it will do you good; it is a better method of correspondence than even Henry James's.1 I jest, but seriously it is a strange thing for a tough, sick middle-aged scrivener like R. L. S. to receive a letter so conceived from a man fifty years old, a leading politician, a crack orator, and the great wit of his village: boldly say, "the highly popular M. P.2 of Tautira." My nineteenth century strikes here, and lies alongside of something beautiful and ancient. I think the receipt of such a letter might humble, shall I say even -? and for me, I would rather have received it than written "Redgauntlet" or the "Sixth Æneid." All told, if my books have enabled or helped me to make this voyage, to know Rui, and to have received such a letter, they have (in the old prefatorial expression) not been writ in vain. It would seem from this that I have been not so much humbled as puffed up; but, I assure you, I have in fact been both. A little of what that letter says is my own earning; not all, but yet a little; and the little makes me proud, and all the rest ashamed; and in the contrast, how much more beautiful altogether is the ancient man than him of today!

Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he is of the nineteenth century, and that glaringly. And to curry favor with him, I wish I could be more explicit; but, indeed, I am still of necessity extremely vague, and cannot tell what I am to do, nor where I am to go for some while yet. As soon as I am sure, you shall hear. All are fairly well-the wife your countrywoman, least of all; troubles are not entirely wanting; but on the whole we prosper, and we are all affectionately

yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

1 The letter in question, translated presumably by Stevenson himself, is reprinted on the following pages.

2 Member of Parliament.

59

TO ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 1

I

MAKE you to know my great affection. At the hour when you left us, I was filled with tears; my wife, Rui Telime, also, and all of my household. When you embarked I felt a great sorrow. It is for this that I went upon the road, and you looked from that ship, and I looked at you on the ship with great grief until you had raised the anchor and hoisted the sails. When the ship started I ran along the beach to see you still; and when you were on the open sea I cried out to you, "Farewell, Louis"; and when I was coming back to my house I seemed to hear your voice crying, "Rui, farewell." Afterwards I watched the ship as long as I could until the night fell: and when it was dark I said to myself, "If I had wings I should fly to the ship to meet you, and to sleep amongst you, so that I might be able to come back to shore and to tell Rui Telime, 'I have slept upon the ship of Teriitera.'" After that we passed that night in the impatience of grief. Towards eight o'clock I seemed to hear your voice, "Teriitera-Rui-here is the hour for putter and tiro" [cheese and syrup]. I did not sleep that night, thinking continually of you, my very dear friend, until the morning; being then still awake, I went to see Tapina Tutu on her bed, and alas, she was not there. Afterwards I looked into your rooms; they did not please me as they used to do. I did not hear your voice saying, “Hail Rui"; I thought then that you had gone, and that you had left me. Rising up, I went to the beach to see your ship, and I could not see it. I wept, then, until the night, telling myself continually, "Teriitera returns into his own country and leaves his dear Rui in grief, so that I suffer for him, and weep

1 See

the preceding letter.-Reprinted through special arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons.

for him." I will not forget you in my memory. Here is the thought: I desire to meet you again. It is my dear Teriitera makes the only riches I desire in this world. It is your eyes that I desire to see again. It must be that your body and my body shall eat together at one table: there is what would make my heart content. But now we are separated. May God be with you all. May His word and His mercy go with you, so that you may be well and we also, according to the words of Paul.

QRI A ORI, THAT IS TO SAY, Rui

60 TO LUCIEN ANATOLE PRÉVOST-PARADOL1

March 20, 1849

Y DEAR PRÉVOST-It is indeed for me to apologize!

I ought to have answered you a week ago, and I have not been able to do so, having, like you, an accumulation of work of all kinds that I cannot get through. First, there are all the regular, official papers on Greek, Philosophy, History, Latin, and French; then preparation for my Licentiate, and the reading up of thirty or forty difficult authors that we shall have to discourse about; lastly, all my private studies in Literature, History, and Philosophy. All this is going on at once, and I always have a quantity of things in hand; I have drawn up a big plan of study, and I intend to work out a great part of it during these three years at the École; I shall complete it later on. I mean to be a philosopher; and, now that you understand the full sense of the word, you can see what a series of reflections and what a mass of knowledge are necessary to me. If I only wished to pass an examination or to accept a professorship, I should not need to take much trouble; it would be sufficient to have a certain amount of reading and a strict adherence to doctrine, together with a complete ignorance of Modern Science and Philosophy. But, as I would rather drown myself than be reduced to mere potboiling—as I am studying for the sake of knowledge, and not merely in order to earn my living-I want my instruction to be complete. I am thus thrown into all kinds of research, and shall be obliged,

1 From the Life and Letters of H. Taine, translated from the French by Mrs. R. L. Devonshire. Reprinted with the permission of Constable and Company, Limited.--At the time of writing this letter Taine was not yet twenty-one years old.

when I leave the École, to study Social Science, Political Economy, and Physical Science. Life is long-this is the use I shall make of it; but my private cogitations take up most of my time; one must seek in order to understand-in order to believe in Philosophy one must go through it all for oneself, and repeat the same discoveries that others have made before you. You know this by experience, and if you are now adrift on your unfortunate skepticism, it is because you have looked upon philosophers as advocates or comedians; as they all have great genius, they reason forcibly and convincingly, and present to you beautiful and poetical opinions. Hence you have admitted the most contrary systems, just as, when listening disinterestedly to rival speakers of great eloquence, we are swayed by each of them in turn and end by believing in neither. But, believe me, I would rather have your coldness, your disgust, your skepticism, and your ambition than your former blind, unreasoning, passionate, and inflexible convictions; the result will be that you will not take life seriously, and that you will make it sweeter and more agreeable, until the day will come when you will tire of this floating and uncertain state, and will decide to seek for firm ground, and rest on it at last.

And let me tell you, you are nearer to me now than before: the property of Thought is to pacify the mind, and, by elevating it, to bestow on it Equanimity. That is what has befallen me; like you, I have acquired great contempt for mankind, whilst preserving a great admiration for human nature. I consider men ridiculous, impotent, and passionate like children, stupid and vain, and especially silly in being full of prejudices. Whilst preserving the outward forms of politeness, I laugh to myself to see how ugly and idiotic they are. Is not that what you felt last year? You used to tell me so, and I did not listen to you, for I was lost in the contempla