to Charles Baxter

Hotel Sebastopol, Noumea, August 1890.

MY DEAR CHARLES,—I have stayed here a week while Lloyd and my wife continue to voyage in the Janet Nicoll; this I did, partly to see the convict system, partly to shorten my stay in the extreme cold—hear me with my extreme! moi qui suis originaire d’Edinbourg—of Sydney at this season.  I am feeling very seedy, utterly fatigued, and overborne with sleep.  I have a fine old gentleman of a doctor, who attends and cheers and entertains, if he does not cure me; but even with his ministrations I am almost incapable of the exertion sufficient for this letter; and I am really, as I write, falling down with sleep.  What is necessary to say, I must try to say shortly.  Lloyd goes to clear out our establishments: pray keep him in funds, if I have any; if I have not, pray try to raise them.  Here is the idea: to install ourselves, at the risk of bankruptcy, in Samoa.  It is not the least likely it will pay (although it may); but it is almost certain it will support life, with very few external expenses.  If I die, it will be an endowment for the survivors, at least for my wife and Lloyd; and my mother, who might prefer to go home, has her own.  Hence I believe I shall do well to hurry my installation.  The letters are already in part done; in part done is a novel for Scribner; in the course of the next twelve months I should receive a considerable amount of money.  I am aware I had intended to pay back to my capital some of this.  I am now of opinion I should act foolishly.  Better to build the house and have a roof and farm of my own; and thereafter, with a livelihood assured, save and repay . . .  There is my livelihood, all but books and wine, ready in a nutshell; and it ought to be more easy to save and to repay afterwards.  Excellent, say you, but will you save and will you repay?  I do not know, said the Bell of Old Bow. . . . It seems clear to me. . . . The deuce of the affair is that I do not know when I shall see you and Colvin.  I guess you will have to come and see me: many a time already we have arranged the details of your visit in the yet unbuilt house on the mountain.  I shall be able to get decent wine from Noumea.  We shall be able to give you a decent welcome, and talk of old days.  Apropos of old days, do you remember still the phrase we heard in Waterloo Place?  I believe you made a piece for the piano on that phrase.  Pray, if you remember it, send it me in your next.  If you find it impossible to write correctly, send it me à la récitative, and indicate the accents.  Do you feel (you must) how strangely heavy and stupid I am?  I must at last give up and go sleep; I am simply a rag.

The morrow: I feel better, but still dim and groggy.  To-night I go to the governor’s; such a lark—no dress clothes—twenty-four hours’ notice—able-bodied Polish tailor—suit made for a man with the figure of a puncheon—same hastily altered for self with the figure of a bodkin—sight inconceivable.  Never mind; dress clothes, ‘which nobody can deny’; and the officials have been all so civil that I liked neither to refuse nor to appear in mufti.  Bad dress clothes only prove you are a grisly ass; no dress clothes, even when explained, indicate a want of respect.  I wish you were here with me to help me dress in this wild raiment, and to accompany me to M. Noel-Pardon’s.  I cannot say what I would give if there came a knock now at the door and you came in.  I guess Noel-Pardon would go begging, and we might burn the fr. 200 dress clothes in the back garden for a bonfire; or what would be yet more expensive and more humorous, get them once more expanded to fit you, and when that was done, a second time cut down for my gossamer dimensions.

I hope you never forget to remember me to your father, who has always a place in my heart, as I hope I have a little in his.  His kindness helped me infinitely when you and I were young; I recall it with gratitude and affection in this town of convicts at the world’s end.  There are very few things, my dear Charles, worth mention: on a retrospect of life, the day’s flash and colour, one day with another, flames, dazzles, and puts to sleep; and when the days are gone, like a fast-flying thaumatrope, they make but a single pattern.  Only a few things stand out; and among these—most plainly to me—Rutland Square,—Ever, my dear Charles, your affectionate friend,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

P.S.—Just returned from trying on the dress clo’.  Lord, you should see the coat!  It stands out at the waist like a bustle, the flaps cross in front, the sleeves are like bags.