CORRESPONDENCE.
A VISIT TO THE LIBRARY OF R. L. STEVENSON, AT VAILIMA, SAMOA.
[To THE EDITOR OY THE " SPECTATOR.']
"And the stately ships sail on To their haven under the hill, But 0 for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still !"
September, 189.5. SIR,—It is a curious fact that Stevenson, whom we all regarded at home as being the personification of Samoa— indeed it would be no exaggeration to say that the average Englishman's idea of Samoa was "some island or other in the Pacific where Stevenson lives,"—has left very little behind him in the way of tradition or story in the island he loved so well. He lived in the midst of a society which, outside his immediate family surroundings, must have been eminently uncongenial to a man of his refined nature, yet he damaged his fame here, at least, by meddling in the petty squabbles which agitate the beach at Apia, and his "Footnote to History" has made him a host of enemies, notably among the German Colony, who by the mouth of one of their many prophets condemned him to me as a writer of "stupid stinks !" And therefore he may have made a mistake in imagining himself a factor in the insoluble equation of Samoan affairs. It was to the natives that he was more attached than to the vague ideals which form their so-called political future. To them he was a great chief, " Tusitala Talmita " by name, and many a native I have spoken to mentioned him with real affection as a good friend and a man with a golden heart. Perhaps this is the praise he himself would have chosen rather than that of the white colony.
It is not my purpose, however, to dilate on his life in Samoa, nor indeed would it be possible to gather, from the mass of conflicting evidence, any rational account of his doings in his island home. It is of a pilgrimage which I made to visit his library that I would give some short account. The room was walled from floor to ceiling with books, and I began at once to inspect them. To the left of the door were some "yellow-backs," but few ; nor did I see in his library much trash of any description. Next came books of travel in almost every country in the world, the bulk of them, however, dealing with the Pacific. From Captain Cook down, it would be hard to name a Pacific travel-book that has not found a place upon the shelves at Vailima. Next, I am bound to say, came my first disappointment. I had always thought that Stevenson must have been a good classical scholar, and had an idea formed, I know not how or whence, that a great style—and surely his may be justly called so—necessitated a close and intimate acquaintance with those classical authors who-
" Upon the stretched forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever."
Yet I found classics indeed, but, alas, in Mr. Bohn's Edition, while on the shelf beneath lay the originals uncut ! It came to me as a positive blow to find the pages of the Odyssey uncared for and unread, save in some translation.* Of Horace he had many and good editions, and they seemed read and used ; but of the Greek tragedians I found only Sophocles in Professor Campbell's translation, and no edition of his plays save a small " CEdipus the King." This was a great shock to me, for even supposing that Stevenson was only "a maker of phrases" (as many people will tell you, above all here, "for a prophet is not without honour," (Sze.), still phrases must have some basis in education, and a man who is evidently careless of the masters of ancient language is not likely to prove a brilliant coiner of words.
Turning with regret from this shelf, I came next upon a fine collection of French works, beginning with a complete edition of Balzac, which had evidently been read with care. Much French fiction was here,—Dandet's " Tartarin," " Fro- mont Jenne et Risler Aine," "Les Rois en Exil ; " Guy de Ma.npassant, Prosper Ilerimee, and a complete Victor Hugo,
• Butcher am? Lang, as a matter of fast,
besides a swarm of the more ephemeral novels. Here, too, were a fine and complete edition of "Wellington's De- spatches," and several military treatises. Next to these came a good collection (be it always remembered that I speak of Samoa in Samoa, and fourteen thousand miles from the home of English and French publishing and printing) of historical works ; Gibbon, of course, Milman, Von Ranke, and many of the old French chroniclers—Philippe de Commines especially—read and marked, no doubt, when. Stevenson was writing "The Black Arrow." One passage so marked struck me as curious. Surely Stevenson was a man whom, from his writings, one would imagine to be practically without enemies ; yet in the light of events at Apia, and from what I have heard here, the quotation seems apposite : " Je scay hien que ma langne ra'a porte grand dommage, aussi m'a-t-elle fait quelques Lois de plaisir beaucoup, tontesfois c'est raison que je repare l'amende." Now these are almost the exact words which conclude the preface to the only deplorable book Stevenson ever wrote—his "Footnotes to History," which has made him many enemies, and, I think, no friends—in fact, nothing but the vigorous description of the hurricane saves it from worthlessness. As history it is not trustworthy, and as a footnote it was ridiculous. How- ever, to return to the books. There was a very complete collection of modern poets, hardly any of note being omitted. I even saw a copy of "J. K. S.'s" " Lapsus Calami," which surprised me, for Stevenson was neither a Cambridge nor a, public school man.
Such, then, in brief is a rough summary of the library of this remarkable man ; many of the Milieus de luxe were packed away, but I believe what I saw was his working stock. We now opened a little glass-door leading from the room into Stevenson's sanctum, where he dictated almost all his work. It was quite a small room, lighted by two windows ; and in one corner lay a bed with a mat "Samoan fashion" spread thereon, while beside it was a table with a bunch of withered flowers (the last he ever looked on), and which Mr. Chatfield has very properly never permitted to be removed. Here, in one corner, stood a small bookcase with editions of his own works ; the walls were hung with engravings of ancestors— the only sign of his Scotch origin I noted in the house—while above the chimney-piece (the only chimney-pieces and fire- places in Samoa are at Vailima), were a lovely series of draw- ings of Gordon Browne, to illustrate one of his later books, "The Island Nights' Adventures." These pictures, though only in black and white, breathe the spirit of the islands in a marvellous manner; especially remarkable being the illustra- tion to "The Beach of Falesa." In a small bookcase over the head of the bed were some of his own books, a Shakespeare, and what was more curious, "A Record of Remarkable Crimes and Criminals." I heard that Stevenson was fond of" supping full of horrors," and that would, of course, account for the inevitable murder or bloodshed which haunts his books ; he was an avid reader of murders and crimes of all sorts. His mind was of a curious cast. Mr. Chatfield told me that on some days he was the most charming of companions,— brilliant, witty, and fascinating ; on others dull and morose beyond description, hardly uttering a word, and giving no sign of the wealth of tenderness and genial kindness that larked within. As a host, it is agreed on all hands, he was incomparable. His entertainment catered for the tastes of all, and in the sunshine of his delightful company all sorts and conditions of men were happy.
We left this room with a feeling of depression, and passing through the other to the door, my eye fell on what I had not before noticed, the original of the delightful map which is the frontispiece to "Treasure Island,"—a most beautiful piece of drawing, reminding me, in its quaint accompani- ments of spouting dolphins and horn-blowing Tritons, as much as in its pretended accuracy, of those strange maps in the earlier editions of Gulliver, where Brobdingnag, Laputa, &c., are all laid out with geographical detail of latitude and longitude. The curious, sprawling writing of Flint and Billy Bones were in contrast to the fine workmanship of the rest of the map, which, save for some slight coarseness in the shading of the steeper side of "Spyglass Hill," might have been engraved. The last thing I saw in the library was perhaps the most curious of all. It was a navigating chart con- structed by the natives of the Wallis Islands for their own use and guidance. I have since learned that such charts are used by the traders also who navigate these lati- tudes. The form of the chart is a parallelogram con- structed on a framework of cane or other light wood. Across this parallelogram run vertically convex pieces of wood bent to show the general run or set of the wind and waves, cross currents are marked with cross pieces of wood showing their direction ; and their force and variation are indicated on the slips of wood themselves (which are not half an inch wide) by means of signs and curious marks. Islands are denoted on this wonderful piece of native work by cowrie shells fastened to the framework. I suppose Stevenson must have picked this up on his travels among the Islands, and I believe that although these charts are universally used in the Wallis Group and are found perfectly correct, very few specimens of the kind have emerged as yet from those Islands. I puzzled a long time to guess what it was, Mrs. Chatfield enjoying my mystification, which she herself had experienced when she first saw this remarkable map. One more fact I must mention about the library. In a corner I found a number of quarto volumes, well bound, containing apparently a continuous day-book of some of Stevenson's many voyages. It is to be hoped that these journals may some day be given to the world. Many and curious were the scenes he witnessed; various and entertaining the personages he must have met on his travels. He seems to have visited most of the many groups of islets with which the Pacific is so plentifully sprinkled.
I did not care to visit the rest of the house, though nay hostess most kindly offered to show me anything she could, but I stood outside and looked at the lofty hill over the house where he sleeps his last sleep in the land and among the people he loved so well. Samoans show much poetic feeling in selecting beautiful sites for the graves of their chiefs. In my journeys round the island, in the most remote districts, I was frequently delighted by coming suddenly upon the usual inclosnre of rough stones which mark the resting-place of a chief, always in a beautiful spot and in- variably commanding a wide and splendid view. This may also have been Stevenson's object in selecting the summit of the hill for his grave. The labour required to carry him to his last resting-place was immense, as many as sixty Samoans being employed, while only nineteen Europeans braved the difficulties of the ascent to be present at the sad offices. But his last home is beautiful; by day the trees innumerable round his lonely grave are musical with the fanfare of the glorious trade-winds, while at times the sound of- " The league-long roller thundering on the reef" is borne across the waving forest. The view by day is superb; mountain, valley, reef, and palm, with the gleam of the sunlight on the breaking surf around the distant reef, while overhead the solitary tropic bird wings his silent flight through the dazzling azure of the skies. No more beautiful spot for a grave can be imagined, the majestic voice of those southern seas he loved so well makes melody in the very air around his grave. No spot more typical of the Pacific could have been found ; and I turned away with a feeling of relief that one whose nature was so allied to that he wrote of should in his death not have been divided from the scenes he made familiar to so many thousands of admirers.
A. W. MAnam.
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