Now, this must go to you, whatever it is like.
. . . 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 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.
CHAPTER XI - LIFE IN SAMOA, NOVEMBER 1890-DECEMBER 1892
Letter: TO E. L BURLINGAME
VAILIMA, APIA, SAMOA, NOV. 7, 1890.
I WISH you to add to the words at the end of the prologue; they run, I think, thus, 'And this is the yarn of Loudon Dodd'; add, 'not as he told, but as he wrote it afterwards for his diversion.' This becomes the more needful, because, when all is done, I shall probably revert to Tai-o-hae, and give final details about the characters in the way of a conversation between Dodd and Havers. These little snippets of information and FAITS-DIVERS have always a disjointed, broken-backed appearance; yet, readers like them. In this book we have introduced so many characters, that this kind of epilogue will be looked for; and I rather hope, looking far ahead, that I can lighten it in dialogue.
We are well past the middle now. How does it strike you? and can you guess my mystery? It will make a fattish volume!
I say, have you ever read the HIGHLAND WIDOW? I never had till yesterday: I am half inclined, bar a trip or two, to think it Scott's masterpiece; and it has the name of a failure! Strange things are readers.
I expect proofs and revises in duplicate.
We have now got into a small barrack at our place. We see the sea six hundred feet below filling the end of two vales of forest. On one hand the mountain runs above us some thousand feet higher; great trees stand round us in our clearing; there is an endless voice of birds; I have never lived in such a heaven; just now, I have fever, which mitigates but not destroys my gusto in my circumstances. - You may envy
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
. . . O, I don't know if I mentioned that having seen your new tail to the magazine, I cried off interference, at least for this trip. Did I ask you to send me my books and papers, and all the bound volumes of the mag.? QUORUM PARS. I might add that were there a good book or so - new - I don't believe there is - such would be welcome.