ee women to handle, out and well-away! but only Sophia is in full
tone. Sophia and two men, Windermere, the Vanilla Planter, who dies at
the end of Part I., and Rainsforth, who only appears in the beginning of
Part II. The fact is, I blush to own it, but Sophia is a _regular
novel_; heroine and hero, and false accusation, and love, and marriage,
and all the rest of it--all planted in a big South Sea plantation run by
ex-English officers--_a la_ Stewart's plantation in Tahiti.[33] There is
a strong undercurrent of labour trade which gives it a kind of Uncle Tom
flavour, _absit omen!_

The first start is hard; it is hard to avoid a little tedium here, but I
think by beginning with the arrival of the three Miss Scarlets hot from
school and society in England, I may manage to slide in the information.
The problem is exactly a Balzac one, and I wish I had his fist--for I
have already a better method--the kinetic, whereas he continually
allowed himself to be led into the static. But then he had the fist, and
the most I can hope is to get out of it with a modicum of grace and
energy, but for sure without the strong impression, the full, dark
brush. Three people have had it, the real creator's brush: Scott, see
much of _The Antiquary_ and _The Heart of Midlothian_ (especially all
round the trial, before, during, and after)--Balzac--and Thackeray in
_Vanity Fair_. Everybody else either paints _thin_, or has to stop to
paint, or paints excitedly, so that you see the author skipping before
his canvas. Here is a long way from poor Sophia Scarlet!

This day is published
_Sophia Scarlet_

By
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

To J. M. BARRIE

The following is the first of several letters to Mr. J. M. Barrie,
for whose work Stevenson had a warm admiration, and with whom he soon
established by correspondence a cordial friendship.

_Vailima, Samoa, February 1892._

DEAR MR. BARRIE,--This is at least the third letter I have written you,
but my correspondence has a bad habit of not getting so far as the post.
That which I possess of manhood turns pale before the business of the
address and envelope. But I hope to be more fortunate with this: for,
besides the usual and often recurrent desire to thank you for your
work--you are one of four that have come to the front since I was
watching and had a corner of my own to watch, and there is no reason,
unless it be in these mysterious tides that ebb and flow,