we can make you almost comfortable. It is the loveliest climate in the
world, our political troubles seem near an end. It can be done, _it
must_! Do, please, make a virtuous effort, come and take a glimpse of a
new world I am sure you do not dream of, and some old friends who do
often dream of your arrival.

Alas, I was just beginning to get eloquent, and there goes the lunch
bell, and after lunch I must make up the mail.

Do come. You must not come in February or March--bad months. From April
on it is delightful.--Your sincere friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO HENRY JAMES

_December 5th, 1892._

MY DEAR JAMES,--How comes it so great a silence has fallen? The still
small voice of self-approval whispers me it is not from me. I have
looked up my register, and find I have neither written to you nor heard
from you since June 22nd, on which day of grace that invaluable work
began. This is not as it should be. How to get back? I remember
acknowledging with rapture _The Lesson of the Master_, and I remember
receiving _Marbot_: was that our last relation?

Hey, well! anyway, as you may have probably gathered from the papers, I
have been in devilish hot water, and (what may be new to you) devilish
hard at work. In twelve calendar months I finished _The Wrecker_, wrote
all of _Falesa_ but the first chapter, (well, much of) _The History of
Samoa_, did something here and there to my Life of my Grandfather, and
began And Finished _David Balfour_. What do you think of it for a year?
Since then I may say I have done nothing beyond draft three chapters of
another novel, _The Justice-Clerk_, which ought to be a snorter and a
blower--at least if it don't make a spoon, it will spoil the horn of an
Aurochs (if that's how it should be spelt).

On the hot water side it may entertain you to know that I have been
actually sentenced to deportation by my friends on Mulinuu, C.J.
Cedercrantz, and Baron Senfft von Pilsach. The awful doom, however,
declined to fall, owing to Circumstances over Which. I only heard of it
(so to speak) last night. I mean officially, but I had walked among
rumours. The whole tale will be some day put into my hand, and I shall
share it with humorous friends.

It is likely, however, by my judgment, that this epoch of gaiety in
Samoa will soon cease; and the fierce white light of history will beat
no longer on Yours Sincerely and his fellows here on the beach. We ask
ourselves whether the