Vailima Letters

Sept. 5

asure and profit and some advance; one chapter and a part drafted. The whole promises well Chapter I. Domestic Annals. Chapter II. The Northern Lights. Chapter III. The Bell Rock. Chapter IV. A Family of Boys. Chap. V. The Grandfather. VI. Alan Stevenson. VII. Thomas Stevenson. My materials for my great-grandfather are almost null; for my grand

on Apia, and scarce a penny on the King; they have forgot they were in Samoa, or that such a thing as Samoans existed, and had eyes and some intelligence. The Chief Justice has refused to pay his customs! The President proposed to have an expensive house built for himself, while the King, his master, has none! I had stood aside, and been a loyal, and, above all, a silent subject, up to then; but now I snap my fingers at their Malo. It is damned, and I’m damned glad of it. And this is not all. Last ‘Wainiu,’ when I sent Fanny o

d the English consuls besought Lloyd not to go. But he stuck to his purpose, and with my approval. It’s a poor thing if people are to give up a pleasure party for a Malo that has never d

s rapacity go forward from day to day, and to be impotent. I was not consulted — or only by one man, and that on particular points;

s; the bloody Wedding, possibly the High Woods — (O, it’s so good, the High Woods, but the story is craziness; that’s the trouble,) — a political story, the labour slave, etc. Ulufanua is an imaginary island; the name is a beautiful Samoan word

es: Dreams, Beggars, Lantern-Bearers, Random Memories. There was a paper called the Old Pacific Capital in Fraser, in Tulloch’s time, which had merit; there were two on Fontainebleau

l be bold, and that’s what I think it — or go on with the rest, which I don’t believe in, and don’t like, and which can never make aught but a silly yarn? Make another end to it? Ah, yes, but that’s not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I never use an effect, when I can help it, unless it prepares the effects that are to follow; that’s what a story consists in. To make another end, that is to make the beginning all wrong. The denouement of a lo

e from the Mull of Galloway to Unst. However, all is arranged for our meeting in Ceylon, except the date and the blooming pounds. I have heard of an exquisite hotel in the country, airy, large rooms, good cookery, not de

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ness should be closed? I do not like this argument. I look like a cad, if I do in the man’s absence what I could have done in a more manly manner in his presence. True; but why did he go? It is his last sin. And I, who like the man extremely — that is the word — I love his society — he is intelligent, pleasant, even witty, a gentleman — and you know how that attaches — I loathe to seem to play a base part; but the poor natives — who are like other folk, false enough, lazy enough, not heroes, not saints — ordinary men damnably misused — are they to suffer because I like Cedarcrantz, and Cedarcrantz has cut his lucky? This is a little tragedy, observe well — a tragedy! I may be right, I may be wrong in my judgment, but I am in treaty with my honour. I know not how it will seem tomorrow. Lloyd thought the barrier of honour insurmountable, and it is an ugly obstacle. He (Cedarcrantz) will likely

our feet, and only the two stairs to mount, and get to bed, and sleep, and be waked by dear old George — to whom I wish my kindest remembrances — next morning. I look round, and there is my blue

nd

ians begin, and in a month you find them rat and flatter and intrigue with brows of brass. I am rather of the old view, that a man’s first duty is to these little laws; the big he does not, he never w

es

ds of forty cannot waste his time in communicating matter of that indifference. The letters, it appears, are tedious; they would be more tedious still if I wasted my time upon such infantile and sucking-bottle details. If ever I put in any such detail, it is because it leads into something or serves as a transition. To tell it for its own sake,

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urprise, were given six months’ imprisonment and clapped in gaol. Those who had accompanied them cried to them on the streets as they were marched to prison, ‘Shall we rescue you?’ The condemned, marching in the hands of thirty men with loaded rifles, cried out ‘No’! And the trick was done. But it was ardently believed a rescue would be attempted; the gaol was laid about with armed men day and night; but there was some question of their loyalty, and the commandant of the forces, a very nice young beardless Swede, became nervous, and conceived a plan. How if he should put dynamite under the gaol, and in case of an attempted rescue blow up prison and all? He went to the President, who agreed; he went to the American man-of-war for the dynamite and

it done; it will be fifty to seventy I suppose. No supernatural trick at all; and escaped out of it quite easily; can’t think why I was so stupid for so long. Mighty glad to have Fanny bac

the Samoa and Tokelau folks were agog about our ‘

Louis S

each of Falesa.