me
was learning that which your country has to teach--breathing in rather
that atmosphere of art which can only there be breathed; and all the
time knew--and raged to know--that I might write with the pen of angels
or of heroes, and no Frenchman be the least the wiser! And now steps in
M. Marcel Schwob, writes me the most kind encouragement, and reads and
understands, and is kind enough to like my work.

I am just now overloaded with work. I have two huge novels on hand--_The
Wrecker_ and the _Pearl Fisher_,[37] in collaboration with my stepson:
the latter, the _Pearl Fisher_, I think highly of, for a black, ugly,
trampling, violent story, full of strange scenes and striking
characters. And then I am about waist-deep in my big book on the South
Seas: _the_ big book on the South Seas it ought to be, and shall. And
besides, I have some verses in the press, which, however, I hesitate to
publish. For I am no judge of my own verse; self-deception is there so
facile. All this and the cares of an impending settlement in Samoa keep
me very busy, and a cold (as usual) keeps me in bed.

Alas, I shall not have the pleasure to see you yet awhile, if ever. You
must be content to take me as a wandering voice, and in the form of
occasional letters from recondite islands; and address me, if you will
be good enough to write, to Apia, Samoa. My stepson, Mr. Osbourne, goes
home meanwhile to arrange some affairs; it is not unlikely he may go to
Paris to arrange about the illustrations to my South Seas; in which case
I shall ask him to call upon you, and give you some word of our
outlandish destinies. You will find him intelligent, I think; and I am
sure, if (_par hasard_) you should take any interest in the islands, he
will have much to tell you.--Herewith I conclude, and am your obliged
and interested correspondent,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--The story you refer to has got lost in the post.

TO ANDREW LANG

_Union Club, Sydney [August 1890]._

MY DEAR LANG,--I observed with a great deal of surprise and interest
that a controversy in which you have been taking sides at home, in
yellow London, hinges in part at least on the Gilbert Islanders and
their customs in burial. Nearly six months of my life has been passed in
the group: I have revisited it but the other day; and I make haste to
tell you what I know. The upright stones--I enclose you a photograph of
one on Apemama--are certainly connected with relig