Vaea top. During his Odyssey in
the South Seas (from August, 1888, to the spring of 1890) his letters,
to Mr. Colvin at any rate, were infrequent and tantalizingly vague;
but soon after settling on his estate in Samoa, "he for the first
time, to my infinite gratification, took to writing me long and
regular monthly budgets as full and particular as heart could wish;
and this practice he maintained until within a few weeks of his
death." These letters, occupying a place quite apart in Stevenson's
correspondence, Mr. Colvin has now edited with pious care and given to
the public.

But the great, the happy surprise of the _Vailima Letters_ is neither
their continuity nor their fulness of detail--although on each of
these points they surpass our hopes. The great, the entirely happy
surprise is their intimacy. We all knew--who could doubt it?--that
Stevenson's was a clean and transparent mind. But we scarcely allowed
for the innocent zest (innocent, because wholly devoid of vanity or
selfishness) which he took in observing its operations, or for the
child-like confidence with which he held out the crystal for his
friend to gaze into.

One is at first inclined to say that had these letters been less
open-hearted they had made less melancholy reading--the last few of
them, at any rate. For, as their editor says, "the tenor of these last
letters of Stevenson's to me, and of others written to several of his
friends at the same time, seemed to give just cause for anxiety.
Indeed, as the reader will have perceived, a gradual change had during
the past months been coming over the tone of his correspondence.... To
judge by these letters, his old invincible spirit of cheerfulness was
beginning to give way to moods of depression and overstrained feeling,
although to those about him, it seems, his charming, habitual
sweetness and gaiety of temper were undiminished." Mr. Colvin is
thinking, no doubt, of passages such as this, from the very last
letter:--

"I know I am at a climacteric for all men who live by their wits,
so I do not despair. But the truth is, I am pretty nearly useless
at literature.... Were it not for my health, which made it
impossible, I could not find it in my heart to forgive myself
that I did not stick to an honest, commonplace trade when I was
young, which might have now supported me during these ill years.
But do not suppose me to be down in anything else; only, for the