Poor Robert Louis Stevenson—he died not long after our visit; his life, death, and funeral have been recorded in many books and by many able pens. His life, with all its struggles and despite constant ill-health, was, I hope and believe, a happy one. Perhaps we most of us fail to weigh fairly the compensating joy of overcoming when confronted with adversity of any kind. He told me once how he had had a MS. refused just at the time when he had undertaken the cares of a family represented by a wife and her children, but I am sure that the pleasure of the success which he won was greater to his buoyant nature than any depression caused by temporary failure.
He loved his Island home, though he had from time to time a sense of isolation. He let this appear once when he said how he should feel our departure, and how sorry he should be when he should also lose the companionship of Haggard.
There has lately been some correspondence in the papers about misprints in his books. This may be due in part to the necessity of leaving the correction of his proofs to others when he was residing or travelling in distant climes. When we were in Samoa, Una, or the Beach of Falesa, was appearing as a serial in an illustrated paper of which I received a copy. Stevenson had not seen it in print until I showed it to him, and was much vexed to find that some verbal alteration had been made in the text. At his request when we left the Island I took a cable to send off from Auckland, where our ship touched, with strict injunctions to “follow Una line by line.” There was no cable then direct from Samoa, and apparently no arrangement had been made to let the author see his own work while in progress.
CHAPTER XIV
DEPARTURE FROM AUSTRALIA—CHINA AND JAPAN
Early in 1893 my husband was obliged to resign his Governorship, as our Welsh agent had died and there were many urgent calls for his presence in England. The people of New South Wales were most generous in their expressions of regret, and I need not dwell on all the banquets and farewells which marked our departure. I feel that all I have said of Australia and of our many friends there is most inadequate; but though the people and places offered much variety in fact, in description it would be most difficult to avoid repetition were I to attempt an account of the townships and districts which we visited and of the welcome which we received from hospitable hosts in every place. There were mining centres like Newcastle where the coal was so near the surface that we walked into a large mine through a sloping tunnel instead of descending in a cage; there was the beautiful scenery of the Hawkesbury River, the rich lands round Bathurst and Armidale and other stations where we passed most enjoyable days with squatters whose fathers had rescued these lands and made “the wilderness to blossom like a rose.” It often seemed to me that one special reason why Englishmen in Colonial life succeeded where other nations equally intelligent and enterprising failed to take permanent root was the way in which Englishwomen would adapt themselves to isolation. We all know the superiority of many Frenchwomen in domestic arts, but it is difficult to imagine a Frenchwoman living in the conditions accepted by English ladies in all parts of the Empire.
One lady in New South Wales lived fifteen miles from the nearest neighbour, and her one relaxation after a hard day’s work was to hear that neighbour playing down the telephone on a violin. That, however, was living in the world compared to the fate of another friend! The husband of the latter lady was, when we met, a very rich man who drove a four-in-hand and sent his son to Eton. When they first started Colonial life they lived for five years a hundred miles from any other white woman. The lady had a white maid-servant of some kind for a short time at the beginning of their career, but she soon left, and after that she had only black “gins” (women). I was told that one of her children had been burnt in a bush fire, and her brother-in-law was killed by the blacks. Naturally I did not refer to those tragedies, but I asked whether she did not find the isolation very trying, particularly the evenings. She said, oh no, she was so occupied during the day and so tired when the work was over that she had no time to wish for anything but rest. She was a very quiet, pleasant woman, a lady in every sense of the word, and one could not but admire the way in which she had passed through those hard and trying years and resumed completely civilised existence.
BUSHRANGERS