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A   BOOK    OP 
JLr.  o. 


GEORGE  E.  BROWN 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON  AT  THE  AGE  OF  26 


BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

WORKS,   TRAVELS,   FRIENDS,   AND 
COMMENTATORS 


V 

GEORGE  E.  BROWN 


WITH  EIGHT  ILLUSTRATIONS 


SECOND   EDITION  - 

y. 


METHUEN  &  GO.  LTD. 

36  ESSEX  STREET  W.G. 

LONDON 


First  Published    .     .     November  zoth, 
Second  Edition     .     .  1920 


PR 


875" 


PREFACE 

r  I  ^HE  chief  aim  of  this  book  is  to  provide  a  com- 
A  mentary  on  his  works  as  far  as  possible  from 
Stevenson's  own  standpoint  by  showing  the  circum- 
stances in  which  they  were  written,  their  history  in 
his  hands,  and  his  judgments  of  them.  Only  works 
available  in  current  volumes  or  the  complete  edi- 
tions are  included :  no  attempt  has  been  made  to 
deal  with  those  of  his  contributions  to  periodicals 
which  have  not  been  reprinted.  The  scheme  of  the 
volume  also  embraces  references  to  members  of  his 
family,  and  to  his  more  or  less  intimate  friends  as 
well  as  the  places  directly  associated  with  his 
wandering  life.  In  developing  this  plan  it  was  easy 
to  make  the  work  also  a  bibliography,  and  by  the 
kindness  of  Mr.  J.  Herbert  Slater  the  present  values 
of  first  editions  have  been  quoted  from  the  latter's 
Bibliographical  Handbook,  and  from  recent  issues 
of  '  Book  Prices  Current.'  The  prices  paid  by 
collectors  have  shown  great  fluctuations,  but  chiefly 
in  an  upward  direction,  during  the  last  few  years. 
Most  of  those  quoted  have  been  paid  during  the 
present  period  of  inflated  currency,  and  therefore 
should  be  taken  as  more  roughly  approximate  than 
such  prices  commonly  are. 


vi  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Acknowledgment  needs  to  be  made  first  and 
chiefly  to  Messrs.  Methuen  for  permission  to  quote 
the  '  Letters  '  edited  and  arranged  by  Sir  Sidney 
Colvin,  and  published  by  them.  As  will  be  seen, 
the  present  modest  contribution  to  Stevensonian 
literature  depends  upon  its  use  of  that  material. 
Sir  Graham  Balfour's  '  Life  '  and  the  late  Colonel 
Prideaux's  '  Bibliography '  must  also  be  named  as 
two  other  works  indispensable  to  any  writer  on 
Stevenson. 

In  adopting  an  alphabetical  arrangement,  it  has 
been  thought  that  the  convention  of  the  professional 
indexer,  viz.,  the  rigid  adherence  to  title  except  for 
the  transposition  of  '  A,'  '  An/  or  '  The  '  in  titles 
having  these  beginnings,  was  not  the  most  suitable 
for  the  general  reader.  Therefore,  where  the  title 
of  a  paper  contains  a  word  which  emphatically 
marks  the  subject,  that  word  has  been  chosen  to 
determine  the  alphabetical  position.  Thus  '  Some 
Portraits  by  Raeburn '  is  placed  in  R,  and  '  A  Plea 
for  Gas  Lamps  '  in  G,  but  in  the  absence  of  this 
excuse  a  position  is  allotted  in  accordance  with  the 
untransposed  title.  The  index  will,  it  is  hoped,  make 
good 'any  deficiencies  which  this  compromise  may 
involve. 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

ROBERT  Louis  STEVENSON  AT  THE  AGE  OF  26.    Frontispiece 

TO    FACE   PAGE 

SKERRYVORE,  ALUM  CHINE  ROAD,  BOURNE- 
MOUTH, THE  HOME  OF  R.  L.  STEVENSON 
AND  HIS  WIFE,  FROM  1884  TO  1887  .  .  40 

No.  8   HOWARD   PLACE,   EDINBURGH,   WHERE 

STEVENSON  WAS  BORN,  Nov.  13,  1850        .  86 

GREYFRIARS  CHURCHYARD,  EDINBURGH,  AND 
THE  'RESTING  GRAVES'  OF  THE  COVE- 

NANTERS     .......  128 

- 

No.  1 7  HERIOT  Row,  EDINBURGH,  THE  HOME 
OF  THOMAS  STEVENSON  FROM  1857  TO  HIS 
DEATH  IN  1887 .  .....  166 

R.  L.  STEVENSON  AT  THE  AGE  OF  40  ,         .         .  232 

SWANSTON  COTTAGE,  PENTLAND  HILLS,  THE 
SUMMER  HOME  TAKEN  BY  THOMAS 
STEVENSON  WHEN  HIS  SON  WAS  SEVENTEEN  256 

GREYFRIARS  CHURCHYARD,  EDINBURGH.  .        .  284 


vii 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

ACROSS  THE  PLAINS 

While  now  no  doubt  everybody  knows  that  the 
experiences  of  this  paper  formed  the  second  stage 
in  the  great  adventure  of  Stevenson's  life,  the 
omission  of  all  reference  to  his  business  aboard  the 
emigrant  train  still  gives  an  air  of  strangeness  to 
such  a  personal  narration.  Obviously  R.  L.  S. 
could  not  disclose  the  bald  truth  that  he  had  run 
away  from  his  home  in  Edinburgh,  with  very  slight 
means,  to  marry  the  lady  of  whom,  so  he  thought, 
his  parents  would  disapprove.  It  was  impossible 
for  an  author,  already  of  some  reputation,  to  in- 
dulge a  habit  of  public  confidences  to  the  degree  of 
relating  matters  of  intimacy  which  touched  others  as 
closely  as  himself.  His  isolation  from  his  parents 
which  he  thought  necessary  for  this  project  was  a 
thought  which  pained  him,  for  in  some  verses, 
written  on  the  emigrant  train,  of  the  thoughts  of 
home  awakened  by  the  crowing  of  a  cock  there  are 
the  lines  recently  published  in  New  Poems  and 
Variant  Readings  : — 

He  brings  to  me  dear  voices  of  the  past, 

The  old  land  and  the  years. 
My  father  calls  for  me, 

My  weeping  spirit  hears. 


2  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

At  Monterey,  after  a  short  visit  to  Mrs.  Osbourne 
in  San  Francisco,  he  wrote  the  story  of  his  wearisome 
fortnight's  journey  across  the  American  continent. 
It  was  the  fatigues  of  this  journey  probably  more 
than  the  steerage  passage  across  the  Atlantic  which 
threw  back  Stevenson's  health  to  the  low  pitch  at 
which  it  kept  until  his  arrival  in  the  South  Seas. 
During  the  years  preceding  it  he  had  led  a  mildly 
active  outdoor  life.  At  Monterey,  in  a  letter  to  his 
friend  Gosse,  he  recalled  that  it  was  '  six  years  all 
but  a  few  months  since  I  was  obliged  to  spend 
twenty-four  hours  in  bed.'  And  then,  immediately, 
in  a  repining  mood  :  '  but  death  is  no  bad  friend  ; 
a  few  aches  and  gasps  and  we  are  alone  :  like  the 
truant  child  I  am  beginning  to  grow  weary  hi  this 
big,  jostling  city,  and  could  run  to  my  nurse  even 
though  she  should  have  to  whip  me  before  putting 
me  to  bed.'  There  were  still  darker  passages  for 
him  in  San  Francisco  before  his  marriage  the  follow- 
ing summer,  but  his  self-enforced  monetary  strin- 
gency then  came  to  an  end  by  his  father's  remit- 
tances, and  his  return  journey  to  New  York  with 
his  wife  and  stepson  certainly  did  not  repeat  the 
emigrants'  experiences. 

The  paper,  first  published  in  '  Longman's  Maga- 
zine '  in  1883,  represents  an  abridgment  and  re- 
writing of  the  manuscript,  and  is  so  reprinted  in  the 
volume  Across  the  Plains. 

The  volume  issued  as  Across  the  Plains  contains 
in  addition  to  the  title  essay  those  on  The  Old  Pacific 
Capital  (Monterey),  Fontainebleau,  The  Epilogue  to 
An  Inland  Voyage,  Random  Memories  (of  his  en- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  3 

gineering  days),  The  Lantern  Bearers,  A  Chapter  on 
Dreams,  Beggars,  Letter  to  a  "Young  Gentleman, 
Pulvis  et  Umbra,  and  A  Christmas  Sermon,  most  of 
them  contributions  to  '  Scribner's  Magazine '  in 
1888  (at.  38).  These  essays  are  separately  con- 
sidered, each  under  its  own  title,  on  other  pages  of 
this  book.  Their  selection  and  arrangement  for 
Across  the  Plains  were  undertaken  at  Stevenson's 
wish  by  Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  whose  reference  in  his 
preface  is  to  the  cumulative  effect  of  nearly  ten 
years'  invalidism  upon  Stevenson's  original  buoy- 
ancy of  thought  and  outlook.  If,  in  some  of  these 
essays,  '  the  lights  seem  a  little  turned  down/  it  was 
not  to  be  wondered  at.  They  were  written  at 
Saranac  in  the  winter  of  1887-8,  when  it  was  plain 
that  the  change  from  Bournemouth  to  the  United 
States  held  no  hope  for  a  permanent  remedy  of 
Stevenson's  ill-health.  Yet  certain  of  them  will  be 
recognized  as  the  most  perfect  of  the  essays ;  des- 
tined to  live,  as  Henry  James  writes  of  them,  as 
Stevenson's  '  masculine  wisdom  and  remarkable 
final  sanity.' 

The  original  edition  of  Across  the  Plains  of  317 
pages,  issued  in  1892  by  Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windus, 
has  a  value  of  about  155. 

ADMIRAL  GUINEA 

Of  the  four  plays  written  in  collaboration  with 
Henley,  Admiral  Guinea,  if  without  the  literary 
quality  of  Beau  Austin  or  Macaire,  is  on  the  whole 
the  most  dramatic,  though  its  type  is  one  of  a  low 
order.  The  sinister  character  of  the  blind  sailor 


4  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Pew,  made  less  sinister  but  more  horrible  by  a  vein 
of  jocularity,  is  borrowed  of  course  from  Treasure 
Island.  The  reformed  slaver  captain  was  appar- 
ently the  invention  of  Henley.  Much  of  the  piece 
was  written  by  Stevenson  on  first  settling  at  Bourne- 
mouth in  September  1884,  though  Henley's  was 
plainly  the  moving  and  optimistic  spirit  hi  the  joint 
enterprise.  Stevenson  seems  to  have  been  per- 
suaded to  embark  on  these  dramatic  schemes  against 
his  better  judgment,  and  a  year  later,  in  seeking  to 
disillusion  Henley  of  their  prospect  of  material 
success,  declares  that  he  finds  the  play  '  a  low, 
black,  dirty  blackguard  piece — vomitable  in  many 
parts — simply  vomitable.  Pew  is  in  places  a  re- 
proach to  both  art  and  man.'  This  was  plainly 
written  in  the  heat  of  the  moment,  but  in  discour- 
aging Henley's  effort  to  launch  the  plays  Stevenson, 
as  in  many  other  instances,  anticipated  the  critics. 
The  piece  was  first  performed  at  a  matinee  at  the 
Avenue  Theatre,  London,  November  29,  1897,  and 
was  revived  at  the  Royalty  (Repertory)  Theatre, 
Glasgow,  April  19,  1909,  and  at  His  Majesty's 
Theatre,  London,  June  4,  1909. 

AES  TRIPLEX 

An  essay  which  is  typical  of  Stevenson's  practical 
philosophy  of  life  as  he  conceived  it  in  the  twenties. 
It  is  characteristic  that  with  death  as  his  subject 
he  should  dwell  mainly  on  the  guiding  principles  of 
life.  His  theme  is  courageous  disregard  of  the  con- 
ventional counsels  of  prudence  by  the  observance  of 
which  a  man  misses  the  full  exercise  of  his  powers. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  5 

This  eminently  Stevensonian  philosophy  is  crystal- 
lized in  the  passage  :  '  Does  not  life  go  down  with  a 
better  grace  foaming  in  full  body  over  a  precipice 
than  miserably  straggling  to  an  end  in  sandy  deltas.' 
The  essay  was  written  towards  the  end  of  1877,  or 
beginning  of  1878  (at.  28),  that  is,  near  the -end  of 
the  four  years  of  his  early  life  in  which  his  health 
was  passable.  It  appeared  in  the  '  Cornhill  Maga- 
zine '  of  April  1878,  and  is  collected  in  Virginibus 
Puerisque. 

ALPINE  DIVERSIONS 

As  the  papers  Davos  in  Winter  and  Health  and 
Mountains  very  plainly  show,  Stevenson  (<zt.  30  and 
31)  found  scarcely  any  pleasure  in  the  confined 
mountain  landscape  of  Davos  during  his  two  winters' 
exile  there.  And  his  notes  on  the  indoor  life  of  the 
place  contained  in  the  present  essay  emphasize  the 
sense  of  imprisonment  which  is  to  be  seen  in  all  these 
records  of  his  feelings.  The  performers  who  visited 
the  hotels  appealed  to  him  from  the  fact  that '  they 
at  least  are  moving  :  they  bring  with  them  the  senti- 
ment of  the  open  road  :  yesterday,  perhaps,  they 
were  in  Tyrol,  and  next  week  they  will  be  in  Lom- 
bardy,  while  all  we  sick  folk  still  simmer  in  our 
mountain  prison.'  The  innate  love  of  wandering 
which,  besides  motives  of  health,  led  R.  L.  S.  over 
the  world  is  seen  as  strongly  developed  in  these 
pages  of  its  mortification  as  in  books  like  Travels 
with  a  Donkey,  which  tell  of  its  indulgence.  The 
outdoor  sports  were  the  only  features  of  the  life  at 
Davos  which  moved  Stevenson  to  any  pitch  of  en- 


6  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

thusiasm.  He  skated  and  tobogganed,  and  found 
in  the  headlong  solitary  dash  on  a  toboggan  in  a 
night  of  stars  amidst  these  mountains '  a  new  excite- 
ment to  the  life  of  man  upon  his  planet.'  The  paper 
appeared  in  the  '  Pall  Mall  Gazette,'  February  26, 
1881,  and  is  collected  in  Essays  of  Travel. 

AMATEUR  EMIGRANT,  THE 

Evidently  the  title  of  this  paper  was  intended  to 
apply  to  the  whole  story  of  Stevenson's  journey  to 
California  in  August  1879  (at.  29)  to  arrange  his 
marriage  with  Mrs.  Osbourne.  The  words  fit  the 
record  of  his  experiences  both  as  practically  a  steer- 
age passenger  and  on  the  second  stage  of  the  journey 
— by  rail  across  America — which  forms  the  subject 
of  Across  the  Plains  (q.v.).  At  Monterey  in  October 
he  wrote  that  he  had  drafted  about  half  of  what 
was  to  be  a  book,  The  Amateur  Emigrant.  He  com- 
pleted it,  and  actually  disposed  of  it  to  a  publisher. 
His  father,  however,  objecting  to  the  publication  of 
a  work  which  clearly  provided  the  opportunity  for 
all  kinds  of  inferences,  the  rights  were  bought  back, 
and  the  paper  was  not  allowed  to  appear — and  then 
only  after  revisions  and  abridgments — until  its  in- 
clusion in  the  Edinburgh  edition  in  1895.  Its  great 
realism,  apart  from  the  description  of  natural  effects, 
was  a  new  departure  for  Stevenson,  who  wrote  that 
he  had  '  sought  to  be  prosaic  in  view  of  the  nature 
of  the  subject.'  A  later  opinion  was  that  it  was  '  a 
pretty  heavy  emphatic  piece  of  pedantry :  but  I 
don't  care  :  the  public,  I  verily  believe,  will  like  it.' 
However,  the  self-enforced  necessity  to  support 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  7 

himself  by  his  writings  having  been  removed  by  his 
father's  bestowal  of  a  competency,  he  was  content 
to  suppress  the  paper  until  the  scheme  of  a  complete 
edition  of  his  works  was  undertaken.  In  his  books 
as  at  present  published  it  forms  the  first  of  the 
Essays  of  Travel. 

ANSTRUTHER 

This  Fifeshire  coast  town  is  notable  among  the 
many  places  visited  by  R.  L.  S.  in  having  provided 
the  material  for  the  two  essays,  written  twenty 
years  afterwards,  The  Coast  of  Fife  and  The  Edu- 
cation of  an  Engineer.  Stevenson  was  there  for  a 
month  of  his  eighteenth  year  for  the  purpose  of 
studying  the  building  of  harbour  works,  and  was 
soon  '  utterly  sick  of  this  grey,  grim,  sea-beaten 
hole/  The  legends  and  names  of  Fife  interested 
him  a  good  deal  more  than  marine  engineering  ;  and 
if  he  preserved  the  recollection  of  Wick,  whither  he 
proceeded,  as  the  type  of  an  unpleasant  place  re- 
quiring a  peculiar  philosophy  for  its  enjoyment, 
Anstruther  was  coupled  with  it  in  that  denomination, 
His  lodging  was  Cunzie  (or  Kenzie)  House,  a  solid 
two-storey  building,  with  an  outside  wooden  stair- 
way leading  to  the  upper  floor. 

APOLOGY  FOR  IDLERS,  AN 

This  essay,  written  when  he  was  twenty-six,  was, 
as  Stevenson  told  Mrs.  Sitwell,  '  really  a  defence  of 
R.  L.  S.'  Stevenson  felt  himself  marked  as  an  idler 
in  more  than  one  respect.  In  the  circles  of  his 
father's  friends  in  Edinburgh  his  systematic  truantry 


8  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

from  his  engineering  and  legal  studies  had  earned 
him  that  reputation  :  among  the  literary  men  in 
London  whose  friendship  he  had  made  in  his  early 
twenties  he  was  still  received  as  something  of  a 
dilettante.  Therefore  his  paper  need  not  be  taken 
as  the  development  of  a  theme  chosen  merely  to 
provide  a  medium  for  his  art  as  an  essayist.  At 
this  time  of  his  life  his  spirit  was  in  revolt  against 
the  exaltation  of  humdrum  industry  and  material 
success  to  the  places  accorded  to  them  by  writers 
like  Dr.  Samuel  Smiles.  It  is  easy  to  understand 
that  having  come  to  his  own  profession  by  indus- 
triously neglecting  two  others,  he  was  inclined  to 
disparage  the  persistent  application  which  stolidly 
follows  the  appointed  path.  There  was  also  in 
Stevenson  much  of  a  boy's  contempt  for  the  serious 
conventionally  grown-up  view  of  life.  With  what 
satisfaction  he  hailed  the  young  boating  men  of 
Brussels  in  The  Inland  Voyage  who,  after  business 
hours,  became  serieux.  His  idler  is  not  the  lazy 
person,  but  one  intensely  busy  in  the  business  of 
happiness,  a  view  which  characterized  Stevenson's 
thought  throughout  his  life. 

The  essay,  after  having  been  declined  by 
'  Macmillan's  Magazine/  appeared  in  the  '  Cornhill ' 
of  July  1877,  and  is  placed  hi  the  volume  Virginibus 
Puerisque. 

APPEAL  TO  THE  CLERGY  OF  THE  CHURCH 
OF  SCOTLAND,  AN 

An  anonymous  pamphlet,  written  when  he  was 
twenty-four,  is  the  first  of  many  sermons  contained 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  9 

in  Stevenson's  writings,  and  was  addressed,  of  all 
people,  to  the  preachers  themselves.  Of  this  plea 
for  renunciation  of  sectarian  differences  he  wrote  to 
his  friend  Colvin  :  '  I  am  going  to  launch  on  Scotch 
ecclesiastical  affairs,  in  a  tract  addressed  to  the 
Clergy ;  in  which,  doctrinal  matters  being  laid  aside, 
I  contend  simply  that  they  should  be  just  and 
dignified  men  at  a  certain  crisis  :  this  for  the  honour 
of  humanity.  Its  authorship  must,  of  course,  be 
secret  or  the  publication  would  be  useless.  You 
shall  have  a  copy  of  course,  and  may  God  help  you 
to  understand  it.'  The  pamphlet,  when  issued  by 
Messrs.  Blackwood  in  February  1875,  attracted, 
Sir  Sidney  Colvin  believes,  no  attention  whatever. 
It  was  not  republished  until  its  inclusion  in  the 
Edinburgh  edition,  and  is  not  placed  in  any  of  the 
current  volumes. 

APPIN  MURDER 

In  Kidnapped  R.  L.  S.  interweaves  with  the  adven- 
tures of  David  Balfour  a  real  fragment  of  the  stormy 
history  of  the  Highlands,  which  has  thus  come  to  a 
degree  of  prominence  it  would  not  otherwise  have 
secured.  This  is  the  Appin  murder  of  1752,  not 
a  year  earlier,  as  Stevenson  makes  it  from  no  appar- 
ent motive.  In  Chapter  XVII.  David,  after  his 
escape  from  the  brig  and  sufferings  on  the  islet,  is 
pitchforked  into  the  crime,  and  exchanges  one  series 
of  misfortunes  for  another.  In  Catriona  the  pivot 
of  the  story  of  his  further  adventures  is  the  trial  of 
James  Stewart  on  the  charge  of  the  murder,  but  so 
much  is  taken  for  granted  in  the  way  of  the  reader's 


io  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

knowledge  of  the  real  events  and  persons,  that  a 
brief  recital  of  this  page  of  Scottish  history  is  a 
needful  commentary,  and  one  which,  as  R.  L.  S. 
admitted,  his  friend  Andrew  Lang  '  bleated '  for 
him  to  supply  as  an  introduction  to  the  two  works 
when  published  in  a  single  volume. 

The  Appin  murder  was  the  outcome  of  the  dis- 
affected state  of  many  parts  of  the  Scottish  High- 
lands which  resulted  from  the  sternness  with  which 
the  last  desperate  effort  to  restore  the  Stuart  dynasty 
was  punished  by  the  Government  of  George  n. 
After  the  short-lived  adventure  of  Prince  Charles 
Edward  (the  Young  Chevalier)  in  the  Jacobite  rising 
of  1745,  estates  of  those  on  the  Stuart  side  were 
forfeited  and  agents  appointed  for  the  collection  of 
rents,  letting  of  farms,  etc.  As  Mr.  Lang  says,  the 
Highlands  in  1752  were  boiling  like  a  cauldron.  The 
then  Duke  of  Argyll  (head  of  the  Clan  Campbell) 
was  on  the  side  of  the  Government  in  the  rebellion  ; 
hence  hatred  of  Jacobite  clans — Stewarts,  Camerons, 
and  others — for  the  Campbells  was  intensified  by 
the  circumstances  of  the  time. 

The  scene  of  the  murder  was  the  Appin  country, 
the  peninsula  of  coast  between  Loch  Leven  and 
Loch  Creran  on  the  Linnhe  Loch.  Ardshiel,  of  the 
Appin  Stewarts,  though  not  their  chief,  was  in  exile 
in  France  after  the  '45,  his  tenantry  continuing  to 
pay  their  rents  to  him,  and  making  a  like  payment 
to  the  Government.  In  his  absence  J antes  Stewart 
of  the  Glen,  otherwise  Stewart  of  Acharn,  from  the 
name  of  his  farm,  was  leader  of  his  clansmen.  He 
had  taken  part  in  Prince  Charles's  rising,  but  had 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  n 

been  pardoned.  On  the  other  hand,  Alan  Breck 
(q.v.),  a  Stewart,  to  whom  James  had  been  a  kind 
of  foster-father,  was  still  an  outlaw.  The  third  char- 
acter in  the  tragedy  was  Captain  Colin  Campbell  of 
Glenure — Colin  Roy,  '  Red  Fox,'  and  Red  Colin,  as 
he  was  variously  called — factor  of  the  Ardshiel 
estates.  In  the  spring  of  1752  there  was  a  dispute 
between  James  and  Glenure  as  to  the  expulsion  of 
certain  tenants  on  the  estate.  At  the  end  of  April 
James  had  returned  from  Edinburgh  where  he  had 
sought  to  lodge  pleas  for  the  suspension  of  the 
evictions.  On  the  I4th  May,  Glenure,  with  an 
Edinburgh  lawyer,  Mungo  Campbell,  a  sheriff's 
officer,  and  a  servant,  left  Fort  William  to  carry  out 
the  evictions  the  next  day.  The  party  crossed 
Ballachulish  Ferry,  familiar  to  motorists  in  the 
Highlands,  and  proceeded  coastwise  by  the  hillside 
road  towards  Kintalline.  Then,  from  the  slopes 
of  the  wood  of  Lettermore  there  came  a  shot,  the 
Campbell  fell  to  the  ground,  and  in  a  few  moments 
was  dead.  His  companion  saw  a  man  with  a  short 
dark-coloured  coat  hastening  up  the  hillside  carrying 
a  gun. 

The  murderer  made  good  his  escape.  The 
authorities  were  left  without  a  single  piece  of  direct 
evidence  of  the  authorship  of  the  crime.  Alan 
Breck  was  known  to  have  been  in  the  neighbourhood 
on  that  same  day.  He  speedily  sought  safety  in  the 
mountains,  and  eventually  in  France.  Throughout 
Appin  rigorous  measures  were  taken.  James  of  the 
Glen  with  his  sons  and  servants  was  placed  under 
arrest.  From  the  outset  he  was  subjected  to  treat- 


12  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

ment  which  went  far  beyond  the  legal  usage  of  the 
time.  For  months  he  was  not  allowed  to  see  a 
lawyer,  or  even  to  know  the  precise  charge  against 
him.  The  savage  purpose  of  this  isolation  was  that 
his  trial  might  not  take  place  in  Edinburgh  before 
an  unbiased  jury :  the  Campbells  manoeuvred  for  it 
to  be  heard  in  the  Argyll  Circuit  Court  at  Inveraray 
before  a  jury  of  their  own  clan.  It  was  not  until 
August  21  that  a  move  was  made  in  charging  Alan 
Breck  and  James  Stewart  as  jointly  guilty  of  the 
murder,  Alan  as  principal,  and  James  as  accessory. 
The  trial  was  fixed  for  September  21,  but  it  was  only 
three  days  beforehand  that  the  unfortunate  James 
was  able  to  confer  with  his  counsel.  The  judicial 
farce  was  carried  to  even  greater  lengths.  Although 
three  judges  sat  on  the  bench,  one  of  them,  the  Duke 
of  Argyll,  had  the  slightest  judicial  qualifications, 
but,  as  in  other  instances,  had  had  the  office  of  Lord 
Justice-General  conferred  upon  him  by  virtue  of  his 
rank.  On  no  other  occasion  had  such  an  occupant 
of  the  position  tried  a  case  in  a  Circuit  Court. 
Here  Argyll  sat  as  head  of  the  Clan  Campbell  to 
condemn  an  enemy,  pursuing  his  purpose  by  the 
compliance  of  his  professional  colleagues.  More- 
over, the  jury  was  one  almost  wholly  of  Campbells, 
and  they  so  little  sensible  of  the  gravity  of  their 
office  that,  one  of  them  broke  into  a  speech  of  the 
prisoner's  counsel  with  the  ejaculation  '  Pray,  sir, 
cut  it  short.' 

Of  the  counsel  for  the  Crown,  R.  L.  S.  in  Catriona 
makes  special  use  of  the  Lord  Advocate,  the  Right 
Hon.  Sir  William  Grant  of  Prestongrange  (q.v.),  and 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  13 

of  Simon  Fraser  (q.v.},  otherwise  the  Master  of  Lovat. 
The  latter  had  fought  for  Prince  Charles  in  the  '45, 
had  been  pardoned,  and  thus,  in  taking  part  in  the 
prosecution  of  a  former  fellow  member  of  the  Jacobite 
party,  is  presented  in  an  ugly  light.  R.  L.  S.,  with 
perhaps  an  instinct  of  his  character,  makes  of  him 
a  most  repulsive  figure,  the  drawing  of  which  was 
the  subject  of  public  protests  by  the  Clan  Frazer 
when  Kidnapped  was  published. 

The  prosecution  sought  first  to  establish  the  guilt 
of  Breck,  but  the  evidence  amounted  to  no  more 
than  that  Breck  had  used  threatening  language  in 
regard  to  Glenure,  that  he  was  in  the  neighbourhood 
on  the  day  of  the  murder,  was  wearing  a  dark  grey 
suit,  and  disappeared  immediately  afterwards  ;  all 
of  which  fell  short  of  positive  proof.  Yet  if  Breck's 
guilt  had  been  proved,  the  evidence  in  favour  of 
James's  connivance  was  even  more  slender.  It 
scarcely  went  beyond  the  known  friendship  of 
James  and  Alan,  and  the  former's  ill-will  to- 
wards Glenure.  Of  real  evidence  of  the  conniv- 
ance in  the  murder  there  was  none  which  could 
be  classed  as  proof. 

One  incident  connected  with  the  trial  is  used  by 
R.  L.  S.  for  much  of  the  motif  of  Catriona.  In  1752 
one  of  the  greatest  rascals  which  Scotland  ever  pro- 
duced, namely,  James  MacGregor  More  (q.v.),  or 
Drummond,  lay  in  Tolbooth  jail  in  Edinburgh. 
Him  James  Stewart  had  visited  there  when  on 
business  of  the  Ardshiel  tenants.  After  the  murder 
Drummond,  with  characteristic  villainy,  proffered 
evidence  to  the  effect  that  on  the  occasion  of  his  visit 


14  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

James  sought  to  induce  him  (according  to  other 
accounts,  his  brother  Robin  Oig)  to  murder  Glenure, 
and  he  had  promised  to  commit  the  crime.  The 
cunning  villain  knew  that  if  he  were  to  appear  as 
a  witness  he  must  first  be  pardoned.  The  relatives 
of  Glenure  would  have  been  glad  "to  have  obtained 
this  evidence,  but  the  Government  prosecutors  very 
rightly  refused  to  admit  the  testimony  of  a  rogue  of 
his  evil  notoriety.  These  facts,  which  are  estab- 
lished, lie  behind  the  comings  of  James  More  to 
the  Advocate's  house  in  Catriona ;  and  R.  L.  S.  also 
makes  use  of  the  unverified  tradition  that  though 
Drummond  did  not  appear  at  the  trial  his  evidence 
was  privately  circulated  among  the  jury. 

In  the  early  hours  of  Sunday,  September  24,  the 
trial  came  to  a  close,  in  accordance  with  Scots 
criminal  law,  with  the  speech  of  the  accused's  counsel. 
Of  Argyll's  summing  up,  if  there  was  any,  there 
is  no  record.  For  fifty  hours  without  intermission 
the  jury  had  attended  the  proceedings,  and  the 
suggestion  was  made  that  they  should  rest  before 
considering  their  verdict.  But  they  consulted  at 
once,  and  within  four  hours  unanimously  returned 
a  verdict  of  guilty.  Argyll's  address  to  the  con- 
demned man  which  followed  was  an  harangue  in 
which  clan  hatred  overpowered  calm  justice.  On 
November  8,  1752,  in  a  spot  near  to  the  place  of  the 
murder,  James  of  the  Glen  was  hanged.  The  written 
statement  which  he  read  to  the  spectators  contained 
the  most  touching  appeals  to  his  friends  to  refrain 
from  hatred  of  his  persecutors — a  poignant  end  to 
an  act  of  political  revenge  which,  as  various  eminent 


A  BOOK  OF  R.L.  S.  15 

writers  have  agreed,  is  a  blot  on  Scottish  judicial 
records. 

Who  was  the  real  murderer  of  Glenure  ?  Accord- 
ing to  students  of  the  mystery  such  as  the  late 
Andrew  Lang  and  Mr.  David  N.  Mackay,  the  secret 
is  kept  to  this  day  in  several  Stewart  families. 
Mr.  Mackay  concludes  that  Alan  Breck  did  not  fire 
the  shot  though  he  was  '  in  the  know.'  Mr.  Lang 
also,  who  claims  to  know  as  much  of  the  secret  as 
is  known,  apparently  believes  Alan  to  have  been  an 
accessory.  These  writers  repeat  the  story  of  the 
other  man  who  on  the  day  of  the  execution  had  to 
be  bound  with  ropes.  He  wished  to  save  James's 
neck  at  the  eleventh  hour  by  his  declaration,  but  his 
kinsmen's  view  was  that  he  would  only  share  his 
fate.  R.  L.  S.  in  the  preface  to  Kidnapped  is  em- 
phatic that  tradition  absolves  Alan,  but  it  would 
seem  that  his  conviction  rests  on  no  more  substantial 
ground  than  that  in  1882  when  at  Lochearnhead, 
which  is  only  forty  miles  from  the  scene  of  the  murder, 
he  made  some  inquiries.  The  details  of  the  Appin 
crime,  however,  had  been  a  study  of  his,  for  in  1881, 
when  his  application  for  the  professorship  of  history 
and  law  at  Edinburgh  University  was  before  the 
electors,  he  had  had  in  mind  writing  and  submitting 
an  essay  '  The  Murder  of  Red  Colin,'  but  the  theme 
was  not  used  until  embodied  in  the  adventures  of 
David  Balfour. 

The  most  complete  account  of  the  trial  is  '  The 
Trial  of  James  Stewart,'  by  David  N.  Mackay 
(Edinburgh,  Wm.  Hodge  &  Co.).  '  The  Appin 
Murder,'  by  the  same  author  and  publishers,  is  a 


16  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

short  and  popular  version.  Mr.  Lang,  in  including 
the  murder  in  his  '  Historical  Mysteries '  (Smith 
Elder,  1904),  says  as  much  (or  as  little)  as  is  com- 
patible with  non-disclosure  of  the  secret  which  he 
declared  he  knew  but  might  not  tell. 

ARCHER,  WILLIAM  (1856-        ) 

Stevenson's  junior  by  six  years,  Mr.  Archer  was 
one  of  the  first  of  those,  altogether  unknown  to  him, 
to  appreciate  his  work.  An  anonymous  review  of 
The  Child's  Garden  of  Verses  brought  them  together 
through  Stevenson  writing  the  four  words  '  Now 
who  are  you  ?  '  The  reply  disclosing  its  author- 
ship, the  sequel  was  the  interchange  of  letters,  visits 
to  Bournemouth,  and  a  close  friendship  which  lasted 
until  Stevenson's  death,  and  is  embodied  in  some  of 
the  most  intimate  of  the  '  Letters.'  Mr.  Archer's 
son  to  whom,  as  a  child  of  three,  Stevenson  wrote 
the  amusing  letters — to  '  my  dear  Tomarcher ' — 
had  grown  up  to  be  a  man  and  a  soldier,  and  fought 
and  perished  in  the  repulse  of  the  Germans'  attack 
on  Mount  Kemmel  in  April  1918,  the  engagement  in 
which  the  final  victory  of  the  Entente  was  decisively 
determined.  He  enlisted  twice  in  the  infantry,  first 
returning  from  America  on  the  outbreak  of  war,  and 
afterwards  resigning  a  commission  in  the  Ordnance 
Service  to  rejoin  his  regiment,  the  London  Scottish. 
As  a  mere  baby  he  was  devoted  to  The  Child's 
Garden  of  Verses,  and  could  repeat  many  of  the  poems 
before  he  could  speak  plainly.  It  was  this  and  other 
anecdotes  of  him  that  no  doubt  led  Stevenson,  who 
never  actually  saw  him,  to  take  an  interest  in  him. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  17 

ART  OF  WRITING,  ESSAYS  IN  THE 

The  volume  first  issued  by  Messrs.  Chatto  & 
Windus  in  1905,  containing  the  papers  on  Realism 
and  on  Style  in  Literature,  with  others  less  directly 
appropriate  to  the  title.  These  are  :  The  Morality  of 
the  Profession  of  Letters,  Books  which  have  Influenced 
Me,  My  First  Book — Treasure  Island,  The  Genesis 
of  the  Master  of  Ballantrae,  and  the  Preface  to  the 
last-named,  written  but  not  used. 


ARMOUR,  MARGARET 

Author  of  a  little  book  '  The  Home  and  Early 
Haunts  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson '  (Edinburgh, 
Riverside  Press,  1895).  Slight  sketches  of  Steven- 
son's associations  with  Edinburgh,  Colinton,  and 
Swanston. 


ATTWATER 

The  extraordinary  figure  of  the  Cambridge  man> 
turned  pearl-fisher  and  merciless  evangelist  in  The 
Ebb  Tide.  His  '  manner  and  way  of  speech ''  were 
modelled,  as  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  has  told  us,  on  a 
Cambridge  friend,  A.  G.  Dew-Smith  (q.v.)  :  '  a  man 
of  fine  artistic  taste  and  mechanical  genius,  with  a 
silken,  somewhat  foreign  urbanity  of  bearing/ 
R.  L.  S.,  who  expressed  more  doubts  of  The  Ebb  Tide 
than  of  any  other  of  his  works,  thought  Attwater 
'  no  end  of  a  courageous  attempt  .  .  .  how  far 
successful  is  another  affair.'  A  later  judgment  was  : 
'  A  little  indecision  about  Attwater,  not  much/ 


i8  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The  most  real,  if  often  disguised,  autobiography 
of  R.  L.  S.,  is  scattered  among  his  writings,  n<?t  only 
in  the  essays  of  Memories  and  Portraits,  the  preface 
to  which  marks  them  as  such,  and  in  the  books  of 
travel  in  France  and  America,  but  in  almost  every 
later  essay ;  in  the  Child's  Garden  of  Verses,  and 
pre-eminently  in  his  Letters  (q.v.},  the  most  complete 
edition  of  which  is  that  of  1911  (Methuen).  It  was 
an  inherent  part  of  Stevenson's  nature  to  put  him- 
self in  his  published  writings.  An  essay  on  child's 
play  or  idlers  became  in  his  hands  a  good  part  auto- 
biography. While  critics,  as  he  said,  '  murmur  over 
my  consistent  egotism,'  his  readers  derive  in  these 
confidences  the  peculiar  charm  which  R.  L.  S.  has 
for  them,  and  many  no  doubt  a  pleasure  in  piecing 
them  with  the  real  doings  of  his  life.  But  of  formal 
autobiography  there  exist  some  fragments  written 
in  California  in  1880  (<zt.  30)  on  the  manuscript  of 
which  two  years  afterwards  Stevenson  pencilled : 
'  These  notes  contain  more  damned  idiocy  and  self- 
conceit  than  I  ever  saw  printed  in  the  same  space 
anywhere  else.' 

Apparently  the  pieces  of  autobiography  contained 
in  the  unabridged  edition  of  the  '  Life '  by  Sir 
Graham  Balfour  are  the  notes  to  which  this  com- 
ment applied,  but  are  not  the  whole  of  them.  Their 
quotation  is  there  acknowledged  as  by  courtesy  of 
Stevenson's  stepdaughter,  Mrs.  Strong,  by  whom  an 
autobiography  was  included  in  a  sale  of  many  other 
Stevenson  manuscripts  in  New  York  hi  1914.  This 
manuscript  advertized  as  bearing  Stevenson's  savage 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  19 

annotation,  therefore  seems  to  be  that  quoted  in  the 
'  Life,'  where  it  is  described  as  consisting  of  three 
'  books.'  Book  I.,  presuming  there  was  more  of  it, 
is  quoted  only  to  the  extent  of  a  passage  sketching 
the  aunt,  Miss  Jane  Balfour  (q.v.),  by  whom  her 
father's  manse  at  Colinton  was  made  the  pleasant 
holiday  place  for  her  many  nephews  and  nieces. 
The  sentence  '  this  little  country  manse  was  the 
centre  of  the  world  :  and  Aunt  Jane  represented 
Charity '  sums  up  Stevenson's  glance  back  at  this 
time  upon  his  childhood  there.  Book  II.,  all  that 
exists  of  it  and  that  but  a  fragment,  is  of  the  scanty 
pocket  money  (twelve  pounds  a  year)  allowed  him 
until  he  was  twenty-three,  and  of  the  society  of 
'  seamen,  chimney-sweeps,  and  thieves/  which  he 
met  in  the  inn  kitchens  which  were  the  only  places 
within  his  means.  Book  III.,  headed  '  From  Jest 
to  Earnest,'  and  a  narrative  of  some  length,  but  in- 
complete, sketches  his  four  earliest  friends,  viz.,  his 
cousin  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson,  Sir  Walter  Simpson, 
James  Walter  Ferrier,  and  Charles  Baxter,  somewhat 
in  the  vein  of  Talk  and  Talkers.  But  for  the  most 
part  it  details  the  absurdly  harmless  hoaxes,  devised 
on  an  elaborate  system,  which  the  two  Stevenson 
cousins  exulted  in  circulating  among  the  townsfolk 
of  Edinburgh.  These  pranks  were  entered  into  for 
the  pure  joy  of  their  absurdity  :  the  relish  of  them 
was  in  nowise  dulled  by  a  complete  ignorance  of 
their  reception,  was,  in  fact,  sharpened  by  the 
pictures  of  mystification  which  the  pair  afterwards 
proceeded  to  create  in  their  imaginations.  '  If  they 
were  silly,'  R.  L.  S.  recalled, '  they  were  never  cruel/ 


20  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

and  instanced  the  variations  of  the  '  John  Libbel ' 
hoax,  the  story  of  which  looks  incredibly  foolish  in 
print,  but  nevertheless  reflects  a  part  of  Stevenson's 
personality  which,  in  talk  though  not  in  practice,  out- 
lasted for  some  years  these  days  of  mirth  as  a  youth 
of  twenty. 

AUTUMN  EFFECT,  AN 

The  picture  of  a  tramp  which  R.  L.  S.  made  alone 
in  the  Chiltern  Hills  in  October  1874  (cet.  24).  High 
Wycombe,  from  which  he  started,  was  then,  as  now, 
a  busy  little  place,  but  Great  Missenden  and  Wen- 
do  ver,  to  which  he  journeyed  along  paths  and  by- 
roads which  cross  the  chief  highways  of  the  Chiltems, 
had  not  then  been  linked  to  London,  and  partly 
suburbanized  by  the  Metropolitan  and  Great  Central 
railways.  At  Great  Missenden  the  inn  where  he 
stayed  is  the  Red  Lion,  and  the  sloping  garden 
behind  it  must  still  be  as  when  Stevenson  smoked  an 
early  morning  pipe  there  in  conversation  with  the 
landlord  (a  Mr.  Thoroughgood)  as  to  the  astro- 
nomical distance  covered  by  the  latter  in  driving  the 
Wendover  coach.  His  inn  at  Wendover  was  also 
the  Red  Lion,  since  destroyed  by  fire  and  rebuilt 
but  not  with  the  re-creation  of  the  perfect  parlour 
of  the  essay,  though  Peacock  Farm  above  it  on  the 
hill  can  still  reward  the  climber  with  its  prospects 
and  gay-plumaged  birds.  The  Autumn  Effect  with 
its  clear  pictures  of  landscape  and  its  intimate 
glimpses  of  people  met  by  the  way,  was  the  first 
travel  essay  to  be  published,  though  not  the 
first  written.  It  appeared  in  the  '  Portfolio/ 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  21 

April   and   May,  1875,  and  is  now  placed  in  the 
Essays  of  Travel. 

BAGSTER'S  *  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS  ' 

The  paper  on  the  almost  thumbnail  illustrations 
to  an  edition  of '  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  '  was  written 
at  Davos  in  1881  (at.  31),  and  is  one  of  the  contri- 
butions to  '  The  Magazine  of  Art '  (February  1882) 
of  which  Henley  was  then  editor.  It  was  evidently 
a  commission,  for  to  Henley  he  wrote  :  '  I  have 
nearly  killed  myself  over  Bunyan.  .  .  .  For  some 
reason  it  proved  one  of  the  hardest  things  I  ever 
tried  to  write  :  perhaps — but  no — I  have  no  theory 
to  offer — it  went  against  the  spirit.  But,  as  I  say, 
I  girt  up  my  loins  and  nearly  died  of  it.'  The  book, 
however,  as  is  shown  by  the  paper  Rosa  quo  Locorum, 
was  one  familiar  to  him  from  infancy.  The  author 
of  the  tiny  drawings  in  which  Stevenson  claimed  to 
discover  so  close  a  kinship  in  imaginative  power 
with  Bunyan  was,  as  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  has  ascer- 
tained, the  eldest  daughter  of  the  publisher,  Miss 
Eunice  Bagster,  the  book  having  been  first  issued 
in  1845.  Stevenson  mentioned  the  paper  for  in- 
clusion in  the  Edinburgh  edition,  where  it  is  accom- 
panied by  reproductions  of  the  drawings.  It  is  now 
published  with  other  criticisms  in  Lay  Morals. 

BAILDON,  H.  BELLYSE  (1849-1907) 

Author  of  '  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  :  A  Life 
Study  in  Criticism'  (London,  Chatto  &  Windus, 
1901).  Mr.  Baildon,  who  was  lecturer  in  English 
literature  at  Vienna  University,  and  afterwards  at 


22  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Dundee,  was  with  Stevenson  at  a  small  school  kept 
by  Mr.  Robert  Thomson,  in  Frederick  Street,  Edin- 
burgh, for  backward  and  delicate  boys.  The 
chapter  of  his  book  on  their  schooldays  together 
shows  Stevenson  at  the  age  of  fourteen  or  fifteen 
active  as  a  contributor  to  the  school  magazine,  the 
author  of  a  romantic  serial  tale,  which  appeared  in 
its  pages.  The  sympathetic  literary  criticism  which 
occupies  the  greater  part  of  Mr.  Baildon's  book  is 
supplemented  by  a  list  of  references  to  some  fifty 
or  more  articles  on  and  reminiscences  of  Stevenson 
scattered  through  the  English  and  American  press. 

BALFOUR,  SIR  GRAHAM  [1858-    ] 

The  author  of  the  fullest  and,  if  the  term  may  be 
used,  official  biography  of  Stevenson  is  one  of 
R.  L.  S.'s  many  cousins,  the  son  of  Dr.  T.  Graham 
Balfour,  M.D.,  F.R.S.  (president  of  the  Royal 
Statistical  Society),  and  since  1903  director  of 
education  in  Staffordshire.  For  the  last  two  and 
a  half  years  of  Stevenson's  life  his  cousin  made  his 
home  at  Vailima.  Although  until  his  arrival  there 
the  two  had  never  met,  they  speedily  became  on 
terms  of  the  closest  intimacy.  The  publication  of 
'  The  Life  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson '  was  long 
postponed,  partly  from  the  fact  that  it  was  originally 
to  have  been  written  by  Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  and 
partly  from  the  delay  in  collecting  material  from 
friends  of  Stevenson  scattered  throughout  the  world. 
But  since  its  first  appearance  with  Messrs.  Methuen 
in  1901  it  has  passed  through  eighteen  editions  and, 
the  violent  review  of  it  by  Henley  notwithstanding, 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  23 

ranks  with  the  collected  '  Letters '  as  the  most 
complete  presentation  of  Stevenson  which  we 
have. 

BALFOUR,  MISS  JANE  WHYTE  (1816-1907) 

The  essay,  The  Manse,  which  depicts  Stevenson's 
relations,  as  a  child,  with  his  grandfather,  Dr.  Lewis 
Balfour,  passes  over  the  latter's  daughter,  Miss 
Jane  Balfour,  by  whom  for  many  years  her  father's 
house  was  managed.  This  '  chief  of  my  aunts '  of 
The  Child's  Garden,  was  the  second  mother  to  her 
many  nephews  and  nieces,  for  whom  Colinton  Manse 
was  a  summer  home.  Stevenson  has  sketched  her 
in  a  fragment  of  Autobiography  (q.v.)  as,  in  her  youth, 
'  very  imperious,  managing,  and  self-sufficient.  But 
as  she  grew  up  she  began  to  suffice  for  all  the  family 
as  well.  An  accident  on  horseback  made  her  nearly 
deaf  and  blind,  and  suddenly  transformed  this 
wilful  empress  into  the  most  serviceable  and  amiable 
of  women.'  Her  amiability  is  seen  in  her  spoiling  of 
young  Louis,  who  had  only  to  drop  the  smallest  hint 
of  what  he  wanted  for  it  to  be  his.  And  as  to 
domestic  efficiency,  a  letter  of  hers  (engaging  a 
servant),  preserved  by  a  writer  in  '  Chambers's 
Journal,'  may  be  allowed  to  tell  its  own  tale  : 

'  Mr.  Dalgleish  mentions  that  you  think  the  wages 
small,  but  ten  shillings  more  in  the  half-year  is  the 
highest  I  have  given  since  I  had  a  nursery-maid,  and 
as  I  will  have  your  travelling  expenses  to  pay  I  cannot 
promise  you  more  than  the  three  pounds  for  this 
half-year.  However,  if  you  study  to  please  me,  be 


24  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

sober-minded,  honest,  obliging,  and  willing  to  do 
all  you  can  to  serve  myself  and  Mr.  Balfour,  as  well 
as  be  ready  to  do  anything  in  your  power  for  the 
young  folk,  I  will  give  you  five  shillings  above  the 
three  pounds.  There  are  just  four  of  our  young 
folk  statedly  at  home,  and  we  are  very  often  very 
quiet,  though  there  is  a  hurry  at  a  time.  Any  extra 
work  that  you  may  not  be  up  to  I  promise  to  give 
you  assistance  in  till  you  come  into  the  way  of  it ; 
but  it  will  be  a  great  comfort  to  me,  as  well  as  to 
yourself  if,  when  you  have  learned  the  method  that 
I  like,  you  endeavour  to  attend  to  it,  not  with  eye- 
service  as  a  man  pleases,  but  in  singleness  of  your 
heart,  as  unto  God.' 

To  Stevenson's  mother  also  she  ministered  on  the 
latter's  return  from  Samoa  after  her  son's  death. 
The  two  sisters  lived  together  in  Edinburgh  until 
Mrs.  Stevenson's  death,  when  the  elder  returned  to 
the  Colinton.  manse  to  die  there  in  1907  at  the  age 
of  91. 

BALFOUR,  DR.  LEWIS  (GRANDFATHER)  (1777- 

1860) 

From  Dr.  Balfour,  Stevenson  took  the  name  of 
Lewis.  The  spelling  but  not  the  pronunciation  was 
changed  to  Louis  when  he  was  about  eighteen,  on 
account  of  its  being  the  name  also  of  an  Edinburgh 
citizen  much  disliked  both  by  him  and  his  father. 
To  his  family  and  intimate  friends  he  was  always 
'  Lewis.'  The  portrait  of  his  grandfather  in  The 
Manse  is  one  through  Stevenson's  eyes  when  a  boy 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  25 

of  from  five  to  ten  years  in  admiring  fear  of  this  old 
man  of  eighty.  For  nearly  forty  years  Dr.  Balfour 
was  minister  of  Colinton,  where  his  thirteen  children 
were  reared.  His  wife's  father,  and  thus  a  great- 
grandfather of  Stevenson's  on  his  mother's  side,  was 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Smith  of  Galston  in  Ayrshire,  the  sub- 
ject of  Burns's  mocking  verse  in  the  '  Holy  Fair  ' : 

Smith  opens  out  his  cold  harangues 

On  practice  and  on  morals, 
An'  aft  the  godly  pour  in  thrangs 

To  gie  the  jars  and  barrels 
A  lift  that  day. 

Among  his  intimate  friends  Stevenson  would  be 
chaffingly  saluted  with  '  Smith  opens  out,'  on  the 
beginning  of  a  sermon  from  him  being  discerned. 
He  quotes  the  phrase  against  himself  in  one  of  his 
letters. 

BALLADS 

The  most  ambitious  and,  if  one  excepts  the  Child's 
Garden,  the  best  of  Stevenson's  work  in  verse 
belongs  to  his  thirty-seventh  and  thirty-eighth 
years.  The  ballad  was  a  literary  form  which  he 
did  not  attempt  until  his  second  visit  to  America. 
Ticonderoga,  founded  on  a  legend  of  the  Camerons, 
was  written  at  Saranac,  and  published  in  '  Scribner's 
Magazine/  December  1887.  In  the  following  year 
at  Tautira  in  the  island  of  Tahiti,  he  learnt  the  legend 
which  in  The  Song  of  Rahero  is  told  with  a  flood  of 
savage  gusto  in  keeping  with  its  tragic  subject.  The 
ballad,  and  that  of  The  Feast  of  Famine,  in  which 


26  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

were  '  strung  together  some  of  the  more  striking 
particularities  of  the  Marquesas,'  were  written 
during  the  stay  at  Tautira  imposed  by  repairs  to 
the  '  Casco.'  With  Ticonderoga  and  the  two  shorter 
pieces,  Heather  Ale  and  Christmas  at  Sea,  the  latter 
of  which  had  previously  appeared  in  the  '  Scots 
Observer,'  December  22,  1888,  they  formed  the 
volume,  Ballads,  issued  in  1891.  They  met  with  a 
cold  reception  from  a  public  which  could  not  have 
too  much  of  their  author's  work  in  prose.  Of  the 
qualities  which  commended  them  to  him  Stevenson 
has  something  to  say  in  a  letter  to  H.  B.  Baildon  : 
'  They  failed  to  entertain  a  coy  public,  at  which  I 
wondered ;  not  that  I  set  much  account  by  my 
verses,  which  are  the  verses  of  Prosator ;  but  I  do 
know  how  to  tell  a  yarn  ;  and  two  of  the  yarns  are 
great.  Rahero  is  for  its  length  a  perfect  folk-tale  : 
savage  and  yet  fine,  full  of  tail-foremost  morality, 
ancient  as  the  granite  rocks ;  if  the  historian,  not 
to  say  the  politician,  could  get  that  yarn  into  his 
head,  he  would  have  learnt  some  of  his  ABC.  But 
the  average  man  at  home  cannot  understand  anti- 
quity ;  he  is  sunk  over  the  ears  hi  Roman  civili- 
sation ;  and  a  tale  like  that  of  Rahero  falls  on  his 
ears  inarticulate.  The  "Spectator"  said  there  was 
no  psychology  in  it ;  that  interested  me  much ; 
my  grandmother  (as  I  used  to  call  that  able  paper, 
and  an  able  paper  it  is,  and  a  fair  one)  cannot  so 
much  as  observe  the  existence  of  savage  psychology 
when  it  is  put  before  it.  I  am  at  bottom  a  psycho- 
logist and  ashamed  of  it :  the  tale  seized  me  one- 
third  because  of  its  picturesque  features,  two-thirds 


A  BOOK  OF  R,  L.  S.  27 

because  of  its  astonishing  psychology,  and  the 
"  Spectator  "  says  there  is  none.  I  am  going  on  with 
a  lot  of  island  work,  exulting  in  the  knowledge  of  a 
new  world,  "  a  new  created  world,"  and  new  men  ; 
and  I  am  sure  my  income  will  Decline  and  Fall  off ; 
for  the  effort  of  comprehension  is  death  to  the  in- 
telligent public,  and  sickness  to  the  dull.' 

BARRIE,  SIR  JAMES  MATTHEW  (1860-        ) 

Though  they  never  met,  R.  L.  S.  had  a  great  regard 
for  the  author  of  '  The  Little  Minister/  for  the  man 
equally  with  his  writings.  There  were  older  friends 
whom  he  would  have  more  dearly  wished  to  have 
visited  him  in  Samoa,  but  to  none  was  he  more 
pressing  that  he  should  come  than  to  Barrie.  '  We 
would  have  some  grand  cracks/  he  wrote,  '  come, 
it  will  broaden  your  mind,  and  be  the  making  of 
me/  Stevenson's  admiration  of  Barrie's  books  no 
doubt  arose  partly  from  his  sense  of  the  distance 
between  them  in  the  drawing  of  feminine  character, 
particularly  in  its  tenderest  relations.  Writing  to 
Barrie  after  reading  '  The  Window  in  Thrums/  he 
says  :  '  Jess  is  beyond  my  frontier  line  :  I  could 
not  touch  her  skirt :  I  have  no  such  touch  of  glamour 
of  twilight  on  my  pen.  I  am  a  capable  artist ;  but 
it  begins  to  look  to  me  as  if  you  were  a  man  of 
genius/  A  literary  association  of  Barrie  with 
Stevenson  remains  in  the  former's  '  Sentimental 
Tommy/  a  very  partial  portrait  of  R.  L.  S.,  as  Sir 
Sidney  Colvin  has  explained,  in  its  drawing  of  the 
literary  temperament  and  fine  sense  of  the  use  of 
words. 


28        A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

BAXTER,  CHARLES  (1848-1919) 

The  death  of  Charles  Baxter  in  April  1919  removed 
the  last  surviving  ultimate  Edinburgh  friend  of 
R.  L.  S.  Law  was  his  profession  ;  for  nearly  twenty- 
five  years  he  practised  in  Edinburgh  as  a  Writer 
to  the  Signet.  He  was  a  fellow-member  of  Steven- 
son's in  the  Speculative  Society,  and  the  grave 
participator  in  many  high-spirited  absurdities.  Their 
friendship  was  of  that  intimate  kind  which  did  not 
require  to  rest  on  a  common  pursuit.  For  the  last 
seven  or  eight  years  of  Stevenson's  life  Baxter  took 
entire  charge  of  his  business  affairs  :  it  was  he  who, 
with  Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  arranged  the  issue  of  the 
Edinburgh  edition  of  the  collected  works ;  and  in 
1894  was  on  his  way  to  Samoa  when  news  of  Steven- 
son's death  reached  him.  Perhaps  no  letters  reflect 
the  variable  moods  of  R.  L.  S.  more  truly  than  those 
to  his  old  Edinburgh  friend.  They  range  from 
the  humorous  exchanges  between  '  Thomson '  and 
'  Johnstone '  to  the  last  lines  three  months  before 
his  death  which  mark  the  depression  he  then  felt : 
'  Strange  that  you  should  be  beginning  a  new  life, 
when  I,  who  am  a  little  your  junior,  am  thinking  of 
the  end  of  mine.  But  I  have  hard  lines  :  I  have 
been  so  long  waiting  for  death,  I  have  unwrapped 
my  thoughts  from  about  life  so  long,  that  I  have 
not  a  filament  left  to  hold  by :  I  have  done  my 
fiddling  so  long  under  Vesuvius  that  I  have  almost 
forgotten  to  play,  and  can  only  wait  for  the  eruption, 
and  think  it  long  of  coming.  Literally  no  man  has 
more  wholly  outlived  life  than  I.  And  still  it  is 
good  fun,' 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.        29 

BEACH  OF  FALESA,  THE 

It  is  one  of  the  tragic  elements  in  Stevenson's 
prematurely  ended  life  in  the  South  Seas  that  he 
made  comparatively  little  use  of  the  wealth  of 
material  at  his  command  there  hi  the  way  of  story- 
telling. With  a  measure  of  regained  health  came 
many  distractions,  social  and  political ;  and  he  was 
further  handicapped  by  the  obsession  that  he  should 
be  the  sober  chronicler  of  the  history,  customs,  and 
legends  of  Polynesia,  a  task  for  which  he  made  pro- 
digious plans  only  partially  carried  out.  Thus  the 
life  of  the  islands  is  drawn  upon  in  only  a  few  stories, 
and  in  only  one,  The  Beach  of  Falesa,  with  a  degree 
of  realism  which  satisfied  him.  Time  has  confirmed 
his  own  judgment  by  numbering  it  among  his  finest 
work. 

The  germ  of  the  story  is  one  of  other  instances  of 
the  sudden  inspiration,  in  creating  a  whole  series 
of  romantic  incidents,  which  Stevenson  drew  from 
some  natural  scene.  In  A  Gossip  on  Romance  we 
have  his  avowal  of  how  '  places  speak  distinctly  '  as 
the  fit  scenes  for  murder,  haunting  spirits,  or  ship- 
wreck. That  same  sense  of  romance,  developed  in 
him  when  a  mere  child,  was  still  more  part  of  his 
nature  hi  later  life.  In  November  1890  he  was 
spending  day  after  day  in  the  primitive  forest 
which  surrounded  the  house  at  Vailima,  and  writes 
of  a  new  story  '  which  just  shot  through  me  like  a 
bullet  in  one  of  my  moments  of  awe  in  that  tragic 
jungle/  He  has  the  chapter  headings  hi  orderly 
shape  and  the  title  as  '  The  High  Wood  of  Ulufanua.' 
The  tale  turns  on  the  native  dread  of  the  spirit- 


30  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

devils  in  the  woods,  interwoven  with  which,  as  the 
reader  knows,  is  the  island  life  of  natives  and  whites 
viewed  through  the  eyes  of  a  commonplace  trader 
to  whom  bookkeepers  and  clerks  hi  the  old  country 
were  persons  of  splendid  education.  It  is  a  picture 
of  the  South  Seas,  very  different  from  the  idylls  of 
Hermann  Melville  in  '  Typee  '  and  '  Omoo,'  but  we 
have  it  from  his  biographer  that  its  realism  fell  far 
short,  in  the  drawing  of  the  dark  side  of  island  life, 
of  the  things  which  R.  L.  S.  had  seen  for  himself. 
By  the  time,  nearly  a  year  later,  that  it  had  passed 
through  more  than  one  process  of  re-writing,  and 
with  the  alteration  hi  its  title,  Stevenson  took  a  most 
confident  view  of  its  merits  :  '  It  is  the  first  realistic 
South  Sea  story  ;  I  mean  with  real  South  Sea  char- 
acter and  details  of  life.  Everybody  else  who  has 
tried,  that  I  have  seen,  got  carried  away  by  the 
romance,  and  ended  in  a  kind  of  sugar  candy  sham 
epic,  and  the  whole  effect  was  lost — there  was  no 
etching,  no  human  grin,  consequently  no  conviction. 
Now  I  have  got  the  smell  and  the  look  of  the  thing 
a  good  deal.  You  will  know  more  about  the  South 
Seas  after  you  have  read  my  little  tale  than  if  you 
had  read  a  library.' 

The  story  appeared  as  '  Uma '  in  the  '  Illustrated 
London  News,'  July  2  to  August  6,  1892,  and  in  the 
books  is  placed  in  Island  Nights'  Entertainments. 

BEAU  AUSTIN 

The  only  one  of  the  four  plays  written  in  colla- 
boration with  Henley  which,  with  the  exception  of 
Deacon  Brodie,  had  even  a  succts  d'estime  upon  the 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  31 

stage.  It  was  written  together  with  Admiral  Guinea 
during  Stevenson's  first  two  months  at  Bournemouth 
in  1884,  and  was  produced  at  the  Haymarket  Theatre 
November  3,  1890,  with  Beerbohm  Tree  in  the  title 
part,  and  Fred  Terry  as  Fenwick.  Despite  the 
literary  quality  and  wit  of  the  piece  which  have 
induced  one  critic,  Mr.  Arthur  Symons,  to  call  it  the 
finest  piece  of  comedy  in  action  since  the  '  School 
for  Scandal/  and  another,  Mr.  William  Archer,  to 
say  that  '  the  aroma  of  literature  can  be  brought 
over  the  footlights  with  stimulating  and  exhilarating 
effect/  it  was  not  a  success  as  a  public  performance. 
With  Macaire  it  was  played  again  at  Her  Majesty's 
Theatre  on  May  3,  1901,  by  a  company  of  leading 
actors  at  a  performance  in  aid  of  charity. 

BEGGARS 

The  pair  of  character  sketches  which  form  the  first 
and  second  parts  of  this  paper  is  plainly  the  product 
of  Stevenson's  youthful  Edinburgh  days  when,  in 
the  city  and  on  the  Pentland  hills,  he  was  the  com- 
panion of  seamen,  chimney-sweeps,  and  thieves. 
The  equality  of  his  relationship  to  the  old  soldier 
and  the  knife-grinder  connects  them  with  the  less 
reputable  characters  into  whose  acquaintance 
R.  L.  S.  was  thrown,  in  the  years  approaching  man- 
hood, as  much  by  lack  of  funds  as  by  natural  interest 
in  the  vagabond  side  of  life.  What  he  wrote  of  the 
self-respecting  poor  seeking  charity  only  from  those 
circumstanced  like  themselves  was  the  subject  of  an 
inquiry  from  a  correspondent  who  wished  to  know 
if  Stevenson  knew  this  from  experience.  The  reply 


32  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

from  Samoa  declared  that  the  fact  was  impressed 
upon  him  at '  the,  house  of  a  friend  who  was  exceed- 
ingly poor,  in  fact,  I  may  say  destitute,  and  who 
lived  in  the  attic  of  a  very  small  house  entirely  in- 
habited by  persons  in  varying  stages  of  poverty. 
As  he  was  also  in  ill-health,  I  made  a  habit  of  pass- 
ing my  afternoon  with  him,  and  when  there  it  was 
my  part  to  answer  the  door.  The  steady  procession 
of  people,  begging,  and  the  expectant  and  confident 
manner  in  which  they  presented  themselves,  struck 
me  more  and  more  daily ;  and  I  could  not  but  re- 
member with  surprise  that  though  my  father  lived 
but  a  few  streets  away  in  a  fine  house,  beggars  scarce 
came  to  the  door  once  a  fortnight  or  a  month.  From 
that  time  forward  I  made  it  my  business  to  inquire, 
and  in  the  stories  which  I  am  very  fond  of  hearing 
from  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  learned  that  in 
the  time  of  their  distress  it  was  always  from  the  poor 
they  sought  assistance,  and  almost  always  from  the 
poor  they  got  it.' 

The  paper  appeared  in  '  Scribner's/  March  1888 
(at.  38),  and  is  placed  in  Across  the  Plains. 

BLACK  ARROW,  THE 

The  publishers  of  '  Young  Folks '  having  asked 
for  a  successor  to  Treasure  Island,  Stevenson  turned 
to  the  period  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  as  a  setting 
for  a  tale  of  adventure  frankly  written  for  youthful 
readers.  The  book  shows  plainly  enough  that  he 
was  less  at  home  in  rural  England  of  the  fifteenth 
century  than  in  the  sea  and  island  incidents  of 
Treasure  Island.  The  characters  are  puppets  :  the 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  33 

scenes,  stage  settings,  and  the  talk,  conventional. 
Moreover,  as  some  one  has  said,  Stevenson  wrote 
Treasure  Island  for  his  own  pleasure,  but  The  Black 
Arrow  because  he  was  asked  to  write  it.  It  was 
in  fact  written  to  conform  to  the  type  of  story 
supplied  to  '  Young  Folks '  by  a  writer,  Alfred  R. 
Phillips,  whose  serial  '  Don  Zalva,  the  Brave '  took 
precedence  in  position  to  Treasure  Island  when  both 
were  appearing  together.  Stevenson  himself  half 
despised  it  at  the  time.  Whilst  writing  it  (at 
Hy£res  and  ill  in  1883 — at.  33)  he  declares  to 
Henley :  '  as  my  good  Red  Lion  Counter  begged 
me  for  another  Butcher's  Boy — I  turned  to — what 
thinkest  'ou — to  Tushery,  by  the  mass.  Ay,  friend, 
a  whole  tale  of  tushery.  And  every  tusher  tushes 
me  so  free  that  may  I  be  tushed  if  the  whole 
thing  is  worth  a  tush.  The  Black  Arrow :  A  Tale 
of  Tunstall  Forest  is  his  name  :  tush,  a  poor  thing.' 
'  Tushery  '  was  his  word  (or  Henley's)  for  the  style 
of  novel  in  Old  English  dialect  such  as  '  Ivanhoe.' 
To  Henley  he  sent  at  the  same  time  '  A  Jape  of 
TUSHERIE,'  two  verses  of  which  are  : 


The  Birds  among  the  Bushes 
May  wanton  on  the  spray, 
But  vain  for  him  who  tushes 
The  brightness  of  the  day  ! 


And  when  at  length  he  pushes 
Beyond  the  river  dark — 
'Las  to  the  man  who  tushes  ! 
'  Tush '  shall  be  God's  remark. 


34  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Still,  as  he  wrote  to  Marcel  Schwob,  who  wished  to 
translate  the  story  into  French  :  '  I  had  indeed  one 
moment  of  pride  about  my  poor  Black  Arrow — 
Dickon  Crookback  I  did,  and  I  do,  think  a  spirited 
and  possible  figure.' 

But  the  story  during  its  appearance  from  June  30 
to  October  20,  1883,  proved  more  popular  than  the 
previous  serial  by  '  Captain  George  North/  and 
raised  the  circulation  of  '  Young  Folks '  by  many 
hundreds  a  week.  Its  readers  were  not  searching 
critics,  and  none  probably  discerned  any  flaw  of 
construction  which  may  have  arisen  from  the  fact 
that  R.  L.  S.,  in  moving  about  the  South  of  France 
whilst  proofs  were  coming  to  him,  failed  to  receive 
some,  and,  as  he  declared  in  later  days,  forgot  what 
had  happened  to  several  of  his  principal  characters. 
No  doubt  The  Black  Arrow  would  never  have  been 
written  had  the  occasion  come  a  few  months  later, 
for  Treasure  Island,  issued  as  a  book  in  December 
1883,  brought  Stevenson  at  once  to  notice  as  a  coming 
writer  whose  work  could  not  be  bought  at  a  price 
little  more  than  that  of  a  penny-a-liner's.  Yet  in 
1888  he  sanctioned  its  issue  as  a  book  by  Messrs. 
Cassell,  from  whose  press  new  editions  have  appeared 
with  yearly  or  greater  frequency  ever  since.  Boy 
readers  would  not  share  Stevenson's  regret  in  writing 
to  Mr.  William  Archer  in  reference  to  his  young 
son's  fondness  for  The  Black  Arrow  :  '  I  am  sorry 
indeed  to  hear  that  my  esteemed  correspondent 
Tomarcher  has  such  poor  taste  in  literature.  I  fear 
he  cannot  have  inherited  this  trait  from  his  dear 
papa.  Indeed  I  may  say  I  know  it,  for  I  remember 


.A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  35 

the  energy  of  papa's  disapproval  when  the  work 
passed  through  his  hands  on  its  way  to  a  second 
birth,  which  none  regrets  more  than  myself.  It  is 
an  odd  fact,  or  perhaps  a  very  natural  one  :  I  find 
few  greater  pleasures  than  reading  my  own  works, 
but  I  never,  oh  I  never,  read  The  Black  Arrow.'  His 
wife,  as  we  are  told,  found  it  the  only  one  of  his 
books  which  she  could  not  read,  whence  Stevenson's 
touch  of  humour  in  dedicating  the  volume  to  her. 
The  original  five-shilling  edition  of  324  pages  is 
valued  at  about  fifteen  shillings. 

BLACK,  MARGARET  MOVES 

Author  of  the  volume  '  Robert  Louis  Stevenson ' 
(Oliphant,  Anderson  &  Ferrier,  1898)  in  the  firm's 
'  Famous  Scots  '  series.  Two  of  the  biographical 
chapters  are  interesting  as  a  first-hand  impression 
of  R.  L.  S.  at  nineteen,  by  one  who  was  intimate  hi 
his  family's  circle.  Other  details  of  his  life  are  not 
always  correctly  stated,  and  the  literary  criticism 
is  merely  that  of  a  not  very  discerning  reader. 

BLACK  CANYON,  OR  WILD  ADVENTURES  IN 
THE  FAR  WEST 

See  '  Davos  Press.' 

BODY  SNATCHER,  THE 

As  horrible  a  tale  as  any  of  Stevenson's ;  and, 
on  its  writing  (with  others  of  the  same  character) 
at  Pitlochry  in  1881,  was  '  laid  aside  in  a  justifiable 
disgust.'  It  is  inferior  to  his  other  stories  of  the 


36  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

supernatural,  and  is  not  included  in  the  Edinburgh 
edition.  Nevertheless,  the  fabric  of  the  tale  is  taken 
from  Edinburgh  legends  of  the  early  nineteenth 
century  and,  as  Mr.  Watt  points  out  in  his  '  R.  L.  S.,' 
the  professor  designated  as  K  is  plainly  the  Scots 
anatomist  Robert  Knox  who  died  in  1862. 

The  story  is  chiefly  remarkable  for  the  gruesome 
measures  taken  to  advertise  it.  Stevenson  rather 
rashly  accepted  an  offer  to  write  at  short  notice  a 
ghost  story  for  a  special  Christmas  number  of  the 
'  Pall  Mall  Gazette.'  Failing  to  satisfy  himself,  he 
offered  Markheim,  and  that  being  found  too  short 
he  finished  off  the  discarded  Body  Snatcher,  which 
was  announced  in  the  streets  of  London  by  sandwich 
men,  wearing  skulls,  coffin  lids,  and  grave-clothes. 
This  display,  it  would  seem,  was  stopped  by  the 
police,  and  the  tale  itself  was  not  republished  with 
any  other  of  his  writings  until  the  issue  of  Tales 
and  Fantasies  after  his  death.  The  shilling  '  Pall 
Mall  Supplement '  of  1884,  in  which  it  first  appeared, 
illustrated  and  in  orange  wrappers,  is  scarce,  and  has 
a  value  (first  ed.)  of  about  255. 

BOOKMAN  STEVENSON  NUMBER 

A  miscellany  of  articles,  verses,  portraits,  and 
illustrations  issued  as  a  '  Bookman  Extra '  in  1913 
must  be  remarked  as  a  notable  piece  of  Stevensonian 
literature.  In  addition  to  some  original  contri- 
butions, critical  and  biographical,  it  contains  Mr 
Edmund  Gosse's  poem  portrait  from  '  Firdausi  in 
Exile,'  and  his  salutation  to  Tusitala,  which  forms 
the  dedication  to  '  In  Russet  and  Silver.'  In  par- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  37 

ticular  the  many  drawings  and  photographs  provide 
as  complete  a  pictorial  record  of  the  scenes  and 
people  of  Stevenson's  life  as  is  to  be  found  in  any 
single  book. 

BOOKS  WHICH  HAVE  INFLUENCED  ME 

This  paper,  written  for  a  series  of  literary  auto- 
biographical sketches,  to  which  eminent  men  of 
the  day  contributed,  appeared  in  '  The  British 
Weekly,'  May  13,  1887,  when  Stevenson  was  thirty- 
seven,  and  is  reprinted  in  The  Art  of  Writing.  The 
dozen  writers  here  selected  for  mention,  Walt  Whit- 
man, Herbert  Spencer,  Lewes  (Goethe's  Life), 
Marcus  Aurelius,  Thoreau,  Hazlitt,  Meredith,  and 
Wordsworth,  are  those  who,  as  is  shown  by  other 
confessions,  had  a  share  in  moulding  Stevenson's 
thoughts  of  life  during  the  period  from  his  twentieth 
to  his  twenty-fifth  year,  when  he  found  himself  most 
actively  challenging  accepted  views  of  belief  and 
conduct. 

BOTTLE  IMP,  THE 

This  story,  written  soon  after  Stevenson  first 
reached  Samoa  in  December  1889  (at.  39),  has  the 
distinction  of  being  the  first  serial  tale  to  be  pub- 
lished in  the  Samoan  language.  It  appeared  the 
following  year  in  a  magazine  '  O  le  Salu  0  Samoa ' 
of  the  London  Missionary  Society.  A  photographic 
reproduction  of  the  opening  chapter  is  contained  in 
Mr.  Moors's  '  With  Stevenson  in  Samoa.'  The 
making  up  of  a  story  without  a  foundation  in  fact 
not  entering  into  the  Samoan  imagination,  the  pros- 


38  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

perity  of  the  Vailima  family  was  commonly  thought 
by  the  natives  to  come  from  the  Bottle  Imp,  and 
the  safe  which  stood  in  one  corner  of  the  wall  upon 
the  ground  floor  was  believed  to  be  its  place  of  keep- 
ing. Writing  to  Sir  Conan  Doyle,  R.  L.  S.  tells 
how  '  parties  who  come  up  to  visit  my  unpreten- 
tious mansion,  after  having  admired  the  ceilings  by 
Vanderputty  and  the  tapestry  by  Gobbling,  mani- 
fest towards  the  end  a  certain  uneasiness,  which 
proves  them  to  be  fellows  of  an  infinite  delicacy. 
They  may  be  seen  to  shrug  a  brown  shoulder,  and 
to  roll  up  a  speaking  eye,  and  at  last  the  secret 
bursts  from  them  :  "  Where  is  the  bottle  ?"'  As 
in  other  cases  Stevenson  anticipated  the  later  judg- 
ments of  the  critics  in  thinking  the  story  '  one  of  my 
best  works  and  ill  to  equal.'  The  play  from  which 
the  idea  was  taken  cannot  be  identified  with  its 
author,  a  playwright  named  Oliver  Smith  (1766- 
1845),  but  a  melodrama  of  the  same  name  was  per- 
formed at  the  Lyceum  Theatre,  London,  on  July  7, 
1828.  The  Bottle  Imp  first  appeared  in  '  Black  and 
White,'  March  28  and  April  4,  1891,  and  is  placed  in 
Island  Nights  Entertainments.  A  film  version  of  it 
by  the  Lasky  Company,  shown  in  London  in  1917, 
was  produced  on  the  Hawaiian  coast,  which  forms 
the  setting  for  most  of  the  story. 

BOURNEMOUTH 

Returning  to  England  with  his  wife  from  Hy£res 
in  July  1884,  after  a  series  of  illnesses,  one  of  which 
at  Nice  was  nearly  fatal,  R.  L.  S.  made  his  home  at 
Bournemouth  for  nearly  three  years,  from  Sep- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  39 

tember  1884  to  August  1887  (at.  34  to  37).  It  was 
the  only  time  he  lived  in  England  and,  except  for  the 
four  years  of  his  life  in  Samoa,  the  only  period  when 
his  wife  and  he  had  their  own  house.  The  first  two 
or  three  months  were  spent  in  rooms  in  a  house 
(Wensleydale)  on  the  West  Cliff,  then  a  move  was 
made  to  a  furnished  house  in  Branksome  Park, 
named  Bonallie  Towers,  and  in  April  1885  they  made 
their  home  in  a  house  which  Thomas  Stevenson 
bought  and  gave  to  his  daughter-in-law.  It  is 
61  Alum  Chine  Road,  on  the  edge  of  Alum  Chine,  and 
still  (1919)  bears  the  name  Skerryvore,  which  the 
Stevensons  gave  it  in  memory  of  the  lighthouse  off 
Tiree  built  by  Louis'  uncle  Alan  thirty  years  before. 
The  character  of  the  house,  though  not  of  the 
pleasantly  wild  garden  which  stretches  down  the 
slope  of  the  Chine,  is  well  shown  in  an  admirable 
etching  by  Mr.  Leslie  M.  Ward  of  Bournemouth,  re- 
produced in  the  '  Bookman '  Stevenson  number  of 
1913.  From  the  roadway  can  be  seen  the  tomb- 
stones to  his  two  dogs,  Coolin  and  Bogue,  which 
Stevenson  placed  on  the  wall  of  the  entrance  way. 
For  nearly  the  whole  of  the  three  years  he  was  not 
well  enough  to  be  out  of  doors,  spent  much  of  his 
time  in  bed,  and  often  was  too  ill  to  see  friends  who 
came  down  from  London.  But  he  wrote  Kidnapped, 
Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  IJyde,  his  part  of  More  New 
Arabian  Nights,  several  of  the  essays  and  short  stories 
and  two  of  the  plays  in  collaboration  with  Henley. 
These  works,  particularly  Jekyll,  had  consummated 
his  reputation  as  a  writer.  A  wider  public  had  re- 
cognized the  deeper  element  in  the  author  of  Treasure 


40  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Island,  and  critics  acknowledged  a  new  figure  in 
literature.  Nevertheless  his  receipts  from  his  writ- 
ings during  this  period  did  not  average  more  than 
£300  to  £400  a  year. 

The  autumn  and  winter  of  1886  were  spent  by  his 
parents  in  Bournemouth.  The  elder  Stevenson, 
whose  health  was  failing,  wished  to  be  near  his  son, 
and  was  glad  to  show  his  pleasure  in  the  now  general 
recognition  of  Louis  as  a  man  of  letters.  But  the 
father's  condition  becoming  serious,  he  returned'  to 
Edinburgh,  was  followed  by  Louis,  and  died  on 
May  8,  1887.  The  event  released  Stevenson  from 
his  obligation  to  remain  in  England.  On  the 
doctors'  advice,  and  for  reasons  of  his  wife's  as- 
sociations, he  decided  to  seek  health  in  northern 
America.  On  August  20,  he  left  Bournemouth, 
stayed  for  a  day  in  London,  and  the  next  morning 
embarked  for  New  York,  never  to  return. 


BRECK,  ALAN 

Much  less  is  known  of  the  redoubtable  Stewart 
rebel  who  fights  and  talks  and  hides  through  the 
pages  of  Kidnapped  and  Catriona  than  of  the 
MacGregors  and  lawyers  who  are  Stevenson's  other 
historical  characters.  The  Appin  murder  (q.v.),  of 
which  Alan  undoubtedly  knew  the  secret,  has 
singled  him  out  from  the  rank  and  file  of  Highlanders 
who  lived  by  their  wits  before  and  after  the  '45.  In- 
asmuch as  the  trial  of  James  of  the  Glen  rested  on 
his  guilty  connivance  with  Alan,  who  was  charged 
as  principal,  the  meagre  facts  of  Alan's  career  were 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  41 

recited  by  both  sides,  and  differently  interpreted 
by  counsel  for  and  against  the  accused.  They  were 
no  more  than  that  Alan's  father,  one  Donald  Stewart 
of  Rannoch,  on  his  death  had  entrusted  his  young 
children  to  the  care  of  James,  who  was  a  distant 
kinsman  of  his  ;  that  young  Alan  throughout  a  tur- 
bulent youth  owed  much  to  his  guardian,  with 
whom,  after  the  Rebellion,  he  was  on  terms  of  close 
friendship.  Alan  had  been  in  the  army  before  the 
'45,  but  had  been  taken  prisoner  by  the  Prince's 
forces  at  Prestonpans,  and  thenceforth  was  an  ardent 
Jacobite.  He  made  his  escape  to  France,  where  he 
had  enlisted  in  a  Scots  battalion  of  Louis  xiv. 

The  Highlands  were  then  a  recruiting  ground  for 
the  French  service.  Alan  was  accustomed  to  revisit 
his  own  country  of  Appin  for  the  purpose  of  enlisting 
Highlanders  in  the  Stewart  cause,  and  for  collecting 
from  the  tenants  of  his  exiled  chief  Stewart  of  Ard- 
shiel  the  rents — or  part  of  them — which  they  con- 
tinued to  pay  to  the  head  of  their  clan,  as  well  as  to 
the  British  Government  by  whom  the  rebel  estates 
had  been  confiscated.  Outlaws  such  as  he  were 
permitted  to  move  about  fairly  freely  so  long  as  they 
behaved  themselves,  and  it  was  on  one  of  these 
visits  that  Alan,  by  his  presence  in  the  neighbour- 
hood on  the  day  of  the  murder,  brought  disaster 
upon  his  former  guardian.  These  details  make  up 
the  historical  Alan  up  to  this  time,  except  that  his 
name  of  Breck  came  from  his  disfigurement  from 
small-pox,  and  that  his  appearance  tallied  with  the 
description  in  the  '  papers  '  for  his  arrest  which  is 
quoted  in  Kidnapped.  The  Alan  of  the  book,  his 


42  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

conceit,  craft,  and  volubility,  are  purely  Stevenson's 
creation. 

He  made  his  escape  to  France  after  the  murder. 
According  to  an  anonymous  letter,  probably  written 
by  James  More  (q.v.),  he  landed  there  in  March  1753, 
and  was  at  Lille  in  Ogilvy's  regiment.  The  treacher- 
ous father  of  Catriona  had  designs  on  him.  There 
is  a  letter  among  the  '  Newcastle  Papers,'  signed  by 
James  Drummond,  offering  to  bring  Alan  Breck  to 
England  on  condition  of  an  appointment  in  the 
Government  service.  If  tradition  be  true  Alan 
was  more  than  a  match  for  his  would-be  kidnapper, 
and  though  James  escaped  with  his  life  the  fiery 
Stewart  made  off  with  his  property.  Here  we  lose 
sight  of  him,  but  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  the  Appendix 
to  '  Rob  Roy  '  tells  that  he  was  living  in  Paris  during 
the  Revolution.  About  1789  a  friend  of  Scott's 
was  invited  to  view  a  procession  from  the  windows 
of  a  room  occupied  by  a  Scottish  Benedictine  priest, 
and  there  found  sitting  by  the  fire  a  tall,  thin,  raw- 
boned,  grim-looking  old  man,  wearing  a  military 
decoration.  The  talk  turning  on  the  streets  of 
Paris,  the  old  soldier  exclaimed  with  a  sigh  and  a 
sharp  Highland  accent :  '  Deil  ane  o'  them  is  worth 
the  Hie  Street  of  Edinburgh.'  It  is  the  last  picture 
of  Alan  Breck  Stewart,  then  quietly  ending  his  days 
on  a  modest  pension. 

BROWN,  HORATIO  ROBERT  FORBES  (1854-   ) 

The  close  friend  and  biographer  of  J.  A.  Symonds 

(q.v.)  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  Davos,  and  thus  came 

to  know  Stevenson  during  the  two  winters  when  the 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  43 

latter  received  a  measure  of  solace  in  his  exile  in 
the  Alps  from  the  society  of  Symonds.  At  the  ends 
of  these  visits  Mr.  Brown  would  re-cross  the  Alps  to 
his  home  in  Venice,  where  he  has  spent  a  lifetime 
in  literature,  and  has  written  his  '  Life  on  the 
Lagoons/  and  his  many  studies  of  Venetian  history. 
The  Letters  show  the  altogether  familiar  relations 
between  them ;  Stevenson  sent  to  Mr.  Brown  a 
prized  book,  Penn's  '  Fruits  of  Solitude/  at  the  same 
time  admitting  that  it  cost  him  a  wrench  to  part 
with  it. 


BUCKLAND,  JACK 

One  of  Stevenson's  fellow  passengers  in  the 
'  Janet  Nicoll/  by  which  he  made  the  last  of  his 
Pacific  cruises,  and  one  of  the  trio  (all  of  that  voyage) 
to  whom  Island  Nights  Entertainments  is  dedicated. 
Buckland  is  the  original  of  Tommy  Hadden  in  The 
Wrecker.  Mr.  Moors  speaks  of  him  as  a  devil-may- 
care  wanderer  who  met  a  tragic  death,  being  blown 
to  atoms  by  the  explosion  of  a  powder  magazine  in 
Suwarrow  Island. 


BURLINGAME,  E.  L.  (1848-        ) 

Editor  of  '  Scribner's  Magazine '  from  1886  to 
1914,  and  from  the  time  of  Stevenson's  second 
arrival  in  America  in  1887,  constantly  in  corre- 
spondence with  him  in  matters  connected  with  the 
publication  of  books  and  articles.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  certain  work  which  was  the  subject  of  con- 
tract with  the  McClure  firm,  Stevenson's  writings 


44  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

appeared  in  America  with  Messrs.  Scribner.  Many 
of  his  letters  to  Mr.  Burlingame  from  Samoa  contain 
orders  for  newly  published  books  to  be  supplied  to 
him  by  Scribner's  and  are  thus  something  of  an  index 
to  his  reading  of  modern  literature  during  the  last 
few  years  of  his  life. 

BURNS,  ROBERT,  SOME  ASPECTS  OF 

The  essay  which  was  published  in  the  '  Cornhill 
Magazine,'  October  1879,  and  is  placed  in  Familiar 
Studies  of  Men  and  Books,  is  not  the  first  which 
Stevenson  wrote  on  Burns.  Two  years  previously 
he  had  been  commissioned  to  write  the  article  on 
Burns  in  the  '  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,'  and  had 
had  his  manuscript  declined  for  the  reason,  as  Sir 
Sidney  Colvin  has  said,  that  it  '  was  thought  to 
convey  a  view  of  the  poet  too  frankly  critical,  and 
too  little  in  accordance  with  the  accepted  Scotch 
tradition.'  The  second  essay,  which,  it  may  be 
judged,  is  not  very  different,  in  its  note  of  severity, 
from  the  first,  has  provoked  resentment  in  the  breasts 
of  Scotsmen  for  its  plain  speaking  of  Burns's  lapses 
from  the  moral  life.  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  is  disposed 
to  consider  the  disapproval  of  it  of  Mr.  Alexander 
Macmillan  to  have  been  the  cause  of  Stevenson's 
ceasing  to  contribute  to  the  firm's  magazine.  And 
in  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  many  books  of  the  Rt. 
Hon.  J.  M.  Robertson,  '  New  Essays  Towards  a 
Critical  Method '  (1897),  there  is  an  echo  of  the 
Scottish  sensitiveness  to  this  outspoken  paper  on 
the  national  idol.  In  an  essay  on  '  Stevenson  and 
Burns '  Mr.  Robertson  takes  R.  L.  S.  to  task  for 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  45 

labelling  Burns  a  Don  Juan,  and  defends  the  poet 
against  the  charge  of  idleness  in  his  later  years. 
Yet  Stevenson  stood  by  his  study  during  the  three 
years  which  elapsed  before  including  it  in  Familiar 
Studies  where,  in  the  prefatory  notes,  he  has  a  bare 
word  of  apology  to  say.  Writing  it,  he  judged  it 
'  long,  dry,  unsympathetic,  but  sound '  ;  when 
published,  '  one  of  my  high-water  marks.'  A 
glimpse  of  the  paper  in  the  writing,  afforded  in  a 
letter  to  Mr  Edmund  Gosse,  marks  the  different 
respects  in  which  the  genius  and  defects  of  char- 
acter of  Burns  affected  Stevenson  :  '  I  made  a  kind 
of  chronological  table  of  his  various  loves  and  lusts, 
and  have  been  comparatively  speechless  ever  since.  I 
am  sorry  to  say  it,  but  there  was  something  in  him  of 
the  vulgar,  bagmanlike,  professional  seducer.  Oblige 
me  by  taking  down  and  reading,  for  the  hundredth 
time  I  hope,  his  "  Twa  Dogs  "  and  his  "  Address 
to  the  Unco  Guid."  I  am  only  a  Scotchman  after 
all,  you  see  ;  and  when  I  have  beaten  Burns,  I  am 
driven  at  once,  by  my  parental  feelings,  to  console 
him  with  a  sugar-plum.  But  hang  me  if  I  know 
anything  I  like  so  well  as  the  "  Twa  Dogs."  Even 
a  common  Englishman  may  have  a  glimpse,  as  it 
were  from  Pisgah,  of  its  extraordinary  merits.' 

CAMPBELL,  LEWIS  (1830-1908) 

The  eminent  professor  of  Greek  at  St.  Andrews, 
and  translator  and  investigator  of  Plato  and 
Sophocles  was  one  of  Stevenson's  sponsors  in  the 
application  for  the  professorship  of  literature  at 
Edinburgh.  The  one  letter  to  him  from  Stevenson, 


46  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

which   is   published,    is    an   unqualified   eulogy   of 
Campbell's  classical  writings. 


CANOE  SPEAKS,  THE 

The  poem  which  is  III  of  Underwoods  is  evidently 
a  product  of  An  Inland  Voyage.  Its  abrupt  ending 
is  not  due  to  its  having  been  unfinished,  but  the 
remaining  portion,  since  included  in  New  Poems  and 
Variant  Readings,  with  the  title,  '  Now  bare  to  the 
Beholder's  Eye/  continues  the  theme  of  the  dis- 
turbed bathing  girls  in  a  vein  of  realism  still  not 
quite  acceptable  to  English  taste. 

CATRIONA 

The  sequel  to  Kidnapped,  written  after  an  interval 
of  six  years,  marks,  as  is  pointed  out  in  the  chapter 
on  the  former  work,  a  notable  development  of 
Stevenson's  powers.  In  Kidnapped  the  Appin 
murder  (q.v.)  is  a  mere  glimpse  ;  in  Catriona  the 
story  is  deeply  involved  with  the  trial  which  followed 
it  and  with  the  personages  which  figured  in  this 
piece  of  the  aftermath  of  the  '45  in  the  Highlands. 
It  is  historical  in  a  much  larger  measure  and  closer 
relation  than  the  tale  of  which  it  is  the  continuation  ; 
and  though  the  two  have  been  issued  as  one  book, 
The  Adventures  of  David  Balfour,  it  depends  so  much 
less  on  the  element  of  excitement,  and  so  much 
more  on  its  drawings  of  people,  that  the  two  scarcely 
make  a  homogeneous  work.  Like  Kidnapped  it 
was  written  within  a  short  time  (February  to  May 
1892)  at  Vailima,  when  Stevenson  (eet.  42)  was 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  47 

busy  also  with  his  work  on  Samoan  politics,  issued 
as  A  Footnote  to  History.  Even  so  he  was  chafing 
at  his  slowness  and  his  want  of  Scott's  power  which 
turned  out  '  Guy  Mannering  '  in  three  weeks  :  '  It 
makes  me  sick  of  myself  to  make  such  a  fash  and 
bobbery  over  a  rotten  end  of  an  old  nursery  yarn 
not  worth  spitting  on  when  done.'  Actually  he 
thought  then  that  it  and  The  Beach  of  Falesa  '  seem 
to  me  to  be  nearer  what  I  mean  than  anything  I 
have  ever  done ;  nearer  what  I  mean  by  fiction  ; 
the  nearest  thing  before  was  Kidnapped.'  And  a 
year  later  he  was  anticipating  the  critics  in  esteem- 
ing the  work  for  its  characterization  :  '  One  thing 
is  sure,  there  has  been  no  such  drawing  of  Scots 
character  since  Scott ;  and  even  he  never  drew  a 
full-length  like  Davie  with  his  shrewdness  and  sim- 
plicity and  stockishness  and  charm.  Yet  you  '11 
see  the  public  won't  want  it :  they  want  more 
Alan.'  Perhaps  it  is  necessary  to  be  a  Scot  to  en- 
dorse this  view  of  David,  and  certainly  it  is  to  share 
Stevenson's  delight  in  the  boguey  story  of  Tod 
Lapraik,  introduced  into  Catriona  :  '  A  piece  of 
living  Scots,'  he  wrote,  '  if  I  had  never  writ  anything 
else  but  that  and  Thrawn  Janet,  still  I  'd  have  been 
a  writer/ 

Of  the  real  people  in  the  book  Grant  of  Preston- 
grange,  Simon  Fraser,  James  More,  and  Alan  Breck 
are  the  subject  of  separate  chapters.  The  others 
play  smaller  parts,  and  may  be  taken  together. 
In  finding  a  kinsman  for  David  in  Mr.  Balfour  of 
Pilrig,  Stevenson  appropriated  an  ancestor  of  his 
own,  James  Balfour,  his  great-great-grandfather 


48  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

on  his  mother's  side,  born  in  1705,  and  a  man  of 
some  note  in  his  day  as  Professor  of  Moral  Philo- 
sophy in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 

The  Duke  of  Argyll,  the  predominant  personage 
in  the  Appin  trial,  is  shown  in  but  two  glimpses, 
fixing  the  travel-stained  David  '  with  an  arrogant 
eye  '  from  his  place  in  church,  and  passing  sentence 
on  James  Stewart.  It  is  characteristic  of  Stevenson 
that  he  touches  so  briefly  upon  the  central  incident 
of  the  story.  He  is  content  to  compress  the  trial 
into  the  sentence  '  James  was  as  fairly  murdered  as 
though  the  Duke  had  got  a  fowling-piece  and  stalked 
him,'  and  to  find  his  material  in  the  by-issues.  The 
Argyll  who,  as  head  of  the  Clan  Campbell,  thus 
directed  the  political  murder  of  James  was  Archibald, 
third  duke,  a  Whig  in  politics,  and  for  many  years 
before  his  accession  to  the  title  in  1743  the  chief 
holder  of  political  power  in  Scotland.  He  was  Lord 
Justice-General  by  virtue  of  his  rank,  although,  as 
it  happened,  he  had  had  some  training  in  law.  His 
part  in  the  Appin  trial  shows  the  feudal  power  of  the 
chieftain,  which  nominally  received  its  death-blow 
after  the  '45,  none  the  less  hi  active  operation. 
By  the  Heritable  Jurisdictions  Act  of  1747  Argyll 
lost  the  right  (apart  from  his  judicial  office)  to  try 
and  condemn  to  death  within  the  Campbell  territory, 
and  was  compensated  therefor  by  the  payment  of 
£20,000.  Yet  if  the  feudal  power  had  gone, 
there  remained,  by  assent  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment, a  legal  and  political  power  not  very  easy 
to  distinguish  from  it  in  its  opportunities  for 
vengeance. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  49 

The  prisoner's  advocates,  whom  Stevenson  re- 
presents as  seeking  to  exploit  the  case  to  their  own 
advancement,  are  not  made  to  reflect  a  very  favour- 
able light  on  the  Scottish  Bar  of  the  period.  R.  L.  S. 
draws  a  personal  picture  of  only  one  of  them, 
Sheriff  Miller,  who  afterwards  rose  high  in  his  pro- 
fession as  Solicitor-General,  Lord  Advocate,  Lord 
Justice-Clerk,  and  Lord  President  of  the  Court  of 
Session. 

In  contrast  with  the  lawyers  who  fill  a  great  part 
of  the  stage  in  Catriona,  is  the  imaginary  character 
of  the  Lord  Advocate's  daughter,  Barbara  Grant, 
perhaps  the  most  successful  of  Stevenson's  not  very 
numerous  feminine  creations,  at  any  rate  one  which 
gave  him  more  pleasure  than  most.  Miss  Grant's 
vivacious  archness  obtains  an  added  interest  from 
the  opinion  of  '  One  who  knew  him,'  writing  in  the 
'  Westminster  Budget,'  soon  after  Stevenson's  death, 
that  it  disclosed  more  of  the  real  Stevenson  than 
any  of  his  male  characters.  '  His  was  just  that 
quality  of  wit,  that  fine  manner  and  great  gentleness 
under  a  surface  of  polished  raillery.'  Barbara's 
brilliant  qualities  in  fact  rather  overshadow  the 
name  character  of  the  book.  Catriona,  whom 
history  does  not  identify  among  the  dozen  odd 
children  of  James  More,  lives  as  a  study  of  the  High- 
land character  in  a  woman,  brave,  '  touchy,'  and 
on  occasion  sullen,  a  real  person,  if  not  the  conven- 
tional heroine  of  a  romantic  tale.  Her  share  in  her 
father's  escape  from  jail  had  its  counterpart  in  real 
life,  though  we  are  denied  the  name  of  the  daughter 
who  thus  enabled  James  More  to  prosecute  his 


50  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

double  dealings.  And  there  is  the'  view  (which 
Stevenson  takes  in  the  book)  that  the  adventure  was 
managed  by  the  Government.  For  that,  there  is 
confirmation  in  a  fact  which  Andrew  Lang's  re- 
searches among  Jacobite  papers  have  brought  to 
light,  viz.,  that  after  the  arrest  of  James  More  on 
the  abduction  charge  the  suggestion  was  made  in 
government  circles  that  he  should  be  allowed  to 
escape  by  giving  order  to  that  effect  to  his  escort. 
There  is  therefore  ground  for  supposing  that  the 
escape  wittily  reported  to  the  Lord  Advocate  by 
his  daughter  was  really  planned  by  Prestongrange, 
and  that  Catriona  was  led  unknowingly  to  serve 
the  purpose  of  the  Government.  We  are  here  in 
the  dark  places  of  an ti- Jacobite  intrigue,  but  it 
looks  as  though  R.  L.  S.  was  right  in  his  guess. 

The  case  of  Lady  Grange,  with  which  the  incar- 
ceration of  David  on  the  Bass  is  compared,  is  an  un- 
pleasant scandal,  which  had  not  then  been  forgotten. 
She  was  the  unwanted  wife  of  the  judge  Lord 
Grange,  a  kindred  spirit  and  boon  companion  of 
the  notorious  Simon  Fraser,  who  was  the  leading 
partner  in  the  plot  by  which  she  was  carried  off 
to  an  island  of  the  Hebrides,  and  there  kept  for 
many  years  until  her  death. 

Catriona  first  appeared  in  '  Atalanta/  January 
to  May,  1893,  under  the  title  David  Balfour,  the 
name  by  which  it  is  still  known  in  America.  The 
first  English  edition,  issued  by  Messrs.  Cassell  in 
1893,  and  containing  a  brief  account  of  David's 
adventures  in  Kidnapped,  is  worth  about  155. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  51 

CELESTIAL  SURGEON,  THE 

The  short  poem  which  expresses  Stevenson's 
practical  philosophy  of  life  perhaps  more  plainly 
than  any  other  passage  in  his  writings  is  attributed 
to  the  year  1882  (at.  32),  which  began  with  invalidism 
at  Davos  and  ended  badly  at  Marseilles  with  the 
first  of  the  series  of  illnesses,  the  prelude  to  the  in- 
door years  at  Bournemouth.  The  lines,  No.  XXII. 
of  Underwoods,  mark  a  brighter  and  altogether  more 
individual  development  of  the  '  Address  to  his 
Soul '  of  two  years  earlier,  written  in  California. 
This  is  No.  XXIV.  of  Underwoods,  and  was  the  first 
work  of  Stevenson's  in  verse  to  be  published,  viz., 
in  the  '  Atlantic  Monthly/  October  1880. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

The  paper  on  the  French  ducal  poet  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  which  is  perhaps  the  roundest  and  most 
complete  of  the  portraits  collected  in  Familiar 
Studies  of  Men  and  Books,  occupied  Stevenson  during 
the  latter  part  of  1875  and  the  summer  of  1876 
(cet.  25),  when  he  was  much  engrossed  with  the 
French  literature  of  the  period,  and  proposed  other 
essays  on  Joan  of  Arc,  Louis  XL,  and  Rene  of  Anjou. 
The  paper,  after  its  appearance  in  the  '  Cornhill 
Magazine/  December  1876,  comes  in  for  less  censure 
than  the  other  pieces  in  the  self-critical  notes  with 
which  R.  L.  S.  prefaced  them  when  preparing  them 
for  book  publication. 


52  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

CHALMERS,  STEPHEN  (1880-        ) 

Author  of  several  Stevenson  little  books,  published 
by  the  Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  Boston,  U.S.A. 
'  The  Penny  Piper  of  Saranac '  (1916)  is  a  sketch 
of  Stevenson's  life  at  Saranac  Lake,  in  the  winter  of 
1887-8.  It  contains  a  photograph  of  the  memorial 
tablet  to  Stevenson,  placed  by  the  American  Steven- 
son Society  in  the  cottage  where  he  stayed.  '  The 
Beloved  Physician,  Edward  Livingston  Trudeau,' 
is  a  monograph  on  Stevenson's  doctor  at  Saranac, 
himself  a  victim  of  tuberculosis  twenty-seven  years 
afterwards.  '  Enchanted  Cigarettes  '  is  the  fantastic 
title  (borrowed  from  Balzac)  of  a  booklet  on  the 
books  which  Stevenson  planned  but  did  not  finish. 

CHARACTER,  A 

This  fragment,  written  in  1870-1  (cet.  20-21),  is  a 
sketch  of  the  lowest  depths  of  life  uncommon  in 
those  of  Stevenson's  early  writings  which  have  been 
preserved,  and  of  interest  in  exhibiting  a  direction 
of  his  art  which  reached  its  highest  expression  in 
Mr.  Hyde.  First  published  in  the  Edinburgh 
edition,  it  is  now  included  in  the  volume  Lay  Morals. 

CHARITY,  BAZAAR,  THE 

The  trifle  of  dialogue  designed  to  amuse  the 
visitors  at  a  sale  for  charity  and  privately  printed 
for  the  purpose  was  written  when  Stevenson  was 
about  eighteen.  It  was  not  republished  until 
included  in  the  Edinburgh  edition,  and  is  not  included 
in  any  current  volume. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  53 

CHILD'S  GARDEN  OF  VERSES,  A 

From  his  youth  Stevenson  was  an  inveterate 
writer  of  impromptu  rhymes  for  his  own  and  his 
friends'  amusement.  The  specimens  scattered  in 
his  letters  up  to  about  1887  witness  his  enjoyment 
of  these  exercises,  entered  upon  now  out  of  high 
spirits,  now  as  a  relief  in  sickness.  To  these  same 
motives  may  be  set  down  the  pieces  of  verse  which 
in  serious  intention  came  spasmodically  from  his 
pen  during  these  early  years.  Most  of  them  are 
short  and  very  few  were  published  at  the  time. 
While  conscious  of  his  growing  power  as  a  writer 
of  prose,  Stevenson  was  a  good  critic  of  his  gifts  as 
a  poet.  '  I  am  a  weak  brother  in  verse/  he  wrote 
to  Henley  in  1879  apropos  the  latter's  criticism  of 
'  Our  Lady  of  the  Snows.'  '  You  ask  me  to  re-write 
things  that  I  have  already  managed  just  to  write 
with  the  skin  of  my  teeth.  If  I  don't  re-write  them, 
it 's  because  I  don't  see  how  to  write  them  better, 
not  because  I  don't  think  they  should  be.'  Thus  it 
came  about,  from  Stevenson's  own  diffidence  and 
through  the  solicitous  care  of  his  friends,  scarcely 
any  verse  of  his  was  allowed  to  appear  until,  with 
some  anxiety  for  its  reception,  the  Child's  Garden  was 
issued  in  1885  (cet.  35). 

The  idea  of  the  verses,  the  presentation  to  grown- 
up people  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  children, 
which  has  given  enduring  life  to  them,  was  perhaps 
not  deliberately  contemplated  by  Stevenson,  but 
none  the  less  was  original  with  him  or  at  any  rate 
had  never  before  been  carried  out  in  such  perfect 
form.  Most  of  us  soon  forget  how  things  appeared 


54  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

to  us  when  we  were  little  :  Stevenson,  as  he  often 
declared,  retained  the  liveliest  conception  of  his 
own  thoughts  and  fancies  when  a  child  at  the  serious 
business  of  play.  Thus  the  Verses  are  a  page  of 
autobiography  ;  some  of  them  so  definitely  so  that 
old  playfellows  wrote  of  their  pleasure  at  the 
pictures.  They  recall  his  days — and  nights — as  a 
rather  lonely  and  ailing  child  in  his  Edinburgh 
home,  and  the  times  which,  when  he  was  a  little 
older  and  stronger  but  still  delicate,  he  spent  with 
one  and  another  of  his  many  cousins  at  his  grand- 
father's manse  at  Colinton.  The  situation  of  the 
manse  on  the  close-wooded  banks  of  the  Water  of 
Leith  made  the  garden  and  the  near  suiroundings 
a  rare  domain  for  endless  make-believe  adventures 
in  which  little  Louis  was  the  ringleader  of  his  older 
cousins,  exhausting  his  frail  body  in  '  a  fury  of  play  ' 
at  pirates,  shipwreck  and  soldiering.  How  genuinely 
these  games  inspired  the  verses  in  A  Child's  Garden 
may  be  seen  from  a  letter  to  a  favourite  cousin 
(Mrs.  Milne)  who  had  recognized  herself  as  one  of 
the  three  in  the  'Pirate  Story.'  After  twenty-five 
years  R.  L.  S.  writes :  '  You  were  sailing  under  the 
title  of  Princess  Royal :  I,  after  a  furious  contest, 
under  that  of  Prince  Alfred ;  and  Willie,  still  a 
little  sulky,  as  the  Prince  of  Wales.  We  were  all 
in  a  buck  basket  about  half-way  between  the  swing 
and  the  gate  ;  and  I  can  still  see  the  Pirate  Squadron 
heave  in  sight  upon  the  weather  bow.' 

The  children's  verses  were  written  at  irregular 
intervals  from  1881  to  1884  (at.  31  to  34) .  Accord- 
ing to  his  biographer  the  suggestion  of  them  came 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  55 

from  a  '  Birthday  Book  for  Children/  containing 
verses  of  Mrs.  Sales  Barker  to  Miss  Kate  Greenaway's 
drawings,  which  his  mother  had  with  her  during  a 
stay  at  Braemar  with  Stevenson  and  his  family.  A 
nucleus  of  the  collection  was  formed  in  the  course 
of  this  summer  in  the  Highlands ;  the  greater 
number  were  written  afterwards  at  odd  times  during 
the  next  three  years,  some  at  Hyeres  with  his  left 
hand  and  in  semi-darkness  when  recovering  from 
haemorrhage  and  ophthalmia. 

Title  upon  title  for  the  proposed  volume  came  from 
Stevenson.  '  Benny  Whistles — for  Small  Whistlers  ' 
was  an  early  choice,  and  the  name  under  which  a  set 
of  proof  sheets  (the  rarest  of  Stevensoniana)  was 
printed,  and  privately  circulated.  Henley's  copy 
was  sold  at  the  Red  Cross  Sale  of  April  25,  1918,  for 
£300.  Illustrations  were  also  planned  and  profuse 
suggestions  made  for  them  but  in  the  end  they  were 
abandoned.  The  elaboration  of  these  measures  to 
put  the  verses  into  the  most  pleasing  dress  reflects 
the  doubts  of  them  which  exercised  Stevenson  and 
those  of  his  circle.  As  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse  has 
recorded  :  '  his  friends  were  as  timid  as  hens  about 
this  new  experiment  of  their  duckling's  '  ;  and  to 
him,  while  proofs  were  being  passed  for  the  press, 
R.  L.  S.  wrote  what  he  thought  of  them  in  a  passage 
which,  while  showing  this  apprehension,  states  in 
a  word  the  essential  quality  for  which  the  verses  are 
beloved  :  '  They  look  ghastly  in  the  cold  light  of 
print ;  but  there  is  something  nice  in  the  little 
ragged  regiment  for  all ;  the  blackguards  seem  to  me 
to  smile,  to  have  a  kind  of  childish  treble  note  that 


56  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

sounds  in  my  ears  freshly ;    not  song,  if  you  will, 
but  a  child's  voice.' 

The  dedication  of  A  Child's  Garden  to  his  nurse, 
Alison  Cunningham  (q.v.},  is  perhaps  the  happiest 
and  most  happily  worded  of  Stevenson's  many 
familiar  talks  with  his  friends  issued  in  this  guise. 
It  needs  no  postscript,  but  a  letter  to  Cummy  telling 
her  of  it  shows  how  sincerely  it  was  meant :  '  This 
little  book,  which  is  all  about  my  childhood,  should 
indeed  go  to  no  other  person  but  you  who  did  so 
much  to  make  that  childhood  happy.' 

The  insight  into  the  mind  of  himself  when  a  child 
which  is  displayed  in  the  verses  makes  it  natural  to 
ask  what  was  the  grown-up  Stevenson's  attitude  to 
children.  His  letters,  a  revelation  of  his  personality 
in  a  host  of  phases,  give  no  answer  except  an  implied 
negative  ;  save  for  his  play  with  a  little  Russian 
child  of  two  and  a  half  at  Mentone  when  he  was 
twenty-three,  the  doings  of  children  figure  not  at 
all  in  his  talk.  The  fact  seems  to  be  that  egoist 
as  he  was  in  many  respects,  Stevenson  was  one  also 
in  this ;  he  dwelt  in  vivid  memory  upon  his  own 
childhood  and  he  interpreted  children  largely  in 
terms  of  these  recollections.  On  the  other  side  must 
be  set  his  own  physical  inability  for  the  greater  part 
of  his  adult  life  to  share  in  the  play  of  children  or 
even  to  be  much  in  their  society.  His  marriage, 
in  giving  him  a  stepson  of  twelve,  but  no  child  of  his 
own,  was  not  the  occasion  of  altogether  new  thoughts 
of  children  as  it  is  in  the  lives  of  many  men.  Yet, 
as  we  have  it  in  the  judgment  of  Mr  Edmund  Gosse, 
who  saw  much  of  R.  L.  S.  in  the  years  immediately 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  57 

before  and  after  his  marriage,  the  coming  of  his 
stepson  broadened  his  view  of  children  :  '  He  began 
to  see  in  them  all  variations  of  this  intelligent  and 
sympathetic  little  stepson  of  his  own.' 

A  Child's  Garden  was  published  by  Messrs. 
Longmans  in  March  1885  at  55.,  which  original 
edition  (of  101  pages)  has  now  a  value  of  about  £10. 

CHILD'S  PLAY 

The  outlook  of  a  child  upon  his  games  which  this 
paper  presents  for  the  education  of  grown-up  people, 
is  unmistakably  that  which  Stevenson  preserved  as 
a  vivid  recollection  of  his  very  young  days.  For 
him  the  essence  of  play  was  make-believe  ;  lacking 
which,  games  like  cricket  and  football  were  not  play 
at  all.  Though  he  played  football  when  at  school  at 
Isleworth  he  had,  as  he  says,  '  to  spirit  himself  up 
.  .  .  with  an  elaborate  story  of  enchantment,  and 
take  the  missile  as  a  sort  of  talisman  bandied  about 
in  conflict  between  two  Arabian  nations.'  Steven- 
son's play  was  of  the  kind  pictured  in  The  Lantern 
Bearers  and  A  Penny  Plain  and  Twopence  Coloured, 
and  a  sharer  of  it  for  a  whole  winter  when  R.  L.  S. 
was  about  sixteen  was  his  cousin  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson, 
referred  to  in  the  passage  of  the  essay  which  de- 
scribes their  romantic  device  for  enlivening  the  con- 
sumption of  porridge.  The  two  lived,  as  Stevenson 
wrote,  '  in  a  purely  visionary  state,  and  were  never 
tired  of  dressing  up.'  And  there  is  their  invention 
recorded  by  his  biographer  of  the  rival  kingdoms  of 
Encyclopaedia  and  Nosingtonia  of  which  R.  L.  S. 
and  his  cousin  were  the  respective  monarchs.  It 


58  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

was  childhood  such  as  this,  passed  in  an  orgy  of 
romantic  imagination,  that  Stevenson  has  in  his 
mind  in  his  analysis  of  motives  by  which  children  are 
ruled. 

The  essay,  which  appeared  in  the  '  Cornhill  Maga- 
zine '  of  September  1878  (<zt.  28),  is  included  in 
Virginibus  Puerisque. 

• 
CHRISTMAS  AT  SEA 

See  '  Ballads.' 

CHRISTMAS  SERMON,  A 

No  other  paper  perhaps  so  well  represents  Steven- 
son's broad  and  positive  conception  of  goodness  as 
this  essay,  which  completed  the  twelve  contributed 
to  '  Scribner's  Magazine '  during  1888  (at.  38). 
Certainly  none  more  strongly  expresses  his  aversion 
from  the  presentation  of  morality  as  the  abstinence 
from  things  held  to  be  wrong.  If  such  abstinence 
be  necessary  to  the  positive  goodness  of  kindness 
or  honesty  they  should  be  concealed  like  vices. 
That  happiness  is  a  virtue  in  itself,  to  be  striven  for, 
not  expected  as  a  reward  of  virtue,  is  a  theme  of  this 
paper  which  is  expressed  in  The  Celestial  Surgeon 
written  six  years  before  : 

If  I  have  faltered  more  or  less 

In  my  great  task  of  happiness ; 

If  I  have  moved  among  my  race 

And  shown  no  glorious  morning  face.  .  .  . 

A  Christmas  Sermon  is  placed  in  the  works,  as  at 
present  issued,  in  Across  the  Plains. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  59 

COCKERMOUTH  AND  KESWICK 

This  unfinished  chapter  on  a  visit  to  Cumberland 
in  1871  (at.  21),  and  the  first  travel  paper  of  Steven- 
son's, marks  the  bent  of  his  mind  in  several  respects 
which  are  more  sharply  delineated  in  later  work  of 
the  same  kind.  One  such  is  his  aversion  from  travel- 
ling by  the  stereotyped  routes  of  the  sightseer; 
another,  his  sense  of  strangeness  in  England,  after- 
wards elaborated  in  The  Foreigner  at  Home.  The 
practice  of  making  no  notes  on  excursions  of  this 
kind,  which  in  this  paper  he  declares  to  be  a  necessity 
for  a  picturesque  chronicle,  was  one  which  Stevenson 
had  abandoned  a  few  years  afterwards.  The  writing 
of  a  daily  journal  from  which  such  books  as  An 
Inland  Voyage  and  Travels  with  a  Donkey  were 
afterwards  written  became  his  regular  habit  until 
the  last  few  years  of  his  life.  First  published  in  the 
Edinburgh  edition,  the  present  paper  is  now  included 
in  Essays  of  Travel. 

COLLEGE  MAGAZINE,  A 

The  much-quoted  paper  which  tells  of  Stevenson's 
self-training  to  be  a  writer,  and  of  the  brief  career 
of  the  '  Edinburgh  University  Magazine,'  in  which 
his  maiden  efforts  obtained  semi-private  publication, 
was  first  published  in  Memories  and  Portraits,  and 
may  therefore  be  thought  to  be  work  of  his  thirty- 
seventh  year.  At  any  rate  the  sketch  of  the  life 
and  character  of  Robert  Glasgow  Brown  could  not 
very  well  have  been  written  until  after  the  latter's 
death  in  1878.  The  newspaper,  launched  by  Brown, 
and '  in  which  young  gentlemen  from  the  Universities 


60  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

are  encouraged,  at  so  much  a  line,  to  garble  facts, 
insult  foreign  nations,  and  calumniate  private  in- 
dividuals '  was  '  London,'  edited  by  Henley  on  its 
founder's  decline  in  health.  For  it  Stevenson  wrote 
many  miscellaneous  contributions,  most  of  which 
have  not  been  reprinted ;  and  New  Arabian  Nights 
first  appeared  in  its  pages.  The  reminiscences  of 
his  early  friends  in  this  paper  contain  also  the  only 
hint  in  Stevenson's  essays  of  any  youthful  passion. 
Even  so  it  was  tepid  enough — the  sending  of  a  copy 
of  the  University  Magazine  to  '  the  lady  with  whom 
my  heart  was  at  that  time  somewhat  engaged,  and 
who  did  all  that  in  her  lay  to  break  it.' 

COLLEGE  MEMORIES,  SOME 

In  the  piece  of  autobiography  written  when  he 
was  thirty-six  R.  L.  S.  shows  himself  still  the  college 
youth,  ready  to  talk  of  his  '  rational  system  of 
truantry,'  dwelling  with  gusto  upon  the  facts 
gathered  outside  the  college  courses,  and  recalling 
that  '  none  ever  had  more  certificates  for  less 
education.'  The  paper,  which  was  written  for  the 
'  New  Amphion/  the  book  of  the  Edinburgh  Univer- 
sity Union  Fancy  Fair,  December  1886,  is  included 
in  Memories  and  Portraits. 

COLVIN,  LADY 

See  'Mrs.  Sitwell.' 

COLVIN,  SIR  SIDNEY  (1845-        ) 

The  chief  of  Stevenson's  friends,  in  the  closeness 
of  their  intimacy,  was  five  years  his  senior.  Chance 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  61 

brought  them  together  when  R.  L.  S.  was  twenty- 
three,  and  Sir  Sidney  then,  and  for  the  following 
twelve  years,  Slade  Professor  of  Fine  Art  at  Cam- 
bridge University.  The  meeting  was  of  great  conse- 
quence for  Stevenson,  to  whom  the  choice  between 
a  literary  career  and  some  ordinary  profession  or 
business  presented  itself  as  the  result  of  differences 
between  himself  and  his  parents  on  what  he  had 
even  then  long  regarded  as  the  project  of  his  life. 
Relief  in  these  difficulties  came  from  the  sympathy 
and  encouragement  of  two  fellow  visitors  at  the 
Suffolk  home  of  a  cousin  of  his.  These  were  the 
present  Sir  Sidney  and  Lady  Colvin,  the  latter  then 
Mrs.  Sitwell,  a  letter  to  whom  not  long  after  their 
first  meeting  marks  the  deference  to  the  judgment  of 
his  future  literary  executor  and  editor  which  Steven- 
son displayed  to  the  end  of  his  life  :  '  If  Colvin  does 
not  think  I  shall  be  able  to  support  myself  soon  by 
literature,  I  shall  give  it  up  and  go  (horrible  as  the 
thought  is  to  me)  into  an  office  of  some  sort.'  The 
help  thus  given  at  the  outset  of  his  literary  life  was 
continued  in  many  ways ;  by  introductions  to 
friends  and  editors  in  London  ;  by  candid  criticism, 
and  by  reconciling  the  divergence  of  views  between 
R.  L.  S.  and  his  parents,  in  short,  by  an  interest 
which  is  rarely  shown  by  one  literary  man  in  the 
work  of  another.  There  is  Stevenson's  warm  ac- 
knowledgment of  this  early  encouragement  in  a 
letter  from  Honolulu  :  '  My  dear  Colvin,  I  owe  you 
and  Fleeming  Jenkin,  the  two  older  men  who  took 
the  trouble  and  knew  how  to  make  a  friend  of  me, 
everything  that  I  have  and  am.'  On  Sir  Sidney's 


62  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

appointment  as  Keeper  of  the  Prints  and  Drawings 
in  the  British  Museum  in  1884  his  rooms  in  the 
Museum  were  Stevenson's  headquarters  in  London. 
Previously,  for  a  time,  the  two  had  shared  a  lodging 
in  Hampstead.  To  their  friendship  we  owe  the 
personal  account  of  Stevenson's  doings  in  Samoa, 
written  as  a  regular  monthly  letter  for  the  purpose 
of  keeping  them  in  touch  with  each  other.  These 
and  other  letters  were  published  under  Sir  Sidney 
Colvin's  editorship  as  Vailima  Letters  (Methuen)  in 
1895,  and  (a  further  series)  as  Letters  to  his  Family 
and  Friends  (Methuen)  in  1899.  The  two  series 
were  then  united  into  one  and  issued  by  Messrs. 
Methuen  in  1911  as  The  Letters  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,  volumes  which,  with  their  included  bio- 
graphical chapters  and  editorial  notes,  are  now  the 
most  complete  picture  of  Stevenson's  life  and 
thoughts.  The  Edinburgh  edition  of  Stevenson's 
collected  works  is  the  editorial  work  of  Sir  Sidney 
Colvin,  by  whom  also  the  article  on  Stevenson  in  the 
'  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  '  is  written. 

CORNFORD,  L.  COPE  (1867-        ) 

Author  of  '  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  '  (London, 
Blackwood,  1889),  a  brief  biography  and  literary 
study  and,  considered  in  the  latter  category,  one  of 
the  most  understanding  analyses  of  Stevenson's  art 
as  a  writer. 

CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH 

The  plea  and  argument  for  at  least  as  great  a 
measure  of  consideration  for  the  ways  and  thoughts 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  63 

of  youth  as  for  those  of  age  belong  to  the  series  of 
papers  written  when  Stevenson  was  about  twenty- 
eight.  Contrasting  the  copy-book  maxims  of  caution 
and  respectability  with  the  doings  of  the  world's 
acknowledged  heroes,  he  denies  the  principle  of 
accepting  the  views  of  age  on  life  as  final.  He  is  a 
youth  glorying  in  youthfulness,  and  in  anticipation 
refusing  to  repent  its  imprudences.  When  life  is 
hurrying  you  at  breakneck  speed  to  the  unknown 
it  is  folly  to  husband  your  energies  in  provision  for 
an  old  age  which  may  never  come.  Such  is  the  note 
which  sounds  in  one  form  or  another  in  all  Stevenson's 
lay  sermons  of  this  period.  The  paper  was  published 
in  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine '  of  March  1878  and  is 
placed  in  Virginibus  Puerisque. 

CROCKETT,  S.  R.  (1860-1914) 

As  minister  for  some  years  of  a  parish  in  the  Pent- 
land  Hills  S.  R.  Crockett  was  perhaps  the  friend  of, 
and  commentator  on  Stevenson  most  familiar  with 
Stevenson's  home  country  and  the  scenes  of  the 
Covenanters  whose  history  was  so  large  an  influence 
on  the  thoughts  of  both  of  them.  Their  friendship 
began  by  Mr.  Crockett  writing  to  Saranac  of  a  book 
he  was  sending,  and  by  Stevenson,  unable  to  make 
out  his  signature,  replying  to  '  Dear  Minister  of  the 
Free  Church  at  Penicuik.'  Thereafter  they  were 
regular  correspondents,  but  the  greater  number  of 
Stevenson's  letters,  written  at  intervals  of  two 
months,  were  most  unfortunately  lost  by  Mr. 
Crockett.  The  words  of  the  dedication  to  him  of 
'  The  Stickit  Minister,'  as  Stevenson  wrote,  '  brought 


64  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

tears  to  my  eyes  every  time  I  looked  at  them. 
"  Where  about  the  graves  of  the  martyrs  the  whaups 
are  crying.  His  heart  remembers  how."  Ah,  by 
God  it  does.'  It  was  this  dedication  which  provided 
Stevenson  with  the  motif  of  the  verses  in  reply 
'  To  S.  R.  Crockett '  which  are  XLIII  in  Songs  of 
Travel,  of  which  the  first  is  : 

Blows  the  wind  to-day  and  the  sun  and  the  rain  are 

flying, 

Blows  the  wind  on  the  moors  to-day  and  now 
Where  about  the  graves  of  the  martyrs  the  whaups  are 

crying 
My  heart  remembers  how  ! 

CRUSE,  AMY 

Author  of  '  Robert  Louis  Stevenson '  (London, 
George  Harrap  &  Co.,  1905),  a  biography,  con- 
cerning itself  chiefly  with  the  external  events  of 
Stevenson's  life,  and  particularly  those  appropriate 
to  the  inclusion  of  the  book  in  a  series  of  lives  of 
'  Heroes  of  All  Times.' 

CUNNINGHAM,  ALISON  (CUMMY)  (1822-1913) 

Stevenson's  nurse  from  the  time  he  was  a  baby  of 
eighteen  months.  She  came  to  the  family  when  she 
was  thirty,  and  for  long  after  there  was  any  need 
of  her  services  remained  the  devoted  friend  and 
servant  of  Louis  and  his  parents.  The  degree  to 
which  her  unceasing  care  of  '  her  boy  '  was  esteemed 
is  familiar  from  the  letters  of  R.  L.  S.  to  her,  down 
to  the  last,  written  two  months  before  his  death. 
He  never  omitted  to  send  Cummy  an  autographed 


I 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  65 

copy  of  his  works,  as  each  appeared.  His  father, 
who  liked  Cummy  for  her  strong  theological  bias, 
made  provision  for  her  when  she  left  their  house. 
His  mother,  on  her  return  to  Edinburgh  from 
Vailima,  was  constantly  solicitous  of  Cummy's 
welfare  and,  after  her  death,  Mrs.  R.  L.  Stevenson 
added  to  her  pension  and  from  San  Francisco  wired 
messages  of  instruction  for  Cummy's  comfort  in 
her  old  age. 

In  all  this  there  was  exactly  the  expression  of 
gratitude  to  her  which  R.  L.  S.  felt  throughout  his 
life,  and  declared,  when  he  was  twenty-one,  in  the 
letter :  '  Do  not  suppose  that  I  shall  ever  forget 
those  long,  bitter  nights,  when  I  coughed  and 
coughed,  and  was  so  unhappy,  and  you  were  so 
patient  and  loving  with  a  poor  sick  child.  Indeed, 
Cummy,  I  wish  I  might  become  a  man  worth  talking 
of,  if  it  were  only  that  you  should  not  have  thrown 
away  your  pains.  .  .  .  My  dear  old  nurse,  and  you 
know  there  is  nothing  a  man  can '  say  nearer  his 
heart  except  his  mother  or  his  wife — next  time  when 
the  spring  comes  round,  and  everything  is  beginning 
once  again,  if  you  should  happen  to  think  that  you 
might  have  had  a  child  of  your  own,  and  that  it  was 
hard  you  should  have  spent  so  many  years  taking 
care  of  some  one  else's  prodigal,  just  you  think 
this — you  have  been  for  a  great  deal  in  my  life  ; 
you  have  made  much  that  there  is  in  me,  just  as 
surely  as  if  you  had  conceived  me  ;  and  that  there 
are  sons  who  are  more  ungrateful  to  their  own 
mothers  than  I  am  to  you.  For  I  am  not  ungrateful, 
my  dear  Cummy,  and  it  is  with  a  very  sincere 
E 


66  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

emotion  that  I  write  myself  your  little  boy — Louis/ 
This  was  no  mere  form  of  words,  for  '  Cummy  '  had 
a  great  influence  on  Stevenson's  imagination  and 
love  of  stories.  She  came  from  Torryburn  on  the 
north  shore  of  the  Firth  of  Forth,  an  isolated  spot 
even  now,  and  was  full  of  the  tales  of  smugglers, 
bodysnatchers,  and  bogles  which  were  told  of  her 
native  parish.  Also  she  was  a  woman  of  stern 
religious  convictions,  read  to  him  from  her  Presby- 
terian authors  and  introduced  him  to  the  Covenant- 
ing writers.  To  her,  the  theatre,  novels,  and  cards 
were  of  the  devil.  There  is  the  picture  of  the  elder 
Stevensons  playing  a  game  of  whist  whilst  Louis  and 
his  nurse  prayed  that  it  might  not  be  visited  upon 
them  to  their  perdition. 

The  Child's  Garden  of  Verses  was  dedicated — 
'  To  Alison  Cunningham.  From  her  Boy.'  Before 
it  was  completed,  R.  L.  S.  was  several  times  telling 
her  of  it,  and  that  she  was  the  only  person  who  would 
really  understand  it.  The  nurse  is  not  a  common 
subject  for  the  essayist  or  poet.  Stevenson,  by  the 
dedication,  as  much  as  by  the  verses,  showed  how 
he  never  lost  the  clear  sense  of  what  it  feels  like  to 
be  a  child. 

For  some  years  after  leaving  the  Stevenson  house- 
hold, Miss  Cunningham  lived  at  Swanston  as  house- 
keeper to  her  brother.  Her  portrait,  painted  by 
Mr.  Fiddes  Watt  of  Edinburgh,  is  preserved  at 
Swanston  Cottage  by  Lord  Guthrie.  Afterwards 
she  made  her  home  with  a  cousin  in  Edinburgh,  and 
was  there  constantly  sought  out  by  Stevensonians. 
She  died,  aged  ninety-one,  in  July  1913,  and  thus 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  67 

survived  Stevenson  for  nearly  nineteen  years. 
A  tribute  to  her  memory  is  paid  by  Lord  Guthrie  in  a 
little  book,  '  Cummy/  which  he  has  written  (Edin- 
burgh, Otto  Schulze,  1913). 

DAMIEN,  FATHER 

An  Open  Letter  to  the  Reverend  Dr.  Hyde  of 
Honolulu.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  why  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh  in  his  study  of  Stevenson  should 
have  called  the  letter  in  defence  of  Father  Damien 

* 

'  his  only  literary  mistake.'  A  mistake  hi  logic, 
in  controversy,  it  may  have  been  according  to 
established  rules,  but  unless  it  be  held  that  righteous 
anger  is  to  have  no  place  in  literature  the  critic's 
judgment  of  it  falls  to  the  ground.  The  hot  haste 
in  which  it  was  written  denied  Stevenson  the  oppor- 
tunity of  his  habitual  revision  ;  and  it  is  thus  a  reve- 
lation of  his  raw  power  which  no  other  of  his  writings 
affords.  There  is  even  much  to  be  said  for  the  line 
which  he  took  in  this  white  heat  of  indignation. 
To  have  admitted  certain  of  Damien's  failings,  and 
to  have  repudiated  others  by  a  whirl  wind  of  casti- 
gation  of  Dr.  Hyde  was  plainly  illogical,  but  it  is 
inconceivable  that  a  reasoned  defence  of  the  dead 
priest  would  have  achieved  one-thousandth  part 
of  the  effect  which  the  public  assault  upon  the 
Reverend  Dr.  Hyde  produced.  Instead  of  seeking 
to  convince  from  evidence,  Stevenson  reversed  the 
process,  and  let  his  caustic  stream  of  wrath  bespeak 
his  own  conviction.  The  general  acceptance  of  the 
tract  as  a  sweeping  justification  of  Damien  showed 
that  his  instinct  had  not  misled  him. 


68  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Yet  he  was  well  informed  of  the  facts  in  dispute 
which  were  then  a  matter  of  much  talk  in  the 
Hawaiian  islands.  From  Honolulu,  where  he  had 
rested  for  six  months  at  the  end  of  his  first  Pacific 
cruise,  he  had  made  a  trip  to  Molokai,  and  had  spent 
a  week  in  visiting  the  leper  settlement.  Damien 
had  then  been  dead  barely  a  month.  The  Flemish 
priest — he  was  trained  in  what  was  once  Louvain — 
had  voluntarily  taken  up  his  work  there  sixteen  years 
before.  For  the  last  five  years  of  his  life  he  had  been 
himself  a  leper.  For  all  his  devotion  he  was  not 
popular  in  that  hapless  mixed  company.  Talk  of 
him  which  was  rife  in  the  island  and  Honolulu  made 
no  plaster  saint  of  him,  and  while  he  was  still  waiting 
the  death  he  had  courted,  there  were  those  who 
were  ready  to  believe  the  worst  reports  of  him. 
Stevenson,  as  his  wife  has  said,  followed  Damien's  life 
'  like  a  detective,'  and  he  was  clearly  summing  up 
the  result  of  his  inquiries  in  the  letters  he  wrote  to 
Sir  Sidney  Colvin  on  his  return  to  Honolulu  from 
the  leper  island  :  '  Of  old  Damien,  whose  weaknesses 
and  worse  perhaps  I  heard  fully,  I  think  only  the 
more.  It  was  a  European  peasant :  dirty,  bigoted, 
untruthful,  unwise,  tricky,  but  superb  with 
generosity,  residual  candour,  and  fundamental 
good-humour ;  convince  him  he  had  done  wrong 
(it  might  take  hours  of  insult),  and  he  would  un- 
do what  he  had  done,  and  like  his  corrector  the 
better.  A  man  with  all  the  grime  and  paltriness 
of  mankind,  but  a  saint  and  hero  all  the  more 
for  that.' 

The  circumstances  hi  which  the  Letter  was  written 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  69 

have  recently  been  recalled  by  Mrs.  Stevenson  in  a 
preface  to  the  1911  edition  of  Lay  Morals.  Coming 
to  Samoa  at  the  ending  of  their  voyage  on  the 
'  Equator/  they  read  in  a  newspaper  that  the  pro- 
ject to  erect  a  memorial  to  Damien  was  to  be  aban- 
doned owing  to  the  publication  of  a  letter  by  a 
Honolulu  missionary,  in  which  the  priest's  con- 
traction of  leprosy  was  attributed  to  his  immoral 
habits.  Stevenson  exclaimed  that  it  (the  letter) 
was  '  too  damnable  for  belief,'  but  he  had  the  evi- 
dence of  his  own  eyes  two  months  afterwards  in 
Sydney.  There  the  "  Sydney  Presbyterian  "  of  the 
previous  October  26,  by  whom  Dr.  Hyde's  notorious 
epistle  was  published,  was  among  the  first  news- 
papers to  come  into  his  hand.  Mrs.  Stevenson 
records  his  ferocity  of  indignation,  the  '  leaping 
stride '  with  which  he  paced  the  room,  and  the 
sound  of  a  chair  being  drawn  to  the  table  and  an  ink- 
stand dragged  into  place,  as  there  and  then  he  sat 
down  in  the  next  room  to  write  his  reply.  Within 
a  few  hours  he  called  his  wife  and  her  son  and 
daughter  to  hear  it,  and  to  discuss  the  vital  con- 
sideration that  in  publishing  a  document  so  de- 
structive of  its  subject's  reputation  he  was  exposing 
himself — and  them — to  the  consequences  of  an 
action  for  libel.  He  asked  their  assent  to  what  he 
proposed  to  do ;  without  it  he  would  not  take  the 
risk  of  the  loss  of  their  entire  means.  His  family 
joining  with  him,  a  printer  was  hired  to  produce  the 
pamphlet  which  the  party  themselves  distributed 
by  post.  Although  a  publisher  could  not  be  found 
for  it  in  March  (1890),  it  appeared  in  the  '  Australian 


70  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Star '  of  May  24,  having  previously  been  published 
in  the  Edinburgh  '  Scots  Observer,'  of  which  Henley 
was  then  editor,  and  from  which  it  passed  into  the 
European  press,  with  the  effect  of  instantaneously 
achieving  its  author's  purpose. 

In  Honolulu,  on  the  other  hand,  it  aroused  some 
debate  in  which  the  issue  was  confused  by  the  share 
which  Stevenson  had  taken  in  Hawaiian  politics. 
The  reader  can  refer  in  this  matter  to  Johnstone's 
'  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  in  the  Pacific,'  in  which  will 
be  found  the  official  facts  which  Stevenson  must  have 
known,  and  might  have  cited  in  his '  defence  of 
Damien.  It  contains  also  the  text  of  Damien's  own 
report  on  his  work  to  the  Hawaiian  Board  of  Health, 
by  which  body,  through  its  commissioner  at  Molokai, 
the  innuendoes  against  Damien  were  completely 
disproved. 

Such  documents,  however,  were  not  Stevenson's 
weapons  ;  nor  yet  over  ordinary  matters  did  he 
allow  his  anger  to  run  to  the  extreme  of  bitterness 
displayed  in  the  Letter.  Easily  angered,  his  nature 
rebelled  against  wounding  the  feelings  even  of  anta- 
gonists, a  feeling  to  which  he  soon  afterwards  con- 
fessed in  the  Damien  affair :  '  It  is  always  harsh- 
ness that  one  regrets.  ...  I  regret  also  my  letter 
to  Dr.  Hyde.  Yes,  I  do  ;  I  think  it  was  barbarously 
harsh ;  if  I  did  it  now  I  would  defend  Damien  no 
less  well  and  give  less  pain  to  those  who  are  alive. 
.  .  .  When  I  wrote  the  letter,  I  believed  he  (Dr. 
Hyde)  would  bring  an  action,  in  which  case  I  knew 
I  would  be  beggared.  But  as  yet  there  has  come 
no  action  :  the  injured  Doctor  has  contented  him- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.L.S,  71 

self  up  to  now  with  the  (truly  innocuous)  vengeance 
of  calling  me  a  '  Bohemian  Crank.' 

Prices  paid  for  the  original  Sydney  pamphlet, 
of  which  only  twenty-five  copies  were  printed,  have 
ranged  from  £7  to  £27.  Another  private  edition 
also  of  1890  on  Japanese  paper  has  sold  for  about 
£6.  The  first  published  edition,  again  of  1890,  is 
that  of  Chatto  &  Windus,  by  whom  the  letter  is 
now  included  in  the  volume  Lay  Morals. 


DAVOS  PLATZ 

Stevenson  spent  two  winters  at  Davos  when  it 
was  a  mountain  village  isolated  at  the  head  of  the 
Prattigau  valley,  and  very  different  from  the  resort 
of  the  present  day.  Lung  trouble  and  great  weak- 
ness drove  him  there  in  October  1880  on  his  return 
from  America  with  his  bride  and  stepson.  They 
stayed  at  the  Hotel  Belvedere,  where  Stevenson's 
invalidism  was  somewhat  relieved  by  the  society  of 
John  Addington  Symonds  (q.v.).  The  papers  on 
the  life  and  climate  of  Davos  belong  to  this  visit, 
which  ended  in  April  1881.  In  the  following 
October  it  was  again  impossible  to  contemplate  a 
winter  in  Scotland,  and  the  family  made  their  home 
at  Davos  again  until  the  spring  of  1882,  this  time  in 
the  Chalet  am  Stein  or  Chalet  Buol,  near  to  the  Buol 
Hotel  and  to  the  Symonds's  house.  His  health 
benefited  by  this  second  stay,  though  the  place  had 
no  attractions  for  him.  Hours  of  play  with  armies 
of  tin  soldiers  amused  him  and  his  young  stepson, 
and  the  purchase  of  a  toy  printing-press  led  to  the 


72  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

issue  of  the  woodcuts  and  verses  of  The  Davos 
Press  (q.v.). 

DAVOS  IN  WINTER 

The  four  short  papers,  of  which  this  was  one,  on 
the  Alpine  resort  for  invalids,  were  almost  the  only 
work  which  Stevenson  did  during  his  first  winter 
at  Davos  (cet.  30).  He  never  liked  his  surroundings, 
feeling  that  '  a  mountain  valley,  an  Alpine  winter, 
and  an  invalid's  weakness  make  up  among  them  a 
prison  of  the  most  effective  kind.'  The  monotony 
of  the  landscape  oppressed  him — one  valley  exactly 
like  another — and  he  resented  the  impossibility  of 
escaping  from  the  other  visitors,  confined,  like  him, 
to  the  same  mountain  roads.  The  fretful  note  of 
his  paper  was  what  perhaps  he  had  in  mind  a  year 
afterwards  in  writing  that  he  had  '  discoursed  upon 
it  (Davos)  rather  sillily,'  adding  that  '  it  has  done 
me,  in  my  two  winters'  exile,  much  good ;  so  much 
that  I  hope  to  leave  it  now  for  ever.'  The  paper 
appeared  in  the  '  Pall  Mall  Gazette,'  February  21, 
1881,  and  is  included  in  Essays  of  Travel. 

DAVOS  PRESS,  THE 

The  amusement  which  Stevenson  derived  for 
himself  and  his  young  stepson  from  the  cutting  and 
printing  of  wooden  printing  plates  was  the  origin 
of  some  of  the  most  highly  prized — and  priced — of 
Stevensoniana.  These  are  the  small  pamphlets, 
some  of  the  woodcuts  only,  others,  in  which  the  im- 
pressions are  accompanied  by  verses,  which  were 
issued  as  from  the  Davos  Press.  They  were  printed 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  73 

in  the  toy  press  of  his  stepson,  then  about  thirteen, 
and  their  production  served  to  provide  some  recrea- 
tion during  the  two  winters,  of  1881  and  1882,  which 
were  spent  at  Davos.  One  or  two  of  them,  however, 
were  afterwards  '  published '  in  Edinburgh.  The 
titles  of  these  little  pamphlets  are  :  Not  I,  and  other 
Poems ;  Moral  Emblems  (two  series) ;  Black  Canyon, 
or  Wild  Adventures  in  the  Far  West ;  The  Marguerite ; 
The  Graver  and  the  Pen  ;  Rob  and  Ben,  or  the  Pirate 
and  the  Apothecary ;  and  Lord  Nelson  and  the  Tar, 
the  two  latter,  incomplete  sets  of  engravings.  A 
very  limited  number  of  each  could  have  been  printed, 
so  that  the  books  are  among  the  rarest  of  Stevenson 
publications,  as  much  as  £20  having  been  paid  for 
a  copy  of  one  of  the  smallest.  Reproductions  of  a 
few  of  the  woodcuts  were  first  published  in  the 
'  Studio  '  Winter  Number  of  1896,  where  Mr.  Joseph 
Pennell,  hi  an  article  on  Stevenson  as  an  illustrator, 
discovers  many  admirable  qualities  in  them.  Suc- 
cessive complete  editions  of  the  collected  works  have 
included  them,  but  they  have  not  as  yet  been  issued 
in  more  popular  form. 

DAY  AFTER  TO-MORROW,  THE 

Except  for  his  writings  on  Samoan  affairs  the  only 
occasion  on  which  Stevenson  took  up  a  political 
subject  was  in  the  contribution  of  this  paper  to  the 
'  Contemporary  Review/  April  1887.  His  interest 
in  politics  had  begun,  as  his  biographer  says,  with 
the  adoption  of  a  settled  life  at  Bournemouth  three 
years  previously,  and  was  exhibited  in  a  deep  dislike 
of  Gladstone's  policy  at  home  and  abroad.  The 


74  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

disorder  in  Ireland  so  affected  him  that  a  more  than 
usually  lawless  attack  on  a  farmer  in  County  Kerry 
by  a  party  of  moonlighters,  led  him  to  conceive  the 
plan  of  occupying  the  farm  himself  with  his  family 
as  a  public  act  of  protest  against  the  misgovernment 
of  the  country.  The  project,  from  which  he  was 
dissuaded  with  the  utmost  difficulty  and  which  he 
would  have  carried  out,  but  for  the  sudden  and  final 
illness  of  his  father,  may  be  said  to  mark  Stevenson's 
impetuous  attitude  towards  political  problems. 
This  one  political  paper  (now  published  in  Lay 
Morals),  in  which  he  seeks  to  forecast  certain  of  the 
factors  tending  to  disintegrate  a  socialistic  state, 
does  little  to  demonstrate  his  fitness  for  the  part  of 
political  prophet. 

DEACON  BRODIE 

The  qualified  measure  of  success  which  this 
melodrama  of  the  double  life  obtained  plainly  pro- 
vided the  encouragement  for  future  collaboration 
with  Henley  hi  the  same  field.  The  story  of  the 
disreputable  Edinburgh  citizen  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  a  respectable  cabinetmaker  by  day,  a 
housebreaker  by  night,  was  familiar  to  Stevenson 
from  childhood.  A  cabinet  made  by  the  Deacon 
stood  in  his  nursery  ;  at  fifteen  years  of  age  he  had 
written  a  play  around  the  Deacon's  twofold  life,  and 
in  the  Edinburgh,  Picturesque  Notes  the  Deacon 
'  slinking  from  a  magistrate's  supper-room  to  a 
thieves'  ken,  and  pickeering  among  the  closes  by 
the  flicker  of  a  dark  lamp '  had  been  singled  out 
from  the  figures  of  the  past.  The  play  which  he 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  75 

and  Henley  wrote  together  in  London  and  Swans  ton, 
in  the  spring  of  1879,  had  from  the  exigencies  of 
stage  production  to  depart  from  the  facts  of  Brodie's 
end.  A  robbery  at  the  Excise  office  led  to  Brodie's 
being  betrayed  by  members  of  his  gang.  He  escaped 
to  Holland  but  was  brought  back,  tried  before  Lord 
Braxfield,  Stevenson's  '  Weir  of  Hermiston/  and 
hanged  on  October  2,  1788.  The  play  was  first 
produced  at  Pullan's  Theatre  of  Varieties,  Bradford, 
December  28, 1882,  and  was  performed  the  following 
year  at  Her  Majesty's  Theatre,  Aberdeen.  It 
enjoyed  a  certain  run  in  the  North  of  England  'and 
Scotland.  Stevenson  himself  was  not  well  enough 
to  witness  it  on  its  production  in  London  at  the 
Prince's  (now  Prince  of  Wales)  Theatre,  July  2, 
1884,  when  the  name  part  was  acted  by  Henley's 
brother,  E.  J.  Henley,  and  that  of  Captain  Rivers 
by  Brandon  Thomas.  It  afterwards  was  toured 
with  some  success  in  America. 


DEBATING  SOCIETIES 

A  paper  contributed  (cet.  20)  to  the  '  Edinburgh 
University  Mazazine/  and  now  published  in  Lay 
Morals.  The  Speculative  Society,  by  the  proceedings 
of  which  these  maxims  of  debate  must  have  been 
prompted,  was  an  old  established  body  in  Edin- 
burgh unconnected  with  the  University,  though  it 
had  quarters  in  its  buildings.  Stevenson  became 
one  of  its  thirty  ordinary  members  early  in  his 
nineteenth  year,  and  for  five  years  found  his  chief 
intellectual  exercise  at  its  meetings. 


76  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

DEDICATIONS 

The  felicitous  greetings  in  public,  uttered  by  way 
of  dedication  of  his  books,  exhibit  an  aspect  of 
Stevenson's  charm  as  a  writer  undisplayed  perhaps 
.hi  any  other.  With  one  exception  they  were  all 
addressed  to  close  friends.  Sir  Walter  Simpson  to 
whom  An  Inland  Voyage  is  dedicated  was  his  com- 
panion, the  '  Cigarette  '  of  the  canoe  journey.  The 
dedication  of  Travels  with  a  Donkey  is  to  '  My  dear 
Sidney  Colvin '  and  of  Virginibus  Puerisque,  which 
followed  it,  to  W.  E.  Henley,  the  latter  ending  hi  a 
hope  of  lifelong  friendship  not  realized.  His  first 
work  of  more  serious  kind,  Familiar  Studies  of  Men 
and  Books,  was  dedicated  to  his  father ;  New 
Arabian  Nights  to  his  cousin,  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson, 
to  whom  also  the  papers  of  Essays  of  Travel  are 
dedicated  in  a  familiar  note  written  at  Monterey 
but  withheld,  with  The  Amateur  Emigrant,  for  fifteen 
years ;  Treasure  Island,  to  his  stepson,  Lloyd 
Osbourne,  '  an  American  gentleman,'  then  thirteen 
years  old.  Nelly  van  de  Grift  to  whom  Prince  Otto 
is  dedicated  was  a  sister-in-law.  Stevenson's  dis- 
satisfaction with  English  politics  at  this  tune  of 
Irish  disorders  and  the  death  of  Gordon  is  reflected 
in  the  dedication  of  More  New  Arabian  Nights  to 
the  police  officers,  Cole  and  Cox,  by  way  of  protest 
at  what  he  judged  the  weakness  of  the  Government. 
The  address  of  A  Child's  Garden  of  Verses  to  his  nurse 
'  Cummy  '  is  perhaps  the  most  graceful  of  all  these 
dedications.  The  verse  inscribing  Jekyll  and  Hyde 
to  a  cousin,  Katharine  de  Mattos,  is  one  of  two 
published  in  the  Letters.  The  two  Scotch  tales 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  77 

Kidnapped  and  Catriona  are  offered  to  Charles 
Baxter.  Apropos  of  his  thought  that  his  friend's 
son  might  like  the  former  tale  when  he  was  older, 
it  is  painful  to  recall  that  one  of  Baxter's  two  sons 
was  reported  missing  from  active  service  in  Russia 
after  the  revolution  of  1917.  The  Merry  Men  is 
dedicated  to  Lady  Taylor,  wife  of  the  Colonial  official 
and  dramatist,  Sir  Henry  Taylor,  with  whom 
Stevenson  formed  a  close  friendship  on  coming  to 
Bournemouth.  The  dedication  to  his  mother  of 
Memories  and  Portraits,  issued  soon  after  Thomas 
Stevenson's  death,  has  reference  to  their  common 
sorrow.  Of  the  two  dedications  to  his  wife,  of  The 
Black  Arrow  and  the  posthumous  Weir  of  Hermiston, 
the  former  discloses  the  fact  that  it  was  the  one  book 
of  his  she  could  never  read.  Sir  Percy  and  Lady 
Shelley,  saluted  in  the  dedication  of  The  Master 
of  Ballantrae,  were  the  son  and  daughter-in-law  of 
the  poet,  to  whose  genius  Lady  Shelley  professed 
to  discover  a  resemblance  in  that  of  Stevenson, 
The  dedication  of  The  Wrecker  to  Mr.  Will  H.  Low 
in  the  Epilogue  had  its  object  in  identifying  him 
with  the  experiences  of  Loudon  Dodd.  The  trio, 
Harry  Henderson,  Ben  Hird,  and  Jack  Buckland, 
to  whom  Island  Nights  Entertainments  is  addressed, 
were  Stevenson's  ship-mates  in  the  '  Janet  Nicoll/ 
whilst  Underwoods  was  dedicated  to  the  physicians 
who  for  the  previous  ten  years  had  helped  to  keep 
him  alive,  in  particular  Dr.  Thomas  Bodley  Scott  of 
Bournemouth.  Coming  to  the  only  work,  Across 
the  Plains,  dedicated  to  some  one  not  a  personal 
friend — this  was  to  M.  Paul  Bourget,  whose  works, 


78  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

and  especially  his  '  Sensations  d'ltalie,'  had  excited 
Stevenson's  liveliest  admiration.  Acknowledgment 
of  the  compliment  failing  to  reach  him,  Stevenson, 
punctilious  in  such  matters  himself,  burst  out  to 
Sir  Sidney  Colvin  :  '  He  has  taken  my  dedication 
with  a  stately  silence  which  has  surprised  me  into 
apoplexy.  Did  I  go  and  dedicate  my  book  to  the 
nasty  alien,  and  the  'norrid  Frenchman  and  the 
Bloody  Furrineer  ?  Well,  I  won't  do  it  again ;  and 
unless  his  case  is  susceptible  of  explanation  you 
might  tell  him  so  over  the  walnuts  and  wine  by  way 
of  speeding  the  gay  hours.'  The  remaining  works, 
Edinburgh,  The  Silverado  Squatters,  The  Wrong  Box 
and  A  Footnote  to  History,  have  no  dedication. 


DEW-SMITH,  A.  G. 

A  Cambridge  friend  of  Stevenson's  and,  in  a 
measure,  the  original  of  Attwater  (q.v.)  in  The  Ebb 
Tide.  To  Dew-Smith,  R.  L.  S.  wrote  from  Davos 
in  1880  the  amusing  verses,  acknowledging  the  gift 
of  a  box  of  cigarettes.  Among  them  : 

But  what,  my  Dew,  in  idle  mood, 
What  prate  I  minding  not  my  debt. 
What  do  I  talk  of  bad  and  good, 
The  best  is  still  a  cigarette. 


DOBSON,  HENRY  AUSTIN  (1840-        ) 

The  poet,  biographer,  and  writer  on  the  eighteenth 
century  became  a  friend  of  Stevenson's  during  the 
years  of  the  latter's  flying  visits  to  London  and  the 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  79 

Savile  Club.  If  he  were  not  among  his  closest 
intimates,  he  has  nevertheless  expressed  as  finely 
as  any  one  both  the  spirit  of  Stevenson's  personality, 
and  the  sense  of  loss  in  its  departure  in  the  lines 
contributed  by  way  of  dedication  to  the  New  Century 
number  of  the  '  Edinburgh  University  Magazine/ 
January  1901  : 

These  to  his  memory.     May  the  age  arriving, 

As  ours,  recall 
That  bravest  heart,  that  gay  and  gallant  striving, 

That  laurelled  pall ! 

Blithe  and  rare  spirit !     We,  who  later  linger 

By  bleaker  seas, 
Sigh  for  the  touch  of  the  Magician's  fingers, 

His  golden  keys. 


DOGS,  THE  CHARACTER  OF 

The  dog  friends  whose  qualities  are  the  subject 
of  this  paper,  included  in  Memories  and  Portraits, 
were  Stevenson's  companions  during  the  period  of 
his  married  life  in  Europe.  At  home  the  devotion 
of  every  dog  to  Thomas  Stevenson  disposed  of  owner- 
ship by  any  other  member  of  the  family.  Bogue, 
whose  chivalry  for  the  opposite  sex  suffered  so  sudden 
a  change,  was  a  gift  from  Sir  Walter  Simpson  on  the 
family's  first  exodus  to  Davos,  and  remained  an 
important  member  of  it  until  his  death  at  Bourne- 
mouth. The  entrance  way  of  Skerryvore  still  dis- 
plays the  two  tablets  which  R.  L.  S.  put  up  to  the 
memory  of  Bogue  and  of  another  Skye  terrier, 
Coolin,  distinguished  by  his  nicely  proportioned 


8o  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

acts    of   gratitude.    The    paper    appeared   in    the 
'  English  Illustrated  Magazine,'  February  1884. 

DOYLE,  SIR  ARTHUR  CONAN  (1859-        ) 

Stevenson  opened  a  correspondence  with  Sir 
Conan  Doyle  by  offering  his  compliments  on  the 
'  very  ingenious  and  very  interesting  adventures  ' 
of  Sherlock  Holmes,  the  original  of  whom,  Dr.  Bell, 
the  Edinburgh  doctor,  he  correctly  guessed.  '  Sher- 
lock Holmes/  he  wrote,  '  is  the  class  of  literature 
that  I  like  when  I  have  the  toothache.'  His  address 
of  Conan  Doyle  as  '  fellow  spookist '  is  a  reminder 
that  among  the  writings  of  his  which  have  not  been 
republished  is  a  letter  on  the  psychical  phenomena 
of  dreams  written  to  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  and  contained 
hi  a  paper  by  the  latter  on  '  The  Sublimal  Conscious- 
ness '  hi  the  proceedings  of  the  Psychical  Society, 
of  which  for  some  years  Stevenson  was  a  member. 

DREAMS,  A  CHAPTER  ON 

While  playfully  pretending  in  this  essay  that  in 
his  dreaming  hours  his  friends  the  Brownies,  the 
Little  People,  did  a  good  part  of  his  work  for  him, 
Stevenson  was  describing  experiences  which  were 
temperamental  with  him.  As  the  paper  declares,  the 
main  features  of  the  two  stories  Jekyll  and  Hyde 
and  Olalla  came  to  him  in  dreams  ;  but  the  opinion 
of  his  biographer  that  they  are  the  only  stories 
which  had  this  origin  may  be  doubted  when  one 
recalls  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Sitwell,  written  when  he  was 
twenty-four,  and  telling  of  his  varied  kinds  of 
dream.  As  an  example  of  a  dream  different  from 


.A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  81 

his  usual  ones  of  '  social  miseries  and  misunder- 
standings '  he  describes  one  '  ...  of  long  suc- 
cessions of  vaulted,  dimly-lit  cellars  full  of  black 
water,  in  which  I  went  swimming  among  toads  and 
unutterable  cold,  blind  fishes.  Now  and  then  these 
cellars  opened  up  into  sort  of  domed  music-hall 
places,  where  one  could  land  for  a  little  on  the  slope 
of  the  orchestra,  but  a  sort  of  horror  prevented  one 
from  staying  long,  and  made  one  plunge  back  again 
into  the  dead  waters.  Then  my  dream  changed, 
and  I  was  a  sort  of  Siamese  pirate,  on  a  very  high 
deck,  with  several  others.  The  ship  was  almost 
captured,  and  we  were  fighting  desperately.  The 
hideous  engines  we  used  and  the  perfectly  incredible 
carnage  that  we  effected  by  means  of  them  kept  me 
cheery,  as  you  may  imagine  ;  especially  as  I  felt  all 
the  time  my  sympathy  with  the  boarders,  and  knew 
that  I  was  only  a  prisoner  with  these  horrid  Malays. 
Then  I  saw  a  signal  being  given,  and  knew  they 
were  going  to  blow  up  the  ship.  I  leaped  right  off, 
and  heard  my  captors  splash  in  the  water  after  me 
as  thick  as  pebbles  when  a  bit  of  river  bank  has 
given  way  beneath  the  foot.  I  never  heard  the 
ship  blow  up ;  but  I  spent  the  rest  of  the  night 
swimming  about  some  piles  with  the  whole  sea  full 
of  Malays,  searching  for  me  with  knives  in  their 
mouths.  They  could  swim  any  distance  under 
water,  and  every  now  and  again,  just  as  I  was 
beginning  to  reckon  myself  safe,  a  cold  hand  would 
be  laid  on  my  ankle — ugh  ! ' 

The  essay  appeared  in  '  Scribner's  Magazine  '  of 
January  1888,  and  is  collected  in  Across  the  Plains. 
F 


82  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

DUDDINGSTONE 

The  poem  thus  titled  is  one  of  a  dozen  or  more 
lately  published  in  New  Poems  and  Variant  Readings, 
which  form  a  fragmentary  autobiographical  chapter 
of  the  early  love-affairs  on  which  Stevenson  and  his 
contemporaries  alike  are  silent.  It  was  written  in 
1871  (at.  21),  and  others  hi  the  same  vein  belong  to 
this  year  or  to  the  two  succeeding.  With  his  de- 
parture to  Mentone  in  the  autumn  of  1873  his  mind 
found  a  diversion  from  what  had  evidently  been 
passages  of  deep  feeling.  Not  without  regrets, 
however,  for  the  following  year  found  him  writing : 

For  thus  on  love  I  waited :  thus  for  love 
Strained  all  my  senses  eagerly  and  long. 

The  day  has  come  and  gone ;  and  once  more  night 
About  my  lone  life  settles,  wild  and  wide. 

DUMAS'S,  A  GOSSIP  ON  A  NOVEL  OF 

Stevenson's  admiration  of  the  elder  Dumas  was 
by  no  means  limited  to  the  '  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne,' 
to  which  this  paper,  first  published  in  Memories  and 
Portraits  in  1887,  is  so  glowing  a  tribute.  '  The 
brave  old  godly  pagan,'  he  wrote,  '  I  adore  his  big 
footprints  on  the  earth.'  He  couples  Dumas  with 
Shakespeare ;  Dumas  it  was  by  whom  the  plays 
with  Henley  were  inspired ;  but  no  work  of  the 
French  romantic  seems  to  have  compelled  his 
homage  like  the  character  of  D'Artagnan.  The 
feeling  is  even  more  strongly  expressed  hi  a  paper 
of  the  same  period  than  in  his  essay  on  the  subject 
proper  :  '  Perhaps  my  dearest  and  best  friend  out- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  83 

side  of  Shakespeare  is  D'Artagnan — the  elderly 
D'Artagnan  of  the  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne.'  I 
know  not  a  more  human  soul  nor,  in  his  way,  a 
finer :  I  shall  be  very  sorry  for  the  man  who  is  so 
much  a  pedant  in  morals  that  he  cannot  learn  from 
the  Captain  of  the  Musketeers.' 

DYNAMITER,  THE 

See  '  More  New  Arabian  Nights/ 

EARRAID 

See  '  Memories  of  an  Islet.' 

EBB  TIDE,  THE 

In  1890,  the  year  after  first  reaching  Samoa  but 
before  he  had  properly  settled  there,  Stevenson  and 
his  stepson  planned  and  began  what  they  intended 
to  be  a  huge  novel,  The  Pearl  Fisher — '  a  black, 
ugly,  trampling,  violent  story,  full  of  strange  scenes 
and  striking  characters.'  About  the  end  of  the  next 
year,  when  only  a  quarter  of  it  had  been  done,  the 
incomplete  MS.  was  laid  aside  and  would  seem  to 
have  been  abandoned  until  suddenly,  in  February 
1893  (at.  42),  in  the  midst  of  plans  for  St.  Ives, 
Stevenson  resolved  to  use  '  the  butt  end  of  what 
was  once  The  Pearl  Fisher  in  a  new  form  as  The 
Schooner  Farallone.'  It  was  to  be  finished  in  six 
weeks  and  was  to  end  with  a  conversion  of  a  chief 
character — apparently  the  idea  which  he  had  coi> 
ceived,  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  as  the  final 
chapter  for  the  novel  of  more  than  two  years  before. 
The  name  was  again  changed — to  The  Ebb  Tide — 


84  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

but  it  was  not  until  June  that  the  story  was  finished 
after  endless  rewritings   and  revisions  of  chapter 
after   chapter.     His   letters   during   these   months 
contain  a  diary  of  the  daily — even  hourly — stages 
of  his  effort  to  graft  the  new  conception  on  the  old. 
'  I  break  down  at  every  paragraph  .  .  .  and  lie 
here  and  sweat  till  I  can  get  one  sentence  wrung  out 
after  another.     Strange  doom  !  after  having  worked 
so  easily  for  so  long.'     After  all,  the  end,  with  its 
astonishing   conversion   of   Davis,   seems   to   have 
left  him  with  doubts  of  the  work.     '  The  tale  is 
devilish  and  chapter  xi  the  worst  of  the  lot.'    The 
truth  seems  to  be  that  Stevenson  realized  he  had 
taken  his  spade  too  deep  in  the  black  depths  of 
human  nature.     His  metier  had  mostly  been  the 
dark  primitive  passions  of  the  race,  but  not  even 
the  conception  of  pure  evil  in  Mr.  Hyde  is  more 
repulsive  than  the  trio  of  villainy  in  The  Ebb  Tide, 
where  it  is  heightened  against  the  dazzling  beauty  of 
the  Pacific  seas  and  beaches.     A  letter  to  Henry 
James  shows  that  he  scarcely  expected  the  public 
to  accept  the  -work  for  its  art :  '  ...  it  will  serve  as 
a  touchstone.     If  the  admirers  of  Zola  admire  him 
for  his  pertinent  ugliness  and  pessimism  I  think  they 
will  admire  this  ;   but  if,  as  I  have  long  suspected, 
they  neither  admire  nor  understand  the  man's  art, 
but  only  wallow  in  his  rancidness,  like  a  hound  in 
offal,  then  they  will  certainly  be  disappointed  in 
The  Ebb  Tide,    Alas  !  poor  little  tale,  it  is  not  even 
rancid.'     If  editions  count  for  anything,  the  public 
has  shown  itself  unperceptive  ;    after  its  first  two 
impressions   at   the   time   of  issue,    The  Ebb   Tide 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  85 

waited  eight  years  for  the  call  for  a  third  edition  ; 
Catriona  within  the  same  period  had  run  through 
eight. 

The  shares  in  the  book  taken  by  the  joint  authors 
have  been  clearly  defined.  Mr.  Lloyd  Osbourne  has 
declared  that  the  first  four  chapters  remain,  save  for 
the  text  of  Herrick's  letter  to  his  sweetheart,  almost 
as  he  first  wrote  them ;  from  R.  L.  S.  we  have  it 
that  the  second  part  is  entirely  his.  This  ending 
replaced  the  original  plan  of  the  tale  which,  as  Sir 
Graham  Balfour-  learnt  from  Stevenson,  was  the 
blinding  of  Attwater,  and  his  return  to  England 
where,  chiefly  in  Bloomsbury,  the  further  develop- 
ment was  to  take  place. 

The  Ebb  Tide  appeared  first  in  '  To-day '  under 
Mr.  Jerome  K.  Jerome's  editorship  from  November 
1893  to  February  1894.  It  was  issued  in  1894  in 
book  form  by  Messrs.  Heinemann,  and  the  first 
edition  of  237  pages  has  now  a  value  of  about  fifteen 
shillings. 

EDINBURGH 

The  house  hi  which  Stevenson  was  born  (Novem- 
ber 13,  1850)  stands  in  a  street  bordering  Warriston 
Park  in  the  northern  part  of  the  city.  It  is  No.  8  in 
Howard  Place,  part  of  the  thoroughfare  which  is  now 
a  tram  route.  The  family  moved  to  No.  i  Inverleith 
Terrace,  nearly  opposite,  when  Louis  was  three,  and, 
four  years  later,  to  the  much  larger  house  at  17  Heriot 
Row,  five  minutes'  walk  to  the  north  of  Princes 
Street  and  with  gardens  between  it  and  Queen 
Street.  This  remained  their  home  until  Thomas 


86  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Stevenson's  death.  India  Street,  where  Stevenson 
went  to  the  school  of  a  Mr.  Henderson,  is  a  turning 
out  of  the  western  end  of  Heriot  Row.  The 
Edinburgh  Academy,  where  he  was  an  irregular 
attendant  as  a  boy  of  eleven  or  twelve,  is  in 
Henderson  Row,  five  streets  north  of  Heriot  Row, 
but  his  chief  schooldays  were  spent  at  the  establish- 
ment of  a  Mr.  Robert  Thomson  in  Frederick  Street, 
joining  Heriot  Row  'to  Princes  Street.  The  old 
buildings  of  the  University  in  South  Bridge  com- 
plete the  list  of  the  educational  institutions  which 
are  among  his  associations  with  Edinburgh.  The 
rooms  of  the  Speculative  Society  remain  as  in 
Stevenson's  time,  and  possess  a  memorial  of  him  in  the 
form  of  the  Union  Jack  of  the  '  Casco.'  The  High 
Street  in  the  Old  Town  is  included  in  a  Stevensonian's 
tour  of  Edinburgh  if  only  to  visit  the  Parliament 
House  where  Stevenson  was  admitted  an  advocate 
in  1875,  and  St.  Giles  Cathedral  where  is  the 
medallion  memorial  by  Augustus  St.  Gaudens  pre- 
pared from  the  bas-relief  originally  made  in  New 
York  in  1887.  To  cross  Princes  Street  again,  at 
the  corner  of  Antigua  Street,  ten  minutes'  walk 
down  the  broad  thoroughfare,  Leith  Walk,  still 
stands  the  shop  where  Stevenson  bought  the 
cardboard  scenery  and  figures  of  Penny  Plain  and 
Twopence  Coloured. 

EDINBURGH,  PICTURESQUE  NOTES 

If  Stevenson's  chapters  contain  scarcely  a  word 
of  affection  for  his  native  city,  the  fact  may  be  set 
down  to  the  physical  discomfort  and  mental  dis- 


NO.    8    HOWARD    PLACE,    EDINBURGH,    WHERE  STEVENSON    WAS   BORN    NOV.    13,    1850 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  87 

content  of  his  Edinburgh  days,  as  they  appeared  at 
close  perspective,  as  well  as  to  the  critical  spirit  of 
his  early  years.  Actually  his  love  for  the  romantic 
capital  was  deep  ;  and  deepened  as  his  life  continued 
to  be  passed  in  distant  places.  Even  during  a 
holiday  in  France,  when  he  was  twenty-two,  he  was 
constrained  to  write  to  his  friend  Baxter :  '  After 
all,  new  countries,  sun,  music,  and  all  the  rest  can 
never  take  down  our  gusty,  rainy,  smoky,  grim  old 
city  out  of  the  first  place  that  it  has  been  making  for 
itself  in  the  bottom  of  my  soul,  by  all  pleasant  and 
hard  things  that  have  befallen  me  for  these  past 
twenty  years  or  so.  My  heart  is  buried  there — say, 
hi  Advocate's  Close  ! '  The  papers,  however,  which 
first  appeared  in  the  '  Portfolio '  June  to  December 
1878,  exhibit  barely  a  trace  of  this  feeling,  but  on 
the  contrary  contain  passages  which  very  naturally 
aroused  the  resentment  of  Edinburgh  citizens. 
They  were  written  partly  in  Edinburgh  in  the  spring 
of  1878  (at.  28)  and  completed  during  the  August 
of  the  same  year  at  Monastier  before  setting  out  on 
the  donkey  journey.  For  all  its  criticism  of  certain 
national  traits  this  work  is  perhaps  the  most  Scottish 
in  outlook  of  any  of  Stevenson's  ;  at  any  rate,  most 
plainly  exhibits  a  kinship  in  his  thoughts  with  the 
spirit  of  the  Covenanters.  The  long  quotation  in 
the  chapter  on  Greyfriars,  from  Patrick  Walker's 
'  Biographia  Presbyteriana '  and  other  passages 
mark  the  Covenanting  influence  upon  his  thoughts 
from  earliest  childhood.  Of  the  many  references  to 
Scottish  and  local  incidents  a  few  call  for  some 
explanatory  comment.  The  '  Sweet  Singers,'  who 


88  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

in  Chapter  I.  are  introduced  into  the  blended  picture 
of  history  and  landscape,  were  an  extraordinary 
sect  of  some  twenty  persons  founded  by  a  sailor, 
John  Gib,  and  thus  known  also  as  Gibbites,  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  They  were 
opponents  of  the  Covenant,  and  apparently  of  every 
religious  system  but  their  own,  which  consisted  in 
renouncing  all  social  obligations  and  wandering 
from  place  to  place,  a  little  band  of  the  elect  in  a 
sinful  world.  Their  name  came  from  the  chanting  of 
the  psalms,  which  was  a  chief  part  of  their  curiously 
conceived  worship.  Stevenson  has  a  word  in  this 
picture  too  for  Thomas  Aikenhead,  the  twenty-year- 
old  Edinburgh  student,  who  was  hanged  about  1696 
for  disbelief  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  Of  the 
fall  of  a  land  of  the  Old  Town  which  makes  the 
dramatic  end  of  Chapter  II.  there  is  a  memorial 
in  the  Heave  Awa'  Tavern  at  Bailie  Fyfe's  Close, 
near  to  John  Knox's  house  hi  the  High  Street.  The 
tavern  is  on  the  site  of  the  house  which  fell  on 
Sunday,  November  24,  1861,  entombing  thirty-five 
people,  and  the  stone  head  of  a  youth  and  the 
inscription  '  Heave  awa'  chaps,  I  am  no  dead  yet,' 
on  its  front  commemorates  the  courage  of  a  victim 
of  its  fall.  In  the  Chapter  on  '  Legends  '  the  selec- 
tion is  wholly  from  the  dark  incidents  of  the  city's 
past.  The  murder  of  Begbie,  a  porter  of  the  British 
Linen  Bank,  on  November  13,  1806,  is  one  of  those 
unsolved  crimes  such  as  Andrew  Lang  might  have 
included  in  his  '  Historical  Mysteries.'  The  porter 
was  found  freshly  stabbed  to  the  heart  and  robbed 
of  £4000  in  Tweeddale's  Close  just  off  the  High 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  89 

Street  and  now  marked  by  Tweeddale  House.  But 
the  crime  is  far  less  horrible  than  those  of  Burke 
and  Hare,  keepers  of  a  lodging-house  where  for  a 
year  or  more  they  made  a  business  of  murder,  selling 
the  bodies  of  their  victims  to  the  school  of  anatomy 
of  Dr.  Robert  Knox,  and  escaping  the  notice  of 
the  law  until  the  disappearance  of  an  old  woman 
brought  their  doings  to  light  and  Burke  to  the 
scaffold  in  January  1829.  Deacon  Brodie,  who 
figures  in  this  gallery  of  criminals,  we  know  from  the 
Stevenson-Henley  play,  but  Major  Weir  is  a  tradition 
of  seventeenth-century  Edinburgh,  which  surrounds 
the  idea  of  the  double  life  with  peculiar  elements  of 
horror.  In  mid  life  the  Major  was  in  command  of 
the  city  guard,  noted  for  his  piety  and  '  remarkable 
gift  of  extempore  prayer/  but  in  his  latter  years 
dreaded  for  the  powers  of  sorcery  attributed  to  him. 
The  house  on  the  West  Bow  where  he  lived  with  his 
sister  was  said  to  have  had  a  spell  cast  over  it,  so 
that  those  who  mounted  the  stairs  felt  as  though 
they  were  going  down.  His  end  came  from  a 
voluntary  confession  to  the  authorities  of  incest, 
sorcery,  and  other  crimes,  and  after  his  trial  he 
was  burnt  on  April  9, 1670.  The  staff,  to  the  magic 
properties  of  which  Stevenson  refers,  figures  in  the 
contemporary  accounts  of  his  death  as  making 
'  rare  turnings  '  in  the  fire  and,  like  the  Major,  being 
'  long  a'burning.'  Leaving  these  bygone  horrors, 
the  only  other  matter  for  comment  is  that  of  the 
stone  in  a  field  by  the  side  of  the  road  from  Fairmile- 
head  to  the  Hunter's  Tryst,  which  Stevenson  calls 
General  Kay's  Monument,  and  with  which  he 


90  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

connects  a  picturesque  story  of  land  tenure.  The 
latter,  however,  applies  to  the  Buck-stone  on  the 
estate  of  Penicuik,  and  let  into  the  wall  on  the  old 
road  from  Morningside  station  to  the  Pentland  Hills, 
a  little  more  than  half-way  to  Fairmilehead.  The 
stone  to  which  Stevenson  gives  the  local  name  of 
General  Kay's  is  known  as  the  Kelstain  (Battle 
Stone),  and  though  supposed  to  mark  the  site  of  an 
ancient  battle  has  no  other  tradition  attached  to  it. 
After  their  appearance  in  the  '  Portfolio '  the 
chapters  were  issued  in  book  form  early  in  1879, 
accompanied  by  the  same  illustrations  as  in  the 
periodical,  viz.,  five  etchings  by  Brunet-Debaines, 
four  after  W.  E.  Lockhart,  and  one  after  Sam 
Bough,  and  twelve  woodcut  vignettes  by  H.  Chalmers 
and  R.  Kent-Thomas.  The  value  of  this  first 
edition  is  now  about  £15. 

EDINBURGH  STUDENTS  IN  1824 

A  paper  in  the  first  number,  January  1871,  of  the 
'  Edinburgh  University  Magazine '  reviews  the 
students  of  fifty  years  earlier  through  the  glasses 
of  the  magazine  of  theirs,  the  '  Lapsus  Linguae/ 
which  had  a  scarcely  less  inglorious  career  than  that 
over  which  R.  L.  S.  and  his  friends  presided.  The 
essay  is  now  available  in  Lay  Morals. 

EDUCATION  OF  AN  ENGINEER,  THE 

Apart  from  yachting  cruises  with  his  father,  whicl 
were  more  than  half  for  health  or  pleasure,  the  onl] 
practical  touch  with  his  intended  profession  of  lightj 
house  engineer  which  Stevenson  had  was  for  threj 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  91 

months,  divided,  when  he  was  a  lad  of  eighteen, 
between  Anstruther  in  Fifeshire,  and  Wick  on  the 
extreme  north-eastern  coast  of  Scotland.  While 
he  was  supposed  to  be  studying  harbour  construction, 
his  '  one  genuine  preoccupation  lay  elsewhere.'  The 
shop  terms  of  the  submarine  builder  interested  him 
as  new  words  for  his  vocabulary  ;  and  the  title  of  the 
essay,  when  he  wrote  it  twenty  years  afterwards  for 
'  Scribner's  Magazine,'  must  have  been  chosen  as  a 
bit  of  satire,  and  ought  by  rights  to  have  a  note  of 
exclamation  at  the  end  of  it.  His  education  for 
the  engineering  profession  continued  for  a  further 
two  years  until  his  father's  opposition  to  its  abandon- 
ment was  overcome,  and  a  compromise  found  in 
Stevenson's  beginning  to  read  for  the  Bar. 

The  paper,  which  was  published  first  in '  Scribner's ' 
for  November  1888,  is  placed  in  Across  the  Plains 
with  the  prefixed  title — Random  Memories. 

EL  DORADO 

This  little  sermon  on  happiness  as  a  state  of  hope- 
ful pursuit  rather  than  of  attainment  is  akin  to  others 
of  the  papers  in  Virginibus  Puerisque,  in  which  it  is 
placed  in  the  collected  works.  It  first  appeared  in 
'  London  '  of  May  n,  1878  (cet.  28). 

ENGLISH  ADMIRALS,  THE 

A  boy's  adoration  of  the  deeds  of  England  on 
the  sea  characterizes  this  paper,  written  when 
Stevenson  was  twenty-eight.  If  it  is  a  less  fine 
example  of  his  art  as  an  essayist  the  reason  may  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  such  a  tale  of  death  courted 


92  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

in  the  face  of  hopeless  odds,  calls  for  a  more  spon- 
taneous use  of  words  than  his  was.  It  is  possible 
to  agree  with  Mr.  Swinnerton's  criticism  that  the 
phrases  are  not  those  rushing  from  his  enthusiasm  ; 
that  the  finely  picked  sentences  are  false  to  the  epic 
greatness  of  his  subject.  The  paper  appeared  in 
the  '  Cornhill  Magazine,'  July  1878,  and  is  included 
in  Virginibus  Puerisque. 

ENJOYMENT  OF  UNPLEASANT  PLACES,  ON  THE 

The  '  unpleasant  place  '  which  provides  the  text 
of  Stevenson's  paradox  in  this  paper — '  that  any 
place  is  good  enough  to  live  a  life  in,  while  it  is  only 
in  a  few,  and  those  highly  favoured,  that  we  can 
pass  a  few  hours  agreeably' — was  Wick,  the  little 
Caithness-shire  fishing  town  where  he  spent  six 
weeks  as  a  lad  of  eighteen,  professedly  studying 
harbour  construction.  '  Wick,'  as  he  wrote  at  the 
time,  '  in  itself  possesses  no  beauty :  bare  grey 
shores,  grim  grey  houses,  grim  grey  sea,  not  even  the 
gleam  of  red  tiles,  not  even  the  greenness  of  a  tree.' 
The  pleasure  in  such  bleak:  surroundings  consisted 
in  cherishing  the  moments  when  their  discomforts 
were  evaded,  as  when  finding  a  refuge  from  the  bitter 
wind,  though  it  is  possible  that  this  was  an  after- 
thought, conceived  when  the  paper  was  written  six 
years  later  (eet.  24). 

The  reader  will  have  noticed  the  feeling,  not  very 
far  removed  from  dislike,  which  R.  L.  S.  expresses 
in  this  paper  for  the  scenery  of  the  Scottish  High- 
lands. .  It  is  landscape  representing  to  him  '  the 
hunted,  houseless,  unsociable  way  of  life  that  was  in 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  93 

its  place  on  those  savage  hills.'  At  this  time  of  his 
life  the  friendlier  countryside  such  as  he  had  visited 
in  England  and  on  the  Continent  was  more  to  his 
taste.  It  was  not  until  his  first  visits  to  the  High- 
lands after  his  return  from  America  that  he  began 
to  look  upon  the  bare  hills  of  Perthshire  and  Argyll- 
shire with  a  different  eye.  And  so  his  essays  of 
landscape  which  were  almost  all  of  them  his  early 
writings  never  touch  the  Highlands  ;  while  in  Kid- 
napped, which  is  almost  the  only  long  work  with  a 
Highland  background,  the  description  is  purposely 
made  that  of  a  Lowland  youth  to  whom  the  moun- 
tains were  unfriendly  wildernesses.  The  paper 
appeared  first  in  the  '  Portfolio  '  of  November  1874, 
and  is  placed  in  Essays  of  Travel. 

ENVOY 

The  house  of  the  verse  which  stands  at  the  head 
of  Underwoods  was  that  of  Stevenson's  friend,  Mr. 
Will  H.  Low  at  Montigny-sur-Loing,  near  Fontaine- 
bleau,  afterwards  converted  into  a  riverside  inn. 
It  is  the  same  place  referred  to  in  the  essay  Fontaine- 
bleau  :  '  Montigny  has  been  strangely  neglected  ; 
I  never  knew  it  inhabited  but  once,  when  Will  H. 
Low  installed  himself  there  with  a  barrel  of  piquete, 
and  entertained  his  friends  in  a  leafy  trellis  above 
the  weir,  in  sight  of  the  green  country,  and  to  the 
music  of  falling  water.' 

EPILOGUE  TO  'AN  INLAND  VOYAGE' 

The  title  of  this  paper  must  have  been  a  piece  of 
advertisement  on  Stevenson's  part,  indeed,  the  only 


94  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

instance  of  commercial  instinct  in  him  which  conies 
to  mind,  with  the  exception  of  his  regular  stipulation 
that  every  book  of  his  should  contain  on  the  fly-leaf 
a  list  of  all  his  publications  according  to  the  French 
custom.  For  the  incident  which  the  paper  describes, 
viz.,  his  arrest  for  half  an  hour  as  a  German  spy, 
occurred  on  a  walking  tour  with  Sir  Walter  Simpson 
in  the  Valley  of  the  Loing  in  1875,  the  year  before  the 
Inland  Voyage.  Whenever  the  piece  was  written,  it 
was  not  published  until  its  appearance  in '  Scribner's 
Magazine  '  for  August  1888.  In  the  collected  works 
it  is  placed  in  Across  the  Plains. 

ESSAYS  OF  TRAVEL 

The  papers  hi  this  volume,  which  were  not  collected 
in  book  form  until  after  Stevenson's  death,  are  those 
(The  Amateur  Emigrant]  of  his  steerage  voyage  to 
America  for  his  wife  ;  the  four  essays  on  the  Alps  are 
his  impressions  at  Davos  during  the  first  winters 
after  their  return  ;  but  with  the  exception  of  The 
Ideal  House  and  Random  Memories  (of  nursery  days) 
all  the  others  are  writings  in  his  earlier  outdoor 
manner,  viz.,  Cockermouth  and  Keswick,  An  Autumn 
Effect  (Chiltern  Hills),  A  Winter's  Walk  in  Carrick 
and  Galloway,  Forest  Notes  (Fontainebleau),  A 
Mountain  Town  in  France  (Monastier),  The  Enjoy- 
ment of  Unpleasant  Places,  and  his  first  published 
essay,  Roads. 

EXETER 

Exeter  was  a  compulsory  halting-place  of  Steven- 
son for  several  weeks  on  a  projected  visit  to  Dart- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  95 

moor  in  September  1885.  With  his  wife  and  step- 
son and  his  cousin  Katharine  de  Mattos  he  visited 
Thomas  Hardy  at  Dorchester,  but  at  Exeter  was 
prostrated  by  a  severe  haemorrhage,  which  kept  him 
in  the  New  London  Hotel.  His  room  there  (shown 
to  visitors)  contains  a  tribute  in  the  shape  of  a 
memorial  window,  placed  there  in  1912  by  mem- 
bers of  the  Exeter  family  of  Mr.  Maurice  Drake, 
the  novelist,  glass  painter,  and,  recently,  soldier. 
In  the  hotel  may  also  be  seen  Stevenson's  entry  in 
the  visitor's  book  :  '  I  cannot  go  without  recording 
my  obligation  to  every  one  in  the  house  ;  if  it  is  your 
fate  to  fall  sick  at  an  inn,  pray  Heaven  it  may  be 
the  New  London.' 

FABLES 

The  writing  of  a  review  of  Lord  Lytton's  'Fables 
in  Song '  was  possibly  the  cause  of  Stevenson's 
attempting  work  in  this  literary  form,  the  various 
types  of  which  he  had  discussed  in  the  notice  of 
Lytton's  book.  At  any  rate  in  his  twenty-fourth 
year  he  was  writing  certain  of  the  fables,  which 
remained  unpublished  until  after  his  death,  and  are 
placed  in  the  volume  with  Jekyll  and  Hyde.  Sir 
Sidney  Colvin  makes  a  guess  that  these  early  pieces 
were  The  Yellow  Paint  and  The  House  of  Eld.  The 
latter  satire  on  traditional  belief  was  no  doubt 
prompted  by  the  conflict  at  this  time  of  his  life 
between  Stevenson's  broad  view  of  religion  and  his 
father's  Calvinistic  dogma.  The  fables  were  added 
to  at  various  periods  of  his  life — some  were  evidently 
written  in  the  South  Seas — in  the  aim  of  accumu- 


96  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

lating  a  number  sufficient  for  a  volume  which  had 
been  promised  to  Messrs.  Longmans.  Their  publica- 
tion in '  Longman's  Magazine/  August  and  September 
1895,  was  in  partial  redemption  of  this  promise. 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND  BOOKS 

Of  the  nine  essays  collected  in  this  volume,  seven 
had  appeared  in  the '  Cornhill  Magazine.'  The  whole 
set  range  in  date  from  1874  to  1881  (at.  24  to  31), 
and  thus  belong  to  the  period  of  Stevenson's  life 
during  which  the  papers  in  Virginibus  Puerisque 
were  written.  .The  '  familiar  studies '  are  Victor 
Hugo's  Romances,  Some  Aspects  of  Robert  Burns, 
Walt  Whitman,  Henry  David  Thoreau,  Yoshido- 
Torajiro,  Francois  Villon,  Charles  of  Orleans,  Samuel 
Pepys,  and  John  Knox  and  Women.  In  arranging 
them  for  republication  R.  L.  S.  prefaced  them  by 
some  notes  of  self-criticism,  in  which  he  is  at  much 
pains  to  show  where,  as  he  thought,  he  had  accorded 
less  than  full  justice  to  his  subjects. 

The  first  edition  (of  397  pages)  issued  by  Messrs. 
Chatto  &  Windus  in  1882  has  a  value  of  about  £6. 

FAMILY  OF  ENGINEERS,  RECORDS  OF  A 

The  writing  of  a  history  of  his  forbears  was  a  task 
which,  naturally  enough,  Stevenson  long  cherished. 
The  eminence,  particularly  of  his  grandfather, 
Robert  Stevenson,  and  his  Uncle  Alan  in  lighthouse 
engineering,  merited  such  a  work,  while  it  would 
seem  that  the  character  of  his  father  was  to  have 
provided  a  full-length  study  of  an  interestingly  in- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  97 

congruous  personality.  The  title  '  Memories  of  a 
Scottish  Family '  contemplated  soon  after  his 
father's  death  suggests  his  inclination  at  that  time 
to  make  it  a  personal  narrative.  Its  writing,  how- 
ever, was  not  begun  until  the  middle  of  1891,  on  his 
settling  down  in  the  newly  built  Vailima,  and  was 
constantly  being  put  aside  and  undertaken  only  as 
a  relief  from  work  such  as  The  Ebb  Tide,  which  was 
then  making  a  great  tax  upon  his  powers.  Never- 
theless the  few  chapters  of  this  unfinished  biography 
were  written  and  rewritten  under  the  influence  of 
the  conception  which  he  then  entertained  of  a 
decline  in  his  fictional  art.  In  biography,  which  he 
had  previously  attempted  only  in  the  memoir  of 
Fleeming  Jenkin,  he  professed  to  find  a  field  which 
he  liked  better  than  fiction,  though  the  opinion  may 
be  set  down  to  his  state  of  dissatisfaction  and  anxiety 
which  marked  the  year  preceding  his  death.  Thus 
we  find  him  writing  to  Henry  James :  '  By  way  of  an 
antidote  or  febrifuge  (to  The  Ebb  Tide]  I  am  going  on 
at  a  great  rate  with  my  History  of  the  Stevensons 
which,  I  hope,  may  prove  rather  amusing  in  some 
parts  at  least.  The  excess  of  materials  weighs 
upon  me.  My  grandfather  is  a  delightful  comedy 
part :  and  I  have  to  treat  him  besides  as  a  serious 
and  (in  his  way)  heroic  figure,  and  at  times  I  lose  my 
way,  and  I  fear  in  the  end  will  blur  the  effect. 
However,  d  la  grdce  de  Dieu  /  I  '11  make  a  spoon  or 
spoil  a  horn.'  The  manuscript  as  it  was  left  at 
Stevenson's  death  was  published  in  the  Edinburgh 
edition  and  was  not  separately  issued  until  1911. 


98  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

FEAST  OF  FAMINE,  THE 

See  '  Ballads.' 

FERRIER,  MISS  (1844-1917) 

The  sister  of  James  Walter  Ferrier  takes  a  pro- 
minent place  among  Stevenson's  correspondents  by 
virtue  of  the  letters  written  to  her  on  news  of  her 
brother's  death  reaching  him  at  Hyeres.  Feelings  of 
equally  deep  emotion  are  expressed  in  no  others 
of  his  letters.  Miss  Ferrier  came  to  stay  for  some 
weeks  at  Hyeres  shortly  afterwards,  and  the  affection 
for  his  lost  friend  is  shown  in  Stevenson's  subsequent 
correspondence  with  herself.  She  died  hi  Edinburgh 
in  1917. 

FERRIER,  JAMES  WALTER  (1851-1883) 

The  close  friend  of  his  student  days,  whom 
Stevenson  called  '  the  best  and  gentlest  gentleman  ' 
he  had  ever  known,  came  to  an  early  death  in  cir- 
cumstances painful  to  those  who  loved  him.  R.  L.  S. 
has  touched  with  becoming  reserve  on  this  first  real 
grief  of  his  life  in  Old  Mortality.  Henley,  who  had 
also  shared  Ferrier's  friendship,  has  the  lines  : 

Our  Athos  rests — the  wise,  the  kind, 
The  liberal  and  august,  his  fault  atoned. 
Rests  in  the  crowded  yard 
There  at  the  West  of  Princes  Street.  .  .  . 

Ferrier's  death,  which  came  at  the  time  of  his  own 
succession  of  serious  illnesses  in  France,  introduced, 
as  his  friends  recognized,  a  grave  element  into 
Stevenson's  thoughts.  To  his  friend  Gosse  he  wrote : 
'  I  trust  also  you  may  be  long  without  finding  out 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  99 

the  devil  there  is  in  a  bereavement.     After  love  it  is 
the  one  great  surprise  that  life  preserves  for  us.' 

FIFE,  THE  COAST  OF 

The  paper  which  on  its  first  appearance  in 
'  Scribner's  Magazine,'  October  1888,  bore  the  title, 
Contributions  to  the  History  of  Fife,  gossips  of  the 
piece  of  Fifeshire  coast  which  Stevenson  visited 
when  he  was  thirteen  in  the  company  of  his  father, 
who  was  upon  a  tour  of  lighthouse  inspection.  He 
is  fascinated  by  the  romantic  figure  of  Hackston, 
a  member  of  the  party  of  Covenanters  at  whose 
hands  Archbishop  Sharp  met  his  death  on  May  3, 
1679.  The  few  details  of  Hackston  which  R.  L.  S. 
sets  down  are  almost  all  that  is  known  of  him. 
After  the  murder  of  the  Archbishop  he  fled  to  the 
north,  where  for  a  year  he  eluded  capture,  but  was 
executed  at  Edinburgh,  July  1660,  suffering  un- 
speakable barbarities  from  his  executioners. 

The  paper  is  placed  in  the  works  as  now  issued  in 
Across  the  Plains. 

FINSBURY,  MICHAEL 

The  character  in  The  Wrong  Box  was  drawn  in 
part  from  Stevenson's  friend,  Charles  Baxter, 
evidently  hi  reference  to  the  latter's  capacity  for 
grave  demeanour  in  ridiculous  circumstances. 

FONTAINEBLEAU— VILLAGE  COMMUNITIES  OF 
PAINTERS 

The  paper  on  the  life  and  manners  of  the  Barbizon 
school  treats,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  professional 


ioo  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

artist,  the  theme  which  was  touched  only  casually 
in  the  earlier  essay,  Forest  Notes  (q.i).).  Stevenson 
had  revived  his  old  association  with  the  Fontaine- 
bleau  painters  by  a  visit  to  Barbizon,  then  already 
much  changed,  in  the  spring  of  1881  on  his  way 
back  to  Scotland  after  the  first  whiter  at  Davos. 
The  paper  was  written  two  years  afterwards  (at.  33) 
at  Hyeres  for  the  '  Magazine  of  Art/  where  it  was 
published  May  and  June  1884,  and  is  placed  in 
Across  the  Plains. 

FOREIGNER  AT  HOME,  THE 

Not  by  accident  is  this  paper  on  the  sense  of 
strangeness  of  the  Scot  in  England  made  the  first 
of  the  essays  collected  in  Memories  and  Portraits. 
Parts  of  it  reflect  Stevenson's  early  impressions  as 
a  boy  of  ten  at  an  English  boarding-school,  and 
more  particularly  those  gathered  on  the  visit  to 
Suffolk  (when  he  was  twenty-three),  which,  in  the 
formation  of  his  friendship  with  Sir  Sidney  Colvin, 
became  a  turning  point  in  his  career.  Although  not 
written  until  nearly  ten  years  later,  during  which 
time  his  journeys  to  England  were  fairly  frequent, 
the  paper  conveys  much  the  same  sensations  of  his 
first  visit  as  described  then  to  his  mother  :  '  I  cannot 
get  over  my  astonishment,  indeed  it  increases  every 
day,  at  the  hopeless  gulf  there  is  between  England 
and  Scotland,  and  English  and  Scotch.  Nothing 
is  the  same,  and  I  feel  as  strange  and  outlandish 
here  as  I  do  in  France  and  Germany.  Everything 
by  the  wayside,  in  the  houses,  or  about  the  people 
strikes  me  with  an  unexpected  familiarity ;  I  walk 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  101 

among  surprises,  for  just  where  you  think  you  have 
them,  something  wrong  turns  up.'  The  paper, 
which  appeared  in  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine/  May 
1882,  was  written  after  Stevenson  had  come  to  feel 
at  home  in  France,  to  which  fact,  rather  than  to  any 
bias  of  mind,  may  perhaps  be  ascribed  his  indiffer- 
ence to  English  character  and  history. 


FOREST  NOTES 

The  first  of  the  two  papers  on  the  forest  of  Fon- 
tainebleau  and  the  painters'  communities  there  and 
on  its  outskirts,  was  written  within  a  few  months  of 
Stevenson  having  first  been  introduced  to  these 
resorts  of  artists  by  his  cousin  '  R.  A.  M.  S.'  The 
second — Fontainebleau  (q.v.) — belongs  to  a  period 
nearly  ten  years  later.  The  first  visit  (to  Barbizon) 
with  his  cousin  was  for  a  few  days  in  April  1875.  In 
July,  after  having  passed  his  examination  for  the 
Scottish  bar,  he  was  there  again ;  and  during  the 
following  three  or  four  years,  on  frequent  visits  to 
France,  his  time  was  spent  at  Barbizon,  Grez, 
Montigny,  Cernay-la-Ville,  Nemours,  and  Moret, 
alone,  or  with  his  cousin  or  Sir  Walter  Simpson. 
Forest  Notes  was  sent  to  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine,' 
where  it  appeared  May  1876,  then  edited  by  Leslie 
Stephen,  who,  as  Stevenson  wrote,  '  is  worse  than 
tepid  about  it — liked  "  some  parts  "  of  it  "  very 
well,"  the  son  of  Belial.  Moreover  he  proposes  to 
shorten  it ;  and  I,  who  want  money,  and  money 
soon,  and  not  glory  and  the  illustration  of  the  English 
language,  I  feel  as  if  my  poverty  were  going  to  con- 


102  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

sent.'    The  paper  is  placed  among  the  Essays  of 
Travel. 

FIRST  BOOK,  MY 

The  story  of  the  writing  of  Treasure  Island, 
written  in  the  last  year  of  his  life,  recalls — not  quite 
accurately,  according  to  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse — the 
circumstances  in  which  the  book  had  its  origin  in  a 
map  and  a  wet  Highland  holiday.  It  was  hi  fact  his 
seventh  published  book,  and  though  it  was  the  first 
long  work  of  fiction  to  be  issued,  it  had  been  preceded 
by  a  whole  series  of  novels,  one  'The  Vendetta  of 
the  West,'  written  when  he  was  twenty-nine,  but 
all  relentlessly  destroyed.  The  paper,  first  pub- 
lished in  the  '  Idler '  of  August  1894,  is  placed  in 
The  Art  of  Writing. 

FOOTNOTE  TO  HISTORY,  A— EIGHT  YEARS  OF 
TROUBLE  IN  SAMOA 

A  great  part  of  the  last  four  years  of  Stevenson's 
life  was  occupied,  very  unfortunately  for  his  literary 
work,  in  an  active  share  in  Samoan  politics.  For 
some  years  before  he  began  to  travel  in  the  Pacific, 
the  islands  in  which  he  at  last  made  his  home,  had 
been  hi  a  disturbed  condition  from  causes  partly 
arising  from  native  differences,  and  partly  from 
foreign  interference.  Before  ever  he  had  reached 
Samoa  he  had  espoused  the  cause  of  the  native  race 
of  Honolulu,  and  in  February  1889  had  written  to 
'  The  Times  '  crying  against  German  aggressiveness 
in  Samoa,  displayed  not  only  in  relations  with 
the  natives,  but  against  American  and  English. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  103 

Inasmuch  as  A  Footnote  to  History  records  Samoan 
affairs  from  1883  to  1891,  it  should  be  noted  that 
Stevenson  first  set  foot  in  Samoa  at  Christmas  1889, 
and  after  a  brief  stay  was  absent  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  following  year.  Thus  it  was  only  during 
one  of  the  eight  years  that  he  was  in  direct  touch  with 
what  was  going  on.  The  history  of  the  previous 
period  he  gathered  from  white  residents  such  as 
H.  J.  Moors  (q.v.)  and  others  who  more  or  less  shared 
his  political  views,  or  at  any  rate  from  motives  of 
interest  were  opposed  to  the  German  element.  The 
gathering  of  this  material  and  the  writing  and  re- 
writing of  the  book  absorbed  a  large  proportion  of 
Stevenson's  energy  during  1891  and  the  spring  of 
1892  ;  and  however  generous  his  motive  no  literary 
work  of  his  was  so  ill-advisedly  conceived.  The 
cause  of  a  handful  of  Polynesians  enlisted  no  positive 
interest  in  England  from  the  publication  of  the 
book,  or  Stevenson's  letters  to  '  The  Times.'  The 
native  and  foreign  interests — the  latter  those  of 
Great  Britain,  Germany,  and  the  United  States 
— were  supposed  to  have  been  reconciled,  or 
rather,  given  the  opportunity  of  settlement  among 
themselves  by  the  Convention  of  Berlin,  which  pre- 
dated Stevenson's  first  arrival  in  the  island  by  a  few 
months.  The  government  of  the  group  by  officials 
appointed  under  the  Convention,  turned  out  to  be 
government  unmistakably  in  the  German  interest. 
The  chief  financial  stake  in  Samoa  was  that  of  a 
German  company  of  old  establishment  in  the  Pacific, 
and  reconstructed  under  the  title '  Deutsche  Handels- 
und  Plantagen  Gesellschaft  der  Sud-see  Inseln  zu 


104  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Hamburg.'  This  firm,  the  name  of  which  Stevenson 
calls  '  a  piece  of  literature,'  like  many  another 
German  business  which  the  war  of  1914-18  has  dis- 
closed, was  able  to  influence  German  official  policy, 
which  plainly  was  to  inflame  native  feeling  in  its  own 
interest.  Stevenson's  diagnosis  was  that  '  the  head 
of  the  boil  of  which  Samoa  languishes  is  the  German 
firm/  Thus  A  Footnote  to  History  will  probably  be 
read  more  for  these  pictures  of  German  methods 
than  for  its  sympathetic  discussion  of  the  division 
in  native  Samoan  politics,  the  windings  of  which 
will  strike  most  people,  as  they  did  Sir  Sidney  Colvin, 
as  '  exasperatingly  petty  and  obscure.'  Suffice  it  to 
say  that  Stevenson,  at  a  real  risk  of  deportation, 
was  successful  in  compelling  the  removal  of  the 
two  officials  appointed  under  the  Berlin  Convention. 
The  native  parties  he  failed  to  reconcile.  The  chief, 
Mataafa,  whose  fitness  for  the  Samoan  kingship  he 
had  advocated,  but  whom  the  Germans  had  opposed, 
was  defeated  in  civil  war  and  exiled.  He  was  even- 
tually elected  as  the  native  monarch  by  the  Germans 
after  the  cession  of  Samoa  to  them  in  1899.  The 
book,  despite  its  outspoken  language,  proved  so  free 
from  offence  to  the  managers  of  the  German  firm 
that  its  arrival  in  Samoa  was  celebrated  among 
themselves.  But  hi  Germany  on  its  publication 
there  as  a  Tauschnitz  edition,  it  was  confiscated,  and 
its  publisher  fined.  There  is  a  memorandum  from 
Stevenson  suggesting  that  a  sum  of  over  £60  should 
be  sent  to  Tauschnitz  as  a  half  share  of  his  fines  and 
expenses. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  105 

FRASER,  MISS  MARIE 

Miss  Fraser  paid  a  visit  of  some  months  to  Samoa 
in  1892,  and  on  several  occasions  stayed  with  the 
Stevensons  at  Vailima.  Her  book,  '  In  Stevenson's 
Samoa '  (London,  Smith  Elder,  1895),  is  a  pleasant 
account  of  this  visit,  describes  the  feast  on  Steven- 
son's birthday,  and  contains  sketches  of  the  Vailima 
household  of  a  kind  not  found  elsewhere. 

FRASER,  SIMON,  MASTER  OF  LOVAT 

Stevenson  draws  a  particularly  sinister  portrait  of 
the  junior  prosecuting  counsel  in  the  Appin  trial  in 
Catriona.  He  was  the  young  son  of  the  old  and 
notorious  Simon,  Lord  Lovat,  '  that  old  grey  fox 
of  the  mountains,'  as  R.  L.  S.  calls  him,  who  had 
made  a  pretence  of  loyalty  to  the  Crown  hi  the  '45, 
while  he  had  secretly  committed  himself  to  the 
Jacobites.  Young  Simon,  then  nineteen,  had  been 
pushed  by  his  father  into  the  rebellion  rather  against 
his  will,  and  was  with  the  Prince's  forces  up  to 
Culloden,  where  two  hundred  and  fifty  Frasers  were 
slain.  On  the  suppression  of  the  rising  hi  1746  he 
surrendered  himself  to  the  authorities,  and  was 
lodged  in  Edinburgh  Castle.  During  the  year  that 
he  remained  there  his  father  paid  the  price  of  his 
own  duplicity  by  his  execution  on  Tower  Hill,  acting 
a  part  to  the  last  moment  of  his  life.  The  son,  on  his 
liberation  hi  1747,  was  among  the  few  rebels  who  did 
not  share  in  the  general  pardon  of  that  year,  but  in 
1750  he  obtained  a  full  pardon,  and  a  few  months 
afterwards  was  called  to  the  Scottish  Bar,  a  poor 
means  of  subsistence  in  the  place  of  his  father's 


io6  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

estates,  which  were  confiscated  by  the  Crown  in  that 
year.  His  share  in  the  Appin  trial  was  characterized 
by  especially  gross  distortions  of  justice.  No  doubt 
the  part  was  planned  for  him,  but  he  would  not  have 
been  his  father's  son  if  he  had  deserved  less  than 
Mr.  Mackay's  judgment  (in  '  The  Appin  Murder ') 
that  '  he  performed  the  most  astounding  feat  of 
casuistry  known  to  Scottish  legal  historians '  in 
justifying  the  then  illegal  practice  of  using  the 
declarations  of  the  accused's  family  on  the  ground 
that  they  were  not  produced  to  prove  the  truth  of 
anything  contained  in  them,  but  '  only  to  prove 
that  the  persons  who  emitted  the  declarations  averred 
these  things.'  These  gifts  of  sophistry  did  not  long 
enrich  the  Scottish  Bar.  He  soon  afterwards  joined 
the  army,  and  in  1757  was  placed  in  command  of  a 
Fraser  battalion  with  which  he  saw  active  service  in 
the  wars  with  the  French  hi  America.  In  1762  he 
was  made  a  brigadier-general,  and  fought  with  the 
British  forces  in  Portugal  against  the  Spaniards. 
In  1774  a  special  Act  of  Parliament  authorized  the 
return  to  him,  as  '  a  particular  mark  of  grace,'  of  the 
forfeited  Lovat  estates,  ten  years  before  the  like 
was  done  for  any  other  of  these  attainted  in  the  '45. 
The  title  he  never  recovered,  for  he  died  without 
issue  in  1782,  aged  fifty-six,  after  having  been  for 
many  years  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
where  apparently  his  most  notable  contribution  to 
the  debates  was  in  support  of  the  repeal  of  the  Act 
prohibiting  the  wearing  of  the  kilt  in  the  Highlands 
— unless,  as  he  grimly  added,  Parliament  could  level 
the  mountains. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  107 

GAS  LAMPS,  A  PLEA  FOR 

A  paper  in  '  London  '  of  April  27,  1878  (at.  28)  on 
the  slender  theme  of  the  comfortable  glow  of  gas 
illumination,  then  threatened  by  electricity.  The 
harsh  lighting  of  electric  arc  lamps  struck  R.  L.  S. 
as  fit  for  the  corridors  of  lunatic  asylums ;  and 
electric  illumination  earned  a  measure  of  welcome 
only  for  the  romantic  possibility  of  the  instan- 
taneous creation  of  a  pattern  of  light  over  a  city  by 
one  touch  of  a  '  sedate  electrician.'  The  paper  is 
included  in  Virginibus  Puerisque. 

GEDDIE,  JOHN 

Defining  the  '  country '  of  R.  L.  S.  as  the  valley 
of  the  Water  of  Leith  from  its  source  in  the  northern 
spurs  of  the  Pentland  Hills  to  its  mouth  at  Leith, 
Mr.  Geddie  has  recalled  the  associations  of  the 
places  bordering  this  twenty-mile  stretch  of  water 
with  Stevenson's  own  life  and  with  such  of  the 
scenes  in  his  writings  as  are  laid  there.  '  The  Home 
Country  of  R.  L.  Stevenson '  (Edinburgh,  W.  H. 
White,  1898)  is  also  a  guide  to  much  of  the  topography 
and  local  history  of  this  strip  of  Midlothian. 

GENESIS  OF  '  THE  MASTER  OF  BALLANTRAE ' 

See  '  Master  of  Ballantrae,  The.' 

GOSSE,  EDMUND  (1849-        ) 

In  his  essay  on  Stevenson  in  '  Critical  Kitcats  ' 
(Heinemann,  1896)  Mr.  Gosse  has  drawn  the  most 
ultimate  picture  of  R.  L.  S.  in  the  days  when  both 


io8  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

were  at  the  beginning  of  their  literary  careers.  A 
firm  friendship  sprang  up  when  Stevenson,  then 
twenty-seven,  first  met  Gosse,  who  was  his  senior 
by  a  year.  It  lasted  until  the  day  of  his  death  and 
has  its  record  in  the  many  letters  to  '  My  dear  Weg.' 
The  last  of  these,  written  only  two  days  before  his 
sudden  end,  has  almost  a  clairvoyant  passage  in  it : 
'  Come  to  think  of  it,  Gosse,  I  believe  the  main 
distinction  (between  them)  is  that  you  have  a  family 
growing  up  around  you  and  I  am  a  childless,  rather 
bitter,  very  clear-eyed  blighted  youth.  I  have  hi 
fact  lost  the  path  that  makes  it  easy  and  natural  for 
you  to  descend  the  hill.  I  am  going  at  it  straight. 
And  where  I  have  to  go  down,  it  is  a  precipice.' 

Very  different  is  Mr.  Gosse's  sketch  of  Stevenson 
as  he  first  knew  him,  when  a  cardinal  quality  was  his 
gaiety  and  childlike  mirth ;  when  he  was  often 
'  excessively  and  delightfully  silly/  There  was  one 
circumstance  which  in  their  early  friendship  must 
have  drawn  them  together.  Both  in  their  intel- 
lectual development  had  experienced  the  suffocating 
influence  of  a  Calvinist  father.  But  for  all  the 
differences  which  arose  between  Stevenson  and  his 
father — and  they  existed  in  any  intensity  only  for  a 
year  or  two — his  childhood  and  youth  were  passed  in 
a  paradise  of  happiness  in  comparison  with  the  years 
of  tyranny,  born  of  the  narrowest  religious  creed, 
which  was  the  lot  of  his  friend  until  manhood.  It 
would  be  a  libel  upon  the  elder  Stevenson  to  suggest 
that  his  son's  early  days  in  any  degree  approached 
those  which  Mr.  Gosse  has  described,  with  a  tolerant 
recognition  of  their  humour,  hi  '  Father  and  Son  : 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  109 

A  study  of  two  Temperaments '  (London,  Heinemann, 
1907). 

The  essay  in  '  Critical  Kitcats '  remarks  the 
change  in  Stevenson  as  year  after  year  passed 
without  improvement,  but  the  reverse,  in  his  health. 
After  the  illness  which  at  Nice  in  1884  was  nearly 
fatal  '  he  was  never  quite  the  gay  child  of  genius 
that  he  had  previously  been.  Something  of  graver 
caste  became  natural  to  his  thoughts  ;  he  had  seen 
Death  in  the  cave.  And  now  for  the  first  time  we 
traced  a  new  note  in  his  writings — the  note  of 
Pulvis  et  Umbra.' 

When  Stevenson  left  England  (finally  as  it  turned 
out)  in  August  1887,  Mr.  Gosse  was  one  of  the  very 
few  friends  who  saw  him  the  day  before  he  sailed, 
and  found  him  in  this  great  and  dark  adventure 
of  his  life  '  radiantly  humorous  and  romantic.' 
Stevenson  had  then  just  found  popular  fame  :  Mr. 
Gosse,  now  thirty  years  after,  continues  to  appeal  to 
the  more  eclectic  admirers  of  his  poems,  biographies 
and  studies  of  French  literature.  Among  the  first 
is  the  address  '  To  Tusitala  in  Vailima,'  written  just 
before  Stevenson's  death,  and  striking  the  note  of 
regret  at  the  fate,  '  half  delectable,  half  tragic,' 
which  isolated  him  from  his  friends  in  Europe. 
The  Pentland  edition  (1906-7)  of  Stevenson's  works 
appeared  under  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse's  editorship. 

GRANT,  WILLIAM,  OF  PRESTONGRANGE 

The  Lord  Advocate  for  Scotland  appears  in 
Catriona  as  a  kindly  and  courtly  gentleman,  com- 
pelled to  plead  political  necessity  in  defence  of  a 


no  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

course  which  he  felt  was  judicially  indefensible. 
Stevenson  makes  him  justify  the  suppression  of  a 
vital  witness ;  his  real  irregularity  was  that  of 
appearing  at  the  Circuit  court  at  Inveraray  where, 
as  he  well  knew,  a  Campbell  jury  was  to  condemn 
James  Stewart.  Appointed  chief  legal  adviser  of 
the  Crown  in  Scotland  in  the  year  after  the  '45,  the 
duties  of  public  prosecutor  fell  to  him  through  the 
stormy  times  after  the  rising  and,  save  in  the  Appin 
case,  were  discharged  with  a  degree  of  moderation 
and  justice  which  is  not  altogether  suggested  by  the 
portrait  of  him  in  Catriona.  But  then  there  is 
Stevenson's  defence  of  it  in  the  first-person  plan  of 
the  tale  :  '  Davie  cannot  know.  I  give  you  the 
inside  of  Davie,  and  my  method  condemns  me  to 
give  only  the  outside  of  Prestongrange  and  his 
policy.'  The  family  of  the  Lord  Advocate  in 
Catriona  is  imaginary  in  the  sense  that  Stevenson 
created  the  characters  of  his  daughters,  or  rather  of 
one  of  them,  and  omitted  all  mention  of  his  wife,  who 
long  survived  her  husband's  death  hi  1764. 

GRAVER  AND  THE  PEN,  THE 

See  '  Davos  Press.' 

GREAT  NORTH  ROAD,  THE 

The  novel,  of  which  only  eight  chapters  were 
written,  comes  in  point  of  time  between  Treasure 
Island  and  Kidnapped.  It  was  begun  at  Bourne- 
mouth about  1884,  when  the  success  of  the  former 
prompted  Stevenson  to  plan  other  tales  of  adventure. 
Though  the  highway  was  to  be  the  motif  of  the  story 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  in 

it  was  not,  so  it  would  appear,  to  have  been  a  tale 
of  highwaymen.  A  novel  of  this  type  called  Jerry 
Abershaw  had  been  begun  and  discarded.  To  a 
correspondent  who  had  heard  of  The  Great  North 
Road,  Stevenson  wrote :  '  It  will  not,  however, 
gratify  your  taste  ;  the  highwayman  is  not  grasped  ; 
what  you  would  have  liked  (and  I,  believe  me) 
would  have  been  Jerry  Abershaw  ;  but  Jerry  was  not 
written  at  the  fit  moment ;  I  have  outgrown  the 
taste — and  his  romantic  horse-shoes  clatter  faintlier 
down  the  incline  towards  Lethe.'  The  Great  North 
Road  was  included  in  the  Edinburgh  edition  and  is 
now  published,  with  the  two  other  fragments  of 
novels,  in  Lay  Morals. 

GUTHRIE,  LORD  (CHARLES  JOHN  GUTHRIE) 

(1849-         ) 

Lord  Guthrie,  who  has  been  one  of  the  Senators 
of  the  College  of  Justice  in  Scotland  since  1907, 
was  Stevenson's  senior  by  a  year  and  a  fellow  student 
of  his  during  his  reading  for  the  Bar.  They  were 
Presidents  of  the  Speculative  Society  in  1872. 
In  addition  to  his  short  contributions  hi  the  way  of 
reminiscences  of  R.  L.  S.  he  is  the  author  of  the 
little  book  on  '  Cummy '  (see  Cunningham,  Alison) 
and  has  earned  the  gratitude  of  Stevensonians  by 
making  Swanston  Cottage  (Stevenson's  summer 
home  for  twelve  years),  of  which  he  is  the  tenant,  in 
part  a  museum  in  which  are  collected  portraits, 
manuscripts,  and  other  memorials  of  the  novelist 
and  of  his  family  and  associates,  including  the 
cabinet  made  by  the  notorious  Deacon  Brodie,  which 


H2  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

stood  in  the  Stevenson  nursery  when  R.  L.  S.  was 
a  child,  and  is  so  referred  to  in  the  paper  Nuits 
Blanches. 

HADDEN,  TOMMY 

The  companion  of  Carthew  on  the  voyage  of  the 
'  Currency  Lass '  in  The  Wrecker  was  drawn  from 
the  South  Seas  character,  Jack  Buckland  (q.v.). 

HAMERTON,  PHILIP  GILBERT  (1834-1894) 

The  artist,  essayist,  and  author  of  '  Landscape  in 
Art '  has  a  special  place  among  R.  L.  S.'s  literary 
friends,  for  he  was  the  first  editor  to  place  anything 
of  Stevenson's  before  the  public.  The  essay  Roads 
appeared  hi  '  The  Portfolio '  which  Hamerton  had 
founded  with  Richard  Seeley  in  1873,  and  which 
for  twenty  years  under  his  editorship  held  a  leading 
place  among  literary  and  artistic  periodicals.  Of 
other  essays  of  Stevenson's  which  appeared  hi  its 
pages  the  most  notable  are  those  on  Edinburgh. 
Like  Stevenson,  Hamerton  made  a  sudden  marriage 
which  proved  full  of  happiness.  His  wife  was  a 
Frenchwoman,  and  there  is  a  counterpart,  in  their 
case,  of  Stevenson's  Silverado  experience  in  the 
life  which  they  lived  immediately  after  their  marriage 
on  the  otherwise  uninhabited  island  of  Innisdrynich 
on  Loch  Awe,  an  unusual  beginning  for  a  bride  who 
had  never  set  foot  in  Great  Britain,  but  one  which 
she  accepted  without  demur.  It  was  in  the  Scottish 
mountains  that  Hamerton  found  the  material  for 
the  book  '  A  Painter's  Camp  in  the  Highlands,' 
which  showed  him  to  be  a  leading  authority  on  art. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  113 

Afterwards,  on  a  partial  failure  of  his  financial 
resources,  he  settled  in  France  for  the  rest  of  his 
life  and  there  wrote  the  books,  such  as  '  Round  My 
House/  which  provide  the  most  intimate  under- 
standing of  French  people's  social  customs. 
Stevenson  was  a  visitor  at  the  Hamertons  in  London 
and  at  their  French  home  at  Autun,  and  some  very 
fresh  impressions  of  him  as  a  light-hearted  boy  of 
twenty-five  are  contained  in  the  '  Autobiography  '  of 
Hamerton,  published  hi  1897.  They  are  really 
those  of  Mrs.  Hamerton,  who,  on  her  husband's 
death  in  1894,  continued  the  story  of  his  life  which 
he  had  completed  up  to  the  time  of  their  marriage. 
The  perfect  English  of  the  book  was  a  remarkable 
achievement,  considering  that  Mrs.  Hamerton  had 
lived  for  only  a  short  time  in  England  and  prior  to 
her  marriage  knew  nothing  of  the  language. 

HAMMERTON,  J.  A.  (1871-        ) 

Mr.  Hammerton,  writer  and  journalist,  is  the  com- 
piler of  a  volume  '  Stevensoniana '  (Edinburgh, 
John  Grant,  1903),  in  which  are  collected  mis- 
cellaneous extracts  from  books  and  periodicals ; 
some,  personal  reminiscences,  but  for  the  most  part 
literary  criticisms  and  appreciations  drawn  from 
very  diverse  sources.  Much  of  the  matter  is  arranged 
in  chronological  order,  and  so  obtains  for  the  book 
hi  its  second  edition  the  description — an  '  anecdotal 
life  '  of  R.  L.  S.  An  original  contribution  to  Steven- 
son literature  is  Mr.  Hammerton's  '  In  the  Track  of 
Stevenson '  (Bristol,  Arrowsmith,  1907),  the  record 
of  a  pilgrimage  over  the  routes  traversed  by  R.  L.  S., 


ii4  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

and  described  in  An  Inland  Voyage  and  Travels  with 
a  Donkey.  The  photographic  illustrations  are  a  re- 
minder that  R.  L.  S.  did  not  travel  for  scenic  attrac- 
tions. We  see  the  inhospitable  character  of  the 
Cevennes  country,  and  the  bare  stretches  of  river 
and  canal.  Among  these  photographs  of  the  canoe 
voyage  are  a  number  which  have  since  obtained 
tragic  interest  from  the  fact  that  the  places  them- 
selves, Landrecies,  Noyon,  and  others,  have  suffered 
more  or  less  complete  destruction  in  the  war  of 
1914-18. 

HAMILTON,  CLAYTON  (1881-        ) 

An  American  writer,  and  author  of  '  On  the  Trail 
of  Stevenson '  (Hodder  &  Stoughton,  1916).  The 
trail  is  twofold.  Mr.  Hamilton  has  made  Steven- 
sonian  pilgrimages  in  Scotland,  France  and  America, 
and  identifies  places  with  the  doings  and  writings 
of  R.  L.  S.  Except  for  California  and  the  South 
Seas  his  visits  have  embraced  the  wide  fields  of 
Stevenson's  wanderings.  But  the  other  and  more 
interesting  form  of  the  trail  is  the  conversations 
he  had  with  friends  and  others  who  knew  Stevenson 
in  the  flesh,  some,  notably  Andrew  Lang,  Henry 
James,  and  '  Cummy,'  since  dead.  The  personal 
reminiscences,  though  second-hand,  are  specially 
worth  preserving,  since  they  have  arisen  in  response 
to  questions  to  which  Mr.  Hamilton,  saturated  with 
Stevenson's  personality,  craved  for  replies.  Thus, 
from  Mr.  Gosse,  it  is  elicited  that  Stevenson  was 
embarrassed  by  the  society  of  very  young  children  ; 
from  Henry  James,  that  in  his  worst  years  of  illness 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  115 

(at  Bournemouth)  he  did  not  suffer  actual  pain ; 
and  from  Andrew  Lang,  that  at  first  he  heartily 
disliked  Stevenson.  The  reproductions  of  drawings 
by  Walter  Hale  add  to  the  attractiveness  of  a -fine 
piece  of  book-making. 

HEALTH  AND  MOUNTAINS 

In  the  introduction  to  this  short  paper  Stevenson 
contrasts  the  sensations  of  invalids  such  as  himself 
in  the  mild  air  of  the  Riviera,  and  in  the  cold  heights 
of  Alpine  valleys.  The  essay  Ordered  South  had 
analysed  his  feelings  during  his  invalidism  at  Mentone, 
where,  however,  there  was  much  to  admire  hi  the 
surrounding  country.  His  discomfort  in  the  Alps, 
whither  he  had  come  (cet.  30)  at  the  onset  of  winter 
on  his  return  from  California  with  his  wife,  is  marked 
by  a  dislike  of  the  Alpine  landscapes  :  '  A  glaring 
piece  of  crudity,  where  everything  that  is  not  white 
is  a  solecism  ;  a  scene  of  blinding  definition ;  a 
parade  of  daylight,  almost  scenically  vulgar,  more 
than  scenically  trying  and  yet  hearty  and  healthy, 
making  the  nerves  to  tighten  and  the  mouth  to  smile 
— such  is  the  whiter  daytime  in  the  Alps/  Admirers 
of  Alpine  scenery  will  be  hard  put  to  it  to  find  a  re- 
sponsive note  in  this  and  the  other  three  papers  which 
contain  Stevenson's  first  impressions  there  as  an 
invalid  debarred  from  moving  far  afield  from  Davos. 
The  paper  appeared  in  the  '  Pall  Mall  Gazette/ 
February  17,  1881,  and  is  placed  in  Essays  of  Travel. 

HEATHER  ALE 

See  '  Ballads/ 


n6  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

HEATHERCAT 

The  tale,  of  which  only  three  chapters  were  written, 
was  to  have  been  an  historical  novel  on  the  grand 
scale,  and  set  in  the  years  1690  to  1700.  Opening 
amid  the  religious  persecutions  in  Scotland,  it  was 
to  have  developed  against  the  background  of  the 
ill-fated  Scottish  colonizing  enterprise  in  Central 
America — the  Darien  adventure,  in  which  so  much 
of  the  wealth  of  Scotland  was  lost.  It  was  in  1698 
that  1200  Scots  set  sail  from  Leith  on  the  wild  pro- 
ject, inspired  in  part  by  commercial  rivalry  with 
England,  of  making  a  district  of  the  Panama  isthmus 
an  entreptt  of  world  commerce.  Their  sufferings 
from  famine  and  social  disorder,  to  say  nothing  of 
their  final  defeat  in  battle  with  the  Spaniards, 
formed  a  series  of  disasters,  out  of  which  few  of 
them  made  their  escape.  The  tale,  as  he  wrote  in 
the  June  preceding  his  death,  to  his  cousin  R.  A.  M. 
Stevenson,  was  '  to  present  a  whole  field  of  time ; 
the  race — our  own  race— the  Westland  and  Clydes- 
dale blue  bonnets,  under  the  influence  of  their  last 
trial,  when  they  got  to  a  pitch  of  organization  in 
madness  that  no  other  peasantry  has  ever  made  an 
offer  at.  I  was  going  to  call  it  "  The  Killing  Time," 
but  this  man  Crockett  has  forestalled  me  in  that. 
All  my  weary  reading,  as  a  boy,  which  you  remember 
well  enough,  will  come  to  bear  on  it.'  The  opening 
sentence  of  the  fragment,  first  published  in  the 
Edinburgh  edition,  and  now  in  Lay  Morals,  appears 
inconsistent  with  Stevenson's  first  intention  to  set 
the  story  mostly  out  of  Scotland,  hi  Carolina, 
and  next  hi  Darien,  but  there  is  no  other  evi- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  117 

dence   to  show  the  final  shape  which  he  had  in 
mind  for  it. 


HENLEY,  WILLIAM  ERNEST  (1849-1903) 

'  I  wish  your  honesty  were  not  so  warfaring,' 
wrote  R.  L.  S.  to  Henley  in  reference  to  a  dispute, 
on  Stevenson's  behalf,  with  an  editor.  The  sentence 
underlines  the  characters  of  the  two  friends — Henley, 
his  life  long,  a  challenger ;  Stevenson,  for  all  his 
outbursts  of  indignation,  the  compatible  associate 
of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  Their  friendship 
began  through  the  introduction  of  Leslie  Stephen, 
to  whom  as  editor  of  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine  '  they 
were  both  known.  Henley  when  only  twenty-four 
had  come  to  Edinburgh  infirmary  for  treatment  of 
the  tuberculosis  which  had  lost  him  one  foot,  and 
threatened  to  cost  him  the  other  as  well.  Their 
meeting  is  thus  described  by  R.  L.  S. :  '  Yesterday, 
Leslie  Stephen,  who  was  down  here  to  lecture,  called 
on  me  and  took  me  up  to  see  a  poor  fellow,  a  sort  of 
poet  who  writes  for  him,  and  who  has  been  eighteen 
months  in  our  infirmary,  and  may  be,  for  all  I  know, 
eighteen  months  more.  It  was  very  sad  to  see  him 
there,  in  a  little  room  with  two  beds,  and  a  couple  of 
sick  children  in  the  other  bed.  Stephen  and  I  sat 
on  a  couple  of  chairs,  and  the  poor  fellow  sat  up  in 
his  bed  with  his  hair  and  beard  all  tangled,  and 
talked  as  cheerfully  as  if  he  had  been  in  a  king's 
palace,  or  the  great  King's  palace  of  the  blue  air. 
He  has  taught  himself  two  languages  since  he  has 
been  lying  there.  I  shall  try  to  be  of  use  to  him.' 
Henceforward  they  were  on  the  closest  terms  of 


n8  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

friendship  until  Stevenson's  final  departure  from 
Europe.  R.  L.  S.  is  the  '  Apparition '  of  Henley's 
poem  ;  Henley  is  '  Burly  '  in  Talk  and  Talkers  (q.v.), 
and  the  original  of  John  Silver  (q.v.),  a  piece  of 
imagination  on  Stevenson's  part  which,  with  a  good 
deal  of  reason,  he  could  never  bring  himself  to  like. 
Many  of  Stevenson's  works  were  published  in  two 
of  the  periodicals  which  Henley  successively  edited 
— the  short-lived  '  London '  and  the  '  Magazine  of 
Art.'  It  was  to  the  '  Scots  Observer,'  then  edited 
by  Henley,  that  R.  L.  S.  sent  his  Damien  letter,  the 
publishing  of  which  was  doubtless  congenial  enough 
to  Henley's  fearless,  fighting  spirit.  For  three  or 
four  years  (1882-5)  Henley  acted  informally  as 
Stevenson's  honorary  agent  hi  dealings  with  London 
publishers.  The  arrangement  came  to  an  end  on 
Stevenson  wishing  Henley  to  retain  a  proportion  of 
the  payments.  It  was  chiefly  during  this  period  that 
they  collaborated  in  the  plays,  an  enterprise  in  which 
Henley  was  the  moving  spirit,  and  of  which  Steven- 
son was  glad  eventually  to  be  rid.  The  letters  to 
'  My  dear  lad,'  in  the  published  collection,  grow  less 
frequent  after  Stevenson's  final  departure  from 
England,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  assume  any  dis- 
guise of  a  lesser  regard  for  Henley  in  the  end  of  a 
letter  from  Samoa  in  1892  acknowledging  a  book 
of  the  latter's  poems  :  '  I  did  not  guess  you  were  so 
great  a  magician  ;  these  are  new  tunes,  this  an  under- 
tone of  the  true  Apollo  ;  these  are  not  verse  ;  they 
are  poetry — inventions,  creations  in  language.  I 
thank  you  for  the  joy  you  have  given  me,  and  remain 
your  old  friend  and  present  huge  admirer.'  It  was 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  119 

on  the  publication  of  the  '  Life '  of  Stevenson,  seven 
years  after  his  death,  that  Henley  astonished  the 
literary  world  by  the  bitterness  of  his  review  in  the 
'  Pall  Mall  Magazine  '  of  December  1901.  The  frank 
disparagement  of  Stevenson  in  these  pages  is  per- 
haps less  offensive  than  the  repeated  suggestion  that 
there  are  things  which  are  better  left  unsaid.  A  per- 
sonal disagreement  had  estranged  the  two  during  the 
latter  years  of  Stevenson's  life,  but  in  the  rancour  of 
his  feelings  towards  R.  L.  S.  Henley  could  not  avoid 
inviting  the  assumption  of  jealousy  of  his  friend's 
greater  fortune  as  the  motive  of  his  bitterness.  The 
article  called  forth  numerous  protests,  among  which 
perhaps  the  most  notable  is  that  of  Andrew  Lang  in 
'  The  Morning  Post '  of  December  16,  1901.  The 
correspondence  between  Henley  and  R.  L.  S.  on  the 
private  disagreement  which  separated  them  in  their 
later  years  passed  into  the  hands  of  their  common 
friend,  Charles  Baxter,  and  is  preserved  in  the 
Advocates'  Library,  Edinburgh,  but  is  not  accessible 
to  the  public. 

HIRD,  BEN 

This  member  of  the  trio  of  shipmates  to  whom 
Island  Nights  Entertainments  is  dedicated  was  a  Scot, 
known  throughout  the  South  Seas  for  his  straight 
dealings.  He  had  travelled  much  in  the  Pacific, 
so  that  Stevenson  introduced  him  into  The  Beach  of 
Falesa,  without  explanation,  as  one  of  its  institutions. 
Pearling  and  trading,  he  had  seen  more  of  island 
life  than  most  whites,  and  the  tales  he  had  to  tell 
during  the  months  they  were  fellow-passengers  on 


120  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

the  '  Janet  Nicoll/  were  a  mine  of  romantic  material 
for  Stevenson  from  the  fact  that  Hird  was  no  mere 
pitcher  of  yarns,  but  scrupulous  in  his  efforts  at 
accuracy. 

HONOLULU 

Stevenson  was  twice  a  resident  for  some  months 
in  the  capital  of  the  Hawaiian  islands.  The  first 
occasion  was  at  the  end  of  the  cruise  in  the  '  Casco  ' 
on  January  24,  1889.  The  family  first  rented  the 
Manuia  Lanai,  a  pavilion  of  the  native  pattern  at 
Waikiki,  four  miles  from  Honolulu  and  joined  to  the 
sea  beach  by  grassy  lawns.  They  then  moved  to  a 
more  substantial  cottage  close  by.  Among  the 
many  residents  by  whom  he  was  entertained  and 
whom  he  entertained  was  the  last  king  of  the 
Hawaiian  State,  Kalakaua,  a  dissipated  but  com- 
petent semi-savage  for  whom  Stevenson  formed  more 
than  a  formal  regard.  The  king  died  in  the  following 
year.  It  was  from  Honolulu  that  Stevenson  went 
by  himself  upon  the  visit  to  the  island  of  Molokai, 
where  he  spent  a  week  at  the  leper  settlement. 
This  was  in  April,  a  month  after  Father  Damien's 
death.  There  he  played  croquet  with  the  leper 
children,  and  on  his  return  sent  a  grand  piano  to  the 
girls'  school.  The  second  residence,  four  years  later, 
was  meant  to  have  been  for  a  few  days  but  extended 
to  nearly  three  months.  He  arrived  in  September, 
1893,  having  come  for  the  sake  of  the  sea  voyage 
and  intending  to  return  by  the  next  boat.  But  an 
attack  of  pneumonia  suddenly  developed,  and  he  was 
not  well  enough  to  return  to  Samoa  until  November. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  121 

During  the  greater  part  of  this  time  he  lived  at  a 
hostelry  called  Sans  Souci  again  at  Waikiki.  The 
bust  by  Hutchinson,  exhibited  at  the  New  Gallery 
Summer  Exhibition,  1895,  belongs  to  this  period. 
A  detailed  account  of  Stevenson's  sayings  and 
doings  during  both  visits  is  contained  hi  the  book 
by  Arthur  Johnstone  (q.v.). 

HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

The  study  of  the  great  French  romantic,  in  which 
is  traced  his  higher  development  of  the  novel  of 
romance  from  the  traditions  of  Fielding  and  Scott, 
was  Stevenson's  first  exercise  in  the  field  of  critical 
appreciation  which  obtained  publication,  if  indeed 
it  was  not  the  first  attempted.  It  was  written  during 
his  six  months  invalidism  (at.  24)  at  Mentone,  and 
on  its  being  sent  to  Leslie  Stephen,  then  editor  of 
the  '  Cornhill,'  was  the  subject  of  a  cordial  letter  of 
encouragement  (inserted  in  the  Letters,  vol.  i.  pp. 
I33~5)>  the  modest  terms  of  which  to  an  aspirant 
nearly  twenty  years  his  junior  bespeak  both  Stephen's 
fine  courtesy  and  his  estimate  of  Stevenson's  powers. 
The  relations  thus  established  with  the  '  Cornhill/ 
where  the  paper  appeared,  August  1874,  continued 
for  many  years,  and  led  to  the  best  and  the  greatest 
number  of  Stevenson's  essays  and  tales  appearing 
in  its  pages. 

HUMBLE  REMONSTRANCE,  A 

In  joining  issue  with  Henry  James  in  the  paper 
bearing  this  title,  Stevenson  was  prompted  by  a 
contribution  of  the  former's  on  '  The  Art  of  Fiction  ' 


122  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

to  '  Longman's  Magazine/  September  1884,  after- 
wards reprinted  in  '  Partial  Portraits.'  Between 
two  writers  of  such  widely  different  aims,  as  widely 
different  views  of  the  essence  of  their  art  were  to  be 
expected.  So  far  as  the  particular  paper  of  Henry 
James  is  concerned — for  it  is  to  be  taken  as  a  very 
partial  discussion  of  the  subject — their  difference  of 
view  may  be  said  to  reside  in  the  relative  value  they 
attach  to  incident,  or  rather  to  the  degree  to  which 
the  art  of  the  writer  may  make  incident  interesting. 
Here  obviously  they  started  with  radically  different 
ideas  of  the  kind  of  incident  which  might  serve  a 
writer  as  subject  matter.  To  Henry  James,  a  young 
man  deciding  after  all  not  to  enter  the  Church  was 
'  incident ' ;  Stevenson  would  need  to  feed  his  art 
on  stronger  meat.  Though  it  does  not  so  appear 
in  the  paper,  the  undercurrent  of  his  thoughts  would 
seem  to  have  run  upon  this  disparity  between  the 
material  which  he  chose  to  use  and  that  which 
Henry  James  found  sufficient  for  his  studies  in — the 
phrase  is  Stevenson's — '  the  statics  of  character.' 
The  letter  quoted  in  the  paragraph  on  Henry  James 
on  another  page  lends  colour  to  this  view,  and  a 
postscript  to  it  suggests  that  James  had  detected 
what  was  a  real  ground  of  difference  between  them  : 
'  I  have  re-read  my  paper,  and  cannot  think  I  have 
at  all  succeeded  in  being  either  veracious  or  polite. 
I  knew,  of  course,  that  I  took  up  your  paper  merely 
as  a  pin  to  hang  my  own  remarks  upon  ;  but,  alas  ! 
what  a  thing  is  any  paper.  What  fine  remarks  can 
you  not  hang  on  mine  !  How  have  I  sinned  against 
proportion  and,  with  every  effort  to  the  contrary, 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  123 

against  the  merest  rudiments  of  courtesy  to  you. 
You  are  indeed  a  very  acute  reader  to  have  divined 
the  real  attitude  of  my  mind.'  The  paper  appeared 
in  '  Longman's  Magazine,'  December  1884,  and  was 
included  by  Stevenson  in  Memories  and  Portraits 
as  a  fitting  continuation  of  A  Gossip  in  Romance. 

HYERES   AND   MARSEILLES 

After  an  autumn  at  Marseilles  in  1882,  during 
which  his  health  suffered,  Stevenson  with  his  family 
made  their  last  stay  of  any  duration  in  France  at 
Hyeres,  viz.,  from  February  1883  to  May  1884. 
The  first  month  was  spent  at  the  Hotel  des  lies  d'Or, 
but  in  March  they  moved  to  the  chalet  La  Solitude, 
the  charms  of  which,  or  rather  of  its  garden  and 
prospects,  he  was  never  tired  of  repeating.  One 
passage  from  a  letter  is  a  type  of  many  : 

'  I  live  in  a  most  sweet  corner  of  the  universe, 
sea  and  fine  hills  before  me,  and  a  rich  variegated 
plain ;  and  at  my  back  a  craggy  hill,  loaded  with 
vast  feudal  ruins.  I  am  very  quiet ;  a  person 
passing  by  my  door  half  startles  me  ;  but  I  enjoy 
the  most  aromatic  airs  ;  and  at  night  the  most 
wonderful  view  into  a  moonlit  garden.  By  day 
this  garden  fades  into  nothing,  overpowered  by  its 
surroundings  and  the  luminous  distance ;  but  at 
night,  and  when  the  moon  is  out,  that  garden,  the 
arbour,  the  flight  of  stairs  that  mount  the  artificial 
hillock,  the  plumed  blue  gum-trees  that  hang 
trembling,  become  the  very  skirts  of  Paradise. 
Angels  I  know  frequent  it ;  and  it  thrills  all  night 
with  the  flutes  of  silence.' 


124  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Though  rarely  able  to  be  beyond  the  borders  of 
this  small  estate,  a  person,  as  he  said,  '  with  an 
established  ill-health,'  he  was  free  throughout  the 
year  from  acute  illness,  and  for  the  first  time  his 
income  from  writing  came  very  near  to  £500.  But 
in  January  1884,  on  a  visit  to  Nice  with  friends  from 
Edinburgh,  he  had  his  first  experience  of  illness  in 
which  his  life  was  despaired  of.  Returning  to 
Hyeres  in  February,  the  rest  of  his  stay  there  was 
passed  in  a  state  of  complete  prostration,  and  when 
in  June  he  was  able  to  be  moved,  it  was  decided  to 
return  to  England  with  a  view  to  securing  the  best 
medical  advice.  Except  for  a  short  visit  to  Paris 
he  never  saw  France  again,  and  the  next  three  years 
were  spent  at  Bournemouth.  Afterwards  at  Samoa 
Stevenson  wrote  in  answer  to  an  imaginary  question: 
'  Happy,  said  I.  I  was  only  happy  once ;  that  was 
at  Hyeres  ;  it  came  to  an  end  for  a  variety  of  reasons, 
decline  of  health,  change  of  place,  increase  of  money, 
age  with  his  stealing  steps.'  The  passage  confirms 
the  observation  of  friends  at  the  time,  that  these 
first  near-hand  encounters  with  death  introduced  a 
graver  tone  into  Stevenson's  thoughts  and  writings. 
The  gay  youth  was  at  last  a  little  less  able  to  put 
aside  the  facts  of  his  life. 

A  house  of  the  name  of  Campagne  Defli  in  the 
suburb  of  St.  Marcel,  five  miles  from  Marseilles,  was 
Stevenson's  home  during  the  last  three  months  of 
1882.  He  came  there  hi  search  of  a  climate  which 
would  suit  him  and  be  less  trying  to  his  wife  than 
Davos,  where  the  two  previous  winters  had  been 
spent.  But  after  having  contracted  lung  trouble  at 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  125 

Montpellier,  he  was  more  than  ordinarily  ill  at  St. 
Marcel,  and  the  residence  came  to  an  end  by 
Stevenson  going  to  Nice,  when  just  able  to  travel, 
leaving  his  wife  to  follow  him.  Letters  and  telegrams 
miscarrying,  the  two  had  no  news  of  each  other  for 
a  week,  during  which  time  Mrs.  Stevenson  had  to 
endure  the  suggestions  of  the  police  that  her  husband 
had  died  at  some  wayside  station  and  been  buried. 
They  at  last  met  hi  Marseilles,  and  next  settled  at 
Hyeres. 


IDEAL  HOUSE,  THE 

It  is  a  rather  pathetic  comment  upon  this  paper 
that  Stevenson's  incessant  travels  in  search  of  health 
condemned  him  to  live  in  such  houses  as  he  could 
find,  and  never  to  remain  long  in  any.  In  Europe 
his  longest  stay  was  in  the  house  at  Bournemouth, 
given  to  his  wife  by  the  elder  Stevenson  ;  and  when 
at  length  he  found  a  measure  of  health  in  the  South 
Seas,  he  lived  only  two  years  after  the  completion 
of  Vailima.  The  essay  was  written  at  Davos  in 
1880  or  1881  (at.  30),  during  the  first  year  of  married 
life,  and  thus  evidently  represents  the  ideal  which 
he  and  his  wife  planned  to  realize  should  it  have  been 
found  possible  for  him  to  live  in  one  place.  Sir 
Graham  Balfour,  who  made  a  lengthy  stay  at 
Vailima,  says  that  many  of  the  features  of  structure 
and  particularly  of  position  which  characterize  the 
house  of  the  essay,  were  reproduced  in  the  building 
on  the  hills  above  Upolu. 

The  paper  appears  not  to  have  been  published 


126  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

until  the  issue  of  the  complete  works,  but  has  since 
been  included  in  Essays  of  Travel. 

INLAND  VOYAGE,  AN 

R.  L.  S.'s  first  book,  published  in  May  1878  by 
Messrs.  Kegan  Paul.  The  voyage  was  made  in  the 
autumn  of  1876  (at.  26)  in  company  with  Sir  Walter 
Simpson  (q.v.),  the  '  Cigarette '  of  the  book.  Their 
cruise,  in  two  canoes,  was  first  by  canal  from  Antwerp 
to  Brussels,  and  thence  on  the  rivers  Sambre  and 
Oise  by  places  such  as  Landrecies,  La  Fere,  and 
Noyon,  largely  destroyed  in  the  last  year  of  the  war 
of  1914-18.  At  Pointoise,  eighteen  miles  short  of  the 
Seine,  the  journey  came  to  an  abrupt  end  ;  the  river 
there  becomes  uninterestingly  wide,  and  the  two 
travellers  were  nothing  loth  to  exchange  the  bois- 
terous, squally  weather,  which  had  been  their  lot 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  time,  for  a  favourite  resort  of 
theirs,  the  artists'  colony  at  Grez  on  the  Loing,  a 
little  beyond  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleu.  R.  L.  S. 
had  written  of  the  delight  to  '  awake  hi  Grez,  to  go 
down  to  the  green  inn  garden,  to  find  the  river 
streaming  through  the  bridge,  and  to  see  the  dawn 
begin  across  the  poplared  level.  The  meals  are  laid 
in  the  cool  arbour  under  fluttering  leaves.  The 
splash  of  oars  and  bathers,  the  bathing  costumes 
out  to  dry,  the  trim  canoes  beside  the  jetty,  tell  of  a 
society  that  has  an  eye  to  pleasure.' 

It  seems  that  it  was  on  this  return  to  Grez  that 
R.  L.  S.  first  met  Mrs.  Osbourne,  whom  he  after- 
wards married.  Thus  the  last  sentence  in  the  book : 
'  You  may  paddle  all  day  long  ;  but  it  is  when  you 


A  BOOK  OF  R.L.  S.  127 

come  back  at  nightfall  and  look  in  at  the  familiar 
room  that  you  find  Love  or  Death  awaiting  you 
beside  the  stove  ;  and  the  most  beautiful  adven- 
tures are  not  those  we  go  out  to  seek.'  For  it  was 
in  the  following  year  (1877)  that  the  book  was  begun 
in  Edinburgh — it  was  completed  in  France  early 
in  1878 — during  which  time  R.  L.  S's  attachment  for 
Mrs.  Osbourne  had  become  part  of  his  life.  But, 
apart  from  his  father's  allowance,  he  was  almost 
without  means.  To  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  he  wrote  : 
'  I  am  at  The  Inland  Voyage  again  ...  I  only 
hope  Paul  may  take  the  thing :  I  want  coin 
so  badly,  and  besides  it  would  be  something 
done.  ...  I  should  not  feel  such  a  muff  as  I  do, 
if  once  I  saw  the  thing  in  boards  with  a  ticket  on 
its  back.' 

Much  of  the  book  is  a  literal  transcription  of  the 
log-book  written  daily  on  the  journey ;  chiefly  the 
longer  passages  of  reflection  were  written  in-  the 
intervening  year  and  a  half.  And  on  the  preface, 
as  the  author  wrote,  four  whole  days  were  spent. 
On  its  appearance  the  book  received  slight  though 
favourable  notice  from  the  reviewers.  The  earnest- 
ness of  R.  L.  S.  in  the  art  of  writing  is  shown  in  a 
letter  to  his  mother  on  the  tone  of  the  critics  :  '  The 
effect  it  has  produced  on  me  is  one  of  shame.  If  they 
like  that  so  much,  I  ought  to  have  given  them  some- 
thing better,  that 's  all.'  The  sales  of  the  Voyage 
in  the  first  years  of  publication  were  small.  In 
1883  it  had  reached  only  a  second  edition,  and 
shortly  afterwards  it  cost  Thomas  Stevenson  only 
£100  to  buy  back  from  the  publishers  the  copyrights 


128  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

in  it,  in  the  Travels  with  a  Donkey,  and  the  first 
volumes  of  his  son's  essays. 

Twenty-eight  years  afterwards  the  route  of  the 
Voyage  was  retra versed  by  Mr.  J.  A.  Hammerton  who, 
in  In  the  Track  of  Stevenson,  has  recorded  the  few 
traces  he  found  of  recollection  of  the  canoeists.  By 
then,  the  hospitable  bachelor  Juge  de  Paix  of 
Landrecies  was  married ;  the  kindly  M.  Bazin  of 
La  Fere  ('  of  cursed  memory ')  dead,  but  Mme. 
Bazin  still  the  possessor  of  a  copy  of  the  Voyage 
which  R.  L.  S.  had  sent  to  her  late  husband. 

Original  editions  of  the  Voyage,  issued  with  the 
frontispiece  by  Walter  Crane,  have  recently  been 
sold  for  about  £20.  In  1902  an  edition  was  issued 
at  6s.  by  Messsrs.  Chatto  &  Windus,  with  photo- 
graphic illustrations.  An  edition  in  French  with 
illustrations  was  published  in  1900  as  A  la  Pagaie, 
sur  I' E scant,  le  canal  de  Willebroeck,  la  Sambre  et 
Oise  (Paris,  Emile  Lechevalier). 

IN  MEMORIAM,  F.  A.  S. 

The  verses  of  No.  XXVII.  of  Underwoods  are  ad- 
dressed to  his  old  friend  Mrs.  Sitwell  (q.v.),  who  had 
come  to  Davos  during  Stevenson's  stay  there  in  the 
spring  of  1881  to  be  with  her  son  during  the  last 
months  of  his  life.  One  of  the  verses  has  been  chosen 
as  the  inscription  of  a  memorial  of  Stevenson  him- 
self. See  Silverado  Squatters. 

IRELAND,  ALEXANDER  (1810-1894) 

The  Scottish  journalist  and  critic,  the  confidant 
of  Robert  Chambers  and  friend  of  Carlyle,  Leigh 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  129 

Hunt,  and  R.  W.  Emerson,  was  a  correspondent  of 
Stevenson's,  to  whom  when  an  old  man  he  wrote 
with  questions  on  Hazlitt,  whose  life  he  was  about 
to  write.  Ireland's  death  at  the  age  of  eighty-four 
took  place  within  a  few  days  of  Stevenson's,  but 
the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  were  passed  under  a 
reverse  of  fortunes  caused  by  the  political  ups  and 
downs  of  Manchester  journalism,  in  which  he  had 
long  played  an  important  and  brilliant  part. 

ISLAND  NIGHTS  ENTERTAINMENTS 

The  title  oi  the  volume  which  includes  The  Beach 
of  Falesa,  The  Bottle  Imp,  and  The  Isle  of  Voices. 
On  hearing  of  the  arrangements  in  1892  for  their 
issue  together,  Stevenson  was  disappointed.  He 
had  meant  to  keep  The  Bottle  Imp  as  the  piece  de 
resistance  for  a  collection  of  fantastic  tales  which 
were  to  have  had  the  general  title.  Still  he  assented 
to  its  inclusion  with  The  Beach  of  Falesa,  one  of  his 
most  realistic  pieces  of  writing,  and  would  have 
added  The  Waif  Woman  but  for  Mrs.  Stevenson's 
objections. 

The  first  edition  (Cassell,  1893),  issued  at  6s.,  with 
illustrations  by  Gordon  Brown  and  W.  Hatherell, 
has  a  value  of  about  155.  The  first  named  artist's 
drawings  for  The  Beach  of  Falesa  pleased  Stevenson 
exceedingly,  and  he  sent  to  him  a  letter  in  which  he 
wrote  :  '  Your  creation  of  Wiltshire  is  a  real  illumina- 
tion of  the  text.  It  was  exactly  so  that  Wiltshire 
dressed  and  looked.  .  .  .  Nor  should  I  forget  to 
thank  you  for  Case,  particularly  in  his  last  appear- 
ance. It  is  a  singular  fact — which  seems  to  point 
i 


130  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

still  more  directly  to  inspiration  in  your  case — that 
your  missionary  actually  resembles  the  flesh  and 
blood  person  from  whom  Mr.  Tarleton  was  drawn. 

ISLE  OF  VOICES,  THE 

The  fairy-tale  of  magic  treasure  belongs  probably 
to  Stevenson's  fourth  year  in  the  South  Seas  (cet.  42), 
and  was  intended  to  be  kept,  with  others,  towards 
a  volume  of  stories  all  in  a  form  of  pure  fantasy.  It 
was  judged  as  '  not  up  to  the  mark  of  The  Bottle 
Imp'  which  was  to  be  the  leading  piece  of  this 
collection.  When,  however,  the  two  tales  were 
published  with  The  Beach  of  Falesa  (q.v.)  as  Island 
Nights  Entertainments,  Stevenson  consoled  himself 
with  the  consideration  that  the  '  queer  realism '  of 
the  two  fantasies  linked  them,  in  a  measure,  with 
that  most  realistic  of  his  tales. 

JAMES,  HENRY  (1848-1916) 

The  American  novelist  and  critic  became  one  of 
the  closest  of  Stevenson's  friends  during  the  latter's 
residence  at  Bournemouth,  where  he  was  the  most 
welcome  of  visitors.  It  was  during  this  period  that 
Henry  James's  paper  on  the  art  of  fiction  prompted 
Stevenson  to  rush  in  with  a  rejoinder  in  the  article 
A  Humble  Remonstrance  (q.v.).  Mr.  James's  paper 
had  illustrated  certain  methods  of  a  novelist's 
artistry  by  a  reference  to  Treasure  Island,  which 
brought  from  Stevenson  the  frank  declaration  of  the 
feeling  which  the  delicate  art  of  Mr.  James  produced 
in  him  :  '  I  seem  to  myself  a  very  rude,  left-handed 
countryman  ;  not  fit  to  be  read,  far  less  compli- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  131 

mented  by  a  man  so  accomplished,  so  adroit,  so 
craftsmanlike  as  you.  .  .  .  Each  man  among  us 
prefers  his  own  aim,  and  I  prefer  mine ;  but  when 
we  come  to  speak  of  performance  I  recognize  myself, 
as  compared  with  you,  to  be  a  lout  and  a  slouch 
of  the  first  water.'  Yet  it  is  not  surprising  to  find 
Stevenson  following  this  passage  of  admiration  of 
Mr.  James's  fine  skill  in  characterization  with  the 
coaxing  appeal  for  a  little  more  of  the  dramatic 
quality  in  his  works.  '  Could  you  not,'  he  writes, 
'  in  one  novel,  and  to  oblige  a  sincere  admirer,  and 
to  enrich  his  shelves  with  a  beloved  volume,  could 
you  not,  and  might  you  not  cast  your  characters  in 
a  mould  a  little  more  abstract  and  academic  (dear 
Mrs.  Pennyman  had  already,  among  your  other 
work,  a  taste  of  what  I  mean)  and  pitch  the  in- 
cidents, I  do  not  say  hi  any  stronger,  but  in  a  slightly 
more  emphatic  key — as  it  were  an  episode  from  one 
of  the  old  (so-called)  novels  of  adventure.  I  fear 
you  will  not ;  and  I  suppose  I  must  sighingly  admit 
you  to  be  right.  And  yet,  when  I  see,  as  it  were,  a 
book  of  Tom  Jones  handled  with  your  exquisite 
precision,  and  shot  through  with  those  side-lights 
of  reflection  hi  which  you  excel,  I  relinquish  the  dear 
vision  with  regret.  Think  upon  it.'  If  no  result  of 
this  exhortation  is  traceable  in  Mr.  James's  novels, 
the  artist  in  Stevenson  continued  to  find  them  the 
purest  delight,  numbering  them  among  the  few  books 
of  his  contemporaries  in  fiction  which  he  read  with 
pleasure.  Of  Stevenson  two  studies  are  to  be  found 
in  the  works  of  Henry  James.  That  in  '  Partial 
Portraits '  (London,  Macmillan,  1888)  was  written 


132  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

in  1887  a  year  after  the  publication  of  Kidnapped. 
The  second  is  in  'Notes  on  Novelists'  (London, 
Dent,  1914),  and  is  an  appreciation  more  of  Steven- 
son's personality  than  of  his  writings. 

JAPP,  DR.  ALEXANDER  HAY  (1837-1905) 

From  the  acquaintance  who  visited  Stevenson  at 
Braemar  in  1881  and  took  away  with  him  the  manu- 
script of  Treasure  Island  (q.v.),  Dr.  Japp  became  a 
close  friend  of  Stevenson's  for  some  years.  He  was 
a  prolific  and  versatile  writer  and  journalist,  who 
rose  from  a  quite  humble  beginning  to  be  the  author 
of  many  books  under  his  own  name  and  several 
pseudonyms.  His  last  work,  published  hi  the  year 
in  which  he  died,  is  '  Robert  Louis  Stevenson ' 
(London,  Werner  Laurie,  1905),  of  interest  chiefly 
for  its  reminiscences  of  the  Braemar  visit,  and  for 
its  reproduction  of  Stevenson  MSS. 

JEKYLL  AND  HYDE 

See  '  Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde.' 

JENKIN,  HENRY  CHARLES  FLEEMING  (1833- 

1885) 

Fleeming  Jenkin,  noted  for  his  work  in  engineering 
and  applied  electricity,  was  one  of  R.  L.  S.'s  closest 
friends  in  his  early  days.  When  Jenkin,  then  thirty- 
five,  became  Professor  of  Engineering  in  Edinburgh 
University,  Stevenson,  much  against  all  his  inclina- 
tions, was  professedly  studying  to  qualify  himself 
for  his  father's  calling.  Actually  Jenkin's  first 
relation  with  R.  L.  S.  was  to  remonstrate  on  his  per- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  133 

sistent  absence  from  the  classes.  From  this  un- 
promising beginning  developed  an  intimacy  of  which 
Stevenson  long  afterwards  wrote  in  a  lettter  to  Sir 
Sidney  Colvin  :  '  I  owe  you  and  Fleeming  Jenkin, 
the  two  older  men  who  took  the  trouble  and  knew 
how  to  make  a  friend  of  me,  everything  that  I  have 
or  am.'  Jenkin  in  fact  arrived  in  Edinburgh  just 
when  Stevenson,  then  eighteen,  was  entering  on  the 
mood  of  revolt  against  conventional  religious  beliefs 
and  social  prejudices  ;  when  also  he  craved  for 
friends  of  broad  interests  in  the  world  of  books. 
In  Jenkin  he  found  no  specialist  professor  of  the 
German  type,  but  a  boyish  personality  of  varied 
tastes,  a  great  lover  of  literature  and  art,  a  slave  of 
the  drama,  and  a  profuse  talker.  This  random  out- 
flow of  opinions,  which  was  an  inexpressible  relief 
to  R.  L.  S.  from  the  rigid  judgments  of  his  father's 
circle  of  friends,  was  indeed  the  element  in  Jenkin's 
character  which  made  him  unpopular  among  scien- 
tific men.  But  it  found  a  hungry  admirer  in 
Stevenson,  who  afterwards  in  Talk  and  Talkers 
(where  Jenkin  is  Cockshot)  described  his  friend  as 
'  bottled  effervescency.'  Apart  from  talk,  the 
Jenkins'  home,  where  R.  L.  S.  had  a  fast  friend  in 
Mrs.  Jenkin,  introduced  him  to  the  congenial  re- 
creation of  amateur  theatricals,  in  which  he  was  an 
occasional  though  a  poor  performer.  The  friend- 
ship of  the  two  men  has  its  testimony  in  Stevenson's 
biography  of  Jenkin  (see  below),  of  whose  loyalty 
there  can  surely  be  no  better  proof  than  his  employ- 
ment of  R.  L.  S.  as  his  private  secretary  for  six 
months  when  serving  as  a  juror  at  the  Paris  Ex- 


134  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

hibition  of  1878.  A  person  with  Stevenson's  aver- 
sion from  an  orderly  routine  of  work  could  hardly 
have  been  an  ideal  secretary. 

The  Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin,  which  Stevenson 
(#1-  35)  wrote  on  his  friend's  death  in  1885,  was 
undertaken  at  Bournemouth  with  the  assistance  of 
Mrs.  Jenkin.  It  is  the  only  biographical  work 
which  Stevenson  completed,  and  rather  curiously  is 
said  to  be  the  book  which  his  wife  thought  the  most 
successful  of  his  writings.  It  appeared  as  a  preface 
to  Jenkin's  '  Collected  Literary  and  Scientific 
Papers/  published  by  Longmans  in  1888  under  the 
editorship  of  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  and  J.  A.  Ewing.  It 
was  reprinted  in  the  Edinburgh  edition,  but  was  not 
issued  separately  by  Messrs.  Longmans  until  1912. 
The  complex  genealogy  of  the  Jenkins  which  forms 
the  first  chapter  was  afterwards  the  genesis  of  a 
long  historical  novel  which  Stevenson  planned  but 
did  not  live  to  carry  out.  A  South  Sea  friend  on  a 
first  dip  into  the  Memoir  had  taken  it  for  a  novel 
and  had  been  struck  by  its  unusual  character.  The 
incident  suggested  to  R.  L.  S.  a  novel  of  several 
generations,  to  the  outline  of  which  he  gave  the  title 
The  Shovels  of  Newton  French. 

JERSEY,  DOWAGER-COUNTESS  (MARGARET 

ELIZABETH)  (1849-        ) 

During  her  late  husband's  governorship  of  New 
South  Wales,  Lady  Jersey  visited  Samoa  and  formed 
a  warm  friendship  with  Stevenson,  with  whom  an 
excursion  was  made — incognito,  as  her  position 
required — to  the  camp  of  Mataafa,  the  rival  for  the 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  135 

position  of  native  monarch  whose  cause  Stevenson 
supported.  Her  visit  prompted  his  writing  of  the 
privately  printed  romance  An  Object  of  Pity,  a  rare 
piece  of  Stevensoniana  in  which  Lady  Jersey,  her 
brother,  Captain  Leigh,  Sir  Graham  Balfour,  Mrs. 
Stevenson,  and  R.  L.  S.  himself  are  the  characters. 

JOHNSTONE,  ARTHUR 

Author  of  '  Recollections  of  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son^ in  the  Pacific '  (London,  Chatto  &  Windus, 
1900),  a  wordy  book,  but  of  interest  in  recalling 
Stevenson's  doings  during  his  two  visits  to  Honolulu 
— in  1889,  when  he  stayed  five  months,  and  in  1893, 
when  illness  prolonged  an  intended  visit  of  a  few 
days  to  three  months.  No  trifles  of  his  life  during 
these  two  periods  are  too  small  for  Mr.  Johnstone, 
who  gathered  conversations  of  his  with  many  people, 
and  reports  verbatim  an  address  to  the  Scottish 
Thistle  Club.  The  author  devotes  several  chapters 
to  Stevenson's  interference  in  the  politics  of  the 
Pacific,  which  he  considered  ill-judged.  The  volume 
contains  some  impromptu  verses  written  by  R.  L.  S. 
at  Honolulu,  and  includes  also  Father  Damien's 
report  to  the  Hawaian  Board  of  Health  on  his  ad- 
ministration of  the  leper  settlement  in  Molokai. 

KELMAN,  REV.  JOHN  (1864-        ) 

The  author  of  '  The  Faith  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson '  (Edinburgh,  Oliphant,  Anderson  & 
Ferrier,  1903),  chose  a  very  insufficient  title  for  his 
work,  which  is  by  no  means  confined  to  a  discussion 
of  Stevenson's  attitude  towards  religious  belief, 


136  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

but  is  a  very  comprehensive  study  of  his  personality 
as  revealed  in  his  writings.  Dr.  Kelman  was  an 
Edinburgh  schoolboy  when  R.  L.  S.  was  the  random 
traveller  of  the  canoe  voyage  and  the  Cevennes 
journey,  yet  was  thus  nearly  enough  a  contemporary 
of  his  to  have  a  sympathetic  recollection  of  the 
Edinburgh  of  his  day.  No  other  of  the  books  on 
Stevenson  represents  so*  painstaking  an  effort  to 
reconstruct  his  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  from 
his  works.  And  on  the  purely  literary  side  the 
same  method  of  research  is  applied  to  show  the 
direct  influence  of  the  Covenanting  writers  on 
Stevenson's  style.  Altogether  it  is  an  illuminating 
sidelight  on  the  narrowness  of  view  sometimes 
attributed  to  the  Free  Kirk,  that  a  man  reared  in 
her  traditions  is  found  to  possess  the  catholic  taste 
and  breadth  of  mind  necessary  to  produce  what  is 
one  of  the  most  sympathetic  analyses  of  Stevenson's 
many-sided  personality. 

KIDNAPPED 

In  writing  this,  his  third,  book  for  boys,  Stevenson 
turned  from  scenes  and  characters  of  pure  invention 
to  real  people  and  places  of  a  minor  incident  of 
Scottish  history.  The  Appin  murder,  which  provides 
the  turning  point  of  the  story,  has  thereby  become 
known  to  thousands  who  had  not  before  heard  of 
Alan  Breck  or  the  wrongly  condemned  James 
Stewart.  The  Highlands,  in  their  unsettled  state 
after  the  '45,  are  made  the  setting  for  the  adventures 
of  the  sober  David  Balfour,  in  whose  prim  ways  and 
staid  talk  Stevenson  found  the  contrast  with  the 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  137 

rebel  spirits  of  the  Highland  Jacobites.  Save  for 
the  change  of  year  from  1752  to  1751,  he  keeps  very 
close  to  the  historical  facts,  as  may  be  seen  from  the 
outline  of  these  latter  in  the  chapter  on  the  Appin 
murder  on  another  page.  A  single  episode  of  this 
kind,  grafted  on  to  imaginary  adventures,  just 
suited  Stevenson's  genius  for  romantic  incident, 
while  it  did  not  lay  upon  him  the  physical  strain  of 
managing  a  full  stage  of  historical  characters  in  the 
manner  of  Dumas  or  Scott.  Thus  Kidnapped  has 
the  features  of  both  an  historical  romance  and  a 
boy's  book  of  adventure.  In  blending  the  two 
Stevenson  satisfied  his  young  readers,  and  compelled 
the  admiration  of  such  non-adventurous  bookmen 
as  Matthew  Arnold  and  Henry  James. 

Scarcely  any  other  of  his  longer  works  was  written 
with  the  same  ease  or  at  so  great  a  rate.  Asked  by 
the  publishers  of  '  Young  Folks '  for  a  successor  to 
The  Black  Arrow  in  the  pages  of  their  magazine,  he 
stipulated  for  not  less  than  thirty  shillings  a  column 
(of  1200  words),  a  rate  of  payment  three  times  that 
for  Treasure  Island  and  little  enough  for  work  such 
as  his.  A  considerably  larger  sum  was  eventually 
paid,  for  in  the  interval  of  making  a  small  beginning 
on  the  tale  at  Bournemouth  early  in  1885  and  com- 
pleting it  in  the  following  year,  the  publication  of 
Jekyll  and  Hyde  had  made  Stevenson  one  of  the 
writers  of  the  day  in  public  estimation,  whose  name 
alone  must  have  been  worth  a  good  deal  to  the 
publishers  of  a  popular  magazine.  When  taking 
up  the  story  again  early  in  1886  (cet.  36),  it  unfolded 
itself  with  a  degree  of  inspiration  which  Stevenson 


138  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

afterwards  declared  was  a  single  experience  :  '  in 
one  of  my  books,  and  in  one  only,  the  characters  took 
the  bit  in  their  teeth  ;  all  at  once,  they  became  de- 
tached from  the  flat  paper,  they  turned  their  backs 
on  me  and  walked  off  bodily ;  and  from  that  time 
my  task  was  stenographic — it  was  they  who  spoke, 
it  was  they  who  wrote  the  remainder  of  the  story.' 

In  this  spirit  Kidnapped  was  completed,  and 
published  in  '  Young  Folks '  May  i  to  July  i,  1886. 
The  abrupt  end  of  the  story  had  its  cause  in  a  break 
for  the  worse  of  the  indoor  invalidism  which  passed 
for  health  during  the  greater  part  of  Stevenson's 
life  at  Bournemouth.  An  opening  was  therefore 
left  for  a  sequel  in  which  the  characters  of  David 
and  Alan  could  reappear,  but  six  years  went  by  and 
the  South  Seas  were  reached  before  the  trial  of  James 
of  the  Glen  for  the  Appin  murder  was  taken  as  the 
skeleton  of  Catriona  (q.Vt).  If  David  Balfour  had 
then  become,  as  R.  L.  S.  confided  to  his  friends, 
three  years  older  instead  of  three  days,  his  author 
equally  shows  the  greater  power  in  the  sharp 
delineation  of  character  which  marks  his  most 
mature  work.  Stevenson's  writings,  as  may  here 
be  fittingly  said,  may  be  broadly  traced  as  beginning 
with  the  picturesque  rendering  of  outdoor  effects, 
next  developing  in  stories  of  incident,  and  from 
them  broadening  into  the  round  drawing  of  char- 
acter. One  phase  merges  into  another,  and  many 
of  his  works  owe  their  charm  to  the  commingling 
of  picturesque  landscape  and  romantic  adventure. 
But  Kidnapped,  while  it  belongs  to  the  second 
phase,  is  exceptional  in  the  slight  use  which 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  139 

Stevenson  deliberately  makes  of  his  earlier  practice. 
David  is  a  lowland  lad  and  is  made  to  take  the 
English  eighteenth -century  view  of  the  Scottish 
Highlands  as  a  region  of  wildernesses  unfit  for 
civilized  beings.  Though  he  describes  the  Highlands 
vividly  enough  it  is  with  a  sense  of  their  lonesome- 
ness,  never  with  the  enthusiasm  which  Scott  created 
for  them  among  the  travelling  public.  In  Catriona 
the  homelier  setting  of  much  of  the  story  removes 
this  necessity  ;  and  so  we  get  in  it  pictures  of  places 
and  drawing  of  people  which  belong  to  the  earliest 
and  latest  phases  of  Stevenson's  power  as  a  writer. 

In  Kidnapped  the  portraits  of  historical  characters 
barely  number  h.alf  a  dozen,  and  with  the  exception 
of  the  redoubtable  Alan  Breck  make  but  one  appear- 
ance on  the  scene.  Campbell  of  Glenure  we  see 
only  at  the  moment  of  his  death  and  James  of  the 
Glen  on  the  day  following  the  murder.  The  other 
two>  the  chieftain,  Cluny  Macpherson,  and  Robin 
Oig,  son  of  Rob  Roy  and  an  even  greater  rascal 
than  his  brother  James  More,  are  separate  and 
partial  sketches  providing  interest  to  the  interludes 
in  the  wandering  of  David  and  Alan.  They  are 
the  subjects  of  separate  chapters,  but  of  the  other 
characters,  the  miserly  uncle,  seamen,  catechists 
and  the  discreet  lawyer  Rankeillor,  nothing  can  be 
added  to  the  Stevensonian  narrative. 

On  the  other  hand,  an  afternoon  can  be  spent  with 
an  ordnance  map  of  Argyllshire  and  Perthshire  in 
tracing  the  course  of  David's  journeys  in  the  western 
Highlands.  The  map  included  hi  the  first  edition 
of  Kidnapped,  since  it  bears  the  names  of  only  those 


140  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

places  mentioned  in  the  itinerary,  leaves  plenty  of 
room  for  speculation  as  to  the  course  which  Stevenson 
from  his  Bournemouth  bedroom  plotted  for  his  two 
fugitives  hi  the  recesses  of  the  Grampians.  In  cast- 
ing David  on  the  islet  of  Earraid,  which  at  low  tide 
is  joined  to  the  most  western  point  of  the  Isle  of 
Mull,  he  was  revisiting  a  spot  which  he  knew  well 
from  his  visits  there  with  his  father.  From  Earraid 
to  Torosay,  where  David  crosses  to  the  mainland,  is 
twenty-five  miles  as  the  crow  flies  ;  from  Kinlochine 
(across  the  Sound  of  Mull)  to  Kingairloch,  whence  he 
embarks  for  the  eastern  bank  of  Loch  Linnhe,  about 
half  this  distance.  The  woods  of  Lettervore,  by  the 
mouth  of  Loch  Leven,  are  only  a  mile  or  two  from 
Duror  whence  he  escapes  with  Alan  after  the  murder. 
Thence  their  journeyings  are  over  wild  regions  (as 
they  still  are)  ;  first  due  east,  then  by  a  northerly 
cut  across  the  Pass  of  Glencoe  and,  doubling  on  their 
course,  to  the  mountain  nook  overlooking  Loch 
Leven  near  Coalasnaccon,  and  then  by  long  marches 
to  Cluny's  cave  in  Ben  Alder  where  Prince  Charles 
Edward  lay  hidden  for  a  fortnight,  a  month  before 
his  escape  to  France  in  1746.  This  was  the  most 
northern  point  in  their  wanderings.  Their  journey 
south  to  the  Lothian  country  on  the  south  side  of 
the  Forth  lay  through  the  southern  masses  of  the 
Grampians  to  Balquidder  ;  from  Strathyre  eastward 
in  to  the  mountain  Uam  Var  and  so  down  the  river 
Allan  to  the  head  of  the  Forth  at  Stirling.  Their 
last  stage  is  by  the  villages  of  Alloa,  Clackmannan, 
and  Culross  to  Limekilns,  where  they  are  put  across 
to  the  Lothian  shore.  Altogether  at  a  moderate 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  141 

estimate  not  far  short  of  two  hundred  miles,  for  the 
most  part  over  rough  mountain  country,  much  of 
which  is  still  as  untravelled  as  at  the  period  of  the 
story. 

The  first  edition,  issued  by  Messrs.  Cassell  (1886), 
and.  containing  a  folding  chart  of  the  cruise  of  the 
brig  '  Covenant '  and  the  '  probable  course '  of 
David's  wanderings  has  a  value  of  about  153. 

KIPLING,  RUDYARD  (1865-        ) 

Stevenson  was  far  from  coming  under  the  spell 
of  Mr.  Kipling's  writings  either  in  verse  or  prose. 
'  Soldiers  Three '  evoked  his  warmest  congratulations, 
in  sending  which  to  the  author  he  addressed  Kip- 
ling's creation,  Mr.  Mulvaney,  and  wrote  :  '  They 
tell  me  it  was  a  man  of  the  name  of  Kipling  that 
made  ye  ;  but  indeed  and  they  can't  fool  me ;  it 
was  the  Lord  God  Almighty  that  made  you.'  Mr. 
Kipling,  by  way  of  acknowledgment,  made  his  char- 
acter address  himself  to  Alan  Breck,  a  pleasantry 
that  in  turn  prompted  Stevenson's  rejoinder  in 
which  the  redoubtable  Highlander  is  re-created  as 
the  writer  of  a  characteristically  quarrelsome  letter. 
Yet  Stevenson,  so  far  as  is  disclosed  by  the  letters, 
felt  a  very  qualified  admiration  of  Mr.  Kipling's 
literary  art — amazed  '  by  his  precocity  and  various 
endowments,'  and  alarmed  by  his  '  copiousness 
and  haste.'  To  an  expression  of  his  pleasure  in 
Henley's  poems,  he  added  :  '  How  poorly  Kipling 
compares !  He  is  all  smart  journalism  and  clever- 
ness ;  it  is  all  light  and  shallow  and  limpid,  like  a 
business  paper — a  good  one,  s'entend ;  but  there  is 


142  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

no  blot  of  heart's  blood  and  the  Old  Night ;  there 
are  no  harmonics  ;  there  is  scarce  harmony  to  his 
music.'  He  did,  however,  admit  that  Barrie,  Henry 
James,  and  Kipling,  were  the  three  contemporaries  he 
could  read,  and  was  disappointed  that  an  intended 
visit  of  Mr.  Kipling  to  Vailima  was  never  made. 

KNOX  AND  HIS  RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

Some  credence  may  be  given  to  the  belief  that 
Stevenson  wrote  the  partial  study  of  the  great 
churchman  and  reformer  as  much  out  of  a  filial 
feeling  as  from  a  leaning  towards  the  warfaring 
character  of  Knox.  It  was  one  of  the  papers  which 
existed  in  more  or  less  a  rough  shape  at  the  time  of 
the  crisis  between  himself  and  his  father,  as  the  out- 
come of  which  he  addressed  himself  to  making  the 
unfinished  work  ready  for  publication.  For  more 
than  a  year  (at.  23  to  24)  he  laboured  on  Knox, 
entirely  re-casting  provisional  drafts  of  the  paper, 
and  whether  the  prosecution  of  the  subject  was  or 
was  not  undertaken  in  the  aim  of  providing  common 
ground  for  his  own  and  his  father's  interests,  it  is 
at  any  rate  evident  from  his  letters  that  he  had 
enough  of  Knox  by  the  time  he  had  finished  with 
him.  The  paper  appeared  in  '  Macmillan's  Maga- 
zine,' September  and  October  1875,  and  though 
placed  last  in  Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books, 
was  the  second  of  those  essays  to  be  written. 

LANG,  ANDREW  (1844-1912) 

The  poet,  critic,  and  folklorist,  was  R.  L.  S.'s 
senior  by  six  years.  The  first  impression  which  one 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  143 

formed  of  the  other,  when  they  first  met  in  1872, 
did  not  augur  a  lifelong  friendship.  Stevenson's 
curt  description  of  Lang  was  '  good-looking,  delicate, 
Oxfordish,  etc.'  On  Lang,  as  he  wrote  long  after- 
wards, the  effect  of  R.  L.  S.  was  '  not  wholly  favour- 
able. ...  He  looked,  as  in  my  eyes  he  always  did 
look,  more  like  a  lass  than  a  lad,  with  a  rather  long, 
smooth  oval  face.  .  .  .  Here  I  thought  is  one  of 
your  aesthetic  young  men.'  Their  friendship  was 
based  less  on  personal  grounds  than  on  their  common 
bookishness  and  Scottish  race,  but  it  lasted  until 
R.  L.  S.'s  death,  only  two  days  before  which  he  was 
writing  to  thank  Lang  for  an  engraving  of  Braxfield, 
the  Weir  of  Hermiston,  whom  Stevenson  was  then 
drawing.  In  the  application  for  the  Edinburgh 
professorship  Lang  was  one  of  Stevenson's  sup- 
porters, and  it  was  he  no  doubt  who  four  years 
later  (in  1885)  turned  in  Stevenson's  direction  the 
writing  of  a  volume  on  Wellington  for  a  series  of 
English  Worthies.  The  book  was  never  written, 
for  within  a  year  or  so  R.  L.  S.,  then  in  very  delicate 
health  at  Bournemouth,  left  England  for  good. 
That  Stevenson's  stories  had  a  ready  admirer  in 
Lang  is  shown  by  the  latter's  opinion  of  Treasure 
Island :  '  Except  Tom  Sawyer  and  the  Odyssey,  I 
never  liked  any  romance  so  well.'  In  1891  R.  L.  S. 
wrote  :  '  I  have  the  most  gallant  suggestion  from 
Lang  with  an  offer  of  MS.  authorities  which  turn 
my  brain.  It 's  all  about  the  throne  of  Poland, 
and  buried  treasure,  in  the  Mackay  country,  and 
Alan  Breck  can  figure  there  in  glory.'  This  was  an 
unpublished  Jacobite  pamphlet  on  Prince  Charles 


144  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Edward's  hidden  years  which,  with  other  Jacobite 
MSS.,  Lang  sent  out  to  Samoa  a  little  while  before 
Stevenson's  death.  Besides  the  introductory  essay 
to  the  Swanston  edition  of  Stevenson's  works  Lang's 
writings  on  R.  L.  S.  are  a  criticism  of  his  works  first 
published  in  '  Essays  in  Little  '  (1892),  and  personal 
recollections  included  in  '  Adventures  Among 
Books '  (1905) ;  and  in  Lang's  books  on  Jacobite 
history,  notably  '  Pickle  the  Spy  '  and  '  Companions 
of  Pickle '  are  references  to  the  real  people  in  Kid- 
napped and  Catriona. 

LANTERN  BEARERS,  THE 

A  paper  of  which  R.  L.  S.  wrote  that  it  '  really 
contained  some  excellent  sense,  and  was  ingeniously 
put  together.'  The  ingenuity  consisted  in  taking, 
as  his  text  of  a  sermon  on  the  intangible  nature  of 
joy  in  life,  his  boyish  games  with  bull's-eye  lanterns 
on  the  piece  of  sandy  coast  near  North  Berwick  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Firth  of  Forth,  which  was  a  favourite 
playground  of  his  in  his  early  teens.  The  text  is  a 
vivid  picture  of  Stevenson's  romantically  conceived 
boyhood :  the  sermon,  a  variation  of  the  theme  of 
which  he  never  tired,  namely,  a  man's  joy  of  life 
consisting  not  in  its  external  circumstances  but  in 
the  fancies  which  he  weaves.  The  paper  appeared 
in  '  Scribner's  Magazine,'  February  1888,  and  is 
placed  in  Across  the  Plains. 

LAY  MORALS 

The  vigorous  declamations  against  the  comfort- 
able view  of  life  of  the  well-to-do  which  resound 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  145 

with  such  vehemence  in  these  chapters  represent 
the  rebellious  spirit  of  Stevenson's  thought  in  his 
early  manhood.  They  were  written  hi  1879  (cet.  29), 
and  though  re-drafted  and  extended  four  years  later 
were  left  uncompleted.  Of  the  closeness  with  which 
some  of  these  views  of  youth  continued  to  mark  his 
mental  outlook  in  later  years  there  is  a  piece  of 
evidence  in  the  remark  of  his  biographer  on  the  like- 
ness of  his  conversation,  when  hi  certain  moods,  to 
these  early  railings  against  the  canons  of  respecta- 
bility. The  merit  commonly  attached  to  material 
success,  as  personified  by  '  Mr.  Samuel  Budgett,  the 
Successful  Merchant,'  always  moved  Stevenson  to 
anger.  This  sermon,  where  it  emerges  most  succinctly 
into  a  philosophy  of  life,  shows  Stevenson  preaching 
the  stupidity  of  confusing  wealth  with  money  and, 
as  a  corollary,  demanding  that  the  rich  shall  con- 
tinually earn  their  money  in  service.  The  idea  of 
money  here  expressed  may  be  paralleled  from  a 
passage  in  a  letter  from  Mentone  to  Mrs.  Sitwell 
when  he  was  twenty-three  :  '  It  is  an  old  phrase  of 
mine  that  money  is  the  atmosphere  of  civilized  life, 
and  I  do  hate  to  take  the  breath  out  of  other  people's 
nostrils.  I  live  here  at  the  rate  of  more  than  £3 
a  week,  and  I  do  nothing  for  it.  If  I  didn't  hope  to 
get  well  and  do  good  work  yet,  and  more  than  repay 
my  debts  to  the  world,  I  should  consider  it  right  to 
invest  an  extra  franc  or  two  hi  laudanum.' 

These  papers,  Lay  Morals,  furnish  the  title  to  a 
volume  in  which  both  earlier  and  later  miscellaneous 
writings  are  included.  The  latest  edition  at  the 


146  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

present  time  (1919),  that  of  1911,  contains  the 
Damien  letter,  The  Pentland  Rising,  The  Day  after 
To-morrow,  the  papers  from  the  '  Edinburgh  Univer- 
sity Magazine/  criticisms  and  early  sketches,  as 
well  as  the  fragments  of  the  unfinished  romances, 
The  Great  North  Road,  The  Young  Chevalier,  and 
Heathercat. 

LE  GALLIENNE,  RICHARD  (1866-        ) 

Mr.  Le  Gallienne,  to  whom  Stevenson  wrote  a  letter 
of  warm  appreciation  of  his  work  in  poetry  and 
criticism,  has  made  his  '  Elegy '  the  title-piece  of  a 
volume  of  verse — '  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and 
Other  Poems '  (London,  John  Lane,  1895).  He, 
among  the  critics  of  the  younger  generation,  has  been 
a  discerning  student  of  Stevenson's  versatile  genius, 
the  highest  expression  of  which,  and  that  conferring 
lasting  fame  upon  it,  he  is  inclined  to  see  in  the  essays. 

LETTER  TO  A  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN  WHO 
PROPOSES  TO  EMBRACE  THE  CAREER 
OF  ART 

The  paper,  which  Henry  James  calls  '  a  little  mine 
of  felicities/  was  one  of  the  series  written  at  Saranac 
in  the  winter  of  1887-8  for  '  Scribner's  Magazine/ 
where  it  appeared  in  September  1888.  It  there 
replaced  another  '  On  the  Choice  of  a  Profession ' 
written  about  the  same  time,  but  put  aside  as  being 
in  too  cynical  and  sombre  a  vein  to  appear  in  com- 
pany with  the  other  essays  of  brighter  note  in 
preparation  for  the  series.  Mr.  Lloyd  Osbourne  in 
publishing  the  first  paper  in  '  Scribner's  Magazine/ 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  147 

January  1915,  has  made  this  explanation  of  its 
origin.  The  Letter  is  placed,  in  the  collected  works, 
in  Across  the  Plains. 

LETTERS 

The  first  series  of  letters  to  be  published  were 
those  addressed  at  fairly  regular  monthly  intervals 
to  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  from  November  1890  to 
October  1894.  These  are  the  Vailima  Letters 
issued  by  Messrs.  Methuen  in  1895.  A  general 
collection,  including  the  above,  was  issued  by 
Messrs.  Methuen  in  1899  as  The  Letters  of  R  bert 
Louis  Stevenson  to  his  Family  and  Friends  in  two 
volumes  uniform  with  the  Edinburgh  edition,  with 
notes  and  introductions  by  Sir  Sidney  Colvin.  The 
fourth  edition  of  1901  contains  additional  letters 
to  Rudyard  Kipling,  Austin  Dobson,  and  George 
Meredith.  The  still  larger  collection,  now  current, 
was  issued  in  1911,  again  under  Sir  Sidney  Cohan's 
editorship,  in  four  volumes  as  The  Letters  of  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson.  In  September  1919,  the  Edinburgh 
firm  of  booksellers,  Messrs.  William  Brown,  offered 
for  sale  at  £2,200  and  sold  to  an  American  dealer 
the  MSS.  of  125  letters  addressed  by  Stevenson  to 
Sir  Sidney  Colvin  and  Mrs.  Sitwell  (Lady  Colvin). 
Of  these  letters  64  have  been  wholly  unpublished, 
whilst  in  publishing  the  remainder  nearly  a  third 
of  their  matter  has  been  omitted.  Thus  as  re- 
gards this  source  only  (certainly  the  chief)  of 
Stevenson's  confidences,  more  than  half  the  sub- 
stance of  the  letters  still  remains  to  become  accessible 
in  print. 


148  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

LIGHT  FOR  LIGHTHOUSES,  ON  A  NEW  FORM 
OF  INTERMITTENT 

This  small  contribution  to  the  technics  of  light- 
house engineering  was  a  paper  read  before  the  Royal 
Scottish  Society  of  Arts  on  March  27,  1871  (cet.  21), 
and  received  the  Society's  silver  medal. 

When  making  this  technical  communication 
Stevenson  had  made  up  his  mind  not  to  follow  his 
father's  profession,  for  at  the  same  time  he  wrote 
some  verses  entitled  '  To  the  Commissioners  of 
Northern  Lights — with  a  paper/  and  beginning  : 

I  send  to  you,  commissioners, 
A  paper  that  may  please  ye,  sirs 
(For  troth  they  say  it  might  be  worse 

An'  I  believe 't) 
And  on  your  business  lay  my  curse 

Before  I  leave 't. 

The  verses,  where  Stevenson  anticipates  W.  S. 
Gilbert  in  suggesting  that  by  taking  up  law  he  may 
come  to  be  a  Commissioner  himself,  were  not  pub- 
lished until  included  in  New  Poems  and  Variant 
Readings. 

L.  J.  R. 

Initials  of  the  society  of  Stevenson's  early  Edin- 
burgh days  mentioned  in  the  dedication  of  Kid- 
napped. In  addition  to  R.  L.  S.  and  Charles  Baxter, 
R.  A.  M.  Stevenson  and  James  Walter  Ferrier  (all 
in  their  teens)  were  members  of  this  society  of  six, 
which  met  in  a  public  house  in  Advocate's  Close. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  149 

Mr.  Baxter,  a  year  or  two  before  his  death,  recently 
disclosed  that  the  title  stood  for  '  Liberty,  Justice, 
Reverence/  and  that  the  constitution,  which  he 
drafted,  and  R.  L.  S,  whole-heartedly  accepted, 
included  '  among  other  objects  under  the  first  head 
"  the  abolition  of  the  hereditary  privileges  of  the 
House  of  Lords,"  a  phrase  which  occasionally  raised 
stumbling-blocks  in  impassioned  orations.'  '  Yes,' 
wrote  R.  L.  S.  to  him  in  1891,  '  I  remember  the 
L.  J.  R.,  and  the  constitution,  and  my  homily  on 
Liberty,  and  yours  on  Reverence,  which  was  never 
written — so  I  never  knew  what  reverence  was.  I 
remember  I  wanted  to  write  Justice  also ;  but  I 
forget  who  got  the  billet.'  Mr.  Baxter  has  added  : 
'  I  remember,  as  if  it  were  yesterday,  Stevenson's 
agonized  face  as  he  came  to  me  with  the  news  that 
his  father  had  come  across  the  draft — it  never  went 
further.  The  discovery  was  the  occasion  of  one 
of  the  most  painful  of  scenes  between  father  and 
son.' 

LOCKER-LAMPSON,  FREDERICK  (1821-1895) 

The  Victorian  minor  poet,  best  known  as  Frederick 
Locker  and  by  his  '  London  Lyrics,'  figures  in  the 
Letters,  apropos  of  a  misunderstanding  of  a  charitable 
appeal  to  him  by  Stevenson,  to  which  he  had  gener- 
ously responded  though  not  in  the  way  intended. 
Some  verses  by  Stevenson  form  the  introduction  to 
Locker's  '  Rowfant  Rhymes.'  Stevenson  does  not 
figure  hi  Locker's  personal  reminiscences  of  his 
friendships  with  Tennyson,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  and 
a  host  of  other  Victorians  published  as  '  My  Con- 


150  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

fidences,'  for  the  two  never  met  for  the  reason  that 
Locker  was  also  a  man  of  chronic  ill-health,  and 
their  relationship  began  only  a  year  before  Steven- 
son's final  departure  from  Europe. 

LODGING  FOR  THE  NIGHT,  A 

This  vivid  and  dramatic  passage  in  the  life  of 
Francois  Villon  is  Stevenson's  first  short  story, 
written  when  he  was  twenty-seven.  It  was  a  com- 
plete departure  from  the  landscape  sketches  and 
literary  reviews  which  had  formed  most  of  his 
previous  writings.  Brilliant  as  were  those  which 
followed  it,  such  as  Will  o'  the  Mill  and  Providence 
and  the  Guitar,  this  first  example  of  his  art  as  a  teller 
of  tales  may  well  be  thought  to  mark  his  highest 
level  of  imaginative  writing.  The  incident,  which 
is  one  with  a  large  basis  of  fact,  had  already  been 
marked  for  an  exercise  in  fiction.  In  his  essay  on 
Villon  of  the  same  year  he  traces  the  evil  career  of 
that  friend  of  the  poet's,  Regnier  de  Montigny,  which 
ended  on  Paris  gibbet.  Among  the  charges  which 
cost  Montigny  his  life  was  that  for  the  murder  of 
one  Thevehin  Pensete  in  a  house  by  the  Cemetery 
of  St.  John.  With  a  ready  assumption  of  his  guilt 
R.  L.  S.  adds  :  '  If  time  had  only  spared  us  some 
particulars  might  not  this  last  have  furnished  us  with 
the  matter  of  a  grisly  winter's  tale  ?  '  So  he  sets  the 
scene  in  the  little  house  by  the  cemetery,  which  is 
identified  in  documents  of  the  time  as  the  Hfitel  du 
Mouton,  a  haunt  of  Villon  and  his  rascally  com- 
panions. The  remaining  two  of  these,  Guy  Tabary 
and  Dom  Nicholas,  he  chooses  from  a  party  which 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  151 

broke  into  the  College  of  Navarre  in  1456,  and 
carried  away  five  hundred  crowns  of  gold.  We  keep 
to  the  ascertained  facts  of  the  poet's  life  in  his  visit 
to  the  Chaplain  of  St.  Benoit,  by  whom  for  a  time 
he  had  been  adopted,  and  from  whom  he  took  the 
name  of  Villon ;  and  we  come  to  pure  invention 
only  in  the  passage  between  the  seigneur  of  Brisetout 
and  his  nocturnal  visitor.  The  tale,  which  first 
appeared  in  '  Temple  Bar,'  October  1877,  is  placed 
in  the  published  works  in  New  Arabian  Nights. 

LOW,  WILL  H.  (1858-        ) 

The  American  painter  of  portraits  and  mural 
decorations  has  collected  in  '  A  Chronicle  of  Friend- 
ships '  (London,  Hodder  &  Stoughton,  1908)  the 
reminiscences  of  his  intimacy  with  Stevenson  for 
some  years  in  France,  and  afterwards  for  a  short 
time  in  America.  Mr.  Low  came  to  Paris  as  an  im- 
pecunious art  student  in  1873,  when  he  was  twenty. 
To  the  atelier  of  Carolus  Duran  where  he  studied,  it 
chanced  that  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson  came  also  in  the 
course  of  following  a  study  of  art,  begun  at  Antwerp. 
They  were  already  firm  friends,  when  news  came  one 
day  in  the  spring  of  1875  that  '  Louis  was  coming 
over.'  Mr.  Low  has  preserved  his  first  impression  of 
Stevenson  as  he  alighted  from  the  Calais  train : 
'  It  was  not  a  handsome  face  until  he  spoke,  and 
then  I  can  hardly  imagine  that  any  one  could  deny 
the  appeal  of  its  vivacious  eyes,  the  humour  or 
pathos  of  the  mobile  mouth,  with  its  lurking  sugges- 
tion of  the  great  god  Pan,  or  fail  to  realize  that  here 
was  one  so  evidently  touched  with  genius  that  the 


152  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

higher  beauty  of  the  soul  was  his.'  Mr.  Low  was  a 
sharer  of  much  of  Stevenson's  life  in  the  frequent 
visits  he  paid  to  France  in  the  years  1875-9.  He 
recalls  their  long  sitting  out  of  dejeuners  at  Lavenue's 
restaurant ;  their  glimpses  of  the  Bohemian  life  of 
the  Parisian  art  student,  which  R.  L.  S.  afterwards 
put  into  The  Wrecker  ;  but,  for  the  greater  part,  the 
days  in  Fontainebleau  Forest  when  R.  L.  S.  had 
made  himself  at  home  in  the  artist  community  at 
Siron's  inn  at  Barbizon.  The  surroundings  were  a 
relief  from  the  straitlaced  life  of  Edinburgh ;  in 
Mr.  Low's  pages  we  see  his  days  of  '  industrious  idle- 
ness '  in  the  Forest,  on  long  walks,  or  book  in  hand 
by  the  easel  of  some  artist  friend.  We  follow  him 
to  Montigny  and  Grez,  where,  however,  Mr.  Low 
was  before  him  in  meeting  Mrs.  Osbourne  and  her 
daughter — '  the  elder,  slight,  with  delicately  moulded 
features  and  vivid  eyes,  gleaming  from  under  a  mass 
of  dark  hair ;  the  younger  of  more  robust  type  in 
the  first  precocious  bloom  of  womanhood.'  On 
Stevenson's  first  return  to  Grez  after  their  arrival 
his  friends  were  not  long,  hi  perceiving  the  line  of  his 
affections :  henceforward  his  former  circle  was 
largely  deserted  for  the  lady  who  was  to  share  his  life. 
From  this  time,  with  the  exception  of  a  brief  excur- 
sion from  Bournemouth  to  Paris,  when  Stevenson, 
Low,  Henley,  and  Rodin,  made  up  a  dinner  party, 
Mr.  Low's  next  and  last  personal  association  with 
R.  L.  S.  was  to  welcome  him  and  his  wife  and 
mother  on  their  arrival  in  New  York  by  the  '  Ludgate 
Hill.'  The  forest  rambler  was  then  famous,  besieged 
by  pressmen,  and  the  talk  of  the  day  in  connection 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  153 

with  Mansfield's  performance  of  Jekyll  and  Hyde. 
Mr.  Low's  personal  association  lasted  for  a  short 
while  longer  on  Stevenson's  return  from  Saranac. 
Mrs.  Stevenson  in  San  Francisco  was  then  seeking  a 
yacht  for  the  Pacific  voyage,  and  R.  L.  S.,  in  leaving 
Mr.  Low  to  join  her,  broke  the  last  link  with  his 
mixed  years  of  illness  and  travel  in  Europe. 

LYTTON'S  '  FABLES  IN  SONG  ' 

The  first  work  in  reviewing,  of  which  some  con- 
siderable amount  was  done  at  the  beginning  of  his 
career,  was  a  commission  from  Mr.  John  Morley 
(now  Lord  Morley)  for  the  '  Fortnightly  Review.' 
It  was  accomplished  (at.  24)  with  some  difficulty,  and 
Stevenson  wrote  of  the  paper  as  '  some  of  the  deedest 
rubbish  that  an  intelligent  editor  ever  shot  into  his 
wastepaper  basket.  If  Morley  prints  it  I  shall  be 
glad,  but  my  respect  for  him  will  be  shaken.'  It 
was,  however,  printed — in  the  '  Fortnightly  Review,' 
June  1874 — and  is  now  included  in  the  volume  Lay 
Morals.  The  classification  of  the  various  types  of 
fable  which  he  was  thus  led  to  consider  probably 
provided  the  suggestion  for  his  own  exercises  hi  the 
same  literary  form. 

MACAIRE 

This  '  melodramatic  farce '  marks  the  end  of  the 
short-lived  collaboration  of  Stevenson  and  Henley 
in  play-writing.  In  adapting  a  French  play,  Robert 
Macaire,  of  the  early  nineteenth  century,  they  re- 
tained almost  without  change  the  features  of  their 
original.  The  work  was  done  at  the  suggestion  of 


154  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Beerbohm  Tree,  but  was  never  produced  during 
Stevenson's  lifetime.  As  in  other  instances  Steven- 
son was  his  own  severest  critic.  To  Henley  he 
wrote  :  '  Macaire  is  a  piece  of  job-work,  hurriedly 
bockled ;  might  have  been  worse,  might  have  been 
better  ;  happy-go-lucky  ;  act  it  or  let-it-rot  piece 
of  business.'  The  piece  has  been  played  only  three 
tunes ;  twice  by  the  London  Stage  Society  on 
November  4,  1900,  at  the  Strand  Theatre,  and  on 
November  8,  1900,  at  the  Great  Queen  Street  (now 
Kingsway)  Theatre,  and  once  the  following  year  with 
Beau  Austin  (q.v.). 

MACPHERSON,  CLUNY 

The  chieftain  of  the  MacPhersons,  with  whom 
David  and  Alan  take  refuge  in  Kidnapped,  was  a 
personage  in  the  '45.  Though  his  clan  had  fought 
for  the  Pretender  in  1715  Cluny  professed  and  per- 
haps intended  to  take  the  side  of  the  Government 
in  the  rising  for  Charles  Edward.  Possibly  he  was 
not  uninfluenced  by  his  father-in-law,  the  notorious 
Simon  Fraser  of  Lovat,  whose  confidant  he  was.  But 
the  matter  was  taken  out  of  his  hands  by  the  Prince's 
forces,  who  captured  him  in  his  own  house,  and 
finally  obtained  the  support  of  his  clan  from  him. 
Cluny  seemed  anxious  to  excuse  himself — '  an  angel,' 
he  wrote,  '  could  not  resist  the  soothing  close 
applications  of  the  rebels  '  —  but  having  given  his 
word  was  thenceforth  staunch  in  the  Jacobite  cause. 
More  remarkable  than  his  share  in  the  Rebellion 
was  his  defiance  of  the  Government  to  take  him  from 
his  own  country  in  the  course  of  the  subjection  of 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  155 

the  Highlands.  When  other  chieftains  had  fled  to 
France  Cluny  continued  to  move  among  his  native 
mountains,  troops  after  him,  and  £1000  offered  for 
his  betrayal.  A  chief  hiding-place  was  the  famous 
'  cage/  high  on  the  face  of  a  rocky  mountain  Letter- 
nilichk  in  the  recesses  of  Ben  Alder.  Here  Cluny 
gave  safe  shelter  for  a  fortnight  to  Prince  Charles 
Edward  shortly  before  the  latter  escaped  to  France. 
For  nine  years  after  that,  he  continued  to  evade 
capture,  warned  of  the  movements  of  the  soldiers, 
and  communicating  with  his  friends  by  his  ragged 
clansmen.  When  in  1754  he  crossed  to  France,  it 
was  on  the  Prince's  orders  to  join  him  and  to  bring 
the  remainder  of  a  sum  of  £27,000  left  with  him 
after  the  rebellion.  There  is  the  story  of  Cluny 
having  buried  large  sums  of  the  French  gold  that  he 
might  afterwards  lay  his  hands  on  them,  but  Andrew 
Lang  hi  '  Companions  of  Pickle '  has  shown  that  it 
was  a  false  charge.  Cluny,  who  died  in  poverty  in 
Dunkirk  two  years  after  arriving  in  France,  was  a 
loyal  Jacobite  to  the  end. 

MANSE,  THE 

The  paper  which  sketches  his  grandfather  Dr. 
Balfour,  and  the  days  spent  at  the  latter's  manse  at 
Colinton,  is  notable  for  Stevenson's  fanciful  associa- 
tion of  himself  with  his  remote  maternal  and  paternal 
ancestors.  When  he  wrote  '  I  have  shaken  a  spe^ar 
in  the  Debateable  Land,  and  shouted  the  slogan  of 
the  Elliots,'  he  was  recalling  Dr.  Balfour's  grand- 
father, the  James  Balfour  of  Pilrig,  whom  he  intro- 
duces into  Catriona,  and  who  married  a  grand- 


156  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

daughter  of  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  and  thus  linked  him 
with  the  Border  clan  of  the  Elliots  and  their  lives  of 
outlawry  and  brigandage  in  the  disputed  country 
between  Esk  and  Sark,  which  would  seem  to  have 
been  in  Stevenson's  mind  when  creating  the  Four 
Black  Brothers  of  Weir  ofHermiston  for  a  much  later 
period.  The  mention  of  the  West  Indies  is  in  refer- 
ence to  his  paternal  great-grandfather,  Alan,  a 
partner  with  his  brother  Hugh  in  interests  in  the 
West  Indies,  where  both  died  young  within  a  few 
hours  of  each  other  as  the  result  of  exposure  in 
pursuing  an  unfaithful  servant  from  island  to  island 
in  an  open  boat,  a  romantic  tradition  which  it  pleased 
Stevenson  to  single  out  for  his  family's  history.  The 
paper  was  contributed  to  '  Scribner's  Magazine,' 
May  1887,  and  is  placed  hi  Memories  and  Portraits. 


MARGUERITE,  THE 

See  '  Davos  Press.' 


MARKHEIM 

Markheim  is  a  piece  of  moral  allegory  cast  in  the 
rich  style  of  Will  o'  the  Mill,  but  probing  far  deeper 
levels  of  man's  nature.  His  biographer  records  that 
it  was  the  first  outcome  of  the  thoughts  on  dual 
personality  which  were  much  in  Stevenson's  mind 
during  his  first  year  at  Bournemouth  (1884 — at.  34), 
and  found  sharper  and  more  dramatic  expression  the 
following  year  in  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde.  In 
Markheim,  it  would  seem,  his  theme  was  the  poor 
remnant  of  good  in  a  character  that  had  accepted 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  157 

evil  as  it  came  ;  a  character  that  is  brought  to  per- 
ceive in  the  final  tragedy  of  its  life  its  large  part  of 
baseness  and  its  miserable  residue  of  good.  Who 
or  what  is  the  supernatural  influence  that  Stevenson 
causes  to  resolve  these  ill-balanced  elements  ?  The 
story  itself  leaves  the  question  unanswered,  and 
therefore  it  is  of  interest  to  note  that  Sir  Sidney 
Colvin,  who  knew  Stevenson's  mind  at  this  time 
better  than  any  one  else,  writes  of  '  the  dialogue  of 
Markheim  with  his  other  self.'  Mr.  Cope  Cornford 
interprets  the  apparition  as  Mephistopheles,  while 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh  cautiously  contents  himself  with 
the  phrase  '  spiritual  visitant.'  An  interpretation 
which  accords  with  the  fable  and  with  the  train  of 
thought  which  prompted  it,  is  that  Stevenson 
employed  the  figure  of  the  visitor  as  a  mirror  in 
which  Markheim  is  made  to  see  his  soul ;  with  which 
he  debates  his  own  shortcomings.  His  last  embrace 
of  the  only  shred  of  good  which  he  can  grasp  is 
marked  by  the  '  wonderful  and  lovely  change  '  in  the 
phantom  as  it  disappears.  And  so  the  allegory,  for 
all  its  sinister  form,  ends  on  a  more  hopeful  note 
than  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde. 

Markheim  first  appeared  hi  '  The  Broken  Shaft ' 
(Un win's  Christmas  Annual  for  1885),  and  is  appro- 
priately placed  in  The  Merry  Men. 

MASSON,  MISS  ROSALINE 

Author  of  a  brief  but  very  comprehensive  life  of 
Stevenson  issued  (1914)  as  one  of  Messrs.  Jack's 
'  People's  Books.'  Miss  Masson  is  an  Edinburgh 
lady,  and  her  early  chapters  are  correspondingly 


158  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 


detailed,  within  ttie  limits  of  her  space,  in  their  draw- 
ing of  Stevenson's  earlier  years. 

MASTER  OF  BALLANTRAE,  THE 

The  plan  of  this  '  winter's  tale '  was  conceived 
by  R.  L.  S.  (at.  37)  in  the  icy  climate  of  the  sana- 
torium for  consumptives  by  Saranac  Lake  hi  the 
Adirondack  mountains.  He  had  come  there,  in 
1887,  with  a  day  or  two's  halt  in  New  York,  from 
England,  after  three  years'  almost  continuous  ill- 
health  at  Bournemouth.  The  essay,  The  Genesis 
of  the  Master  of  Ballantrae,  written  six  years  later, 
and  included  in  the  Edinburgh  edition  after  his  death, 
has  told  how  in  the  cold  of  a  winter  night  the  story 
moulded  itself  in  his  mind.  This  Genesis  will  be 
found  in  The  Art  of  Writing,  but  letters  of  the  tune 
better  show  how  this  story  of  fraternal  hatred  had 
taken  possession  of  him.  To  Sir  Sidney  Colvin'he 
wrote  :  '  I  have  fallen  head  over  heels  into  a  new 
tale,  The  Master  of  Ballantrae.  No  thought  have  I 
now  apart  from  it.  ...  It  is  to  me  a  most  seizing 
tale  .  .  .  the  Master  is  all  I  know  of  the  devil.  I 
have  known  hints  of  him  in  the  world,  but  always 
cowards  ;  he  is  as  bold  as  a  lion,  but  with  the  same 
deathless,  causeless  duplicity  I  have  watched  with 
so  much  surprise  in  my  two  cowards.'  The  first 
part  was  written  at  Saranac,  and  the  book  was  ac- 
quired by  '  Scribner's  Magazine  '  for  serial  publi- 
cation. To  the  editor  of  Scribner's,  Mr.  E.  L. 
Burlingame,  R.  L.  S.  wrote  of  it  as  '  a  howling  good 
tale/  but  a  rnonth  of  two  later  he  was  sure  '  the 
second  part  will  not  be  near  so  good.'  To  Henry 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  159 

James  at  this  stage  he  was  regretting  the  design  of 
the  latter  parts,  not  then  written  :   '  They  are  very 
picturesque,  but  they  are  fantastic ;    they  shame, 
perhaps  degrade,  the  beginning.     I  wish  I  knew ; 
that  was  how  the  tale  came  to  me  however.'     In 
April  1888  Stevenson  left  Saranac,  and  in  June  set 
sail  from  San  Francisco  hi  the  yacht '  Casco  '  on  the 
Pacific  voyages,  which  at  last  brought  him  to  Samoa. 
The  writing  of  The  Master  was  continued  at  Tautira, 
a  village  of  Tahiti  (Society  Islands),  where  the  party 
made  a  long  stay  whilst  the  yacht  was  remasted, 
and  was  finally  completed  at  Honolulu.    The  finish- 
ing of  the  book,  done  whilst  the  earlier  part  was 
appearing,  came  less  easily  to  Stevenson.     In  his 
sense  of  the  hurried  culmination  of  the  tragedy  in 
comparison  with  the  firmness  of  the  first  part  he 
anticipated  the  critics  :    '  This  cursed  end  of  The 
Master  hangs  over  me  like  a  gallows  ...  it  is  a 
difficult  thing  to  write,  above  all  in  Mackellarese,  and 
I  cannot  see  my  way  clear.'    And  again,  when  it  was 
done  :  '  The  Master  has  been  a  sore  cross  to  me,'  and 
'  the  hardest  job  I  ever  had  to  do.'     Still,  at  the  tune 
of  writing,  he  thought  it  contained  '  more  human 
work  than  anything  of  mine  but  Kidnapped,'  though 
four  years  afterwards,  just  as  he  had  finished  Cawionq 
his  criticism  of  The  Master  was  that  it  '  lacked  all 
pleasurableness,  and  hence  was  imperfect  in  essence.' 
Lord  Rosebery  echoed  the  same  criticism  when  he 
declared  he  found  the  story  '  unutterably  repulsive 
— the   conflict   of   a  scoundrel   against   a   maniac 
narrated  by  a  coward. '     Still,  The  Master,  despite  the 
brokenness  of  its  story — always  the  weakest  spot  in 


160  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Stevenson's  longer  works — sustains  the  sense  of 
moving  to  its  final  tragedy  more  than  any  other  of 
the  novels.  In  no  other  perhaps  is  the  interaction 
of  character  on  character  so  fully  developed,  though 
Mr.  Swinnerton  can  praise  it  only  for  its  dis- 
tinguished scenes,  and  thinks  its  climax  a  collapse. 

In  setting  the  last  scenes  about  the  year  1764 
Stevenson  chose  as  a  background  the  still  unsettled 
condition  of  what  is  now  New  York  State  after  the 
British  colonial  wars  against  the  French.  The 
scene  of  the  '  wilderness '  is  the  mountain  country 
near  Lake  Champlain.  The  Sir  William  Johnson 
with  whom  the  expedition  was  undertaken  was  an 
active  figure  in  the  British  conquest  of  Canada, 
and  noted  for  his  conciliation  of  Indian  tribes. 

The  Master  ran  in  '  Scribner's '  from  November 
1888  to  October  1889,  and  was  published  separately 
by  Messrs  Cassell  in  September  1889.  It  was  the 
first  of  his  longer  books,  for  which  Stevenson  received 
a  substantial  sum.  The  preface,  purporting  to  de- 
scribe the  discovery  of  Mackellar's  papers,  somewhat 
after  the  manner  of  Scott,  was  discarded  on  the  first 
issue,  but  was  used  in  the  final  editions,  and  is  separ- 
ately printed  in  Essays  on  the  Art  of  Writing. 

The  value  of  a  first  edition  is  now  about  £i.  An 
author's  edition  (1888),  privately  printed  for  copy- 
right reasons,  is  much  rarer,  and  has  realized  over 
£120. 

MEMORIALS 

See  '  Edinburgh,'  '  Exeter,'  '  San  Francisco,' 
'  Saranac,'  '  Silverado  Squatters.' 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  161 

MEMORIES  AND  PORTRAITS 

The  essays  brought  together  under  this  title  are 
chiefly  Stevenson's  reflections,  ten  years  afterwards, 
on  the  experiences  and  friendships  of  his  youth. 
They  represent  a  proportion  of  his  contributions  of 
this  kind  to  reviews  and  magazines,  from  1882  to 
1887  (cet.  32  to  37).  The  book  was  prepared  for  the 
press  during  the  last  few  months  at  Bournemouth  in 
the  interval  between  the  death  of  his  father  and  his 
own  final  departure  for  America.  As  he  then  wrote 
to  Henley :  '  Its  interest  will  be  largely  autobio- 
graphical, Mr.  S.  having  sketched  there  the  linea- 
ments of  many  departed  friends,  and  dwelt  fondly, 
and  with  a  m'istened  eye,  upon  by-gone  pleasures. 
The  contract  with  his  publishers  was  apparently 
signed  just  before  sailing,  and  the  brief  dedication 
of  the  book,  to  his  mother,  written  on  board  the 
'  Ludgate  Hill '  when  within  sight  of  Newfoundland. 

The  essays  are  :  The  Foreigner  at  Home,  Old 
Mortality,  Pastoral,  The  Manse,  Thomas  Stevenson, 
Talk  and  Talkers,  The  Character  of  Dogs,  A  Penny 
Plain  and  Twopence  Coloured,  A  Gossip  on  Romance, 
A  Humble  Remonstrance  and  A  College  Magazine, 
Memories  of  an  Islet  (Earraid),  and  A  Gossip  on  a 
Novel  of  Dumas's  were  here  first  issued.  Some 
College  Memories  and  An  Old  Scotch  Gardener  had 
previously  been  published  semi-privately  hi  Edin- 
burgh. All  are  separately  treated  in  this  book 
under  their  respective  titles. 

The  first  edition  of  299  pages,  published  hi 
1887  by  Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windus,  is  worth  about 

20S. 


162  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

MEMORIES  OF  AN  ISLET 

The  little  island  of  Earraid,  just  off  the  south- 
west comer  of  the  Ross  of  Mull,  was  the  headquarters 
of  the  Stevenson  firm  for  the  building  of  the  Dhu 
Heartach  lighthouse,  and  there  R.  L.  S.  spent  three 
weeks  as  a  boy  of  twenty,  while  the  work  was  in 
progress.  The  island  became  the  scene  of  The 
Merry  Men  and  of  the  wreck  of  the  '  Covenant '  in 
Kidnapped  ten  or  fifteen  years  later.  The  paper 
bearing  the  above  title,  and  reviving  these  memories 
of  his  engineering  life,  was  evidently  written  in  1886 
(at.  36).  for  it  was  subsequent  to  Kidnapped,  and 
was  first  published  hi  Memories  and  Portraits. 

MENTONE 

Six  months  of  enforced  idleness  at  Mentone  were 
the  means  of  Stevenson's  recovery  from  the  state  of 
nervous  exhaustion  and  threat  of  phthisis  which  in 
October  1873,  when  he  was  nearly  twenty-three, 
suddenly  overturned  the  plan  he  then  entertained 
of  following  the  profession  of  advocate  whilst  con- 
tinuing his  writings.  Until  the  May  of  the  following 
year  he  lived  there  by  himself,  his  invalidism  solaced 
by  two  visits  from  his  friend  Colvin  and  by  the 
society  of  two  Russian  ladies  and  their  children. 
The  period  was  almost  as  much  a  rest  of  the  mind 
from  the  differences  with  his  parents,  which  had  dis- 
turbed the  previous  twelve  months,  as  an  escape 
from  the  trying  Edinburgh  climate .  But  it  darkened 
his  hopes  just  when  his  first  piece  of  writing  (Roads) 
had  been  accepted,  and  explains  the  rather  despond- 
ent note  of  Ordered  South,  which  was  written  at 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  163 

Men  tone.  But  in  the  spring  of  1874,  on  his  return, 
the  danger  proved  to  have  been  averted  ;  for  the  next 
three  or  four  years  he  enjoyed  passably  good  health, 
and  in  this  restoration  the  strained  relations  with  his 
parents  passed  away. 

MEREDITH,  GEORGE  (1828-1909) 

Stevenson  first  made  Meredith's  acquaintance 
during  a  summer  spent  at  what  is  now  the  Burford 
Bridge  Hotel  at  Box  Hill,  when  he  was  twenty- 
eight  and  Meredith  fifty.  Lady  Butcher  in  her 
'  Memories  of  George  Meredith '  (London :  Constable, 
1919)  tells  that  she  and  her  mother  were  the  intro- 
ducers. Stevenson  then  told  her  he  was  a  '  true-blue 
Meredith  man/  and  Meredith  on  his  part  prophesied 
great  things  from  Stevenson.  The  meeting  of 
the  two  men  is  the  subject  of  an  earlier  paper 
by  Lady  Butcher  (when  Mrs.  Alice  Gordon)  in 
the  '  Bookman '  Stevenson  Number.  Of  '  The 
Egoist '  a  year  or  two  later  Stevenson  wrote : 
'  When  I  shall  have  read  it  the  sixth  or  seventh 
(time)  I  begin  to  see  I  shall  know  about  it.  I 
had  no  idea  of  the  matter — human  red  matter — 
he  has  contrived  to  pack  into  that  strange  and 
admirable  book.  ...  I  see  more  and  more  that 
Meredith  is  built  for  immortality.'  Meredith,  on 
the  other  hand,  left  a  sketch  of  R.  L.  S.  in  the  shape 
of  Gower  Woodseer  as  that  character  is  represented 
in  the  first  few  chapters  of  '  The  Amazing  Marriage/ 
The  book  was  not  published  until  after  Stevenson's 
death,  but  in  anticipating  its  arrival,  he  wrote  : 
'  Gower  Woodseer  will  be  a  family  portrait,  age 


164  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

twenty-five,  of  the  highly  respectable  and  slightly 
influential  and  fairly  aged  Tusitala.  You  have  not 
known  that  gentleman  ;  console  yourself  he  is  not 
worth  knowing.  ...  I  shall  never  see  whether  you 
have  grown  older,  and  you  shall  never  deplore  that 
Gower  Woodseer  should  have  declined  into  the 
pantaloon  Tusitala.' 

MERRY  MEN,  THE 

A  story  which  shows  Stevenson's  power  of  vividly 
descriptive  writing  at  perhaps  its  highest  level,  but 
one  which,  as  a  story,  has  been  variously  criticized. 
It  was  written  in  the  Highlands  in  1881  (at.  31),  the 
year  after  his  marriage,  as  one  of  a  series  of  tales  of 
horror  ('  crawlers,'  as  he  called  them),  planned  in 
collaboration  with  his  wife.  Aros  of  the  story  is 
the  tidal  islet  of  Earraid,  famous  under  its  own  name 
in  Kidnapped ;  the  Ross  of  Grisapol  is  the  Ross  of 
Mull ;  and  Ben  Ryan,  Ben  More.  The  name  of  the 
Merry  Men  is  plainly  taken  from  the  Merry  Men  of 
Mey,  as  sailors  call  certain  rocks  in  the  dangerous 
channels  of  the  Pentland  Firth.  In  writing  what  he 
called  '  a  fantastic  sonata  of  the  sea  and  wrecks ' 
Stevenson  seems  to  have  adopted  a  more  complex 
and  subtle  scheme  than  was  commonly  his  plan  of 
construction,  which  perhaps  is  the  reason  why  the 
tale  is  pronounced  good  or  bad  by  the  critics  accord- 
ing to  their  discernment  of  its  motive.  Years  after- 
wards in  Samoa,  as  reported  by  his  biographer,  he 
let  fall  a  word  on  the  genesis  of  the  tale  :  '  There  are, 
so  far  as  I  know,  three  ways,  and  three  ways  only, 
of  writing  a  story.  You  may  take  a  plot  and  fit 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  165 

characters  to  it,  or  you  may  take  a  character  and 
choose  incidents  and  situations  to  develop  it,  or  lastly, 
you  must  bear  with  me  while  I  make  this  clear ' 
(here  he  made  a  gesture  with  his  hands  as  if  he  were 
trying  to  shape  something  and  give  it  outline  and 
form),  *  you  may  take  a  certain  atmosphere  and  get 
actions  and  persons  to  express  and  realize  it.  I  '11 
give  you  an  example — The  Merry  Men.  There  I 
began  with  the  feeling  of  one  of  those  islands  on 
the  west  coast  of  Scotland,  and  I  gradually  de- 
veloped the  story  to  express  the  sentiment  with 
which  that  coast  affected  me.' 

Criticism,  however,  has  gone  further,  namely, 
in  finding  in  the  ending  of  the  tale  a  desertion  of  the 
key  in  which  it  opens.  If  it  is  true  that  Stevenson 
adopted  the  highly  delicate  method  of  presenting  the 
fury  of  the  sea  not  as  a  real  thing,  but  as  existing  in 
the  mind  of  the  crazed  islander,  Gordon  Darnaway, 
then  the  climax  of  the  storm,  and  the  manner  of  the 
uncle's  death  has  the  air  of  shattering  this  construc- 
tion, of  suddenly  exchanging  an  imagined  for  a  very 
real  horror.  Stevenson  felt  perhaps  that  his  opening 
theme  suffered  in  the  ending,  for  a  year  or  two  after 
the  tale  was  written,  he  talked  of  providing  it  with 
a  fresh  denouement.  No  doubt  he  was  persuaded 
of  the  bad  policy  for  an  author  to  retouch  his  work. 
At  any  rate  the  vigour  and  richness  of  its  descriptive 
qualities  carry  it  over  these  alleged  flaws  of  con- 
struction, which,  after  all,  are  the  business  of  the 
literary  anatomist. 

The  Merry  Men  appeared  in  the  '  Cornhill  Maga- 
zine,' June  and  July  1882.  The  book  to  which  it 


166  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

gives  its  name  contains  also  Will  o'  the  Mill,  Mark- 
heim,  Thrawn  Janet,  Olalla,  and  The  Treasure  of 
Franchard.  The  first  edition  (Chatto  &  Windus, 
1887)  of  296  pages  has  a  value  of  about  £2,  los. 

MISADVENTURES  OF  JOHN  NICHOLSON,  THE 

It  is  conceivable  that  but  for  Stevenson's  writing 
this  farcical  tale  his  stepson  would  not  have  been 
the  author  two  years  afterwards  of  The  Wrong  Box. 
The  two  have  a  good  deal  in  common — hi  style  as 
well  as  in  the  tragico-comedy  adventures  with  a 
corpse.  John  Nicholson  is  in  fact  one  of  Stevenson's 
'  pot-boilers/  one  of  the  very  few  works  of  his  which 
he  let  go  with  the  feeling  that  it  could  have  been 
better.  But  it  was,  as  he  wrote,  '  a  dam  tale  to 
order :  I  don't  love  it,  but  some  of  it  is  passable  in 
its  mouldy  way.'  This  was  from  Bournemouth  at 
the  end  of  1886  (at.  36),  just  when  the  story  had 
been  finished  for  '  Yule  Tide '  (CasselTs  Christmas 
Annual,  1887). 

The  story  has  its  personal  element  in  its  presen- 
tation of  the  discordant  relation  of  father  and  son. 
There  is  nothing  to  suggest  that  Mr.  Nicholson  was 
intended  for  Stevenson's  father,  but  the  theological 
flavour  of  the  household  was  of  the  kind  which 
R.  L.  S.  tasted  as  a  youth.  For  the  scenes  of  the 
Edinburgh  night  clubs  he  was  going  back  only  a 
few  years.  Collette's  was  one  of  the  '  shebeens ' 
where  the  convivially  inclined  of  Edinburgh  citizens 
could  obtain  drink  after  the  licensed  hours.  The 
picture  is  one  of  forty  years  ago,  exact  hi  its  sense 
of  the  severe  Edinburgh  streets,  and  moreover,  in  its 


. 


NO.    17    HERIOT    ROW,    EDINBURGH,   THE    HOME   OK   THOMAS   STEVENSON    FROM 
1857   TO    HIS   DEATH    IN    1887 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  167 

description  of  the  '  Lodge '  where  the  body  is  dis- 
covered. For  this  Stevenson  appropriated  the 
home  (Duncliffe)  of  his  school  friend  and  subsequent 
commentator,  H.  B.  Baildon.  The  house  has  since 
been  greatly  altered,  no  less  than  the  suburb  of 
Murrayfield  has  largely  lost  its  rural  character. 
The  story  is  included  hi  the  volume  Tales  and 
Fantasies. 

MODERN  STUDENT  CONSIDERED  GENERALLY, 
THE 

This  protest  against  the  want  of  merriment  in  his 
fellow  -  students  was  a  contribution  to  the  '  Edin- 
burgh University  Magazine/  February  1871  (at.  21). 
It  is  now  published  in  Lay  Morals. 

MONTEREY,  CALIFORNIA 

Stevenson  spent  nearly  three  months,  September 
to  October  1879,  in  what  was  then  still  the  primitive 
Mexican  town  which  he  has  chronicled  in  The  Old 
Pacific  Capital  (q.v.).  His  precipitate  journey,  and 
particularly  the  last  stage  of  it  across  the  American 
continent  by  emigrant  train  to  arrange  his  marriage 
with  Mrs.  Osbourne,  had  worn  him  out.  He  had 
sought  an  open-air  cure,  camping  out  in  the  Coast 
Line  Mountains,  where  he  would  have  died  but  for 
the  care  of  two  ranchers.  From  their  charge  he 
went  down  to  Monterey  on  the  bay  of  that  name, 
'  a  place,'  as  he  wrote,  '  where  there  is  no  summer  or 
winter,  and  pines  and  sand  and  distant  hills,  and  a 
bay  all  filled  with  real  water  from  the  Pacific/  Here 
he  lived  in  the  house  of  a  French  doctor,  wrote  most 


i68  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

of  The  Amateur  Emigrant,  and  The  Pavilion  on  the 
Links,  and  a  half  of  a  novel,  A  Vendetta  in  the  West, 
which  he  destroyed  ;  took  a  share  in  producing  the 
local  newspaper,  '  The  Monterey  Calif ornian,'  and 
became  a  notability  of  the  little  place.  In  his  recol- 
lections the  chief  place  is  taken  by  the  French 
restaurant  and  its  old  proprietor,  M.  Simoneau,  to 
whom  there  are  several  delightful  letters  written 
from  Hy feres  four  years  afterwards.  Stevenson  loved 
an  inn  and  the  hospitable  inn-keeper  such  as  is 
commonly  found  in  France,  and  he  declared  that 
'  not  one  can  be  compared  with  Simoneau's  at 
Monterey.'  It  was  natural  for  him  to  write  :  '  Et 
vous,  mon  tres  cher  ami  ?  Comment  cela  va-t-il  ? 
Comment  vous  portez-vous  ?  Comment  va  le 
commerce  ?  Comment  aimez-vous  le  pays  ?  et 
1'enfant  ?  et  la  femme  ?  Et  enfin  toutes  les  ques- 
tions possibles  ?  £crivez-moi  done  bien  vite,  cher 
Simoneau.  Et  quant  a  moi,  je  vous  promets  que 
vous  entendrez  bien  vite  parler  de  moi :  je  vous 
ecrirai  sous  peu,  et  je  vous  enverrai  un  de  mes  livres. 
Ceci  n'est  qu'un  serrement  de  main,  from  the  bottom 
of  my  heart,  dear  and  kind  old  man.' 

MOORS,  H.  J. 

A  prominent  American  trader  in  Apia,  with  whom 
R.  L.  S.  and  his  family  stayed  for  some  weeks  on 
first  reaching  Samoa  hi  the  '  Equator  '  in  December 
1889.  With  Mr.  Moors  he  remained  on  terms  of 
close  friendship,  the  basis  of  which  appears  to  have 
been  chiefly  their  common  interest  in  the  disturbed 
political  condition  of  the  islands.  Mr.  Moors  it  was 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  169 

who  negotiated  the  purchase  of  the  Vailima  estate, 
looked  after  the  clearing  of  the  ground,  took  a  share 
in  the  planning  of  the  house,  and  in  many  ways 
acted  as  Stevenson's  agent.  This  close  connection 
with  R.  L.  S.  in  the  ways  of  friendship  and  business 
justifies  his  authorship  of  a  little  book  '  With 
Stevenson  hi  Samoa  '  (Collins'  Wide  World  Library), 
which  is  a  frankly  drawn  impression  of  R.  L.  S. 
during  the  last  five  years  of  his  life  by  one  who  was 
previously  a  stranger  to  him.  While  he  admired 
Stevenson,  Mr.  Moors  did  not  idolize  him.  He 
writes  of  him,  with  evident  sincerity,  as  he  found 
him,  and  his  emphatic  judgment  is  that  the  Stevenson 
he  knew  was  not  the  preacher  and  maker  of  prayers, 
but  a  very  human  companion.  Bohemian,  uncom- 
plaining, but  upset,  even  enraged,  by  trifles  ;  an 
indefatigable  worker,  writing  at  all  hours  and  in  all 
places  ;  in  high  spirits,  when  well ;  in  times  of  ill- 
health,  cheerfully  damning  the  whole  universe  ;  as 
good  a  listener  as  a  talker,  and  with  a  genius  for 
bringing  out  the  best  in  his  companions.  Of 
Stevenson's  writings,  Mr.  Moors,  while  disclaiming 
the  right  to  be  a  critic,  is  equally  vigorous  in  con- 
demning the  collaboration  which  produced  The 
Wrecker,  The  Dynamiter,  and  other  books.  He 
appears  to  have  convinced  Stevenson  of  the  sound- 
ness of  this  judgment,  for  the  two  were  to  have  made 
a  trip  together  to  Nassau  Island,  where  R.  L.  S.  was 
to  have  devoted  himself  alone  to  his  work.  The 
project  was  never  carried  out,  for  Stevenson  died 
while  Mr.  Moors  was  away  shortly  afterwards  in  the 
States. 


170  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

MORAL  EMBLEMS 

See  '  Davos  Press.' 


MORALITY  OF  THE  PROFESSION  OF  LETTERS, 
THE 

The  paper  on  the  ideals  and  qualities  which  Steven- 
son believed  should  be  those  of  the  professional 
writer  was  written  during  his  first  exile  at  Davos  in 
1880  (at.  30).  It  appeared  in  the  '  Fortnightly 
Review,'  April  1881,  and  is  placed  in  The  Art  of 
Writing. 

MORE,  JAMES 

The  father  of  Catriona  is  one  of  the  most  living 
pieces  of  character  drawing  in  Stevenson.  He  was 
the  third  son  of  the  famous  Highland  freebooter 
Rob  Roy  MacGregor.  His  other  name  of  Campbell, 
with  which  he  is  twitted  by  Alan  Breck,  was  that 
taken  by  his  father  at  the  time  of  the  proscription  of 
the  MacGregors ;  it  was  dropped  for  Drummond 
(the  family  name  of  Lord  Perth)  on  his  joining  the 
latter's  levies  in  the  '45.  More,  Mohr,  or  Mhor 
(=big)  is  in  reference  to  his  height. 

Like  his  father,  James  was  a  brave  fighter,  but 
without  a  spark  of  the  generosity  which  tradition 
attributes  to  Rob  Roy.  To  the  day  of  his  death  he 
was  a  plausible  rascal,  ready  to  serve  his  ends  with 
any  lie  or  cock-and-bull  story.  It  is  easy  to  tell  the 
outside  doings  of  his  life,  but  his  secret  dealings  with 
both  sides  in  and  after  the  '45  are  still  very  partially 
disclosed.  What  facts  about  him  have  come  to 
light  in  later  researches  among  Jacobite  papers  only 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  171 

establish  his  reputation  for  treachery.  Andrew 
Lang  in  '  Pickle  the  Spy '  shows  him  to  have  been  a 
spy  of  the  Government  before  the  '45,  and  pays 
tribute  to  the  certainty  with  which  Stevenson,  un- 
acquainted with  these  later  evidences,  divined  the 
character  of  the  man. 

Early  hi  his  life  James  and  another  brother  Ronald 
came  under  the  pale  of  the  law,  in  1736,  on  the  charge 
of  a  murder  committed  by  their  brother  Robin  Oig 
(q.v.).  Discharged  by  a  verdict  of  Not  Proven, 
James  was  bound  over  in  the  sum  of  £200  to  be  of 
good  behaviour  for  seven  years.  In  the  '45  he 
formed  a  corps  of  MacGregors  from  the  remains  of 
his  father's  band  of  outlaws,  and  fought  bravely  on 
the  side  of  Charles  Edward.  He  was  wounded  at 
Prestonpans,  and  after  the  defeat  at  Culloden  was 
carried  into  the  MacGregor  country  on  a  litter.  On 
the  collapse  of  the  rebellion  he  was  attainted  for 
high  treason,  but  appears  to  have  made  terms  with 
the  Government  which  enabled  him  to  retain  his 
freedom  until  in  1750  he  was  party  to  an  outrage 
which  brought  him  into  the  hands  of  justice.  This 
was  the  abduction  on  December  3  of  Jean  Key,  or 
Wright,  a  young  widow  of  some  property  whom 
Robin  Oig  designed  to  marry  for  her  fortune.  The 
two  brothers  tore  her  from  her  parents'  home  at 
the  sword's  point,  carried  her  off  half  senseless  on 
horseback,  and  compelled  her  to  go  through  a  form 
of  marriage  with  Robin.  Afterwards,  on  her  pro- 
perty being  sequestered  by  the  Crown,  James  More 
brought  her  to  Edinburgh,  where  eventually  she  came 
under  the  protection  of  the  Government,  and  re- 


172  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

mained  in  the  charge  of  friends  until  her  death  in 
October  1751.  James  in  the  meantime  had  been 
arrested  as  the  instigator  of  the  outrage,  and  was 
lying  in  prison  at  the  time  of  the  Appin  murder,  of 
which  (as  related  in  the  chapter  on  that  event)  he 
sought  to  take  advantage  by  proffering  evidence 
against  the  accused. 

On  his  own  trial  in  July  1752  a  special  verdict  of 
the  jury  acquitted  him  of  a  capital  crime  in  the  ab- 
duction affair  but,  pending  the  debate  upon  it  of  the 
Lord  Advocate  Prestongrange,  James  was  held  a 
prisoner  in  Edinburgh  Castle.  Thence,  however,  as 
is  told  in  Catriona,  he  made  his  escape  to  France, 
though  whether  with  the  connivance  of  the  Govern- 
ment cannot  be  determined.  A  visit  to  Ireland 
had  the  ostensible  purpose  of  raising  forces  for  the 
Stuart  cause,  but  it  is  certain  that  after  reaching 
France  James,  while  professing  adherence  to  the 
Prince,  was  seeking  to  be  an  agent  of  the  Hano- 
verian Government,  and  made  the  offer  to  entrap 
Alan  Breck  and  deliver  him  to  England,  which 
Stevenson  takes  as  the  material  for  the  latter  part 
of  Catriona.  He  was  in  London  with  offers  of  this 
kind,  but  the  authorities  judged  him  a  man  not  to 
be  trusted  '  unless  his  life  was  in  danger,'  and  he 
returned  to  France  where  the  suspicions  of  his  own 
clan  left  him  in  destitution.  His  last  state  is  re- 
vealed in  a  letter  to  his  chief,  Bohaldie,  beseeching 
any  employment  to  escape  beggary,  and  asking  for 
the  loan  of  the  Highland  bagpipes  on  which  he 
'  would  play  some  melancholy  tunes.'  A  week 
later,  in  October  1754,  he  died. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  173 

MORE   NEW   ARABIAN   NIGHTS— THE   DYNA- 
MITER 

The  only  book  of  Stevenson's  written  in  colla- 
boration with  his  wife,  to  whose  powers  of  invention 
and  descriptive  writing  the  greater  part  of  it  is  due. 
It  had  its  origin  at  the  time  of  his  slow  and  perilous 
recovery  from  the  nearly  fatal  illness  at  Hyeres  in 
the  spring  of  1884  (at.  34).  Forbidden  to  speak  and 
under  orders  to  lie  in  darkness,  the  long  hours  were 
relieved  by  tales  which  Mrs.  Stevenson  made  up  for 
his  amusement.  A  few  months  afterwards,  when 
they  had  settled  at  Bournemouth,  where  Louis  was 
'  to  live  the  life  of  a  delicate  girl,'  these  stories  were 
drawn  upon  as  material  for  a  series  planned  on  the 
lines  of  the  New  Arabian  Nights  of  six  years  before. 
Though  the  form  is  broadly  the  same — a  set  of  inter- 
dependent narratives  over  which  the  long  arm  of 
coincidence  was  never  more  widely  waved — the 
style  is  notably  different  from  that  of  the  previous 
series.  This  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  only  the 
prologue  and  epilogue  and  the  tale  of  '  The  Ex- 
plosive Bomb '  are  Stevenson's  own  writing.  All 
the  rest  of  the  book  was  the  invention,  and  the 
actual  writing  of  Mrs.  Stevenson ;  her  husband's 
share  in  it  consisting  apparently  in  revisions  and 
touches  by  which  he  was  able  with  great  facility  to 
impress  a  large  measure  of  his  own  style  upon  his 
wife's  work.  It  is  plain  from  a  letter  to  Henley 
(November  1884)  that  the  book  engaged  the  chief 
part  of  his  efforts  :  '  We  are  all  to  pieces  in  health, 
and  heavily  handicapped  with  Arabs.  I  have  a 
dreadful  cough  whose  attacks  leave  me  tetat.  90. 


174  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

I  never  let  up  on  the  Arabs  all  the  same,  and  rarely 
get  less  than  eight  pages  out  of  hand,  though  hardly 
able  to  come  downstairs  for  twittering  knees.' 
From  another  letter  of  the  next  month,  it  is  seen 
that  almost  a  quarter  of  the  book  was  discarded, 
and  its  place  taken  by  entirely  fresh  stories.  As 
it  was  published  in  the  following  April  it  is  obvious 
that  this  portion  —  the  stories  of  The  Destroying 
Angel,  and  of  The  Fair  Cuban,  and  the  Narrative 
of  the  Spirited  Old  Lady — came  from  Mrs.  Steven- 
son's hand  at  this  later  stage.  Discounting  any 
afterwork  by  R.  L.  S.  upon  them,  their  imagination 
and  vividness  of  description  show  Mrs.  Stevenson 
to  have  possessed  gifts  in  this  field  of  writing  little 
inferior  to  her  husband's. 

In  taking  the  baseness  and  futility  of  the  methods 
of  the  dynamiter  as  the  thread  uniting  the  different 
stories,  Stevenson  chose  a  subject  on  which  he  held 
the  strongest  feelings.  At  the  time  of  the  Fenian 
outrages  two  or  three  years  before  he  had  written 
to  his  friend  Colvin  :  '  I  am  hi  a  mad  frenzy  about 
these  explosions.  If  that  is  the  new  world  !  Damn 
O'Donovan  Rossa ;  damn  him  behind  and  before, 
above,  below,  and  roundabout ;  damn,  deracinate, 
and  destroy  him,  root  and  branch,  self  and  company, 
world  without  end.  Amen.  I  write  that  for  sport 
if  you  like,  but  I  will  pray  in  earnest,  O  Lord,  if 
you  cannot  convert,  kindly  delete  him.' 

Attached  as  he  was  in  the  twenties  to  many  ad- 
vanced social  ideas,  Stevenson  retained  an  utter 
loathing  for  the  principles  and  methods  of  the  anar- 
chists, and  felt  very  bitterly  the  failure  of  the  Govern- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  175 

ment  to  maintain  order  in  Ireland.  Moreover, 
whilst  the  pages  of  The  Dynamiter  were  nearing  com- 
pletion the  death  of  Gordon  filled  him  with  contempt 
for  what  he  regarded  as  the  pusillanimous  policy  of 
Gladstone.  He  saw  England  as  '  daubed  with  dis- 
honour,' and  the  intensity  of  his  feelings  is  reflected 
in  his  dedication  of  More  New  Arabian  Nights  to  the 
two  police  officers  Cole  and  Cox  ('  in  default  of  other 
great  public  characters ')  who  had  shown  conspicu- 
ous bravery  in  their  encounters  with  the  Irish 
dynamiters. 

Messrs.  Longmans  issued  the  book  in  April  1885  at 
is.  in  green  wrappers  ;  is.  6d.  in  red  cloth.  The 
value  of  the  former  is  now  about  153. ;  of  the  latter, 
about  £2.  French  and  Spanish  translations  ap- 
peared in  1894  and  1896  respectively. 

MORRIS,  WILLIAM  (1834-1896) 

The  poet,  artist,  and  craftsman  is  included  here 
among  men  having  a  relationship  with  R.  L.  S. 
only  for  the  reason  that  Stevenson  a  year  or  two 
before  his  death  wrote,  but  did  not  send,  a  letter 
to  Morris  in  which,  while  expressing  the  strongest 
admiration  of  his  genius,  and  particularly  of  his 
renderings  of  Scandinavian  legends,  joined  issue 
with  him  as  to  the  specific  use  of  a  word  in  a  sense 
different  from  its  ordinary  acceptation. 

MOUNTAIN  TOWN  IN  FRANCE,  A 

An  uncompleted  paper  on  Monastier  was  origin- 
ally intended  to  form  the  opening  chapter  of  Travels 
with  a  Donkey  in  the  Cevennes,  but  was  omitted  in 


176  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

accordance  with  the  idea  of  letting  the  book  open 
on  the  beginning  of  the  journey.  It  must  therefore 
have  been  written  in  the  winter  of  1878  (at.  28),  but 
remained  unpublished  until  1896,  when  it  appeared 
in  the  Winter  Number  of  the  '  Studio,'  accompanied 
by  four  reproductions  in  facsimile  of  pencil  draw- 
ings by  Stevenson  of  landscapes  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Monastier.  Of  these  the  same  issue  contains 
a  warm  appreciation  by  Mr.  Joseph  Pennell  in  an 
article  on  '  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  Illustrator. 
The  paper  is  now  placed  in  Essays  of  Travel. 


MOVEMENTS   OF   YOUNG   CHILDREN,   NOTES 
ON 

The  slight  paper  on  the  charm  of  children  in  action 
contributed  to  the  '  Portfolio,'  August  1874,  has  not 
been  reprinted  except  in  the  collected  works.  The 
passage  in  it  which  describes  the  incident  of  the 
children  at  play  with  a  skipping-rope  is  cited  by 
Sir  Sidney  Colvin  ('  The  Hampstead  Annual/  1902) 
as  an  instance  from  his  own  experience  of  Stevenson's 
immense  restraint  in  translating  his  impressions  into 
writing.  The  children's  play  took  place  outside  the 
house  in  Hampstead  in  which  the  two  were  lodging, 
and  Stevenson,  in  catching  sight  of  it  from  a  window, 
was  suddenly  transported  with  extraordinary  delight. 
The  stream  of  superlatives  with  which  he  called  his 
friend  to  join  him  marked  a  sensitiveness  to  the 
beauty  of  such  episodes  which  he  deliberately  held 
in  restraint  when  it  came  to  writing. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  177 

MYERS,  FREDERICK  WILLIAM  HENRY  (1843- 
1901) 

The  poet  and  essayist,  who  is  perhaps  better  known 
for  his  interest  in  psychic  phenomena,  wrote  to 
Stevenson  on  the  appearance  of  Jekyll  and  Hyde, 
criticizing  certain  of  the  psychological  inventions  in 
the  story.  Stevenson  in  his  reply  pleaded  the  haste 
in  which  the  tale  was  written,  and  admitted  the 
'  gross  error '  of  Hyde's  speech  at  Lanyon's.  The 
tidiness  of  Hyde's  room  hi  Soho,  which  Myers  had 
evidently  thought  to  be  wrong  psychologically,  he 
explained  to  have  been  chosen  in  the  idea  that  in  the 
'  dread,  weariness,  and  horror  of  the  imprisonment,' 
he  would  tidy  the  room  simply  as  an  occupation. 
The  letter  serves  to  show  Stevenson's  consideration 
of  the  details  of  a  work  which  passed  through  his 
hands  with  unusual  rapidity. 

NEW  ARABIAN  NIGHTS 

Stevenson's  title  for  these  tales  of  imagination 
clearly  shows  what  he  intended  their  character  to 
be.  Plainly  they  were  not  meant  to  be  realistic. 
Their  stilted,  artificial  style  is  out  of  keeping  with 
such  an  object.  They  were  evidently  to  be  stories 
which  are  entertaining  in  the  same  way  that  the 
'  Arabian  Nights  '  is  entertaining,  with  just  as  little 
pretence  of  realism.  As  a  child  in  his  grandfather's 
manse  at  Colinton  he  had  devoured  the  eastern  tales  ; 
the  New  Arabian  Nights,  written  when  he  was 
twenty-eight,  are  a  special  form  of  literary  invention 
which  came  easily  from  Stevenson's  habit  of  invest- 
ing the  most  ordinary  places  and  people  with  the 

M 


178  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

wildest  romance.  The  stories  are  peculiar  in  that 
their  artificial  style  leaves  one  ungripped  by  the 
horror  of  adventure,  such  as  those  of  The  Suicide 
Club.1  But  the  artificiality  was  clearly  deliberate ; 
when  he  wanted,  no  one  better  than  Stevenson 
could  write  tales  of  horror — '  crawlers/  as  he  called 
them — to  make  the  flesh  creep.  He  did  in  fact 
project  a  series  of  this  kind,  of  which  only  one  or 
two  were  completed.  But  in  the  New  Arabian 
Nights  it  is  easy  to  see  his  precise  aim  at  a  lighter 
effect.  No  doubt  the  pleasure  in  the  technical 
problem — at  once  Stevenson's  curse,  and  the  source 
of  his  unequalled  prose — prompted  this  experi- 
ment. Except  in  The  Dynamiter,  which  was  largely 
the  work  of  his  wife,  the  style  hardly  appears 
elsewhere  in  his  writings. 

In  a  letter  to  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson,  R.  L.  S.  reminded 
his  cousin  of  the  conception  of  the  New  Arabian 
Nights.  '  The  first  idea  of  all  was  the  hansom  cabs 
which  I  communicated  to  you  hi  your  mother's 
drawing-room  at  Chelsea.  The  same  afternoon  the 
Prince  de  Galles  and  the  Suicide  Club  were  invented, 
and  several  more,  now  forgotten.'  The  Suicide 
Club  was  written,  some  of  it  at  Swanston  and 
the  remainder  at  Burford  Bridge ;  The  Rajah's 
Diamond,  at  Monastier  (September  1878)  before 
starting  on  the  journey  with  the  donkey.  The  tales 
appeared  in  the  issues  from  June  8  to  October  26, 
1878,  of  '  London.'  This  was  a  weekly  journal, 

1  Although  this  story  has  been  made  into  a  Grand-Guignol 
play  '  Les  Nuits  du  Hampton  Club,'  by  MM.  Mouezy-Eon  and 
Armont  (1909).  , 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  179 

founded  only  a  year  previously  by  an  old  colleague, 
R.  Glasgow  Brown,  of  Stevenson's  on  the  '  Edin- 
burgh University  Magazine,'  and  in  1878  edited  by 
Henley.  '  Nobody,'  writes  Mr.  Lang,  '  ever  read 
"  London,"  or  advertized  in  it,  or  heard  of  it.'  It 
was  a  failure,  and  Stevenson's  tales  received  the  dis- 
tinction, so  it  has  been  stated,  of  accounting,  in  the 
estimation  of  more  than  one  of  the  proprietors,  for 
the  unpopularity  and  short  life  of  the  journal. 
When  separately  published,  however,  in  two  volumes 
by  Messrs.  Chatto  &•  Windus  in  1882,  a  second 
edition  was  quickly  called  for. 

The  first  edition,  issued  at  i2s.,  is  now  very  scarce, 
and  is  valued  by  collectors  at  from  £30  to  £40.  At 
the  present  time  the  volume  New  Arabian  Nights 
contains  also  the  finer  short  stories  of  Stevenson — 
The  Pavilion  on  the  Links,  A  Lodging  for  the  Night, 
The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door,  and  Providence  and  the 
Guitar, 

NEW  POEMS  AND  VARIANT  READINGS 

The  previously  unpublished  poems  issued  in  1918 
by  Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windus  are  unfortunately  not 
severally  identified  with  the  stages  of  Stevenson's 
mental  development.  Mr.  Lloyd  Osbourne  in  a 
preface  has  no  word  of  the  circumstances  of  their 
collection  except  to  say  that  they  were  '  discovered  ' 
and  privately  printed  by  the  Bibliophile  Society  of 
Boston.  Even  the  two  volumes  of  the  Boston 
Society  in  the  British  Museum  throw  no  light  on  the 
fact ;  it  is  merely  stated  that  the  major  portion  of 
the  poems  were  '  unearthed '  by  Mr.  George  S. 


180  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Hellman,  whose  notes  greatly  add  to  the  interest 
of  the  verses.  The  explanation  would  seem  to  be 
that  the  manuscripts  were  sold  after  Stevenson's 
death,  and  the  volume  afterwards  compiled  from  the 
purchasers'  collections.  The  Boston  Society  has, 
however,  classified  the  verses  according  to  the 
periods  of  Stevenson's  life,  and  in  very  many  cases 
has  stated  the  date  of  writing.  It  is  a  pity  that  the 
English  publishers  should  not  have  availed  them- 
selves of  this  research.  Of  the  poems,  some  are 
evidently  first  experiments  which  afterwards  ob- 
tained a  more  perfect  form  :  for  example,  '  Now 
When  the  Number  of  Our  Years '  must  have  been  the 
genesis  of  Requiem.  Others  are  imitations  of  con- 
temporaries among  which  one  detects  the  influence 
of  Tennyson,  whilst  others  again  are  love  poems, 
exceeding  in  number  the  comparatively  few  verses 
of  the  kind  issued  in  his  lifetime.  The  latter,  and 
the  one  or  two  heated  declamations  against  social 
conventions  are  the  most  notable  because  of  the 
further  light  they  sjied  on  these  less  familiar  sides  of 
Stevenson's  personality. 

NOT  I,  AND  OTHER  POEMS 

See  'Davos  Press.' 

NUITS  BLANCHES 

The  real  experiences  of  his  childhood's  wakeful 
nights,  which  are  noted  in  this  sketch,  written  when 
he  was  twenty,  may  be  compared  with  Young  Night 
Thought  and  Windy  Nights  of  The  Child's  Garden  of 
Verses,  where  a  more  romantic  image  is  conceived 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  181 

of  the  passers-by,  for  whom  he  waited  in  the  small 
hours.  The  fragment  was  not  published  until  in- 
cluded in  the  Edinburgh  edition,  and  is  now  placed 
in  Lay  Morals. 

NURSES 

This  early  paper,  written  when  he  was  twenty,  is 
notable  not  only  for  the  selection  of  the  subject  by 
one  of  his  years,  but  as  an  example  of  the  very  few 
occasions  when  Stevenson  sought  to  strike  a  note 
of  pathos  in  his  writings.  For  his  sympathy  with 
nurses  the  devotion  of  his  own  had  given  him  good 
reason,  though  the  modern  generation  of  women 
will  be  inclined  to  smile  at  his  youthful  contention 
that  the  nurse  should  disappear  from  the  ranks  of 
domestic  servants.  The  paper,  first  issued  in  the 
Edinburgh  edition,  is  now  published  in  Lay  Morals. 

OIG,  ROBIN 

The  hot-headed  Highlander  with  whom  Alan 
Breck  has  his  midnight  contest  on  the  pipes  at 
Balquidder  in  Kidnapped,  was  the  youngest  of  the 
five  sons  of  Rob  Roy.  If  he  appears  a  less  discredit- 
able character  than  his  elder  brother  James  More 
(q.v.),  it  is  only  that  the  element  of  treachery  in  the 
latter  is  absent.  But  Robert  Oig  (or  the  young) 
inherited  a  full  measure  of  his  father's  violence. 
At  seventeen,  on  the  ground  of  a  family  quarrel, 
he  murdered  Maclaren  of  Invernenty.  He  escaped 
capture,  and  was  in  fact  never  punished  for  this 
crime.  After  serving  as  a  soldier  and  fighting  at 
Fontenoy,  he  returned  to  Scotland  and  lived  openly 


182  A  BOOK  OP  R.  L.  S. 

in  the  MacGregor  country.  His  abduction  of  Jean 
Key  in  1750,  of  which  his  brother  James  More  was 
thought  to  be  the  instigator,  is  narrated  in  the 
chapter  on  the  latter.  Robin  Oig  eluded  capture 
for  over  two  years,  but  was  eventually  taken  at  a 
fair  at  Gartmore  and  brought  to  Edinburgh  in 
May  1753.  More  than  six  months  were  allowed  to 
pass  before  he  was  brought  to  trial,  conceivably  for 
the  reason  that  his  brother  James  was  then  hoping 
to  buy  his  life  by  the  apprehension  of  Alan  Breck. 
But  on  December  24  Robert  MacGregor,  alias 
Campbell,  alias  Drummond,  alias  Robert  Oig,  was 
brought  up  on  the  charge  of  which  his  brother  more 
than  a  year  before  had  evaded  the  full  penalties. 
Robin  was  not  so  fortunate.  He  was  condemned  to 
death,  and  executed  on  February  14,  1754.  He 
made  a  better  end  than  might  have  been  expected 
from  one  of  his  turbulent  nature,  admitting  his 
violence  towards  Mrs.  Key,  and  showing  some 
concern  that  his  sentence  might  remove  his  brother 
James  from  further  prosecution. 

OLALLA 

The  only  short  story  of  Stevenson's  having  the 
sudden  outburst  of  love  between  man  and  woman 
for  its  theme  ;  hi  none  of  the  longer  works  even  is 
there  the  same  intensity  of  feeling.  It  was  written 
at  Bournemouth  towards  the  end  of  1885  (cet.  35), 
and  appeared  in  the  Christmas  number  of  '  Court 
and  Society  Review '  of  that  year ;  hi  1887,  placed 
in  The  Merry  Men.  The  scenery  is  imaginative — 
Stevenson  was  never  in  Spain — and  the  contrasted 


A  BOOK  OF  R.L.  S.  183 

characters  of  mother  and  daughter  also  are  imagina- 
tive in  the  special  sense,  as  he  afterwards  related  in 
A  Chapter  on  Dreams,  that  they  and  the  indoor  set- 
ting of  the  story  came  to  him  hi  his  sleep.  '  Here 
the  court,  the  mother,  the  mother's  niche,  Olalla, 
OlaJla's  chamber,  the  meetings  on  the  stair,  the 
broken  window,  the  ugly  scene  of  the  bite,  were  all 
given  me  in  bulk  and  detail,  as  I  have  tried  to  write 
them ;  to  this  I  added  only  the  external  scenery 
(for  in  my  dream  I  never  was  beyond  the  court),  the 
portrait,  the  characters  of  Felipe  and  the  priest,  the 
moral,  such  as  it  is,  and  the  last  pages,  such  as, 
alas !  they  are.  And  I  may  even  say  that  in  this 
case  the  moral  itself  was  given  me,  for  it  arose 
immediately  on  the  comparison  of  the  mother  and 
the  daughter,  and  from  the  hideous  trick  of  atavism 
in  the  first.' 

In  drawing  the  half-witted  Felipe,  the  repeated 
antics  of  pleasure  were  invented  to  mark  the  animal- 
ized  nature — as  Stevenson  recalls  in  In  the  South 
Seas  (Part  iv,  chap,  v),  on  remarking  the  same  trait 
in  a  youth  of  the  Gilbert  Islands,  though  with  none 
of  the  bestial  quality  of  the  Spanish  degenerate. 

But  Olalla  did  not  satisfy  R.  L.  S.,  as  it  has  failed 
to  satisfy  the  more  fastidious  of  his  critics.  A  year 
afterwards  he  wrote  of  it :  '  The  trouble  with  Olalla 
is  that  it  somehow  sounds  false.  .  .  .  What  makes 
a  story  true  ?  Markheim  is  true  ;  Olalla  is  false  ; 
and  I  don't  know  why,  nor  did  I  feel  it  while  I 
worked  at  them ;  indeed  I  had  more  inspiration 
with  Olalla  as  the  style  shows.  ...  I  admire  the 
style  of  it  myself  more  than  is  perhaps  good  for  me  ; 


184  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

it  is  so  solidly  written.  And  that  again  brings  back 
(almost  with  the  voice  of  despair)  my  unanswer- 
able '  Why  is  it  false  ?  '  Mr.  Swinnerton  answers 
that  he  '  became  too  intent  upon  his  rendering  of 
the  idea  ;  his  literary  sense  took  command  when  his 
knowledge  failed/ 

OLD  MORTALITY 

The  entrance  of  a  more  solemn  note  into  Steven- 
son's thought  is  marked  by  this  paper  written  at 
HySres  in  the  winter  of  1883-4  (**•  33)-  In  Acs 
Triplex,  five  years  before,  his  theme  had  been  the 
littleness  of  death  hi  its  relation  to  everyday  human 
life.  His  own  experiences  hi  the  interval  had  de- 
veloped a  deeper  feeling.  He  had  had  an  illness 
that  was  all  but  fatal ;  and  in  September  1883  he 
was  profoundly  affected  by  the  death  of  his  friend 
Ferrier,  whose  character  and  fate  are  the  subject 
of  the  third  part  of  the  paper.  The  sobering  in- 
fluence of  events  which  then  touched  his  own  circle 
of  friends  can  be  seen  in  a  comparison  of  these  two 
papers.  The  essay  is  also  one  which  provides  a 
certain  insight  into  the  labour  which  Stevenson 
spent  upon  these  pieces.  The  opening  portion  on 
the  Greyfriars  Cemetery  in  Edinburgh  is  evidently 
a  finished  form  of  The  Wreath  of  Immortelles,  written 
when  he  was  twenty-one  ;  and  material  of  the  same 
period  was  sought,  as  his  biographer  mentions,  in 
the  shape  of  a  letter  to  his  mother  '  all  about  death 
and  churchyards,'  which  had  so  distressed  her  that 
she  put  it  on  the  fire,  but  which  Stevenson  had  not 
forgotten  eleven  years  afterwards.  The  paper  ap- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  185 

peared  in  '  Longman's  Magazine,'  May  1884,  and  is 
placed  in  Memories  and  Portraits. 

OLD  PACIFIC  CAPITAL 

This  paper  on  the  little  Californian  town  of  Mon- 
terey (q.v,)  belongs  to  the  most  anxious  time  of 
Stevenson's  life,  the  few  months  which  he  spent  in 
America  before  his  marriage  to  Mrs.  Osbourne.  He 
had  not  shared  his  project  with  his  father,  and  the 
future  held  a  large  element  of  doubt  for  the  discharge 
of  the  financial  responsibilities  to  be  newly  acquired. 
Monterey  at  the  time  of  his  stay  was  on  the  point 
of  losing  the  character  of  capital  of  a  Mexican  pro- 
vince, which  had  long  survived  the  annexation  of 
the  country  by  the  American  Government  in  1846. 
Its  population  remained  mostly  Mexican  and  Indian, 
and  provided  picturesque  accompaniments  to  the 
scenic  features  of  this  coast.  The  religious  cele- 
bration which  R.  L.  S.  describes  with  much  feeling 
supplies  the  reminder  of  its  foundation  by  Franciscan 
missionaries  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but  within  a 
year  or  two  of  the  date  of  the  essay  Monterey  became 
a  fashionable  resort,  and  has  largely  lost  the  Mexican 
primitiveness  which  R.  L.  S.  has  chronicled.  The 
paper  first  appeared  in  '  Fraser's  Magazine,'  Novem- 
ber 1880,  and  is  now  included  in  Across  the  Plains. 

OLD  SCOTCH  GARDENER,  AN 

The  sketch  of  the  gentle  Swanston  gardener, 
written  in  the  first  instance  when  he  was  twenty  for 
the  '  Edinburgh  University  Magazine  '  (March  1871), 
is  the  only  piece  of  his  early  work  which  Stevenson 


186  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

reprinted  after  reaching  an  acknowledged  place  as 
a  writer.  And  in  Memories  and  Portraits,  where  it 
is  purposely  placed  next  to  the  paper  on  the  Pent- 
land  Shepherd,  John  Todd,  he  is  all  apologies  for  it : 
'  The  poor  little  piece  is  all  tail-foremost.  I  have 
done  my  best  to  straighten  its  array,  I  have  pruned 
it  fearlessly,  and  it  remains  invertebrate  and  wordy.' 
The  Biblical  gardener  was  evidently  a  pleasant 
memory  of  Stevenson's  to  the  end  of  his  life,  so  that 
he  must  even  direct  that  in  the  Edinburgh  edition 
John  and  Robert,  namely  the  essay  Pastoral  and 
the  present  paper,  should  not  be  separated. 

ORDERED  SOUTH 

The  only  essay  in  which  R.  L.  S.,  during  his  twenty 
years  of  precarious  health,  wrote  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  invalid.  It  was  written  early  in  1874 
(cet.  24)  at  Mentone  on  his  coming  there  only  a  few 
weeks  before  the  appearance  of  his  first  piece  of 
writing  which  found  a  place  in  a  public  magazine. 
Although  still  contemplating  the  profession  of 
advocate,  the  literary  life  was  just  opening  to  him. 
All  projects,  were,  however,  set  aside  by  his  state 
of  ill-health,  which  Sir  Andrew  Clark  pronounced 
to  be  nervous  exhaustion  and  a  threat  of  phthisis. 
He  was  ordered  to  winter  in  the  Riviera,  and  accord- 
ingly set  out  by  himself  for  Mentone,  where  he  stayed 
six  months.  His  letters  from  there,  though  many  of 
of  them  vivacious,  reflect  now  and  again  the  '  dis- 
couraged spirit '  of  the  seeker  after  health.  The 
essay  appeared  in  '  Macmillan's  Magazine '  for  May 
1874.  That  R.  L.  S.  felt  that  his  homily  needed 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  187 

some  rather  brighter  note  than  resignation  is  shown 
by  the  addition  he  made  to  it  when  including  it  in 
Virginibus  Puerisque  in  1891.  In  the  meantime 
the  essay  The  Stimulation  of  the  Alps,  written  in  very 
similar  circumstances,  had  marked  his  detachment, 
in  all  that  he  afterwards  wrote,  from  his  personal 
infirmities. 

OSBOURNE,  LLOYD  (1868-        ) 

Mr.  Osbourne  was  born  in  1868,  and  so  at  the  time 
of  Stevenson's  marriage  to  his  mother  was  twelve 
years  of  age.  The  society  of  this  young  stepson 
formed  a  new  interest  in  Stevenson's  life  which  was 
very  welcome  to  him,  particularly  in  the  years  of  ill- 
health  which  followed  his  return  from  his  marriage 
visit  to  America.  He  provided  the  occasion  for  inter- 
minable games  of  soldiers  on  the  floor  of  their  Davos 
chalet,  and  for  the  publication  of  the  Davos  Press. 
The  writing  of  Treasure  Island,  as  is  described  in  the 
chapter  in  that  book,  was  undertaken  for  the  amuse- 
ment of  his  stepson  on  a  wet  holiday.  Following  his 
education  at  Bournemouth  and  Edinburgh  Univer- 
sity, the  first  evidence  of  Mr.  Osbourne's  future 
collaboration  with  his  stepfather  is  the  ticking  out 
on  a  typewriter  at  Saranac  of  the  story  afterwards 
published  with  their  two  names  as  The  Wrong  Box. 
Mr.  Osbourne  travelled  with  Stevenson  to  Samoa, 
where  he  became  United  States  Vice-Consul.  His 
share  in  The  Wrecker  and  The  Ebb  Tide  shows  gifts 
as  a  writer  which  are  scarcely  sustained  in  the  novels 
written  after  Stevenson's  death,  such  as  '  Love  the 
Fiddler,'  'The  Renegade,'  'The  Motor  Maniacs,' 


i88  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

and  '  Baby  Bullet/  With  the  exception  of  occa- 
sional introductions  and  commentaries,  his  relations 
with  R.  L.  S.  are  represented  in  print  only  by  a 
chapter  in  '  Memories  of  Vailima '  (London,  Con- 
stable, 1903)  on  '  Mr.  Stevenson's  Home  Life  in 
Vailima.'  Here  he  traces  Stevenson's  standing 
among  the  Samoans,  very  partially,  to  his  reputation 
for  immense  wealth,  chiefly  to  his  observance  of 
Samoan  etiquette,  and  to  his  espousal  of  the  cause 
of  the  native  king,  Mataafa,  in  the  face  of  the 
disapproval  of  the  Great  Powers.  A  half -joking 
character  sketch  of  his  stepson  during  the  last 
year  in  Samoa  is  contained  in  a  letter  of  Steven- 
son's to  Sir  James  Barrie  :  '  Six  foot,  blond,  eye- 
glasses— British  eye-glasses,  too.  Address  varying 
from  an  elaborate  civility  to  a  freezing  haughtiness. 
Decidedly  witty.  Has  seen  an  enormous  amount 
of  the  world.  Keeps  nothing  of  youth,  but  some 
of  its  intolerance.  Unexpected  soft  streak  for  the 
forlorn.  When  he  is  good  he  is  very,  very  good, 
but  when  he  is  cross  he  is  horrid.  Of  Dutch 
ancestry,  and  has  spells  known  in  the  family  as 
"  Cold  blasts  from  Holland."  Exacting  with  the 
boys,  and  yet  they  like  him.  Rather  stiff  with  his 
equals,  but  apt  to  be  very  kindly  with  his  inferiors — 
the  only  undemonstrative  member  of  the  family, 
which  otherwise  wears  its  heart  upon  both  sleeves  ; 
and  except  for  my  purple  patches  the  only  mannered 
one.  Has  tried  to  learn  fifteen  instruments ;  has 
learnt  none,  but  is  willing  to  try  another  to-morrow. 
Signe  particulier ;  when  he  thrums  or  tootles  on 
any  of  these  instruments,  or  even  turns  a  barrel 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  189 

organ,  he  insists  on  public  and  sustained  applause, 
and  the  strange  thing  is  he  doesn't  seem  to  demand 
any  for  his  stories.  This  trait  is  supposed  to  be 
unique.' 

PAN'S  PIPES 

The  romantic  element  hi  R.  L.  S.  eagerly  re- 
sponded to  the  mythical  figure  of  Pan  as  the  god  of 
Nature.  The  essay  shows  enjoyment  of  the  primi- 
tive conception  hi  preference  to  the  cumbrous 
theories  of  science.  The  sense  in  which  he  cherished 
the  idea  is  shown  by  a  passage  from  a  letter,  contem- 
poraneous with  the  writing  of  the  essay  :  '  There  is 
more  sense  in  that  Greek  myth  of  Pan  than  in  any 
other  that  I  recollect  except  the  luminous  Hebrew 
one  of  the  Fall ;  one  of  the  biggest  things  ever  done. 
If  people  would  remember  that  all  religions  are  no 
more  than  representations  of  life,  they  would  find 
them,  as  they  are,  the  best  representations,  licking 
Shakespeare.'  The  essay  was  one  of  the  three  short 
papers  written  in  1878  (cet.  28)  for  the  short-lived 
periodical  '  London '  of  Henley's,  and  is  placed  hi 
Virginibus  Puerisque. 

PASTORAL 

The  companion  essay  of  An  Old  Scotch  Gardener 
(q.v.),  and  thus  placed  next  to  it  hi  Memories  and 
Portraits,  is  of  later  date.  It  was  not  published 
until  1887 — '  Longman's  Magazine,'  April — though 
very  probably  written  earlier.  To  Stevenson's 
friendship  with  the  Pentland  shepherd  may  clearly 
be  traced  the  adventures  of  the  drover  in  S*.  Ives — 


190  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

as  great  a  piece  of  realism  as  any  in  his  writings. 
John  Todd  had  driven  flocks  to  England  in  his 
young  days,  and  it  was  in  the  tales  of  these  travels, 
heard  as  a  boy  in  the  Pentland  Hills,  that  the  chapter 
hi  which  Sim  and  Candlish  guide  St.  Ives  out  of 
Scotland  has  its  origin. 

PAVILION  ON  THE  LINKS,  THE 

The  combined  breadth  of  the  Atlantic  and  the 
American  continent  separates  the  scene  of  this  ab- 
sorbing tale  of  a  wild  bit  of  Scottish  shore — Steven- 
son's first  tale  of  any  length — from  the  spot  where 
it  was  written — Monterey  (q.v.)  on  the  Califomian 
coast.  He  was  almost  without  means,  for  he  had 
not  attempted  to  share  the  project  of  his  marriage 
with  his  father.  His  immediate  future  was  far 
from  certain,  and  he  felt  it  necessary  to  turn  his 
writings  into  money.  To  Henley  he  wrote  :  '  Here- 
with the  Pavilion  on  the  Links,  grand  carpentry  story 
in  nine  chapters,  and  I  should  hesitate  to  say  how 
many  tableaux.  Where  is  it  to  go  ?  God  knows. 
It  is  the  dibbs  that  are  wanted.  It  is  not  so  bad, 
though  I  say  it ;  carpentry,  of  course,  but  not  bad 
at  that ;  and  who  else  can  carpenter  in  England,  now 
that  Wilkie  Collins  is  played  out  ?  .  .  .  I  send  it  to 
you,  as  I  daresay  Payn  will  help,  if  all  else  fails. 
Dibbs  and  speed  are  my  mottoes.'  He  was  after- 
wards astonished  when  Leslie  Stephen  used  it  in 
the  '  Cornhill  Magazine '  (September  and  October 
1880),  but  Sir  Conan  Doyle  in  '  Mr.  Stevenson's 
Methods  in  Fiction/  contributed  to  the  '  National 
Review,'  four  years  before  Stevenson's  death, 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  191 

declared  it  to  be  the  high-water  mark  of  his  genius, 
and  to  be  enough,  without  another  line,  '  to  give  a 
man  a  permanent  place  among  the  great  story-tellers 
of  the  race.'  The  scene  of  the  tale  is  believed  to  be 
Dirleton  in  East  Lothian,  midway  between  Tantallon 
and  Gullane,  familiar  to  Stevenson  as  a  boy,  and 
pictured  even  more  vividly  ten  years  afterwards  in 
Catriona.  In  the  collected  works,  the  Pavilion  is 
included  in  New  Arabian  Nights. 

PENNELL,  JOSEPH  (1860-        ) 

The  artist  and  illustrator  appears  among  Steven- 
son's correspondents  in  reference  to  a  book,  an  illus- 
trated '  Canterbury  Pilgrimage,'  which  he  and  his 
wife  had  dedicated  to  R.  L.  S.  Some  years  previ- 
ously it  had  been  proposed  that  Stevenson  and 
Mr.  Pennell  should  make  a  canoe  voyage  of  the 
Rhone,  from  source  to  mouth,  together.  Stevenson, 
as  Mr.  Pennell  has  said,  gave  up  the  scheme,  since 
it  was  perfectly  certain  they  would  both  be  drowned, 
and  the  only  question  was — where.  Mr.  Pennell's 
high  opinion  of  Stevenson's  amateur  work  as  an 
illustrator  has  already  been  mentioned  in  the  notes 
on  the  Davos  Press  (q.v.). 

PENNY  PLAIN  AND  TWOPENCE  COLOURED,  A 

The  toy  theatre  which  delighted  his  invalid  days 
as  a  Child  of  six,  and  afterwards  absorbed  his  boy- 
hood's pocket  money,  was  a  thing  still  so  real  to  the 
grown-up  Stevenson  that  at  thirty-four  he  could 
write  to  a  correspondent  who  had  sought  his  advice 
on  matters  of  conduct :  '  I  gather  that  you  are  a 


192  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Skeltist ;  now  seriously  that  is  a  good  beginning ; 
there  is  a  deal  of  romance  (cheap)  in  Skelt.  Look 
at  it  well,  you  will  see  much  of  Dickens.  And  even 
Skelt  is  better  than  conscientious  grey  back  gardens, 
and  conscientious  dull,  still  lives.  The  great  lack  of 
art  just  now  is  a  spice  of  life  and  interest;  and  I 
prefer  galvanism  to  acquiescence  in  the  grave.'  At 
the  time  of  writing  the  paper  in  1883  (at.  33)  he  had 
to  regret  that  the  productions  of  Skelt  were  no  longer 
to  be  had.  The  present  writer  recalls  a  set  having 
been  included  in  the  catalogue  of  a  London  auction 
sale,  and  his  disappointment  that  it  was  not  offered. 
Some  Stevensonian  perhaps  had  stolen  a  march  on 
him.  The  paper  first  appeared  in  the  '  Magazine 
of  Art '  (April  1884),  then  edited  by  Henley,  to 
whom  Stevenson  wrote,  apropos  of  the  use  of  illus- 
trations :  '  The  Skelt  will  be  as  like  a  Charles  Lamb 
as  I  can  get  it.  The  writer  should  write,  and  not 
illustrate  pictures,  else  it 's  bosh.'  Most  appro- 
priately it  forms  one  of  the  essays  of  Memories  and 
Portraits. 

PENTLAND  RISING,  THE 

The  first  published  work  of  Stevenson,  written 
when  he  was  sixteen,  celebrated  the  second  centenary 
of  an  event  of  Scottish  history  which  is  so  named 
as  to  give  it  a  closer  association  with  the  Pentland 
country  of  R.  L.  S.  than  is  the  fact.  The  first  rising 
of  the  Covenanting  Presbyterians  against  the  forms 
and  practices  of  the  Church  of  England  which 
Charles  n.  sought  to  impose  by  force  on  the  Scottish 
people  began  in  Galloway,  but  happened  to  end 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  193 

fourteen  days  later  at  Rullion  Green  in  the  Pentland 
Hills,  where  the  Covenanters  were  defeated.  The 
memory  of  these  martyrs  in  the  Covenanting  cause 
is  preserved  by  a  monument  erected  in  1738  in  the 
place  of  their  death  ;  and  in  the  '  Preaching  Field/ 
about  a  mile  away,  a  service  is  held  every  summer  in 
celebration  of  their  fight  for  religious  independence. 
As  a  boy  Stevenson  had  begun  a  tale  of  the  Rising, 
but  on  his  father's  suggestion  the  historical  narrative 
was  written.  A  hundred  copies  were  printed  with- 
out any  statement  of  its  authorship,  but  his  father 
afterwards  bought  in  as  many  as  possible,  so  that 
the  twenty-two-page  pamphlet  in  green  covers  is 
rare,  having  a  value  of  about  £20  among  collectors. 
The  paper  was  not  included  in  the  Edinburgh  edition, 
but  is  now  reprinted  in  the  volume  Lay  Morals. 

PEPYS,  SAMUEL 

The  paper  on  Pepys  was  the  last  of  the  Familiar 
Studies  of  Men  and  Books,  written  at  Davos  in  the 
whiter  of  1880-1  (at.  31),  and  published  first  in  the 
'  Cornhill  Magazine/  July  1881.  Like  the  earlier 
papers  on  Burns,  Thoreau,  and  Villon,  it  leans  more 
towards  a  disparaging  presentation  of  its  subject 
than  is  perhaps  warrantable,  although  Stevenson 
in  the  self-critical  notes  prefaced  to  the  book  thought 
that  he  had  been  '  amply  just '  to  Pepys.  Parts  in 
it  have  been  criticized  as  complete  misinterpretations 
of  particular  passages  hi  the  '  Diary/  And  indeed 
it  may  be  thought  that  whereas  Stevenson  pays  a  full 
tribute  to  Pepys  as  the  diarist  and  the  boyish  enjoyer 
of  life,  he  is  cynically  critical  of  the  disparity  between 

N 


194  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Pepys's  secret  confessions  and  the  professed  respect- 
ability of  his  life.  Here,  as  in  the  case  of  Villon,  any 
injustice  of  the  portrait  arose  from  a  judgment  into 
which  nineteenth-century  standards  had  too  large 
a  part. 

PHILLIPS,  ALFRED  R. 

The  writer  to  whom  Stevenson  refers  in  the  pre- 
face to  The  Black  Arrow,  as  his  rival  for  the  approval 
of  the  readers  of  '  Young  Folks.'  The  preface  was 
written  hi  1888.  Mr.  Phillips  must  have  finished 
many  stories  since  that  time,  but  only  three  of  them 
are  at  present  catalogued  in  the  British  Museum. 
They  are  '  Faust — A  Weird  Story,'  '  Love  and 
Death,'  and  '  A  Fight  for  Fame,'  each  forming  a 
complete  issue  of  the  '  Home  Library  of  Powerful 
Dramatic  Tales,'  published  by  the  same  firm  for 
which  Stevenson  wrote  Treasure  Island,  The  Black 
Arrow,  and  Kidnapped. 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  NOMENCLATURE,  THE 

In  elaborating  the  dictum  in  '  Tristram  Shandy  ' 
that  a  name  inspires  or  depresses  its  owner's  achieve- 
ments, Stevenson  exhibited  that  sense  of  the  fitness 
of  a  name  which  is  among  a  novelist's  qualifications. 
It  is  long  after  this  paper  in  the  '  Edinburgh  Univer- 
sity Magazine,'  April  1871,  that  we  find  him  revelling 
in  the  sound  of  names  like  '  Jerry  Abershaw,' 
'  Ramsay  Traquair,'  and  the  name  he  thought  most 
fitting  to  its  setting,  Mr.  Soulis  of  Balweary  in 
Thrawn  Janet.  The  paper  is  now  published  in  Lay 
Morals. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  195 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  UMBRELLAS,  THE 

The  satirical  quality  of  Stevenson's  humour  has 
its  first  example  in  this  early  paper  contributed  to 
the  '  Edinburgh  University  Magazine/  February 
1871,  and  now  placed  in  Lay  Morals.  Its  gentle  de- 
rision of  the  umbrella  as  the  symbol  of  '  all  those 
homely  and  solid  virtues  implied  in  the  term,  Re- 
spectability/ is  likewise  a  youthful  expression  of  his 
own  practical  philosophy,  which  perhaps  prompted 
him  to  mention  the  paper  for  inclusion  in  the  Edin- 
burgh edition,  for  the  sentiment  of  this  paper  of  his 
twenty-first  year  can  be  traced  continuously  through- 
out his  writings. 

PINERO,  SIR  ARTHUR  WING  (1855-        ) 

A  lecture  delivered  in  Edinburgh  by  Sir  Arthur 
Pinero  in  1903  on  '  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  as  a 
Dramatist '  is  perhaps  the  best  piece  of  criticism  of 
the  plays  in  which  R.  L.  S.  collaborated  with  Henley. 
The  greatest  living  playwright,  like  other  critics, 
can  find  little  to  commend  in  the  Henley-Stevenson 
plays.  Giving  R.  L.  S.  a  larger  share  in  their  merits 
and  defects  than  may  be  thought  just,  he  sees  in 
their  lack  of  stagecraft  Stevenson's  view  of  the  stage 
as  a  game  of  play,  the  '  Penny  Plain  and  Twopence 
Coloured  '  of  his  toy  theatre  days.  Keenly  alive  to 
the  intricate  elements  in  the  making  of  a  piece  of 
literary  art,  he  ignored  the  equally  technical  but 
altogether  distinct  art  required  of  the  playwright. 
Thus  for  all  their  beauty  of  words,  Sir  Arthur  Pinero 
cannot  find  in  the  plays  '  the  beauty  of  dramatic 
fitness  to  the  character  and  the  situation.'  This 


196  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

contribution  to  Stevensonian  criticism  would  not 
be  included  here  but  for  the  fact  that  after  having 
been  privately  printed,  it  has  been  published  by  the 
Dramatic  Museum  of  Columbia  University  (New 
York,  1914)  with  an  introduction  by  Clayton 
Hamilton. 

PINKERTON 

Pinkerton  in  The  Wrecker  had  his  original  in 
S.  S.  McClure,  the  American  publisher,  of  whose 
energetic  and  apparently  random  methods  Stevenson 
had  had  a  glimpse  during  the  few  months  spent  in 
America  on  his  second  visit. 

PLAYS  OF  W.  E.  HENLEY  AND  R.  L.  STEVENSON 

The  volume  thus  titled  and  published  by  Mr. 
Heinemann  in  1896  includes  the  four  pieces  :  Deacon 
Brodie,  Beau  Austin,  Admiral  Guinea,  and  Robert 
Macaire.  Its  present  value  is  about  the  same  as  its 
issue  price,  viz.  los.  6d. 

PRAYERS 

The  prayers  written  in  Samoa  and  used  in  the 
gatherings  of  the  Vailima  family  and  their  native 
servants,  were  first  published  in  the  Edinburgh 
edition,  and  were  issued  separately  in  1905,  with  a 
preface  by  Mrs.  Stevenson.  That  titled  '  Sunday/ 
and  beginning,  '  We  beseech  Thee,  Lord,  to  behold 
us  with  favour  .  .  . '  was  read  at  Stevenson's  burial. 

PREFACE  TO  '  THE  MASTER  OF  BALLANTRAE  ' 

See  '  Master  of  Ballantrae,  The.' 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  197 

PRELUDE 

At  the  head  of  these  verses  belonging  to  his  twenty- 
first  year,  and  of  which  a  courageous  rule  of  life  is 
the  motif,  Stevenson  had  written  :  '  When  first  I 
began  to  take  an  interest  in  the  poor  and  the  sorrow- 
ful/ The  verses  are  among  those  lately  published  in 
New  Poems  and  Variant  Readings. 

PRIDEAUX,  W.  F.  (1840-1914) 

The  late  Colonel  Prideaux,  collector,  bibliophile, 
and  bibliologist,  was  the  author  of  '  A  Bibliography 
of  the  Works  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson/  first  pub- 
lished in  1903,  and  since  his  death  issued  in  a  second 
edition  (London,  Frank  Rollings,  1917),  with  re- 
visions and  additions  by  Mrs.  Luther  S.  Livingston, 
who  is  assistant  librarian  in  the  Harry  Elkins 
Widener  Memorial  Library,  Cambridge,  Mass.  The 
late  Mr.  Widener  possessed  a  great  collection  of  first 
editions  and  rarer  literature  of  Stevenson,  and  was 
a  collaborator  with  Colonel  Prideaux  in  the  first 
compilation  of  the  bibliography. 

PRINCE  OTTO 

Stevenson's  second  longer  work  of  fiction,  and  the 
greatest  imaginable  jump  from  the  buccaneering 
story  of  Treasure  Island  with  which  he  first  came 
before  a  large  public.  Prince  Otto  is  difficult  to 
classify ;  it  is  not,  as  R.  L.  S.  wrote,  '  a  romance, 
nor  yet  a  comedy,  nor  yet  a  romantic  comedy,  but 
a  kind  of  preparation  of  some  of  the  elements  of  all 
these  in  a  glass  jar.'  It  is,  more  than  anything  else, 
a  piece  of  Stevenson's  paradoxical  philosophy 


igS  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

wrought  into  a  story  which,  for  one  thing,  has  a  very 
slender  interest  and,  for  another,  is  all  the  while 
very  near  to  being  overwhelmed  by  the  rich  beauty 
of  its  writing.  Stevenson's  theme  seems  to  be  : 
Let  us  have  done  with  this  artifical  life  of  courts 
which  chokes  a  man's  healthy  tastes,  and  is  a  breed- 
ing ground  for  vanity  and  scandal.  Such  is  the 
interpretation  which  the  story  bears  from  his  de- 
claration to  Henley  that  '  the  romance  lies  precisely 
in  the  freeing  of  two  spirits  from  these  court  in- 
trigues.' The  delicacy  with  which  this  motive  is 
woven  into  the  picture  of  the  affairs  of  Otto  and  his 
princess  may  justify  the  opinion,  often  expressed, 
that  the  book  is  the  touchstone  for  the  true  Steven- 
sonian,  but  it  will  not  deter  the  critical  reader  from 
thinking  it  the  least  successful  of  Stevenson's 
longer  works.  The  great  charm  and  abundance  of 
its  literary  body — perhaps  the  highest  level  of  writ- 
ing, as  writing,  which  Stevenson  reached — over- 
power both  its  moral  basis  and  its  thin  dramatic 
quality.  The  one  needs  to  be  searched  for ;  the 
other  is  never  intense  with  life. 

Stevenson  had  a  technical  reason  to  proffer  for 
the  unreality  of  Prince  Otto,  viz.,  unsteadiness  of  key. 
It  was  this,  as  he  wrote  to  an  American  friend, 
C.  W.  Stoddard,  '  which  spoils  the  book,  and  often 
gives  it  a  wanton  air  of  unreality  and  juggling  with 
air-bells.'  Its  defect  comes  '  from  the  too  great 
realism  of  some  chapters  and  passages — some  of 
which  I  have  now  spotted,  others  I  daresay  I  shall 
never  spot — which  disprepares  the  reader  for  the 
cast  of  the  remainder.  Any  story  can  be  made  true 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  199 

in  its  own  key  ;  any  story  can  be  made  false  by  the 
choice  of  a  wrong  key  of  detail  or  style.  Otto  is 
made  to  reel  like  a  drunken — I  was  going  to  say  man, 
but  let  us  substitute  cipher — by  the  variations  of 
the  key.' 

A  further  explanation  is  that,  unlike  his  finest 
longer  works  which  were  begun  and  finished  within 
a  few  months,  Prince  Otto  was  in  Stevenson's  mind 
for  years.  Originally  it  was  a  play  '  Semiramis  '  in 
blank  verse,  belonging  to  his  very  young  days,  when 
many  lengthy  manuscripts  were  finished  and  de- 
stroyed. At  Monterey  in  1879,  as  he  tells  in  the  de- 
dication, he  had  drafted  the  story  in  brief.  Its  title 
then  was  The  Forest  State,  afterwards  The  Greenwood 
State ;  and  a  letter  written  to  Henley  from  San 
Francisco  early  in  the  next  year  shows  that  scenes 
and  characters  were  then  fully  planned.  It  was  put 
aside  until  the  spring  of  1883  (eet.  33)  at  Hyeres, 
when,  after  three  months  of  serious  ill-health,  he 
took  it  up  with  vigour.  It  made  progress  through  a 
summer  of  reasonably  good  health,  was  delayed  by 
two  almost  fatal  illnesses  hi  the  following  year,  and 
was  not  finally  completed  until  after  leaving  Hyeres 
for  Bournemouth  in  the  latter  part  of  1884.  We 
have  it  from  Sir  Graham  Balfour  that  the  work  hung 
fire  hi  Stevenson's  hands  at  the  point  where  the 
Countess  Von  Rosen  takes  her  part  in  the  affairs  of 
the  Prince  and  Princess,  and  that  R.  L.  S.  re-wrote 
these  chapters  eight  times  before  they  satisfied  him. 
He  might  well  say  to  his  friend  Low  that  the  book 
'  had  been  long  gestated,  and  is  wrought  with  care,' 
but  the  admission  is  significant  of  the  difference 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

between  Prince  Otto  and  books  like  Treasure 
Island  and  Kidnapped  which  came  freely  from 
his  hand. 

On  the  characters,  R.  L.  S.  in  a  letter  to  Lloyd 
Osbourne,  declared  that  Otto  was  drawn  from  his 
cousin  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson.  The  portrait,  it  would 
seem,  is  only  of  R.  A.  M.'s  surprising  doublings  and 
twistings  in  friendly  controversy,  and  no  more  a 
full  picture  than  is  the  pirate  Silver  one  of  W.  E. 
Henley.  A  single  trait  in  a  friend  was  material 
enough  for  Stevenson  in  creating  a  character  by  a 
process  of  transplantation.  The  same  method  no 
doubt  explains  his  confession  that  the  demi-rep 
Countess  von  Rosen  had  her  original  in  the  very 
charming  Russian  lady,  Mdme.  Zassetsky,  to  whom 
Stevenson  was  indebted  for  much  kindness  during 
the  months  of  his  first  invalidism  at  Men  tone.  The 
Countess,  the  most  living  figure  in  the  Dresden- 
China  world  of  Griinewald,  was,  according  to  R.  L.  S., 
one  of  the  only  two  women  character  parts  which 
had  pleased  him  —  an  opinion  given  before  the 
younger  and  elder  Kirsties  in  Weir  of  Hermiston  had 
formed  themselves  hi  his  mind. 

Prince  Otto  was  published  in  '  Longman's  Maga- 
zine,' April  to  October  1885,  and  in  book  form  by 
Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windus  in  November  of  the 
same  year.  It  met  with  no  particular  favour,  and 
Stevenson  himself  records  one  paper  accepting  it  as 
a  child's  book,  and  another  describing  it  as  a  Gilbert 
Comedy.  Copies  of  the  first  edition  are  scarce  and 
realize  about  £11.  The  book  has  been  dramatized 
on  at  least  two  occasions,  and  exists  in  a  notable 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  201 

French  translation  by  Mr.   Egerton  Castle   (John 
Lane,  1896). 

PROVIDENCE  AND  THE  GUITAR 

The  delightful  vignette  from  the  fortunes  of  a  pair 
of  strolling  actors  had  its  originals  in  real  life. 
M.  Leon  Berthelini,  whose  real  (or  perhaps  stage) 
name  has  been  given  as  De  Vauversin,  lodged  for  a 
while  with  his  Bulgarian  wife  in  the  kitchen  of 
Siron's  inn  at  Barbizon  when  R.  L.  S.  was  there. 
Their  poverty,  as  in  the  story,  had  a  more  pathetic 
side  to  it  than  the  boorishness  of  Commissaries  of 
Police  and  inn-keepers.  Their  only  child  had  to  be 
left  in  the  charge  of  a  peasant  woman  while  they 
were  upon  their  travels  ;  it  had  come  by  a  fall,  and 
was  a  hunchback.  The  picture  is  one  after  Steven- 
son's heart — the  almost  penniless  actor  unruffled 
amidst  his  misfortunes,  and  returning  the  contumely 
of  brutish  officials  in  the  grand  manner  of  the  Count 
Almaviva  of  Beaumarchais'  '  Marriage  of  Figaro.' 
The  story  was  written  in  1878  (at.  28),  when,  staying 
at  Cambridge  with  his  friend  Colvin,  and  on  its 
publication  in  '  London,'  November  2  to  23,  1878, 
Stevenson  sent  the  money  he  received  for  it  to  the 
'  Berthelinis.'  In  the  collected  works  the  story  is 
placed  in  New  Arabian  Nights. 

PULVIS  ET  UMBRA 

'  A  Darwinian  sermon,'  Stevenson  wrote,  he  might 
have  called  this  paper  in  which,  while  accepting  the 
doctrines  of  Darwin  which  then  agitated  the  religious 
world,  he  sought  to  affirm  a  moral  motive  running 


202  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

through  the  darkest  chapters  of  creation,  to  be  de- 
tected in  the  lowest  specimens  of  mankind.  In  its 
large  phrases  and  terrific  effect  it  marks  the  change 
of  his  mind  to  the  more  serious  cast  which  his  friends 
observed  in  him  after  the  long  succession  of  illnesses 
which  finally  drove  him  to  America  in  1887.  It 
was  written  soon  after  his  arrival  there  (cet.  37)  for 
the  Scribner  series,  and  of  it  he  wrote  :  '  It  is  true, 
and  I  find  it  touching  and  beneficial  to  me  at  least.' 
And  afterwards  when  the  paper  was  published  he 
sent  a  characteristic  letter  to  a  close  friend  (a  lady) 
in  England,  whose  feelings,  he  feared,  might  be 
hurt  by  it.  To  her  he  wrote  :  '  But  I  find  that  to 
some  people  this  vision  of  mine  is  a  nightmare,  and 
extinguishes  all  ground  of  faith  in  God  or  pleasure 
in  man.  .  .  .  And  I  could  wish  in  my  heart  that  I 
had  not  published  this  paper  if  it  troubles  folk  too 
much  ;  all  have  not  the  same  digestion  nor  the  same 
sight  of  things.  .  .  .  But  yet  I  may  add  this  :  if  my 
view  be  everything  but  the  nonsense  that  it  may  be 
— to  me  it  seems  self-evident  and  blinding  truth — 
surely  of  all  things  it  makes  this  world  holier.  There 
is  nothing  in  it  but  the  moral  side — but  the  great  battle 
and  the  breathing  times  with  their  refreshments.  I 
see  no  more  and  no  less.  And  if  you  look  again, 
it  is  not  ugly,  and  it  is  filled  with  promise/ 

The   paper   appeared  hi   '  Scribner's   Magazine,' 
April  1888,  and  is  placed  in  Across  the  Plains. 

RAEBURN,  SOME  PORTRAITS  BY 

The  appreciation  of  the  work  of  the  Scottish  artist, 
written  in  1876  (cet.  26),  on  the  occasion  of  an  ex- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  203 

hibition  of  his  portraits  in  Edinburgh,  is  one  of  the 
very  few  papers  which  had  to  wait  for  publication 
in  book  form.  It  was  successively  declined  by  the 
'  Comhill  Magazine/  the  '  Pall  Mall  Gazette,'  and 
'  Blackwood's  Magazine/  and  was  reserved  for  in- 
clusion in  Virginibus  Puerisque,  where  it  is  the  least 
in  key  with  the  other  essays  of  that  volume.  The 
paper  is  notable  for  the  superlative  interest  it  dis- 
plays in  the  Scots  judge,  Lord  Braxfield,  long  after- 
wards the  original  of  Weir  ofHermiston.  In  a  letter 
written  two  days  before  his  death  Stevenson  ac- 
knowledged receiving  from  Edinburgh  an  engraving 
'  from  that  same  Raeburn  portrait  that  I  saw  in  '76 
or  '77  with  so  extreme  a  gusto  that  I  have  ever  since 
been  Braxfield's  humble  servant.' 

RALEIGH,  SIR  WALTER  (1861-        ) 

The  two  elements  in  Stevenson's  writings,  style 
and  romance,  are  specially  the  subject  of  a  warm 
appreciation  by  the  present  Professor  of  English 
Literature  at  Oxford  University.  His  essay,  pub- 
lished as  '  Robert  Louis  Stevenson '  by  Edwin 
Arnold  in  1895,  was  the  first  literary  judgment  of 
Stevenson's  whole  work,  and  has  lost  nothing  of  its 
value  as  a  study  of  the  qualities  in  which  Stevenson's 
writings  are  pre-eminent. 

RANDOM  MEMORIES 

Under  this  title  are  issued  the  papers  on  Fife  and 
on  the  Education  of  an  Engineer  in  Across  the  Plains, 
and  the  later  piece,  Rosa  quo  Locorum  included  in 
Essays  of  Travel. 


204  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

REALISM,  A  NOTE  ON 

This  paper  on  the  difference  between  realism  and 
idealism  in  literature,  which  Stevenson  regarded  as 
one  purely  of  detail,  was  written  at  Hyeres  hi  1883 
(at.  33)  for  the  '  Magazine  of  Art,'  where  it  appeared 
in  November  of  the  same  year.  '  I  have  written  a 
breathless  note  on  Realism  for  Henley ;  a  fifth  part 
of  the  subject  hurriedly  touched.'  '  Realism,'  he 
continued  hi  the  same  letter  to  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson, 
'  I  regard  as  a  mere  question  of  method.  .  .  .  Real 
art,  whether  ideal  or  realistic,  addresses  precisely  the 
same  feeling,  and  seeks  the  same  qualities — signi- 
ficance or  charm.  And  the  same — very  same — in- 
spiration is  only  methodically  differentiated  accord- 
ing as  the  artist  is  an  arrant  realist  or  an  arrant 
idealist.  Each,  by  his  own  method,  seeks  to  save 
and  perpetuate  the  same  significance  or  charm ; 
the  one  by  suppressing,  the  other  by  forcing  detail. 
.  .  .  All  other  realism  is  not  art  at  all — but  not  at 
all.  It  is  then  an  insincere  and  showy  handicraft.' 
The  paper  is  now  included  in  The  Art  of  Writing. 

REFLECTIONS  AND  REMARKS  ON  HUMAN  LIFE 

The  paragraphs  which  make  up  this  rather  mis- 
cellaneous chapter  on  morals  were  apparently 
written  (not  with  the  idea  of  their  publication)  at 
considerable  intervals  of  time.  At  any  rate  they 
are  not  directly  related  to  one  another.  Their  time 
of  writing  is  not  exactly  known ;  apparently  it  was 
about  1878  (cet.  28).  The  paragraphs  are  labelled: 
Justice  and  Justification ;  Parent  and  Child ; 
Solitude  and  Society ;  Selfishness  and  Egoism ; 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  205 

Right  and  Wrong ;  Discipline  of  Conscience  ; 
Gratitude  to  God ;  Blame ;  Marriage  ;  Idleness 
and  Industry ;  Courage ;  Results  of  Action. 
Placed  among  them  is  the  fragment,  written  at 
Monterey,  1879,  Dialogue  on  Character  and  Destiny 
between  Two  Puppets,  in  which  in  the  form  of  a  fable, 
Stevenson  debates  free-will  and  predestination.  It 
is  the  passage  labelled  '  Selfishness  and  Egoism/ 
which  was  singled  out  by  Henley  in  his  bitter  review 
of  the  Life  of  Stevenson  as  holding  up  the  pattern 
of  Stevenson  himself  :  '  An  unconscious,  easy,  selfish 
person  shocks  less,  and  is  more  easily  loved  than  one 
who  is  laboriously  and  egotistically  unselfish. 
There  is  at  least  no  fuss  about  the  first ;  but  the 
other  parades  his  sacrifices,  and  so  sells  his  favours 
too  dear.  Selfishness  is  calm,  a  force  of  nature ; 
you  might  say  the  trees  were  selfish.  But  egoism  is 
a  piece  of  vanity ;  it  must  always  take  you  into  its 
confidence  ;  it  is  uneasy,  troublesome,  seeking  ;  it 
can  do  good,  but  not  handsomely ;  it  is  uglier 
because  less  dignified  than  selfishness  itself.  But 
here  I  perhaps  exaggerate  to  myself,  because  I  am 
the  one  more  than  the  other,  and  feel  it  like  a  hook 
in  my  mouth  at  every  step  I  take.  Do  what  I  will 
this  seems  to  spoil  all/  The  fragment  was  first 
published  in  the  Edinburgh  edition,  and  is  not  cur- 
rently issued. 

RETROSPECT,  A 

This  fragment,  written  on  a  visit  to  Dunoon  in 
1870  (at.  20),  is  one  of  the  earliest  of  Stevenson's 
writings  which  express  his  clear-eyed  recollection 


206  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

of  his  childhood,  the  real  way  in  which  he  lived  again 
and  enjoyed  the  past.  He  loves  Hazlitt  for  this 
community  in  their  experiences,  and  uses  the  words 
which  have  since  become  the  symbol  of  one  side  of 
his  personality — '  Et  ego  in  Arcadia  vixi.'  The 
fragment  was  not  published  until  its  inclusion  in  the 
Edinburgh  edition. 

RICE,  RICHARD  ASHLEY  (1878-        ) 

Professor  of  English  Literature  at  Smith  College, 
United  States,  and  author  of  '  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son :  How  to  know  him  '  (Indianapolis,  The  Bobbs- 
Merrill  Company,  1916),  a  very  understanding  study 
of  Stevenson's  personality  and  writings.  Mr.  Rice 
takes  Stevenson's  books  as  a  true  mirror  of  his  life, 
the  best  of  them  corresponding  with  the  best  of  his 
hopes,  and  in  thus  placing  the  phases  of  his  tempera- 
ment and  the  circumstances  of  his  career  year  by 
year  against  his  writings  produces  a  work  which  is 
a  very  penetrating  character  sketch,  as  well  as  a 
most  discerning  piece  of  literary  criticism.  In  the 
latter  respect  it  may  well  take  the  place  of  the 
volume  of  Mr.  L.  Cope  Cornford  (q.v.),  now  out  of 
print. 

ROADS 

The  first  piece  of  writing  for  which  R.  L.  S.  received 
payment  in  the  ordinary  way  from  a  magazine.  The 
essay,  which  commends  the  quiet,  undistinguished 
landscape,  and  points  the  mental  enjoyment  of 
journeying  here  and  there  along  country  roadways, 
was  planned  whilst  on  the  visit  to  a  cousin,  Mrs. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  207 

Churchill  Babington,  at  Cockfield  Rectory,  near 
Bury  St.  Edmunds  hi  1873  (set.  23),  which  was 
memorable  as  his  first  meeting  with  his  lifelong 
friend  Colvin  (now  Sir  Sidney  Colvin)  and  his  wife, 
then  Mrs.  Sitwell.  In  Mrs.  Sitwell  he  found  a  most 
sympathetic  adviser  in  the  conflicting  circumstances 
of  his  life.  Thus  on  his  return  to  Edinburgh  it  is  to 
her  that  he  writes  :  '  I  have  finished  Roads  to-day, 
and  send  it  off  for  you  to  see.  The  Lord  knows 
whether  it  is  worth  anything  —  some  of  it  pleases 
me  a  good  deal,  but  I  fear  it  is  quite  unfit  for  any 
possible  magazine.  However,  I  wish  you  to  see  it, 
as  you  know  the  humour  in  which  it  was  conceived, 
walking  alone  and  very  happily  about  the  Suffolk 
highways  and  byways  on  several  splendid  sunny 
afternoons.  ...  I  have  looked  over  Roads  again, 
and  am  aghast  at  its  feebleness.' 

The  essay  was  published  in  the  '  Portfolio,' 
December  1873,  then  edited  by  P.  G.  Hamerton, 
and  signed  '  L.  S.  Stoneven.'  This  was  the  only 
pseudonym  ever  used  by  Stevenson,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  '  Captain  George  North '  employed  for 
Treasure  Island  and  The  Black  Arrow  on  their  serial 
publication.  The  paper  is  now  included  hi  editions 
of  Essays  of  Travel.  Its  class  of  subject— outdoor 
effects  and  scenes — is  one  on  which  Stevenson  first 
chiefly  practised  his  literary  art — with  great  advan- 
tage to  the  charm  of  his  later  works  of  incident 
and  romance.  The  reference  in  the  essay  to  the 
engineer  who  followed  Hogarth's  line  of  beauty  in 
laying  down  a  road  is  to  its  author's  grandfather, 
Robert  Stevenson  (q.v.). 


208  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

ROB  AND  BEN;    OR  THE  PIRATE  AND  THE 
APOTHECARY 

See  '  Davos  Press.' 

RODIN,  AUGUSTS  (1840-1917) 

Stevenson  was  introduced  to  the  French  sculptor 
by  Henley  on  a  short  visit  from  Bournemouth  to 
Paris  in  1886,  and  appears  immediately  to  have 
formed  as  great  an  admiration  of  the  man  as  of  the 
artist.  His  letter  acknowledging  the  gift  of  a  cast 
of  '  Le  Printemps,'  which  Rodin  had  sent  him,  is  in 
a  vein  of  warm  regard.  A  group  of  Rodin's  was 
among  the  few  works  of  art  which  he  carried  to 
Samoa,  from  which  it  may  be  thought  that,  at  a  time 
when  Rodin  had  still  to  receive  the  appreciation  of 
English  critics,  Stevenson  shared  all  Henley's  en- 
thusiasm of  his  genius. 

ROMANCE,  A  GOSSIP  ON 

Although  passages  in  this  paper  expressly  contra- 
dict the  statement,  Stevenson's  conception  of  ro- 
mance was  adventure — moving  incidents,  threatened 
dangers  or  hidden  treasure.  His  tales  all  correspond 
with  this  interpretation  and,  if  he  perceived  other 
forms  of  romance,  they  lay  outside  the  models  which 
he  had  cherished  from  childhood.  He  was  not  en- 
tirely joking  when  he  wrote  to  Cosmo  Monkhouse  : 
'  To  confess  plainly,  I  had  intended  to  spend  my 
life  (or  any  leisure  I  might  have  from  piracy  upon 
the  high  seas)  as  the  leader  of  a  great  horde  of 
irregular  cavalry,  devastating  whole  valleys.  I  can 
still,  looking  back,  see  myself  in  many  favourite 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  209 

attitudes  :  signalling  for  a  boat  from  my  pirate  ship 
with  a  pocket  handkerchief,  I  at  the  jetty  end,  and 
one  or  two  of  my  bold  blades  keeping  the  crowd  at 
bay ;  or  else  turning  in  the  saddle  to  look  back  at 
my  whole  command  (some  five  thousand  strong) 
following  me  at  the  hand  gallop  up  the  road  out  of 
the  burning  valley  ;  this  last  by  moonlight.'  With 
this  intense,  if  unconscious,  personal  bias  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  paper  was  hard  writing.  To 
Henley,  who  appears  to  have  suggested  the  subject, 
he  wrote  :  '  I  have  certainly  been  a  fortnight  over 
this  Romance,  sometimes  five  hours  a  day  ;  and  yet 
it  is  about  my  usual  length — eight  pages  or  so — and 

would  be  a  d d  sight  better  for  another  curry 

.  .  .  it  is  all  loose  ends  ;  if  ever  I  do  my  book  on  the 
Art  of  Literature  I  shall  gather  them  together  and 
be  clear.'  The  paper  appeared  in  '  Longman's 
Magazine/  November  1882,  and  is  included  in 
Memories  and  Portraits, 

ROSA  QUO  LOCORUM 

This  unfinished  paper  is  a  piece  of  Stevenson's 
literary  autobiography  in  its  reminiscences  of  the 
imagery  which,  as  an  infant,  he  created  for  himself 
from  the  simple  lines  of  the  metrical  version  of  the 
Psalms  read  to  him  by  his  nurse.  By  '  Cummy,' 
too,  he  had  read  to  him,  '  Robinson  Crusoe/  The 
Swiss  Family  Robinson/  and  Captain  Mayne  Reid, 
the  latter,  it  may  be  thought,  with  some  expurgation 
of  dialogue.  On  account  of  the  opinion  expressed 
in  the  paper  of  Stevenson's  order  of  preference  for 
Scott's  novels  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  it  was  written 
o 


2io  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

about  1891  (at.  41).  It  was  not  published  until  in- 
cluded in  the  Edinburgh  edition,  and  is  now  placed  in 
Essays  of  Travel. 

ST.  GAUDENS,  AUGUSTUS  (1848-1907) 

The  Irish-American  sculptor  was  a  student  of  his 
art  in  Paris,  and  a  friend  of  Mr.  Will  H.  Low  during 
the  years  that  Stevenson  was  making  his  flying  visits 
to  the  latter  hi  the  capital  and  at  Barbizon.  But 
R.  L.  S.  and  St.  Gaudens  did  not  meet  until  Steven- 
son's arrival  in  America  in  1887,  when  the  sculptor 
immediately  became  a  devoted  admirer,  and  within 
the  few  weeks  which  elapsed  before  Stevenson  de- 
parted to  the  Saranac  sanatorium  made  the  medallion 
of  him  which  afterwards  in  a  modified  form  was 
chosen  for  the  memorial  in  St.  Giles's,  Edinburgh. 
Originally  the  design  was  circular,  and  the  inscrip- 
tion was  the  lines  beginning  '  Youth  now  flees  on 
feathered  foot '  (No.  XI.  of  Underwoods),  which 
Stevenson  had  sent  to  Mr.  Low  in  acknowledgment 
of  a  dedication  of  an  illustrated  edition  of  Keats's 
'  Lamia.'  In  the  production  of  the  memorial  these 
verses  were  replaced  (according  to  Mr.  Low,  at  the 
dictation  of  the  Church  authorities)  by  the  words 
of  one  of  the  Prayers  written  by  Stevenson  at  Vailima. 

ST.  IVES 

This  tale  of  adventure,  for  the  most  part  in  a  strain 
of  romantic  comedy,  belongs  to  the  last  two  years  of 
Stevenson's  life.  If  in  respect  to  any  of  his  writings 
it  were  wished,  by  seizing  on  phrases,  to  convict 
him  out  of  his  own  mouth  of  having  been  guilty  of  a 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  211 

'  pot  boiler/  St.  Ives  is  the  book.  '  A  mere  story/ 
he  wrote  to  Barrie,  '  to  tickle  gudgeons  and  make 
money  for  a  harmless  family/  The  sentiment  is  so 
unlike  R.  L.  S.,  is  so  out  of  tune  with  his  lifelong 
effort  to  give  the  world  only  the  best  of  his  art,  that 
it  is  felt  there  must  have  been  something  in  his  cir- 
cumstances to  account  for  the  lowering  of  his  stan- 
dard which  the  phrase  implies.  A  reading  of  his 
letters,  and  particularly  those  to  his  closest  friends 
written  during  these  last  two  years,  discloses  here 
and  there  a  state  of  despondency  and  anxiety  such 
as  had  been  foreign  to  his  temperament  until  this 
time.  Although  on  the  whole  his  health  in  Samoa 
had  been  marvellously  better  than  in  Europe, 
recurrences  of  illness  showed  how  insecure  was  his 
tenure  of  life  ;  a  sense  of  failing  power  in  his  work 
could  not  be  dispelled,  and,  like  Dickens  and 
Thackeray,  he  was  concerned  to  make  provisions  for 
his  family.  These  things  plainly  coloured  the  view 
which  Stevenson  took  of  St.  Ives  at  a  later  stage,  but 
as  the  book  remained  unfinished  at  his  death,  the 
ultimate  fate  which  it  might  have  suffered,  had  he 
lived  to  deal  with  it,  can  only  be  a  matter  for  con- 
jecture. 

At  any  rate  St.  Ives  was  embarked  on  as  '  a  huge 
alleviation  '  of  an  attack  of  influenza  in  January 
1893.  As  a  relief  from  the  physical  labour  of  writing, 
the  plan  was  then  adopted,  for  the  first  time,  of 
dictating  the  story  to  his  stepdaughter,  Mrs.  Strong, 
who  for  a  year  or  two  had  acted  as  his  amanuensis. 
In  this  way  '  Anne/  as  the  story  was  called  be- 
tween them,  made  rapid  progress  at  its  beginning, 


212  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Stevenson  on  some  days  dictating  throughout  the 
fore-  and  afternoon  from  notes  made  by  lamplight 
in  the  early  morning.  Mrs.  Strong  in  '  Vailima 
Memories/  relates  his  unconscious  acting  of  the 
parts  of  his  characters,  bowing  and  twisting  his 
moustache  as  he  delivered  the  lines  of  St.  Ives  in 
the  scene  at  Swanston  cottage  where  he  is  enter- 
tained after  his  escape.  Then,  a  fortnight  later, 
the  threatening  of  a  haemorrhage  stopped  '  Anne's ' 
progress.  Forbidden  to  speak  or  write  more  than  a 
word  or  two  R.  L.  S.  pencils  on  a  slate  :  '  Allow  me 
to  introduce  Mr.  Dumbley.'  To  keep  the  story  going 
'  Anne '  was  then  spelt  out  by  Stevenson  on  his 
fingers,  and  at  this  snail's  pace  during  several  days 
some  pages  added  to  the  manuscript.  Yet  with  the 
return  of  better  health  it  made  slow  progress ; 
Stevenson  seems  to  have  felt  a  loss  of  command 
over  the  narrative  after  St.  Ives,  in  Chapter  X.,  had 
left  Scotland,  and  to  add  to  his  troubles,  early  in  the 
following  year  he  had  to  '  change  the  first  half  of  it 
from  top  to  bottom.'  The  late  arrival  of  a  book 
from  Edinburgh  showed  that  he  had  got  the  dress 
of  his  characters  all  wrong.  '  How  could  I  have 
dreamed  the  French  prisoners  were  watched  over 
like  a  female  charity  school,  kept  hi  a  grotesque 
livery,  and  shaved  twice  a  week.  And  I  had  made 
all  my  points  on  the  idea  that  they  were  unshaved 
and  clothed  anyhow.' 

Still  the  book  failed  to  satisfy  its  author  :  '  It  is 
a  mere  tissue  of  adventures  ;  the  central  figure  not 
very  well  or  very  sharply  drawn  ;  no  philosophy, 
no  destiny.  ...  If  it  has  a  merit  to  it,  I  should  say 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  213 

it  was  a  sort  of  deliberation  and  swing  to  the  style 
which  seems  to  me  to  suit  the  mail  coaches  and  post- 
chaises  with  which  it  sounds  all  through.  .  .  .  'Tis 
my  most  prosaic  book/  In  this  mood  the  story  was 
persevered  in  within  hearing  of  the  gunfire  from 
the  warships  which  were  then  bombarding  Samoan 
'  rebels '  into  submission.  Mrs.  Strong  tells  how 
in  the  middle  of  the  chapter  of  the  claret-coloured 
chaise  a  body  of  chiefs  arrived  to  express  their  thanks 
for  the  liberation  from  prison,  which  they  owed  to 
Stevenson,  and  to  insist,  as  a  sign  of  their  gratitude, 
on  the  making  of  the  road  ('  of  the  Loving  Heart ') 
which  soon  afterwards  formed  an  approach  to  the 
Vailima  estate.  It  is  perhaps  not  surprising  that, 
with  war  at  his  doors  and  feeling  ill-content  with  the 
story,  Stevenson  should  have  put  St.  Ives  aside.  It 
was  not  touched  again,  for  with  a  revulsion  of  energy 
he  turned  again  to  Weir  ofHermiston,  in  which  during 
the  last  two  months  of  his  life,  he  found  himself 
suddenly  at  his  highest  level  of  inspiration. 

The  beginning  of  the  story,  the  escape  of  St.  Ives 
from  the  Castle  of  Edinburgh,  very  probably  came 
into  Stevenson's  mind,  as  Mr.  Neil  Munro  has  sug- 
gested, from  his  recollection  of  a  paper  in  an  old 
volume  of  '  Chambers's  Miscellany.'  This  is  a  trans- 
lation from  the  French  of  a  '  Story  of  a  French 
Prisoner  hi  England,'  in  which  the  incidents — a  duel, 
the  descent  from  the  Castle  Rock — are  those  of 
Stevenson's  opening  of  the  tale.  In  taking  his  hero 
then  to  the  Pentland  Hills,  he  was  re-visiting  the 
most  familiar  scenes  of  his  boyhood.  Swanston 
Cottage,  as  everybody  knows,  was  his  country  home. 


214  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

The  Hunter's  Tryst  was  at  the  period  of  the  story 
the  meeting-place  of  the  Sixfoot  Club  by  which 
St.  Ives  was  hospitably  received.  Scott  and  Hogg 
(the  Ettrick  Shepherd)  were  among  its  frequenters. 
Another  picture  of  the  Edinburgh  life  of  the 
time  is  brightly  painted  in  the  escapades  of  the 
mock  university  of  Cramond,  then  a  solitary  vil- 
lage on  the  Firth  of  Forth,  but  now  almost  joined 
to  Edinburgh  by  houses  and  railway.  As  pictures 
of  places  these  are  the  best  parts  of  the  book.  The 
journeys  which  St.  Ives  makes  in  England  have  not 
the  same  air  of  realism,  for  Stevenson  knew  the 
English  country-side  only  enough  for  it  to  appear 
'  foreign  '  in  his  Scottish  eyes,  and  was  just  as  little 
at  home  in  his  drawing  of  the  rustic  Rawley,  whose  in- 
cessant small  talk  is  the  least  real  thing  hi  the  story. 

But  St.  Ives  is  unique  among  his  books  in  revealing 
Stevenson's  command  of  pathos.  Nowhere  else, 
except  in  one  or  two  essays,  has  he  sought  to  invoke 
the  feelings  which  are  stirred  by  the  figure  of  the  old 
French  colonel  who  has  broken  his  parole  in  the 
hope  of  standing  by  the  bedside  of  his  dying 
daughter.  No  more  than  a  sketch,  it  ranks  hi 
tenderness  of  feeling  with  the  familiar  masterpieces 
of  its  kind  in  Thackeray  and  Sterne. 

52.  Ives,  completed  by  Sir  A.  Quiller-Couch,  ap- 
peared first  in  the  '  Pall  Mall  Magazine,'  (November 
1896  to  November  1897),  and  was  first  published  in 
book  form  by  Mr.  Heinemann  in  1897. 

SALVINI'S  MACBETH 

A  review  of  the  performance  of  the  Italian  actor 
in  Edinburgh  was  contributed  to  the  '  Academy/ 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  215 

April  15,  1876  (cet.  26),  and  is  now  included  in  the 
volume  Lay  Morals.  Stevenson's  interest  in  the 
drama  came  largely  from  his  friendship  with  Fleem- 
ing  Jenkin,  and  the  memoir  on  Jenkin  quotes  the 
latter's  criticism  of  this  review  in  the  words  :  '  You 
were  thinking  of  yourself,  not  of  SalvimV  It  is  the 
only  work  in  dramatic  criticism  which  can  be  as- 
cribed to  Stevenson. 

SAMOA 

Stevenson  first  reached  Apia  on  the  island  of 
Upolu  of  the  Samoan  Group  in  the  '  Equator '  in 
December  1889,  and  then  purchased  the  estate  of 
300  acres  below  Mt.  Vaea,  which  he  made  his  home. 
Yet  he  did  not  settle  there  until  his  return  from  the 
cruise  hi  the  '  Janet  Nicoll '  towards  the  end  of  the 
following  year.  Then  for  six  months  he  and  his 
wife  lived  in  a  four-roomed  house  while  Vailima 
was  building,  entering  on  their  occupation  in  April 
1891.  The  house  was  built  three  miles  inland  from 
Apia,  and  600  feet  above  the  sea,  its  site  being  so 
chosen  that  no  building  lower  down  could  deface 
the  prospect  of  forest  and  sea.  The  name  given  to  it 
by  Stevenson  and  denoting  '  Five  Waters '  in  the 
Samoan  language,  was  chosen  in  reference  to  a 
stream  and  its  four  tributaries,  which  within  the 
borders  of  the  estate  provided  a  bathing  pool  and 
a  fall  of  some  magnitude.  The  house  was  built 
of  wood  painted  green  with  a  roof  of  galvanized 
iron,  and  in  its  completed  state — it  was  enlarged 
towards  the  end  of  1892 — contained  the  large  hall 
lined  with  Californian  redwood,  which  was  the  scene 


216  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

of  many  balls,  dinners,  and  other  entertainments, 
now  to  visitors,  such  as  officers  from  an  English  or 
American  warship,  now  to  native  chieftains  and  their 
families.  It  was  here  that  he  died  (December  3, 
1894).  Stevenson's  own  room  was  an  enclosure  of 
part  of  the  twelve-foot  verandah,  which  on  two  sides 
of  the  house  extended  from  the  upper  and  lower 
floors,  furnished  with  military  bareness,  and  com- 
municating with  the  library. 

The  house  was  reached  from  Apia  for  the  first  mile 
by  a  carriage  road,  and  thence,  when  Stevenson 
first  settled  there,  by  a  mere  foot-track  in  the  very 
partially  cleared  forest  between  it  and  the  town. 
The  track  was  improved  into  semblance  of  a  road, 
but  never  to  the  degree  of  dispensing  with  the  pack- 
horses  by  which  all  goods  were  brought  to  the  estab- 
lishment. The  last  portion  of  it  was  afterwards 
replaced  by  the  Road  of  the  Loving  Heart,  made  by 
chiefs  of  Mataafa's  party,  in  gratitude  for  Steven- 
son's efforts  towards  their  release  from  prison.  The 
estate  gained  by  this  primitive  route  was  a  place  of 
almost  unbroken  stillness,  closely  bordered  by  virgin 
forest,  and  far  enough  above  the  sea  to  subdue  the 
noise  of  the  surf  on  the  beach.  His  burial-place  on 
the  summit  of  Mt.  Vaea  is  a  stiff  climb  even  from 
the  lofty  level  of  Vailima.  The  monument  above 
the  grave,  built  of  cement  and  made  in  the  Samoan 
style,  bears  two  bronze  plates,  one  with  the  inscrip- 
tion in  Samoan  :  '  The  Tomb  of  Tusitala,'  followed 
by  the  words  of  Ruth  to  Naomi  from  the  Samoan 
Bible  :  '  Whither  thou  goest  I  will  go  ;  and  where 
thou  lodgest  I  will  lodge  ;  thy  people  shall  be  my 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  217 

people,  and  thy  God  my  God ;  where  thou  diest 
I  will  die,  and  there  will  I  be  buried.'  The  other 
plate  is  inscribed  with  the  words  of  Requiem  from 
Songs  of  Travel. 

After  Stevenson's  death  the  Vailima  estate  was 
sold  by  Mrs.  Stevenson  to  Herr  Kunz,  the  millionaire 
banker  of  Vladivostock,  on  whose  death  it  was  ac- 
quired by  the  German  Government  and,  on  Samoa 
being  ceded  to  Germany,  became  the  residence  of  the 
Governor.  Mt.  Vaea,  on  the  other  hand,  passed  on 
Mrs.  Stevenson's  death  into  the  possession  of  her 
daughter,  Mrs.  Strong,  who  has  recorded  her  deter- 
mination to  preserve  the  primeval  surroundings  of 
Stevenson's  last  resting-place.  A  sentimental 
pleasure  will  be  felt  that  his  grave  is  no  longer  in 
German  soil,  the  Samoan  group  having  been  the 
first  Pacific  German  possessions  to  be  seized.  New 
Zealand  troops  took  possession  of  the  islands  on 
August  28,  1914. 

SAN  FRANCISCO 

A  paper  by  Stevenson  in  the  '  Magazine  of  Art,' 
May  1883,  under  the  title  A  Modern  Cosmopolis,  is 
included  only  in  the  complete  edition,  where  it  is 
grouped  with  Monterey  as  Old  and  New  Pacific 
Capitals.  It  represents  Stevenson's  impressions  of 
San  Francisco  as  he  knew  it  in  the  most  miserable 
months  of  his  life,  poor,  ill,  and  in  much  anxiety  of 
mind  for  the  outcome  of  his  plan  of  marriage  with 
Mrs.  Osbourne.  The  newness  of  the  city,  its  cosmo- 
politan population,  the  contrast  between  rich  and 
poor  quarters  are  the  rather  well-worn  topics  of  the 


2i8  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

essay  which  show  that  R.  L.  S.'s  vitality  was  at  a 
lower  ebb  than  his  letters  sought  to  make  out.  This 
was  in  December  1879.  Then,  and  for  the  following 
two  months  he  lived  in  a  single  room  in  a  workman's 
house  in  Bush  Street,  and  went  for  his  meals  to  a 
coffee-house  where  '  a  pampered  menial  of  High 
Dutch  extraction,  and  indeed  as  yet  only  partly  ex- 
tracted, lays  before  him  a  cup  of  coffee,  a  roll,  and 
a  pat  of  butter,  all,  to  quote  the  deity,  very  good. 
A  while  ago  R.  L.  S.  used  to  find  the  quantity  of 
butter  insufficient ;  but  he  has  now  learnt  the  art 
to  exactitude,  and  roll  and  butter  expire  at  the  same 
moment.'  The  restaurant  and  the  house  where  he 
lived  had  both  disappeared  before  the  fire  of  1906 
destroyed  the  whole  of  Bush  Street,  but  the  memorial 
erected  in  1897  in  Portsmouth  Square  in  the  form 
of  a  drinking  fountain,  surmounted  by  a  ship  in  full 
sail,  just  escaped  the  spread  of  the  fire.  His  second 
visit,  nine  years  afterwards,  to  join  the  '  Casco  '  was 
in  very  different  circumstances,  and  the  Occidental 
Hotel,  Montgomery  Street,  is  pointed  out  as  the 
place  where  he  and  his  party  stayed  while  the  pre- 
parations for  the  Pacific  voyage  were  completed. 

SARANAC 

A  wooden  house  adjoining  the  sanatorium  for  con- 
sumptives near  to  Saranac  Lake  in  the  Adirondack 
Mountains  was  Stevenson's  home  from  October 
1887  to  April  1888.  The  fact  is  commemorated  by 
a  tablet  erected  by  the  Stevensonian  Society  of 
America.  Despite  the  severity  of  the  climate — the 
temperature  would  fall  thirty  degrees  below  zero 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  219 

— his  health  showed  some  improvement,  and  in  the 
resident  physician,  Dr.  Edward  Livingstone  Trudeau, 
who  at  last  himself  died  from  consumption,  he 
found  a  congenial  companion.  Dr.  Trudeau's  auto- 
biography (New  York,  Doubleday  Page,  1916)  con- 
tains a  chapter  devoted  to  the  author's  acquaintance 
with  R.  L.  S. 

SATIRIST,  THE 

One  of  the  earliest  pieces  of  Stevenson's  writings 
which  have  been  permitted  publication.  It  belongs 
to  about  his  twentieth  year,  and  its  theme — of  look- 
ing for  defects  of  character — may  be  compared  with 
the  passage  in  the  life  of  Fleeming  Jenkin,  whose 
over-kindly  judgments  he  contested  with  the  view 
that  '  we  must  know  the  world  as  it  was,  not  a 
world  expurgated  and  prettified  with  optimistic 
rainbows.'  First  published  in  the  Edinburgh  edi- 
tion, the  paper  is  now  included  in  the  volume  Lay 
Morals. 

SCHWOB,  MARCEL  (1866-1905) 

The  brilliant  young  French  scholar  and  writer, 
authority  on  Villon,  and  translator  of  Shakespeare, 
was  one  of  the  first  of  his  country  to  appreciate  the 
artistry  of  Stevenson's  work.  His  notice  of  R.  L.  S., 
contributed  to  the  '  New  Review,'  February  1895,  is 
notable  for  its  emphasis  of  the  quality  of  realisme 
ineel,  romantic  exaggeration,  which  makes  his  char- 
acters so  brilliantly  alive.  Marcel  Schwob  had 
occasion  afterwards  to  experience  the  effect  of  this 
faculty  himself,  for  in  1902  he  visited  Samoa,  and 


220  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

confessed  that  the  spell  of  enchantment  which 
Stevenson  had  woven  for  him  was  broken  by  a  sight 
of  the  reality.  Schwob's  early  death  at  the  age  of 
thirty-nine  removed  perhaps  the  most  talented 
student  of  English  thought  and  literature  and  a 
writer  who  applied  himself,  in  his  work  '  La  Guerre 
Commerciale '  and  '  Le  Danger  Allemande,'  to 
demonstrating  the  efforts  of  Germany  at  industrial 
supremacy. 

SCRIBNER,  CHARLES  (1854-        ) 

The  head  of  the  American  book  and  magazine  firm, 
founded  by  his  father  in  1846,  was  the  first  publisher 
to  pay  Stevenson  relatively  large  sums  for  his  writ- 
ings. For  each  of  the  twelve  articles  in  '  Scribner's 
Magazine '  in  1888  £60  was  paid,  an  income  which 
Stevenson  in  letters  to  his  friends  variously  com- 
puted (from  the  American  currency)  at  £500,  £600, 
and  £720  per  annum.  Messrs.  Scribner  contracted 
with  him  to  publish  everything  of  his  hi  America, 
but  in  utter  absence  of  mind  he  entered  also  into 
an  undertaking  with  McClure's.  His  self-reproaches 
for  an  act,  commercially  unpardonable  and  entirely 
opposed  to  his  sense  of  honour,  were  bitter,  but 
Mr.  Scribner  was  quick  to  recognize  the  mental  pre- 
occupation which  had  occasioned  it,  and  thenceforth 
Stevenson's  relations  with  his  firm  continued  until 
his  death  to  be  of  the  most  cordial  character.  The 
payment  by  Messrs.  Scribner  of  a  handsome  sum  for 
the  rights  of  serial  publication  in  The  Master  of 
Ballantrae  was  the  beginning  of  the  large  income 
which  Stevenson  afterwards  derived  from  America. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  221 

The  firm  became,  and  still  is,  the  chief  publishers  of 
his  works  in  the  United  States. 

SHARP,  WILLIAM  (1856-1905) 

The  chapter  on  '  The  Country  of  Stevenson  '  in 
Sharp's  '  Literary  Geography '  (London,  Pall  Mall 
Press,  1907)  is  remarkable  for  a  picture  of  R.  L.  S., 
as  seen  at  Waterloo  Station,  probably  when  he  was 
about  thirty  years  of  age.  In  the  transformation  of 
Stevenson's  almost  ragged  appearance  on  recognizing 
the  friend  who  was  waiting  for  him  Sharp  saw  the 
counterpart  of  the  variety  in  his  writings. 

SHELLEY,  SIR  PERCY  AND  LADY 

The  son  and  daughter-in-law  of  the  poet,  to  whom 
Stevenson  dedicated  The  Master  of  Ballantrae,  be- 
came close  friends  of  his  during  the  years  at  Bourne- 
mouth. With  Sir  Percy  he  discovered  common 
interests  in  yachting  and  the  stage,  and  the  former's 
amateur  photography  has  furnished  a  portrait  of 
Stevenson  at  this  tune  of  his  life,  which  is  evidently 
a  characteristic  one,  even  though  it  justifies  him  in 
his  complaints  of  the  '  scandal-mongering  sun/ 
Lady  Shelley  claimed  to  discern  in  R.  L.  S.  a  facial 
resemblance  to  the  poet  as  well  as  a  similarity  of 
genius,  and  the  fancy  was  an  element  in  her  regard 
for  him.  Of  her  husband,  when  news  of  his  death 
reached  him  in  Samoa,  Stevenson  wrote :  '  He  had 
a  sweet,  original  nature.  I  think  I  liked  him  better 
than  ever  I  should  have  his  father.  ...  If  he  had 
not  been  Shelley's  son,  people  would  have  thought 
more  of  him ;  and  yet  he  was  the  better  of  the  two, 
bar  verses.' 


222  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

SILVER 

The  bland  villain  of  a  sea-cook  in  Treasure  Island. 
The  conception  of  a  cripple  dominating  his  fellow 
seamen  was  drawn  from  the  physical  infirmity  of 
W.  E.  Henley  (q.v.),  to  whom  R.  L.  S.  wrote  at  the 
time  when  Treasure  Island  had  been  accepted  for 
issue  as  a  book  :  '  I  will  now  make  a  confession.  It 
was  the  sight  of  your  maimed  strength  and  master- 
fulness that  begot  John  Silver  in  Treasure  Island. 
Of  course  he  is  not  in  any  other  quality  or  feature 
the  least  like  you  ;  but  the  idea  of  the  maimed  man, 
ruling  and  dreaded  by  the  sound,  was  taken  from 
you.' 

SILVERADO  SQUATTERS,  THE 

The  story  of  Stevenson's  honeymoon,  if  so  con- 
ventional a  word  can  be  used  of  him.  He  was 
married  to  Mrs.  Osbourne  in  San  Francisco  in  May 
1880,  and  with  her  spent  the  June  and  July  on  an 
adventure  which  was  hardly  prudent  for  a  man  who 
three  months  before  had  been  prostrate  with  in- 
cipient consumption.  But  their  excursion  was  to 
the  mountains  on  the  Californian  coast  some  fifty 
miles  north  of  San  Francisco.  His  stepson,  Lloyd 
Osbourne,  then  twelve  years  old,  was  of  the  party, 
and  is  '  Sam,  the  Crown  Prince  '  of  the  royal  family 
of  Silverado.  Their  way  lay  through  the  Napa 
valley,  then  a  highway  of  stage  coaches,  but  now 
an  electric  tram  route  connecting  Calistoga  with 
Mount  St.  Helena.  The  site  of  the  deserted  mining 
shanty  where  they  lived  has  been  marked  by  a 
memorial  stone  in  the  shape  of  an  open  book  with 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  223 

the  inscription  :  '  This  tablet,  placed  by  the  Club 
women  of  Napa  Country,  marks  the  site  of  the  cabin 
occupied  in  1888  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and 
bride,  while  he  wrote  "  The  Silverado  Squatters," 
followed  by  the  quotation  :  '  "  Doomed  to  know 
not  Winter,  only  Spring,  a  being  trod  the  flowery 
April  for  a  while,  took  his  fill  of  music,  joy  of  thought 
and  seeing,  came  and  stayed  and  went,  nor  ever 
ceased  to  smile."  R.  L.  S.'  The  quotation  is  from 
In  Memoriam,  F.  A.  S. 

The  women  admirers  of  Stevenson  hi  the  Napa 
valley  err  in  a  trifle.  R.  L.  S.  did  not  write 
the  book  until  after  his  return  to  Europe — at 
Davos  early  in  1882  (at.  32).  It  was  for  the 
'  Century  Magazine/  in  which  it  appeared  in  1883, 
and  was  the  first  work  of  importance  done  for 
publishers  in  America,  where  afterwards  his  chief 
financial  harvest  was  reaped.  But  at  Davos,  cor- 
recting Silverado  proofs,  he  wrote  :  '  as  usual  penni- 
less— O  but  penniless  ;  still,  with  four  articles  in 
hand  and  the  £100  for  Silverado  imminent,  not 
hopeless.'  The  latter  part  he  thought  much  the 
better ;  writing  to  Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  who  had  read 
the  earlier  chapters  :  '  The  good  stuff  is  all  to  come 
—so  I  think.  "The  Sea  Fogs,"  "The  Hunter's 
Family,"  "Toils  and  Pleasures"  —  belles  pages.' 
Like  nearly  all  Stevenson's  works,  it  was  revised  and 
re-revised ;  in  a  spell  of  better  health  he  would  re- 
shape what  he  had  written  when  in  a  lower  state. 
His  view  of  the  effect  of  this  habit  upon  his  work  is 
shown  in  the  lines  to  Will  H.  Low  :  '  Ill-health  is  a 
great  handicapper  in  the  race.  I  have  never  at 


224  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

command  that  press  of  spirits  that  are  necessary  to 
strike  out  a  thing  red-hot.  Silverado  is  an  example 
of  stuff  worried  and  pawed  about,  God  knows  how 
often,  in  poor  health,  and  you  can  see  for  yourself 
the  result :  good  pages,  an  imperfect  fusion,  a  certain 
languor  of  the  whole.  Not,  in  short,  art.' 

Nevertheless  Mr.  Swinnerton,  in  his  '  Critical 
Study,'  ranks  it  higher  than  the  earlier  travel  books 
of  the  canoe  voyage  and  the  Cevennes,  on  account  of 
its  almost  entire  freedom  from  pose— the  pure  draw- 
ing of  effects  and  incidents  instead  of  that  of  the 
author  among  them.  He  marks  it  as  the  '  emer- 
gence of  a  new  Stevenson,'  chastened  by  the  hard- 
ships of  the  feverish  journey  to  America.  Popular 
taste,  on  the  other  hand,  bestows  its  favour  on  the 
Travels  with  a  Donkey. 

The  Silverado  Squatters  was  issued  by  Messrs. 
Chatto  &  Windus  in  1883.  The  original  edition 
has  realized  about  £2  during  the  last  year  or 
two. 

SIMPSON,  MISS  EVE  BLANTYRE  (1856-1920) 

Miss  Simpson  was  one  of  the  few  writers  on  Steven- 
son who  moved  intimately  in  his  home  circle,  as  he 
did  in  hers.  She  knew  his  parents  well,  and  as  her 
brother  Sir  Walter  Simpson  (q.v.}  was  one  of  Steven- 
son's closest  friends,  when  both  were  well  on  in  their 
teens,  Stevenson  was  constantly  in  and  out  of  her 
father's  house.  Hence  her  book  '  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson's  Edinburgh  Days '  (London,  Hodder 
&  Stoughton,  1898)  is  probably  the  truest  picture 
of  R.  L.  S.  when  he  was  a  youth  at  home  which  is 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  225 

preserved  for  us.  Another  of  her  books  is  a  brief 
character  sketch  entitled  '  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  ' 
(Edinburgh,  T.  N.  Foulis,  1906),  and  a  third,  '  The 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  Originals '  (Edinburgh, 
T.  N.  Foulis,  1912),  hi  which  are  identified  real 
people  and  places  from  which  Stevenson  drew  hi  the 
novels  and  essays.  The  last-named  work  contains 
much  that  is  biographical  and  has  many  illustrations 
of  the  people  and  places  associated  with  Stevenson's 
life  and  writings. 

SIMPSON,  SIR  WALTER  GRINDLAY  (1853-1898) 

The  '  Cigarette '  of  The  Inland  Voyage  was  a  stolid, 
humorous  Englishman,  the  son  of  the  Sir  James 
Simpson  (the  discoverer  of  chloroform  as  an  anaes- 
thetic), and  several  years  Stevenson's  senior.  In- 
tended for  a  mercantile  career,  he  was  recalled  from 
Egypt  on  the  death  of  his  elder  brother,  went  to 
Cambridge,  and  on  his  father's  death  and  his  suc- 
cession to  the  baronetc}',  found  himself  a  fellow 
student  of  R.  L.  S.  for  the  bar.  Thence  for  ten 
years  in  Edinburgh  and  on  the  Continent  they  were 
close  companions,  the  sharers  of  many  travels  beside 
that  of  the  two  canoes.  '  The  Bart,'  as  he  was 
known,  was  the  heavyweight  of  Stevenson's  Edin- 
burgh friends.  '  His,'  says  R.  L.  S.,  '  was  the  slow 
fighting  mind.'  He  is  Athelred  in  Talk  and  Talkers, 
the  companion  who  would  '  wrestle  with  a  refractory 
jest  for  a  minute  or  two  together,  and  perhaps  fail 
to  throw  it  in  the  end.'  But  hi  their  travels  Sir 
Walter's  well-groomed  person  and  distinguished 
appearance  were  the  means  of  saving  Stevenson 


226  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

from  many  a  dilemma  into  which  his  disreputable 
dress  would  have  brought  him.  The  reader  will 
recollect  one  such  occasion  related  in  the  Epilogue 
to  an  Inland  Voyage.  The  practical  jokes  of  these 
early  days  find  a  sympathetic  narrator  in  the  sur- 
viving sister  of  the  '  Cigarette,'  Miss  Eve  Blantyre 
Simpson,  whose  '  Stevenson  Originals  '  contains  a 
portrait  of  her  brother. 

SIRE  OF  MALETROIT'S  DOOR,  THE 

The  short  story  attracted  Stevenson's  genius 
during  the  four  years  of  passable  health  which 
followed  his  first  close  acquaintanceship  with  France 
when  he  was  five-and-twenty.  Moreover,  his  random 
travels  of  this  period  led  him  much  to  France,  and 
a  wide  reading  of  French  literature  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  for  the  purpose  of  historical  portraits,  gave 
him  the  material  for  his  first  and  perhaps  very  finest 
short  story,  the  Villon  piece,  A  Lodging  for  the  Night. 
The  Sire  of  Maletroit's  Mousetrap,  as  it  was  first 
called,  was  his  second  excursion  into  this  new  field, 
in  which  he  chose  the  same  fifteenth-century  setting, 
but  turned  from  squalid  realism  to  romantic  comedy 
for  his  theme.  En  route  hi  August  1877  (<zt.  27) 
for  Penzance,  where  it  was  re-written,  he  thought  it 
'  a  true  novel  hi  the  old  sense ;  all  unities  preserved, 
moreover,-  if  that 's  anything,  and,  I  believe,  with 
some  little  merits  ;  not  so  clever  perhaps  as  the  last 
(.4  Lodging  for  the  Night],  but  sounder  and  more 
natural.'  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  this  and  the 
later  short  stories,  The  Treasure  of  Franchard  and 
Providence  and  the  Guitar,  which  owe  their  inspiration 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  227 

to  his  French  experiences,  Stevenson  held  aloof  from 
the  element  of  horror  in  which  afterwards  he  felt 
his  strength  lay.  The  two  latter  in  particular — 
which  were  studies  from  life — no  less  than  the  two 
books  of  travel  in  France  reflect  his  consistent  view 
of  France  as  a  country  of  pleasant  places  and  people, 
where  he  was  infinitely  more  at  home  than  in  England. 
The  Sire  of  Maletroit's  Door  appeared  in  '  Temple 
Bar,'  January  1878,  and  is  placed  in  the  New  Arabian 
Nights.  A  one-act  dramatization  of  it  has  been 
done  by  Mr.  A.  E.  W.  Mason  under  the  title  '  Blanche 
of  Maletroit '  (Capper  &  Newton,  1896). 

SITWELL,  MRS.  FRANCES 

The  lady  to  whom  R.  L.  S.  owed  a  great  deal  in 
the  way  of  sympathy  and  encouragement  hi  the 
difficult  years  of  misunderstanding  between  himself 
and  his  parents,  is  now  Lady  Colvin.  The  first 
meeting  of  Stevenson  and  his  future  lifelong  adviser 
came  about  from  Mrs.  Sitwell's  suggestion  to  Sir 
Sidney  (then  Mr.)  Colvin  that  he  should  visit  the 
home  of  Mrs.  Churchill  Babington  (a  cousin  of 
R.  L.  S.'s)  before  the  '  fine  young  spirit '  had  left. 
The  phrase  implies  Mrs.  Sitwell's  understanding 
sympathy  with  R.  L.  S.  in  the  circumstances  which 
forced  him  to  give  pain  to  his  parents  if  he  were  not 
to  resign  much  of  his  cherished  revolt  against  the 
religious  beliefs  and  social  conventions  of  his  home 
circle.  These  were  his  years,  the  early  twenties, 
of  intense  impetuous  thought,  and  in  the  critical 
separation  from  his  parents  which  they  brought 
he  found  in  Mrs.  Sitwell,  as  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  has 


228  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

said,  '  an  inspirer,  consoler,  and  guide.'  His  many 
letters  during  his  six  months'  isolation  at  Mentone 
exhibit  the  confidence  he  felt  in  sharing  his  thoughts 
with  her,  and  in  being  the  recipient  of  her  advice. 
His  own  turn  as  comforter  came  afterwards  in  the 
spring  of  1881  when  Mrs.  Sitwell  spent  some  months 
at  Davos  with  her  son,  who  was  dying  from  rapid 
consumption.  The  lines  In  Memoriam,  F.  A.  S., 
which  form  No.  XXVII.  of  Underwoods,  express  the 
consolation  which  R.  L.  S.  of  all  people  could 
feelingly  offer. 

SLATER,  J.  HERBERT 

Editor  of  '  Book  Prices  Current '  and  author  of  a 
number  of  books  on  bibliographical  subjects.  Mr. 
Slater  Jias  compiled  a  bibliography  of  Stevenson's 
complete  works  (London,  G.  Bell  &  Sons,  1914). 
This  volume  contains  particulars  of  the  first  publi- 
cation of  Stevenson's  writings  hi  book  or  pamphlet 
form ;  of  successive  editions  of  interest,  and  of 
prices  paid  during  recent  years  by  book  collectors. 
Values  of  the  first  editions  given  in  these  pages  are 
quoted  from  Mr.  Slater's  Bibliography  or  from  recent 
issues  of  '  Book  Prices  Current.' 

SOMERSET,  IN  MORE  NEW  ARABIAN  NIGHTS 

See  '  Stevenson,  R.  A.  M.' 

SONGS  OF  TRAVEL 

The  collection  of  verses  issued  after  Stevenson's 
death  were  many  of  them  written  during  the  South 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  229 

Pacific  cruises  of  1888-91  (at.  38  to  41)  and,  as  issued 
first  in  the  Edinburgh  edition,  and  subsequently 
under  the  above  title  by  Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windus 
in  1896,  are  in  many  instances  identified  with  the 
places  of  their  author's  travels.  With  the  earlier 
poems  of  Underwoods  and  the  Ballads,  they  are 
included  in  the  '  Collected  Poems '  of  the  same 
publishers. 

SOUTH  SEA  CRUISES 

Apart  from  journeys  by  mail  and  regular  steam- 
ship service,  Stevenson's  travels  in  the  South  Seas 
were  made  in  three  voyages  during  the  years  1888 
to  1890.  The  first  of  these  was  from  San  Francisco 
in  the  '  Casco,'  June  28,  1888,  first  to  Nukahiva,  hi 
the  Marquesas  group,  the  place  of  Hermann  Melville's 
'  Typee.'  Here  the  party,  which  included  his 
mother,  spent  four  weeks,  then  twelve  days  at  Taa- 
hanka  on  the  isolated  island  of  the  group,  Hiva-oa  ; 
thence  through  the  Paumotus  group,  where  fourteen 
days  were  spent  at  Fakarava,  to  Tahiti  hi  the  Society 
Islands.  After  a  short  stay  at  Papeete  and  Taravao, 
three  months  were  spent  inland  at  Tautira.  Hono- 
lulu was  reached  on  January  24, 1889. 

The  second  voyage  in  the  schooner '  Equator/  like- 
wise occupied  almost  exactly  six  months.  Leaving 
Honolulu  on  June  24,  1889,  their  course  lay  to  the 
Gilbert  group,  where  one  month  was  spent  on  the 
island  of  Butaritari,  a  visit  paid  to  Nonuti,  and  a 
stay  of  two  months  made  on  King  Tembinok's 
island  of  Apemama.  Samoa  was  reached  on 
December  7. 


230  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

The  third  cruise  on  the  screw  steamship  'Janet 
Nicoll,'  begun  at  Sydney  in  April  1890,  and  ending 
in  August  at  Noumea  in  New  Caledonia,  took 
Stevenson  and  his  wife  and  stepson  to  a  much  greater 
number  of  islands  in  the  South  Pacific,  though  the 
opportunities  for  observing  island  life  were  limited 
by  the  shortness  of  the  vessel's  calls.  But  the  cruise 
took  them  first  to  Samoa,  then  eastward  to  the 
isolated  islands  of  Penrhyn,  Manikiki,  Suwarrow, 
and  Nassau,  thence  through  the  Tokelau  and  Ellice 
groups,  again  through  the  Gilberts  to  the  Marshall 
Islands,  returning  through  the  Gilberts  to  New 
Caledonia,  where  Stevenson  let  his  wife  and  stepson 
proceed  to  Sydney,  to  follow  them  after  a  week  at 
the  French  Settlement.  The  cruise  did  not  prove 
of  the  interest  of  those  in  the  two  sailing  vessels 
when  the  party  was  at  liberty  to  choose  its  course, 
and  the  time  to  which  its  visits  could  be  prolonged. 
Stevenson  could  even  write  of  it  that '  hackney  cabs 
have  more  variety  than  atolls,'  but  the  voyages 
became  a  less  wearisome  experience  from  the 
company  of  the  three  shipmates,  Harry  Henderson, 
Ben  Hird,  and  Jack  Buckland,  to  whom  Island 
Nights  Entertainments  is  dedicated. 

SOUTH  SEAS,  IN  THE 

When  Stevenson,  with  his  mother,  wife,  and  stepson, 
sailed  from  San  Francisco  in  the '  Casco/  he  carried 
with  him  a  commission  from  the  McClure  publishing 
syndicate  for  a  series  of  letters  on  his  travels  in  the 
Pacific  Islands.  The  sum  offered — Mr.  Moors  says 
it  was  10,000  dollars  (£2000)  for  fifty  letters,  double 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  231 

what  Stevenson  asked — was  one  inducement  to  the 
purchase  of  the  '  Casco,'  though  the  voyage  had 
previously  been  planned  as  one  more  struggle,  for 
reasonable  health,  which  should  be  decisive  for  good 
or  ill.  A  cure  of  his  malady  or  death  at  sea  were 
the  alternatives  recognized  in  starting  out  for  the 
new  world  of  Polynesia. 

The  book,  as  first  issued  in  the  Edinburgh  edition 
after  Stevenson's  death  and  as  now  published  separ- 
ately, is  only  a  half  of  the  chapters  supplied  to  the 
McClure  syndicate,  and  a  still  smaller  part  of  a  work 
on  the  islands  upon  which  Stevenson  bestowed  an 
immensity  of  labour,  but  which  he  finally  abandoned. 
He  was  in  fact  overwhelmed  by  the  wealth  of  material 
presented  to  him  in  these  voyages,  and  became  con- 
vinced that  he  should  deal  with  it  in  a  way  very 
different  from  that  which,  as  can  be  understood, 
the  syndicate  had  in  mind  when  commissioning  the 
'  letters.'  Letters  surely  they  were  to  be,  with  as 
much  R.  L.  S.  as  South  Seas  in  them.  Instead,  he 
conceived  the  idea  of  making  them  a  serious  study 
of  the  customs  and  languages  of  the  island  peoples 
and  of  keeping  the  incidents  of  his  travels,  impres- 
sions of  scenery,  companionship  with  quondam 
cannibals  almost  entirely  out  of  them.  Could  his 
wife  have  had  her  way  this  scheme  would  have  been 
cast  aside  at  the  oustet.  From  the  first  port  of  call 
which  they  reached  in  the  '  Casco '  she  wrote  begging 
their  friend  Colvin's  influence  against  it :  '  Louis 
has  the  most  enchanting  material  that  any  one  ever 
had  in  the  whole  world  for  his  book,  and  I  am  afraid 
he  is  going  to  spoil  it  all.  He  has  taken  it  into  his 


232  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Scotch  Stevenson  head  that  a  stern  duty  lies  before 
him,  and  that  his  book  must  be  a  sort  of  scientific 
and  historical  impersonal  thing,  comparing  the 
different  languages  (of  which  he  knows  nothing, 
really)  and  the  different  peoples,  the  object  being  to 
settle  the  question  whether  they  are  of  common 
Malay  origin  or  not.  Also  to  compare  the  Protestant 
and  Catholic  missions,  etc.,  and  the  whole  thing  to 
be  impersonal,  leaving  out  all  he  knows  of  the  people 
themselves.  And  I  believe  there  is  no  one  living 
who  has  got  so  near  to  them,  or  who  understands 
them  as  he  does.  Think  of  a  small  treatise  on  the 
Polynesian  races  being  offered  to  people  who  are 
dying  to  hear  of  Ori  a  Ori,  the  making  of  brothers 
with  cannibals,  the  strange  stories  they  told,  and 
the  extraordinary  adventures  that  befell  us.  ... 
What  a  thing  it  is  to  have  a  '  man  of  genius  '  to 
deal  with.  It  is  like  managing  an  overbred 
horse.  Why,  with  my  own  feeble  hand  I  could 
write  a  book  that  the  whole  world  would  jump 
at!' 

The  wisdom  of  this  judgment,  which  was  also 
afterwards  that  of  the  public,  came  at  last  to  be  ac- 
knowledged by  Stevenson,  but  not  until  with  an 
infinity  of  labour  he  had  fulfilled  his  contract  with 
the  American  syndicate,  and  had  seen  the  futility  of 
his  self-imposed  task.  On  the  '  Janet  Nicoll/  the 
screw  steamer  which  took  them  on  their  third  voyage 
among  the  islands,  the  earlier  letters  were  written ; 
on  the  return  to  Sydney  he  was  '  waist  deep '  in 
'  the  big  book  on  the  South  Seas,  it  ought  to  be,  and 
shall ' ;  back,  in  November,  to  Samoa,  where  the 


R.    I..    STEVENSON    AT   THE   A(iE   OF   40 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  233 

Vailima  estate  was  in  process  of  being  cleared,  his 
problem  was  '  to  get  all  this  stuff  jointed  and 
moving  '  ;  some  months  later  there  is  the  admission 
of  the  '  acceptation  of  a  bargain  quite  unsuitable 
to  all  my  methods/  and  at  last  in  March  1891 :  '  I 
cannot  fight  longer ;  I  am  sensible  of  having 
done  worse  than  I  hoped,  worse  than  I  feared ; 
all  I  can  do  is  the  best  I  can  for  the  future  and 
clear  the  book,  like  a  piece  of  bush,  with  axe  and 
cutlass.' 

In  the  South  Seas,  as  now  available  to  the  reader, 
is  the  result  of  this  drastic  pruning  and  selection. 
The  earlier  parts,  those  on  the  Marquesas  and 
Paumotos,  or  low  or  atoll  islands,  most  definitely 
mark  Stevenson's  original  intention ;  those  on  the 
Gilberts,  with  their  picture  of  the  king  Tembinok, 
are  more  in  the  personal  strain  of  R.  L.  S.,  and  are 
thus  accepted  as  the  most  successful  part  of  these 
writings.  But  the  things  most  to  be  regretted  about 
them  is  their  omissions  ;  nothing  of  Stevenson's  long 
stay  at  Tautira  as  the  guest  of  the  chief  Ori  a  Ori,  nor 
of  his  visit  to  the  leper  settlement  of  Molokai.  His 
letters  to  friends  in  England,  and  the  extracts  from 
his  journal  in  the  '  Life  '  do  something  to  fill  in  these 
gaps,  but  not  in  proportion  to  the  interest  of  the 
subjects.  Nevertheless  time  has  in  a  measure  re- 
versed the  first  unfavourable  reception  of  these 
South  Sea  chapters,  the  matter  of  which  is  more 
suited  to  book  form  than  to  serial  publication ;  if 
less  picturesque  and  personal  than  Travels  with  a 
Donkey,  critics  have  praised  them  for  that  very 
reason  ;  and  so  great  a  writer  as  Mr.  Conrad,  accord- 


234  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

ing  to  Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  does  not  share  the  view 
of  those  who  place  them  among  the  lesser  of 
Stevenson's  works. 

The  largest  number  of  the  original  letters  ap- 
peared in  the  '  New  York  Sun  '  and  other  American 
newspapers  ;  in  England  a  shorter  series  was  pub- 
lished in  '  Black  and  White/  February  to  December 
1891.  Following  the  inclusion  of-  a  selected  thirty- 
five  chapters  in  the  Edinburgh  edition  (1896),  the 
first  English  issue  is  that  (with  a  map)  by  Messrs. 
Chatto  &  Windus  in  1900  at  6s.,  now  worth  about 
IDS.  It  had  appeared  in  America  in  1896. 

STEPHEN,  LESLIE  (1832-1904) 

As  editor  of  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine '  from  1871 
to  1882  the  eminent  biographer  and  critic  was  an 
encourager  of  Stevenson  as  he  was  of  other  writers, 
such  as  Henley,  Henry  James,  and  Mr.  Edmund 
Gosse,  who  were  among  his  contributors.  His  essay 
on  Stevenson  as  a  writer,  included  in  '  Studies  of  a 
Biographer  '  (London,  Duckworth,  1902),  and  separ- 
ately issued  by  Messrs.  Putnam,  is  a  most  under- 
standing criticism  ;  responsive  to  the  rein  which 
R.  L.  S.  gave  to  his  temperament,  yet  judicial  in  its 
estimate  of  his  failings  as  a  novelist.  In  the  essays 
he  notes  above  all  '  the  genuine  ring  of  youthful 
enthusiasm/  not  the  ripe  thoughts  of  Lamb  or 
Montaigne,  but  '  a  gallant  spirit  combined  with 
extraordinarily  quick  and  vivid  sympathy/  '  The 
essays/  as  he  points  out,  '  define  the  point  of  view 
adopted  by  the  storyteller/  In  the  novels  Stevenson, 
with  irrepressible  youth,  pursues  adventure  when  he 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  235 

might  have  done  more  to  put  before  the  reader  '  the 
very  age  and  body  of  the  time.' 

STEVENSON,  ALAN  (1807-1865) 

The  eldest  son  of  Robert  Stevenson  (q.v.),  like  the 
youngest,  Thomas,  father  of  R.  L.  S.,  left  only  one 
son,  viz.,  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson  (q.v.).  Alan,  in  the 
course  of  a  distinguished  professional  career,  was 
the  builder  of  the  lighthouse  '  Skerry vore,'  after 
which  R.  L.  S.  named  his  house  at  Bournemouth. 
The  erection  of  this  work  on  a  reef  off  Tiree  occupied 
six  years,  from  1838,  and  was  one  of  the  most 
notable  triumphs  of  the  family's  engineering  genius. 

STEVENSON,   FANNY  VAN  DE  GRIFT   (1838?- 

1914) 

From  the  evidence  of  many  of  his  friends  it  is 
known  that  Stevenson  married  the  one  woman  in 
the  world  for  him.  The  wife  whom  he  chose  from 
the  inn  company  at  Grez  in  an  accession  of  the 
suddenest  attachment  was  a  woman  of  exceptional 
strength  of  character,  and  became  a  partner  of  his 
life  such  as  fate  gives  to  few  men.  At  the  time  of 
their  marriage  in  San  Francisco,  Stevenson  was  in 
his  thirtieth  year,  his  wife  about  twelve  years  older. 
The  birth  of  Austin  Strong  to  her  daughter  in  the 
following  year  made  her  a  grandmother.  Her  first 
marriage,  to  a  Mr.  Samuel  Osbourne,  had  taken 
place  when  she  was  about  nineteen,  and  for  some 
seven  or  eight  years  before  obtaining  a  divorce  she 
had  been  separated  from  her  husband.  To  her 
R.  L.  S.  owed  much  more  than  the  most  solicitous 


236  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

care  in  the  ten  years  of  illness  which  followed  their 
return  from  America,  and  in  the  subsequent  wander- 
ings in  the  South  Seas.  His  trust  in  the  literary 
judgment  of  this  '  critic  on  the  hearth '  tecame  a 
decisive  influence  in  his  work,  and  Thomas  Stevenson 
was  so  convinced  of  his  daughter-in-law's  instinct  in 
this  respect  that  before  his  death  he  obtained  his 
son's  promise  that  he  would  '  never  publish  anything 
without  Fanny's  approval.'  This  reliance  on  his 
wife  extended  to  other  matters,  as  when  Mr.  McClure, 
who  relates  the  incident  in  his  '  Autobiography,' 
could  not  obtain  Stevenson's  decision  to  sell  certain 
rights  of  publication  until  Mrs.  Stevenson  had  given 
her  consent.  In  ordinary  business  affairs  and  the 
handling  of  money  she  was  scarcely  less  of  a  child 
than  her  husband.  In  addition  to  their  collaboration 
in  More  New  Arabian  Nights,  a  play,  The  Hanging 
Judge,  was  jointly  written  at  Bournemouth.  It  has 
never  been  published  or  performed,  but  the  outlines 
of  its  plot  are  given  by  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  in  his  notes 
on  Weir  of  Hermiston.  Of  Mrs.  Stevenson's  own 
admirable  gift  of  descriptive  writing  there  is  only 
the  volume  '  The  Cruise  of  the  "  Janet  Nicoll " 
(London,  Chatto  &  Windus,  1914),  a  record  of  the 
third  voyage  among  the  Pacific  Islands.  The  tribute 
paid  to  her  by  Stevenson  in  the  verses  in  Underwoods 
and  in  the  dedication  to  Weir  of  Hermiston  may  be 
supplemented  by  a  sketch  contained  in  a  letter 
pressing  J.  M.  (now  Sir  James)  Barrie  to  visit  them 
in  Samoa :  '  She  runs  the  show.  Infinitely  little, 
extraordinary  wig  of  grey  curls,  handsome  waxen 
face  like  Napoleon's,  insane  black  eyes,  boy's  hands,' 
tiny  bare  feet,  a  cigarette,  wild  blue  native  dress, 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  237 

usually  spotted  with  garden  mould.  In  company 
manners  presents  the  appearance  of  a  little  timid 
and  precise  old  maid  of  the  days  of  prunes  and 
prisms — you  look  for  the  reticule.  Hellish  energy  ; 
relieved  by  fortnights  of  entire  hibernation.  Doctors 
everybody,  will  doctor  you,  cannot  be  doctored  her- 
self. The  living  partisan.  Imaginary  conversation 
after  your  visit :  "I  like  Mr.  Barrie.  I  don't  like 
anybody  else.  I  don't  like  anybody  that  don't  like 
him.  When  he  took  me  into  dinner  he  made  the 
wittiest  remark  I  ever  heard.  '  Don't  you  think,' 
he  said,  '  the  old-fashioned  way,  etc.' '  Is  always 
either  loathed  or  slavishly  adored — indifference  im- 
possible.' On  Stevenson's  death  she  made  her 
home  in  her  native  country  at  Santa  Barbara,  Cali- 
fornia, dying  near  there  on  February  18, 1914.  Her 
ashes  were  laid  in  her  husband's  grave  on  Mt.  Vaea 
in  June  1915.  A  sentence  in  her  will  marks  a  strain 
in  her  character  co-existent  with  the  great  tenderness,, 
for  those  to  whom  she  was  attached  :  '  To  Katharine 
Durham  Osbourne  (a  daughter)  of  incredible  ferocity, 
who  lived  on  my  bounty  for  many  years,  at  the  same 
time  pursuing  me  with  malicious  slander,  I  leave  five 
dollars.' 

STEVENSON,  JEAN 

The  wife  of  Robert  Stevenson,  and  thus  R.  L.  S.'s 
grandmother  on  his  father's  side,  is  in  part  the  original 
of  Mrs.  Weir  in  Weir  of  Hermiston.  The  reader  may 
compare  the  sketch  of  her  in  A  Family  of  Engineers 
with  the  character  in  the  unfinished  novel :  '  My 
grandmother  remained  to  the  end  devout  and  un- 
ambitious, occupied  with  her  Bible,  her  children, 


238  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

and  her  house ;  easily  shocked,  and  associating  with 
a  clique  of  godly  parasites.  .  .  .  The  cook  was  a 
godly  woman,  the  butcher  a  Christian  man,  and  the 
table  suffered.'  This  wife  of  his  grandfather  figures 
in  an  interesting  chapter  of  the  history  of  the 
Stevensons.  She  was  one  of  the  two  daughters  of 
a  merchant-burgess  of  Edinburgh,  Thomas  Smith, 
twice  a  widower  before,  in  the  year  1786,  he  married 
the  widow  of  Stevenson's  great-grandfather  Alan, 
who  had  died  in  the  West  Indies.  Not  only  did 
the  widow  of  Alan  find  a  husband  in  the  Edinburgh 
merchant,  but  she  contrived  a  match  between  her 
son  Robert  and  her  stepdaughter  Jean.  The  hus- 
band of  Jean  Smith  became  a  partner  with  his 
father-in-law  in  the  business  of  providing  oil-lights 
in  place  of  coal  fires  in  lighthouse  illumination, 
and  from  this  beginning  largely  established  the  pro- 
fession in  which  the  Stevensons  have  since  been 
engaged. 

STEVENSON,     MARGARET     ISABELLA     (1829- 

1897) 

Stevenson's  mother  was  the  youngest  daughter  of 
Rev.  Dr.  Lewis  Balfour  (q.v.).  Although  her  own 
ill-health  during  the  first  ten  years  or  so  of  her 
married  life  made  it  necessary  to  entrust  the  young 
Louis  largely  to  the  care  of  his  nurse,  her  devotion 
to  her  son  is  marked  by  the  diaries  in  which  she 
recorded  every  detail  of  his  early  years.  His  boy- 
hood was  shared  with  her  to  an  extent  above  the 
average,  in  the  visits  she  paid  to  the  Continent  on 
account  of  her  own  health.  And  when  after  his 


A  BOOK  OF  R.L.  S.  239 

father's  death,  Stevenson  set  out  to  the  Pacific,  his 
mother,  in  her  sixtieth  year,  accompanied  him  first 
to  America,  and  then  hi  the  '  Casco '  to  Honolulu. 
Returning  to  Scotland  she  went  out  to  Samoa  hi 
1891,  stayed  two  years,  and  after  a  second  return  to 
Edinburgh  rejoined  her  son  at  Vailima  six  months 
before  his  death.  Mr.  Moors  mentions  the  effect 
of  the  presence  of  this  '  daughter  of  the  manse '  on 
the  formal  religious  observances  of  the  Vailima 
household.  Stevenson  became  a  regular  attendant 
at  church  to  please  her,  and  during  her  first  residence 
instituted  morning  prayers  in  Samoan-English.  Of 
these  travels  Mrs.  Stevenson  has  left  a  record  hi 
two  volumes  of  letters  published  after  her  death 
under  the  editorship  of  Marie  Clothilde  Balfour. 
The  first  of  these  is  '  From  Saranac  to  the  Mar- 
quesas '  (London,  Methuen,  1903),  and  is  the  story 
of  her  journey  with  her  son  and  his  family  to  New 
York  and  Saranac,  and  thence  from  San  Francisco 
in  the  '  Casco '  on  the  first  cruise.  That  part  of  it 
which  tells  of  their  stay  at  Tautira  as  the  guests  of 
the  native  chief  On  a  Ori  does  something  to  fill  a 
gap  in  Stevenson's  own  story  of  his  Pacific  travels. 
The  second  series  is  the  '  Letters  from  Samoa ' 
(London,  Methuen,  1906),  written  during  the  years 
1891-95.  Both  series  present  the  picture  of  a  sweet, 
if  straight-laced  lady  accepting  with  some  reserve 
entirely  fresh  conditions  of  life.  If  there  is  less  of 
R.  L.  S.  in  them  than  one  would  wish,  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered that  they  were  written,  without  the  idea 
of  publication,  to  her  sister,  Miss  Jane  Balfour,  and 
that  the  chief  interest  of  the  two  was  in  the  res- 


240  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

toration  of  his  health,  on  which  subject  the  mother 
is  unremitting  hi  her  reports.  She  survived  her 
son  only  two  years,  ending  her  life  with  his  name  on 
her  lips.  Her  elder  sister  had  come  to  see  her,  and 
was  about  to  take  her  hand  when  she  exclaimed 
'  Louis,  I  must  go/  tried  to  get  up,  but  sank  into  an 
unconsciousness  in  which  she  died. 

STEVENSON,  ROBERT  (1772-1850) 

The  grandfather,  who  was  the  founder  of  the 
Stevenson  firm  of  lighthouse  engineers,  died  four 
months  before  the  birth  of  R.  L.  S.  In  the  year 
1807  the  partnership  between  him  and  his  father- 
in-law,  Thomas  Smith,  from  whom  he  obtained  his 
introduction  to  the  profession,  was  dissolved,  and 
Robert  Stevenson  became  sole  engineer  to  the  Board 
of  Northern  Lights  when  thirty-five  years  of  age. 
His  most  notable  piece  of  work  is  that  which  he 
undertook  immediately  on  his  appointment,  viz., 
the  building  of  the  Bell  Rock  lighthouse  on  the  Inch- 
cape  Rock  off  the  mouths  of  the  Firths  of  Tay  and 
Forth.  R.  L.  S.  in  A  Family  of  Engineers  has  drawn 
a  picture  of  the  difficulties  of  the  task.  At  low  water 
a  third  of  the  rock  is  covered  ;  at  a  little  more  than 
half-flood  '  the  seamless  ocean  joins  over  the  reef,' 
and  at  high  winter  tides  the  rock  is  sixteen  feet  under 
the  sea.  Considering  that  the  work  had  to  be  sus- 
pended hi  the  months  from  October  to  February, 
and  was  done  without  the  aid  of  steam  power,  the 
building  of  the  tower  hi  four  years  was  a  great 
triumph  for  its  engineer.  For  a  further  thirty-five 
years  Stevenson's  grandfather  led  a  life  of  prodigious 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  241 

energy  in  his  profession  of  lighthouse  and  harbour 
engineer.  He  was  an  autocratic  administrator, 
stern  in  his  requirements  from  the  lighthouse- 
keepers,  but  beloved  for  his  unwearying  solicitude 
for  their  material  wants .  A  record  of  his  professional 
work  by  his  son  David  was  published  in  1878,  and 
the  concluding  part  of  Stevenson's  unfinished  life 
of  the  family  is  a  somewhat  abridged  and  edited 
version  of  the  '  Account '  of  the  building  of  the 
Bell  Rock  which  Robert  Stevenson,  in  the  intervals 
of  his  profession,  took  fourteen  years  to  write. 

STEVENSON,  ROBERT  ALAN  MOWBRAY  (1847- 

1900) 

The  concentrated  purpose  which  made  R.  L.  S. 
a  writer  seems  to  have  been  the  missing  faculty  in 
his  equally  talented  cousin.  '  Bob/  as  he  was  known 
to  his  friends,  was  the  only  son  of  Alan  Stevenson, 
and  R.  L.  S.'s  senior  by  three  and  a  half  years.  The 
greater  part  of  his  life  was  spent  hi  the  practical 
study  of  painting ;  it  was  not  until  he  was  nearly 
forty  that  he  found  the  vocation  of  art  critic,  in 
which  his  intellectual  talents  obtained  a  fitting  field 
of  exercise.  His  work  in  this  sphere  was  done  as 
Professor  of  Fine  Art  at  Liverpool  University,  subse- 
quently as  art  critic  of  the  '  Pall  Mall  Gazette,'  and 
in  numerous  contributions  to  magazines.  He  left 
his  mark  as  a  critic  chiefly  in  his  '  Art  of  Velasquez,' 
a  treatise  not  only  on  the  Spanish  painter,  but  on 
the  principles  of  pure  pictorial  art.  The  two  cousins 
were  much  together  in  their  early  years.  '  Bob ' 
is  Stevenson's  companion  in  Child's  Play,  and  was 

Q 


242  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

his  fellow  conspirator  in  those  light-hearted  practical 
jokes  on  the  good  people  of  Edinburgh,  related  in 
the  Autobiography  (q.v.).  His  studentship  in  Paris 
in  the  atelier  of  Carolus  Duran  was  the  occasion  of 
the  visits  of  R.  L.  S.  to  the  artists'  colonies  of  Fon- 
tainebleau,  which  have  had  their  chronicler  in  Mr.  Will 
H.  Low  (q.v.}.  The  Stennis  brothers  of  The  Wrecker 
— the  name  was  the  nearest  approach  to  '  Stevenson  ' 
which  the  Barbizon  innkeeper  could  make — re- 
present their  habit  of  random  travel  at  this  time. 
But  the  most  characteristic  quality  of  R.  A.  M. 
Stevenson  was  his  brilliance  in  talk.  Somebody  has 
said  he  was  the  best  talker  of  his  generation.  He 
is  Spring-Heel'd  Jack  in  Talk  and  Talkers  and  was, 
in  his  cousin's  words,  '  the  most  valuable  man  to 
talk  to,  above  all  in  his  younger  days  ;  for  he 
twisted  like  a  serpent,  changed  like  the  patterns  of 
a  kaleidoscope,  transmigrated  (it  is  the  only  word) 
from  one  point  of  view  to  another  with  a  swiftness 
and  completeness  that  left  a  stupid  and  merely 
logical  mind  panting  in  the  rear.'  Two  of  Steven- 
son's characters  are  drawn,  in  part,  from  his  cousin. 
Otto  in  Prince  Otto  owes  something  of  his  indecision 
to  the  irresolution  in  practical  affairs  which  was  a 
trait  of  R.  A.  M.  S.,  while  Somerset  in  More  New 
Arabian  Nights  reflects  his  '  indefatigable  feverish 
mind.' 

STEVENSON,  THOMAS  (1818-1887) 

Stevenson's  father  was  the  youngest  son  of  Robert 
Stevenson  (q.v.),  in  whose  firm  he  became  a  partner 
in  1846.  From  1853  to  within  two  years  of  his  death 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  243 

in  1887  he  was  engineer  to  the  Commissioners  of 
Northern  Lights.  While  lighthouse  building  and 
harbour  construction  were  a  part  of  his  profession, 
the  optical  control  of  lighthouse  illuminants  was  his 
special  study,  to  which  he  made  several  notable  con- 
tributions. His  books  on  lighthouse  construction 
and  illumination  are  still  standard  works  on  this 
subject.  It  is  natural  enough  that  he  should  have 
wished  his  only  son  to  have  adopted  the  family  pro- 
fession, but  remarkable  that,  when  that  was  found 
impossible,  he  should  have  been  so  averse  from  a 
literary  career.  For  the  elder  Stevenson  had 
strongly  developed  in  him  both  the  romantic  spirit, 
and  the  sense  of  picturesque  expression  which  char- 
acterized R.  L.  S.  He  was  accustomed  to  put  him- 
self to  sleep  with  tales  made  to  himself  of  robbers, 
roadside  inns,  ships,  and  sailors.  A  sentence  of  his 
quoted  by  R.  L.  S.  is  an  example  of  both  this  de- 
scriptive speech  and  his  morbid  religious  mind ;  it  is 
his  view  of  life  '  as  a  shambling  sort  of  omnibus 
which  is  taking  him  to  his  hotel.'  The  differences 
between  father  and  son — and  they  lasted  only  a 
year  or  two — arose  partly  from  the  conflict  of  their 
views  on  religious  matters,  and  partly  from  the 
son's  contempt  of  the  social  conventions  of  his 
father's  circle.  Putting  these  disputes  aside,  their 
relationship  was  of  the  most  affectionate  character. 
R.  L.  S.  once  committed  to  the  business  of  writing, 
the  father's  allowances  to  him  were  on  the  scale  of 
his  needs,  the  wife  and  stepson  were  made  quite  of 
the  household,  and  as  time  went  on  an  almost 
pathetic  solicitude  was  displayed  for  his  son's  health. 


244  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Of  other  traits  we  have  a  sketch  in  Stevenson's  paper 
on  his  father,  published  in  the  '  Contemporary 
Review,'  June  1887,  though  it  deals  for  the  most 
part  with  his  professional  life.  The  only  other 
portrait  of  his  father  is  that  of  him  as  a  boy  contained 
in  a  fragment  written  for  A  Family  of  Engineers,  but 
published  in  Sir  Graham  Balfour's  '  Life.'  In  it 
R.  L.  S.  dwells  on  the  habits  of  truantry  and  practical 
jokes  in  which  the  boyhood  of  the  father  anticipated 
that  of  the  son.  Thomas  Stevenson  lived  just  long 
enough  to  see  his  son  famous,  and  in  the  last  year  of 
his  life  went  out  of  his  way  to  confess  to  an  old 
friend  (Sir  James  Dewar)  his  error  of  judgment  of 
twenty  years  before  in  seeking  to  make  Louis  an 
engineer. 

STIMULATION  OF  THE  ALPS,  THE 

This  delicate  analysis  of  the  sensations  of  the 
visitor  in  search  of  health  in  the  high  valleys  of  the 
Alps  belongs  to  the  first  winter  which  Stevenson 
(cet.  30)  spent  at  Davos.  And  the  best  that  he  can 
say  of  life  amid  the  Alpine  mountains  is  :  '  But  one 
thing  is  undeniable — that  in  the  rare  air,  clear,  cold, 
and  blinding  light  of  Alpine  winters,  a  man  takes  a 
certain  troubled  delight  hi  his  existence  which  can 
nowhere  else  be  paralleled.  He  is  perhaps  no 
happier,  but  he  is  stingingly  alive.  It  does  not, 
perhaps,  come  out  of  him  in  work  or  exercise,  yet 
he  feels  an  enthusiasm  of  the  blood  unknown  in 
more  temperate  climates.  It  may  not  be  health, 
but  it  is  fun.'  The  essay  which  is  more  cheerful  in 
tone  than  the  others,  Davos  in  Winter,  Health  and 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  245 

Mountains,  and  Alpine  Diversions,  describing  these 
chapters  in  Stevenson's  life,  appeared  in  the  '  Pall 
Mall  Gazette/  March  5,  1881,  and  is  placed  in 
Essays  of  Travel. 

STODDARD,  CHARLES  WARREN  (1843-1909) 

Stevenson  came  to  know  the  author  of  '  Summer 
Cruises  in  the  South  Seas,'  and  other  books  of 
Pacific  travels,  as  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  explains,  during 
his  first  visit  to  San  Francisco  in  1880.  Their  in- 
formal meeting  is  introduced  into  the  chapter 
'  Faces  on  the  City  Front '  of  The  Wrecker,  which 
contains  a  little  picture  of  the  place  where  Stoddard 
had  his  '  strange  den  upon  a  hill  in  ...  one  of  the 
most  San  Francisco-y  parts  of  San  Francisco.' 
Stoddard,  it  will  be  seen,  introduced  him  to  Her- 
mann Melville's  '  Omoo,'  and  by  the  recital  of  his 
own  experiences  added  to  the  fascination  which  from 
his  youth  the  South  Sea  Islands  had  for  him. 

STORY  OF  A  LIE,  THE 

This  story  may  be  said  to  mark  the  transition  of 
Stevenson's  writing  from  essays  of  character  and 
landscape  to  works  of  incident  or  adventure.  It  is 
his  first  story  with  pretence  to  a  constructive  plot ; 
a  minor  achievement  in  this  field  where  The  Pavilion 
on  the  Links,  written  six  months  afterwards,  is  one  of 
his  greatest  successes .  The  Story  of  a  Lie  was  written 
on  the  steerage  passage  to  New  York  in  August  1879 
(at.  29)  '  in  great  anxiety  of  mind  '  for  the  outcome 
of  the  journey  to  find  his  future  wife  which  he  had 
precipitately  undertaken.  The  chief  character  of 


246  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

the  tale,  the  broken-down  rascal  of  an  artist,  is 
evidently  taken  from  Stevenson's  occasional  Paris 
experiences  of  the  previous  three  years.  He  was  in 
fact  a  sketch  from  life,  for  Stevenson  afterwards 
wrote  that '  the  Admiral  was  recognized  in  America,' 
though  there  is  no  hint  of  his  identity  hi  the  gossip 
of  Mr.  W.  H.  Low  on  R.  L.  S.'s  acquaintances  in 
French  artists'  circles.  He  is,  however,  just  the  type 
of  picturesque  scamp  that  appealed  to  Stevenson 
and  could  make  him  write,  apropos  of  illustrations 
for  the  tale,  '  though  "  The  Lie  "  is  not  much  in  the 
way  of  pictures,  I  should  like  to  see  my  dear  Admiral 
in  the  flesh.  I  love  this  Admiral ;  I  give  my  head 
that  man  's  alive.' 

The  story  appeared  in  the  '  New  Quarterly  Maga- 
zine,' October  1879,  and  is  now  placed  in  Tales  and 
Fantasies. 

STRANGE  CASE  OF  DR.  JEKYLL  AND  MR. 
HYDE 

The  book  which  put  Stevenson's  name  in  the 
mouth  of  the  '  man  hi  the  street,'  lifted  him  at  a 
single  bound  to  a  place  among  men  of  the  time  and, 
by  the  still  greater  sensation  which  it  created  hi 
America,  led  to  the  large  income  which  soon  after- 
wards he  drew  from  the  United  States.  The  ear 
of  a  great  public  to  whom  his  earlier  writings  were 
unknown  was  captured  by  this  intense  picture  of  the 
elements  of  good  and  evil  hi  man's  nature.  It  was 
hailed  from  pulpits  and  in  the  religious  press  as  a 
great  moral  parable,  though  its  moral  quality,  on 
close  analysis,  is  seen  to  be  more  an  illusion,  due  to 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  247 

the  art  of  its  writing,  than  the  essence  of  the  fable. 
Reduced  to  its  simplest  formula  Jekyll  and  Hyde  is 
a  cry  of  terror  at  the  potency  for  evil  latent  in  the 
human  soul.  Such  moral  force  as  it  has  depends 
upon  its  assault  on  the  nerves,  not  on  its  appeal  to 
the  heart.  If  not  thus  interpreted  by  the  preachers 
of  the  time,  it  yet  served  the  purpose  of  moving  their 
hearers  by  the  spectacle  of  the  evil  partner  in  the 
human  ego,  indulged  in  a  moment  '  when  virtue 
slumbered/  coming  in  the  end  to  destroy  the  good. 
Yet  it  can  be  seen  from  the  facts  of  the  genesis  of 
the  story  in  his  biography  that  the  moral  dress  of 
Jekyll  and  Hyde  was  an  afterthought  which  Steven- 
son owed  to  his  wife's  criticism  of  the  first  draft  of  the 
tale'.  But  for  that  it  would  plainly  have  been  a  study 
in  psychological  horror  more  akin  to  his  two  earlier 
works  of  this  kind,  Markheim  and  Thrawn  Janet, 
both  no  doubt  of  a  higher  order  of  art  than  Jekyll 
and  Hyde,  but  the  latter  without  profession  of  any 
moral  quality. 

For  a  long  time  the  idea  of  the  dual  nature  of  our 
being  had  been  in  Stevenson's  mind  as  the  ground- 
work of  a  tale.  One  with  this  as  its  subject,  and 
entitled  '  The  Travelling  Companion,'  had  been 
written  at  HySres  and  had  been  rejected  by  one 
editor  as  '  a  work  of  genius,  but  indecent/  We 
know  nothing  more  of  it  than  that  Stevenson  at 
Bournemouth  in  the  summer  of  1885  (at.  35)  con- 
demned it  as  '  a  foul,  gross,  bitter,  ugly  daub  ...  a 
carrion  tale/  and  turned  to  discover  a  fresh  medium 
for  the  same  idea.  A  dream  brought  him  what  he 
wanted  in  the  shape  of  the  transforming  powders  and, 


248  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

as  he  afterwards  declared  in  A  Chapter  on  Dreams, 
the  central  idea  of  a  voluntary  change  becoming 
involuntary.  These,  and  the  incident  at  the  window 
were  the  material  from  which  in  a  torrent  of  in- 
spiration the  first  draft  of  the  story  was  written 
within  three  days.  In  accordance  with  the  arrange- 
ments between  them  at  this  time,  the  draft  then 
received  his  wife's  written  criticism  —  written 
because  his  physical  condition  forbade  all  discussion. 
Mrs.  Stevenson's  objection  was  to  the  work  being 
made  a  story  instead  of  a  piece  of  allegory.  As  first 
conceived,  JekylTs  was  a  wholly  evil  nature,  and 
the  transformation  into  Hyde  resorted  to  as  a  dis- 
guise. Acting  at  once  on  this  suggestion,  Stevenson 
burnt  his  first  manuscript,  and  again  in  three  days 
sought  to  reproduce  his  dream  as  a  sinister  moral 
fable  instead  of  a  merely  ghastly  tale.  But  it  may 
be  said  that  he  only  put  a  veneer  of  parable  upon  his 
first  conception. 

On  the  stage,  however,  hi  this  case  art  rather  than 
morals  has  its  way,  and  the  dramatized  version  of 
the  fable  has  achieved  a  measure  of  success  which 
Stevenson's  own  attempts  with  Henley  at  play- 
writing  never  came  near  to  attaining.  The  first, 
and  unquestionably  the  greatest  impersonation  of 
the  Jekyll-Hyde  creation  was  that  of  the  gifted 
Anglo-American  actor  Richard  Mansfield,  for  whom, 
with  Stevenson's  consent,  the  story  was  adapted  for 
the  stage  by  Thomas  Russel  Sullivan,  and  first  pro- 
duced at  Boston  Museum,  May  9,  1887.  It  was 
presented  at  the  Madison  Square  theatre,  New  York, 
on  September  10,  in  the  same  year  within  a  few  days 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  249 

of  Stevenson's  arrival  in  the  United  States.  He 
himself  was  too  ill  to  witness  Mansfield's  horrific 
portrayal  of  Jekyll  as  a  terror-haunted  man,  or  to 
share  in  the  sensation  of  the  New  York  audiences 
at  the  transformation  from  Jekyll  to  Hyde,  which 
the  actor  produced  simply  by  the  muscles  of  his  face 
and  posture  of  his  body.  So  startling  was  the 
change  that  Mansfield  felt  called  upon  to  declare 
that  he  employed  no  secret  make-up  nor  any  stage 
device  except  lighting.  The  success  of  the  piece 
was  such  that,  in  the  absence  of  copyright  in  the 
book,  numerous  stage  versions  of  it  were  produced, 
most  of  them  of  the  crudest  description.  The  best 
of  these,  though  artistically  greatly  inferior  to 
Mansfield's,  was  that  of  a  German-American  actor, 
Daniel  Bandmann,  who  brought  his  play  to  London 
in  the  following  year,  and  endeavoured  to  steal  a 
march  on  Mansfield,  who  also  had  arranged  to  play  it 
in  England.  The  two  versions  came  before  London 
playgoers  almost  simultaneously,  Mansfield's  at  the 
Lyceum  on  August  4,  and  Bandmann's  at  the  Opera 
Comique  on  August  6,  1888.  The  latter  was  played 
only  twice  :  its  comic  scenes  hi  the  manner  of  trans- 
pontine melodrama  made  it  a  travesty  of  the  essential 
idea.  Mansfield's  was  given  a  place  in  his  repertoire 
until  September,  and  was  regularly  played  by  him 
in  America  until  his  retirement  in  1907.  He  has  left 
it  on  record  that  he  suffered  martyrdom  in  acting 
the  part,  more,  it  would  seem,  from  anxiety  that  the 
stage  arrangements  would  not  support  his  facial 
changes  than  from  emotional  strain.  The  English 
performing  rights  in  Mansfield's  play  were  subse- 


250  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

quently  acquired  by  Sir  Henry  Irving,  whose  son, 
Mr.  H.  B.  Irving,  revived  it  with  himself  in  the  double 
part  at  the  Lyric  Theatre,  London,  hi  1910.  Apart 
from  the  regular  dramatizations,  the  book  has 
provided  the  groundwork  of  two  other  plays, 
'  The  Doctor's  Shadow,'  by  H.  A.  Saintsbury  in 
1896,  and  '  The  Phantom/  by  H.  C.  Edwards  hi 
1888.  And  a  very  dull  parody  of  it  is  among 
the  Stevenson  literature  hi  the  British  Museum, 
viz.,  '  The  Stranger  Case  of  Dr.  Hide  and  Mr. 
Crushall.'  By  Robert  L.  Bathos,  a  sixpenny 
pamphlet  of  1886,  from  an  Adelphi  publisher 
named  Bevington. 

Translations  of  Jekyll  and  Hyde  are  numerous. 
That  into  French,  published  in  1890,  is  by  Mrs.  W. 
H.  Low.  *  The  first  edition  of  the  book,  issued  by 
Messrs.  Longmans  early  in  1886  at  is.  hi  paper  covers, 
and  is.  6d.  in  cloth,  has  fluctuated  in  value  at  the 
present  time  from  £i  to  £3. 

STRONG,  MRS.   ISOBEL    STUART    (ABOUT   1865- 

) 

The  stepdaughter  who  during  Stevenson's  last 
years  in  Samoa  acted  as  his  amanuensis,  was  married, 
within  a  few  weeks  of  R.  L.  S.'s  own  marriage  to  her 
mother,  to  Joseph  Dwight  Strong.  Their  son, 
Austin  Strong,  is  the  author  of  plays,  e.g.,  '  The 
Drums  of  Oude,'  and  'The  Toymaker  of  Nuremberg,' 
produced  in  London  and  New  York.  For  some 
years  after  her  marriage  Mrs.  Strong  was  a  resident 
in  Honolulu,  and  it  was  through  her  husband's 
friends  that  Stevenson  on  his  arrival  there  in  the 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  251 

'  Casco  '  became  friends  with  the  native  king  Kala- 
kaua.  On  the  house  at  Vailima  being  completed 
Mrs.  Strong  and  her  son  made  their  home  there. 
Her  part  in  the  household  may  be  judged  from  a 
letter  of  Stevenson's  to  Sir  James  Barrie,  describing 
the  amanuensis  :  '  Runs  me  like  a  baby  in  a  peram- 
bulator, sees  I  'm  properly  dressed,  bought  me  silk 
socks,  and  made  me  wear  them,  takes  care  of  me 
when  I  'm  well,  from  writing  my  books  to  trimming 
my  nails.  Has  a  growing  conviction  that  she  is  the 
author  of  my  works,  manages  the  house  and  the 
houseboys,  who  are  very  fond  of  her.  Does  all  the 
hair-cutting  of  the  family.  Will  cut  yours,  and 
doubtless  object  to  the  way  you  part  it.  Mine  has 
been  re-organized  twice.'  The  book  '  Memories  of 
Vailima '  (London,  Constable,  1903)  contains  her 
very  intimate  picture  of  Stevenson's  life  in 
Samoa,  and  particularly  of  the  ways  and  moods 
in  which  he  took  up  the  writing  of  St.  Ives  and 
Weir  of  Hermiston.  Of  the  latter  Mrs.  Strong 
writes :  '  Louis  and  I  have  been  writing,  work- 
ing away  every  morning  like  steam-engines  on 
Hermiston.  Louis  got  a  set-back  with  Anne,  and 
he  has  put  it  aside  for  a  while.  He  worried 
terribly  over  it,  but  could  not  make  it  run 
smoothly.  He  read  it  aloud  one  evening  and 
Lloyd  criticized  the  love-scene,  so  Louis  threw 
the  whole  thing  over  for  a  time.  Fortunately  he 
picked  up  Hermiston  all  right,  and  is  in  better 
spirits  at  once.  He  has  always  been  wonderfully 
clear  and  sustained  hi  his  dictation,  but  he  gener- 
ally made  notes  in  the  early  morning,  which  he 


252  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

elaborated  as  he  read  them  aloud.  In  Hermiston 
he  had  hardly  more  than  a  line  or  two  of  notes  to 
keep  him  on  the  track,  but  he  never  falters  for  a 
word,  giving  me  the  sentences,  with  capital  letters 
and  all  the  stops,  as  clearly  and  steadily  as  though 
he  were  reading  from  an  unseen  book.  He  walks 
up  and  down  the  room  as  I  write,  and  his 
voice  is  so  beautiful  and  the  story  so  interesting 
that  I  forget  to  rest.'  Mrs.  Strong  is  also  the 
author  of  the  volume  on  Stevenson  hi  Messrs. 
CasselTs  '  Little  Books  on  Great  Writers '  (1911), 
a  very  rapid  sketch,  with  one  or  two  personal 
reminiscences. 


STUBBS,  LAURA 

Author  of  '  Stevenson's  Shrine '  (London,  De  La 
Moore  Press,  1903),  the  story  of  a  visit  to  Vailima, 
and  to  Stevenson's  tomb  made  eight  years  after  his 
death.  The  book  is  illustrated  with  some  good 
photographs  of  the  house  and  household  taken 
during  Stevenson's  lifetime. 


STYLE  IN  LITERATURE,  ON  SOME  TECHNICAL 
ELEMENTS  OF 

A  most  technical  paper  on  the  elementary  qualities 
such  as  pattern,  rhythm,  and  phrasing,  which  dis- 
tinguish prose  literature,  was  the  work  of  five  days 
in  bed  at  Bournemouth  in  the  winter  of  1884  (<zt.  34). 
It  and  other  earlier  papers,  viz.,  those  on  Realism 
and  on  Romance,  were  considered  the  beginning 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  253 

for  a  work  on  literature — '  a  small  arid  book  that 
shall  one  day  appear.'  Stevenson  became  seriously 
enthusiastic  in  this  study  of  the  technical  art  of  the 
writer ;  spoke  of  it  as  '  path-breaking  and  epoch- 
making,'  and  a  year  or  so  afterwards  began  the  pre- 
paration of  a  course  of  lectures,  for  delivery  hi 
London,  hi  which  his  theories  of  style  might  have 
been  addressed  to  students.  The  paper  appeared 
in  the  '  Contemporary  Review,'  April  1885,  and  is 
placed  in  The  Art  of  Writing. 

SWANSTON 

The  '  hamlet  of  some  twenty  cottages  hi  a  woody 
fold  of  a  green  hill '  was  the  country  home  where  the 
happiest  of  Stevenson's  Edinburgh  days  were  spent. 
The  hill  is  Caerketton,  the  most  eastern,  and  in  some 
respects  the  noblest  of  the  Pentland  heights.  It 
dominates  the  landscape  between  Swanston  near  its 
foot  and  the  city  of  Edinburgh  four  miles  away. 
Thomas  Stevenson  took  what  is  now  famous  as 
Swanston  Cottage  when  his  son  was  seventeen,  and 
in  summer  and  winter  alike  R.  L.  S.  was  constantly 
there,  busy  within  doors,  or  making  long  rambles  on 
the  hills.  The  cottage  has  been  much  enlarged  since 
Stevenson  made  it  the  place  of  refuge  of  Champdivers 
in  St.  Ives,  but  the  hamlet  in  its  secluded  position 
adjoining  the  Lothianburn  Golf  Course  on  the  Car- 
lops  road,  has  changed  very  little  since  his  time. 
The  present  tenant  of  the  house  is  Stevenson's  old 
friend  of  his  advocate  days,  Lord  Guthrie,  who  has 
collected  there  many  portraits,  manuscripts,  and 
other  memorials  of  R.  L.  S. 


254       A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

SWINNERTON,  FRANK  (1884-    ) 

The  most  recent  and  by  far  the  most  searching 
analysis,  in  the  technical  sense,  of  Stevenson's  writ- 
ings is  marked  by  a  curious  undercurrent  of  dis- 
approval, even  dislike.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  the 
literary  skill  of  Mr.  Swinnerton's  '  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson :  A  Critical  Study '  (London,  Martin 
Seeker,  1914),  and  difficult  to  disagree  with  much 
of  its  criticism.  The  fact  which  crops  up  unpleas- 
antly in  nearly  every  page  is  the  author's  antagonism 
to  the  personality  of  R.  L.  S.  It  is  the  kind  of  study 
which  it  can  be  imagined  Dr.  Clifford  might  write 
of  Ignatius  Loyola.  The  charm  of  Stevenson  is 
seemingly  something  outside  the  understanding  of 
Mr.  Swinnerton,  who  is  hard  put  to  it  to  explain  its 
fascination  for  the  reader,  and  must  find  explanations 
in  the  idolization  of  R.  L.  S.  by  the  shallow-brained. 

SYMONDS,  JOHN  ADDINGTON  (1840-1893) 

In  Symonds,  the  writer  on  art  and  literature,  and 
particularly  on  the  Renaissance  in  Italy,  Stevenson 
found  a  certain  solace  when  they  first  met,  invalids 
both,  in  Davos  in  1880.  Symonds  had  made  his 
home  there,  and  as  successive  recurrences  of  illness 
sent  R.  L.  S.  back  to  the  Alps,  the  two  men,  despite 
differences  in  temperament,  were  glad  of  each  other's 
society.  A  more  heartening  companion  could  have 
been  wished  for  Stevenson.  In  Symonds  a  pre- 
dominant trait  was  an  intense  and  restless  spirit  of 
religious  inquiry  which  put  aside  all  dogmas  but 
brought  its  possessor,  divided  between  desire  for 
belief  in  a  personal  God  and  intellectual  inability  to 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  255 

accept  the  conception,  no  more  than  a  resigned 
melancholy.  To  him  R.  L.  S.  with  his  gay  courage 
was  '  Sprite  '  and  '  Quick  shining  Firefly.'  Symonds's 
cheerless  self-criticism  of  his  own  diffused  powers 
was  the  antithesis  of  Stevenson's  hopeful  expecta- 
tions of  mastering  his  art.  Little  wonder  that  R.  L.  S. 
should  have  set  him  down  as  '  much  of  an  invalid  in 
mind  and  character,'  and  that  the  companionship, 
as  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Gosse,  was  for  him  '  to 
adventure  in  a  thornbush.' 

Talk  and  Talkers,  where  Opalstein  is  Symonds. 
lends  colour  to  this  early  impression,  but  as  time 
went  on  his  regard  deepened  for  Symonds's  char- 
acter and  struggle  with  persistent  ill-health.  In 
the  latter  feeling  he  sought  publicly  to  join  with 
him  by  way  of  a  dedication  of  the  book  of  travels 
in  the  South  Seas,  which  he  sent  to  Symonds  for 
his  consent  to  its  appearance.  One  passage  ran : 
'  Our  fathers,  it  would  seem,  wondered  and  doubted 
how  they  had  merited  their  misfortunes  :  we  rather 
how  we  have  deserved  our  happiness.'  Symonds's 
answer  apparently  miscarried.  His  death  in  1893 
moved  R.  L.  S.  to  regret  that  he  had  not  renewed 
his  request  to  the  '  strange,  poignant,  pathetic, 
brilliant  creature/ 


TALES  AND  FANTASIES 

The  volume  of  three  stories,  The  Misadventures  of 
John  Nicholson,  The  Body  Snatcher,  and  The  Story 
of  a  Lie,  all  juvenile  work  of  Stevenson's.  The 
book  is  issued  by  Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windus. 


256  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

TALK  AND  TALKERS 

Written  at  Davos  towards  the  end  of  1881  (at.  31), 
and  published  in  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine/  April  and 
August  1882.  In  the  collected  works  it  is  appro- 
priately placed  in  Memories  and  Portraits,  for  in  the 
first  paper  R.  L.  S. '  full-lengthened  the  conversation ' 
of  half  a  dozen  of  his  friends,  most  of  them  of  his 
early  Edinburgh  days.  Spring-heel'd  Jack  is  his 
cousin,  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson  ;  Burly  is  W.  E.  Henley  ; 
Cockshot,  Professor  Fleeming  Jenkin ;  Athelred, 
Sir  Walter  Simpson  of  the  Inland  Voyage;  Opal- 
stein,  John  Addington  Symonds  ;  and  Purcel,  Mr. 
Edmund  Gosse.  The  reference  at  the  end  of  the  last 
paragraph  but  one  in  the  first  paper  is  to  his  friend, 
Charles  Baxter.  With  the  exception  of  Professor 
Jenkin,  who  was  fifteen  years  his  senior,  these 
friends  were  about  Stevenson's  own  age.  It  is  the 
talk  of  youth  in  the  twenties.  Henley,  to  take  one 
instance,  had  not,  in  later  life,  the  '  boisterous  and 
piratic '  manner  and  intolerance  in  talk  for  which 
R.  L.  S.  declared  his  admiration. 


THERMAL  INFLUENCE  OF  FORESTS,  ON  THE 

This  second  technical  paper  of  Stevenson's  was 
read  before  the  Royal  Society  of  Edinburgh,  May  19, 
1873  (at.  23).  It  is  a  study  of  the  then  current  know- 
ledge of  the  effects  of  woods  and  forest  on  rainfall 
and  climate  generally.  It  was  not  intended  to  have 
any  literary  merit,  and  is  republished  only  in  the 
complete  editions  of  the  collected  works. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  257 

THOREAU,  HENRY  DAVID 

It  must  always  be  an  occasion  for  some  wonder 
that  the  author  of  '  Walden '  attracted  Stevenson  as 
he  did.  There  are  so  many  and  such  vital  differ- 
ences in  the  instincts  of  the  two  men.  One  contrasts 
Thoreau's  vegetable  life  with  Stevenson's  animal 
spirits ;  his  indifference  to  his  neighbours  with 
Stevenson's  yearning  for  friends ;  his  deliberate 
abstinence  from  common  pleasures  with  Stevenson's 
gospel  of  happiness  ;  in  short,  the  negative  aloof- 
ness of  Thoreau  with  the  positive  eagerness  of 
R.  L.  S.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  easy  to  see  a  strong 
affinity  in  the  refusal  of  each  of  them  to  sacrifice  his 
cherished  purposes  in  life  to  the  business  of  earning 
a  livelihood.  Stevenson  quoted  Thoreau :  '  The  cost 
of  a  thing  is  the  amount  of  what  I  would  call  life 
which  is  required  to  be  exchanged  for  it  immedi- 
ately or  in  the  long  run,'  and  approvingly  adds  his 
own  version  '  that  the  price  we  have  to  pay  for  money 
is  paid  in  liberty.'  It  was  this  love  of  freedom, 
of  escape  from  uncongenial  toil  in  order  to  exercise 
his  natural  powers,  that  clearly  commended  Thoreau 
to  R.  L.  S.,  just  as  the  self-centred  form  it  took  com- 
pelled the  harsh  phrases  of  the  essay.  These,  it  will 
be  remembered,  aroused  the  protest  of  a  student 
and  biographer  of  Thoreau,  Dr.  A.  H.  Japp,  whose 
letters  and  visit  to  Stevenson  prompted  the  reply 
that  '  I  would  give  up  most  other  things  to  be  as 
good  a  man  as  Thoreau.'  But  it  can  easily  be 
imagined  that  Stevenson,  when  writing  his  essay  at 
Monterey  (est.  29),  in  the  months  before  his  marriage 
to  Mrs.  Osbourne,  should  have  been  impatient  of 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

the  abstinence  of  all  neighbourly  thoughts  which 
obtrudes  itself  with  such  an  emphasis  in  Thoreau's 
works.  Here,  as  he  confessed  after  the  appearance 
of  the  piece  hi  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine  '  (June  1880), 
and  its  inclusion  in  Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and. 
Books,  he  had  drawn  a  distorted  portrait  of  the  man 
from  his  writings.  And  there  is  added  the  some- 
what unexpected  admission  :  '  Upon  me  this  pure, 
narrow,  sunnily  ascetic  Thoreau  had  exercised  a 
great  charm.  I  have  scarce  written  ten  sentences 
since  I  was  introduced  to  him,  but  his  influence 
might  somewhere  be  detected  by  a  close  observer.' 

THRAWN  JANET 

This  short  story  of  the  supernatural  belongs  to 
the  series  of  tales  of  psychological  terror  which 
Stevenson  and  his  wife  planned  during  the  first  year 
of  their  marriage.  It  was  written  at  Pitlochry  hi 
the  Highlands  in  1881  (<zl.  31),  at  the  same  time  as 
The  Merry  Men,  with  which  its  style  has  much  hi 
common.  The  introduction  of  a  black  man  as  a 
terrifying  impersonation  is  used  in  both  tales.  The 
old  Scottish  superstition  that  the  Devil  appears  as 
a  black  evidently  ran  hi  Stevenson's  mind  at  this 
time.  In  his  thirtieth  year  he  found  the  same  fearful 
pleasure  in  the  legends  of  bogies  and  witchcraft  as 
when  his  nurse  told  him  these  tales  of  her  country. 
This  susceptibility  to  the  horrific — he  declared  that 
the  writing  of  Thrawn  Janet  '  nearly  frightens  me 
to  death  ' — is  plainly  the  inspiration  of  the  tale,  and 
has  its  recognition  hi  the  foremost  place  among  his 
short  stories  to  which  critics,  with  remarkable  un- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  259 

animity,  have  assigned  it.  It  was  Stevenson's  first 
prose  work  to  be  written  wholly  in  Scots,  and  save 
for  '  Tod  Lapraik,'  introduced  into  Catriona,  his 
last.  Stevenson,  once  again  anticipating  his  critics, 
coupled  the  two  tales  as  work  which  together  of 
themselves  would  be  enough  to  entitle  him  to  be  a 
writer.  Thrawn  Janet  appeared  in  the  '  Cornhill 
Magazine/  October  1881,  and  is  included  in  The 
Merry  Men. 

THREE  PLAYS 

Deacon  Brodie,  Beau  Austin,  and  Admiral  Guinea, 
by  Henley  and  Stevenson,  were  issued  under  this 
title  by  Mr.  David  Nutt  in  1892.  The  present  value 
is  about  los.  See  '  Plays.' 

TICONDEROGA 

See  '  Ballads/ 

TRAVELS  WITH  A  DONKEY  IN  THE  CEVENNES 

While  the  fame  of  Stevenson  is  associated  in  the 
public  mind  with  Treasure  Island  and  Jekyll  and 
Hyde,  it  may  be  thought  that  the  Travels  with  a 
Donkey  will  live  the  longest  hi  the  estimation  of  a 
more  eclectic  class  on  account  of  its  unique  expression 
of  Stevenson's  unconscious  art  of  making  himself 
interesting  to  the  reader.  A  certain  critic,  who 
cannot  understand  Stevenson,  is  offended  by  the 
egoism  which  causes  the  reader  to  share  the  sensa- 
tions of  the  owner  of  Modestine  more  acutely  than 
those  of,  say,  Robinson  Crusoe.  The  habit  passed 
in  some  measure  as  Stevenson  grew  older,  but  the 


260  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

book  preserves  a  certain  picture  which,  though  it 
does  not  suggest  the  high  spirits  of  his  youth,  can 
be  taken  as  one  of  himself  in  these  early  days. 
Indeed  the  circumstances  of  the  journey  were  not 
those  to  inspire  high  spirits.  Mrs.  Osbourne  after 
having  spent  two  years  in  France  had  that  summer 
returned  to  America,  and  Stevenson,  who  had  been 
in  Paris  for  the  first  six  months  of  the  year  (1878), 
must  have  set  out  to  Monastier,  in  August,  with  very 
dark  thoughts  of  the  uncertainty  hi  which  the  desire 
of  his  life  was  involved.  Thus  when  the  book  was 
published  in  the  following  year  he  wrote  to  R.  A.  M. 
Stevenson,  '  Lots  of  it  is  mere  protestation  to  F. 
(Mrs.  Osbourne),  most  of  which  I  think  you  will 
understand.  That  is  to  me  the  main  thread  of 
interest.  Whether  the  damned  public — but  that 's 
all  one/  The  public  may  be  thought  not  to  have 
detected  the  note  of  the  anxious  lover  in  such  pas- 
sages as  that  on  the  monks  of  our  Lady  of  the  Snows  : 
'  And  I  blessed  God  that  I  was  free  to  wander,  free 
to  hope,  and  free  to  love/ 

It  is  scarcely  accurate,  as  Stevenson  remarks  in 
one  place,  to  speak  of  the  journey  as  in  the  Cevennes. 
During  the  greater  number  of  his  twelve  days  he  was 
west  of  the  range  which  for  three  hundred  miles  runs 
from  not  far  south  of  Lyons  to  within  thirty  miles  of 
the  Mediterranean,  and  forms  the  watershed  of  the 
Loire  and  Allier  in  the  west  and,  in  the  east,  of  the 
roaring  tributaries  of  the  Rhone.  His  way  lay 
chiefly  in  the  forbidding  but  less  formidable  hills 
of  the  Velay,  in  Upper  G6vaudan,  and  in  the  Lozere 
mountains.  The  Pic  de  Finiels  in  the  latter  range, 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  261 

which  Stevenson  calls '  The  Cevennes  of  the  Cevennes,' 
is  classed  by  many  geographers  as  a  height  of  a  dis- 
tinct mountain  group,  though  actually  an  eastern 
spur  midway  hi  the  Cevennes  range.  Indeed  Steven- 
son was  most  truly  in  the  Cevennes  on  the  last  day 
of  his  journey  when  crossing  their  southern  slope 
from  St.  Germain  de  Calberte  to  St.  Jean  de  Gard. 
The  point  is  referred  to  only  by  way  of  warning  to 
those  studying  the  places  of  the  journey  that  they 
will  find  few  of  them  mentioned  in  the  guide-books 
and  other  works  on  the  Cevennes,  but  need  to  consult 
chiefly  those  on  the  topography  of  Haute-Loire,  of 
which  an  admirable  modern  example  is  that  by 
M.  Marcelin  Boule  (Paris,  Masson  et  Cie,  1911). 

The  country  through  which  he  journeyed  was,  and 
still  is,  the  most  deficient  hi  ordinary  comforts  for 
the  traveller  of  any  in  France.  Between  Monastier, 
from  which  he  started,  after  a  month's  stay  spent  in 
completing  the  New  Arabian  Nights  and  the  Pictur- 
esque Notes  on  Edinburgh,  to  St.  Jean  de  Gard,  there 
is  scarcely  a  place  which  boasts  an  inn  offering 
more  than  the  most  primitive  accommodation. 
But  though  Stevenson  did  not  seek  the  more  sceni- 
cally.  attractive  parts  of  the  country,  which  are  to 
be  found  chiefly  in  the  Department  of  Arde"che,  in 
few  parts  of  Western  Europe  could  he  have  travelled 
by  so  many  river  courses,  or  experienced  the  abrupt 
change  from  highlands  of  Siberian  winters  to  a 
country  of  the  South  within  sight  almost  of  the  vine 
and  olive-yards  of  Herault.  Crossing  the  beginning 
of  the  Loire  and  the  Allier  at  Langogne,  Cheylard 
and  Luc  hi  the  bleak,  bare  valleys  of  Upper  Gevaudan 


262  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

were  places  on  the  way  to  La  Bastide  whence  the 
road  was  taken  to  the  Trappist  Monastery  of  Our 
Lady  of  the  Snows,  entirely  destroyed  by  fire  hi  the 
early  summer  of  1912.  Thence  from  Bleymard 
over  considerable  ridges  of  the  Lozere  to  Pont  de 
Montvert  on  the  Tarn,  thence  westward  along  the 
Tarn  Valley  to  Florae,  the  only  place  of  any  size  in 
the  itinerary,  and  from  Florae  by  the  valley  of  the 
Mimente  through  the  heart  of  the  Camisard  country 
to  St.  Jean  de  Gard,  where  Modestine  was  sold  and 
the  stage  coach  taken  to  the  railway  at  Alais.  The 
route  of  this  journey  has  been  followed  twenty  years 
afterwards  by  a  lover  of  Stevenson,  Mr.  J.  A. 
Hammerton,  who  tried  but,  as  is  not  surprising, 
failed  to  discover  a  single  person  who  remembered 
the  traveller  with  a  donkey.  The  story  of  this  pil- 
grimage is  told  in  the  book  '  In  the  Track  of  Steven- 
son,' the  photographs  hi  which  of  some  of  the  forlorn 
hamlets  which  were  Stevenson's  objectives  exemplify 
his  doctrine  of  travelling  '  not  to  go  anywhere  but  to 
go.'  At  any  rate  Mr.  Hammerton  was  able  to  learn 
the  identity  of  the  waitress  Clarisse  of  Pont  de  Mont- 
vert,  whose  features  had  moved  Stevenson  to  regret 
that  she  should  be  '  left  to  country  admirers  and  a 
country  way  of  thought.'  A  married  life  in  the  dis- 
trict, as  Mr.  Hammerton  ascertained,  was,  however, 
her  lot,  savoured  perhaps  in  odd  moments  of  recol- 
lection by  the  knowledge  conveyed  to  her  that  she 
had  figured  in  a  work  of  literature.  But  her  phleg- 
matic countenance,  which  Mr.  Hammerton  repro- 
duces in  his  volume,  discourages  the  thought  that 
Clarisse  derived  any  satisfaction  from  having  been 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  263 

the  original  of  a  not  altogether  flattering  portrait. 
It  was  at  Pont  de  Montvert  that  Stevenson  entered 
the  country  memorable  for  the  struggles  of  the 
Camisards  for  religious  liberty  hi  the  early  years  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  The  Protestant  Cevenols 
who  hi  these  trackless  hills  defended  their  faith 
against  the  soldiers  of  Louis  xiv.  could  not  fail  to  be 
coupled  hi  his  mind  with  the  Scottish  Covenanters. 
For  the  rest  of  the  journey  the  religious  war  crops 
up  again  and  again  in  his  pages,  and  at  Cassagnas,  as 
he  says,  his  historical  acquirements  gained  him  some 
respect.  The  persecution  might  well  have  formed 
the  groundwork  of  an  historical  romance  hi  later 
years',  but  there  is  no  evidence  of  Stevenson  having 
ever  entertained  the  idea.  The  late  S.  R.  Crockett, 
however,  took  it  as  the  basis  of  his  novel  '  Flower 
o'  the  Corn/ 

The  book  was  written  in  Edinburgh  in  the  winter 
of  1878  (at.  28),  and  on  publication  in  June  1879 
attracted  scarcely  more  notice  in  literary  circles  than 
An  Inland  Voyage  of  the  previous  year.  The  copy- 
right in  the  two  and  in  that  of  Virginibus  Puerisque 
was  bought  back  from  the  publishers  for  as  little  as 
one  hundred  pounds.  The  first  edition  issued  by 
Kegan  Paul,  and  containing  the  frontispiece  by 
Walter  Crane  in  the  style  of  illustrations  of  '  The 
Pilgrim's  Progress,'  is  rare,  and  recently  realized 
sums  from  £10  to  £18. 

TREASURE  ISLAND 

The  book  which  made  Stevenson  famous,  and  has 
since  become  a  classic  among  tales  of  adventure,  to 


264  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

be  ranked  with  '  Robinson  Crusoe.'  Its  appearance 
did  much  more  than  establish  him  as  a  writer  for  boy 
readers.  In  fact,  the  book  was  not  instantaneously 
a  success  among  readers  of  that  day,  pledged  to 
Captain  Marry  at  and  his  imitators.  But  it  brought 
Stevenson  prominently  to  the  notice  of  an  elder 
public,  able  to  perceive  the  uncommon  power  of 
romantic  description  which  marked  Treasure  Island 
from  previous  tales  of  adventure.  Mayne  Reid  and 
Ballantyne  have  their  sway  over  the  youthful  mind, 
but  it  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
would  have  searched  London  for  a  book  by  either,  as 
he  is  said  to  have  done  for  a  copy  of  Treasure  Island, 
on  the  first  edition  being  sold  out  at  the  publishers. 
A  couple  of  years  passed  before  this  yarn  of  buc- 
caneers and  mutiny  on  the  high  seas  became  one  of 
the  most  popular  of  boys'  books.  Meanwhile  its 
author,  who  had  never  been  a  campaigner  like  Mayne 
Reid  hi  Mexico,  or  Ballantyne  with  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company,  but  had  lived  in  a  bedroom  world 
of  romance  of  his  own  making,  first  found  himself 
recognized  as  a  writer  of  note  outside  the  small 
literary  circle  in  which  his  work  was  esteemed. 

The  circumstances  of  its  writing  and  publication 
are  in  some  respects  unlike  those  of  his  other  books. 
Returning  to  England  after  his  marriage  in  San 
Francisco  hi  the  summer  of  1880,  R.  L.  S.,  with  his 
wife  and  stepson,  spent  the  winter  at  Davos,  came 
to  Edinburgh  in  the  spring  and,  with  his  parents 
and  family,  spent  part  of  the  summer  at  Braemar 
in  the  Highlands.  It  was  a  miserably  wet  season, 
he  was  reduced  to  prostration  by  a  cold,  and  partly 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  265 

for  the  amusement  of  his  stepson,  he  began  the  tale 
which  he  called  The  Sea-Cook  or  Treasure  Island.  To 
Henley  he  wrote  :  '  If  this  don't  fetch  the  kids,  why, 
they  have  gone  rotten  since  my  day.  Will  you  be 
surprised  to  learn  that  it  is  about  Buccaneers,  that 
it  begins  in  the  "Admiral  Benbow  "  public-house 
on  Devon  coast,  that  it  is  all  about  a  map,  and  a 
treasure,  and  a  mutiny,  and  a  derelict  ship,  and  a 
current,  and  a  fine  old  Squire  Trelawney  (the  real 
Tre,  purged  of  literature  and  sin,  to  suit  the  infant 
mind),  and  a  doctor,  and  another  doctor,  and  a  sea- 
cook  with  one  leg,  and  a  sea-song  with  the  chorus 
"  Yo-ho-ho  and  a  bottle  of  rum  "  (at  the  third  Ho, 
you  heave  at  the  capstan  bars),  which  is  a  real  buc- 
caneer's song  only  known  to  the  crew  of  the  late 
Captain  Flint  (died  of  rum  at  Key  West,  much  re- 
gretted, friends  please  accept  this  intimation)  ;  and 
lastly,  will  you  be  surprised  to  hear  in  this  connection 
the  name  of  Routledge  ?  That 's  the  kind  of  man 
I  am,  blast  your  eyes.  Two  chapters  are  written, 
and  have  been  tried  on  Lloyd  with  great  success ; 
the  trouble  is  to  work  it  off  without  oaths.  Buc- 
caneers without  oaths — bricks  without  straw.  But 
youth  and  the  fond  parent  have  to  be  consulted.' 
Mr.  Edmund  Gosse,  who  was  among  the  visitors 
who  came  to  Braemar,  has  preserved  for  us  in 
'  Critical  Kit-Kats  '  a  sketch  of  what  Stevenson's 
days  were  like  while  Treasure  Island  was  in  progress  : 
'  After  breakfast  I  went  to  Louis'  bedroom  where  he 
sat  up  in  bed  with  dark  flashing  eyes  and  ruffled  hair, 
and  we  played  chess  on  the  coverlet.  Not  a  word 
passed,  for  he  was  strictly  forbidden  to  speak  in  the 


266  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

early  part  of  the  day.  As  soon  as  he  felt  tired — often 
in  the  middle  of  a  game — he  would  rap  with  peremp- 
tory knuckles  on  the  board  as  a  signal  to  stop,  and 
then  Mrs.  Stevenson  or  I  would  arrange  his  writing 
materials  on  the  bed.  Then  I  would  see  no  more  of 
him  till  dinner-time,  when  he  would  appear  smiling 
and  voluble,  the  horrid  bar  of  speechlessness  having 
been  let  down.  Then  every  night,  after  dinner,  he 
would  read  to  us  what  he  had  written  during  the  day. 
I  find  a  note  to  my  wife  dated  September  3,  1881 : 
"  Louis  has  been  writing  all  the  time  I  have  been  here 
a  novel  of  pirates  and  hidden  treasure,  in  the  highest 
degree  exciting.  He  reads  it  to  us  every  night, 
chapter  by  chapter." 

The  elder  Stevenson  in  whom,  for  all  his  rigid 
beliefs,  was  a  strong  strain  of  romance,  took  the 
liveliest. interest  in  the  tale  and,  as  his  son  declared 
in  the  essay  My  First  Book,  compiled  the  list  of  things 
found  in  Billy  Bones's  chest.  In  this  friendly  atmo- 
sphere the  book  shaped  itself  at  the  rate  of  something 
like  a  chapter  a  day  until  more  than  half  of  it  was 
done.  It  flowed  from  Stevenson  as  scarcely  any 
other  of  his  longer  works  did — '  No  writing,'  he  wrote 
to  Henley,  '  just  drive  along  as  the  words  come  and 
the  pen  will  scratch.'  And  while  it  was  in  the 
making  there  came  another  visitor,  Dr.  Alexander 
Japp,  by  whom  it  was  introduced  to  a  publisher. 
The  publisher  was  a  friend  of  Dr.  Japp's,  Mr.  James 
Henderson,  for  whose  paper,  '  Young  Folks,'  it  was 
accepted  at  the  miserable  price  of  £2,  los.  a  page 
(of  4500  words),  not  more  than  is  paid  to  the  hack 
reporter  of  police-court  cases.  However  Stevenson 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  267 

retained  his  copyright  in  the  work,  and  Treasure 
Island  (the  choice  of  title  was  Mr.  Henderson's) 
began  an  obscure  and  undistinguished  appearance  hi 
'  Young  Folks,'  where  it  ran  from  October  i,  1881, 
to  January  28,  1882.  Before  more  than  a  chapter 
or  two  had  been  published  the  severe  weather  had 
driven  Stevenson  again  to  Davos  where,  after  an 
anxious  interval  in  which  '  there  was  not  one  word 
of  Treasure  Island  hi  my  bosom,'  the  tale  was 
finished  with  the  same  ease  and  zest  which  marked 
its  beginning. 

In  '  Young  Folks  '  Stevenson  used  the  pseudonym 
'  Captain  George  North,'  no  doubt  for  the  reason  that 
he  did  not  wish  to  injure  what  reputation  he  had 
gamed  as  a  contributor  of  essays  and  stories  of  a 
different  character  to  '  Temple  Bar  '  and  the  '  Corn- 
hill.'  If  that  were  so  he  was  mistaken,  for  the 
publication  of  Treasure  Island  hi  book  form,  by  the 
notice  it  brought  him,  was  the  means  of  interesting 
the  public  in  his  other  work,  though  equally  it 
created  the  idea,  even  now  not  quite  extinct,  that  he 
is  '  just  a  writer  of  stories  for  boys.'  At  any  rate  in 
the  spring  of  1882,  the  text  was  revised  and  the 
book  offered,  apparently  "without  success,  to  pub- 
lishers of  his  more  serious  writings.  It  was  not  until 
a  year  later,  after  a  spell  of  nearly  nine  months  in 
which  he  was  too  ill  to  work,  that  he  wrote  jubilantly 
to  his  parents  :  '  My  dearest  People, — I  have  had 
a  great  piece  of  news.  There  has  been  offered  for 
Treasure  Island — how  much  do  you  suppose  ?  I 
believe  it  would  be  an  excellent  jest  to  keep  the 
answer  till  my  next  letter.  For  two  cents  I  would 


268  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

do  so.  Shall  I  ?  Anyway,  I  '11  turn  the  page  first. 
No — well — a  hundred  pounds,  all  alive  0  !  a  hundred 
jingling,  tingling  golden-minted  quid !  Is  not  this 
wonderful.  ...  It  does  look  as  if  I  should  support 
myself  without  trouble  in  the  future.  If  I  have 
only  health,  I  can,  thank  God.  It  is  dreadful  to  be 
a  great  big  man,  and  not  be  able  to  buy  bread.' 
Messrs.  Cassell  published  Treasure  Island  hi  De- 
cember 1883  at  the  same  time  that  The  Silverado 
Squatters  appeared  with  Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windus, 
and  from  that  tune  Stevenson  had  gained  the  ear  of 
the  reading  public.  The  sales  of  the  former  may  be 
judged  from  the  fact  that  up  to  1919  £6000  had  been 
paid  in  royalties. 

In  his  '  Idler '  article  of  1894  Stevenson  declared 
that  the  germ  of  the  story  was  the  map  drawn  for 
the  wall  of  his  stepson's  playroom  at  Braemar,  and 
afterwards  lost  when  the  book  was  undertaken. 
The  second  one  (issued  with  the  volume),  made  with 
much  labour  to  fit  the  incidents  of  the  tale,  and  then 
re-drawn  hi  his  father's  office,  was  sold  at  Sotheby's 
in  1914  for  £44.  An  equal  inspiration  of  the  story 
was  a  mere  name,  '  The  Dead  Man's  Chest/  which 
Stevenson  lighted  on  hi  Charles  Kingsley's  '  At 
Last,'  a  volume  of  travel  hi  the  West  Indies.  It  was 
that  of  one  of  the  many  Virgin  Islands  which 
English  buccaneers  had  re-titled  in  accordance  with 
their  profession  of  plunder.  With  these  as  the  germ 
and  seed,  Stevenson's  reading  of  Defoe,  Washington 
Irving,  and  Poe  (evidently  '  The.  Gold  JBug '),  and 
Captain  Charles  Johnson's  '  Lives  of  Pirates  and 
Highwaymen,'  supplemented  by  his  own  experience 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  269 

on  sailing-ships,  formed  the  material  of  Treasure 
Island,  whilst  his  friend  Henley,  by  a  process  of 
transmutation,  provided  the  genesis  of  the  central 
figure  of  the  one-legged  cook,  Silver  (q.v.). 

Treasure  Island  on  its  appearance  was  reproduced 
and  pirated  hi  all  directions.  It  has  been  produced 
as  a  film  story  for  the  cinematograph,  and  is  beyond 
doubt  the  most  largely  sold  of  any  of  Stevenson's 
works.  The  first  edition  of  292  pages  with  map 
frontispiece,  now  rather  rare,  is  worth  about  £7. 

TREASURE  OF  FRANCHARD,  THE 

The  story  which  more  than  any  other  betrays 
Stevenson's  intimate  understanding  of  French  life 
and  spirit ;  also  almost  the  only  one  in  which  he  felt 
pleased  with  his  drawing  of  a  woman.  Anastasie, 
the  placid,  affectionate  wife  of  the  -egoistic  Dr. 
Desprez,  was  a  portrait  of  a  Madame  La  Chevre, 
wife  of  a  painter,  at  whose  house  hi  Barbizon  R.  L.  S. 
and  his  cousin  Bob  were  frequent  guests.  Moreover, 
the  touch  of  marital  irregularity  which  in  the  story 
is  no  more  than  a  possibility  to  be  averted,  had  its 
counterpart  in  the  original  of  Anastasie.  Mr.  W.  H. 
Low,  who  also  was  a  friend  of  theirs,  relates  hi  '  A 
Chronicle  of  Friendships  '  that  she  and  M.  La  Chevre 
had  not  the  consent  of  the  latter's  mother  to  their 
marriage.  Under  French  law  the  son  or  daughter 
may  serve  a  legal  notice  upon  the  parents  of  the  in- 
tention to  marry,  and  after  three  repetitions  of  this 
ceremony,  the  marriage  may  take  place.  Yet  the 
closeness  of  the  family  tie  in  France  is  such  that  this 
legal  right  is  seldom  exercised.  Thus  it  was  that 


270  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

the  La  Che'vres,  the  most  staid  of  couples,  were  not 
legally  joined  in  matrimony  until  after  the  death  of 
the  husband's  mother  when  both  were  well  beyond 
middle  life.  Mr.  Low  recalls  Stevenson's  shout  of 
elation  years  afterwards  on  learning  of  his  (Low's) 
instant  recognition  of  Madame  La  Chdvre  in  The 
Treasure  of  Franchard. 

The  greater  part  of  the  story  was  written  at 
Kingussie  in  the  Highlands  in  the  autumn  of  1882 
(<zt.  32).  It  was  finished  at  St.  Marcel,  near  Mar- 
seilles, hi  November  of  the  same  year  during  a  period 
of  fever  and  exhaustion,  from  which  he  did  not  begin 
to  recover  until  the  following  spring.  It  appeared 
in  '  Longman's  Magazine  '  for  April  and  May  1883, 
but  not  until  it  had  been  rejected  for  a  reason  which 
R.  L.  S.  recalled  ten  years  afterwards  :  '  This  is  a 
poison  -  bad  world  for  the  romancer,  this  Anglo- 
Saxon  world  ;  I  usually  get  out  of  it  by  not  having 
any  women  at  all ;  but  when  I  remember  I  had 
the  Treasure  of  Franchard  refused  as  unfit  for  a 
family  magazine  I  feel  despair  upon  my  wrists.' 
In  the  collected  works  the  story  is  placed  in  The 
Merry  Men. 

UNDERWOODS 

Stevenson's  first  volume  of  verse — if  we  except 
the  Child's  Garden.  It  consists  of  fifty-four  pieces, 
sixteen  of  which  are  in  Scots.  Many  were  here  pub- 
lished for  the  first  time  ;  others  had  appeared  in  the 
'  Magazine  of  Art,'  '  Cornhill,'  and  other  periodicals. 
The  volume,  which  was  issued  in  1887  (at.  37),  at 
the  time  of  Stevenson's  final  departure  from  Europe, 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  271 

was  dedicated  to  physicians  who  had  attended  him, 
a  plural  salutation  on  which  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse 
pleasantly  rallied  him  hi  a  review  of  the  poems. 
Here  he  touched  his  friend  on  a  highly  vulnerable 
spot.  Stevenson's  pride  hi  these  familiar  addresses 
from  the  housetops  is  patent,  and  he  retorted  that 
'  to  miscarry  in  a  dedication  is  an  abominable  form 
of  book- wreck/  The  verses  of  Underwoods,  like 
those  of  Songs  of  Travel,  are  as  eloquent  expression 
of  the  man  as  the  Child's  Garden  is  of  his  earliest 
years.  '  Not  a  dozen  ordinary  interviewers,'  wrote 
Mr.  Edmund  Gosse,  '  could  have  extracted  so  much 
of  the  character  of  the  man  himself '  as  they  contain. 
They  are  now  included  in  the  Collected  Poems. 

VILLON,  FRANCOIS 

The  essay  which  bears  this  title  does  more  than 
present  the  life  of  Villon  ;  it  is  an  illuminating  glance 
on  a  piece  of  Paris  society  in  the  fifteenth  century. 
Stevenson,  then  twenty-five,  went  for  his  facts 
chiefly  to  the  '  fitude  Biographique  sur  Francois 
Villon '  of  Auguste  Longnon,  issued  in  1877,  and 
publishing  for  the  first  time  the  authentic  docu- 
ments of  the  poet's  life.  But  he  drew  also  from  the 
older  works  on  Villon,  from  the  '  Journal  d'un 
Bourgeois  de  Paris/  and  the  'Chronique  scan- 
daleuse ' ;  and  from  these  sources  composed  a  picture 
of  Villon's  life  such  as  can  be  found  nowhere  else  in 
the  literature  of  the  poet.  Marcel  Schwob,  a  great 
authority  on  Villon,  pointed  out  some  years  ago  in 
a  letter  to  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  that,  while  Stevenson 
passed  on  one  or  two  of  the  errors  of  the  writers  on 


272  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

Villon,  in  other  instances  his  intuition  led  him  to 
anticipate  correctly  the  results  of  later  research, 
as,  for  example,  in  recognizing  La  Grosse  Margot 
(Fat  Peg)  of  the  grimy  ballad  as  a  real  person.  As 
a  contribution  to  the  study  of  Villon  the  essay  has 
been  rather  adversely  criticized.  It  is  nine-tenths 
of  it  a  picture  of  Villon's  rascalities.  R.  L.  S.  dis- 
misses Villon's  art  almost  cavalierly,  without  appear- 
ing to  have  thought  it  worth  while  to  offer  a  study 
of  the  causes  of  its  survival  through  four  hundred 
years.  The  ribald  character  of  the  poet  plainly 
shocks  his  Scotch  moral  sense.  He  pursues  him 
with  epithets  of  disgust,  never  seems  moved  to  view 
Villon's  loose  living  and  thievish  tricks  through  the 
spectacles  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  must  even 
heighten  his  misdoings  so  that  he  stands  out  as  the 
unpleasantest  rogue  in  Paris  in  1460.  The  romantic 
in  Stevenson  must  have  sprung  to  the  muddy  melo- 
drama of  Villon,  but  as  great  a  lover  of  the  romantic, 
Mr.  de  Vere  Stacpoole,  has  regretted  what  he 
detects  as  a  sneering  and  self-righteous  attitude 
of  R.  L.  S.  towards  Villon.  And  in  those  contrite 
second  thoughts  prefixed  to  the  essays  collected  as 
Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books,  Stevenson  re- 
gretted that  he  did  not  leave  the  presentation  of 
Villon  to  those  who  could  think  well  of  him  where 
he  saw  nothing  but  artistic  evil.  The  essay  was  first 
published  in  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine,'  August  1877. 

VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE 

Of  the  four  essays  bearing  this  title   (which  is 
given  to  the  volume  containing  them),  Part  I,  which 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  273 

may  be  said  to  be  on  courtship,  and  II,  on  marriage, 
are  not  further  defined ;  III  and  IV  have  the  sub- 
titles On  Falling  in  Love  and  Truth  of  Intercourse. 
I,  III,  and  IV  appeared  first  in  the  '  Cornhill  Maga- 
zine '  for  August  1876,  February  1877,  and  May  1879. 
II  did  not  appear  until  the  publication  of  the  essays 
in  book  form  in  1881,  and  might  therefore  have  been 
written  after  Stevenson's  marriage  in  1880.  While 
Stevenson's  letters  during  these  years  (<zt.  26  to  31) 
contain  much  discussion  of  his  writings,  there  is  but 
the  one  slight  mention  of  these  papers,  viz., '  a  thing 
in  proof  for  the  Cornhill  called  Virginibus  Puerisque,' 
hi  reference  to  the  first  of  them.  The  opinion,  if  it 
exists,  of  the  mature  and  married  Stevenson  on 
these  most  widely  read  essays  of  his  youth  should 
be  worth  reading.  Their  popularity  has  been  due 
no  doubt  to  their  fresh,  whimsical  and,  in  places, 
cynical  treatment  of  the  perennial  problem  of 
marriage.  For  all  his  dogmatism,  or  perhaps 
because  of  it,  one  does  not  take  this  light  moralizing 
seriously.  Indeed  Stevenson  makes  it  clear  that  his 
thoughts  are  meant  to  provoke  remonstrance.  He 
overstates  in  order  to  arouse  the  reader's  correction  ; 
and  while  he  paints  the  perils  of  the  married  state, 
confesses  his  wonder  that  so  many  are  happy  in  it. 
The  manuscripts  in  Stevenson's  hand  of  I  and  II 
of  the  papers  were  included  in  a  sale  at  Christie's  on 
April  22, 1918,  in  aid  of  the  British  Red  Cross  Society. 
They  were  a  donation  from  the  widow  of  Reginald 
J.  Smith,  K.C.,  and  were  bought  by  Mr.  Sabin  for 
£165.  Some  notes  in  the  '  Times  Literary  Supple- 
ment'  of  March  7,  1918,  describe  the  revisions  of 
s 


274  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

these  MSS.  in  Stevenson's  hand,  and  indicate  the 
further  corrections  of  the  essays  in  proof,  the  latter 
most  probably  by  the  editor  of  the  '  Cornhill,'  Leslie 
Stephen. 

The  volume  Virginibus  Puerisque,  taking  its  title 
from  the  first  four  papers,  was  Stevenson's  first  book 
of  essays,  and  is  made  up  of  writings  of  this  kind 
from  his  twenty-fourth  to  twenty-eighth  year.  The 
aim  running  through  the  papers,  as  he  relates  in  the 
preface,  '  was  to  state  temperately  the  beliefs  of 
youth  as  opposed  to  the  contentions  of  age.'  It 
was  conceived  to  form  them  into  a  volume  which 
might  have  borne  the  title  '  Life  at  Twenty-Five/ 
but  the  later  papers  were  judged  out  of  keeping  with 
this  description — so  quickly  does  youth  profess  to 
see  the  yellow  leaf. 

In  addition  to  the  four  Virginibus  Puerisque  papers, 
the  book  is  published  including  the  essays  Crabbed 
Youth  and  Age,  An  Apology  for  Idlers,  Ordered  South, 
Aes  Triplex,  El  Dorado,  The  English  Admirals,  Some 
Portraits  by  Raeburn,  Child's  Play,  Walking  Tours, 
Pan's  Pipes,  and  A  Plea  for  Gas  Lamps.  Almost  all 
of  these  contain  an  element  of  autobiography,  and 
are  separately  considered  in  these  pages. 

On  its  first  issue  by  Messrs.  Kegan  Paul  hi  1881 
'the  book  did  not  sell  well,  and  in  1884  the  copyright 
and  the  remainder  of  the  edition  were  bought  in  by 
Stevenson's  father  and  transferred  to  Messrs.  Chatto 
&  Windus.  Copies  of  the  first  edition,  with  the 
imprint  of  the  original  publisher,  have  a  value  of 
about  £11. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  275 

WAIF  WOMAN,  THE 

The  Icelandic  folk-tale  in  the  style  of  the  Sagas 
was  written  in  Samoa  about  1892  (<zt.  42),  and  was 
intended  for  inclusion  in  Island,  Nights  Entertain- 
ments. But  on  Mrs.  Stevenson's  protest  the  story 
was  withheld  and  was  first  published  in  '  Scribner's  ' 
of  December  1914,  and  in  book  form  by  Messrs. 
Chatto  &  Windus  in  1916.  In  1915  the  original 
MS.,  on  fourteen  folio  sheets,  entirely  in  R.  L.  S.'s 
handwriting,  was  sold  in  New  York  for  $990  (£198). 

WALKING  TOURS 

A  paper  which  corresponds  with  a  large  part  of 
Stevenson's  habit  of  life  during  the  five  years 
(1875-9)  when  he  was  free  to  travel  and  physically 
fit  for  outdoor  exercise.  During  this  period  he  was 
a  great  walker  ;  in  Scotland,  more  in  France,  less  in 
England  and  Germany.  His  biographer  has  quoted 
a  list,  made  years  afterwards  as  a  relief  from  illness, 
of  towns  where  he  had  stayed  the  night :  fifty  in 
Scotland,  seventy-four  in  France,  and  forty-six  in 
England.  These  excursions  on  foot  were  many  of 
them  made  alone  ;  none  was  so  elaborately  conceived 
as  the  journey  with  the  donkey  in  the  Cevennes ; 
few  were  undertaken  in  districts  so  deficient  in  the 
common  comforts  for  the  traveller.  Probably  of  all 
these  wayfarings  the  most  enjoyed  were  those  in 
the  forest  of  Fontainebleau,  from  which  Stevenson 
would  return  at  nightfall  to  the  Siron  inn  at  Barbizon 
with  its  congenial  company  of  artists. 

But  the  essay,  from  its  praise  of  the  simple 
pleasures  of  random  travel  and  tired  arrival  at  some 


276  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

unfamiliar  end,  was  probably  immediately  inspired 
by  the  Winter's  Walk  in  Carrick  and  Galloway  made 
in  January  1876,  and  the  subject  of  one  of  Steven- 
son's travel  pieces.  Walking  Tours  was  evidently 
written  between  then  (at.  26)  and  the  following 
June,  when  it  appeared  in  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine.' 
Of  it,  R.  L.  S.  wrote  to  Colvin,  who  had  expressed 
his  liking  for  it :  '  I  like  it  too  ;  I  think  it 's  prose  ; 
and  I  own  with  contrition  I  've  not  always  written 
prose.'  The  essay  is  included  in  Virginibus 
Puerisque. 

WATT,  FRANCIS  (1849-        ) 

Author  of  several  books  of  Stevenson  interest. 
The  chief  of  these  is  '  R.  L.  S.'  (London,  Methuen, 
1913),  which  deals  chiefly  with  the  personal  and 
literary  relations  of  Stevenson  to  Scotland,  follows 
his  travels,  and  discusses  his  style,  verse,  plays, 
religion  and  character.  Mr.  Watt's  '  Terrors  of  the 
Law  '  (London,  John  Lane,  1902)  includes  a  chapter 
on  Lord  Braxfield ;  and  his  '  Edinburgh  and  the 
Lothians '  (London,  Methuen,  1912),  in  its  descrip- 
tions of  Edinburgh  past  and  present,  has  much  to 
say  of  Stevenson's  place  in  the  annals  of  his  native 
city. 

WATT,  REV.  LAUCHLAN  MACLEAN 

Author  of  '  The  Hills  of  Home '  (London,  Foulis, 
1913),  half  a  dozen  chapters  on  Stevenson's  asso- 
ciations with  the  Pentland  country  and  their  in- 
fluence on  his  thought.  It  contains  the  three  essays  : 
Pastoral,  An  Old  Scotch  Gardener,  and  The  Manse, 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  277 

and  The  Pentland  Rising,  and  is  illustrated  by  re- 
productions in  colour  of  paintings  of  Pentland 
landscapes  by  Robert  Hope,  A.R.S.A. 

WATTS-DUNTON,  THEODORE  (1832-1914) 

An  appreciative  review  of  Kidnapped,'  by  Watts- 
Dunton  in  the  'Athenaeum/  was  the  occasion  of  a 
letter  to  his  reviewer  in  which  Stevenson  acknow- 
ledges the  defect  of  construction  which  strikes  even 
the  less  critical  reader,  namely,  the  beginning  of  a 
new  story  when  David  and  Alan  take  to  the  moun- 
tains after  the  murder  of  Glenure.  The  book, 
he  wrote,  '  had  to  go  into  the  world,  one  part  (as  it 
does  seem  to  me)  alive,  one  part  merely  galvanized.' 
On  the  other  hand,  he  vigorously  defended  the  out- 
come of  the  fight  on  the  '  Covenant '  against  the 
charge  of  improbability  which  Mr.  Watts  (as  he 
then  was)  had  brought  against  it. 

WEIR  OF  HERMISTON 

The  editorial  note  by  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  which  is 
included  in  editions  of  the  unfinished  romance  so 
fully  treats  of  the  plans  which  Stevenson  had  for  it, 
of  the  legal  and  historical  problems  which  it  presented 
and  of  the  landscape  setting  of  the  story,  that  further 
comment  is  superfluous.  Stevenson  believed  the 
work  would  be  his  masterpiece  and  Braxfield  his 
best  character,  a  judgment  which  indubitably  the 
finished  work  would  have  obtained  from  the  critics  ; 
which  indeed  the  fragment  has  obtained.  If  a 
word  may  be  added  it  is  that  the  tale  as  it  was  left 
at  the  time  of  his  death  still  awaited  the  full  develop- 


278  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

ment  of  Braxfield's  formidable  character.  The 
judge's  coarsest  jests  were  kept  for  the  bench  of  the 
criminal  court.  Stevenson  would  know  his  com- 
ment upon  an  argument  that  Christianity  was  an 
innovation,  and  that  all  great  men  had  been  re- 
formers, even  our  Saviour  Himself ;  at  which  Brax- 
field  chuckled  hi  an  undertone  '  Muckle  he  made  o' 
that,  he  was  hanget.'  The  story  as  it  reached  its 
appointed  climax  would  surely  have  produced  as 
great  a  presentation  of  character  as  any  in  literature. 
Weir  of  Hermiston  was  not  included  hi  the  Edin- 
burgh edition,  but  was  first  published  hi  1896.  A 
French  translation,  Hermiston,  le  juge  pendeur,  was 
issued  hi  1912  (Paris,  Albert  Bordeaux).  Manu- 
script of  the  first  three  chapters  was  sold  at  Sotheby's 
in  1914  for  £228,  and  other  drafts,  mostly  hi  Steven- 
son's writing,  were  sold  in  New  York  in  1915  for  $375 
(£75). 

WEIR,  MRS.— OF  '  WEIR  OF  HERMISTON ' 

See  '  Stevenson,  Jean.' 

WHITMAN,  WALT 

The  writings  of  the  unconventionally  rugged 
preacher  and  poet  were  beginning  to  obtain  their  very 
mixed  reception  about  the  time  that  R.  L.  S.,  just 
in  the  twenties,  was  passing  through  the  period  of 
his  life  which  hi  one  respect  was  the  most  trying  of 
any.  In  matters  of  religious  belief  and  social  con- 
vention he  found  himself  at  variance  from  his  parents, 
and  particularly  from  his  father,  to  whom  the  free- 
dom of  thought  which  found  expression  in  teachings 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  279 

such  as  Herbert  Spencer's  was  something  abhorrent. 
Amid  the  perplexities  created  by  this  breach  of  in- 
tellectual and  religious  outlook  Stevenson  found 
encouragement  hi  the  ideals  of  self-hood,  friendship, 
and  democracy,  set  forth  in  so  strange  a  form  by 
the  American  apostle.  In  a  fragment  of  auto- 
biography written  in  1880,  and  marking  this  period 
of  his  life  by  the  heading  '  From  Jest  to  Earnest,' 
he  declares  that  he  dated  his  new  departure  from 
three  circumstances — natural  growth,  the  coming 
of  friends,  and  the  study  of  Walt  Whitman.'  The 
writings  of  Whitman  evidently  continued  to  be  a 
study  of  his  for  some  years  not  only  for  his  own 
mental  consolation,  but  with  a  view  to  the  writing 
of  an  essay  for  publication.  This  essay,  first  issued 
in  the  '  New  Quarterly  Magazine,'  October  1878,  and 
reprinted  hi  Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books,  fails 
to  betray  by  scarcely  more  than  a  line  that  Stevenson 
himself  owed  anything  to  Whitman.  The  fact  is 
that  it  is  not  the  paper  which  Stevenson  had  first 
written  '  full  of  gratitude  for  the  help  that  had  been 
given  me  hi  my  life,  full  of  enthusiasm  for  the  in- 
trinsic merits  of  the  poems,  and  conceived  in  the 
noisiest  extreme  of  youthful  eloquence.'  So  he 
confessed  in  the  critical  notes  of  his  own  work  when 
issuing  this  and  other  essays  in  the  book  form,  four 
years  afterwards.  John  Addington  Symonds,  with 
whom  Stevenson  afterwards  formed  a  friendship  at 
Davos,  has  given  his  version  of  this  revision.  In 
'  Walt  Whitman  :  A  Study,'  published  in  1893,  and 
a  sympathetic  analysis  of  Whitman's  teaching  and 
peculiar  genius,  he  writes  ; 


280  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

'  My  friend,  Mr.  R.  L.  Stevenson,  once  published 
a  constrained  and  measured  study  of  Walt  Whit- 
man which  struck  some  of  those  who  read  it  as 
frigidly  appreciative.  He  subsequently  told  me  that 
he  had  first  opened  upon  the  key-note  of  a  glowing 
panegyric,  but  felt  the  pompous  absurdity  of  its 
exaggeration.  He  began  again,  subduing  the  whole 
tone  of  the  composition.  When  the  essay  was 
finished  in  this  second  style,  he  became  conscious 
that  it  misrepresented  his  own  enthusiasm  for  the 
teacher  who  at  a  critical  moment  of  his  youthful 
life  had  helped  him  to  discover  the  right  line  of 
conduct.' 

It  may  be  said  with  a  good  deal  of  truth  that 
Stevenson's  essay  has  outlived  its  subject.  Whit- 
man's ideal  of  a  world  democracy  is  much  with  us 
in  these  days  (1919),  but  Whitman  is  remembered 
by  a  very  few.  Others  have  preached  from  his 
texts  in  this  and  other  spheres  of  thought  as  vigor- 
ously and  with  infinitely  more  intelligibility  and 
grace.  Thus  Stevenson's  paper  serves  to  mark 
more  than  anything  else  his  own  intellectual  kinship, 
as  a  young  man,  with  ideas  hi  the  social  and  religious 
fields  which  represented  much  of  the  '  new  thought ' 
of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  At 
twenty-three  his  views  of  life  were  ministered  to  by 
Whitman's  wide  if  obscure  creed  of  individual  per- 
sonality, universal  brotherhood,  love  and  liberty. 
Of  Whitman's  extraordinary  style  he  showed  more 
tolerance  than  might  be  expected  in  calling  it  '  a 
most  surprising  compound  of  plain  grandeur,  senti- 
mental affectation,  and  downright  nonsense.' 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  281 

WICK 

A  stay  of  six  weeks,  when  he  was  eighteen,  in  this 
fishing  village  ten  miles  to  the  south  of  John  o' 
Groats,  remained  one  of  Stevenson's  unforgettable 
memories.  It  provided  the  text  four  years  later 
for  the  essay  On  the  Enjoyment  of  Unpleasant  Places 
(q.v.)  ;  and  in  that  on  The  Education  of  an  Engineer, 
written  soon  after  he  had  left  Europe,  he  pronounced 
Wick  '  one  of  the  meanest  of  man's  towns,  and 
situate  certainly  in  the  baldest  of  God's  bays.'  He 
was  sent  there  by  his  father  to  study  harbour  con- 
struction— with  what  degree  of  success  the  second 
of  the  papers  cited  above  eloquently  tells.  For 
nearly  forty  years  marine  engineers  had  been  vainly 
labouring  there ;  and  not  even  the  Stevenson  firm 
was  able  to  subject  the  forces  of  Nature  which 
opposed  them  on  this  wild  coast.  R.  L.  S.  refers  to 
it  in  the  memoir  on  his  father :  '  The  harbour  of 
Wick,  the  chief  disaster  of  my  father's  life,  was  a 
failure,  the  sea  proved  too  strong  for  man's  arts  ; 
and  after  expedients  hitherto  unthought  of,  and  on 
a  scale  hyper-cyclopean,  the  work  must  be  deserted, 
and  now  stands  a  ruin  hi  that  bleak  God-forsaken 
bay.'  At  Wick  R.  L.  S.  lodged  in  a  private  hotel  on 
the  harbour  bar  kept  by  a  Mr.  Sutherland,  and  his 
literary  association  with  the  town  is  the  subject  of 
a  paper,  '  R.  L.  Stevenson  in  Wick,'  by  Margaret 
H.  Roberton  in  the  '  Magazine  of  Wick  Literary 
Society,'  Christmas  1903. 


282  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

WILL  O'  THE  MILL 

In  the  pattern  of  its  writing,  as  perfect  as  any 
short  work  of  Stevenson's.  It  belongs  to  a  time  of 
his  life  when  he  was  in  fairly  good  health.  In  the 
year  in  which  it  was  written  (1877,  cet.  27),  he  was 
dividing  his  time  pretty  equally  between  France 
and  Scotland,  and  for  a  while  was  in  Cornwall. 
Some  of  his  best  short  stories,  such  as  A  Lodging  for 
the  Night  and  Providence  and  the  Guitar,  belong  to 
this  period.  Will  o'  the  Mill,  however,  is  unlike  them 
in  being  a  sermon,  propounding  a  timid  philosophy 
of  life  which  perhaps  is  the  last  the  reader  would 
expect  from  the  author  who  wrote  :  '  Does  not  life 
go  down  with  a  better  grace,  foaming  in  full  body 
over  a  precipice  than  miserably  straggling  to  an  end 
in  sandy  deltas.'  Will,  with  all  his  aspirations  and 
ambitions,  is  a  hanger-back,  a  type  with  which 
R.  L.  S.  had  not  a  single  thought  hi  common.  The 
explanation,  given  to  him  by  Stevenson,  so  Sir 
Graham  Balfour  relates,  is  that  hi  Will  o'  the  Mill 
he  sought  to  present  in  a  picturesque  form  what 
degree  of  satisfaction  the  hanger-back  might  get 
from  life.  It  was  a  kind  of  experiment  in  the  way 
of  taking  an  opponent's  argument  and  pursuing  it 
to  its  logical  conclusion.  This  interpretation  re- 
conciles us  to  the  sense  of  loss  and  running-out  hi 
the  end — Death  welcomed  by  the  timid  abstinent. 

The  setting  of  the  fable  is  evidently  a  valley  in 
Germany  or  Austria.  His  biographer  says  it  was 
drawn  from  the  Brenner  Pass  which,  with  others 
much  like  it,  was  visited  by  R.  L.  S.  as  a  boy  with 
his  parents.  The  tale  appeared  in  '  Cornhill  Maga- 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  283 

zine  '  of  January  1878,  and  is  included  in  The  Merry 
Men. 

WINTER'S  WALK  IN  CARRICK  AND  GALLOWAY, 
A 

A  week's  walking  tour  in  January  1876  provided 
the  material  of  this  paper,  which  was  probably 
written  soon  afterwards  (<zt.  25),  but  was  left  un- 
finished. Its  first  publication  was  in  the  '  Illus- 
trated London  News/  Summer  Number,  1896,  with 
illustrations  by  H.  Macbeth  Raeburn.  The  paper, 
which  marks  a  distinct  development  of  the  earlier 
studies  of  the  road,  Cockermouth  and  Keswick  and 
An  Autumn  Effect,  is  placed  among  Essays  of  Travel. 

WREATH  OF  IMMORTELLES,  THE 

Passages  hi  this  early  sketch  of  the  Greyfriars 
churchyard  anticipate  the  chapter  on  the  same  quiet 
corner  of  the  city  in  Edinburgh — Picturesque  Notes, 
written  some  seven  years  afterwards.  The  piece  is 
one  of  the  fragments  written  hi  the  years  1870-1,  but 
not  published  until  included  in  a  volume  of  the 
Edinburgh  edition  issued  after  Stevenson's  death. 
It  is  now  included  in  the  volume  Lay  Morals. 

WRECKER,  THE 

The  benefit  to  Stevenson  of  collaboration  with 
his  stepson  is  plainly  greater  in  this  tale  of  '  strange 
ways  of  life '  than  in  the  other  two  of  their  joint 
authorship.  It  is  a  big  book — much  the  longest  of 
any  Stevensonian  work — and  is  so  broken  into  dis- 
tinct episodes  that  it  lent  itself  to  independent 


284  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

work  by  the  two  writers.  Stevenson  thus  obtained 
a  larger  measure  of  relief  from  the  strain  which  the 
maintenance  of  a  long  narrative  imposed  on  his  low 
pressure  of  physical  vitality  ;  and  the  divided  plan 
of  the  story  made  it  possible  to  revise  and  re-write 
to  a  degree  which  could  not  be  done  in  the  case  of 
the  more  connected  Wrong  Box. 

Their  collaboration,  as  Mr.  Lloyd  Osbourne  has 
let  it  be  known,  was  in  part  individual  contribution 
of  the  pictures  in  the  story ;  in  part,  the  closest 
association  of  both  in  perfecting  other  chapters. 
Thus,  the  scenes  of  art-student  life  in  Paris  are 
wholly  Stevenson's  ;  but  Mr.  Osbourne  declares  his 
authorship  of  the  picnic  incidents  in  San  Francisco, 
of  Pinkerton  and  Dodd's  affairs  in  partnership,  of 
the  storm  that  overtook  the  '  Norah  Creina,'  and  of 
the  sudden  outburst  of  butchery  by  the  incensed 
crew  of  the  '  Currency  Lass.'  He  tells  us  that  the 
American  Captain  '  Nares  was  mine,  and  Pinkerton 
to  a  great  degree,  and  Captain  Brown  was  mine 
throughout.'  Their  method,  after  the  whole  story 
had  been  plotted  out  and  a  list  of  chapters  drawn  up, 
was  for  Mr.  Osbourne  to  make  a  first  draft,  which  was 
written  and  fe-written  by  Stevenson  and  himself  in 
turn,  and  was  further  worked  over  by  one  or  the 
other  of  them.  The  impress  of  R.  L.  S.  over  all 
The  Wrecker  came  about  in  this  fashion.  The 
degree  of  revision  varied ;  Mr.  Osbourne  mentions, 
evidently  as  an  extreme  instance,  the  writing  and 
re-writing  no  less  than  eleven  times  of  the  chapter 
(XVII.)  in  which  Dodd  gains  the  first  clue  to  the 
mystery  of  the  wreck. 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  285 

The  tale  represents  the  only  occasion  on  which 
Stevenson  was  drawn  to  adopt  the  mystery  type  of 
novel  in  which  the  reader  is  carried  forward  by  the 
incidents  surrounding  a  secret  which  is  kept  to  the 
last.  As  explained  in  the  Epilogue,  familiarly  ad- 
dressed to  his  friend,  Will  H.  Low,  he  had  aimed  at 
giving  greater  realism  to  this  form  of  story  by  a 
more  gradual  approach  to  the  essence  of  the  yarn. 
The  reader  is  allowed  first  to  live  with  the  characters 
for  a  while  instead  of  stepping  with  them  into  their 
adventures  straight  on  his  introduction  to  them. 
Hence  the  first  half-dozen  chapters,  with  their 
scenes  in  Paris  and  Edinburgh,  are  almost  without 
bearing  on  the  incidents  afterwards  developed,  and 
might  well  be  cited  against  Stevenson's  doctrine 
that  the  opening  of  a  story  is  of  a  piece  with  its  end. 
Evidently  the  Prologue,  anticipating  Dodd's  adven- 
tures, is  used  as  a  device  to  cast  unity  over  the 
whole,  in  something  of  the  manner  of  Mr.  Conrad. 

But  the  earlier  chapters  have  a  special  interest  in 
the  fact  that  they  contain  Stevenson's  pictures  of 
the  artist's  life  of  the  Latin  Quarter  which,  through 
his  friendship  with  Low,  he  had  seen  for  himself, 
but  has  not  elsewhere  described.  The  sketch  is  a 
partial  one — Stevenson  is  here  not  to  be  ranged 
with  de  Koch  or  Du  Maurier — but  in  his  few  vivid 
touches  R.  L.  S.  pictures  the  zest,  camaraderie,  and 
the  licence  of  Parisian  student  life  of  a  period  which 
seems  to  be  some  years  earlier  than  that  (1875-80) 
when  he  was  frequently  in  Paris. 

The  figure  of  Loudon  Dodd  is  drawn  hi  many  re- 
spects from  Low.  '  Some  of  his  adventures  and  some 


286  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

of  mine,'  wrote  R.  L.  S.  to  Mrs.  Low,  in  offering  the 
dedication  of  the  book  to  her  husband,  '  are  agree- 
ably mingled  in  the  early  part,'  as  may  be  judged 
from  Low's  many  reminiscences  of  Stevenson  in 
'  A  Chronicle  of  Friendships.'  In  these  chapters 
Stevenson  introduces  a  reference  to  himself  and  his 
cousin  R.  A.  M.  S.  in  the  Stennis  fr&res,  the  '  pair  of 
hare-brained  Scots/  who  take  part  in  the  impromptu 
trip  to  Barbizon,  and  will  hear  of  no  baggage  but  a 
great-coat  and  a  tooth-brush.  '  Stennis  '  was  the 
nearest  approach  to  the  cousins'  name  of  which  the 
good  Siron  of  the  hotel  at  Barbizon  was  capable. 

But  for  the  abortive  enterprise  of  Dodd  in  under- 
taking the  statue  for  the  capitol  of  his  native  town 
Stevenson  toned  down,  for  the  sake  of  credibility, 
the  case  of  a  would-be  member  of  the  artists'  com- 
munity. Miss  Simpson  hi  her '  Stevenson  Originals  ' 
recounts  that  an  American  named  Pardesous  was 
sent  to  Paris  by  his  father '  to  learn  to  sculp,'  in  order 
to  carry  out  contracts  for  statuary  which,  by  his 
father's  influence,  could  be  placed  with  him.  Romney 
the  down-at-heel  painter,  Miss  Simpson  tells  us,  was 
one  of  other  characters  drawn  from  the  circles  in 
which  R.  L.  S.  and  her  brother  had  moved  in  the 
seventies.  By  a  coincidence  the  copy  of '  Scribner's  ' 
containing  the  dedication  which  recalled  these  echoes 
of  Montparnasse  came  into  Low's  hands  at  the  table 
of  Lavenue's  restaurant,  where  close  on  twenty 
years  before  he  had  first  sat  with  R.  L.  S. 

The  Wrecker,  which,  after  an  interval  of  nearly 
three  years,  followed  'The  Master  of  Ballantrae  in 
'  Scribner's  Magazine  '  (August  1891  to  July  1892), 


A  BOOK  OF  R.L..S.  287 

was  written  while  Stevenson  (<zt.  39  to  41),  with  his 
wife  and  stepson,  were  upon  their  second  and  third 
cruises  among  the  Pacific  Islands,  and  during  their 
early  residence  in  Samoa — a  period  of  nearly  two 
years,  during  much  of  which  time  they  were  beyond 
touch  with  civilization.  The  conception  of  the  tale 
is  told  in  the  Epilogue,  viz.,  its  foundation  on  a  pro- 
position of  which  Captain  Trent's  harsh  bargain 
with  the  castaways  was  the  counterpart.  Beyond 
these  public  confidences  in  the  ear  of  his  friend  Low 
there  is  little  to  show  his  opinion  of  the  book  except 
a  passage  to  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  :  '  The  part  that  is 
genuinely  good  is  Nares,  the  American  sailor ;  that 
is  a  genuine  figure ;  had  there  been  more  Nares  it 
would  have  been  a  better  book ;  but  of  course  it 
didn't  set  up  to  be  a  book,  only  a  long,  tough  yarn 
with  some  pictures  of  the  manners  of  to-day  in  the 
greater  world — not  the  shoddy,  sham  world  of  cities, 
clubs  and  colleges,  but  the  world  where  men  still 
live  a  man's  life.' 

The  first  edition  (Cassell,  1892,  6s.)  appeared  with 
illustrations  by  William  Hole  and  W.  L.  Metcalf, 
and  has  a  value  of  about  £E. 

WRONG  BOX,  THE 

It  must  always  be  a  subject  for  wonder  why 
Stevenson,  whose  reputation  as  a  writer  was  jealously 
guarded  by  himself  and  his  friends,  should  ever  have 
accepted  the  part  of  joint-author  of  this  farcical  tale. 
A  generous  desire  for  his  stepson  to  share  in  the 
benefit  of  association  with  himself  is  the  most 
credible  explanation.  The  tale  in  the  first  instance 


288  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

was  written  and  re-written  entirely  by  Lloyd 
Osbourne,  then  twenty  years  of  age,  at  Saranac 
during  the  winter  of  1887.  To  Stevenson  it  ap- 
peared '  so  funny '  that  he  took  it  in  hand,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  following  year  revised  it  to  such  an 
extent  that  in  Mr.  Osbourne's  words  '  it  lived  as  it 
had  never  lived  before/  By  the  time  Stevenson  and 
his  party  had  come  on  their  cruise  in  the  '  Casco ' 
to  Honolulu  early  in  1889  the  story  had  reached  a 
state  which  prompted  R.  L.  S.  to  offer  it  to  Scribner's 
for  $5000.  The  offer  was  not  accepted,  and  The 
Wrong  Box  was  published  by  Messrs.  Longmans  in 
June  1889.  This  first  edition  of  283  pages  has  a 
value  of  about  i6s.  A  French  translation  published 
in  1905  bears  the  title  '  Le  Mort  Vivant.' 

YEATS,  WILLIAM  BUTLER  (1865-        ) 

A  single  letter  was  sent  by  Stevenson  to  Mr.  Yeats 
briefly  to  express  the  fascination  which  a  poem  of 
the  latter 's  had  for  him.  Recalling  the  spell  which 
Swinburne  and  Meredith  cast  over  him  he  wrote  : 
'  It  may  interest  you  to  know  that  I  have  a  third 
time  fallen  in  slavery :  this  is  to  your  poem  the 
'  Lake  Isle  of  Innisfree.'  It  is  so  quaint  and  airy, 
simple,  artful,  and  eloquent  to  the  heart — but  I  seek 
words  in  vain.  Enough  that  "  always  night  and  day 
I  hear  lake  water  lapping  with  low  sounds  on  the 
shore."  ' 

YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 

The  paper  on  the  humble  Japanese  reformer  of  the 
mid-nineteenth  century  was  written  at  Monterey 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S.  289 

California  (at.  29).  His  informant  of  the  life  and 
fate  of  Yoshida  must  have  been  one  of  the  Japanese 
whom  he  came  to  know  in  Edinburgh  whilst  they 
were  studying  lighthouse  engineering.  The  foot- 
notes to  the  paper  signed  with  the  unexplained 
initial  '  F.  J.'  can  be  by  no  other  than  his  friend 
Fleeming  Jenkin  who,  as  it  appeared,  listened  at  the 
same  time  as  did  R.  L.  S.  to  the  recital  of  Yoshida's 
struggle  for  emancipation.  The  paper  appeared  in 
the  '  Cornhill  Magazine/  March  1880,  and  is  placed 
in  Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books. 

YOUNG  CHEVALIER,  THE 

The  opening  of  what  was  to  have  been  '  a  story  of 
sentiment  and  passion '  was  written  in  May  1892. 
Andrew  Lang  had  sent  Stevenson  material  of  the 
adventures  of  Prince  Charles  Edward  after  the  '45, 
and  the  scene  was  to  be  laid  part  in  France  and 
part  in  Scotland,  about  1749.  The  Master  of 
Ballantrae  was  to  appear  in  it  and,  as  Stevenson 
wrote  of  it  at  its  first  inception  :  '  the  hero  is  a 
melancholy  exile,  and  marries  a  young  woman  who 
interests  the  prince,  and  there  is  the  devil  to  pay.' 
But  with  the  beginning  of  the  tale  came  a  distrust 
of  his  power  to  handle  the  theme  with  sufficient 
delicacy.  Appealing  to  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  he  wrote  : 
'  I  am  afraid  my  touch  is  a  little  broad  in  a  love 
story ;  I  can't  mean  one  thing  and  write  another 
.  .  .  with  all  my  romance  I  am  a  realist  and 
prosaist,  and  a  most  fanatical  lover  of  plain  physical 
sensations  plainly  and  expressly  rendered ;  hence 
my  perils.  To  do  love,  in  the  same  spirit  as  I  did 


290  A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 

(for  instance)  D.  Balfour's  fatigue  in  the  heather ; 
my  dear  Sir,  there  were  grossness  ready  made  !  and 
hence,  how  to  sugar.'  Thus  the  fragment  first  pub- 
lished in  the  Edinburgh  edition,  and  now  included 
in  Lay  Morals,  remains  only  an  index  to  what  he 
might  have  accomplished  in  this  field. 


INDEX 


Across  the  Plains,  I. 

the  book,  2. 

Admiral  Guinea,  3. 
Admirals,  The  English,  91 . 
Advocates'    Library,    Edinburgh, 

letters  in,  119. 
Aes  Triplex,  4. 
Aikenhead,  Thomas,  88. 
Alpine  Diversions,  5. 
Alps,  the  Stimulation  of,  244. 
Amateur  Emigrant,  The,  6. 
Anstruther,  7. 
Apology  for  Idlers,  An,  7. 
Appeal  to  the  Clergy  of  the  Church 

of  Scotland,  An,  8. 
Appin  Murder,  9. 
Archer,  Thomas  (Tomarcher),  1 6. 
—  William,  16. 

on  Beau  Austin,  31. 

on    The  Black  Arrow, 

34- 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  in  Appin  trial, 

12. 

in  Catriona,  48. 

Armour,  Margaret,  17. 
Art,  Letter  to   a    Young   Gentle- 
man, etc.,  146. 

Art  of  Writing,  Essays  in  the,  1 7 . 
Attwater,  original  of,  17,  78. 
Autobiography,  fragments  of,  1 8. 
Autumn  Effect,  An,  20. 

Bagster's  'Pilgrim's  Progress,'  21. 
Baildon,  H.  Bellyse,  21. 
Balfour,  Sir  Graham,  22. 

Dr.  Lewis  (grandfather),  24. 

Jane  Whyte  (aunt),  23. 

of  Pilrig  (Catriona),  47,  155. 

Ballads,  25. 


Ballantrae,  the  Master  of,  158. 

Barbizon  painters,  paper  on,  99. 

Barrie,  Sir  James,  27. 

Baxter,  Charles,  28. 

original  of  Michael 

Finsbury,  99. 

Beach  of  Falesa,  The,  29. 

Gordon  Brown's  illus- 
trations, 129. 

Beau  Austin,  30. 

Begbie,  murdered  bank  porter,  88. 

Beggars,  31. 

Bell  Rock  lighthouse,  240. 

Bibliography  of  works,  197,  228. 

Birth,  date  of,  85. 

Birthplace,  85. 

Black  Arrow,  The,  32. 

Black  Canyon:  or  Wild  Adven- 
tures in  the  Far  West,  73. 

Black,  Margaret  Moyes,  35. 

Body  Snatcher,  The,  35. 

Bookman,  Stevenson  number,  36. 

Books  which  have  influenced  me, 

37- 

Bottle  Imp,  The,  37. 

Bourget,  Paul,  and  dedication  of 

Across  the  Plains,  77. 
Bournemouth,  38. 
Braxfield,  Lord,  278. 

and  Deacon  Brodie,  75. 

in  '  Terrors  of  the  Law,' 

276. 
portrait    by    Raeburn, 

203. 
Breck,  Alan,  40. 

'•  and  James  More,  172. 

in  the  Appin  trial,  13. 

Brodie,  Deacon,  74. 

Brown,  Horatie  Robert  Forbes,  42. 

291 


292 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 


Brown,  R.,  Glasgow,  59,  178. 
Buckland,  Jack,  original  of  Tommy 

Hadden,  43. 

Burke  and  Hare,  murderers,  89. 
Burlingame,  E.  L.,  43. 
Burns,  Robert,  Some  Aspects  of, 

44- 

CAMISARDS,  263. 

Campbell,  Colin,  of  Glenure,  II. 

Lewis,  45. 

Canoe  Speaks,    The,   continuation 

of  III  of  Underwoods,  46. 
'  Casco,'  cruise  in  the,  229. 

relic  of,  in  Edinburgh,  86. 

Catriona,  46. 

Appin  trial,  9. 

character  of  the  Lord  Advo- 
cate, no. 
Celestial  Surgeon,  The,  51. 

quotation,  58. 

Cevennes,  260. 
Chalmers,  Stephen,  52. 
Character,  A,  52. 
Charity  Bazaar,  The,  52. 
Charles  of  Orleans,  51. 
Children,  Notes  on  the  Movements 

of,  176. 

Children,  relations  with,  56. 
Child's  Garden  of  Verses,  A,  53. 
Child's  Play,  57. 
Christmas  at  Sea,  (ballad),  26. 
Christmas  Sermon,  A,  58. 
Cigarette  of   An  Inland  Voyage, 

225. 
Clarisse  ( Travels  with  a  Donkey), 

262. 
Clergy  of  the  Church  of  Scotland, 

An  Appeal  to  the,  8. 
Cluny's  cage  (Kidnapped),  140. 
Cockermouth  and  Keswick,  59. 
College  Magazine,  A,  59. 
College  Memories,  Some,  60. 
Colvin,  Sir  Sidney,  60. 

Lady,  227. 

Conrad,   Joseph,    on    the    South 

Seas  book,  233. 
Cornford,  L.  Cope,  62. 
Covenanters,  192. 
Crabbed  Age  and  Youth,  62. 
Crockett,  S.  R.,  63. 


Cruse,  Amy,  64. 

Cunningham,  Alison  (Cummy), 
64. 

Damien,  Father,  An  Open  Letter 
to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hyde,  67. 

Darien  adventure,  the,  116. 

D'Artagnan,  character  of,  83. 

Darwinism,  201. 

Davos  in  Winter,  72. 

Davos,  papers  on,  5,  72,  115,  244. 

Davos  Press,  The,  73. 

Davos,  winters  at,  71- 

Day  after  To-morrow,  The,  73. 

Deacon  Brodie,  74. 

Death,  date  of,  216. 

Debateable  Land,  155. 

Debating  Societies,  75- 

Dedications  of  books,  76. 

Dew-Smith,  A.  G.,  78. 

Dialogue  on  Character  and  Des- 
tiny between  Two  Puppets,  205. 

Dobson,  Austin,  78. 

Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  246. 

Dogs,  the  Character  of,  79. 

Doyle,  Sir  A.  Conan,  80. 

opinion  of  The  Pavilion 

on  the  Links,  190. 

Drake,  Maurice,  memorial  by,  95. 

Drawings  of  landscape,  176. 

Dreams,  A  Chapter  on,  So. 

Drummond,  James  MacGregor. 
See  More,  James. 

Dual  personality,  156. 

Duddingstone  (early  verses),  82. 

Dumas' s,  A  Gossip  on  a  Novel  of, 
82. 

Dumb  alphabet,  dictation  by,  212. 

Dynamiter,  The,  173. 

Somerset,  original  of,  242. 

EARRAID,  paper  on,  162. 

in  Kidnapped,  140. 

in  The  Merry  Men,  164. 

Ebb  Tide,  The,  83. 

Attwater,  17,  78. 

Edinburgh,  associations  with  Ste- 
venson, 85. 

Edinburgh:  Picturesque  Notes,  86. 
Edinburgh  Students  in  1824,  9°. 
Education  of  an  Engineer,  The,  90. 


INDEX 


293 


El  Dorado,  91. 

Emigrant,  The  Amateur,  6. 

Engineer,   The  Education  of  an, 

90. 
Engineers,   Records  of  a  Family 

of,  96. 

England,  strangeness  in,  100,  214. 
English  Admirals,  The,  91. 
Enjoyment  of  Unpleasant  Places, 

On  the,  92,  281. 
Envoy  (i  in  Underwoods},  93. 
Epilogue  to  an  Inland  Voyage,  93. 
'  Equator,'  cruise  in  the,  229. 
Essays  of  Travel,  94. 
Exeter,  hotel  at,  95. 

tables,  95. 

'Fables  in  Song,'  Lyttoris,  153. 
Falling  in  Love,  On,  273. 
Familiar    Studies    of  Men    and 

Books,  96. 
Family  of  Engineers,  Records  of 

a,  96. 

Feast  of  Famine,  The  (ballad),  25. 
Fenian  outrages,  attitude  to,  174. 
Ferrier,  James  Walter,  98. 

essay  on,  184. 

Miss,  98. 

Fiction,  controversy  with   Henry 

James,  121. 
Fife,  The  Coast  of,  99. 
Film  versions  of  tales,  38,  269. 
Finsbury,  Michael,  original  of,  99. 
First  Book,  My  ( Treasure  Island), 

102. 

First  editions,  values  of,  228. 
Fontainebleau,  99. 
Footnote  to  History,  A,  IO2. 
Foreigner  at  Home,  The,  100. 
Forest  Notes  (Fontainebleau),  101. 
Forest    State,     The    (afterwards 

Prince  Otto},  199. 
Forests,  On  the  Thermal  Influence 

of,  256. 
Fraser,  Miss  Marie,  105. 

Simon,  Master  of  Lovat,  105. 

and  the  clan  Frazer,  13. 

French  versions   of  works,    201, 

250,  288. 

Gardener,  An  Old  Scotch,  185. 
T  2 


Gas  Lamps,  A  Plea  for,  107. 
Geddie,  John,  107. 
German  interests  in  Samoa,  103. 
penetration,  Marcel  Schwob 

on,  220. 

Glenure,  Colin  Campbell  of,  II. 
Gosse,  Edmund,  107. 
in   Talk  and  Talkers, 

256. 
on  R.  L.  S.'s  character 

in  poems,  271. 
on  writing  of  Treasure 

Island,  265. 

poems  to  Stevenson,  36. 

Gossip  on  Romance,  A,  208. 
Gower  Woodseer,  Meredith's  par- 
tial portrait  of  R.  L.  S.,  163. 
Grange,  Lady,  incarceration  of,  50. 
Grant,     Barbara     (Catriona),    as 

character  sketch  of  R.  L.  S.,  49. 
William,     Lord     Advocate, 

109. 
share  in  James  More's 

escape  from  prison,  50. 
Graver  and  the  Pen,  The,  73. 
Great  North  Road,  The,  no. 
Great  Missenden,  inn  at,  20. 
Greenwood  State,  The  (afterwards 

Prince  Otto},  199. 
Grift,  Nelly  van  de,  76. 
Guthrie,  Lord,  in. 

HACKSTON,  the  Covenanter,  99. 

Hadden,  Tommy,  original  of, 
112. 

Hamilton,  Clayton,  114. 

Hanging  Judge,  The  (play),  236. 

Hardy,  Thomas,  visit  to,  95. 

Hamerton,  P.  G.,  112. 

Hammerton,  J.  A.,  113. 

Health  and  Mountains,  115. 

Heather  Ale  (ballad),  26. 

Heathercat,  116. 

Henley,  W.  E.,  117. 

and  Kipling  compared, 

141. 

in  Talk  and  Talkers, 

256. 

on  Stevenson's  charac- 
ter, 205. 

Highlands,  Scottish,attitudeto,93. 


294 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 


High    Wood   of   Ulufanua,    The 
(afterwards  Beach  ofFalesa),  29. 
Hird,  Ben,  119. 
Honolulu,  1 20,  135. 
House  of  Eld,  The  (fable),  95. 
House,  The  Ideal,  125. 
Hutchinson,  bust  by,  121. 
Hugo's  Romances,  121. 
Humble  Remonstrance,  A,  1 2 1. 
Hyeres,  123. 

Ideal  House,  The,  125. 
Idlers,  An  Apology  for,  7. 
Inland  Voyage,  An,  126. 

Epilogue,  93. 

In  Memoriam,  F.  A.  S.,  128. 

Ireland,  Alexander,  128. 

Irish  affairs,  74. 

Irving,  H.  B.,  as  Jekyll  and  Hyde, 

250. 
Island    Nights    Entertainments, 

129. 
Isle  of  Voices,  The,  130. 

JAMES,  Henry,  130. 

controversy  with,  121. 

on  the  later  essays,  3. 

on  Stevenson's  health, 

114. 

'Janet  Nicoll,'  cruise  in  the,  230. 
'Janet  Nicoll,'  The  Cruise  of  the, 

by  Mrs.  R.  L.  Stevenson,  236. 
Japp,  A.  H.,  132. 

and  Thoreau,  257. 

and    Treasure   Island, 

266. 

Jekyll  and  Hyde,  246. 
Jenkin,  Fleeming,  132. 
Jersey,  Lady,  134. 
Johnson,  Sir  William,  160. 
Johnstone,  Arthur,  135. 

KAY'S,  General,  monument,  89. 
Kelman,  Rev.  John,  135. 
Kidnapped,  136. 

Alan  Breck,  40. 

Appin  murder,  9. 

.Cluny  Macpherson,  154. 

defect  of  construction,  277. 

Robin  Oig,  181. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  141. 


Knox,     and     his     Relations    to 

Women,  142. 
Knox,  Dr.  Robert,  anatomist,  36, 

89. 

LANG,  Andrew,  142. 

first    impressions    of 

R.  L.  S.,  115. 

on  James  More,  171. 

reply  to   Henley's  at- 
tack, 119. 

Lantern  Bearers,  The,  144. 
Lay  Morals,  144. 

the  book,  145. 

Le  Gallienne,  Richard,  146. 

Leith,  Water  of,  107. 

Leper  settlement,   Molokai,  visit 

to,  120. 
Letter,  Miss   Balfour's,  engaging 

servant,  23. 
Letter  to  a  Young  Gentleman  who 

Proposes  to  Embrace  the  Career 

of  Art,  146. 
Letters,  successive  published  series, 

147. 
Letters    in    Advocates'    Library, 

Edinburgh,  119. 
Lie,  The  Story  of  a,  245. 
Lighthouses,  On  a  New  Form  of 

Intermittent  Light  for,  147. 
L.  J.  R.,  148. 

Locker- Lampson,  Frederick,  149. 
Lodging  for  the  Night,  A,  150. 
London  (newspaper),  60,  178. 
Lord  Nelson  and  the  Tar,  73. 
Lovat,  Master  of,  105. 
Love-affairs,  60,  82,  152,  180, 260. 
Low,  Will  H.,  151. 
dedication      of       The 

Wrecker,  285. 
Mrs.,  translator  of  Jekyll  and 

Hyde,  250. 
Lyttorts  'Fables  in  Song,'  153. 

Macaire,  153. 
Macbeth,  Salvini's,  214. 
McClure,  S.  S.,  original  of  Pin- 
kerton,  196. 

syndicate,  letters  for,  230. 

Macpherson,  Cluny,  154. 
Maletroifs  Door,  The  Sire  of,  226. 


INDEX 


295 


Mansfield,  Richard,  as  Jekyll  and 
Hyde,  248. 

Marguerite,  The,  73. 

Markheim,  156. 

opinion  of,  183. 

Manse,  The,  155. 

Marseilles,  124. 

Masson,  Miss  Rosaline,  157. 

Master  of  Ballantrae,  The,  158. 

Mattos,  Katharine  de,  76. 

Memoir  of  Fleeming  Jenkin,  134. 

Memorial,  Edinburgh,  86,  210. 

Exeter,  95. 

San  Francisco,  218. 

Saranac,  52,  218. 

Silverado,  223. 

Memories  and  Portraits,  161. 

Memories  of 'an  Islet (Earraid),  162. 

Mentone,  162. 

Meredith,  George,  163. 

Merry  Men,  The,  164. 

Miller,  Sheriff,  in  Catriona,  49. 

Misadventures  of  John  Nicholson, 
166. 

Modern  Cosmopolis,  A,  217. 

Modern  Student  Considered  Gener- 
ally, The,  167. 

Molokai,  visit  to  leper  settlement, 
1 20. 

Monastier,  175. 

Money,  conception  of,  145. 

Monterey  (Old  Pacific  Capital), 
167,  185. 

Moors,  H.  J.,  168. 

Moral  Emblems,  73. 

Morality  of  the  Profession  of  Let- 
ters, 170. 

More,  James,  170. 

Government  connivance 

in  escape  from  prison,  50. 

—  part  in  the  Appin  trial, 

13- 
plan   to    kidnap   Alan 

Breck,  42. 
More  New  Arabian  Nights  (The 

Dynamiter),  173. 
Somerset,  original   of, 

242. 
Morley,    John,    commission    by, 

153- 
Morris,  William,  175. 


Mountain  Town  in  France  (Mona- 
stier), 175. 

Movements  of  Young  Children, 
Notes  on,  176. 

Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  177. 

New  Arabian  Nights,  177. 

New  Poems  and  Variant  Read- 
ings, 179. 

Nomenclature,  Philosophy  of,  194. 

North,  Captain  George,  pseudo- 
nym, 34,  267. 

Not  I,  and  other  Poems,  73. 

Nuits  Blanches,  180. 

Nurses,  181. 

Object  of  Pity,  An,  135. 
Oig,  Robin,  181. 

abduction  charge,  171. 

Olalla,  182. 

Old  Mortality,  184. 

Old  Pacific  Capital,  185. 

Old  Scotch  Gardener,  An,  185. 

Ordered  South,  1 86. 

Osbourne,  Lloyd,  187. 

and    The  Wrong  Box, 


287. 


ters,  222. 


in  The  Silverado  Squat- 


285. 


share  in  The  Ebb  Tide, 
share  in  The  Wrecker, 


Our  Lady  of  the  Snows  (xxm  of 
Underwoods'),  53. 

Pan's  Pipes,  189. 

Pastoral,  189. 

Pathos,  examples  of,  181,  214. 

Pavilion  on  the  Links,  The,  190. 

Pearl  Fisher,  The  (afterwards 
The  Ebb  Tide),  83. 

Pennell,  Joseph,  191. 

Penny  Plain  and  Twopence  Col- 
oured, A,  191. 

shop  where  toy  plays 

bought,  86. 

Pentland  essays,  155,  185,  189. 

hills,  253. 

Pentland  Rising,  The,  192. 

Pepys,  Samuel,  193. 

Pew  in  Admiral  Guinea,  4. 


296 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 


Phillips,  Alfred  R.,  194. 
and    Treasure  Island, 

33- 

Philosophy  of  Nomenclature,  194. 
Philosophy  of  Umbrellas,  195. 
'Pilgrim's Progress,'  Bagster's,  21. 
Pinero,  Sir  Arthur,  195. 
Pinkerton,  original  of,  196.    - 
Play,  conception  of,  57. 
Plays — Admiral  Guinea,  3. 

Beau  Austin,  30. 

Deacon  Brodie,  75. 

Hanging  Judge,  The,  236. 

Macaire,  153. 

Henley-Stevenson,    Pinero's 

criticism,  195. 

editions,  196,  259. 

Plays  of  W.  E.  Henley  and  R.  L. 

Stevenson,  196. 
Plea  for  Gas  Lamps,  A,  107. 
Poems — Ballads,  25. 

Child's  Garden  of  Verses,  53. 

New  Poems,  179. 

Songs  of  Travel,  228. 

Underwoods,  270. 

Poems    and   Variant     Readings, 

•New,  179. 
Political  views,  174. 

writings,  74. 

Portraits  of,  partial  literary,   27, 

163. 

Prayers,  196. 
Preface  to  '  The  Master  of  Ballan- 

trae,'  160. 

Prelude  (early  verse),  197. 
Prideaux,  W.  F.,  197. 
Prince  Otto,  197. 
Prince  Otto,  original  of,  200,  242. 
Providence  and  the  Guitar,  201. 
Psychical  phenomena,  interest  in, 

80. 
Pulvis  et  Umbra,  201. 

Raeburn,  Some  Portraits  by,  202. 
Rahero,  The  Song  of  (ballad),  25. 
Rajah's  Diamond,  The,  178. 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  203. 

on  the  Damien  letter, 

67. 

on  Markkeim,  157. 

Random  Memories,  203. 


Realism,  A  Note  on,  204. 
Reflections  and  Remarks  on  Hu- 
man Life,  204. 

Remonstrance,  A  Humble,  12 1. 
Requiem,  genesis  of,  180. 

on  Stevenson's  tomb,  217. 

Retrospect,  A,  205. 

Rice,  Richard  Ashley,  206. 

Road  of  the  Loving  Heart,  213, 

216. 

Roads,  206. 
Rob  and  Ben,  or  the  Pirate  and 

the  Apothecary,  73. 
Robertson,  J.  M.,  on  Stevenson 

and  Burns,  44. 
Rodin,  Auguste,  208. 

meeting  with,  152. 

Romance,  A  Gossip  on,  208. 
Rosa  quo  Locorum,  209. 
Rosebery,  Lord,  on    The  Master 

of  Ballantrae,  159. 
Rosen,  Countess  von,  original  of, 

200. 
Rowfant  Rhymes,  contribution  to, 

149. 

ST.  GAUDKNS,  Augustus,  210. 

St.  Ives,  210. 

origin  of  Sim  and  Cand- 

lish,  190. 

Salvini's  Macbeth,  214. 

Samoa,  215. 

Samoan  politics,  writings  on,  102. 

San  Francisco,  217. 

Saranac  (Adirondacks),  218. 

Satirist,  The,  219. 

Schools  in  Edinburgh,  86. 

Schooner  Farallone,  The  (after- 
wards The  Ebb  Tide),  83. 

Schwob,  Marcel,  219. 

on  Villon,  271. 

Scott's  novels,  order  of  preference, 
209. 

Scribner,  Charles,  220. 

Semiramis  (afterwards  Prince 
Otto),  190. 

Sentimental  Tommy,  partial  por- 
trait of  R.  L.  S.,  27. 

Sermon,  A  Christmas,  58. 

Sharp,  Archbishop,  99. 

William,  221. 


INDEX 


297 


Shelley,  Sir  Percy  and  Lady,  221. 
Silver,  John,  original  of,  222. 
Silverado  Squatters,  The,  222. 
Simoneau,  M.,  168. 
Simpson,  Miss  Eve  Blantyre,  224. 

Sir  Walter,  225. 

Sire  ofMaletroifs  Door,  The,  226. 
Sit  well,  Mrs.  (Lady  Colvin),  227. 

verses  to,  128. 

Sixfoot  Club,  214. 
Skelt's  toy  theatre,  191. 
Skerryvore,  home  at  Bournemouth, 

39- 

lighthouse,  235. 

Slater,  J.  Herbert,  228. 

Somerset,  original  of,  242. 

Songs  of  Travel,  228. 

Song  of  Rahero,  The  (ballad),  25. 

Smith,  Dr.,  of  Galston  (great- 
grandfather), 25. 

South  Sea  Cruises,  229. 

South  Seas,  In  the,  230. 

'  Spectator,'  opinion  of,  26. 

Speculative  Society,  75,  86. 

Stennis  brothers  (The  Wrecker), 
242,  286. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  234. 

early  estimate  of 

R.  L.  S.,  121. 

Henley  and  R.  L.  S., 

117. 

Stevenson,  Alan  (great-grand- 
father, 156. 

(uncle),  235. 

— —  Fanny  van  de  Grift  (wife), 

235- 
first  pen  portrait  (Will 

H.  Low),  152. 
share  in  The  Dynamiter, 

173- 

Jean  (grandmother),  237. 

M.  I.  (mother),  238. 

Robert  (grandfather),  240. 

R.  A.  M.  (cousin),  241. 

as  Prince  Otto,  200. 

games  of  make-believe 

with  R.  L.  S.,  57. 

Thomas  (father),  242. 

paper  on,  244. 

share  in  Treasure  Is- 
land, 266. 


Stevensons,  unfinished  history  of, 

97- 

Stewart,  Alan  Breck.     See  Breck, 
Alan. 

James,  of  the  Glen,  trial  and 

sentence,  10. 

guardian  of  Alan  Breck, 

41. 

Stimulation    of  the    Alps,    The, 
244. 

Stoddard,  Charles  Warren,  245. 

Stoneven,  L.  S.,  pseudonym,  207. 

Story  of  a  Lie,  The,  245. 

Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and 
Mr.  Hyde,  246. 

F.  W.  H.  Myers 

on,  177. 

Strong,  Austin,  250. 

Isobel  (sister-in-law),  250. 

Stubbs,  Laura,  252. 

Style    in    Literature,    On    Some 
Technical  Elements  of,  252. 

Suicide  Club,  The,  178. 

Swanston,  253. 

Cottage,   Stevensonian    col- 
lection, 66,  in,  253. 

Sweet  Singers,  The,  87. 

Swinnerton,  Frank,  254. 

on  Olalla,  184. 

on    The  English   Ad- 
mirals, 91. 

on  The  Master  of  Ball- 

antrae,  160. 

on  The  Silverado  Squat- 
ters, 224. 

Symonds,  John  Addington,  254. 

on  Stevenson  and  Whit- 
man, 279. 

Tales  and  Fantasies,  255. 
Talk  and  Talkers,  256. 

genesis  of,  19. 

Talk,    later   life,   resemblance  to 

early  writings,  145. 
Terry,  Fred,  in  Beau  Austin,  31. 
Thermal  Influence  of  Forests,  On 

the,  256. 
Thomas,     Brandon,     in     Deacon 

Brodie,  74. 

Thoreau,  Henry  David,  257. 
Thrown  Janet,  258. 


298 


A  BOOK  OF  R.  L.  S. 


Thrown  Janet,  opinion  of,  47. 

Three  Plays,  259. 

Ticonderoga  (ballad),  25. 

Tod  Lapraik,  story  in  Catriona,  47. 

Todd,  John,  190. 

Travel,  Essays  of,  94. 

Travel,  Songs  of,  22%. 

Travelling  Companion,  The,  247. 

Travels  in  Europe,  275. 

Travels  with  a  Donkey  in  the 
Cevennes,  259. 

Treasure  Island,  263. 

Andrew  Lang  on,  143. 

— • paper  on,  102. 

Pew,  in  Admiral  Gui- 
nea, 4. 

Treasure  of  Franchard,  The,  269. 

Tree,  Beerbohm,  in  Beau  Austin, 

31- 

Trudeau,  Dr.  E.  L.,  52,  219. 

Truth  of  Intercourse,  273. 

Tushery,  33. 

Typee,  island  of  (Nukahiva),  229. 

Uma  (afterwards  Beach  of  Falesa), 
30. 

Umbrellas,  Philosophy  of,  195. 

Underwoods,  270. 

I  (Envoy),  93. 

in,  continuation  of,  46. 

XI  ('  Youth  now  flees '),  210. 

xxn  (The  Celestial  Sur- 
geon"), 51,  58. 

xxni  (Our  Lady  of  the 

Snows),  53. 

xxiv  ('Not  yet,  my  Soul'), 

Si- 

xxvn  (In  Memoriam, 

F.  A.  S.),  128. 

United  States,  publisher  in,  220. 

Unpleasant  Places,  On  the  Enjoy- 
ment of,  92,  281. 


VAILIMA,  meaning  of  name,  215. 
Vicomte  de  Bragelonne,  82. 
Villon,  Francis,  paper  on,  271. 

story  of,  150. 

Virginibtis  Puerisque,  272. 

Waif  Woman,  The,  275. 

Walking  Tours,  275. 

Watt,  Francis,  276. 

Rev.  L.  M.,  276. 

Watts-Dunton,  Theodore,  277. 

Weir  of  Hermiston,  277. 

dictation  of,  251. 

Weir,  Mrs.,  original  of,  237. 

Major,  89. 

Wendover,  inn  at,  20. 

Whitman,  Walt,  278. 

Wick,  281. 

Widener,  Harry  Elkins,  collec- 
tion, 197. 

Witt  o'  the  Mill,  282. 

Winter's  Walk  in  Carrick  and 
Galloway,  A,  283. 

Wreath  of  Immortelles,  The,  283. 

and  Old  Mortality, 

184. 

Wrecker,  The,  283. 

C.  W.  Stoddard  in,  245. 

Hadden,    original    of, 


106. 


Pinkerton,  original  of, 


Writing,  Essays  in  the  Art  of,  17. 
Wrong  Box,  The,  287. 

Finsbury,    original   of, 

99- 

YEATS,  W.  B.,  288. 
Yellow  Paint,  The  (fable),  95. 
Yoshida-Torajiro,  288. 
Young  Chevalier,  The,  289. 
Youth,  Crabbed  Age  and,  62. 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  CONSTABLE,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 
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8 


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ACROSS     THE      WATER.      IT      HAPPENED      IN 

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324 


HI  Brown,  George  Edward 

5496  A  book  of  R.L.S. 

B75 
1920 


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