Vailima Letters - free ebook by Robert Louis Stevenson

Read as playlist

Vailima Letters

Robert Louis Stevenson

48 chapters

7 hour read

Read as playlist

Selected Chapters

48 chapters

VAILIMA LETTERS

VAILIMA LETTERS

BEING CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESSED BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON TO SIDNEY COLVIN November 1890 — October 1894 LONDON METHUEN AND CO. 36 ESSEX STREET Seventh Edition First Published November 1895 Second Edition December Third Edition February 1901 Fourth Edition October 1904 Fifth Edition March 1906 Sixth Edition 1907 Seventh Edition December 1908 PAGE Editorial Note xi LETTER I. November 1890 1 II. November 25—December 2, 1890 22 III. December 1890 33 IV. January 17, 1891 46 V. February 1891 51 VI. M

1 minute read

Read Chapter

EDITORIAL NOTE.

EDITORIAL NOTE.

So much of preface seems necessary to this volume as may justify its publication and explain its origin. The writer was for many years my closest friend. It was in the summer of 1873 that a lady, whose gracious influence has helped to shape and encourage more than one distinguished career, first awakened my interest in him and drew us together. He was at that time a lad of twenty-two, with his powers not yet set nor his way of life determined. But to know him was to recognise at once that he

11 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER I

In the Mountain , Apia , Samoa , Monday , November 2 nd , 1890 My dear Colvin ,—This is a hard and interesting and beautiful life that we lead now. Our place is in a deep cleft of Vaea Mountain, some six hundred feet above the sea, embowered in forest, which is our strangling enemy, and which we combat with axes and dollars. I went crazy over outdoor work, and had at last to confine myself to the house, or literature must have gone by the board. Nothing is so interesting as weeding, clearing,

22 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER II

Vailima , Tuesday , November 25 th , 1890. My dear Colvin ,—I wanted to go out bright and early to go on with my survey. You never heard of that. The world has turned, and much water run under bridges, since I stopped my diary. I have written six more chapters of the book, all good I potently believe, and given up, as a deception of the devil’s, the High Woods. I have been once down to Apia, to a huge native feast at Seumanutafa’s, the chief of Apia. There was a vast mass of food, crowds of

11 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER III

Monday , twenty-somethingth of December , 1890. My dear Colvin ,—I do not say my Jack is anything extraordinary; he is only an island horse; and the profane might call him a Punch; and his face is like a donkey’s; and natives have ridden him, and he has no mouth in consequence, and occasionally shies. But his merits are equally surprising; and I don’t think I should ever have known Jack’s merits if I had not been riding up of late on moonless nights. Jack is a bit of a dandy; he loves to misbeh

14 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IV

S. S. Lübeck , between Apia and Sydney , Jan. 17 th , 1891. My dear Colvin ,—The Faamasino Sili, or Chief Justice, to speak your low language, has arrived. I had ridden down with Henry and Lafaele; the sun was down, the night was close at hand, so we rode fast; just as I came to the corner of the road before Apia, I heard a gun fire; and lo, there was a great crowd at the end of the pier, and the troops out, and a chief or two in the height of Samoa finery, and Seumanu coming in his boat (the o

5 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER V

[ On Board Ship between Sydney and Apia , Feb. 1891.] My dear Colvin ,—The Janet Nicoll stuff was rather worse than I had looked for; you have picked out all that is fit to stand, bar two others (which I don’t dislike)—the Port of Entry and the House of Temoana; that is for a present opinion; I may condemn these also ere I have done. By this time you should have another Marquesan letter, the worst of the lot, I think; and seven Paumotu letters, which are not far out of the vein, as I wish it; I

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VI

Friday , March 19 th . My dear S. C.,—You probably expect that now I am back at Vailima I shall resume the practice of the diary letter. A good deal is changed. We are more; solitude does not attend me as before; the night is passed playing Van John for shells; and, what is not less important, I have just recovered from a severe illness, and am easily tired. I will give you to-day. I sleep now in one of the lower rooms of the new house, where my wife has recently joined me. We have two beds,

12 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VII

Saturday , April 18 th . My dear Colvin ,—I got back on Monday night, after twenty-three hours in an open boat; the keys were lost; the Consul (who had promised us a bottle of Burgundy) nobly broke open his store-room, and we got to bed about midnight. Next morning the blessed Consul promised us horses for the daybreak; forgot all about it, worthy man; set us off at last in the heat of the day, and by a short cut which caused infinite trouble, and we were not home till dinner. I was extenuated

4 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER VIII

April 29 th , ’91. My dear Colvin ,—I begin again. I was awake this morning about half-past four. It was still night, but I made my fire, which is always a delightful employment, and read Lockhart’s ‘Scott’ until the day began to peep. It was a beautiful and sober dawn, a dove-coloured dawn, insensibly brightening to gold. I was looking at it some while over the down-hill profile of our eastern road, when I chanced to glance northward, and saw with extraordinary pleasure the sea lying outspr

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER IX

June , 1891. Sir ,—To you, under your portrait, which is, in expression, your true, breathing self, and up to now saddens me; in time, and soon, I shall be glad to have it there; it is still only a reminder of your absence. Fanny wept when we unpacked it, and you know how little she is given to that mood; I was scarce Roman myself, but that does not count—I lift up my voice so readily. These are good compliments to the artist. I write in the midst of a wreck of books, which have just come up,

4 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER X

Sunday , Sept. 5 (?), 1891. My dear Colvin ,—Yours from Lochinver has just come. You ask me if I am ever homesick for the Highlands and the Isles. Conceive that for the last month I have been living there between 1786 and 1850, in my grandfather’s diaries and letters. I had to take a rest; no use talking; so I put in a month over my Lives of the Stevensons with great pleasure and profit and some advance; one chapter and a part drafted. The whole promises well Chapter I. Domestic Annals. Cha

13 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XI

Sept. 28. My dear Colvin ,—Since I last laid down my pen, I have written and rewritten The Beach of Falesá ; something like sixty thousand words of sterling domestic fiction (the story, you will understand, is only half that length); and now I don’t want to write any more again for ever, or feel so; and I’ve got to overhaul it once again to my sorrow. I was all yesterday revising, and found a lot of slacknesses and (what is worse in this kind of thing) some literaryisms. One of the puzzles is

8 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XII

May , October 24 th . My dear Carthew ,—See what I have written, but it’s Colvin I’m after—I have written two chapters, about thirty pages of Wrecker since the mail left, which must be my excuse, and the bother I’ve had with it is not to be imagined, you might have seen me the day before yesterday weighing British sov.’s and Chili dollars to arrange my treasure chest. And there was such a calculation, not for that only, but for the ship’s position and distances when—but I am not going to tell y

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIII

Nov. 25 th , 1891. My dear Colvin , My dear Colvin ,—I wonder how often I’m going to write it. In spite of the loss of three days, as I have to tell, and a lot of weeding and cacao planting, I have finished since the mail left four chapters, forty-eight pages of my Samoa history. It is true that the first three had been a good deal drafted two years ago, but they had all to be written and re-written, and the fourth chapter is all new. Chapter I. Elements of Discord-Native. II. Elements of Di

10 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XIV

Photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson on his horse ‘Jack’ Tuesday , Dec. 1891. Sir ,—I have the honour to report further explorations of the course of the river Vaea, with accompanying sketch plan. The party under my command consisted of one horse, and was extremely insubordinate and mutinous, owing to not being used to go into the bush, and being half-broken anyway—and that the wrong half. The route indicated for my party was up the bed of the so-called river Vaea, which I accordingly followed

17 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XV

Jan. 31 st , ’92. My dear Colvin ,—No letter at all from you, and this scratch from me! Here is a year that opens ill. Lloyd is off to ‘the coast’ sick— the coast means California over most of the Pacific—I have been down all month with influenza, and am just recovering—I am overlaid with proofs, which I am just about half fit to attend to. One of my horses died this morning, and another is now dying on the front lawn—Lloyd’s horse and Fanny’s. Such is my quarrel with destiny. But I am mend

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVI

Feb. 1892. My dear Colvin ,—This has been a busyish month for a sick man. First, Faauma—the bronze candlestick, whom otherwise I called my butler—bolted from the bed and bosom of Lafaele, the Archangel Hercules, prefect of the cattle. There was the deuce to pay, and Hercules was inconsolable, and immediately started out after a new wife, and has had one up on a visit, but says she has ‘no conversation’; and I think he will take back the erring and possibly repentant candlestick; whom we all de

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVII

March 9 th . My dear S. C.,—Take it not amiss if this is a wretched letter. I am eaten up with business. Every day this week I have had some business impediment—I am even now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the road—and my precious morning was shattered by a polite old scourge of a faipule —parliament man—come begging. All the time David Balfour is skelping along. I began it the 13th of last month; I have now 12 chapters, 79 pages ready for press, or within an ace, and, by the time the

11 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XVIII

May 1 st . 1892. My dear Colvin ,—As I rode down last night about six, I saw a sight I must try to tell you of. In front of me, right over the top of the forest into which I was descending was a vast cloud. The front of it accurately represented the somewhat rugged, long-nosed, and beetle-browed profile of a man, crowned by a huge Kalmuck cap; the flesh part was of a heavenly pink, the cap, the moustache, the eyebrows were of a bluish gray; to see this with its childish exactitude of design an

25 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XIX

Sunday , 29 th May . How am I to overtake events? On Wednesday, as soon as my mail was finished, I had a wild whirl to look forward to. Immediately after dinner, Belle, Lloyd and I, set out on horseback, they to the club, I to Haggard’s, thence to the hotel where I had supper ready for them. All next day we hung round Apia with our whole house-crowd in Sunday array, hoping for the mail steamer with a menagerie on board. No such luck; the ship delayed; and at last, about three, I had to send

26 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XX

Saturday , 2 nd July 1892. The character of my handwriting is explained, alas! by scrivener’s cramp. This also explains how long I have let the paper lie plain. 1 P.M. I was busy copying David Balfour with my left hand—a most laborious task—Fanny was down at the native house superintending the floor, Lloyd down in Apia, and Belle in her own house cleaning, when I heard the latter calling on my name. I ran out on the verandah; and there on the lawn beheld my crazy boy with an axe in his hand an

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXI

My dear Colvin ,—This is Friday night, the (I believe) 18th or 20th August or September. I shall probably regret to-morrow having written you with my own hand like the Apostle Paul. But I am alone over here in the workman’s house, where I and Belle and Lloyd and Austin are pigging; the rest are at cards in the main residence. I have not joined them because ‘belly belong me’ has been kicking up, and I have just taken 15 drops of laudanum. On Tuesday, the party set out—self in white cap, velvet

16 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXII

Thursday , 15 th September . My dear Colvin ,—On Tuesday, we had our young adventurer ready, and Fanny, Belle, he and I set out about three of a dark, deadly hot, and deeply unwholesome afternoon. Belle had the lad behind her; I had a pint of champagne in either pocket, a parcel in my hands, and as Jack had a girth sore and I rode without a girth, I might be said to occupy a very unstrategic position. On the way down, a little dreary, beastly drizzle beginning to come out of the darkness, Fann

6 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIII

Vailima , October 28 th , 1892. My dear Colvin ,—This is very late to begin the monthly budget, but I have a good excuse this time, for I have had a very annoying fever with symptoms of sore arm, and in the midst of it a very annoying piece of business which suffered no delay or idleness. . . . The consequence of all this was that my fever got very much worse and your letter has not been hitherto written. But, my dear fellow, do compare these little larky fevers with the fine, healthy, prostrat

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXIV

Dec. 1 st . My dear Colvin ,—Another grimy little odd and end of paper, for which you shall be this month repaid in kind, and serve you jolly well right. . . . The new house is roofed; it will be a braw house, and what is better, I have my yearly bill in, and I find I can pay for it. For all which mercies, etc. I must have made close on £4,000 this year all told; but, what is not so pleasant, I seem to have come near to spending them. I have been in great alarm, with this new house on the ca

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXV

January 1893. My dear Colvin ,—You are properly paid at last, and it is like you will have but a shadow of a letter. I have been pretty thoroughly out of kilter; first a fever that would neither come on nor go off, then acute dyspepsia, in the weakening grasp of which I get wandering between the waking state and one of nightmare. Why the devil does no one send me Atalanta ? And why are there no proofs of D. Balfour? Sure I should have had the whole, at least the half, of them by now; and it

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVI

At Sea , S.S. &amp; Mariposa , Feb. 19th, ’93. My dear Colvin ,—You will see from this heading that I am not dead yet nor likely to be. I was pretty considerably out of sorts, and that is indeed one reason why Fanny, Belle, and I have started out for a month’s lark. To be quite exact, I think it will be about five weeks before we get home. We shall stay between two and three in Sydney. Already, though we only sailed yesterday, I am feeling as fit as a fiddle. Fanny ate a whole fowl for

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVII

Bad pen, bad ink, bad light, bad blotting-paper. S. S. Mariposa , at Sea . Apia due by daybreak to-morrow 9 p.m. My dear Colvin ,—Have had an amusing but tragic holiday, from which we return in disarray. Fanny quite sick, but I think slowly and steadily mending; Belle in a terrific state of dentistry troubles which now seem calmed; and myself with a succession of gentle colds out of which I at last succeeded in cooking up a fine pleurisy. By stopping and stewing in a perfectly airless state-

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXVIII

April , 1893. 1. Slip 3. Davie would be attracted into a similar dialect, as he is later—e.g., with Doig, chapter XIX. This is truly Scottish. 4, to lightly ; correct; ‘to lightly’ is a good regular Scots verb. 15. See Allan Ramsay’s works. 15, 16. Ay, and that is one of the pigments with which I am trying to draw the character of Prestongrange. ’Tis a most curious thing to render that kind, insignificant mask. To make anything precise is to risk my effect. And till the day he died, Dav

8 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXIX

25 th April . My dear Colvin ,—To-day early I sent down to Maben (Secretary of State) an offer to bring up people from Malie, keep them in my house, and bring them down day by day for so long as the negotiation should last. I have a favourable answer so far. This I would not have tried, had not old Sir George Grey put me on my mettle; ‘Never despair,’ was his word; and ‘I am one of the few people who have lived long enough to see how true that is.’ Well, thereupon I plunged in; and the thing

10 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXX

29 th May . My dear Colvin ,—Still grinding at Chap. XI. I began many days ago on p. 93, and am still on p. 93, which is exhilarating, but the thing takes shape all the same and should make a pretty lively chapter for an end of it. For XII. is only a footnote ad explicandum . June the 1 st . Back on p. 93. I was on 100 yesterday, but read it over and condemned it. 10 a.m. I have worked up again to 97, but how? The deuce fly away with literature, for the basest sport in creation. But it’s g

10 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXI

Saturday , 24 th (?) June . My dear Colvin —Yesterday morning, after a day of absolute temperance, I awoke to the worst headache I had had yet. Accordingly, temperance was said farewell to, quinine instituted, and I believe my pains are soon to be over. We wait, with a kind of sighing impatience, for war to be declared, or to blow finally off, living in the meanwhile in a kind of children’s hour of firelight and shadow and preposterous tales; the king seen at night galloping up our road upon u

18 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXII

August , 1893. My dear Colvin ,—Quite impossible to write. Your letter is due to-day; a nasty, rainy-like morning with huge blue clouds, and a huge indigo shadow on the sea, and my lamp still burning at near 7. Let me humbly give you news. Fanny seems on the whole the most, or the only, powerful member of the family; for some days she has been the Flower of the Flock. Belle is begging for quinine. Lloyd and Graham have both been down with ‘belly belong him’ (Black Boy speech). As for me, I

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIII

23 rd August . My dear Colvin ,—Your pleasing letter re The Ebb Tide , to hand. I propose, if it be not too late, to delete Lloyd’s name. He has nothing to do with the last half. The first we wrote together, as the beginning of a long yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather unfair on the young man to couple his name with so infamous a work. Above all, as you had not read the two last chapters, which seem to me the most ugly and cynical of all. You will see that I am not in

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXIV

Waikiki , Honolulu , H. 1. Oct. 23rd, 1893. Dear Colvin ,—My wife came up on the steamer and we go home together in 2 days. I am practically all right, only sleepy and tired easily, slept yesterday from 11 to 11.45, from 1 to 2.50, went to bed at 8 P.M. , and with an hour’s interval slept till 6 A.M. , close upon 14 hours out of the 24. We sail to-morrow. I am anxious to get home, though this has been an interesting visit, and politics have been curious indeed to study. We go to P.P.C. on th

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXV

My dear Colvin ,—One page out of my picture book I must give you. Fine burning day; half past two P.M. We four begin to rouse up from reparatory slumbers, yawn, and groan, get a cup of tea, and miserably dress: we have had a party the day before, X’mas Day, with all the boys absent but one, and latterly two; we had cooked all day long, a cold dinner, and lo! at two our guests began to arrive, though dinner was not till six; they were sixteen, and fifteen slept the night and breakfasted. Conc

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVI

Portrait of R. L. Stevenson with the Native Chief Tui Malealiifano Vailima , Jan. 29 th , 1894. My dear Colvin ,—I had fully intended for your education and moral health to fob you off with the meanest possible letter this month, and unfortunately I find I will have to treat you to a good long account of matters here. I believe I have told you before about Tui-ma-le-alii-fano and my taking him down to introduce him to the Chief Justice. Well, Tui came back to Vailima one day in the blackest so

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVII

Feb. 1894. Dear Colvin ,—By a reaction, when your letter is a little decent, mine is to be naked and unashamed. We have been much exercised. No one can prophesy here, of course, and the balance still hangs trembling, but I think it will go for peace. The mail was very late this time; hence the paltryness of this note. When it came and I had read it, I retired with The Ebb Tide and read it all before I slept. I did not dream it was near as good; I am afraid I think it excellent. A little ind

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

March 1894. My dear Colvin ,—This is the very day the mail goes, and I have as yet written you nothing. But it was just as well—as it was all about my ‘blacks and chocolates,’ and what of it had relation to whites you will read some of in the Times . It means, as you will see, that I have at one blow quarrelled with all the officials of Samoa, the Foreign Office, and I suppose her Majesty the Queen with milk and honey blest. But you’ll see in the Times . I am very well indeed, but just about

5 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XXXIX

Vailima , May 18 th , 1894. My dear Colvin ,—Your proposals for the Edinburgh edition are entirely to my mind. About the Amateur Emigrant , it shall go to you by this mail well slashed. If you like to slash some more on your own account, I give you permission. ’Tis not a great work; but since it goes to make up the two first volumes as proposed, I presume it has not been written in vain.— Miscellanies . I see with some alarm the proposal to print Juvenilia ; does it not seem to you taking my

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XL

Vailima , June 18th, 94. My dear Colvin ,—You are to please understand that my last letter is withdrawn unconditionally. You and Baxter are having all the trouble of this Edition, and I simply put myself in your hands for you to do what you like with me, and I am sure that will be the best, at any rate. Hence you are to conceive me withdrawing all objections to your printing anything you please. After all it is a sort of family affair. About the Miscellany Section, both plans seem to me quit

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLI

July , 1894. My dear Colvin ,—I have to thank you this time for a very good letter, and will announce for the future, though I cannot now begin to put in practice, good intentions for our correspondence. I will try to return to the old system and write from time to time during the month; but truly you did not much encourage me to continue! However, that is all by-past. I do not know that there is much in your letter that calls for answer. Your questions about St. Ives were practically answer

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER XLII

Aug. 7 th . My dear Colvin ,—This is to inform you, sir, that on Sunday last (and this is Tuesday) I attained my ideal here, and we had a paper chase in Vailele Plantation, about 15 miles, I take it, from us; and it was all that could be wished. It is really better fun than following the hounds, since you have to be your own hound, and a precious bad hound I was, following every false scent on the whole course to the bitter end; but I came in 3rd at the last on my little Jack, who stuck to it g

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XLIII

CHAPTER XLIII

Vailima , 1894. My dear Colvin ,—This must be a very measly letter. I have been trying hard to get along with St. Ives . I should now lay it aside for a year and I daresay I should make something of it after all. Instead of that, I have to kick against the pricks, and break myself, and spoil the book, if there were anything to spoil, which I am far from saying. I’m as sick of the thing as ever any one can be; it’s a rudderless hulk; it’s a pagoda, and you can just feel—or I can feel—that it

5 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XLIV

CHAPTER XLIV

Vailima , Samoa , Oct. 6 th , 1894. My dear Colvin ,—We have had quite an interesting month and mostly in consideration of that road which I think I told you was about to be made. It was made without a hitch, though I confess I was considerably surprised. When they got through, I wrote a speech to them, sent it down to a Missionary to be translated, and invited the lot to a feast. I thought a good deal of this feast. The occasion was really interesting. I wanted to pitch it in hot. And I w

7 minute read

Read Chapter

EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

The tenor of these last letters of Stevenson’s to me, and of others written to several of his friends at the same time, seemed to give just cause for anxiety. Indeed, as the reader will have perceived, a gradual change had during the past months been coming over the tone of his correspondence. It was not like him to be sensitive to a rough word in a friendly review, nor to recur with so much feeling to my unlucky complaint, quickly regretted and withdrawn, as to his absorption in native affair

5 minute read

Read Chapter

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

Address to the Chiefs on the opening of the Road of Gratitude , Oct. 1894. Mr. Stevenson said: ‘We are met together to-day to celebrate an event and to do honour to certain chiefs, my friends,—Lelei, Mataafa, Salevao, Poè, Teleso, Tupuola Lotofaga, Tupuola Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo, and Fatialofa. You are all aware in some degree of what has happened. You know these chiefs to have been prisoners; you perhaps know that during the term of their confinement, I had it in my power to do them certain

8 minute read

Read Chapter