Page:Vailima Letters - Stevenson, Colvin - 1894.djvu/53

VAILIMA LETTERS 27

On the Friday, I was all forenoon in the Mission House, lunched at the German Consulate, went on board the Sperber (German war ship) in the afternoon, called on my lawyer on my way out to American Consulate, and talked till dinner time with Adams, whom I am supplying with introductions and information for Tahiti and the Marquesas. Fanny arrived a wreck, and had to lie down. The moon rose, one day past full, and we dined in the verandah, a good dinner on the whole; talk with Lafarge about art and the lovely dreams of art students.¹ Remark by Adams, which took me briskly home to the Monument — 'I only liked one young woman — and that was Mrs. Procter.'² Henry James would like that. Back by moonlight in the consulate boat — Fanny being too tired to walk — to Moors's. Saturday, I left Fanny to rest, and was off early to the Mission, where the politics are thrilling just now.

¹ Mr. John Lafarge of New York, one of the most original and refined of living artists, whose record of his holiday in the South Seas, in the shape of a series of water-colour sketches of the scenery and people (with a catalogue full of interesting notes and observations) has been one of the features of the Champ de Mars Salon this year, and will, it may be hoped, be exhibited in London by the time these pages are published.

² Mrs. B. W. Procter, the step-daughter of Basil Montagu and widow of Barry Cornwall. The death of this spirited veteran in 1888 snapped away one of the last links with the days and memories of Keats and Coleridge. A shrewd and not too indulgent judge of character, she took R. L. S. into warm favour at first sight, and never spoke of or inquired after him but with unwonted tenderness.