The Samoan days were very full of work, and much was done, and still more was planned in them by Mr Stevenson's busy brain and untiring activity. Here was written Catriona, The Master of Ballantrae, a part of those annals of the Stevenson family which he hoped to give to the public, The Beach of Falésa, The Bottle Imp, and The Isle of Voices; and with Mr Lloyd Osbourne was completed The Ebb Tide and The Wrecker, the ideas for which had occurred to them when at sea.
Father Damien, An Open letter, had been already written, but here was composed A Footnote to History, and both show to perfection their writer's interest in suffering humanity. Here, saddest of all, were planned many works never to be accomplished—among them that powerful fragment Weir of Hermiston and St Ives—the latter finished all but the last portion, which Mrs Strong, who had helped much with this story, could supply to Mr Quiller Couch, so that he was enabled to complete it. Mr Stevenson, like his father, found his relaxation in a change of work, so to this period also belong the fugitive verses collected under the title, Songs of Travel, published after his death.
In spite of the apparent improvement in his health, Mr Stevenson had had, especially when for a short time at Sydney and Honolulu, serious returns of illness, and after one attack of influenza, the old foe hemorrhage briefly reappeared. Not yet, however, would he own himself beaten, and in spite of some anxiety on the part of his doctors, he assured his friends he was very well. His friends' fears were not so easily silenced. In the last year of his life his bright mood varied, and his letters often caused grave anxiety to those at home. He had times of despondency and of undue distress as to his monetary future and his literary success, which were scarcely justified by the facts. Although always gentle and gay with his own family circle, the little strain of worry showed itself repeatedly in his correspondence with his friends and caused them a keen foreboding of evil, so unlike was it to the old, sunny, cheery spirit with which he had fought bad health, and gained for himself so high a place in the world of letters and so warm a niche in the heart of his public.
CHAPTER XII
HIS DEATH
'Gone to thy rest—no doubt, no fear, no strife;
Men whispering call it death—God calls it life.'
Robert Richardson.