he islands who picked up F. Jenkin,[14] read a part, and said: "Do you
know, that's a strange book? I like it; I don't believe the public will;
but I like it." He thought it was a novel! "Very well," said I, "we'll
see whether the public will like it or not; they shall have the
chance."--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO H. B. BAILDON

The late Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, for some time Lecturer on English
Literature at the University of Vienna and afterwards at Dundee, had
been an old schoolmate and fellow-aspirant in literature with
Stevenson at Edinburgh. "Chalmers," of course, is the Rev. James
Chalmers of Rarotonga and New Guinea already referred to above, the
admirable missionary, explorer, and administrator, whom Stevenson
sometimes expressed a desire to survive, for the sake only of writing
his life.

_Vailima, Upolu [Spring 1891]._

MY DEAR BAILDON,--This is a real disappointment. It was so long since we
had met, I was anxious to see where time had carried and stranded us.
Last time we saw each other--it must have been all ten years ago, as we
were new to the thirties--it was only for a moment, and now we're in the
forties, and before very long we shall be in our graves. Sick and well,
I have had a splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very
little--and then only some little corners of misconduct for which I
deserve hanging, and must infallibly be damned--and, take it all over,
damnation and all, would hardly change with any man of my time, unless
perhaps it were Gordon or our friend Chalmers: a man I admire for his
virtues, love for his faults, and envy for the really A1 life he has,
with everything heart--my heart, I mean--could wish. It is curious to
think you will read this in the grey metropolis; go the first grey,
east-windy day into the Caledonian Station, if it looks at all as it did
of yore: I met Satan there. And then go and stand by the cross, and
remember the other one--him that went down--my brother, Robert
Fergusson. It is a pity you had not made me out, and seen me as
patriarch and planter. I shall look forward to some record of your time
with Chalmers: you can't weary me of that fellow, he is as big as a
house and far bigger than any church, where no man warms his hands. Do
you know anything of Thomson? Of A----, B----, C----, D----, E----,
F----, at all? As I write C.'s name mustard rises in my nose; I have
never forgiven that weak, amiable boy a little t