ns
Andersen's story for all I know. It is never hot here--86 in the shade
is about our hottest--and it is never cold except just in the early
mornings. Take it for all in all, I suppose this island climate to be by
far the healthiest in the world--even the influenza entirely lost its
sting. Only two patients died, and one was a man nearly eighty, and the
other a child below four months. I won't tell you if it is beautiful,
for I want you to come here and see for yourself. Everybody on the
premises except my wife has some Scotch blood in their veins--I beg your
pardon--except the natives--and then my wife is a Dutchwoman--and the
natives are the next thing conceivable to Highlanders before the
forty-five. We would have some grand cracks!

R. L. S.

Come, it will broaden your mind, and be the making of me.

To CHARLES BAXTER

This correspondent had lately been on a tour in Sweden.

_[Vailima] December 28th, 1892._

MY DEAR CHARLES,--Your really decent letter to hand. And here I am
answering it, to the merry note of the carpenter's hammer, in an upper
room of the New House. This upper floor is almost done now, but the
Grrrrrreat 'All below is still unlined; it is all to be varnished
redwood. I paid a big figure but do not repent; the trouble has been so
minimised, the work has been so workmanlike, and all the parties have
been so obliging. What a pity when you met the Buried Majesty of
Sweden--the sovereign of my Cedercrantz--you did not breathe in his ear
a word of Samoa!

O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,
Conceive how his plump carcase pants
To leave the spot he now is tree'd in,
And skip with all the dibbs to Sweden.
O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,
The lowly plea I now advantz;
Remove this man of light and leadin'
From us to more congenial Sweden.

This kind of thing might be kept up a Lapland night. "Let us bury the
great joke"--Shade of Tennyson, forgive!

I am glad to say, you can scarce receive the second bill for the house
until next mail, which gives more room to turn round in. Yes, my rate of
expenditure is hellish. It is funny, it crept up and up; and when we sat
upon one vent another exploded. Lloyd and I grew grey over the monthly
returns; but every damned month, there is a new extra. However, we
always hope the next will prove less recalcitrant; in which faith we
advance trembling.

The desiderated advertisement, I think I have told you, was mighty near
suppli