Stevenson's Shrine: The Record of a Pilgrimage — Story, Setting & Ideas

A Voyage in Two Registers

The early chapters alternate between travelogue and emotional preparation. Stubbs describes Tonga's 'green turf paths' and 'long stately avenues of coconut palms' with a naturalist's eye, yet the language often slips into the subjective: 'The unreality of the scene took hold of me.' This oscillation between objective detail and personal absorption creates a distinctive rhythm. The reader follows a physical journey—Auckland to Tonga, then Vavau to Samoa—but also a psychological one, as Stubbs repeatedly measures each new place against her anticipation of Vailima. The pace is unhurried, lingering on scenes like a 'coral garden' or a 'Kava-Making' ceremony, yet the narrative is pulled forward by the gravitational force of the shrine. The tension between these two registers—the descriptive and the introspective—gives the early chapters a meditative quality that prepares for the climax.

The Ascent and the Plateau

The approach to the grave is marked by a shift in pace and voice. Stubbs describes the climb up Mount Veea as a physical ordeal: 'we, toiling painfully after, knew we had attained.' The prose becomes more fragmented, breathless. At the summit, the narrative slows again, settling into a long, still description of the sarcophagus and its surroundings. Details accumulate: 'a tiny lizard, with a golden head, a green body, and a blue tail,' a 'huge flying fox,' a 'kingfisher, sea-blue, iridescent.' The voice here is quieter, more contemplative, as Stubbs quotes Stevenson's own poem and then Browning's 'Grammarian.' The juxtaposition of these literary references with the immediate natural scene—the 'scarlet hibiscus' against 'gray lichened cement'—underscores the merging of the man with his environment. The pacing mimics the pilgrimage itself: exertion, arrival, stillness.

Voice and the Shifting First Person

Throughout the book, Stubbs's first-person voice is remarkably fluid. At times she is a detached observer, cataloging flora and customs; at others, she becomes an almost devotional figure, addressing Stevenson directly or quoting his verses. This variability is not inconsistency but a deliberate modulation of tone. In the final excerpt, she moves from a report of the grave's inscriptions to a lyrical meditation: 'He is made one with nature.' The 'I' that began as a traveler becomes a pilgrim, then a mourner, then a philosopher. The shifts are signaled by changes in sentence length and rhythm—short, declarative sentences during the ascent; longer, periodic sentences on the plateau. This vocal range gives the book its emotional texture, allowing Stubbs to move between the concrete and the abstract without jarring the reader. The voice never settles into a single register, keeping the narrative alive and responsive to the landscape.

Stubbs's account is best read as a layered document: a travel diary, a literary homage, and a personal meditation. The shifts in pace and voice are not flaws but structural choices that mirror the journey's emotional arc. Readers attentive to the prose's rhythm will find that the book's power lies less in its destination than in the quality of attention Stubbs brings to each stage of the pilgrimage. The final image—the grave as a 'rugged ruin, home of the lizard and the bat'—is earned through the careful accumulation of sensory detail that precedes it.