r that I am a man very much occupied
otherwise, and not at all to suppose that I have lost interest in my
chapter.

In this world, which (as you justly say) is so full of sorrow and
suffering, it will always please me to remember that my name is
connected with some efforts after alleviation, nor less so with purposes
of innocent recreation which, after all, are the only certain means at
our disposal for bettering human life.

With kind regards, to yourself, to Mr. L. C. Congdon, to E. M. G. Bates,
and to Mr. Edward Hugh Higlee Bates, and the heartiest wishes for the
future success of the chapter, believe me, yours cordially.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO WILLIAM ARCHER

_Vailima, Samoa, March 27th, 1894._

MY DEAR ARCHER,--Many thanks for your _Theatrical World_. Do you know,
it strikes me as being really very good? I have not yet read much of
it, but so far as I have looked, there is not a dull and not an empty
page in it. Hazlitt, whom you must often have thought of, would have
been pleased. Come to think of it, I shall put this book upon the
Hazlitt shelf. You have acquired a manner that I can only call august;
otherwise, I should have to call it such amazing impudence. The _Bauble
Shop_ and _Becket_ are examples of what I mean. But it "sets you weel."

Marjorie Fleming I have known, as you surmise, for long. She was
possibly--no, I take back possibly--she was one of the greatest works of
God. Your note about the resemblance of her verses to mine gave me great
joy, though it only proved me a plagiarist. By the by, was it not over
_The Child's Garden of Verses_ that we first scraped acquaintance? I am
sorry indeed to hear that my esteemed correspondent Tomarcher has such
poor taste in literature.[75] I fear he cannot have inherited this trait
from his dear papa. Indeed, I may say I know it, for I remember the
energy of papa's disapproval when the work passed through his hands on
its way to a second birth, which none regrets more than myself. It is an
odd fact, or perhaps a very natural one; I find few greater pleasures
than reading my own works, but I never, O I never read _The Black
Arrow_. In that country Tomarcher reigns supreme. Well, and after all,
if Tomarcher likes it, it has not been written in vain.

We have just now a curious breath from Europe. A young fellow just
beginning letters, and no fool, turned up here with a letter of
introduction in the well-known blue ink and decorative