to George Meredith

Vailima, Samoa, April 17th, 1894.

MY DEAR MEREDITH,—Many good things have the gods sent to me of late.  First of all there was a letter from you by the kind hand of Mariette, if she is not too great a lady to be remembered in such a style; and then there came one Lysaght with a charming note of introduction in the well-known hand itself.  We had but a few days of him, and liked him well.  There was a sort of geniality and inward fire about him at which I warmed my hands.  It is long since I have seen a young man who has left in me such a favourable impression; and I find myself telling myself, ‘O, I must tell this to Lysaght,’ or, ‘This will interest him,’ in a manner very unusual after so brief an acquaintance.  The whole of my family shared in this favourable impression, and my halls have re-echoed ever since, I am sure he will be amused to know, with Widdicombe Fair.

He will have told you doubtless more of my news than I could tell you myself; he has your European perspective, a thing long lost to me.  I heard with a great deal of interest the news of Box Hill.  And so I understand it is to be enclosed!  Allow me to remark, that seems a far more barbaric trait of manners than the most barbarous of ours.  We content ourselves with cutting off an occasional head.

I hear we may soon expect the Amazing Marriage.  You know how long, and with how much curiosity, I have looked forward to the book.  Now, in so far as you have adhered to your intention, Gower Woodsere will be a family portrait, age twenty-five, of the highly respectable and slightly influential and fairly aged Tusitala.  You have not known that gentleman; console yourself, he is not worth knowing.  At the same time, my dear Meredith, he is very sincerely yours—for what he is worth, for the memories of old times, and in the expectation of many pleasures still to come.  I suppose we shall never see each other again; flitting youths of the Lysaght species may occasionally cover these unconscionable leagues and bear greetings to and fro.  But we ourselves must be content to converse on an occasional sheet of notepaper, and I shall never see whether you have grown older, and you shall never deplore that Gower Woodsere should have declined into the pantaloon Tusitala.  It is perhaps better so.  Let us continue to see each other as we were, and accept, my dear Meredith, my love and respect.

Robert Louis Stevenson.

P.S.—My wife joins me in the kindest messages to yourself and Mariette.