ONE OF THE FIVE RIVERS FROM WHICH VAILIMA TAKES ITS NAME
“I would I could have claimed a kinship,” deplored the photographer, “but alas! I am English to the back-bone, with never a drop of Scotch blood in my veins, and I told him this, regretting the absence of the blood tie.
“I could have sworn your back was the back of a Scotchman,” was his comment, “but,” and he held out his hand, “you look sick, and there is a fellowship in sickness not to be denied.” I said I was not strong, and had come to the Island on account of my health. “Well then,” replied Mr. Stevenson, “it shall be my business to help you to get well; come to Vailima whenever you like, and if I am out, ask for refreshment, and wait until I come in, you will always find a welcome there.”
At this point my informant turned away, and there was a break in his voice as he exclaimed, “Ah, the years go on, and I don’t miss him less, but more; next to my mother he was the best friend I ever had: a man with a heart of gold; his house was a second home to me.”
“You like his books, of course.”
“Yes!” (this very dubiously), “I like them, but he was worth all his books put together. People who don’t know him, like him for his books. I like him for himself, and I often wish I liked his books better. It strikes me that we in the Colonies don’t think so much of them as you do in England, perhaps we are not educated up to his style.” And this is the class of comment I heard over and over again in the Colonies, from men who liked the man, but had no especial liking for his books. Is it that Robert Louis Stevenson appeals first and foremost to a cultured audience? Surely not. Putting the essays out of court, his books are one and all tales of adventure, stories of romance. The interest may be heightened by style—by the use of words that fit the subject, as a tailor-made gown fits its wearer—but the subject is never sacrificed to the style. It seems to me that one of my friends on the Manipouri (himself a great reader and no mean critic) came very near solving the problem when he said, “Frankly, much as I like the man, I don’t care one straw about his writings. I’ve got on board this boat The Master of Ballantrae, The Black Arrow, Kidnapped, and The Ebb Tide. They all read like so many boys’ books, and when I became a man I put away childish things. I’ve plenty of adventure and excitement in my life, and I want a book that tells me about the home life in the old country, or else an historical novel. Give me Thomas Hardy, or Mrs. Humphry Ward, or Marion Crawford, or Antony Hope. My bad taste, I daresay, but it is so, and I am not alone in my verdict, although I reckon the majority of the folk, this side of the world, would prefer Marie Corelli or Mrs. L. T. Meade.”
ANOTHER OF THE FIVE RIVERS