The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson — Volume 2Stevenson, Robert Louis
General
The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson — Volume 2
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Authors, Scottish -- 19th century -- Correspondence; Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 -- Correspondence
This is Sunday, the Lord’s Day. ‘The hour of attack approaches.’ And it
is a singular consideration what I risk; I may yet be the subject of a
tract, and a good tract too—such as one which I remember reading with
recreant awe and rising hair in my youth, of a boy who was a very good
boy, and went to Sunday Schule, and one day kipped from it, and went and
actually bathed, and was dashed over a waterfall, and he was the only son
of his mother, and she was a widow. A dangerous trade, that, and one
that I have to practise. I’ll put in a word when I get home again, to
tell you whether I’m killed or not. ‘Accident in the (Paper) Hunting
Field: death of a notorious author. We deeply regret to announce the
death of the most unpopular man in Samoa, who broke his neck at the
descent of Magagi, from the misconduct of his little raving lunatic of an
old beast of a pony. It is proposed to commemorate the incident by the
erection of a suitable pile. The design (by our local architect, Mr.
Walker) is highly artificial, with a rich and voluminous Crockett at each
corner, a small but impervious Barrièer at the entrance, an arch at the
top, an Archer of a pleasing but solid character at the bottom; the
colour will be genuine William-Black; and Lang, lang may the ladies sit
wi’ their fans in their hands.’ Well, well, they may sit as they sat for
me, and little they’ll reck, the ungrateful jauds! Muckle they cared
about Tusitala when they had him! But now ye can see the difference;
now, leddies, ye can repent, when ower late, o’ your former cauldness and
what ye’ll perhaps allow me to ca’ your _tepeedity_! He was beautiful as
the day, but his day is done! And perhaps, as he was maybe gettin’ a wee
thing fly-blawn, it’s nane too shüne.
_Monday_, _August_ 6_th_.
Well, sir, I have escaped the dangerous conjunction of the widow’s only
son and the Sabbath Day. We had a most enjoyable time, and Lloyd and I
were 3 and 4 to arrive; I will not tell here what interval had elapsed
between our arrival and the arrival of 1 and 2; the question, sir, is
otiose and malign; it deserves, it shall have no answer. And now without
further delay to the main purpose of this hasty note. We received and we
have already in fact distributed the gorgeous fahbrics of Kirriemuir.
Whether from the splendour of the robes themselves, or from the direct
nature of the compliments with which you had directed us to accompany the
presentations, one young lady blushed as she received the proofs of your
munificence. . . . Bad ink, and the dregs of it at that, but the heart in
the right place. Still very cordially interested in my Barrie and
wishing him well through his sickness, which is of the body, and long
defended from mine, which is of the head, and by the impolite might be
described as idiocy. The whole head is useless, and the whole sitting
part painful: reason, the recent Paper Chase.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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