to E. L. Burlingame

[Vailima, March 1892.]

MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—Herewith Chapters IX. and X., and I am left face to face with the horrors and dilemmas of the present regimen: pray for those that go down to the sea in ships.  I have promised Henley shall have a chance to publish the hurricane chapter if he like, so please let the slips be sent quam primum to C. Baxter, W.S., 11 S. Charlotte Street, Edinburgh.  I got on mighty quick with that chapter—about five days of the toughest kind of work.  God forbid I should ever have such another pirn to wind!  When I invent a language, there shall be a direct and an indirect pronoun differently declined—then writing would be some fun.

Ex.: He seized tum by tus throat; but tu at the same moment caught him by his hair.  A fellow could write hurricanes with an inflection like that!  Yet there would he difficulties too.

Do what you please about The Beach; and I give you carte blanche to write in the matter to Baxter—or telegraph if the time press—to delay the English contingent.  Herewith the two last slips of The Wrecker.  I cannot go beyond.  By the way, pray compliment the printers on the proofs of the Samoa racket, but hint to them that it is most unbusiness-like and unscholarly to clip the edges of the galleys; these proofs should really have been sent me on large paper; and I and my friends here are all put to a great deal of trouble and confusion by the mistake.  For, as you must conceive, in a matter so contested and complicated, the number of corrections and the length of explanations is considerable.

Please add to my former orders—

Yours sincerely,

R. L. Stevenson.