Page:Vailima Letters - Stevenson, Colvin - 1894.djvu/46

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20 VAILIMA LETTERS

You will find that come stronger as I proceed, and get the explanations worked through. Problems of style are (as yet) dirt under my feet; my problem is architectural, creative — to get this stuff jointed and moving. If I can do that, I will trouble you for style; anybody might write it, and it would be splendid; well-engineered, the masses right, the blooming thing travelling — twig?

This I wanted you to understand, for lots of the stuff sent home is, I imagine, rot — and slovenly rot — and some of it pompous rot; and I want you to understand it's a lay-in.

Soon, if the tide of poeshie continues, I'11 send you a whole lot to damn. You never said thank you for the handsome tribute addressed to you from Apemama¹; such is the gratitude of the world to the God-sent poick. Well, well: — 'Vex not thou the poick's mind, With thy coriaceous ingratitude, The P. will be to your faults more than a little blind, And yours is a far from handsome attitude.' Having thus dropped into poetry in a spirit of friendship, I have the honour to subscribe myself, Sir,

Your obedient humble servant,

SILAS WEGG.

¹The lines beginning 'I heard the pulse of the besieging sea,' printed Longman's Magazine, January 1895.

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