of kites: have 
 fiddles, drums, guitars, and penny whistles: some can 
 touch the organ, and all combine in concerts. As for 
 the girls in the Bishop Home, of the many beautiful 
 things I have been privileged to see in life, they, and 
 what has been done for them, are not the least beauti- 
 ful. When I came there first, the sisters and the major- 
 ity of the boarders were gone up the hill upon a weekly 
 treat, guava-hunting; and only Mother Mary Anne and 
 the specially sick were left at home. I was told things 
 which I heard with tears, of which I sometimes think at 
 night, and which I spare the reader; I was shown the 
 sufferers then at home; one, I remember, white with 
 pain, the tears standing in her eyes. But, thank God, 
 pain is not the rule in this revolting malady: and the 
 general impression of the house was one of cheerfulness, 
 cleanliness, and comfort. The dormitories were airy, 
 the beds neatly made; at every bed-head was a trophy 
 of Christmas cards, pictures, and photographs, some 
 framed with shells, and all arranged with care and taste. 
 In many of the beds, besides, a doll lay pillowed. I 
 was told that, in that artificial life, the eldest and the 
 
 84
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 888-89 
 
 youngest were equally concerned with these infantile 
 playthings, and the dressmaking, in particular, was 
 found an inexhaustible resource. Plays of their own 
 arrangement were a favourite evening pastime. They 
 had a croquet set; and it was my single useful employ- 
 ment during my stay in the lazaretto to help them with 
 that game. 1 I know not if the interest in croquet sur- 
 vived my departure, but it was lively while I stayed; 
 and the last time I passed there on my way to the 
 steamer's boat and freedom, the children crowded to 
 the fence and hailed and summoned me with cries of 
 welcome. I wonder I found the heart to refuse the 
 invitation." 
 
 After leaving the confines of the leper settlement the 
 steamer landed him upon another part of the island, 
 where he and the captain took horse and rode a long 
 way to the house of some Irish folk, where Stevenson 
 slept. Next day he continued with a native guide until 
 he reached the summit of the pass above Kalawao, 
 down which alone the settlement could be entered by 
 land. Here the overseer lived, and with him Stevenson 
 stayed and had much talk. 
 
 Of his ride across the island he wrote: "Maui 
 behind us towered into clouds and the shadow of 
 clouds. The bare opposite island of Lanai the reef far 
 out, enclosing a dirty, shoal lagoon a range of fish- 
 ponds, large as docks, and the slope of the shady beach 
 
 1 He was advised by Mother Mary Anne to wear gloves when he 
 played croquet with the leper children. He would not do it, however, 
 as he thought it might remind them of their condition. After he re- 
 turned to Honolulu he sent Mother Mary Anne a grand piano for her 
 leper girls. 
 
 85
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 on which we mostly rode, occupied the left hand. On 
 the right hand the mountain rose in steeps of red clay 
 and spouts of disintegrated rock, sparsely dotted with 
 the white-flowering cow-thistle. Here and there along 
 the foreshore stood a lone pandanus, and once a trinity 
 of dishevelled palms. In all the first part of that jour- 
 ney, I recall but three houses and a single church. 
 Plenty of horses, kine, and sullen-looking bulls were 
 there, but not a human countenance. 'Where are 
 the people ? ' I asked. ' Pan Kanaka mate : done : 
 people dead,' replied the guide, with the singular 
 childish giggle which the traveller soon learns to be a 
 mark of Polynesian sensibility. 
 
 " We rode all the time by the side of the great fish- 
 ponds, the labour (you would say) of generations. The 
 riches and the agriculture of Molokai awoke of yore the 
 envy of neighbouring kings. Only last century a battle 
 was fought upon this island in which it has been com- 
 puted that thousands were engaged; and he who made 
 the computation, though he lived long after, had seen 
 and counted, when the wind blew aside the sands, the 
 multitude of bones and skulls. There remains the 
 evidence of the churches, not yet old and already 
 standing in a desert, the monuments of vanished con- 
 gregations. Pau Kanaka mah6. A sense of survival 
 attended me upon my ride, and the nervous laughter 
 of Apaka sounded in my ears not quite unpleasantly. 
 The place of the dead is clean; there is a poetry in 
 empty lands. 
 
 ''A greener track received us; smooth shore-side 
 grass was shaded with groves and islets of acacias; the 
 hills behind, from the red colour of the soil and the sin- 
 
 86
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 888-89 
 
 gularity ot the formation, had the air of a bare Scottish 
 moorland in the bleak end of autumn; and the resem- 
 blance set a higher value on the warmth of the sun and 
 the brightness of the sea. I wakened suddenly to 
 remember Kalaupapa and my playmates of two days 
 before. Could I have forgotten ? Was I happy again ? 
 Had the shadow, the sorrow, and the obligation faded 
 already ? " 
 
 From this expedition he returned to complete his 
 preparations for immediate departure. The family now 
 possessed an unrivalled fund of information about " the 
 Islands," and had accumulated not only the necessary 
 stores but also a collection of all the resources of civili- 
 sation best fitted to appeal to the native heart, ranging 
 from magic lanterns and American hand-organs to 
 " cheap and bad cigars." The only difficulty was the 
 ship, and the Morning Star not being available, the 
 Equator, a trading schooner of sixty-two tons register, 
 Captain Denis Reid, was chartered. The terms agreed 
 upon were original and entertaining; Stevenson paid a 
 lump sum down for a four months' cruise, with a pro- 
 viso for renewal, if necessary. The ship agreed for a 
 fixed daily extra price to land at any place in the line of 
 its trading cruise on Stevenson's written demand. On 
 the other hand, when it stopped anywhere for its own 
 business, were it only to land a sewing-machine or to 
 take on board a ton of copra, it was bound, if the char- 
 terer so desired, to remain there three days without 
 extra charge. 
 
 The 24th of June arrived : Stevenson and his wife 
 and stepson were on board with the indispensable Ah 
 Fu, and the schooner was ready to cast off. At the 
 
 87
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 last moment two fine carriages drove down at full speed 
 to the wharf and there deposited King Kalakaua and 
 a party of his native musicians. There was but a 
 minute for good-bye and a parting glass, for Kalakaua 
 had none of Ori's scruples over champagne. The king 
 returned to shore and stood there waving his hand, 
 while from the musicians, lined up on the very edge of 
 the wharf, came the tender strains of a farewell.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES THE CENTRAL PACIFIC, 
 JUNE, 1889 APRIL, 1891 
 
 "I will never leave the sea, I think; it is only there that a Briton 
 lives: my poor grandfather, it is from him that I inherit the taste, I 
 fancy, and he was round many islands in his day; but I, please God, 
 shall beat him at that before the recall is sounded. . . . Life is far 
 better fun than people dream who fall asleep among the chimney- 
 stacks and telegraph wires." Letters, ii. 162. 
 
 THE object of the new cruise for Stevenson was to 
 visit a native race of a different character from those he 
 had already seen, living as far as was sti'l possible 
 under purely natural conditions. The Gilberts are a 
 group of some sixteen low islands of no great size, 
 densely populated, situated close to the Equator. At 
 this time they were independent, nearly every island 
 being governed by its own king or council of elders. 
 Scenery in all of them is reduced to the simplest ele- 
 ments, a strand with cocoanut-palms and pandanus, 
 and the sea one island differing from another only in 
 having or not having an accessible lagoon in its centre; 
 in none of them is the highest point of land as much as 
 twenty feet above sea-level. This very flatness and 
 absence of striking features render the islands a more 
 perfect theatre for effects of light and cloud, while the 
 splendours of the sea are further enhanced by the con- 
 trast of the rollers breaking on the reef and the still 
 lagoon sleeping within the barrier, of the dark depths 
 of ocean outside and the brilliant shoal-water varying 
 
 89
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 infinitely in hue with the inequalities of the shallows 
 within. 
 
 Stevenson's former experience lay, his future was 
 almost entirely to lie, among the Polynesians the tall, 
 fine, copper-coloured race, speaking closely allied dia- 
 lects of the same language, and including among their 
 family the Hawaiians, Marquesans, Tahitians, Samoans, 
 and the Maoris of New Zealand. The Gilbert and Mar- 
 shall natives, on the other hand, are Micronesians 
 darker, shorter, and to my taste less comely folk- 
 speaking languages widely removed from the Poly- 
 nesianpeople with a dash of black blood, stricter in 
 morals and more ferocious, with an energy and back- 
 bone which the others but rarely possess. It is note- 
 worthy that Polynesians never commit suicide; on the 
 Linejt is not uncommon; and the frequent causes are 
 unrequited love, or grief for the dead. 
 
 When this visit should be finished, the travellers were 
 not finally committed to any plan, but their latest in- 
 tention was to proceed to the Marshalls and thence to 
 the Carolines, and so " return to the light of day by 
 way of Manila and the China ports." 
 
 Scarcely, however, were they at sea before these 
 schemes were modified. One moonlight night, in the 
 neighbourhood of Johnstone Island, the talk fell upon 
 the strange history of the loss of the brigantine Wan- 
 dering Minstrel, and from this germ was quickly de- 
 veloped the plot of The Wrecker. The life of cruising 
 was for the time all that Stevenson could desire : after 
 the depression of Honolulu he had entirely recovered 
 his health and spirits on the open sea, and the only 
 difficulty in continuing his cure was its great expense. 
 
 90
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 889-9 1 
 
 Surely if he possessed a schooner of his own, he might 
 make his home on board and pay the current charges, 
 at all events in part, by trading. So The Wrecker was 
 to be written and sent to a publisher from Samoa, and 
 there with the proceeds they were to buy a schooner, 
 stock the trade-room, and start upon their wanderings 
 under the guidance of Denis Reid, who threw himself 
 heart and soul into the spirit of the new venture. 
 
 It was a wild scheme. Versatile as Stevenson was, 
 it is impossible even to think of him as a " South Sea 
 merchant," haggling with natives over the price of 
 copra 1 and retailing European goods to them at a 
 necessarily exorbitant rate. But the project, though 
 never realised, did finally determine the course of his 
 life, for instead of taking him to Ponape, Guam, and 
 the Philippines, it sent him south to Samoa, there to 
 take up his abode and live and die. 
 
 In the meanwhile the first part of the voyage was 
 safely performed, and the schooner arrived at the town 
 of Butaritari in the island of Great Makin. Under 
 ordinary conditions a white man, if he conducted him- 
 self reasonably, might wander through all the group in 
 perfect safety, but the arrival of the Equator fell at an 
 unpropitious moment. For the first and probably the 
 only time in his wanderings, Stevenson was in real 
 danger of violence from natives. 
 
 The two principal firms trading in Butaritari be- 
 longed to San Francisco; the missionaries in the group 
 were sent there by the Boston Society, and the influence 
 of American ideas was considerable. Nine days before 
 
 i The dried kernel of the cocoanut, largely used in making soap, 
 candles, oil-cake, etc. 
 
 9
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Stevenson's arrival was the Fourth of July; the king of 
 Butaritari had observed the festival with enthusiasm, 
 but not wisely, nor in accordance with missionary 
 views, for he had removed the taboo upon spirits which 
 ordinarily was imposed for all his subjects. 
 
 Neither sovereign nor courtiers had been sober since, 
 and though, with a lofty Sabbatarianism, the king de- 
 clined to be photographed upon a Sunday, it was not 
 to be supposed that he could be refused more drink if 
 he offered to purchase it at the usual price. There was 
 this further difficulty in the way of restoring sobriety 
 to his dominions, that even if one firm declined to 
 supply him, there was the rival house, which, having 
 as yet sold less of its liquor, might be less anxious for 
 the special open season to come to an end. So the 
 carnival continued for ten days more, and all the white 
 men could do was to get out their pistols and show in 
 public such skill as they possessed in shooting at a 
 mark. 
 
 Twice a large stone was hurled at Stevenson as he 
 sat in his verandah at dusk, just as the lamp was 
 brought out and placed beside him. He now entered 
 into negotiations with the German manager of the 
 other firm, whom he found to take a far more serious 
 view of the situation than any of them, and whom he 
 induced by diplomacy to discontinue to supply the 
 natives. The crisis was now reached: would the 
 populace, irritated by refusal, carry either of the bars 
 with a rush? 
 
 Fortunately all passed off smoothly. The king came 
 to his senses, and the taboo was re-imposed. Quiet 
 was restored, and only just in time, for a day or two 
 
 92
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 889-91 
 
 later a large body of rather turbulent natives arrived 
 from the next island for a dance competition, quite 
 ready to profit by any political trouble. 
 
 The danger having been averted, the party lived at 
 peace in the house of Maka, the Hawaiian missionary, 
 one of the most lovable of men. They saw the dances, 
 they gave exhibitions of their magic lantern, and as all 
 pictures were supposed to be photographs, and photo- 
 graphs could only be taken from actual scenes, their 
 slides of Bible history brought about a distinct religious 
 reaction among the people. They made friends with 
 various natives, but the end of their stay was by com- 
 parison tame and dull, and after about a month the 
 Equator returned and carried them away. 
 
 The terms of the elaborate charter party were entirely 
 disregarded. The captain from the beginning acted as 
 though the vessel were Stevenson's yacht, and went or 
 stayed according to the wishes of his passenger. 
 Stevenson, on his part, took a keen interest in the 
 ship's fortunes, and was as eager to secure copra as any 
 one on board. The captain acted as showman of the 
 group. " I remember once," says Mr. Osbourne, " that 
 he banged the deck with a marlinspike and called below 
 to Louis: 'Come on deck, quick, Kaupoi; here 's the 
 murderer and the poisoner I told you of, coming off in 
 a boat.' " It was Stevenson's fate in the Pacific, at the 
 times when he was most anxious about his finances, 
 to be regarded by the natives as the wealthiest of 
 men, and addressed accordingly. Thus " Kaupoi " in 
 the Gilberts and "Ona" in Samoa are equivalent to 
 "Dives," or "Richie," as Stevenson himself used to 
 render it. "Ona, "by the way, is not a genuine 
 
 93
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Samoan word, but " owner," the wealthy and powerful 
 person whom even ship-captains obey. 
 
 They visited the island of Nonuti, and were then 
 continuing on a southward course, when the wind 
 veered and they made for Apemama, a large island 
 ruled by the despot Tembinok', who allowed no white 
 man in his kingdom. As an exceptional favour, how- 
 ever, granted only after a long inspection of the party 
 and two days devoted to consideration, Stevenson and 
 his family were admitted as the special guests of the 
 king. He cleared a site for them, pitched four houses 
 upon it for their accommodation, and tabooed with a 
 death penalty their well and their enclosure against all 
 his subjects. The settlement was begun to the dis- 
 charge of a rifle ; the cook who was lent to the Steven- 
 sons, and was guilty of gross misbehaviour, received 
 six shots from the king's Winchester over his head, at 
 his feet, and on either side of him ; and though no life 
 was actually taken while the white men were on the 
 island, yet the power of life and death in the king's 
 hands was plainly shown to be no obsolete prerogative. 
 
 In Apemama the party spent a couple of months in 
 daily intercourse with this very remarkable personage, 
 with whom they entered into close relations of friend- 
 ship. Of all the chiefs Stevenson knew in the Pacific, 
 Ori, the Tahitian, was probably the one for whom he 
 had most affection; Mataafa, in Samoa, probably he 
 most respected; but Tembinok' was unquestionably the 
 strongest character, and the man who interested him 
 the most. Who that has read the South Sea chapters 
 has forgotten his appearance? 
 
 '' A beaked profile like Dante's in the mask, a mane 
 
 94
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1889-91 
 
 of long black hair, the eye brilliant, imperious, and in- 
 quiring; for certain parts in the theatre, and to one 
 who could have used it, the face was a fortune. His 
 voice matched it well, being shrill, powerful, and un- 
 canny, with a note like a sea-bird's. Where there are 
 no fashions, none to set them, few to follow them if 
 they were set, and none to criticise, he dresses as Sir 
 Charles Grandison lived' to his own heart.' Now he 
 wears a woman's frock, now a naval uniform, now 
 (and more usually) figures in a masquerade costume of 
 his own design trousers and a singular jacket with 
 shirt-tails, the cut and fit wonderful for island workman- 
 ship, the material always handsome, sometimes green 
 velvet, sometimes cardinal-red silk. This masquerade 
 becomes him admirably. I see him now come pacing 
 towards me in the cruel sun, solitary, a figure out of 
 Hoffmann." 1 
 
 In spite of this grotesque disguise, there was no- 
 thing ridiculous about the man. He had been a fighter 
 and a conqueror, "the Napoleon" of his group; he 
 was, besides, a poet, a collector, the sole trader and 
 man of business, and a shrewd judge of mankind. 
 Having admitted the missionaries to his island, he had 
 learned to read and write; having found the mission- 
 aries interfering, as he thought, with his trade and his 
 government, without hesitation he had banished them 
 from his domains. 
 
 For the account of this unique society, this master- 
 ful sway, I must refer the reader to the seventy pages of 
 Stevenson's own description, which were the part of 
 his diary least disappointing to himself. It could hardly 
 
 i In tbt South Seas, p. 310. 
 95
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 be told in fewer words, and extracts can do it no jus- 
 tice. It is the more valuable in that it represents a state 
 of things which is gone for ever. Only four years 
 later, when I visited the island, all was changed. 
 Tembinok' was dead, the Gilbert Islands had been 
 annexed by Great Britain, and a boy was king under 
 the direction of a British Resident. How severe the 
 old discipline had been was proclaimed by a large 
 " speak-house " at Tuagana, some two hours' sail 
 down the coast, where all round the interior of the 
 house, at the end of the roof-beams, there had been a 
 set of eight-and-forty human skulls, of which nearly 
 twenty were still remaining. The house had been 
 built by Tembinok"s father, and the heads were those 
 of malefactors, both white and native, or, at all events, 
 of people who had caused displeasure to the king. The 
 Stevensons had never heard of the existence of this 
 place from Tembinok', though his father's grave was 
 here, and here also were lying the two finest sea-going 
 canoes in all the island. 
 
 But for the history of Tembinok', and for Steven- 
 son's experience how he was mesmerised for a cold 
 by a native wizard, and how, with many searchings of 
 conscience, he bought for Mr. Andrew Lang the devil- 
 box of Apemama, the reader must go and will thank 
 me for sending him to Stevenson's own pages. I 
 will quote here only the king's leave-taking of his 
 guest, and the impression which Stevenson had pro- 
 duced upon this wild, stern, and original nature: 
 
 " As the time approached for our departure Tembinok' 
 became greatly changed ; a softer, more melancholy, 
 and, in particular, a more confidential man appeared in 
 his stead. To my wife he contrived laboriously to ex- 
 
 96
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 889-91 
 
 plain that though he knew he must lose his father in 
 the course of nature, he had not minded nor realised it 
 till the moment came ; and that now he was to lose us, 
 he repeated the experience. We showed fireworks 
 one evening on the terrace. It was a heavy business; 
 the sense of separation was in all our minds, and the 
 talk languished. The king was specially affected, sat 
 disconsolate on his mat, and often sighed. Of a sud- 
 den one of the wives stepped forth from a cluster, 
 came and kissed him in silence, and silently went 
 again. It was just such a caress as we might give to a 
 disconsolate child, and the king received it with a child's 
 simplicity. Presently after we said good-night and 
 withdrew; but Tembinok' detained Mr. Osbourne, 
 patting the mat by his side and saying: ' Sit down. I 
 feel bad, I like talk.' ' You like some beer? ' said he; 
 and one of the wives produced a bottle. The king did 
 not partake, but sat sighing and smoking a meer- 
 schaum pipe. 'I very sorry you go,' he said at last. 
 ' Miss Stlevens he good man, woman he good man, 
 boy he good man; all good man. Woman he smart 
 all the same man. My woman,' glancing towards his 
 wives, ' he good woman, no very smart. I think Miss 
 Stlevens he big chiep all the same cap'n man-o'-wa'. I 
 think Miss Stlevens he rich man all the same me. All 
 go schoona. I very sorry. My patha he go, my uncle 
 he go, my cutcheons he go, Miss Stlevens he go: all 
 go. You no see king cry before. King all the same 
 man: feel bad, he cry. I very sorry.' 
 
 " In the morning it was the common topic in the vil- 
 lage that the king had wept. To me he said : ' Last 
 night I no can 'peak: too much here,' laying his hand 
 upon his bosom. ' Now you go away all the same my 
 n 97
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 pamily. My brothers, my uncle go away. All the 
 same.' This was said with a dejection almost pas- 
 sionate. . . . The same day he sent me a present of 
 two corselets, made in the island fashion of plaited 
 fibre, heavy and strong. One had been worn by his 
 grandfather, one by his father, and, the gift being 
 gratefully received, he sent me, on the return of his 
 messengers, a third that of his uncle. . . . 
 
 " The king took us on board in his own gig, dressed 
 for the occasion in the naval uniform. He had little to 
 say, he refused refreshments, shook us briefly by the 
 hand, and went ashore again. That night the palm- 
 tops of Apemama had dipped behind the sea, and the 
 schooner sailed solitary under the stars." l 
 
 The remainder of Stevenson's notes on the Gilberts 
 relate chiefly to the white, or, at any rate, the alien 
 population of the group, which at that date was nat- 
 urally a sort of No Man's Land one of the last refuges 
 for the scoundrels of the Pacific. Not that all the 
 traders by any means were black sheep; some of them 
 and some of the captains and mates working in those 
 waters were decent fellows enough, but among them 
 were thieves, murderers, and worse, patriots who 
 showed an uncommon alacrity in changing their na- 
 tionality when any man-of-war of their own govern- 
 ment happened to come their way. When the Gilberts 
 were finally annexed in 1892, a labour vessel took a 
 shipload of these gentry on board, bound for a South 
 American republic, which, fortunately for that State, 
 they never reached the vessel being lost at sea with 
 all hands. 
 
 1 In the South Seas, p. 378. 
 98
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1889-91 
 
 Of the stories that were then current Stevenson col- 
 lected a number, and had he been a realist, his readers 
 might have been depressed through many volumes by 
 the gloom and squalor of these tragedies; as it was, he 
 utilised only a little of what he had actually seen as 
 material for the darker shadows in the romantic and 
 spirited Beach of Falesd. 
 
 After returning to Butaritari, the Equator, with 
 Stevenson and his party on board, left for Samoa. The 
 trip was tedious but for the excitement of running by 
 night between the three different positions assigned by 
 the charts to a reef which possibly had no real exis- 
 tence. There were the usual squalls, in one of which, 
 during the night, the safety of the ship depended 
 entirely on the cutting of a rope. The foretopmast 
 snapped across and the foresail downhaul fouled in the 
 wreckage, but Ah Fu climbed to the top of the galley 
 with his knife, and the position was saved. Next 
 morning, however, the signal halyard had disappeared, 
 nor was its loss accounted for until several weeks after- 
 wards, when the Chinaman presented his mistress with 
 a neat coil of the best quality of rope. He had once 
 heard her admiring it, and took occasion of the squall 
 and extremity of danger to procure it for her as a 
 present. 
 
 The schooner arrived about the yth of December at 
 Apia, the capital and port of Upolu, the chief of the 
 group known collectively as Samoa 1 or the Navigator 
 
 1 The first two syllafftes are long: Sa-moa; similarly Vai-lima; but 
 Fale-sa. The first A in A-pia is shorter, but the vowel-sounds through- 
 out are as in Italian. The consonants are as in English, but g = ng. 
 Thus Pagopago is pronounced Pangopango. 
 
 99
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Islands, which Stevenson now saw for the first time, 
 and which he had every intention of leaving finally 
 within two months of his arrival. 
 
 The Equator's charter now came to an end. Hiring 
 a cottage in the hamlet a mile above the town, Steven- 
 son began to collect the material necessary for those 
 chapters which should be allotted to Samoa in his book 
 upon the South Seas. This obtained, he proposed to 
 start at once for Sydney, and thence proceed to England. 
 
 The Samoan record, as he anticipated from the outset, 
 would deal chiefly with the history of the recent war, 
 and for this he engaged in a most painstaking and so 
 far as I can judge most successful judicial investi- 
 gation into the actual facts and the course of events 
 within the last few years. It is difficult for any one 
 who has not lived hard by a South Sea " Beach " to 
 realise how contradictory and how elusive are its 
 rumours, and how widely removed from anything of 
 the nature of " evidence." But into this confused mass 
 Stevenson plunged, making inquiries of every one to 
 whose statements he could attach any importance, 
 American or English or German (my order is alpha- 
 betical), and invoking the aid of interpreters for native 
 sources of information. He weighed and sifted his 
 information with the greatest care, and I have never 
 heard any of the main results contested which were 
 embodied in A Foot-note to History. 
 
 For the sake of this work he lived chiefly in Apia, 1 at 
 the house of an American trader, Mr. H. J. Moors. He 
 
 1 For convenience I have spoken throughout of the whole town as 
 Apia, though the name is in strict usage limited to one of its four 
 districts. 
 
 too
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -1889-91 
 
 made the acquaintance of Colonel de Cotlogon, the Eng- 
 lish consul, with whom he maintained the most friendly 
 terms, who had been with Gordon in Khartoum; of Dr. 
 Stuebel, the German Consul-General, perhaps the ablest 
 and most enlightened, and certainly not the least honour- 
 able diplomatist that the Great Powers ever sent to the 
 South Seas ; of the Rev. W. E. Clarke and other members 
 of the London Mission, his warm friends then and in 
 later days ; and especially of the high chief Mataafa, who 
 impressed him at once as the finest of the Samoans. 
 
 It was the only time Stevenson ever lived in Apia or 
 its immediate suburbs, and a few words in passing 
 should be devoted to the Beach with which now, more 
 than at any time, he was brought into contact. This 
 term, common to other South Sea islands, comprises, 
 as I understand, every white resident in a place who 
 has not some position that can be definitely described: 
 in the last instance it denotes the mere beach-combers, 
 loafers or mean whites, although most people would 
 include in it all persons of markedly less consideration 
 than themselves. There was much kindliness and 
 generosity even among the lowest, and not more want 
 of energy or of scruple than might have been expected. 
 There was also a genial readiness to believe rumours, 
 balanced by a willingness to think no worse of the 
 persons against whom they were told. It might have 
 been described as a society for investigation but not for 
 promulgation of the truth. The number of white or 
 half-caste residents in Apia was supposed to be about 
 three hundred, of whom about two-thirds were British 
 subjects, the bulk of the remainder being Germans. 
 
 At first Stevenson was not greatly struck either by
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 the place or by the natives ; the island was " far less 
 beautiful than the Marquesas or Tahiti; a more gentle 
 scene, gentler acclivities, a tamer face of nature; and 
 this much aided, for the wanderer, by the great Ger- 
 man plantations, with their countless regular avenues 
 of palms." Nor was he "specially attracted by the 
 people; but they are courteous; the women very attrac- 
 tive, and dress lovely; the men purposelike, well set 
 up, tall, lean, and dignified." 
 
 In the end of December he made a boat expedition 
 with Mr. Clarke some dozen miles to the east, partly 
 on mission business, and partly on his own account 
 to visit Tamasese, the chief whom the Germans had 
 formerly set up as king; not long afterwards he made 
 a similar journey to the west to Malua, where the 
 London Mission have long had a training college for 
 native students. It was on this latter occasion that he 
 was first introduced to the natives by the Rev. J. E. 
 Newell as " Tusitala," " The Writer of Tales" the 
 name by which he was afterwards most usually known 
 in Samoa. Here he gave an address which was trans- 
 lated for their benefit; J and a few days later he deliv- 
 ered a lecture in Apia upon his travels, on behalf of a 
 native church, Dr. Stuebel taking the chair. 
 
 From his notes made on the first expedition I draw 
 one or two passages, descriptive of Samoan customs 
 and of Samoan scenery, which is nowhere more beau- 
 tiful than in the inlet he then visited. 
 
 " Dec. 31, '89. 
 
 "At the mission station, the most enchanting scene: 
 troops of children and young girls in that enchanting 
 
 1 Appendix A. 
 .oa
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 889-91 
 
 diversity of bright attire which makes a joy to the eye 
 of any Samoan festival ; some in tapa l crinolined out, 
 some in gaudy tabards, some in the sleeveless bodice 
 of black velvet; one little girlie in a Mi of russet leaves, 
 herself crowned with the red flower of royalty, for all 
 the world like a pantomime fairy, only her lendings 
 were not of tinsel, but still glittered with the raindrops 
 of the morning. They came in a certain order, one 
 standing by to let another pass, these singing as they 
 came, those as they waited. The strains were almost 
 as pleasant to the ear as the colours and the bright 
 young faces to the eye; the words were now conven- 
 tional and applicable to any malaga, now composed 
 or prepared against the present occasion. Each little 
 gaudy band of choristers approached the open apse of 
 the mission-house, where we sat installed, walking in 
 loose array, their gifts of taro, or sugar-cane, shouldered 
 gallantly like muskets, one girl in special finery leading 
 with a chicken in her arms, and every foot in time; 
 they paused some paces off, ending their compliment 
 with more boisterous enunciation, rose to a last high 
 note, and suddenly with a medley of shrill shouts 
 hurled all their offerings one upon another in front of 
 us, broke up their ranks with laughter, and dispersed. 
 One of our boat's crew gathered up the offerings, and 
 a high voice like a herald's proclaimed the name of the 
 village and the number and nature of the gifts. And 
 before he had well spoken a fresh troop was drawing 
 near, with a new song. . . . 
 
 1 Tapa, native cloth made of mulberry bark; /i/i, something be- 
 tween a girdle and a skirt; malaga, excursion, visiting party; taro, 
 the edible root of the Arum esculentum. 
 
 103
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 " Fagaloa, Dec. }ist. 
 
 "Past Falefa, where the reef ends and the coaster 
 enters on the open sea, all prettinesses, as if they were 
 things of shelter, end. The hills are higher and more 
 imminent, and here and there display naked crags. 
 The surf beats on bluff rocks, still overhung with 
 forest; the boat, still navigated foolishly near the broken 
 water, is twisted to and fro with a drunken motion, in 
 the backwash and broken water of the surf; and 
 though to-day it is exceptionally smooth, another boat 
 that crosses us appears only at intervals and for a 
 moment on the blue crest of the swells. At last, 
 rounding a long spit of rocks on which the sea runs 
 wildly high, the bay, gulf, or rather (as the one true 
 descriptive word) the loch of Fagaloa opens. The 
 oarsmen rest awhile upon their oars. ' Thank you for 
 your rowing,' says Mr. Clarke the conventional al- 
 locution : the conventional answer comes, ' Thank you 
 for your prayers ' ; and then, with a new song struck 
 up, which sings the praise and narrates with some 
 detail the career of Mr. Clarke himself, we begin to 
 enter the enchanted bay; high clouds hover upon the 
 hill-tops; thin cataracts whiten lower down along the 
 front of the hills; all the rest is precipitous forest, dark 
 with the intensity of green, save where the palms shine 
 silver in the thicket; it is indeed a place to enter with a 
 song upon our lips. 
 
 "... Fagaloa is the original spot where every pros- 
 pect pleases. It was beautiful to see a vast black rain- 
 squall engulf the bottom of the bay, pass over with 
 glittering skirts, climb the opposite hill, and cling there 
 and dwindle into rags of snowy cloud; beautiful too 
 
 104
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -1889-91 
 
 was a scene where a little burn ran into the sea be- 
 tween groups of cocos and below a rustic bridge of 
 palm-stems; something indescribably Japanese in the 
 scene suggested the idea of setting on the bridge three 
 gorgeously habited young girls, and these relieved in 
 their bright raiment against the blue of the sky and the 
 low sea-line completed the suggestion; it was a crape 
 picture in the fact. We went on further to the end of 
 the bay, where the village sits almost sprayed upon by 
 waterfalls among its palm-grove, and round under the 
 rocky promontory, by a broken path of rock among the 
 bowers of foliage; a troop of little lads accompanied 
 our progress, and two of them possessed themselves of 
 my hands and trotted alongside of me with endless, 
 incomprehensible conversation; both tried continually 
 to pull the rings off my fingers; one carried my shoes 
 and stockings, and proudly reminded me of the fact at 
 every stoppage. They were unpleasant, cheeky, ugly 
 urchins; and the shoe-bearer, when we turned the 
 corner and sat down in the shade and the sea-breeze 
 on black ledges of volcanic rock, splashed by the sea, 
 nestled up to my side, and sat pawing me like an old 
 acquaintance. . . . 
 
 "Jan. ist, 1890. On our way back along the most 
 precipitous and seemingly desert portion of the coast, 
 we were startled by a sudden noise rising above the 
 continuous sound of the breaching surf which hangs 
 along the shore incessant and invariable in pitch. At 
 first we supposed it to be the sound of some greater 
 wave exploding through a blow-hole of the rocks; but 
 presently the sound was repeated, our eye was caught 
 by a growing column of blue smoke arising in the 
 
 105
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 shore-side forest, and we were aware that in that bay, 
 where not a roof appeared to break the continuous 
 foliage, a not inconsiderable village must sit secret, 
 whose inhabitants were now saluting the New Year 
 with a field-piece, some relic of the war." 
 
 But Stevenson was now to take a step that proved 
 more decisive than for the moment he imagined. The 
 winter home he had once projected at Madeira was to 
 be transferred to Samoa; he purchased some four hun- 
 dred acres in the bush, two miles behind and six hun- 
 dred feet above the level of the town of Apia. The 
 ground was covered, not exactly with virgin forest, for 
 it had formerly been occupied (according to tradition) 
 by a Samoan bush town, but with vegetation so dense 
 that on her first visit his wife had been quite unable to 
 penetrate to the spot where the house afterwards stood. 
 The land, however, was to be cleared, and a cottage 
 erected, which would at any rate shelter the family 
 during such intervals between their cruises as it should 
 suit them to spend in Samoa. But the real reason for 
 the selection of this island for a settlement lay princi- 
 pally in the facilities of communication. An author, 
 and especially a writer of novels, can dispense with 
 many of the blessings of civilisation; the one thing ab- 
 solutely indispensable is a regular and trustworthy 
 mode of communicating with his printer and his pub- 
 lisher. Now in the matter of mails Samoa was ex- 
 ceptionally fortunate. The monthly steamers between 
 Sydney and San Francisco received and deposited their 
 mail-bags in passing, and very soon after began to call 
 at the port of Apia. A German steamer, the Ltibeck, 
 ran regularly between Apia and Sydney, and the New 
 
 106
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1889-91 
 
 Zealand boat, the Richmond, called on her circular trip 
 from Auckland to Tahiti. Of all the other islands 
 which Stevenson had visited, Tahiti itself was the only 
 possible rival, but its mail service was much less fre- 
 quent and less trustworthy; and, moreover, Stevenson 
 was not anxious to place himself under the control of a 
 French colonial government. 
 
 So the ground was bought, the money paid, and 
 orders were left to begin the necessary operations. 
 Early in February the party sailed for Sydney, where 
 Mrs. Strong was now waiting to see them on their way 
 home to England for the summer. 
 
 Soon after reaching Australia, Stevenson found in a 
 religious paper a letter from Dr. Hyde, a Presbyterian 
 minister in Honolulu, depreciating the labours of Father 
 Damien at Molokai, and reviving against his memory 
 some highly unchristian and unworthy slanders. The 
 letter was written in a spirit peculiarly calculated to 
 rouse Stevenson's indignation, and when he heard at 
 the same time a report, which may or may not have 
 been true, but which he, at any rate, fully believed, to 
 the effect that a proposed memorial to Damien in Lon- 
 don had been abandoned on account of this or some 
 similar statement, his anger knew no bounds. He sat 
 down and wrote the celebrated letter to Dr. Hyde, 
 which was forthwith published in pamphlet form in 
 Sydney, and subsequently in Edinburgh in the Scots 
 Observer. He had the courage of his opinions, and 
 realised the risks he was taking: " I knew I was writ- 
 ing a libel: I thought he would bring an action; I made 
 sure I should be ruined; I asked leave of my gallant 
 family, and the sense that I was signing away all I 
 
 107
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 possessed kept me up to high-water mark, and made 
 me feel every insult heroic." 
 
 But in place of the news for which his friends were 
 waiting, that he had started upon his homeward voy- 
 age, there came a telegram to Mr. Baxter on the loth 
 April: "Return Islands four months. Home Septem- 
 ber." 
 
 He had taken cold in Sydney, and after the lapse of 
 eighteen months having again started a hemorrhage, 
 was very ill and pining for the sea. Mrs. Stevenson 
 heard of a trading steamer about to start for " the 
 Islands," applied for three passages and was refused, 
 went to the owners and was again refused, but stating 
 inflexibly that it was a matter of life or death to her 
 husband, she carried her point and extorted their un- 
 willing consent. 
 
 This vessel was the steamship Janet Nicoll, an iron 
 screw-steamer of about six hundred tons, chartered 
 by Messrs. Henderson & Macfarlane, a well-known 
 South Sea firm. There was a dock strike in Sydney at 
 the time, but with a " black-boy " crew on board, the 
 Janet got away, carrying a full complement of officers 
 and engineers, and the trio to whom Island Nights' 
 Entertainments was afterwards dedicated Mr. Hen- 
 derson, one of the partners; Ben Hird, 1 the supercargo; 
 and "Jack" Buckland, the living original of Tommy 
 Haddon in The Wrecker. 
 
 Unwelcome guests though they had been, no sooner 
 had they started than they met with the greatest kind- 
 
 1 In a brief sketch in Macmillan's Magazine for November, 1896, I 
 endeavoured to do justice to the memory of some of Hird's many 
 admirable qualities. 
 
 108
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1889-91 
 
 ness and cordiality from every one on board, and when 
 they reached Auckland the invalid was himself again. 
 They left that port under sealed orders, but were not 
 yet clear of the lighthouse before some fireworks, left 
 in Buckland's berth, set his cabin on fire. The saloon 
 was filled with dense smoke and a rosy glow " Let 
 no man say I am unscientific," wrote Stevenson. 
 " When I ran, on the alert, out of my stateroom, and 
 found the main cabin incarnadined with the glow of 
 the last scene of a pantomime, I stopped dead. ' What 
 is this ? ' said I. ' This ship is on fire, I see that; but 
 why a pantomime ? ' And I stood and reasoned the 
 point, until my head was so muddled with the fumes 
 that I could not find the companion. By singular good 
 fortune, we got the hose down in time and saved the 
 ship, but Lloyd lost most of his clothes, and a great 
 part of our photographs was destroyed. Fanny saw 
 the native sailors tossing overboard a blazing trunk; 
 she stopped them in time, and behold, it contained my 
 manuscripts." 1 
 
 After this episode all went well; the course of the 
 steamer may be traced on the accompanying map. She 
 put in to Apia, and stayed there long enough to enable 
 the party to visit their new property and see what 
 progress had been made. After that she went to the 
 east and to the north, calling at three-and-thirty low 
 islands; their stay in almost every case was limited to 
 a few hours, and, as Stevenson wrote on this cruise, 
 "hackney cabs have more variety than atolls." They 
 saw their friend King Tembinok' again, and received a 
 welcome from him almost too pathetic to be hearty. 
 
 i Letters, ii. 185. 
 109
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 He had been ill, and the whole island had been 
 attacked by measles, a disaster which was apparently 
 attributed by the victims to the sale of their " devil-box. " 
 In the centre of the big house was a circular piece of 
 " devil-work " in the midst of a circle of white shells, 
 and the worship of "Chench," the local deity, had 
 obviously received an impetus from recent events. 
 
 The circumstances of this expedition were, of course, 
 very different from their former leisurely and more local 
 voyages in schooners. Stevenson greatly enjoyed the 
 company on board, for two at least of his fellow-voy- 
 agers were probably unrivalled by any white man in 
 their experience of these regions, and were possessed 
 besides of remarkable ability and character. 
 
 The altered conditions of navigation were a great 
 interest to him, and he was never weary of admiring 
 the captain's skill in handling the steamer, one speci- 
 men of which he has recorded in the account of his 
 first visit to a pearl-shell island, such as, to his great 
 disappointment, he had failed to visit from Fakarava. 
 
 " Nearly two years had passed before I found myself 
 in the trading steamer Janet Nicoll, heading for the 
 entrance of Penrhyn or Tongarewa. In front, the line 
 of the atoll showed like a narrow sea-wall of bare coral, 
 where the surges broke; on either hand the tree-tops of 
 an islet showed some way off: on one, the site of the 
 chief village; the other, then empty, but now inhabited, 
 and known by the ill-omened name of Molokai. We 
 steamed through the pass and were instantly involved 
 amidst a multiplicity of coral lumps, or horses' heads, 
 as they are called by sailors. Through these our way 
 meandered; we would have a horse's head athwart the
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1889-91 
 
 bows, one astern, one upon either board ; and the tor- 
 tuous fairway was at times not more than twice the 
 vessel's beam. The Janet was, besides, an iron ship; 
 half the width of the Pacific severed us from the next 
 yard of reparation ; one rough contact, and our voyage 
 might be ended, and ourselves consigned to half a year 
 of Penrhyn. On the topgallant forecastle stood a na- 
 tive pilot, used to conning smaller ships, and unpre- 
 pared for the resources of a steamer; his cries rang now 
 with agony, now with wrath. The best man was at 
 the bridge wheel; and Captain Henry, with one hand 
 on the engine signal, one trembling towards the steers- 
 man, juggled his long ship among these dangers, with 
 the patient art of one fitting up a watch, with the swift 
 decision of a general in the field. 1 stood by, thrilling 
 at once with the excitement of a personal adventure 
 and the admiration due to perfect skill. 
 
 " We were presently at anchor in a singular berth, 
 boxed all about; our late entrance, our future exit not 
 to be discovered ; in front the lagoon, where I counted 
 the next day upwards of thirty horses' heads in easy 
 view; behind, the groves of the isle and the crowded 
 houses of the village. Many boats lay there at moor- 
 ings: in the verandah, folk were congregated gazing at 
 the ship; children were swimming from the shore to 
 board us ; and from the lagoon, before a gallant breeze, 
 other boats came skimming homeward. The boats 
 were gay with white sails and bright paint; the men 
 were clad in red and blue, they were garlanded with 
 green leaves or gay with kerchiefs; and the busy, 
 many-coloured scene was framed in the verdure of the 
 palms and the opal of the shallow sea.
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 " It was a pretty picture, and its prettiest element, 
 the coming of the children. Every here and there we 
 saw a covey of black heads upon the water. . . . Soon 
 they trooped up the side-ladder, a healthy, comely com- 
 pany of kilted children; and had soon taken post upon 
 the after-hatch, where they sat in a double row, sing- 
 ing with solemn energy." 
 
 But on the whole Stevenson did not benefit greatly 
 by the voyage. He now turned to the " letters " upon 
 his experiences for the American syndicate ; from the 
 first they failed to satisfy him, although he regarded 
 them, even in their final form, as only the rough ma- 
 terial for the book. The heat of the steamer, driven 
 before the wind, was often intolerable ; he had another 
 hemorrhage, and remained languid and unfit for work. 
 On the return journey the Janet turned off to New 
 Caledonia, and thence went direct to Sydney. Steven- 
 son, however, landed at Noumea, where he spent a few 
 days by himself, observing the French convict settle- 
 ment, and learning something of the methods of deal- 
 ing with natives. It was the only time he was ever 
 among Melanesian tribes, although occasionally he met 
 with isolated individuals, especially in Samoa, where 
 they are frequently imported as labourers for the Ger- 
 man firm. 
 
 He followed his wife and stepson to Sydney, whence 
 Mr. Osbourne left for England, finally to arrange their 
 affairs, and bring out the furniture from Skerryvore for 
 the "yet unbuilt house on the mountain." 
 
 All idea of this journey had been given up by Steven- 
 son himself in the course of the past voyage, and in- 
 deed, having reached Sydney, he was confined to his 
 
 112
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES- 1889-9 
 
 room in the Union Club, and left it only to return to 
 Samoa. From this time forth, although he formed 
 various projects, never realised, of seeing his friends, 
 and especially Mr. Colvin, in Egypt, Honolulu, or 
 Ceylon, he never, so far as I know, again looked for- 
 ward to setting foot upon his native shores. 
 
 With his wife he left for Apia, and on their arrival 
 they camped in gipsy fashion in the four-roomed 
 wooden house which was all, except a trellised arbour, 
 that had yet been erected on the property. Here for 
 the next six months they lived alone with one servant, 
 until the ground was further cleared and the permanent 
 house built. 
 
 Into the details of Stevenson's life at this time there 
 is no need to go; it was a period of transition, and it is 
 sufficiently described in the Vailima Letters. Most of 
 his material difficulties were crowded into it; but even 
 from them he derived a great deal of enjoyment. 
 There were daily working on the land a number of 
 labourers, partly Samoans, partly natives of other 
 groups, superintended for most of the time by a Samoan 
 who figures largely in the first part of the letters to Mr. 
 Colvin. After a while, as soon as the lie of the ground 
 could be more clearly seen, the site of the new house 
 was selected on a plateau a couple of hundred yards 
 higher up the hill, and the building itself was begun by 
 white carpenters. 
 
 This was the only time their food-supply ever ran at 
 all short; but after their experiences in schooners and 
 on low islands, they found little to complain of, as they 
 felt that if it ever came to the worst, two miles off 
 there was always an open restaurant. Their one ser- 
 H 113
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 vant was a German ex-steward, a feckless, kindly 
 creature, who seemed born with two left hands, but 
 was always ready to do his best. But the less com- 
 petent the servant, the more numerous and miscella- 
 neous were the odd jobs which devolved upon his 
 master and mistress. 
 
 Thus in the meantime Stevenson's own work went 
 on under great disadvantages. Much of his effort was 
 expended upon the South Sea Letters ; but this was the 
 time when he saw most of the virgin forest, and his 
 solitary expeditions and the hours spent in weeding at 
 the edge of the " bush " were, as we shall see, not 
 without effect upon his writing. 
 
 In January, 1891, he left his wife in sole charge and 
 went to Sydney to meet his mother, who was to ar- 
 rive there from Scotland on her way to Samoa. The 
 shaft of the Lilbech broke when she was near Fiji, at 
 the worst of seasons and in the most dangerous of 
 waters; but it was patched up with great skill, and, 
 under sail and to the astonishment of the whole port, 
 she arrived at her destination only four days late. 
 Stevenson as usual "fell sharply sick in Sydney," but 
 was able to go on board the Lttbeck again and convoy 
 his mother to her new home. The house, after all, 
 was not ready to receive her, and, having taken her 
 first brief glimpse of Samoa, she returned to the Colo- 
 nies for another couple of months. 
 
 Stevenson then accompanied Mr. Harold Sewall, the 
 American Consul-General, upon a visit to Tutuila, the 
 easternmost island of the group, now added to the 
 territory of the United States. 
 
 Here they spent three weeks, partly by the shores of 
 114
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 889-91 
 
 the great harbour of Pagopago, partly on an attempt to 
 reach the islands of Manu'a in a small schooner, and 
 partly in circumnavigating Tutuila by easy stages in a 
 whale-boat. The expedition was rather at the mercy 
 of its interpreter; but the island was new to them, and 
 they all greatly enjoyed their experiences. It was the 
 best view Stevenson ever had of the more remote Sa- 
 moans in their own homes, and the scenery and the 
 life attracted him more than ever. Fortunately he 
 kept a diary, from which I have taken a few charac- 
 teristic passages: 
 
 " PAGOPAGO 
 
 " The island at its highest point is nearly severed in 
 two by the long-elbowed harbour, about half a mile 
 in width, cased everywhere in abrupt mountain-sides. 
 The tongue of water sleeps in perfect quiet, and laps 
 around its continent with the flapping wavelets of a 
 lake. The wind passes overhead; day and night over- 
 head the scroll of trade-wind clouds is unrolled across 
 the sky, now in vast sculptured masses, now in a thin 
 drift of debris, singular shapes of things, protracted 
 and deformed beasts and trees and heads and torsos of 
 old marbles, changing, fainting, and vanishing even as 
 they flee. Below, meanwhile, the harbour lies un- 
 shaken and laps idly on its margin ; its colour is green 
 like a forest pool, bright in the shallows, dark in the 
 midst with the reflected sides of woody mountains. 
 At times a flicker of silver breaks the uniformity, 
 miniature whitecaps flashing and disappearing on the 
 sombre ground; to see it, you might think the wind 
 was treading on and toeing the flat water, but not so 
 
 "5
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 the harbour lies unshaken, and the flickering is that 
 of fishes. 
 
 " Right in the wind's eye, and right athwart the 
 dawn, a conspicuous mountain stands, designed like 
 an old fort or castle, with naked cliffy sides and a green 
 head. In the peep of the day the mass is outlined 
 dimly; as the east fires, the sharpness of the silhouette 
 grows definite, and through all the chinks of the high 
 wood the red looks through, like coals through a grate. 
 From the other end of the harbour, and at the extreme 
 of the bay, when the sun is down and night begin- 
 ning, and colours and shapes at the sea-level are already 
 confounded in the greyness of the dusk, the same peak 
 retains for some time a tinge of phantom rose. 
 
 " Last night I was awakened before midnight by the 
 ship-rats which infest the shores and invade the houses, 
 incredible for numbers and boldness. I went to the 
 water's edge; the moon was at the zenith; vast fleecy 
 clouds were travelling overhead, their borders frayed 
 and extended as usual in fantastic arms and promon- 
 tories. The level of their flight is not really high, it 
 only seems so; the trade-wind, although so strong in 
 current, is but a shallow stream, and it is common to 
 see, beyond and above its carry, other clouds faring on 
 other and higher winds. As I looked, the skirt of a 
 cloud touched upon the summit of Pioa, and seemed to 
 hang and gather there, and darken as it hung. I knew 
 the climate, fled to shelter, and was scarce laid down 
 again upon the mat before the squall burst. In its 
 decline, I heard the sound of a great bell rung at a dis- 
 tance; I did not think there had been a bell upon the 
 island. I thought the hour a strange one for the ring- 
 
 116
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -1889-91 
 
 ing, but I had no doubt it was being rung on the other 
 side at the Catholic Mission, and lay there listening and 
 thinking, and trying to remember which of the bells of 
 Edinburgh sounded the same note. It stopped almost 
 with the squall. Half an hour afterwards, another 
 shower struck upon the house and spurted awhile from 
 the gutters of the corrugated roof; and again with its 
 decline the bell began to sound, and from the same dis- 
 tance. Then I laughed at myself, and this bell resolved 
 into an eavesdrop falling on a tin close by my head. 
 All night long the flaws continued at brief intervals. 
 Morning came, and showed mists on all the mountain- 
 tops, a grey and yellow dawn, a fresh accumulation of 
 rain imminent on the summit of Pioa, and the whole 
 harbour scene stripped of its tropic colouring and 
 wearing the appearance of a Scottish loch. 
 
 " And not long after, as I was writing on this page, 
 sure enough, from the far shore a bell began indeed to 
 ring. It has but just ceased, boats have been passing 
 the harbour in the showers, the congregation is within 
 now, and the mass begun. How very different stories 
 are told by that drum of tempered iron ! To the natives 
 a new, strange, outlandish thing: to us of Europe, 
 redolent of home; in the ear of the priests, calling up 
 memories of French and Flemish cities, and perhaps 
 some carved cathedral and the pomp of celebrations; in 
 mine, talking of the grey metropolis of the north, of a 
 village on a stream, of vanished faces and silent tongues. 
 
 "THE BAY OF OA 
 
 " We sailed a little before high-water, and came skirt- 
 ing for some while along a coast of classical landscapes, 
 
 117
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 cliffy promontories, long sandy coves divided by semi- 
 independent islets, and the far-withdrawing sides of 
 the mountain, rich with every shape and shade of ver- 
 dure. Nothing lacked but temples and galleys ; and our 
 own long whale-boat sped (to the sound of song) by 
 eight nude oarsmen figured a piece of antiquity better 
 than perhaps we thought. No road leads along this 
 coast; we scarce saw a house; these delectable islets 
 lay quite desert, inviting seizure, and there was none 
 like Keats's Endymion 1 to hear our snowlight cadences. 
 On a sudden we began to open the bay of Oa. At the 
 first sight my mind was made up the bay of Oa was 
 the place for me. We could not enter it, we were as- 
 sured; and being entered we could not land; both 
 statements plainly fictive; both easily resolved into the 
 fact that there was no guest-house, and no girls to 
 make the kava for our boatmen and admire their sing- 
 ing. A little gentle insistence produced a smiling ac- 
 quiescence, and the eight oars began to urge us slowly 
 into a bay of the /Eneid. Right overhead a conical 
 hill arises; its top is all sheer cliff of a rosy yellow, 
 stained with orange and purple, bristled and ivied with 
 individual climbing trees; lower down the woods are 
 massed ; lower again the rock crops out in a steep but- 
 tress, which divides the arc of beach. The boat was 
 eased in, we landed and turned this way and that like 
 fools in a perplexity of pleasures ; now some way into 
 the wood toward the spire, but the woods had soon 
 strangled the path in the Samoan phrase, the way was 
 dead and we began to flounder in impenetrable bush, 
 still far from the foot of the ascent, although already 
 i Book II. l. 80. 
 118
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 889-9! 
 
 the greater trees began to throw out arms dripping 
 with lianas, and to accept us in the margin of their 
 shadows. Now along the beach; it was grown upon 
 with crooked, thick-leaved trees down to the water's 
 edge. Immediately behind there had once been a 
 clearing; it was all choked with the mummy-apple, 
 which in this country springs up at once at the heels of 
 the axeman, and among this were intermingled the 
 coco-palm and the banana. Our landing and the bay 
 itself had nearly turned my head. ' Here are the works 
 of all the poets passim,' I said, and just then my 
 companion stopped. 'Behold an omen,' said he, and 
 pointed. It was a sight I had heard of before in the 
 islands, but not seen : a little tree such as grows some- 
 times on infinitesimal islets on the reef, almost stripped 
 of its leaves, and covered instead with feasting butter- 
 flies. These, as we drew near, arose and hovered in a 
 cloud of lilac and silver-grey 1 . . . . 
 
 " All night the crickets sang with a clear trill of sil- 
 ver; all night the sea filled the hollow of the bay with 
 varying utterance; now sounding continuous like a 
 mill-weir, now (perhaps from further off) with swells 
 and silences. I went wandering on the beach, when 
 the tide was low. I went round the tree before our 
 boys had stirred. It was the first clear grey of the 
 morning; and I could see them lie, each in his place, 
 enmeshed from head to foot in his unfolded kilt. The 
 Highlander with his belted plaid, the Samoan with his 
 lavalava, each sleep in their one vesture unfolded. One 
 
 1 " Later on I found the scene repeated in another place; but here 
 the butterflies were of a different species, glossy brown and black, 
 with arabesques of white." 
 
 119
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 boy who slept in the open under the trees had made 
 his pillow of a smouldering brand, doubtless for the 
 convenience of a midnight cigarette; all night the flame 
 had crept nearer, and as he lay there, wrapped like an 
 oriental woman, and still plunged in sleep, the redness 
 was within two handbreadths of his frizzled hair. 
 
 " I had scarce bathed, had scarce begun to enjoy the 
 fineness and the precious colours of the morning, the 
 golden glow along the edge of the high eastern woods, 
 the clear light on the sugar-loaf of Maugalai, '.he woven 
 blue and emerald of the cone, the chuckle of morning 
 bird-song that filled the valley of the woods, when 
 upon a sudden a draught of wind came from the lee- 
 ward and the highlands of the isle, rain rattled on the 
 tossing woods; the pride of the morning had come 
 early, and from an unlooked-for side. I fled for refuge 
 in the shed; but such of our boys as were awake stirred 
 not in the least; they sat where they were, perched 
 among the scattered boxes of our camp, and puffed at 
 their stubborn cigarettes, and crouched a little in the 
 slanting shower. So good a thing it is to wear few 
 clothes. I, who was largely unclad a pair of serge 
 trousers, a singlet, woollen socks, and canvas shoes; 
 think of it envied them in their light array. 
 
 " Thursday. The others withdrew to the next vil- 
 lage. Meanwhile I had Virgil's bay all morning to my- 
 self, and feasted on solitude, and overhanging woods, 
 and the retiring sea. The quiet was only broken by 
 the hoarse cooing of wild pigeons up the valley, and 
 certain inroads of capricious winds that found a way 
 hence and thence down the hillside and set the palms 
 clattering; my enjoyment only disturbed by clouds of 
 
 120
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -1889-91 
 
 dull, voracious, spotted, and not particularly envenomed 
 mosquitoes. When I was still, I kept Buhac powder 
 burning by me on a stone under the shed, and read 
 Livy, and confused to-day and two thousand years ago, 
 and wondered in which of these epochs I was flourish- 
 ing at that moment; and then I would stroll out, and 
 see the rocks and the woods, and the arcs of beaches, 
 curved like a whorl in a fair woman's ear, and huge 
 ancient trees, jutting high overhead out of the hanging 
 forest, and feel the place at least belonged to the age of 
 fable, and awaited -/Eneas and his battered fleets. 
 
 "Showers fell often in the night; some sounding 
 from far off like a cataract, some striking the house, 
 but not a drop came in. ... At night a cry of a wild 
 cat-like creature in the bush. Far up on the hill one 
 golden tree; they say it is a wild cocoanut: I know it 
 is not, they must know so too; and this leaves me free 
 to think it sprang from the gold bough of Proserpine. 
 
 "The morning was all in blue; the sea blue, blue in- 
 shore upon the shallows, only the blue was nameless; 
 the horizon clouds a blue like a fine pale porcelain, the 
 sky behind them a pale lemon faintly warmed with 
 orange. Much that one sees in the tropics is in water- 
 colours, but this was in water-colours by a young lady." 
 
 The mention of Livy recalls a curious circumstance, 
 and raises besides the question of Stevenson's classical 
 studies. 
 
 A year or two later he told me that he had read sev- 
 eral books of Livy at this time, but found the style 
 influencing him to such an extent that he resolved to 
 read no more, just as in earlier days he had been driven 
 
 121
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 to abandon Carlyle. Mr. Gosse has recorded that Wal- 
 ter Pater in turn refused to read Stevenson lest the in- 
 dividuality of his own style might be affected, but it is 
 more curious to find Stevenson himself at so late a 
 stage fearing the influence of a Latin author. 
 
 As to his classics, he was ignorant of Greek, and pre- 
 ferred the baldest of Bohn's translations to more literary 
 versions that might come between him and the origi- 
 nals. His whole relation to Latin, however, was very 
 curious and interesting. He had never mastered the 
 grammar of the language, and to the end made the 
 most elementary mistakes. Nevertheless, he had a 
 keen appreciation of the best authors, and, indeed, I am 
 not sure that Virgil was not more to him than any 
 other poet, ancient or modern. From all the qualities 
 of the pedant he was, of course, entirely free. Just as 
 he wrote Scots as well as he was able, " not caring if it 
 hailed from Lauderdale or Angus, from the Mearns or 
 Galloway," but if he had ever heard a good word, he 
 "used it without shame," so it was with his Latin. 
 Technicalities of law and the vocabulary of Ducange 
 were admitted to equal rights with authors of the 
 Golden Age. 
 
 Latin no doubt told for much in the dignity and con- 
 cision of his style, and in itself it was to him as we 
 see in his diary always a living language. But as an 
 influence, Rome counted to him as something very 
 much more than a literature a whole system of law 
 and empire. 
 
 From this expedition he returned to Apia in an open 
 boat, a twenty-eight hours' voyage of sixty-five miles, 
 
 122
 
 SOUTH SEA CRUISES -i 889-9 1 
 
 on which schooners have before now been lost. But 
 for the journey and the exposure Stevenson was none 
 the worse. " 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." 
 
 Before the end of the month the family were installed 
 in the new house, and in May they were reinforced not 
 only by the elder Mrs. Stevenson, but also by Mrs. 
 Strong and her boy from Sydney, who thenceforward 
 remained under Stevenson's protecting care. 
 
 His wanderings were now at an end, and he was to 
 enter upon a period of settled residence. Stevenson 
 has been generally regarded as a tourist and an outside 
 observer in Samoa, especially by those who least know 
 the Pacific themselves. There is, it must be admitted, 
 only one way to gain a lifelong experience of any 
 country, but to have lived nowhere else is conducive 
 neither to breadth of view nor to wisdom. It must al- 
 ways be borne in mind that before Stevenson settled 
 down for the last three and a half years of his life in 
 his own house of Vailima, he had spent an almost 
 equal length of time in visiting other islands in the 
 Pacific. In fact, had he been deliberately preparing 
 himself for the life he was to lead, he could hardly have 
 pursued a wiser course, or undergone a more thorough 
 training. On his travels he enjoyed exceptional op- 
 portunities of gathering information, and in general 
 knowledge of the South Seas, and of Samoa in par- 
 ticular, he was probably at the time of his death rivalled 
 by no more than two or three persons of anything like 
 his education or intelligence. 
 
 123
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 VAILIMA 1891-94 
 
 "We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell; for the love 
 that unites us; for the peace accorded us this day; for the hope with 
 which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food, and 
 the bright skies that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all 
 parts of the earth, and our friendly helpers in this foreign isle. . . . 
 Give us courage and gaiety ind the quiet mind. Spare to us our 
 friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our 
 innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter 
 that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribu- 
 lation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down 
 to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to another." R. L. S., 
 Vailima Prayers. 
 
 THE new house and the augmentation of his household 
 marked the definite change in Stevenson's life, which 
 now assumed the character that it preserved until the 
 end. In private his material comfort was increased, 
 and he was delivered from most of the interruptions to 
 which his work had lately been subject ; in public it 
 now became manifest that he was to be a permanent 
 resident in Samoa, enjoying all the advantages of wealth 
 and fame, and the consideration conferred by numerous 
 retainers. 
 
 To the world of his readers, and to many who never 
 read his books, his position became one of extreme 
 interest. He was now living, as the legend went, 
 among the wildest of savages, who were clearly either 
 always at war or circulating reports of wars imme- 
 diately to come; settled in a house, the splendour and 
 
 124
 
 VAILlMA-i89i-94 
 
 luxury of which were much exaggerated by rumour; 
 dwelling in a climate which was associated with all the 
 glories of tropic scenery and vegetation, and also, in the 
 minds of his countrymen at all events, with a tremen- 
 dous cataclysm of the elements, from which the British 
 navy had emerged with triumph. It was little wonder 
 that, as Mr. Gosse wrote to him, " Since Byron was in 
 Greece, nothing has appealed to the ordinary literary 
 man so much as that you should be living in the South 
 Seas." 
 
 It is clear that a mode of life so unusual for a man of 
 letters not only absolves his biographer from the duty 
 of withholding as far as possible the details of every-day 
 existence, but even lays upon him the necessity of ex- 
 plaining various trivial matters, which, if they belonged 
 to the life of cities or of states, it would be his first 
 anxiety to suppress. It well may be that no author of 
 eminence will ever again take up his abode in Samoa or 
 even in the South Seas, but the problem of keeping in 
 touch at the same time with man, with nature, and 
 with the world of letters, is as far from its solution as 
 from losing its general interest. And the most stolid 
 of glances cannot fail to be arrested for a moment by 
 the sight of a figure as chivalrous and romantic as 
 Stevenson, living in a world so striking, so appropriate, 
 and so picturesque. 
 
 To trace in detail the growth of the house or the de- 
 velopment of the estate would be no less tedious than 
 to follow closely the course of political intrigues or the 
 appointment and departure of successive officials. I 
 shall therefore abandon the temporal order, and briefly 
 describe, in the first instance, the material environment 
 
 125
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 in which Stevenson lived, his house, and the surround- 
 ing country, his mode of life, his friends and visitors, 
 his work, and his amusements. It will then be neces- 
 sary to mention very briefly his political relations be- 
 fore passing on to the record of his writings during 
 this period. 
 
 The island of Upolu, on which he lived, was the 
 central and most important of the three principal 
 islands composing the group to which the collective 
 name of Samoa is applied. It is some five-and-forty 
 miles in length and about eleven in average breadth. 
 The interior is densely wooded, and a central range of 
 hills runs from east to west. Apia, the chief town, is 
 situated about the centre of the north coast, and it was 
 on the hills about three miles inland that Stevenson 
 made his home. 
 
 The house and clearing lay on the western edge of a 
 tongue of land several hundred yards in width, situated 
 between two streams, from the westernmost of which 
 the steep side of Vaea Mountain, covered with forest, 
 rises to a height of thirteen hundred feet above the sea. 
 On the east, beyond Stevenson's boundary, the ground 
 fell away rapidly into the deep valley of the Vaisigano, 
 the principal river of the island. On the other hand, 
 the western stream, formed by the junction of several 
 smaller watercourses above, ran within Stevenson's 
 own ground, and, not far below the house, plunged 
 over a barrier of rock with a fall of about twelve feet 
 into a delightful pool, just deep enough for bathing and 
 arched over with orange-trees. A few hundred yards 
 lower down it crossed his line with an abrupt plunge 
 of forty or fifty feet. It was from this stream and its 
 
 126
 
 I 
 
 VAILIMA-i89i-94 
 
 four chief tributaries that Stevenson gave to the prop- 
 erty the Samoan name of Vailima, or Five Waters. 
 
 The place itself lay, as has been said, some three 
 miles from the coast, and nearly six hundred feet above 
 sea-level. From the town a good carriage-road, a 
 mile in length, led to the native village of Tanugama- 
 nono, where the Stevensons had lodged upon their first 
 arrival. Beyond that point there was for a time no- 
 thing but the roughest of footpaths, which led across the 
 hills to the other side of the island through a forest 
 region wholly uninhabited, all the native villages being 
 either by the sea or within a short distance of the 
 coast. 
 
 The track to Vailima was made over and over again 
 by Stevenson, occasionally in concert with some of the 
 owners of the lower lands, until it gradually assumed 
 the appearance of a road, and could be traversed in dry 
 weather by wagons or even by a buggy. But to the 
 last the carrying for the house was done by the two 
 big New Zealand pack-horses. East, and west, and 
 south of the clearing the land was covered with thick 
 bush, containing many scattered lofty forest trees like 
 those judiciously spared by the axemen where they did 
 not endanger the new house. Here and there in the 
 forest was a great banyan with branching roots, cover- 
 ing many square yards of surface, and affording a rest- 
 ing-place for the flying-foxes, the great fruit-eating 
 bats, which sally forth at dusk with a slow, heavy 
 flight, like a straggling company of rooks making for 
 the coast. Even to the north, although most of the 
 ground between Vailima and Apia had to some extent 
 been cultivated, along the "road" the trees grew close 
 
 127
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 and high, and on a dark night the phosphorescence 
 gleamed on fallen logs amid the undergrowth, twin- 
 kling and flickering to and fro, like the hasty footsteps 
 of the witches the Samoans believed it to be. On the 
 estate itself the route lay by the lane of limes, a rugged, 
 narrow, winding path, that seemed, as Stevenson said, 
 "almost as if it was leading to Lyonesse, and you 
 might see the head and shoulders of a giant looking 
 in." 1 But this part of the track was afterwards cut off 
 by the Ala Loto Alofa, the Road of the Loving Heart, 
 built by the Mataafa chiefs in return for Tusitala's kind- 
 ness to them in prison. It was a broader and more level 
 way, also leading past a fragrant lime-hedge, and hav- 
 ing as the centre of its view for any one journeying to 
 Vailima the wooded crest of Vaea. 
 
 The house of Vailima was built of wood throughout, 
 painted a dark green outside, with a red roof of corru- 
 gated iron, on which the heavy rain sounded like 
 thunder as it fell and ran off to be stored for household 
 purposes in the large iron tanks. The building finally 
 consisted of two blocks of equal size, placed, if I may 
 use a military phrase in this connection, in echelon. It 
 was the great defect of the house in its master's eyes 
 that from a strategical point of view it was not defen- 
 sible, but fortunately there was never an occasion during 
 his lifetime when it would have been desirable to place 
 it in a state of siege. It fulfilled many of the require- 
 ments both of structure and more especially of position 
 which he had laid down for his ideal house. 2 
 
 After December, 1892, the downstairs accommoda- 
 tion consisted of three rooms, a bath, a storeroom and 
 
 1 failima Letters, p. 258. 2 Miscellanea, p. 42. 
 
 128
 
 VAILIMA-i89i-94 
 
 cellars below, with five bedrooms and the library up- 
 stairs. On the ground-floor, a verandah, twelve feet 
 deep, ran in front of the whole house and along one 
 side of it. Originally there had been a similar gallery 
 above in front of the library, but it so darkened that room 
 as to make it almost useless for working. Stevenson 
 then had half of the open space boarded in, and used it 
 as his own bedroom and study, the remainder of the 
 verandah being sheltered, when necessary, by Chinese 
 blinds. The new room was thus a sort of martin's 
 nest, plastered as it were upon the outside of the house ; 
 but except for being somewhat hot in the middle of the 
 day, it served its purpose to perfection. A small bed- 
 stead, a couple of bookcases, a plain deal kitchen table 
 and two chairs were all its furniture, and two or three 
 favourite Piranesi etchings and some illustrations of Ste- 
 venson's own works hung upon the walls. At one side 
 was a locked rack containing half-a-dozen Colt's rifles for 
 the service of the family in case they should ever be re- 
 quired. One door opened into the library, the other 
 into the verandah ; one window, having from its eleva- 
 tion the best view the house afforded, looked across the 
 lawns and pasture, over the tree-tops, out to the sap- 
 phire sea, while the other was faced by the abrupt slope 
 of Vaea. The library was lined with books, the covers 
 of which had all been varnished to protect them from 
 the climate. The most important divisions were the 
 shelves allotted to the history of Scotland, to French 
 books either modern or relating to the fifteenth century, 
 to military history, and to books relating to the Pacific. 
 At this height the beat of the surf was plainly to be 
 heard, but soothing to the ear and far away; other 
 H '29
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 noises there were none but the occasional note of a bird, 
 a cry from the boys at work, or the crash of a falling 
 tree. The sound of wheels or the din of machinery 
 was hardly known in the island : about the house all 
 went barefoot, and scarcely in the world could there be 
 found among the dwellings of men a deeper silence 
 than in Stevenson's house in the forest. 
 
 The chief feature within was the large hall that 
 occupied the whole of the ground-floor of the newer 
 portion of the house a room about sixty feet long and 
 perhaps forty wide, lined and ceiled with varnished 
 redwood from California. Here the marble bust of old 
 Robert Stevenson twinkled with approval upon many a 
 curiously combined company, while a couple of Bur- 
 mese gilded idols guarded the two posts of the big 
 staircase leading directly from the room to the upper 
 floor. An old Samoan chief, being one day at his own 
 request shown over the house, and having seen many 
 marvels of civilisation of which he had never dreamed, 
 showed no sign of interest, far less of amazement, but 
 as he was departing he looked over his shoulder at the 
 two Buddhas and asked indifferently : ' ' Are they alive ? " 
 In one corner was built a large safe, which, being con- 
 tinually replenished from Apia, rarely contained any 
 large amount of money at a time, but was supposed by 
 the natives to be the prison of the Bottle Imp, the 
 source of all Stevenson's fortune. In this room hung 
 Mr. Sargent's portrait of Stevenson and his wife, Sir 
 George Reid's portrait of Thomas Stevenson, two re- 
 puted Hogarths which the old gentleman had picked 
 up, two or three of R. A. M. Stevenson's best works, 
 a picture of horses by Mr. Arthur Lemon, and greatly 
 
 130
 
 VAILIMA-i89i-94 
 
 to the scandal of native visitors a plaster group by 
 Rodin. 
 
 In front of the house lay a smooth green lawn of 
 couch-grass, used for tennis or croquet, and bounded 
 on two sides by a hibiscus-hedge which, within a few 
 months of its planting, was already six feet high and a 
 mass of scarlet double blossoms the favourite flowers 
 of the Samoan. 
 
 Immediately behind the mansion lay the wooden 
 kitchen and a native house for the cook. A hundred 
 yards to one side the original cottage in which Steven- 
 son first lived had been re-erected, to serve upstairs as 
 bedrooms for Mr. Osbourne and myself, downstairs for 
 the house-boys, 1 for stores, tool-house, and harness- 
 room. 
 
 Upon the other side another native house lay, half- 
 way towards the stream. The ground below the home 
 fence was all used for pasture; in front, the milking- 
 shed occupied the site of the old house; and the pig- 
 pen, impregnably fenced with barbed wire, lay a couple 
 of hundred yards in the rear. At the back also were 
 the old disused stables, for in later days the horses were 
 always kept out at grass in the various paddocks, 
 coming up for their feed of corn every morning and 
 evening. 
 
 But even when the house itself was provided, its 
 service was the great difficulty. Competent and will- 
 ing white helpers were not to be procured, and though 
 there were many natives employed in Apia, yet Samoa, 
 less fortunate than India, possessed no class of natives 
 
 1 In Samoa, as in many other lands, native servants of all ages are 
 known in English as " boys."
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 ready to minister to a white master with skill and 
 devotion for a trifling wage. 
 
 At first Stevenson tried European and colonial ser- 
 vants. Two German men cooks passed through his 
 kitchen : a Sydney lady's-maid brought dissensions into 
 the household : a white overseer and three white carters 
 came and left, causing various degrees of dissatisfaction. 
 Then Mrs. Stevenson went away for a change to Fiji ; 
 in her absence the family made a clean sweep of the 
 establishment, and Mrs. Strong and her brother took 
 the entire charge of the kitchen into their own hands 
 with complete success. This was of necessity a passing 
 expedient. One day, however, Mr. Osbourne found a 
 Samoan lad, with a hibiscus flower behind his ear, 
 sitting on an empty packing-case beside the cook- 
 house. He had come, it seemed, to collect half a dollar 
 which the native overseer owed him, and he was quite 
 content to wait for several hours until his debtor should 
 return. In the meantime he was brought into the kitch- 
 en, and then and there initiated into the secrets of the 
 white man's cookery. He was amused, interested, 
 fascinated, and he plunged enthusiastically into the 
 mysteries of his future profession. Fortunately in Samoa 
 cookery was regarded as an art worthy of men's hands, 
 and was practised even by high chiefs. The newcomer 
 showed great aptitude; Mr. Osbourne persuaded him 
 to stay, sent for his chest, and for several days would 
 hardly let him out of his sight. So from that time forth 
 Ta'alolo was head cook of Vailima, soon having a ' ' boy " 
 under him as scullion, taking only a few occasional 
 holidays, and perfecting his art by visits to the kitchen 
 of the French priests. In time he brought into the 
 
 132
 
 VAILIMA-i89i-94 
 
 household several of his relations, who were Catholics 
 like himself, and proved the best and most trustworthy 
 of all the boys. 
 
 A very few days after my first arrival one of these 
 newcomers appeared in the character of assistant table- 
 boy, a clumsy, half-developed, rather rustic youth, who 
 of course knew no English, a sign that he was at any 
 rate free from the tricks of the Apia-bred rascal. At the 
 first, Sosimo seemed unlikely material, but there was a 
 certain seriousness and resolution about him which 
 quickly produced their effect. He soon became known 
 as "The Butler," and before long was promoted to be 
 head boy in the pantry. From the beginning he at- 
 tached himself to Tusitala with a whole-hearted alle- 
 giance. He waited on him hand and foot, looked 
 scrupulously after his clothes, devoted special attention 
 to his pony "Jack," and made one of the most trust- 
 worthy and efficient servants I have ever known. 
 When the end came, few if any showed as much feeling 
 as Sosimo, and his loyalty to his master's memory 
 lasted to the end of his own life. 
 
 These two men were the best, but as I write, I recall 
 Leuelu, and Mitaele, and lopu, and old Lafaele, and 
 many more, not all such good servants, not all so loyal 
 or so honest as those first named, but all with many 
 solid merits, many pleasing traits, and a genuine per- 
 sonal devotion to Tusitala which pleased him as much 
 as many more brilliant qualities. 
 
 The table was fully provided with white napery and 
 silver and glass according to the usual English custom, 
 as it had prevailed in the house of Stevenson's father. 
 The cookery was eclectic and comprised such English
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 and American dishes as could be obtained or imitated, 
 together with any 'native food which was found pala- 
 table. Of the supplies I shall speak later: it was the 
 contrast between table and servants that was most 
 striking. Nothing could have been more picturesque 
 than to sit at an ordinary modern dinner-table and be 
 waited on skilfully by a noble barbarian with perfect 
 dignity and grace of carriage and manners hardly to be 
 surpassed, who yet, if the weather were warm and the 
 occasion ordinary, had for all his clothing a sheet of 
 calico, in which his tattooed waist and loins alone 
 were draped. 
 
 The actual house-servants were usually about half a 
 dozen in number, two in the kitchen, two or three for 
 house and table service; one, Mrs. Stevenson's special 
 boy, for the garden and her own general service, and 
 one more to take charge of the cows and pigs. Besides 
 these, there was always a band of outside labourers 
 under a native overseer supervised by Mr. Osbourne, 
 working on the plantation, varying in number, accord- 
 ing to the amount of clearing in hand, from half-a-dozen 
 to twenty or thirty men. The signal for beginning 
 and leaving off their work was always given by blow- 
 ing the pu, a large conch-shell, 1 that made a great 
 booming sound that could be heard in the farthest 
 recesses of the plantation. 
 
 The great fear of the householder in Samoa used to be 
 the dread of war, lest he should wake one morning and 
 find that all his servants had been ordered out on ser- 
 vice by their respective chiefs. By Stevenson's inter- 
 vention the Vailima household staff was generally kept 
 1 Triton variegatus. 
 134
 
 VAILIMA-i89-94 
 
 at home, but the plantation was several times deserted 
 and had to await the restoration of peace. 
 
 The government of the household was as far as pos- 
 sible on the clan system. "It is something of your 
 own doing," Stevenson had written to his mother from 
 Bournemouth in 1886, " if I take a somewhat feudal 
 view of our relation to servants. . . . The Nemesis of 
 the bourgeois who has chosen to shut out his servants 
 his ' family ' in the old Scotch sense from all intimacy 
 and share in the pleasures of the house, attends us at 
 every turn. An impossible relation is created, and 
 brings confusion to all." 1 
 
 If this were his attitude among the artificial conditions 
 of England, he was not likely to adopt a more modern 
 position in Samoa, where the patriarchal stage of society 
 still prevailed. Accordingly from the first he used all 
 opportunities to consolidate the household as a family, 
 in which the boys should take as much pride and feel 
 as much common interest as possible. His ideal was 
 to maintain the relation of a Highland chief to his clan, 
 such as it existed before the '45, since this seemed to 
 approach most nearly to the actual state of things in 
 Samoa at the time, and best met the difficulties which 
 beset the relations of master and servant in his own day. 
 He adopted a tartan for the Vailima kilt, to be worn on 
 high days and holidays; he encouraged the boys to 
 seek his help and advice on all matters, and was espe- 
 cially delighted when they preferred to him such re- 
 quests as to grant his permission to a marriage. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that they were 
 allowed their own way, or indulged when they mis- 
 
 1 Cf. Letters, ii. 21. 
 135
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 behaved themselves. On such occasions the whole 
 household would be summoned, a sort of " bed of jus- 
 tice " would be held, and sharp reprimands and fines 
 inflicted. 
 
 Even with all these servants, the white man was 
 separated from the material crises of life by a somewhat 
 thin barrier, for even the best and most responsible 
 natives were at times brought face to face with emer- 
 gencies beyond their powers, and had to fall back upon 
 their master's help. Such occasions of course befell 
 Stevenson most frequently in the early days when he 
 was living in the cottage with his wife and the white 
 cook. Much of his time was then taken up unexpect- 
 edly in such pieces of business as may be found in the 
 first pages of the Vailima Letters: in measuring land, 
 rubbing down foundered cart-horses, ejecting stray 
 horses during the night or wandering pigs during the 
 day, or even in little household tasks which no one else 
 was available to discharge. In later days his wife and 
 all the family were able jealously to prevent such en- 
 croachments on his time, but during the last two years 
 I can remember the master of the house himself helping 
 with delight to feed a refractory calf that refused the 
 bottle, driving out an angry bull, or doctoring stray 
 natives suffering from acute colic or wounded feet, to 
 say nothing of chance hours spent in planting or in 
 weeding the cacao. 
 
 One morning's work stands out conspicuously in my 
 memory. A hogshead of claret had, after many misad- 
 ventures, arrived from Bordeaux slightly broached, so 
 that it had to be bottled immediately. Stevenson feared 
 the effect of the fumes even of the light wine upon the 
 
 136
 
 VAIL1MA-I89I-94 
 
 natives, so he himself with our aid undertook the work. 
 The boys were sent off to the stream with relays of 
 bottles to wash while we tapped the cask, and the red 
 wine flowed all the morning into jugs and basins be- 
 neath. It was poured away into the bottles, and they 
 were corked and dipped into a large pot of green sealing- 
 wax kept simmering on the kitchen fire. There seemed 
 not to be any fumes to affect us, but the anticipation, 
 and the pressure to get done, the novelty of the work, 
 and, above all, Stevenson's contagious enthusiasm, 
 produced a great feeling of delight and exhilaration, and 
 made a regular vintage festival of the day. Stevenson 
 was in his glory, as he always was when he felt that he 
 was doing a manual task, and, above all, when he was 
 able to work in concert with others, and give his love 
 of camaraderie full scope. 
 
 And throughout his life, for Stevenson to throw him- 
 self into any employment which could kindle his 
 imagination was to see him transfigured. The little 
 boy who told himself stories about his football x came 
 to weed in Samoa, and was there ever such an account 
 of weeding since the world began ? He drove stray 
 horses to the pound, and it became a Border foray. He 
 held an inquiry into the theft of a pig, and he bore him- 
 self as if he were the Lord President in the Inner House. 
 But on the memorable day when we scampered through 
 the outposts of Mataafa's troops, and for the first time 
 in his life Louis saw armed men actually taking the 
 field, even his own words hardly serve to express his 
 exhilaration and outburst of spirit: "So home a little 
 before six, in a dashing squall of rain, to a bowl of kava 
 
 1 See vol. i. p. 66. 
 '37
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 and dinner. But the impression on our minds was ex- 
 traordinary ; the sight of that picket at the ford, and 
 those ardent, happy faces, whirls in my head ; the old 
 aboriginal awoke in both of us and nickered like a 
 stallion. . . . War is a huge entrainement; there is no 
 other temptation to be compared to it, not one. We 
 were all wet, we had been about five hours in the 
 saddle, mostly riding hard; and we came home like 
 schoolboys, with such a lightness of spirits, and I am 
 sure such a brightness of eye, as you could have lit a 
 candle at." * 
 
 When any special entertainment was to be given, a 
 dinner-party or a large luncheon, the whole family of 
 course set to work to see that everything was properly 
 done. Some saw to the decoration of the table or the 
 polishing of the silver, or the blending of the preliminary 
 "cocktail"; Stevenson loved to devote himself to the 
 special cleaning of what he called in the Scots phrase 
 "the crystal, "and his use of the glass-cloth on decanter 
 and wine-glasses would have rejoiced the heart of an 
 expert 
 
 Nor were there wanting occasions in which prompt 
 action or careful and skilled investigation was needed. 
 On two successive nights the house was nearly set on 
 fire by a defective oil lantern, and only boxes of earth 
 saved it; and at another time the dishonest use of red 
 lead upon the roof turned all the rain-tanks into so many 
 poisoned wells, and disabled the whole party for several 
 weeks. 
 
 As for the food, when there was a large household 
 to be supplied and a daily delivery from Apia had been 
 
 1 Vailima Letters, June 28th, 1893. 
 138
 
 VAILIMA-i8 9 i-94 
 
 arranged, there was no great difficulty in catering, apart 
 from the expense. The meat came from the butcher, 
 and the bread from the baker, the groceries, if needed, 
 from the grocer, and the washing from the washer- 
 woman, as in less romantic communities. There was 
 a large storeroom, plentifully supplied from the Colonies 
 and from home. There were generally three or four 
 cows in milk, and a supply of pigs and chickens being 
 reared for the table. The herd of wild cattle sold with 
 the estate certainly did not exist within many miles of 
 its boundaries, though I believe that the animals were 
 not mythical, but led a real existence in another part of 
 the island, whither they had betaken themselves. But if 
 there were no four-footed creatures, birds were plentiful. 
 Large pigeons were brought in from the surrounding 
 woods, especially at the season when they had been 
 feeding on the wild nutmeg-trees. The only game to 
 be obtained was an occasional mallard, a rail, or a galli- 
 mule, unless the manume'a be reckoned, the one sur- 
 viving species of dodo, a bird about the size of a small 
 moor-hen, which has only recovered its present feeble 
 powers of flight since cats were introduced into the 
 island. I have found it in the woods above Vailima, 
 but we never shot it ourselves, and its dark flesh was 
 as rare upon the table as it was delicious. Fresh-water 
 prawns came from the stream, and now and again 
 some sea-fish might be sent up from the coast, where 
 it was abundant. Vegetables were hardly to be bought, 
 but a piece of swampy ground half a mile from the 
 house was turned into a patch for taro, the finest of 
 all substitutes for the potato. Bananas and breadfruit- 
 trees were planted, and Mrs. Stevenson developed under 
 
 '39
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 her own supervision a garden in which all sorts of 
 new plants were tried, and most of them successfully 
 adopted. Cocoanuts, oranges, guavas, and mangoes 
 grew already on the estate or in a paddock just below, 
 which was taken on lease; and many more of the most 
 improved kinds of these trees were planted and throve. 
 The common hedges on the estate were composed of 
 limes, the fruit being so abundant that it was used to 
 scour the kitchen floors and tables, and citrons were so 
 common that they rotted on the trees. Several acres 
 were planted with pineapples, which, after only a little 
 cultivation, equalled the best varieties of their kind. 
 There was also an unrivalled plantation of kava, the 
 shrub whose powdered root yields the Samoan national 
 drink. Wherever the ground was cleared, the papaw 
 or mummy-apple at once sprang up and bore its whole- 
 some and insipid fruit. Cape gooseberries were mere 
 weeds; soursops, sweet potatoes and avocado pears, 
 lemons and plums, egg-plants and the large granadillas 
 all did well in that rich volcanic soil and that marvellous 
 climate. Nothing failed of tropical products except the 
 ambrosial mangosteen, the capricious child of the Malay 
 Peninsula. The cacao, of which frequent mention is 
 made in the Vailima Letters, grew and came into bear- 
 ing; but the irregular and rocky surface of the ground 
 made it difficult to keep clean, and also caused the 
 plantation to be very straggling and irregular. 
 
 But, in truth, if Stevenson were unfitted for a South 
 Sea trader, he was even less likely to be the successful 
 manager of a plantation run for his own profit. No 
 Samoan had either need or desire to work regularly for 
 any sum less than seven dollars a month and his food, 
 
 140
 
 VAILIMA-i89i-94 
 
 but these wages and the amount of work rendered for 
 them were quite incompatible with the idea of com- 
 petition in the markets of the civilised world. Steven- 
 son fed his men, paid them regularly in cash and not in 
 trade, and neither worked them in bad weather nor 
 discharged them for sickness, if he thought it was 
 brought on by exposure in the course of doing work 
 for him. If all this be accounted only common fair 
 dealing, he had besides an unusual measure of that 
 generosity he has attributed to others, "such as is pos- 
 sible to those who practise an art, never to those who 
 drive a trade." At any rate, the plantation never paid 
 its way, and never seriously promised to become self- 
 supporting. 
 
 The temperature was generally between 85 and 90 
 Fahrenheit at noon, and always fell during the darkness 
 to 70, or less. I have never seen it at any time lower 
 than 62 or higher than 95 in the shade. But in the 
 early morning the lower temperature strikes one by con- 
 trast as bitterly cold, and so acutely had Stevenson felt 
 it in his cottage in the bush that two large fireplaces 
 with a brick chimney were built in the big house, 
 though after a while they were seldom or never used. 
 It was the contrast that was trying, even at higher tem- 
 peratures. "The thermometer is only 8o," wrote 
 Stevenson, "and it 's as cold as charity here. You 
 would think it warm. What makes these differences? 
 Eighty degrees is a common temperature with us, and 
 usually pleasant. And to-day it pricks like a half frost 
 in a wet November." Through the dry season from 
 April to October a fresh trade-wind blew during the 
 day from the south-east, and during the other months, 
 
 141
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 although heavy rain was more frequent, the fine days 
 were beyond words delightful. "The morning is, 
 ah! such a morning as you have never seen; heaven 
 upon earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth 
 of unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken at 
 this moment only by the far-away murmur of the 
 Pacific and the rich piping of a single bird." l 
 
 The rainfall is said to average about one hundred and 
 thirty inches during the year, but as five or six inches 
 fall during a really wet twenty-four hours, it does not 
 argue many wet days, and, moreover, showers fall 
 freely during the so-called dry season. The climate, of 
 course, is not bracing, but it is probably as little debili- 
 tating as that of any place lying in the same latitude and 
 no further removed from the sea-level. 
 
 There is a total absence of tropical and malarial 
 fevers, which must be due to the fact that the germ- 
 bearing mosquito either does not exist, or finds no virus 
 to convey.a And this is the more remarkable because 
 in the western limits of the Pacific the fevers of New 
 Guinea and New Britain are the deadliest of their kind. 
 
 Samoa, in common with the rest of Polynesia, is for- 
 tunate in this also, that it contains nothing more venom- 
 ous than a few centipedes, and even these have been 
 accidentally imported with merchandise. 
 
 Stevenson's ordinary manner of life was this: He 
 would get up at six, or perhaps earlier, and begin work. 
 
 1 Vailima Letters, p. 243. 
 
 8 If it be the latter reason, it is a strong argument against " labour- 
 traffic " importing Melanesians impregnated with this poison into dis- 
 tricts where the inhabitants are healthy. 
 
 142
 
 VA1LIMA- 1891-94 
 
 From my bed in the cottage I commanded a view of his 
 verandah, and often and often I have waked in the chill 
 early dawn to see through the window the house with 
 the mass of Vaea towering behind it : in the midst there 
 would be the one spot of bright light where Tusitala, the 
 only other person awake of all the household, was 
 already at his labours. Down below, the monotonous 
 beating of the surf could be heard ; above, through the 
 chill air, there rang the repeated call of the manu-iao, 
 "the bird of dawn "i a succession of clear phrases 
 recalling with a difference the notes at once of the thrush 
 and of the blackbird. The sky brightened; the lamp 
 was extinguished; the household began to stir; and 
 about half-past six a light breakfast was taken to the 
 master. He continued to work by himself, chiefly mak- 
 ing notes, until Mrs. Strong, her housekeeping finished, 
 was able to begin his writing, generally soon after 
 eight. Then they worked till nearly noon, when the 
 whole household met for the first time at a substantial 
 meal of two or three courses in the large hall. 
 
 Afterwards there would be talk, or reading aloud, or 
 a game of piquet; a bowl of kava was always made 
 early in the afternoon, and, having been served once, 
 was then left in the verandah. When Austin Strong 
 was at Vailima, his " Uncle Louis " would at sometime 
 during the day give him a history lesson, and also 
 began to teach him French ; for the boy's education was 
 undertaken by the household at large. Later in the 
 afternoon there might follow a visit to Apia, or a ride, 
 or a stroll into the woods or about the plantation, or a 
 game of croquet or tennis, until close upon six o'clock, 
 
 1 Ptilotis carunculata, the wattled creeper. 
 '43
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 when the dinner was served. Then followed a round 
 game at cards, or reading, or talk as before, or music, 
 if there were any visitor in the house able to play the 
 piano or sing, for in the end Stevenson had altogether 
 given up the practice of his flute. Soon after eight on 
 an ordinary night the members of the household had 
 generally dispersed to their rooms, to go to bed at 
 what hour they chose. The master of the house used, 
 I think, to do most of his reading at these times, but 
 usually he was in bed soon after ten, if not actually 
 before. 
 
 His own favourite exercise was riding, and though 
 for the dozen years before he came to the Pacific he had 
 probably never mounted a horse, he was an excellent 
 rider. His light weight (I doubt if he ever actually 
 weighed eight stone) served him in good stead, and 
 Jack, the Samoan-bred pony which he bought in 1890, 
 carried him well. The first and unflattering mention 
 describes Jack as "a very plain animal, dark brown, 
 but a good goer, and gentle, except for a habit of shy- 
 ing and sitting down on his tail, if he sees a basket in 
 the road, or even a bunch of bananas. However, he 
 will make a very good makeshift." He reigned alone 
 in Stevenson's affection, and, never having been 
 mounted since, is passing a peaceful old age in a friend's 
 paddock in Upolu. 
 
 Except on the roads of the Neutral Territory and in 
 the big German plantation, the ground was not very 
 suitable for horses, and a dozen miles was usually the 
 limit of an afternoon's excursion. 
 
 I have called this the ordinary mode of life, but it was 
 subject to endless variations. If Stevenson were in a 
 
 144
 
 VAILIMA-i89i-94 
 
 hot fit of work with a story just begun or some new 
 episode just introduced, he could do nothing and think 
 of nothing else, and toiled all day long; for if there 
 were no interruptions and no other pressing business, 
 he would at such times return to his labours for all the 
 afternoon and evening. On the other hand, if he were 
 ailing or disinclined for writing, he would stop work 
 some time before luncheon. But almost at any time he 
 was at the mercy of visitors, white or brown, and the 
 matters which were referred to him for advice or settle- 
 ment were endless. Mr. Osbourne has well described 
 them: 
 
 " He was consulted on every imaginable subject: . . . 
 Government chiefs and rebels consulted him with regard 
 to policy; political letters were brought to him to read 
 and criticise ; his native following was so widely divided 
 in party that he was often kept better informed on cur- 
 rent events than any one person in the country. Old 
 gentlemen would arrive in stately procession with 
 squealing pigs for the 'chief-house of wisdom,' and 
 would beg advice on the capitation tax or some such 
 subject of the hour; an armed party would come from 
 across the island with gifts, and a request that Tusitala 
 would take charge of the funds of the village and buy 
 the roof-iron for a proposed church. Parties would 
 come to hear the latest news of the proposed disarming 
 of the country, or to arrange a private audience with 
 one of the officials ; and poor war-worn chieftains, whose 
 only anxiety was to join the winning side, and who 
 wished to consult with Tusitala as to which that might 
 be. Mr. Stevenson would sigh sometimes as he saw 
 these stately folk crossing the lawn in single file, their
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 attendants following behind with presents and baskets, 
 but he never failed to meet or hear them." l 
 
 During his mother's first period of residence at 
 Vailima, Stevenson used every morning at eight to have 
 prayers at which the whole household were present. A 
 hymn was sung in Samoan from the Mission book, a 
 chapter read verse by verse in English, and two or three 
 prayers were read in English, ending with the Lord's 
 Prayer in Samoan. But it was impossible to assemble 
 before anybody had begun work, and so much delay 
 was caused by summoning the household from their 
 various labours, that the practice was reserved in the 
 end for Sunday evenings only, when a chapter of the 
 Samoan Bible was read, Samoan hymns were sung, and 
 a prayer, written by Stevenson himself for the purpose, 
 was offered in English, concluding, as always, with the 
 native version of the Lord's Prayer. 2 
 
 There is one feature in Stevenson's residence in Samoa 
 which has probably never yet been mentioned, and 
 that is the constancy with which he stayed at home in 
 Vailima. After his visit to Tutuila in 1891 I know of 
 only two occasions during his life in Upolu the two 
 separate nights which he passed at Malie when he 
 did not sleep either at Apia or in his own house. This 
 was largely a precaution for the sake of health, since 
 there was little good accommodation outside those two 
 places, but it entirely prevented his becoming person- 
 ally acquainted with many interesting spots in the 
 islands and many of the Samoans whom he would have 
 been glad to meet. 
 
 1 Scribner's Magazine, p. 462, October, 1895. 
 
 * Appendix C, Vailima Prayers, vol. ii. p. 232. 
 
 146
 
 VAlLlMA-i89i-94 
 
 Thus he never crossed the central range of his own 
 island, the track over which passed near his house; he 
 never visited Lanuto'o, the crater lake, set in the midst 
 of the forest among the hills, only a dozen miles away, 
 or the stone circle known as "The House of the Cuttle- 
 fish " in a neighbouring glen, the crater islet of Apolima, 
 or (to cut short my list) even any of the lovely villages 
 along the south-western shore. 
 
 Now and again, for some special reason, generally 
 connected with the arrival of the mail-steamer, he 
 would sleep in Apia, but on all ordinary occasions he 
 preferred to return home. At these times he liked the 
 lamps left burning in his absence, that he might ride up 
 the dark road and out into the solitary and silent woods, 
 there to find the house lighted up to welcome his 
 return even at the dead of night. 
 
 At Vailima visitors were always coming and going. 
 All white residents who chose to appear were made 
 welcome. The American Chief-Justice Ide and his 
 family; Herr Schmidt, the President ; the Consuls; the 
 Land Commissioners, especially his friend Bazett Hag- 
 gard; the Independent and Wesleyan missionaries; the 
 French Bishop, the priests and sisters; the doctor, the 
 magistrate, the postmaster, the surveyor ; the managers 
 of firms and their employes, English or German ; and 
 traders from all parts of the islands : such were some of 
 the residents who might arrive at any time. To them 
 might be added passing visitors, spending a week or 
 two in Samoa between two steamers, or remaining 
 several months to see the islands more thoroughly. 
 The latter, if not actually staying in the house, were yet 
 sure to be frequently invited to Vailima. Mr. Barrie 
 
 47
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 and Mr. Kipling, to their own bitter regret, too long 
 deferred the visits for which their host was so eager; 
 but of those who came, the Countess of Jersey, Mr. La 
 Farge the artist, and Mr. Henry Adams the historian 
 are the most familiar names. 
 
 And perhaps most frequent and certainly not least 
 welcome were the officers and men of the warships, 
 of which Apia saw only too many for her peace in 
 those troubled days. The Germans toiled but seldom 
 up the hill, the American vessels came rarely to the 
 islands; but in the four years of Stevenson's residence 
 at least eight British men-of-war entered the harbour, 
 and one his favourite Cura$oa not only came most 
 frequently, but stayed the longest, spending in the 
 group seven out of the last eight months of his life. 
 The experience which I think gave him more pleasure 
 than any other in that time was his visit as a guest in 
 the Curafoa to the outlying islets of Manu'a, which he 
 had in vain tried to reach three years before with Mr. 
 Sewall. 
 
 In wardroom and gunroom were, of course, closer 
 friends than others, but I think there was not an officer 
 in the ship, from the captain to the youngest midship- 
 man, who was not definitely a friend. The most inti- 
 mate were perhaps Dr. Hoskyns, Hugo Worthington, 
 the marine officer, Lieutenant (now Commander) Eeles; 
 but the road from Apia became known as the " Curagoa 
 track," and if any one of the officers was placed upon 
 the sick-list, he was speedily invited to stay in the 
 house and try the effect of the climate of Vailima. 
 With the men also, petty officers, bluejackets, and 
 marines, Stevenson's relations were of the happiest. 
 
 148
 
 VAILIMA-I89I-94 
 
 " A most interesting lot of men," he wrote of another 
 ship; "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." 
 
 He had doubted at Honolulu if the navies of the world 
 held such another ship as the Cormorant, and the answer 
 came to his door. 
 
 There was also the merchant service: the captains 
 and officers of the mail-steamers, both of the San Fran- 
 cisco vessels and the local New Zealand boats. 
 "Captain Smith of the Tamuni," as Mr. Osbourne re- 
 minds me, "once paid a visit to Vailima with some 
 friends. On his road home he passed the Ala Loto 
 Alofa, on which the chiefs were then working like 
 good fellows. He asked and was told the reason 
 of their task; and the bluff, hearty old seaman at once 
 insisted in getting off his horse and felling one of the 
 trees himself. '/ must be in that, too,' he said, with 
 a genuine emotion; and spent half an hour swinging an 
 axe." 
 
 Other and stranger visitors would turn up from the 
 various islands which the family had visited. As 
 Stevenson wrote to Mr. Barrie: "Another thing you 
 must be prepared for and that is the arrival of strange 
 old shell-back guests out of every quarter of the island 
 world, their mouths full of oaths for which they will 
 punctiliously apologise; their clothes unmistakably pur- 
 chased in a trade-room, each probably followed by a 
 dusky bride. These you are to expect to see hailed 
 with acclamation and dragged in as though they were 
 dukes and duchesses. For though we may be out of 
 
 149
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 touch with 'God knows what,' we are determined to 
 keep in touch with appearances and the Marquesas." 
 
 The bust of old Robert Stevenson, looking down 
 upon the hall, must have been reminded again and 
 again of the breakfasts in Baxter's Place, and his "broad- 
 spoken, home-spun officers." 1 
 
 The departure of one of these old traders was most 
 characteristic, and would hardly, I think, occur in just 
 the same way outside the South Seas. He had come 
 from his island ; he had made his way to Vailima and 
 renewed his friendship; he had enjoyed himself and 
 received such kindness and consideration as perhaps 
 he did not often get. When he rose to take his leave, 
 "Now don't you move," he said, "don't one of you 
 move. Just let me take a last look of you all sitting 
 there on that verandah, and I shall have that always to 
 think of, when I 'm away." 
 
 It was Stevenson's intimate knowledge of this class 
 which made him particularly anxious to heal as far as 
 possible the unnecessary division between them and the 
 missionaries. On this point he particularly insisted in 
 an address delivered in Sydney in 1893.2 That paper 
 does not relate exclusively to Samoa ; on the contrary, 
 there is much of it which was applicable only else- 
 where; but it is the general conclusion of Stevenson's 
 experiences of British Protestant missions in the Pacific, 
 and one of the wisest and most valuable utterances 
 upon the whole subject. 3 
 
 His personal relations with the Protestant missiona- 
 ries in Samoa were most pleasant. He was a loyal and 
 
 1 Vide vol. i. p. 10. 2 Appendix B. 
 
 3 Compare especially Letters, ii. 340. 
 150
 
 VAILIMA- 1891-94 
 
 generous friend to every man and woman among 
 them, told them quite plainly whenever he disagreed 
 with them or disapproved of their line of conduct, and 
 was a most stimulating and liberal influence on their 
 work. It is almost invidious to single out names, but 
 the Rev. W. E. Clarke and his wife were his closest and 
 most thorough-going friends among the residents. 
 Outside Samoa, the Rev. George Brown, the Rev. F. E. 
 Lawes of Savage Island, and the Rev. F. Damon of 
 Honolulu held high places in his affection and regard; 
 but for Mr. Chalmers, 1 "Tamate" of New Guinea, he 
 felt a kind of hero-worship, a greater admiration prob- 
 ably than he felt for any man of modern times except 
 Charles Gordon. 
 
 His appreciation of the Mission he showed not only 
 by giving his influence and his money, but also by 
 offering his services to take a Bible-class of young half- 
 caste lads on Sunday afternoons. Nothing was more 
 irksome to him than a periodical engagement. The 
 boys, it is gathered, were quite impenetrable, and the 
 process was that of cutting blocks with a razor; but for 
 several months Stevenson held firmly to his under- 
 taking, and in the end it was dropped only from some 
 urgent external cause, and never resumed. 
 
 With the Catholics Stevenson was on equally pleasant 
 but quite different terms. His interest in Molokai, 
 even apart from Father Damien, always made his heart 
 warm towards the priests and Catholic sisters ; the acci- 
 dental circumstance that all his best boys at Vailima 
 
 1 The Rev. Dr. James Chalmers was killed at the Aird River in New 
 Guinea, in April, 1901 , as he was endeavouring to make peace between 
 the natives who were engaged in a tribal war.
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 belonged to the Church of Rome strengthened the con- 
 nection. For the Bishop he had a real appreciation: 
 "a superior man, much above the average of priests"; 
 "Monseigneur is not unimposing; with his white 
 beard and his violet girdle he looks splendidly epis- 
 copal, and when our three waiting lads came one after 
 another and kneeled before him in the big hall, and 
 kissed his ring, it did me good fora piece of pageantry." 
 
 Of the spiritual merits of their work he was of course 
 in no position to judge; but he always had a special 
 admiration for the way in which they identified them- 
 selves with the natives and encouraged all native habits 
 and traditions at all compatible with Christianity. Above 
 all things he welcomed the fact that the influence of 
 the chiefs was increased instead of weakened by their 
 efforts. He agreed with them that it was better to 
 concentrate their forces on people of rank than to im- 
 pose such a democracy as that of some of the Protestant 
 societies, for he felt that the salvation of Samoa lay in 
 the chiefs, and that it was unfortunate that all white 
 influence except that of the Catholics was in the line of 
 diminishing their authority. 
 
 Thus the priests and the sisters from the Savalalo 
 convent were always welcome guests, and not the less 
 from the fact that French was the usual medium of 
 intercourse. 
 
 Besides open house at Vailima, there also were many 
 special entertainments, both those given in the house, 
 and those shared with others or given by them in return 
 in Apia. In addition to ordinary lunches or dinners, it 
 was Stevenson's greatest delight to organise any fes- 
 tivity in which the natives could have a share, the 
 
 152
 
 VAILIMA-i89i-94 
 
 entertainment of a man-of-war's band, a feast on the 
 completion of a Samoan house, or, above all, the great 
 banquet given in native fashion to celebrate his own 
 birthday. In Apia public balls were not infrequent; 
 Stevenson became a willing pupil in the hands of his 
 stepdaughter, and thenceforward took his part in the 
 dances with delight. 
 
 But the balls in themselves deserve a passing word, 
 for nowhere, since the world began, can the juxta- 
 position of incongruous elements have reached so high 
 a point. Almost every one in Apia, without regard 
 for social station, was invited, and all were welcome. 
 Diplomatists and naval officers, traders and bar-keepers, 
 clerks and mechanics, all came; and the residents 
 brought their wives and daughters, white, half-caste, 
 or whole Polynesian. On one point only was etiquette 
 inexorable no Samoan man could hope for admission 
 unless some elderly and august chief were introduced as 
 a spectator. But invitations were issued to such native 
 girls as could dance and were otherwise suitable, and 
 the "maid of a village" might frequently there be 
 seen, dancing away in a native dress even more elabo- 
 rate and scanty than those of her white sisters. And 
 not only was social exclusiveness waived, but hostili- 
 ties, public and private, were suspended at these 
 remarkable entertainments. One night Stevenson found 
 himself vis-d-vts with Chief-Justice Cedercrantz in a 
 square dance, at a time when either was eagerly com- 
 passing the removal of the other from the island. 
 "We dance here in Apia," he wrote, "a most fearful 
 and wonderful quadrille; I don't know where the devil 
 they fished it from, but it is rackety and prancing and 
 
 153
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 embraceatory beyond words; perhaps it is best defined 
 in Haggard's expression of a gambado." 1 And of his 
 rival: "We exchanged a glance and then a grin; the 
 man took me in his confidence ; and through the remain- 
 der of that prance, we pranced for each other." 
 
 Another time, during the fiercest moments of Anglo- 
 German animosity, Mr. Osbourne, by the adroit use of 
 a bow and arrow, secured the hand of the German 
 Consul's wife for a cotillon; and at a Fourth of July 
 dance given by the American Vice-Consul, all that gen- 
 tleman's enemies might have been seen joining hands 
 and dancing round him, while they sang, " For he 's a 
 jolly good fellow." One ineffable family indeed carried 
 out the rules of the game with so much rigour as to 
 accept partners with whom they were not on speaking 
 terms, and then to dance and speak not a word. But 
 for the most part people entered readily into the spirit 
 of the thing, and ill-will was left outside, while not 
 only the lion and the lamb but the rival beasts of prey 
 all frolicked happily together. 
 
 There is one difficulty to which I have not yet alluded 
 the question of language. Stevenson had, as he 
 wrote, on entering the Pacific, "journeyed out of that 
 comfortable zone of kindred languages, where the curse 
 of Babel is so easy to be remedied," but the obstacle 
 proved much less than he had anticipated. It is true 
 that in Samoa few of the natives speak or really under- 
 stand anything but their own tongue, but except for 
 the fact that this has no analogies with any European 
 speech, it is not very difficult to acquire for practical 
 purposes. To it he soon addressed himself, and over 
 
 1 Vailima Letters, 1 3th September, 1892. 
 '54
 
 VAIL1MA- 1891-94 
 
 the study of Samoan he spent a good deal of pains, 
 even taking regular lessons from the Rev. S. J. Whitmee 
 of the London Mission, the best Samoan scholar in the 
 islands. His story of The Bottle Imp was translated by 
 another member of the Mission for their magazine 
 almost as soon as it was written, and has the unique 
 distinction of having been published in Samoan before 
 it appeared in English. Stevenson himself began as an 
 exercise with his teacher to write in Samoan a story of 
 Saxon times called Eatuina (Edwin), but only a few 
 chapters were completed. 
 
 In Samoan there is a special vocabulary for addressing 
 or mentioning high chiefs, which is naturally used on all 
 solemn occasions and in all important correspondence. 
 Stevenson mastered this sufficiently to understand it 
 when it was spoken well, and not only to be able to 
 write it with facility, but even to satisfy his own fas- 
 tidious requirements in composing letters. The every- 
 day speech he used for all household purposes, and 
 could understand it himself without difficulty. But 
 when there came a voluble rustic from a remote district, 
 some small chief perhaps, who sat and "barked," as his 
 unfortunate hearer said, in either dialect about matters 
 beyond Tusitala's ken, the result was confusion. In mat- 
 ters of importance, where it was of the highest urgency 
 that Stevenson should not be misunderstood, a good and 
 really trustworthy interpreter was hardly to be procured 
 outside the Mission, and from anything approaching 
 politics the missionaries for the most part wisely held 
 aloof. But this difficulty was gradually solved by Mr. 
 Osbourne, who learned both usages very thoroughly, 
 and spoke them in the end with fluency and ease. 
 
 55
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 There are few matters in which English readers have 
 taken less interest than the political history of Samoa, 
 even when it was written by Stevenson himself. Never- 
 theless, if I were to omit all reference to these affairs and 
 the criticisms which Stevenson passed upon them, it 
 would be supposed that I was letting judgment go 
 against him by default. I propose therefore to give the 
 briefest possible description of the government as it 
 was from 1889 to 1894, relegating to the Appendix l 
 a brief summary of the details, and the evidence for 
 my assertions. Those who wish to find the matter 
 treated most brilliantly, but at greater length, will find 
 it in A Foot-note to History and Stevenson's letters to 
 the Times, 
 
 Throughout his residence in Samoa, the government 
 of the islands was controlled by a Treaty entered into at 
 Berlin in 1889 between America, England, and Germany. 
 Under this the native king was recognised by these 
 three Great Powers, by whom two new white officials 
 were also appointed a Chief-Justice, receiving .1200 
 a year out of the Samoan treasury, and a President of 
 the Municipal Council, who was to be paid ^"1000 a 
 year by the Municipality and also act as adviser to the 
 king. The Neutral Territory of the Municipality of Apia, 
 in which most of the white population resided, was 
 managed by a Council of six residents elected by the 
 ratepayers, with the President as Chairman. A Land 
 Commission of three representatives, one appointed by 
 each of the three Powers, was to investigate all equi- 
 table claims of foreigners to the ownership of land in 
 Samoa, and after the registration of such titles as were 
 
 1 Appendix D, vol. ii. p. 237. 
 156
 
 VAILIMA- 1891-94 
 
 valid, none but a native might acquire the freehold of 
 any part of Samoan territory. 
 
 The American and German Consuls-General and the 
 British Consul retained their jurisdiction, and pre- 
 served much of the prestige they had enjoyed in the 
 days before the Berlin Treaty, when the Consular Board 
 had been the chief controlling power in Samoa. The 
 British Consul also, as a Deputy Commissioner for the 
 Western Pacific, had very despotic powers over all Brit- 
 ish subjects under the Orders in Council issued under 
 the Pacific Islanders' Protection Act of 1875. 
 
 The principal white officials in Samoa were thus : 
 
 The Chief-Justice. 
 
 The President of the Municipal Council. 
 
 The Three Consuls. 
 
 The Three Land Commissioners. 
 
 It is impossible to say whether the system thus 
 founded could ever have worked satisfactorily among so 
 many contending interests and at so great a distance 
 from the paramount Governments, seated as these were 
 at Berlin, London, and Washington, even if two com- 
 petent Treaty officials possessed of experience and com- 
 mon sense had been promptly sent out to the scene of 
 their duties. But there was undue delay, the wrong 
 men were chosen, and the system was doomed. 
 
 The Chief-Justiceship was, failing the unanimous 
 choice of the three Powers, given by the King of Swe- 
 den to a Swedish Assistant-Judge, Mr. Conrad Ceder- 
 crantz, while Baron Senfft von Pilsach, a German 
 Regierungs-Assessor, was appointed by the Powers to 
 be President of the Municipal Council. 
 
 57
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 For more than two years the pair drew their salaries 
 and discharged what they conceived to be their duties 
 in a fashion which is perfectly incredible until it is 
 studied by the " cold light of consular reports." Ste- 
 venson was finally kindled to indignation by the out- 
 rage of the dynamite a proposal to blow up some 
 Samoan chiefs imprisoned for a political offence of no 
 great gravity, if any attempt were made by their people 
 to rescue them from jail. He wrote to the Times a 
 series of letters which at first were generally disbelieved, 
 but were afterwards confirmed in every important detail 
 that was made known. It was a real bitterness to him 
 to see fading away before his eyes perhaps the last op- 
 portunity for the restoration of order and prosperity to 
 Samoa, as the natives watched the gambadoes of this 
 extraordinary couple and the second-rate diplomacy or 
 tardy and futile action of the three Great Powers. 
 
 The fight was keen, for the two Treaty officials did 
 their best, as Stevenson believed, to have him deported; 
 but the end was certain, whether it was due to the di- 
 plomatists or the Times, and the pair departed for other 
 scenes of activity. But the evil had been done, and 
 such opportunity as their successors had was frustrated 
 by the arbitrary and vacillating interference of the con- 
 suls. On this subject Stevenson wrote three more 
 letters dealing with the outrages which went on under 
 the very noses of the consuls and the guns of the war- 
 ships, with the weakness and the favouritism of the 
 Government and the farce of disarming. But every- 
 thing showed that the failure of the Berlin Treaty was 
 complete, and that the only chance for Samoa was to 
 abolish the triple control. 
 
 158
 
 VAILIMA- 1891-94 
 
 Stevenson took the chair at one public meeting in 
 Apia, and apart from this his local interference in 
 politics was limited to a few formal visits to native 
 chiefs. 1 Once, however, by an accident it nearly took 
 the most startling form of intervention possible. The 
 king was all but shot dead in the large hall at Vailima 
 by Mrs. Stevenson in her husband's presence. Sud- 
 denly one day in 1894 Malietoa came up without warn- 
 ing to pay a secret visit of reconciliation to Tusitala, 
 attended only by a black-boy interpreter. In the course 
 of the visit he happened to mention his wish for a 
 revolver; Stevenson immediately went to the big safe 
 in the corner of the room and produced one which he 
 emptied of the cartridges and handed to his wife. Mrs. 
 Stevenson found that there was something wrong with 
 the trigger and tried it several times. Four times it 
 clicked, the king leaned over in front to examine it, and 
 then some unaccountable impulse made her inspect the 
 pistol again. In the next chamber lay a cartridge which 
 would inevitably have sent its charge into the king's 
 brain. The smile and wave of the hand with which 
 Malietoa greeted and dismissed the discovery were 
 worthy of a stronger monarch and of a far greater king- 
 dom. Had the bullet gone to its mark, it is idle to 
 speculate on what would have happened, but it is clear 
 at any rate that Stevenson could no longer have found 
 a home in Samoa. 
 
 On most occasions he confined himself to giving his 
 advice when it was asked, or when he saw any reason- 
 able chance of its being accepted. I need hardly say 
 that he never contributed one farthing or one farthing's 
 
 1 Appendix D, vol. ii. p. 242. 
 59
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 worth towards any arming or provisioning of the natives, 
 nor did he ever take any step or give any counsel or 
 hint whatsoever that could possibly have increased the 
 danger of war or diminished the hopes of a peaceful 
 settlement. 
 
 If he had been asked what concern he had in the 
 affairs of Samoa, or why he did not leave them in the 
 hands of the consuls whose business they were, he 
 would probably have answered that it was his business 
 to vindicate the truth and to check misgovernment and 
 oppression wherever he found them ; that he had good 
 reason to distrust the consuls; that Samoa was a remote 
 spot where public opinion was helpless; and that the 
 trustworthy means of publishing the real state of its 
 affairs to the civilised world were few. And in support 
 of this he would have instanced the case of the dyna- 
 mite, the very name of which has been suppressed in 
 all the blue-books and white-books of the three Powers; 
 and the fact that the only newspaper in the island had 
 been secretly purchased with the public money, print- 
 ing-press, type and all, for the benefit of his opponents. 
 Finally, that which he would never have pleaded for 
 his own advantage may be urged for him in a disin- 
 terested sense: he had adopted Samoa as his country, 
 and her enemies were his enemies, and he made her 
 cause his own. It is difficult for people reading their 
 newspapers at home to realise the entire difference of 
 circumstances and conduct, and I freely confess that 
 until I arrived in Samoa and saw the conditions for 
 myself, I favoured the easier course of laisse^ faire. 
 
 It would give a false impression, however, if I neg- 
 lected to mention the excitement of politics, which in 
 
 160
 
 VAILIMA-i89i-94 
 
 Europe is denied to all but the few diplomatists behind 
 the scenes. In Apia every one knew the chief per- 
 sons involved, both white and Samoan, and knew all, 
 and much more than all, that was passing between 
 them. As a young Irishman quoted by Stevenson said : 
 " I never saw so good a place as this Apia; you can be 
 in a new conspiracy every day." And to Stevenson 
 himself at first the interest was absorbing: " You don't 
 know what news is, nor what politics, nor what the 
 life of man, till you see it on so small a scale and with 
 your liberty on the board for stake. " l But so futile and 
 so harassing were these concerns, that before long he 
 was glad to leave them on one side as far as he could, 
 and devote himself once more to literature. He soon 
 found politics "the dirtiest, the most foolish, and the 
 most random of human employments": 2 and for the 
 diplomatists "You know what a French post-office 
 or railway official is ? That is the diplomatic card to the 
 life. Dickens is not in it; caricature fails." 3 
 
 Of the exact amount of influence that Stevenson pos- 
 sessed with the natives, it is hard to speak with any 
 certainty. From what I have said of his stationary life 
 it will be evident that there were many Samoans who 
 had no opportunity of coming into contact with him at 
 all; but in spite of this drawback his prestige and au- 
 thority were gradually spreading, and his kindness and 
 fidelity in misfortune produced a real effect upon the 
 native mind. His influence was probably as great as 
 that of any white resident in the islands, with the pos- 
 sible exception of two or three who had married native 
 wives. But this, after all, did not amount to very 
 1 Letters, ii. 276. 2 Ibid., 295. 3 Ibid., 334. 
 
 u 6i
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 much; the Samoans, in common with other native 
 races who have not been too well treated by the whites, 
 have learned to protect themselves by an armour of re- 
 serve and diplomacy, and they seldom accepted any 
 foreigner's advice unless it recommended to them the 
 course which they were already disposed to follow. As 
 Mr. Whitmee, who knew the islands well, said: 
 " There have been paragraphs in British papers repre- 
 senting Mr. Stevenson as being something like a king 
 in Samoa. I believe I have seen it stated that he might 
 have been king of the islands had he wished. That 
 was simple nonsense." (And, I may add, nonsense 
 which irritated Stevenson more than almost any other 
 idle rumour.) "But he was respected by the natives 
 as a whole, and by many he was beloved." 
 
 His work was given at first entirely to the "letters" 
 which were constructed out of the notes and journals 
 of his voyages, and were themselves in turn the rough 
 material of which he intended to compose his great book 
 on the South Seas. "To get this stuff jointed and mov- 
 ing " was his first aim, but never did he labour to so 
 little purpose. Some seventy "letters" in all were 
 written, and his contract with Messrs. M'Clure was 
 fulfilled; but the strain of production was excessive, 
 and the result satisfied neither the author nor the public. 
 The "bargain was quite unsuitable to his methods," 
 for one thing; 1 for another, the material was unlimited 
 and his knowledge was always increasing. Instead of 
 the entertaining book of travels, full of personal interest 
 and excitement, and abounding in picturesque descrip- 
 
 1 Vailima Letters, p. 55. 
 162
 
 VAlLIMA-i89i-94 
 
 tions of the scenery and manners of the South Seas, for 
 which his readers so eagerly looked, they found a series 
 of disconnected chapters on native beliefs with all or 
 nearly all the sense of adventure left out, and but scanty 
 information as to the details of travel upon which the 
 public so dearly loves to be informed. That the Voyage 
 in the Sunbeam should be a popular work and Steven- 
 son's South Sea letters a failure is one of the tragedies of 
 literature, but if any one will compare the letters from 
 the Paumotus with the letter to R. A. M. Stevenson, 1 
 he will see that it was due to Stevenson's deliberate 
 judgment, which in this instance for once was entirely 
 mistaken. The experience he enjoyed most the visit 
 to Tahiti remained unwritten; the part which the 
 public awaited perhaps with most interest the visit 
 to Molokai was not seriously attempted; and by the 
 time the best letters were reached, those in which he 
 describes his unique experiences in Apemama, his read- 
 ers had lost heart; and indeed I believe the Tembinok' 
 chapters never appeared in England at all. Thus he 
 was well advised when in June, 1891, he abandoned 
 the task, and cast ab.out for some fresh work to take 
 in hand. 
 
 First, for the sake of change, he began the history of 
 his family, which he had contemplated for some time 
 as the frame in which to include the long-projected 
 memorial of his father. The greater part of his grand- 
 father's life was ultimately finished, and now forms the 
 Family of Engineers. He did not even begin the 
 account of his uncle Alan, the builder of Skerryvore 
 lighthouse, a man of extraordinary ability, who retired 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 135. 
 165
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 from practice at an early age; and his father's life, ex- 
 cept for the sketch of his boyhood already quoted, was 
 likewise untouched. For the present little more than 
 Chapter I. was written, and the book was taken up 
 from time to time only as a relaxation from creative 
 work. 
 
 The Wrecker, which had been left half finished since 
 a month after his arrival in Samoa, was now taken in 
 hand again on the return of his collaborator, and carried 
 to a conclusion. It was written on the same plan as 
 before, the first drafts of the San Francisco parts being 
 written by Mr. Osbourne, who had no hand at all in 
 the Paris days, or the scene at Barbizon. 1 The book 
 perhaps appealed to too many interests to receive its 
 due from any one class of readers. The following 
 letter from the late Lord Pembroke is a testimonial to 
 its accuracy, coming from one of the authors of South 
 Sea Bubbles, who have done more almost than any one 
 to make the Pacific familiar ground to the English 
 reader: 
 
 "I am afraid only a small minority in England can 
 be really capable of appreciating The Wrecker. The 
 majority don't know enough of the real big World to 
 know how true it is, and they will infinitely prefer that 
 most delightful story, Treasure Island. Perhaps it is 
 a better story than The Wrecker, but to me there is the 
 difference that Treasure Island might have been written 
 by a man who had no knowledge of such matters but 
 what he had got from books and a powerful imagina- 
 tion, while The Wrecker has the indefinite smack of 
 reality, of real knowledge of what men and ships do in 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 356. 
 164
 
 VA1LIMA-I891-94 
 
 that wild and beautiful world beyond the American 
 continent. " 
 
 In the meantime Stevenson's expeditions into the 
 solitudes of the forest above his home led not only to 
 the set of verses called The Woodman, written, as he 
 says most of his verses were, 1 "at the autumnal 
 equinox," but also to the beginning of the story which 
 at first, as The High Woods of Ulufanua, turned on a 
 supernatural element, and then came down to earth in 
 its final form as The Beach of Falesd. To the style of 
 this admirable story justice has been done by Professor 
 Raleigh, 2 doubtless to the entire bewilderment of those 
 people who could see nothing in it but a farrago of 
 slang; but the astonishing merits of the tale and its set- 
 ting can hardly be appreciated by any but those who 
 have lived in "The Islands." Stevenson himself is as 
 usual his own best critic, and though he gives it high 
 praise, he says not a word too much: "It is the first 
 realistic South Sea story; I mean with real South Sea 
 character and details of life. Everybody else who has 
 tried, that I have seen, got carried away by the romance, 
 and ended in a kind, of sugar-candy sham epic, and the 
 whole effect was lost there was no etching, no human 
 grip, consequently no conviction. Now I have got the 
 smell and look of the thing a good deal. You will 
 know more about the South Seas after you have read 
 my little tale than if you had read a library." 3 It is 
 not a picture of any one island, though most of it would 
 
 1 Vailima Letters, p. 245. 
 
 2 Robert Louis Stevenson, by Walter Raleigh, p. 37. Edward 
 Arnold, 1896. 
 
 > Vailima Letters, p. 88. 
 
 165
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 have been applicable at the time to any place in Samoa, 
 if Apia had not existed. The darker features of the 
 story, however, as I have said, were taken chiefly from 
 some of the people then living in the Gilberts. 
 
 The Shovels of Newton French was the next long work 
 which he planned, a chronicle of seven generations of 
 a family, in which two other stories were to be em- 
 bodied. In much the same way the chief story intended 
 for a South Sea volume became absorbed in Sophia 
 Scarlet, 1 and neither of the projects was ever realised. 
 
 The state of affairs in Samoa was becoming serious. 
 As early as August of 1891 Stevenson had written to 
 Mr. Baxter, "We sit and pipe upon a volcano, which is 
 being stoked by bland, incompetent amateurs " ; and he 
 now determined that if the constitution should again go 
 into the melting-pot, at least those who recast it should 
 not be obliged to do their work in ignorance of the past. 
 The material he had collected for his "letters" and the 
 subsequent unwritten book was lying ready to hand 
 with the first few chapters even drafted, and he began 
 the Foot-note to History, worked at it under pressure, 
 and had it finished in the following May. 
 
 The evidence he brought forward has never been met, 
 the conclusion reached that the Berlin Treaty was 
 wholly unworkable has long been recognised by 
 everybody concerned; but for the time the only result 
 achieved was that the edition of the Foot-note to History 
 which Baron Tauchnitz prepared to issue for the Con- 
 tinent of Europe was burned by order of the German 
 Government, and the publishers only escaped from 
 further penalties by payment of a large sum to a charity 
 1 lyth May, 1892, l/ailima Letters, p. 161. 
 166
 
 VAILIMA- 1891-94 
 
 selected by the authorities. But in 1893 Chief-justice 
 Cedercrantz and President von Pilsach were superseded, 
 and the Germans, from being the bitter enemies of Ste- 
 venson's friend Mataafa, had by 1899 become his cham- 
 pions and the chief supporters of his claim. 
 
 Stevenson now turned again to Scotland for subjects, 
 for the first time since he had finished The Master, and 
 his power of reproducing the Scottish life and atmo- 
 sphere among alien scenes and under widely different 
 influences was shown once more in a no less remarkable 
 degree. The Foot-note was but partly engaging his at- 
 tention in January, 1892, when he received fresh mate- 
 rial from Mr. Andrew Lang for a story dealing with the 
 private adventures of the Young Chevalier. Its intro- 
 duction was written in May, but in the meantime Ste- 
 venson took up the story of David Balfour at the point 
 where he had left it six years before, and he now car- 
 ried it on concurrently with the Foot-note, so that in spite 
 of endless interruptions it was actually finished by the 
 end of September. It was the first of his works that 
 was completed while I was at Vailima, and I well re- 
 member the agitation and stress with which it was 
 brought to a close.- It lends no support to the theory 
 that the continuation of a story is doomed to fail. If 
 Catriona lacks unity of plot and that splendid swiftness 
 of action which marked the best part of Kidnapped, it 
 contains the story of Tod Lapraik, and in none of Ste- 
 venson's books save the last is there such wealth of 
 character. We have David Balfour himself, strength- 
 ened and matured; Lord Prestongrange ; Stewart the 
 writer and his colleagues; Mrs. Allardyce; Barbara 
 Grant, that most bewildering and charming of women, 
 
 167
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 who rendered even her creator disloyal to Catriona; 
 and the two best Highlandmen in fiction, the incom- 
 parable Alan Breck again, and his foil, James Mohr. 
 Of the original of the latter Mr. Andrew Lang says : 
 " From first to last, James was a valiant, plausible, con- 
 scienceless, heartless liar, with a keen feeling for the 
 point of honour, and a truly Celtic passion of affection 
 for his native land. . . . Though unacquainted with 
 the documents that we shall cite, Mr. Stevenson divined 
 James Mohr with the assured certainty of genius." * 
 
 Catriona is perhaps the best example of the rule to 
 which it was apparently an exception, that all its 
 author's more considerable stories were done at two 
 breaks. "I have to leave off," he wrote to Mr. lies in 
 1887, "and forget a tale for a little; then I can return 
 upon it fresh and with interest revived." During the 
 composition of Catriona there was no long pause, but 
 it had been "simmering" since 1886, and surely we 
 may see no more than the two volumes of one book in 
 the completed Adventures of David Balfour. 
 
 Again there was the question of what should be 
 taken next. It so happened one afternoon at Vailima 
 that I was the only person available, and Louis carried 
 me off to debate the claims of two stories which he then 
 unfolded Sophia Scarlet, and what afterwards became 
 Weir of Hermiston. Either on that day or about that 
 time I remember very distinctly his saying to me: 
 "There are, so far as I know, three ways, and three 
 ways only, of writing a story. You may take a plot 
 and fit characters to it, or you may take a character and 
 
 1 Pickle, the Spy, by Andrew Lang, p. 231, and edition 1897. 
 There is much about James Mohr in the introduction to Rob Roy. 
 
 1 68
 
 VAILIMA-i89i-94 
 
 choose incidents and situations to develop it, or lastly 
 you must bear with me while I try to make this clear " 
 
 (here he made a gesture with his hand as if he were 
 trying to shape something and give it outline and form) 
 
 "you may take a certain atmosphere and get action 
 and persons to express and realise it. I '11 give you an 
 example The Merry Men. There I began with the 
 feeling of one of those islands on the west coast of 
 Scotland, and I gradually developed the story to express 
 the sentiment with which that coast affected me." 
 
 It was on this last scheme that Sophia Scarlet had 
 been conceived, the atmosphere being that of a large 
 plantation in Tahiti, such as Mr. Stewart's had been at 
 Atimono twenty years before. 1 It may be that the 
 method did not lend itself readily to an effective sketch 
 of the plot; the draft of the beginning of the story seems 
 to me better than I thought the outline at the time. 
 But in any case there could be no hesitation in the 
 choice. Weir of Hermiston was begun, and for three 
 or four days Stevenson was in such a seventh heaven 
 as he has described : 2 he worked all day and all evening, 
 writing or talking, debating points, devising characters 
 and incidents, ablaze with enthusiasm, and abounding 
 with energy. No finished story was, or ever will be, 
 so good as Weir of Hermiston shone to us in those 
 days by the light of its author's first ardour of creation. 
 
 Then he settled down, and a few days later read 
 aloud to the family, as was his custom, the first draft of 
 the opening chapters. After that but little progress was 
 made, and in January, 1893, St. I-ues was begun as a 
 short story, the visit of the ladies to the prisoners in 
 
 1 South Sea Bubbles, 24th August, 1870. 2 See vol. ii. p. 38. 
 
 169
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Edinburgh being introduced at first as a mere episode 
 without result. Stevenson was then attacked by hem- 
 orrhage: silence was imposed, and for several days he 
 continued his work only by dictating to his stepdaughter 
 on his fingers in the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. In this 
 fashion he achieved from five to seven pages of manu- 
 script a day. Before long, however, he left home with 
 his wife and Mrs. Strong upon his last visit to Sydney, 
 all work was stopped, and on his return in six weeks' 
 time he began a short story for the Illustrated London 
 News. He had lately been reading again Barbey d'Aure- 
 villy, and his mind had turned to Brittany. The new tale 
 dealt with the Chouans in 1793, and was to be called 
 The Owl. But it did not prosper; the writer was not 
 well, and he was anxious about his wife's health, and 
 when one chapter had been written, he gave up the 
 attempt and took up a half-finished piece of work, 
 which afterward became The Ebb Tide. 
 
 This was a story begun with Mr. Osbourne in 
 Honolulu just after their return from Tahiti, and known 
 at that time as The Pearl Fisher and later as The 
 Schooner Farallone. Mr. Osbourne had drafted the 
 opening chapters, and no work of his had ever earned 
 more praise from his stepfather. But at that moment 
 an area of several acres behind the house was being 
 cleared of forest and planted with pineapples for expor- 
 tation a scheme which it was hoped would make the 
 plantation pay, and for the time being this engaged all 
 Mr. Osbourne's energies. Stevenson, talking to me 
 one day, produced the unfinished draft of the story, 
 which at this time included only the first ten or eleven 
 chapters, and debated what course he should pursue. 
 
 170
 
 VAILIMA 1891-94 
 
 The fragment was originally intended as a prologue; 
 Attwater was to be blinded with vitriol and then return 
 to England. The remainder of the action of the book 
 was to take place in England, and chiefly in Blooms- 
 bury, where the Herricks lived. Stevenson now recon- 
 sidered the whole question, accepted a shorter ending, 
 and grew more and more interested in the character of 
 Attwater, as he worked it out. It is perhaps worth 
 remarking that the picture of the arrival of the schooner 
 at the new island gives better than anything else some 
 of the charm of such cruises as those which delighted 
 its author, who found no experience more exhilarat- 
 ing than "when you sight an island and drop anchor 
 in a new world." 1 
 
 The fables begun before he had left England and 
 promised to Messrs. Longmans, he attacked again, and 
 from time to time added to their number. The refer- 
 ence to Odin perhaps is due to his reading of the Sagas, 
 which led him to attempt a tale in the same style, 
 called "The Waif Woman." But I find no clue to any 
 fresh study of Celtic legends that could have suggested 
 the last and most beautiful fable of all, called "The 
 Song of the Morrow," which dealt with the king's 
 daughter of Duntrine, who "had no care for the morrow 
 and no power upon the hour," and is like nothing else 
 Stevenson ever wrote. 
 
 Besides all these and the letters to the Times, as well 
 as his private correspondence, there were endless other 
 schemes, for the most part projected and perhaps not 
 even begun, never certainly brought near to com- 
 pletion. He wrote to Mr. Charles Baxter: " My schemes 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 120. 
 171
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 are all in the air, and vanish and reappear again like 
 shapes in the clouds." So likewise to Miss Boodle: " I 
 have a projected, entirely planned love-story every- 
 body will think it dreadfully improper, I 'm afraid 
 called Cannonmills. And I 've a vague, rosy haze 
 before me a love-story too, but not improper called 
 The Rising Sun. It 's the name of the wayside inn 
 where the story, or much of the story, runs ; but it 's a 
 kind of a pun : it means the stirring up of a boy by fall- 
 ing in love, and how he rises in the estimation of a girl 
 who despised him, though she liked him and had 
 befriended him. I really scarce see beyond their child- 
 hood yet, but I want to go beyond, and make each 
 out-top the other by successions: it should be pretty 
 and true if I could do it." 
 
 Neither of these was ever written. There was also 
 a play for home representation, showing the adventures 
 of an English tourist in Samoa; and I can remember 
 two more serious schemes which were likewise with- 
 out result. In the August before he died, he drew up 
 with Mr. Osbourne the outline of a history, or of a series 
 of the most striking episodes, of the Indian Mutiny, to 
 be written for boys, and sent home for the books 
 necessary for its execution. Another day he sketched 
 the plan of an English grammar, to be illustrated by 
 examples from the English classics. These are but a 
 few, the many are unremembered; but all alike belong, 
 not to the fleet of masterpieces unlaunched, but the 
 larger and more inglorious squadron whose keels were 
 never even laid down. 
 
 172
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE END 1894 
 
 " Brief day and bright day 
 
 And sunset red, 
 Early in the evening, 
 
 The stars are overhead." 
 R. L. S. 
 
 " Wanted Volunteers 
 
 To do tbeir best for twoscore years t 
 
 A ready soldier, here I stand, 
 
 Primed for Thy command, 
 
 With burnished sword. 
 
 If this be faith, O Lord, 
 
 Help Thou mine unbelief 
 
 And be my battle brief." 
 
 Envoy to No. XXV. of Songs of Travel. 
 
 THE climate of Samoa had apparently answered the 
 main purpose of preserving Stevenson from any dis- 
 abling attacks of illness, and allowing him to lead a life 
 of strenuous activity. "I do not ask for health," he 
 had said to his stepson at Bournemouth, " but I will go 
 anywhere and live in any place where I can enjoy 
 the ordinary existence of a human being." And this 
 had now been granted to him beyond his utmost 
 hope. 
 
 In all the time he was in Samoa he had but two or 
 three slight hemorrhages, that were cured within a very 
 few days. The consumption in his lungs was definitely 
 arrested, but it seems certain that a structural weakening 
 of the arteries was slowly and inevitably going on, al- 
 
 '73
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 though his general health was apparently not affected. 
 He had influenza at least once; occasionally he was 
 ailing, generally with some indefinite lassitude which 
 was attributed to malaria or some other unverifiable 
 cause. In the summer of 1892 he was threatened with 
 writers' cramp, which had attacked him as long ago 
 as 1884. From this time forth, however, his step- 
 daughter wrote to his dictation nearly all his literary 
 work and correspondence, and, thanks to her quickness 
 and unwearying devotion, he suffered the least possible 
 inconvenience from this restriction of his powers. He 
 had one or two threatenings of tropical diseases, which 
 were promptly averted; and for several periods, to his 
 own intense disgust, he gave up even the very moderate 
 quantity of red wine which seemed to be a necessity of 
 life to him, and worst deprivation of all he aban- 
 doned at these times the cigarettes which usually he 
 smoked all day long. 1 
 
 But in spite of these occasional lapses, he was able to 
 lead an active life, full of varied interests, and the 
 amount of work which he did during this period 
 would have been satisfactory to less careful writers, 
 even if they had done nothing else but follow their 
 own profession without any interruption or diversion 
 whatever. 
 
 In this respect Samoa was an infinite gain. If the 
 tropical climate in any degree weakened the bodily 
 fabric that might longer have borne the strain of his im- 
 petuous life in some more bracing air, no one can for a 
 moment doubt what choice he himself would have 
 made had he been offered five years of activity, of 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 297. 
 174
 
 THE END- 1894 
 
 cruising and riding and adventure, against five-and- 
 twenty or fifty of existence in the sick-room and the 
 sanatorium. 
 
 It was his friends and his country that he missed. 
 From the day that Mr. Colvin went down the ship's side 
 in the Thames, or the day that Mr. Low parted from him 
 in New York, Stevenson never again saw any one of 
 his old and intimate companions. Fortune was against 
 him in the matter. They were all busy people, with 
 many engagements and many ties, and when at last 
 Mr. Charles Baxter was able to start for Samoa, he had 
 not yet reached Egypt before the blow fell. Nor was 
 this perversity of fortune confined to his old friends 
 alone; it also affected the younger writers with whom, 
 in spite of distance, he had formed ties more numerous, 
 and, in proportion to their number, more intimate than 
 have ever before been established and maintained at any 
 such distance by correspondence alone. And it was the 
 more tantalising because the paths of several seemed 
 likely to lead them past the very island where he lived. 
 So he had to content himself as best he might with his 
 mail-bag, which, especially in the answers to the Vai- 
 lima Letters, did much to remove for him the draw- 
 backs of his isolation and of absence from the centres 
 of literature to which he always looked for praise and 
 blame. 
 
 But besides the loss of intercourse, he more than most 
 men suffered from another pang. The love of country 
 which is in all Scots, and beyond all others lies deepest 
 in the Celtic heart, flowed back upon him again and 
 again with a wave of uncontrollable emotion. When 
 the "smell of the good wet earth" came to him, it 
 
 "75
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 came "with a kind of Highland touch." A tropic 
 shower discovered in him "a frame of mind and body 
 that belonged to Scotland, and particularly to the 
 neighbourhood of Callander." When he turned to his 
 grandfather's life, he was filled with this yearning, and 
 the beautiful sentences in which he has described l the 
 old man's farewell to " Sumburgh and the wild crags of 
 Skye " were his own valediction to those shores. No 
 more was he to "see the topaz and the ruby interchange 
 on the summit of the Bell Rook," no more to see the 
 castle on its hill, or "the venerable city which he must 
 always think of as his home." As he wrote of himself, 
 " Like Leyden I have gone into far lands to die, not 
 stayed like Burns to mingle in the end with Scottish 
 soil." 
 
 It is not to be wondered that his letters show moods 
 of depression which his indomitable spirit prevented him 
 from manifesting at the time to those around him, and 
 which perhaps beset him most when he turned to his 
 correspondence. As has been well said : 2 "He was an 
 exile, and though his exile lay in pleasant places, he 
 had an exile's thoughts, and these were bound to be 
 uppermost when he wrote to his old intimates." 
 
 There were times when he was tempted to risk 
 everything, and to go back to the old life and the old 
 friends, were it only for a few weeks, or even a few 
 days. But he resisted the temptation, and fought on 
 manfully to the end. 
 
 For the rest the advantages and drawbacks of his 
 position were very evenly balanced : if absence threw 
 him out of touch with what went on at home, it also 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 9. 2 Quarterly Review, No. 381, p. 196. 
 
 " 176
 
 THE END- 1894 
 
 kept him clear of literary cliques and coteries, and 
 saved him from many interruptions and calls upon his 
 time; if it hindered his personal influence, it gave, as 
 Mr. Quiller Couch has pointed out, a greater scope and 
 leisure for his correspondence. His earlier Scotch 
 novels were, as we have seen, not written in Scotland, 
 and residence in that country could hardly have bettered 
 his latest stories. On the other hand, among the work 
 to which Polynesia diverted his attention there is no- 
 thing, as a whole, ranking as quite first-rate except The 
 Beach of Falesd. 
 
 One drawback to Samoa there certainly was, re- 
 deemed by no corresponding advantage, and that was 
 the inevitable delay in obtaining material or informa- 
 tion. If a book were wanted, it was usually of such a 
 date and character that it was mere waste of time to 
 attempt to procure it nearer than London or Edinburgh, 
 and this meant, under the most favourable circum- 
 stances, an interval of nearly three months, even if 
 the right book existed or could be obtained at all. 
 
 This to a man of Stevenson's temperament and fer- 
 tility was most unsettling; and it involved besides great 
 waste of labour, and the abandonment of much work 
 that had been well begun. 
 
 The difficulty of the life in Samoa was its great ex- 
 pense. In 1887 Stevenson had written: "Wealth is 
 only useful for two things a yacht and a string quar- 
 tette. Except for these, I hold that ^"700 a year is as 
 much as anybody can possibly want." But though 
 he had neither the music nor the vessel, and was now 
 making an income of six or seven times the amount 
 mentioned, it was no more than enough to meet the 
 
 177
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 cost of his living and the needs of his generosity, while 
 he was occasionally haunted by a fear lest his power of 
 earning should come to an end. l 
 
 During the period of his residence at Vailima he re- 
 turned but twice to the world of populous cities. In 
 the early part of 1893 he paid a visit of several weeks 
 to Sydney, and though as usual there he was much 
 confined to his room, he derived from the trip a good 
 deal of enjoyment. For the first time he realised that 
 his fame had reached the Colonies, and though no man 
 was ever under fewer illusions upon the point, he en- 
 joyed the opportunities it gave him of meeting all sorts 
 of people. Artists and Presbyterian ministers alike 
 vied in entertaining him ; at Government House he was 
 just in time to see the last of Lord and Lady Jersey; 
 and by this time there were at Sydney a number of 
 friends in whose company he delighted, especially Dr. 
 Fairfax Ross and the Hon. B. R. Wise. But the event 
 which pleased and cheered him most was his meeting 
 at Auckland with Sir George Grey, with whom he had 
 more than one prolonged and most inspiring discussion 
 upon the affairs of Samoa. 
 
 In September, 1893, he came up to Honolulu for the 
 sake of the voyage, intending to return by the next 
 steamer. After a week spent there I left him apparently 
 quite well, and intending to sail for Samoa the next 
 day. But in those four-and-twenty hours he developed 
 pneumonia, and remained ill at Waikiki until his wife's 
 arrival, and they did not reach Apia again before No- 
 vember. It was thus a period of illness, for it began 
 with Ta'alolo, who had come to take care of his master, 
 
 1 Cf. Letters, if. 284. 
 178
 
 THE END- 1894 
 
 himself taking measles, and for a time we were in a 
 sort of quarantine. But it was a change from the 
 limited society of Apia: Stevenson saw something of 
 his many friends and acquaintances in Honolulu; he 
 was entertained by his brother Scots of the Thistle Club, 
 and elsewhere; and I remember a most impressive in- 
 terview between him and the lately deposed queen, 
 whom he had last seen in the days of her prosperity, 
 when her brother was upon the throne. 
 
 On his return to Samoa several events occurred which 
 gave him great pleasure. He had never wearied in his 
 kindness and generosity towards any of the natives who 
 were in trouble, and he was constant in seeing to the 
 real needs of the Mataafa chiefs who were in prison. 
 These services he rendered to them, as he rendered all 
 service, without thought of reward or fear of misunder- 
 standing, and it was all the more pleasant to him when 
 the chiefs gave him first an elaborate native feast with 
 full honours in the jail where they were still confined ; 
 and secondly, as soon as they were released, came as a 
 mark of gratitude, and cleared and dug and completed 
 the roadway which thereafter led to his house the 
 Ala Loto Alofa, the Road of the Loving Heart. It 
 was a task of no inconsiderable magnitude, and em- 
 ployed a large number of men for several weeks. The 
 whole labour and the whole cost were borne by the 
 chiefs; the idea was theirs alone, the unprompted and 
 spontaneous expression of their regard, and no ulterior 
 motive has ever, so far as I am aware, been suggested 
 by anybody to whom the circumstances were known. 
 When it was finished, there was a solemn returning of 
 thanks, and Stevenson's speech, which may be found 
 
 79
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 at the end of the Vailima Letters, was his best and 
 most outspoken utterance to the people of Samoa. 
 
 In his writing also he met with a mark of recogni- 
 tion, to which he refused to allow full significance, the 
 inception of the Edinburgh Edition of his works. Mr. 
 Baxter, who had already rendered him invaluable ser- 
 vice in disposing of his new books from time to time 
 to the best advantage, had formed and among the most 
 contending interests had carried out a scheme which, 
 if successful, would bring in a sum of over five thou- 
 sand pounds without involving any fresh strain upon 
 the author. A complete edition of all the writings that 
 Stevenson wished to be preserved was to be produced 
 in the best possible form, and limited to a thousand 
 copies. It was, I believe, the first of its kind, and was 
 taken up with eagerness; in November, 1894, the first 
 volume was issued, and was everywhere hailed with 
 unbounded applause and congratulation. "My dear 
 fellow," he wrote to Mr. Baxter, " I wish to assure you 
 of the greatness of the pleasure that this Edinburgh 
 Edition gives me. I suppose it was your idea to give 
 it that name. No other would have affected me in the 
 same manner. Do you remember, how many years 
 ago I would be afraid to hazard a guess one night 
 when I communicated to you certain intimations of 
 early death and aspirations after fame ? I was particu- 
 larly maudlin ; and my remorse the next morning on a 
 review of my folly has written the matter very deeply 
 in my mind; from yours it may easily have fled. If 
 any one at that moment could have shown me the 
 Edinburgh Edition, I suppose I should have died. It 
 is with gratitude and wonder that I consider 'the way 
 
 180
 
 THE END- 1 894 
 
 in which I have been led.' Could a more preposterous 
 idea have occurred to us in those days when we used 
 to search our pockets for coppers, too often in vain, 
 and combine forces to produce the threepence necessary 
 for two glasses of beer, or wandered down the Lothian 
 Road without any, than that I should be strong and 
 well at the age of forty-three in the island of Upolu, 
 and that you should be at home bringing out the Edin- 
 burgh Edition ? " 1 
 
 In the end of September he wearied of St. foes within 
 sight of its conclusion, and fortunately turned again to 
 Weir of Hermiston. It was the third time he had taken 
 it in hand, for he would not work at it when he felt 
 uncertain of himself. But his insight was at its clear- 
 est, his touch most sure, and his style, as always when 
 he approached Scotland in his novels, was at its simplest 
 and best. " He generally makes notes in the early 
 morning," wrote Mrs. Strong in her diary on Septem- 
 ber 24th, "which he elaborates as he reads them aloud. 
 In Hermiston he has hardly more than a line or two to 
 keep him on the track, but he never falters for a word, 
 but gives me the sentences with capital letters and all 
 the stops, as clearly and steadily as though he were 
 reading from an unseen book." 
 
 October and November passed ; Stevenson remained 
 hard at work, and to all appearance in his ordinary 
 health. His birthday was celebrated by the usual 
 native feast, and on Thanksgiving Day, November 29th, 
 he gave a dinner to all his American friends. What 
 remains to tell has been so related by Mr. Osbourne 
 that no other account is possible or to be desired, and 
 
 1 Letters, ii. 338. 
 181
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 although it has been already printed in the Letters, I 
 must thank him for allowing it again to appear in these 
 pages. 1 
 
 "He wrote hard all that morning of the last day; his 
 half-finished book, Hermiston, he judged the best he 
 had ever written, and the sense of successful effort 
 made him buoyant and happy as nothing else could. 
 In the afternoon the mail fell to be answered ; not busi- 
 ness correspondence for this was left till later but 
 replies to the long, kindly letters of distant friends, re- 
 ceived but two days since, and still bright in memory. 
 
 "At sunset he came downstairs; rallied his wife 
 about the forebodings she could not shake off; talked 
 of a lecturing tour to America that he was eager to 
 make, 'as he was now so well/ and played a game 
 at cards with her to drive away her melancholy. He 
 said he was hungry; begged her assistance to help 
 him make a salad for the evening meal; and to enhance 
 the little feast he brought up a bottle of old Burgundy 
 from the cellar. He was helping his wife on the 
 verandah, and gaily talking, when suddenly he put 
 both hands to his head, and cried out, 'What 's that?' 
 Then he asked quickly, 'Do I look strange?' Even 
 as he did so he fell on his knees beside her. He was 
 helped into the great hall, between his wife and his 
 body-servant, Sosimo, losing consciousness instantly, 
 as he lay back in the arm-chair that had once been his 
 grandfather's. Little time was lost in bringing the 
 
 1 1 had left Samoa five weeks before for a long cruise in the Islands, and 
 the news first reached me in the Carolines in the following March. On 
 November 25th we had sighted the roofs of Vailima from the sea, but 
 the future was hidden from us, and we continued on our way. 
 
 182
 
 THE END- 1 894 
 
 doctors Anderson, of the man-of-war, and his friend 
 Dr. Funk. They looked at him and shook their heads; 
 they laboured strenuously and left nothing undone; 
 but he had passed the bounds of human skill. 
 
 "The dying man lay back in the chair, breathing 
 heavily, his family about him frenzied with grief as 
 they realised all hope was past. The dozen and more 
 Samoans that formed part of the little clan of which he 
 was chief sat in a wide semicircle on the floor, their 
 reverent, troubled, sorrow-stricken faces all fixed upon 
 their dying master. Some knelt on one knee to be 
 instantly ready for any command that might be laid 
 upon them. A narrow bed was brought into the 
 centre of the room ; the Master was gently laid upon it, 
 his head supported by a rest, the gift of Shelley's son. 
 Slower and slower grew his respiration, wider the inter- 
 val between the long, deep breaths. The Rev. Mr. 
 Clarke was now come, an old and valued friend; he 
 knelt and prayed as the life ebbed away. 
 
 "He died at ten minutes past eight on Monday even- 
 ing the ^rd of December, in the forty-fifth year of his 
 age. 
 
 "The great Union Jack that flew over the house was 
 hauled down and laid over the body, fit shroud for a 
 loyal Scotsman. He lay in the hall which was ever his 
 pride, where he had passed the gayest and most de- 
 lightful hours of his life, a noble room with open stair- 
 way and mullioned windows. In it were the treasures 
 of his far-off Scottish home: the old carved furniture, 
 the paintings and busts that had been in his father's 
 house before him. The Samoans passed in procession 
 beside his bed, kneeling and kissing his hand, each in 
 
 .83
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 turn, before taking their places for the long night watch 
 beside him. No entreaty could induce them to retire, 
 to rest themselves for the painful and arduous duties of 
 the morrow. It would show little love for Tusitala, 
 they said, if they did not spend their last night beside 
 him. Mournful and silent, they sat in deep dejection, 
 poor, simple, loyal folk, fulfilling the duty they owed 
 their chief. 
 
 "A messenger was despatched to a few chiefs con- 
 nected with the family, to announce the tidings and bid 
 them assemble their men on the morrow for the work 
 there was to do. 
 
 "Sosimo asked on behalf of the Roman Catholics 
 that they might be allowed to recite the prayers for the 
 dead. Till midnight the solemn chants continued, the 
 prolonged, sonorous prayers of the Church of Rome, in 
 commingled Latin and Samoan. Later still, a chief 
 arrived with his retainers, bringing a precious mat to 
 wrap about the dead. 
 
 " He, too, knelt and kissed the hand of Tusitala, and 
 took his place amid the sleepless watchers. Another 
 arrived with a fine mat, a man of higher rank, whose 
 incipient consumption had often troubled the Master. 
 
 " ' Talofa, Tusitala!' he said, as he drew nigh and 
 took a long, mournful look at the face he knew so 
 well. When, later on, he was momentarily required 
 on some business of the morrow, he bowed rever- 
 ently before retiring. ' Tofa, Tusitala ! ' he said, 
 ' Sleep, Tusitala ! ' 
 
 "The morning of the 4th of December broke cool 
 and sunny, a beautiful day, rare at this season of the 
 year. More fine mats were brought, until the Union 
 
 184
 
 THE END- 1 894 
 
 Jack lay nigh concealed beneath them. Among the 
 newcomers was an old Mataafa chief, one of the 
 builders of the 'Road of the Loving Heart,' a man who 
 had spent many days in prison for participation in the 
 rebellion. 'I am only a poor Samoan, and ignorant,' 
 said he, as he crouched beside the body. ' Others are 
 rich and can give Tusitala the parting presents of rich 
 fine mats; I am poor and can give nothing this last 
 day he receives his friends. Yet I am not afraid to 
 come and look the last time in my friend's face, never 
 to see him more till we meet with God. Behold! 
 Tusitala is dead; Mataafa is also dead to us. These 
 two great friends have been taken by God. When 
 Mataafa was taken, who was our support but Tusitala? 
 We were in prison, and he cared for us. We were 
 sick, and he made us well. We were hungry, and he 
 fed us. The day was no longer than his kindness. 
 You are great people and full of love. Yet who 
 among you is so great as Tusitala ? What is your love 
 to his love ? Our clan was Mataafa's clan, for whom 
 I speak this day; therein was Tusitala also. We mourn 
 them both.' 
 
 "A meeting of chiefs was held to apportion the work 
 and divide the men into parties. Forty were sent with 
 knives and axes to cut a path up the steep face of the 
 mountain, and the writer himself led another party to 
 the summit men chosen from the immediate family 
 to dig the grave on a spot where it was Mr. Stevenson's 
 wish that he should lie. Nothing more picturesque can 
 be imagined than the narrow ledge that forms the sum- 
 mit of Vaea, a place no wider than a room, and flat 
 as a table. On either side the land descends precipi- 
 
 185
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 tously ; in front lie the vast ocean and the surf-swept 
 reefs ; to the right and left, green mountains rise, densely 
 covered with the primeval forest. Two hundred years 
 ago the eyes of another man turned towards that same 
 peak of Vaea, as the spot that should ultimately receive 
 his war-worn body : Soalu, a famous chief. 
 
 " All the morning Samoans were arriving with 
 flowers; few of these were white, for they have not 
 learned our foreign custom, and the room glowed with 
 the many colours. There were no strangers on that 
 day, no acquaintances; those only were called who 
 would deeply feel the loss. At one o'clock a body of 
 powerful Samoans bore away the coffin, hid beneath a 
 tattered red ensign that had flown above his vessel in 
 many a remote corner of the South Seas. A path so 
 steep and rugged taxed their strength to the utmost, for 
 not only was the journey difficult in itself, but extreme 
 care was requisite to carry the coffin shoulder-high. 
 
 " Half an hour later the rest of his friends followed. 
 It was a formidable ascent, and tried them hard. Nine- 
 teen Europeans and some sixty Samoans reached the 
 summit. After a short rest the Rev. W. E. Clarke read 
 the burial service of the Church of England, interposing 
 a prayer that Mr. Stevenson had written and had read 
 aloud to his family only the evening before his death : 
 
 " We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with 
 favour, folk of many families and nations 
 gathered together in the peace of this roof, 
 weak men and women subsisting under the 
 covert of Thy patience. 
 
 "Be patient still; suffer us yet awhile longer; 
 186
 
 THE END- 1 894 
 
 with our broken purposes of good, with our 
 idle endeavours against evil, suffer us awhile 
 longer to endure, and (if it may be) help us to 
 do better. Bless to us our extraordinary mer- 
 cies; if the day come when these must be 
 taken, brace us to play the man under affliction. 
 Be with our friends, be with ourselves. Go 
 with each of us to rest; if any awake, temper 
 to them the dark hours of watching; and when 
 the day returns, return to us, our sun and 
 comforter, and call us up with morning faces 
 and with morning hearts eager to labour 
 eager to be happy, if happiness shall be our 
 portion and if the day be marked for sor- 
 row, strong to endure it. 
 
 "We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in the 
 words of Him to whom this day is sacred, 
 close our oblation. 
 
 "Another old friend, the Rev. J. E. Newell, who had 
 risen from a sick-bed to come, made an address in the 
 Samoan language. 
 
 " No stranger's hand touched him. It was his body- 
 servant that interlocked his fingers and arranged his 
 hands in the attitude of prayer. Those who loved him 
 carried him to his last home; even the coffin was the 
 work of an old friend. The grave was dug by his own 
 men." 
 
 So there he was laid to rest, and in after-time a large 
 tomb in the Samoan fashion, built of great blocks of 
 cement, was placed upon the grave. On either side 
 there is a bronze plate: the one bearing the words in 
 
 187
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Samoan, "The Tomb of Tusitala," followed by the 
 speech of Ruth to Naomi, taken from the Samoan Bible : 
 
 "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will 
 lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where 
 thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried." 
 
 At the sides of the inscription were placed a thistle and 
 a hibiscus flower. 
 
 Upon the other panel, in English, is his own 
 Requiem: 
 
 A ROBERT LOUIS Q 
 1850 STEVENSON. 1894 
 
 Under the wide and starry sky, 
 Dig the grave and let me lie. 
 Glad did I live and gladly die, 
 And I laid me down with a will. 
 
 This be the verse you grave for me : 
 Here be lies where be longed to be; 
 Home is tbe sailor, borne from sea, 
 And tbe hunter borne from tbe bill. 
 
 Since his death the chiefs have tabooed the use of fire- 
 arms upon the hillside where he lies, that the birds may 
 live there undisturbed, and raise about his grave the 
 songs he loved so well. 
 
 The proposal that a memorial pillar should be erected 
 on the hill to serve as a sea-mark was abandoned. Be- 
 sides the difficulties of transport and of keeping the 
 summit always clear of trees, there was the real danger 
 of the slight but frequent shocks of earthquake by which 
 any kind of column would sooner or later have been 
 overthrown. 
 
 In 1897 a monument to Stevenson was erected by 
 
 1 88
 
 THE END- 1 894 
 
 public subscription in the Plaza of San Francisco. It is 
 a granite pedestal supporting a bronze galleon, designed 
 by Mr. Bruce Porter, who also with Mr. Gelett Burgess 
 is responsible for the plates of the monument in Samoa. 
 A large and most enthusiastic meeting was held 
 in Edinburgh in December, 1896. Committees were 
 formed in most of the chief cities of Great Britain, and 
 finally Mr. St. Gaudens was requested to produce a 
 monument to be placed upon the walls of the Cathedral 
 Church of St. Giles in Edinburgh. 
 
 R. L. s. 
 
 Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably, 
 
 Neat-footed and weak-fingered: in his face 
 
 Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, 
 
 Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea, 
 
 The brown eyes radiant with vivacity 
 
 There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, 
 
 A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace 
 
 Of passion, impudence, and energy. 
 
 Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, 
 
 Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, 
 
 Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist: 
 
 A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, 
 
 Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, 
 
 And something of the Shorter-Catechist. 
 
 A Book of Verses, p. 41, by W. E. Henley, 
 published by D. Nutt, 1888. 
 
 Of Stevenson's personal aspect and bodily powers it 
 may be fitting here to make mention. Of his appear- 
 ance the best portraits and photographs give a fair idea, 
 if each be considered as the rendering of only one 
 expression. The frontispiece of Volume I. is from a 
 charcoal head drawn by Mrs. Stevenson at Grez as long 
 
 189
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 ago as 1877, and redrawn for this book by Mr. T. Blake 
 Wirgman. It will be seen that the eyes were the most 
 striking feature of the face; they were of the deepest 
 brown in colour, set extraordinarily wide apart. At 
 most times they had a shy, quick glance that was most 
 attractive, but when he was moved to anger or any fierce 
 emotion, they seemed literally to blaze and glow with a 
 fiery light. His hair was fair and even yellow in colour 
 until he wasfive-and-twenty; after that it rapidly deep- 
 ened, and in later years was quite dark, but of course 
 without any touch of black. When he reached the 
 tropics, and the fear of taking cold was to some extent 
 removed, he wore it short once more, to his own great 
 satisfaction and comfort. His complexion was brown 
 and always high, even in the confinement of the sick- 
 room ; the only phrase for it is the " rich-tinted " used by 
 Mr. Henley in the spirited and vivid lines he has kindly 
 permitted me to quote. 
 
 In height he was about five feet ten, slender in figure, 
 and thin to the last degree. In all his movements he 
 was most graceful : every gesture was full of an uncon- 
 scious beauty, and his restless and supple gait has been 
 well compared to the pacing to and fro of some wild 
 forest animal. To this unusual and most un-English 
 grace it was principally due that he was so often taken 
 for a foreigner. We have seen that Mr. Lang found his 
 appearance at three-and-twenty like anything but that 
 of a Scotsman, and the same difficulty pursued Steven- 
 son through life, more especially on the Continent of 
 Europe. " It is a great thing, believe me," he wrote in 
 the Inland Voyage, "to present a good normal type of 
 the nation you belong to "; and as he says in the same 
 
 190
 
 THE END- 1 894 
 
 chapter, "I might come from any part of the globe, it 
 seems, except from where I do." In France he was 
 sometimes taken fora Frenchman from some other prov- 
 ince; he has recorded his imprisonment as a German 
 spy; and at a later date he wrote, "I have found out 
 what is wrong with me I look like a Pole." 
 
 This difficulty, of course, was not smoothed by the 
 clothes he used to wear, which often in early days were 
 extremely unconventional, and of which he then took so 
 little notice that at times they were even ragged. In 
 cool climates he often used a velveteen smoking-jacket; 
 in undress at Vailima he wore flannels or pyjamas, with 
 sometimes a light Japanese kimono for dressing-gown. 
 On public occasions in Samoa he used the white drill 
 that constitutes full dress in the tropics, with perhaps 
 light breeches and boots if he had been riding. 
 
 Considering his fragility, his muscular strength was 
 considerable, and his constitution clearly had great 
 powers of resistance. Perhaps what helped him as 
 much as anything was the faculty he had under ordinary 
 circumstances of going to sleep at a moment's notice. 
 Thus, if he anticipated fatigue in the evening, he would 
 take a quarter of an hour's sound sleep in the course of 
 the afternoon. 
 
 His speech was distinctly marked with a Scottish 
 intonation, that seemed to every one both pleasing and 
 appropriate, and this, when he chose, he could broaden 
 to the widest limits of the vernacular. His voice was 
 always of a surprising strength and resonance, even- 
 when phthisis had laid its hand most heavily upon him. 
 It was the one gift he really possessed for the stage, and 
 in reading aloud he was unsurpassed. In his full rich 
 
 191
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 tones there was a sympathetic quality that seemed to 
 play directly on the heart-strings like the notes of a violin. 
 Mrs. Stevenson writes : " I shall never forget Louis read- 
 ing Walt Whitman's Out of the cradle endlessly rock- 
 ing, followed by O Captain, my Captain, to a room full 
 of people, some of whom had said that Whitman lacked 
 sentiment and tenderness. All alike, men and women, 
 sat spellbound during the reading, and I have never seen 
 any audience so deeply moved." Nor for my part shall 
 I forget his rendering of the Duke of Wellington Ode on 
 the evening after the news of Tennyson's death had 
 arrived at Vailima. 
 
 When his attention was given to objects or persons, 
 his observation was singularly keen and accurate, but 
 for the most part his memory for the faces of his ac- 
 quaintance was positively bad. In Apia he seldom 
 could tell the name of a native, and on his last visit to 
 Honolulu I remember that he walked the streets in dread 
 lest he should disappoint any who expected to be re- 
 membered and to receive his greeting. In a letter speak- 
 ing of the death of a lady whom he had not met 
 probably for twenty years, he says, " I partly see her 
 face, and entirely and perfectly hear her voice at this 
 moment a thing not usual with me." 
 
 His hearing was singularly acute, although the appre- 
 ciation of the exact pitch of musical notes was wanting. 
 But between delicate shades of pronunciation he could 
 discriminate with great precision. I can give an instance 
 in point. The vowels in Polynesian languages are pro- 
 nounced as in Italian, and the diphthongs retain the 
 sounds of the separate vowels, more or less slurred 
 together. Thus it can be understood that the difference 
 
 192
 
 THE END- 1894 
 
 between ae and ai at the end of a word in rapid conver- 
 sation is of the very slightest, and in Samoa they are 
 practically indistinguishable. In the Marquesas Steven- 
 son was able to separate them. At Vailima one day 
 we were making trial of these and other subtleties of 
 sound ; in almost every case his ear was exactly correct. 
 Nothing more shook his admiration for Herman Melville 
 than that writer's inability to approximate to the native 
 names of the Marquesas and Tahiti, and in his own deli- 
 cate hearing lay perhaps the root of his devotion to 
 style.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 " Who is it that says most? which can say more 
 Than this rich praise, that you alone are you ? " 
 
 FOR any who have read the foregoing pages it 
 should be unnecessary here to dwell upon the 
 sources of many qualities which distinguished Steven- 
 son throughout his life, or the degree to which they 
 were called forth in turn or affected by the many vari- 
 ations of his environment. A Scot born, we have seen 
 how Edinburgh and Swanston set the seal upon his 
 nationality, and how from father and mother he drew 
 diverse elements of temperament and character. We 
 have seen the effect of his schooling, such as it was, 
 and the prolonged leisure of his boyhood ; of the influ- 
 ence of his friends and his reading; the results of his 
 training as an engineer and as an advocate; of his 
 wanderings in France, his breakdown in America, and 
 the happiness of his married life. 
 
 In several respects it must be owned that he was 
 fortunate. His long preludes and painful apprentice- 
 ship would clearly have proved impossible had it been 
 necessary for him to make money at an early age, and 
 even the history of his maturity would have been ma- 
 terially changed if he had been compelled to rely solely 
 upon his writing to meet the expenses of his house- 
 hold. His late beginning had, again, this advantage: 
 tardy in some ways as he was, he had left behind him 
 
 '94
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 the ignobler elements of youth before his voice was 
 heard or recognised. The green-sickness of immaturity 
 was over, at the worst only one or two touches of self- 
 consciousness remained, and even in his earliest pub- 
 lished essays there rings out the note of high spirit and 
 cheerfulness which issued from the sick-room of later 
 years, deceived for a time the most penetrating of critics, 
 and was perhaps the best part of his message to a 
 world that had fallen on weary days. 
 
 In regarding Stevenson both as man and writer we 
 find that the most unusual fact about him was the 
 coupling of the infinite variety of his character and 
 intellect with the extraordinary degree in which he 
 was moved by every thought and every feeling. Few 
 men are acted upon by so wide a range of emotions 
 and ideas; few men hold even two or three ideas or 
 feel even a few emotions with nearly as much intensity 
 as compelled him under all. When we have consid- 
 ered both number and degree, we shall find other gifts 
 no less remarkable and even more characteristic the 
 unfailing spirit of chivalry and the combination of quali- 
 ties that went to make up his peculiar and individual 
 charm. Though it is inevitable thus to take him piece- 
 meal and to dwell upon one side at a time to the ex- 
 clusion of the others he so rapidly turned upon us, we 
 must never allow this process to efface in our minds 
 what is far more essential the image of the living 
 whole. 
 
 I have spoken of him at once as a man and a writer, 
 for in his case there was no part of the writer which 
 was not visibly present in the man. There are authors 
 
 '95
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 whose work bears so little apparent relation to them- 
 selves, that we either wonder how they came to write 
 so good a book, or else in our hearts we wish their 
 books more worthy of the men. To neither of these 
 classes does Stevenson belong. His works are " signed 
 all over," and despite the chameleon-like nature of his 
 style, 1 but few consecutive sentences on any page of 
 his could have been written by any other person. 
 Authorship provided him with a field for his energies 
 and brought him the rewards of success, but did not 
 otherwise change him from what he was, nor did it 
 even exercise the whole of his faculties or exhaust the 
 supply of his ideas. 
 
 If I have failed to produce a correct impression of his 
 intense energy, I have quoted him and written to little 
 purpose. The child with his "fury of play"; the boy 
 walking by himself in the black night and exulting in 
 the consciousness of the bull's-eye beneath his coat; 
 the lad already possessed with the invincible resolve of 
 learning to write, which for the time overcame the 
 desire of all other action : these were but the father of 
 the man. So vehement were his emotions, his own 
 breast was too small to contain them. He paid a visit 
 at nineteen to a place he had not seen since childhood. 
 " As I felt myself on the road at last that I had been 
 dreaming of for these many days before, a perfect in- 
 toxication of joy took hold upon me; and I was so 
 pleased at my own happiness that I could let none past 
 me till I had taken them into my confidence." 2 
 
 It is useless to go on quoting: through life he did the 
 
 1 Appendix G. 2 Juvenilia, p. 96. 
 
 196
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 thing he was doing as if it were the one thing in the 
 world that was worth being done. I will give but one 
 more example, premising that its essence lies in its very 
 triviality: the smaller the matter at stake, the more sur- 
 prising is the blaze of energy displayed. One day he 
 was talking to a lady in his house at Bournemouth, at 
 a time when he was recovering from hemorrhage, and 
 visitors and conversation were both strictly forbidden. 
 A book of Charles Reade's Griffith Gaunt, I think 
 was mentioned, and nothing would serve Stevenson 
 but that he should run to a cold room at the top of the 
 house to get the volume. His visitor first tried to pre- 
 vent it, then refused to wait for his return, and was 
 only dissuaded from her resolve by being told (and she 
 knew it to be true) that if he heard that she had left the 
 house he would certainly run after her down the drive 
 without waiting for either hat or coat. 
 
 " The formal man is the slave of words," he said; and 
 as a consequence of his own fiery intensity, no man 
 was ever less imposed upon by the formulas of other 
 people. His railing against the burgess, for example, 
 was no catchword, but the inmost and original feeling 
 of his heart. Consequently, whenever he uttered a 
 commonplace, it will be usually found that he had re- 
 discovered the truth of it for himself, did not say it 
 merely because he had heard it from somebody else, 
 and generally invested it with some fresh quality of his 
 own. Perhaps his most emphatic utterance in this re- 
 spect, and that most resembling his conversation in cer- 
 tain moods, is the Lay Morals, all the more outspoken 
 because it was never finished for press. It abounds in 
 sayings such as these: " It is easy to be an ass and to 
 
 197
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 follow tne multitude like a blind, besotted bull in a stam- 
 pede; and that, I am well aware, is what you and Mrs. 
 Grundy mean by being honest." " It is to keep a man 
 awake, to keep him alive to his own soul and its fixed 
 design of righteousness, that the better part of moral and 
 religious education is directed; not only that of words 
 and doctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity under which 
 we are all God's scholars till we die." " Respectability: 
 the deadliest gag and wet blanket that can be laid on 
 men." "I have only to read books, to think ... the 
 mass of people are merely speaking in their sleep." 
 
 So when he spoke, he spoke direct from his own 
 reflection and experience, and when he prayed, he did 
 not hesitate to pass beyond the decorous ring-fence 
 supposed to include all permissible objects of prayer; 
 he gave thanks for " the work, the food, and the bright 
 skies that make our lives delightful," and honestly and 
 reverently made his petition that he might be granted 
 gaiety and laughter. These instances are on the sur- 
 face, but in spiritual matters he had a rare power of 
 leaving on one side the non-essential and going straight 
 to the heart of the difficulty, that was hardly realised by 
 the world at large. Taine's charge against Scott that 
 " he pauses on the threshold of the soul " has been re- 
 newed against Stevenson. For one thing, in spite of 
 his apparent frankness, he had a deep reserve on the 
 things that touched him most profoundly, and never 
 wore his heart upon his sleeve. So far as the criticism 
 applies to his writings, it is little less untrue than that 
 which called him "a f addling hedonist," and its injus- 
 tice has been shown by Mr. Colvin ; x so far as it ap- 
 
 1 Letters, i. 18. 
 .98
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 plies to himself, it must be met by a contradiction. He 
 was a man who had walked in the darkest depths of 
 the spirit, and had known the bitterness of humiliation. 
 But in that valley of which he never spoke he too, 
 like the friend whom he commemorates, 1 "had met 
 with angels "; he too had " found the words of life." 
 
 To return to his plain speaking, in literature he was 
 equally sincere. Sir Walter Scott was for him " out 
 and away the king of the romantics." But if a discern- 
 ing estimate of Scott's shortcomings, as well as his 
 merits, is desired, it can hardly be found more justly 
 expressed in few words than on the last page but one 
 of " A Gossip on Romance." 
 
 In composition also no one who produced so much 
 has probably ever been so little the victim of the stereo- 
 typed phrase as Stevenson. A few mannerisms he had, 
 no doubt" it was a beautiful clear night of stars " 
 but they were from his own mint, and it was oftenest 
 he himself who first called attention to them. 
 
 For the most part the effect on his writing of the 
 ardour of which I am speaking is to be seen in two 
 ways in his diligence and in the intellectual intensity 
 of the work produced. If ever capacity for taking 
 pains be accounted genius in literature, no one can deny 
 the possession of the supreme gift to Stevenson. To 
 Mr. lies he wrote, in 1887: " I imagine nobody had ever 
 such pains to learn a trade as I had; but I slogged at it 
 day in and day out; and I frankly believe (thanks to 
 my dire industry) I have done more with smaller gifts 
 than almost any man of letters in the world." In 1876 
 he reckoned that his final copy involved ten times the 
 
 1 Memories and Portraits, p. isi. 
 199
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 actual quantity of writing; in 1888 the articles for Scrib- 
 ner's Magazine were written seven or eight times ; the 
 year before his death he told Mr. Crockett that it had 
 taken him three weeks to write four-and-twenty pages. 
 His prose works, exclusive of his published letters, run 
 to nearly eight thousand pages of the Edinburgh Edi- 
 tionthree hundred words to a page. Nine-tenths of 
 this was written within less than twenty years; and 
 there were, besides, more or less completely conceived, 
 many novels, stories, essays, histories, biographies, 
 and plays, which occupied no inconsiderable amount of 
 his attention within that time. 
 
 Moreover, besides the matter there was the form, 
 and this from first to last continually engaged him. In 
 the early seventies there were not many writers in this 
 country to whom style was a matter of life or death, or 
 if it were so, their aspirations were mostly hidden and 
 unrealised. But to Stevenson from the beginning the 
 technical problem was always present; with less fire 
 the work of art had been less completely welded into 
 an expression of the whole nature of the man; with 
 less diligence the file-marks would seldom have been 
 so completely removed. His style matured in simplicity 
 and breadth as the years of labour brought their reward : 
 it varied, of course, with the subject in hand ; but not 
 the least excellence of the instrument thus evolved is 
 that it never failed of adaptation to whatever new class 
 of writing its creator essayed. 
 
 The present point, however, is the energy and per- 
 severance which prepared and secured the mastery, and 
 in reviewing the amount of Stevenson's finished work, 
 neither the quantity sacrificed in the process must be 
 
 200
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 forgotten, nor the extreme compression of the re- 
 mainder. His was not the pen that covers page after 
 page without an effort, unblotted and uncondensed, 
 but the tool of the man who, in Mr. Kipling's phrase, 
 " makes most delicate inlay-work in black and white, 
 and files out to the fraction of a hair." In his own 
 words, the only test of writing that he knew was this : 
 "If there is anywhere a thing said in two sentences 
 that could have been as clearly and as engagingly and 
 as forcibly said in one, then it 's amateur work." And 
 the main thing in which he thought his own stories 
 failed was this: " I am always cutting the flesh off their 
 bones." 
 
 Of such material he produced nearly four hundred 
 pages a year for twenty years, and of the conditions 
 under which most of it was done he wrote to Mr. 
 George Meredith in 1893: 
 
 " For fourteen years I have not had a day's real 
 health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary; 
 and I have done my work unflinchingly. I have writ- 
 ten in bed, and written out of it, written in hemor- 
 rhages, written in sickness, written torn by coughing, 
 written when my head swam for weakness ; and for so 
 long, it seems to me I have won my wager and recov- 
 ered my glove. I am better now, have been, rightly 
 speaking, since first I came to the Pacific ; and still, few 
 are the days when I am not in some physical distress. 
 And the battle goes on ill or well, is a trifle; so as it 
 goes. I was made for a contest, and the Powers have 
 so willed that my battlefield should be this dingy, in- 
 glorious one of the bed and the physic bottle." 
 
 But besides the energy spent on the work there is 
 
 201
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 also the intensity of his intelligence. He had no vast 
 memory like Scott's, but he remembered to a most 
 unusual extent his own emotions and sensations, and the 
 events of his past life, and what remained in his mind 
 preserved its freshness and a lifelike sharpness of outline. 
 
 If Stevenson's claim to genius is to be based upon 
 any single gift, it is this quality that most deserves 
 such recognition, nor can it well be refused, if Baude- 
 laire's definition be regarded as adequate: Le gtnie n'est 
 que renfance retrouve'e a volonte. The paper on " Child's 
 Play," the Child's Garden of Verses, and certain pas- 
 sages quoted in the earlier pages of this book display a 
 power of returning to the ideas and feelings of child- 
 hood which has seldom if ever been shown in a higher 
 degree, or has existed except along with intellectual 
 powers of a very considerable calibre. 
 
 It related also to the ordinary sensations of maturity. 
 We have all been active and all been tired, but who has 
 given us such pictures of activity and of fatigue as 
 Stevenson ? Consider the account of his tobogganing, 
 place beside it the calm of weariness following exercise 
 described in " Walking Tours," or the drowsy labour of 
 the end of the Inland Voyage, and then recall David 
 Balfour. " By what I have read in books, I think few 
 that have held a pen were ever really wearied, or they 
 would write of it more strongly. I had no care of my 
 life, neither past nor future, and I scarce remembered 
 there was such a lad as David Balfour; I did not think 
 of myself, but just of each fresh step, which I was sure 
 would be my last, with despair, and of Alan, who was 
 the cause of it, with hatred." 1 
 
 1 Kidnapped, chap. xxii. 
 202
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 It was not only, however, in the recalling of his past 
 life that Stevenson showed this concentration of mind, 
 for the effect of such works as Jehyll and Hyde is due 
 to the intense realisation of the situations evoked, by 
 which new life was breathed into worn-out themes. 
 
 As in books so in correspondence. Letters were at 
 times to Stevenson an irksome duty, at others a wel- 
 come opportunity for the outpouring of himself to his 
 friends, but in haste or in delight it was entirely with- 
 out calculation that he dictated or wrote. It occurred 
 suddenly to him one day that his letters to Mr. Colvin 
 from Samoa " would make good pickings " after his 
 death, " and a man could make some kind of a book 
 out of it without much trouble." 1 So little have people 
 understood his character and moods that after this point 
 they have found in the Vailima Letters a self-conscious 
 tone and a continual appeal to the gallery. 
 
 To see him was utterly to disbelieve in any regard of 
 ulterior motives. He was his father's son, and with 
 him, also, " his affections and emotions, passionate as 
 these were, and liable to passionate ups and downs, 
 found the most eloquent expression both in words and 
 gestures. Love, anger, and indignation shone through 
 him and broke forth in imagery, like what we read of 
 Southern races." If he were talking, he was seldom 
 for a moment still, but generally paced restlessly up 
 and down the room, using his hands continually to 
 emphasize what he was saying, but with gestures that 
 seemed purely necessary and natural. 
 
 It is very difficult to give the impression of his de- 
 meanour and the brilliancy of his talk without falling 
 
 1 Vailima Letters, June, 1892. 
 203
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 into the contrary error, and suggesting a self-conscious- 
 ness full of acting and exaggeration. Nothing could 
 be further from the truth, and it is easily shown. His 
 singleness of mind always, in later days at any rate, 
 impressed friends and foes alike with his sincerity of 
 purpose. He was no sportsman and no athlete fragile 
 and long-haired l yet nobody ever hinted he was 
 unmanly : he was given to preaching, and himself not 
 beyond reproach, yet no one for an instant suspected 
 him of hypocrisy. Whatever he did he did with his 
 whole heart, and it was hard for any one to think 
 otherwise. All the foibles of mysteriousness and 
 secrecy which formed a part of his life in student days 
 fell away from him before the end. The burden of 
 responsibility had diminished, it may be, the gaiety of 
 his temper; but his character shone out the more clearly 
 as the years showed the man. 
 
 If Stevenson delivered himself over, heart and soul, 
 as I have said, to the absorbing interest or the ruling 
 passion of the moment, it was assuredly not for the 
 want of other interests or other passions. Of the 
 many-sidedness of his mind the variety of his works is 
 surely sufficient evidence, and even these by no means 
 exhausted the whole of his resources. He wrote novels 
 the novel of adventure, the novel of character, the 
 novel of incident; he wrote short stories and essays of 
 all kinds their variety it is impossible even to char- 
 acterise; he wrote history and biography, fables and 
 moralities, and treatises on ethics; he wrote poems 
 blank verse, lyrics and ballads, songs and poetry for 
 
 1 See, however, vol. ii. p. 190. 
 204
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 children; he wrote plays, ranging from melodrama to 
 genteel comedy; books of travel reflective and descrip- 
 tive; he composed prayers and lay sermons, and even 
 ventured on political speculation. 
 
 All were not of equal merit that is not now to the 
 point but it would not be difficult to pick out at least 
 ten works differing widely from each other, but all 
 definitely belonging to the highest class of their kind. 
 Only one verdict is possible, and for that it is necessary 
 to lay hands upon a commonplace, and appropriate it to 
 the benefit of the man who has best right to the dis- 
 tinction. It is curious that the saying was first made 
 for Goldsmith, the best loved among our authors of the 
 eighteenth century, the one who, in Professor Raleigh's 
 phrase, shares with Stevenson " the happy privilege of 
 making lovers among his readers." But of Stevenson 
 it is even more true to say with Dr. Johnson: Nullum 
 fere scribendi genus non tetigit, nullum quod tetigit non 
 ornavit. 
 
 For this diversity of power and achievement I have 
 relied on the evidence of his published writings, because 
 it would otherwise appear incredible. But account 
 must also be taken of at least a part of his unfinished 
 and unpublished work, differing again in kind; and to 
 that in turn must be added the indications in his letters 
 of other veins of character or reflection that were never 
 worked at all. Over and above all there was the talk 
 of the man himself, in which the alternations were 
 even more rapid and more striking. 1 Wit, humour, 
 and pathos; the romantic, the tragic, the picturesque; 
 
 1 For the admirable description by Mr. Colvin and Mr. Henley, see 
 Letters, vol. i. pp. xxxvii, xxxviii. 
 
 205
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 stern judgment, wise counsel, wild fooling, all fell into 
 their natural places, followed each other in rapid and 
 easy succession, and made a marvellous whole, not the 
 least of the wonder being the congruity and spontaneity 
 which gave to it the just effect of being a perfectly 
 natural utterance. 
 
 The quality was, of course, not without its defects, 
 the chief of which were an apparent detachment and 
 a sort of fickleness, or want of persistence. It was 
 probably the former of these which led several persons 
 quite independently of each other to give Stevenson the 
 name of "Sprite," a being exempt from the ordinary 
 limitations of mankind, an Ariel free to wander through 
 the realms of imagination, turning hither and thither as 
 his fancies prompted him. 
 
 Of the abandonment of his inventions I have already 
 spoken. " He was always full of schemes, and plans, 
 and fancies," says Mr. Henley. "You left him hot on 
 one, and the next time you saw him, you found to 
 your distress (having gone all the way with him) that 
 he had forgotten all about it." 
 
 Thus if he saw life on each of its many sides in turn 
 with an intensity denied to a wider range of vision, he 
 was liable at times to see it neither steadily nor whole. 
 For the latter he was somewhat compensated by the 
 fact that he saw so many aspects of it in rapid succes- 
 sion that he speedily corrected any narrowness of con- 
 sideration, his nature further helping him in this that 
 he never saw it with any narrowness of temper. 
 
 Taken together with the kindliness of his nature it 
 also, to a great extent, explains his extraordinary gift 
 of sympathy. He seemed to divine from his own ex- 
 
 206
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 perience how other people felt, and how best they 
 might be encouraged or consoled. I doubt if any one 
 ever remained for long in his company either reticent 
 or ill at ease. Mr. Gosse reminds us of Stevenson's 
 talks at Sydney with a man formerly engaged in the 
 " blackbirding " trade, who was with great difficulty 
 induced to speak of his experiences. " He was very 
 shy at first," said Stevenson, "and it was not till I told 
 him of a good many of my escapades that I could get 
 him to thaw, and then he poured it all out. I have 
 always found that the best way of getting people to be 
 confidential." We have seen with what success he 
 approached the natives in this manner; in like fashion, 
 no doubt, he inquired of Highlanders about the Appin 
 murder. 
 
 But even where he had some set purpose in view, 
 his talk seemed to be a natural and purely spontaneous 
 outpouring of himself. It never seemed to me to be 
 vanity if it were, it was the most genial that ever 
 existed but rather a reference to instances within his 
 own knowledge to illustrate the point in hand. He 
 never monopolised the conversation, however eager he 
 might be, but was faithful to his preference for talk 
 which is in its nature a debate, " the amicable counter- 
 assertion of personality," and "the Protean quality 
 which is in man " enabled him, without ceasing to be 
 himself, to meet the temper of his company. 
 
 With this multiplicity one might expect to find room 
 in his character for many contradictory qualities or the 
 presence in excess and defect of the very same virtues, 
 and this in truth was so. To reconcile opposites was 
 a task he thought of but little importance, and a fa- 
 
 207
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 vourite phrase with him was Whitman's : " Do I con- 
 tradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself." 
 Consistency was a virtue for which it was easy to pay 
 too high a price, and often it had to be surrendered for 
 matters of greater import. Aspiration and humour, 
 shrewdness and romance, profusion and self-denial, 
 self-revelation and reserve, in him were curiously 
 matched. On his frankness and his reticence I have 
 already dwelt. He speaks of himself, as Professor 
 Raleigh says, 1 " with no shadow of hypocrisy and no 
 whiff or taint of indecent familiarity"; he tells you 
 everything, as you think at first, and so simply and so 
 frankly that it is only gradually you realise that he has 
 not been revealing the things nearest his heart, that you 
 learn no secrets of his home or his religion, nor of 
 anything that was not for you to know. Self-denial, 
 again, he showed in many ways ; in his youth especially, 
 when money was scarce with him, if any one had 
 to go without, he was the first to surrender his claim 
 and sacrifice himself. On the other hand, with " that 
 virtue of frugality which is the armour of the artist " he 
 was but ill-equipped. 
 
 Of his self-restraint in literature there can be no bet- 
 ter instance than the very sparing use he makes of the 
 pathetic. In the early essay on " Nurses " it is perhaps 
 a trifle forced ; there are hardly two more beautiful or 
 dignified examples of it in English literature than in 
 the essay on " Old Mortality," and the death of the fugi- 
 tive French colonel in St. Ives. But it was only in con- 
 versation that one realised the extraordinary degree to 
 
 1 Robert Louis Stevenson, by Walter Raleigh, p. 77. Edward 
 Arnold, 1896. 
 
 208
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 which he possessed the power of moving the heart- 
 strings. It was not that he made frequent or unmanly 
 use of it, but being less upon his guard, the pathetic 
 aspect of some person or incident would appeal to him, 
 and in a moment he would have the least tender-hearted 
 of his hearers hardly less deeply moved than himself. 
 Ordinarily even in conversation he used it chiefly as 
 a weapon of chivalry in defence of the neglected and 
 the old ; but as Swift " could write beautifully about a 
 broomstick," so Stevenson one day described a chair, 
 enlarging upon the hard lot of the legs that had to 
 support the idle seat, until the boy to whom he was 
 talking was almost in tears. On the other side must be 
 set his description of " Home, Sweet Home " in Across 
 the Plains, as " belonging to that class of art which 
 may be best described as a brutal assault upon the 
 feelings. Pathos must be redeemed by dignity of treat- 
 ment. If you wallow naked in the pathetic, like the 
 author of ' Home, Sweet Home,' you make your hearers 
 weep in an unmanly fashion." 
 
 But the supreme instance of diverse elements in him 
 was patience and its opposite. Never have I heard of 
 any one in whom these contradictories were both 
 shown in so high a degree. His endurance in illness 
 and in work we have seen : no pain was too great to 
 bear, no malady too long: he never murmured until it 
 was over. No task was too irksome, no revision too 
 exacting laboriously, and like an eager apprentice, he 
 went through with it to the end. 
 
 But on the other hand, when impatience came to the 
 surface, it blazed up like the anger of a man who had 
 never known a check. It was generally caused by 
 n 209
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 some breach of faith or act of dishonesty or unjusti- 
 fiable delay. The only time I know of its being dis- 
 played in public was in a Paris restaurant, where 
 Stevenson had ordered a change of wine, and the very 
 bottle he had rejected was brought back to him with a 
 different label. There was a sudden explosion of 
 wrath; the bottle was violently broken; in an instant 
 the restaurant was emptied, and so much for long- 
 suffering the proprietor and his staff were devoting 
 the whole of their attention and art to appease and 
 reconcile the angry man. 
 
 Sternness and tenderness in him were very equally 
 matched, though the former was kept mainly for him- 
 self and those nearest to him, of whom he asked nearly 
 as much as of himself: tenderness, on the other hand, 
 was for the failings of others. For like many chival- 
 rous people, he expected but little of what he gave 
 with so much freedom. His tenderness had something 
 feminine, yet without lacking the peculiar strength that 
 distinguishes it in a man. The Roman quality of 
 sternness he so much admired came to himself, no 
 doubt, with his Scottish blood. It is a virtue that for 
 the most part requires exclusive dominion over a char- 
 acter for its proper display, and in Stevenson it had 
 many rivals. But that it was genuine his appreciation 
 of Lord Braxfield and his rendering of it in Lord 
 Hermiston place beyond all doubt. 1 
 
 Sternness and pity it is quite possible to harmonise, 
 and the secret in Stevenson's case is perhaps solved in 
 the following letter: "I wish you to read Taine's Ori- 
 gines de la France Contemporaine . . . and to try and 
 
 1 Cf. Vaihma Letters, p. 220. 
 210
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 understand what I have in my mind (ay, and in my 
 heart!) when I preach law and police to you in season 
 and out of season. What else do we care for, what 
 else is anything but secondary, in that embroiled, con- 
 founded ravelment of politics, but to protect the old, 
 and the weak, and the quiet, from that bloody wild 
 beast that slumbers in man ? 
 
 " True to my character, I have to preach. But just 
 read the book. It is not absolutely fair, for Taine does 
 not feel, with a warm heart, the touching side of their 
 poor soul's illusions; he does not feel the infinite pathos 
 of the Federations, poor pantomime and orgie, that (to 
 its actors) seemed upon the very margin of heaven; 
 nor the unspeakable, almost unthinkable tragedy of 
 such a poor, virtuous, wooden-headed lot as the 
 methodistic Jacobins. But he tells, as no one else, 
 the dreadful end of sentimental politics." 
 
 To deal with Stevenson's intellectual qualities alone 
 is to approach his less fascinating side, and to miss far 
 more than half the influence of his charm. I have re- 
 ferred to his chivalry, only to find that in reality I was 
 thinking of every one of the whole group of attributes 
 which are associated with that name. Loyalty, hon- 
 esty, generosity, courage; courtesy, tenderness, and 
 self-devotion; to impute no unworthy motives and to 
 bear no grudge J to bear misfortune with cheerfulness 
 and without a murmur; to strike hard for the right and 
 take no mean advantage; to be gentle to women and 
 kind to all that are weak; to be very rigorous with 
 oneself and very lenient to others these, and any other 
 virtues ever implied in "chivalry," were the traits that 
 distinguished Stevenson. They do not make life easy, 
 
 an
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 as he frequently found. One day, his stepson tells me, 
 they were sitting on the deck of a schooner in the 
 Pacific, and Stevenson was reading a copy of Don 
 Quixote. Suddenly he looked up, and, with an air of 
 realisation, said sadly, as if to himself, " That 's me." 
 
 In spite of his knowledge of the world and his 
 humour, and a vein of cynicism most difficult to define, 
 many were his quixotries and many the windmills at 
 which he tilted, less often wholly in vain than we 
 thought who watched his errantry. The example 
 remains; and 
 
 " Would to-day, when Courtesy grows chill, 
 And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest, 
 Some fire of thine might burn within us still ! 
 Ah, would but one might lay his lance in rest, 
 And charge in earnest were it but a mill ! " * 
 
 Of some of the virtues I have cited it would be super- 
 fluous to say more. There is no need to repeat how 
 he faced death in the Riviera or bore the weariness of 
 exile. But I may be pardoned if I dwell upon a few of 
 the more striking instances in which he displayed his 
 open-mindedness, his generosity of temper, his hatred 
 of cruelty, and his readiness to forgive offences. 
 
 Generosity is a word in sore danger of being limited to 
 the giving of money, but to Stevenson the quality must 
 be attributed not only in this, but also in the widest 
 possible application. It is a virtue that from its nature 
 is easily abused : this did but make Stevenson think the 
 more highly of it, and it can have no more splendid 
 motto than his own aphorism, of which one version 
 
 1 At tbe Sign of the Lyre, by Austin Dobson, p. 93. 
 212
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 runs: "The mean man doubted, Greatheart was de- 
 ceived. 'Very well,' said Greatheart." 
 
 Of Stevenson's own generous temper there is no bet- 
 ter illustration than a letter written in early days when 
 he had been called to task for some words of deprecia- 
 tion. 
 
 " I think the crier-up has a good trade; but I like less 
 and less every year the berth of runner-down; and I 
 
 hate to see my friends in it. What is 's fault ? 
 
 That he runs down. What is the easiest thing to do? 
 To run down. What is it that a strong man should 
 scorn to do? To run down. And all this comes 
 steeply home to me; for I am horrified to gather that I 
 begin myself to fall into this same business which I 
 abhor in others." 
 
 No one ever more eagerly welcomed the success of 
 younger writers, entirely unknown to himself; but of 
 this point the published letters are quite sufficient proof. 
 
 Any offence against himself he forgave readily, nor 
 did he find it difficult to make excuses for almost any 
 degree of misconduct on the part of others. There was 
 only one action which 1 heard him say he could never 
 pardon, and the exception was characteristic. The 
 father of an acquaintance came to Edinburgh one day 
 many years ago to render his son material assistance 
 which he could ill afford. The pair met Stevenson, 
 and the son, introducing his father, did not scruple to 
 sneer at him behind his back. Stevenson's experience 
 of life and of character was very wide; but he looked 
 back on that gesture as the one really unpardonable 
 offence he had ever known. 
 
 He could be angry enough and stern enough upon 
 313
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 occasion, but never was there any one so ready to melt 
 at the least appeal to his compassion or mercy. In his 
 political quarrels he found the greatest difficulty in keep- 
 ing up an open breach with persons whom he liked in 
 themselves, and for whom his sympathy was engaged, 
 although he was convinced that they were ruining 
 Samoa. 1 Truly he might say: "There was no man 
 born with so little animosity as I." 
 
 But in fact the two kinds of generosity went fre- 
 quently together. It is impossible for me to give the 
 instances I know, but it is the fact that over and over 
 again, no sooner had any one quarrelled with him, than 
 Stevenson at once began to cast about for some means 
 of doing his adversary a service, if only it could be done 
 without divulging the source from whence it came. 
 
 In the narrower sense he was generous to a fault, 
 but was ready to take any amount of personal trouble, 
 and exercised judgment in his giving. When there 
 was occasion he set no limit to his assistance. " Pray 
 
 remember that if ever X should be in want of 
 
 help, you are to strain my credit to breaking, and to 
 mortgage all I possess or can expect, to help him." 
 But in another case: "I hereby authorise you to pay 
 
 when necessary to Z ; if I gave him more, it 
 
 would only lead to his starting a gig and a Pomeranian 
 dog. I hope you won't think me hard about this. If 
 you think the sum insufficient, you can communicate 
 with me by return on the subject." Of course he re- 
 ceived applications from all sorts of people on all man- 
 ner of pretexts. There was one man who embarrassed 
 him greatly by frequent letters. As far as could be 
 
 1 Vailima Letters, p. 162. 
 314
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 gathered this person desired to abandon entirely the 
 use of clothing, and coming to Samoa with " a woman 
 I love," was there to gain his livelihood by whitewash- 
 ing Stevenson's fences, which, by the way, consisted 
 almost entirely of barbed wire. This individual even 
 presented himself (but in the garb of civilisation) at 
 Stevenson's hotel in Sydney; there, however, the line 
 was drawn, and he was refused an interview. 
 
 But Stevenson's best service was often in the words 
 with which he accompanied his gift. To his funeral 
 only close personal friends were invited, but there ap- 
 peared a tall gaunt stranger, whom nobody remembered 
 to have seen before. He came up and apologised for 
 his presence, and said he could not keep away, for 
 Stevenson had saved him one day when he was at his 
 lowest ebb. "I was wandering despondently along 
 the road, and I met Mr. Stevenson, and I don't know 
 whether it was my story, or that he saw I was a 
 Scotchman, but he gave me twenty dollars and some 
 good advice and encouragement. I took heart again, 
 and I 'm getting on all right now, but if I had n't met 
 Mr. Stevenson, and he had n't helped me, I should have 
 killed myself that day." And the tears ran down his 
 face. 
 
 Of Stevenson's open mind there could perhaps be 
 no better proof than the passage in his last letter to 
 R. A. M. Stevenson, written only two months before his 
 death. If there was a class of men on this earth whom 
 Louis loathed and placed beyond the pale of humanity, 
 it was the dynamiters and anarchists; yet he could 
 write of them in the following strain: "There is a 
 new something or other in the wind, which exercises
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 me hugely: anarchy, I mean, anarchism. People who 
 (for pity's sake) commit dastardly murders very basely, 
 die like saints, and leave beautiful letters behind 'em 
 (did you see Vaillant to his daughter? it was the New 
 Testament over again) ; people whose conduct is inex- 
 plicable to me, and yet their spiritual life higher than 
 that of most. This is just what the early Christians 
 must have seemed to the Romans. ... If they go on 
 being martyred a few years more, the gross, dull, not 
 unkindly bourgeois may get tired or ashamed or afraid 
 of going on martyring; and the anarchists come out at 
 the top just like the early Christians." 
 
 I have never met any one who hated cruelty of any 
 kind with so lively a horror I had almost said with so 
 fanatical a detestation from his earliest years. 
 
 " Do you remember telling me one day when I came 
 in," wrote the Rev. Peter Rutherford, his tutor, to 
 Mrs. Thomas Stevenson after her son's death, " how it 
 was his eyes were so swollen : tear-swollen ? You had 
 found him in the study sobbing bitterly over a tale of 
 cruelty he had been reading all alone." At the other 
 end of his life I can remember his own impassioned 
 account, given late one Sunday evening on his return 
 from Apia, of how he had found a crowd of natives 
 watching a dog-fight. He had plunged into their midst 
 and stopped it, and turned to rebuke them. "But I 
 found all my Samoan had clean gone out of my head, 
 and all I could say to them was ' Pala'ai, Pala'ai! ' (' Cow- 
 ards, cowards!')." But the most characteristic of all 
 his utterances was at Pitlochry in 1881, when he saw a 
 dog being ill-treated. He at once interposed, and when 
 the owner resented his interference and told him: 
 
 216
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 " It 's not your dog," he cried out: " It 's God's dog, and 
 I 'm here to protect it." 
 
 At the same time it must be laid to the credit of his 
 reason and the firm balance of his judgment that al- 
 though vivisection was a subject he could not endure 
 even to hear mentioned, yet, with all his imagination 
 and sensibility, he never ranged himself among the 
 opponents of this method of inquiry, provided, of 
 course, it was limited, as in England, with the utmost 
 rigour possible. 
 
 It is curious now to remember that an early critic of 
 the Travels with a Donkey censured him severely for 
 the treatment of Modestine as described by Stevenson 
 himself. Yet woe betide either friend or stranger who 
 appeared at Vailima on a horse with the sore back too 
 common in the tropics : it was well for him if he did 
 not have to return home on foot. 
 
 Irksome as ill-health was to Stevenson, it was yet the 
 possible effect on his own character that he most 
 dreaded, for he suspected that " being an invalid was a 
 fatal objection to a human being," and his horror of 
 valetudinarianism was due to its being "the worst 
 training upon earth." He felt it hard that he should be 
 judged by the same standard as men to whom the 
 world was still " full of sea-bathing, and horse exercise, 
 and bracing, manly virtues." Moreover, although he 
 always reckoned his life " as a thing to be dashingly 
 used and cheerfully hazarded," he could not be alto- 
 gether unconscious of the insecurity of his tenure. On 
 one of those fragments of paper preserved by chance, 
 on which he used to write down his remarks during 
 the many periods when he was forbidden to speak, 
 
 217
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 these words occur: "You know the remarks of no 
 doctor mean anything in my case. My case is a sport. 
 I may die to-night or live till sixty." I can remember 
 his saying to me in Samoa, " I have n't had a fair chance, 
 I 've had to spend nearly all my life in expectation of 
 death." The chief result with him perhaps was that 
 he sat looser to life, and had grown altogether familiar 
 with the idea of leaving it; 1 for in the words of Sir 
 Thomas Browne : " He that so often surviveth his ex- 
 pectation lives many lives, and will hardly complain of 
 the shortness of his days." 
 
 The question of Stevenson's ill-health brings one to 
 the consideration which troubled him now and again 
 in his later days : whether he had not after all made a 
 mistake in adopting literature as his profession. With 
 him, as with Scott, " to have done things worthy to be 
 written was a dignity to which no man made any ap- 
 proach who had only written things worthy to be 
 read." At times he thought with a passing regret of 
 the life of action he had forsaken, and was struck by 
 the irony that his father, who had opposed his choice 
 of the profession of literature, had come to approve of 
 it before he died, while he, whom nothing but that 
 change of life would satisfy, had himself lived to doubt 
 its wisdom. 2 But in these comparisons it was an ideal 
 life that he contemplated, where he should be always 
 well and always strong, doing his work in the open 
 air. With such health and such conditions, his char- 
 acter and his powers might have attained to other 
 heights; we should then have known a different man, 
 less human and less endeared to us by the frailties of 
 
 i Letters, ii. 353. * Ibid., 32 1 . 
 
 218
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 our common nature. But the field on which he 
 fought with sickness and depression was one in which 
 most of us are at times engaged, and where many suf- 
 ferers carry on a lifelong struggle. Anywhere his ex- 
 ample would have been splendid; it could hardly have 
 been more widely seen, or have better helped his fellow- 
 men. 
 
 There v/as this about him, that he was the only man 
 I have ever known who possessed charm in a high de- 
 gree, whose character did not suffer from the posses- 
 sion. The gift comes naturally to women, and they 
 are at their best in its exercise. But a man requires to 
 be of a very sound fibre before he can be entirely him- 
 self and keep his heart single, if he carries about with 
 him a talisman to obtain from all men and all women 
 the object of his heart's desire. Both gifts Stevenson 
 possessed, not only the magic but also the strength of 
 character to which it was safely intrusted. 
 
 But who shall bring back that charm ? Who shall 
 unfold its secret ? He was all that I have said : he was 
 inexhaustible, he was brilliant, he was romantic, he 
 was fiery, he was tender, he was brave, he was kind. 
 With all this there went something more. He always 
 liked the people he was with, and found the best and 
 brightest that was in them; he entered into all the 
 thoughts and moods of his companions, and led them 
 along pleasant ways, or raised them to a courage and a 
 gaiety like his own. If criticism or reminiscence has 
 yielded any further elucidation of his spell, I do not 
 know: it defies my analysis, nor have I ever heard it 
 explained. 
 
 There linger on the lips of men a few names that 
 219
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 bring to us, as it were, a breeze blowing off the shores 
 of youth. Most of those who have borne them were 
 taken from the world before early promise could be 
 fulfilled, and so they rank in our regard by virtue of 
 their possibilities alone. Stevenson is among the fewer 
 still who bear the award both of promise and of achieve- 
 ment, and is happier yet in this: besides admiration and 
 hope, he has raised within the hearts of his readers a 
 personal feeling towards himself which is nothing less 
 deep than love. 
 
 220
 
 APPENDICES
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE SAMOAN STUDENTS AT MALUA, 
 JANUARY, 1890 
 
 You are the hope of your race. You stand in a position of so much 
 privilege and so much responsibility, that I myself feel it a privilege 
 and a responsibility to address you. What your race is to become in 
 the future, that you carry in your hands: the father and the mother 
 carry and feed the little child; yet a little, and the child learns to walk, 
 and to look for and to plant for itself ; yet a little longer still, and he is 
 carrying and teaching, and feeding and teaching new young ones. So 
 it is with the generations in a family. So in a far wider sense with 
 them in a country and a race. 
 
 You, gentlemen, are now learning to walk: very soon at the swift 
 pace of years the fast runners you will be called upon to teach in 
 your turn. And while all are called upon first to learn and then to 
 teach, you are so called particularly; you have been chosen and set 
 apart ; you are the elect Levites : you are called upon in a few years to 
 be the fathers and guides of your race: according as you do well, so 
 may your country with God's blessing flourish ; according as you do 
 ill, so will it certainly decline. 
 
 FIRST, TO LEARN 
 
 I was in an island not very far from here where they are trying to 
 teach them French, for the Government is a French Government: show 
 any of the young men some written French, and they would read it 
 out aloud with a good pronunciation, never stumbling; ask any of 
 them what it meant, and they held their peace; they did not under- 
 stand one word : they read as parrots speak. Now we may not be quite 
 as stupid as the Marquesans, and yet we may be no better at all. 
 
 We may learn a great deal about religion, yet not learn religion. 
 We may know a thousand texts, and get no sense from them, as a 
 blind man might have a thousand lanterns and yet see no better. The 
 meaning of religion is a rule of life; it is an obligation to do well; if 
 
 223
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 that rule, that obligation, is not seen, your thousand texts will be to 
 you like the thousand lanterns to the blind man. As he goes about the 
 house in the night of his blindness, he will only break the glass and bum 
 his feet and fingers : and so you, as you go through life in the night 
 of your ignorance, will only break and hurt yourselves on broken laws. 
 
 Before Christ came, the Jewish religion had forbidden many evil 
 things; it was a religion that a man could fulfil, I had almost said, in 
 idleness; all he had to do was to pray and to sing psalms, and to refrain 
 from things forbidden. Do not deceive yourselves; when Christ came, 
 all was changed. The injunction was then laid upon us not to refrain 
 from doing, but to do. At the last day he is to ask us not what sins 
 we have avoided, but what righteousness we have done, what we have 
 done for others, how we have helped good and hindered evil : what 
 difference has it made to this world, and to our country and our family 
 and our friends, that we have lived. The man who has been only 
 pious and not useful will stand with a long face on that great day, when 
 Christ puts to him his questions. 
 
 But this is not all that we must learn : we must beware everywhere 
 of the letter that kills, seek everywhere for the spirit that makes glad 
 and strong. For example, these questions that we have just read are 
 again only the letter. We must study what they mean, not what they 
 are. We are told to visit them that are in prison. A good thing, but 
 it were better if we could save them going there. We are told to visit 
 the sick; it were better still, and we should so better have fulfilled the 
 law, if we could have saved some of them from falling sick. In con- 
 sidering the passage, you are to bear in mind it was addressed to men 
 poor, without consideration, without authority; these particular ques- 
 tions are but illustrations of the law, and they are the illustrations best 
 suited to the case of the disciples; had Christ been addressing you who 
 are already chosen out to be the guides and teachers of a generation 
 throughout all these islands, be sure the illustrations would have been 
 different. The law, the spirit, would be the same; the questions, the 
 illustrations, the letter would have been quite other. The best the 
 disciples could hope to do was to comfort and heal the sick and the 
 prisoners, but you can do more. If you think you cannot, if 
 you confine yourself to the letter here, I see the blind man stumbling 
 among useless lanterns, and I look to hear him cry when he shall have 
 burned his fingers. 
 
 224
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 Your case is apart. You have to help: you have to protect your 
 race and your country. It will not do for you to visit the sick; you 
 must teach your countrymen to avoid those things that bring sickness. 
 It will not be enough for you to comfort the prisoner; it will be for 
 you to see that none go to prison unjustly, and that of those who go 
 there justly, none shall have gone through your default. It will be 
 for you, in particular, to see that your whole race does not fall sick 
 and die; that your whole race does not go into a prison which shall 
 never open. 
 
 For these are the dangers. You have yet been spared the visitation 
 of the worst sicknesses: when these come there will be a fresh test of 
 your teaching. Will you by that time have made your race wise 
 enough and obedient enough to take the necessary care ? Will you 
 have made them brave enough to bear the horror, the bereavement, 
 the darkness of that time ? Ah, gentlemen, if so, you will have 
 played a brave part; you will have fought a good fight. If not, what 
 will you have done for the people put into your hands, even like a 
 child, and whom you have not taught to walk ? 
 
 Again there is another danger: the loss of your land to foreigners. 
 It is good to make laws, and good to keep them ; but let us remember 
 that a law in itself is but a form of words, as the mark of a tapui 
 [taboo] was only a branch of cocoanut or a piece of mulberry bark. 
 What makes either strong is something in the heart of the people. It 
 will depend upon you to put it and keep it there. And to do so will 
 be better than to visit the law-breakers in prison. 
 
 And again. It will be very difficult to keep this law about the 
 land, unless you help. 
 
 Yet another way. Trouble comes upon your people; and it is a 
 trouble like death, that must come, and for which you must be pre- 
 pared. The world is very full of men, many of them starving; in 
 these crowded lands, men have learned to work desperately hard; 
 with all their hard work, they are still too many of them in their own 
 place; they flow like water out of a full bucket, and they come, they 
 must come, they have begun to come to your islands. Then the fight 
 will befall, it has begun already; it is a true fight, although swords are 
 not drawn nor guns fired, for men's lives and men's deaths are on the 
 issue. 
 
 Now I will say to you plainly, if you cannot get your own people 
 H 225
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 to be a little more industrious, to make a little money, and to save a 
 little money, you may make all the good laws on earth, still your 
 lands will be sold; when your land is sold, your race will die, and in 
 these islands, where your children might have lived for a hundred cen- 
 turies, another race will sit, and they will ask themselves What 
 were the Samoans ? and only find word of you in ancient books. It 
 is for the king to make the laws; it is for you to make the people in- 
 dustrious and saving; which if you do, the laws will be kept; which 
 if you do not, they shall certainly be broken, and your race finish. 
 And when the traveller comes here perhaps in no such long time, and 
 looks in vain, and asks for the Samoans, and they tell him all are 
 dead; and he, wondering at the judgment, cries out, " Where was the 
 fault?" and we shall say: " They taught young men in Malua, and it 
 was thought that these would teach the people, and they failed; and 
 now the wind blows and the rain falls where their roofs once stood, 
 and where their fires once burned." 
 
 Perhaps you think I lay a heavy charge on you: it is not I that lay 
 it, but the Master you profess to serve. Or that I ask of you a 
 miracle: it is not a miracle, for it has been partly done in another 
 place. In Tahiti I could not see the people were at all hard worked; 
 the people in my own country work far harder; yet they work hard 
 enough. In a village where I lived long, many had fine European 
 houses, and more were building; many had money laid aside, none 
 had sold his land. What has been done in Tahiti, cannot that be done 
 in Samoa ? I think it can, and I know the duty lies on you. 
 
 SECOND, TO TEACH 
 
 The learning part, to leam the spirit of your Master, the helpfulness 
 to others which he lays down, and to learn his spirit, can best be 
 applied in your own isle to your own race; the learning part done, 
 you have to Teach. Upon this I will say only two things. 
 
 There was once (or so they tell) a false prophet in Asia who came 
 with a cloth on his face. No man, he said, might look upon his face 
 and live, it was (like Moses') so bright with the effulgence of God's 
 spirit; and many disciples and an army gathered about the prophet 
 with the cloth. And one fine day the cloth was rent, and behold an old, 
 bald, hideous creature from whom all men shrank; his friends fled from 
 
 226
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 the tent screaming, his armies fled from their encampment, and in one 
 day his power was fallen. 
 
 I am here and speak to you good words I think, honest words I 
 am very sure to-morrow 1 am gone again, and you cannot tell what 
 manner of man 1 am : whether good or bad, whether I do what I teach, 
 or whether I disgrace my teaching by my conduct. I am the prophet 
 with the cloth before my face. But you, who are to dwell with your 
 fellow-countrymen, every day will make another hole in the cloth that 
 covers you, and you may be still talking and teaching the bravest les- 
 sons, and prating perhaps of the brightness of your countenance, but 
 all the while your hearers see you as you are, and some run screaming 
 and some laugh aloud. 
 
 No man can do as well as he teaches. For we are all like St. Paul in 
 this, that we see better things than we are able to attain to; we can- 
 not therefore hope to be seen doing what we teach, but we must be 
 seen trying to do it: we shall even only teach it well, in so far as 
 we are trying hard. The man who only talks, I pledge you my word, 
 he will not even do the talking well. This is as much as to say, that 
 if you are going to save your island and your race you must all make 
 up your hearts constantly to a life of hard toil in the eyes of your dis- 
 ciples. That is the example you must set. You may think this is a 
 hard thing. But did you suppose there is any way in life which 
 a man is allowed not to be a hero? You pastors do not go to war; 
 you must be braver-hearted, then, at home. The world has no room 
 for cowards. We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. 
 And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you, 
 when you go out into your daily battlefields; and no crowds shout 
 about your coming, when you return from your daily victory or 
 defeat. 
 
 1 am afraid 1 wish you to be very stern with yourselves, and that 
 brings me to my last point. How are you to be stern to others? 
 There is love, and there is justice. Justice is for oneself: love for 
 others. It did not require any gospel to teach a man to love himself or 
 to be stern to his neighbours, and the gospel was, in fact, the oppo- 
 site. Yet there is one thing here in Samoa that I think you will have 
 to fight very hard; or all the toil and the frugality in the world will 
 never make your islands strong enough and rich enough to stand. If I 
 were speaking at home in my own country, I would tell people to be 
 
 337
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 more generous; and it would be the givers and the lenders I would be 
 addressing. I want to ask your countrymen to be more generous too; 
 but I want you to say this to the askers. You will get men to work 
 with difficulty if those that do not work come down like locusts and 
 devour the harvest. For the defence of the workers, you must get 
 these beggars ashamed of themselves, or you must make them so ridic- 
 ulous in the eyes of others that they shall not dare to come besieging 
 people's houses. 
 
 To them I am afraid you must be a little stern, for they lie right in 
 the way that leads to safety for your islands and your race; they are a 
 disease that must be cured; they are a new plague of Egypt. 
 
 But to sinners, and to them that fail, and to those that grow weary in 
 well-doing, you must remember rather to be long-suffering: show them 
 the better way, and keep your anger for yourselves when you shall fail 
 to show it. A brawling pastor is the next worse thing to an idle one. 
 
 228
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 An Address read 1 before the Women's Missionary Association and 
 members of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of 
 New South Wales, at Sydney, March 18, 1893. 
 
 I SUPPOSE I am in the position of many other persons. I had con- 
 ceived a great prejudice against Missions in the South Seas, and I had 
 no sooner come there than that prejudice was at first reduced, and 
 then at last annihilated. Those who deblaterate against missions 
 have only one thing to do, to come and see them on the spot. They 
 will see a great deal of good done; they will see a race being forwarded 
 in many different directions, and I believe, if they be honest persons, 
 they will cease to complain of mission work and its effects. At the 
 same time, and infallibly in all sublunary matters, they will see a great 
 deal of harm done. I am very glad to think that the new class of 
 missionaries are by no means so radical as their predecessors. 1 have 
 spoken to many missionaries, and I have the pleasure to say that the 
 most intelligent among them are of one opinion and that the true one. 
 They incline to think that it is best to proceed by little and little, and 
 not by much and much. They are inclined to spare so far as it is 
 possible native opinions and set native habits of morality; to seek 
 rather the point of agreement than the points of difference; to proceed 
 rather by confirmation and extension than by iconoclasm. I wish I 
 could say how strongly I feel the importance and efficiency of this 
 new view. People have learned one code of decency from their child- 
 hood up. They are prepared to suffer, in some cases to die, for that. 
 There is here a vast reservoir of moral power. It is the business of the 
 missionary not to destroy, but to utilise it. When the missionaries 
 the earlier missionaries " broke the tabus " in the South Sea Islands, 
 they chose the path of destruction, not of utilisation, and I am pleased 
 
 1 Stevenson was unable to be present at the meeting, but the proofs 
 of this article were revised by him for the Sydney Presbyterian. 
 
 229
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 to think that these days are over, that no missionary will go among a 
 primitive people with the idea of mere revolution, that he will rather 
 develop that which is good, or is capable of being made good, in the 
 inherent ideas of the race, that when he finds an idea half bad and 
 half good, he will apply himself to the good half of it, develop that, 
 and seek to minimise and gradually obliterate the other, thus saving 
 what I may be allowed to call the moral water-power. Because we 
 are, one and all, in every rank of life, and in every race of mankind, 
 the children of our fathers, we shall never do well, we shall certainly 
 never do nobly, except upon the lines marked out for us by our fathers' 
 footprints. 
 
 And the true art of the missionary, as it seems to me an outsider, 
 the most lay of laymen, and for that reason, on the old principle that 
 the bystander sees most of the game, perhaps more than usually well 
 able to judge is to profit by the great I ought really to say the 
 vast amount of moral force reservoired in every race, and to expand 
 and to change and to fit that power to new ideas and to new possibil- 
 ities of advancement. 
 
 I am saying only that which I have learned from my intercourse 
 with the most experienced of missionaries, though it commends itself 
 to me upon more primitive and abstract grounds. What I have still 
 to say is perhaps more personal to myself as an observer. 
 
 We make a great blunder when we expect people to give up in a 
 moment the whole beliefs of ages, the whole morals of the family, 
 sanctified by the traditions of the heart, and not to lose something 
 essential. We make a still greater or I should say, too many 
 missionaries make a mistake still greater when they expect, not 
 only from their native converts, but from white men (by no means of 
 the highest class) shipwrecked or stranded at random on these islands, 
 a standard of conduct which no parish minister in the world would 
 dare to expect of his parishioners and church members. 
 
 There is here in these despised whites a second reservoir of moral 
 power, which missionaries too often neglect and render nugatory. 
 Many of these despised traders are in themselves fairly decent and 
 more than fairly decent persons. They dwell, besides, permanently 
 amidst the native population, whereas the missionary is in some cases, 
 and perhaps too often, only there upon a flying visit. The trader is 
 therefore, at once by experience and by influence, the superior of the 
 
 230
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 missionary. He is a person marked out to be made use of by the in- 
 telligent missionary. Sometimes a very doubtful character, sometimes 
 a very decent old gentleman, he will almost invariably be made the 
 better by some intelligent and kindly attention for which he is often 
 burning; and he will almost invariably be made the worse by neglect 
 or by insult. 
 
 And 1 am sorry to say that in too many cases I have found these 
 methods to be followed by the missionary. I know very well that, in 
 part from the misdeeds of the worst kind of traders, and in part by the 
 harshness of otherwise excellent missionaries, this quarrel has become 
 envenomed. Well, it is just this quarrel that has to be eliminated. 
 By long-suffering, by kindness, by a careful distinction of personalities, 
 the mission and the traders have to be made more or less in unison. It 
 is doubtful if the traders will change much ; it is perhaps permissible in 
 the layman to suggest that the mission might change somewhat. The 
 missionary is a great and a beneficent factor. He is hampered, he is 
 restricted, his work is largely negated by the attitude of his fellow- 
 whites, his fellow-countrymen, and his fellow-Christians in the same 
 island. Difficult as the case may be and all mission work is emi- 
 nently difficult the business which appears to me to be before the 
 missions is that of making their peace; and I will say much more- 
 of raising up a brigade of half and half, or if that cannot be, of quarter 
 and quarter lay supporters among the whites. 
 
 Jf I had not been asked, 1 should have been the last man in the 
 world to have interjected my lay opinions into your councils. Having 
 been asked, I willingly lay myself open to your censures, and confi- 
 dently appeal for your indulgence, while I tell you exactly how this 
 matter has seemed to a far from uninterested layman, well acquainted 
 with the greater part of the South Seas.
 
 APPENDIX C 
 
 VAILIMA PRAYERS 
 
 FOR SUCCESS 
 
 LORD, behold our family here assembled. We thank Thee for this 
 place in which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for the peace ac- 
 corded us this day ; for the hope with which we expect the morrow ; for 
 the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies that make our lives 
 delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth, and our friendly 
 helpers in this foreign isle. Let peace abound in our small company. 
 Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and strength 
 to forbear and to persevere. Offenders, give us the grace to accept and 
 to forgive offences. Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the 
 forgetfulness of others. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet 
 mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it 
 may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us strength 
 to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant 
 in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and 
 down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to another. As the 
 clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind, as children of their 
 sire, we beseech of Thee this help and mercy for Christ's sake. 
 
 FOR GRACE 
 
 Grant that we here before Thee may be set free from the fear of 
 vicissitude and the fear of death, may finish what remains before us of 
 our course without dishonour to ourselves or hurt to others, and when 
 the day comes, may die in peace. Deliver us from fear and favour, 
 from mean hopes and from cheap pleasures. Have mercy on each in 
 his deficiency; let him be not cast down; support the stumbler on the 
 way, and give at last rest to the weary. 
 
 AT MORNING 
 
 The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns 
 and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with 
 
 232
 
 APPENDIX C 
 
 laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry, let our 
 laughter rise like a . Give us to go blithely on our business all 
 
 this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undis- 
 honoured, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep. 
 
 EVENING 
 
 We come before Thee, O Lord, in the end of Thy day with thanks- 
 giving. Remember and relieve, we beseech Thee, those who are in 
 pain, remember sick children, visit the fathers of destitute families, shine 
 in the house of affliction. Our beloved in the far parts of the earth, 
 those who are now beginning the labours of the day what time we end 
 them, and those with whom the sun now stands at the point of noon, 
 bless, help, console and prosper them. 
 
 Our guard is relieved, the service of the day is over, and the hour 
 come to rest. We resign into Thy hands our sleeping bodies, our cold 
 hearths and open doors. Give us to awake with smiles, give us to 
 labour smiling. As the sun returns in the east, so let our patience be 
 renewed with dawn ; as the sun lightens the world, so let our loving- 
 kindness make bright this house of our habitation. 
 
 ANOTHER FOR EVENING 
 
 Lord, receive our supplications for this house, family, and country. 
 Protect the innocent, restrain the greedy and the treacherous, lead us 
 out of our tribulation into a quiet land. 
 
 Look down upon ourselves and our absent dear ones. Help us and 
 them; prolong our days in peace and honour. Give us health, food, 
 bright weather, and light hearts. In what we meditate of evil, frus- 
 trate our will; in what of good, further our endeavours. Cause inju- 
 ries to be forgot and benefits to be remembered. Let us lie down 
 without fear, and awake and arise with exultation. For His sake, in 
 whose words we now conclude. 
 
 IN THE SEASON OF RAIN 
 
 We thank Thee, Lord, for the glory of the late days and the excel- 
 lent face of Thy sun. We thank Thee for good news received. We 
 thank Thee for the pleasures we have enjoyed and for those we have 
 
 233
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 been able to confer. And now, when the clouds gather and the rain 
 impends over the forest and "our house, permit us not to be cast down; 
 let us not lose the savour of past mercies and past pleasures ; but, like 
 the voice of a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memory survive in 
 the hour of darkness. If there be in front of us any painful duty, 
 strengthen us with the grace of courage; if any act of mercy, teach us 
 tenderness and patience. 
 
 ANOTHER 
 
 Lord, Thou sendest down rain upon the uncounted millions of the 
 forest, and givest the trees to drink exceedingly. We are here upon 
 this isle a few handfuls of men, and how many myriads upon myriads 
 of stalwart trees! Teach us the lesson of the trees. The sea around 
 us, which this rain recruits, teems with the race of fish ; teach us, Lord, 
 the meaning of the fishes. Let us see ourselves for what we are, one 
 out of the countless number of the clans of Thy handiwork. When 
 we would despair, let us remember that these also please and serve 
 Thee. 
 
 BEFORE A TEMPORARY SEPARATION 
 
 To-day we go forth separate, some of us to pleasure, some of us to 
 worship, some upon duty. Go with us, our guide and angel; hold 
 Thou before us in our divided paths the mark of our low calling, still 
 to be true to what small best we can attain to. Help us in that, our 
 Maker, the dispenser of events, Thou, of the vast designs in which we 
 blindly labour, suffer us to be so far constant to ourselves and our 
 beloved. 
 
 FOR FRIENDS 
 
 For our absent loved ones we implore Thy loving-kindness. Keep 
 them in life, keep them in growing honour; and for us, grant that we 
 remain worthy of their love. For Christ's sake, let not our beloved 
 blush for us, nor we for them. Grant us but that, and grant us courage 
 to endure lesser ills unshaken, and to accept death, loss, and disap- 
 pointment as it were straws upon the tide of life. 
 
 FOR THE FAMILY 
 
 Aid us, if it be Thy will, in our concerns. Have mercy on this land 
 and innocent people. Help them who this day contend in disappoint- 
 
 234
 
 APPENDIX C 
 
 ment with their frailties. Bless our family, bless our forest house, 
 bless our island helpers. Thou who hast made for us this place of ease 
 and hope, accept and inflame our gratitude; help us to repay in service 
 one to another the debt of Thine unmerited benefits and mercies, so 
 that when the period of our stewardship draws to a conclusion, when 
 the windows begin to be darkened, when the bond of the family is 
 to be loosed, there shall be no bitterness of remorse in our farewells. 
 
 Help us to look back on the long way that Thou hast brought us, 
 on the long days in which we have been served not according to our 
 deserts but our desires; on the pit and the miry clay, the blackness of 
 despair, the horror of misconduct, from which our feet have been 
 plucked out. For our sins forgiven or prevented, for our shame un- 
 published, we bless and thank Thee, O God. Help us yet again and 
 ever. So order events, so corroborate our frailty, as that day by day 
 we shall come before Thee with this song of gratitude, and in the end 
 we be dismissed with honour. In their weakness and their fear the 
 vessels of Thy handiwork so pray to Thee, so praise Thee. Amen. 
 
 SUNDAY 
 
 We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, folk of many 
 families and nations gathered together in the peace of this roof, weak 
 men and women subsisting under the covert of Thy patience. Be 
 patient still ; suffer us yet awhile longer ; with our broken purposes of 
 good, with our idle endeavours against evil, suffer us awhile longer 
 to endure, and (if it may be) help us to do better. Bless to us our ex- 
 traordinary mercies; if the day come when these must be taken, brace 
 us to play the man under affliction. Be with our friends, be with 
 ourselves. Go with each of us to rest; if any dream, be their dreams 
 quiet; if any awake, temper to them the dark hours of watching; and 
 when the day returns, return to us, our sun and comforter, and call us 
 up with morning faces and with morning hearts eager to labour 
 eager to be happy, if happiness shall be our portion and if the day 
 be marked for sorrow, strong to endure it. 
 
 We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in the words of Him to whom 
 this day is sacred, close our oblation. 
 
 Lord, enlighten us to see the beam that is in our own eye, and blind 
 us to the mote that is in our brother's. Let us feel our offences with 
 
 235
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 our hands, make them great and bright before us like the sun, make 
 us eat and drink them for our diet. Blind us to the offences of our 
 beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take them out of our 
 mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry and measure with the 
 false balances of love, and be in their own eyes and in all conjunctions 
 the most guilty. Help us, at the same time, with the grace of courage, 
 that we be none of us cast down. When we sit lamenting amid the 
 ruins of our happiness or our integrity, touch us with fire from the 
 altar, that we may be up and doing to rebuild our city : in the name 
 and by the method of Him in whose words we now conclude. 
 
 Lord, the creatures of Thy hand, Thy disinherited children, come 
 before Thee with their incoherent wishes and regrets. Children we 
 are, children we shall be, till our mother the earth has fed upon our 
 bones. Accept us, correct us, guide us, Thy guilty innocents. Dry 
 our vain tears, delete our vain resentments, help our yet vainer efforts. 
 If there be any here, sulking as children will, deal with and enlighten 
 him. Make it day about that person, so that he shall see himself and 
 be ashamed. Make it heaven about him, Lord, by the only way to 
 heaven, forgetfulness of self. And make it day about his neighbours, 
 so that they shall help, not hinder him. 
 
 We are evil, O God, and help us to see it and amend. We are 
 good, and help us to be better. Look down upon Thy servants with 
 a patient eye, even as Thou sendest sun and rain; look down, call 
 upon the dry bones, quicken, enliven; re-create in us the soul of 
 service, the spirit of peace; renew in us the sense of joy. 
 
 236
 
 APPENDIX D 
 
 SAMOAN AFFAIRS 
 
 IT is obvious that if the Berlin Treaty were to prove a success, the 
 two chief officials appointed under its provisions should have been men 
 of the world, conversant with ordinary business, perfectly straightfor- 
 ward, accustomed to criticism, free from red tape, prompt to act, ready 
 to conciliate, and willing to undertake responsibility. Moreover, they 
 should have been sent out to their posts as soon as the news of their 
 appointment reached Samoa. 
 
 The following note will show that none of these conditions were ful- 
 filled. 1 take my facts (with one single exception) from the reports of 
 the British Consul and the American Consul-General, for after several 
 efforts I have failed to procure a copy of the German White-book for use 
 in writing these pages. I read it when it came out, and would refer to 
 the leading article in the Times for January lyth, 189;, to show that it 
 directly supported Stevenson's contentions. But it would be useless to 
 refer my readers to an authority so inaccessible. The American White- 
 book is likewise not easily obtained, and I have principally quoted 
 the British Blue-book, C 697?, which may be purchased by any one 
 for the sum of two shillings from Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode, 32 
 Abingdon Street, London, S.W. As to the impartiality of the Blue- 
 book, the British Consul during this period was never at any time sus- 
 pected, justly or unjustly, of being friendly to Stevenson. 
 
 The actual facts are as follows: The Treaty was signed at Berlin 
 on July i4th, 1889: the President did not reach Apia till 26th April, 
 1891 (Letter No. 85), and though the Chief-Justice arrived in the end of 
 December, 1890 (No. 61), he did not open his court for hearing cases 
 till the i jth of July in the following year (120). 
 
 The Chief-Justice from the beginning refused to pay any customs or 
 other duties as a private individual (125); he delayed the proceedings 
 of the Land Commission, by disclaiming all authority to give the neces- 
 sary formal sanction to their appointment of a secretary, and the hire 
 of a safe for the custody of the numerous title-deeds produced be- 
 
 237
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 fore their court (97); he appointed two Swedes to the only two offices 
 in his patronage, and procured or created two more posts which they 
 held simultaneously with the others (73, 239); and he refused to register 
 any land-titles until a heavy fee had been paid to his Registrar a 
 stroke by which that officer, in addition to his salary, would within 
 a couple of years have pocketed .3000 (239, 305). Then, when 
 troubles were beginning, he started on September 5th, 1891, on an ex- 
 pedition of several months' duration to study the land systems of Fiji 
 and Victoria (123, 179). 
 
 The President for his part chose as the first work of the new Govern- 
 ment a large prison, on which .1500, being half the sum collected by 
 the Government up to the time of his proposal, was expended (127), and 
 which, when finished, was not used (278). At the same time he 
 issued an advertisement calling for tenders for " Capitol Buildings," 
 "which proved to be mainly a dwelling-house for Baron Senfft 
 von Pilsach " (127), a residence for which it is fair to add that he duly 
 paid rent. 
 
 On September 4th, 1891, five Samoan chiefs, who had surrendered 
 voluntarily to a political charge of having destroyed some houses on 
 the island of Manono, were, no doubt with complete justice, condemned 
 to six months' imprisonment by a native judge, just before the Chief- 
 Justice left for his colonial studies. Two days later, on rumour of an 
 attempt to rescue the men, the Swedish jailor, acting presumably on 
 instructions, placed dynamite under the prison, connected the charge 
 with an electric battery, and threatened to blow the whole of the 
 prisoners sky-high, if any such attempt were made. 1 
 
 Yet two days later, there having been no sign of trouble, the king, 
 
 1 This is the only statement unsupported by any of the official pub- 
 lications, but it was made deliberately by Stevenson upon the informa- 
 tion received by him at the time and on the spot; the three Powers 
 publish not one single word of denial or incredulity, and when the Gov- 
 ernment editor tried to meet the accusation, he did not for a moment 
 question the fact, but endeavoured to explain it away. (The Times, 
 nth January, 1893.) 
 
 If the charge were untrue, it would have been denied with indigna- 
 tion in two lines. If it were admitted to be true, what could be said? 
 Let us take a recent analogy: what would have been said if dynamite 
 had been placed under the huts at Nooitgedacht or St. Helena, where the 
 prisoners were prisoners of war, or under the Tombs or Holloway Jail? 
 
 238
 
 APPENDIX D 
 
 with the assent of the British Consul, and acting presumably under the 
 direction of his official adviser, altered the sentence and deported the 
 five chiefs to an island entirely out of his jurisdiction three hundred 
 miles away. 1 
 
 Up to the middle of March, 1892, the Customs dues of Apia had 
 been appropriated without question to the Municipality, which had 
 been administering its income with the full consent of its chairman, the 
 President, who regularly published its accounts (213, encl. 4). Sud- 
 denly, without a word of warning, the President made an entirely 
 secret reference to the Chief-Justice, who thereupon, without giving 
 any notice to the persons most interested, or any opportunity for 
 arguing the question before him, made an official declaration that the 
 whole of these dues, past, present, and future, belonged to the Samoan 
 Treasury, and that the Municipality was bound to refund the arrears. 
 The Council was thus rendered bankrupt, and its future revenue re- 
 duced to ji6oo a year, on which the President's own salary of ^1000 
 was a first charge. The income of the Chief-Justice was paid by the 
 Samoan Treasury, which had been nearly empty until it received this 
 accession of/50Oo(i88, 215, encl. i). 
 
 It was to do them little good. On the strength of this windfall the 
 President (263) proceeded with the utmost secrecy to buy up the local 
 newspaper! For this he paid .650 in cash, entered the purchase as a 
 " special investment ordered by the king" (306), and suppressed the 
 fact as long as possible. The Government advertisements had hitherto 
 been the mainstay of the paper, which had nevertheless maintained a 
 creditable independence. Four months later the Government started 
 at additional cost a Royal Gazette, which henceforth contained the 
 advertisements given formerly to their own newspaper, "thereby re- 
 ducing the selling value of the Samoa Times from ^650 to about 
 .200." By this time the Samoan Government, which could collect few 
 or no native taxes, was almost bankrupt again (263). A rival paper 
 was naturally started in a few months, still further reducing the value 
 of the Samoa Times, which, within a couple of years, wholly emanci- 
 pated itself from Government influence. 
 
 Meanwhile the sanitation, lighting, policing, road-making, and all 
 
 1 American White-book, p. 104. The British Blue-book does not 
 refer to the incident of the prisoners at all. 
 
 239
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 necessary works of the Municipality were at a standstill (213), and the 
 monthly service of mail-steamers, on which the prosperity of the place 
 largely depended, was seriously imperilled by a refusal to give the 
 company more than half the very moderate subsidy for which it asked 
 (263). And as far as the natives were concerned, the Government, to 
 all intents and purposes, was non-existent. 
 
 It is mere weariness to add that the President, having combined the 
 funds of the Government and of the Municipality, and lodged the 
 balance in his own name in a bank in Sydney, denied the right of 
 either the Samoan Government or the Municipality to interfere, on the 
 ground that the whole sum belonged to neither one of them, nor 
 would he allow the auditors of the Municipal accounts to verify the 
 Municipal balance (265, encl. i). " The Berlin Act," he said, " con- 
 tained certain provisions adapted to the purpose of securing the 
 selection of conscientious persons to my office " (243). 
 
 These facts, I must repeat, are not drawn from any statement of 
 Stevenson; they are not due to any imagination of my own: they are 
 taken from the matter-of-fact reports of the Consuls, who forwarded 
 them to their Governments as material for negotiations between the 
 Great Powers concerned. There are many ridiculous details I have 
 omitted, there are many other disputes on all sorts of petty questions. 
 But into these and the other charges contained in the letters to the 
 Times it is unnecessary to go; they require more explanation, they 
 would be more tedious to narrate, they are equally futile, more ridic- 
 ulous it is hardly possible for them to be. 
 
 The criticism with which Stevenson summed up one of these gentle- 
 men might equally be applied to the other. " Such an official I never 
 remember to have read of, though I have seen the like from across the 
 footlights and the orchestra, evolving in similar figures to the strains of 
 Offenbach." 
 
 As to the question of Stevenson's deportation, which occurs oc- 
 casionally in his letters, and was at one time constantly present before 
 his eyes, he firmly believed what is probably the truth that it had 
 been demanded by Chief-Justice Cedercrantz and President von Pilsach 
 on account of his letters to the Times, and that the captains of various 
 ships, having been sounded upon the subject, had refused their co- 
 operation. The only fact which is quite certain is that the High Com- 
 missioner of the Western Pacific, the Governor of Fiji, issued on 
 
 240
 
 APPENDIX D 
 
 December 29th, 1892, a notice entitled " The Sedition (Samoa) Regu- 
 lation, 1892," which rendered any British subject guilty of " sedition " 
 against the "Government of Samoa" liable, on conviction, to im- 
 prisonment for not more than three months. It placed the right of 
 defining the words " Government of Samoa " in the hands of the British 
 Consul at Apia, and explicitly included in the word " sedition " " all 
 practices, whether by word, deed, or writing, having for their object 
 to bring about in Samoa discontent or dissatisfaction, public dis- 
 turbance, civil war, hatred or contempt toward the King or Govern- 
 ment of Samoa, or the laws or constitution of the country, and 
 generally to promote disorder in Samoa." 
 
 At the time of its publication, no British subject had, so far as is 
 known, been guilty of fomenting sedition in Samoa, and if it were 
 necessary to find a pretext for putting it in force, Stevenson's letters 
 to the Times were the only existing printed utterance which would 
 have fallen within the sweep even of that all-embracing net. 
 
 Had the Regulation been put in force generally, it would probably 
 have resulted in the imprisonment of the entire British population of 
 Apia, for there was none so poor as not to hold up to contempt that 
 pitiable Government; had it been put in force against Stevenson, 
 there was obviously no jail in Samoa fit to receive him (certainly not 
 the President's new prison), and he must have been deported to Fiji or 
 the Colonies. But as soon as the first copy of this document reached 
 the Colonial Office in Downing Street, and even before a question 
 could be asked in Parliament, it was amended by Lord Ripon into 
 something more in conformity with the usual rights of British subjects. 
 Its teeth having been drawn, the Regulation dragged out an idle 
 existence, and I believe that nobody was ever punished under its pro- 
 visions. 
 
 The High Commissioner had neither visited Samoa himself during 
 the term of Stevenson's residence, nor sent any other officer there from 
 outside; this Regulation must therefore have been issued either with 
 the approval of the British Consul (who was the local Deputy Com- 
 missioner), or else without inquiry from, or the approval of, any British 
 official on the spot having cognisance of the facts, and upon the bare 
 
 1 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, vol. x. pp. 1596, 
 1710. 
 
 n 241
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 word of the President and the Chief-Justice. But it is hardly to be 
 wondered at that Stevenson, after this, was confirmed in his distrust 
 of the British Consul, and never applied to him in any matter, except 
 where he was the necessary and only possible channel of negotiations. 
 
 It may be convenient to summarise briefly the whole course of 
 native affairs during Stevenson's residence. 
 
 Malietoa Laupepa, the King of Samoa, having been deported by the 
 Germans in 1887, the high-chief Tamasese was then set up in his 
 stead, but his pretensions were opposed by the greater part of the 
 Samoan people under the leadership of the high-chief Mataafa. The 
 Berlin Treaty was signed, and Laupepa was reinstated on the throne 
 in 1889. But after a time jealousy arose between the two leaders; 
 Mataafa retired to the village of Malie (which has the right to confer 
 the title of Malietoa when vacant), and he there remained for two 
 years, committing no overt act of hostility, but gradually drifting 
 towards a state of rebellion. In July, 1893, a fight was precipi- 
 tated between his men and the royal forces, in which the latter 
 were victorious. The losers fled to the island of Manono, where 
 a few days later they surrendered to the men-of-war of Great Britain 
 and Germany. Mataafa and a dozen of his chiefs were deported, 
 first to the Tokelaus and then to Jaluit; others were imprisoned in 
 Samoa, and fines were inflicted. In 1894 young Tamasese (whose 
 father was dead) fomented trouble against the king. There was some 
 fighting between the two parties along the coast, the royalists being 
 aided as far as possible by the guns of the men-of-war. Peace was 
 patched up, some old rifles were confiscated, and nobody was really 
 punished. 
 
 Besides the matters mentioned in his letters to the English papers, 
 Stevenson's only interference in politics was in the following cases: 
 
 He was once voted to the chair at a public meeting in Apia, and 
 signed and forwarded to the President the resolutions then passed. He 
 made two attempts to bring about an interview and reconciliation 
 between the king and Mataafa, and this, had it been successful, might 
 have laid the foundation for a lasting peace. But Malietoa was held 
 back, and it came to nothing. Stevenson paid three visits, and three 
 only, to Mataafa, when that chief had retired to the village of Malie as 
 a rebel in posse. He also twice went within his outposts a fortnight 
 
 242
 
 APPENDIX D 
 
 before the fighting of 1893, but neither saw nor tried to see the chief, 
 who was miles away, nor did he have any serious conversation with 
 anybody upon those occasions. A month afterwards he sent him a 
 letter by the hands of the British Consul. 
 
 Apart from these occasions, almost too trivial to mention, Steven- 
 son, to the certain knowledge of his wife, Mr. Osboume, and myself, 
 took no action whatever. 
 
 2*3
 
 APPENDIX E 
 
 MUCH has been said of the pains taken by Stevenson, and of the num- 
 ber of times he wrote and rewrote his work, until it satisfied him. It 
 may be interesting to compare four drafts of the beginning of his last 
 and greatest novel Weir of Hermiston. There is none but internal 
 evidence of the date or order of the first three of these versions. The 
 story, however, was begun in October, 1892, resumed in the summer 
 of 1893, and taken up for the last time in September, 1894. To the 
 notes given by Mr. Colvin there may be added the fact that, as early 
 as 1869, Stevenson had written a rough unfinished ballad of a girl 
 meeting her outlawed lover at the Cauldstaneslap, from which the poem 
 was to take its name. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN WHICH LORD HERMISTON IS WIDOWED 
 returned 
 
 When the Court rose, and the family am back to Hermiston, it was 
 a common remark that the lady was sore failed. She had been always 
 what you would call an elderly body: there was no blood of youth in 
 
 the woman, nothing but piety and anxiety; Her house in George 
 
 Square (people said) was exceedingly ill-guided; nothing answerable, 
 to the expense of maintenance except the cellar, and that was my 
 lord's own concern and a place always to be mentioned with respect. 
 When things went wrong, as they continually did, " Keep me! " she 
 would cry, with a little fluttering way she had, and clasp her hands. 
 As for my lord, he would look down the table at her with his " hang- 
 ing face," as they call it in the Parliament House. "1 think ye must 
 have given over to the Grumbletonians, Mrs. Weir," he would say; 
 " I think these broth would be better to sweem in than to sup." 
 
 no grasp or force, nothing but piety and anxiety: a mixture of the 
 hen, the angel, and the mouse, with perhaps most of the hen, she fled 
 through life with a sound of whimpering and psalms. 
 
 244
 
 APPENDIX E 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 When the Court rose in the year one, and the family returned to 
 
 U 
 Hermiston, it was a common remark in />, that part of the country, 
 
 that the lady was sore failed. She was known there, in that from 
 a child; and her folk before her, the old " Riding Rutherfords of Her- 
 miston," of whom she was the last, the mon had been famous of yore, 
 
 ill husbands to their wives in the country ; 
 
 ^ ill hmbands to their wives, and famous ill neighbours; ^ their ex- 
 ploits, now that they were happily ended, had begun to be recalled with 
 
 to make legend 
 
 complaisance, and md- a part of the local mythology; and peepU 
 
 the 
 taw with it was with a sense of 4b instability and ^ decay of things, 
 
 that men beheld the high-liairikd and heavy-handed race die out in 
 the incongruous person of their last descendant. She had not been 
 
 at first 
 
 wholly without charm ^ ; neighbours recalled in her, as a child, a 
 
 wilfulness 
 
 strain of elfin gaiety, gentle little mutinies, sad little gaieties, even a 
 promise of frail beauty that was not to be fulfilled. In the long gen- 
 erations past, while a male Rutherford was riding at the head of his 
 spears or tossing pots and brawling in taverns, there had always been 
 a whitefaced and silent wife immured at home in the old peel or the 
 later mansion-house. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 The Lord Justice-Clerk was a stranger in that part of the country; 
 
 as had been 
 
 but his lady wife was known there from a child,**** her folk ^ before 
 her. The old " riding Rutherfords of Hermiston," of whom she was 
 the last, had been famous men of yore, ill husbands to their wives, 
 ill neighbours in the country, a fclaskguard a high- and heavy-handed 
 race blocUguardi Tales of them were rife in twenty miles about ; 
 
 enough to thoiy repute ; one was hanged at his peel-door by James 
 the^ttr Fifth; one had fallen dead in a carouse with Tam Dalyell; 
 a third, and that was Jean's own father, died at a sitting of a Hell-fire
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Club he had founded in Crossmichael. At that very hour he had ten 
 pleas going, eight of them oppressive and three before the inner 
 house. 
 
 (Final Version as Printed) 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH OF MRS. WEIR 
 
 The Lord Justice-Clerk was a stranger in that part of the country: 
 but his lady wife was known there from a child, as her race had been 
 before her. The old " riding Rutherfords of Hermiston," of whom she 
 was the last descendant, had been famous men of yore, ill neighbours, 
 ill subjects, and ill husbands to their wives, though not their properties. 
 Tales of them were rife for twenty miles about; and their name was 
 even printed in the page of our Scots histories, not always to their 
 credit. One bit the dust at Flodden ; one was hanged at his peel-door by 
 James the Fifth; another fell dead in a carouse with Tom Dalyell; while 
 a fourth (and that was Jean's own father) died presiding at a Hell-fire 
 Club, of which he was the founder. . . . In all these generations, while 
 a male Rutherford was in the saddle with his lads or brawling in a change- 
 house, there would be always a white-faced wife immured at home in 
 the old peel or the later mansion-house. It seemed this succession of 
 martyrs bided long, but took their vengeance in the end, and that was 
 in the person of the last descendant, Jean. She bore the name of the 
 Rutherfords, but she was the daughter of their trembling wives. At 
 the first she was not wholly without charm. Neighbours recalled in 
 her, as a child, a strain of elfin wilfulness, gentle little mutinies, sad little 
 gaieties, even a morning gleam of beauty that was not to be fulfilled. 
 She withered in the growing, and (whether it was the sins of her 
 sires or the sorrows of her mothers) came to her maturity depressed, 
 and, as it were, defaced; no blood of life in her, no grasp or gaiety; 
 pious, anxious, tender, tearful, and incompetent. . . . 
 
 The heresy about foolish women is always punished, I have said, and 
 Lord Hermiston began to pay the penalty at once. His house in George 
 Square was wretchedly ill-guided; nothing answerable to the expense 
 of maintenance but the cellar, which was his own private care. When 
 
 246
 
 APPENDIX E 
 
 things went wrong at dinner, as they continually did, my lord would 
 look up the table at his wife: " 1 think these broth would be better to 
 sweem in than to sup." . . . 
 
 When the Court rose that year and the family returned to Hermiston, 
 it was a common remark in all the country that the lady was sore 
 failed. 
 
 347
 
 APPENDIX F 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE WRITINGS OF 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ^ 
 
 THIS catalogue is not in any sense a bibliography, but is intended to 
 show as completely as possible the sequence of all Stevenson's printed 
 writings. When any piece had been written or even begun long be- 
 fore it was printed, both dates have been given ; otherwise it must be 
 assumed that the manuscript went to press without delay. For obvi- 
 ous reasons no unprinted work has been included, nor have I cared 
 to include ephemeral articles of no importance or trivial letters to 
 newspapers. I should rather apologise for inclusions than for omis- 
 sions, but it is difficult to draw any different line with precision. 
 
 I have used a table drawn up by Mrs. Thomas Stevenson, and am 
 also under special obligation to Mr. Colvin's invaluable notes prefixed 
 to the volumes of the Edinburgh Edition, but in every case where it 
 was possible, I have verified the references anew. I have also, since 
 my list was completed, seen the bibliography by Mr. E. D. North in 
 the (New York) Bookman for September, 1896. 
 
 Capital letters denote the first publication in book or pamphlet form; 
 italics the place of first magazine or periodical publication, and also 
 the collected volume in which the piece was afterwards included. 
 
 1866. 
 
 THE PENTLAND RISING. Anonymous. Published by Andrew Elliot, 
 Edinburgh. Dated 28th November, 1866. 22 pp. Juvenilia ,f 
 1896. 
 
 f Published or republished in Great Britain in the limited Edinburgh 
 Edition only, and in the case of Miscellanea in A Stevenson Medley. 
 Chatto & Windus, 1899. Limited edition of 300 copies only. In 
 America the Thistle Edition, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, 
 New York, 1895-98, has the same contents as the Edinburgh. 
 
 H. In collaboration with Mr. W. E. Henley. 
 
 O. In collaboration with Mr. Lloyd Osbourne. 
 248
 
 APPENDIX F 
 
 1868. 
 
 The Charity Bazaar : an Allegorical Dialogue. 4 pp. Privately printed. 
 Miscellanea,} 1898. 
 
 1869. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 The Lightkeeper. Miscellanea,} 1898. 
 To Minnie. No. viu. Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 1870. 
 A Retrospect. Juvenilia,} 1896. 
 
 VERSE. 
 The Lightkeeper. Another copy of verses. Miscellanea,] 1898. 
 
 1870-71. 
 
 Five Sketches : The Satirist, Nuits Blanches, The Wreath of Immor- 
 telles, Nurses, A Character. Juvenilia,} 1896. 
 
 1871. 
 
 Cockermouth and Keswick. Juvenilia,} 1896. 
 
 Six Papers. Edinburgh University Magazine, January-April, 1871. 
 One of these, An Old Scots Gardener, was republished in a revised 
 form in Memories and Portraits, 1887. The other five are re- 
 printed in Juvenilia,} 1896. Edinburgh Students in 1824, The 
 Modern Student considered Generally, The Philosophy of Umbrel- 
 las (with J. W. Ferrier), Debating Societies, An Old Scots Gar- 
 dener, The Philosophy of Nomenclature. 
 
 On a New Form of Intermittent Light for Lighthouses. Printed in the 
 Transactions of the Royal Scottish Society of 'Arts , 1871, and in 
 Miscellanea,} 1898. 
 
 1873. 
 
 Memories of Colinton Manse. See vol. i. page 47 sqq. 
 
 The Thermal Influence of Forests. Proceedings of the Royal Society 
 of Edinburgh. Miscellanea,} 1898. 
 
 On Roads. Portfolio, December. Juvenilia,} 1896. 
 
 249
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 1874. 
 
 Ordered South. Macmillan's Magazine, May. Virginibus Puerisque, 
 
 1881. 
 Lord Lytton's " Fables in Song " (review). Fortnightly Review, June. 
 
 Juvenilia ,\ 1896. 
 Victor Hugo's Romances. Cornbill Magazine, August. Familiar 
 
 Studies, 1882. 
 Movements of Young Children. Portfolio, August. Juvenilia,\ 
 
 1896. 
 
 On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places. Portfolio, November. 
 Juvenilia,] 1896. 
 
 1875. 
 
 AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. Pamphlet 
 published by Messrs. W. Blackwood & Sons, dated 12th ebru- 
 ary, 1875; set up September, 1874. n pp. 1896.! 
 
 Beranger. Article in the Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
 The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Edited by J. H. Ingram (review). 
 Academy, and January, 1875. 
 
 An Autumn Effect. Portfolio, April, May. Juvenilia,] 1896. 
 
 John Knox and his Relations to Women. Macmillan's Magazine, 
 September, October. Familiar Studies, 1887. Two Essays on 
 this subject also read before the Speculative Society on ^rd No- 
 vember, 1874, and i9th January, 1875. 
 
 VERSE. 
 " Ille Terrarum." No. H.: In Scots. Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 1876. 
 
 A Winter's Walk in]Carrick and Galloway. Illustrated London News, 
 
 Summer Number, 1896. Juvenilia ,f 1896. 
 Salvini's Macbeth. Academy, 15th April. Juvenilia,] 1896. 
 Forest Notes. Cornbill Magazine, May. Juvenilia,] 1896. 
 Walking Tours. Cornbill Magazine, June. Virginibus Puerisque, 
 
 1881. 
 Virginibus Puerisque, Part I. Cornbill Magazine, August. Virgini- 
 
 bus Puerisque, 1881. 
 
 250
 
 APPENDIX F 
 
 Charles of Orleans. Cornbill Magazine, December. Familiar 
 
 Studies, 1882. 
 
 Jules Verne's Stories (review). Academy, 3rd June. 
 Comedy of the " Noctes Ambrosianae" ; selected and arranged by John 
 
 Skelton (review). Academy , 22nd July. 
 Some Portraits by Raeburn. Exhibition held in Edinburgh, October, 
 
 1876. First published in yirginibus Puerisque, 1881. 
 
 VERSE. 
 The Blast. No. vu.: In Scots. Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 1877. 
 
 On Falling in Love. Cornbill Magazine, February, yirginibus 
 Puerisque, 1881. 
 
 An Apology for Idlers. Cornbill Magazine, July, yirginibus Put- 
 risque, 1881. 
 
 Francis Villon, Student, Poet, and Housebreaker. Cornbill Magazine, 
 August. Familiar Studies, 1882. 
 
 A Lodging for the Night. Temple Bar, October. New Arabian 
 Nights, 1882. 
 
 1878. 
 
 Will o' the Mill. Cornbill Magazine, January. The Merry Men, 1887. 
 The Sire de Maletroit's Door. Temple Bar, January. New Arabian 
 
 Nigbts, 1882. 
 Crabbed Age and Youth. Cornbill Magazine, March, yirginibus 
 
 Puerisque, 1881. 
 Acs Triplex. Cornbill Magazine, April, yirginibus Puerisque t 
 
 1881. 
 A Plea for Gas Lamps. London, 2"jth April, yirginibus Puerisque, 
 
 1881. 
 
 Pan's Pipes. London, 4th May. yirginibus Puerisque, 1881. 
 El Dorado. London, nth May. yirginibus Puerisque, 1881. 
 The English Admirals. Cornbill Magazine, July, yirginibus Pue- 
 risque, 1 88 1. 
 Child's Play. Cornbill Magazine, September, yirginibus Puerisque, 
 
 1881. 
 New Arabian Nights. London, 8th June-26th October. Book form, 
 
 1882. 
 
 351
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 The Gospel according to Walt Whitman. New Quarterly Magazine, 
 October. Familiar Studies, 1882. 
 
 Providence and the Guitar. London, November 2nd-23rd. New 
 Arabian Nights, 1882. 
 
 AN INLAND VOYAGE. Published in May by Messrs. Kegan Paul & 
 Trench. (In America later, by Messrs. Roberts Brothers, Boston.) 
 
 PICTURESQUE NOTES ON EDINBURGH. Portfolio, June-December. Pub- 
 lished by Seeley & Co., December. 
 
 H. Deacon Brodie. Rewritten in collaboration with Mr. Henley from 
 other drafts, the earliest of which dated from 1865. Printed 1880, 
 acted 1883, published 1892. 
 
 Sam Bough. Academy, 3oth November (obituary notice). 
 
 Reflections and Remarks on Human Life.(?) Miscellanea^ 1898. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 A Song of the Road. n. Underwoods, 1887. 
 Our Lady of the Snows. (?) xxm. Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 1879. 
 
 Lay Morals (written in March). Juvenilia ,f 1896. 
 
 Truth of Intercourse. Cornbill Magazine, May. Virginibus Pue- 
 
 risque, 1881. 
 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY IN THE CEVENNES. Published in June by Messrs. 
 
 Roberts Brothers, Boston; C. Kegan Paul & Co., London. 
 A Mountain Town in France (visit to Monastier, September, 1878). 
 
 Published (with sketches) in Tbe Studio, Winter Number, 1896. 
 
 Juvenilia,\ 1896. 
 
 Some Aspects of Robert Burns. Cornbill Magazine, October. Fa- 
 miliar Studies, 1882. 
 The Story of a Lie. New Quarterly Magazine, October. Edinburgh 
 
 Edition,! 1895. 
 The Pavilion on the Links. Cornbill Magazine, next Autumn. New 
 
 Arabian Nights, 1882. 
 The Amateur Emigrant. Abridged and revised, 1894. Edinburgh 
 
 Edition, January, 1895. f 
 Across the Plains. Abridged and recast. Longman's Magazine, 1883. 
 
 Book form, 1892. 
 
 Autobiography. See vol. i. pages 53 n., 99, 102. 
 
 252
 
 APPENDIX F 
 1880. 
 
 The Greenwood State : f 1885. 
 
 Yoshida Torajiro. Cornbill Magazine, March. Familiar Studies, 
 1882. 
 
 Henry David Thoreau : his Character'and Opinions. Cornbill Maga- 
 fine, June. Familiar Studies, 1882. 
 
 The Pavilion on the Links. Cornbill Magazine, September, Octo- 
 ber. New Arabian Nigbts, 1882. 
 
 The Old Pacific Capital (Monterey). Fraser's Magazine, November. 
 Across the Plains, 1892. 
 
 Dialogue on Character and Destiny between Two Puppets. Miscel- 
 lanea, f 1898. 
 
 H. Deacon Brodie. Privately printed. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 " It is not yours, O mother, to complain." (In California.) No. xxv. 
 Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 "Not yet, my soul." Atlantic Monthly, October, xxiv. Under- 
 woods, 1887. 
 
 In the States, xxix. Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 The Scotsman's Return from Abroad. Fraser's Magazine, November. 
 In Scots, xii. Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 To Dr. John Brown. In Scots, xv. Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 1881. 
 
 Health and Mountains. Pall Mall Gazette, ijih February. 
 Davos in Winter. Pall Mall Gazette, 2ist February. 
 Alpine Diversions. Pall Mall Gazette, 26th February. (See vol. i. 
 
 page 222.) 
 The Stimulation of the Alps. Pall Mall Gazette, 5th March. (Sec 
 
 vol. i. page 214.) 
 Morality of the Profession of Letters. Fortnightly Review, April. 
 
 Later Essays,^ 1895. 
 VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE. Published in April by Messrs. Kegan Paul & 
 
 Co. : including the second essay and " Some Portraits by Raebum," 
 
 not before published. (In America later, by Messrs. Charles 
 
 Scribner's Sons, New York.) 
 
 353
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 Thrawn Janet. Cornbill Magazine, October. The Merry Men, 
 
 1887. 
 
 Samuel Pepys. Cornbill Magazine, July. Familiar Studies, 1882. 
 Treasure Island. Young Folks, ist October, 1881 -28th January, 1882. 
 
 Book form, 1883. 
 
 The Merry Men. Written June, published 1882. 
 The Body Snatcher. Written June, published 1884. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 Et tu in Arcadia vixisti. Cornbill Magazine, February. No. xv. 
 
 Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 In Memoriam F. A. S. No. xxvn. Underwoods, 1887. 
 Not I, and other Poems. The Davos Press. Miscellanea,^ 1898. 
 First seventeen numbers of A Child's Garden of Verses. Published 
 
 1885. 
 
 1882. 
 
 Talk and Talkers, I. Cornbill Magazine, April. Memories and Por- 
 traits, 1887. 
 Talk and Talkers, II. Cornbill Magazine, August. Memories and 
 
 Portraits, 1887. 
 Byways of Book Illustration. Bagster's " Pilgrim's Progress, " Maga- 
 
 %ine of Art, February. Juvenilia,\ 1896. 
 The Foreigner at Home. Cornbill Magazine, May. Memories and 
 
 Portraits, 1887. 
 Byways of Book Illustration. Two Japanese Romances. Magazine 
 
 of Art, November. (See vol. ii. page 57.; 
 FAMILIAR STUDIES OF MEN AND BOOKS. Published in March by Messrs. 
 
 Chatto & Windus. 
 NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS. 2 vols., published in August by Messrs. Henry 
 
 Holt & Co., New York ; Chatto & Windus, London (written 
 
 1878). 2nd edition, November. 
 A Gossip on Romance. Longman's Magazine, November (written in 
 
 February). Memories and Portraits, 1 887. 
 The Silverado Squatters. Written in the beginning of the year. 
 The Merry Men (written 1881). Cornbill Magazine, June, July. Book 
 
 form, 1887. 
 
 254
 
 APPENDIX F 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 The Celestial Surgeon. No. xxii. Underwoods, 1887. 
 Moral Emblems. The Davos Press. Miscellanea, \ 1898. 
 The Graver and the Pen. Osbourne Press. Miscellanea, 1898. 
 Moral Tales. Osboume Press. Miscellanea, 1898. 
 
 1883. 
 
 The Treasure of Franchard. Longman's Magazine, April, May. Tbt 
 Merry Men, 1887. 
 
 A Modem Cosmopolis (San Francisco). Magazine of Art, May. Ed- 
 inburgh Edition, 1895.! 
 
 The Black Arrow, a Tale of Tunstall Forest, by Captain George North. 
 Young Folks, joth June-aoth October. Book form, 1888. 
 
 Across the Plains (written 1879). Longman's Magazine (condensed), 
 July, August. Book form, 1892. 
 
 A Note on Realism. Magazine of Art, November. Later Essays, 
 i895.t 
 
 THE SILVERADO SQUATTERS. Century Magazine, in part, November, 
 December. Published in book form in December by Messrs. 
 Roberts Brothers, Boston; Chatto & Windus, London. 
 
 TREASURE ISLAND. Published in December by Messrs. Roberts Bro- 
 thers, Boston; Cassell & Co., London. (Written 1881 ; serial 
 form, 1881-82.) 
 
 1884. 
 
 The Character of Dogs. English Illustrated Magapnt, February. 
 Memories and Portraits, 1887. 
 
 A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured. Magazine of Art, April. 
 Memories and Portraits, 1887. 
 
 Old Mortality. Longman's Magazine, May. Memories and Portraits, 
 1887. 
 
 Fontainebleau. Magazine of Art, May, June. Later Essays, 1895. 
 
 A Humble Remonstrance. Longman's Magazine, December. Memo- 
 ries and Portraits, 1887. 
 
 The Body-Snatcher. Pall Mall Gazette, Christmas Number. 
 
 The Ideal House. Miscellanea,^ 1898. 
 
 H. Beau Austin. ? Privately printed. Published by David Nutt, 
 
 H. Admiral Guinea. > 1892 ; and W. Heinemann, 1896.
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 Nos. vi. iv. Underwoods. Magazine of Art, November, December. 
 Requiem. No. xxi. Underwoods, 1887. 
 No. iv.: In Scots. Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 Nos. xvi., xxv., xxiii. Child's Garden. Magazine of Art, July. Nos. 
 VIH., xxvii., September. 
 
 1885. 
 
 PRINCE OTTO. Longman's Magazine, April-October. Published by 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers, Boston ; Chatto & Windus in Novem- 
 ber. (See 1880.) 
 
 MORE NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS. In collaboration with Mrs. Stevenson. 
 Published in May by Messrs. Henry Holt & Co., New York; 
 Longmans, Green & Co., London. 
 
 On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature. Contemporary 
 Review, April. Later Essays,} 1895. 
 
 Markheim : The Broken Shaft. Unwin's Annual, Christmas Number. 
 (Written in 1884.) The Merry Men, 1887. 
 
 Olalla. Court and Society Review, Christmas Number. The Merry 
 Men, 1887. 
 
 The Great North Road (February). Illustrated London News, Christ- 
 mas Number, 1895. Edinburgh Edition, 1897.! 
 
 Fleeming Jenkin. Academy, aoth June (obituary notice). 
 
 H. Macaire. Privately printed. Published New Review, 1895; ar| d in 
 1896 by Stone & Kimball, Chicago, and W. Heinemann, London. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES. Published in March by Messrs. Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, New York; Longmans, Green & Co., London. 
 (Written by degrees since 1881.) 
 
 1886. 
 
 STRANGE CASE OP DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. Published in January by 
 Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York; Longmans, Green & 
 Co., London. 
 
 KIDNAPPED. Young Folks, ist May-ist July. Published in July by 
 Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York; Cassell & Co., London. 
 256
 
 APPENDIX F 
 
 Some College Memories. Printed in The New Jmphion, being the 
 Book of the Edinburgh University Union Fancy Fair, December. 
 Memories and Portraits, 1887. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 The Counterblast. No. vm. : In Scots. Underwoods, 1887. 
 
 To Will H. Low. No. xi. Underwoods, 1887. Century Magazine, 
 
 May. 
 
 To Mrs. Low. No. xn. Underwoods, 1887. 
 No. vu. Underwoods. Magazine of Art % June (written 1884). 
 
 1887. 
 
 THE MERRY MEN, AND OTHER TALES. Published in February by Messrs. 
 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York; Chatto & Windus, London. 
 Pastoral. Longman's Magazine, April. Memories and Portraits, 
 
 1887. 
 The Day after To-morrow. Contemporary Review, April. Later 
 
 Essays ,f 1895. 
 Books which have Influenced Me. British Weekly, i3th May. 
 
 Later Essay s t \ 1895. 
 The Manse. Scribner's Magazine, May. Memories and Portraits, 
 
 1887. 
 Thomas Stevenson. Contemporary Review, June. Memories and 
 
 Portraits, 1887. 
 MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS. Including A College Magazine, Memories 
 
 of an Islet, A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas; not before published. 
 
 Published in December by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, New 
 
 York; Chatto & Windus, London. 
 Misadventures of John Nicholson. Yule-Tide (Cassell's Christmas 
 
 Annual). Edinburgh Edition, 1897.! 
 Fables. Begun. 
 The Master of Ballantrae. Begun December. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 A Lowden Sabbath Mom. I The Scottish Church, April. Undtr- 
 Ille Terrarum. ) woods, 1887. 
 
 II 257
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 UNDERWOODS. Published in August by Messrs. Charles Scribner's 
 
 Sons, New York ; Chatto & Windus, London. 2nd edition, 
 
 October. 
 
 Ticonderoga. Scribner's Magazine, December. Ballads, 1891. 
 No. XLII. Songs of Travel, 1895. 
 Winter. Court and Society Review, December, 1887. No. xvn. 
 
 Songs of Travel, 1895. 
 Two Sonnets in Sonnets of This Century , edited and arranged by 
 
 William Sharp. 
 
 1888. 
 Twelve Articles in Scribner's Magazine. 
 
 A Chapter on Dreams. January. Across the Plains, 1892. 
 
 The Lantern Bearers. February. Across the Plains, 1892. 
 
 Beggars. March. Across the Plains, 1892. 
 
 Pulvis et Umbra. April. Across the Plains, 1892. 
 
 Gentlemen. May.| 
 
 Some Gentlemen in Fiction. June.J 
 
 Popular Authors. July4 
 
 Epilogue to an Inland Voyage. August. Across the Plains, 1892. 
 
 Letter to a Young Gentleman who proposes to embrace the Career 
 of Art. September. Across the Plains, 1892. 
 
 Contributions to the History of Fife. October. Across the Plains, 
 1892. 
 
 The Education of an Engineer. November. Across the Plains, 
 1892. 
 
 A Christmas Sermon. December. Across the Plains, 1892. 
 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN. Published in January by Messrs. Charles 
 
 Scribner's Sons, New York ; Longmans, Green & Co., London. 
 
 (Begun in 1886.) 
 
 THE BLACK ARROW. Published in August by Messrs. Charles Scrib- 
 ner's Sons, New York; Cassell & Co., London. (Serial, 1883.) 
 The Master of Ballantrae. Scribner's Magazine, November, 1888 to 
 
 October, 1889. 
 H. Deacon Brodie. Revised version ; privately printed. 
 
 VERSE. 
 The Song of Rahero. Published in Ballads, 1891. 
 
 J These three papers are republished in the Thistle Edition only. 
 258
 
 APPENDIX F 
 
 The Feast of Famine. Published in Ballads, 1891. 
 
 Christmas at Sea. Scots Observer, 22nd December. Published in 
 
 Ballads, 1891. 
 
 " Home no more Home to Me." xvi. Songs of Travel, 1895. 
 To an Island Princess, xxviu. Songs of Travel, 1895. 
 
 1889. 
 
 THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE. Published in September by Messrs. 
 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York; Cassell & Co., London. 
 O. THE WRONG Box. Published in June by Messrs. Charles Scribner's 
 
 Sons, New York; Longmans, Green & Co., London. 
 First Letter to the Times on Samoan Affairs. The Times of March 
 
 iith.f 
 O. The Wrecker begun. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 In Memoriam E. H. Scots Observer, nth May. Songs of Travel, 
 
 1895. 
 Nos. XXIX.-XXXVH. Songs of Travel written. 
 
 1890. 
 
 FATHER DAMIEN : an Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde of Hono- 
 lulu. Pamphlet privately printed at Sydney, 27th March; in the 
 Scots Observer, May jrd and loth; and afterwards by Messrs. 
 Chatto & Windus. 
 
 The Vailima Letters to Mr. Colvin begun. Published in 1895 by 
 Messrs. Stone & Kimball, Chicago ; Methuen, London. 
 
 THE SOUTH SEAS: a Record of Three Cruises. Privately printed. 
 (The first fifteen of the five-and-thirty letters afterwards published 
 as In the South Seas. Edinburgh and Thistle editions, 1806. 
 Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1896; Chatto & 
 Windus, London, 1900.) 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 The Woodman. No. xxxvm. Songs of Travel, 1895. 
 Tropic Rain. No. xxxix. Songs of Travel, 1895. 
 No. xxxvu. Songs of Travel. Scribner's Magazine, July. 
 
 259
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 1891. 
 
 O. The Wrecker. Scribner's Magazine, August, iSpi-July, 1892. 
 
 The South Seas. Black and White, February-December. 
 
 The Bottle Imp. Black and White, z8th March, 4th April. Island 
 
 Nights' Entertainments, 1893. 
 Second Letter on Samoan Affairs. The Times of i yth November. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 BALLADS. Published in January by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, 
 New York; Chatto & Windus, London. 
 
 1892. 
 
 ACROSS THE PLAINS, WITH OTHER MEMORIES AND ESSAYS. Published 
 in April by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York; Chatto & 
 Windus, London. 
 
 O. THE WRECKER. Published in July by Messrs. Charles Scribner's 
 Sons, New York ; Cassell & Co., London. 
 
 A FOOTNOTE TO HISTORY. Published in August by Messrs. Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, New York ; Cassell & Co., London. 
 
 The Beach of Falesa. Illustrated London News, and July-^th August, 
 as " Uma." Island Nights' Entertainments, 1893. 
 
 The Young Chevalier. Begun in May. Edinburgh Edition, 1897.! 
 
 Weir of Hermiston. Begun in October. Published in 1896. 
 
 An Object of Pity. Privately printed. 
 
 H. THREE PLAYS. Deacon Brodie : Beau Austin : Admiral Guinea. Pub- 
 lished by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York ; D. Nutt, 
 London. 
 
 Letters on Samoan Affairs. The Times of 4th June, 23rd July, 19th 
 August, i jth October, f 
 
 1893. 
 
 CATRIONA (in America entitled DAVID BALFOUR). Atalanta, January- 
 May. Published in September by Messrs. Charles Scribner's 
 Sons, New York ; Cassell & Co., London. 
 
 The Isle of Voices. National Observer, 4th-25th February. Island 
 Nights' Entertainments. 
 
 ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS. Published in April by Messrs. Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, New York ; Cassell & Co., London. 
 260
 
 APPENDIX F 
 
 O. The Ebb Tide. To-Day, November, i893-February, 1894. 
 
 St. Ives Begun in January. 
 
 Heathercat. Begun in December. Edinburgh Edition, 1897.! 
 
 A Family of Engineers. In course of writing. Edinburgh Edition, 
 
 i896.f 
 
 Genesis of the Master of Ballantrae. Juvenilia,} 1896. 
 Random Memories: " Rosa quo Locorum." Juvenilia,} 1896. 
 Letter on Samoan Affairs. Pall Mall Gazette, 4th September.! 
 Vailima Prayers. See vol. ii. page 232. Juvenilia,] 1896. 
 
 VERSE. 
 
 "God, if this were faith." No. xxv. Songs of Travel, 1895. 
 
 1894. 
 
 O. THE EBB TIDE. Published in September by Messrs. Stone & Kim- 
 ball, Chicago; Heinemann, London. 
 
 My First Book: Treasure Island. The Idler, August. Juvenilia,] 
 1896. 
 
 Letters on Samoan Affairs. The Times of and and }oth June.f 
 
 Vailima Prayers. See vol. ii. page 232. Juvenilia,] 1896. 
 
 201
 
 APPENDIX G 
 
 IT is one thing to yield a cold assent to the fact that Stevenson 
 formed himself, as he has told us, 1 on many writers: it is another to 
 realise by actual specimens the power which he acquired of using 
 their styles at will. . I have taken at random a dozen examples nine 
 from Stevenson himself, and three from his originals. I have touched 
 neither French nor Latin sources, and even in English I might have 
 taken half a dozen or a dozen more; but these will serve. They are 
 all from serious work: 1 have not gone to the " Tushery " of Tbe 
 Black Arrow or the holiday burlesque of Ouida, nor to deliberate re- 
 productions like the king's daughter, " who had no care for the mor- 
 row and no power upon the hour." Often it is but the sudden 
 glimpse of an author, always, it seems to me, the one most appropri- 
 ate for the occasion, and then Stevenson returns to his own medium, 
 which is either original or else so compounded that the ingredients can 
 no longer be discerned. Its strength is shown by this, that the best 
 passages are the most individual. If it is all imitation of somebody 
 else, I should be glad to know where to find other works in the style, 
 for instance, of those introductions, that were the only reading of 
 Thomas Stevenson in his latest and darkest hours; or in the style of 
 the four Scottish novels, culminating in the Weir of Hermiston, so 
 nobly praised by T. E. Brown: " If the century runs out upon this 
 final chord, what more do I want ? Let me die with the sough of it 
 in my ears. It is enough: Nunc dimittis, Domine." 
 
 Stevenson took the best wherever he found it; that he rendered it 
 to the world again with interest, even some of the following examples 
 will show: 
 
 A. After the first day, although sometimes I was hurt and distant in 
 manner, I still kept my patience; and as for her, poor soul! she had 
 come to regard me as a god. She loved to eat out of my hand. She 
 was patient, elegant in form, the colour of an ideal mouse, and inimi- 
 tably small. Her faults were those of her age and sex; her virtues 
 were her own. Farewell, and if for ever 
 
 l See vol. i. p. 119. 
 
 202
 
 APPENDIX G 
 
 Fatter Adam wept when he sold her to me; after I had sold her 
 in my turn, I was tempted to follow his example; and being alone 
 with a stage-driver and four or five agreeable young men, 1 did not 
 hesitate to yield to my emotion. 
 
 B. To be over-wise is to ossify; and the scruple-monger ends by 
 standing stockstill. 
 
 C. " We guard this mudbag like a jewel," Otto sneered. 
 
 D. At one bound, the sun had floated up; and her startled eyes re- 
 ceived day's first arrow, and quailed under the buffet. On every side, the 
 shadows leaped from their ambush and fell prone. The day was come, 
 plain and garish ; and up the steep and solitary eastern heaven, the sun, 
 victorious over his competitors, continued slowly and royally to mount. 
 
 E. The Admirable Crichton was a person of prodigious capacity, but 
 there is no proof (that I know) that he had an atom of genius. His 
 verses that remain are dull and sterile. He could learn all that was 
 known of any subject; he could do anything if others could show 
 him the way to do it. This was very wonderful ; but that is all you 
 can say of it. It requires a good capacity to play well at chess; but, 
 after all, it is a game of skill, and not of genius. 
 
 F. Skelt . . . stamped himself upon my immaturity. The world 
 was plain before I knew him, a poor penny world; but soon it was 
 all coloured with romance. If I go to the theatre to see a good old 
 melodrama, 't is but Skelt a little faded. If I visit a bold scene in na- 
 ture, Skelt wouid have been bolder; there had been certainly a castle 
 on that mountain, and the hollow tree that set piece I seem to 
 miss it in the foreground. 
 
 G. . . . the building up of the city on a misty day, house above 
 house, spire above spire, until it was received into a sky of softly 
 glowing clouds, and seemed to pass on and upwards, by fresh grades 
 and rises, city beyond city, a New Jerusalem, bodily scaling heaven. 
 
 H. As if gamesome winds and gamesome youths were not sufficient, 
 it was the habit to sling these feeble luminaries from house to house 
 above the fairway. There, on invisible cordage, let them swing ! 
 And suppose some crane-necked general to go speeding by on a tall 
 charger, spurring the destiny of nations, red-hot in expedition, there 
 
 263
 
 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 would indubitably be some effusion of military blood, and oaths, and 
 a certain crash of glass; and while the chieftain rode forward with a 
 purple coxcomb, the street would be left to original darkness, unpi- 
 loted, unvoyageable, a province of the desert night. 
 
 7. And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping his fingers, and cry- 
 ing out twice, " I must not speak, I must not speak ! " he ran away 
 in front of me, and disappeared. . . . 
 
 J. To oversee all the details yourself in person ; to be at once pilot 
 and captain, and owner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the 
 accounts; to read every letter received, and write and read every letter 
 sent; to superintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be 
 upon many parts of the coast almost at the same time; to be your own 
 telegraph, unweariedly sweeping the horizon, speaking all passing ves- 
 sels bound coastwise; . . . taking advantage of the results of all 
 exploring expeditions, using new passages and all improvements in 
 navigation ; charts to be studied, the position of reefs and new lights 
 and buoys to be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables 
 to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator the vessel often 
 splits upon a rock that should have reached a friendly pier, there is the 
 untold fate of La Perouse; universal science to be kept pace with, study- 
 ing the lives of all great discoverers and navigators, great adventurers 
 and merchants, from Hanno and the Phoenicians down to our own day. 
 
 K. "It is better to sit here by this fire," answered the girl, . . . 
 " and be comfortable and contented, though nobody thinks about us." 
 
 " I suppose," said her father, after a fit of musing, " there is some- 
 thing natural in what the young man says; and if my mind had been 
 turned that way, I might have felt just the same. It is strange, wife, 
 how his talk has set my head running on things that are pretty certain 
 never to come to pass." 
 
 L. He was still puzzling over the case of the curate, and why such 
 ill words were said of him, and why, if he were so merry-spirited, he 
 should yet preach so dry, when coming over a knowe, whom should 
 he see but Janet, sitting with her back to him, minding her cattle! He 
 was always a great child for secret, stealthy ways, having been em- 
 ployed by his mother on errands when the same was necessary; and 
 he came behind the lass without her hearing. 
 
 264
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 Academy, Edinburgh, i. 62. 
 
 Academy, the, L 149, 161, 167, 229 n., 11. 
 
 260-262. 
 Accidie, i. 232. 
 Acrots the Plaint, 1. 197, 1L 262, 253, 256, 
 
 260. 
 
 Adams, H., il. 148. 
 Adirondarks, the, ii. 36-44. 
 Admiral Guinea, ii. 4, 5, 256, 260. 
 Admiral*, The English, 11. 261. 
 Aes Triplrx, ii. 251. 
 Ah Fu, ii. 68, 79, 99. 
 Ala Loto Alofa, ii. 128, 149, 179. 
 Allen, Grant, i. 181. 
 Alps, the, i. 214. 
 Amateur Emigrant, The, i. 192, 195-197, 
 
 206, 211. 
 
 Anderson, Dr., ii. 183. 
 Antwerp, i. 161. 
 Apt-mama, ii. 94-98. 
 Apia, Ii. 99, 113, 126, 138, 146, 163. 
 Appeal to the Clergy of the Church of 
 
 Scotland, An, i. 167, ii. 250. 
 Appin murder, i. 231, 239, Ii. 207. 
 Appleton, Dr., i. 149. 
 Arabian High's, i. 67. 
 Archer, William, i. 162, 11. 6, 9, 12. 
 Arnold, Matthew, ii. 20. 
 Art, Letter to a Ymmg Gentleman who 
 
 propones to embrace the Career of, ii. 
 
 268. 
 Arts, Royal Scottish Society of, L 101, 
 
 124, ii. 249. 
 Atalanta, ii. 260. 
 Athenaeum Club, ii. 34. 
 Atlan ic Monthly, ii. 263. 
 Atolla, ii. 61 n., 69, 89, 109. 
 Auckland, ii. 109, 178. 
 "Auntie" (tee Balfour, Miss Jane). 
 Australia (see Sydney). 
 Autobiography (see Stevenson, R. L.). 
 Autumn Effect, An, i. 160, 166, ii. 260. 
 
 Bablngton, Professor and Mrs. Church- 
 ill, i. 132. 
 Baden, 1. 190. 
 Baden-Baden, i. 126. 
 Baden-Powell, W., i. 170. 
 
 Baildon, H. Bellyse, 1. 84, 66, 74, 79. 
 
 Balfour, family, i. 12, 18, 15 ; meaning of 
 name, i. 17. 
 
 Balfour, David, i. 12 n., 13, 11. 167, 202. 
 
 Balfour, Dr. George W., 1. 212, il. 30. 
 
 Balfour, Miss Jane ("Auntie"), i. 14, 
 53, 64, 63, 80. 
 
 Balfour, Inspector General John, il. 38. 
 
 Balfour, Rev. Dr. Lewis (grandiather of 
 R. L. 8.), i. 12-15, 52, 64, 57. 
 
 Balfour Paul, Sir James, 11. 78. 
 
 Ballads, ii. 76, 268, 260. 
 
 Ballantrae, i. 151. 
 
 Ballantrae, The Master of, ii. 28, 37, 42, 
 74, 77, 258. 
 
 Balzac, L 122, 147. 
 
 Bancroft's history of the United States, 
 1.197. 
 
 Baibizon, i. 164-167, 200, 223. 
 
 Barclay, T., i. 146. 
 
 Barge voyage, proposed, 1. 183. 
 
 Barker, Mrs. Sale, i. 229. 
 
 Barrie, J. M., i. 36 n., 90, 225, ii. 147, 149. 
 
 Baudelaire, i. 119, 11. 202. 
 
 Baxter, Charles, i. 90 ; friendship, L 106, 
 144, 205, 252, 265, ii. 40, 176, 180; let- 
 ters to, i. 34 n., 207, 208, 232, ii. 20, 80, 
 108. 
 
 Baxter, Edwin, 1. 146. 
 
 Baxter's Place, i. 10, 22, 23, ii. 160. 
 
 " Beach," the, ii. 100, 101. 
 
 Beach ofFalcsd, The, ii. 99, 166, 177, 260. 
 
 Beau Austin, il. 4, 5, 255. 260. 
 
 Beethoven, i. 148, ii. 43. 
 
 Beggars, ii. 258. 
 
 Bell Rock, i. 8, 9, 11. 
 
 Bentley, Messrs., i. 230. 
 
 Bfranger, I. 167, ii. 260. 
 
 Berlin Treaty, ii. 156, 166, 287, 249. 
 
 Bernhardt, Sarah, 1. 161, 184. 
 
 Besant, Sir Walter, 11. 13. 
 
 Black and White, ii. 260. 
 
 Black Arrow, The, i. 246, ii. 256, 268. 
 
 Blaclrtcood's Magazine, L 16. 
 
 Blair Atbol, i. 211. 
 
 Board of Northern Lighthouses, i. 4, 8, 
 24, 101 n. 
 
 Body Snatcher, The, 1. 224, 11. 6, 264, 266. 
 
 267
 
 INDEX 
 
 "Bogus," 1. 212, 220, 223, iL 9. 
 Boodle, Miss A., iL 10, 172. 
 Books (see Stevenson, R. L.). 
 Books written by R. L. S., ii. 248. 
 Bottle Imp, The, ii. 130, 155, 260. 
 Boujh, Sam, ii. 252. 
 Bournemouth, ii. 1-29, 3L 
 Boycotting, ii. 25, 27. 
 Braemar, i. 227. 
 Brash, L 223. 
 Braxfleld, Lord, ii. 210. 
 Brenner Pass, L 73, 190. 
 Bridge of Allan, L 36. 
 British Museum, ii. 1, 24. 
 British Weekly, ii. 257. 
 Brohan, Mine., L 184, ii. 61. 
 Broisat, Mile., i. 184, ii. 61. 
 Brown, Rev. George, ii. 151. 
 Brown, Horatio F., i. 72, 233, ii. 18. 
 Brown, Dr. John, L 222. 
 Brown, R. Glasgow, i. 181, 186. 
 Brown, T. E., ii. 262. 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, i. 119, ii. 218. 
 Browning, Robert, L 119, 124, iL 24. 
 Brussels, i. 151. 
 Buckinghamshire, i. 150. 
 Buckland, Jack, ii. 108. 
 Bunyan, i. 39, 116, 256, ii. 254. 
 Burford Bridge, i. 181, 183, 239. 
 Burgess, Gelett, iL 189. 
 Burlingame, E. L., ii. 33. 
 Burn e- Jones, Sir E., i. 149, ii. 24. 
 Burns, Robert, i. 117 n., 166, 168. 
 Burns, Some Aspects of Robert, ii. 252. 
 Butaritari, iL 91, 99. 
 
 Caerketton, i. 88 n., 146. 
 California, i. 93, 193, 198-211, ii. 45-49. 
 Californian newspapers, ii. 202. 
 Calliopg, H. M. S., ii. 80, 125. 
 Cambridge, L 127, 132, 148, 150, 169, iL 
 
 21. 
 
 Campagne Defli, L 241-243. 
 Canoeing, i. 90, 146, 170. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, i. 149, ii. 122. 
 Carrick and Galloway, A Winter's Walk 
 
 in, L 151, ii. 250. 
 Casco, the (yacht), iL 45-77; masts 
 
 rotten, ii. 73. 
 Cassell & Co., Messrs., i. 244, ii. 20, 255- 
 
 259, 260. 
 
 Cagsell's Family Paper, L 43. 
 Cat- boats, ii. 44, 45, 71. 
 Catriona, i. 16, 201, 224, ii. 42 ; written, 
 
 ii. 167, 260. 
 
 Cauldstaneslap, ii. 244. 
 Cavalier, Jean, i. 226. 
 Celestial Surgeon, The, i. 232, iL 255. 
 Celtic race, L 18, 27, 28, ii. 27. 
 Century Magazine, i. 245, ii. 34, 255-257. 
 Cernay la VUle, L 152, 157, 193, 200. 
 CeVennes (nee Travels). 
 Chalmers, Rev. James ("Tamate"), ii. 
 
 151. 
 Champneys, Basil, i. 148 n. 
 
 Charity Bazaar, The, ii. 249. 
 Charles of Orleans, L 167, ii. 251. 
 Chatto & Windus, Messrs., L 239, ii. 254- 
 
 259,260. 
 Chaucer, L 119. 
 Children, i. 138, iL 250. 
 Child's Garden of Verses, A, L 40 n., 
 
 41, 47, 51 n., 228, 245, 254, iL 14, 202, 
 
 256. 
 
 Child's Play, L 58, 66, iL 202, 251. 
 Chismore, Dr. G., iL 48. 
 Christmas at Sea, A, ii. 259. 
 Christmas Sermon, A, iL 258. 
 Church of Scotland, An Appeal to the 
 
 Clergy of the, L 167, ii. 250. 
 Clark, Sir Andrew, i. 134, 211, 240. 
 Clarke, Rev. W. E., iL 101,102, 104, 151, 
 
 183, 186. 
 
 Clemens, S. (" Mark Twain"), iL 45. 
 Clifford, W. K., i. 148 n. 
 Clough, i. 136. 
 Cockburn, Lord, L 11, 88 n. 
 Cockermouth and Keswick, i. 124, iL 249. 
 Cockfleld Rectory, i. 132. 
 Colinton Manse, i. 12-15, 36, 48-68, 63, 
 
 70, 80, 124, ii. 249, 257. 
 Collaboration (see Stevenson, R. L.). 
 College Memories, Some, ii. 257. 
 Colvin, Sidney, first meeting, i. 132; 
 
 with R. L. S., L 137-139, 148, 174, 210, 
 
 227, 239, 243, iL 1, 9, 21, 24, 31 ; ser- 
 vices, i. 133, 137, 152, 231, iL 1, 20, 175; 
 
 quoted, L 57, ii. 28, 205, 248. 
 Congreve, i. 105, 120. 
 Contemporary Review, ii. 256, 257. 
 Copra, ii. 91. 
 
 Cormorant, EL M. S., iL 81, 149. 
 Cornford, L. Cope, L 181 n. 
 Cornhill Magazine, i. 165, 166, 168, 169, 
 
 180, 204, 239, ii. 250-254. 
 Cornwall, i. 182, 183. 
 Country Dance, A, i. 168. 
 Court and Society Review, ii. 256, 258. 
 Covenanters, the, i. 42, 43, 66, 80, 81, 93, 
 
 124. 
 
 Crabbed Age and Youth, ii. 251. 
 Critical Kitcats (Gosse), i. 174-177. 
 Crockett, S. R., iL 79, 200. 
 Croquet, ii. 85, 143. 
 Cummie (see Cunningham). 
 Cunningham, Alison (Cummie, nurse of 
 
 R. L. S.), L 39, 40-44, 46, 55. 
 Curafoa, H. M. S., ii. 148. 
 Curtin family, ii. 27. 
 
 Daraien, Father, ii. 82-84, 107. 
 Damien, Father : An Open Letter, iL 107, 
 
 059 
 
 Damon, Rev. F., ii. 151. 
 
 Dancing (nee Stevenson, R. L.). 
 
 D'Aur6villy, Barbey, ii. 170. 
 
 Davos, i. 213-223, 229-238, 240, 256, ii. 
 
 253. 
 
 Davos Press, i. 237, 238, ii. 254. 
 Day after To-morrow, The, ii. 257. 
 
 268
 
 INDEX 
 
 Deacon Brodie, L 79, 192, 193, 266, 11. 2, 
 
 34, 062, 253, 260. 
 De Coetlogon, Colonel,!!!. 101. 
 Defoe, L 76, 119. 
 Delaunay, i. 161, 184. 
 De Mattoa, Mrs., ii. 9, 24. 
 Devonia, steamship, L 195. 
 Dialect (we Stevenson, R. L.). 
 Dialogue between Two Puppets, A, L 206, 
 
 ii. 253. 
 
 Dobson, Austin, i. 167, ii. 212. 
 Dr. Jekyll (see Strange Cage). 
 Dogs, i. 27 (tee Stevenson, . L.). 
 Dogs, The Character of, ii. 266. 
 Dreamt, A Chapter on, ii. 268. 
 Dreams, Stevenson's use of, ii. 16-19. 
 Duddingston Loch, i. 90, 146. 
 Dumas, A., the elder, i. 76, 89, 117 n., 120. 
 Dumas, the younger, i. 162. 
 Dumas, A Qosxip on a Novel of, ii. 257. 
 Dunoon, i. 124. 
 
 Dynamite in Samoa, !L 158, 160, 238. 
 Dynamiter, the, L 254, ii. 5, 256. 
 Dynamiters, ii. 215. 
 
 Earrald, i. 86, 225, ii. 169. 
 
 Ebb Tide, The, ii. 41, 42, 170, 261. 
 
 Edinburgh, i. 4-194, 211, 229, ii. 28. 
 
 Edinburgh Academy, i. 62. 
 
 Edinburgh Edition, ii. 180. 
 
 Edinburgh, Royal Society of, i. 25, 124, 
 
 ii. 249. 
 Edinburgh University, i. 6, 82, 85, 91, 98, 
 
 226, ii. 257. 
 Edinburgh University Magazine, i. 122, 
 
 226, ii. 249. 
 Edinburgh, Picturesque Notes on, i. 88, 
 
 150, 172, 180, 188, ii. 262. 
 Eeles, Commander, ii. 148. 
 El Dorado, ii. 251. 
 Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne, 
 
 the (barge), i. 183. 
 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1. 167, 168. 
 Engineer, The Education of an, i. 84, ii. 
 
 258. 
 
 Engineering, i. 82-87, 94, 101, ii. 218. 
 Engineers, A Family of, 1. 2-10, 19, ii. 
 
 163. 261. 
 
 J^Kift Admirals, The, ii. 261. 
 Equator, the (schooner), ii. 87, 90-100. 
 Examinations (nee Stevenson, R. L.). 
 Exeter, ii. 21. 
 
 Fables, Ii. 171, 257. 
 
 Fable* in Song (review), Ii. 250. 
 
 Fail-child, Mr. and Mrs. Charles, ii. 33. 
 
 Fakarava, ii. 69. 
 
 Familiar Studies of Men and Books, i. 
 
 231, ii. 254. 
 Family of Engineers, A, i. 2-10, 19, ii. 
 
 163,261. 
 
 Feast of Famine, The, ii. 75, 268. 
 Fergusson. Robert, i. 100, 168. 
 
 i 1 CI tiu^r*Hl) JLMJIfVCl^ 1. LVlf, 11>O. 
 
 Ferrier, J. W., i. 106, 123 ; death of, 
 
 L 247, 248, 252. 
 
 Ferrier, Miss, 1. 263, 1L 9. 
 
 Fielding, i. 117 n. 
 
 Fife, Contributions to the History of, ii. 
 
 268. 
 First Book, My (Treasure Island), L 
 
 228 n , ii. 261. 
 
 FontaineMeau, forest of, i. 141, 163-167. 
 FontaituUeau, i. 164-157, ii. 266. 
 Foot-note l Hi*tt*y, A, ii. 166, 260. 
 Foreigner at Home, The, L 63, 132, U. 
 
 254. 
 
 Forest Notes, 11. 250. 
 Forests, On the Thermal Influence of, L 
 
 124, ii. 249. 
 
 Fortnightly Review, ii. 250. 
 Four Great Scotvm<n, i. 166. 
 
 France, i. 71-73, 152-164, 170-174, 178- 
 
 188, 193, 223, 241-266, ii. 22-24, 30. 
 Frankfurt, i. 126. 
 Franklin, Henjiimin, i. 206. 
 Fraser's M agazine, L 211, ii. 253. 
 French colonies, ii. 51, 69, 71, 107, 112. 
 French language (gee Stevenson, R. L.). 
 French literature, i. 167, 180. 
 French metres, 1. 167. 
 French poetry, i. 167. 
 Funk, Dr., ii. 188. 
 
 Gaelic, i. 223, ii. 78 n. 
 
 Galapagos, ii. 48. 
 
 Galloway, i. 151. 
 
 Gas Lamps, A Plea for, ii. 261. 
 
 Genesis of " The Master of BaUantrae," 
 
 ii. 37-39, 261. 
 
 German (see Stevenson, R. L.). 
 Germany, L 70, 126, 151. 
 Gilbert Islroids, ii. 81, 89-08, 109. 
 Gilder, R. W., i. 246, iL 23. 
 Gladstone, Rt Hon. W. E., L 96 n., 181, 
 
 261, ii. 7, 26. 
 Glencorse, i. 128. 
 Glenogil, i. 90. 
 Goethe, i. 122, 127. 
 Gordon, General, ii'26, 161. 
 Gordon-Cumming, Miss, ii. 72. 
 Gosse, Edmund, reminiscences, L 42, 174- 
 
 177, ii. 122 ; quoted, L 207, U. 6, 122, 
 
 125, 207 : services, i. 213, 226, 231. 
 Gossip on a Novel of Dumas, A, L 117 n., 
 
 iL 267. 
 
 Gossip on Romance, A. 1. 232, ii. 199, 264. 
 Graver and the Pen, The. i. 238, ii. 266. 
 Great North Road, The, !i. 7, 266. 
 Greek (*et Stevenson, R. L.). 
 Greek islands, projected visit to, L 249. 
 Greenaway, Miss Kate, L 229. 
 Grey, Sir George, iL 178. 
 Qrez, i. 157, 173. 
 
 Hackston of Rathillet, i. 80, 124. 
 Haggard. Bazett M., Ii. 147, 164. 
 Hair Trunk, The, i. 169. 
 Halkerside, i. 89. 
 Hamerton, P. G., i. 136. 
 
 JlrtlLir 1 HM1, A. V.| 1. !** 
 
 Hanging Judge, The, iL 4. 
 269
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hardy, Thomas, H. 21. 
 
 Hawaii, island of, ii. 81. 
 
 Hawaiian kingdom, ii. 76-88. 
 
 Hawthorne, i. 119, 190, 206. 
 
 Hazlitt, i. 117 n., 119, 230, 232. 
 
 Heathereat, ii. 261. 
 
 Heine, i. 117 n. , 127, 230. 
 
 Henderson, A. (publisher), i. 229, 246, ii. 
 20. 
 
 Henderson, H. (of Sydney), ii. 108, 110. 
 
 Henderson (schoolmaster), i. 62, 65. 
 
 Henley, William Ernest, first meeting, 
 i. M7; services, i. 181, 255; with R. 
 L. 8., 1. 262, ii. 10, 22 ; quoted, i. 105 n., 
 ii. 189, 205 ; influence, L 161 ; collab- 
 oration, L 192, 193, ii. 3, 248, 25G; 
 letters to, L 202, 247, ii. 14 ; music, i. 
 148, ii. 11. 
 
 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, i. 36, 39, 87, 
 142,234. 
 
 Highlands, i. 84, 211, 224, 227, 239, ii. 
 69 ; history of, projected, i. 214, 223, 
 231. 
 
 Hird, B., Ii. 108, 110. 
 
 Homburg, i. 70, 151. 
 
 " Home no more home to me," ii. 75, 
 259. 
 
 Honolulu, ii. 76-88, 178. 
 
 Horace,!. 117 n., 219. 
 
 Huskyns, Dr., ii. 148. 
 
 Hugo's Romance*, Victor, 1. 166, ii. 250. 
 
 Humble Remonstrance, A, ii. 13, 255. 
 
 Hume, i. 166. 
 
 Hunter, Robert, i. 145. 
 
 Hyde, Rev. Dr., of Honolulu, ii. 107. 
 
 Hyeres, i. 243-256. 
 
 Iddesleigh, Lord, ii. 21. 
 
 Ide, Chief-Justice of Samoa, ii. 147. 
 
 Ideal House, The, ii. 129, 255. 
 
 Idler, ii. 261. 
 
 Idlers, An Apology for, i. 122, 180, ii. 
 
 251. 
 
 lies, G., letter to, ii. 168, 199. 
 Illustrated London News, ii. 256, 260. 
 In the South Seas (see South Seas). 
 Indian Mutiny, ii. 40, 63, 172. 
 Initials R. L. S., i. 35 n., 168, 239. 
 Inland Voyage, An, i. 150, 151; taken, 
 
 L 170, 172, 180, 186; published, i. 189; 
 
 bought back, i. 250, ii. 202, 252. 
 Inland Voyage, An, Epilogue to, i. 151, 
 
 ii. 258. 
 
 Ireland, ii. 2S, 27. 
 Irving, Sir Henry, i. 161. 
 Island Night*' Entertainments, JL 108, 
 
 260. 
 Isle of Voices, ii. 260. 
 
 "Jack," Ii. 133, 144. 
 
 James, Henry, ii. 11, 13. 
 
 Janet Nicoll, steamship, ii. 108-112. 
 
 Japanese, i. 205, ii. 57, 254. 
 
 Japp, Dr. A. Hay, L 227, 228. 
 
 JeJcyll and Hyde (see Strange Cote of). 
 
 Jenkin, Fleeming, meeting, i. 112-114, 
 148 n., 161, ii. 9; secretary to, i. 91, 
 184 ; acting, i. 90, 144, 161, 162, 184 ; 
 death, ii. 11, 248. 
 
 Jenkin, Fleemhig, Mrs., L 114, 115, 151, 
 ii. 9, 11, 26. 
 
 Jenkin, Memoir of Fleeming, i. 114, IL 
 11, 25, 258. 
 
 Jersey, Lady, ii. 148, 178. 
 
 " Jink," L 108-112. 
 
 Joan of Arc, i. 167. 
 
 Journalism (see Stevenson, R.L. ). 
 
 Kalakaua, King, ii. 80, 88. 
 
 Kanaka, ii. 68 n. 
 
 Kava, ii. 140, 143. 
 
 Keats, i. 117 n.,119, 120, 129, 183, ii. 118. 
 
 Eegan Paul, Messrs, (see Paul). 
 
 King Matthias' Hunting Horn, i. 168. 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, i. 37 n., ii. 65. 
 
 King^ley, Mary, ii. 69. 
 
 Kinftussie, i. 240. 
 
 Kipling, Rudyard, ii. 148, 201. 
 
 Knox, John, i. 160, 166, 167, 231, ii. 250. 
 
 Kriegspiel, i. 233-235. 
 
 La Farge, J., ii. 148. 
 
 Lakes, the English, L 70, 124. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, i. 119. 
 
 Lang, Andrew, first meeting, i. 139; 
 
 quoted, L 162, 251, ii. 21, 168; help, i. 
 
 148 n., ii. 6, 167; poems,!. 60n., 167; 
 
 devil-box for, ii. 96. 
 Lantern Bearers, The, L 68, ii. 258. 
 Latin, i. 5, 26, 65, ii. 121. 
 Law student (gee Stevenson, R, L.). 
 Lawes, Rev. F. E., ii. 161. 
 Lay Moralt, i. 97, 136, 193, 248, ii. 197, 
 
 252. 
 
 Ledger, New York, ii. 40. 
 Leith, Water of, i. 35, 46, 47, 102. 
 Lemon, Arthur, ii. 130. 
 Lepers, ii. 81-86, 87. 
 
 Letter to a Young Gentleman, etc. , ii. 258. 
 Letters, Morality of the Profession of, iL 
 
 253. 
 Light, On a New Form of Intermittent, 
 
 i. 82, 101, 124, ii. 249. 
 Lighthouses, i 5, 8, 11, 25, 70, 84, 85. 
 L. J. R.,i. 107 n., 134. 
 Lodging for the Night, A, i. 172, 180, ii. 
 
 251. 
 
 Loing, i. 151, 182. 
 Loire, i. 170. 
 London, i. 70, 135, 141, 148, 174-177, 188, 
 
 192-194, 212, 229, 256, ii. 21, 24, 31. 
 London, i. 181, ii. 251, 252. 
 Longman, C. J., ii. 17. 
 Longman, Messrs., iL 17, 171, 256, 258, 
 
 259. 
 
 Longman's Magazine, iL 14, 254-257. 
 Loti, Pierre, ii. 60, 72. 
 Love, On Falling in, iL 251. 
 Low, Will H., i. 167 n., 161, 249, ii. 22, 
 
 25, 33, 45. 
 
 370
 
 INDEX 
 
 Low, Will H., Mrs., 11. 22, 28, 83. 
 
 Lowden Sabbath Morn, A, iL 267. 
 Lowell, J. R., ii. 24. 
 
 Ludgate Hill, steamship, iL 32-34. 
 Lytton, Lord, IL 18, 260. 
 
 Macaire, iL 4, 266. 
 
 Macbeth, i. 75, 161, ii. 250. 
 
 Macgregor, clan, L 16. 
 
 Mackay, Sheriff JEneas C., i. 226, ii. 78 n. 
 
 M'Clure. 8., ii. 39, 47, 112. 
 
 Macmillan'g Magazine, L 106, 180, ii. 250. 
 
 Madeira, iL 81, 106. 
 
 Magazine of Art, i. 250, ii. 254-257. 
 
 Malietoa Laupepa, King of Samoa, ii. 
 
 166, 159, 242. 
 Malua, address given at, ii. 102 ; text of, 
 
 ii. 228. 
 
 Manaaquan, iL 45. 
 
 Manse, The (Colinton), i. 13, 46, ii. 257. 
 Manu'a, ii. 115, 148. 
 Markheim, ii. 6, 256. 
 Marquesas, the, ii, 48, 51, 55-69. 
 Marqv.it de ViUemer, i. 184, ii. 6L 
 Master of Ballantrae, The, IL 28, 37, 42, 
 
 74, 77. 78, 258 ; Gen>'Sis of, ii. 37-39, 261. 
 Memories and Portraits, i. 14, 40 n., 46, 
 
 85, 92, 117, 123, 124, ii. 34, 257. 
 Mentone, i. 71, 135-139. 
 Meredith, George, visits, i. 188, 193, 
 
 239 ; correspondence, iL 14, 201 ; 
 
 poems, i. 250. 
 Merry Men, The, 1. 224, 225, ii. 169, 254, 
 
 266,257. 
 
 Micronesians, ii. 90. 
 Minad.ventv.res of John Nicholson, ii. 257. 
 Missionaries, i. 42, ii. 64, 65, 92, 93, 95, 
 
 101, 150, 223, 229. 
 Missions in the South Seas, address by 
 
 R. L. S., ii. 83, 102; text of, ii. 229. 
 Moe, Princess, ii. 78, 74, 259. 
 Mohr, James, iL 168. 
 Molloy, J. L., i. 170. 
 Molokai, ii. 82-87, 110, 161. 
 Monastier, i. 152, 188, 237. 
 Monterey, i. 198-202, iL 253. 
 Montpellier, i. 241. 
 Moors, H. J., ii. 100. 
 Moral Emblems, i. 237, IL 255. 
 Moral Tales, ii. 266. 
 Morality of the Profession of Letters, ii. 
 
 253. 
 More New Arabian Nights, L 254, ii. 5, 
 
 14, 266. 
 Moret, L 183. 
 Morris, William, i. 119. 
 Motes, History of, i. 46. 
 Mountain Town in France, A, ii. 252. 
 Murder-book, proposed, i. 231. 
 Music (see Stevenson, R. L.). 
 My First Book (Treasure Island), L 
 
 228, ii. 261. 
 
 Names, importance attached to, i. 226. 
 Napier, Mrs., reminiscences, i. 71. 
 
 Naval officers, 11. 81, 148. 
 
 Navigator Islands (see Samoa). 
 
 Nemours, i. 168, 188. 
 
 New Arabian Nights, origin, L 181; 
 
 mentioned, L 172, 180, 188, 239, iL 252, 
 
 264. 
 New Arabian Nights, More, L 264, IL 6, 
 
 14,266. 
 
 Newell, Rev. J. K., 11. 102, 187. 
 New York, L 197, 210, ii. 33, 46. 
 Nice, L 71, 76, 252. 
 Noctes Ambrosianw, ii. 261. 
 " North, Captain George," i. 280, 247. 
 North Berwick, i. 36, 67, 201. 
 Northern Lighthouses, Board of, 1. 4, 8, 
 
 24, 101 n. 
 Noumea, ii. 112. 
 Nnkahiva, ii. 64-66. 
 Nurse (see Cunningham). 
 Nurse*, i. 41, iL 208, 249. 
 
 Oa, Bay of, ii. 117. 
 
 Obermann, i. 117 n., 119. 
 
 Object of Pity, An, ii. 280. 
 
 Oise, i. 161, 183. 
 
 OlaUa, ii. 19, 266. 
 
 Old Mortality (essay), L 32, 106 n., 247, 
 ii. 255. 
 
 Old Scots Gardener, An, i. SO, 128, IL 
 249. 
 
 Ordered South, i. 135, 214, iL 260. 
 
 On a Ori, ii. 74 77, 94. 
 
 Osbourne, Mrs. (see Stevenson, Mrs. 
 R. L.). 
 
 Osbourne, Lloyd, with R. L, a, L 178, 
 209, 218, 237, iL 8, 15, 66, 90; collab- 
 orates, ii. 40, 90, 164, 169, 172, 248, 
 259, 260, 261 ; quoted, L 72, 235, iL 16, 
 17, 24, 40, 76, 146, 149, 173, 182-187, 
 212 ; at Vailima, 1L 131, 132, 134, 145, 
 154, 156. 
 
 Otis, Captain, ii. 47, 71, 73. 
 
 Owl, The, ii. 170. 
 
 Oxford, L 139, 160. 
 
 Pacific, iL 46-188. 
 
 Pa^et, Rt. Rev. Dr., I. 232 n. 
 
 Pagopago, ii. 116. 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette, L 169, 214, 228, ii. 8, 
 
 263, 256, 261. 
 Pan's Pipes, ii. 25L 
 Paris, L 140, 163, 169, 178, 184, 223, 241, 
 
 ii. 23. 
 Parnassiens, Les, projected article on, 
 
 L 167. 
 
 Fasten Letters, i. 246. 
 Pastoral, i. 89, ii. 257. 
 Pater, Walter, IL 122. 
 Paul, Messrs. Kegan, <t Co., i. 186, 250, 
 
 ii. 252, 258. 
 
 Paumotus, the, ii. 68-70, 76. 
 Pavilion on the Links, The, L 201, IL 
 
 251. 
 
 Payn, James, i. 289, 251, IL 82. 
 Peebles, L 66, 67. 
 
 2 7 1
 
 INDEX 
 
 Peiwar, 1. 234. 
 
 Pembroke, Earl of, 11. 164. 
 
 Penn, William, 1. 206. 
 
 Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured, A, 
 
 i. 57, 69, ii. 256. 
 
 Penny Whistles (see Child's Garden). 
 Penrhyn Island, il. 111. 
 Pentland Hills, 1. 88, 89, 146, 194. 
 Pentland Rising, The, i. 80, 124, ii. 248. 
 Pepys, L 74, 117 n., 222, ii. 254. 
 Pharos, steamship, i. 85, ii. 43. 
 Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh, 1. 88, 
 
 100, 150, 172, 180, 188, ii. 262. 
 Pilsach, Baron Senfft von, ii. 157, 240- 
 
 243. 
 
 Pitlochry, i. 224, ii. 38. 
 Plea for Gas Lamps, A, ii. 261. 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, i. 205, ii. 260. 
 Politics (see Stevenson, R. L.). 
 Pollock, W. H., i. 149, 250. 
 Polynesians, ii. 90. 
 Porter, Bruce, il. 189. 
 Portfolio, The, L 135, 150, 165, ii. 249, 
 
 250. 
 Prince Otto, L 120, 206, 245, 250, 252, ii. 
 
 14, 256. 
 Providence and the Guitar, i. 182, 250, 
 
 ii. 252, 253. 
 Publishers, i. 185, 245, 250, ii. 17, 36, 248- 
 
 261. 
 Pulvis et Umbra, ii. 258. 
 
 Queensferry, 1. 90, 146. 
 Quiller Couch, ii. 177. 
 
 Raeburn, Some Portraits by, L 169, 222, 
 ii 261. 
 
 Rahero, The Song of, ii. 75, 258. 
 
 Rajah's Diamond, The, i. 181, ii. 252, 
 254. 
 
 Raleigh, Professor Walter, ii. 205, 208. 
 
 Ramsay, Fer<jusson, and Burns, pro- 
 jected, i. 168. 
 
 Random Memories, i. 84, ii. 261. 
 
 Realism, A Note on, i. 260, ii. 265. 
 
 Reflections and Remarks on Human 
 Life, ii. 252. 
 
 Reid, Captain D., ii. 87, 91, 93. 
 
 Requiem, i. 254, ii. 188, 256. 
 
 Retrospect, A, i. 124, ii. 249. 
 
 Rhone, i. 72, ii. 23. 
 
 Richmond, ii. 3. 
 
 Riviera, 1. 71, 136-139, 152, 241-256. 
 
 Road of the Loving Heart, ii. 128, 149, 
 179. 
 
 Roads, On, i. 11, 134, 135, 165, ii. 249. 
 
 Rob Roy, 1. 76. 
 
 Roch, Valentine, L 244, ii. 32, 36, 79. 
 
 Rodin, ii. 24, 131. 
 
 Romance, A Gossip on, ii. 254. 
 
 Rome, i. 70, 72, ii. 122. 
 
 Jtosa quo Locorum, i. 67, 77, ii. 261. 
 
 Ross, Dr. Fairfax, ii. 178. 
 
 Royal Society of Edinburgh, i. 25, 124, 
 
 ti.ua 
 
 Royat, i. 247, 255. 
 Runciman, James, i. 181. 
 Russian friends, i. 71, 138, 189. 
 
 St. Gaudens, A., ii. 33. 
 
 St. Germain, i. 223. 
 
 St. Ives, i. 88, ii. 169, 181, 26L 
 
 St. Marcel, 1. 241-243. 
 
 Salvini, L 161, 184, ii. 250. 
 
 Samoa, i. 169, ii. 80; first arrival of R. 
 L. S. in, ii. 100; return, ii. 113; life 
 in, ii. 124 ; advantages and drawbacks, 
 ii. 176 ; climate, ii. 141 ; hurricane, ii. 
 80; mails, ii. 106 ; natives, ii. 102, 131, 
 141, 145, 161, 184: products, ii. 139. 
 
 Samoan language, ii. 99 n., 154. 
 
 Samoan politics, ii. 156, 237, 259, 260. 
 
 Sand, George, i. 76, 136. 
 
 San Francisco, L 198, 202-209, ii. 46-49. 
 189, 255. 
 
 Saranac, ii. 35-44. 
 
 Sargent, J. S., ii. 9, 130. 
 
 Saturday Review, i. 134, 149, 165, 251. 
 
 Savile Club, i. 148, 149, 174, 177, 192. 
 
 Schmidt, President, ii. 147. 
 
 Schoolboys' Magazine, The, i. 78. 
 
 Schooners, i. 146, ii. 46, 87. 
 
 Schwob, Marcel, i. 180. 
 
 Scots Observer, ii. 107, 269. 
 
 Scotsman's Return from Abroad, The, 
 i. 211, ii. 253. 
 
 Scott, Dr. T. Bodley, ii. 10, 30. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, i. 11, 75, 76, 91, 117 n., 
 125, 137, 166, ii. 198, 202. 
 
 Scribner, Charles, ii. 33. 
 
 Scribner, Messrs., i. 247, 11. 39. 
 
 Scribner's Magazine, ii. 34, 77, 200, 201, 
 258-260. 
 
 Seed, Hon. J., 1.169. 
 
 Seine, i. 170, 183. 
 
 Servants, ii. 114, 131, 134. 
 
 Sewall, Harold, ii. 114. 
 
 Shakespeare, i. 75, 117 n., 11. 40. 
 
 Shelley, Sir Percy, ii. 10, 183. 
 
 Shelley, Lady, it 10. 
 
 Shetland, i. 86. 
 
 Shovels of NevAon French, The, IL 166. 
 
 Silverado Squatters, The, i. 203, 209, 232, 
 245, ii. 255. 
 
 Simeon, Pere, 11. 64, 65, 
 
 Simoneau's, i. 200. 
 
 Simpson, Sir Walter, described, i. 106; 
 canoeing, i. 90, 151, 170, 171 ; yacht- 
 ing, 1. 146; with R. L. S., i. 126, 161, 
 153, 173, 182 ; presents Woggs, i. 212. 
 
 Sire de Malttroit's Door, The, i. 182, IL 
 251. 
 
 Siron's, i. 154-157. 
 
 Sitwell, Mrs., i. 132, 136, 223. 
 
 Skelt, i. 59, 67. 
 
 Skene, W. F., i. 125. 
 
 Skerryvore, house, il. 8-31 ; reef. L 11. 
 Ii. 163. 
 
 Smith, Rev. G. (of Oalston), i. 13. 
 
 Smith, Thomas (grandfather), i. 4-6. 
 
 272
 
 INDEX 
 
 Solitude, La (Hyeres), 1. 243-256. 
 
 Songi of Travel, 11. 289, 261. 
 
 Sophia Scarlet, il. 166, 168. 
 
 Sosimo, it 133, 182. 184. 
 
 South Seas, 11. 50-189. 
 
 South Seat, In the, 11. 47, 61, 112, 114, 
 
 162, 259. 
 Speculative Society, the, L 91-93, 96 n., 
 
 122,166. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, L 112, 116, 117 n. 
 Spring, 1. 168. 
 Spring Grove School, 1. 62. 
 Stanilao, Prince, ii. 61-63. 
 Stephen, Leslie, 1. 147, 149, 166, 169, 239. 
 Sterne, i. 117 n., 230. 
 Stevenson, family, i. 2-13, 16, 17. 
 Stevenson, Alan (great-grandfather), L 3. 
 Stevenson, Alan (nncle), L 24, ii. 164. 
 Stevenson, David, i. 8, 25. 
 Stevenson, D. A., L 101 n. 
 Stevenson, J. Home, L 17. 
 Stevenson, Robert (grandfather of K. L. 
 
 &), L 3-12, 18, 11. 43, 89, 130, 176. 
 Stevenson, Robert Alan Mowbray, de 
 
 scribed, i. 102-106; with R. L. S., L 
 
 68, 126, 128, 140, 153, 161, 163, 177, 234, 
 
 241, 252, 11. 9, 10, 130; letters to, i. 
 
 181, 191, 11. 163. 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis : 
 
 accessibility, L 99, ii. 12, 146. 
 
 acting, i. 44, 90, 144, 182 ; appreciation 
 of, i. 161, 162, 184. 
 
 advocate, L 142, 143. 
 
 ancestors, chap. i. 
 
 appearance, i. 74, 116, it 189. 
 
 art of writing, i. 46, 117, 164, ii. 13, 
 168, 199, 200. 
 
 autobiography, i. 53 n., 97. 
 
 bathing, i. 66, 146, ii. 74, 123. 
 
 beginning to write a book, il. 38, 169. 
 
 Bible, i. 42, 96, 97, 112, 116, 187. 
 
 birds, love of, L 178, 223, ii. 188. 
 
 books, influence of, i. 96, 97, 116, 129. 
 
 borrowings, i. 229, ii. 18. 
 
 burn, i. 224, 240. 
 
 business capacity, 11. 39, 91, 140. 
 
 canoeing, i. 90, 146, 170. 
 
 cards, i. 43, 242, ii. 143. 
 
 Catholics, ii. 151, 184. 
 
 charm, ii. 219. 
 
 children, L 138, ii. 250. 
 
 chivalry, i. 162, ii. 26, 160, 195, 211. 
 
 Christianity, i. 96, 185. 
 
 collaboration, method of, il. 40-42. 
 
 courage, i. 162, 253, ii. 12, 194, 211. 
 
 cousins, i. 57 n. 
 
 cruelty, hatred of, ii. 216. 
 
 dancing, i. 66, 11. 153, 154. 
 
 deportation, ii. 240. 
 
 dialect, Scots, ii. 20, 122, 191. 
 
 diary, quoted, i. 127-130, 11. 52, 63, 57, 
 68, 64-67, 102-106, 116. 
 
 disproportion, sense of, i. 40 n. 
 
 diversity, ii. 195, 204-211. 
 
 dogs, i. 212, 220, ii. 9, 216, 265. 
 
 drawing, L 86, 86, 188, 287. 
 dreams, i. 40 n., ii. 16. 
 dress, i. 91, 133, 146, 192, 224, 11. 191. 
 early compositions, i. 45, 63, 77. 
 early reading, i. 42, 48, 66-57, 76, 116. 
 earnings, L 180, 244, IL 15, 84, 42, 177, 
 
 194. 
 
 Edinburgh, love of, L 60, ii. 117, 176. 
 engineering, i. 82-87, 101. 
 examinations, i. 126, 141. 
 fishing, L 90. 
 
 French, 1. 66, 73, 126, 127, 163, il. 24. 
 friends, 1. 102-114, 132, 133, 188. 147, 
 
 149, 161, 173, 174, 226, IL 9, 10, 147- 
 
 149, 178. 
 
 gaiety, L 175, ii. 206. 
 games, childish, i. 39, 45, 49-59, 124 ; 
 
 out-of-door, i. 66, 67. 
 generosity, L 151, 179, IL 49, 178, 208, 
 
 213, 214. 
 
 German, i. 66, 126. 
 gracefulness, ii. 190. 
 Greek, i. 83, 11. 122. 
 green-sickness, L 100, 116 n., ii. 195. 
 hearing, ii. 192. 
 houses, i. 84, 35, 229, 241, 243, ii. 8, 36, 
 
 128. 
 ill-health, i. 86-40, 62, 134, 198, 202, 
 
 206, 229, 242, 252, 266, U. 2, 31, 71, 
 
 173. 
 
 Impatience, i. 219, ii. 211. 
 inconsistency, ii. 207. 
 indolence, i. 121, 231. 
 industry, L 118, 232, ii. 200. 
 intensity, ii. 12, 32, 66, 137, 195-204. 
 journalism, i. 165, 201, 202. 
 justice, love of, L 104, 11. 136, 216. 
 kindliness, i. 146, 196, ii 13, 206, 219. 
 knowledge of Pacific, ii. 48, 128. 
 Latin, i. 65, ii. 122. 
 law, i. 102, 125, 127, 185, 142, 148. 
 letters, ii. 176, 203. 
 list of writings, ii. 248. 
 love of the sea, ii. 43, 89. 
 marriage, i. 208. 
 memory, 11. 23, 40, 192, 202. 
 mode of life in Samoa, U. 142. 
 money, received, L 123, 141, 161, 179, 
 
 208, 219, ii. 194 ; lack of, i. 98, 179, 
 
 183, 206, 244, ii. 177, 208. 
 monuments to, ii. 83, 188, 189. 
 music, L 148, ii. 11, 42, 43, 144, 177. 
 name, 34 n.; Tusitala, 11. 102. 
 natives, attitude towards, ii. 56, 66, 
 
 146 ; influence among, ii. 161. 
 nurse (tee Cunningham), 
 officialism, horror of, i. 160, IL 161. 
 only child, an, i. 57, 74. 
 open-mindednesa, 1L 216. 
 painting, L 39, 59. 
 parents, chap. ii. 
 put, love of his, L 78, 106 n., 228. 
 pathos, ii. 208. 
 patience, i. 264, 11. 12, 209. 
 personal appearance, 1. 74, 116, il. 189. 
 
 273
 
 INDEX 
 
 physical faculties, ii. 189. 
 plays, i. 79, 120, 192, 11. 2-5. 
 politics, L 91, 96 n., ii. 26, 161, 166, 
 
 242. 
 
 poverty, I. 99, 179, 205, 244, ii. 178, 208. 
 prayers, L 44, 72, 249, ii. 146, 232. 
 printing, L 218. 
 
 problems of conduct, L 191, 196. 
 projects, i. 79, 124, 167-169, 206, 211, 
 
 230, 231, ii. 6, 40, 73, 100, 163, 166, 
 
 171, 177, 206. 
 quixotry, il. 27, 212. 
 reading aloud, i. 66, ii. 192. 
 religious difficulties, i. 95, 131, 134, 140. 
 restlessness, i. 176, ii. 203. 
 reticence, i. 188, 209, ii. 198, 208. 
 riding, L 66, 90, ii. 144. 
 romantic, i. 11, 28, 86, ii. 7, 12, 219. 
 Sainoan language, ii. 155. 
 scenery, effect of, i. 60, 73, 89, 220, 224, 
 
 240, 243, 249, ii. 104, 115-117, 121. 
 scholarship, i. 115, ii. 121. 
 schoolmasters, i. 62, 65. 
 Scotland, knowledge of, ii. 78 n. ; love 
 
 of, il. 68, 175. 
 sea, love of, ii. 43. 
 shell-hunting, ii. 66. 
 signature, i. 34 n. 
 skating, i. 90, 221, ii. 37. 
 sleep, power of, ii. 191. 
 Socialism, i. 96. 
 soldiers, i. 45, 54, 234. 
 " songstry," i. 37. 
 
 " Sprite," i. 177, 178, il. 10, 18, 206. 
 sternness, ii. 210. 
 style, i. 164, 166, ii. 121, 122, 196, 200, 
 
 262 ; love of, i. 46, ii. 193. 
 sympathy, ii. 206. 
 talk, L 175, ii. 203, 205. 
 tenderness, i. 30, 32, 146, ii. 210, 211. 
 testimonial, i. 227. 
 tobogganing, i. 221. 
 tolerance, ii, 215. 
 
 travels, i. 70-73 ; places visited, L 150 n. 
 unreasonable, L 219. 
 unruly, i. 93. 
 vanity, ii. 207. 
 verses, L 121, 245, IL 165. 
 voice, ii. 191. 
 
 walks, i. 126, 146, 150-152, 192, 218. 
 war game, i. 233. 
 weeding, ii. 114, 137. 
 wine, ii. 22, 136, 174. 
 wood-engraving, i. 237, 242. 
 women characters, i. 79, 191, ii. 7, 168. 
 writing, learning, i. 77, 117-124; ne- 
 cessity of an in terra], ii. 168. 
 yachting, i. 146, it 44-48, 177. 
 Stevenson, Mrs. R. L. (Fanny Van de 
 Grilt), first meeting, i. 173; return to 
 California, i. 187; marriage, i. 208; 
 married life, i. 208-ii. 183, especially 
 L 210, 244, 253-256, ii. 109, 114, 159, 
 182 ; quoted, L 218, 266, ii. 16, 21, 48 
 73,76. 
 
 Stevenson, Thomas (father of R. L. 8.), 
 i. 19-29, 35, ii. 21, especially i. 71, 86, 
 95, 134, 141, 151, 210; death, ii. 28, 
 31, 257. 
 
 Stevenson, Mrs. Thomas (Margaret Isa- 
 bella Balfour, mother of R. L. S.), L 
 29-33, 75, 164, iL 28, 38, 7S, 81, 114, 123, 
 and many other references; diary, 
 i. 44. 
 
 Stimulation of the Alp, The, L 214, iL 
 253. 
 
 Stiuchar, i. 104. 
 
 Stobo, L 239. 
 
 Stoddard, Charles Warren, i. 203. 
 
 Story of a Lie, The, L 196, iL 252. 
 
 Stour, i. 192. 
 
 Strange Cote of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. 
 Hyde, i. 250; written, iL 16-18, 33, 34, 
 203,266. 
 
 Strathpeffer, L 211. 
 
 Strong, Austin, ii. 123, 143. 
 
 Strong, Mrs. Isobel (daughter of Mrs. 
 Stevenson), i. 54 n., 173, iL 77, 79, 107, 
 123, 143, 153, 170, 181. 
 
 Stuebel, Dr., ii. 101, 102. 
 
 Style (nee Stevenson, R. L.). 
 
 Style, Technical Elements of, IL 13, 256. 
 
 Suffolk, L 132, 192. 
 
 Sully, James, ii. 9. 
 
 Swanston, i. 88, 89, 134, 146, 193, 210. 
 
 Swinburne, i. 119, 152. 
 
 Sydney, iL 106-108, 112, 114, 178. 
 
 Symonds, John Addiugton, L 213, 229, 
 233, ii. 18. 
 
 Ta'alolo, iL 132, 178. 
 
 Tabus, iL 229. 
 
 Tahiti, ii. 71-76, 107. 
 
 Taine's Origines, ii. 210. 
 
 Tait, Professor, L 213. 
 
 Talk and Talkers, i. 103, 145, 232, 233, 
 
 239, ii. 254. 
 Tamasese, ii. 102, 242. 
 Tauchnitz, Baron, iL 166. 
 Tautira, ii. 72-76. 
 Taylor, Sir Henry, ii. 10. 
 Taylor, Lady, iL 10, 19. 
 Taylor, Miss, ii. 10. 
 Taylor, Miss Una, iL 11. 
 Technical Elements of Style, ii. 13, 256. 
 Tembinok', King of Apemama, iL 94- 
 
 98, 109. 
 
 Temple Bar, i. 180, 220, iL 26L 
 Teriitera, iL 76. 
 Thackeray, L 76, 77. 
 Thackeray, Miss, i. 149. 
 Theatre Krancais, i. Id, 162, 184. 
 Tlieophrastus, i. 229. 
 Thermal Influence of Forettt, L 124, ii. 
 
 249. 
 
 Thistle Club, ii. 179. 
 Thomas Aquinas, i. 163. 
 Thompson, Professor D'Arcy, L 20, 62. 
 Thomson's school, L 62-64. 
 Thoreau, i. 206, 206, 227, iL 253. 
 
 274
 
 INDEX 
 
 Thrown Janet, I 224, 225, 11. 254. 
 
 Ticonderoga, II. 258. 
 
 Time*, the, 1. 193, 11. 17, 237, 238 ; letters 
 
 to, 11. 6, 158, 240, 241, 259, 260. 
 Tobogganing, 1. 221. 
 To-day, 11. 261. 
 Torquay, 1. 71. 
 Traquair, Ramsay, 1. 225. 
 Trmqnair family, 1. 51 n., 57. 
 Travelling Companion, The, 1. 250. 
 Travflt with a Donkey, i. 150. 172 ; taken, 
 
 i. 189 ; written, i. 191 ; published, i. 
 
 193, 251, ii. 205, 252. 
 Treasure Inland, begun, i. 228; serial, 
 
 i. 230 ; book, i. 244, 247 ; success, i. 
 
 251, ii. 1, 254, 266. 
 Treasure of Franchard, The, i. 240, 250, 
 
 11. 265. 
 
 Tree, H. Beerbohm, ii. 4. 
 Trudeau, Dr., ii. 38. 
 TnUh of Intercourse, 11. 252. 
 Tulloch, Principal, i. 211. 
 " Tushery," i. 246. 
 Tusitala, meaning, ii. 102. 
 Tweed, L 66, 67, 86. 
 
 Uma (nee Beach of Falesd). 
 " Under the wide " (see Requiem). 
 Underwood*, i. 89, 167 n., ii. 36, 258. 
 Union, History of the, projected, i. 211, 
 
 214. 
 University (tee Edinburgh). 
 
 Vaea, 11. 126, 128, 129. 186. 
 Vaekehu, Queen, 11. 60-62. 
 Vailima, estate, ii. 106, 122: house, 11. 
 
 113, 128; garden, ii. 140; situation, 
 
 ii. 126 ; meaning, ii. 127. 
 Vailima Letters, ii. 113, 136, 180, 203, 259. 
 Vaitimn Prayers, I. 72, ii. 146 ; text, ii. 
 
 232-236, 261. 
 Vallings, H., i. 220. 
 Vendetta in the West, A, 1. 201. 
 Venice, i. 70, 72. 
 Verne, Jules, ii. 251. 
 Villon, Francois, L 167, 180, ii. 251. 
 Virgil, ii. 118-122. 
 Virginibus Puerisque, \. 222, 260, ii. 253. 
 
 Waif Woman, The, Ii 171. 
 
 Waiklki, 1L 77,178. 
 
 Walking Tour*, IL 202, 260. 
 
 Webster, L 120. 
 
 Weir of Hermiston, i. 70, 93, il. 360, 
 
 262 ; written, 11. 168, 169, 181 ; versions 
 
 of. 11. 244-247. 
 Wellington, Duke of, proposed life, ii. 
 
 6,26. 
 
 Weybridge, L 239. 
 When the Deril wot Well, L 196. 
 Whitman, Walt, i. 102, 112, 116, 134, 
 
 166, 206, ii. 192, 208. 
 Whitman, The Gospel according to Wait, 
 
 i. 166, ii. 252. 
 
 Whitniee, Rev. S. J., ii. 166, 162. 
 Wick, i. 84. 
 Wiesbaden, 1. 151. 
 Williams, Virgil, I. 203. 
 Williams, Virgil, Mrs., 1. 203, 207, 208, 
 
 11.48. 
 
 Will a' the MSI, I. 73, 190, 191, II. 261. 
 Windbuund Arethusa, In the. i. 169. 
 Winter'* Walk in Carrick and Galloway, 
 
 A, i. 151, ii. 250. 
 
 Wirgman, T. Blake, i. 174 n., iL 190. 
 Wise, B. B,, 1L 17& 
 Wogtfs (tee " Bogue "). 
 Wood-engraving. 1. 237, 242. 
 Wocxlman, The, ii. 165, 259. 
 Wordsworth, L 119. 
 Worthington, Captain, 11. 148. 
 Wrecker, The, i. 160, 177, 203. Ii 28 n., 
 
 41, 42, 47, 90, 91, 108, 164, 260. 
 Writings of R. L. 8., chronological list, 
 
 ii. 248. 
 
 Wrong Box. The, 11. 39, 42, 259. 
 Wyllie, C. W., L 238. 
 
 Yachting, i. 146, Ii. 44-48 (see Casco). 
 
 Yeats, W. B., 1. 260. 
 
 Yothida Toranro, L 206, ii. 263. 
 
 Young, John P., i. 203 n. 
 
 Young Chevalier, The, i. 167. H. 860. 
 
 Young folks, 1. 228, 246, ii. 20, 264-268. 
 
 Yule, Sir Henry, ii. 79. 
 
 Yule-Tide, ii. 267.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES 
 
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