In her garden at Stonehedge, situated in lovely Montecito, about six miles from Santa Barbara, Fanny Stevenson found the chief solace of her declining years. Its extent of some seven acres gave her full scope for the horticultural experiments in which she delighted. When she took possession of the place it was in rather a neglected state, but that was all the better, for it gave her a free field to develop it according to her own tastes. The house was a well-built but old-fashioned affair of an unattractive type, with imitation towers and gingerbread trimmings, and at first sight her friends assured her that nothing could be done with it. Architects, when asked for advice, said the only thing was to tear it down and build a new house. But, instead, she called in a carpenter from the town and set to work on alterations. When all was done the house had a pleasant southern look that fitted in well with the luxuriant growth of flowers and trees in which it stood, and its red roof made a cheerful note in the landscape.

In the grounds she worked out her plans, leisurely adding something year by year, a little Dutch garden, sweeping walks and lawns, a wonderful terraced rose-garden with a stone pergola at the upper end, where the creepers were never trimmed into smug stiffness, but grew in wild luxuriance at their own sweet will, and soon they made a glorious tangle of sweet-smelling blooms and glossy green leaves. From the living-room windows one looked out over a broad expanse of mossy lawn; groups of vermilion-coloured hibiscus and poinsettias kept harmonious company; dahlias made great masses of gorgeous colour among the green; tall hollyhocks were ranged along the veranda in old-fashioned formalism; indeed, it would be like quoting from a florist's catalogue to mention all the plants to be found in this garden.



Nor did she neglect the purely useful, for the most delicious fruits and vegetables—from the lemons, oranges, and loquats of the south to the apricots, apples, and pears of the north—grew to perfection under her fostering care. She was always on the lookout for new varieties, and I find among her correspondence a letter from the distinguished horticulturist, Luther Burbank, in answer to her request for strawberry plants:

"Santa Rosa, California, Feb. 21, 1911.

"Dear Mrs. Stevenson:

"I feel most highly honored and pleased with your kind order of the 15th instant for 25 Patagonian strawberry plants, which were sent out yesterday.... You can never know the regard and love in which Mr. Stevenson is held in thousands of hearts who have never expressed themselves to you.

"Sincerely yours,

"Luther Burbank."

The story of Fanny Stevenson's life at Stonehedge is one of the still peace that she loved more and more as time went on, almost its only excitements being the blooming of a new flower, the digging of a well, or perhaps the trying out of an electric pump. The hurly-burly of the world was far away from that quiet spot, and only the arrival of the daily mail by rural carrier, or an infrequent visitor from some one of the country houses in the neighbourhood, broke the sweet monotony of existence. Of the simple pleasures of her life here she writes to her husband's cousin, Graham Balfour, in these words:

"As I write, my delightful Japanese boy, Yonida, brings me in a great bunch of violets in one hand and quantities of yellow poppies in the other, while in front of me stands an immense vase of sweet peas—all just plucked from my garden. I wish that you might share them with me, and that you might hear the mocking-bird that is singing by my window. A mocking-bird is not a night-in-gale, to be sure, but he has a fine song of his own. I have such a nice little household; my two Japanese young men, who do gardening and such things; a most excellent, very handsome, middle-aged cook named Kate Romero, who, in spite of her name is half Irish and half English; and Mary Boyle, altogether Irish and altogether a most delightful creature. The most important member of the family, however, is my cat; Kitson is a full-bred Siamese royal temple cat, and is quite aware of his exalted pedigree. He exacts all and gives nothing. There are times when I should prefer more affection and less hauteur. He's a proud cat, and loves no one but Kitson."

This cat, a strange creature coloured like a tawny lion, with face, tail, and paws a chocolate brown, and large bright-blue eyes staring uncannily from his dark countenance, possibly had more affection than his haughty manner indicated, for, after his mistress's death, he refused food and soon followed her into the other world, if so be that cats are admitted there.

In this house were gathered all the heirlooms, books, old furniture, pictures, and other interesting objects which had been brought down from San Francisco. The St. Gaudens medallion of Stevenson was fitted into a niche over the mantelpiece in the living-room, where Mrs. Stevenson spent much of her time seated before the great fireplace with the haughty Kitson on her lap. On the mantelshelf there was a curious collection of photographs—one of Ah Fu, the Chinese cook of South Sea memory, side by side with that of Sir Arthur Pinero, famous playwright—silent witnesses to the wide extent of her acquaintance and the broad democracy of her ideas.

At Stonehedge her life ran on almost undisturbed in the calm stillness that she loved so much. Now and then she went for a day's fishing at Serena, a place on the shore a few miles from Stonehedge. With its background of high, rugged hills and the calm summer sea at its feet it has a serene beauty that well befits its name.

At infrequent intervals people of note arriving in Santa Barbara sought her out, and though she received them graciously she was equally interested in the visit of an Italian gardener and his wife, who came to bring her a present of some rare plant, and with whom she had most delightful talks about the flowers of the tropics. She was much pleased, too, when one day a Scotch couple, plain, kindly people, came merely to look at the house where the widow of their great countryman lived. When they came she happened to be in the garden and they apologized for the intrusion and were about to withdraw, but the moment she recognized the accent she welcomed them with outstretched hands. When they left their carriage was loaded with flowers, and she stood on the veranda waving her hand in farewell.

In August, 1909, accompanied by her daughter, Mr. Field, her nephew Louis Sanchez, and the maid Mary Boyle, she went on a motor trip to Sausal in Lower California, where they found that the house had been broken into by duck hunters, and presented a forlorn appearance. Coming from the comfort of Stonehedge to this deserted cabin was something of a shock to the rest of the party, and but for Mrs. Stevenson they would have left at once. "Mrs. Robinson Crusoe," however, justified her name with such enthusiasm that the others caught fire. Louis Sanchez lent a ready hand to repairs and under his magic fingers doors swung upon their hinges, tables ceased to wabble, door-knobs turned, and even a comfortable rocking-chair "for Tamaitai" emerged from a hopeless wreck. Mrs. Strong and Mary Boyle assaulted the little cabin with soap and water and disinfectants, and with much courage and laughter routed two swarms of bees which had taken possession of the ceiling. Mr. Field supplied the larder with game and fish, and ran the automobile to town for supplies. Mrs. Stevenson, who, at Stonehedge, was always somewhat dismayed by the morning demands of the cook for the day's orders, delighted in surprising the party with unexpected good dishes which she cooked with her own hands.

As the years passed her health began to show distinct signs of breaking, and when she proposed another trip to Mexico in the spring of 1910, her family feared she was not strong enough to endure the fatigue, but as she herself said she "would rather go to the well and be broken than be preserved on a dusty shelf," they finally agreed.

She had had a great admiration for Mexico ever since her first visit, and wanted to show her daughter the land she said was "older and more interesting" than any country she had ever seen. Then, as her nephew was a mining engineer recently graduated from the University of California, she hoped to find a good opening for him in that land of gold and silver. The three set off in high spirits, for there was nothing Mrs. Stevenson liked better than change of scene.

Although during this time in Mexico City she found the altitude very trying in its effect on her heart, and was in consequence obliged to keep rather quiet, yet she was able to move about to a certain extent and to see some of the sights of the place. She loved to sit by the Viga Canal and watch the life of the people ebb and flow along its tree-lined stretches—the queer old flat-bottomed and square-ended boats coming in on work days with vegetables and flowers from the so-called "floating gardens," and on days of fiesta transformed into pleasure craft with gay streamers and flags. On moonlight nights the tinkle of guitars sounded everywhere on the still waters of the canal and far out on the lake, for it is the custom of well-to-do people to hire these boats and with their musicians spend the evening a la Venice.

In the city the travellers were much interested in the Monte de Piedad, the pawn shop which is run under State control. Here great bargains may sometimes be picked up in jewels left there by ladies of good family in reduced circumstances. Mrs. Stevenson had a very feminine liking for jewels, but they had to be different from the ordinary sort to attract her, and she was much pleased to pick up in Mexico some pieces of the odd and barbaric designs that she especially liked.

Delightful days were spent in the city prowling about the queer old shops and buying curious things that are not to be found in other parts of the world. This was the kind of shopping that she really enjoyed—this poking about in strange, romantic places.

Among the very few people that Mrs. Stevenson met in Mexico in a social way was the well-known historian and archaeologist, Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, whom she considered a most charming and interesting woman. Together with her daughter she lunched with Mrs. Nuttall at her picturesque house, once the home of Alvarado, in the outskirts of Mexico City. It was the oldest house they had ever seen, and, with its inner patio, outside stairways and balconies, and large collection of rare idols, pots, and weapons that Mrs. Nuttall had herself unearthed from old Indian ruins, was intensely interesting.

Hearing of an opening in the mining business at Oaxaca for her nephew, she decided to go there and look into the matter. Conditions at Oaxaca were found to be even more primitive than at the capital. One time they asked for hot water, but the American landlady threw up her hands and cried, "Oh, my dears! There is a water famine in Oaxaca. It is terrible. We can get you a very small jug to wash with, but it isn't clear enough to drink."

"What are we to drink?"

In answer to this she brought a large jug of bottled water that tasted strongly of sulphur. This they mixed with malted milk bought at a grocery, making a beverage of which they said that though they had tasted better in their time, they certainly never had tasted worse. Notwithstanding all these inconveniences Mrs. Stevenson was in the best of tempers and keenly interested in seeing places and things, and when she tired was happy with a magazine or sitting at a window watching the street life. The first evening, while they were sitting in the patio, there was a violent earthquake, which seemed to them worse than the famous shake of 1906 in San Francisco, but it did no damage and the hotel people made nothing of it.

After seeing her nephew off to the mines at Taviche, and taking a side trip to see the ancient buried city of Mitla, Mrs. Stevenson and her daughter returned to the capital, where they took train for California, and were soon at home again amid the sweet flowers of Stonehedge. There Mrs. Stevenson once more took up the writing of the introductions to her husband's books, for which she had contracted with Charles Scribner's Sons. As I have already said, it was only after much urging that she consented to do this work, and her almost painful shrinking from it appears in a letter of March 25, 1911, to Mr. Charles Scribner: "With this note I send the introduction to Father Damien. I didn't see how to touch upon the others when I know so little about them. I know this thing is about as bad as anything can be. I cringe whenever I think of it, but I seem incapable of doing better. If, however, it is beyond the pale, write and tell me, please, and I will try once again. Louis's work was so mixed up with his home life that it is hard to see just where to draw the line between telling enough and yet not too much. I dislike extremely drawing aside the veil to let the public gaze intimately where they have no right to look at all. I think it is the consciousness of this feeling that gives an extra woodenness to my style—style is a big word—I should have put it 'bad style.'"

It was during this time that news came of a severe accident to Alison Cunningham, Louis's old nurse—a misfortune which resulted in her death within a few weeks. Mrs. Stevenson always felt an especial tenderness for "Cummy," as the one whose kind hand had tended her beloved husband in his infancy, and she very gladly aided in the old lady's support during her last years. Lord Guthrie, Louis's longtime friend and schoolmate, says in his booklet on the story of Cummy:



"From the novelist's widow she always received most delicate and thoughtful kindness. Mrs. Stevenson often wrote to her and she amply supplemented the original pension settled on her by Mr. Thomas Stevenson, Louis's father. A few months before Cummy's death (at the age of ninety-two), she cordially agreed, on condition that Cummy should not know of it, to make a special additional annual payment which I had ascertained, from an outside source, would add to the old lady's happiness. And as soon as she received my letter telling her of Cummy's accident (a fall causing a broken hip), I had a characteristically generous message from her, sent by wire from San Francisco, giving me carte-blanche for Cummy's benefit. I call this message characteristic, because I find in her letters such passages as this: 'Please, dear Cummy, always let me know instantly when there is anything in the world I can do to add to your comfort, your happiness, or your pleasure. There is so little I can do for you, and I wish to do so much. You and I are the last; and we must help each other all we can, until we, too, follow.'"[74]

[Footnote 74: Quoted by courtesy of Lord Guthrie.]

When Cummy died Mrs. Stevenson was represented at the funeral by Mr. A. P. Melville, W. S., and a wreath ordered by her was placed on the coffin. She also bore the expense of Cummy's last illness and funeral and had a handsome tombstone put up in her memory.

In these days the sands began to run low in the hour-glass of the life of Fanny Stevenson, and a great weariness seemed to be settling upon her. Writing to Mr. Scribner in June, 1913, she says: "All my life I have taken care of others, and yet I have always wanted to be taken care of, for naturally I belong to the clinging vine sort of woman; but fate seems still against me." Nevertheless, I truly believe she enjoyed being the head of her clan, the fairy godmother, the chieftainess of her family, to whom all came for help and counsel. But now the shadows of evening were growing long, and she was getting very, very tired.

But, world-weary as she was, she consented at this time to prepare for publication in book form the notes which she had taken, primarily for her husband's use, of one of their voyages in the South Seas. As it happened, he made little use of the notes, so that most of it was new material. In this work, for dear memory's sake, she took a real pleasure, of which she speaks in the preface in these words: "The little book, however dull it may seem to others, can boast of at least one reader, for I have gone over this record of perhaps the happiest period of my life with thrilling interest." The book was brought out by Charles Scribner's Sons, under the title of The Cruise of the "Janet Nichol", and it has a melancholy interest, apart from its contents, as the last work done by her in this life. She had only finished the reading of the proofs a few days before her death, and the book did not appear until some months afterwards.

In November, 1913, she was threatened with asthma, and in consequence went to spend some time at Palm Springs, a health resort on the desert in southeastern California. In the dry, clear air of that place her health improved so wonderfully that all her friends and family believed that a crisis had passed, and that she had fortunately sailed into one of those calm havens which so often come to people in their later years. She returned to Stonehedge seemingly well. All their fears were lulled, and the blow was all the more crushing when, on the 18th of February, 1914, silently and without warning, she passed from this life. In the manner of her death and that of her husband there was a striking coincidence; each passed away suddenly, after only a few hours of unconsciousness, from the breaking of an artery in the brain. The story of her last moments may best be told in the words of a letter from her devoted maid, Agnes Crowley,[75] which is so sincere and touching that I quote it without eliminations:

[Footnote 75: Her former maid, Mary Boyle, had married and left her service.]

"My dear Mrs. Sanchez:

"We are a very sad little household—we are all heart-broken, to think our dear little Madam has gone away never to return. It seems too awful, and just when she was enjoying everything. We were home from Palm Springs just one week when she was taken away from us—but you can console yourself by thinking that she was surrounded by love and devotion. She was not sick and did not suffer. Tuesday evening, February 17, she felt well and read her magazines until nine o'clock, and Mr. Field played cards with her till 10.30. Then she retired. The next morning I went in to attend to her as usual, and there was my dear little Madam lying unconscious. I thought at first she was in a faint, and I quickly ran for Mr. Field; he jumped up and put on his bathrobe and went to her while I called Dr. Hurst. It took the doctor about seven minutes to get here, and as soon as he saw her he said it was a stroke, but he seemed to be hopeful and thought he could pull her through. He put an ice pack on her head and gave her an injection in the arm and oxygen to inhale, and she seemed to begin to breathe natural, and we all hoped, but it was in vain. She never regained consciousness, and at two o'clock she just stopped breathing, so you see she did not suffer. But oh Mrs. Sanchez, we all seemed so helpless—we all loved her so and yet could do nothing. Dr. Hurst worked hard from 8.30 till two o'clock, and when the end came he cried like a little child, for he loved Mrs. Stevenson very much. It was an awful blow to us all—it was so sudden. This place will never seem the same to William and me, for we loved our little Madam dearly, and it was a pleasure to do anything for her—for she was always so gentle and sweet. I adored her from the first time I ever saw her, and will always consider it the greatest pleasure of my life to have had the privilege of waiting upon her.

"I remain very affectionately,

"Agnes Crowley."

When the angel of death stooped to take her he came on the wings of a wild storm, which raged that week all through the Southwest—fitting weather for the passing of the "Stormy Petrel." Railroads were flooded all over the country, and her son, Lloyd Osbourne, was delayed by washouts for some days on the way out from New York. On his arrival the body was removed to San Francisco, where a simple funeral ceremony was held in the presence of a few sorrowing friends and relatives. On her bier red roses, typical of her own warm nature, were heaped in masses. A touching incident, one that it would have pleased her to know, was the appearance of Fuzisaki, her Japanese gardener at Stonehedge, with a wreath of beautiful flowers. It was in accordance with her own wish, several times expressed to those nearest her, that her body was cremated and the ashes later removed to Samoa, there to lie beside her beloved on the lonely mountain top.

To her own family the sense of loss was overwhelming, and I cannot perhaps express it better than in the words of her grandson, Austin Strong: "To say that I miss her means nothing. Why, it is as if an Era had passed into oblivion. She was so much the Chief of us all, the Ruling Power. God rest her soul!"

* * * * *

When Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson passed from this earth the news of her death carried a pang of grief to many a heart in far distant lands. One who knew her well, her husband's cousin, Graham Balfour, writes his estimate of her character in these words:

"Although I had met Fanny Stevenson twice in England, I first came to know her on my arrival at Vailima in August, 1892, when within a single day we established a firm friendship that only grew closer until her death. The three stanzas by Louis so completely expressed her that it seems useless for a man to add anything or to refine upon it:

'Steel-true and blade-straight . . . . . . . . Honor, anger, valor, fire, A love that life could never tire, . . . . . . . . Teacher, tender comrade, wife, A fellow-farer true through life.'

"These were all the essentials, and if we add her devotion to her children and her loyalty to her friends, we have the fabric of which her life was woven. Her integrity and her directness were such that one could, and frequently did, differ from her and express the difference in the strongest terms without leaving a trace of bitterness.

"I remember in particular a scheme which she wished to set on foot for releasing Mataafa and other Samoan chiefs from their exile in the German island of Jaluit and carrying them off to Australia. The project was a wild one and would only have led to their return and disgrace, and in these terms and much stronger expressions we discussed it, without ever abating one jot from our personal friendship.

"And in the long years that followed absence made no difference. Every letter, when it came, was as full of affection and of confidence as its predecessors—full of loyalty and tenderness.

"To her enemies, of course, she showed another side. Opposition she did not mind, but dishonesty and deceit were unforgivable.

"The news of her death reached me in St. Helena, as the announcement of Louis's death found me on another far-off island in the Carolinas; and both times the world became a colder, greyer, more monotonous place."

These pages have been written in vain if I have not made clear what the world owes this rare woman, not only for the sedulous care which kept the invalid genius alive long after the time allotted to him in the book of fate, but for the intellectual sympathy and keen discernment with which she stood beside him and

"Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal, Held still the target higher, chary of praise And prodigal of counsel."

In speaking of literature's great debt to her, Lord Guthrie says:

"Without her Louis's best work neither could nor would have existed. In studying the life and works of Thomas Carlyle I often had occasion to contrast his wife and Louis's. With all Mrs. Carlyle's great and attractive qualities and her undoubted influence on her husband, she made his work difficult by her want of perspective, magnifying molehills into mountains. It could not be said that any of his great writings owed their existence to her."

An article appearing in the Literary Digest shortly after her death touches upon this point:

"Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson was content to remain in the background and let her husband reap all the glory for his literary achievements, and the result was that her part in his career had probably been minimized in the public mind. She was a great deal more than a mere domestic help meet."

From her old and attached friend, Mr. S. S. McClure, comes this sincere tribute:

"The more I saw of the Stevensons the more I became convinced that Mrs. Stevenson was the unique woman in the world to be Stevenson's wife.... When he met her her exotic beauty was at its height, and with this beauty she had a wealth of experience, a reach of imagination, a sense of humor, which he had never found in any other woman. Mrs. Stevenson had many of the fine qualities that we usually attribute to men rather than to women; a fair-mindedness, a large judgment, a robust, inconsequential philosophy of life, without which she could not have borne, much less shared with a relish equal to his own, his wandering, unsettled life, his vagaries, his gipsy passion for freedom. She had a really creative imagination, which she expressed in living. She always lived with great intensity, had come more into contact with the real world than Stevenson had done at the time when they met, had tried more kinds of life, known more kinds of people. When he married her, he married a woman rich in knowledge of life and the world.

"She had the kind of pluck that Stevenson particularly admired. He was best when he was at sea, and although Mrs. Stevenson was a poor sailor and often suffered greatly from seasickness, she accompanied him on all his wanderings in the South Seas and on rougher waters, with the greatest spirit. A woman who was rigid in small matters of domestic economy, who insisted on a planned and ordered life, would have worried Stevenson terribly.

"A sick man of letters never married into a family so well fitted to help him make the most of his powers. Mrs. Stevenson and both of her children were gifted; the whole family could write. When Stevenson was ill, one of them could always lend a hand and help him out. Without such an amanuensis as Mrs. Strong,[76] Mrs. Stevenson's daughter, he could not have got through anything like the amount of work he turned off. Whenever he had a new idea for a story, it met, at his own fireside, with the immediate recognition, appreciation, and enthusiasm so necessary to an artist, and which he so seldom finds among his own blood or in his own family.

[Footnote 76: Now Mrs. Salisbury Field.]

"After Stevenson disappeared in the South Seas, many of us had a new feeling about that part of the world. I remember that on my next trip to California I looked at the Pacific with new eyes; there was a glamour of romance over it. I always intended to go to Samoa to visit him; it was one of those splendid adventures that one might have had and did not.

"One afternoon in August, 1896, I went with Sidney Colvin and Mrs. Sitwell (now Lady Colvin) to Paddington Station to meet Mrs. Stevenson, when, after Stevenson's death she at last returned to Europe after her world-wide wanderings—after nine years of exile. When she alighted from the boat train I felt Stevenson's death as if it had happened only the day before, and I have no doubt that she did. As she came up the platform in black, with so much that was strange and wonderful behind her, his companion of so many years, through uncharted seas and distant lands, I could only say to myself: 'Hector's Andromache!'"[77]

[Footnote 77: Quoted from McClure's Magazine.]

She had one of those unusual personalities that attract other women as well as men, and one of them, Lady Balfour, writes of her from the point of view of her own sex:

"When Mrs. Stevenson heard of my engagement to Graham Balfour she wrote me the kindest and tenderest of letters, telling me not to have any fears in the new path that lay before me. She added: 'I who tell you so have trodden it from end to end.' This sympathy meant much to me, for it could only have come from such a generous heart as hers. She had hoped that Palema[78] would continue to make his home with them, and she had great confidence in and love for him. He would have been a link between her and the old associations of the Vailima life, and his engagement to an English girl proved to her that this would no longer be possible. Yet where a less fine nature would have contented itself with the mere formal congratulations as all that could be possible under the circumstances, she gave generous sympathy to a stranger, who caused her fresh loss, from her generous 'steel-true' heart.

[Footnote 78: Sir Graham Balfour's Samoan name.]

"I had been married about two years when Mrs. Stevenson came to England in 1898, and we were living at Oxford. I was naturally a little nervous as to my first introduction to her. My husband wanted to take me up to London to see her, but I asked to go alone, feeling somehow that it would be easier. To this day I remember the trepidation with which I followed the parlor maid upstairs in Oxford Terrace, and was ushered into the room where a lady of infinite dignity was lying on a sofa. It seems to me now that after one steady look from those searching 'eyes of gold and bramble dew' (which had rather the effect of a sort of spiritual X-ray), I lost my feeling of being on approval, and in ten minutes I was sitting on the floor beside the sofa, pouring out my own past history in remarkable detail, and feeling as if I had known Tamaitai for years.

"In the following summer, 1899, she came to stay with us at Oxford, to give Palema all the help she could about the life of Robert Louis Stevenson he had just undertaken at her urgent request. Incidentally, she was to be introduced to her godson, our eldest boy Gilbert, who was then about six months old. She gave him a christening present of a silver bowl for his bread and milk, upon a silver saucer which could be reversed and used also as a cover. On the covering side were the words from the Child's Garden:

'It is very nice to think The world is full of meat and drink With little children saying grace In every Christian kind of place.'

"When the cover was taken off and used as a saucer it had on its concave side:

'A child should always say what's true And speak when he is spoken to, And behave mannerly at table, At least as far as he is able.'

"Tamaitai had had a very critical operation during the previous autumn, and was still comparatively invalided with the effects of it. She spoke enthusiastically of Sir Frederick Treves, who had performed it and had refused any fee, saying he counted it a privilege to attend her. I have a clear picture of her in my mind, lying on the sofa in our drawing-room. The door opened and the nurse carried in the baby, barefooted. 'Ah,' she said to him, 'who's this coming in hanging out ten pink rosebuds at the tail of his frock?' And the little pink toes justified a description that only she would have so worded.

"We drove her round to a few of the most beautiful and characteristic of the Oxford colleges. She was easily fatigued, but she delighted in what she saw. I remember admiring her pretty feet, clad in quite inadequate but most dainty black satin shoes, with very high heels, and fine silk stockings. When I put my admiration into words she just smiled upon me delightfully but said nothing.

"One evening we talked desultorily about the 'criminal instinct.' 'Well,' I said at last, 'there's one thing certain, I should never commit a murder. I shouldn't have the courage when it came to the point!' 'Oh,' said she, 'I could murder a person if I hated him enough for anything he had done, but I should have to call upon him in the morning and tell him I was going to murder him at five o'clock.'

"We dined out with some Oxford friends, among whom was a tall Scotch professor who was a brilliant and quick talker. Tamaitai took no part in the rapid thrust and parry of the talk, but sat silently looking from one to another with her great dark eyes. Their comment on her long afterwards was that she was the most inscrutable person they had ever met. As we drove home after the party I asked Tamaitai: 'What did you think of the talk?' There was a brief silence—then: 'I didn't understand a single word of it, they talked so fast,' said she frankly.

"I don't think I ever knew a woman who was a more perfect 'gentleman.' Scorning all that was not direct, and true, and simple, she herself hated disguise or casuistry in any form. Her eyes looked through your soul and out at the other side, but you never felt that her judgment, whatever it was, would be harsh. She was curiously detached, and yet you always wanted her sympathy, and if she loved you it never failed you. She was a strong partisan, which was perhaps the most feminine part of her character. She was wholly un-English, but she made allowances for every English tradition. My English maids loved her without understanding her in the least. I never knew any one that had such a way as she had of turning your little vagaries and habits and fads to your notice with their funny side out, so that all the time you were subtly flattered and secretly delighted."

I wish I had the power to describe that mysterious charm which drew to her so many and such various people—the high and the low in far-scattered places of the earth—but it was too elusive to put in words. Perhaps a large part of it lay in her clear simplicity, her utter lack of pretence or pose. I remember reading once in a San Francisco newspaper a comment by a writer who seemed to touch nearly upon the heart of the secret. The paragraph runs thus:

"Once a man told me that Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson was the one woman in the world he could imagine a man being willing to die for. Every man I asked—every single man, rich and poor, young or old, clever or stupid—all agreed about Mrs. Stevenson, that she was the most fascinating woman he had ever seen. It was some years ago that I saw her, but I would know her again if I saw her between flashes of lightning in a stormy sea. Individuality—that was her charm. She knew it and she had sense enough to be herself. Individuality and simple unaffected honesty of speech and action and look are the most potent charms and the most lasting that any woman can ever hope to have."

Her broad sympathies, too, had much to do with it. If there is any word in the English language that means the opposite of snob, it may certainly be applied to her. She picked out her friends for the simple and sufficient reason that she liked them, and they might and did include a duchess, a Chinese, a great English playwright, a French fisherman, a saloon-keeper who was once shipwrecked with her, a noted actor—and so on through a long and varied list. Once in Sydney when she was out walking with her daughter, both richly dressed, she stopped suddenly to shake hands with a group of black-avised pirates (to all appearances) with rings in their ears. She had met them somewhere among the islands, and her little white-gloved hand grasped their big brown ones with genuine and affectionate friendship. Wide apart as she and her husband were in many things, in their utter lack of snobbery they were as one. Once they were at a French watering-place when from their room upstairs they heard a loud uproar below. A voice cried: "I will see my Louis!" Going out to see what the trouble was, Louis found four French fishermen in a char-a-bancs—all in peasant blouses. The major-domo of the fashionable hotel was trying to keep them out, but when Louis appeared he called out their names joyfully, and they all cried: "Mon cher Louis!" After each had embraced him, he asked them up to his rooms, and, despite the ill-concealed scorn of the waiter, ordered up a grand dinner for them. They were the French fishermen he had known at Monterey, California, and one may be sure that they met with as cordial a welcome from his wife as from himself. I know that in one of her letters she urges him not to forget to write to Francois the baker, at Monterey, saying: "It seems to me much more necessary to write some word to him than to Sir Walter, or Baxter, or Henley, for they are your friends who know you and will not be disappointed, either in a pleasure or in humanity, as this poor baker will be. Indeed you must write and say something to him."

As has been said, her dislike of deceit and treachery was one of the most strongly marked traits in her character. Once when she had reason to fear that a person whom she was befriending was deceiving her, and she was told that a simple inquiry would settle the matter, she replied: "But I couldn't bear to find out that he is lying to me."

Her charities were many, but they were always of the quiet, unobtrusive sort, of which few heard except those most nearly concerned. For instance, when she heard of a poor woman in her neighbourhood whose life could only be saved by an expensive operation, she paid to have it done. Her life was full of such acts, and there are many, many people who have good reason to be grateful to her memory.

But when all is said, it has always seemed to me that the bright star of her character, shining above all other traits, was her loyalty—that staunch fidelity that made her cling, through thick and thin, through good or evil report, to those whom she loved. But as she loved, so she hated, and as she endowed her friends with all the virtues, so she could see no good at all in an enemy. Yet, just when you thought you were beginning to understand her nature—with its love and hate of the primal woman—her anger would suddenly soften, not into tenderness, but into a sort of dispassionate wisdom, and she would quote her favourite saying: "To know all is to forgive all."

That she had infinite tenderness for the feelings of others, living or dead, she proved every day. In a letter to Mr. Scribner asking advice about the publication in London of certain letters of her husband, she says:

"Some of the letters that are intended to go into the book should not, in my judgment, appear at all. When my husband was a boy in his late 'teens' and early twenties he and his father—a rigid old Calvinist—quarrelled on the subject of religion. Louis being young enough to like the melodrama, it took on an undue importance, out of all keeping with the real facts. During this turbulent period Louis poured out his soul in letters, the publication of many of which would give a false impression of the relations between the son and the father. Louis was twenty-five when I first met him, and the period of the religious discussion was long past. Mr. Thomas Stevenson loved me and was as kind to me as though I were his own daughter. I cannot, for the sake of an extra volume that would produce a certain amount of money, do anything that in my heart would seem disloyal to the dear old man's memory—all the more because he is dead."

In her character there were many strange contradictions, and I think sometimes this was a part of her attraction, for even after knowing her for years one could always count on some surprise, some unexpected contrast which went far in making up her fascinating personality. Notwithstanding the broad view that she took of life in most of its aspects, in some things she was old-fashioned. She was never reconciled, for instance, to female suffrage, and once when she was persuaded to attend a political meeting at which her daughter was one of the speakers, she sat looking on with mingled pride in her daughter's eloquence and horror at her sentiments. Yet, after the suffrage was granted to women in California, her family was amused to see her go to the polls and vote and carefully advise the men employed on her place concerning their ballots.

Some persons were repelled by what they considered Mrs. Stevenson's cold and distant manner, but they were not aware of what it took her own family a long time to discover—that this apparent detachment and sphinxlike immobility covered a real and childlike shyness; yet it was never apathy, but the stillness of a frightened wild creature that has never been tamed. Though she said so little, she never failed to create an impression. Some one once said of her that her silence was more fascinating than the most brilliant conversation of other women, and, indeed, "Where Macgregor sits is the head of the table" applied very aptly to her. Her manner had nothing of the aggressive self-confidence of the "capable woman." She seemed so essentially feminine, low-voiced, quiet, even helplessly appealing, that it was difficult to realize that she was a fair shot, a fearless horsewoman, a first-rate cook, an expert seamstress, a really scientific gardener, a most skillful nurse, and had, besides, some working acquaintance with many trades and professions upon which she could draw in an emergency.

Her physical courage was remarkable; she would get on any horse, jump into a boat in any sea, face a burglar—do anything, in fact, that circumstances seemed to require. But perhaps her moral courage, that which gave her strength to face great crises—as when Louis was near death—with a smile on her face, was even greater. This I know came to her as a direct inheritance from our mother, Esther Van de Grift, who was never known to give way under the stress of great need.

In her fondness for animals she reminds one of her maternal ancestress, Elizabeth Knodle, who used to rush out and seize horses by the bridle when she thought they were being driven too fast by their cruel drivers. Nothing would more surely arouse her anger than the sight of any unkindness to one of these "little brothers." Once at Vailima a gentleman, who ought to have known better, came riding up on a horse that showed signs of being in pain. "That horse has a sore back," she cried. The rider angrily denied it, but she insisted on his dismounting, and when the saddle was removed found that her suspicions were but too well founded. She compelled him to leave the suffering creature in her care until its back was entirely cured.

I have been surprised sometimes to hear people speak of her as "bohemian." Simplicity and genuineness were the foundation-stones of her character, and she certainly dispensed with many of the useless conventions of society, but she was a serious-minded woman for whom the cheap affectations generally labelled as "bohemianism" could have no attractions.

She was entirely feminine in her love of pretty clothes. In choosing her own attire, though she followed the fashions and never tried to be extravagant or outre, she had a discriminating taste that made her always seem to be dressed more attractively than other people. All who think of her, even in her last days, must have a picture in their minds of the dainty, lacy, silken prettiness in which she sat enshrined.

She was pretty as a young woman, but as she grew older she was beautiful—with that rare type of beauty that "age cannot wither nor custom stale." With her clear-cut profile, like an exquisite cameo, color like old ivory, delicate oval face, eyes dark, vivid, and youthful, her appearance was most unusual. Louis used to say of her eyes that her glance was like that of one aiming a pistol—direct, steady, and to some persons rather alarming. Her voice, as I think I have said somewhere else in these pages, was low, with few inflections, and was compared by her husband to the murmur of a brook running under ice. The poet Gosse said of her: "She is dark and rich-hearted, like some wonderful wine-red jewel."

For years she had worn her hair short, not in the fashion of a strong-minded female, but in a frame of soft grey curls which was exceedingly becoming to her face.

Everywhere she went her appearance attracted attention. One evening at Santa Barbara when David Bispham was giving a concert, she sat in a box at the theatre, wearing a bandeau of pearls and diamonds round her head and a collar and necklace of the same. Leaning over the edge of the box, deeply interested in the singing, she didn't realize the impression she was making or the fact that Bispham was singing "Oh, the pretty, pretty creature" directly at her box. Suddenly she became aware of his compliment, gave a startled, embarrassed look at the audience, and retired behind her big ostrich-feather fan. People often turned to look at her in the street, and at such times she would say to her companions: "Is there anything wrong with my hat? The people all seem to be smiling at me." They were, but it was with surprised admiration. Saleswomen and shop-girls adored her, and at all the shops they vied with each other in waiting on her. On the way home she would say, with naive surprise: "How nice all those young women were! There were five of them all waiting on me at once."

One of her vanities was her small feet, on which she always wore the daintiest of shoes, often totally unsuited to the occasion. Whenever I looked at her feet I was reminded of our maternal grandmother, sweet Kitty Weaver, and how she caught her death going to a ball in the red satin slippers.

Her beauty was of the elusive type that is the despair of artists, and of all the portraits painted of her none seemed to me to represent her true self. I quote from The Craftsman of May, 1912, a reference to a reproduction of the portrait painted of her by Mrs. Will Low:

"We are sure that our readers the world over will enjoy the opportunity of this glimpse of Mrs. Stevenson, however the limitations imposed by black and white may prevent a full realization of the great charm of this unusual woman, whose personality is so magnetic, so serene in its poise, so richly intellectual, that those who have had the opportunity of knowing her always remember her as one of the most interesting and beautiful among women."

She kept her spirit young to the last, so that no one could ever think of her as an old woman, and young people always enjoyed her company.

As to her literary accomplishments, had she chosen to devote her time and strength to the development of her own talents, instead of using them, as has been the wont of women since the world began, in the support and encouragement of others, there is no saying how far she might have gone, for she had an active, creative imagination, and a discriminating, critical judgment of style. As it was, her writings were not extensive, and were almost all produced under the spur of some particular need. They consist of:

Several fairy stories published years ago in Our Young Folks and St. Nicholas, magazines for young people.

The Dynamiter, written in collaboration with her husband.

Introductions to her husband's works.

A number of short stories in Scribner's and McClure's magazines, among which "Anne" and "The Half-White" attracted the most attention.

The Cruise of the Janet Nichol, a posthumous work.

Her own estimate of her talents and achievements was extremely modest, and it was always with the greatest reluctance that she put pen to paper. Yet she was intensely proud of the work of any member of her family—whether it might be sister, daughter, son, nephew, or grandson—and seemed to get more happiness out of anything we did than from her own work.

She was appalled at the great flood of mediocre writing that has been pouring over the United States in the last decade or two, and speaks of it thus in a letter written to Mr. Scribner from her quiet haven at Sausal:

"If I had a magazine of my own I should bar from its pages any story in which a young woman urges a young man to 'do things' when he doesn't have to. There would also be a list of words and phrases that I would not have within my covers. But, if I had a magazine what would become of my peace and quiet that I care so much for? No—no such strenuous life for me! They may call houses 'homes' and spell words so that children and foreigners must be unable to find out how to pronounce them—I need not know of such annoyances in El Sausal unless I choose. I have before me a great pile of magazines—hence these cries. I read them with wonder and interest. There seems to be such an extraordinary quantity of clever, talented, ignorant, unliterary literature let loose in them. Where does it all come from? And why isn't it better done—or worse done? I suppose we might call it 'near literature.' Sometimes, indeed, it is very near. I suppose it is the public school system that is accountable. Well, I never believed in general education, and here's a justification of my attitude."

When one casts a backward glance over the life of Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, it cannot be said that she knew much of that for which she had always longed—peace. Her girlhood was cut short by a too early marriage. Her first romance was soon wrecked, and her second was constantly overshadowed by fear for the loved one. Storm and stress, varied by some peaceful intervals, filled the larger portion of her days, and at their end it was in storm and flood that her spirit took its flight. But it was a full, rich life, and had she had the choosing, I believe she would have elected no other.

* * * * *

After something more than a year had elapsed from the time of her death, Mrs. Stevenson's daughter, who had now become the wife of Mr. Field, sailed with her husband in the spring of 1915 for Samoa, bearing with them the sacred ashes to be placed within the tomb on Mount Vaea.

Early in the war the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces had taken possession of German Samoa, so that when Mr. and Mrs. Field arrived they found the Union Jack flying over Vailima, now used as Government House by the Administrator, Colonel Logan, and his staff. The natives, interested spectators of these stirring events, remarked among themselves that Tusitala, not going back to his own country, had drawn his country out to him.

Two friends of the old Vailima days were a great help in making the arrangements for the funeral—Amatua, often referred to in the Stevenson letters as Sitione, now a serious elderly chief, and Laulii, a charming Samoan lady of rank, and a warm and attached friend of the Stevenson family. Of the Vailima household time and wars had eliminated all but the youngest—Mitaele, who looked much the same in spite of grey hair and a family of nine children.

It was Amatua who saw to it that those who remained of the builders of the "Road of the Loving Hearts" and the chiefs who had cut the path up the mountain for Tusitala's funeral were included in the list of guests, and it was he who took personal charge of all the arrangements for the native ceremonies, which were conducted in the elaborate Samoan fashion as for a chief of the highest rank.

Colonel and Mrs. Logan very graciously invited the Fields to Vailima and placed the house and grounds at their disposal.

"It is strange," wrote Mrs. Field, "being here at Vailima. I was so afraid to come, but mercifully it is not the same. Rooms have been added, the polished redwood panels in the large hall are painted over in white; the lawn where the tennis courts were is cut up into flower beds; many of the great trees have gone; and the atmosphere of the place has changed so utterly that I have to say to myself 'This is Vailima' to believe that I am here after so many years. Mrs. Logan and the Governor came out to meet us when we arrived, and as we turned into the road and I saw the house for the first time it was the Union Jack flying from the flag-staff that affected me most. I felt like a person in a dream as we walked over the house—the same and yet changed out of all recognition. We had tea, and then in the soft sunset we went down to the waterfall, no longer a fairy dell of loveliness but improved with a dam, cement flooring, and a row of neat bathrooms. In the evening we sat on the upper veranda looking out over the moonlit tree-tops; the scene was very beautiful, with the view of the sea and Vaea mountain so green and so close. 'Here we wrote St. Ives and Hermiston,' I tell myself, but I don't believe it."

It had been their intention to have their old missionary friend, Dr. Brown, conduct the services, but at the last moment word was brought that he was detained on one of the other islands by storms. For a time they were much troubled, but at last Colonel Logan lifted a load off their hearts by offering to read the Church of England service himself.

The day before that set for the funeral, June 22, it blew and rained, and there was much anxious foreboding about the weather. In the night, however, the wind blew away the clouds and rain, and morning broke, still, sunny, but cool—a perfect day.

The small bronze case containing the ashes, wrapped in a fine mat, had been laid on a table in one of the rooms that had wide doors opening on the veranda. The guests began to arrive early, in Samoan fashion, bringing flowers and wreaths, and soon the table was a mass of lovely blooms—all colours, for the Samoans do not adhere to white for funerals. The high chief Tamasese, with his wife Vaaiga, both wearing mourning bands on their arms, were the first to arrive. Then came Malietoa Tanu, who was a prominent figure in the war in which the United States and England joined to fight against Samoa. Following them came a long concourse of the old friends of Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson—natives, half-castes, and whites, and last of all, in a little carriage, three sweet sisters from the Sacred Heart Convent. The sisters could not stay for the ceremony on the hill, but begged to be allowed to say a little prayer, and the three knelt before the table and said an ave for one who had always been their friend.

At nine o'clock they started on the steep climb up the mountain, the path having been cleared the day before by men sent up through the thoughtful kindness of the Administrator. Mr. Field led the way with the casket wrapped in a fine mat, then came Mrs. Field and Laulii, each carrying one of the mats used in Samoan funeral ceremonies, these being the same that had been carried at Mr. Stevenson's burial.



After them came Colonel Logan and the two high chiefs, Tamasese and Malietoa, followed by all the other guests, including forty chiefs of the Tuamasaga. The procession, very picturesque in white clothing and wreaths of flowers, wound slowly up the mountainside in a zigzag path under the forest trees. Overhead the branches met in a leafy roof, and on each side of the narrow path the jungle closed in, thick, lush, and green. The lianas looped across from bough to bough, huge birds' nest ferns lay tucked in the branches, on all sides big-leaved plants, fronds of ferns, and tangled creepers crowded each other for space, and through all the mass of wild tropic growth the hot sunlight filtered in splashes of bright green.

When, after many breathless pauses, the top was at last reached, the case was laid on the base of the tomb and covered with fine mats, with flowers all about it. Among them were the Japanese imitation cherry-blossoms sent by Yonida and Fuzisaki, the gardeners at Stonehedge. The company then gathered around the tomb in a semi-circle, and Colonel Logan read the Church of England service. It was an impressive ceremony, and the hearts of all were deeply moved by it. Filemoni, the Samoan pastor, followed with an eloquent speech in the native language.

The mats were then removed from the small space that had been cut into the base of the tomb, and the little case was fitted in and cemented over. George Stowers, the original builder of the tomb, was there, and his hand sealed the ashes in their last resting-place.

The ceremony now being over, the party went down the hill in little groups, resting by the way on fallen logs. Crossing the river at the bottom, they came into the Loto Alofa Road (Road of the Loving Hearts), where Amatua had made all the preparations for the funeral feast, which was to be given according to Samoan custom. A long table-cloth, consisting of bright-green breadfruit and banana leaves and ferns, stretched along the ground for sixty feet or more. The feast was preceded by the ceremonious drinking of kava and speeches in Samoan. "I had expected the usual somewhat flowery eulogies," wrote Mrs. Field, "but their speeches were sincere and some of them very beautiful. They were translated by an interpreter, but fortunately my memory of the language helped me to follow the meaning, even though some of the 'high chief' expressions were beyond me. 'Many foreigners had visited Samoa,' they said, 'but of all who had professed affection and admiration for the land only one loved it so well that he chose it for his last resting-place. Tusitala had been the true friend, the dearly loved, the deeply mourned, and now when the wife of his heart had joined him after many lonely years the occasion was one too tender and too beautiful for sorrow.' They assured me that we might leave Samoa with peaceful hearts, knowing that those we loved were in the land—not of strangers, but of devoted friends, who would cherish the tomb on Vaea as they cherished in their hearts the memory of Tusitala and Aolele."

Amatua then announced that the feast was ready, and the Governor and his wife were seated at the head at one end of the long table, with Tamasese and Malietoa Tanu on either side. The board, figuratively speaking, groaned under a great spread of native delicacies. It was full noon by this time, and very hot, but Amatua had thoughtfully placed little trees all along the side to keep off the sunshine. "At the end of the feast," says Mrs. Field, "I made a little speech of thanks, and it came straight from my heart, for I was deeply touched by the kindness of them all and their loyalty to the memory of my dear mother and Tusitala. We tried to thank Colonel Logan and his wife, but words can never do that."

"Nothing more picturesque can be imagined than the narrow plateau that forms the summit of Mount Vaea, a place no wider than a room and as flat as a table. On either side the land descends precipitately; in front lie the vast ocean and the surf-swept reefs; in the distance to the right and left green mountains rise, densely covered with the primeval forest."[79]

[Footnote 79: Lloyd Osbourne, in A Letter to His Friends, written directly after the death of Mr. Stevenson.]

Stevenson's tomb, with the tablet and lettering, was designed by Gelett Burgess, and was built by native workmen under the direction of a half-caste named George Stowers. The material was cement, run into boxes and formed into large blocks, which were then carried to the summit on the strong shoulders of Samoans, though each block was so heavy that two white men could scarcely lift it from the ground. Arrived at the summit the blocks were then welded into a plain and dignified design, with two large bronze tablets let in on either side. One bears the inscription in Samoan, "The resting-place of Tusitala," followed by the quotation in the same language of "Thy country shall be my country and thy God my God." The other side bears the name and dates and the 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."

When Mr. and Mrs. Field arrived in Samoa they brought with them a tablet which they carried to the summit of Mount Vaea and had cemented in one end of the base of the tomb. It is of heavy bronze, and bears the name Aolele, together with these lines:

"Teacher, tender comrade, wife, A fellow-farer true through life, Heart whole and soul free, The August Father gave to me."

On the tablet for Mr. Stevenson the thistle for Scotland had been carved at one corner and the hibiscus for Samoa at the other. On his wife's the hibiscus was placed at one corner, and after long hesitation about the other, a sudden inspiration suggested to Mrs. Field the tiger-lily—bright flower whose name had been given to little Fanny Van de Grift by her mother in the old days in Indiana.

Before leaving the island Mr. and Mrs. Field endowed a scholarship for three little girls at the convent school—one to be chosen by the sisters, one by Tamasese, and one by Mitaele, the last of the Vailima household. All they asked was that these little girls should go to the tomb on the 10th of every March, the birthday of Aolele, and decorate the grave. That they kept their promise is shown by the following quotation from the Samoan Times:



"On Friday morning, the 10th instant, the three pupils of the convent school, Savalalo, whose scholarships were endowed by Mr. and Mrs. Salisbury Field in memory of the late Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, the mother of Mrs. Field, paid a visit to the Stevenson tomb on Mount Vaea in honor of the anniversary of the birthday of the deceased lady. The little party left at 7 A.M. and arrived at the summit of the hill at about nine o'clock. Upon arrival at the top of the hill the children lost no time in decorating the grave with wreaths of flowers and greenery, a plentiful supply of which was taken by them. After the decorating the party sat down to a small taumafataga (high chief lunch), after which they returned to town."

* * * * *

Tiger-lily and Scotch thistle—they sleep together under tropic stars, far from the fields of waving corn and the purple moorlands, but each year hands, alien to them both, tenderly lay flowers on their tomb.

THE END