ely good is Nares, the
American sailor; that is a genuine figure; had there been more Nares it
would have been a better book; but of course it didn't set up to be a
book, only a long tough yarn with some pictures of the manners of to-day
in the greater world--not the shoddy sham world of cities, clubs, and
colleges, but the world where men still live a man's life. The worst of
my news is the influenza; Apia is devastate; the shops closed, a ball
put off, etc. As yet we have not had it at Vailima, and, who knows? we
may escape. None of us go down, but of course the boys come and go.

Your letter had the most wonderful "I told you so" I ever heard in the
course of my life. Why, you madman, I wouldn't change my present
installation for any post, dignity, honour, or advantage conceivable to
me. It fills the bill; I have the loveliest time. And as for wars and
rumours of wars, you surely know enough of me to be aware that I like
that also a thousand times better than decrepit peace in Middlesex? I do
not quite like politics; I am too aristocratic, I fear, for that. God
knows I don't care who I chum with; perhaps like sailors best; but to go
round and sue and sneak to keep a crowd together--never. My
imagination, which is not the least damped by the idea of having my head
cut off in the bush, recoils aghast from the idea of a life like
Gladstone's, and the shadow of the newspaper chills me to the bone.
Hence my late eruption was interesting, but not what I like. All else
suits me in this (killed a mosquito) A1 abode.

About politics. A determination was come to by the President that he had
been an idiot; emissaries came to Gurr and me to kiss and be friends. My
man proposed I should have a personal interview; I said it was quite
useless, I had nothing to say; I had offered him the chance to inform
me, had pressed it on him, and had been very unpleasantly received, and
now "Time was." Then it was decided that I was to be made a culprit
against Germany; the German Captain--a delightful fellow and our
constant visitor--wrote to say that as "a German officer" he could not
come even to say farewell. We all wrote back in the most friendly
spirit, telling him (politely) that some of these days he would be
sorry, and we should be delighted to see our friend again. Since then I
have seen no German shadow.

Mataafa has been proclaimed a rebel; the President did this act, and
then resigned. By singular good fortune, Mataafa has not ye