Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (1035 page)

I think I must give you our staff in a tabular form.

357

The crosses mark out the really excellent boys. Ti’a is the man who has just been fined ½ his wages; he is a beautiful old man, the living image of “Fighting Gladiator,” my favourite statue — but a dreadful humbug. I think we keep him on a little on account of his looks. This sign o marks those who have been two years or upwards in the family. I note all my old boys have the cross of honour, except Misifolo; well, poor dog, he does his best, I suppose. You should see him scour. It is a remark that has often been made by visitors: you never see a Samoan run, except at Vailima. Do you not suppose that makes me proud?

I am pleased to see what a success
The Wrecker
was, having already in little more than a year outstripped
The Master of Ballantrae
.

About
David Balfour
in two volumes, do see that they make it a decent-looking book, and tell me, do you think a little historical appendix would be of service? Lang bleats for one, and I thought I might address it to him as a kind of open letter.

Dec. 4th.
— No time after all. Good-bye.

R. L. S.

To J. Horne Stevenson

The following refers again to the introduction to the history of his own family which Stevenson was then preparing under the title
A Family of Engineers
. The correspondent was a specialist in genealogical research. I give this letter as a sample of many which passed between these two namesakes on this subject; omitting the remainder as too technical to be of general interest.

Vailima, Samoa, November 5th, 1893.

MY DEAR STEVENSON, — A thousand thanks for your voluminous and delightful collections. Baxter — so soon as it is ready — will let you see a proof of my introduction, which is only sent out as a sprat to catch whales. And you will find I have a good deal of what you have, only mine in a perfectly desultory manner, as is necessary to 358 an exile. My uncle’s pedigree is wrong; there was never a Stevenson of Caldwell, of course, but they were tenants of the Mures; the farm held by them is in my introduction; and I have already written to Charles Baxter to have a search made in the Register House. I hope he will have had the inspiration to put it under your surveillance. Your information as to your own family is intensely interesting, and I should not wonder but what you and we and old John Stevenson, “land labourer in the parish of Dailly,” came all of the same stock. Ayrshire — and probably Cunningham — seems to be the home of the race — our part of it. From the distribution of the name — which your collections have so much extended without essentially changing my knowledge of — we seem rather pointed to a British origin. What you say of the Engineers is fresh to me, and must be well thrashed out. This introduction of it will take a long while to walk about! — as perhaps I may be tempted to let it become long; after all, I am writing
this
for my own pleasure solely. Greetings to you and other Speculatives of our date, long bygone, alas! — Yours very sincerely,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

P.S.
— I have a different version of my grandfather’s arms — or my father had if I could find it.

R. L. S.

To John P —  — n

The next two numbers are in answer to letters of appreciation received from two small boys in England, whose mother desires that they should remain nameless.

Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893.

DEAR JOHNNIE, — Well, I must say you seem to be a tremendous fellow! Before I was eight I used to write stories — or dictate them at least — and I had produced an excellent history of Moses, for which I got £1 from an uncle; but I had never gone the length of a play, so you 359 have beaten me fairly on my own ground. I hope you may continue to do so, and thanking you heartily for your nice letter, I shall beg you to believe me yours truly,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Russell P —  — n

Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893.

DEAR RUSSELL, — I have to thank you very much for your capital letter, which came to hand here in Samoa along with your mother’s. When you “grow up and write stories like me,” you will be able to understand that there is scarce anything more painful than for an author to hold a pen; he has to do it so much that his heart sickens and his fingers ache at the sight or touch of it; so that you will excuse me if I do not write much, but remain (with compliments and greetings from one Scot to another — though I was not born in Ceylon — you’re ahead of me there). — Yours very truly,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Alison Cunningham

Vailima, December 5, 1893.

MY DEAREST CUMMY, — This goes to you with a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The Happy New Year anyway, for I think it should reach you about
Noor’s Day
. I dare say it may be cold and frosty. Do you remember when you used to take me out of bed in the early morning, carry me to the back windows, show me the hills of Fife, and quote to me

There is not much chance of that here! I wonder how 360 my mother is going to stand the winter. It she can, it will be a very good thing for her. We are in that part of the year which I like the best — the Rainy or Hurricane Season. “When it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is horrid,” and our fine days are certainly fine like heaven; such a blue of the sea, such green of the trees, and such crimson of the hibiscus flowers, you never saw; and the air as mild and gentle as a baby’s breath, and yet not hot!

The mail is on the move, and I must let up. — With much love, I am, your laddie,

R. L. S.

To Charles Baxter

The following quotes the extract, from Fountainhall’s “Decisions of the Lords of Council, etc.,” which suggested to Stevenson the romance of Cameronian days and the Darien adventure of which, under the title of
Heathercat
, he only lived to write the first few introductory chapters (see vol. xxi. , of this edition).

6th December 1893.

“
October 25, 1685.
— At Privy Council, George Murray, Lieutenant of the King’s Guard, and others, did, on the 21st of September last, obtain a clandestine order of Privy Council to apprehend the person of Janet Pringle, daughter to the late Clifton, and she having retired out of the way upon information, he got an order against Andrew Pringle, her uncle, to produce her.... But she having married Andrew Pringle, her uncle’s son (to disappoint all their designs of selling her), a boy of thirteen years old.” But my boy is to be fourteen, so I extract no further. — Fountainhall, i. 320.

“
May 6, 1685.
— Wappus Pringle of Clifton was still alive after all, and in prison for debt, and transacts with Lieutenant Murray, giving security for 7000 marks.” — i. 372.

No, it seems to have been
her
brother who had succeeded.

MY DEAR CHARLES. — The above is my story, and I wonder if any light can be thrown on it. I prefer the girl’s father dead; and the question is, How in that case could Lieutenant George Murray get his order to “apprehend” and his power to “sell” her in marriage?

Or — might Lieutenant G. be her tutor, and she fugitive to the Pringles, and on the discovery of her whereabouts hastily married?

A good legal note on these points is very ardently desired by me; it will be the corner-stone of my novel.

This is for — I am quite wrong to tell you — for you will tell others — and nothing will teach you that all my schemes are in the air, and vanish and reappear again like shapes in the clouds — it is for
Heathercat
: whereof the first volume will be called
The Killing Time
, and I believe I have authorities ample for that. But the second volume is to be called (I believe)
Darien
, and for that I want, I fear, a good deal of truck: —

I hope may do me. Some sort of general history of the Darien affair (if there is a decent one, which I misdoubt), it would also be well to have — the one with most details, if possible. It is singular how obscure to me this decade of Scots history remains, 1690-1700 — a deuce of a want of light and grouping to it! However, I believe I shall be mostly out of Scotland in my tale; first in Carolina, next in Darien. I want also — I am the daughter of the horseleech truly — ”Black’s new large map of Scotland,” sheets 3, 4, and 5, a 7s. 6d. touch. I believe, if you can get the

Caldwell Papers
,

they had better come also; and if there be any reasonable work — but no, I must call a halt....

I fear the song looks doubtful, but I’ll consider of it, and I can promise you some reminiscences which it will amuse me to write, whether or not it will amuse the public to read of them. But it’s an unco business to supply deid-heid coapy.

To J. M. Barrie

Vailima, Samoa, December 7th, 1893.

MY DEAR BARRIE, — I have received duly the
magnum opus
, and it really is a
magnum opus
. It is a beautiful specimen of Clark’s printing, paper sufficient, and the illustrations all my fancy painted. But the particular flower of the flock to whom I have hopelessly lost my heart is Tibby Birse. I must have known Tibby Birse when she was a servant’s mantua-maker in Edinburgh and answered to the name of Miss
Broddie
. She used to come and sew with my nurse, sitting with her legs crossed in a masculine manner; and swinging her foot emphatically, she used to pour forth a perfectly unbroken stream of gossip. I didn’t hear it, I was immersed in far more important business with a box of bricks, but the recollection of that thin, perpetual, shrill sound of a voice has echoed in my ears sinsyne. I am bound to say she was younger than Tibbie, but there is no mistaking that and the indescribable and eminently Scottish expression.

I have been very much prevented of late, having carried out thoroughly to my own satisfaction two considerable illnesses, had a birthday, and visited Honolulu, where politics are (if possible) a shade more exasperating than they are with us. I am told that it was just when I was on the point of leaving that I received your superlative epistle about the cricket eleven. In that case it is impossible I should have answered it, which is inconsistent with 363 my own recollection of the fact. What
I
remember is, that I sat down under your immediate inspiration and wrote an answer in every way worthy. If I didn’t, as it seems proved that I couldn’t, it will never be done now. However, I did the next best thing, I equipped my cousin Graham Balfour with a letter of introduction, and from him, if you know how — for he is rather of the Scottish character — you may elicit all the information you can possibly wish to have as to us and ours. Do not be bluffed off by the somewhat stern and monumental first impression that he may make upon you. He is one of the best fellows in the world, and the same sort of fool that we are, only better-looking, with all the faults of Vailimans and some of his own — I say nothing about virtues.

I have lately been returning to my wallowing in the mire. When I was a child, and indeed until I was nearly a man, I consistently read Covenanting books. Now that I am a grey-beard — or would be, if I could raise the beard — I have returned, and for weeks back have read little else but Wodrow, Walker, Shields, etc. Of course this is with an idea of a novel, but in the course of it I made a very curious discovery. I have been accustomed to hear refined and intelligent critics — those who know so much better what we are than we do ourselves, — trace down my literary descent from all sorts of people, including Addison, of whom I could never read a word. Well, laigh i’ your lug, sir — the clue was found. My style is from the Covenanting writers. Take a particular case — the fondness for rhymes. I don’t know of any English prose-writer who rhymes except by accident, and then a stone had better be tied around his neck and himself cast into the sea. But my Covenanting buckies rhyme all the time — a beautiful example of the unconscious rhyme above referred to.

Do you know, and have you really tasted, these delightful works? If not, it should be remedied; there is enough of the Auld Licht in you to be ravished.

I suppose you know that success has so far attended my banners — my political banners I mean, and not my literary. In conjunction with the Three Great Powers I have succeeded in getting rid of My President and My Chief-Justice. They’ve gone home, the one to Germany, the other to Souwegia. I hear little echoes of footfalls of their departing footsteps through the medium of the newspapers....

Whereupon I make you my salute with the firm remark that it is time to be done with trifling and give us a great book, and my ladies fall into line with me to pay you a most respectful courtesy, and we all join in the cry, “Come to Vailima!”