Robert Louis Stevenson

by Margaret Moyes Black

As the months of 1894 slipped away, the unusual despondency and worry, noticeable so especially in Mr Stevenson's correspondence, increased, while it seemed that his literary work, which had hitherto been his greatest pleasure, had now become a strain and a weariness to him.

By fits and starts the joy of working still visited him it is true. Weir of Hermiston he felt to be his very best—St Ives now and then went gaily. But the dark moods were only dormant not dead, and anxiety for the future of his family, and a longing to be able to cease working for daily bread, grew upon him greatly.

That, for a time after the settlement in Samoa, monetary anxieties may have been somewhat pressing, is not only possible, but probable. No moving of 'the household gods,' however small, or for however short a distance, can be managed without considerable cost and trouble, and the expense invariably exceeds the estimate made, for unforeseen outlays and difficulties crop up that entail added expenditure with its consequent anxiety.

If this is so in ordinary cases, how much more would it be so when the pulling up of stakes meant a move to the antipodes and the change of home included the purchase of uncleared land in Samoa, the building of a house and the laying out of an estate, which its owner felt certain could not repay the money spent upon it for at least five or six years.

All great changes and large undertakings are fraught with difficulty, and the Vailima venture was no exception to the rule. The Samoan home meant much pleasure to its owner, but it entailed keen anxiety also.

Nevertheless the mental worry of those later months was by no means justified by the facts. Mr Stevenson's literary work had long been paid according to its merits, so that each book brought him in a satisfactory sum; while the future of the Edinburgh Edition of his works gave cause for sincere satisfaction to the friends who were seeing it through the press, and whose letters gave assurance of its success. The cloud was therefore due to internal, not to external causes, and in the state of Mr Stevenson's health was, alas! to be found the explanation of this sad change from the gay bravery with which he had hitherto faced the world. Suspected by his doctors, feared by his friends, but unknown to himself, for at this time he constantly wrote of his improved health, a new development in his illness was nearing its fatal crisis, and these symptoms of mental distress and irritation were only the foreshadowing of the end.

In these last days his life had many pleasures; he was enjoying the Samoan climate and the free unconventional existence to the full; he was surrounded by all his loved home circle; and in the October of 1894, two months before his death, the Samoan chiefs, in whose imprisonment he had proved his friendship to them, gave him a tribute of their love and gratitude which was peculiarly pleasing and valuable to him. An account of this and of the very beautiful speech he made in return appeared in the home papers at the time, and are to be found in an appendix to The Vailima Letters. The chiefs, who knew how much store he set by road-making as a civilising element in Samoa, as elsewhere, themselves went to him and offered their services to make a road to join his property to the main highway. They, as well as their young men, worked at it with picks and spades, and when it was finished they presented it to their beloved 'Tusitala' as an abiding remembrance of their grateful regard. It was a noble tribute to a noble nature, and one the value of which can only be fully appreciated by those who realise what the personal manual labour meant to these proud island chiefs so wholly unaccustomed to exertion of any kind, and so imbued with the idea that all labour was derogatory to their dignity. Their loving service touched Mr Stevenson and all his family very deeply, and this bright memory gladdened the last weeks of his life, and must be a very pleasant one to recall for those of the Vailima household who still survive him.

At the celebration of his birthday on 13th November he had received also a tribute of kindly appreciation from the European and American residents in Apia. On the occasion of a 'Thanksgiving' feast in that same November, he made a speech, in which he said he had always liked that day, for he felt that he had had so much for which to be thankful. He especially mentioned the pleasure he had in his mother being with him, and said that to America—where he had married his wife—he owed the chief blessing of his life.

In spite of his assurances that he was very well, he was exceedingly thin and wasted in those days, and later Samoan photographs show a melancholy change in him. On the morning of the 3rd December, however, he felt particularly well and wrote for several hours. It is very pleasant to know, from A Letter to Mr Stevenson's Friends, sent to the Times after his stepfather's death by Mr Lloyd Osbourne as an acknowledgment of the vast amount of sympathy expressed, and so impossible to be otherwise answered, that he had enjoyed his work on Weir of Hermiston, and felt all the buoyancy of successful effort on that last morning of his life.