He
throve there, and was able to enjoy the flavour of the life of
adventure he had craved for, and to look into the bright face of
danger. He built for himself a palace in the wild named Vailima.
From Edinburgh came out the familiar furniture he had been brought
up among, which had been the stage scenery of his chimney-corner
days, when the back bed-room chairs became a ship, and the sofa-back
was his hunter's camp. At Vailima he, like Ibsen's Peer Gynt,
received "a race gift from his childhood's home." He had in olden
times played at being a minister like his grandfather, to wile away
a toyless Sunday. When he grew into his unorthodox dark shirt and
velvet-jacket stage, he had been a rebellious, rather atheistical
youth; but at Samoa, maybe to please his truly good, uncanting
mother, or the sight of the belongings from his old home, made him
bethink himself of his father's reverent conducting of family
worship. He would have the same, but set to work and composed
prayers for himself. Beautifully worded they are, full of his gospel
of kindliness and gladness, and he read them with effective fervour
in the hall of Vailima, with his betartaned servants gathered round.
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