dictation, working from then until noon. The
afternoons were usually spent in some form of recreation--riding was a
favorite pastime. He was fond of strolling through the tropical
forest, and of taking part in any of the numerous outdoor sports.
However, when he was in the height of literary inspiration, he stayed
at his desk all day long.

On Sunday evening the household was always called together for
prayers; a chapter was read from the Samoan Bible, Samoan hymns were
sung and one of Stevenson's own beautiful prayers, one usually written
for the occasion, was read, concluding with the Lord's Prayer in the
tongue of the natives. In the dominant note of these prayers, the call
for courage and cheerfulness, one can hear the cry of the dying
Stevenson's need: "The day returns and brings us the petty round of
irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to
perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound
with industry.... Give us health, food, bright weather, and light
hearts.... As the sun lightens the world, so let our loving-kindness
make bright the house of our habitation."

Stevenson died as he wished--in the midst of his work. After a day
spent in writing his _Weir of Hermiston_, a day full of life and
gayety, he suddenly fainted and died a short time afterwards. In the
prayer offered the evening before had been this sentence,--"When the
day returns, return to us our sun and comforter, and call us up with
morning faces and with morning hearts, eager to be happy, if
happiness shall be our portion--and if the day be marked for sorrow,
strong to endure it."

On the following morning a group of powerful Samoans bore the coffin
upon their shoulders to the summit of Mount Vaea, where it was the
wish of Mr. Stevenson that he should rest. One of the inscriptions
upon the tomb is his own noble _Requiem_:

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie;
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

XLV

KIPLING IN INDIA

In four lines of oft-quoted poetry Pope has declared that with words
the same rule holds that applies to fashion,--"Alike fantastic if too
new or old." Fashion changes, not only the fashions of millinery but
of literature also. When the wor