anguage is not likely to prove a
brilliant coiner of words.

Turning with regret from this shelf, I came next upon a fine collection of
French works, beginning with a complete edition of Balzac, which had
evidently been read with care. Much French fiction was here--Daudet's
"Tartarin," "Fromont Jeune et Risler Aine," "Les Rois en Exil," Guy de
Maupassant, Prosper Merimee and a complete Victor Hugo, besides a swarm of
the more ephemeral novels. Here, too, was a fine and complete edition of
"Wellington's Dispatches" and several military treatises. Next to these
came a good collection (be it always remembered that I speak of Samoa in
Samoa, and 14,000 miles from the home of English and French publishing and
printing) of historical works; Gibbon, of course, Milman, Von Ranke and
many of the old French chroniclers--Philippe de Comines especially--read
and marked, no doubt, when Stevenson was writing "The Black Arrow." One
passage so marked struck me as curious. Surely Stevenson was a man whom,
from his writings, one would imagine to be practically without enemies;
yet, in the light of events at Apia, and from what I have heard here, the
quotation seems apposite; "Je scay bien que ma lange m'a porte grande
hommage, aussi m'a-t-elle fait quelques fois de plaisir beaucoup,
toutesfois c'est raison que je repare l'amende." Now these are almost the
exact words which conclude the preface to the only deplorable book
Stevenson ever wrote--his "Footnote to History," which has made him many
enemies, and, I think, no friends--in fact, nothing but the vigorous
description of the hurricane saves it from worthlessness. As history it is
not trustworthy, and as a footnote it was ridiculous. However, to return
to the books. There was a very complete collection of modern poets, hardly
any of note being omitted. I even saw a copy of "J. K. S.'s" "Lapsus
Calami," which surprised me, for Stevenson was neither a Cambridge nor a
public school man.

Such, then, in brief, is a rough summary of the library of this remarkable
man; many of the editions de luxe were packed away, but I believe what I
saw was his working stock. We now opened a little glass door leading from
the room into Stevenson's sanctum, where he dictated almost all his work.
It was quite a small room, lighted by two windows; and in one corner lay a
bed with a mat "Samoan fashion" spread thereon, while beside it was a
table with a bunch of withered flowers (the last he ever looked on),