to you have had the indiscretion to perpetrate a trifling
piece of fiction entitled _The Bottle Imp_. Parties who come up to visit
my unpretentious mansion, after having admired the ceilings by
Vanderputty and the tapestry by Gobbling, manifest towards the end a
certain uneasiness which proves them to be fellows of an infinite
delicacy. They may be seen to shrug a brown shoulder, to roll up a
speaking eye, and at last secret burst from them: "Where is the bottle?"
Alas, my friends (I feel tempted to say), you will find it by the
Engineer's Thumb! Talofa-soifua.

O a'u, o lau uo moni, O Tusitala. More commonly known as

R. L. STEVENSON.

Have read the _Refugees_; Conde and old P. Murat very good; Louis xiv.
and Louvois with the letter bag very rich. You have reached a trifle
wide perhaps; too _many_ celebrities? Though I was delighted to
re-encounter my old friend Du Chaylu. Old Murat is perhaps your
high-water mark; 'tis excellently human, cheerful and real. Do it
again. Madame de Maintenon struck me as quite good. Have you any
document for the decapitation? It sounds steepish. The devil of all that
first part is that you see old Dumas; yet your Louis XIV. is _distinctly
good_. I am much interested with this book, which fulfils a good deal,
and promises more. Question: How far a Historical Novel should be wholly
episodic? I incline to that view, with trembling. I shake hands with you
on old Murat.

R. L. S.

TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS

Mr. St. Gaudens' large medallion portrait in bronze, executed from
sittings given in 1887, had at last found its way to Apia, but not
yet to Vailima.

_Vailima, September 1893._

MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,--I had determined not to write to you till I had
seen the medallion, but it looks as if that might mean the Greek Kalends
or the day after to-morrow. Reassure yourself, your part is done, it is
ours that halts--the consideration of conveyance over our sweet little
road on boys' backs, for we cannot very well apply the horses to this
work; there is only one; you cannot put it in a panier; to put it on the
horse's back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty of R. L. S., to
say nothing of his verses, which the publishers find heavy enough, and
the genius of the god-like sculptor, the spine would snap and the
well-knit limbs of the (ahem) cart-horse would be loosed by death. So
you are to conceive me, sitting in my house, dubitative, and the
medallion