to Charles Baxter

Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoan Islands, 18th July 1892.

MY DEAR CHARLES,—. . . I have been now for some time contending with powers and principalities, and I have never once seen one of my own letters to the Times.  So when you see something in the papers that you think might interest the exiles of Upolu, do not think twice, out with your saxpence, and send it flying to Vailima.  Of what you say of the past, eh, man, it was a queer time, and awful miserable, but there’s no sense in denying it was awful fun.  Do you mind the youth in Highland garb and the tableful of coppers?  Do you mind the SIGNAL of Waterloo Place?—Hey, how the blood stands to the heart at such a memory!—Hae ye the notes o’t?  Gie’s them.—Gude’s sake, man, gie’s the notes o’t; I mind ye made a tune o’t an’ played it on your pinanny; gie’s the notes.  Dear Lord, that past.

Glad to hear Henley’s prospects are fair: his new volume is the work of a real poet.  He is one of those who can make a noise of his own with words, and in whom experience strikes an individual note.  There is perhaps no more genuine poet living, bar the Big Guns.  In case I cannot overtake an acknowledgment to himself by this mail, please let him hear of my pleasure and admiration.  How poorly—compares!  He is all smart journalism and cleverness: it is all bright and shallow and limpid, like a business paper—a good one, s’entend; but there is no blot of heart’s blood and the Old Night: there are no harmonics, there is scarce harmony to his music; and in Henley—all of these; a touch, a sense within sense, a sound outside the sound, the shadow of the inscrutable, eloquent beyond all definition.  The First London Voluntary knocked me wholly.—Ever yours affectionately, my dear Charles,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

Kind memories to your father and all friends.