Page:Vailima Letters - Stevenson, Colvin - 1894.djvu/79

VAILIMA LETTERS 53

dined at a French restaurant, and returned to play draughts, whist, or Van John with my family. This makes a cheery life after Samoa; but it isn't what you call burning the candle at both ends, is it? (It appears to me not one word of this letter will be legible by the time I am done with it, this dreadful ink rubs off.) I have a strange kind of novel under construction; it begins about 1660 and ends 1830, or perhaps I may continue it to 1875 or so, with another life. One, two, three, four, five, six generations, perhaps seven, figure therein; two of my old stories, 'Delafield' and 'Shovel,' are incorporated; it is to be told in the third person, with some of the brevity of history, some of the detail of romance. The Shovels of Newton French will be the name. The idea is an old one; it was brought to birth by an accident; a friend in the islands who picked up F. Jenkin,¹ read a part, and said: 'Do you know, that's a strange book? I like it; I don't believe the public will; but I like it.' He thought it was a novel! 'Very well,' said I, 'we'll see whether the public will like it or not; they shall have the chance.'

¹ Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin, by R. L. S. Prefixed to Papers Literary, Scientific, etc., by the late Fleeming Jenkin, F.R.S., LL.D.; 2 vols. London, Longmans, 1887. The first chapters of this memoir consist of a genealogical history of the family. Of 'Delafield' I never heard; the plan of 'Shovel,' which was to be in great part a story of the Peninsular War, had been sketched out as long ago as the seventies.