A LETTER TO J. M. BARRIE
VAILIMA, (SAMOA) July 13, 1894
[This journal-letter to Mr. Barrie covers a
period of a month. In the interval between
two of its parts (August 6th and August 12th)
the news of Mr. Barrie's engagement and
marriage, which took place soon after his
recovery from a serious illness, had reached
Stevenson in Samoa.]
MY DEAR BARRIE, -- This is the last effort of
an ulcerated conscience. I have been so long
owing you a letter, I have heard so much of
you, fresh from the press, from my mother and
Graham Balfour, that I have to write a letter
no later than to-day, or perish in my shame.
But the deuce of it is, my dear fellow, that
you write such a very good letter that I am
ashamed to exhibit myself before my junior
(which you are, after all) in the light of
the dreary idiot I feel. Understand that
there will be nothing funny in the following
pages. If I can manage to be rationally
coherent, I shall be more than satisfied.
In the first place, I have had the extreme
satisfaction to be shown that photograph of
your mother. It bears evident traces of the
hand of an amateur. How is it that amateurs
invariably take better photographs than
professionals? I must qualify invariably.
My own negatives have always represented a
province of chaos and old night in which you
might dimly perceive fleecy spots of twilight,
representing nothing; so that, if I am right
in supposing the portrait of your mother to
be yours, I must salute you as my superior.
Is that your mother's breakfast? Or is it
only afternoon tea? If the first, do let me
recommend to Mrs. Barrie to add an egg to
her ordinary. Which, if you please, I will
ask her to eat to the honour of her son,
and I am sure she will live much longer for
it, to enjoy his fresh successes. I never
in my life saw anything more deliciously
characteristic. I declare I can hear her
speak. I wonder my mother could resist the
temptation of your proposed visit to Kirriemuir,
which it was like your kindness to propose.
By the way, I was twice in Kirriemuir, I
believe in the year '71, when I was going
on a visit to Glenogil. It was Kirriemuir,
was it not? I have a distinct recollection
of an inn at the end -- I think the upper
end -- of an irregular open place or square,
in which I always see your characters evolve.
But, indeed, I did not pay much attention;
being all bent upon my visit to a shooting-box,
where I should fish a real trout-stream, and
I believe preserved. I did, too, and it was
a charming stream, clear as crystal, without
a trace of peat -- a strange thing in Scotland --
and alive with trout; the name of it I cannot
remember, it was something like the Queen's
River, and in some hazy way connected with
memories of Mary Queen of Scots. It formed
an epoch in my life, being the end of all my
trout-fishing. I had always been accustomed
to pause and very laboriously to kill every
fish as I took it. But in the Queen's River
I took so good a basket that I forgot these
niceties; and when I sat down, in a hard rain
shower, under a bank, to take my sandwiches
and sherry, lo! and behold, there was the
basketful of trouts still kicking in their
agony. I had a very unpleasant conversation
with my conscience. All that afternoon I
persevered in fishing, brought home my basket
in triumph, and sometime that night, "in the
wee sma' hours ayont the twal," I finally
forswore the gentle craft of fishing. I dare
say your local knowledge may identify this
historic river; I wish it could go farther
and identify also that particular Free kirk
in which I sat and groaned on Sunday. While
my hand is in I must tell you a story. At
that antique epoch you must not fall into
the vulgar error that I was myself ancient.
I was, on the contrary, very young, very green,
and (what you will appreciate, Mr. Barrie)
very shy. There came one day to lunch at
the house two very formidable old ladies --
or one very formidable, and the other what
you please -- answering to the honoured and
historic name of the Miss C--- A---'s of
Balnamoon. At table I was exceedingly funny,
and entertained the company with tales of
geese and bubbly-jocks. I was great in the
expression of my terror for these bipeds,
and suddenly this horrid, severe, and
eminently matronly old lady put up a pair
of gold eye-glasses, looked at me awhile
in silence, and pronounced in a clangorous
voice her verdict. "You give me very much
the effect of a coward, Mr. Stevenson!" I
had very nearly left two vices behind me at
Glenogil -- fishing and jesting at table.
And of one thing you may be very sure, my
lips were no more opened at that meal.
JULY 29TH.
No, Barrie, 'tis in vain they try to alarm
me with their bulletins. No doubt, you're
ill, and unco ill, I believe; but I have been
so often in the same case that I know pleurisy
and pneumonia are in vain against Scotsmen
who can write, (I once could.) You cannot
imagine probably how near me this common
calamity brings you. Ce que j'ai tousse dans ma vie!
How often and how long have I been on the rack
at night and learned to appreciate that noble
passage in the Psalms when somebody or other
is said to be more set on something than they
"who dig for hid treasures -- yea, than those
who long for the morning" -- for all the world,
as you have been racked and you have longed.
Keep your heart up, and you'll do. Tell that
to your mother, if you are still in any danger
or suffering. And by the way, if you are at
all like me -- and I tell myself you are very
like me -- be sure there is only one thing
good for you, and that is the sea in hot
climates. Mount, sir, into "a little frigot"
of 5000 tons or so, and steer peremptorily for
the tropics; and what if the ancient mariner,
who guides your frigot, should startle the
silence of the ocean with the cry of land ho!
-- say, when the day is dawning -- and you
should see the turquoise mountain-tops of
Upolu coming hand over fist above the horizon?
Mr. Barrie, sir, 'tis then there would be
larks! And though I cannot be certain that
our climate would suit you (for it does not
suit some), I am sure as death the voyage
would do you good -- would do you Best -- and
if Samoa didn't do, you needn't stay beyond
the month, and I should have had another
pleasure in my life, which is a serious
consideration for me. I take this as the
hand of the Lord preparing your way to
Vailima -- in the desert, certainly -- in
the desert of Cough and by the ghoul-haunted
woodland of Fever -- but whither that way
points there can be no question -- and
there will be a meeting of the twa Hoasting
Scots Makers in spite of fate, fortune, and
the Devil. Absit omen!
My dear Barrie, I am a little in the dark
about this new work of yours:* what is to
become of me afterwards? You say carefully --
methought anxiously -- that I was no longer
me when I grew up? I cannot bear this
suspense: what is it? It's no forgery?
And AM I HANGIT? These are the elements
of a very pretty lawsuit which you had
better come to Samoa to compromise. I am
enjoying a great pleasure that I had long
looked forward to, reading Orne's "History
of Indostan"; I had been looking out for
it everywhere; but at last, in four volumes,
large quarto, beautiful type and page, and
with a delectable set of maps and plans,
and all the names of the places wrongly
spelled -- it came to Samoa, little Barrie.
I tell you frankly, you had better come
soon. I am sair failed a'ready; and what
I may be if you continue to dally, I dread
to conceive. I may be speechless; already,
or at least for a month or so, I'm little
better than a teetoller -- I beg pardon, a
teetotaller. It is not exactly physical,
for I am in good health, working four or
five hours a day in my plantation, and
intending to ride a paper-chase next Sunday
-- ay, man, that's a fact, and I havena had
the hert to breathe it to my mother yet --
the obligation's poleetical, for I am trying
every means to live well with my German
neighbours -- and, O Barrie, but it's no
easy! To be sure, there are many exceptions.
And the whole of the above must be regarded
as private -- strictly private. Breathe
it not in Kirriemuir: tell it not to the
daughters of Dundee! What a nice extract
this would make for the daily papers! and
how it would facilitate my position here! . . .
AUGUST 5TH.
This is Sunday, the Lord's Day. "The hour
of attack approaches." And it is a singular
consideration what I risk; I may yet be the
subject of a tract, and a good tract too --
such as one which I remember reading with
recreant awe and rising hair in my youth,
of a boy who was a very good boy, and went
to Sunday Schule, and one day kipped from
it, and went and actually bathed, and was
dashed over a waterfall, and he was the
only son of his mother, and she was a widow.
A dangerous trade, that, and one that I have
to practise. I'll put in a word when I get
home again, to tell you whether I'm killed
or not. "Accident in the (Paper) Hunting
Field: death of a notorious author. We
deeply regret to announce the death of the
most unpopular man in Samoa, who broke his
neck at the descent of Magagi, from the
misconduct of his little raving lunatic of
an old beast of a pony. It is proposed to
commemorate the incident by the erection of
a suitable pile. The design (by our local
architect, Mr. Walker) is highly artificial,
with a rich and voluminous Crockett at each
corner, a small but impervious Barrieer at
the entrance, an arch at the top, an Archer
of a pleasing but solid character at the
bottom; the colour will be genuine William-Black;
and Lang, lang may the ladies sit wi' their
fans in their hands." Well, well, they may
sit as they sat for me, and little they'll
reck, the ungrateful jauds! Muckle they
cared about Tusitala when they had him! But
now ye can see the difference; now, leddies,
ye can repent, when ower late, o' your former
cauldness and what ye'll perhaps allow me
to ca' your tepeedity! He was beautiful as
the day, but his day is done! And perhaps,
as he was maybe gettin' a wee thing fly-blawn,
it's nane too shune.
MONDAY, AUGUST 6TH.
Well, sir, I have escaped the dangerous
conjunction of the widow's only son and
the Sabbath Day. We had a most enjoyable
time, and Lloyd and I were 3 and 4 to
arrive; I will not tell here what interval
had elapsed between our arrival and the
arrival of 1 and 2; the question, sir,
is otiose and malign; it deserves, it
shall have no answer. And now without
further delay to the main purpose of this
hasty note. We received and we have already
in fact distributed the gorgeous fahbrics
of Kirriemuir. Whether from the splendour
of the robes themselves, or from the direct
nature of the compliments with which you
had directed us to accompany the presentations,
one young lady blushed as she received the
proofs of your munificence. . . . Bad ink,
and the dregs of it at that, but the heart
in the right place. Still very cordially
interested in my Barrie and wishing him well
through his sickness, which is of the body,
and long defended from mine, which is of the
head, and by the impolite might be described
as idiocy. The whole head is useless, and
the whole sitting part painful: reason, the
recent Paper Chase.
There was racing and chasing in Vailile plantation,
And vastly we enjoyed it,
But, alas! for the state of my foundation,
For it wholly has destroyed it.
Come, my mind is looking up. The above is
wholly impromptu. -- On oath,
TUSITALA.
AUGUST 12, 1894
And here, Mr. Barrie, is news with a vengeance.
Mother Hubbard's dog is well again -- what
did I tell you? Pleurisy, pneumonia, and
all that kind of truck is quite unavailing
against a Scotchman who can write -- and
not only that, but it appears the perfidious
dog is married. This incident, so far as
I remember, is omitted from the original
epic --
She went to the graveyard
To see him get him buried,
And when she came back
The Deil had got merried.
It now remains to inform you that I have
taken what we call here "German offence"
at not receiving cards, and that the only
reparation I will accept is that Mrs. Barrie
shall incontinently upon the receipt of
this Take and Bring you to Vailima in order
to apologise and be pardoned for this offence.
The commentary of Tamaitai upon the event
was brief but pregnant: "Well, it's a
comfort our guest-room is furnished for two."
This letter, about nothing, has already
endured too long. I shall just present
the family to Mrs. Barrie -- Tamaitai,
Tamaitai Matua, Teuila, Palema, Loia,
and with an extra low bow, Yours,
TUSITALA.
* "Sentimental Tommy" whose chief likeness to
R. L. S. was meant to be in the literary
temperament and passion for the mot propre.
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