Chapter 9

remembering rather--it was (for me) quite a long respectable communication. Also, you might tell me if you got my war-whoop and scalping-knife assault on _le nommé_ Hyde.

I ought not to forget to say your tale fetched me (Miss Green) by its really vile probability. If we had met that man in Honolulu he would have done it, and Miss Green would have done it. Only, alas! there is no completed novel lying in the garret: would there were! It should be out to-morrow with the name to it, and relieve a kind of tightness in the money market much deplored in our immediate circle. To be sure (now I come to think of it) there are some seven chapters of _The Great North Road_; three, I think, of _Robin Run the Hedge_, given up when some nefarious person pre-empted the name; and either there--or somewhere else--likely New York--one chapter of _David Balfour_, and five or six of the _Memoirs of Henry Shovel_. That's all. But Lloyd and I have one-half of The Wrecker in type, and a good part of _The Pearl Fisher_ (O, a great and grisly tale that!) in MS. And I have a projected, entirely planned love-story--everybody 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 falling 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 childhood 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.) Also I have my big book, _The South Seas_, always with me, and a sair handfu'--if I may be allowed to speak Scotch to Miss Green--a sair handfu' it is likely to be. All this literary gossip I bestow upon you _entre confrères_, Miss Green, which is little more than fair, Miss Green.

Allow me to remark that it is now half-past twelve o'clock of the living night; I should certainly be ashamed of myself, and you also; for this is no time of the night for Miss Green to be colloguing with a comparatively young gentleman of forty. So with all the kindest wishes to yourself, and all at Lostock, and all friends in Hants, or over the borders in Dorset, I bring my folly to an end. Please believe, even when I am silent, in my real affection; I need not say the same for Fanny, more obdurately silent, not less affectionate than I.--Your friend,

ROBERT--ROBIN LEWISON.

(Nearly had it wrong--force of habit.)

TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD

_Union Club, Sydney [September 1890]._

MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,--I began a letter to you on board the _Janet Nicoll_ on my last cruise, wrote, I believe, two sheets, and ruthlessly destroyed the flippant trash. Your last has given me great pleasure and some pain, for it increased the consciousness of my neglect. Now, this must go to you, whatever it is like.

... It is always harshness that one regrets.... I regret also my letter to Dr. Hyde. Yes, I do; I think it was barbarously harsh; if I did it now, I would defend Damien no less well, and give less pain to those who are alive. These promptings of good-humour are not all sound; the three times three, cheer boys cheer, and general amiability business rests on a sneaking love of popularity, the most insidious enemy of virtue. On the whole, it was virtuous to defend Damien; but it was harsh to strike so hard at Dr. Hyde. When I wrote the letter, I believed he would bring an action, in which case I knew I could be beggared. And as yet there has come no action; the injured Doctor has contented himself up to now with the (truly innocuous) vengeance of calling me a "Bohemian Crank," and I have deeply wounded one of his colleagues whom I esteemed and liked.

Well, such is life. You are quite right; our civilisation is a hollow fraud, all the fun of life is lost by it; all it gains is that a larger number of persons can continue to be contemporaneously unhappy on the surface of the globe. O, unhappy!--there is a big word and a false--continue to be not nearly--by about twenty per cent.--so happy as they might be: that would be nearer the mark.

When--observe that word, which I will write again and larger--WHEN you come to see us in Samoa, you will see for yourself a healthy and happy people.

You see, you are one of the very few of our friends rich enough to come and see us; and when my house is built, and the road is made, and we have enough fruit planted and poultry and pigs raised, it is undeniable that you must come--must is the word; that is the way in which I speak to ladies. You and Fairchild, anyway--perhaps my friend Blair--we'll arrange details in good time. It will be the salvation of your souls, and make you willing to die.

Let me tell you this: In '74 or 5 there came to stay with my father and mother a certain Mr. Seed, a prime minister or something of New Zealand. He spotted what my complaint was; told me that I had no business to stay in Europe; that I should find all I cared for, and all that was good for me, in the Navigator Islands; sat up till four in the morning persuading me, demolishing my scruples. And I resisted: I refused to go so far from my father and mother. O, it was virtuous, and O, wasn't it silly! But my father, who was always my dearest, got to his grave without that pang; and now in 1890, I (or what is left of me) go at last to the Navigator Islands. God go with us! It is but a Pisgah sight when all is said; I go there only to grow old and die; but when you come, you will see it is a fair place for the purpose.

Flaubert[38] has not turned up; I hope he will soon; I knew of him only through Maxime Descamps.--With kindest messages to yourself and all of yours, I remain

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] King Kalakaua.

[28] This is the Canadian poet Archibald Lampman (d. 1899).

[29] Stevenson's stepdaughter, Mrs. Strong, who was at this time living at Honolulu, and joined his party and family for good after they arrived at Sydney in the following autumn.

[30] R. A. M. Stevenson was at this time professor of Fine Art in the University of Liverpool.

[31] The Hawaiian name for white men.

[32] The writer has omitted something here.

[33] Table of chapter headings follows.

[34] French _bâtons rompus_: disconnected thoughts or studies.

[35] The Rev. Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu: in reference to Stevenson's letter on Father Damien.

[36] By Émile Zola.

[37] Afterwards re-named _The Ebb-Tide_.

[38] His _Letters_.

END OF VOL. XXIV

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