it was too strong
as an expression of my unregenerate sentiments, but because I knew full
well it should be followed by something kinder. And the mischief has
been in my health. I fell sharply sick in Sydney, was put aboard the
_Luebeck_ pretty bad, got to Vailima, hung on a month there, and didn't
pick up as well as my work needed; set off on a journey, gained a great
deal, lost it again; and am back at Vailima, still no good at my
necessary work. I tell you this for my imperfect excuse that I should
not have written you again sooner to remove the bad taste of my last.

A road has been called Adelaide Road; it leads from the back of our
house to the bridge, and thence to the garden, and by a bifurcation to
the pig pen. It is thus much traversed, particularly by Fanny. An
oleander, the only one of your seeds that prospered in this climate,
grows there; and the name is now some week or ten days applied and
published. ADELAIDE ROAD leads also into the bush, to the banana patch
and by a second bifurcation over the left branch of the stream to the
plateau and the right hand of the gorges. In short, it leads to all
sorts of good, and is, besides, in itself a pretty winding path, bound
downhill among big woods to the margin of the stream.

What a strange idea, to think me a Jew-hater! Isaiah and David and Heine
are good enough for me; and I leave more unsaid. Were I of Jew blood, I
do not think I could ever forgive the Christians; the ghettos would get
in my nostrils like mustard or lit gunpowder. Just so you, as being a
child of the Presbytery, I retain--I need not dwell on that. The
ascendant hand is what I feel most strongly; I am bound in and in with
my forbears; were he one of mine, I should not be struck at all by Mr.
Moss of Bevis Marks, I should still see behind him Moses of the Mount
and the Tables and the shining face. We are all nobly born; fortunate
those who know it; blessed those who remember.

I am, my dear Adelaide, most genuinely yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Write by return to say you are better, and I will try to do the same.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

The following refers again to the project of a long genealogical novel
expanded from the original idea of _Henry Shovel_.

_[Vailima] Tuesday, 19th May '91._

MY DEAR CHARLES,--I don't know what you think of me, not having written
to you at all during your illness. I find two sheets begun with your
name, but that is no excuse...