_We came forth again at last_, _in a cloudy moonlight_, _on the forest lawn which is the street of Tautira_. _The Pacific roared outside upon the reef_. _Here and there one of the scattered palm-built lodges shone out under the shadow of the wood_, _the lamplight bursting through the crannies of the wall_. _We went homeward slowly_, _Ori a Ori carrying behind us the lantern and the chairs_, _properties with which we had just been enacting our part of the distinguished visitor_. _It was one of those moments in which minds not altogether churlish recall the names and deplore the absence of congenial friends_; _and it was your name that first rose upon our lips_. ‘_How Symonds would have enjoyed this evening_!’ _said one_, _and then another_. _The word caught in my mind_; _I went to bed_, _and it was still there_. _The glittering_, _frosty solitudes in which your days are cast arose before me_: _I seemed to see you walking there in the late night_, _under the pine-trees and the stars_; _and I received the image with something like remorse_. _There is a modern attitude towards fortune_; _in this place I will not use a graver name_. _Staunchly to withstand her buffets and to enjoy with equanimity her favours was the code of the virtuous of old_. _Our fathers_, _it should seem_, _wondered and doubted how they had merited their misfortunes_: _we_, _rather how we have deserved our happiness_. _And we stand often abashed and sometimes revolted_, _at those partialities of fate by which we profit most_. _It was so with me on that November night_: _I felt that our positions should be changed_. _It was you_, _dear Symonds_, _who should have gone upon that voyage and written this account_. _With your rich stores of knowledge_, _you could have remarked and understood a thousand things of interest and beauty that escaped my ignorance_; _and the brilliant colours of your style would have carried into a thousand sickrooms the sea air and the strong sun of tropic islands_. _It was otherwise decreed_. _But suffer me at least to connect you_, _if only in name and only in the fondness of imagination_, _with the voyage of the_ ‘Silver Ship.’ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. DEAR SYMONDS,—I send you this (November 11th), the morning of its completion. If I ever write an account of this voyage, may I place this letter at the beginning? It represents—I need not tell you, for you too are an artist—a most genuine feeling, which kept me long awake last night; and though perhaps a little elaborate, I think it a good piece of writing. We are _in heaven here_. Do not forget R. L. S. Please keep this: I have no perfect copy. _Tautira_, _on the peninsula of Tahiti_. TO THOMAS ARCHER _Tautira_, _Island of Tahiti_ [_November_ 1888].