Robert Louis Stevenson: A Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial

occurred to him, that some use might hereafter be made of these letters for publication purposes. There is, indeed, as little trace of any change in the

892, Steve

am dead, and a man could make some kind of a book out of it, without much trouble. So for God's sake d

he sea (for he was by nature a sailor), his passion for action and adventure despite his ill-health, his great patience with others and fine adaptability to their temper (he says that he never gets out of temper with those he has to do with), his unbounded, big-hearted hopefulness, and

told you so!-A.M.] I propose to foster her vanity by a little commemoration gift! . . . I shall tell you on some other occasion, and when the A.M. is out of hearing, how very much I propose to i

its trials!-which, by aid of the true philosopher's stone of cheer

contest between his desire to aid Mataafa and the other chiefs, and his literary work-between letters t

break that frost inside two years, and pull off a big success, and Vanity whispers in my ear that I have the strength. If I haven't, whistle owre the lave o't! I can do without glory, and perhaps the time is not far off when I can do without corn. It is a time coming soon enough, anyway; and I have endured some two

was keen for exercise and for mixing among men-his native servants if no othe

to taste a quiet conscience. And the strange thing that I mark is this: If I go out and make sixpence, bossing my labourers and plying the cutlass

onship is indeed stron

ps I like sailors best, but to go round and s

ail wide seas, or to range on mountain-tops to gain free and extensive views-yet he inc

ure must have gone by the board. Nothing is so interesting as weeding, clearing, and path-making: the oversight of

s, their tricks, their delightful insouciance sometimes, all amused him. He found in them a fine field of study and o

ingers of the left hand, and with your right (which he supposes engaged) you tap him on the head and back. When you let him open his eyes, he sees you withdrawing the two forefingers. 'What that?' asked Lafaele. 'My devil,' says Fanny. 'I wake um, my devil. All right now. He go catch the man that catch my pig.' About an hour afterwards Lafaele came

his R. L. Stevens

ors and windows are always wide open; and upon one occasion when white ants attacked the silver ch

flection on a day's weeding at Vailima

g, objective and subjective, is always present to my mind; the horror of creeping things, a superstitious horror of the void and the powers about me, the horror of my own devastation and continual murders. The life of the p

he celebrates an act of friendly

dnesses that alone makes this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters, multiplying, spreading, making one happy through another and bringing forth benefits, some th