No. 1

3 Vernon Chambers
Southampton Row
London, W. C.

21 . 3 .

R. L. Stevenson, Esq.

Dear Sir,

I don't know whether you ever wrote any other play than "Deacon Brodie." Miss Maude Branscombe was asking me if I thought it probable that you might have anything of the kind that would suit her for her next provincial tour, which opens shortly. None of us saw "Deacon Brodie," tho' I was familiar with the story on which it was founded. Should you care to let me have a copy of it, or of anything else you may have, Miss Branscombe would read it with great interest and let you know in a few days whether it seemed suitable for her company. Then other matters might be arranged. Proper care will be taken of any manuscript.

Let me take this opportunity of saying how much
"Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde" entranced us.

No. 2

Kirriemuir
Scotland

May 8, '92

(Mrs. Strong wrote '91
on this letter, but
Barrie himself in
letter No. 5 dates it
(as May 8, '92)

Dear Mr. Stevenson,

I was more than very glad to have your letter. You are not
aware that it is the second. The first is in the desk I am writing
on -- an eight year old letter that gave me mighty pleasure at the
time, tho' the subject was only Messrs. Burke & Hare. In London later
I had romantic schemes for getting inside your walls at Bournemouth --
so vivid that I still feel as if they had come off. One, I remember,
was to shoot black arrows (with couplets) at your windows, and another
was to startle you in the still night by the sound of a stick that
might be Pew's coming nearer & Nearer.

Curiously enough I don't know if I did write the article you speak of.
If it appeared some time ago I did. That is to say I have written a
good many articles or the like calling for the continuation of
"Kidnapped," but have written no articles at all for the last year.
That it is on the way at last is fine news to me, but don't kill Alan
or we shall all be sulky, i.e. if he is dead at the start.

Meanwhile (?) I think the "Master of Ballantrae" the best thing you
have done -- I mean the Scotch part of it only. I felt when reading
it that the rest of us had better go & turn ploughmen. The second
half, however, seemed to me not worth your while. This is a quiet
little place I write from, the place I call Thrums where I live half
the year & go like a clock. Conan Doyle, whose work you may know,
was here lately (taking amateur photographs - spent most of his time
developing them in the pantry) & we were making up a list of the best
short stories in English. Very unscientific, we gave no writer more
than one, but I wonder how they strike you. Here they are, not in
any order of merit. Bret Harte's "Tennessee's Partner"; Scott's
Wandering Willie tale; your own "Pavilion on the Links"; Kipling's

No. 2 - p. 2 (May 8, '92)

"Man Who Would be King"; Hardy's "Three Strangers"; Lytton's "Haunters & the Haunted"; Q's "Old Afson" (?). I suppose there should be a Dickens. Meredith's "Chloe" is not quite what one means by a short story. I am at Box Hill sometimes & there is a good deal of talk about you in the "chalet." I wish I was this letter and that I might see you in the flesh. That I hope may be managed some day.

Yours very truly

J. M. Barrie

No. 3

Garrick Club

W.C.

Sep. 25, '92

Dear Mr. Stevenson,

I wonder if you can quite realise the joy with which I heard that the "Little Minister" had passed muster in your household at Samoa. As for the earl, I never brought him on (you will see from my phraseology that I am writing for the stage) without first kicking him round the room. I told Meredith your criticism of the end, and he (dogont) agreed with it. I refer you to a chapter in the book where it is hinted that if Babbie broke out after marriage Gavin was capable of taking a stick to her (that is for men only). However I admit that as the story was originally planned the last chapter was to be headed, "The little minister is stoned out of Thrums." I had not the heart for it, but henceforth will be relentless. Another admission, I prided myself on having a "Stevenson touch" -- where the dominie at his desk suddenly sees the dog -- but nobody has noticed it, not even yourself.

If you want to know what this Stevenson touch at its highest is, read that incident in "The Wrecker" (called "The Wreckers") where the gentlman with wine in him has such delightful expressions when looking for his room. There is magic in that, and no other could have written it since the world began. Also the end of "The Bottle Imp." It leaves one with a picture he can never forget. The college for teaching young Americans how to (diddle?) each other opens up country new in you I think. Doyle thinks it your best story, but I don't go that length, indeed I am firmly convinced now that you are best when you are Scotch. "The Lantern Bearers" is a dream of beauty.

I have never dared to tell anyone my opinion of "Tess" but I always

No. 3 - p. 2

(Sep. 25, '92)

thought it wrong-headed, and it is an uncommon relief to me to find
that you think so, too. What a queer mixture of humour and wanting
humour is Hardy. His villain says to Tess, "Will you allow me to
encircle your waist with my arm?" Angel Clare is the greatest prig
in fiction unless it is the Knight in "A Pair of Blue
The Dairymaids seemed to me to be comic opera figures. This is
good. In this book Angel carries the milkmaids across the river
in his arms one at a time (Hardy would like to do this), but the
paper in which it appeared thought this improper, and made him wheel
them across in a barrow. The last time Hardy was seen in London he
had shaved his beard and was in a music hall talking learnedly of
Lottie this and Connie that to another enthusiast. Would not the best
parody of Hardy be a letter from a young woman declining an offer
of marriage, & then accepting it in the postscript? I think he is
really a great man and so quaint at times that if I were a lady I
should kiss him, than which nothing would please him better.

An actor who played in "Beau Austin" complained to me that he had
thought one of its authors was not a Stevenson but the Stephenson.
The man is a pun, I believe. Perhaps you have heard of a
similar mistake before, but this is genuine. I like to think that
it is exactly why the piece was played.

Don't believe that Kipling is not on his way to you. He is fitting
up a rakish craft & is to besiege you some night and make you walk
the plank. I should be annoyed to think that you would not rather
perish in that way than in any other. I hope you know and like "Q's"
books. He is writing a novel with 274 leading characters, and would
be finished by this time, though he always forgets their names & has to
explore back for them.

Allen is going on a lecturing tour to sneer at fiction.
A lady (actress) to whom I sent a play (damned), referring to it as

No. 3 - p. 3

(Sep. 25, '92)

the "enclosed play," Richard Savage always calls it in conversation
now "your enclosed play by Richard Savage." Another to whom I gave
"A Window in Thrums" thanked me for "my delightful book, Fingers
and Thumbs." (And I was just going to propose to her).

I hear one can get money for books in India now. No doubt in time
we shall find our chief public in "the teeming millions of our great
dependency." Must point this out to Besant.

Licht

When my first book, "Auld Idylls," came out I sent you a copy to
America. I wonder if it ever reached you. I watched the post for
years. The Auld Licht kirk of Thrums has been taken down to make way
for another (for there is still an old woman left), & the pulpit
bought by a native who lets you sit in it for a penny. Those who
sit have the strangest experiences.

Yours very truly,

J. M. BARRIE

This is my best address.

No. 4

Garrick Club
W. C.

Dec. 24, '92

Dear Mr. Stevenson,

I am celebrating Xmas Eve by writing to you. Whether it is
also Boxing Night I don't know, but I fear you do as you can speak
calmly of having eels for dinner, while we are freezing. I picture
you in a suit of bananas (I feel that this is not quite the word)
enticing the monkeys to fling cocoanuts at you, which is my notion
of life in Samoa. I once wrote a newspaper article on Christmas --
about a man who said he murdered two or three Waits (he could never
remember the exact number) and buried them in the quadrangle of his
univ. My doctor was reading it the next time I saw him & he said,
"Have you seen this horrible affair -- most cold-blooded murder I
ever heard of." At first I thought of explaining, then I weakly
agreed with him, which shows you the kind of man I am. Another
article about a man, name of Robbins, who committed suicide rather
than write any more Jubilee articles was taken seriously by the
London correspondent of an Australian paper, who wrote, "One of the
saddest affairs in connection with the Jubilee is the tragic death
of Mr. Robbins, a much respected journalist who" etc. Another about
a dog I said I had found (when its owner was looking the other way)
led to my having a charming correspondence with a lady who had lost
a dog and felt sure that this was the one. My society for providing
a room in the Strand into which poets could rush when the afflatus
was on them drew three letters wanting the society's address.
Another society provided reminiscences for biographers who had run
short, and a correspondent wanted a dozen or two for a book on German
emperors.

I think the first four chapters of "David Balfour" the finest
beginning you have ever done. The opening paragraph is wonderfully

No. 4 - p. 2

(Dec. 24, '92)

vivid. I have a theory that all first sentences are ungrammatical (owing to the care that is taken with them). Can't prove _as yet_ that yours is so in this instance. Must have another go at it.

In that letter I had from you eight years ago you said that you were planning a story of the Great High Road. Where is it? It delights me that all your projects are so Scotch. "The Young Charlie" is a fine title. (So was "Harry Shovel." Where is he?) Is not the pursuit of names an exhilarating sport? I know a man called Wolf (?) Flanagan, and that is why I like him. I feel that he is the villain of an unwritten book, and that you are the writer thereof. I expect you won't be able to resist this. It is my Xmas gift to you. He could play second lead to Braxfield. Why shouldn't I write a little bit of the book myself (you go & eat eels)? -- "As the prisoner was ushered into the court house, Braxfield was seen to turn pale. All men wondered. Was it a sudden illness? Was it a presentiment? Twice Braxfield rose to ask the prisoner's name -- twice he swallowed his unspoken words. A strange stillness fell upon the court house. At last Braxfield, speaking with an emotion that was foreign to the man, demanded harshly, "Prisoner, your name?" The prisoner folded his arms, and with the modesty of one who knows that his triumph has come, replied calmly, "Wolf Flanagan." Braxfield shuddered and sank cowering into his chair. He knew that in that name he had met his match.

Again, where is your Queen Mary story? You need not say that you never contemplated one. Your nationality forbids -- even though you do eat eels. (It is a remarkable thing, but I feel as if I had eaten those eels.) I have thought over my Queen Mary story, but to get away from it for the present rather than to write it. It opens in Edinburgh of today with the birth of a draper's son who

No. 4 - p. 3

(Dec. 24, '92)

comes into the world with a tendency to hide one of his fingers. Mary
did this, & we plod back thro' his ancestors to discover how, ending
with the Kirk of Field. "Queen Mary's Ring" is all that is written
of it as yet. The story that will probably be my next is just begun,
called "Sentimental Tommy," an attempt at drawing a real man of
learning after he has ceased to admire his subject. What you say about
one's not being entitled to write of anybody till we love him pleases
me much. I feel that this book is bound to be a melancholy failure
unless I love poor Tommy all the time (and probably whether or no).
We have had a little tiff at the start because Thomas wanted to put
Thrums into the first sentence, while my grand ambition is to dodge
the place altogether. I have gone thro' the first chapter and
penciled out the Thrums, much as I would to weed a carrot bed. At
present we have compromised, he undertaking to lay the scene
elsewhere if I let him write from Thrums. I foresee complications,
and the dominie will be a bit sulky. Then "Huggard the Humourist"
is half written, but I say that a time came when he discovered that
he had never been a humourist, which he denies, so he is shelved
until he can listen to reason.

Now you know more of my projects than any other. I had a play
produced in New York lately & have one in London & have finished
an opera, but the drama is abandoned for books for a long time now.
I get most of my news about London from a man in India, so anything
I could tell you would probably be stale. They are still discussing
style at the Savile. Somebody has discovered that St. Andrews is
called after Andrew Lang. I have promised Allen's wife
not to call him "The Man who is not" any more, because
it keeps her awake at night. There is a rumour that a member has
spoken to another member in the Athenaeum. Ibsen is to be brought
over & made poet laureate. We are presenting Besant with an ink

No. 4 - p. 4

(Dec. 24, '92)

bottle (!) for being chairman of the Authors Society or something.

Any corks in Samoa? Am told Hardy's new novel now in a serial is about a man who falls in love first with one woman, then twenty years afterward with her daughter, then twenty years afterward with the granddaughter, whom he marries. I put my hand on his shoulder the other night & he started, as if he thought it was the policeman at last. I wish you would send me a picture of your house at Samoa.

It would make me feel a 1000 miles nearer you.

Yours ever,

J. M. BARRIE

No. 6

Garrick Club
W.C.

29 Jan. '93

Dear R.L.S.,

You must let me say at the start that I have an affection
for the man who wears these initials. I might not have let on in
ordinary circumstances, but on Saturday night I was shaken out of
all reserve by a telegram from San Francisco in the evening papers
that you were very ill. I could not do any work. I cabled to
America to discover how the story arose. In the meantime those
who knew better how to get at the facts had a cablegram from Auckland
that you are all right. It is good news to many and to me. Anstey
and I had a dinner over it. To be blunt I have discovered (have
suspected it for some time) that I love you, and if you had been a
woman ---

Your last letter was about the most generous any man ever
wrote to another, but it leaves me still with sufficient sense to
continue to sit at your feet, instead of standing beside you on my
tiptoes. I await Miss Fraser's imitations of you with impatience.
When she played in my dramar I never was quite sure whether she was
alive. I conducted affairs then on strictly unbusinesslike principles,
and doubled my villain's alary _because he was so bad_. He mouthed
& strided at rehearsals so that I gloried in him tho' I knew he would
kill the play. To rectify the impressions of me Miss Fraser has left
behind at Samoa I don't see why I shouldn't draw myself.

(1) **Appearance:** The face is all right, except for a suggestion of weakness in the mouth. Moustachios considerable, but one usually longer than the other, owing to ceaseless attempts with scissors to bring them into harmony. When at a mixed school, the girls took a plebiscite about which boy had most engaging smile. Got highest marks. Have not smiled since. Can't. Figure mean. What there is of it, fair. Not enough of it.

No. 5 - p. 2

(29 Jan. '93)

(2) Manners. None. When taking a lady in to dinner (seldom do it) unblushingly say to her, quoting from well-known writer, "Don't you think the old plan better, when the gentleman took the lady's hand?" Being indistinct of speech (& usually regretting remark when in middle of it) is not often heard. She begs pardon, by which time dining room is reached. Lately desperate lady at dinner said to him, "Didn't catch your name." He said wasn't surprised (never catch hers). She continued, "And don't know what you do." He said, "No, suppose not." The end.

to Henry Irving (Hats off) A gentle creature.

Just looks at you when you say anything funny. Like him best when he goes away.

In the opinion of the ladies (which after all is the main thing).

Is that Mr. Barrie? Well, I am.

In the opinion of Himself. An absorbing study.

As for hostesses, they say, "He is quite worth asking once." And this is the character you would rashly invite to Samoa.

## Act 1

R.L.S. Yes, he has arrived. I have put him into a bedroom. I advised him to rest for a bit -- for as long as he could.

Mrs.R.L.S. What did he say?

R.L.S. He said "H'm." He has been saying that all the way up from the boat.

Mrs. R.L.S. How did he strike you on the whole?

R.L.S. (glumly) Perhaps he will improve after he has rested a bit.

I told him he would have to be tattooed before dinner.

Mrs. R.L.S. What did he say?

R.L.S. H'm.

No. 5 - p. 4

(29 Jan. '93)

Mrs. R.L.S. (weeping) Poor girl.

R.L.S. Now that the gangway is between us I feel as if we
could be friends again.

Mrs. R.L.S. Poor girl (hysterically). (Exit boat)

R.L.S. What girl are you talking about?

Mrs. R.L.S. It had suddenly struck me, what if he were to marry!

That is a photograph that some people would recognise -- including
perhaps Miss Fraser. (You observe that all the time I am consumed
with curiosity to know what she made of me.) However it would only
be a true one if you were they, and that it were gospel I would,
if other things did not come in the way, start for Samoa by the first
train to Victoria from here (and they run every ten minutes). That
time I honestly do believe would suffice for the packing of all my
belongings, which consist when I come to think of it, of my mother's
photograph. And there is the real reason why I don't start off for
Samoa and settle in it and have such times with you as I feel I can
never have with any other man and reveal to you (insist on it) the
real JMB who has been so far carefully concealed from his "intimate
friends." The fact is that I have a passion for my mother and my
young sister which makes me a stay at home. People often ask why
I don't travel, and I never tell them the real reason, but there it
is. My mother and father live at Kirriemuir (just opposite the
Window in Thrums) and I am always with them except for some months
when my sister comes with me. My sister was to be married to a
Free Kirk minister, my greatest friend, last June, and on the 8th
of May he was flung from his horse and killed. I shall never forget
that I wrote to you on the 8th May and that the telegram which made
me begin the world again arrived before the letter was posted.

No. 5 - p. 5 (29 Jan. '93)

Such a home life as yours seems to me an ideal one for a literary man -- far removed from the trivialities of club life, and with all those around you whom you most care for. One of the grandest lies in the world of letters (which is big ) is that one must come up to town occasionally, otherwise he loses touch, God knows what of. One thing sure is that you don't lose touch in "David Balfour." I have just finished part three and still it is by far your best. There is no doubt about it at all. You have never got near anything so good as David himself. I rose from the scene by the wayside between him & Catriona feeling that they were two of the bravest, most unusual (?) & pathetic figures in all fiction. And again that feeling came back when I read of David's fight, that was no fight, with Duncansby. I see that Alan Brook is coming on, & I tremble for him for I believe David will dwarf him. I used to think Ollala (is that the proper arrangement of the dratted l's?) your best girl, but she is to Catriona as my pencil (that is it, life size) to an ________

(That is the beginning of an ________).

Let me say it is pretty rough on me your getting hold of the "Edinburgh Eleven." I was a boy then. As for Haggart you are quite right but see if I don't make him human yet and dedicate the work to you.

Latest from Thrums. Weaver brought up for hitting another man. The defence, "My Lord, I thocht he would hae jonkit."

Also at a funeral. To guest, "You'll find the whisky on the dresser.
My father's on the table."

Yours ever,

J. M. Barrie

P.S. I am coming someday.

No. 5

Kirriemuir

U.K.

23 July '93

My dear Tusi Tala,

Greetings. I was expecting from the post only business
letters when in he walks instead with your pictures & I have not
had such a joyous disappointment since my boyhood when I once lost
a penny at a market (I used to hold the horses, just like Shakespeare)
& going forth to search the world for it found eightpence! That was
a day. So I tell you is this. You are all three on the mantelpiece
already between Meredith's house and his chalet, so that we are a
regular picnic somewhere about the long apple tree at Box Hill and
divided into two parties by the clock. I have put two & two
together pretty smartly, naming the photographs & your inventory of
your household, & beg to announce with a good deal of elation that
Tamaitai is in my opinion the kind I can get round & think the kind
that gets round me. It is Tamaitai's eyes that give her away. I read
in them an extraordinary tolerance for boys, and I am a boy tho' I
keep it dark. When the blinds are down I jump over chairs and play
wild pranks, and my word of honour I feel I could carry on in this
way before Tamaitai, and she understand that there was no ill in me
so long as she was there to humour me. I guess Tamaitai was brought
into the world to take care of daft literary characters, with just
this one weakness, that in moments of impulse she can be got to join
them and then don't we just have a gorgeous holiday, and which is
leader, & who likes to know! But next morning Tamaitai does not
know what you mean if you refer to yestereen, & if I had an
amanuensis in and ink I could draw you Tamaitai now possessed of
domesticity, a terrible figure on a table all of a simmer because
she cannot knock nails into four walls at one blow (observe in the

No. 5 - p. 2

(23 July '93)

distance Tusi Tala & Loia edging toward the shore) & doing sixhanded things till she sinks exhausted but happy on the couch. (Observe Tusi Tala sauntering back with a cigarette & pointing out to her that she has been overdoing it). I didn't need to be told that Tamaitai was "infinitely little." The more you like them the less they get. My Babbie was biggish in the first chapters but as I warmed to her she got so small that the editor of "Good complained, saying that he had accepted her as a "brow kimmer" & soon you would need a candle to look for her. I also enlarged her mouth at his request. My native Samoan name is Softy Softy, which means the "Good Natural Author." Nothing would flatter me so much as having my hair cut by Tenila, & I wouldn't cry out tho' we seemed to spill something like red ink. The barber's always say, "Hair cut?" to me tho' they cut it yesterday, & I have a horrid fear that one of them will get round me some day & make me take the oil. As for reorganizing my hair, I have felt for years that there is a great chance there is for somebody. You can tell Loia that a most mysterious affair has occurred, nothing short of this that when the packet arrived his photograph was no longer in it. As I cannot think so badly of him or believe that it never was there I conclude that it was stealthily removed at the postoffice here where we have a young lady who had probably opened the inventory and been enamored of the sketch of Loia in red ink. If there is any truth in a report I heard at Cambridge that Loia is coming to the old country (wouldn't if I were he) he is hereby elected an Allahakbarrie. The fame of the Allahakbarries has probably reached Samoa, it being nothing less than a cricket club of which I am captain & the name as near as we can get at it means "Heaven help the Barries." We are all litery hands, & among the honouring patrons is Alan Brook, Esq. Extract from the club card --

No. 5 - p. 3

(23 July '93)

**Barrie (Capt.) an ideal captain.** A treat to see him tossing the
penny. Once took a wicket. Takes all the credit when one
of his side makes a run.

**Marriott Watson (Pomaded! Oh Tusi Tala!)** A capital man in the train going down. Safe but in the train. Loses confidence when told to go in.

**Conan Doyle** Hits blooming hard, blooming high & blooming seldom.

**Harold Frederic** Safe scorer on a ground that suits him. Has not yet found a ground to suit him.

**Bernard Partridge** The Demon bowler. Breaks everything except the ball. Smashes his own side. Will bowl at the wicket & nail square leg in the stomach.

**F. Christey** Stays in London & cheers at two, four & six o'clock.
&c, &c. We have already **played** a team of elderly Surrey rustics,
& having filled them first with ale won a glorious victory,
marred by Frederic who was always **photographing** the ball when he
should have been catching it. Doyle defied the best bowling of
shire (but not until he was out), bowls in, made one in masterly
manner & Partridge played a dashing innings for nothing. The
way I ordered my team to stop **smoking** was a sight for **Frederic**
to photograph, but he forgot to pull the string or let down the
lid or something, & we all came out as a sunset in ye olden time.

Partridge is the man who is to illustrate "New Arabian Nights."
(By the by, almost the bitterest memory of my childhood is the
getting of the other "Arabian Nights" under the belief that
they were Knights. Couldn't stand nights without a K to them in
those days, & indeed I have had an ill-will to this book ever
since). He is a capital choice & he is full of the work.
What a merry jest illustrations to a book nearly always are.

No. 5 - p. 4 (23 July '93)

The subjects the sagacious artist chooses! "He lifted his hat politely." "She was sitting on a garden chair drawing figures with her parasol on the sand." "The butcher's boy had come to the Inn for orders." "Allow me, he said." "In her walks she was always accompanied by a mastiff of the St. Bernard species." "She rose on his entry." "He sat down on her departure."

Worse than the artists is my experience of American publishers. Years ago I did cartloads of journalism at a guinea the yard, & they have got at it and publish a new book by me every fortnight, Copyright they say & carefully revised by the author. Rascally firm of Lovell, another John Knox, who must have pirated even his name.

Thomas Hardy

J. M. Barrie

Lady Colin Campbell

Mrs. Clifford

Conan Doyle

This is not a tombstone, or rather it is. These five provided as many plays for a theatre, all at one go, & were advertised as above. This was fatal, the public thinking we were the company & refusing to go in because they had never heard of none of us. Hardy dramatised "The Three Strangers," & I had a bet that the bill wouldn't run a week. It did -- exactly.

**Latest news as we go to press.** Two magazines want a Meredith at once & he is sitting up in the chalet writing away against time, and as flattered at anybody wanting him as if he had arrived yesterday. Lang spells Alan Brook's Christian name with two l's and an e. Hurray! I took Hardy to see my play at Toole's which

No. 6 - p. 5 (23 July '93)

has been running about a year & a half & warned him that a great
deal of it wasn't mine & then had the mortification of seeing him
laugh heartily at the gags & at nothing else. Maarten Maartens
was also with us, and they both left the theatre saying that they
thought they could write successful plays. Maartens strikes me as
one of the best men we have. Some one has been telling Hardy you
didn't like "Tess" & he sat reflecting a long time & then said
triumphantly, "Methodist parson." Extract from a letter from
Kipling about his infant who was born on Gladstone's birthday, "As
it's a girl it doesn't matter, but if it had been a boy I would
have felt tempted to roll it up & down in the ditch." At least I'm
told this is genuine. I'm sending you an illustrated "Window in
Thrums." The scenes are from life but the faces imaginary, also
the blackbirds. I have found out where Samoa is on the map, which
is a first step to coming. If I could only think of some place a
great deal further away, that would bring Samoa nearer. The flower
is to Tenila. Observe the colour. Goodbye Tamaitai, you have
promised to like me. Goodbye, Tenila, her mark. Goodbye Loia,
tho' another has the photograph. Goodbye Tusi Tala. Goodbye *my
household*.

Ever yours,

J. M. Barrie

No. 7

Kirriemuir, U.K.

4 Feb. '94

Dear R.L.S.,

Yours received this day at two of the clock. Sat down to
answer it at one (by the watch).

**Tamaitai** Ah, Louis, if you could only --

**Teñila** If he had such a cons--

**Tusi Tala** I sit down to answer them at once also

**Tamaitai** But you ---

**T.T.** Well, that is all he has done as yet himself, you know.
And observe he brags about it, proving that it is not
his usu--

I am not to be driven off my eggs by your aspersions, and there
are any number of them. However, before I begin, listen to this.
The Ogilvy-Balfours a great family. Your mother a Balfour, mine is
an Ogilvy. I needn't go into details, but one thing clear is that
Tamaitai is my cousin. Again, a reviewer has been comparing Catriona
& Babbie to the disadvantage of my girl, but I forgive him as he
gives me an idea, thus --

Very awkward, the idea can't go onto the foot of a page. I must fill
up with padding. An old Castle Balfour still stands in ruin three
miles from Thrums. When Cardinal Bratoun carried off a daughter of
the Ogilvys from Airlie Castle, he kept her in Castle Balfour as his
mistress because its towers are visible from Airlie. Good, but not
long enough. We had a heavy snowfall two days ago, but the rain has
washed it all away. Dang it all! The crops in the glens

No. 7 - p. 3

(4 Feb. '94)

**Loia** But how can he know that when that photograph ---

**R.L.S.** Dogont! Has my Brownie gone to Thrums!

I think there can be no question that the love story of Catriona and David is the best thing you have ever done. And it is just about the only thing I thought you could never do. All thro' the book I wanted to take Catriona aside and kiss her. (You needn't tell Tamaitai & Tenila this, but I never see a girl who strikes me as delicious without wanting to put my arms round her thoughtfully and kiss her. You can't always do it tho'. This is owing to the dissemination of pernicious literature). I consider David quite as good, far better than in "Kidnapped." Many like Barbara as much as Catriona, but no, she is only "Barbara, her friend," entertaining as possible, but I have met her often and tho' (see brackets above) still she usually had something to do with comic relief. I also liked her in the Black Arrow. But Catriona is unique. I thirsted for more of Simon Fraser, and several others you are skimpy of, and that scene in the church at Inverary has made me chuckle more than anything since Vincent Crummles. The Bass Rock story is creepy as you alone can make them. But James Stewart is behind a screen all the time, and neither you nor we care a devil whether he is saved. My earl and he should have been friends. "Dear Mr. Stewart, Can you take a chop with me at five when we can discuss our grievances? Yours truly, Rentoul. P.S. Both sawdust." If Alan had been the prisoner, consider our excitement. Again, to me the beauty of the tale ends when James More opens the door of Catriona's & David's lodging. The atmosphere has been too lovely for us to endure him. I think the play of Rob Roy has spoilt me for Rob's sons. They are always one fair, one dark, one tall one short, one thin one thick, and how Helen Macgregor did send 'em flying. But you have one gorgeous bit near the end, when

No. 7 - p. 4

(4 Feb. '94)

Alan kicks Monsieur. It is so exactly the right thing that never
shall I forget the page and in what part of the page it is done.
By the way, I always remember this latter if it is a great bit -- in
the Waverleys especially.

Have at you again. (I have eaten and slumbered on the
couch since the last paragraph. While thus engaged a beautiful maid
in the bark of the mulberry tree & not too much of it, appeared to
me and said, "O gentleman, when thou comest among us, see to it
that thou breakfasteth in bed." And I said to her, "O lady, where
garments are wonderful but most most wonderful in this that they
do not fall off. Wherefore?" And she said, "O gentleman, because
only such do we recognise as chip." And I said, "O lady, if it
were so Tusi Tala would have warned me," to which she replied, "O
gentleman, not at all. He wisheth to be considered the only chip
himself."

**Tenila.** I know! Graham Balfour has been telling him things.
Not so. I have not set eyes on the man, and luckily wrote him that
I doubted whether there really was any such person. Yet we have been
on each others track for months, & there can be no doubt we should
have met by this time if one of us had stood still. Twice he was to
dine with me, again I was in a studio being painted, & he at the
door, and the artist his cousin (Leslie Brooks) between us, and I
talked to Brooks about Balfour & Balfour talked to Brooks about me,
and we told him how we were in pursuit of each other, and he never
let on because (O pitiful!) it would have ended the sitting. Then
just when I had him he went to Edinburgh. I followed, & discovered
he had returned to London that morning or thereabout. Have written
him sharply that if he doesn't come here pretty quick -- but I shall
have set off for London, just see if I haven't. He sent me some of

No. 7 - p. 5

(4 Feb. '94)

the mulberry bark, which now
my room, and your
intimation that I was a member of the Temperance Society which I
divulged at a Greenoch Burns dinner. I enclose the newspaper cutting
there anent. Dang the thing, every time I breathe it gets blown
across the table, so I grip it with the one hand & copy it with the
other. "Mr. Barrie, in replying to the toast of his health, said he
wanted to put a question to the club. (Cheers). Mr. Robert Louis
Stevenson (loud cheers) had lately sent him word of his election to
a Samoan Temperance Society established with two objects (1) to
promote temperance principally (2) to encourage the exportation of
Scotch whisky (loud laughter). What he (Mr. Barrie) wanted the club
to tell him was whether Mr. Stevenson, without knowing it, had
founded a Burns Club (Prolonged applause). I'll send the cutting
to Balfour. Even if it does get blown about, that may be the very
way to find him.

Yes, you seem to have some pretty good villains at Samoa, and I
cheer to hear you have got the better of some of them. That
thundering
is quite fascinating, and I see you watching
him go regretfully. But speaking of villains, also speaking of
your own from the shoulder because I have been trifling so long. I
am slogging away at a book at last, and if I can keep up the last
month's pace should see the end before so very long. But about
villains. You are in it. I have long loved to picture you as a
pirate of twelve or fourteen, and have now got my chance. You have
a lieutenant who is also the crew (he is called Corp because he took
fits) and his squaws, and a puddle and a den full of fallen trees.
You call yourself Captain Stroke because your lady teacher says
"Strike" when she comes across a word written thus "d--n." Only so
long as Tommy is a pirate is he you, but while thus I have precisely

No. 7 - p. 6

(4 Feb. '94)

as I conceive you in those entrancing days. Not an ounce of humour
left, the whole thing deadly earnest, and when Corp asks awestruck
if you think it is all true, he is made to walk the plank. There
is to be a great deal of childhood & boyhood as I have never had a
shot at that yet, but the general plan is a study of a sentimentalist
who, if he half conquers himself, will do very well, I think. Am at
a queer situation just now, a little girl going to several respectable
gentlemen and asking them not to come to her mother's house alone at
night any more. You understand? There will be some painful matters
in the book, but in no way will it be a surrender to the New Fiction,
which so many are accepting as a short cut to greatness. Many of
the new lady novelists might be divided into those who shrink because
some one has seduced them & those who shrink because no one will
seduce them. The novels, it would seem, should be written with a part
of the person not usually put to that use. Are you not beginning to
feel strongly on that point? You would, if you were not away from
the thick of it. And young novelists are being led into this guttery
rut as the one worthy road (discerned at last) and I believe disastrous
harm is done to women who think they are being told to think when they
are really being told to brood. To brood about how it is done is so
much worse than doing it.

I was just going to fire off another dream at you about a waterfall
down which one scoots as if he were a toboggan, but I pull up at the
sudden thought that you are in the scene all the time. Your mother
writes you every mail, & if she has told you that I called on her in
Edinburgh you will know where my information comes from. Ah T.T.!
if that was not Tamaitai saying, "We mustn't let on that we are
laughing at him when he thinks he is mystifying us, it might hurt
his feelings."

Stroke! No, str-k-!

No. 7 - p. 7

(4 Feb. '94)

We are hoping to see your mother before long here. She and my mother want to talk about two boys, who had hooping (sic) cough, and did other extraordinary things. I think she is delightful. What do you think? Fain would I start with her in April, but my mother wants to go to London before I attempt Samoa so that she may judge for herself what these long journeys are like. My secret plan is in the autumn to go to America, get to San Francisco, & then sneak into a boat. That waterfall slide is irresistible altogether, & I want to get at it before there is an old lady sitting at the top selling tickets for it at sixpence each, which is no doubt what it will come to.

There was an amazing storm of wind in this & neighbouring counties two months ago, and I was not here to see. It has blown down four-fifths of our woods. Our wood of 300 acres is entirely down. Gavin could look for Babbie for months in Caddam & not find her among those fallen trees. The whole appearance of the county has been changed, gone back to something more like what it was before Scotland was planted. However, this gave me the idea for your Pirate's Lair. (You hang up a card inside with that on it and in your travels thro' the den you observe the breadfruit tree which must not be confounded with the deadly upas).

I rejoice to hear you are planning a Covenanter (?) story. It is among the few places where Scott left an opening, for they could not all have been whining hypocrites. I would read the fathers if I could get hold of them. But as for your style I don't believe you get it from them or any other book. You got it in our den when you were playing at pirates. Playing! Unfortunate word. Have you seen the new interviewing in McClure's Magazine? Two celebrities

No. 7 - p. 8

(4 Feb. '94)

interview each other and you have never heard of more than one of
them, but they play fair and the first one says, "And when Mr. ______
Man, did you feel genius sprouting in your breast, & ______ Man tells
him when, & then asks the second one when he felt it and so on, with
pictures down the sides showing "view of the coal-scuttle from the
west window," "corner of the press (with jug) flowerpot to the right
on entering." But it is a nice little magazine for all that & much
better than our cheap ones. Now goodbye. We have been talking in the
new study, which I may tell you is in the new part of the house and
was not built for you, but the light gets in more easily (no verandah
covering). You have all got to come down the stair with me. This
is the hall. (observe the piano). Mind the step. A last look round
from the grass. Tequila is at the hammock. Tamaitai in the verandah.
You are upstairs (old part), Waving a handkerchief (mulberry?) & off
I go (barefooted) down the lane of citrons. But I see your red
scarf still. Farewell, cousins, but I am coming back.

Ever yours,

J. M. Barrie

No. 8

Kirriemuir

Oct. 11, '94

Dear R.L.S.,

To tell you a great deal about my wife at once, as soon as
she saw your letter she jumped to the last page because she _knew_
that it would be the page about her. That shows you she is a genius.
Furthermore she could not understand why I laughed (she knows when I
laugh) at Tamaitai's prompt reflection about its being a comfort that
your guest room is furnished for two. Well, she says, surely that
would be the natural thing to think of first. So you see she has a
rich sense of humour, indeed I never heard any one laugh more heartily
at her own jokes.

We were rather crushed to find you in possession of the news, having
thought to explode a bomb in the halls of Vailima with a letter
beginning " Fizz - izz - crack - boom - I am married. " I flatter
myself that Loia exclaimed fiercely "That chap!" and that Polema
became limp and muttered "Dogont!" and that Tamaitai Matua made this
memorable observation --

"What will his mother say!"

And then Tusi Tala & Loia (in collaboration) interviewed Polema to
discover whether he thought I was the kind to win a maid's affection
and they found him in the <u>Pa-wah-com luka</u> (or morning room) all in a
sweat because he was writing to Thrums (being his fifth go at the
letter) and wondering, oh Gord, how to get to the fourth page without
leaving a blank, and he said I was not the kind. Then they asked him
if my conversation was of a kind to -- and he said it was not of a
kind to,--and then they asked was I insufferably handsome, and he had
to admit with muffled curses that I was. And I expect myself that
this was it.

I think your version of Mother Hubbard hits off my case pretty

No. 8 - p. 2

(Oct. 11, '94)

accurately. As for why we are not at Vailima at this moment I must
refer you to Tamaitai Matua, who can guess. We really meant to make
that our honeymoon, but my mother was so doleful at the thought of
my going so far away that I had to give up the idea and we mooned
about the Engadine instead. There is no spot on earth I want to go
to much except the bit of it that is yours, and to come I am
determined and as soon as I can get away. My wife is as keen on it
as myself, having set her heart on it as soon as she heard you could
go about barefooted. You will find her an extraordinary storehouse
of inaccurate information. In character she is so impulsive that she
always begins in the middle, and she is so remarkably like my mother
that that is probably why I fell in love with her. Some faults she
has. I notice that she keeps her handkerchy and other articles in
my pocket, dropping them in and taking them out without comment as
if I were her dressing bag. Her Scotch a little confused as yet: I
heard her asking my mother if a brae was a little stream and whether
there was any difference between a garret and a burn. Nor is her
handwriting all that such a purist as myself could wish for. I never
find a letter addressed by her without mending her letters on the sly,
and this makes her so mad that she uses language, including the
incomprehensible words, "You of all people." She wanted to be
amanuensis to this letter but I told her you preferred it just like
this.

One day she -- Is this letter to be all about her? No. <u>But</u> when she
read in your letter that you had been down with the same ailment as
mine she remarked, "Don't let Mr. Crockett know that, <u>or he will take</u>
<u>it too.</u>"

About that same Crockett it is related that an old lady went into

No. 8 - p. 3

(Oct. 11, '94)

Mudie's and asked if they could give her a book which was either "The Crocket Minister" by Sticket or "The Sticket Minister" by Crocket. I was glad to read what you had to say of him. I guessed that it was so pretty much. This printing of private letters is a shameful thing. But it was his first book practically, & I suppose most of us are more or less daft over our first. Do you know Crockett personally? If you have met him once (or less frequently) you are his bosom friend for ever, whether you want to be or not.

He sees to that. I am his bosom friend. I can see it by his letters. Ever since I met him I have felt that he carries me about in his pocket. I am writing this in one of his tails to you in the other.

Ahem! As soon as I had read *The Raiders* I knew it was not by Stevenson. Crockett is downstairs. Stevenson is upstairs. By different ways ye shall attain.

Have you read an old book called *Peasant Life in the North* by an anonymous man McLennan? If not I want to send it you. I think it by far the best book on the Scotch farm hand that was ever written.

Your mother told me & I had observed it with pain, that you never answer questions unless one goes on repeating them, so have you read a book called *Peasant Life in the North*? I think it a great book.

To think of you having been here. It gives me a new interest in the place. Possibly I saw you. I may have flung a divot at you.

I have been pointing out your abodes to my wife (I knew she would come sneaking back into this letter). On arriving at our station you cast your eye across the line and noted the saw-mill where my Rob Angus worked. I was almost certainly there wading in the burn.

You then proceeded up the beautifully named Marywellbrae (now alas Mary Street because we are getting on so well). You passed the foot

No. 8 - p. 4 (Oct. 11, '94)

of Chairlie Nicoll's Roudy near the house of T. Haggart humorist who probably said a sarcastic thing about you. (Now I know why you say slighting things about him). Your course then lay along Bank Street where you passed the Auld Licht Kirk & if you did not lift your hat to it, you are requested to do it now. This took you to our square, at an inn on north side of which you put up. That was the Crown, landlord you remember a stout man, name of Lennie. On your way to Glen Ogil (now the property of one Williamson, M.P., with whom I sometimes stay & henceforth shall stay with more interest, whose wife is a daughter of the famous Dr. Guthrie) you passed my Caddam Wood. The burn you fished was the Noran, famed for its clearness. There is no other water near. Possibly it is locally the Queen's River tho' I never heard it so called. I too have fished it. The Free Kirk where you were bored was the Kirk of Memus and the man who bored you a queer character who died the other day, named Edgar. In '77 was it? Then I had been here holiday making from my school at Dumfries. Heavens! I may have been fishing the Noran when you were there. There were three of us, all James's, but known as Jim, Jamie & Jeems and we searched the world for fish. If we saw you we probably bolted, thinking you were a keeper. You remember the woods at Glen Ogil? 100,000 trees were blown down there in the storm about this time last year. When you were at Glen Ogil did you happen to read a book called *Peasant Life in the North*? I read it every few months.

I think the *Ebb Tide* has extraordinary merit as a narrative. Races along like a glacier stream, indeed I don't remember any story that goes at a greater gallop & that is a glorious thing in a story, probably the greatest of all things. But I thought the subject hard; worth while & the characters too lurid, too much strongly emphasized

No. 8 - p. 5

(Oct. 11, '94)

types. That is lovely where the captain admits that his daughter
has been dead all the time. I vote for **The Justice Clerk** rather than
**Weir of Hermiston** tho' it is good too. **Heathercut** (?) is fine, &
makes me lick my lips. I write it much more plainly than you do,
and so at last you have an opportunity of comparing the titles just
as they would look when printed. I notice that by a slip of the pen
you say my writing is worse than James Payn's. Payn is very ill and
almost worn away, but still writing funny paragraphs. **They** carried
him home on a stretcher one night: He had fainted & fallen and when
the doctor came next morning to see if he was alive he was sitting
up in bed turning the affair into comic copy. I think him one of the
sweetest of men. He told me lately that somebody once dramatised his
"By Proxy." The final scene was the her-villain dying surrounded by
the other characters. His last words are "You thought me dead once
before, and by sacrificing another life I saved my own. Now you see
me dying again, but this time not **By Proxy**." (Curtain)

I am wondering whether you have read a book called **Peasant Life in the North**. It is the strongest thing of the kind ever done.

Since my illness I have not done a stroke of work till this week except a ghastly story of Indian mutinies & stolen diamonds which I raved about when I was delirious. I was in that way for about five days. & I kept shooting people and got into frightful passions because those round my bed said they could not see the corpses. All the time I knew that these corpses were in a book which I was writing, & that **therefore** there must be as many corpses as I liked. I had a feeling of impotence because there were no corpses when I, the author, had said that there were. Did you ever have that sensation? My mother is so very frail that I don't think she could have lived had she see

No. 8 - p. 6 (Oct. 11, '94)

me so ill. She had bronchitis at the time and her mind was so
affected that she never knew it was I who was lying in the next
room until I was getting better, when her mind was restored. I
can't write about this without awe. It seems so much the kindly
hand of providence. My mother is so frail that one must not even
go near or touch her except with excessive gentleness. She has
become so timid too. And she has an idea that where I am there she
is perfectly safe. She is like a child in the matter. That is
the only reason I have for not coming to Vailima just yet.

## Our Correspondence Column.

**Tamaitai** It may be so. But that is not the only photograph I have seen, and one taken long ago that I saw at Miss Balfour's was quite lovely. I think it is a fearsomely strong face with a weakness somewhere -- where I would walk in. This is presumption, but I have always felt that you are the one at Vailima who would like me best. I need such a lot of looking after and would be such a trouble that that face could not help liking me.

**Polema**
(1) Your long & gossipy letter was a real treat. I am not surprised that it took it out of you, but hope you are now restored to health. (2) I have not seen Brooks since his marriage. Am in hiding from him as he is still at the portrait.

**Loia**
(1) I am sorry to learn that the native beauty has begun to cool, especially if it was my photograph that did it. Perhaps if you were to make-up like me? (2) I know of no safe ointment for producing hair on the face.

**Teuila** What has become of the red ink? I treasured your comments, which shed light on two people.

**Native Beauty.** If you think it possible, try to forget me and love Loia again. But scorn to give him your hand if your heart is really in Thrums.

No. 8 - p. 7

(Oct. 11, '94)

**Tamaitai Matua.** Have no fear. My mother and she are tremendous friends.

**Tusi Tala.** Yes, I can recommend it cordially. The title is *Peasant Life in the North.*

I never write to you nowadays without feeling that you are the only family in the world, outside my own relations, with whom I have a close tie. And I feel sorrowful when I end up, it is always saying goodbye to you for a long time. You must like my wife. You can't conceive what a jewel she is. If Tamaitai only saw her putting in my buttons! Would that she were taking them out at this moment in the halls of Vailima.

Clgape wa -wa (farewell)

gug gug (dear ones)

J. M. Barrie

No. 9

Kirrimuir U.K.

27 Jan. '95

My dear Osborne,

It was with a very painful feeling that I opened your letter the other morning, its outside with the blue lines & the many postmarks gave it such a look of other letters I have had from Vailima and such different ones. They all used to thrill me when they came. "A letter from Stevenson!" It stopped all work for the time and went the round of the house. That is all done with now, but I thank you very warmly for remembering me on that mournful day. I have a sort of pride in being among those you wrote to, for I take it as meaning that to your thinking Louis would have liked me to be one of them. As you may know Colvin published your letter and he was right to do so, for it told just what the public were entitled to know. Your description of the natives going (?) and of the road making will never be forgotten by any of us, and it had a pathetic dignity about it, for it had Louis's own mark on it.

The biggest tree in the countryside has fallen some one said to me, and I suppose that is the general feeling. Or if he was not the biggest tree, for we have Meredith & Swinburne, certainly the biggest tree in full leaf. And assuredly the most loved & the one who has most influenced his contemporaries. He was so gallant, such a glorious boy that I think of him as a fifth to d'Artagnan, Athos & the rest. Probably it was for this that we loved him so much, tho' it was for the qualities of his work that we sat at his feet. To me it is as if a bit of myself had died, the romantic part, which was for ever running after him. The papers so far as they can & as now have seen what he was and said it ungrudgingly, I think that his verse alone has not been esteemed at its right value yet. I am not at all sure that it is outshone even by the prose. I wish something could be