J . rw . Y>
0*
From a photograph taken in 1890 at Sydney.
front. (Leut by Sir James M. Barrie, O.M.)
I CAN REMEMBER
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON
EDITED BY
ROSALINE MASSON
S'l
1.93.
W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED
EDINBURGH: 339 High Street
LONDON: 38 Sobo Square. W.I
1922
PR
Printed in Great Britain.
W. & R. CHAMBERS, LTD., LONDON and EDINBURGH.
PREFACE.
IN November 1921, after the Anniversary Dinner, held in
Edinburgh, of our Robert Louis Stevenson Club, and all
the talk of Stevenson that preceded and followed that
brilliant occasion, I realised that there were in Edinburgh not
only many Stevenson lovers in the literary sense, but also men
and women who could personally remember Stevenson as boy
and man. And it occurred to me that in the same way there
were men and women in other parts of the world who could
remember him in the later chapters of his life, and if such a
collection of living memories of the dead writer could be gathered,
they would not only be a valuable asset to the biographical
literature of our day, but would serve to draw together the
literary sympathies of Stevenson lovers all the world over.
On the one hand, there was this untapped source of vivid and
personal information, and on the other hand, to use Stevenson's
own words about another Edinburgh scheme, of his day, ' some-
thing fell to be done ' to set our Club on a really literary footing.
With these thoughts in my mind, I suggested the idea of
the Book to a meeting of The Robert Louis Stevenson Club
Executive, which approved of it, and appointed a Book Sub-
Committee, Mr King Gillies, B.A., Mr Charles Guthrie, Mr
Dods Hogg, Mr John H. Lorimer, R.S.A., Mr Laing Waugh,
and myself (convener). We were fortunate in securing the
sympathetic interest in our project of the Firm of W. and R.
Chambers, by whom the book is published.
The large and cordial response which came in reply to my
editorial letters requesting contributions was a delightful en-
couragement. My first thanks are due to all these contributors
who thus materialised the idea, by sending their personal
memories to form this combined tribute from so many, relatives,
intimate friends, chance acquaintances, schoolfellows, companions
of early years, comrades of later days, all of whom can say
' I Can Remember Robert Louis Stevenson.'
During the whole of this last year these contributions have
vi PREFACE.
been arriving, from Scotland and England, from Australia and
America and the South Seas, each one giving some fresh,
intimate, living glimpse of Stevenson, or throwing a flash-light
on some otherwise forgotten moment of his life, or re-capturing
some impression once received of him. And, as they have been
gradually collected and arranged, these memories of Louis
Stevenson, of all sorts and sizes and shapes and colours, have
formed themselves into a kind of biographical mosaic, depicting very
clearly the character and life-story of the man. Or, to use another
metaphor, they have seemed like a kind of cinematograph, a
series of sudden pictures flashed on to a screen, switched off,
but always with the central figure that of R. L. S., * frail and gallant
and slender,' with his magnetic eyes and his indomitable smile.
I am regretfully aware that although nearly three hundred
editorial letters of request have been sent, addressed to all who
were known to remember Stevenson, or who were thought to pos-
sibly remember Stevenson, yet that there must be many more who
do remember him and have not been reached. The book is the
poorer, and the reading public are the losers ; but it is inevitable.
Death has claimed two of the contributors to this book since
their contributions were given to it, Mr Patrick W. Campbell,
and Lord Dundas. The death in May 1922 of the Rev. W. E.
Clarke, [Stevenson's great friend in Samoa, who was with him
when he died, has lost to this volume a contribution that would
have been one of the most valued. In April 1922 he wrote :
'. . . I am much honoured by your invitation to contribute
to your forth-coming volume of Robert Louis Stevenson. My
most cherished memories are too personal and intimate for
publication, and much that I could write will be better written
by the abler and distinguished men among your contributors
who knew R. L. S. in Samoa. But I shall very gladly add my
little sprig of rosemary to the wreath you are preparing . . .'
Of the contributions, more than half belong to the Edinburgh
period of Stevenson's life. Many of the writers can remember
him in his boyhood, some from the days when he was a pathetic
little man at his earliest schools, or a petted only child at home,
or at the grandfather's Manse; some from his days of casual
PREFACE. Vll
attendance at the Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University,
whence so many of his contemporaries have journeyed, by widely
different paths, to eminence. Other contributors write of his
appearances at the immortal 'Spec 1 , at social gatherings, in the
cul de sac of his legal career, or at the brilliant theatricals in
the Jenkin coterie. Then come the contributions which mark
the real beginning of his literary career. Following these are
descriptions of life at Grez, of the year in California, and the
years spent at Bournemouth. All the other contributions belong
entirely to the last chapters of his life, lived in the South Seas.
It will thus be seen that the reminiscences, following the line
of Stevenson's life, divide themselves sharply, as did his life, into
those that belong to Edinburgh and this Country, and those
that belong to America and the South Sea Islands. Perhaps this
book, gleaned from both sources, may in some small measure
bridge over, to Stevenson lovers here and afar, the chasm that
cleaves our knowledge of his life, and aid readers to whom the
Edinburgh period is intimate, and readers to whom the Honolulu
and Samoan part is intimate, each to realise the other part more
clearly, and the Stevenson of each. For indeed not less is Edin-
burgh cold, ancient, historic, intellectual, wreathed in mist and
traditions, different from Samoa, sunny, tropical, * more savage,'
primitive, wreathed in red hibiscus flowers, than is Stevenson the
wayward restless youth amid his own people, from Stevenson
the penniless, homeless, hungry wanderer, or from Stevenson at
the last, the celebrated Man of Letters, honoured, adulated, exiled.
To the Book Sub-Committee, (now the 'Books Sub-Committee ''),
has been relegated the charge of that one of the objects of The
Robert Louis Stevenson Club which is defined in the Constitution
as : * To collect and preserve manuscripts, letters, portraits, and
other articles connected with Stevenson ; to form a library of the
various editions of his works ; and to exhibit to the public the
collection so formed.'
The proceeds of the sale of / Can Remember Robert Louis
Stevenson are to be devoted to these purposes, and it is hoped
will aid the funds and energies of the Club in literary and edu-
cational work such as Stevenson himself would have approved.
PREFACE.
The Club Library includes Lord Guthrie's Loan Collection,
and has already been enriched by several gifts, notably a copy
of that rare treasure, ' The Hanging Judge,' generously presented
to the Club this year by Sir Graham Balfour. Other gifts of
Stevensoniana have been sent or promised to our Committee, and
among the names of such benefactors we have the honour of
including that of Sir Sidney Colvin.
It is the hope of the Executive Committee that the house in
which Stevenson was born, 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, now the
property of the Club, will, when the Club gains entry next year,
become, like the Carlyle House at Chelsea, or the Goethe House
at Frankfort, a literary Shrine to which pilgrims from ' a" the airts
the wind can blaw ' will find their way when they visit Edinburgh.
I should like to thank those to whom I am specially indebted
for help in obtaining contributions, Lady Guthrie, who wrote
personally to Mr Robert Catton in Honolulu ; Mr Robert Catton,
who has been actively sympathetic in the whole project, and has
put me into touch with contributors in Hawaii, California, and
elsewhere ; Mr Arthur J. Ireland, who, knowing of the correspond-
ence, and of the meeting in Red Lion Square, sought and obtained
the contribution from Mr Dow ; Mrs Hay and Mr John A. Hay,
for offering the Club Committee the Lecture by Mrs Hay's
brother, the late Rev. Archibald Bisset ; Mr Charles Guthrie, not
only for obtaining more than one contribution, but for constant
help ; Mr Dods Hogg, for kind help and valuable suggestions ;
Professor J. Y. Simpson, for his personal letters to Sheriff
Scott Moncrieff and Mr Omond ; Mr John Purves, for his per-
senal letter to Mr Thomas Hardy ; and Mr A. P. Melville, for
writing to Mr Lloyd Osbourne.
I have to accord my thanks and acknowledgments to the
following Authors, Editors, and Publishers : W. Green and Son,
Ltd., Edinburgh, for permission to reprint extracts from Robert
Louis Stevenson, by the late Lord Guthrie ; Sir Sidney Colvin
and Mr Edward Arnold, for permission to quote passages from
Memories and Notes of Persons and Places, by Sir Sidney Colvin ;
Mr Lloyd Osbourne, Charles Scribner's Sons, N.Y., and Mr
Pawling, of the London Publishing House of William Heiuemann,
PREFACE. iX
for permission to publish portions of Mr Lloyd Osbourne's Intro-
duction to the Vailima Edition of Stevenson's works ; Mrs Van de
Grift Sanchez and Charles Scribner's Sons, N.Y., for according
right to use portions of Life of Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson, by
Mrs Van de Grift Sanchez ; Messrs Small, Maynard and Company,
Boston, for permission to use extracts from With Stevenson in
Samoa, by H. J. Moors ; Mr S. R. Lysaght, for kindly allowing
me to reprint his letter to the Times, which appeared in December
1919, describing his visit to Stevenson in Samoa; Mr George
Lisle and Mr Leonard Huxley, Editor of Cornhill, for giving per-
mission to reproduce from Cornhill (December 1921) Mr Lisle's
article R. L. S. and Some Savages on an Island ; Mr C. E. S.
Chambers, Editor of Chambers^ Journal, for permission to reprint,
from the Journal of September 1919, Stevenson as Playmate, by
4 Lantern Bearer,' and from the Journal of October 1922, Steven-
son As I Knew Him in Samoa, by the Rev. A. E. Claxton ; Mr
Birge Harrison and Mr Glenn Frank, the Editor of the Century
Magazine, for permission to reprint from Mr Harrison's article
With Stevenson at Grez, which appeared in December 1916 ; the
Rev. S. J. Whitmee and Mr Basil Williams, Editor of Outward
Bound, for permission to reprint from the article Tusitala, which
appeared in February 1922 ; Mr William Poustie and Mr C. S.
Russell, Editor of the East Fife Observer, for permission to reprint
from Mr Pous tie's article which appeared in January 1922.
I am greatly indebted to Sir J. M. Barrie for lending the
photograph with Stevenson's inscription on it, which forms the
frontispiece of this volume ; to Miss Louisa Mackenzie for lending
Iwo photographs of her cousin for reproduction ; to Mrs Younger
for allowing the reproduction which illustrates her reminiscences
of her cousin ; to Sir Alfred Ewing for lending for reproduction
a photograph taken by the late A. G. Dew Smith, and for the
note appended to it; and to Sir Graham Balfour, Stevenson's
cousin and biographer, for lending for reproduction his copy of
a photograph of Stevenson taken in Sydney.
ROSALINE MASSON.
EDINBURGH :
September, 1922.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Nursery Days, and ' Cumnn'e ' . . WALTER B. BLAIKIE, LL.D. . 1
Six Years Old WILLIAM G. Boss ... 3
Memories JAMES MILNE .... 5
Fresh Side-lights . . . .MRS DALE 6
Memories MRS KATHARINE DE MATTOS . 12
At School and College in Edinburgh . THE LATE PATRICK W. CAMPBELL 14
School Memories .... JOHN RAMSAY ANDERSON . .17
Memories GEORGE MOODY STUART . .18
Extract from a Letter .... MRS F. A. MACCUNN ... 19
Schoolboy Memories . T. INGLIS, F.R.C.P. (Ed.) . .20
Notes of a Few Youthful Recollections DAVID M. LEWIS . . 21
R. L. S. as Playmate .... ' LANTERN BEARER ' . . 23
Memories WILLIAM M'LAREN . . 32
Recollections of R. L. S. on the ' Hills
of Home' DAVID TOD . . 34
A Personal Recollection . . . GEORGE CRABBIE . . 35
Some Memories of East Fife and
Robert Louis Stevenson . . WILLIAM POUSTIE . . .36
Recollections MARGARET MOYES BLACK . . 39
Some Memories WILLIAM C. M'EwEN ... 42
Recollections MRS DOUGLAS MACLAGAN . . 45
Personal Reminiscences of the Univer- THE LATE REV. ARCHIBALD
sity Life of R. L. S. . . . BISSET 43
Recollections . .' . . . A. J. W. STORIE ... 56
Memories MRS LOUISA GULLAND . . 57
Reminiscences SIR ROBERT RUSSELL SIMPSON . 58
Recollections JANE MACLEOD . . . .62
Memories MRS ETTA YOUNGER . . 63
From Robert Louis Stevenson . . THE LATE LORD GUTHRIE . . 66
Address to the First Annual Dinner of
The Robert Louis Stevenson Club EDMUND GOSSE, C.B., LL.D. . 72
R. L. S. and The Edinburgh University
Magazine GEORGE W. T. OMOND . . 76
Reminiscences SHERIFF MACONOCHIE, K.C.,
M.A 79
Extract from a Letter . . . W. J. HERRIES MAXWELL OF
MUNCHES . . . .81
R. L. S. at the R. S. E. , . . PROFESSOR CARGILL G. KNOTT,
D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S. . . 81
Memories JOHN H. LORIMER, R.S.A. . . 84
My First Meeting with R, L. S. . . LADY COLVIN .... 87
From Memories and Notes of Persons
and Places SIR SIDNEY COLVIN, D.Lit. . 88
Stevenson at the Start . . . SIR SIDNEY COLVIN, D.Lit. . 90
CONTENTS.
XI
Reminiscences THE RIGHT HON. LORD DUN-
EDIN, P.C 93
Memories of R. L. S. and the ' Specu-
lative ' THOMAS BARCLAY ... 97
Recollections JOHN GEDDIE .... 98
Stevenson and the Fleeming Jenkins PRINCIPAL SIR J. ALFRED
EWINO, K.C.B., F.R.S. . 101
Louis Stevenson in Edinburgh . . FLORA MASSON, R.R.C. . .125
Robert Louis Stevenson . . . OWEN SCOT-SKIRVING . . 136
Two Recollections of R. L. S. . . SARAH E. SIDDONS MAIR, LL.D. 140
Irresistibly Comic .... MRS HOLE . . . .141
Impressions SIR WILLIAM A. HERDMAN,
C.B.E., F.R.S., LL.D. . . 142
Extract from a Letter . . . . BERNARD M. JENKIN . . 144
Recollections CONSTANCE BARCLAY . .144
R. L. S. as an Actor .... FRANCES H. SIMSON, M.A. . 145
Extract from a Letter .... MRS MACLEOD . . . .146
Stray Memories ..... SHERIFF SCOTT MOXCRIEFF,
F.S.A 147
R. L. S. and Some Savages on an Island GEORGE LISLE . . . .148
Extract from a Letter . LADYGUTHRIE. . . .157
Recollections of R. L. S. CAROLINE USHER . . .158
As Seen in Passing . MRS MILLER . . . .159
As Seen in Passing . CHARLOTTE JANE MACDONALD . 159
A Bookmark . . LADY IM THURN . . . 1GO
An Oral Examination . JAMES F. MACKAY, C.B.E. . 162
An Impression of R. L. S. ROBERT DOUIE URQUHART . 163
A Letter . . . THE LATE LORD DUNDAS . .164
Stevenson at Swanston MRSCATHCART. . . .165
R. L. S. as Richard II. ... J. M. HARKOM .... 166
Memories LOUISA B. MACKENZIE . . 167
A Back Office in South Charlotte W. GRANT LUMSDEN WIN-
Street CHESTER .... 170
Grez LLOYD OSBOURNE . .. .172
With Stevenson at Groz . . . BIRGE HARRISON . . .174
A Recollection GEORGE SAINTSBURY, F.B.A.,
LL.D 186
A Gift Copy from R. L. S. . . . MRS ADAM BLACK . . .186
Stevenson in California . . . MRS VAN DE GRIFT SANCHEZ . 187
Memories GEORGE ST J. BREMNER . . 192
Reminiscences JAMES CUNNINGHAM . .193
Stevenson a Candidate for the Chair of
Constitutional Law at Edinburgh . LORD SANDS .... 200
My Meeting with Robert Louis
Stevenson COUNCILLOR WILSON M'LAREN 202
Recollections ANDRE" RAFFALOVICH . . 204
Stevenson's Advice .... THE REV. J. C. B. GEDDES . 205
Robert Louis Stevenson and the Young
Folks Reader JAMES Dow .... 206
Skerry yore MRS BROWN (VALENTINE ROCH) 210
Memories DR THOMAS BODLEY SCOTT,
F.R.C.P.E., M.R.C.S. . . 212
Robert Louis Stevenson , , , THOMAS HARDY, O.M. , ,214
Xii CONTENTS.
MM
Stevenson a Godfather . . . R. A. ROBERTSON . . .216
Reminiscences . . . . . WILLIAM ARCHER . . 219
Stevenson at the Leper Settlement . BROTHER JOSEPH BUTTON . 221
From With Stevenson in Samoa . . H. J. MOORS . . . .223
Meetings on the Pacific . . . CAPTAIN JOHN CAMERON . . 226
Trifling Memories of R L. S. . . ROBERT SCOT- SKIRVING, M.B.,
C.M 228
Tusitala : A New Reminiscence of
R. L. S REV. S. J. WHITMEE . . 230
Stevenson in Sydney, 1893 . . . REV. WILL BURNETT, B.D. . 234
Memories of R. L. S. . . . . ROBERT CATTON . . .237
I Can Remember having Dinner with
Robert Louis Stevenson in Hono-
lulu when I was Eight Years Old . ANDREW A. CATTON . . .242
A Recollection ..... ED TOWSE 243
Samoa. . . .... LLOYD OSBOURNB . . . 243
Stevenson as I Knew Him in Samoa . REV. A. E. CLAXTON . .247
I Can Remember Robert Louis
Stevenson A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON . . 254
Extract from Note . SIR BERRY CUSACK - SMITH,
Bart., K.C.M.G. . . .255
A Reminiscence J. C. THIERSENS . . . 256
A Visit to Robert Louis Stevenson . S. R. LYBAGHT . . . .257
The Gift of a Birthday . . . MRS BOURKE COCKRAN . . 267
A Few Recollections of Robert Louis
Stevenson and his Family in Samoa JUDGE E. W. GURR . . . 276
Vailima Memories, 1892-94 . . SIR GRAHAM BALFOUR . . 281
A Letter SIR JAMES BALFOUR PAUL,
C.V.O., LL.D., Lyon King
of Arms . . . .288
A Letter of Introduction . . . MRS ISOBEL FIELD . . . 289
I Can Remember Robert Louis THE DOWAGER COUNTESS OF
Stevenson . JERSEY . . . . 290
An Echo SIR JAMES M. BARRIE, O.M.,
LL.D. . . 291
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
From a photograph taken in 1890 at Sydney . . . . Frontispiece
* Sinou t ' in Nursery Days . page 1
R. L. S. in 1866. Called by the family, ' Lou in the Baronet's
hat' . ,, ,,33
R. L. S. as Advocate 65
From a photograph by the late A. G. Dew Smith . . . n H 113
From a photograph taken in 1893 at Sydney 288
'Smout' in Nursery Days.
(Lent by Miss Louisa Mackenzie.)
I CAN REMEMBER
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
NURSERY DAYS, AND ' CUMMIE/
WALTER B. BLAIKIE, LL.D.
MY acquaintance with Louis began in nursery days.
His Mother was a near relative of my Mother's ;
but the more important link in our connection
was Alison Cunningham, since immortalized by R. L. S.
as 'Cummie.' Alison was my Nurse from my birth
until I was four and a half years old, when she entered
the service of Louis's parents, in which service she
remained until the final break up by death of the
Thomas Stevenson family. There was frequent inter-
course between the nurseries, and many games played
that were new to us. After the lapse of nearly seventy
years my recollections are faint and I cannot recall
much, but one incident still remains in my memory.
Louis was particularly fond of anything dramatic, and
his favourite game in our nursery was to play at Church
after the Scottish fashion. One child was minister and
stood on a chair-made platform, while below him at
floor level sat the 'precentor' a now almost extinct
functionary who in those days led the singing of the
congregation. Louis, who was fond of declamation,
was generally the minister. Clad in some form of black
drapery (probably Alison's cloak) he would preach
vigorously. On one occasion he constructed a pair of
clerical * bands,' made of white paper, which were hung
round his neck. Now in Scotland bands are only worn
by ordained clergymen. They are the outward symbol
of the sacred rite of Ordination. While Louis was
2 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
declaiming, my mother entered the room. She had not
minded previous performances, but when she saw the
clerical bands her anger was fierce. I remember it to
this day. To her the assumption was an act of utter
sacrilege. She tore the bands from Louis's neck and
prohibited the church game for the future.*
Alison was a very dear woman, very Scots, an innate
Covenanter. If I remember aright her forebears were
all Covenanters, and Scots people remember their
family history. Louis was brought up on covenanting
traditions and his first important published paper was
'The Pentland Rising/ a brilliant account of that
covenanting disaster. Alison had a perfect horror of
anything ' popish '. Once when taken by the family on
a continental tour she rather embarrassed her employers
by visiting Catholic churches and leaving violent Prot-
estant tracts on the chairs and in the pews ; but luckily
no harm came of it.
Even to the end she maintained her horror of
popery. The old parish church of Colinton the
church of Louis's grandfather had been reconstructed
about twelve years ago and largely rebuilt. She be-
moaned the change : ' Don't you think, Mr Walter,'
she said to me, ' that it 's terribly popish ? ' I consoled
her as best I could, but not very successfully.
In her later days she became very deaf and could
only communicate with strangers in writing. She
always carried a pencil and note-book for this purpose
and became very proficient in this one-sided form of
conversation. She was much lionized, chiefly by Ameri-
can visitors who came to visit 'Curnmie' and rather
gushed over her. It did not seem to turn her head,
she seemed more amused and amazed than flattered.
Among other visitors was the Duchess of Sutherland,
who was photographed along with her. * Look at that,
* In Sir Graham Balfour's Life of R L. S. (Vol. I., p. 37) he quotes an
extract from the diary of Louis's Mother. '26th July 1853, * Smout's
favourite occupation is making a church ; he makes a pulpit with a chair
and a stool ; reads sitting, and then stands up and sings, by turns.' [ED.]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 3
Mr Walter,' she said, ' fancy me being photographed
with a duchess and me sitting while she's standing.'
Dear old Alison, her end was tragic. Coming down
stairs her ankle doubled under her and the bone was
broken. She was now ninety-one years old and her
aged frame could not stand the shock. She died a few
weeks later ;* Lord Guthrie and I and a few relatives
laid her in the grave in the Morningside cemetery,
Edinburgh.
Six YEARS OLD.
WILLIAM G. BOSS.
I can remember Robert Louis Stevenson, for I
was at Canonmills School with him. The fact of
his attendance at this school is not mentioned,
as far as I am aware, in any of the published biog-
raphies ; and it seems right that it should be known
that he was a pupil there for a short time about 1857.
The headmaster of that school, a beginners' school,
had a good reputation for bringing on children. Al-
though I do not remember the master clearly when
I was a pupil there, not having been in his class, I
remember various incidents, such as how we were
taught in the first or lowest class, whose teacher
was a woman, to count by means of bright coloured
beads strung on wires across a wooden frame. I have
a hazy recollection that R. L. S. was also in this
class the infant class. The class-room was in the
end of the school building nearest to the public road.
My late elder brother James, who also was a pupil,
informed me about twenty years ago, when he was in
Glasgow, that the late Stephen Adam, glass-stainer of
that city, another pupil at Canonmills, used to speak
jocularly about little Stevenson being the butt of the
school from the oddity of his appearance. T do not
recollect this bantering specially, but think it would
* July 17th 1913.
4 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
be from this treatment by the older boys that
Stevenson one day appeared to make a mute appeal
to me for sympathy, while I, as a thoughtless boy,
was roving and shouting in the playground, he
arrested my attention when I was near the school
door, by his solitary appealing posture, with his eyes
intently fixed on me, as if he had been watching my
proceedings for some time. I stopped suddenly and
looked at him for a minute or two, but I regret to
say that I did not respond to his apparent appeal for
friendship. I turned away and carried on my thought-
less play, and thus I was probably the loser. It is one
of those incidents in life which seem to adhere to one,
leaving an indelible impression on the memory ; our
relative positions still being clear in my mental vision,
he standing near the gate of the playground, and I
standing near the school door. I never pass by the
place now without thinking of it.
I notice in one biography it is mentioned that
Stevenson intended writing a story to be called
Canonmills. Of course there are great changes in the
locality since those early days the days when little
Stevenson knew Canonmills well the Canonmills of
his very earliest schooldays, the Canonmills where, as
a very small boy, he so often walked at ' Cummy V
side, 'gaping at the Universe.' In those days there
were the mills and granaries opposite the school, with
their stores of grain which we tried to reach in to ;
the mill lade ; the Old Coach Inn further up the road ;
the tannery; the market-garden, where we used to
spend our halfpence on fruits in their season; the
Coachmen's green at Bellevue, where a travelling
menagerie with Tom Thumb and his wife Mrs Thumb
was on view for a time; the Zoological Gardens in
East Claremont Street, where we saw the monkeys, the
strange birds, the bears down in a pit, and got pea-
cocks' feathers to our delight; while the corn was
growing in the fields near by, and Blondin walked
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
on the tight-rope high up in the air down at Inverleith
Row, and the miller's horses toiled zigzag- ways up
the hill with their loads of flour on sled-carts for the
city, and Jooky Reid at Bellevue chased us boys,
would-be plunderers, away from his garden.
MEMORIES.
JAMES MILNE.
THE earliest I recollect of R. L. S. is his mother
running him along Heriot Row in the mornings
to warm him up on his way to Henderson's
School in India Street, where we both went.
I also vividly recollect him one day in the Academy
Yards in a towering rage. Some of the other kiddies
were ragging him, and the rim of his straw hat was
torn down and hanging in rings round his face and
shoulders.
He always came to our children's parties, and my
sisters and I went to Heriot Row on the two or three
occasions there was a children's party there.
I well recollect R. L. S. at Peebles one day. Five
or six of us were bathing in the Duckats, a rocky pool
below Neidpath. It was a sunny day with a cold
wind, and we did not waste much time in getting our
clothes on; but Louis would continue to run about
and play the fool in a state of nudity after all the rest
of us were dressed.
At the University he and I belonged to the Dia-
lectic Society the same year. It used to meet at eight
or nine P.M., and often continue till eleven or twelve.
When Stevenson turned up he always had something
to say, and his remarks were always so very far from
the mark that he provided material for all the later
speakers to rag him. He usually bolted as soon as he
had done speaking.
6 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I never saw much of him at Colinton Farm ; occa-
sionally he came to our house, and frequently my wife
and I were at Swanston while the Stevensons were
living there ; but I have no outstanding recollections
of him at Swanston indeed I doubt if he often was
there when we were.
We have an unpublished novelette of his, which he
dashed off one wet Saturday when he was staying at
Colinton Farm, or spending the day there. It is a
very weird tale of the time of the plague in Edin-
burgh thoroughly Stevensonian, written closely on
both sides of seven or eight half-sheets of paper all
different sizes. He made no corrections, and it re-
quires none. He must have been about fourteen
when he wrote it, and tossed it to my wife, who was
a favourite cousin. She always kept it among her
treasures.
The last time I saw Stevenson was at Heriot Row,
when my wife and I went there to lunch and to say
good-bye before he left for the South Seas. He
could not come down to lunch, so I went and saw
him in bed. He looked very frail and far through.
FRESH SIDE-LIGHTS ON R. L. S.
MRS DALE.
MY first recollection of Robert Louis Stevenson
is of when he was eight or nine years old, and
was one of a little tea-party of cousins, given
by my mother at Grange Road after we came home
from India. We played a game called 'mesmerism/
in which he was the victim. He was asked to keep his
eyes fixed on the ' mesmerist,' who made crosses and
symbols on his own face, always touching before he did
so the bottom of a ' magic ' plate he held in his hand.
R. L. S., sitting opposite with eyes watching the
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 7
* magician's ' keenly, and full of the idea of being
* mesmerised/ did not notice the smiles around, nor
know that the underside of his own plate had been
blackened over a lamp, and therefore that his face was
being grotesquely streaked by himself in following out
the movements of the hand he was watching, whose
every action he had been warned to copy faithfully.
So, when he was held up to a mirror, and realised that
he had been ' taken in,' he clapped his hands over his
face for shame, and all evening I think he felt lowered
in his own estimation at having been made to look
ridiculous.
I do not think many people can now be alive who
remember the Manse of Colinton as I do, when old
Dr Balfour was there. He was II. L. S/s grandfather,
and my uncle by marriage, Mrs Balfour being the
eldest child, and my father almost the youngest, of the
large family of the Rev. Dr Smith of Galston Manse,
Ayrshire. Robert Burns had been reproved by Dr
Smith, and Burns had retaliated by pillorying Dr Smith
twice, by name, in the ' Holy Fair,' where he says ' his
English tongue and gesture fine are a' clean oot o'
season/ The ' English tongue ' must have come from
Dr Smith's grandmother, R. L. S/s great-great-great-
grandmother, who was Miss Jane Watson of Malton
Priory, Yorkshire, and Bilton Hall, near Harrogate.
When her son paid a first visit to her old home of
Bilton, an old letter says ' orders were given that the
best buck in the park was to be killed in his honour/
In my home I have copies in oil of that old lady and
her husband, the originals of which, I believe, are by
Sir Peter Lely, and are still in the family.
At Colinton Manse entrance the strong wooden gates
are still peppered with shot-holes from being used as a
target in those far-off days. R. L. S. was a year older
than I, and most of the contemporary Balfour play-
mates were still older, so they always seemed my
cousins, though I really belonged to the older genera-
8 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
tion, who were gray-haired while I was yet a child. I
think all the Balfour sons had a ' Lewis ' in the family,
named after the Colinton Manse grandfather, and
each had a distinctive adjunct, generally from their
birthplace. There were 'Delhi' Lewis, 'Noona'
Lewis, 'Cramond' Lewis, Lewis Charles, and Robert
Louis.
When staying at Colinton Manse as a child, I can
remember old Dr Balfour, with long silvery hair, and a
beautiful face, reading prayers of a morning at a small
round table beside one of the two windows of what was
then the dining-room and is now the Manse kitchen.
Outside in the garden is still the old yew-tree, under
which R. L. S. used to love to hide and put his ear
against the wall which divides the garden from the
graveyard, declaring he heard 'the spirits of the de-
parted ' speaking to him. There used to be flower-beds,
over which, out of pure impishness, R. L. S. would run,
and then carefully make his small footmarks into larger
ones, so that an older cousin, Mina Balfour, should be
thought the culprit ; not, I think, that he dreaded
blame, but merely that his ever-active brain effervesced
and needed an outlet. He was always a delicate child,
and 'Auntie' used to tell of a trying walk that she
took with him, as a little boy, one wintry day from
Howard PJace to Danube Street, to pay a visit to
an old aunt there, and how R. L. S. wanted to sit
down on every flight of steps on the way as they
came to it. Visits to Swanston Cottage, later on,
used to be very pleasant a simple life in snug, sunny
rooms.
As a young man R. L. S. did not care to go to
dances ; but I remember driving with him in their
nice carriage and pair, from 17 Heriot Row, one lovely
evening all the way to Portobello, to a dance given by
a Stevenson aunt and cousins, who were then living
there for a time. The drive to and fro was very en-
joyable, but at the party I think R. L. S. did not dance
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 9
at all, but stood in corners chatting. He and his
special friends seemed to act on one another like flint
and tinder, if in a sparkling mood.
Those Stevenson cousins of R. L. S.'s had been
brought up in France, and were accomplished skaters,
so as there was a long spell of frost that winter we
used to meet daily on Duddingston Loch, where Bob
Stevenson R. L. S.'s chief friend used to do figure-
skating beautifully, and looked very picturesque with
a heavy crimson silken sash round his waist, and wear-
ing, I think, a velvet jacket. Perhaps R. L. S. was
struck by the effect, and adopted it, for he also,
on 'the Inland Voyage/ wore a crimson sash; and
a velvet coat certainly was his favourite attire
later on.
At my marriage, in 1871, R. L. S. made the speech
of the occasion in returning thanks for the bridesmaids,
and was in very happy form. A few evenings before,
at 17 Heriot Row, I had been singing Milton's V Allegro,
set to music, with R. L. S. turning over my pages, and
he said later on, 'Those words "jocund rebecks sound"
ring in my head persistently.' A phrase or word often
did with him. R. L. S. was fond of music ; but the
Balfours in general knew little about it.
It was a letter from me, R. L. S. said, that made him
write The Wreckers. We used to have a great many
wrecks, fifty years ago, on the coast beside my home
at Scoughall, before Barns Ness, the Bass, and Fidra
lighthouses were built, and I had described one of these
wrecks, when many poor fellows were drowned. My
husband was first officer of a volunteer rocket apparatus
there, and when the tide went back, crowds of men
with lanterns searched the rocks for bodies. Sometimes
a call would be given that something suspicious appeared
to be in a large, dark pool, and all the lanterns would
be seen hurrying over the black rocks to the spot, and
then the lights were held down all round while they
searched among the seaweed. My husband said it was
10 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
a most weird scene, and like olden times, when ' the
Pagans of Scoughall' had the worst of reputations; they
were said to tie a horse's neck to its knee and attach a
lantern to the rope, and then drive the horse slowly
along the cliffs, so that a vessel out at sea should think
it a ship riding at anchor, and come in, only to be
wrecked on our rocks and plundered by the ghoulish
people.
R. L. S. speaks in Catriona of the ' lights of Scou-
ghall ' as seen from the Bass Rock ; but it can only be
from the very top of the island that they can be seen.
However, he purposely put * Tarn Dale ' in charge of
the prisoners there, saying the name should be associ-
ated with those parts ; and when I said he need not
have made my husband a jailor, the reply was : ' Oh, it
was two hundred years ago ! '
When R. L. S. wrote home to his parents that he
and Fanny were to be married in California, he de-
scribed her as being 'a first-rate nurse, cook, and
general manager ' ; and his mother said to me, ' I should
have liked him to tell me a little more than that, and
doubtless she is not the daughter-in-law I have always
pictured to myself; but I shall hope to feel always now
that Lou is being well cared for/ She was truly
the most gracious and affectionate of mothers-in-law.
When, in after years, she lived with her son and
daughter-in-law in Samoa, her duty was to take
charge of the books, and an onerous one it was, for
certain insects would weave a sticky substance across
the leaves from board to board, others made holes
through the book from cover to cover, and another
variety devoured the books themselves.
I have bunches of most lovely pink-and-white flowers
(not quite so large as before I lent them, with other
curios, to an exhibition in Edinburgh !) made of natural
fish-scales of beautiful lustre, brought home by Mrs
Stevenson from Samoa. She told me that, boating in
the lagoons, you look down through the clear water
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 11
and see scarlet, pink, gold, or pure white fish swimming
in and out of the coral reefs.
I remember being much amused by a description
R. L. S.'s mother gave me of their triumphal progress
when paying a formal visit to one of the two rival
kings in Samoa. Mrs Stevenson's widow's cap was
always the centre of admiration with all the islanders,
and was specially begged for if she was going to any
entertainment. This occasion was, I think, when Lady
Jersey was taken by Louis Stevenson to visit the court
of the rebel king Mataafa, going as 'Miss Amelia
Balfour,' for, being the wife of the Governor of
New South Wales, she could not go openly. All
of them were much amused at finding the Samoan
in charge of the escort trotting along complacently
in front of them with a discarded widow's cap on
his head, the white streamers floating over his bare,
black shoulders.
Those widow's caps, Mrs Stevenson said, might well
be made much of, for they simply cost a fortune to
reach Samoa in fresh, dainty condition. Once, when
going to visit the other rival Samoan king, the boat
in which they had to cross a stretch of water was
rocking so, that Mrs Stevenson subsided quietly on to
the nearest seat. 'Do you know you are sitting on
your new cap ? ' one of the party asked her. ' Why
yes, of course ; but what else could I do ? ' she replied.
' That proves what an accomplished traveller you are,
when you can do it so smilingly,' she was told. She
was always sweet and charming, and with such a
gracious manner that I have heard her called ' the angel
of the family.'
None of Mrs Stevenson's photographs do her justice,
for she was very pretty, graceful, and refined-looking.
She had an album full of photographs of R. L. S. at all
stages of his life, which she said were those of her
'large family.' This she probably took to Vailima with
her when she broke up her home in Edinburgh, and
12 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
sent the furniture out to Samoa, including family por-
traits one, I know, being by Raeburn. It might seem
that the leather-seated, stuffed dining-room furniture
would not be suitable for a hot climate ; but the hall
where it was placed was large and cool and airy.
I had the great pleasure of reading all Mrs Steven-
son's weekly letters from Samoa, which her sister Jane,
who was 'Auntie' Balfour to the whole connection,
sent on to me first for perusal, and I then forwarded
the budget to another of the circle of readers. Those
letters are now published in book-form, and are very
interesting; but they seemed even more so in her
pretty handwriting.
Very many years ago R. L. S. told me I should
* write a book,' so it seems strange, and gives me a
somewhat melancholy satisfaction, to feel that my first
attempt at anything of the sort should be these casual
reminiscences of R. L. S. himself.
MEMORIES.
MRS KATHERINE DE MATTOS.
I am always a little loath to write of intimate
friends and personal matters. But as you so
kindly invite me to say what I can of my great
friend and first cousin, the now celebrated ' R. L. S.,'
I must try to say something hardly more perhaps
than a few words. My knowledge of him, though
long and deep, cannot be conveyed by words.
My first recoverable memory is trivial enough a
wedding of long long ago, where, or whose wedding,
I know not; nor why he, a young boy, and I, a yet
younger child, were chosen as guests. I see now, as
in those far-off years, two old people being married,
looking to me like a pair of ancient yellow idols I
must have seen in some picture-book. No other
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 13
children appear to me to have been present, besides
R. L. S. and myself, except one a solid, stolid boy in
a kilt, placed on one side of me, with R. L. S. himself
on the other, at a long breakfast-table. The kilted
boy, no laugher himself, may have been the cause
of laughter in his neighbours. Presently a few men,
young and old, came over to us (as the eating and
drinking waned), perhaps attracted by our merriment.
What, I wonder now, can R. L. S. have said or looked
to cause them to linger with us children? In later
years I came to know how often things of the sort
happened in his company.
Another memory is of North Berwick, the long
twilights on its ' sands,' the glen and the burn run-
ning down it to the sea, with Louis there too, and his
great companion, my only brother R. A. M. Stevenson.
No other men nor other women were ever quite to me
what these two were and remained.
When still a child, I went to live in France for
a while, and saw R. L. S. seldomer. Then followed
London days, with other sights and other people ; but
still with those two at hand. Their brilliant talk of
things seen or unseen, grave or gay, the sudden gusts
of laughter and sheer absurdities, still echo in my
ears. Both were prodigal talkers ; but for all that,
Louis worked steadily and definitely towards his object,
with brain and pen and wide-open, lamp-like eyes.
Still later he and I, with my baby daughter, travelled
in France to many places. When he started on his
journey ' with a Donkey ' we were there. Afterwards
we were often together in places in England. It was
at Bournemouth he one morning told me of a dream
which crystallised into his Jekyll and Hyde. This
book, dedicated to me, with verses and a letter in his
own writing, is in the presentation copy still in my
possession. Our long alliance was broken for ever by
liis departure for the South Seas; but while I live
my memories of him live too.
14 EGBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
AT SCHOOL AND COLLEGE IN EDINBURGH
IN THE DAYS or R. L. S.
THE LATE PATRICK W. CAMPBELL, W.S.
From a Lecture delivered to the Robert Louis Club on 8th February 1921.
IT was in the early days of October 1861 that I first
saw the city of Edinburgh, having been sent from
the country to join the youngest class at the
Edinburgh Academy. I found there were upwards of
sixty boys in that class, most of them born in 1850,
and among them was Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson,
besides two other Lewis Balfours, also grandsons of
the minister of Colinton whose name they bore. The
Master, who had been reared as a Blue-coat-School-
boy in London, was D'Arcy Thompson, one of the
most delightful of men, father of the present Professor
D'Arcy Thompson of Dundee and St Andrews. . . .
During one of the summers which Stevenson spent
at Peebles as a boy he fought a duel with another
Academy boy, younger than himself, Bobby Romanes,
whose father lived at Craigerne. They had real pistols
and real powder, but no real bullets not even a charge
of red-currant jelly to add to the apparent tragedy of
the encounter. No doubt Stevenson enjoyed this
mimic warfare, and I was talking a few days ago to
another boy who was a witness of it. ...
The golden thread which runs through the life of
Stevenson, and makes men bow in admiration in his
presence, was his fight with fate ; the man's un-
conquerable soul. As his friend Henley expresses it,
'My head is bloody but unbowed.' This fight, in
Stevenson's case, began in the nursery in Heriot Row
when, in the long and sleepless nights, Cummy's com-
fortable hand was placed in his. Together they read
The Pilgrims Progress and the Life of Robert Murray
MacCheyne the young Scottish clergyman who died
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 15
at, I think, the early age of twenty-eight, and whose
biography was then to be found in so many Scottish
homes. . . .
Last November I received a message from Edin-
burgh's great preacher, the late Dr Alexander Whyte,
to say that it was my telling him of Stevenson's
writings that had led to his reading them. I was
not aware of this at all. No man had a keener eye
for good writing than Dr Whyte, and his interest had
been aroused because I told him in those far-off days
that R. L. S. had a style worthy of Charles Lamb. I
remember that once when I was at dinner at a friend's
house, where Mr and Mrs Thomas Stevenson were
dining also, the host after dinner brought up Alex-
ander Whyte, then a young clergyman, to introduce
him to Thomas Stevenson, and I can never forget the
astonishment of the father when he heard the un-
stinted praises of his son from the lips of a serious-
minded young clergyman, and the look of incredulity
with which he listened to it all. Once, in later years,
Dr Whyte said to me: 'But w r hy, man, did you not
see more of Louis Stevenson when you were at the
University with him?' I told him in reply that I
was not at all keen to see much of him, still less of
the friends who surrounded him. We are, perhaps
fortunately, not all cast in the same mould.
The story of John Nicolson perhaps takes you as
fully as anything Stevenson has written into the atmo-
sphere of himself and his friends in their University
days. . . .
I remember an amusing incident, when Stevenson
and another friend of ours were taken up for snow-
balling, and led off to the police-office along the South
Bridge and up the High Street. Stevenson, in talking
over the incident later, said : ' As long as we were in
the Bridges I felt ashamed of myself, but so soon as
we wheeled round and were marching up the High
Street I realised that I was a hero.'
16 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
The University career of R. L. S. brings us to the
least interesting and the most unsatisfactory period of
his whole life. It was a time of revolt, a time of the
green-sickness of immaturity.
Of course R. L. S. came out of the mentally troubled
times of his youth at an early stage. He soon realised
what he owed to his father, a man who may fittingly
be described as 'quaint and devout/ and devoted to
the best interests of his son. That R. L. S. neglected
his classes at the University was not indeed a serious
matter for him. He was an only child, and need never
want though he had idled through life ; but what was
unrealised then was that he was engaged in a serious
work of his own, as his after years soon showed.
He was born with the artist's craving for beauty of
expression, a beauty only attained with infinite pains.
The mass of students, like my friend Mr M'Ewen and
myself, knew very well that we should have to earn
our own living by the sweat of our brows ; that our
course at the University was the highest privilege we
were ever likely to enjoy before buckling to life's work,
and necessity was laid upon us to improve such talents,
whether many or few, that we might possess for the
most part we could not afford to mix ourselves up
with apparent idlers. Wise men have said that to be
thrown upon one's own resources in early life is to be
cast into the very lap of fortune ; it is only then
that a man's faculties undergo a development and
display an energy of which they were previously un-
susceptible. That was the only sort of good fortune
which most of Stevenson's fellow-students possessed,
and without which we would, in all probability, have
made but a very poor show in life. . . .
I am the owner of the two earliest numbers of
the Edinburgh University Magazine for January
and February 1871, published by Stevenson, which I
should perhaps hand over to the Stevenson Club.
In No. 2 one of the friends of those days but not
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 17"
particularly one of Stevenson's intimates wrote some
lines which I have never forgotten, and with which
I may fittingly close these somewhat disjointed
recollections :
Not from Jerusalem alone to Heaven the path ascends ;
By many devious ways unknown to unimagined ends,
The all-wise Father of created things
Sends forth and guides this strange world's journeyings.
SCHOOL MEMOKIES.
JOHN RAMSAY ANDERSON.
IT is not easy at this distance of time to say much
that is definite with regard to my early acquaint-
ance with Robert Louis Stevenson. He and I
went to the Edinburgh Academy at the same time, and
were in the same class. During our time together at
the Academy I never looked upon him as physically
strong, and he was often absent on account of health.
I have a distinct recollection that in those early days
he used to appear in the class in the morning with a
scrap of paper, on which he had written some verses
generally of an amusing character about one of his
school-fellows or one of the Masters. When I settled
in Edinburgh again, in 1869, I used to come across
him from time to time at the University and various
other places so long as he remained in Edinburgh. In
those days he always struck me as being different from
other people, but I little realised what a genius he
was to become ; but looking back one can see he had
this in him from his boyhood. One fact which I
well remember is the interest which he took in the
Thompson Class Club, which was formed for those who
had been in the same class at the Academy. The
decision to form a club was made at a meeting in the
upper room of a house called ' Rutherfords', in Rose
R.L.S. B
18 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Street, a place much frequented at that time ^
apprentices and others for meeting for luncheon. Our
meeting was held there one evening when he was
present, and he took the greatest interest in the forma-
tion of the club. It was arranged that we should have
an annual dinner, and on several occasions he was
present, and entertained us all with his wit and humour.
As I have no doubt is well known, after he left
Edinburgh he still kept up an interest in the club and
his old class-fellows, and on two occasions when he was
unable to be present he sent a poem, which was read
at the dinner and afterwards printed, and a copy given
to each member of the club. One of these subsequently
appeared in one of his volumes of poems, but the other
was never included, and the only known publication
of it is on three pages of print given to the different
members of the club.
MEMORIES.
GEORGE MOODY STUART.
I can remember Robert Louis Stevenson. We
frequently came home from the Academy together,
walking up Howe Street, he breaking off at Heriot
Row, and I going on to Queen Street. My recollec-
tions of him are all of his kindly nature as he showed
himself later to all the world. D'Arcy Thompson (I
think when he was taking the class through Tales of a
Gh~andfather) used at times to ask us which of Scott's
novels dealt with the period about which we were
reading. Stevenson was always ready with the answer,
and I think almost always got up Dux by it
about the only chances he ever had of getting up
from his customary place pretty well down in the
class.
I, like most of the class, had not then begun to read
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 19>
Scott. I used to try to remember Stevenson's answers,
and brought them out on future occasions, ignorant of
whether they suited the occasion ! I don't think they
ever helped me up.
Stevenson and my brother Alexander were admitted
advocates (or should I say called to the Bar ?) on the
same day a wretchedly cold day, and the attire in
which they had to appear was most unsuited to it.
Stevenson was the picture of misery, blue with cold,
untidy, and with his tie all awry. When they met
before the ceremony, my brother said to him that he
looked like a drunken Irishman going to a funeral;
and Stevenson, hating to face the ordeal, replied :
6 1 wish I were that Irishman, coming from that
funeral ! '
MRS FLORENCE A. MACCUNN.
Extract from a Letter.
I need not tell you how gladly and proudly I
would have added my stone to the cairn if I had
one in my possession. I only remember meeting
him twice. The first time was when I was seven, and
he came to tea with us at the house we were staying
in at Peebles. He was a well-brought-up only child,
we were the ordinary products of the unchartered
liberty of a big Victorian family. I remember the
feeling of contempt I had for a contemporary he must
have been about eleven who stated that his parents
had instituted a system of fines for any slang words he
used. He instanced * to chisel,' meaning to cheat, as
on the forbidden list. It was a mild word in our
vocabulary.
The only other time I remember meeting him was
at the performance of Salvini's Macbeth, when we
happened to sit together ; but I was riveted on the
stage, and remember little but the tones of deep delight
20 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
with which he repeated to himself but for my benefit 1
the words, ' The multitudinous seas incarnadine.
Considering that my mother was his mother's brides-
maid, and that she dressed the cot for her friend's baby,
it was surely sinning our mercies that we never knew
him familiarly. But I don't know. In those days I
think he appealed more to older people. . , .
SCHOOLBOY MEMORIES.
T. INGLIS, F.R.C.P.(ED.).
WHEN a schoolboy. R. L. S. was a lover of Natural
History, and a keen observer. He was called
* Louis ' by his intimes, never ' Bob ' or other
name. It was his wont to wander over Blackford Hill,
and the more distant Braid and Pentland Hills, with
me on Saturdays and holidays, in quest of uncommon
wild flowers, birds' eggs, &c. I remember collecting
from a scar of Arthur's Seat specimens of the rare
Asplenium Septentrionale with the aid of a fishing-rod
with triangle hook on the point. He had a wonderful
flair in recognising birds and finding their nests. I
shall never forget his marking a kestrel to its nest near
the top of a precipitous cliff, and nothing would please
Louis but the taking of it. The place was almost
inaccessible, and few Alpine climbers would have
attempted it. Taking off his jacket, he began the
perilous climb. I did not know then the geological
formation of the rock, but the falling here and there
of portions of its weather-beaten, friable surface gave
me much apprehension. However, he kept steadily on,
reached the nest, transferred the eggs to his cap, and
then gradually worked his way to the top. One false
step or slip, and there would have been no Treasure
Island. Soon after this I was packed off to school
in Switzerland to learn French, and I saw him no more.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 21
NOTES OF A FEW YOUTHFUL RECOLLECTIONS
OF ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
DAVID M. LEWIS.
MY first definite memory of Stevenson dates from
one of his summer holiday visits to North
Berwick, in the earlier 'sixties. He was one
of ten or twelve Edinburgh boys of from ten to about
fourteen years of age who, as holiday companions, were
a good deal together. We were all of the usual school-
boy type except Stevenson, whom we always seemed to
sense as a little odd in his ideas and interests. We
thought him older than he really was, and that to a
certain extent coloured our relations with him. We
never tried to make fun of him nor thought of taking
him into account in connection with active participation
in any of our games involving physical activities or
emulation. So far as games such as golf, football, &c.,
were concerned he was 'out of it/ But we always
enjoyed a walk with him, especially if it was through
the ' Glen/ with its ruins of the old mill buried in the
shadowless depths of the ravine running up from the
East Links ; or along the seashore by the foot of
the cliffs facing the Bass to the monumental ruins of
Tantallon Castle. Then, if we were lucky, we might
hear of how the old mill became a ruin after the
murder of the miller, or of the finding of an iron-bound
chest by fearful ear-ringed men in a cave beneath
Tantallon. Always there was some fresh weirdness
in his imaginings of what had happened long ago. The
most memorable, however, of my memories of that time
is of our secret meetings, at what, for us, was the dead
of night, in a small cave or fissure in the rocks at Point
Garry. Those were entirely Stevenson's idea, and he
ruled over them autocratically.
We had to approach the meeting-place stealthily, one
by one ; and when we reached it, to produce a lantern.
These were generally ' turnip ' ones, and by them,
22 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
* dimly burning,' the place assumed an aspect in
harmony with our talk. I don't think any of us were
very imaginative ; but it was never long till Stevenson
had us back in the days of pirates and smugglers and
hidden treasure. So far as my recollection serves the
feminine element was never touched on ' Once on
board the lugger ' was always addressed to a man. Golf
of course was our principal game ; but I never saw
Stevenson even try to play. Nor did he care for other
games. I think the only one of our amusements which
really interested him was our contests with model
yachts. It was Stevenson who suggested the idea of
having an Ocean Race, and who umpired the contest,
which took place over a course from the harbour to
Craigleith, an island about a mile out to sea, a pretty
stiff course for model yachts ! It was Stevenson also
who inspired us with the idea of making a kite of record
size, which the first time we flew it lifted one of us off
his feet and carried him in the air for about fifty yards.
My next recollection of Stevenson is as a fellow-pupil
at a private school in Frederick Street, Edinburgh, kept
by Mr Thompson. More than ever, he was not the
typical schoolboy. He was quiet, almost aloof, and
showed but little interest either in us or his lessons.
He looked delicate, and when he left the school I fancy
it was on account of his health.
During the time we were fellow-pupils, an hour
every Friday afternoon was devoted to the writing of
essays on some given subject. In after years I asked
Mr Thompson if he had ever noticed in those written by
Stevenson anything calling for special remark. 'No,'
he replied. ' Except for an occasional striking phrase,
they never showed much grasp of, nor interest in, their
subject, nor a distinctive literary turn of mind.'
The next, and, alas ! practically the last time Steven-
son and I were much together was in the last year of
his attendance at the Edinburgh University. Then I
found him, so to speak, much more alive, more com-
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON. 23
municative, more interesting, more interested ; and
rapidly fascinating me by his personality, as by his
imaginings of adventure he had done at North Berwick.
There was to me a likeableness about him as a young
man that was not apparent in him as a boy.
In the course of talk and argument about literary
matters, Stevenson impressed me then as being quietly,
but very certainly, sure that he had it in him to write
to some purpose. I think that at this time he was
more concerned about how to write than about what
to write more anxious about style than matter. He
seemed to attach great importance to the use of words
which from association carried with them a fuller
connotation than a merely dictionary one ; and to the
effectiveness of words and phrases in everyday use when
employed in a not altogether usual connection. But
any distinctive quality of style always attracted him.
I remember a sentence in one of the judgments of the
late Lord Moncrieff ('Tulliebole') which greatly de-
lighted him : 4 The Pursuer, in the confidence engen-
dered by the limitations of a provincial imagination,
has arrived at an unsound conclusion founded on the
basis of a too limited induction of facts/
And I thought then, as I think now, that both as a
man and an author Stevenson was more fundamentally
influenced by the Bible, and particularly by the Old
Testament, than by any other book. ' Sic itur ad
astra ! '
R. L. S. AS PLAYMATE.
BY ' LANTERN-BEARER.'
From CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL, September 1919.
was a mere child when I first made the ac-
quaintance of Robert Louis Stevenson, and in a
sufficiently unusual and dramatic manner. His
father and mine were friends of a lifetime, drawn
together by some likeness of character and the same
i
24 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
profession, and interested in one another by the dis-
similarity that frequently cements a friendship. I had
in my quiet, guarded childhood, passed in a lovely and all-
sufficing old garden, smaller occasion and less liberty
for adventure than the wild spirit of R. L. S. He was
spoken of as * a curious boy,' unlike others ; and perhaps
the mothers of my generation had an unacknowledged
distrust of the thin, elfin lad with the brilliant eyes.
In any case, we had not met save at those terrible
entertainments called ' children's parties,' and had eyed
one another with the reserved and clear-sighted silence
that in thoughtful children is the substitute for older
diplomacy.
Our family had in the 'sixties settled for August and
September at North Berwick, then a small, unfashion-
able seaside place, with an East Bay, and a very
nebulous West, that had about half-a-dozen villas.
The East Bay was to us then a real Elysium rocks,
sea, a safe beach called ' the sands,' on which we had any
amount of unusual liberty ; and, under the eyes of
tenants of the line of villas, little danger could come
to the boys and girls who played and dreamed there.
The Black Rock was an Alp to be climbed, and I had,
with another playfellow, a dear cousin now long dead,
begun the ascent. The rock was very hot and dry,
and polished in places by the many feet that had gripped
in its few niches. Just at the top I found I had the
wrong foot foremost, nothing to hold to, and a sensation
of fear. My head barely reached the top, but my hat
did. To my relief, a thin, brown hand with long fingers
came over the edge of the rock, and a thin, brown face,
with very keen, interested gray-brown eyes, looked over.
'Take my hand,' said a boy's voice, and the fingers
curved for the grip. I looked at the very thin, very
long wrist that reached out of a pepper-and-salt shabby
coat, and hesitated to trust to it, it looked so very unequal
to any efficient help, then up to the eager gray eyes bent
on me, and felt that I might trust to the owner's willing-
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 25
ness. * All right,' I said, and put a sandy paw in the
thin one. ' Hold tight and change your foot ; ' then,
* One, two, three/ and a good pull landed me on the
top. ' I am Louis Stevenson,' the boy said. ' I was
lying up here in the sun, on the warm rock. Isn't it
fine ? ' I still think of him as * Louis/ French fashion,
without an ' s/ as his surname obliterated the final con-
sonant, and it was many years before I realised that it
was the English Louis. Our elders, for some unknown
reason, never spoke of him without the surname, a kind
of unconscious tribute to his difference of temperament.
It had a curious effect on my young mind. * Bob/
'Fred/ 'Jim/ 'Harry/ seemed a homely crowd, but
' Louis Stevenson ' stood out with a kind of uncanny
glory to that strange thing, a child's mind.
We soon ' made friends/ and began on the top of the
Black Rock a firm friendship that was never broken,
although life set our paths wide apart in his early man-
hood, and death's dark river flows between us for a time.
Louis was two and a quarter years older than myself;
we were both Mercurians in colouring, hair, and eyes ;
both dreamers and readers. We loved adventure and
its shadow in fancy, for our area of liberty was not very
great. But even now, in middle age that verges on
the hateful 'elderly/ the East Bay of North Berwick
holds for me the glamour and richness that was so great
for us in that long-gone childhood. The mound that
rises at the end, rippled all round by old sheep-tracks,
was to us an ancient fort. Louis thought if we dug into
it we might find bones of dead Vikings, or their equiva-
lent in North Berwick. Children accept such ideas
without cavil when the rainbow of fancy plays over
them. Many a game we played on that little terraced
hill, and many a time did we run down, to the imminent
danger of our legs. Once, indeed, I fell and dislocated
my left arm very badly, and suffered great pain. But
the leeches that were put on to reduce the swelling
were so black and mysterious, so interesting to talk over
26 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
with Louis afterwards, the sling in which my painful
arm reposed was so important, that I felt the injury was
a feather in my cap. For a time my share of digging
sandpits was suspended, and I was a wounded warrior
recovering for fresh feats of arms ! Louis was sympa-
thetic and kind, and had a wonderful way of making
everything, even injuries, an adventure. A modern Don
Quixote, who could stifle the common-sense and dull ac-
curacy of his followers and make them see the giants he
saw the light that never shone here perhaps the truth
that is so well hidden from so-called wiser eyes. In the
years that followed, the long years of early youth, Louis
and I and some cousins had many ploys together on the
Pactolian sands of North Berwick. When the tide was
out we fished for a large-headed, stout little fish called
a 'podley,' and put partan-cleeks into crab-homes on
the red rocks near the harbour. Where these red rocks
merge into the yellow wave-marked sand of the lower
beach are many mounds of sand beaten by the waves
into a kind of embryo rock, covered with green grass-
like weed. Here the falling tide leaves clear pools, in
which shrimps dart and burrow. One day Louis and
I were wading there, he with very skinny legs well
displayed by much rolled-up thin trousers. * Were you
ever marooned ? ' he said suddenly, with the strange
look in his eyes that always indicated with him 'an
idea.' I was not at all sure what ' marooned ' meant,
but, unwilling to show my ignorance, said, ' No,' while
wondering if it was something Louis meant to do to
me. 'Well, look here, suppose you were on a desert
island with nothing to eat, what would you do ? ' I
had not the faintest idea, but suggested, ' Fish.' ' Silly,
how could you catch fish in the sea ? They aren't trout
that one can guddle. Shrimps now there are lots in
the sand, and not bad to catch.'
I suggested that we should need a pot to boil them,
remembering the pink dainties of a seaside tea-table.
' No,' said Louis, with sparkling eyes ; ' raw would
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 27
do. Father eats oysters, and I once had one; it
wasn't very nice, but I heard him say they were very
nourishing/
' Oh Louis ! ' I cried. ' Those nasty gray things ! '
'Yes,' he replied; 'I think shrimps much nicer-
looking. Let us be marooned and try some.'
So we imagined ourselves alone in the wide ocean
without food or fire. That was easy. Then we caught
a few silver-brown wrigglers, and paused.
' Where are we to begin, Louis ? '
He looked at the morsel, and said slowly, * The head
would be best ; it would die at once bite quick ! '
So we bit quick with sharp young teeth, and found
the shrimp quite as good as Louis's oyster ; but some-
how the movement of the small fish made the meal
more cannibalistic than the lethargic oyster would have
done. It was, however, an experience added to our
store, and Louis was always on the look-out for some-
thing new and uncommon.
There was a gloomy building to the west of the bay
that always appalled us. A long dead wall without
windows, and only one small door. It was the beach
door of the ' abattoir,' and once only did Louis and I
look in there. One glimpse was enough, and we fled,
sick and horrified, to remember for ever the description
in the Book of Isaiah, to reject, as too hideous for
acceptance, the interpretation of the metaphors of the
Bible. ' Could you do that ? ' we asked, and needed no
reply. I see yet the snowy victim, hear the beating of
my heart, and the hurried closing of the dark, dreadful
door.
The foundry was another whilom haunt, where we
watched the glowing iron of our partan-cleeks beaten
into shape, bent, and plunged into the water with a
hissing sound of remonstrance against the embrace of
the enemy of Fire. The grimy figures that worked
the iron in the firelit gloom were to us good-natured
devils, the skin-aprons and hairy arms helping the
28 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
delusion, for in the wonderful brain of the boy Louis
everything suffered a seaside change into something
rich and new. Sometimes we went, with some older
comrade to shepherd us, to a bay far to the east, beyond
the dark tufa cliffs. Round by the rocks we picked
our way, and sometimes paused to look at the green
lips of the sea moving against the weed of the far-out
rocks. Clear and deep, streaked with streamers of
brown tangle, the sea seemed to breathe and pause, and
we felt unsafe on the edge of the deep pool. Farther
on, the sea-pink nestled in crannies above the reach of
the waves, and glowed like tiny rosettes on the breast
of the cliff. At our feet the empty houses of dead,
wonderful sea-beasts, with sometimes a bit of rope, a
broken spar, and once a baby's mattress-bed. Of things
like these we wove, with Louis as taskmaster and
inspirer, strange tales of wreck and sorrow on the sea,
till, as the successive Augusts and Septembers multi-
plied, we had a store of witching fancies, from which
one of us wove masterpieces of thought and literature.
Later we all haunted the West Bay, where more
houses were beginning to be built, and, being larger,
were more suited to growing families and purses.
Here our ploys were huge sandpits, and lantern
expeditions, golf, and croquet for a very short time.
But the latter game was no favourite with us ; there
Was no make-believe about it, no glamour, and far
too much standing still at a 'beastly hoop/ Of the
sandpits I have written elsewhere, and the Argonaut
voyages we made in the brown herring-boats drawn up
and glistening on the beach. A favourite but rare
adventure was enjoyed at the spring - tides. For
a very short time the long line of jagged rocks below
Point Garry, a kind of rampart of the shore, was
possible to our reach by wading. There starfish of
unusual colour and size abounded, sea-urchins with
encrusted jewelled shells, and feathery sea-anemones.
By dint of long legs and very short trousers the waders
.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 29
might spend a few delightful and dangerous minutes
before the tide turned. Louis was in his element
then, anywhere that was off the beaten track, with
possibilities of danger, otherwise adventure. His eyes
glowed ; his very hair, long and lank, seemed to stiffen
into more elf-like locks. He always led the band, was
always the master-spirit and inspiring force. A kind of
magnetism seemed to emanate from him, some of his
great, though then undeveloped, personality. Animals
came under his charm as readily as we did, and he was
always tender to the lame or unlucky, although his
sympathy showed itself in the robust form of under-
standing without words, and his power of diverting
the attention to other things. His odd faculty for
adventure, his power of throwing glamour over every-
thing he touched, must have been to himself a source
of immense pleasure. Dull he could never be, even in
sickness. In a letter to my cousin he described himself
when ill as a * pallid weevil in a biscuit/ His extra-
ordinary gift of self-observation suggested a power of
detachment of the inner mind, and the exercise of an
onlooking faculty.
One game we had with other children that I have not
seen mentioned in the many notes on Louis's boyhood.
An old gentleman, Mr Girle by name, passionately fond
of young people, used to gather round him a little
crowd of boys and girls, vowed to look the other way
and sent to a little distance; then Mr Girle hid in the
sands a china egg, for which whoso found it got six-
pence. We scraped in the dry golden sand like rabbits
or dogs, and of course saw the china egg as more like
that of the fabled roc. Louis was not energetic as the
other boys, held by his delicate health from strengthen-
ing his slender body. But his eyes shone with that fire
of concentration that made him later ' a sedulous ape,'
and he always invested our most homely game with a
kind of magic, which still endures in the memory of
his playmate.
30 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
There was in one part of the sands a broken drain,
from which bubbled a black and evil-smelling stream.
This, Louis had told me, was like the 'Sticks,' as I
spelt it in my mind. It fascinated me with its slow,
thick ooze, and, regardless of typhoid and diphtheria,
we speculated on its origin. One day I went too near ;
the sand and pipe crumbled, and my leg went in to the
knee. This was very amusing to the others, but I was
punished for my daring. My parents sent me to my
room to wash and be clean, with dry bread for my early
dinner. There was a hot raspberry-and-currant tart for
that meal, and the strong, fine odour of that dainty still
recalls my longing for the forbidden fruit, with a queer
memory of gloomy Styx. There are not many things
that one can more easily recall than smells, or that so
bring back other memories.
My father sometimes joined our games, and set us to
one called 'Rosamond's Bower.' He drew with his
walking-stick on the smooth, wet, unmarked sand, after
the tide went out, a series of lines that started from a
semicircle and went round and round in interlaced and
crossing lines. I think the secret of getting into the
bower was to keep always to the right. But, in any
case, we might wander for an hour if the rule was not
kept. Mr Thomas Stevenson and my father were
martinets over this puzzle ; we must go on till we
arrived, and no shirking was allowed. To Louis and
myself the thin furrow in the sand was a green hedge
above our heads, and we always hoped to see a fair
Rosamond in the bower. Perhaps she was just as real
to these little kings who ran round the maze as some
less fair who engaged their fancy in later years. The
ideal was always before Louis, and he passed on the
power of seeing wonders to his devoted followers. I
wonder if any one now draws Rosamond's Bower on
the North Berwick sands; if the children of to-day
have half such a good time ! Louis was an object of
envy to me for many an August and September, for he
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 31
had an iron spade, and I only a wooden one. My
mother had once seen a bad accident with the metal
delver, and feared to give the opportunity of another to
her children. This iron spade somehow set Louis on a
pinnacle, and, like other child memories, is clear and
strong. As if with wood and iron we worked in later
life, and the results were as then, the iron spade cut
clean and true to the heart of the sand, and the wooden
one confused the outlines we had traced. In nearly
every ploy that I remember there is the light of fire.
If possible at all, Louis must have a fire. As a boy,
the small smoky altar in the sand-house was the core
of his enjoyment, and the hidden eye of the little lantern
at his feet gave his wild heart dreams and thoughts that
till manhood he himself did not understand. In a
wind-swept, almost roofless cottage, where we played
long ago, the fire was his share of housekeeping, and
other joys paled before its ruddy glow. ' More fair
than laughter, lo ! the flowers of fire.' To him it was
a wizard with its change and movement, and strange,
vivifying light. Red in all its tints called to him as the
master-colour in the rainbow, and his red tie, then a
source of derision, became famous the world over.
Strong, pure colour attracted his keen sight, as in a
savage, and he saw nature from a barbaric point of
view. In his love of wild, untrammelled life, sought
for then in sand-houses and ruined cottages, he uncon-
sciously reverted to a more primitive condition, a less
civilised age. Given the strength that was denied him,
but of which he dreamed, he would have looked on the
* bright face of danger ' in untrodden lands, would have
climbed great mountains, to see below him ' the snowy
hills lie bowed like flocks of sheep/ The life of tent
and caravan would have called to his fearless spirit, and
been transmuted to golden story by his alchemist brain.
He saw life and nature unroll their endless magic web,
and caught something of their own fire and colour.
* On the loud stairs of honour ' he looked back to the
32 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
joys of childhood and youth, and found in the glamour
that his own mind has cast over simple, everyday
events more music than came from the clamour of
praise, the loud blast of fame. His dreams, beginning
in early boyhood, carried him on the wings of the
morning to high, enchanted places, and lasted to the
end, through seeming failure and hard misinterpreta-
tion, and the more dangerous conditions that follow
the glory of this world.
As I write I see, not the writer in Vailima, famous
the world over, but the strange, thin, glowing face, the
slender hand that came down to my aid on the Black
Rock with the words that were perhaps the unconscious
watchword of all his work ' Take my hand.'
MEMORIES.
WILLIAM M'LAREN.
I can remember Robert Louis Stevenson, for we
attended a small school in Frederick Street to-
gether for some six months in 1866 say January
to August kept by a Mr Thompson. Mr Thompson's
house was on the west side of the street. He had
under a score of pupils, some of whom were going to
English schools. I was going to Harrow, and a cousin
of Archbishop Davidson's, David Davidson, preceded
me there from Thompson's. Randall Davidson, as he
was then known, was one of the senior boys at Harrow
at that time. Louis Stevenson, Davidson, and one or
two others were more proficient than I was in Latin
and Greek, and formed an upper class. Stevenson
was quite a good scholar, tho' he speaks somewhere
deprecatingly of his proficiency. An American called
Williamson, and Willie Campbell of the Tullichewan
Campbells in Glasgow, were in this class. I think
and I understood that Louis and Willie Campbell
U. L. S. in 1803. Called by the family,
'Lou in the Baronet's hat.'
(Lent by Miss Louisa Mackenzie.)
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 33
were close school friends, and I am sure always had
an affectionate regard for one another, tho' their life-
work differed. Campbell's was the strenuous life of
a business man in Glasgow, ever with active interest
in others. Their intercourse may have become limited,
but the youthful affection always continued.
Stevenson was not a delicate boy as I first remember
him. Fair, tall, a rather narrow figure, a very inquir-
ing mind, and very fond of discussing all round any
ration that interested him, or, I should say, that
not even peculiarly interest him.
When I was attending Thompson's school I stayed
with my grandfather, old Alex. Stevenson, who was a
W.S. at No. 9 Heriot Row, and went home to East
Lothian for the week-ends ; and I went with L. S.
to No. 17 Heriot Row sometimes, either then or later.
The two houses were of course quite close together.
On one occasion, I think when Stevenson was attend-
ing the University, I was at No. 17, and his mother
how charming she was and how devoted to Louis !
told of a little incident. She had asked some friends
to tea and had given Louis her notes of invitation to
post. A day or two passed, but no replies came, and,
very perplexed, she mentioned this to him. As he
did not remember posting them, an uncanny suspicion
crossed his mind, and he went to search for the missing
letters, and found them in the pocket of an overcoat.
I don't remember hearing if the tea-party came off !
It must have been about then that he stayed a night
or two with me when we lived out Gogar way; but
I can recall nothing particular except that we had long
discussions on various matters, his views being pretty
original and strongly held. After that I doubt if I
met him again, nor was there any correspondence. I
have often wished I had renewed or revived our
friendship in that way, and regretted that I once
just missed him in Anstruther by a few hours.
A tablet was put up, chiefly at the instance of the
R.L.8. C
34 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Lorimers, on the house in Anstruther where he lodged.
He was associated then with the harbour works his
father was constructing, but he had no aptitude for
such work. His experience at sea in connection with
them, however, especially on the wild west coast when
the lighthouses were being built, was made use of
afterwards in Kidnapped and Treasure Island.
Not so very many years ago I was in New Zealand
and Australia, and I made the voyage from Sydney
to Auckland, touching at Fiji, where I stayed a few
weeks, Samoa, &c. I think we only spent an after-
noon or at most a day at Apia. It was interesting,
especially to me, on account of Vailima being there.
How I wished Stevenson had still been alive ! The
house was then the German Governor's residence.
RECOLLECTIONS OF R. L. S. ON THE
4 HILLS OF HOME/
DAVID TOD.
I am the youngest son of John Tod, the shepherd
of Swanston. When I was about fourteen years
old I remember quite well when Mr Thomas
Stevenson and Mrs Stevenson and Mr Robert Louis
Stevenson came to Swanston Cottage. I met them
on their first walk through the village along with
R. L. S. Very often on the Saturday afternoons
and evenings he and a college chum used to visit
Robert Young, the gardener, at his house. I have
thought since that the chum might have been the
late Lord Guthrie. I assisted my father to look after
the sheep, and often I had to go over the Torgeith
Knowe just at the old quarry above Swanston Cottage.
I often came across, hidden in the whin bushes, stories
of adventures published in London and Edinburgh.
I often read them and put them back again. I knew
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 35
that Mr T. Stevenson was a very stern father, and
perhaps R. L. S. had kept them out of the house
nothing wrong with the stories, but the adventures
were there, and you know what boys are who are
fond of reading. I may be wrong in my supposition,
but I always thought that R. L. S. knew about them.
When R. L. S. came first he would go right up
through the sheep and lambs with Coolin his dog,
and my father was very angry with him ; but they
soon drew together and were very fast friends ever
after. I always thought that R. L. S. was very like Sir
H. Irving. I think I see him yet in my mind's eye,
with his velveteen jacket, every time I pass the old
farm-house, by the stone figure of Tarn O' Shanter
sitting taking a pinch of snuff out of his stone mull,
for that was the place that I first saw R. L. S.
I have got in my keeping my father's silver snuff-
box, dated 1875 (presented by Charles F. Macara
Finnic, Esq., Swanston, ' To John Tod as a token of
his long service on the Farm '). I am sure that R. L. S.
had many a pinch of snuff out of it.
Mrs Thomas Stevenson presented Memories and
Portraits to my mother, in which, as you know, the
pen-portrait of my father is masterly done, especially
the last page.
A PERSONAL RECOLLECTION OF
R. L. STEVENSON.
GEORGE CRABBIE.
A LTHOUGH I must have been at the Edinburgh
JT\. Academy at the same time as Stevenson, I have
no recollection of seeing him there, possibly
owing to the fact that he was nearly three years my
junior, and took little, if any, interest in the School
games. However, I remember very distinctly meeting
him frequently, some years later, on the ice at Cox's
36 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Gymnasium, near the foot of Pitt Street. He was a
thin, lanky youth with long hair, a sallow complexion,
and wore tight trousers, a rough double-breasted reefer
jacket, a soft turn-over collar with a large bow-tie, and
a small round fur cap. His skating was the reverse
of graceful, his one object being to perfect himself in
what he called the * Canadian Vine.' I completely fail
to remember its intricacies, but I can never forget the
ungainly way he carried himself: bent knees, twisted
legs, feet continually crossing and uncrossing, head on
a level with his chest as he tried to trace an imaginary
figure on the ice. Although he always skated with
the utmost vigour, and what the French would call
'abandon,' I never saw him come to grief. On the
bank of the pond stood a primitive wooden hut, digni-
fied by the name of Cafe'. Across one of the windows
was pasted a notice which was a source of endless
amusement to us, ' Cafd au lait, with or without milk/
We paid it frequent visits, always asking for Cafe au
lait, without milk.
SOME MEMORIES OF EAST FIFE AND
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
WILLIAM POUSTIE.
From THE EAST FIFE OBSERVER, 5th January 1922.
NEARLY a century ago, a young husband and his
still younger wife began their housekeeping ex-
periences in one of the flats of an Edinburgh
tenement house.
The pride and joy of husband and wife in their
newly furnished, cosy little home did not extend
beyond their first year's tenancy, as they, and many
others, had to face a wave of trade depression which
swept over the land, making the efforts of the wage-
earning classes to keep on the right side of things very
difficult to accomplish.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 37
As these young people could not see their way to
remain in town without the aid of a steady income,
they resolved to remove to the country and do some
prospecting for work in the locality where they were
known.
The husband, being a wright to trade, went to Port
Hopetown Sawmills, and bought as much timber as
would make a bench for himself, also a few hard- wood
boards and some pine, and then bade farewell to a
town life.
Although they now ceased to be citizens of this fair
city, Edinburgh was not yet done with them, for after
many years there came from the Scottish Capital one
of her most gifted sons Robert Louis Stevenson, who
lodged with them a whole summer. . . .
For many years past the wright and his wife have
rested beneath the daisies which grow in the old
churchyard, a stone-throw from the house in which
they had lived for so many happy years, and in whose
rooms Robert Louis Stevenson spent some of his
youthful days. A famous litterateur, essayist, and
critic, while speaking some time ago at the inaugura-
tion of the Edinburgh Stevenson Club, referred to
Stevenson's early home life, and remarked that in his
opinion the excessive piety which prevailed there might
not have been conducive to his boyhood's happiness.
But be that as it may. The reverence which was
shown at Cunzie House to ah 1 that was pure, honest,
and of good report was just as marked there as in his
Edinburgh home.
In fact, those rooms were chosen by his father for
this very reason. And young Stevenson enjoyed his
country quarters, for those of us who saw him daily
soon noticed a growing alertness of step as he passed
from his harbour work to his rooms. Once there he
was secure from all interruption, and could with im-
punity sit and write as far into night, sometimes
morning, as he chose, not, however, at harbour studies,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
or lighthouse-building problems, as his worthy father
would have desired, but patiently cultivating his gifts
of imagination and style in the writing of stories.
None of these early efforts in literature, he tells us, ever
saw the light. But that did not deter the young author
from ' carrying on/ Neither did his lack of physical
robustness, nor the depressing thoughts which at this
time often visited him, stay his hand from striving to
perfect his work, work which ultimately reached full
fruition in his later romances and poetry. And now
his name is imperishable. In some of the many chats
which Stevenson had with the lady of the house, a
charming conversationalist, they discussed the deeper
things of life, such as the doctrine of election and
kindred subjects. His host and hostess were prominent
members of a Church which based its belief on the
* Whosoever Will ' of Revelation, rather than the
teaching of the Shorter Catechism, which says, ' Out
of His mere good pleasure He elected some to ever-
lasting life.' Stevenson seemed to have favoured the
lady's views on this matter, for he has left to us his
own testimony, which is that 'The saints are the
sinners who kept on trying.' The memories of those
early days he would be eighteen or thereabout are
told in his interesting book, Familiar Studies. In that
part of that book which tells of his training as an
engineer at Anstruther, he mentions that he lodged
with one John Brown, a carpenter, and gives us a vivid
pen-picture of the close of a summer's night at Cunzie
House. ' Late I sat into the night. The weather was
so warm that I kept my window open, the night with-
out populous with moths. As the darkness deepened,
my taper beaconed forth ever brightly, thicker and
thicker came the dusky night-fliers to gyrate for one
brilliant instant round the flame and fall in agonies
upon my paper. Flesh and blood could not endure
this spectacle, and out went the light, and off I went
to bed.'
HOBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 89
Alongside this window is fixed a bronze tablet, enclosed
in an ornate frame, telling that Robert Louis Stevenson
lived there during the summer of 1868
RECOLLECTIONS OF R. L. S.
MARGARET MOYES BLACK.
MY most distinct memories of Robert Louis Steven-
son are associated with Edinburgh and the
Stevensons' winter home at 17 Heriot Row.
* R. L. S. ' in those long by-gone days was a very
interesting personality ; and, in spite of his occasionally
weird attire, singularly picturesque and distinguished.
Slim and graceful, he impressed one by that peculiar
air of distinction. His eyes were particularly impressive.
They had in them a curious look of * far- seeing,' a
something of the glamour of the seer. One felt that
they appraised correctly all whom they looked at, even
while they saw, far in the future, visions that would by-
and-bye take shape and live, or, looking back into the
dreams of the past, could gather from the forgotten
years a wealth of story and romance.
When I first knew him he had already seriously
chosen a literary career for himself. We, his juniors,
looked on him with awe and admiration, and foresaw
for him a great literary future. One of his greatest
charms was that marvellous youthfulness which so
endeared him to his juniors and which no prolonged
sufferings from bad health could ever impair. His
buoyant freshness of mind and outlook made him look
on life with the eager gladness of a boy. Most grown-
up folk can be young occasionally ; but he was always
young, always a boy at heart, always in sympathy with
youth and its joys and sorrows. Another thing one
always associates with him is courage ; a gallant bravery
of spirit which through many illnesses and all the
40 ftOBERT LOtJIS STEVENSON.
worries and troubles of life never forsook him. That,
with the brave words he wrote, will help all who know
the man and his books to fight the battle of life
heroically.
Memorable also is his deep love of nature, of the free
life of ' the open road ' ; his tenderness and consideration
for dogs and horses and all animals; his passionate
love of Scotland the capes and isles where shine the
lighthouses his ancestors lighted, the Pentlands so dear
to his heart, the * wine-red ' moors, and, perhaps above
all, Edinburgh, old and gray, stern with a grim strength
akin to Scottish character, beautiful with a magic
beauty. These things lay deep in his heart and were
loved all through his life so dearly that it is terribly
pathetic to think the man who so loved them had to
leave them and live and die in far-off Samoa.
It is curious how, when one recalls R. L. S., one sees
again the luminous eyes, the graceful bend of the head,
the somewhat foreign motion of the hands when speak-
ing, and realises the delight of his conversation ; but
the actual talk cannot be reproduced by memory. It
was charming but illusive ; and while one can remember
the subjects of his conversations at times, the words slip
from one's mind as quicksilver slips through the fingers.
Various of his friends have noted this peculiarity. It is
strange that one cannot recall the words of a man who
was not only a prince of talkers himself, but had the
rare gift of making those whom he talked with show at
their best in a conversation. In all things he had that
delightful power of making others show themselves at
their best, and he seemed, for the time being, to share
with you his brilliance and his wit.
One amusing picture of him is very clear in my
memory, framed, as so many memories of him are, by
the gray houses of Heriot Row, the cold blue of an
Edinburgh March sky, the shivery swirl of the east
wind round street corners, and the grit of flying dust !
I had called at 17 Heriot Row to see his mother and a
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 41
cousin who was staying there, but they had gone out.
R. L. S. entertained me for a few minutes in the dining-
room and escorted me to the door. On the doorsteps
he suddenly asked why I had not been at a recent grand
bazaar. I replied that I had not arrived in Edinburgh
in time for it. He remarked that was very stupid ; and
on my asking, ' Why, was it extra good ? ' he said he
had contributed a very clever skit to it, which sold for
a whole half-crown ! I asked if I could not still buy
a copy. ' No,' he replied sadly, * the sale is over. But,'
after a dramatic pause * I can give you a copy 1 '
And he retreated through the hall, with the long, gliding
steps of a stage- conspirator, leaving the departing visitor
waiting patiently on the doorstep. By -and -bye he
returned with a small printed leaflet in his hand a
precious leaflet signed with the magic letters ' R. L. S.,'
with the black and heavy down-strokes mentioned by
Mr Peacock-Edwards in his description of R. L. S.'s
writing while in his father's law office. 'There,' its
author said, bowing gracefully and holding it out, 'is
"The Charity Bazaar" an allegorical dialogue and
it is by me, and worth a whole half-crown 1 '
Striking an attitude, he glared at the grateful receiver
of the gift to see if his generosity was properly appreci-
ated. It was very greatly appreciated. But how little
did either giver or receiver think, that long-ago, coldly-
sunny March morning, that the copy of ' The Charity
Bazaar' still safely treasured would, as Mr Lloyd
Osbourne says of the Davos Booklets in his preface to
Moral Emblems, be worth to-day a very solid sum in
pounds !
In those long-ago days R. L. S. professed to be very
scornful of Edinburgh and Edinburgh society. But,
while taking little part in the more youthful society
with its dances and gaieties, he greatly appreciated the
many people of fine intellect and solid learning who
made the Edinburgh of that day a place to be remem-
bered with pride and pleasure. And if at a dance he
42 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
leant against the wall and looked forlornly miserable,
he loved a dinner-party, even a young folks' dinner, and
delighted the guests with his fun and humour if he
was in a gay mood or gave you a succession of cold
shivers if it was his pleasure to deal in horrors and
recall the gruesome tales of a long-buried past for your
delectation. And, grave or gay, how delightful he was,
and what charming dinner-parties for young relatives
and friends the Stevensons gave at Heriot Row with
old Mr Stevenson as interesting to listen to as his
son, and Mrs Stevenson an ideal hostess, gracious and
charming.
SOME MEMORIES OF ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
WILLIAM c. M'EWEN.
IT was not until the autumn of 1868 that R. L. S.
and I met as fellow students at the University of
Edinburgh, as although we both were members
of the D'Arcy Thompson Class Club (1865-67) in the
Edinburgh Academy, I did not join it until long after
Stevenson left. There were studying at the University
several of his classmates, and they formed a small band
of brothers, which, unfortunately, for a considerable
time at any rate, he did not join. As a matter of fact
they and he looked upon various matters of importance
from different points of view ; but no one has better
described his student life than Louis himself, and so I
do not refer to the subject.
Although at the University together for, I think,
seven years, we were never in the same class. He
appears to have selected those he ' attended ' in his own
peculiar way. For instance he did not attend that of
English Literature and the occupant of the Chair then
was David Masson, whose deep interest in his students
in every way was universally recognised.
I saw a good deal of Louis however, as we had
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 43
certain interests in common, the principal being love
of penetrating into the nooks and corners of our
ancient City.
I well remember the great snowball fight where the
innocent suffered for the guilty, and other incidents of
his college life ; but there is one which I do not think
has been recorded, and which is of some little interest
as illustrative of his little way. It was in connection
with a Rectorial Election I forget which when I
recollect his coming into the quadrangle, attired 'as
usual,' but having a white Shakespearean collar sten-
cilled with the name of the unpopular candidate in
vivid black letters. Louis was a keen partisan, but
this form of propaganda had an unfortunate result.
His entry was very quickly noticed and he was
promptly attacked by two or three of the opposite
party, who endeavoured to tear away the offending
collar. It was not, however, a paper one, and Louis
was having a very bad time of it when he was rescued,
half choked and very mad, by some of us who were
fortunately close by.
Gradually Louis's virtues became more fully recog-
nised by us, and by 1870 he might be said to have
become popular. In that year he was the prime mover
in the successful formation of what is known to fame
as the D'Arcy Thompson Class Club. This meant a
number of meetings with classmates at various rendez-
vous, which latter in those days were no doubt at
establishments such as ' Rutherford's/ The Club was
formally constituted at a Meeting held in 5 St Andrew
Square on 4th December 1870, the first Dinner being
fixed for the first Wednesday of the following year.
Louis looked after this important event, and was the
very life and soul of a most happy re-union of old
classmates. During the course of the proceedings his
'poetic faculty' came into action, and he rattled off
impromptu a string of doggerel lines in which he en-
deavoured to make each of the surnames of the party
44 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
rhyme with some word which seemed to be appropriate
to the character of the individual owner. They were
so bad, however, that he was not requested to put them
in writing. Unfortunately amongst his other good
qualities he was not a judge of wine, and on this
occasion the claret selected by him did not prove to
be up to standard, as next day hardly any of those
present were able to attend to their ordinary duties,
for which they blessed R. L. S. Indeed I find in a
subsequent Minute of the Club that it was agreed that
'the Committee of the Club should arrange for the
next Dinner after the experience of this evening.' At
a Meeting held in January 1880 Louis was appointed
Poet Laureate of the Club, and he was requested to
have his first poem ready for next meeting. It was not
however until some years later that he was able to
write to our worthy Secretary, J. Wilson Brodie, C.A.,
with the manuscript of ' To the Thompson Class Club
from their stammering Laureate.' This poem was read
at the subsequent dinner. It was resolved that it should
not be published, but privately printed for the Club,
each Member getting a copy. This was done in the
form of a four-paged leaflet; and it will be in the
recollection of many that some time ago, a copy having
got into the hands of the late Colonel W. F. Prideaux,
it was sold by his Executors at Sotheby's, and fetched
no less a sum than 230, and caused considerable ex-
citement at the time.
With regard to the other poem, by ' Their Laureate
to an Academy Class Dinner Club,' forming No. X. of
Underwoods (in Scots) Book X., Louis, in the very
interesting introductory note, says : * Now spelling is
an Art of great difficulty in my eyes, and I am inclined
to lean upon the Printer, even in common practice,
rather than to venture abroad upon new quests.' In
this case however he did not do so as the MS. (or
possibly the proof) was sent to our Secretary for revisal
of the spelling a work which involved some little
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 45
trouble, as such words as * pingein' ', * pitaty-par'n ', &c.
are not very common.
As regards Louis's study of the Law, I had some
knowledge, through our mutual friend Charles Baxter,
whose Firm's law chambers at 11 So. Charlotte Street
immediately adjoined those of mine at No. 9.
In those early days legal business was carried on in
a different form from that holding nowadays there
being much night work. Accordingly Baxter and I
met from time to time in the evening, when we dis-
cussed matters generally and Louis frequently joined
us. I particularly recollect on some occasions adjourn-
ing to the place of public entertainment which was
affiliated (according to the practice of the time) to our
office and two or three others in the immediate vicinity.
In a small inner room there Louis would hold forth,
not allowing Baxter or myself to get a word in edge-
ways. Time did not weigh with him in his exalted
mood, and he was very indignant when attention was
at last drawn by us long-enduring ones to the late-
ness of the hour and our respective law classes next
morning.
The finale of Louis's legal career is well known, and
I may say that after that time I, and I think his other
classmates, saw him but seldom. He to the end, how-
ever, maintained his good feeling towards us and the
Thompson Class Club.
RECOLLECTIONS.
MRS DOUGLAS MACLAGAN.
first time I ever saw Robert Louis Stevenson
L in the flesh was at the famous sale of work in his
mother's house at 17 Heriot Row, where he was
giving the guests as they entered what is now known
as the < Bazaar Book.' It was brilliant banter on the
46 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
wares to be sold and on the buyers who were to buy.
It discovered his talent in a flash ; the style was at
once R. L. S. We laughed much over it, and it was
kept for a time ; and then, I suppose ' so blind was
I to see or to foresee' it went into the waste-paper
basket.
I once found a 5 note in my waste-paper basket,
but if I could find that bazaar pamphlet there to-day,
I would find what would be more like a 500 note !
After that Louis was always a hero to me, and I
watched with interest the beginning of his literary
career, the work of an artist from the very outset, and
with what a thrill of delight one read his articles and
stories one by one as they appeared !
I was only a visitor in Edinburgh on that first early
meeting, but a year or so later I married and settled
there, and then I came to know intimately Louis's
parents, Mr and Mrs Thomas Stevenson, most de-
lightful of people. Mrs Stevenson told me that her
husband called me one of his sweethearts ; and, like Pet
Marjorie, I was 'primmed with majestick pride.' He
was a dear, lovable old man, very amusing and also
amusable. He was a great theologian, too, and pre-
sented me with a book of his own, with the not unassum-
ing title of Christianity Confirmed. He told me many
tales of Louis as a boy ; how he had laid a heavy hand
(and Tom Stevenson in his simple rectitude could lay
a heavy hand indeed) on rules for a club of the boy's
own forming, which began with the precept : ' Disregard
everything our parents have ever taught us ' !
Louis must have been away then, for I never met
him when we dined at 17 Heriot Row, but I heard
much of him through his parents.
The next time I saw him was when he sat beside us
at the Flying Dutchman, which was being performed
by the Carl Rosa Company. He was an old friend of
my husband, and they talked together, but in the ex-
citement of hearing the Flying Dutchman for the first
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 47
time I remember nothing save the impression of the
music on us all, and Louis's rather unusual appearance
in a short velvet coat, and long hair. It was early
days for those vagaries, and made him conspicuous and
affected-looking among the crowd.
Years went on, and the next time I remember his
being in Edinburgh was a time when he was very ill.
He sent for my husband when he was recovering, and
they had a long talk about their old boyhood's days.
Either he (my husband) or some other friend, who
saw him in bed at that time, told me that he talked of
conscience, and said that, for his part, he only allowed
his own to come out for an hour in the early morning,
and then he bottled him up for the rest of the twenty-
four hours !
Louis married, Tom Stevenson died, the years passed.
Mrs Stevenson went and came from Vailima, and
always she came to see me, or sent for me, to tell me
the latest news of Louis. I heard much of his life
there, and the dress, scanty enough in hot weather, and
chiefly composed of a little bit of white muslin, with
garlands of live flowers swung round the waist and on
the head. To this Mrs Stevenson was obliged to con-
form to please the natives ; but she added, with some
pride, * I always wore my widow's cap on the top of it,
that I refused to part with.' What a picture !
When Louis died, she addressed to us with her own
hand the little paper which was printed for private
circulation, and which records the end, and his own
prayer.
When she came back she went to Randolph Cliff,
and there I used to listen with eagerness to the many
things she had to tell of Louis and Vailima. The last
communication I had with her was shortly before she
died. Charles Furze, that charming artist, now also
gone from among us, was anxious to know the mother
of R. L. S., so I invited them to meet at luncheon.
The morning of the day a note came from Mrs Steven-
48 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
son to say that she was in bed with a chill, and could
not come. Charles Furze did not pretend to conceal
his disappointment. It was the beginning of the end
she died a few weeks later.
Once, when she was starting for Vailima, she said to
me, * Have you any message for Louis ? ' ' Yes ; tell
him to send us some more poems.' * I won't do that ! '
she replied. 'He never writes verses except when he
is ill or depressed ; every poem is a shadow of death
to us ! '
Mr Winston Churchill has said that he intends to
spend the first million years in Heaven painting pictures,
so let us hope that Charles Furze is now painting his
magnificent canvases, and that Louis Stevenson is
writing his most poignant and beautiful verses, no
longer ill or depressed !
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE UNIVERSITY
LIFE OF ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
THE LATE REVEREND ARCHIBALD BISSET.
I knew Stevenson well during his early life when he
was an author in the making, trying his 'prentice
hand at English composition, and my intercourse
with him lasted until the publication of his Travels with
a Donkey in the Cevennes. I was not a fellow-student,
for he was several years my junior ; but I had the good
fortune to be asked to read with him in Classics and
Philosophy in prospect of an examination he had to
pass for admission to the Scottish Bar, and I thus had
a favourable opportunity of becoming acquainted with
his literary aims and ambitions, and the difficulties he
had to overcome in prosecuting them.
I first met him at the house of a University friend,
and we were discussing in student fashion some
questions in Greek philosophy, when a Mr Stevenson
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 49
was announced. My friend knew him well, and, in
introducing him, he added, ' son and successor of Thomas
Stevenson, the well-known lighthouse engineer/ ' Son,
certainly/ said Stevenson, 'but not successor if I can
help it/
He was a fragile-looking youth of about eighteen,
with a very noticeable stoop of the shoulders, and a
poorly-developed chest, which suggested constitutional
delicacy : and this impression was confirmed by his
long hair, which made his face look emaciated. But
as a set-off to these signs of physical weakness he had
eyes that were quick-glancing and observant and brimful
of humour, or, I should rather say, of banter. He had
a large but expressive mouth, which led one to anti-
cipate incisive speech : though in saying this I am very
likely reading into this first interview impressions
derived from future intercourse.
My friend and I continued our conversation, and
Stevenson sat as a silent listener, for he knew nothing
about Greek philosophy. But the role of silent listener
was one he never could maintain for long, and he
suddenly broke in with the question, had we read
Carlyle's essay on Sir W. Scott ? . . . And he forthwith
launched forth, not on a defence of Carlyle, but on
a disparagement of Scott on his own account. I, who
knew nothing of Stevenson's gifts, listened with surprise
to this youth speaking with such fluency and brilliance.
He evidently had Scott at his finger-ends ; and in reply
to our dissent from some of his views, he was ready
with references and quotations in support of them. . . .
My friend was familiar with Stevenson's conversa-
tional power, and was, therefore, not so surprised as I
was. But I remember saying to him after Stevenson
left that I thought that this quondam pupil of his (for
he had been my friend's pupil) was likely to make a
name for himself yet. After this I met Stevenson
frequently.
At the University he enrolled as a student in the
p
50 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Greek class (Professor Blackie's), and then attended
as seldom as possible. In the mathematical class,
absenteeism could not be so easily practised, for here
the discipline was strict. It began to be whispered that
he would have himself to blame if his name did not
appear on the Honours list : and this, he said, led to his
conversion for the remainder of the session. His friends
twitted him on his sudden devotion to triangles and
trigonometry, and he said : * I know how it would delight
my father if even the shadow of the Mathematical
Honours list fell on me, and I want to please him.' . . .
The truth is, that Stevenson never was a University
student in the usual sense of the word. Not only was
his attendance at classes intermittent, but he followed
no regular curriculum. Then he took very little part in
the work of the classes which he did attend. He used
to sit on a far-back bench, pencil in hand and with a
note-book before him, and looking as if he were taking
notes of the lectures. But in reality he took no notes,
and seldom listened to the lectures. ' I prefer,' he used
to say, ' to spend the time in writing original nonsense
of my own.' He always carried in his pocket a note-
book, which he sometimes called his * Book of Original
Nonsense' ; and not only during the class -hour, but at
all odd times, he jotted down thoughts and fancies in
prose and verse. Of course he generally gave class
exams, the go-by. And thus it came to pass that,
except among his intimates, he was regarded as an
idler. An idler, however, he never was. His time and
energy, his heart and soul, were devoted to literature ;
and while he seemed to outsiders an idler, he was
reading French and English classics, and filling note-
books with attempts to imitate them. He was once
spoken to seriously about taking a University degree.
' If literature,' said the friend, is to be your pursuit,
a degree will be all but indispensable.' But he would
not be persuaded. * I would sooner commit to memory,'
he said, 'the long bead-roll of names in the early
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 51
chapters of the Book of Chronicles than cram for a
degree-exam/ And so the matter ended. . . .
It was while he was studying Law that he asked
me to read Classics and Philosophy with him ; and
as this meant daily intercourse with him during the
five working days of the week for over nine months,
it gave me an opportunity of knowing him more
intimately. From the outset he let me understand
that I must not expect him to do any dictionary work.
* I Ve lost my Greek dictionary, and haven't used my
Latin dictionary since I left school. When I come to
a word that puzzles me I just guess its meaning and
pass on ; and my guesses are so often correct, that I
think Latin must have been my mother-tongue in some
previous state of existence/ He did no preparatory
work ; but this did not hinder progress while he was read-
ing Cicero's De Oratore (one of the books prescribed),
for the Latin is very simple, and he could translate it
at sight with wonderful facility. But Horace's Ars
Poetica and Juvenal's Satires could not be made to
yield their meaning so readily ; and at last an agreement
was come to that I should read first and that he should
follow : and I am bound to say that his translation, if
not more correct, was always more idiomatic than mine.
Greek was not required for the exam., and this was fortu-
nate, for he was a very indifferent Greek scholar. . . .
Very little philosophy was needed for the exam. ;
but as dictionary work was not required, he read many
works in addition to those prescribed. He did this the
more readily because, as he said, he wanted to know
Philosophy enough to disagree with his friend James
Walter Ferrier, ' who loves to mystify and overwhelm
me with his philosophical theories.' . . . Accordingly, he
read Bishop Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge,
parts of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, and
especially his world-famous essay on * Miracles,' John
Stuart Mill's Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy,
and Professor Ferrier's Lectures on Greek Philosophy.
52 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
He was very slightly interested in the philosophical
questions discussed by these writers; but he was
charmed with the classic grace of Bishop Berkeley's
style. Hume he also admired for his lucid thinking,
only he said his style was ' terribly otiose.' Before he
came to me he had read Herbert Spencer's First
Principles, his Psychology, and Biology. . . .
At this time he was a very diligent frequenter of old
shops and bookstalls, in quest of worm-eaten treasures.
One day he drew from his pocket a dirty-looking volume
with broken boards, which he had picked up at a
bookstall in Leith Walk, price 3d. Its title was,
A Treatise partly Theological to prove that Liberty of
Philosophy may be allowed without Prejudice to Piety ;
and it was anonymous. ' Read it,' he said to me, ' and
see if it is not worth ten times its weight in gold. I
wonder who the author is, and how it happens that the
book has been passed over.' Well, after reading it
with very great interest, I sent it to a friend who was
well versed in the history of philosophy ; and two days
later I had a note from him saying that the anonymous
book was a translation of Spinoza's famous Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus, a work in which what is now called
the ' Higher Criticism ' was for the first time applied to
the Old Testament. When Stevenson heard this he
wrote, ' I felt sure that the writer had royal blood in
his veins.' Another time he appeared with an odd
volume of John Knox's works, which contained his
* First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous
Regiment of Women.' * The Blast,' he said, ' is mag-
nificent: my father thinks it deserves to be bound
along with Carlyle's Latter-Day Pamphlets, and I
almost think it does.' It was this pamphlet of Knox's
that led him to write his two essays, * John Knox and
his relations with Women.' I read them in their first
form : in their final form they were published as an
article in Macmillans Magazine in the autumn of
1874.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 53
I want to say something about Stevenson's relation
to religion and religious beliefs during these years.
This was the second subject of controversy between
him and his father. Mr Thomas Stevenson was a
staunch Conservative in politics, and was quite as
staunchly orthodox in his religious creed. At that
time the name ' Higher Criticism ' had not been
coined; or, at least, it had not been consecrated by
the benediction of any of the Christian Churches. This
criticism existed in the Universities, not among the
theological professors, but among the students. It
especially flourished in the debating and literary
societies, and there it let its voice be heard with the
confident ring of infallibility. Mr Thomas Stevenson
was a Calvinist, by whom the Westminster Confession
and the Shorter Catechism were held as next in rank
to the sacred Books. He was also a stout believer
in the traditional view of the plenary inspiration of
Scripture. I remember one evening when I was
dining at his house, Robert Louis gave utterance to
some heterodox opinions regarding the authority of
the Old Testament, and his father told him that he
would not have such views expressed at his table, and
if this was what he was learning at the University, then
the sooner he left it the better. Another time I was
walking with father and son out towards Cramond,
and the latter had a great deal to say in praise of
Herbert Spencer's Theory of Evolution. At length
his father said, * I think, Louis, you Ve got Evolution
on the brain. I wish you would define what the
word means.' ' Well, here it is verbatim. Evolution is
a continuous change from indefinite incoherent homo-
geneity to definite coherent heterogeneity of struc-
ture and function through successive differentiations
and integrations.' ' I think,' said his father, with a
merry twinkle in his eyes, 'your friend Mr Herbert
Spencer must be a very skilful writer of polysyllabic
nonsense.' .
54 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
It is an utterly wrong impression that some people
have that Thomas Stevenson was a hard and tyrannical
father. He was one of the most genial of men, whose
conversation, especially in the company of young men,
was a strange medley of pleasantry and wisdom.
You had only to be in his company a very short
time in order to discover from whom Louis had de-
rived that gift of freakish banter, which was enjoyed
not least by those who were its victims. But, as I
have said, he was stern and unbending in all that
pertained to religion ; he was in fact a deeply religious
man of narrow views, who did not readily believe in
the sincerity of any who professed heterodox opinions.
There were many like him then : and some are like
him still. Yet all the same he was a most lovable
man and a most indulgent father. . . .
Shortly after I was licensed, I had to preach for Dr
Wallace in Old Greyfriars' Church. Stevenson and
his father were present. During sermon I saw Robert
Louis scribbling in his note-book, which he carried
wherever he went. I knew very well that he was
about the last man in Scotland who would think of
taking notes of a sermon ; and when I met him at the
close I said, ' Were you scribbling " original non-
sense " in that note-book of yours instead of listening
to the sermon ? ' And he replied, ' I was copying out
some beautiful sentences from an Evening Prayer
in a volume of Family Prayers that I found in the
pew : ' and he produced the note-book and read from
it the following words : ' O God, Who hast appointed
unto man the night for rest, and the day for the
works and labours of life, we beseech Thee to grant
us quiet repose this night, that our bodies being
refreshed with sleep, our minds may be more wake-
ful and strong to serve Thee : that so we may abide
all our nights and days in Thy love. Laying aside
all cares and anxieties may we sleep in the peace of a
good conscience, in the faith of Thy presence and pro-
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 55
tection, and in the hope of Thine eternal glory. Let
not our sleep, or any bodily indulgence, degenerate into
intemperance and sloth, but be in such measure as is
needed to restore our wasted strength and to fit us
again for the duties of our calling : that so even our
sleep may be holy, and that whatever we do we may
do all to Thy glory.'
Then he bade me good-night, saying, ' Before I see
you again, I shall have these words by heart.' And
two days after he repeated them.
(It was at this time, when he was reading with Mr
Bisset, that Robert Louis Stevenson, arriving one day
and finding that his tutor was out, must have written
whilst waiting for him these verses in the leaf of a
Greek lexicon of Mr Bisset's, where long afterwards
they were discovered.) [Eo.]
Morrisonian ! Morrisonian !
How I wonder what you are !
From the orthodox religion
Do you differ very far ?
Burghers I have known a-many,
Anti-Burghers, not a few,
Baptists, Quakers, Plymouth Brethren,
But the ne'er a one like you.
Are you regularly christened ?
Or a living loup-garou ?
Is your credo like what mine is ?
Do you think the Bible true ?
Do you take the Bible wholly,
Or rechaufft in a mince
As the heretics of yore did,
And the orthodox do since ?
I suppose you Ve quite excluded
That old bugbear they called hell
Long ago when men were wicked,
And not taught to reason well.
56 fcOBERt LOUIS STEVENSON
Much or little as you like it,
I 'm for reprobation : you,
Not so sure of your position,
Take the general mercy view.
There 's a creed for every one now,
Observation seems to tell :
You can read the Bible backward
If it don't read forward well.
This with that and that with V other,
You delight me, I declare ;
Who 'd have fancied that religion
Was so easy an affair ?
Why it 's a matter like a salad ;
Bob likes sugar, Peter don't,
Sam insists on putting eggs in,
Polly quite as surely wonX
You can fit your creed like raiment,
Add redemption, cancel hell,
Ease the buttons where it galls you,
Till the whole affair sits well.
Clearly 1 11 go right the Bible
To find everything I need.
Here, boy, bring me paste and scissors,
For I 'm going to make a creed.
RECOLLECTIONS.
A. J. W. STORIE.
TOUIS was a most congenial soul, very amusing, and
JLj he and my brother Frank, who was an engineer
and home from abroad, used to have great fun in
our rooms in South Castle Street, along with John
Jackson, latterly Sir John Jackson. They were at that
time all attending Professor Jenkin's engineering class
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 57
at the University. My mother used to send me rounds
of corned beef, one of which I used to keep in a cup-
board in my room, and Louis, when he called at any
time up till a pretty late hour, used to make at once
for the cupboard and cut himself a slice of the beef, of
which he was fond, and he washed this down with a
glass of beer.
Once he came with me on a visit to my people at
the Manse of Insch, Aberdeenshire. I remember an
amusing incident of that visit. After dinner, and pretty
late, when it was dark, Louis was lost, and my brother
and I went out to find him. Ultimately he appeared
holding up his hands, which were more or less covered
with blood. It seems he had gone into the garden
(which we had visited in the afternoon) to eat goose-
berries, and of course, not seeing, he scratched his hands
on the bushes. When Louis returned to Edinburgh,
which was very soon after the gooseberry incident, he
used to show his wounds to his friends with great
amusement.
We were all very fond of Louis, who had a charming
nature and disposition. Even after my brother had
left this country for abroad, Louis used still to come to
see me, and he gave me many an evening's amusement in
my rooms ; but he never gave me, in those boyish days
of jests and laughter, any indication of the great genius
which he displayed afterwards.
MEMORIES.
MRS LOUISA GULLAND.
T the age of thirteen society is nothing and com-
panionship everything.
When my friend Leila Homanes and I were
seated among the branches of a tree in the garden,
reading the exciting adventures of Midshipman Easy,
58 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
taken from the library of the Chambers Institute at
Peebles, we thought it a great trouble to be interrupted
by Louis Stevenson, as he was then called, who came
with pencil and note-book, begging us to write some-
thing for him. He scribbled a great deal in those days,
but we never thought of reading anything of his then,
so I don't know what we lost.
Later, when I was about seventeen, my first lesson
on looking at pictures was given me by Louis at the
Exhibition, where he pointed out the meaning of some
special favourites of his. I wondered very much at his
weird taste, as ' Caliban ' or ' Nickar the Soulless ' did
not appeal to me in those days. He was a grand
teacher, and keen to get you to like what he liked,
and to see what he saw in things. It opened up quite
a new way to me of looking at pictures when he
explained the hidden meaning, which I never forgot,
and profited by.
Mr and Mrs Stevenson and my father and mother
used to dine with one another when the Stevensons
lived in Heriot Row, and I remember my father saying
he thought Louis was very impertinent, as he contra-
dicted his father flatly before every one at table ; but
that was, I think, when he didn't want to follow his
father's profession, and was groping for a footing in
literature.
REMINISCENCES.
SIR ROBERT RUSSELL SIMPSON.
I was introduced to R. L. Stevenson by my cousin,
Sir Walter Simpson, who, as is well known, was
the ' Cigarette ' as Stevenson was the * Arethusa ' of
the first of his famous books.
I had frequent opportunities of meeting R. L. S. at
Sir Walter's house and elsewhere, especially during his
early career. It did not take long to discover that he
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 59
was an exceptionally interesting man, and quite out of
the range of ordinary mortals. Whatever subject was
under discussion, be it the Parliament House, the pros-
pects of success or failure of the two friends at the
Bar or otherwise, the Speculative Society which was
Stevenson's first field of fame, current political events,
all brought out flashes of wit, humour, and good-natured
criticism from him. I sometimes expressed a wish that
a Boswell could accompany him to take notes of his
extremely clever and original sayings. He dropped
pearls.
I had the pleasure of knowing Stevenson's father and
mother, who were held in high regard by a large circle
of friends in Edinburgh. They were justly proud of
their son's success as an author, although they, especially
his father, did not fall in with all his views. There is
nothing more characteristic in Stevenson's writings than
the incident in his Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes,
in which it is related that during his visit to the Trappist
Monastery an Irish priest said to him, * You must be a
Catholic, and come to Heaven.' In reply the traveller
appealed to the family affection. ' Your father and
mother ? ' cried the priest. * Very well, you will convert
them in their turn when you go home.' Stevenson,
knowing well that his father was a staunch Protestant,
writes, * I think I see my father's face ! I would rather
tackle the Gcetulian lion in his den than embark on an
enterprise against the family theologian.'
I have exchanged friendly letters with Sir Sidney
Colvin in regard to what he considered the want of
appreciation of Stevenson in Edinburgh circles. I am
satisfied that Sir Sidney was in error in stating in his
Memories and Notes of Persons and Places that Steven-
son ' had not been thought good enough for the polite
society of his native Edinburgh.' My cousin, Miss
Evelyn Blantyre Simpson, author of Stevenson s Edin-
burgh Days, and all his intimate friends held him in
high esteem. I have in my possession Miss Simpson's
60 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
large collection of photographs of Stevenson, and a lock
of his hair.
In corresponding with Sir Sidney Colvin, who edited
Stevenson's Letters, I expressed disappointment that
none of the letters were addressed to my cousin Sir
Walter Simpson ; but Sir Sidney explained that he
had not been able to trace any letters to him. While
they often spent their holidays together and had not
much occasion for correspondence, there can be no
doubt that my cousin, from time to time, received
interesting letters from his friend. I distinctly re-
member his reading to me a letter which he had that
morning received from R. L. S., who was then residing
at Bournemouth, in which the writer stated that he
was engaged in a blood-curdling story, which, no doubt,
was Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Stevenson occasionally accompanied my cousins, dur-
ing successive winters, to Bathgate, where there was a
well-known skating-pond, and they generally had tea
at my father's house. My father could not make
Stevenson out at first, but he soon became attracted
to him and admired his racy talk.
In connection with Bathgate there is a letter (vol. i.
of Stevenson's Letters) from Stevenson to his friend
Edmund Gosse, of date 29th July 1879, as follows :
* You will probably be glad to hear that I am up again
in the world : I have breathed again, and had a frolic
on the strength of it. The frolic was yesterday,
Sawbath ; the scene the Royal Hotel, Bathgate ; I went
there with a humorous friend to lunch. The maid soon
showed herself a lass of character. She was looking out
of the window. On being asked what she was after,
"I'm lookin' for my lad," said she. "Is that him?"
" Weel, I Ve been lookin' for him a' my life, and I Ve
never seen him yet," was the response. I wrote
her some verses, in the vernacular ; she read them.
" They 're no bad for a beginner," said she. The land-
lord's daughter, Miss Stewart, was present in oil-colour ;
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 61
so I wrote her a declaration in verse, and sent it by
the handmaid. She (Miss S.) was present on the
stair to witness our departure, in a warm, suffused
condition.'
The Stewart family were clients of mine. Miss
Stewart became Mrs Gordon, and died recently. With
the view of tracing the verses referred to I wrote to her
son, Dr Alexander Stewart Gordon, who replied as
follows : ' No trace, I regret to say, has ever been found
of the " Declaration in Verse " which Stevenson wrote
to my mother. The portrait in oil-colour is still at
Bathgate. It was bequeathed to my sister, Mrs
Stewart, but she is giving it to me to be passed on
later to her children. 5
When in Paris in the summer of 1876 I arranged
to meet my cousins Walter Simpson and his brother
William, who were then at Barbizon, or Grez, with
Stevenson and other friends. I suggested that, instead
of their coming to Paris, I might go to them ; but they
preferred to come to Paris. I was, however, compen-
sated by having an opportunity of meeting that brilliant
member of the Stevenson family, R. A. M. Stevenson,
known familiarly as ' Bob.' Another cousin of mine,
after taking his medical degree at Edinburgh, was
attending classes in Paris. I dined with him and
R. A. M. Stevenson at a hotel in the Latin quarter,
and after dinner, in a lovely moonlight night, we had,
under the guidance of R. A. M. S., a walk through
historic parts of Paris, which were all well known to
R. A. M. S., and which were described by him in a way
that seemed almost to excel the narrative powers of his
famous cousin.
Miss Simpson maintained to the end her friendship
with the members of the Stevenson family resident in
Edinburgh, and I have a goodly number of letters
to her from Mrs Thomas Stevenson, Miss Balfour,
' Cummy,' the faithful nurse, and others, which were
all treasured by my cousin.
62 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
RECOLLECTIONS.
JANE MACLEOD.
I can remember Robert Louis Stevenson. The first
time I met him was at an hotel in the North
of Scotland, where we (Louis Stevenson, a cousin,
and myself), at his request, improvised and acted a
short play, or, rather, what might be called a glorified
charade. It certainly amused us, and we must hope
our audience were equally entertained. The details of
our performance I cannot remember, except that there
was, I think, the usual hotel scene, with arrival of
visitors, so well known in improvised charades. My
next and only other meeting, as far as I can remember,
was at Mrs Ferrier's, the well-known and witty daughter
of Christopher North, and the mother of Walter Ferrier,
Louis Stevenson's intimate friend, who is mentioned
in his Memories and Portraits. Miss Ferrier, Walter's
sister, told me that people accused Louis Stevenson of
being heartless, with which she could not agree, for
when she went, not long after her brother's death, to
visit Stevenson and his wife at Hyeres, Mrs Louis
Stevenson met her at the station, and asked her not
to mention Walter's name to Louis at first, for he felt
his death so deeply.
There is one impersonal incident that may interest
your readers. A friend came to see me after a meet-
ing that was held to determine what form the Louis
Stevenson Memorial in Edinburgh should take. I re-
marked to her that many people spoke of the influence
Louis Stevenson had over their lives, and asked her if
she could define that influence. So she told me how
once she had been very ill, and how much easier she
would have found it to die than to live ; then she
thought of Louis Stevenson, and how brave he was,
in spite of his ill-health, and she determined to sum-
mon courage to live. How little did Louis Steven-
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 63
son know that he, living on an island in the South
Seas, merely by what he was, changed the whole life
of some one far away. I have often in public told this
incident as an instance of the power of unconscious
influence. I had the pleasure of repeating it to his
mother.
MEMORIES.
MRS ETTA YOUNGER.
SO much has been written already by those who knew
Robert Louis Stevenson, that I feel very diffident
about sending these few stray recollections of him.
I used to be a great deal both at 17 Heriot Row and at
Swanston, sometimes staying for months at a time ; in
fact, Aunt Maggie was most anxious to adopt me as a
daughter ; but 1 could not be spared from my own home.
One of the earliest remembrances I have of Louis
was the way in which he made the Book of Job suddenly
* live ' for me. As a young girl I was most interested
in the first two chapters and the last of that marvellously
old book ; but all the rest was of no interest to me till
I heard him read it. Every night, just before going to
bed, we used to go down to the dining-room and have
biscuits and drinks, and Uncle Tom (without having
anything formal or the least like Prayers) used to read
us a few verses, generally from the New Testament.
This night, I remember, something was said about the
beauty and poetry of the Book of Job, when I chimed
in, saying I did not understand it at all, and saw no
poetry in it ! Lou at once took up the Bible, and
opened it at the thirty-eighth chapter of Job, which he
read, and in such a way that it was a perfect revelation
to me. Never can I forget the way in which his eyes
sparkled, and the poetry he put into it. I was at once
obliged to confess my utter ignorance, and how he had
quite bowled me over ; and this book of the Bible has
* lived ' for me ever since.
About the first thing I remember that might prove
64 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
of some little interest, is Lou coming to his mother
the night before he was going up for his examination
to become an advocate, I think, and asking her if she
had a French grammar in the house. She managed
to unearth quite a small beginner's grammar, and, on
giving it to him, asked what he wanted it for. His
answer was that it had just suddenly occurred to him
that though he spoke French well, yet he had never
learned the grammar, so he wanted to try and learn up
what he could in the time ! Needless to say, he soon
gave it up, seeing that would be quite hopeless ; and I
remember Aunt Maggie being in such a state of mind
thinking this would prevent his passing the examination.
As it turned out, the examiner (whose name I forget) said
it was a most extraordinary case, as Lou spoke French
exactly like a Frenchman, and yet acknowledged plainly
when the questions came to grammar that he had not
learnt any ; but under these unusual circumstances he
could not help passing him !
I happened to be in the house when Lou told his
father he did not want to continue to be a civil engineer.
This was a great blow and terrible disappointment to
dear Uncle Tom, as for generations the Stevensons had
been all very clever civil engineers ; and already Lou
had gained medals for certain inventions of his in
connection with lighthouses. And Uncle Tom was
more disappointed still when Lou declared that he
wanted to go in for a literary life, as Uncle Tom
thought he would make nothing at that in fact that
it was just a sort of excuse for leading a lazy life!
Eventually it was well talked over, and Uncle Tom
said that if Lou would agree to read for the Bar in
order to become an advocate, after passing the examina-
tion, if he still persisted in wishing to go in for literature,
he would not prevent it, for then he would have a good,
sound profession at his back. This is what Lou then
did, and well can I remember the afternoon in which we
drove into town from Swanston to hear the result of the
R. L. S. as Advocate.
(Lent by Mrs Etta Younger.)
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 65
examination. The excitement and joy was tremendous
when he heard that he had passed, and was a full-blown
advocate. We were driving in the big, open barouche,
and nothing would satisfy Lou but that he would sit
on the top of the carriage, that was thrown back open,
with his feet on the seat, between his father and mother,
where they were sitting ; and he kept waving his hat
and calling out to people he passed, whether known or
unknown, just like a man gone quite mad. I often
wonder what impression it made on the passers-by, as
Uncle Tom always used to have good horses, and liked
them to go very fast.
After this Lou used to go and walk up and down the
Parliament House, in his wig and gown (and I may say
in passing, his mother, with much difficulty, persuaded
him to go and have a photograph done of himself in
this attire, a copy of which I now possess), and during
this time he was offered two briefs, both of which he
refused, much to his father's sorrow. Then he declared
as he was not a briefless barrister, he was going to
retire from the law, and devote himself entirely to
literature. So, of course, then his father did nothing
more to prevent it.
Well do I remember sometimes how anxious his
mother used to be about him in Heriot Row, when the
fever for writing was on him, and he would stop for
no one ; and how, when he refused to come down for
meals, she used to send them up on a tray which,
long afterwards, I used to see outside his study door,
not touched. He took the precaution to lock this door
when the said literary fever was on him.
The summer that the Stevensons took a house up at
Balmoral, old ' Auntie ' (of R. L. S. fame) and I were
asked to go up together to pay them a month's visit.
One thing that rejoiced Uncle Tom exceedingly was
that their address was : ' The late Miss M'Gregor's
Cottage,' for, as he said, 'it was not every one who
could be addressed round by Heaven ! '
B.L.S. B
66 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
It was while we were there that Lou was writing
Treasure Island, and as it was a very wet, cold, and
damp season, Lou spent most of his days in writing,
and after dinner he used to read aloud to us what he
had written. Well can I remember his talking over
the plot, and especially the plans which were drawn for
showing how and where the treasure was to be found ;
and how his father used to suggest alterations and
improvements. Little did I think in those days how
popular this said book was to become in all parts of the
world, and that I myself would first read it in print
while travelling in New Zealand with the consequence
that I missed some of the most wonderful scenery, as
I was so intensely interested in the book.
From LORD GUTHRIE'S Robert Louis Stevenson*
... IT was thus my good fortune, from personal
friendship with Stevenson himself and with those in
his family and social circle who most influenced him,
as well as from intimate acquaintance with his early
surroundings and his early friends, to be able to form,
for what it is worth, a personal judgment of the man.
I cannot honestly claim, more than others, that I was
free from the bias caused by his personal fascination,
and by such kindness, and even affection, to myself as
made it difficult to turn anything but ' a warm side'
towards him. But I had one advantage over most of
his friends, in that I differed from him in politics, civil
and ecclesiastical, and, to some extent, in our ideas of
personal conduct. Yet he expressed our relation quite
accurately in a letter to me, dated from Bournemouth,
18th January 1880, which ended thus : ' I remain,
my dear Guthrie, your old comrade, Robert Louis
* Robert Louis Stevenson, by the late Lord Guthrie, had its origin in a Lecture
delivered to The Edinburgh Philosophical Institution by Lord Guthrie on February
12th, 1918. The Lecture was entitled 'R. L. Stevenson as I Knew Him Bohemian
and Puritan.' It subsequently was adapted for issue in the Juridical Review, and
ultimately published in volume form. [ED.]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 67
Stevenson.' All his friends of early days, a fast-
diminishing band, will agree in the description of
Stevenson, which became a proverb in Samoa : ' Once
Tusitala's friend, always Tusitala's friend.' . . .
I frankly confess I had not the vision, in college
days, to foresee his future fame. I do not know that
anybody had, except perhaps his mother and Gummy.
But I can at least claim that I never mistook the husk
for the kernel. The stories about his follies and the
follies of his more immediate coterie, the true stories
with a foundation in fact, but all of them grossly
exaggerated and distorted, and the false stories, I knew
them all. But I never doubted that he had the root of
the matter in him ; that, with all his surface frivolity
and seeming pliability, if it came, in life's crucible, to a
question of principle, a clear issue of right and wrong,
Stevenson would prove as good as gold and as true as
steel.
On a difficult question of discretion and prudence, or
of legal right, there are many men I would have con-
sulted sooner than Louis Stevenson ; but on a nice
point of personal honour, or on a question of generous
treatment, I would unhesitatingly have placed myself
without reserve in his hands.
Stevenson cannot be understood unless the abnormal
strength of three elements in his elusive nature receive
adequate recognition the primitive or aboriginal ele-
ment, the boyish element, and the Bohemian element.
His choice of Samoa as a residence, about which I
shall have something more to say later on, will illus-
trate the first of these elements. When asked why
he selected a place so remote from books and literary
friends, he said : ' As regards health, Honolulu suited
me equally well the Alps perhaps better. I chose
Samoa instead of Honolulu for the simple and
eminently satisfactory reason that it is less civilised.'
At another time he said that ' this business of living
in towns was counter to the vagabond instincts that
68 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
preferred a sack in the woods to a bed in a grand
hotel!' . . .
Of the boyish element Andrew Lang truly observed :
' Stevenson was always a child, and always a boy. He
never lapsed from the child's philosophy :
" The world is so full of a number of things,
I 'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." 1
His own view was the same. At Saranac, in New
York State, referring to his futile efforts to make the
penny whistle a vehicle for musical enjoyment, he
wrote : ' I always have some childishness on hand.'
He was fond, in familiar converse, of small jokes,
Sactical and verbal. His letters are full of them,
rs Henley gave me a letter to her husband, in which
he breaks off, in the midst of serious discourse, into a
skit on his faithless correspondents, especially Henley
himself, and Sir Sidney Colvin, then Slade Professor at
Cambridge :
6 All men are rot, but there are two
Sidney, the oblivious " Slade,' 1 and you
Who from that rabble stand confest,
Ten million times the rottenest.
When I was sick, and safe in gaol,
I thought my friends would never fail.
One wrote me nothing ; t' other bard
Sent me an insolent post card.'
THE LESSONS OF HIS LIFE.
Looking broadly and sympathetically at Stevenson's
career, apart altogether from his personal charm, any-
thing that may have to be entered on the debit side of
the account will never balance his courage and his high
sense of duty.
His courage ! His whole life, what Mr Edmund
Gosse called 'Stevenson's painful and hurrying pil-
grimage,' was a triumph of the spirit over the flesh. It
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 69
was not a mere question of bronchial affection, leading
to infirm health. He was in the grip of haemorrhage
of the lungs all his days ; he walked in the shadow of
death from boyhood to the grave. ' Death had set her
Broad Arrow' on him, as his favourite author, Sir
Thomas Browne, put it. But he was never the slave of
ill-health ; it neither mastered him nor corrupted him.
With splendid intrepidity he faced round on death,
iin and again, and beat him off. And in the end,
;r leading death a dance round the world, he got
his wish, that he might die, as he put it, 'with my
clothes on.'
In 1885, when staying in the Riviera, he had violent
haemorrhage from the lungs. He was unable to speak,
and he wrote on a paper for his wife : ' Don't be
frightened. If this is death, it is an easy one.' She
ran for the drug which was only to be used in dire
extremity. But she was too excited to measure out
the dose. He took the bottle and the minim glass,
dropped the prescribed quantity with perfectly steady
hand, drank it off, and handed bottle and glass back to
her with a smile.
Take another instance. 'The Requiem,' in two
verses, is engraven in letters of bronze the best bit of
poetry he ever wrote on his tomb on the precipitous
peak of Mount Vaea in Samoa, 1300 feet above
Vailima, alongside the thistle and the hibiscus, and
with the words of Ruth to Naomi, ' Thy people shall
be my people.' We all know the lines :
4 Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live, and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me :
" Here he lies where he longed to be ;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."'
70 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
When these haunting verses are read or sung, let us
remember that, when he wrote them, he was lying in a
half-darkened room, forbidden to speak. His right arm
was in a sling, for fear of a return of haemorrhage on
that side: and he could only write with his left
hand. ... In face of such heroic scenes, and of his
imperishable services to humanity, how contemptible
all the chatter about youthful eccentricities and follies 1
In a letter to Baxter, George Wyndham called him
'a grand comrade against adversity, a complete foul-
weather friend.'
Let us rather thank God for a Scotsman through
whom, as through Scott and Burns, the world has con-
ceived a new admiration and a fresh affection for
Scotland. Did not Sir James Barrie say that ' R. L. S.'
were the best-loved initials in the English language !
I cited also his devotion to duty. In a sense he
was never free from financial anxieties ; expenditure
increased in Samoa more than kept pace with increased
income. But, except for a brief period before his
marriage, the pressing need of ready-money for daily
bread never injured the quality of his work. He could
always afford to be fastidious and deliberate in the
selection and execution of his tasks. Yet he had even
a stronger motive and excuse for scamping his work :
not actual pain, but the weariness, which made the joy
of life, and still more the joy of work, arduous to realise.
No writing of his was ever scamped. He had as
remarkable facility in writing as he had fluency in con-
versation. But, out of respect to himself, and his
friends, and his country, he gave rare honour to his
work ; he drafted and redrafted, wrote and rewrote,
corrected and recorrected, until he could no more. He
knew what it was, as he said, ' to go up the great bare
staircase of duty uncheered and undepressed.' He
scorned what would merely pass muster ; he strove
continually for the perfect ; he may even at times have
painted the lily, and overfaceted the gem. And he
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 71
was too sagacious to dream of sustained perfection.
' Perfect sentences,' he said, ' have often been written ;
perfect paragraphs at times but never a perfect page ! '
There is no more impressive lesson than the laborious
drudgery of this brilliant creature, while learning his
business, except it be his painful toil expended upon
everything to which he put his name. He modestly
said : ' I have only one feather in my cap ; I am not
a sloven/ Lord Grey's estimate of Lord Morley in
Chambers's Cyclopaedia exactly describes Stevenson's
ideal and method: * He feels that only the best is
worth an effort, but that this is worth all effort;
while indifference, and mediocrity of aspiration, are the
greatest curses of mankind.' While retaining the char-
acteristic merits of an impressionist sketch, Stevenson
put all his thought and reading, and all his power of
felicitous phrase, with lavish hand, even into casual
letters. You feel that they have not been dashed off
while carrying on a conversation, or when he was
thinking about something else. This applies as well to
intimate notes, such as those written to his old nurse,
as to important letters for which he may have anticipated
publication. Whatever his hand found to do, he did it
with all his might.
WILL THE STEVENSON CULT ENDURE?
That his works will continue to be read, as those of a
master of literature, and that interest will continue to
be taken in his engaging personality, so physically frail
and so spiritually ardent, and in his lifelong fight for
life, is beyond doubt. But it is equally certain that
new essayists, new story-tellers, new poets and letter-
writers, with romance and charm associated with their
personalities, will arise, and have already arisen, to
divide and diminish his fame in future generations,
living under different conditions and surroundings.
What will be his future rank ? Men's ears have been
72 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
dulled to the real merits of his delicate music by the
trumpeting and drum-beating of some of his idolaters,
of both sexes, on both sides of the Atlantic. No
reasonable Stevensonian claims for him a place beside
Homer, or Dante, or Shakespeare. They do not credit
him with royal rank, but they claim for him a high
place in the aristocracy of literature. Posterity must
say whether, and how long, he will continue to wear
the duke's strawberry leaves, and whether and when he
must descend to the humbler insignia of the baron !
Whatever betide, Richard le Gallienne's lines will never
be falsified :
* Not while a boy still whistles on the earth,
Not while a single human heart beats true,
Not while Love lasts, and Honour, and the Brave,
Has earth a grave,
O well-beloved, for you.'
DR EDMUND GOSSE, C.B., LL.D.
Address to the First Annual Dinner
of the Robert Louis Stevenson Club, 13th November 1920.
I come to you in the light of my illustrious friend.
This night, had the fates willed it, Robert Louis
Stevenson might himself have been here receiving
your plaudits and your congratulations on attaining his
seventieth year. If posthumous honours are anything
to the dead, he must be moved, his ashes must
flutter with pride, at knowing that his native city
has paid him the compliment which it has paid him
to-night. I come as an emissary from the South from
the inhabitants of the inferior part of the island to
present their congratulations to Edinburgh on its grace-
ful act in founding this prosperous Club. It is quite
extraordinary that the Club should have succeeded so
fully in so short a time. But the fact adds to my
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 78
astonishment that twenty-five years should have passed
without a tribute having been paid. There is, no doubt,
the monument in St Giles's Cathedral to the memory
of Stevenson. Of that monument I would like to
speak as a spectator, but, alas, I went to St Giles's
Cathedral this morning and did not succeed in getting
in ; I presume that Edinburgh locks up her Churches
on Monday morning and forgets all about them till
next Sunday. I was informed, however, that this
memorial, though beautiful in itself, is not adequate
to the interest which the city takes in her celebrated
son. I regard the existence of the Stevenson Club, so
energetically founded and so sympathetically supported,
as a most encouraging fact. It is time, perhaps, that
Edinburgh should show an interest in the fact that she
produced the most beloved of all the authors of our
time, and I do not know that in the history of our
literature a more striking honour has been paid to an
author than the formation of this great Club it already
deserves that name within seventy years of the birth
of that author.
There are persons belonging to the Club who remem-
ber Stevenson; but their recollections in most cases
are slight. He must be thought of in those early days,
not as a celebrated and admired author, but as a lean,
ugly, idle, unpopular student, badly nipped by the east
wind. Certainly those who knew him then were by no
means impressed with the value of his presence. The
reason why Stevenson had in those days very few
acquaintances and still fewer friends was not want of
friendliness on his part, because from his cradle he was
friendship incarnate. A lovelier spirit or one more
universally benevolent has never lived among us, but
his health prevented his mixing in what is called
Society. In later years, when his genius had developed,
he saw very few people, and the intimate friends that
he possessed could be counted on two hands. I would
say that at the extreme, Stevenson could boast of only
74 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
about a dozen intimate friends in the true sense. Time
has worked cruelly with those friends. They have
passed away, one after another, like clouds upon the
mountain top, and very few of them are left now who
can say that they knew him deeply and well ; but the
one who knew him best, the one who should have been
here to-night in my place, Sir Sidney Colvin, to whom
all lovers of Stevenson owe a debt which it is impossible
ever to repay, is amongst us still.
My own relations with Stevenson were very close
and they were singularly prolonged. I knew him first
as long ago as the year 1870. When he was wandering
about the Hebrides on the Clansman, she called at
Portree, in Skye, where a singular troop of persons
came on board. Among them was a venerable figure,
with long white hair and remarkable cap Professor
Blackie; and another figure very well known to you
was the painter, Sam Bough. Slouching in the rear
came a rather ugly youth, and I do not know what
extraordinary prevision made me take a violent interest
in this young man. I had no opportunity of speaking
to him then. In the course of the voyage we entered
a loch at midnight, and, by the light of flickering
torches, took on board a party of emigrants who were
going to Glasgow en route for America. As they came
on board an eerie sound of wailing rose in the stillness
of the night, which pierced my heart ; it was a most
extraordinary sound. In the dark I saw that at my side
was the young man from Portree, and we exchanged
reflections on this extraordinary movement of human
beings. I do not think we had any more conversation
than that, for some four or five years later we were
introduced in London by Andrew Lang, and we
instantly recalled our former meeting and revived our
memories of the Clansman and that curious midnight
exodus. From that introduction until Stevenson's death
in Samoa, twenty years later, we never ceased to be
close and intimate friends.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 75
I should like to say something about Stevenson's
appearance, because that is a matter into which a very
great deal of error has crept. In the first place I think
very few of his portraits give any real impression of
what he was like. Only two portraits resemble him,
that of Mr Augustus Saint-Gaudens, which you have
here, which is extraordinarily like what Stevenson was
in his later years ; and, slightly earlier, the curious,
vivid, almost grotesque sketch painted by Sargent at
Bournemouth in 1889. Most of the portraits are posi-
tively appalling. There was something very fugitive
in his expression, something in the extreme mobility of
his features very difficult for the artist who was not
acquainted with his face, or had not the extraordinary
gifts which Mr Sargent possesses, to catch. It was
represented that his hair was black, and that now has
crept into biographical notices. They speak of his coal-
black hair. That is utter nonsense. His hair was
brown, and when I knew him first it was almost light
brown. In fact I might pay him the doubtful compli-
ment of saying that it was no colour at all. No doubt
as he grew older it grew darker, and under the tropical
sun of the Pacific it is possible that it was baked to
a very dark colour ; but to represent him as having black
hair is entirely false.
Stevenson was not very happy in Edinburgh, and yet
not perfectly happy anywhere else. He was severe on
the climate and architecture of Edinburgh, but when
Glasgow people rejoiced he told them to wait a while,
for he had not written his book about Glasgow yet.
Stevenson told me that, as a youth, he used to hang
over the Waverley Bridge watching the trains start
southward and longing to start too. He shrank from
the cold, for he was delicate ; and he shrank from the
somewhat excessive piety which surrounded him. But
he loved Edinburgh with a passionate love, and in the
tropical atmosphere of Samoa he was always longing to
go back to the Gray Metropolis of the North.
76 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
R. L. S. AND The Edinburgh University Magazine.
GEORGE W. T. OMOND.
AS I am the only survivor of the three youths
who founded the Magazine which contained
the first published writings of Stevenson, your
readers may like to hear the origin of that short-lived
venture, and how he came to be one of the Editors.
In November 1870 Walter Ferrier, Robert Glasgow
Brown, and I dined at Mrs Ferrier's house in Edinburgh
one evening. The three of us sat up till a late hour
making plans for a Magazine. A few days later
Livingstone agreed to publish it, and we obtained
promises of contributions from several 'Notables.'
Lord Neaves Ultimus Romanorum had promised to
write some verses; Professor Blackie, at an inter-
view in his retiring-room, had exclaimed: 'Tell me
what you want. I am ready'; Dr Joseph Bell, the
model from whom Mr Conan Doyle afterwards drew
Sherlock Holmes, was to furnish an article.
How Stevenson came to offer an article I do not
recollect ; but he was early on the scene.
In my diary (Dec. 1870) I find the following : ' 15th
Went to Livingstone's. Brown did not turn up
according to engagement: so I fixed the colour and
type of the Magazine myself palish yellow, and Long-
primer, No. 23. Then went to the Speculative, where
met young Stevenson, and went over his article, suggest-
ing some alterations, to which he agreed. Then Ferrier
came in, and we read over a paper on " Preachers and
Preaching," by G. Scott- MoncriefF: pretty well written.'
The Library of the Speculative Society in the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh is a long, narrow room, the
sides of which are lined with bookcases. At one end
there is a fireplace, and at the other a window, under
which stands a glass case, containing the accounts
kept by Sir Walter Scott when he was treasurer of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 77
the Society.* In another room, that in which the
debates take place, paintings of Scott and Francis
Horner hang on one side, with Lord Brougham look-
ing at them from above the mantel-piece on the other
side. Everything is redolent of the eighteenth century,
of the nights when Brougham, Horner, Lord Lans-
downe, Jeffrey, and a host of others, many of whom
became famous men, declaimed on such topics as the
National Character or the Growing Power of Russia.
Some of the original furniture is still there, and the
room is lighted by wax candles, as of old. It is a
place in which a man, returning to it after many
years, may linger in the dusk of a winter's afternoon,
and call up memories of the past.
But those three students of the University of Edin-
burgh, on that day in December^ 1870, were full of
the present and the future.
The Robert Louis Stevenson of that day was a
slender figure of the middle height, in a pea-jacket ;
with something of a stoop, and inclined to be narrow
about the chest; black hair, worn rather long; eyes
dark, but very bright and penetrating, and always
with a lurking smile ; in one hand a meerschaum pipe,
and in the other a bundle of papers, which he offered
as a contribution to the new venture.
The record of that day in my diary continues:
' Lunched at 1.30 with Ferrier, Brown, and Stevenson,
at Rutherford's. During lunch Stevenson read us
No. II. of college papers. First rate.'
It was, then, in one of the little rooms at Ruther-
ford's (these were simple days, and there were few
clubs in the land), that Ferrier, Brown, and I, little
thinking what a literary Angel we were entertaining,
solemnly added R. L. S. to the staff of Editors, and
the occasion was celebrated with such rites as the
place and the years of the company suggested.
Of course it was rather an event in Stevenson's
* Open at the page on which Sir Walter has spelt ' Tuesday ' ' Teusday.' ED.
78 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
career having his MSS. actually printed, and, in his
Memories and Portraits, he speaks of the Magazine as
a ' piece of good fortune/ by which he was able to see
his literature in print. He tells how all four editors
managed the first number with much bustle ; how he
and his friend Walter Ferrier looked after the second,
and how he alone was responsible for the third. ' It
has long/ he says, * been a solemn question who edited
the fourth.'
Stevenson's contributions were: 'Edinburgh Students
in 1824/ 'The Philosophy of Umbrellas' (in which
Ferrier helped him), ' The Modern Student Considered
Generally/ 'Debating Societies/ 'An Old Scotch
Gardener/ and ' The Philosophy of Nomenclature.'
This business of the Magazine was Stevenson's chief
occupation during the winter of 1870-71. He was
very keen to see how the press would treat our effort.
In my diary for 5th January 1871, I find noted :
' Hostile criticism of Magazine in the Daily Review :
evidently written by that ass Kingsley/
I recollect Stevenson standing in the hall of the
Speculative with the Daily Review in his hand, and
saying, ' This man is a damned fool.' But on 6th January
I note, ' Favourable notices of Magazine in Scotsman
and Courant. 9
In April, 1871, however, this poor Magazine died a
natural death. But any book-hunter who may chance
on some stray copy of The Edinburgh University Maga-
zine for 1871 ought to examine it, for it contains
the first published writings of Stevenson. Should he
wish to purchase it, he will find that, though it was
originally sold for sixpence a number, and was largely
used by its founders for lighting pipes, the market
price has now risen to about ten guineas !
I knew Stevenson well, and, indeed, saw him and
spoke to him every day for several years, but my
closest work with him was when we brought out that
' University Magazine.'
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 79
One trifling incident occurs to me. Stevenson
always read aloud to us what he wrote, and we went
into it with youthful gravity. One evening he was up
at my rooms with the others, and we sat till dawn
practically all night when he left, and I can well
recollect him stalking up towards Princes Street, in-
stead of Heriot Row, on his way to some of the Old
Town closes, and thence probably to Arthur's Seat, in
his dark cloak and soft hat, and how he said a few
days later that he had 'thought out' during that
morning's walk something he was going to write. I
wonder what it was ?
REMINISCENCES.
SHERIFF MACONOCHIE.
I knew R. L. S. well in the early 'seventies, and for
a number of years after that. I first met him at
the house of Professor Sellar, when we were both
attending Arts classes at the University. I sat next
to him and the late Walter Ferrier at one or two classes,
but I remember best our attendance at Professor Tait's
Natural Philosophy class. Though while the lectures
were going on we often spoke together when we ought
to have been otherwise and better employed, no item
of conversation has stuck in my memory. One very
trivial recollection, however, is that in one of the
fortnightly examinations we were asked to explain
various terms, including < the Arctic Circle.' Stevenson
wrote a series of farcical answers, the only one of which
I remember was, ' The Arctic Circle is an imaginary
line drawn round the earth, its object being to keep
the Polar bears within bounds.' He told Ferrier and
me that he had actually sent in the paper, and at the
time we believed him; but I confess that, after fifty
years or so, I have doubts, as certainly no notice was
taken publicly of the incident by Professor Tait, and I
80 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
do not think that he was the man to suffer such a thing
in silence.
As I did not join the Speculative till some years after
Stevenson, I have few recollections of his work as an
Ordinary Member, in fact I seldom heard him speak ;
but I am very pleased to think that I heard and enjoyed
his well-known Valedictory Address. I am glad to
hear from you that Lord Dunedin is giving you his
recollections, as few are better qualified to write on that
phase of Stevenson's life than he.
Often as I have walked and talked with R. L. S. on
the boards of Parliament House, I only remember one
scrap of his conversation. He asked me which of the
stories he had published I thought the best. This was,
of course, comparatively early in his career as an author,
and I answered, * Thrawn Janet' He said, ' I don't
know that you are far wrong ; and which do you think
has paid me best ? ' I said I had no idea, and he
went on : ' The Black Arrow 1 which, I confess, sur-
prised me. He then said : ' Some day I must take your
name in vain in a book/ And this he did much later
in The Master of Ballantrae.
One other occasion rises before me. I happened
to be walking with the late Andrew Lang in Bond
Street one afternoon. As we walked we came across
Stevenson dressed in the height of the eccentricity
which, as is well known, he at one time affected a
black shirt, red tie, black brigand cloak, and (I am
almost certain) a velvet smoking-cap. He came up to us,
but Lang said, * No, no ; go away, Louis, go away ! My
character will stand a great deal, but it won't stand being
seen talking to a " thing" like you in Bond Street.'
I have only remembered these trifling reminiscences
to show you how useless I am for your purpose. I
have often regretted that I did not keep any notes in
writing or in my head of Stevenson's conversation ; but,
in truth, we were young then, and I, at least, did not
recognise to what heights he would rise in after years.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 81
W. J. HERRIES MAXWELL OF MUNCHES.
Extract from a Letter.
. . . R. L. STEVENSON was a good deal senior to
me at the Speculative, and I did not see much of
him. I remember his reading an essay, 'John Knox
and Women.' None of the members present knew
much of the subject, but it was much criticised as
being unfair to John Knox, and some member in
his speech said that however much he might disagree
with the writer, his style would win for him a place
in English literature. . . .
R. L. S. AT THE R.S.E.
PROFESSOR CARGILL KNOTT.
ON the evening of the nineteenth day of May 1873,
Robert Louis Stevenson read a paper before the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. In the eyes of
the multitude this Society is devoted to the study of
science and the publication of the results of scientific
research. Nevertheless it has a literary side, having
been incorporated in 1783 by Royal Charter ' ad pro-
movendas Liter as et Scientiam utilem.' Sir Walter
was its President for the last twelve years of his life,
and many of the eminent literary men of that time
were among its Fellows. But it was as a student of
meteorological science, and not as a literary man, that
the youthful Stevenson laid his contribution before
this august assembly.
I was an undergraduate in my first year, studying
mathematics and natural philosophy and spending
several hours each day in Tait's laboratory. Supplie<
with billets of admission from Tait, I was in the habit
of attending the stances of the Royal Society and
listening with awe to the potent grave and reverend
signiors who gathered there on stated Monday evenings.
B.L.S. F
82 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Glancing over the billet on the Friday, I noted the to
me unknown name of Robert Lewis Stevenson (for so
it was printed), and asked Tait's assistant who this was.
The reply was, * Oh, he 's a madcap.' Years afterwards,
when R. L. S. had attained his fame, I learned that these
two, Marshall and Stevenson, as students, had been
paired together in their laboratory work. The one was
keen on all things physical, while the other's preference
was for a lively interchange of thought on everything
of human interest. In no respect the ideal student
as regards regularity of attendance, Stevenson further
tormented his fellow-worker by requiring him to tell
in detail how the experiments had progressed during his
frequent absences ; and when he got weary of reading
thermometers or of watching the galvanometer light-
spot dance across the scale, he easily found some
excuse for bringing Robertson Smith (at that time
Tait's assistant) and John Murray together and set
them arguing on the age of the earth or the destiny
of man. The epithet applied to Stevenson was thus
fully explained. All I then got to know was that
R. L. Stevenson belonged to the well-known family
famous for their lighthouses, and that his grandfather
had built on the Inchcape reef the Bell Rock Light-
house on which, as a schoolboy in Arbroath, I had
frequently gazed.
As to Stevenson's capacity to present a scientific
paper, the impression I received was that the mere idea
was grotesque. Whatever of value might be in it
would be wholly due to his father. Nevertheless I was
strongly interested in this * madcap,' who had preceded
me in the Laboratory by about two years, and who was
supposed now to be studying engineering.
At eight o'clock exactly on the following Monday
the General Secretary, Professor J. Hutton Balfour,
rang his little bell to command silence ; and Dr Milne
Home, Vice-president, called for the reading of the
first paper :
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 83
' On the Thermal Influence of Forests. By Robert
Lewis Stevenson, Esq. Communicated by Thomas
Stevenson, Esq.'
Thomas Stevenson, rising from the benches on the
Chairman's right, stated that as his son was himself
present, and knew more about the subject than he did,
he would respectfully suggest that the Society grant
permission for the author to read the paper himself.
The Chairman put it to the Fellows, and the permission
was granted by acclamation.
From one of the benches on the left of the Chairman
a somewhat lanky figure with pale face and dark hair
came forward, dressed immaculately in evening dress,
and with perfect grace and calmness took his place at
the Reader's desk, from which he faced the Chairman
at the far end of a long table. Round this table sat
the secretaries Balfour, Tait, and Turner, and other
members of Council, such as Maclagan, Lister, and
Buchan. It was a full meeting and the paper was read
by the author from beginning to end. I cannot recall
if any other than the Chairman complimented Stevenson
on his contribution. Probably Buchan gave his blessing
on this important communication from the youthful
son of their esteemed friend, or words to that effect.
Dr Milne Home had however a special interest in
the paper, which begins : ' The opportunity of an ex-
periment on a comparatively large scale, and under
conditions of comparative isolation, can occur but rarely
in such a science as meteorology. Hence Mr Milne
Home's proposal for the plantation of Malta seemed to
offer an exceptional opportunity for progress.' This is
not the place to enlarge upon the contents of Steven-
son's one contribution to scientific literature. It will
be found in the Proceedings of the Eoyal Society of
Edinburgh, vol. viii., pp. 114-125 ; and the middle
name of the author now appears with the more familiar
spelling, Louis. Briefly stated, what Stevenson set
himself to do was to discuss various observations that
84 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
had been made by others as to the effect of trees and
forests upon the air temperature.
The paper is admirably put together, and shows that
the author had read widely and with clear understanding
of the problems discussed. He calls attention to the
complexity of the question of the climatic influence of
forests, and from a well-balanced discussion of observa-
tions made by men of high repute, he draws sound
conclusions as to the insufficiency of the evidence
that forests had such a great climatic influence as
was generally supposed. He supports whole-heartedly
Milne Home's proposal to utilise the plantation of Malta
as a splendid opportunity for studying the problem,
and suggests that the British Association or the Royal
Society of Edinburgh ' might take the matter up.'
Two quotations may be given as examples of his early
power of aptness of diction. In one place we read,
* The temperature of the air falls nearly fifteen degrees in
five days ; the temperature of the tree, sluggishly follow-
ing, falls in the same time less than four degrees ; ' and
a little later : ' This thermal sluggishness, so to speak,
seems capable of explaining all the phenomena of the
case without any hypothetical vital power of resisting
temperatures below the freezing-point, such as is hinted
at even by Becquerel.' And again: 'Hence, on the
whole, forests are colder than cleared lands. But this is
just what might have been expected from the amount
of evaporation, the continued descent of cold air, and its
stagnation in the close and sunless crypt of a forest.'
MEMORIES or B. L. S.
JOHN H. LORIMER, R.S.A.
NE of my most vivid remembrances of Robert
Louis Stevenson relates to the early days, when,
as a student in the Board of Trustees' School of
Art, I was drawing beside his cousin Bob Stevenson,
known later as R. A. M. Stevenson the brilliant
o
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 85
occasional art critic of the Pall Mall, and author of an
admirable short Life of Velasquez. This must have been
about 1873, when, as a lad of fourteen or fifteen, I had
entered on serious art study. R. A. M. Stevenson had
taken his B.A. at Cambridge, and consequently began
his art work rather late. However, there was a decided
friendship between us, and we usually worked near each
other.
Robert Louis and his cousin were closely attached
companions, and sonnet and essay testify to the influ-
ence and inspiration which the more celebrated warmly
acknowledged. R. A. M. Stevenson seemed to some of
us to have a gift or art, hardly less notable, of placing
the exact right word to express his thought.
At the time I refer to, Robert Louis was still in
rather vagabond attendance at Edinburgh University,
and he almost daily arrived to take his cousin out to
lunch, his alert face beaming with some story or huge
joke which he had been reserving for his companion,
and the two would depart chortling and laughing.
Long afterwards R. A. M. Stevenson visited me at
my studio in Edwardes Square, Kensington, and in
talking of Robert Louis's work, he rather astonished
me by saying ' Louis was not a good poet.' The remark
made a curious impression on me, as I had always rated
his poetry very high among his works. He seemed to
think he would live by his essays and tales.
A few years later than the Gallery Meetings, I often
saw R. L. Stevenson at gatherings of a Shakespeare
Reading Society, to which my eldest sister, now Lady
im Thurn, and I belonged. It met alternately at the
houses of Principal Sir Alexander Grant, Professor
Sellar, and Professor Fleeming Jenkin. Stevenson
always read a part, and I still have a copy of As You
Like It, with his name marked in opposite the melan-
choly Jaques. He read with a pleasant, sonorous voice,
totally without affectation. He tells us he spoke with
'the drawling accent of the Lothians.' I suppose he
86 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
did, and that the rest of us did. It seemed to me to be
the speech of the ordinary well-bred Scottish gentleman,
but not of one who had been educated at Eton and
Christchurch and wished to pass for English.
May I say, as I have been a portrait-painter, and I
suppose observed appearances accurately, that I entirely
support the remarks of Dr Edmund Gosse, guest of
honour at the first dinner of the Club. He objected to
a description recently published by Lord Shaw, that
when seen with his wig as an advocate he had glossy black
hair. That is certainly incorrect. He tended to be a
fair person in general complexion, and his hair was light
brown. He walked with a springy, slack, easy gait, but
was erect. He did not look in an anxious state of health.
At a meeting of the Scottish Arts Club, over which
Lord Rosebery presided, the questions were discussed
of the authenticity of portraits of Stevenson; what
could be done by way of securing one for our Portrait
Gallery, or of making a successful monument. The
portrait by Nerli done from life in Samoa came in for
discussion, and there was collision between Mr Hole,
R.S.A., and me, on which the chairman remarked, as
we were colleagues in the Academy. Mr Hole thought
it was too rough and coarsely executed, creating an
aversion in the spectator, and that a skilful artist
could make something from memory and knowledge
of his mind, which would be liker. My view was that
though it showed him tanned and lined, and was roughly
done, I could believe it was like what he had become,
and so had a decided value. As there were no others,
it was in fact a question not of what you would like,
but what you could get.
When helping as one of the arrangers of the British
Art Section of the 1900 Exhibition in Paris, I met St
Gaudens, whose sympathetic mural monument is in St
Giles's, Edinburgh. My introduction took place when
he was at the top of a high ladder working on his eques-
trian group of an American general with an angel going
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 8?
on in front. He came down, and, as he already had his
Stevenson monument in hand, was interested to find I
had met him, and questioned me about him.
One of Stevenson's early companions was Frank
O'Meara, an Irish painter of good promise, who died
too early. This friendship belonged to his time at
Grez, I think. He gave me an introduction to him
the first time I went to Paris, and I enjoyed his
delightful personality and good looks.
MY FIRST MEETING WITH R. L. S.
LADY COLVIN.
ONE summer many years ago I was staying with
my friends the Rev. Prof, and Mrs Churchill
Babington at Cockfield Rectory in Suffolk. Mrs
Babington was a first cousin of Louis Stevenson, as he
was always called then. I had come to rest and re-
cuperate after a great sorrow and much illness, and one
morning my hostess said to me, ' I am expecting a
young cousin of mine to-day to come and stay here, I
do hope you won't mind ; he is a very clever, nice fellow,
and I think you will like him.' That afternoon I was
lying on a sofa near an open window when I saw a slim
youth in a black velvet jacket and straw hat, with a
knapsack on his back, walking up the avenue. ' Here
is your cousin,' I said to Mrs Babington ; and she went
out through the open French window to meet him and
bring him in. For a few minutes he talked rather shyly
to us about his long walk out from Bury St Edmunds
in the heat ; and then my little boy, who was with me
and had been staring with solemn eyes at Louis, sud-
denly went up to him and said, ' If you will come with
me, 1 11 show you the moat ; we fish there sometimes.'
Louis rather jumped at this, and the two boys (for
R. L. S. did not look anything like his twenty-three
years) went out together hand in hand, and came back
8& ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
in a little while evidently fast friends. From that
moment Louis was at his ease, and before twenty-four
hours were over the little boy's mother was a fast friend
too of R. L. S., and remained so to the end of his life.
Then the hours began to fly by as they had never flown
before in that dear, quiet old Rectory. Laughter, and
tears too, followed hard upon each other till late into
the night, and his talk was like nothing I had ever heard
before, though I knew some of our best talkers and
writers. Before three days were over I wrote to Sidney
Colvin, who was then Slade Professor and living at
Cambridge, and begged him (with Mrs Babington's
leave) not to delay his promised visit to Cockfield if he
wanted to meet a brilliant and to my mind unmistakable
young genius called Robert Louis Stevenson. He came
very soon, and this was the beginning of that friendship
which every one knows made so great a difference in the
lives of both men, but more especially in that of R. L. S.,
since it came to him at the beginning, and at the very
moment when he most needed sympathy and advice.
For nearly three years after this Louis wrote me long
letters almost daily, pouring out in them all the many
difficulties and troubles of that time of his life. A
number of these letters have been published, or part-
published, in the volumes of letters edited by Sir Sidney
Colvin, and a great many more, too sacred and intimate
to print, are still in my possession.
From SIR SIDNEY COLVIN'S Memories and Notes
of Persons and Places.
. . . THE recollections that remain with me from
the next few years are partly of two visits I paid him
in the course of that first winter (1873-1874) on the
Riviera ; partly of visits he paid me in the Norwood
cottage, or in another cottage I rented a little later at
Hampstead, or later again in college rooms which I
occupied as a professor at Cambridge ; partly from his
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 89
various descents upon or passages through London,
made sometimes from Edinburgh and sometimes from
France, after his return in 1874 to his now reconciled
home. The points in his character these recollections
chiefly illustrate are, first, the longing for a life of action
and adventure, which in an ordinary youth might have
passed as a matter of course but in one already so
stricken in health seemed pathetically vain ; next, his
inborn faculty a very much rarer gift as an artist in
letters, and the scrupulous self- training by which almost
from boyhood he had been privately disciplining it;
then the intensely, quite exceptionally, observing and
loving interest he took in young children : and above
all, that magic power he had of winning the delighted
affection, the immediate confidence, of men and women
of the most various sorts and conditions, always ex-
cepting those hide-bound in starched propriety or
conventional officialdom, whom he had a scarce less
unfailing power of putting against him at first sight. . . .
His shabby clothes came partly from lack of cash,
partly from lack of care, partly, as I think I have said
elsewhere, from a hankering after social experiment and
adventure, and a dislike of being identified with any
special class or caste. Certainly conventional and re-
spectable attire, when by exception he wore it, did not
in those days sit him well. Going with me one day
from Hampstead to the Royal Academy Exhibition,
he thought such attire would be expected of him, and
looked out a black frock-coat and tall hat which he had
once worn at a wedding. I can see now the odd figure
he made as he walked with me in that unwonted garb
down Regent Street and along Piccadilly. True, he
carried his tall hat not on his head, but in his hand,
because it chafed him. Also, being fresh from an
enthusiastic study of the prosody of Milton, he kept
declaiming to me with rapturous comments as we
walked the lines and cadences which chiefly haunted
him:
90 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
' His wrath
Burned after them to the bottomless pit,'
' Like Teneriffe or Atlas, unremoved '
' All night the dreadless angel, unpursued '
6 Oh ! how comely it is and how reviving
To the spirits of just men long opprest ! '
It was while he declaimed these last two lines, the
opening of a famous chorus in Samson Agonistes, that
the gates of Burlington House, I remember, enfolded
us. ...
After his return from the Riviera in 1874 Stevenson
was elected to the Saville Club. . . . This little society
had been founded on a principle aimed against the
standoffishness customary in English club life, and all
members were expected to hold themselves predis-
posed to talk and liable to accost without introduction.
. . . On his visits to London he generally lunched there,
and at the meal and afterwards came to be accepted
and habitually surrounded as a radiating centre of good
talk, a kind of ideal incarnation of the spirit of the
Society. Comparatively rare as they were, I believe
that both his presences in those days and his tradition
subsequently contributed as much as anything towards
the success and prosperity of the Club.
STEVENSON AT THE START.
SIR SIDNEY COLVIN.
READERS of a collection like the present may
perhaps be interested in some passages from the
first letter (hitherto unpublished) which I ever
had from Stevenson. It was written at Edinburgh on
15th September 1873, and deals with two quite separate
matters. Since we had made acquaintance a few weeks
before at Cockfield Rectory, the Suffolk home of his
cousin Mrs Churchill Babington, this young aspirant
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 91
and I had had several talks, in London or at a cottage
where I then lived at Norwood, about a first experiment
to be made by him in regular authorship and about the
publisher or editor to whom it should be offered. To
desert the family profession of engineering for literature
had almost from boyhood been his unavowed longing,
and he had for years been diligently training himself to
that end, but so far none of his attempts had been printed
except privately. It appears from his letter that I
began by introducing him (a circumstance of which I
have no memory) to the firm of Macmillan pre-
sumably to the head of the house, my kind friend
Mr Alexander Macmillan and that for them, after
abandoning for the time being an ambitious attempt
on Savonarola, he was preparing, with much youthful
diffidence and misgiving, an essay on some subject un-
specified. 'My relief/ he writes, 'at hearing that I
need not prosecute Savonarola you may imagine. I
had already foreseen that it would take me from two to
four years, supposing me to lay aside every other pursuit
and the sin that doth so easily beset me. I shall in-
continently betake me to what I had originally meant.
I do not know if it will do for anything, it is a portion
of what I hope to do afterwards and so I have a better
interest in trying my hand at it. Suppose I can
work it into anything supportable, should I send it to
McMillan as he told me ; and how should I address
him ? He is called " Macmillan & Co.," but " & Co." is
hardly a Christian name, and might send my modest
manuscript through the hands of all manner of un-
sympathetic subordinates. I don't know (by the way)
if I told you that he had told me to send my MS. to
him and that he would recommend it to firms. (Be
kind to my spelling I don't know if there be two Ms.
in recomend or only one ; and have therefore betaken
me to something like two Ms and a half though that
is scarcely a compromise). I do not know what to say
quite about anything I may do. I am afraid to send
92 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
anything I can turn out to McMillan. I know so well
that it will be feeble and especially uninteresting ; and
yet I do not know if it would be quite fair to ask you
to look over it first, and tell me whether, by sending it
in, I should merely compromise the future. Please
understand this one fact about me (for a fact it is) that
I can stand honesty, and indeed I should be more proud
of your honest refusal (as a proof that you know I can
take the truth in good part, which I can, by God) than
of any half-hearted acceptance. Please do not mis-
understand me. I am always inclined to put things
so that they seem overstated ; but the above is no
bravado : it is sober choice. And I do not know which
answer would make me feel you more friendly, or make
me more proud and pleased with myself.'
To this rather solemn overture there was no im-
mediate practical sequel. The editor of Macmillans
Magazine accepted from him before long a substantial
contribution on John Knox ; but his first actually pub-
lished article was one entitled * Roads ' and was printed
not by the Macmillans but in Messrs Seeley's journal,
The Portfolio, under the editorship of Mr Philip Gilbert
Hamerton. The rest of the letter deals with a totally
different matter. Stevenson, while a guest at my
Norwood cottage, had been scandalised at seeing me
eat oatmeal porridge for breakfast out of a common
soup-plate, and declared that it must absolutely be
eaten, more Scotico, with a horn spoon out of a wooden
bowl or 'bicker.' And he undertook after his return
to Edinburgh to find and send me a couple of such
bickers, with their appropriate horn spoons, for the use
of myself and any guest who might be under my roof.
Accordingly his letter goes on :
'I have been moving in the matter of Bickers, and
had been, too, before your note Bickers are not easy
to get, I find ; and in the meantime you will perhaps
allow me to send you two that are not quite of a size.
I shall prosecute my enquiries in the meantime and find
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 98
something else more worthy of a Professor of fine Art.
I have added (and I trust you will thank me for the
addition) two horn spoons. These spoons, owing to
their being really the result of individual handicraft,
possess a sort of patriarchal charm. Moresoever they
are of so rude a workmanship that one feels himself, on
seeing them, several centuries back in the cool, liesurely*
middle ages far from all bustle and fever of modern
competition. I daresay you have heard the Scottish
"taunting Jeremiah" against the unthrifty and idle,
that they are like " neither to make a spoon nor spoil
a horn." It seems to me, now, that the artificers of
those that I sent you have simply spoiled horns. I
hope you will enjoy the unvarnished effrontery of these
merchandise as I have done. Please note the forlorn
brackets that stand for adornments ; and the melancholy
bias of the spine in at least one of the two cripple
implements that I have the satisfaction of forwarding.
Again, please note the whistle in the end ; that is to
entertain peevish and refractory urchins. If your order
had been for luggies instead of for Bickers, I could
have shown you another device for the same laudable
end, in the shape of certain small shot introduced be-
tween the two lines of a double bottom ; so that by a
judicious change of level, a rattling noise is produced,
and a consequent peace in perturbed nurseries. . . .
Yours very sincerely, Louis STEVENSON.'
REMINISCENCES.
THE RIGHT HON. LORD DUNEDIN, P.C.
I have been asked by Miss Masson to write a few lines
as to my reminiscences of Louis Stevenson. I am
afraid I have not much to tell, but I feel bound to
accede to the request, if for no other reason than that
my recollections may partially serve to dispel a sort of
tradition that seems to have arisen, that Stevenson was
looked down upon and disliked by Edinburgh society.
* Sic. [ED.]
94 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I did not know him as a boy : for although we both
belonged to Edinburgh, and my parents knew his, I
had been sent to English schools, so that the Xmas
holidays represented the total of my sojourn in Edin-
burgh at that time. Though as I have said my
parents knew Mr and Mrs Stevenson, they were not
among those intimate friends who would be apt to find
their way to one's home in the Xmas holidays.
I began to study law in Edinburgh in October 1872,
and I was almost immediately elected a member of the
Speculative Society the well-known students' debating
society of which Walter Scott had been a member,
and which had on its rolls many names of men who
had won distinction in after life. I found there so
far as bears on what I am writing about Charles
Guthrie, afterwards Lord Guthrie, Charles Baxter, and
Louis Stevenson. Guthrie, if my memory serves me,
was at that time the secretary, and was very keen
about the Society. He busied himself in embellishing
the rooms by forming a collection of prints of old
members, and generally making the surroundings at
once comfortable and dignified. He was older for his
age than the rest of us, and I think did have a very
early inkling that Stevenson was no ordinary mortal.
I was a new-comer and had more or less to be intro-
duced to the other members, and I have even now a
vague sort of reminiscence that he told me that Steven-
son had a brilliant intellect. I don't think he ventured
to predict success at the Bar, but he felt that he had
got something in him which was not ordinary.
Be this as it may, I have at least one very clear
memory of a particular evening. I ought to explain
that although we were both studying for the Bar, yet,
owing to my Cambridge degree having excused me the
examination for general knowledge, I was a little ahead
of Stevenson in time, and we did not take the same
law classes together. Our point of contact was
through the Speculative only. It met once a week in
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 95
the evening. Each member in turn had to read an
essay ; only one essay being appointed for each night.
The member was free to choose his own subject. If
the essay was not forthcoming on the appointed day
he was fined a guinea. After the essay there was a
discussion upon it. Then there was a debate on a set
subject, with a member appointed to open and another
to reply.
The night I remember it was Stevenson's turn to
read an essay. I can't be absolutely sure, but I believe
it was nearly the first time he had read one. His
subject was a book recently published by the Duke of
Argyll, called The Reign of Law. Now the Duke of
Argyll at that time was a great name. He was well
known as one of the most, if not the most, eloquent
debaters in the House of Lords, he held a great posi-
tion, and was obviously possessed of talent, so that the
ordinary young man would be apt to stand very much
in awe of what fell from him. Not so Stevenson.
Naturally after the lapse of very nearly fifty years I
cannot remember what were the contents of the essay.
But I can remember as if it were yesterday the ex-
tremely bubbling and excited energy with which he
banged and mauled and battered the poor Duke, till at
the end so far as the essayist was concerned The Reign
of Law lay in tatters on the floor.
After this I heard him take part in debates. My
impression was that he was a ready and fairly effective
speaker : but I have no recollection that in this depart-
ment he showed any marked pre-eminence over the
first rank, such as it was, of his contemporaries.
There was a long interval for refreshment between
the essay and the debate, during which the members (an
ordinary attendance would mean something from eight
or nine to eighteen or nineteen) talked to each other.
Besides this, the Speculative Rooms were in the College
itself, so that those who, like Stevenson and myself, were
attending law classes, found it very convenient as a place
96 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
to retire and write or work when we had an hour or
so to wait between successive classes. The result was
that we became intimate. Then came the entrance
to the Bar, and thus the same intimacy was preserved.
But all the same, though intimate in a sense, I was not
a sharer in Stevenson's real life. The lives that have
been written will show what he was about in the year
just before he passed. I was otherwise engaged, and
the result was that, though very good friends when we
met, we did not really see much of each other. Nor
was I a likely confidant for his aspirations. I was
interested in my profession a profession which he
frankly cared nothing about. I thought him very
original in conversation : but I confess humbly, though
quite sincerely, that I had not a prophetic appreciation
of what he was going to be. It was only when he
began to publish and by that time he no longer
walked the boards of the Parliament House that we
began to see that we had been friends with a genius.
And now as to himself in those early days. His ill-
health was in the quite early days not yet upon him,
and he was very cheerful and lively. I should say that
so far from being shunned he was popular wherever he
chose to go. It is true that he affected a very uncon-
ventional, not to say untidy, attire. He wore his hair
too long at the back for ordinary taste, and he had a
preference for velveteen instead of cloth which was not
in accordance with the standard of the times. But he
was so young and boyish-looking that he was not judged
by the standards of a fashionable young man. Mr Mac-
intosh (afterwards Lord Kyllachy) was a relation, and
I used to meet him at his house ; and I never saw him
not greeted in any society he chose to enter though
from his own wishes he did not enter society much.
His after life was passed away from Edinburgh, and I
practically saw him no more. I heard of him often
from his fidus Achates Charles Baxter, and also from
Sir Walter Simpson, who was an intimate friend
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 97
of mine. That he retained me in memory to even
the last days is well enough shown by his asking
Baxter to apply to me for advice as to the working out
of the plot of Weir of Hermiston an application which
made me able to save him from a bad anachronism for
which service I duly received thanks through Baxter.
Perhaps the anachronism may be of interest. The
message I got was : ' A young man is being tried by
the Lord Justice Clerk in a circuit town for murder.
At the trial evidence is led which points to the real
culprit being the Lord Justice Clerk's son. He will be
tried by the Lord Justice General. What I want to
know is whether the second trial can be at the same
circuit town, or must it be in Edinburgh ? ' To which
my reply was : * As between the circuit town and Edin-
burgh you may choose which suits your story best. It
could be at either. You do not tell me the date of
your tale. But I have a shrewd suspicion it will be
earlier than 1840. If so, he can't be tried by the Lord
Justice General : for before that date the office of the
Lord Justice General was a sinecure office generally
held by a nobleman : who could not try prisoners. The
trial must be before one of the Lords of Justiciary.'
I am deeply conscious this is a most shadowy sketch,
but such as it is I give it.
MEMORIES OF R.L.S. AND THE ' SPECULATIVE/
THOMAS BARCLAY.
I knew Stevenson well from about fifty to forty-
five years ago, when we were members of the
Speculative Society. My personal impressions of
him varied so much according to his moods that I find
it difficult to define them even to myself. In those
youthful days I felt he was a poseur and a rather
blatant protester against conventions, for many of
which I had a respect ; and he seemed to enjoy tilting
B.L.S. G
98 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
against one's prejudices and any beliefs that he did not
hold himself. But when he sometimes abandoned this
attitude and, in a serious mood, let his own ideal of life
come to the surface, one's impression of him changed ;
one felt a certain persuasive charm, and realised the
broadness of his outlook on life, and the charity and
appreciation of all sorts of mankind on which it was
based. And one realised the acuteness of his intellect
and his keen sympathy with all the faults and virtues
of human nature.
We had then in the Speculative two members who
presented a striking contrast. Charles Guthrie was
scrupulously correct in appearance and behaviour, a
respecter of conventions and social distinctions, with a
high standard of conduct ruled not only by his own
somewhat delicate conscience, but by a kindly anxiety
lest he should cause offence or cause his brother to
offend. Stevenson hated conventions, whether in
dress, manners, morals, or beliefs. He admitted no
authority but his own conscience, and cared little or
nothing for general opinion. That Guthrie was not
constantly shocked and horrified by him always aston-
ished me. It is easy to appreciate Stevenson now in
the light of his brilliant and sympathetic writings, but
it says much for Guthrie's insight that in those early
days he recognised better than most of us the genius
of Stevenson and the virtues that lay beneath a manner
of living that to him might easily have made them
obscure.
RECOLLECTIONS.
JOHN GEDDIE.
' T can remember Robert Louis Stevenson ' but
JL only as an elusive wraith in the crowd of other
ghosts, mostly indistinguishable, that haunt, in
memory, the streets of Edinburgh, as they were full
fifty years ago. No doubt he was more ' kenspeckle '
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 99
than other figures in that passing show, by reason of a
certain exotic quality in form and colour, dress and
bearing; although it is difficult to say how much of
the impression of the R. L. S. of those days as a notice-
able personality arises from actual remembrance, and
how much is an emanation of later reading and fancy.
Opportunities of closer observation were not wanting,
if only one could have appreciated and seized them as
they came within reach. During my first years in
Edinburgh, in the late 'sixties, I lodged in Nelson
Street, which branches off the east end of Heriot Row.
My regular way to the office of the firm of Writers to
the Signet, at the extreme west end of George Street,
in which I was a law clerk, was along the division of
the Row in which No. 17 stands ; and sometimes I
followed the pavement, and sometimes took the shadier
side by the railings of Queen Street Gardens some-
times, too, like Stevenson, I would ' ring the changes '
of the different zigzag routes by which one could reach
the higher level. Afterwards I went daily to work in
a law office next door to ' Henderson's School,' in India
Street ; but this, of course, was years after Stevenson's
schooldays there were over. I believe that my Nelson
Street residence was contemporary with the period
when he was serving a brief and perfunctory apprentice-
ship in the office of W. F. Skene, W.S., then in the
zenith of his reputation as a Celtic scholar and his-
torian. I repeatedly had occasion to carry documents
and messages to the law premises in Hill Street, but
cannot say that I have any recollection of noting the
presence there of Skene's 'Idle Apprentice.' I knew
that * Stevenson of the Lighthouses ' lived in the Heriot
Row house whose door I so often passed ; and that he
had a son who was among the ' golden youth ' of the
city, and was paying desultory attention to law. But
although I must almost have rubbed shoulders with
him in our comings and goings over the same routes,
and encountered him also in Princes Street, at the
100 EGBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Parliament House, and in the College Quadrangle, I
cannot speak of being brought into touch and converse
with him, or of taking special note of him except on
one occasion.
In the 'seventies I attended the Conveyancing Class
of Professor Stuart-Tytler in the University. Steven-
son and his fidus Achates, Charles Baxter, sat, when
they were present at all, in seats immediately behind
me, situated conveniently near the class-room door
through which, if one cared, exits and entrances
could be made without causing exceptional stir. The
pair formed a curious contrast, in looks and manner.
Charlie one always thought and spoke of him as
Charlie I paid most attention to, at first ; for one
thing, he bulked larger, was tall, fair and burly,
with what seemed to be an aggressively confident de-
portment ; for another, he was the son of the Auditor
of Court, to whose hands I often addressed, or carried,
papers. Stevenson, on the other hand, gave the im-
pression of a youth he was two years my junior-
willowy and immature, dark, gypsy-like and restless.
It was the period of the walks, on Cockleroy, of ' Mr
Thomson ' and * Mr Johnston.' Baxter told me, years
afterwards, that the two frequently exchanged names,
and he was never sure whether he was the ' Johnston '
or the ' Thomson ' of the fellowship. Their appearances
in class were irregular in date and uncertain in duration.
Other students came to pick up information valuable in
their after-career, or to put in the attendances and pass
the examinations necessary for passing through the
professional gates. But these two seemed to be a rule
to, and in a class by, themselves : they just came and
went. The impression of insouciance may, however,
have been deceptive at least in Baxter's case ; he had
an extraordinary automatical faculty of picking up and
assorting facts and figures.
One day, near the close of the session, when the final
exam, was looming close at hand, when the lecturer
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 101
was expiscating, in his exact and polished manner,
some nicety of the Scots law of conveyancing the
concentrated virtue and potency residing in the word
* dispone,' perhaps ; or the origin and development of
the * testing clause' when every head was bent over
a note-book and every pencil was busy, there was a
disturbing sound at the door, and the truants bustled
in. The voice in the rostrum fell silent, with a pained
and patient inflexion ; all heads were turned, some faces
glaring indignation, others on the broad grin. The
delinquents looked wholly unconscious of offence
indeed as if unaware that there were anybody but
themselves in the room. They took their time to sit
down in the seat in front of me ; they gazed about
them with a serious, faintly speculative air. And hardly
had the lecture got under way again, when they rose up
and went out, Louis this time leading and Charlie follow-
ing. One was somehow reminded of a slim and grace-
ful spaniel with a big bull-dog, jowled and ' pop-eyed,'
trotting in its wake. It was their last appearance, and
they left behind a spirit of unrest that made concen-
tration on legal quiddities impossible. R. L. S. had
flung down his gauntlet among the lumber of the law.
He had defied it in its sanctum. Henceforth he might
study style, but no longer Juridical Style.
STEVENSON AND THE FLEEMING JENKINS.
SIR .T. ALFRED EWING, K.C.B., F.R.S., PRINCIPAL OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
I.
FORTY- FIVE years ago, when he was a young
man just finding his feet in the world of letters, it
was my good fortune to meet Louis Stevenson
fairly often at the house of a friend to whom we both
owed much. The friend was Fleeming* Jenkin, his
* Pronounced Fleming.
102 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
senior by seventeen years, whose Life he was after-
wards to write the ' Cockshot ' of Talk and Talkers
the Professor of Engineering to whom, half-a-dozen
years before, had been entrusted the impossible task of
making Stevenson an engineer. From the Professor's
lectures Stevenson had been a sedulous truant : they
were perhaps the least considered item in what he
has called the vast pleasantry of his curriculum. * No,
Mr Stevenson,' said Jenkin, when asked for a certificate
of attendance, ' there may be doubtful cases ; there is
no doubt about yours. You have simply not attended
my class.' But Fleeming Jenkin was much more than
an eminent engineer and (as I can testify) 'a most
inspiring teacher of engineering. His interest in art, in
literature, in personalties, in all that makes up life, was
unbounded ; his judgment was penetrating and sym-
pathetic. He had the discernment to see promise of
quite another sort in the casual youth to whom every
professor was a joke and himself ' perhaps the broadest.'
Stevenson had already met with some kindness at his
hands, and counted on easy acquiescence when he asked
for the certificate. But so honest a refusal startled him
into respect. He saw for the first time the 'extreme
dignity of goodness ' which, with unfailing affection and
equally unfailing shrewdness, fitted Jenkin so well for
the role he was often afterwards to fill of confidant and
mentor. And so began a friendship that did much
to temper with sweetness and sanity Stevenson's early
years of struggle and revolt.
A foundation for the friendship had been laid before
Stevenson became a nominal student of engineering.
It was in the winter of 1868 that Mrs Jenkin, then a
new-comer to Edinburgh, had discovered Louis while
she was returning his mother's afternoon call. She has
told how in the gloaming Mrs Stevenson had seemed
to be alone, but suddenly from out of a dark corner
came a voice, peculiar, vibrating, talking as Charles
Lamb wrote. She stayed long, enchanted by the con-
BOBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 103
versation of the * young Heine with the Scottish accent,'
and in leaving saw him clearly for the first time by the
light of the street lamp before the door, 'a slender,
brown, long-haired lad, with great dark eyes, a brilliant
smile, and a gentle deprecating bend of the head.' She
asked him to come and see them, and the reply was,
* May I come to-morrow ? ' Then she ran home and
announced to Fleeming, * I have made the acquaintance
of a poet.' Louis came next day : it was the first of
many visits to a house in which he found solace and
profit and delight. Years after, in a letter written to
Mrs Jenkin on the death of her husband, his postscript
was a veritable cry from the heart : * Dear me, what
happiness I owe to both of you ! '
I would wish these reminiscences to be in part a
tribute to those two dear and notable people, to whom
my own debt is incalculable, whom I knew far more
intimately than I ever knew Stevenson. Whatever
recollections I have of him are inextricably mingled
with memories of them. To justify the inclusion of
such a tribute in this volume, it may be said that
their influence in forming the character of Stevenson
was admittedly so great that those who admire and
love him will wish to know more about them, to under-
stand something of the causes of that influence and of
the circumstances in which it took effect.
To both of them indeed he owed much happiness,
and other things perhaps more important than happiness.
It was a liberal education for any young man to associate
with Jenkin and his gifted wife, an enriching experience,
a sharpening of even the sharpest wits, a training of
mind and taste, of manners and morals. The dullest
visitor to the house must have been conscious of its
atmosphere of distinction intellectual, sesthetic, ethical.
Some may have found the atmosphere too rare for
comfortable breathing : but for Louis it was the breath
of his nostrils. To the rebel of the 'seventies the Jenkin
home was a haven, an oasis in a desert of convention
104 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
and prejudice, whither he might bring his unrest,
his self-doubts, his dreams. There he was valued,
encouraged, criticised in a spirit of understanding,
affectionately admonished, helped. Fleeming Jenkin
had himself come through troubles ; he had fought his
difficulties with indomitable resolution, and already,
though barely forty, he had won a place in his profession
equivalent (so he told me when as a student I consulted
him about the prospects of a young engineer) to that
of a bishop or a judge. He had force, experience,
maturity, had done much and thought much. His life
was filled, one would have said, with an incessant round
of creative activities. In partnership, both as consulting
engineer and inventor, with Sir William Thomson
afterwards Lord Kelvin he had wide and lucrative
professional interests outside his professorship. The
applications of electricity were then in their infancy : in
that field and in others his mechanical ingenuity, his
grasp of essential principles and flair for turning them
to practical account, his aptitude for scientific research,
made him an acknowledged pioneer. Edinburgh, and
many other cities after it, owe to his initiative their
Sanitary Protection Associations. But his active mind
refused to confine itself to engineering. His writings
on other subjects economics, literature, the drama,
Greek dress, English rhythms, the atomic theory,
natural selection are evidence not only of his variety
but of his insight, of his ability to throw fresh light on
anything he took up. His essays in the North British
Review on Darwin's Origin of Species, on Munro's
Lucretius, on Matthews Duncan's Fecundity and Fer-
tility were so suggestive that in later editions the
authors admitted their debts to the critic. He was
always intensely alive, vivid, unflagging, virile, doing
with all his might whatever his hand found to do and
his arm had a long reach. He seemed to enjoy every
minute of work and play. His joy in living was
reflected in his talk, which was always ready and
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 105
forceful and often witty, and in his buoyant optimism.
He was ever on the alert to do a kindness ; a man of
scrupulous honour ; a moralist whose own life was his
best sermon. He revelled in friendly disputation:
would take hard knocks with unruffled temper, and
counted not always prudently on his disputant's
doing the like. Companionship with Stevenson was
easy to one who had never lost the gusto of a boy, who
in middle life kept the sense of drama, the love of
romance, the simple frankness of a child.
n.
Fleeming worshipped his wife, and those who had
the happiness to know her could well understand
the worship. The only child of a distinguished civil
servant Alfred Austin she had been brought up in
an environment that developed her remarkable powers
of mind and graces of spirit. Of all his pleasures I
think the greatest was to draw her out, to provide
opportunity for the display of her gifts, to direct on
some suitable object the play of her delicate fancy.
Her humour was as graceful as it was gay. I have
never known talk that equalled hers in well-bred
brilliance, in distinction of feeling, expression and
thought. One has heard Fleeming described, in the
looseness of a Savile Club superlative, as the best talker
in London ; but on occasions when his wife was at her
best he was content to suppress himself and be her foil.
None of the listeners would have wished it otherwise.
Mistress of many languages, including Greek, she read
much, and though she often followed the dictum which
bids those who hear of a new book read an old one, she
kept herself throughout a long life in discriminating
touch with every literary movement. To hear her read
verse or prose aloud was to enjoy a revelation of its
meaning and music. What she was as an actress will
be spoken of presently. Her households, in Edinburgh
106 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
and in the Highlands (they both loved the life there,
and Fleeming was a keen sportsman), always seemed to
run on wheels : in domestic management she had the
art that conceals art. A devoted mother of three sons,
she lived to take pleasure in watching, as from a cen-
tral eminence, her grandchildren reach maturity, gently
contriving to help them shape their lives, unconsciously
communicating to them something of her own nobility.
She had the grief to see two of them fall victims in the
War. It was only in 1921, at the age of eighty-three,
that she was taken from us, mentally active to the last,
responsive to new fashions of thinking in a degree that
excited one's envy, an interested spectator of affairs and
a deeply interesting commentator on them, kind and
sweet and understanding as she had always been, main-
taining to the end her thoughtfulness for others, her
love of truth and beauty and goodness.
She wrote little, and said she could not write. There
are published fragments which prove she could: an
article on 'Highland Crofters' in Good Words for
1885 ; the account of her discovery of Louis ; * some
early reminiscences of Lord Kelvin ; t these show a sure
literary touch and make one wish for more. Her letters
had always an individual charm, but I doubt if they
would convey to those who did not know her that sense
of her being a really great lady which came from her
speech and her presence. I venture to copy two of
them, far apart in feeling and in time. The first was
written some two years after I had left Edinburgh
for Japan. Fleeming and I were in frequent corre-
spondence, and in a letter to him I had referred to a
promise that she would write :
'I do not despair of Mrs Jenkin's letter yet.
Perhaps it would be better to say " note " than " letter."
A note is not so dreadful as a letter. It is a thing you
write while you are waiting for dinner, or between the
* Life of R. L. , vol. i., p. 96.
f Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, vol. xliv. (1910), p. 554.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 107
visits of two friends. Encourage Mrs Jenkin to think
of it as a note, and then it will come.'
It did come, by return of post :
3 GREAT STUART STREET, EDINBURGH,
Feb. 13 [1881].
A note ! Of course, my dear Mr Ewing, I can write you a
note. One note ? Twenty, if you would care to read them.
Why did none of you people who have been in distant parts,
you and Fleeming, ever before tell me that it was possible to send
a note to Japan ? I thought it had to be a letter of eight sides
on that thin paper which holds one's pen fast and lets all one's
thoughts through ! And so I have gone about quite sad, think-
ing that you would first be vexed with me and then forget me
unable to rejoice, as I should otherwise have done, in my exquisite
tea-pot with the mouse atop feeling quite ashamed before my
dear little cups Fleeming's paper-knife a reproach to me the
phonograph a pain plays rapidly becoming unbearable : and all
because I was never told that I could write a note to Japan !
Do you not owe me many apologies ? Indeed you do, very
many, very humble ones. Or is it I who owe them to you ? Lest
it should be so, I hasten to forgive you and to beg that no more
may be said about it. Nay, I insist, and to prove to you that
I am sincere in accepting your apologies I write this note, and
perhaps shall write others.
Only I hear that you are coming back possibly. I shall be
glad when that day comes. I shall love to be introduced to your
wife and to the pretty baby, whose photograph I know by heart.
I send to both my best greetings.
Fleeming writes you of us. My life goes on, busier and busier
I think. The boys seem to want more of me instead of less.
They are turning out excellently well. Austin is as good and
gentle and kind as he is big. He is very happy at Cambridge.
(Letters to Cambridge take much of my time. Cambridge has
not the Japanese privilege of notes). Frewen and Bernie are at
home still. This winter I am busy doing what do you think ?
Lecturing giving health lectures to a class of poor women and
girls, and Frewen does my experiments for me. We have plays,
as of old. You heard of my week of triumph in London with
the Agamemnon?
Jack barks. All goes on as usual. When you come to see
us as you and Mrs Ewing must come, when you come back
108 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
you will not believe how long you have been away. You will
have to count the six little teeth to make sure you have been
away at all.
But my note begins to grow to a letter. Again all kind
messages. Yours, A. J.
The other was written a few weeks before she died,
when she knew that the summons had come :
12 CAMPDEN HILL SQUARE, W. 8,
Dec. 23, 1920.
MY DEAR SIR ALFRED, You have sent me a most beautiful
present a most uplifting letter.
At first I felt as if it were too beautiful that I had no claim
to such praise, to such sympathy and then, as I read and reread
it, I more and more seemed to understand how you, so clearly
seeing and judging, had seen that in me whatever was good had
come to me from those with whom I had lived my father and
mother and then my husband ; and so your beautiful praise
became not my praise (though that is very precious to receive)
but a recognition of my debts to them, and so to be rejoiced in
with thankfulness. Fifteen years we delighted over you together,
and then came the thirty-five years during which I have felt and
known you would help me and my children as I always have
known. And now comes the wonderful praise which shows me
that my life has not been useless.
It also helps me coming now by showing me that my friend,
who can think, thinks much as I do of Death a superb crown to
life if we will but hold it in faith and courage.
One sees more deeply and hopes more highly as the strange
hours pass. And one is happier if one is loved and thought of as
I am, uy my children and by my most faithful friend.
1 shall try to send you a few words by and by. I shall
not need to try to send you and Nellie and the little son my
thoughts. Yours, A. J.
Her husband had died in 1885, suddenly cut off
when at the summit of his powers. Here is a charac-
teristic letter from him, one of many received while
I was in Japan. My wife had been gravely ill : I was
anxious about our future ; had confessed to low spirits,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 109
and used an engineering phrase about the 'permanent
set ' that comes of overstrain :
SAVILB CLUB, 15 SAVILE Row, W.,
June 30, 1882.
MY DEAR EWING, I feel a call to preach. 'Permanent set
towards anxiety.' I must use strong language. No ; you might
be ill or worried when you get this letter, so I won't. But just
give it up resolutely. 'The coward dies a thousand deaths' is
applicable to every kind of misfortune as well as to death. And
the Christian ' take no thought for the morrow ' applies particu-
larly and specially to this kind of thing. Live your life gaily.
When misfortune comes, suffer like a man, and cast the suffering
away as soon as you can ; but a life spent in scanning the horizon
for conceivable storms is not wisely led.
Our will is master of that sort of thing, believe me.
As regards bread and butter a man like you has simply nothing
to fear. Come home as soon as possible. There is an immense
stir and more coming. . , . I am collaborating with Ayrton and
Perry in a big locomotion scheme whereof more soon. Gas-engine
drags along slowly : its nose is put out of joint by this new
electrical affair. We all flourish. This is not a letter but a
sermon. Yours affectionately, FLEEMING JENKIN.
Stevenson, as every one knows, wrote a biography
of Fleeming Jenkin, to my mind one of his most
perfect books. But the summary of his friend's char-
acter which he sent to The Academy immediately after
Jenkin's death may not be so generally known. These
are the concluding sentences :
' In talk he was active, combative, pounced upon his
interlocutors, and equally enjoyed a victory or a defeat.
He had both wit and humour ; had a great tolerance
for men, little for opinions ; gave much offence, never
took any. Behind these outworks of unresting, insur-
gent intellectual activity, his heart was deeply human
and, in latter days, unaffectedly pious. He was of the
most radiant honesty and essentially simple; hating
the shadow of a lie in himself, loving the truth, how-
ever hard, from others. He had in his manners, with
those whom he loved, a certain curative causticity, of
110 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
which they learnt to be proud, and which he looked to
have returned in kind. He would not nurse a weak-
ness either in himself or in you. He knew you, and
would not dissemble his knowledge ; but you were
aware that he still loved you, and that it was thus that
he desired you to return his affection ; hand to hand,
not gloved. To those who did not know him, to people
of weak nerves or of a vulnerable vanity, he was at times
a trial. To those who did, who had learnt with what
severity he judged and with what continual care he
sought to correct himself; what tolerance, what wis-
dom, what loving-kindness, he kept at the service of his
neighbours ; in what a true relation he lived with his
friends ; in what proud and chivalrous sympathy with
his wife and sons : to those the sense of his loss must
be incurable.'*
Later, writing to Sidney Colvin from Honolulu in
1889, he says :
' I owe you and Fleeming Jenkin, the two older men
who took the trouble and knew how to make a friend
of me, everything I have or am.'
in.
Such were the friends under whose roof I made the
acquaintance of Stevenson. I too had been a pupil
in Fleeming Jenkin's class, having come up to enter
the University as a student of engineering in 1871, the
session after Louis had been refused his certificate. I
was a youth of sixteen, who brought no introduction ;
but I soon became aware of the beginning of a friendly
regard, which in my case owed nothing to truancy.
An essay on the Relative Merits of the Wet and Dry
Systems of Sewerage seemed to take the Professor's
fancy. Here at least was no Stevenson. It was
written as a * weekly exercise ' : the week had been
spent in diligent grubbing among parliamentary papers
and statistical reports, and the matter was treated with
* The Academy, June 20, 1885.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. Ill
a diffuseness which, after all, was not inappropriate.
I think he liked my excuse (borrowed from Pascal's
apology for the length of one of the Provincial Letters)
that I had not had time to make it shorter. Anyhow,
at the end of the session Jenkin surprised me by the
offer of a place on the staff which he and Sir William
Thomson were then forming as engineers of a great
telegraphic enterprise, coupled with a promise that I
should be released to continue my studies during the
following winter. For a young man without influence
or prospects this was an opportunity not to be missed.
I went at once to London at their bidding, and set
about learning how to make electrical tests in the cable
factory, which at that date was a better school of elec-
tricity than any laboratory, returned to Edinburgh for
a second session in the classes of Jenkin and Tait and
Crum Brown ; then again to London on the same
mission, and from there later to South America in
three successive expeditions to take part in the laying
of cables along the coast of Brazil from the Amazon
to the River Plate. This was in some sort an educa-
tion, but it was not till 1876 that it became possible
again to settle in Edinburgh and pick up the dropped
threads of University life. From then till 1878, when
on Jenkin's nomination I went as professor to Tokyo,
I continued to work with him, mainly as assistant in
various pieces of engineering and scientific research.
Much of the work was done in his house, and one soon
came to know the family, from 'Madam' which in
later years was Mrs Jenkin's nom cTamitie to all her
intimates down to Jack the terrier and Martin the
cat. There were opportunities too of meeting the
frequenters of the house, and of these the most re-
markable apart, of course, from Sir William Thomson
was Louis Stevenson.
To serve two such masters as Thomson and Jenkin
was a privilege beyond estimation for a young man on
the threshold of a scientific career. Thomson's genius
112 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
was supreme; the better one came to know him the
more one admired and loved him. With his greatness
was mingled a beautiful simplicity, a modesty and con-
sideration for others that made the doing of any service
no less a pleasure than it was an honour. He was then
President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an office
which often brought him from the west. In these
flying visits, besides attending to the interests of the
Society, he had to meet as best he could two claims
that were in sharp competition with one another. He
was Jenkin's partner in practical concerns that involved
big responsibilities and clamoured for attention. He
was Tait's partner in the authorship of Thomson
and Taifs Natural Philosophy a gigantic infant that
seemed always struggling to the birth. Hence between
Jenkin and Tait there was strife for Thomson's soul.
In point of fact Jenkin did all that could be done to
relieve his partner of business detail. But in Tait's
eyes Jenkin stood for a malign influence dragging
Thomson to earth when he should have been free to
soar and float in the serene air of mathematics, at a
level where Natural Philosophy might forget that it
had anything to do with the affairs of men.
IV.
Into this firmament Stevenson from time to time
would flash, erratic, luminous, arresting a comet with
no calculable orbit or recognisable period liable to
disappear for months, but in my eyes, at least, a dis-
tinctly heavenly body. I was five years his junior,
and between twenty-two and twenty-seven there is a
great gulf. This, apart from other reasons, made it
the business of the younger man to look up. Already
Louis had the glamour of the successful author ; he
was appreciated by cognoscenti though not yet popular.
His essays and short stories were being taken by
Cornhill and other magazines. I had sense enough
genuinely to enjoy them. My admiration for the
The photograph reproduced here was given to me by the late Mr A. G. Dew Smith,
who had taken it when Stevenson was thirty-five. It is of this photograph that
Sir Sidney Colvin lately wrote: 'A certain large scale carbon print he took of
Stevenson to my mind comes nearer to the original in character and expression
than any other portrait.' Certainly no other recalls so perfectly the Stevenson I
knew. J. Alfred Ewing.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 113
man of letters was real and ardent. But stronger than
that was the attraction of his personality. There was
a quality about his talk, his gestures, his smile, that
was not only winning but extraordinarily stimulating
and infectious. With other men and women you
might be a pedant or a prig : with Stevenson you
caught something of his careless gaiety. You were
lightened, as a diver who had rid himself of his leaden
boots. You might even then fail to come to the
surface, and be only standing on your head, but at
least you could kick out. You found yourself saying
things that sounded almost good things that made
people laugh, apparently in good faith. It was very
surprising, especially when one was young and not a
little bashful. Next day the good things, and you,
might seem dull enough; but with his presence the
magic would come back. The dust of forty-five years
has covered what he said. The words, the wit, the
essence are gone beyond any hope of recapture ; but
the vision of the speaker does not wholly fade, the
emotion of the moment can still, if faintly, be recalled.
I remember a sudden departure after one of the
Jenkin plays. Stevenson was standing in the wings,
ready to go on in the dress of a Greek Messenger
which had been designed by Fleeming with a fidelity
that excluded pockets. Louis had omitted to divest
himself of a signet-ring he usually wore. Handing it
to me he said, ' Wear it till I come off.' We forgot
it that night, and next day he vanished into space, it
may have been to Grez or Barbizon. Months passed
before the ring was reclaimed. I think the occasion
of its return was a walk made memorable by his
advising me to read Meredith. I had some acquaint-
ance with The Adventures of Harry Richmond, having
followed them with a school-boy's eagerness as they
came out in CornhilL But I knew nothing of The
Ordeal of Richard Fever el till Louis put it in my way.
He spoke of the love story of Lucy and Richard with
R.L.S. H
114 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
an enthusiasm I soon learnt to share. That must
have been shortly before a visit to Burford Bridge
brought him almost to Meredith's door, and he sought
leave, as Sir Sidney Colvin tells,* ' sensitively and
shyly, not without fear of a rebuff, to pay him the
homage of a beginner to a master.' In our intercourse
if there was shyness it was on my side, and Louis was
kind in allaying it. The hours flew, but what their wings
were one cannot now tell. There was some common
ground between us in enjoyment of books ; there were
my sea travels and a few modest adventures on the
South American Coast a shipwreck escaped, a re-
volution witnessed, an uncharted island passed close
in the night and only discovered at dawn. We talked
of the Jenkins : the affection we both had for them
was link enough to establish a sort of brief intimacy.
They were people too interesting, too unusual, not to
be discussed by their friends from every possible angle
of comment. He would tell me of some passage with
Fleeming that had left him sore : there was no malice
on either side, and only augmented admiration on his.
The influence which Jenkin had exerted and was still
exerting on him was very apparent. For Stevenson
in his turbulent youth, questioning everything and im-
patient of authority, nothing could have been more
salutary than to find so lofty a standard of conduct,
so clear and simple a philosophy of morals, in a man
who was no puritan, who loved and understood him,
who cared intensely for the things for which he cared,
and whose zest in life was equal to his own.
The meetings I recall took place in 1877 and 1878,
when Louis had passed what he himself set as the
limit of youth, five-and-twenty. It was the period
between the Inland Voyage and the Travels with a
Donkey. Stevenson was then in what, for him, was
excellent health ; happy in the steady advance of his
position as a writer ; his purse still empty, but a little
* Memories and Notes (1921), p. 167.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.' 115
money beginning to come in ; his pen very busy. He
had qualified for Advocate, but his pursuit of the law
had ended with the examination. So far as he was
professionally concerned, the ancient House of the
Scottish Parliament had again seen the end of an old
song. He had shaken the dust of that salle des pas
perdus from his feet. There was a brass plate bearing
his name on the door in Heriot Row, but it brought
no briefs and none were wanted. He was giving him-
self whole-heartedly to letters and thereby building a
monument more enduring than any brass. ' I have a
goad in my flesh continually,' he writes at that time to
Mrs Sitwell, * pushing me to work, work, work. ... I
begin to have more hope in the story line, and that
should improve my income anyway.' And to Colvin :
'I have been at home a fortnight this morning, and
I have already written to the tune of forty-five Cornhill
pages and upwards/ There was no need of any further
apology for idling.
Among these slender memories one thing comes to
me very clearly which may be worth recording. There
have been hints and innuendoes that in the young
Louis high thinking went with loose living. Gossip
is a lying jade ; the wise man learns to judge people
as he finds them. On board ship and in visits to the
cities of South America Cities of the Plain they
seemed to a youngster bred in a Scottish manse I
had rubbed shoulders with men who did not ride their
appetites on the curb. It is a type not difficult to
recognise. I was sensitive to it, and even in Victorian
days the smoking-room was apt to become a sort of
involuntary confessional. In Stevenson's company I
never saw a trace of laxity vinous or other nor
heard from him a word that might suggest it. His
conversation, whenever and wherever we were together,
alone or with other men, was as clean as his books. In
such matters no evidence will prove a negative. This
note of a direct personal impression is offered for what
116 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
it is worth : so far as it goes it is evidence, not
rumour.
v.
My most frequent occasions of meeting him were at
the Jenkins' private theatricals. By the time I came to
know them these annual, or nearly annual, functions
had become a great social event of the Edinburgh
spring. The central figure of the plays was Mrs
Jenkin, whose genius no lesser word will serve was
their motive and justification. In his wife's genius
Fleeming took open pride and infinite enjoyment.
His own talents shone as producer and manager.
To select, adapt, and mount a play, to drill and
dress his very capable company of amateurs, to design
costumes and arrange accessories, gave scope to powers
he loved to exercise. He threw himself into it all
with characteristic energy and infectious enthusiasm,
with meticulous attention to detail and a rare apprecia-
tion of stage effect. Each year there were in general
two plays, one following the other on the same even-
ings. The rehearsals went on daily for weeks, and
finally there were five performances, two to audiences
made up of artisans, servants, and dependents, and
three to friends and social acquaintances. Plays were
given from 1870 onwards in Jenkin's first Edinburgh
house at 5 Fettes Row, and it was there that Stevenson
joined the company. After 1873, when a Greek play
had been presented for the first time The Frogs,
in Hookham Frere's translation Jenkin moved to
3 Great Stuart Street, where a more elaborate setting
became possible. There he engineered matters so that
the end of the dining-room could be let down on
hinges into the boys' play-room behind to form a
stage, leaving all the dining-room area for auditorium.
With various other devices in stage carpentry, this
made a very perfect little theatre for performances
which included versions, more or less curtailed, of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 117
Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, The Merry
Wives, The Rivals, translations of the Trachinice, the
Agamemnon, and the Andromache; and also some
lighter pieces. The Taming of the Shrew as well as
The Frogs had been given in Fettes Row. For the
first Greek play the dresses had been furnished by a
theatrical costumier 'with unforgettable results of
comicality and indecorum* (so says Louis). For the
next Jenkin had dresses made to his own designs,
having in the meantime discovered for himself how
the Greeks did their tailoring a discovery which he
made partly by experiments 'with sheets and lay-
figures, and later with shawls and real women/ and
partly by studying sculptures in the British Museum.
I cannot say whether his theories of the chiton and
diplo'is and peplos were sound : in any case the results
were extremely graceful, and certainly decent.
Of Mrs Jenkin's range and power in dramatic
interpretation a vivid impression remains, but an im-
pression difficult in any measure to convey. One felt,
and feels, certain that had she sought fame on the
professional stage she would have found it given
without stint. She was delightful in comedy, but it
was in the simple cumulative tragedy of the Greeks
that she was at her greatest. To see her then was to
be profoundly moved : it was also to be allowed a
glimpse into what Greek drama really is, into the
secret of its perpetual appeal. Let me quote the
opinion of two authorities much more competent to
speak than I. Sir Sidney Colvin, in the chapter of
his recent Memories and Notes which is devoted to
' Fleeming and Anne Jenkin,' says : ' Those of us who
had the privilege of seeing and hearing her will never
forget the experience. . . . To hear her declaim dra-
matic verse was to enjoy that art in its very perfection.
And her gift of dramatic gesture was not less striking.
Recalling her, for instance, in the part of Clytemnestra,
I can vouch for having seen on no stage anything of
118 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
greater on the English stage nothing of equal-
power and distinction/ And Louis has written: 'As
for Mrs Jenkin, it was for her that the rest of us
existed and were forgiven.'
During the dozen years or so in which plays were
given the company underwent many changes. Among
its members when I knew it, besides the Jenkin
family and Louis Stevenson, were Mrs Jenkin's
mother, Mrs Alfred Austin, whose refined dignity
showed to advantage in various elderly parts, Miss
Leila Scot-Skirving, Miss May Cunningham, Miss
Ella Cay, Miss Lee, Miss Paton, Mr W. B. Hole, Mr
Orme Masson, Mr Jules Kunz, Mr H. Blackburn,
Mr A. Burnett, and others. Hole, then becoming
known as an artist (his fame as an etcher came later)
was very good on the stage where he took himself
seriously and still better in the supper -room after
the play, where he would sometimes delight us by
giving free rein to his talent as a low comedian. No
one who saw it will have forgotten his impersona-
tion of the absent-minded entomologist who let one of
his live specimens escape. Stevenson was no more
than a fair actor. The parts assigned to him were as
a rule of secondary importance ; but off the stage, in
the merry nightly gathering that followed rehearsal
or performance, he took a recognised lead, bubbling
over with inspired nonsense. He began, I think, as
prompter, in 1871. Next year he figured as an 'in-
articulate recipient' of Petruchio's whip in The Tarn-
ing of the Shrew. By 1873 he was promoted to the
part of Vatel, a cook, in My Son-in-Law, a translation
of Le Gendre de M. Poirier, and to that of Aeschylus
in a curtailed version of The Frogs. In 1875 he was
the Duke in Twelfth Night, and it was then he wrote
to Mrs Sitwell :
' I play Orsino every day, in all the pomp of Solomon
splendid Francis-the-First clothes, heavy with gold
and stage jewellery. I play it ill enough, I believe ;
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON. 119
but me and the clothes, and the wedding wherewith
the clothes and me are reconciled, produce every night
a thrill of admiration. Our cook told my mother
(there 's a servants' night, you know) that she and the
housemaid were "just prood to be able to say it was
oor young gentleman." To sup afterwards with these
clothes on, and a wonderful lot of gaiety and Shake-
spearean jokes about the table, is something to live for.'
But Louis did not tell how very literally he obeyed
on that occasion his own opening injunction to 'play
on.' At supper, when all was over so runs the
tradition in the Jenkin family he continued to per-
sonate Orsino in a superbly ducal manner, improvising
lines which Shakespeare might have mistaken for his
own.
In 1877, when it was my privilege to join the com-
pany in the invisible roles of call-boy and property man,
the chief play was Deianira the name given by Lewis
Campbell to the first part of his translation of the
Trachinice of Sophocles. Mrs Jenkin of course played
Deianira. Her presentation of the wronged wife, led
into fatal error by her wounded love, held every audience
enthralled, and bore out Lewis Campbell's remark that
there is no play which more directly pierces to the
very heart of humanity. As produced, the play ended
with the announcement by the Nurse (Mrs Austin)
of the death of Deianira ; our sympathies were not
distracted by the final appearance of Heracles in his
last agony.
Deianira was followed, for a lighter course, by Art
and Nature, which was an adapted version of Charles
Reade's Masks and Faces. Mrs Jenkin passed with
consummate art from the stricken house of Heracles
to the Green Room of the Theatre Royal, Covent
Garden, where she became the flippant, kind-hearted
Peg Woffington. Stevenson was the Messenger in the
Greek play ; he had a more considerable part in the
comedy as Sir Charles Pomander. Of his performance
120 EGBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
on the stage I can recall little, save that as the officious
old messenger he sustained with spirit an altercation
with Lychas (Mr Hole), in which, after much bluffing,
Lychas is forced to admit the truth about the captive
lole. But there was an awful moment, entirely un-
rehearsed, when the ' streak of Puck ' that was in Louis
got the better of him and he raised the curtain on a
scene not in the play. That story should be told I
hope will be told by one who saw the scene from the
front. It was a chastened Puck who emerged, some
minutes later, from a private interview with the
manager.
My duties, which were many, required me to procure
each night from the kitchen a practicable and really
eatable pie for consumption by the family of Triplet ;
and also to disturb at necessary intervals, always dis-
creetly and at the last minute, various promising flirta-
tions on the stairs. They did not debar me from a full
and lively enjoyment of what Louis has described as
'a long and exciting holiday in mirthful company.'
But they were no sinecure when, in the late autumn of
the same year, the Deianira was repeated in St Andrews,
with nearly all the original company and stage effects.
The stage had to be erected in the Town Hall there,
the scenery and properties transferred, down to 'the
wig which Stevenson wore, a venerable, straight-haired
white wig ' (so my list has it) and all this before the
return of Jenkin at the eleventh hour from his Highland
holiday.
That was the last occasion on which Stevenson
actually took part in the plays. 5 * In 1878 there were
none. There were, however, great doings at a Bazaar
for the University Cricket Ground, when we exhibited
the phonograph for the first time in Britain having
made one for the purpose by help of a notice of
* There is a small error in Sir Graham Balfour'a Life (vol. i. p. 121) where
it is said that it was in 1875 Louis last took part in the Jenkins' theatricals.
He had parts in both of the plays of 1877.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 121
Edison's invention which had been cabled to the
Times. People crowded to see and hear the strange
new thing. We applied it afterwards in researches on
the nature of spoken sounds a work which took up
much of Jenkin's time and thought, but with which
Stevenson and other members of the Jenkin circle had
only casual connection, as supplying records for analysis.
For the moment they were all voces et prceterea nihil
In the early summer Jenkin went to Paris to act as
juror in the Exhibition, taking Stevenson with him as
secretary. I had many letters from Jenkin in Paris,
but none were written by the secretary. Later in that
year I went to Japan and saw Louis no more. In
1879 the sequence of plays was resumed with Antony
and Cleopatra, concerning which Jenkin wrote to me
in October as follows :
'I suppose we sent you playbills of Antony and
Cleopatra, but on my word I do not remember what
we did or did not write. It was marvellously successful
against all the predictions of our company. Never,
never, did I see a more amusing sight than the faces of
the company when they were told what the play was
to be and which parts they were to have. I read the
play as curtailed and arranged to the gloomiest audience
ever collected. Hole and Louis Stevenson got up a
little conspiracy to get it thrown over, because, as they
said, the part was not good enough for Mrs Jenkin.
This is a little condensed but not exaggerated. Then
Hole thought Enobarbus was not a part. Then another
most daring idea was letting Lewis Campbell, who had
never acted in his life, take Antony. This was
atrociously bold, but we had heard him read Shylock
so well that we decided he was our best chance, and
he at least was partly happy, but all his friends ex-
plained to him that he was a perfect idiot to try, and
that in fact he was making an old fool of himself, so his
pleasure was not unalloyed. Then twenty-eight people
were required in all, and all their dresses had to be
122 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
designed and arranged, and of course they all thought
they would be guys. And when Hole first appeared he
certainly was, and he was furious when I told him the
dress was very unbecoming, although he had himself told
me it was horrible. However I polished him up till
he was quite beautiful and strutted with enormous
satisfaction to himself and with the approval of the
house. Indeed I got all the men to look very well,
which is difficult with classical costume. I went for
bare knees and arms a la Highlander. This made an
immense difference from the usual stage Roman. Then
I gave them all long handsome buff boots laced up the
front (as high as a Highlander's stocking). This looked
noble, and with the properly cut tunics a la Alma
Tadema, and tremendous Saga (or military cloaks),
swords, belts, helmets, and so forth, it was gorgeous,
and they all felt it so, and held up their heads instead
of sneaking about like supernumeraries. Mrs Jenkin
was incredibly fine : it is of no use trying to describe it.
The fifth Act and the end of the fourth were the finest
things she has done yet. The scene where the
messenger brings the news from Rome of Antony's
marriage was the one which each night secured the
success of the play Scene V., Act II. Up to that
time people were pleased and, to their own amazement,
interested, but this scene was something for which they
were so wholly unprepared that the excitement became
tremendous. Cleopatra was swathed in a sort of huge
shawl of dusky purple and had on an Egyptian-looking
head-dress of Cretan embroidery. Her dash at the
messenger was one of the finest things in athletics you
ever saw : it fairly frightened people, let alone Mr
M. C. Smith himself, who however got used to it
but for rage you never saw anything like it. Then the
banqueting scene acted uncommonly well. Kunz was
an admirable Lepidus and young Charles Hallard sang
the song to a good old tune found by Hole. It made
both a lively and a most picturesque scene. Lewis
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 123
Campbell was better than any one else we could have
had as Antony and acted with great fire. He was not
however very successful with the audience. Ifi^vould
be a long business to analyse the why. However he
in no way spoilt the play, and any one else we could
command would have done so. All my twenty-eight
came round (except Louis Stevenson, who was ill and
had to go away and never saw it), and in the end I
never had so enthusiastic a company. At the supper
Hole made me the sweetest speech, thanking me for
having made him successful at last, and we were all
extremely happy. Your part was taken by five people
one to each Act but the five were not worth you.
, . . Austin [his eldest son] did a small part extremely
well. We do not see that anything in the world is
left for us to do now.'
However, they did find something, for next year
(May 1880) he wrote to me of the Agamemnon, in which
Mrs Jenkin took the two parts Cassandra and Clytem-
nestra : * Our plays are successfully over. Mrs Jenkin
surpassed herself. The Cassandra was more popular
than the Clytemnestra beauty being more appreciated
than the rather objectionable power of the murdering
woman. I had a triumph too in being able to show
some learned friends that a dress-rehearsal audience of
artisans and servants could be powerfully moved by a
Greek play. Scholars have a way of thinking these
productions beautiful but dull, and are almost insulted
when told that any one but a scholar can admire them,
whereas often the scholar has never seen at all what is
most admirable in them the human nature. Austin
came out with extraordinary vigour. His mother's
talent is now showing in him and he did much of the
impossible part of the First Citizen quite admirably. . . .
I have acquired the art of beard-making from an ancient
Jew supporter of the house of Nathan. I am a very
promising pupil of his.' And in November : * We
repeated the Agamemnon in London before some very
124 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
distinguished audiences and had a great success. (Most
of my actors new there).'
In 1882 the play was Griselda, one written by him-
self, which was afterwards published among his Collected
Papers. In December he wrote to me again : ' I am
desperately busy over Telpherage. . . . Also we are
getting up plays: the Andromache and the Merry
Wives, much cut down.'
Finally, in January 1884 (the year before Jenkin
died), they gave De Musset's May Night and October
Night, along with scenes from The Rivals and a revival,
after an interval of thirteen years, of Lajoiefait peur,
in which the Professor played the part of an old servant
' most beautifully.' In July of that year I remember
going with him in London to see a trial matine'e of
Deacon Brodie. We sat beside Bob Stevenson. Louis
was not there, but Henley hobbled on to the stage
to take the call. The play had no more than a succes
d'estime.
Let no one suppose, from the prominence given to
the plays in these notes, that such parerga took Jenkin's
attention away from more serious matters. All the
while he was Carrying on a busy professional life, teach-
ing, inventing, writing, researching, preaching a gospel
of sanitary houses, steering with conspicuous success
a rich argosy of patents past the rocks and shallows of
possible infringement and litigation. The letter that
told me about the Agamemnon contains the following
passage :
4 Thanks for the congratulations on the Keith Medal
and for your opinion on the paper.* I took the medal
with a good conscience, for I confess to being proud of
that paper. I have just done, all but the index, a little
book on Electricity. The bigger one has now been trans-
lated into German as well as Italian. A French edition
* A highly original paper on Applications of Graphic Methods (reprinted
in his Collected Papers, vol. ii.), which received the Keith Gold Medal of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh for the period 1877-79.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 125
is coming out too, all which makes me wish I had
taken more pains with the original, especially in arrange-
ment and wording. You will be amused to hear that
with Jameson's assistance I still potter on at the old
heat-engine . . .' The letter goes on to discuss ex-
periments and cable business.
The last meeting with Louis that I recollect was in
the summer of 1878, when Jenkin asked us both to
dinner to meet Mr Taiso Masaki, a Japanese official
who had come to Edinburgh in search of a professor
for the University of Tokyo and had swept me into his
net. Mr Masaki told us the story of an early hero of
the Japanese renaissance Yoshida Torajiro a story of
patriotism and adventure, of sustained struggle and
frustrated hopes. Louis was deeply stirred. He made
some notes, got Mr Masaki to supplement them later,
and finally wrote the story out as no one but he could
have done. He tells there how the young Yoshida,
when in prison and soon to be led to execution, took
heart on hearing the words of the classic poem :
It is better to be a crystal and be broken,
Than to remain perfect as a tile upon the housetop.
Did these words, I wonder, appeal to Stevenson as a
motto which might have application to his own short
life?
Louis STEVENSON IN EDINBURGH.
FLORA MASSON, R.R.C.
MY first recollection of Louis Stevenson is a hazy
one, dating back to a bitterly cold winter in the
'seventies, when all Edinburgh was skating on
Duddingston Loch. My brother, Orme Masson, and I
were there one day, more or less with the Fleeming
Jenkins ; but Professor and Mrs Jenkin almost always
skated together, on a little well-swept oval of ice,
126 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
which seemed to have become their special property.
Mrs Jenkin, easily tired, used to kneel in the centre of
this, looking, in her close-fitting winter garb, the out-
line of profile against the white banks and jagged frozen
reeds, the hands held in front of her in the small muff',
rather like an effigy against the wall of an old church.
And the Professor described wonderful figures round
about his kneeling wife, circling and pirouetting by
himself till she seemed to be rested, when they took
hands again. Louis Stevenson came and went about
them, skating alone ; a slender, dark figure with a
muffler about his neck ; darting in and out among the
crowd, and disappearing and reappearing like a melan-
choly minnow among the tall reeds that fringe the
Loch. I remember that we walked home, several of
us together, but not Professor and Mrs Jenkin, by
the Queen's Park and Arthur's Seat all white with
snow. Louis Stevenson came part of the way with us,
walking a little separate from us, it was a case, with us
all, of heads down against a biting north-east wind,
and then turned off, by himself, across the snow, some-
where about St Leonard's, towards the Old Town.
My next recollection is a much more vivid one ; of a
dinner-party, at the house of Louis Stevenson's parents,
in Heriot Row ; one of those ' young dinners ' that were
rather prevalent in Edinburgh at that time. It was a
pleasant little dinner, of twelve or fourteen. One or
two sisters and brothers had come together; all were
young members of families of the Edinburgh society
of that day, and some were more or less intimates
in the house in Heriot Row. It was my first visit
there, and the first grown-up dinner-party at which I
can remember being present.
Diagonally opposite, across the flowers and silver of
that hospitable dining-table, I could see Sir Walter
Simpson on Mrs Stevenson's right hand; and I have
still in my memory the picture of the pretty mother,
sitting at the head of her table, gently vivacious, and of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 127
the young Sir Walter, somewhat languidly attentive to
her all dinner-time.
Our end of the table was, to me, almost uncom-
fortably brilliant. Mr Stevenson had taken me in, and
Louis Stevenson was on my other side. Father and
son both talked, taking diametrically opposite points
of view on all things under the sun. Mr Stevenson
seemed to me, on that evening, to be the type of the
kindly, orthodox Edinburgh father. We chatted of
nice, concrete, comfortable things, such as the Scottish
Highlands in autumn ; and in a moment of Scottish
fervour he quoted I believe sotto voce a bit of a
versified psalm. But Louis Stevenson, on my other
side, was on that evening in one of his most recklessly
brilliant moods. His talk was almost incessant. I
remember feeling quite dazed at the amount of in-
tellection he expended on each subject, however trivial
in itself, that we touched upon. He worried it, as a
dog might worry a rat, and then threw it off lightly, as
some chance word or allusion set him thinking, and
talking, of something else. The father's face at certain
moments was a study an indescribable mixture of
vexation, fatherly pride and admiration, and sheer
bewilderment at the boy's brilliant flippancies, and
the quick young thrusts of his wit and criticism.
Our talk turned on realism as a duty of the novelist.
Louis Stevenson had been reading Balzac. He was
fascinated by Balzac ; steeped in Balzac. It was as if
he had left Balzac and all his books locked up in some
room upstairs had turned the key on him, with a
' Stay there, my dear fellow, and I '11 come back as soon
as I can get away from this dinner ! '
I knew nothing about Balzac, and I believe I said so;
I remember being sorry, and rather ashamed, that I did
not know ; and Louis Stevenson began telling me
about Balzac, and about his style and vocabulary ; and
I felt grateful to the father for at least appearing to
know as little about Balzac as I did, and to care even
128 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
less. It may have been Balzac's vocabulary that set
us talking about the English language ; the father and
son debated, with some heat, the subject of word-
coinage and the use of modern slang. Mr Stevenson
upheld the orthodox doctrine of a ' well of English un-
defiled,' which of course made Louis Stevenson rattle
off with extraordinary ingenuity whole sentences
composed of words of foreign origin taken into our
language from all parts of the world words of the
East, of classical Europe, of the West Indies, and
modern American slang. By a string of sentences
he proved the absurdity of such a doctrine, and indeed
its practical impossibility. It was a real feat in the
handling of language, and I can see to this day his look
of pale triumph. The father was silenced ; but for a
moment he had been almost tearfully in earnest. One
could see it was not a matter of mere vocabulary with
him.
Everybody now knows how strongly attached, for all
their antagonisms of temperament, this father and son
were to one another ; but on the evening of this little
dinner-party we were all living only ' in this thy day/
We have Louis Stevenson's own word for it. ' Since
I have been away,' he wrote long afterwards, ' I have
found out for the first time how I love that man/
In the drawing-room upstairs, after dinner, there was
a change in the atmospheric conditions. I sat with
Mrs Stevenson on a sofa on one side of the fire ; and
when the men came in there was no more argument,
nor, indeed, any brilliant talk. Louis Stevenson stood,
facing us, listening to the talk and laughter of others,
a slight, boyish figure, with a pale face and luminous
eyes, one of a little group of men in the centre of
the room. And certainly on that occasion Louis
Stevenson wore ordinary, conventional evening-dress
' But not exprest in fancy.' Mr Charles Baxter
brought a small chair, and sat down on it in front of
the sofa where Mrs Stevenson and I were sitting ; and,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 129
tilting the chair backwards, he broke off a piece of the
wood, and instead of seeming sorry or apologetic,
handed it with mock gravity to Mrs Stevenson : * My
dear Mrs Stevenson,' he said, 'this is what comes of
having cheap furniture ! '
Louis Stevenson, from where he stood, watched
this performance, but took no notice of it ; and Mrs
Stevenson, with a glance round her drawing-room,
laughed a contented little laugh, and laid the offending
bit of walnut wood on the arm of the sofa beside her.
As everybody knows, Louis Stevenson was only
intermittently in Edinburgh during the years that fol-
lowed ; its ' icy winds and conventions ' always drove
him away. He never looked really well or happy there,
and I believe he owed some of his lightest-hearted
hours to the friendship of Professor and Mrs Jenkin.
One can scarcely imagine what he would have done or
been without them. Certainly it is impossible to recall
the Louis Stevenson of the 'seventies except as one a
favoured one of that delightful Jenkin coterie.
Edinburgh has greatly changed since those days.
When people launch on amateur theatricals now, they
do it on a large scale, taking one of the theatres. But
I doubt if these performances are as much an event, in
the Edinburgh of to-day, as those dear old 'private
theatricals ' were, to which we were so hospitably in-
vited in Professor and Mrs Jenkin's own house ; where
the audiences were packed, night after night, into the
dining-room, and the wall between the dining-room
and the room behind it was made to ' let down ' in
some mysterious way to form a stage, with a real
curtain and footlights, and what not. And each
successive winter there was the same pleasant secrecy
as to ' what it was going to be this year ' ; if it were to
be ' something of Shakespeare's ', or * from the Greek ',
or ' something new.' The members of the little com-
pany were always very loyal in keeping up the mystery
to the last possible moment ; and then, when it leaked
R L.S. T
130 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
out, there was always the important question, * Which
night are you asked for ? ' And afterwards there were
no less important comments and criticisms, which indeed
continued to crop up in conversation till a fresh fall of
snow heralded the approach of our Edinburgh summer.
And with all this I fear we were not always grateful
enough for the immense amount of trouble that was
taken to teach us what dramatic art might be under
the domestic roof!
Louis Stevenson was not one of the chief actors
in that little company. Yet, there are people who
remember his Orsino in Twelfth Night the slender
figure in the * splendid Francis I. clothes, heavy with
gold and stage jewellery,' and the satisfied languor of
his opening words :
* If Music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again ! it had a dying fall.'
In one of his letters of this date he describes the per-
formance with some humility, and the ' thrill of admira-
tion ' provided every night by * me and the clothes.'
There was always a * Servants' night,' and the Heriot
Row cook, it seems, had told Mrs Stevenson that she
and the housemaid were 'just prood to be able to say
that it was oor young gentleman.'
But it was not so much the play that Louis
Stevenson enjoyed, nor even the ' thrill of admiration '
in successive audiences, as to 'sup afterwards with
those clothes on ', amid all the Shakespearian wit and
raillery and badinage that circulated about that supper-
table. That,' he wrote, ' is something to live for.'
At the end of one of those performances of Twelfth
Night, when the audience was thronging into the hall,
and the carriages were being called at the front door
in stentorian tones, we saw Louis Stevenson's mother
making her way out alone, her pretty face still radiant
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 131
with maternal pride. Louis Stevenson, one of a little
group of the performers who were waiting, I suppose,
' to sup afterwards with those clothes on,' was looking
down over the balustrade, half-way up the staircase.
But in a moment he was down among the departing
guests ; wrapped his mother's cloak with an infinite
tenderness about her, and then, escaping from the
crowd's admiring eyes, fled up the staircase again. I
can still see the upward look of adoration his mother
gave him, as she went on her way among the departing
guests, triumphant.
There are some humorous recollections of Louis
Stevenson in the green-room. On one occasion I saw
him walking up and down a little bit of the big
drawing-room, looking each time he passed, in a dreamy,
rather detached way, into a mirror that was hung
on the line of sight. It was as if he were acting to
himself being an actor; and then, apparently quite
unconscious of the presence of others, he brought
carmine and powder and began making himself up,
peering gravely close into the little glass.
Another time he fell to disputing with a bigger and
altogether more muscular member of the company as
to which of the two could claim to have the larger
girth of calf. Louis Stevenson was under the impres-
sion that his own was the larger ; and so in earnest was
he, and so anxious to prove his case, that he actually
fetched an inch-tape, and his muscular friend found
himself inveigled into kneeling upon the drawing-room
carpet, while each, with much solemnity, took the exact
measurements of the other's calf !
But once Louis Stevenson surpassed himself. It
was in Greek tragedy. The curtain had fallen on a
powerful and moving scene, amid the applause of the
audience, and the stage was left in the possession of
two of the young actors Mr Hole and my brother
both in Greek garb. In a momentary reaction after so
much unrelieved tragedy, these two, oblivious of their
132 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
classic draperies, threw themselves into one another's
arms, performed a rapid war-dance, and then flung
themselves on to opposite ends of a couch at the back
of the stage, with their feet meeting in a kind of
triumphal arch in the centre. Louis Stevenson, who had
been officiating at the curtain, took one look at them.
He touched a spring and up went the curtain again.
The audience, scarcely recovered from the tragic
scene on which the curtain had fallen, gave one gasp
of amazement, and then broke into a roar of applause.
That roar was the first thing that showed the two
luckless acrobats that something had happened. They
leapt to their feet only to see the curtain fall once
more. Professor Jenkin, who was host and stage-
manager in one, had been watching this particular
portion of the play from the front. Without a word,
he left his seat and went behind the scenes. ' Mr
Stevenson/ he said, with icy distinctness, ' I shall ask
you to give me a few minutes in my own room.'
Anybody who ever saw Louis Stevenson can imagine
the little enigmatic flutter of a smile, the deprecatory
bend of the head, with which he followed the Professor.
What happened in that stage-manager's room ? There
was some trepidation among the members of the com-
pany, and a furtive whisper circulated among them :
' Can it be corporal punishment ? ' And there was a
general feeling of relief when Louis Stevenson saun-
tered into the drawing-room with a look of absolute
unconcern.
But one of the little company the brilliant, charm-
ing, irrepressible Leila Scot-Skirving (afterwards Mrs
Maturin) was interested enough to linger behind the
others, and to waylay Louis Stevenson as he left the
Professor's room. I am indebted to her brother, Mr
A. A. Scot-Skirving, for the end of this anecdote.
' What happened ? ' she whispered ; and Louis
Stevenson whispered back : ' The very worst ten min-
utes I ever experienced in the whole course of my life ! '
ROBEET LOUIS STEVENSON. 133
It was in two days of March 1878 that there was a
big Bazaar in the Music Hall in Edinburgh, to raise
a sum of money for a University Cricket Field.
Professor Jenkin and Mr Ewing now Sir Alfred
Ewing, Principal of the University had been reading
in the Times a paragraph describing Edison's invention,
and as * Something fell to be done for a University
Cricket Ground Bazaar ', as R. L. S. has expressed it,
the idea occurred to them to have a phonograph made
in Edinburgh, by a firm of gas engineers who used to
do experimental work for them, and exhibit it at the
Bazaar. It was a memorable moment when the instru-
ment was brought finished to Mr Ewing, and he first
heard the magic small voice. Louis Stevenson called
this phonograph ' a toy that touched the skirts of life,
art and science, a toy prolific of problems and theories ' ;
and indeed as soon as Professor Jenkin and Mr Ewing
heard it articulate they began to use it for their own
scientific work ; but meantime it was the great feature
of the Bazaar. Two phonographs had been made, one
of which was raffled. Sir William Thomson (Lord
Kelvin) was exceedingly anxious to obtain it, and
bought a great many raffle tickets and he won it. In
a room off the gallery in the Music Hall (admission
one shilling) Professor Jenkin and Mr Ewing took
turns to give lecturettes, with experiments, on the
phonograph. < It is the realisation ' so runs the little
old handbill 'of Baron Munchausen's horn, only
more so.' In another room (admission half-a-crown)
Mrs Jenkin presided, exhibiting the other phonograph
to visitors, who were allowed to speak to it and hear
the repetition of their own voices, and herself speaking
to it a repertoire of previously rehearsed sentences
which had been found specially successful for the
purpose. Among these, I remember, were Hamlet's
' What 's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba ? ' which the
little voice repeated with dutiful precision, and the
phrase of the moment, the British sentiment which had
134 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
caught on, ' We don't want to fight, but by Jingo if
we do ! ' which gave away the phonograph completely,
as a militarist of the deepest dye.
Some of us were there, giving assistance of the 'Walk
up, ladies and gentlemen!' order; and my recollection
is that Louis Stevenson came and went, watching the
performance with an amused smile, more interested in
the human by-play of it all than in the science of the
toy. For did he not write later that he and Mr Hole
treated the phonograph 'with unscientific laughter,
commemorating various shades of Scotch accent, or
proposing to " teach the poor dumb animal to swear " ? '
And in that room off the gallery in the Music Hall
there was plenty of by-play to amuse us all. I remem-
ber two ladies, apparently sisters, stately and demure,
dressed alike in black spangled with sequins, who
listened earnestly to Mrs Jenkin's mellifluous ' What 's
Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba ? '
* Ah, what indeed ! ' said one of the ladies, softly ;
and the other lady murmured : ' There seems to be no
immediate response ! '
And there was the burly, farmer-looking man, who
threw down his half-crown and made for the instru-
ment and then stepped back, overcome by a sudden
shyness. Mrs Jenkin hastened to the rescue with the
unfailing question about Hecuba; but it was evident
that to him, at any rate, Hecuba was nothing. He
scorned Hecuba. The Jingo sentiment was more to
his taste ; but he wanted to speak for himself, to hear
his own voice speak back to him. Once more he made
a nervous plunge, pulling up his cuffs, as if he were
going to fight the phonograph ; and at last he bellowed
into it with a mighty voice : ' What a wonderrrful
instrrrument y' arrre ! '
And back came the small Puckish voice, delightedly :
' What a wonderrrful instrrrument y' arrre ! '
The burly man literally flushed and paled. * It 's no
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 135
canny ! ' he muttered, turned on his heel, and fled. I
can hear to this day the light-hearted laughter and
applause that followed him.
It was a good many years after all this had happened
that one day, early in summer, I was walking with
Leila Maturin in Princes Street. There had been
great changes in Edinburgh. It had, of course, for
some time seen very little of Louis Stevenson. And
that brilliant coterie, of which he had been one of the
most brilliant members, was broken up, dissolved. The
survivors of that little company had gone on their
various ways I, too, had been away from Edinburgh
all had found their work in a busy world. Louis
Stevenson's father, the dear old Scotsman with his
strong fervours and prejudices, had been laid to his
rest.
An open cab, with a man and woman in it, seated
side by side, and leaning back the rest of the cab
piled high with rather untidy luggage came slowly
towards us, westward, along Princes Street. It was
evidently carrying travellers to the railway station.
As it passed us, out on the broad roadway (for Princes
Street in the 'Eighties was not what it is to-day), a
slender, loose-garbed figure stood up in the cab and
waved a wide- brimmed hat.
' Good-bye ! ' he called to us. ' Good-bye ! '
' It is Louis Stevenson ! ' said my companion ; * they
must be going away again.'
Was this the Louis Stevenson of the 'Seventies, the
boy who played truant from the college classes, the
* queer, lank lad in a velvet coat ' whose brilliant talk
had so perplexed and charmed us ?
This figure, standing up in the open cab, waving the
wide-brimmed hat, was an older man, an invalid, a
wanderer ; a man who had felt warmer sun's rays than
ever warm Edinburgh stones, and had, I am sure, battled
136 ROBERT Lotris STEVENSON.
with harder winds than ever blow in Edinburgh. This
was Louis Stevenson, the brilliant and distinguished
Man of Letters of whom his native City was very
proud.
The cab passed. The gray vista of our Northern
Capital, the long line of Princes Street, was at its very
best as Louis Stevenson looked back at it and us, over
the back of the open cab, still waving his hat and
calling * Good-bye ! ' That little bit of west-endy, east-
windy Edinburgh, with the gray and green of the
Castle Rock and the gardens on the one side, and
Princes Street itself, glittering in the sunshine, on
the other! It was Edinburgh's last sight of Louis
Stevenson, and Louis Stevenson's last look back at the
City that was his birthplace, in which he had been so
happy and so miserable ; that he had chafed against
and railed at ; that he was to write about and dream
about in exile, and to love immeasurably to the end.
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
OWEN SCOT-SKIRVING.
MY earliest recollection of Robert Louis Stevenson
dates from the time when I, as a boy of about
fifteen, used to see him striding along Heriot
Row; his age was then, probably, about twenty-one.
Even to my boyish eyes he appeared a very striking
figure.
I have seen it stated, by some one who probably
knew him better than I did, that he had dark hair, also
that he was ugly ; but my impression is that in those
early days he had fair hair, almost yellow, worn rather
long ; but the hair perhaps looked lighter than it really
was in contrast to his dark eyes. He appeared to me
handsome, certainly not ugly.
His dress was artistic and unconventional. He wore
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 137
a black velvet coat with, I think, a white football jersey
showing underneath.
When I was older, I used to see Stevenson in the
Political Economy class at the University. At that
time another frequenter of the benches of the same
class-room was Dr Wallace, then minister of Old
Grey Friars, and afterwards editor of the Scotsman;
and I used to feel proud to consider myself a fellow-
student, not only of our hero R. L. S., but of one
whose sermons and ministrations I listened to on
Sundays.
No doubt both of these highly intellectual men
assimilated more thoroughly than I did the wisdom
enunciated from the Chair, and appreciated more readily
the aphorisms posted on the walls of the class-room :
The man a better merchant,
The merchant a better man.
Only by labour can thought be made healthy,
Only by thought can labour be made happy.
Subsequently it was my good fortune to meet Louis
Stevenson at Professor Fleeming Jenkin's theatricals in
Fettes Row, where the Jenkins then lived.
These theatricals were an annual function, in Fettes
Row and afterwards in the house in Great Stuart
Street to which Professor Jenkin had moved, each
house in turn being converted into a miniature theatre,
the wall between dining-room and library being made
to fold down to form a stage.
The Professor was stage-manager, and as such he
collected a singularly able company of amateur actors,
most of them being people of note, not the least of
whom was Robert Louis Stevenson. Mrs Jenkin was
usually principal lady.
My friends may wonder, as I myself have often
wondered, how / came to be amongst such a galaxy of
clever people ; but I may explain that from the first I
138 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
declined to take any part that required histrionic talent
call-boy, or a very tiny part, heing my metier.
Most of us were greatly in awe of the stage-manager ;
but I do not think R. L. S. was afraid of him or of
any one else.
On one occasion, finding he would be late for rehearsal,
Stevenson sent his card with written thereon: 'Wait
not for the withered rose bud.'
My sister was one of the performers at most of these
plays her parts were not, like mine, insignificant and
sometimes, after rehearsal, Louis Stevenson walked
home with her and me. Needless to say he did not
walk in the opposite direction from his home for the
pleasure of my society.
We have a crayon picture by an artist forebear of a
rather uninteresting boy; underneath the artist has
written : * La sorella di quello e bella.' Probably for a
somewhat similar reason R. L. S. tolerated my presence !
On one of these occasions when Stevenson walked
home with us we invited him in. We found the
household had gone to bed, so we could not offer much
in the way of hospitality. We discovered, however,
scones, jam, and milk ; and on this stimulating refresh-
ment R. L. S. got quite hilarious, so much so, that I
said, ' Look out ! You will have the Governor down.'
My words were prophetic, as almost immediately we
heard a door open upstairs.
I am rather vague, now, as to what happened. We
expected each moment to see an irate, white-robed
parent; but only a voice from above reached us an
angry voice, demanding who we were and why we were
making a disturbance at such an hour. To this R. L. S.,
quite undaunted, replied: 'It's only me, sir; I am
having small beer with your son.'
The voice from above said : * You should be in your
beds,' and the door of the now mollified parent then
shut, and our spirits revived.
The above incident found expression in St Ives, in
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 139
the scene where the girl and boy hide the escaped
French prisoner in an outhouse at their home near
Edinburgh, and bring him into the house at night to be
fed, and while the feast is in progress a white-robed and
indignant aunt appears on the scene, much to the dis-
comfiture of the young people.
The Jenkin plays were performed before crowded
audiences on three consecutive nights. After the last
performance there was always a charming actors' supper,
whereat there was ' a feast of reason and a flow of soul/
Notwithstanding the lapse of nearly half-a-century
most of it, for me, lived under the sun of the now
changing East the remembrance of one such supper,
at which Louis Stevenson was present, remains to me
undimmed, a vivid and delightful memory.
Nearly all of those who were seated at that festive
board were exceptionally gifted and brilliant, and some
were beautiful. The wine sparkled, and eyes sparkled
even more than the wine. There were songs and
speeches scintillating with wit and Stevenson spoke,
from the exuberance of his joyous heart, winged words
and felicitous fancies, with fluent tongue and mobile
lips, while the soul within shone from large luminous
eyes that entranced and fascinated.
Of those who were gathered round that cheerful table
Eossibly I alone remain, the others may all, perhaps,
ave passed * over unto the other side.'
When I remember all
The friends so linked together
I Ve seen around me fall,
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted.
The eyes that shone
Now dimmed and gone
.
And all but he departed.
140 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Those who had the privilege of knowing Robert
Louis Stevenson and who still survive will ever cherish
an unfading remembrance of his wonderful and glowing
personality, while his written word, in prose and verse,
will live for all time to enchant generations yet unborn.
Two RECOLLECTIONS OF R. L. S.
SARAH E. SIDDONS MAIR, LL.D.
WHEN I call up remembrance of Robert Louis
Stevenson 'to the sessions of sweet silent
thought ' the man himself apart from his writ-
ings two scenes present themselves to my mind's eye.
The one is in the drawing-room of his dear friends
Professor and Mrs Fleeming Jenkin, in their first
Edinburgh home in Fettes Row.
There he stood up, a mere youth, glowing with
poetic fervour, to recite a famous passage from The
Frogs of Aristophanes. I always remember the Pro-
fessor's emphatic whisper to my brother, by whom I
was accompanied : ' Listen to that boy ; he will be some-
body yet,' or words to that effect. Truly the Professor
was a Prophet that night.
The other rather later and more vivid scene stages
itself in my Mother's drawing-room in Chester Street
some forty-seven years ago, when a happy charade party
amused themselves and the on-lookers by acting the
two words Shy and Lock, and then, greatly venturing
with portraits of Kembles and Siddonses looking down
on them from the walls, summed up their charade in a
representation of the Trial Scene from the Merchant of
Venice. How well I recall that group ! There stood
Portia, my presumptuous self, pleading with the Jew
(the late drama-loving Lord Kingsburgh, then Dean of
Faculty), accompanied by the sprightly lawyer's clerk
(Miss M. Dundas), and there Bassanio (the then young
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 141
rising architect, Mr Sydney Mitchell), eager to offer
' twice the sum ' ; and there, too, Gratiano (the late
Mr Alec Burnett- Crathes), with witty jibes badgering
the unhappy Jew ; and amidst them all, with gentle
grace, the poetic figure of R. L. S. is seen bending
slightly forward to address the Court in sweet, clear
accents, declaring himself to be * a tainted wether of the
flock meetest for death,' who grieves not to give his life
for his friend.
It was all very simply done one end of the room
being merely marked off as stage by a white tape on
the carpet, and gowns and wigs lent by lawyer friends
there being no lady M.A.'s or B.Sc.'s or honorary
LL.D.'s from whom to borrow in those benighted days !
But for the fact of R. L. S. taking part, all memory of
the little charade would probably long ere now have
fled ' forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day.'
IRRESISTIBLY COMIC.
MRS HOLE.
I have heard so often of the sayings and doings
of Louis Stevenson from my husband, who,
in the early Edinburgh days, knew and loved
him well, that it is somewhat difficult to disentangle
what I have been told from what I personally
remember.
I have, however, one clear memory of him which I
am glad to give you. I seem to see him now in the
drawing-room at 3 Great Stuart Street one evening long
ago. Mrs Jenkin had conceived the idea that Samson
Agonistes might be dramatically treated, so she called
together her little band of actors to see what could be
done with it.
My husband was assigned the part of * Samson,' Mrs
Jenkin took * Delilah,' Professor Jenkin ' Manoah,' and
142 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
R. L. S. * Chorus.' My husband rejoiced in his role,
and, as his habit was, memorised it, though I think it
meant learning six hundred lines. We met with a
gravity befitting the occasion I can see us now, a
rather solemn company and the work of the evening
began.
The poem went on in its stately cadences, the
' Manoah ' had read one of his speeches, then ' Chorus '
broke in. I do not know whether it was a spirit of
mischief, or the sense of the ridiculous that waits on
the sublime, which possessed him ; but, after making
a fair start standing in the middle of the room, a
striking, slim figure Louis suddenly threw down the
book, and laughed and laughed and laughed. It over-
set us all, naturally ; but Mr Hole quietly waited till
order was in some sense restored, and then went on
with his great lines to the end.
* I had worked hard over them, I was not going to
forego the pleasure of rendering them,' he said.
I think any one else but Mr Stevenson would have
been quietly rebuked by our hostess for his wild inter-
ruption to our serious task. But R. L. S. was R. L. S.
That is all that need be said !
It seems very remote and far away now. But they
were keen and eager spirits that made up that little
company, and the memory lives vividly with me to-day.
IMPRESSIONS.
SIR WILLIAM A. HERDMAN, C.B.E., F.R.S., LL.D.
MY acquaintance with Robert Louis Stevenson
was of the slightest and dates far back, in the
'seventies, when I was an Academy school-boy
and he, I suppose, a student at the University, or
possibly just beyond that stage. We only met twice
or thrice, and always in the company of others. I
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 143
never spoke to him, and I don't suppose he was
conscious of my existence, although he knew my
parents ; but, as a small shy boy hiding behind others,
or from a safe corner, I gazed upon him in a sort of
fascination and was immensely impressed. The im-
pression was a most vivid and lasting one. I can shut
my eyes now and see him as the central and dominating
and one distinct figure in a crowd none of whom are
now recognisable although I probably knew most of
them at the time. I have never seen him since those
early days, and what I remember to have noticed then
was a slim active figure, bright peculiar-looking eyes
that fascinated me, and the mobile mouth to which all
the people round him seemed listening. I don't know
what the occasion was some kind of afternoon gather-
ing in a drawing-room and I do not think I knew
who he was till afterwards, but his personality was
the one thing there that attracted and riveted my
attention.
Then, about the same period, I saw Stevenson a
couple of times acting in the excellent amateur
theatricals got up by Professor and Mrs Fleeming
Jenkin at their house in Edinburgh. I remember him
in more than one play, but the one that stands out in
my memory is The Frogs of Aristophanes, where he
was one of the rival poets J^schylus and Euripedes
contending in Hades for the judgment of Pluto as to
which had been the greater man in Athens, and I recall
the air of pride and conscious superiority with which he
declaimed his verses, pouring forth line after line with
increasing triumph as the scale descended in his favour
I thought it great ! No doubt there were greater
things that I missed. The only point of these early
recollections of nearly fifty years ago is that they show
how R. L. Stevenson when a youth impressed a small
school-boy and one moreover of rather a scientific
and practical turn of mind not much given to hero-
worship.
144 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
BERNARD M. JENKIN.
Extract from a Letter.
DEAR Miss MASSON, I have received your letter
about the Louis Stevenson Club. My recollec-
tions of Louis are only those of a very small boy,
as I never saw him after the days when he came to our
house in Edinburgh and joined in the acting there. I
fear therefore they are of no use for the volume.
Though I have a vivid picture in my mind of the
peculiar expression of his face when talking on one
occasion to my Mother, it is difficult to put it into
words, the fun, vivacity, courteousness and daring
curiously blended, with a smile that was enchanting,
the more so perhaps because the corners of his mouth
turned down, as I recollect it, and his eyes smiled even
more than his mouth. Of what the talk was about I
have no idea, no doubt I was too young to understand,
but I know I sat enchanted watching the play of
expression in his face. . . .
RECOLLECTIONS.
CONSTANCE BARCLAY.
MY father knew the Stevensons well and always
took an interest in Louis, but I am afraid we
young people were rather shy of cultivating his
acquaintance because of his eccentric appearance in those
early days.
My sister declares she perfectly remembers seeing
him at a roller-skating rink clad in a velveteen tunic
bound with scarlet, stretched upon a bench, reposing
after his exertions ! And I too vaguely recall the lanky
figure throwing long arms about in the melee.
We did, however, once come into closer contact when
he took the leading part in a French play we had trans-
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 145
lated. It was not a costume play, but Stevenson took
the dressing-up seriously and studied effects at the
mirror so often that another man in the piece far from
attributing it to the dramatic instinct was irritated to
the point of playing a practical joke upon him which
went near to wreck the whole performance. During
our few rehearsals this man lounged through his part,
offering a colourless foil to Louis, who had the beau
role ; but when the evening came he astonished us all
and convulsed us with laughter by a daring piece of
comic characterisation make-up included which en-
tirely took the wind out of Louis's sails and confused
him so much that he could hardly remember his own
part. It was too bad ! but not even Louis could help
laughing, and as far as I heard he never showed any
resentment.
Just one thing in connection with this play may be
really worth recalling, because it is an additional proof
of the way in which Stevenson habitually interested
himself on behalf of his friends. He asked my father
if he would give the fair copying of our translation,
should one be needed, to a man he knew who was ill
and in very low water. That friend was Henley.
R. L. S. AS AN ACTOR.
FRANCES H. SIMSON, M.A.
IN the 'seventies one of the features of Edinburgh
social life was the series of theatrical entertainments
arranged by Professor and Mrs Fleeming Jenkin.
I can remember Robert Louis Stevenson on one
occasion when I was privileged to be included in the
audience. It was in his youthful days, when he had
begun to let his hair grow long and to wear unusual
clothes, and some of his cousins were inclined to look
askance at his vagaries and feel relieved when he was
146 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
out of town. He was not a regular member of the
Fleeming Jenkin troupe, but he was no novice, and
acted well on that occasion. The play was entitled
Art and Nature, and was an adaptation of a well-
known comedy, Masks and Faces, in which Mrs
Stirling, an actress popular in her day, had made her
fame. It had to be toned down a little, a very little,
before the well brought up young person of that
day could be allowed to witness it. Mrs Fleeming
Jenkin took Mrs Stirling's part of Peg Woffington;
the Professor was a broken-down artist, and R. L. S.
a fashionable young fop, Sir Charles Pomander. Miss
Leila Scot-Skirving represented a rustic beauty, Mabel
Chester; the part of Soaper, the flattering art critic,
was taken by Mons. Jules Kunz ; and Captain Duncan
Stewart of the Seaforth Highlanders was his carping
brother critic, Snarl.
Mrs Fleeming Jenkin's acting made the deepest im-
pression on me, but next to her I ranked Robert Louis
Stevenson. His tall slight figure was well set off by
his court suit of pale blue satin, and he played the part
with a gay insolence which made his representation of
the youthful dandy most vivid and convincing.
MRS MACLEOD.
Extract from a Letter.
. . . MRS STEVENSON, R. L. S.'s mother, was an old
friend of my mother's indeed, my mother had
been her bridesmaid. But I did riot really know
R. L. S. at all well, for though I acted in Professor and
Mrs Fleeming Jenkin's representation of Twelfth Night
with him, I did not attend all the rehearsals, as I took
the part of ' Maria ' at two days' notice. I was only
fifteen at the time, and it is one of my great regrets
that I did not like R. L. S. ! Is it not mortifying to
have to confess it ? Of course the judgments of youth
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 147
are always harsh, and especially as regards affectation,
or what seems to youth as such, and I think at that
period he was self-conscious and rather a poseur. He
did not excel as an actor, and was amusingly taken up
with his fine clothes ! Curiously enough my sister
Florence reminded me only the other day that when
I was telling her about the performance on my return
from the Jenkins' that evening, and had repeated what I
considered a fulsome compliment R. L. S. had paid me
after my scene with Sir Toby Belch, I had said to her :
' I wonder, though, if I shall live to be proud of it, as
if Ronsard had paid one a compliment.' So in spite of
not liking him, one may have recognised genius 1
STRAY MEMORIES.
SHERIFF SCOTT MONCRIEFF, F.S.A.
S to my recollections of Stevenson himself, the
occasion when I really saw anything of him
was in 1875, when he and I formed part of an
amateur company which acted Twelfth Night at the
house of Professor Fleeming Jenkin in Great Stuart
Street. Stevenson was the Duke, I was the Captain
and also the Priest. The rehearsals lasted some ten
nights, and each night wound up with a supper, at
which Stevenson shone. At that time he had written
but a few magazine articles, and was still unknown to
fame. But I remember feeling confident that he had
a brilliant future before him.
I remember one summer evening, probably in 1875,
going out to the Hawes Inn, Queensferry, immor-
talised by Scott and Stevenson, as the guest of the
Court of Session Law Reporters, who were having a
dinner there. Lounging at the door of the inn was
a slim figure probably in a velveteen coat certainly
destitute of stockings he was wearing slippers. It was
148 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Stevenson, who was at that time going in for canoeing
in the Forth. He was no doubt asked to be one of our
party, but I do not think he joined us.
As an instance of Stevenson's kindness, I may
mention the following. A friend of mine was anxious
to know the rest of the poem, if it existed, the first and
last lines of which appear in the Master of Ballantrae,
beginning :
Home was home then fall of kindly faces.
My wife wrote out to Samoa, and by return of post
got a kind letter, enclosing the verses not then pub-
lished. This letter, I remember, contained a rebuke
for having N.B. on our paper. This was in 1894, the
last year of his life.
I wish I could tell you more.
R L. S. AND SOME SAVAGES ON AN ISLAND.
GEORGE LISLE.
From CORNHILL MAGAZINE, December 1921.
4 We set off by way of Newhaven and the sea beach ; at first
through pleasant country roads, and afterwards along a succession
of bays of a fairylike prettiness, to our destination Cramond on
the Almond a little hamlet on a little river, embowered in woods,
and looking forth over a great flat of quicksand to where a little
islet stood planted in the sea. It is miniature scenery, but charm-
ing of its kind.' St Ives, Chapter xxx.
rriHESE delightful and appropriate words were dic-
JL tated by R. L. Stevenson six weeks before his
death. They could only have been uttered by
one who had loved Cramond and its surroundings in
his youth, and they recall to me the earnest expression
of his face and the warm love in his voice as he ex-
pressed the same ideas to me long ago. What a genius
Stevenson had when, after long years of absence from
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 149
these scenes, he could so accurately visualise this dis-
trict of country which had charmed him ' when all was
young and fair.'
Cramond Island, or, as it was affectionately called
by those who inhabited it during the summer months
once upon a time, the * Isle of Cramond,' lies in the
Firth of Forth about three-quarters of a mile from the
village of Cramond, which the Romans had held as
an outpost at the termination of one of their many
roads in Scotland. It is no\v within the boundary of
Edinburgh. Dalmeny House is opposite, and the ruins
of Barnbougle Castle, which, even before the castle
was restored, formed a very distinctive feature in the
landscape as seen from the Island towards the west,
where now stands the over- shadowing Forth Bridge.
The legend goes that Lord Rosebery, as a boy, had
often been asked to whom the island belonged, and as
it forms such a conspicuous feature from Dalmeny
House he determined to acquire it ; so he, shortly after
he came of age, purchased it for 2000. The rental of
the place is only about 30, so that the return to his
lordship, after allowing for landlord's taxes, would not
be more than about 1 per cent. About half a century
ago the tenant was a poet from the Borders named
Reid, who had published a volume of fairly good poems.
He, however, let part of the houses which occupy the
centre of the island to summer lodgers ; and for people
staying in Edinburgh no finer holiday resort could have
been found, especially for children. The date of which
I am writing must have been after 1875, because I
find that the copy of Robinson Crusoe, hereafter referred
to, was presented as a prize that year in Mr Henderson's
School, a famous preparatory school in Edinburgh at
that time.
At the top of the island there are the remains of a
cairn which was, no doubt, built by the Picts or other
aborigines and improved by the Romans, but of which
very little now remains. Near this there was a
150 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
favourite outlook tower, and one lovely afternoon of
brilliant sunshine and strong west wind two canoes
were seen by many anxious eyes from this vantage
ground, struggling up the Forth from Granton in the
teeth of the wind. There was a very good telescope
on the island, and this was at once brought to bear
on the canoes, which certainly seemed to be in diffi-
culties. The sea was washing over the tiny craft, but
the occupants were very persevering, and instead of
running before the wind for Granton Harbour, seemed
determined to come to the Island for shelter, although
they were evidently getting exhausted. At one time
they appeared to be in such distress that two flags were
run up the flag-staff on the cairn t3 let the boatman at
Cramond know that he was urgently required. Soon,
however, it was seen that the canoeists were in calm
water, and the S.O.S. signal was withdrawn. The
whole available population of the island w r ere not long
in running down to the rocky south-east shore of the
island to give the shipwrecked mariners a welcome.
The first canoe to land was occupied by a lanky, cada-
verous, black-haired, black-eyed man, apparently six
feet in height but very slim, in a velveteen coat. His
canoe was built of mahogany, with a deck of either
cedar or mahogany ; the other was a canvas canoe of
a somewhat nondescript appearance ; had it got upon
the rocks it would not have lasted long. As I was
the biggest of the lot of wreckers who had come to
welcome them, the canoeists asked me if I would
help them up with their canoes above high-water
mark, as they had had enough sailing for one day
and were badly in need of a rest. I was delighted at
the job, and as I was accustomed to climb among the
rocks and over slippery seaweed, and did not mind
getting myself wet, it was not long before the two
canoes were safely above high -water mark. He of
the canvas canoe immediately lay down to rest in the
sunshine, but the other before doing so thanked me
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 151
in the nicest way possible for my stalwart assistance,
and presented me with a shilling, which I, of course,
with some diffidence and much internal joy, accepted.
The canoeists rested for some time, but were not long
before they completely recovered from their exhaustion,
and then he of the wooden canoe proved to be a wonder-
ful talker, a very easy ' speirer,' and sometimes a very
difficult one to answer. Among other questions he
asked of the half-dozen of us, who were all about the
age of twelve
' What other savages live upon the island ? '
I felt somewhat nettled at being called a savage,
and replied : ' You must have forgotten your Robinson
Crusoe or you would know that it was the savages
who came to the island in canoes. There were no
savages till you came.'
Both voyagers laughed heartily, and he of the
canvas canoe said to the other : ' You 're fairly caught
this time, Louis ! '
In thinking over the matter I rather imagine that it
was after this remark that I got my famous shilling
and not before it. However, they insisted upon
seeing the text of Robinson Crusoe, where the two
canoes and the savages are mentioned. I was too
keen in examining their own boats, as I had neve.r
seen such things before, to go up to the house to get
my Robinson Crusoe ; but Annie Reid, she of the long
pig-tail and blue eyes, always anxious to be the
slave of any one who would employ her, volunteered
to go and fetch the book, which she did, and handed
it over to the unbelieving savages. I thought the
beautiful book, with its brightly coloured frontispiece
of Robinson Crusoe in a red cowl and blue jacket
reading a huge Bible, and many other illustrations
both in colour and in black and white, would impress
the savages, but its effect upon them was far beyond
my expectations. Stevenson gave a war-whoop like a
genuine savage, and exclaimed :
152 ItOBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
' Oh shades of Cocky Henderson and the companions
of my palmy days ! I too was at this school in the
days of my misspent youth.' And then burst out with
great gusto into song :
* Here we suffer grief and pain
Under Mr Hendie's cane.
If you don't obey his laws
He will punish with his tawse.'
This parody was current in the school in my time,
quite recently completed, and had evidently been in
vogue in Stevenson's day at least fifteen years prior.
In fact, Stevenson may have been the author of it.
The awful doggerel may have been part of his merry
muses a preliminary canter to A. Chiltfs Garden of
Verse. He talked much of * Cocky ' Henderson, as
he irreverently was called by some of his pupils. We
both agreed in our estimate of Henderson, which
did not coincide with that of our parents. There
were other poets at the school, but none ever gave
Henderson the credit for their development in that
direction.
Annie Reid, in addition to the magnificent copy of
Robinson Crusoe, also brought back with her the Lady
of the Island, who gave the canoeists a talking-to for
endangering their lives, and at the same time invited
them up to the house to get their clothing thoroughly
dried and to have some food. As there was a fine
Ayrshire cow on the island, a very sumptuous repast
of tea fine fresh butter, scones, eggs, and plenty of
creamy milk was set before them, and we all enjoyed
our afternoon. That was my first introduction to
R. L. Stevenson, if such it could be called, and to
his cousin, Balfour. We gave them a hearty invita-
tion to come again, and that year they often did
come. Their headquarters were at Cramond, although
that day they had come from Granton. Stevenson's
canoe was a very large roomy one, well built, and I
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 153
used to sit on the deck portion behind him with
my bare feet in the water, while he paddled ; but he
would often let me have the paddle. Although he
must have been thirteen years older than I and
appeared old to me, he seemed still to have a great
deal of the boy in him. His cousin, Balfour, would
take Tom Reid, who was somewhat younger than I
was, and did not enjoy sailing so much as I did.
Stevenson dubbed Tom ' Friday ' and me ' Crusoe/
but would not allow either of us to go on the canoes
very much until he saw that we both could swim. I
think it was on that first occasion that I asked him to
take me over to Mickery, but he said it was much too
stormy, but some calm day he might take me; and
eventually we did get to Mickery, but perhaps on too
calm a day.
When Lord Rosebery bought Cramond Island (and,
by the way, I may mention that, so far as I could ever
ascertain, he has never put his foot on it, although
his eye must often have lighted upon it), he built or
caused to be built at the north-west point a heavy,
solid building which we always referred to as Lord
Rosebery's duck-house, and which, we understood,
was to be used for shooting wild ducks. It is quite
close to the seal rock, and might have been used for
shelter for shooting seals, as they used to come and
bask upon this rock hence its name. Once Stevenson
told me that a friend of his, a fellow- canoeist from
England, had been touring in Scotland, and, being
storm-stayed on the Island, like himself and his cousin,
had written a book of his travels in which he mentioned
that he had been thus storm-stayed and had had to
sleep in a duck-house, 'a place for keeping ducks,'
and had slept very well all night. Next time Steven-
son called at the island he brought the book, as I
had produced my Robinson Crusoe, to show definitely
that his friend had made the mistake of thinking
he had slept in a house for keeping ducks, when
154 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
it really had the dignity of being a house for duck-
shooting.
One day Stevenson gave me some letters to read
which he had received from John MacGregor, who,
he said, was the father of canoeing in this country. I
now know that MacGregor was the son of General
Sir Duncan MacGregor, and was born at Gravesend on
January 24, 1825, and that a few weeks later he was
the first to be handed out of the burning East Indiaman,
the Kent. He was the author of a delightful book
entitled A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe,
published in 1866, and of many other splendid books
on his voyages ; copies of these eventually came into
my possession. He gave the proceeds of his books
and lectures (some 10,000) to philanthropic institu-
tions, and it was he who suggested the founding of
the London Shoeblacks' Brigade. He died in 1892.
As I became so very keen about canoeing, Stevenson
recommended me to write to him, and allowed me to
have his address. On my writing to the famous and
genial Rob Roy, I got a most cordial response from
him. He sent me the plans of his famous * Rob
Roy' canoe, and I meant at one time to build one,
but that project never matured. I rather think at
that time Mr MacGregor was President or held some
official position in the Royal Lifeboat Institution ; at
all events, he wrote me on the stationery of some
famous institution with which he was connected.
It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon when Stevenson
took me to Inchmickery. Sunday must have been
the only day available, because we had both been
brought up very strictly to reverence the Sabbath day,
and I have no doubt we justified the matter by putting
it in as a work of necessity, as it was a necessity that
the sea should be absolutely calm when we took such
an adventurous voyage in a cockle-shell of a boat.
Inchmickery is fully a mile from Cramond Island, and
in one of the deepest channels of the Firth of Forth,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 155
which perhaps from the slim deck of a canoe looked
even deeper than it really was. Stevenson talked
about every subject under the sun, but I remember
he specially enlarged on Sunday observance, for I told
him that a few Sundays before I had been nearly
drowned, early in the morning, off the north side of
Cramond Island, and that the orthodox vision of his
whole life, which the drowning man sees, had not been
vouchsafed to me ; that what disturbed me was that
there would be a paragraph in the papers about a
Sabbath -breaker having met his just punishment.
Stevenson laughed heartily at my disappointment in
not having the whole of my uneventful life flash
before me (for I thought I was drowning), and at my
positive objection to being made an awful warning to
all Sunday-school scholars. I also told him how my
cousin and I had got so tired of the Shorter Catechism on
Sundays that one Sunday we hid it. But it was of no
avail, because my mother knew by heart and in their
order, not only the Answers but the Questions. His
comment on this was :
' Boy, you have a mother ! '
Inchmickery is not much more than a rock. At
the time of our visit the grass, less than an acre in
extent, would be about three or four feet long, but
some years afterwards a healthy lot of rabbits were
transferred to it from Cramond Island, and for two
years, at all events, the place simply swarmed with
rabbits and the grass got short enough. We explored
the whole place and paddled right round it and
the adjacent Oxcar Rock and the Cow and Calves
Islands, which were shining in all their beauty, and
returned pretty well tired, but thoroughly pleased with
our adventure. With paddling so fiercely, and not
being accustomed to the exercise, my hands were
severely blistered, but as that was the only punishment
I received for my Sabbath-breaking I considered I had
got off very lightly.
156 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
So far as I can remember, all my meetings with
Stevenson on Cramond Island took place in one
summer, but it is quite possible that they may
have extended over two or three years. I certainly,
and the other happy inhabitants of the Island during
the holiday months, looked persistently and longingly
for the two cheery savages in their canoes. Steven-
son's wonderful personal influence was felt by all of
us. A magazine was published on the Island once a
week, or as often as the editor could find contributions,
which may have owed its existence to him ; and cer-
tainly a paper on Lighthouses, written for a Literary
Society, was practically due to his inspiration. Some
odd copies of this magazine are still extant, but un-
fortunately not of this period. It was entitled From
out the Goblins Cave, and contained not only prose
of peculiar spelling, but poetry and illustrations,
plain and coloured.
My last interview with Stevenson, in Edinburgh, was
somewhat curious and purely accidental, and happened
many years after we had all left Cramond Island. I
had to see a man on business in Charlotte Square, and
was walking along George Street when I thought I
saw my business acquaintance on the opposite side of
the street. He, at the same time, caught sight of me,
and we both walked towards each other and met in
the middle of the street. He was wearing a velveteen
coat, as the man I was going to visit certainly was in
the habit of doing, but I saw at once that, although
he was not the man I thought he was, he was an old-
time friend.
'I really thought you were some one else,' I said
to him. 'But I am delighted to find that you are
one of the Cramond Island savages. How is Mr
Balfour?'
Stevenson shook me warmly by the hand, and
said that he was very pleased to meet me again, and
added
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 157
c I had no idea it was you. I also took you for some
one else. Where is your man Friday ? It seems
it is neither of us, and yet we are both here,' and he
laughed very heartily. He asked in the kindest
manner for all those whom he had met on Cramond
Island, and we had quite a long talk in the middle
of the roadway. He did not seem in very good health,
and I remember he said, somewhat wistfully :
' I have paddled a good long way since the Cramond
Island days ' ; but he was not referring to his canoe.
I have read in the Dictionary of National Biography
that Stevenson was only five feet ten in height, and
that his eyes were dark hazel ; but I am glad that to
me he has always been, and always will be, over six
feet in height and with black piercing eyes. It may
have been only a passing glimpse I had of him, but it
has remained with me. My only regret is that I never
told him how I worshipped him for his early kindness
to me. Stevenson was the big ship that passed me
in the night as I sailed in the darkness in my cockle-
shell of a canoe.
LADY GUTHRIE.
Extract from, a Letter.
. . . THE only time I ever saw Stevenson was at an
' At Home ' at Professor Campbell Fraser's, 20 Chester
Street. It must have been in early winter of 1876 or
at the beginning of '77.
R. L. S. was seated on the end of a sofa the arm,
you could fancy, not meant for a seat ! I gazed on
him with much interest, but we were not introduced.
He looked very unkempt in that well-dressed throng.
He seemed of a dark complexion, and had untidy
dark hair, had a white tie, very untidy about the neck.
My husband had told me of him often, of his un-
common abilities, but as far as I can remember he had
at that time only begun to contribute to the Corn/till,
158 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
and did not publish his first book till a good deal
later. I was always sorry that we were not intro-
duced, as to have shaken hands with him would be
interesting now, but he seemed not to be a part of
the circle round about him, and quite * out of it ' that
is my recollection.
In later years we got to know Mrs Stevenson, his
mother, very well indeed, and missed her much when
she died.
I never saw R. L. S.'s wife, tho' my husband dined
at Heriot Row with her and Louis more than once.
RECOLLECTIONS OF R. L. S.
CAROLINE USHER.
THE last time I met R. L. S. at dinner he had a
most unusual dinner dress a black flannel shirt,
velvet coat, gray trousers, and a blue tie. I can
see him still, with his long, pale face and long hair
brushed back and falling to his collar behind. My
recollection of his conversation at that dinner is of
continual argument of a most excited kind over a very
trivial matter.
On one occasion, travelling from Leven with him,
he argued for about half-an-hour on the colour of a
sea-gull's feathers. We naturally called it gray, but
he maintained it was a shade between black and
white.
I remember one little characteristic incident, which
illustrates the domestic side of Stevenson's character.
When the company was assembling for a dinner-
party, an extra couple arrived, having mistaken the
night. Louis at once came to his mother's rescue
and rearranged the table, sending next door to borrow
forks and spoons, &c., as the household silver was
exhausted.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 159
As SEEN IN PASSING.
MRS MILLER.
ONE day when walking along George Street, be-
tween Frederick Street and Castle Street, my
attention was directed to a passer-by by a few
boys shouting to him : ' Hauf a laddie, hauf a lassie,
hauf a yellow yite ! '
The person at whom the boys shouted was a young
man of delicate and somewhat gaunt build, with long
black hair, and whose trousers, worn too short, showed
a pair of white socks. To me his peculiar appearance
left an impression on my mind which, even now, I
recollect clearly.
On relating the incident to a friend I was told that
the young man's name was Robert Louis Stevenson.
As SEEN IN PASSING.
CHARLOTTE JANE MACDONALD.
S a ship which pasess in the night/ so he passed.
I never knew him even though I met him
frequently in Princes Street an outstanding
figure among the crowd of everyday Princes Street
pedestrians. Yet, school-girl as I then was, I used to
wonder and speculate vaguely, almost with awe, on his
remarkable appearance sometimes being near enough
to glimpse that indomitable smile always in his eyes.
What puzzled me most was his curious way of walking.
This he did sideways, and seemed never to be pro-
pelled by any power greater than the wind. He was
from time to time wraith-like ; then he floated along,
tacking like a graceful yacht to protect its sails. He
160 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
was usually dressed in fawn tweeds, his jacket being
buttoned up over his chest, for the cruel Edinburgh
winds. Another sight of him was as of the unsheathed
soul of him being wafted along by some unseen power
on his way. I felt as if were I to gaze too long at
him he might vanish.
My only other impression of R.L.S. was of frequently
seeing him slipping quietly into the old Edinburgh
Music Hall on great concert nights. Then he looked
less ethereal, in a black velvet coat. He was generally
late, and slipped into his seat like a shadow. He
must have been very fond of music, for I often saw
him as I describe.
A BOOKMARK.
LADY IM THURN.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON attended my
father's (Professor Lorimer's) class in Edinburgh
University, which was compulsory for intending
advocates. His family and ours, as it chanced, were
not acquainted ; but I recall his presence as a student
at a musical party in our old house in Hill Street, and
remember exchanging with him some of the amenities
of hospitality. He was only known then as the son
of Stevenson the engineer, but his personality im-
pressed me so much that I knew him afterwards
by sight. I can see him with the inward eye at
one of the ' windy parallelograms ' of Edinburgh
streets the corner of George Street near Paterson's
music shop can see his long, lean figure, his bright
eyes, and the historic brown velveteen coat. Behind
him Hanover Street sloped steeply down, and away
beyond were the hills of Fife framing the Forth and
* the ships tacking for the Baltic.'
R. L. S. describes with a graphic pen a humiliating
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 161
interview with Professor Fleeming Jenkin after a
session of non-attendance at the engineering class :
' It is quite useless for you to come to me, Mr Steven-
son. There may be doubtful cases ; there is no doubt
about yours. You have simply not attended my
class.'
I hope the attendance at the Public Law class was
better, and not that the professor was less scrupulous.
At any rate the certificate which had to be produced,
with others, by candidates at the Examination for the
Bar must have been granted and then lost by the
recipient. A little waif of a note, addressed to my
father and placed by chance probably as a momentary
mark in a book from which it fell out unexpectedly
more than forty years later, lies before me now :
MONDAY.
MY DEAR SIR,
I have been waiting for the duplicate certificate you
were so kind as to promise me, with much anxiety. Wednesday
is the day of my sore trial. May I ask you to leave the
Certificate out to-morrow ? I shall call for it in the afternoon.
Please forgive me for troubling you.
I remain, Yours sincerely,
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
The duplicate must have been obtained in time to
aid him in his 'sore trial,' for, on 15th July 1875, he
wrote Mrs Sitwell this characteristic note of triumph,
dated from Parliament House : *
Madonna,
Passed.
Ever your
R.
L.
S.
* There is a facsimile in Lord Guthrie's Robert Louis Stevenson. [ED.]
B.L.S. K
162 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
AN ORAL EXAMINATION.
JAMES F. MACKAY, C.B.E.
I remember many years ago, when a law student
at Edinburgh University, meeting Robert Louis
Stevenson. One evening I called on a friend,
also a law student, at his rooms in Hamilton Place,
Edinburgh, and while I was there R. L. S. came in to
see my friend, and remained during the evening, and
we all smoked and talked over many matters.
I think R. L. S. had that day passed his examination
as advocate. At all events, he entertained us by a
narrative of his experiences at that examination. The
examination was a verbal one, and as one of the pro-
fessors who examined Stevenson was well known to
my friend and myself, Stevenson's account was very
amusing. Apparently Stevenson had been told, or
had somehow got to know, what questions this par-
ticular professor would ask, and he had carefully pre-
pared his replies in the exact words of the text-books.
The first question was * What is Marriage ? ' Stevenson
replied in the actual words laid down by Erskine * The
conjunction of man and woman in the strictest society
of life till death shall separate them ' with the effect
that his examiner was so surprised that it was a con-
siderable time before another question was asked.
When the second question came, it was ' What is
Demurrage ? ' Again R. L. S. surprised his examiner
by giving him the exact definition ' The allowance or
compensation due to the master or owners of a ship, by
the freighter, for the time the vessel may have been
detained beyond the time specified or implied in the
contract of affreightment or charter-party.' There was
a third question ; but I do not remember what it was.
At all events the reply was also pat, with the result
that the examiner was non-plussed and never spoke
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 163
again. As my friend and I both knew the professor
well, and were familiar with his peculiarities of manner,
we thoroughly appreciated R. L. S.'s tale. It was a
most amusing evening, as R. L. S. was in capital form.
I occasionally saw R. L. S. afterwards in the Parlia-
ment House, but did not again have an interview which
was more than formal.
AN IMPRESSION OF R. L. S.
R. DOUIE URQUHART.
A '.THOUGH I had never the happy chance of
speaking to Robert Louis Stevenson, I once
heard him take part in a debate in the Specu-
lative Society. It must have been in the session of
1875-76. The occasion was probably a special one, for
R. L. S. had already become an Extraordinary Member
in 1873. To me it was in my first session. I wish I were
able to recall the subject of a discussion which had
drawn R. L. S. to be present, for I have never forgotten
the effect his speaking made upon my mind. Indeed
that single appearance of his has proved the most indelible
of many memories of the Meetings of the Speculative.
How am I to account for this ? It is true that here
was the man who was one day to be acclaimed as our
greatest writer since Sir Walter Scott ; but his earliest
book did not appear till two years later. My impression
was therefore entirely derived from his own personality,
and even at this long interval of years I can attribute it
to the almost vibrating effect which the intense seer-
like spirit of the speaker made upon myself. And the
whole attitude and movements of his body answered to
the intensity of his spirit. I even remember distinctly
the strained nervousness of his outstretched fingers.
' In a state of nervous exaltation ' is how Stevenson
himself has described his feeling at his first speech in
164 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
the Speculative (quoted in History of the Speculative
Society, p. 38). I have also looked up the reference in
Weir of Hermiston to his evidently so congenial ' Spec ' ;
and transferring that portrayal of the young Hermiston
scene in the identical hall to our present occasion, I
think one can add just the finishing touch from Steven-
son's own words to the memory I have been trying to
recall. For it was under the 'shine of many wax
tapers' and facing the 'glow of the great red fire'
that Stevenson's arresting vivid countenance looked
out on that contemporary group of youth.
D
THE LATE LORD DUNDAS.
(A Letter.)
EAR Miss MASSON, ... I fear I have little or
nothing to say that could interest you or serve
your purpose.
Coming here, after Oxford, to study law in 1876,
and passing advocate in 1878, I was a bit (and 'bits'
count in these young days) junior to R. L. S. I never
really knew him. It was almost, though not quite, a
case of vide tantum ! Still, his striking appearance and
personality made impressions on me which are still vivid
after all these years. One could hardly forget his long
pale face, fine brow, bright eye and lengthy hair, any
more than his rather peculiar mode of dress, dark flannel
shirt with low-cut collar, velveteen coat, and loose red tie !
I have seen his incongruous figure stalking up and
down the floor of the Parliament House. But it was
more at the ' Spec.', I think, that any exchange of
speech took place between us, and that not often. I
do not know if he even knew my name. Nor do I
recollect anything particular he ever said to me. He
puzzled me, a certain seriousness, almost demure-
ness of manner, coupled with that bright and roving
eye!
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 165
I have often wished since that I had been able to
recognise, though I in no way blame myself for failing
to do so, what a big man this was who had come
among us. One might have learned a bit from him,
and had a bit of enjoyment out of him. But one must
take life as one finds it.
Yours sincerely,
DAVID DUNDAS.
EDINBURGH,
12 Jan. 1922.
STEVENSON AT SWANSTON.
MRS CATHCART.
MY father and mother Professor and Mrs Tait
took me in a summer of the 'seventies to spend
an afternoon at Swanston. Mrs Stevenson sent
for us, the fourth member of the party was a Cambridge
friend who was staying with us, and I was young enough
to feel much hurt by his question whether a maid of Mrs
Stevenson's who was seated beside the coachman was
my nurse.
I remember we found a number of people at Swanston
who nearly all seemed very old to me, and I thought it
was going to be a very dull afternoon. To my great
relief a tall young man took me for a walk into the
hills. It was R. L. S., then perhaps about twenty-five
years old. He asked me what books I liked to read,
and I said Kingsley's Heroes and a Classical Dictionary,
and then he asked me what was the nicest book I
had ever read, and I at once replied Robinson Crusoe.
The answer must have pleased him, for I distinctly
remember he held out his hand to me, and we con-
tinued our walk hand in hand and talked about the
book.
He made the threatened dull afternoon a very happy
166 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
one for me, and when we went home he gave me a
snake as a parting gift.
About R. L. S.'s snake, my mother's recollection
differs from mine ; she thinks it was made of postage
stamps, and survived even my childish handling for
years. I think he gave me a snake that blew out, and
that I continued blowing it out all evening until it
burst, for I remember howling myself to sleep after
this memorable expedition to Swanston, I was so sorry
about my snake.
R. L. S. AS RICHARD II.
J. M. HARKOM
(President of the Edinburgh Shakespeare Society].
ON two memorable occasions the play of Richard II.
was read by the old Shakespeare Union, of which
R. L. S. was a member. To the reading (in a
room at 8 St Andrew Square) two evenings were
devoted, the 22nd and 29th of February 1876. On
both occasions Stevenson read the part of the King.
His appearance was striking and picturesque. A slim
youth, rather above the middle height, with hair always
long and lank and then of a pale brown colour ; wearing
a velvet coat, and over it a long cloak of old-fashioned
cut, with brass clasps. The head-piece he wore was of
the smoking-cap order and embroidered such as a
German student might wear in his club.
What helped to impress those two evenings on the
memory was the remarkable likeness of the future
novelist as he then stood and spoke to the ancient
fresco portrait of Richard II. in Westminster Abbey
in safe concealment during the late War, but now
restored to its old place on the south of the chancel.
His whole expression while reading the play was
remarkably suggestive of the original.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 167
MEMORIES.
LOUISA B. MACKENZIE.
MY mother was at a dinner-party at the Stevensons'
one evening. Cummy had put Louis to bed,
and after he was asleep crept downstairs to the
pantry to help there. Unfortunately Louis awoke, and
finding himself alone, he must have got up and come
downstairs and sat on a step at the drawing-room door.
And the little child would feel less lonely, looking over
the staircase to see the servants coming out and in
of the dining-room, and listening to the voices of the
guests. My mother, on coming upstairs after dinner,
found the little white-robed figure sitting there. She
was quickly followed by Mrs Stevenson, full of anxiety
lest the delicate child would have caught a chill.
I remember staying with Mr and Mrs Stevenson and
Louis in the winters of, I think, 1875 and 1876. The
latter date I am quite sure about, for Louis, writing
his name in my birthday text-book, added the date
1876, and I asked him to change this, as I wished the
date of his birth after his name, and not the date
when he wrote it in my book. He did so, scoring
out 1876, and changing it to 1850.
Louis was at home on both occasions when my sister
and I visited Mr and Mrs Stevenson in 17 Heriot
Row. I look back on those visits with the very
greatest pleasure. Mr and Mrs Stevenson were both
charming he so clever and amusing, and she so full
of life and kindliness and they made a perfect host
and hostess. They used to give little dinner-parties
for us young people, and I remember thoroughly
enjoying them, and all the brightness and fun that
went on Louis entering into it all.
Mr Stevenson had a great affection for two little
Skye terriers which he possessed at that time. Coolin
was the name of one of them, but I have forgotten the
168 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
name of the other and it used to interest me much
to watch Mr Stevenson with those dogs. He spoke
to them as if they were human beings, and indeed they
looked up at him and listened as if they thoroughly
understood all he was saying. One evening especially
I remember. We had finished dinner, Louis was
present too, and the two dogs were sitting beside Mr
Stevenson's chair. He suddenly turned to them and
began a long talk with them, they looking up at him
through the shaggy hair falling over their eyes, and
as if they were taking all in that was being said. Mr
Stevenson then turned round to us at table and said :
* You think those dogs will not be in Heaven ! I tell you
they will be there long before any of us.' After that we
rose and adjourned to the drawing-room, accompanied
by Louis, who did not see how he could argue the point.
I remember another evening when Mrs Stevenson,
Louis, and I were in the drawing-room. I was sitting
on the sofa beside Mrs Stevenson, when Louis rose
and began to walk, with his long, swinging stride, up
and down the room. He gave us a long dissertation
on a little child belonging to a Russian princess whom
he had met abroad. He showed me the child's photo-
graph, and then began the subject. Mrs Stevenson
took my hand in hers and whispered : ' Now we shall
listen,' which we had to do for quite an hour ! His
mother simply hung on his every word. She saw the
genius waking in him then, and always believed and
hoped great things for him. But to us young people
Louis seemed rather eccentric and erratic in those days,
and I must confess that at the end of his long disserta-
tion I felt a little bit tired, not to say bored.
Another evening, when my sister was out at one
of the Edinburgh balls, I was alone with the family.
Louis, perhaps thinking I, not at the ball, might be
feeling dull, asked me to go up to his study with him,
and he read to me something he was then writing, and
began to criticise it as he read. I remember one of his
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 169
remarks was : * Now, I think that bit rather fine/ to
which I meekly agreed !
I remember yet another evening, when Mr Stevenson
and Louis had a great religious discussion. We always
went down to the dining-room for Prayers in the
evening. Mrs Stevenson read one of the Psalms on
this occasion, and something in the Psalm I can't
remember what struck Louis, and when Prayers were
over he began an argument about it. Mr Stevenson
took it up, and Mrs Stevenson whispered to me, ' Let
us be quiet and listen.' They discussed the subject for
some time, neither of them getting too hot over it, but
threshing it out calmly. At the end I remember I
was all on Mr Stevenson's side of the argument.
When my sister Nellie was married, Louis sent her
a handsome silver hand-mirror, and wrote an appropriate
verse about its reflecting her bonnie face. My niece
May has that mirror now.
I was with Mrs Stevenson at the large gathering
in the Music Hall in Edinburgh which met to discuss
the Memorial to Louis. I lunched before the meeting
with Mrs Stevenson at 8 Randolph Cliff. There were
present Sir Sidney Colvin, Sir James Barrie, and other
admirers of Louis. The conversation after lunch was
very interesting, and time was forgotten. At last some
one remarked, 'Look at the hour; it is a quarter to
three ! ' As the meeting began at three, there was
a general rush to get ready and start off. When we
arrived at the Music Hall the stairs up to the Hall
were packed, and it looked hopeless for us to attempt
to get through. One of the gentlemen with Mrs
Stevenson said to some of the people 'This is
R. L. S.'s Mother, she must pass.' A man in the crowd
then shouted out 'Make room for the Mother of
R. L. S. ! ' In a marvellous way a passage was made,
and we got up the stairs. We were stopped again at
the door of the Hall, and the passages inside seemed
packed ; but again the message was passed on : ' Make
170 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
room for the Mother of R. L. S. ! ' Finally we found
ourselves in front of the platform, and Mrs Stevenson
and I were helped up somehow, and put on the front
seats. A man sitting next to me said, ' Excuse me, but
may I ask who you ladies are?' all on the platform
were men and I replied, * The lady on my other side is
Louis Stevenson's Mother.' He became greatly excited
on hearing this, and exclaimed ' To think I am sitting
only two seats away from the Mother of Stevenson ! '
He did not seem to be able to get over such an honour 1
Mrs Stevenson was indeed a proud mother that day.
Lord Rosebery, in the middle of his speech about
Louis, turned to her and bowed, saying * We have his
Mother in our midst to-day.' She sat there very calm,
but the expression on her face showed how she was
feeling it the great honour shown to her son.
She always called me her 'daughter,' laughingly
saying to my mother that she must spare me to her ;
and I often used to go about with her, when she wished
a companion.
Mrs Stevenson died of pneumonia at 8 Randolph
Cliff, where she had lived latterly with her sister,
Miss Whyte Balfour. It was from this sister we got
particulars of Mrs Stevenson's death. Just before she
died, she looked up suddenly and exclaimed ' Louis ! '
Then, turning to the others about her, she said ' I must
go,' and fell back and was gone. So she went forth to
meet Louis, never again to be parted.
A BACK OFFICE IN SOUTH CHARLOTTE STREET.
W. GRANT-LUMSDEN WINCHESTER.
YOU ask me for my recollections of Robert Louis
Stevenson. I am afraid they are indefinite and
sketchy. But I knew him well. When I was
a boy my father was an elder in St Stephen's Church,
where the Stevensons worshipped. Thomas Steven-
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 171
son's massive intellectual face comes before me as I
write.
It was in No. 11 South Charlotte Street, Messrs.
Mitchell and Baxter's office, that I chiefly saw R. L. S.
I was apprenticed to Charles Baxter, whom Stevenson
constantly visited. When Mr Baxter was engaged,
Stevenson was put into a back room where I sat ; and
many a chat we had. Alas ! I had not the prescience
to know that I was talking to one of the greatest
literary geniuses of all time, or else I would have
'taken notes/ What I chiefly recollect was the
bizarre, Bohemian figure, the lanky hair, the velvet-
een coat, and the unconventional (for staid Edinburgh)
hat. A wonderful brown flannel shirt and scarlet tie
impressed my boyish fancy. But above all I remember
his gracious kindly manner, and his exquisite courtesy.
He talked to me, an apprentice on a three-legged stool,
as if I had been the most eminent W.S. in Edinburgh.
Alas ! the purport of those conversations, probably
entirely ephemeral, has quite passed from my memory ;
but what remains is the recollection of that charming
personality.
There were rumours in the office that R. L. S. was
doing fine literary work, and I think the first of his
volumes I bought (and I have it still) was Virginibus
Puerisque.
South Charlotte Street was then a rendezvous for
several men well known in literary circles. Sir Walter
Simpson, James Walter Ferrier, and W. E. Henley,
among others, visited Charles Baxter.
Stevenson joined the Speculative before I did, and
I don't think I met him there. It was these chats in
the little room in South Charlotte Street I like to
remember, and on looking back on them I think that
here indeed was a veritable ' Prince Charming,' who
was one day to charm the whole world, as he
charmed those who met him in those far-away days
in picturesque Edinburgh.
172 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
GREZ.
LLOYD OSBOURNE.
From the Introduction to the Vailima Edition.
. . . WE went to Grez, which was even more attrac-
tive than it had been described to us. ... It was so
early in the season that we had the inn all to ourselves,
though always in our minds was a vision of those
dreadful Stevensons returning to drive us forth. . . .
Then somehow I forget the intervening details we
were again at Grez, with the weather becoming warmer
every day and the dreadful Stevensons more imminent.
Some of the artists had already arrived, amiable young
fellows who painted in the fields under prodigious white
umbrellas, and who seemed to find nothing especially
affronting in the presence of my very pretty mother
and very pretty sister.
At last, and the scene is as clear to me as though
it had happened yesterday, I can recall my mother
and myself gazing down from our bedroom window at
Isobel, who was speaking in the court below to the first
of the arriving Stevensons ' Bob ' Stevenson as he was
always called a dark, roughly dressed man as lithe
and graceful as a Mexican vaquero and evoking some-
thing of the same misgiving. He smiled pleasantly, hat
in hand, with a mocking expression that I learned
afterwards was habitual with him, and which reminded
me of the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. . . . With
' Bob ' on our side and he soon became very much of
a friend all our trepidations subsided, and a curious
reversal took place in our attitude towards that other
Stevenson, that unknown ' Louis ' as every one called
him.
Louis, it seemed, was everybody's hero ; Louis was
the most wonderful and inspiring of men ; his wit, his
sayings, his whole piquant attitude towards life were
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 173
unending subjects of conversation. Everybody said :
' Wait till Louis gets here,' with an eager and ex-
pectant air.
All my previous fear of him had disappeared, and in
its place was a sort of worshipping awe. He had
become my hero, too, this wonderful Louis Stevenson,
who was so picturesquely gliding towards Grez in a
little sailing canoe, and who camped out every night
in a tent. . . .
Then in the dusk of a summer's day as we all sat
at dinner about the long table flhote, some sixteen or
eighteen people, of whom my mother and sister were
the only women and I the only child, there was a start-
ling sound at one of the open windows giving on the
street, and in vaulted a young man with a dusty knap-
sack on his back. The whole company rose in an
uproar of delight, mobbing the newcomer with out-
stretched hands and cries of greeting. He was borne
to a chair ; was made to sit down in state, and still
laughing and talking in the general hubbub was
introduced to my mother and sister.
' My cousin, Mr Stevenson,' said Bob, and there
ensued a grave inclination of heads, while I wriggled
on my chair very much overcome and shyly stole peeps
at the stranger. He was tall, straight, and well-formed,
with a fine ruddy complexion, clustering light-brown
hair, a small tawny moustache and extraordinarily
brilliant brown eyes. But these details convey nothing
of the peculiar sense of power that seemed to radiate
from him of a peculiar intensity of character that
while not exactly dominating had in its quality some-
thing infinitely more subtle and winning ; and he was
besides so gay, so sparkling, so easily the master in all
exchange of talk and raillery that I gazed at him in
spell-bound admiration.
How incredible it would have seemed to me then
had some prophetic voice told me this stranger's life
and mine were to run together for nineteen years
174 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
to come; that I was destined to become his step-son,
his comrade, the sharer of all his wanderings; that
we were to write books together ; that we were to
sail far-off seas ; that we were to hew a home out of
the tropic wilderness ; and that at the end, while the
whole world mourned, I was to lay his body at rest
on a mountain peak in Oceana.
WITH STEVENSON AT GREZ.
BIRGE HARRISON.
From THE CENTURY MAGAZINE, December 1916.
IT was a memorable day for Stevenson when the
Cigarette and the Arethusa moored at the foot
of the narrow little garden which leads from the
shores of the Loing up to the old Pension Chevillon
at Grez. Could he have foreseen that the apparently
simple act of tying his canoe-rope to the landing-post
that morning was to make of him a world wanderer,
that it would cut him off definitely from his beloved
Scotland and all that Scotland meant to him, that it
would lead him as an ' Amateur Immigrant ' to Cali-
fornia, that it would start him on that year-long cruise
of the Pacific, and waft him at last, like a piece of drift-
wood, to far-off Samoa could he have foreseen all this,
would he, I wonder, have set foot ashore that warm
summer morning, or, turning his prow once more to
the current, have paddled on down-stream to Paris and
the sea ? Truly I believe that he would have landed
only the more joyously, for Stevenson was nothing if
not a true sport. Despite a frail physique, he sought
adventure eagerly and always stood ready to meet it
more than half-way. Nothing ever daunted him, and
nothing so roused him to anger as any suggestion that
his own health should weigh in the balance when there
was question of adventure by flood or by field. As a
matter of fact, and as time proved, he possessed an
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 175
astonishing reserve of nervous energy, and in certain
cases where other stronger men went to pieces, his
high spirits seemed to serve him adequately in lieu of
physical strength.
But he well knew, and has himself said, that the great
adventure is not that which we go forth to seek in far
places, but that which comes to seek us by the fireside.
And this was more than half true in his own case, for
it was not upon any business of his own that he came
to Grez, but rather because our fellow-art-student and
comrade Willie Simpson was a brother to Sir Walter
Simpson, who was the ' Cigarette ' of Stevenson's An
Inland Voyage, and his present companion.
It was a gay, picturesque, and genuinely Bohemian
community in which he found himself at Grez, and it
has seemed to me that it might be well worth while to
describe it in some detail, in view of the fact that it was
destined to form the background of Stevenson's life for
many months to come.
The nucleus of the colony was Anglo-Saxon, and
the majority of its members were either English or
Americans; but there was a sufficient sprinkling of
French and Scandinavians to give a cosmopolitan
quality to the gathering, and an occasional Spaniard
or Italian added a touch of southern colour. All of its
members were either artists, artists' models in villegia-
ture, or students of art in painting and sculpture, or in
music, literature, or the drama.
The one who always stands out most vividly in my
own mind and memory is my beloved chum and studio-
companion Theodore Robinson, who is now taking his
place beside Inness, Wyant, and Winslow Homer
as one of our American old masters. Robinson, like
Stevenson, was a semi-invalid, a great sufferer from
asthma, which never gave him a moment's respite ;
but, like Stevenson again, he never allowed his weak-
ness to interfere with the main business of life or to
intrude itself upon others.
176 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Robinson was far from handsome in the classic sense.
An enormous head, with goggle eyes and a whopper
jaw, was balanced on a frail body by means of a neck
of extreme tenuity ; and stooping shoulders with a long
slouching gait did not add anything of grace or of
beauty to his general appearance. But when one of
the French comrades threw an arm about his shoulders,
and casting a sideways and puzzled glance upon him
remarked, * Tu es vilain, Robinson, mats je faime? we
all understood, for out of those goggle eyes shone the
courage of a Bayard, and in their depths brooded the
soul of a poet and dreamer, while his whole person
radiated a delightful and ineffable sense of humour.
Stevenson and he at once became bosom friends and
companions, for they were hewn out of the same block.
I shall not forget Stevenson's joy at the manner in
which Robinson once put an end to a rather tiresome
rainy-day discussion on the subject of genealogy, during
which we had been treated to more or less colorful
accounts of the distinguished lineage of most of those
present.
Robinson had remained silent throughout the dis-
cussion, with only an occasional subterranean chuckle
to indicate that he was listening to the conversation.
Finally some one called out: 'Bobbie, we have not
yet heard from you. Who were your noble ancestors,
anyway ? '
With a subdued twinkle he replied : ' Well, if you
really wish to know, I will tell you. My father was a
farmer, and my grandparents were both very respect-
able and deserving domestic servants. I have never
carried my investigation any further up the family
tree.'
There was a short, somewhat embarrassed silence,
and then Stevenson threw his arms about Robinson's
shoulders with a shout of joy. ' Tu es vilain, Robinson,'
he cried ; ' maisje faime.'
It has always been a source of regret to me that no
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 177
one of us painter-men ever thought of making a double
portrait of the pair in that pose, for, if successful, it
would have been a psychological document of surpass-
ing interest. It would have been a failure indeed did
it not demonstrate the profound fact that mere physical
ugliness is no bar to the expression of spiritual beauty
in the human countenance ; for the almost Gothic mask
of Robinson's features could and did radiate sweetness
and light as readily as did the nearly classic beauty of
Stevenson's own profile.
Another member of our little colony who has left
an indelible mark on my memory is Robert Mowbray
Stevenson, Louis's cousin, the * Bob ' of the ' Vailima
Letters,' who came down from Paris shortly after
Stevenson's own arrival. Years later, as professor of
art at Oxford and as the author of a remarkable mono-
graph upon Velasquez, he was destined to become
widely known throughout the world. At that time,
however, he was endeavouring to demonstrate to him-
self and to others his right to be ranked seriously as a
landscape painter, and wasting considerable quantities
of perfectly good pigment in the effort, which before
many months he was frankly to abandon as a mistake.
But although his talent did not lie in the direction of
pictorial expression, Bob Stevenson was, more nearly
than any other mortal I have ever met, a genius in the
true sense of the word; unfortunately for himself,
however, and still more unfortunately for the world at
large, his genius could expand only under conditions
which precluded its finding permanent expression. Just
as those of us who have heard Edwin Booth play
Hamlet know that there never was nor ever could be
such another Hamlet, so those of us who have heard
Bob Stevenson converse know that, in this generation
at least, there never has been or could be such another
talker. But for its fullest and best expression, his
special talent demanded an interlocutor, or at least the
figment of an opponent in the scintillating monologue
B.L.8. L,
178 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
which he was pleased to style a discussion. If it comes
to a mere question of genius pure and simple, no one
who knew the two cousins intimately would have hesi-
tated for an instant to award the primacy to Bob, and
Louis himself would have been the first to concur in
the justice of this decision. When the after-dinner
coffee was on the table in the old salle-a-manger, it
was Louis's custom to stir up a discussion upon some
subject connected with ethics or morals or the general
conduct of life, and then, if he succeeded in getting
Bob started, to sit back and enjoy the intellectual feast
which was sure to follow, just dropping in a word of
dissent now and then in order to keep the stream
flowing.
On these occasions Bob's flights of imagination were
not only brilliant to a degree, but they were often
humorous and most entertaining. Not infrequently
they took the form of a story, with a complicated plot
evolved on the spur of the moment, and with charac-
ters who by their acts and words gave living form to
the abstraction which he had set out to ride to earth.
Louis, being the artist that he was, made notes, and
several of the stories which later appeared in the New
Arabian Nights and are there duly accredited to ' my
cousin Robert Mowbray Stevenson,' were thrown off
by the latter during one of these impromptu symposia.
First among these was the famous * Suicide Club,' to
which, however, Stevenson himself added what was
perhaps the most original and telling touch the in-
cident of the young man with the cream tarts. The
gruesome idea of the main story grew out of an indig-
nant protest on the part of Bob to an opinion set forth
by his cousin to the effect that in the domain of morals
men were in no sense free agents, and that no man
had the right to dispose of his own life any more than
he had the right to dispose of the life of his friend
or neighbour. Bob, in reply, quoted the verse from
Omar ;
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 179
' What, without asking, hither hurried Whence ?
And without asking, Whither hurried hence !
Ah, contrite Heaven endowed us with the Vine
To drug the memory of that insolence ! '
contending hotly that, inasmuch as we had not been
consulted when we were thus rudely and without our
own consent dumped into life, the option was surely
ours as to the time and manner of leaving it.
Then followed the inevitable monologue, which
gradually developed into the plot of the ' Suicide
Club ' as printed in the New Arabian Nights, and in
which Bob set forth his own ideas as to the most
agreeable mode of shuffling off this mortal coil. But,
not quite content with his first effort, he proceeded to
evolve an alternate plot, which, while not so dramatic
as the original, was at least not quite so distressing.
In this second story the device of the executioner who
is selected by chance, is replaced by a train which is
scheduled to start once a month at midnight from
Charing Cross, and is to carry all those who during the
month have decided that life has no further attractions
for them. The train is to be the last word in modern
luxury, with a dancing-car for those who would dance,
and a dining-car for those who would dine, furnished
with the most dainty and delectable dishes, and pro-
vided with champagne and fine liqueurs of the most
expensive brands. The track is to be cleared and the
train started, without an engineer or a train crew, direct
for the cliff of Dover, over which it is supposed to
plunge at a moment unknown to any of the passengers,
and when the revelry is at its height.
The mutual admiration of the two Stevensons was
a delight to see, and that it was destined to be a life-
long affection is shown by the long series of 'Vailima
Letters ' addressed to Bob. Fundamentally, of course,
their mutual attraction for each other was due to the
fact that both were true men; but it was doubtless
partly attributable to the added fact that the quality
180 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
of their genius was as different as was their outward
appearance. Louis, as we all know, was of the blond,
appealing Northern type, but Bob was as black and as
fiery as an Andalusian. . . .
At this time Stevenson was publishing a series of
studies of men and things in the Cornhill Magazine,
and he was also engaged upon An Inland Voyage and
parts of the New Arabian Nights. As if this were
not sufficient to satisfy the cravings of the greediest
of workers, he was also writing various stories and
essays which he called ' Studies/ but which he after-
wards destroyed.
I have a vivid recollection of a most interesting shop-
talk with him about this time, which occurred during
a long walk to Fontainebleau. As we tramped along
under the shade of the tall poplars, he outlined to me
the writer's credo as he knew it, and explained his own
methods of work.
' You painter-chaps make lots of studies, don't you ? '
he exclaimed. 'And you don't frame them all and
send them to the Salon, do you ? You just stick them
up on the studio wall for a bit, and presently you tear
them up and make more. And you copy Velasquez
and Rembrandt and Vandyke and Corot ; and from
each you learn some little trick of the brush, some
obscure little point in technic. And you know damn
well that it is the knowledge thus acquired that will
enable you later on to deliver your own message with a
fine and confident bravado. You are simply learning
your metier ; and believe me, mon cher, an artist in any
line without the metier is just a blind man with a stick.
Now, in the literary line I am simply doing what you
painter-men are doing in the pictorial line learning the
metier'
' Yes, but how do you work the game ? ' I enquired.
* We artists use paint and canvas and brushes precisely
as the masters did.'
* Well, I use pen and ink and paper precisely as did
BOBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 181
the masters of the pen/ laughed Stevenson, 'only a
pencil is quite good enough for me at present. Just
now I am making a story a la Balzac, with a French
plot, French local colour, and every little touch and
detail as close to the old boy as I can possibly make
it. And isnt he a wizard ! Look at Cousine Bette
and Peau de Chagrin and the Medecin de Campagne.
Aren't they just marvels of literary perfection ! Really,
I believe that Balzac held up to nature a more wonderful
mirror than even the great W. S. himself. And dear
old Pere Goriot, don't you just know him better even
than if you had met him right here on the grande route
and had an hour's chat with him ? I like to swallow a
great master whole, as it were ; to read at one go every-
thing he 's written, and then have a try myself at some-
thing in his manner. The only way to become a master
is to study the masters take my word for it. It 's all
one whether it 's in paint or clay or words. And then,
if you are humble enough and keep an open mind and
have something of your own to say, you may one of
these long days learn how to say it. I have at various
periods thus sat at the feet of Sir Walter Scott and
Smollett and Fielding and Dickens and Poe and
Baudelaire, and the number of things which I have
written in the style of each would fill a clothes-basket.'
I have since occasionally regretted that some of the
contents of this basket had not been rescued and given
to us in a discreet little sub-rosa book, if only for an
example to future students of art and of literature.
Yet the master probably knew best, and pursued the
wise course in destroying his tentative experiments. . . .
Among the regular members of our artist band I
remember Henley, a brother of the poet ; Metcalf ; Joe
Heseltine ; Enfield ; Weldon Hawkins ; and Walter
Ullman all English ; Frank O'Meara, the handsome,
debonair young Irishman who was to die before his
great talent as a painter made its mark ; Carl Larson
and Shredswig, both now famous abroad as well as
182 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
in their native Sweden ; Will Low ; Benz ; Walter
Palmer; and Jameson, a young Scottish painter of
talent, and a brother of Dr Jameson of Kimberley,
South Africa, who, as the author of the Jameson Raid,
caused some little trouble in South Africa later on.
This reminds me that one day the young doctor turned
up at the Pension Chevillon with the statement that,
with the help and advice of a certain Cecil Rhodes,
who was a chum of his down there, he had cleaned up
the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, which sum
he had brought back with him to defray the expenses
of a Continental trip, he having neglected to do the
grand tour before going to South Africa. He kindly
invited the whole colony to join him as guests in the
proposed round of Europe, promising that everything
should be first-class, and that no wine more plebeian
than champagne should be served on the trip. Accord-
ingly, after a symposium which lasted from daylight to
daylight, a gay band of a dozen young and brave men
started off upon this first Jameson Raid, which has
hitherto been unchronicled and unknown to fame.
Stevenson was not of the party, he having at the time
other interests in Grez which were of a more absorbing
nature, and of which more anon. Perhaps it was just
as well on the whole that he remained behind, for
something under a month later a hollow-eyed, worn,
bedraggled band limped into Grez, explaining that
their condition was due to the fact that they had ended
up the tour three days previously by climbing Mont
Blanc !
One of the most picturesque and at the same time
one of the most mysterious members of our group was
a young Frenchman named Salis, who threw himself
upon our mercy by explaining that he was an escaped
convict, and that he did not dare to return to his
old haunts in Paris or even venture to live among
French people elsewhere, knowing full well that he
would be apprehended and sent back hot-foot to New
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Caledonia. He had been a communard, it appeared, in
fact the editor of a communard journal in Paris, whence
he had been deported for advocating too strenuously
the cause ' Liberte, egalite, fraternite. 9 He was cer-
tainly an entertaining chap, and Stevenson, ever on the
alert for the picturesque in human form, became his
principal friend and companion among the Anglo-
Saxon group. Shortly after his arrival the law of
general amnesty was passed, and Salis was once more
free to return to his beloved Paris. But, alas ! he had
nothing to return to. Communism was no longer a
profession that paid a living wage, and to return to
Paris without a profession meant certain starvation.
So Stevenson called a special meeting of the colony to
consider the ' Question Salis ', and to devise ways and
means by which the owner of the name could live
and thrive reasonably once more in Paris. He elected
himself chairman of the meeting, and in the opening
address stated that there was only one sure and never-
failing method by which one could always and any-
where be certain of making money, and that was by the
sale of drink. In England, where drink is dispensed at
the ' pub/ it was not a particularly cleanly or attractive
profession, to be sure ; but in Paris it was different, he
said. For what could be neater or more appealing
than the little white marble tables outside a boulevard
caf, with the prim little hedge of arbor vitse dividing
off its special strip of sidewalk from the area pertaining
to the adjoining shop ? Moreover, a caf could be of
any desired character musical, artistic, or literary. The
Cafe Salis should be all three of these in one. Right
here we had the painters who would cover the walls
with their pictures, the poets who would recite their
own poetry of evenings, and the musicians who would
be only too pleased to discourse sweet sound for the
price of a bock or a, fine that was not charged up. The
bourgeois would repay, what? But the Cafd Salis
needed a name. Neither a book nor a picture was
184 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
quite sure of success without a taking title, and this
was still more true of a cafe'.
Just at this time it happened that Hawkins, one of
our group, had sent to the Salon a picture which had
achieved a considerable success despite the fact that
its subject was most lugubrious nothing less than a
forlorn orphan weeping at the grave of her mother.
One day as Hawkins was working on his nearly com-
pleted canvas in the village cemetery it chanced that a
black cat went slinking along the stone wall in the
background, arching its back and resting occasionally
to survey the landscape. Suddenly it occurred to the
artist that this little bit of life in the canvas might
egayer his picture a bit, while the sable colour of the
creature would keep it fairly within the scheme.
' How about Hawkins's black cat ? ' cried one of the
committee. ' Stamped out of black iron it would make
a bully sign to swing over the door.'
The suggestion was carried by acclamation, and the
'Cafd of the Black Cat,' which was opened in the
Quartier des Batignolks that autumn, had an im-
mediate and bewildering success; so much so indeed
that presently its proprietor, grown prosperous and
sleek, the communard utterly submerged in the success-
ful bourgeois, was swept into the French Senate on the
tide of his prosperity. Before leaving Grez, Salis rowed
up to the house of a murderous miller, a sinister person
who was known positively to have killed his old mother
in cold blood, although the crime could never be
fastened upon him, and calling him to the door
of his mill, recited in stentorian tones and with
much dramatic gesticulation Victor Hugo's * Assassin.'
Taken all in all, a picturesque person was Rudolfe
Salis.
This little incident was very characteristic of
Stevenson, and it illustrates what always seemed to
me the most salient and dominating force in his
nature an intense interest in the human drama which
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 185
was being enacted about him, the artist's ability to see
it as a drama, and an uncontrollable desire to mix in
the fray himself and, playing the part of a kindly deus
ex machina, to bring the fifth act of the play to a happy
or an artistic conclusion.
I do not think that in those early days he appeared
to any of us as specifically a genius, an exceptional
man set apart for great accomplishments. Indeed, had
we been solemnly assured that he would share the
honour, with only one or two possible competitors, of
being the foremost English writer of the latter half
of the nineteenth century, we would certainly have
received the assurance with a smile. What ! Louis ?
so simple, kindly, natural ; so all-round a good fellow ;
so like all the rest of us, only nicer !
And I am quite sure that in his inmost heart at this
period he could never really have looked forward to nor
expected the fame which later came to him, and which
grows and expands as time gives us the perspective
wherewith to view it in all its roundness and bigness
and essential simplicity. In fact, in introducing himself
to me, he remarked simply that he was a * writer-chap/
or hoped to be one.
I was told of another rainy afternoon ' blague party ',
at which I did not chance to be present, during which
Bob Stevenson amused himself by forecasting the future
careers of those present. When he came to his cousin
he remarked with a satirical little smile : * There sits
Louis, as smug and complacent as any old type de
bourgeois. I have not the least doubt that he fondly
imagines that one of these days they will be publish-
ing all of his dinky, private correspondence "the
Letters of R. L. S." in boards.' And Louis joined
as heartily as any one in the laugh which the sally
raised. Bob, at least, did live to see the publication
of the 'Vailima Letters', and I have often wondered
if he remembered this little incident as he thumbed
their leaves.
186 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
A RECOLLECTION.
GEORGE SAINTSBURY, F.B.A., LL.D.
THE following report of how I first met Louis
Stevenson is short, but may possibly in form be
not unsweet. I was introduced to him at the
Savile Club, I am not quite sure by whom, but it was
almost certainly by Andrew Lang. Before I could
say anything he said * I 'm told you think what I
write is rot.' I replied ' No : I think some of what you
write is rot. Will you come and dine with me to-
night ? ' Which reply, after forty years and more, 1
regard as in both parts not unworthy of an Englishman.
So he came : and we were friends ever after. I had a
pretty good notion as to who was likely to have been
his teller, and probably some of the other contributors
to this book may share it.
A GIFT COPY FROM R. L. S.
MRS ADAM BLACK.
THO' I can remember Robert Louis Stevenson very
well, I feel that what I give here is worth much
more than any recollections of mine, and it would
be very difficult for me to express my recollections in
writing. What I send for the volume is what he wrote
in the copy of Travels with a Donkey which he gave to
Miss Balfour ('Auntie'), which she left to me, her
niece.
* My dear Auntie, If you could only think a little less
of me and others, and a great deal more of your delight-
ful self, you would be as nearly perfect as there is any
need to be. I think I have travelled with donkeys all
my life ; and the experience of this book should have
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 187
been nothing new to me. But if ever I knew a real
donkey, I believe it is yourself. You are so eager to think
well of everybody else (except when you are angry on
account of some third person) that I do not believe you
have ever left yourself time to think properly of your-
self. You never understand when other people are
unworthy, nor when you yourself are worthy in the
highest degree. Oblige us all by having a guid conceit
o' yoursel, and despising in the future the whole crowd
including your affectionate nephew
R L. S.'
STEVENSON IN CALIFORNIA.
MRS VAN DE GRIFT SANCHEZ.
From LIFE OF MRS R. L. STEVENSON.
IN the year 1879 there remained one spot in practical
America where the Spirit of Romance still lingered,
though even there she stood a-tiptoe, ready to take
wing into the mists of the Pacific. It seems fitting
that it should have been at that place that I first knew
Robert Louis Stevenson. Although the passing of the
years has dimmed the memory of those days to a
certain degree, yet here and there a high light gleams
out in the shadowy haze of the picture and brings back
the impression of his face and personality and of the
surroundings and little events of our daily life in his
company as though they had happened but yesterday.
The little town of Monterey, being out of the beaten
track of travel, and having no mines or large agri-
cultural tracts in its vicinity to stimulate trade, had
dreamed away the years since American occupation,
and still retained much of the flavour of the pastoral
days of Spanish California. . . .
High adobe walls, topped with tiles, concealed
pleasant secluded gardens, from which the heavy
perfume of the floribundia and other semi-tropical
188 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSOtt.
flowers poured out on the evening air. Behind such
a wall and in the midst of such a garden stood the
two -storey adobe dwelling of the Senorita Maria
Ygnacia Bonifacio, known to her intimates as Dona
Nachita. In the ' clean empty rooms' of this house,
furnished with Spanish abstemiousness and kept in
shining whiteness, * where the roar of the water dwelt
as in a shell upon the chimney,' we had our temporary
residence, and here Louis Stevenson came often to visit
us and share our simple meals, each of which became
a little fete in the thrill of his presence and conversa-
tion. Something he had in him that made life seem
a more exciting thing, better worth living, to every
one associated with him, and it seemed impossible to
be dull or bored in his company. . . .
In the Senorita Bonifacio's garden, where we spent
much of our time, there was a riot of flowers rich
yellow masses of enormous cloth-of-gold roses, delicate
pink old-fashioned Castilian roses, which the Senorita
carefully gathered each year to make rose-pillows,
besides fuchsias as large as young trees, and a thousand
other blooms of incredible size and beauty. ... As
to flowers, it seemed to me that they made no
particular appeal to Mr Stevenson except for their
scent, in which he was very like the rest of his sex the
world over. He cared rather for nature's larger effects
a noble cloud in the sky, the thunder of the surf
on the beach, or the fresh resinous smell of the pine
forest.
To this house he came often of an afternoon to read
the results of his morning's work to the assembled
family. While we sat in a circle, listening in appreci-
ative silence, he nervously paced the room, reading
aloud in his full, sonorous voice a voice that always
seemed remarkable in so frail a man his face flushed
and his manner embarrassed, for, far from being over-
confident about his work, he always seemed to feel a
sort of shy anxiety lest it should not be up to the
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 189
mark. He invariably gave respectful attention and
careful consideration to the criticism of the humblest
of his hearers, but in the end clung with Scottish
pertinacity to his own opinion if he was sure of its
justice. In this way we heard The Pavilion on the
Links, which he wrote at Monterey, and read to us
chapter by chapter as they came from his pen. . . .
Out of the mist arise memories of walks along the
beach the long beach of clean white sand that stretches
unbroken for many miles around the great sweeping
curve of Monterey Bay, where we 'watched the tiny
sandy-pipers, and the huge Pacific seas.' Sometimes
we walked there at night, when the blood-red harvest-
moon sprang suddenly like a great ball of fire above
the rim of horizon on the opposite side of the circling
bay, sending a glittering track across the water to our
very feet. To walk with Stevenson on such a night,
and watch * the waves come in slowly, vast and green,
curve their translucent necks and burst with a surprising
uproar ' to walk with him on such a night and listen
to his inimitable talk is the sort of memory that cannot
fade. On other nights when the waters of the bay
were all alight with the glow of phosphorescence, we
walked on the old wooden pier and marvelled at the
billows of fire sent rolling in beneath us by the splashing
porpoises. . . .
The setting of the picture is now changed to Oak-
land, across the bay from San Francisco, where we
lived for some months in the little house which Mr
Stevenson himself describes in the dedication to Prince
Otto, as ' far gone in the respectable stages of antiquity,
and which seemed indissoluble from the green garden
in which it stood, and that yet was a sea-traveller in its
younger days, and had come round the Horn piece-
meal in the belly of a ship, and might have heard the
seamen stamping and shouting and the note of the
boatswain's whistle.' This cottage was of the variety
known as 'cloth and paper,' a flimsy construction
190 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
permitted by the kindly climate of California, and on
winter nights, when the wind blew in strongly from
the sea, its sides puffed in and out, greatly to the
amusement of the * Scot/ accustomed as he was to
the solid buildings of his native land. It was, as he
says, ' embowered in creepers ', for over its front a
cloth-of-gold rose spread its clinging arms, and over
one side a Banksia flung a curtain of green and
yellow.
It was during his stay in this house that we first
realised the serious nature of his illness, and yet there
was none of the depressing atmosphere of sickness, for
he refused to be the regulation sick man. Every day
he worked for a few hours at least, while I acted as
amanuensis in order to save him the physical labour
of writing. In this way the first rough draught of
Prince Otto was written, and here, too, he tried his
hand at poetry, producing some of the poems that
afterwards appeared in the collection called Under-
woods, although it is certain that he never believed
himself to be possessed of the true poetic fire. Brave
as his spirit was, yet he had his dark moments when
the dread of premature death weighed upon him. . . .
While engaged in dictating, he had a habit of
walking up and down the room, his pace growing
faster and faster as his enthusiasm rose. We feared
that this was not very good for him, so we quietly
devised a scheme to prevent it, without his knowledge,
by hemming him in with tables and chairs, so that each
time he sprang up to walk he sank back discouraged at
sight of the obstructions. . . .
Sickness and discouragement were not enough to
keep down his boyish gaiety, which he sometimes
manifested by teasing his womenfolk. One of his
favourite methods of doing this was to station himself
on a chair in front of us, and, with his brown eyes
lighted up with a whimsical smile, talk broad Scots,
. . . by the hour, until we cried for mercy. Yet he
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 191
was decidedly sensitive about that same Scots, and his
feelings were much wounded by hearing me express a
horror of reading it in books. . . .
Here the scene changes again, this time to San
Francisco, the city of many hills, of drifting summer
fogs, and sparkling winter sunshine, the old city that
now lives only in the memories of those who knew it
in the days when Stevenson climbed the steep ways
of its streets. Although he had something about him
of the ennui of the much-travelled man, and complained
that
' There 's nothing under heaven so blue
That 's fairly worth the travelling to,'
yet no attraction was lost on him, and the Far Western
flavour of San Francisco, with its added tang of the
Orient, and the feeling of adventure blowing in on its
salt sea-breezes, was much to his liking. My especial
memory here is of many walks taken with him up
Telegraph Hill, where the streets were grass-grown
because no horse could climb them, and the side-walks
were provided with steps or cleats for the assistance of
foot-passengers. . . .
Once more the picture changes, now to the town of
Calistoga with its hybrid name made up of syllables
from Saratoga and California where we stayed for a
few days at the old Springs Hotel while on our way
to Mount Saint Helena, to which mountain-refuge
Mr Stevenson was fleeing from the sea-fogs of the
coast. . . .
Then back to San Francisco, where the only memory
that remains is that of a confused blur of preparations
for leaving packing, ticket-buying, and melancholy
farewells for the time had come to return to old
Scotland to introduce a newly-acquired American wife
to waiting parents. . . .
Then came the parting, which proved to be eternal,
for I never saw him again.
192 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
MEMORIES.
GEORGE ST J. BREMNER.
I can remember Robert Louis Stevenson. I came
across him frequently in San Francisco in the
spring cf 1880, although I never got to know him.
I first saw him in a sort of half restaurant, half concert-
hall, called 'St Ann's Rest/ He was sitting at a
table with writing materials before him, and when the
orchestra played, he would lay down his pen, light a
cigarette, and listen to the music. When it stopped
he would resume writing.
Stevenson was married by the clergyman (Dr W. A.
Scott) who was also chaplain of St Andrews' Society,
which is the principal Scottish organisation here. The
very next day after Stevenson's wedding, another Scots-
man, James R. Watson, a native of Dundee, was
married by the same clergyman. Dr Scott mentioned
the fact, and commented on the similarity of the brides,
both being very small women, and both very dark-
It is a singular coincidence that, many years after-
wards, when Stevenson was in Samoa, this Mr Watson
was the purchasing agent for Moors, the Apia merchant
and friend of Stevenson, and he frequently received
orders with this memo., ' This is for your countryman
R. L. Stevenson, so give it your best attention.'
The only time I was privileged to speak to, and be
spoken to by, Stevenson, was when he was living in
East Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco.
His wife had given him a commission to buy some-
thing for her, and had given him a sample of it. He
came into the Dry Goods Store where I was employed,
and, holding out the sample, he asked me :
< Where's that?'
I directed him, and on his way out he stopped, and,
addressing me, said : ' You are a Scotsman, aren't you ? '
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 193
Yes.'
' Where are you from ? '
' Aberdeenshire.'
'Ah!'
Just then a woman stepped up and asked for some-
thing, and I had to attend to her. Stevenson waited
a minute or two, and then left.
Of course at that time I did not know who he was,
and it was not till years afterwards that I recognised,
in the pictures of the celebrated writer, the man I had
often seen in San Francisco.
REMINISCENCES.
JAMES CUNNINGHAM.
MY intercourse with Stevenson was comparatively
slight in amount : ten days' companionship on
an Atlantic liner, two visits of a day or less, the
interchange of a few letters, this was the sum of our
fellowship. And yet I seem to myself to have been
really intimate with him: my affection for him was
deep and lasting : in truth I loved the man at first
sight, and I love him still. As Mrs Stevenson once
said to me * There is no one like Louis, is there ? '
It was on the 7th of August 1880 that I first saw
Stevenson. I was standing with a friend on the upper
deck of an Atlantic liner in the harbour of New York,
waiting impatiently for the moment when we should
feel the screw revolve on the homeward voyage.
Among the group of those who were to be our fellow-
passengers my companion recognised an acquaintance,
a youth, as he seemed, with a bright almost boyish look,
and a peculiarly friendly smile. So I was introduced
to Stevenson.
I had at that time, I think, not read a line of his
writings, and owing to absence from home had heard
little or nothing about him, but I fell under his spell
B.L.9. M
194 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
from the first. It was easy to establish friendly re-
lations with him. He has said somewhere that we
travel to make friends: and, indeed, he gave himself
trouble to collect friendships, as other travellers collect
curios, of all orders of merit. The tedious Atlantic
crossing, the more tedious perhaps on account of its
brevity, meant for me on that occasion nine or ten
days of Stevenson's talk, such talk as I had never before
heard, and now do not expect ever to hear again. To
the accompaniment of endless cigarettes, or sometimes,
it might be, of a perilous cocktail which he compounded
with much zest from a San Francisco recipe, the stream
of his romantic and genial talked flowed on.
He was homeward bound from California, where he
had been recently married. Mrs Stevenson was with
him, a lady well fitted to be his companion and helper.
He was fond of telling his experiences in California,
' Watching all the mighty whale-bones, lying buried by
the breeze. Tiny sandy-pipers, and the huge Pacific
seas/ His health had benefited by the climate there.
One of his methods of cure had been to take a sun-bath
by lying, without his clothes, on the house-top at noon-
day. He told us, too, how he had narrowly escaped
being lynched. The woods around Monterey are hung
with a long trailing moss, dry as tinder, falling from the
branches of the trees to the ground. One day after
he had lit his cigarette it occurred to him to apply the
burning match to one of these festoons : in an instant
the flame ran quickly beyond his reach up among the
branches : he realised what he had done : he had started
a forest fire. As he stood horror-struck, angry voices
reached his ear from several directions, of men rush-
ing to the spot, calling to one another to seize the
malefactor. Then he ran, ran, he said, as he had never
run before, and just escaped. Had he been caught, the
nearest tree and a short rope would have ' eclipsed the
gaiety of nations.'
We discovered that we had both been in our boyhood
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 195
devotees of Captain Mayne Reid. He amused himself
by getting me to recall what I could of The White
Squaw and others of Ileid's tales, and from these scraps
he worked out a tale partly from memory, and largely
from invention. As may be imagined he out-Reided
Reid in this romantic improvisation.
When I came to read his books later I found they
were of a piece with his talk : the Vailima letters give
perhaps the best idea of his conversation at its best.
There was the same romantic treatment of adventures,
the same genial criticism of life without any of the
bitterness of those who do not see life whole, the same
veracity, for he never talked for talking's sake, nor
uttered half-truths to make a point : his was a sincere
wit. It was noticeable that he, great stylist as he was,
concerned himself more with the matter than the
manner of his favourite authors. With all his wide
tolerance and his sympathy with the shady sides of life,
he had the sound moral judgment of the Scot : he was
a citizen of the world, but a native of Edinburgh. He
was glad to think that the great teachers among men of
letters, men like Carlyle and Browning, were men of
good character.
The following letter from Blair Athole gives some
account of his doings after his arrival in Edinburgh.
BLAIR ATHOLE.
MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM, I am on my way to Strathpeffer,
Ben Wyvis Hotel, there to stay perhaps two weeks. Thence I
return to Edinburgh for say three ; thence to London for October ;
and thence to Mentone, that being the Doctor's orders. I write
this same post to Douglas and Foulis to send you my Burns ; in
Edinburgh I was so overwhelmed with affairs, my whole family
having to be rigged out with wedding garments what my mother
significantly calls ' getting a few things in the meantime ' that
I forgot my promise. I do trust at least that we may meet in
other cities besides the city of Chester ; that, my young friend, is
not an abiding city. I sorrow for my Wilkins. My wife joins
me in prayer I mean in hopes that after having met us in
the morning of our day, you will * come up with thy servant in
196 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
the afternoon. ' You will observe I have been to church. Sam
and I sat together and gently elapsed from the gathering about
midway. Yours, ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
I commit this pen to the infernal gods.
Remember us to Ogilvie.
Man, I liked the Scotch psalms fine.
And, man, of a' 'at ever I saw, I think I ne'er saw the beat o 1
Tummelside.
The article on Burns must have duly arrived, and
after I had read it I wrote Stevenson a letter on the
subject. The following is his reply.
17 HERIOT Row, EDINBURGH.
[No date.]
MY DEAE CUNNINGHAM, I have to thank you for a rare
commodity : some intelligible criticism. The sentence about
Burns in Paradise, I simply delete. You are right ; I wrong.
What I ought to have said was that many men could have
warstled through with such surroundings but not Burns. My
1 dark hint ' was not meant to be one. I mean that the Highland
Mary business, sandwiched, as it was, among other events, was not
one on which Burns would care to expatiate. If you think I have
overaccentuated the Don Juan business, it is not, I believe, my
fault, but that of former biographers who have not only accustomed
you to an evasive and sentimentalised treatment of that side, but
left upon me the necessity of leaning upon it and at the same
time reflecting other sides which have already been adequately
ventilated. There is a difference between writing a life and a
supplementary criticism.
I was pleased to see your quotation from Clough. I used it
myself in an approximate form, and with a doubtful attribution
to C., in another article one on Villon ; and was never since able
to find if I were right.
I shall soon be in Edinburgh, and then perhaps we may have
a meeting. I very sincerely hope so.
The Printing Press not yet having arrived, your wail for a
greatcoat has not yet gone forth 'over the house-tops of the
world.' My wife and Sam desire to be remembered. I am sure,
from the little experiment already made, that I must flee from
Scotland. It is, for me, the mouth of the pit. Yours very
sincerely, ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 197
The next time I saw the Stevensons was in the
following summer of 1881. They were living in the
little hamlet of Kinnaird, near Pitlochry ; they lodged
in a small farm-house on the left hand of the road as
one goes to Kirkmichael : their sitting-room boasted
only one small window which might have been the
Window in Thrums as regards size: they were each
engaged in writing a story at this time, I found them
trying to solve a problem in connection with one of the
stories, Mrs Stevenson's I think : it was to find a single
word or epithet which should describe the shape of a
man's shadow which had fallen half on the floor and
half on the wall of a room. They invited my assistance
and we hammered away at the difficulty for a long time
without success : whether it was solved afterwards I do
not know. He read part of his tale of Thrown Janet,
and it was in it, I think, that I suggested to him, as it
was in Scots, the word 'chafts' instead of 'jaws,' which
he had used. He pounced upon the word, which was
new to him, with great eagerness. These two trifling
incidents serve to show the elaborate care in word-fitting
which Stevenson exercised in his work.
There is near Kinnaird, running down the bare slopes
to the valley, a line of tree-tops and bushes that mark
and at the same time conceal the course of a small
stream which has furrowed for itself a deep channel as
it flows to join the Tummel below. In this den the
Stevensons had found a seclusion suited to their tastes :
there we spent the greater part of a fine summer day.
We sat by the side of the green-gray water which here
flows over smooth stony slabs, with forty feet of green
leaves above our heads ; a charming place for such talk
as we had. They had had adventures as usual. Mrs
Stevenson was sitting one day sketching in a wood of
; fine larches which then skirted the rise of the road as it
passes over the shoulders of Ben Vrackie. Suddenly
the ground began to swim before her eyes and she felt
that she was going to faint. She made an effort to rise
198 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
and reach the road, and had just snatched up her draw-
ing things and left the spot when the tree against which
she had been leaning fell with a crash on the place
where she had been. The waving motion of the turf
caused by the loosening of the shallow spreading roots
of the falling larch had produced the illusion of fainting
and so had saved her life.
The westering sun was shining over the tops of the
hills above Killiecrankie as I said good-bye to Stevenson
on the road outside his cottage. His face wore a look
which used to suggest to my fancy a resemblance to
one of Raphael's Madonnas the Sistine. I think it
was the long oval of the cheek, and the radiant brown
eyes, set rather wide apart, with a certain parallelism in
their gaze, which suggested the likeness.
I saw him again two years later, in the spring, at his
little villa, La Solitude, Hyeres. He was just recover-
ing from one of his bad illnesses, which had brought
him to the point of death : but Mrs Stevenson and he
insisted on my dining with them, as we were just passing
through on our honeymoon. He was very much re-
duced in strength : he had been nearly blind and was
still compelled to wear blue glasses, which however he
removed in order to have a look at my wife. But the
unconquerably gay spirit was still the same. He gave
us a vivid account of his sudden seizure at a roadside
railway station, and of the difficulty they had in getting
him home: he complained humorously that he was
deprived for the time of his three chief solaces, to walk,
to talk, and to smoke cigarettes : but he signalised his
convalescence on that evening by breaking through the
two last restrictions. He told us how he had been
refused admission, without reason given, to the gaming-
tables of Monte Carlo, doubtless on account of his un-
conventional manner of dress : it was hard, as he said,
to be turned away from a place which welcomed with
open arms the off-scourings of Europe. The night
before we were there something had fallen with a crash
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 199
on their roof and a loud cry had been heard at the same
moment in the lonely road outside their gate ; these
particulars were worked, half-seriously, half-jestingly,
by our host, into an awesome mystery, so that when we
left we felt quite eerie till we had reached the gas-lamps
of the town. He was very humorous over an amanu-
ensis who would treat him ceremoniously. His habit
was to prepare himself so as to begin dictating the
moment she entered. He would thus begin at once
something in this way. * The man drew the bloody
dagger ' : to which she would reply ' This is a lovely
day, Mr Stevenson': 'The man drew the bloody
dagger', with increased emphasis. 'I hope you feel
better to-day, Mr Stevenson ' : and so on.
I came away from him that evening feeling a great
admiration for the courage that had looked at death so
near at hand and was now again facing life with such
unaffected cheerfulness. He wrote to me not long after
this * I keep a kind of even tenor of ill-health to which
I begin to grow used. Health is but a prejudice.'
The following letter was received by Mrs Cunning-
ham soon after the visit described above.
LA SOLITUDE, HY^RES-LES-PALMIERS, VAR.
MY DEAR MRS CUNNINGHAM, My wife is smitten with idiocy
and can only babble friendly messages. As you proceed with
married life, you will find that one of every couple is subject to
such attacks when there falls anything to do. Take time by the
forelock and Be you the Idiot. Years hence when I am old and
horrible with snuff, you will come and bless me for this counsel.
We were delighted to hear better news of your husband. I
wish Hyeres had been the place that bettered him. But never
mind. The next time you come, we shall be rich and we can all
go roving in a party. I mean also to be in rude health and full
manly beauty, the goggles discarded.
At least do come again. This has been a pleasant glimpse, and
neither my wife nor I will give over hearkening for your chariot
wheels. Yours very truly, ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
Stevenson had kindly promised to send us three of
200 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
his woodcuts as a wedding present, and had given them
in charge to a firm in London for despatch : they had
been mislaid and delayed in transit. The * wee bookie '
was the Child's Garden of Verses.
BONALLIE TOWER, BRANKSOME PARK,
BOURNEMOUTH,
Jan. Qth, '85.
MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM, Believe me we have struggled with
the Monster hitherto in vain ; but your letter forwarded yesterday
to the cavern where he lurks, may touch him up. I am delighted
to see your fist, even in irony ; as to your face, now that I am,
(and I hope like to be) in this land of Freedom, why should we not
see that also ? I keep a kind of even tenor of ill-health, to which
I begin to grow used. Health is but a prejudice. Really I have
no reason to complain, and keep wonderfully fit for as little as
possible, and like it.
I pray God you get the woodcuts soon ; indeed, it is no fault
of mine : the man to whom they were entrusted is a common
pirate : in fact, (and in all seriousness) John Silver was partly
founded upon him : can you wonder ? a pyrat, he is : and a man
without law ; and has recently flitted, forbye. You seem to have
flitted your nainsel. Well well, let us drop the subject. You
shall get the woodcuts as soon as may be, and the pyrat wills, and
1 11 send you a wee bookie one of these days. And meantime,
which is more important, when is there a chance of seeing you ?
We can take you both in and do for you with every circumstance
of meanness. Won't you come ? See, Mrs Kinnigam is a
woman of sense : bring your husband here and no more ado.
Yours really very sincerely, ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
STEVENSON A CANDIDATE FOR THE CHAIR OF
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AT EDINBURGH.
LORD SANDS.
I have really no claim to write personal reminis-
cences of Robert Louis Stevenson for I had no
personal acquaintance with him. This was perhaps
odd as the Thomas Stevensons were old friends of my
mother. Her brother, Dr Maxwell Nicholson, was
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 201
minister of St Stephen's, Edinburgh, from 1867 to
1874, and I believe the 'family theologian' sometimes
took counsel with him in regard to the 'unsettling'
tendencies of his son. The first time I ever heard
of R. L. Stevenson was when I was a school-boy at
St Andrews and Dr Nicholson mentioned in a letter
to my mother that he had met Mrs Stevenson and she
was immensely proud because a paper by Louis had
been accepted by some leading magazine the Corn/till,
if I mistake not. My coming to Edinburgh in 1875
was contemporary with Stevenson being called to the
Bar, and also with the beginning of his wanderings.
The only place where I can definitely remember seeing
him was in St Stephen's Church sitting next the door
of the family pew, for, in these days, the pews had
doors. But I was not infrequently entertained at
17 Heriot Row, though it always happened that Louis
was absent. The old people were very kind to me.
The good old formal Edinburgh dinner-party seems to
have died out with the War. But Thomas Stevenson
was fond of these entertainments and did them well.
After-dinner smoking had not become general in the
early 'eighties, so we sipped claret whilst our host
denounced Mr Gladstone and all his works and sighed
for Lord Palmerston. I recall how he explained that,
though he was a Tory, he thought the best form of
government for the country was a Whig ministry with
only a narrow majority, as in the early 'sixties. He was
an unexhaustible talker. Politics, theology, and hydro-
statics are the subjects which I recall. Mrs Stevenson
was keenly, though not obtrusively, interested in foreign
missions. She looked very youthful beside her husband,
and I recall how she once quizzingly rebuked me on the
strength of a tale that I had referred to her as 'the old
lady.' She generally saw the bright side of things and
her husband the sombre.
The nearest I ever came to personal relationship with
R. L. Stevenson was in the winter of 1881-82, when I
202 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
was one of the members of the Bar who voted for him
as a candidate for the Chair of Constitutional Law and
History. When the vote was taken the supporters of
Stevenson were directed to go into the Committee
Room off the corridor to be counted. We were easily
counted, for we were only nine ; but William Mackintosh
(Lord Kyllachy), C. J. Guthrie (Lord Guthrie), and
Thomas Shaw (Lord Shaw), were in that room. We
made a poor poll, but perhaps it is well that prophets
were scarce. Stevenson was not suited for the post,
but doubtless, had the distinction he was to achieve
been generally foreseen, there would have been not nine
but ninety and nine eager to vote for him.
MY MEETING WITH ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
COUNCILLOR WILSON M'LAREN.
ONE of the chief events of my life was my making
the acquaintance of 'the lang, lean chiel wha
wore the velvet jaicket,' in the High Street of
Edinburgh, in the early summer of 1881. That is
forty years ago, but I shall never forget the meeting
with R. L. S.
Stevenson had heard that I was credited with know-
ing something about the old houses and the old closes
of the Royal Mile ; and, although only on a hurried
visit to the city of his birth, he found me out that
summer afternoon at No. 6 Writers' Court, High
Street. He was keenly interested in the rooms once
occupied by the 'Star and Garter,' and jokingly re-
ferred to the 'high jinks ' that were carried on in the
days of our forefathers.
We left No. 6, with its quaint panelled apartments,
and, ascending a few stone steps near the Writers'
Court entrance to the Royal Exchange, found ourselves
in the once famous John's Coffee House. Thence
we crossed to No. 1, and, descending a long flight of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 203
steps, reached the subterranean passage occupied by
M'Indo's shooting-gallery. That foul-smelling under-
ground tunnel was much frequented by those who
aspired to be crack shots with the rifle. I found R. L. S.
to be no great marksman, as far as this long open
shooting-range was concerned. We had six shots each,
and he missed the stone target twice. We then beat
a hasty retreat from the shooting-gallery, and a walk
of a few yards up the High Street brought us to
Advocates' Close, where Stevenson was particularly
interested in the Scriptural texts cut out on the stone
lintels of the doorways, and its dark, turnpike stairs.
We next visited a few places of historic interest in
the Lawnmarket Brodie's Close, Riddell's Close, and
Lady Stair's Close ; then, turning down by the Bow-
head into Victoria Terrace, we reached the head of the
Candlemaker Row. I drew my companion's attention
to the granite fountain erected by the late Baroness
Burdett Coutts to the memory of * Greyfriars' Bobby,'
in 1872, and mentioned the fact that, when a boy, I
had given this faithful Highland dog a buttered ' bap '
in Traill's dining-rooms near at hand. Stevenson was
unacquainted with the touching story of this dog's
fidelity to his dead master, and listened with great in-
terest when I told him how, in 1858, the dog followed
the remains of his master, a Midlothian farmer named
Grey, to Greyfriars' Kirkyard, and lingered near the
grave for almost fourteen years, until his death in 1872.
We visited Greyfriars' Kirkyard, and Stevenson once
again looked at the Martyrs' Monument and 'Bluidy
Mackenzie's' tomb, which he had so graphically de-
scribed in his Picturesque Notes.
Leaving the ' Westminster of Scotland,' we cut down
the Middle Meadow Walk to George Square, and, after
a look at the house where Sir Walter Scott lived when
a boy, Stevenson asked me if I knew anything about
Lord Braxfield. I had to confess my ignorance. With
a smile he turned round, and, pointing up the Square
204 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
to the house now occupied by the College of Agricul-
ture, he said, ' Braxfield lived there hot stuff in his
day ! ' Undoubtedly, R. L. S. seemed to know the
locality well.
From George Square Lane, after admiring the ample
stretch of gardens belonging to the houses that looked
to the Meadows, we turned into Buccleuch Place, and
I pointed out the famous Old Assembly Rooms, and
the house, No. 18, where Lord Jeffrey founded the
Edinburgh Review. Buccleuch Pend was near at hand,
and we had a look at the house where Robert Burns
visited Willie Nicol of the High School, whom he
immortalised in the song, 'Willie brewed a peck o'
maut.' Crossing the street, we spent a few minutes in
Buccleuch Kirkyard, where Mrs Cockburn, who wrote
' The Flowers of the Forest, 5 was laid to rest ; and where
Deacon Brodie, who is supposed to be prototype of
Stevenson's ' Jekyll and Hyde,' was buried, after being
hanged at the head of Liberton's Wynd.
Returning to the High Street, both of us hungry and
thirsty, we entered a famous howff much frequented in
those days by lawyers from the Parliament House, and
which is still in existence ; and there, in a back room,
we sat down, like true Bohemians, to a feast fit for the
gods hot mulled porter, saveloys, and bread !
Such was my first and last meeting with Robert
Louis Stevenson, the genius whose writings every leal-
hearted Scot will not willingly let die.
RECOLLECTIONS.
ANDRE RAFFALOVICH.
HOW I wish I remembered more of R. L. S. and
less of myself. I was only seventeen when I
sent him a boyish article I had written in some
French journal. He wrote to me from Davos a char-
acteristic letter with some oath never addressed to me
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 205
before and when he came to Paris we spent part of a
day together. I called for him at the Hotel St Remain,
I think ; I saw his wife and Lloyd Osbourne, and
carried my prize home. He was amused by my un-
expected youth, I wondered what my parents would
think of him. They liked him, he admired my mother,
he rather shocked me by his emphasised admiration of
an Andromeda by Henner ; after lunch I took him for
a drive in the Bois de Boulogne. Of his talk I chiefly
remember his saying that he tried his ideas on every
human being he met ; his descriptions of Andrew Lang,
Edmund Gosse, George Meredith, Sidney Colvin (who
was so kind to me because of R. L. S. and because of
his own kindness) ; his telling me to read Leaves of
Grass as a cure for adolescent melancholy ; and of his
even stranger utterance that Baudelaire's Femmes
damnees was comic and not wicked. He was as
prodigal of his privately printed Davos works as I was
lavish of them later on, giving them away to any one.
I have not even the New Arabian Nights he gave me,
nor a scrap of his writing.
Henry James alone could have made bunches of
grape hang from so dry a vine as my memory of R. L. S
I blame the ingratitude of youth, and I regret.
STEVENSON'S ADVICE.
THE REV. J. C. B. GEDDES.
I have only a very slight recollection of R. L. S.
We met once at Matlock in Derbyshire, where
he and his wife and his father and mother were
staying. My mother knew his people and introduced
me to him. I grieve to find I can recall no separate
word or phrase of his talk. All I can remember is that
he used the whole of the short time we were together
206 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
to try to persuade me to study, not for the Church,
which I had just decided to do, but for the Bar. The
gist of what he said was that nowadays you can do
more good outside the organised Church than inside it.
It was while he was urging this very strongly that I
noticed how curiously far apart his eyes were. They
looked almost as though they had been set to keep
quite separate watch at the corners of his head 1 This
was strange, but not in the least displeasing I have
still a faint feeling of the charm and fascination of
his look as he talked on very eagerly. Of course for
the mere lad I then was, it was an exciting and
proud moment. His friendliness, and the almost
startling interest he took in the choice I was making,
thrilled me.
The house where we were staying had an older and
a newer part connected by a covered gangway or
passage. Up and down this passage, each day for
hours, the father and son walked arm in arm, the old
man much the sturdier of the two. I believe they had
been long apart. But there they were once more
together. And I have this happy picture of them,
reconciled and evidently enjoying one another.
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON AND THE
YOUNG FOLKS READER.
JAMES DOW.
WHEN I was * reader ' for Young Folks, the weekly
paper edited by Mr James Henderson, in which
Treasure Island, The Black Arrow, and Kid-
napped appeared in serial form, I had a visit from Mr
Robert Louis Stevenson which I can remember with
very great pleasure as one of the most interesting of
my experiences.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 207
The first instalment of a new adventure story, which
was afterwards called Treasure Island, came into my
hands in galley proof just after my return from my
holiday, and when I was 'reading' it I was deeply
impressed by the story and by the style.
' Who is this new writer ? ' I asked the ' copyholder.'
' His work is much better and more literary than any-
thing else in the paper/
We did not know anything about the author, but
from that moment I took a great interest in his work,
and I did my best to ensure very correct ' reading ' of
the proofs ; and I must emphatically deny the state-
ments which have been made, inferring that I amended
the syntax and corrected the punctuation. Throughout
the three stories that I ' read ' for him I had no occasion
to do either. In no instance did I alter the text, and I
did my utmost to preserve the author's punctuation.
In syntax he needed no coaching, and of punctuation
he was a Master. The difficulty I had was to induce
the compositors to 'follow the copy,' and to refrain
from trying to improve the punctuation so carefully
prepared for them.
The 'slips of the pen' to which I drew his attention
few and far between were attributable to ill-health
and human fallibility, and not to lack of skill. Two or
three in Treasure Island were rectified on the proof;
but the principal one in The Black Arrow caused me
to write him the fpllowing note :
RED LION HOUSE.
To THE AUTHOR.
DEAR SIR, At the risk of incurring your displeasure, I venture
to point out to you what may be an intentional omission but
which, I think, is probably an oversight.
There were four black arrows, to be used with deadly intent.
Three have been accounted for. In this concluding instalment
the fourth is not mentioned ; nor is there any indication of the
fate of Sir Oliver, for whom the fourth arrow was evidently in-
tended. This has occurred to me all the more forcibly because
208 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Sir Oliver's dreadful terror of a violent death has been on more
than one occasion so vividly represented.
Believe me, Sir, to be, not your critic, but your servant,
THE READER, Y. F.
The following is a literal copy of his reply :
LA SOLITUDE, HYERES-LES-PALMIERS, VAR.
To THE READER.
DEAR SIR, To the contrary, I thank you most cordially ;
indeed, the story having changed and run away from me in the
course of writing, the dread fate that I had originally designed for
Sir Oliver became impossible, and I had, I blush to say it, clean
forgot him.
Thanks to you, Sir, he shall die the death. I enclose to-night
slips 49-50-51 ; and to-morrow or next day, after having
butchered the priest, I shall dispatch the rest.
I must not, however, allow this opportunity to go by without
once more thanking you for I think we have, in a ghostly fashion,
met before on the margin of proof for the unflagging intelligence
and care with which my MS. is read. I have a large and generally
disastrous experience of printers and printers' readers. Nowhere
do I send worse copy than to Voting Folks, for, with this sort of
story, I rarely rewrite ; yet nowhere am I so well used. And the
skill with which the somewhat arbitrary and certainly baffling
dialect was picked up, in the case of The Black Arrow^ filled me
with a gentle surprise.
I will add that you have humiliated me ; that you should have
been so much more wide-awake than myself is both humiliating
and, I say it very humbly, perhaps flattering.
The reader is a kind of veiled prophet between the author and
the public a veiled, anonymous intermediary ; and it pleases me
to greet and thank him. Your obliged servant,
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON,
alias CAPTN. GEORGE NORTH.
This letter indicates the nature of the little services I
rendered him, in common with scores of other authors
during thirty odd years (what good printers' reader
would not do the like?) and completely disposes of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 209
silly, untrue stories of amendments of punctuation and
syntax.
And he must have been sincerely grateful ; for
months afterwards, when travelling by short stages
from Edinburgh to Bournemouth, he stopped in London
to see me, and unheeding Mr Henderson's entreaties
not to attempt to mount the flights of stairs necessary
(he was exceedingly ill), said, * I will ascend the stairs
and see the reader, though I die for it ! ' But he was
so exhausted by the effort that when he entered the
reading closet he was speechless.
It has been often stated in Red Lion House publi-
cations and other papers that Mr James Henderson
changed the original title to ' Treasure Island,' yet that
has not escaped something approaching contradiction.
I will tell what I know. Mr Stevenson wrote on
a sheet of notepaper (not his usual copy paper) four
alternative titles evidently for Mr Henderson's selec-
tion the first of which was ' The Sea Cook ; or The
Voyage of the Hispaniola. 9 All but the first were
cancelled, and that was put in type as the heading of
the story, though I was informed that it was only
temporary, as the correct title would be supplied later.
Eight or ten days afterwards I received from Mr
Henderson a slip proof on which he had deleted ' The
Sea Cook ' and above it written * Treasure Island ' ; and
so the story went to press.
Moveover in my interview with Mr Stevenson I
referred to the criticism of Treasure Island in the
Saturday Review, in which the writer, after referring
to the fine character of the ship's cook, suggested that
'John Silver, Pirate,' would be an appropriate title.
Mr Stevenson replied that he had read the review, and
added, ' But Mr James Henderson wished the title to
be " Treasure Island ", and I deferred to him ; he is the
proprietor.' Nothing in his tone suggested disapproval,
and he could not have ' deferred ' to the wish of another
unless he had been informed of it.
R.L.S. N
210 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
SKERRYVORE.
MRS VALENTINE A. BROWN, U66 ROCH.
WHENEVER my thoughts take me back to
those happy days at Skerryvore, I feel grate-
ful to the Fates which granted me those few
years of close companionship with one who is beloved
of all who knew him.*
To us his servants he was master and friend,
teacher and physician.
From him I learned that life is not for self if we
want happiness and that it is only in service that
we fulfil our destiny.
To give pleasure to others to take what comes to
us of good or bad in the same spirit, and make good,
was his creed and we in our humble place knew
that he was doing it to a degree that was admirable.
Life at Skerryvore was not always easy. Owing
to the master's state of health, and other things, it
was sometimes hard to keep one's head up through
the storm ; but whenever we breasted the waves
successfully, and came through smilingly, he was
always ready to reward us, for he had watched the
storm and almost always knew whence it came.
To us he was always the Doctor and we called
him so. I, when I was 'good', was Joe, and when
'bad', Thomassine so that I could always tell if he
were pleased with me.
I remember once when it had been a little harder
than usual I came to him, summoned by his bell.
He looked at me so sad and when I tried to justify
myself, he said: 'Hush, Joe! You know when one
tries to justify one's self, one puts someone else in
the wrong and life is not possible under these con-
* Valentine Rocli, * an extremely clever and capable French girl,' entered
Mr and Mrs R. L. Stevenson's service in May 1883, and accompanied them
to the Pacific Islands in August 1887. [ED. J
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 211
ditions.' And as I looked at him in surprise, he took
my hand and said : ' That is all right, Joe we under-
stand each other, don't we ? '
Another time, when I came to him in the morning
he was busy writing, and hardly looked at me. I felt
then that I was in disgrace. After I had attended
to his wants and was ready to leave, he handed me
a scrap of newspaper wrapper on which he had
written :
A dearer I do not know than Joe,
A sadder girl has rarely been than Thomassine,
Joe is my friend so may she always be,
And for Joe's sake that darker Thomassine wants a true friend
in me.
But it was when he was left entirely alone to the
mercies of the servants, as frequently happened, that
we knew him best.
He was so dependent on us and to him from
whom love radiated to all around him some of it
was bound to return.
When he was too ill even to read or write I felt
we must amuse him some way or other, and we
resorted to all kinds of clownish feats. Once I dis-
guised myself in men's clothes and demanded an
interview. He received me very politely and asked
what he could do for me.
' A contribution for a library."
* How much do you want ? '
6 Oh, anything you would give.
' Oh Joe you funny fellow why don't you ask for
a pound it is worth it.'
And so life went on at Skerryvore sometimes we
were children, and sometimes we were very serious
indeed when the life of our dear master was in
danger. We did what we could always to alleviate
his sufferings but we did not know how.
Later on in my life, when I took to nursing as a
212 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
profession, I learned what should have been done
and felt that our care of him had been nothing short
of criminal. But he was always so grateful for he
knew that our mistakes and sometimes the fitfulness
of our attentions were only due to our youth. One
day he wrote this for me :
If I could tell, if you could know,
What sweet gifts you give away
When you are kind like yesterday,
I think you would be always so.
I know that his teachings and the few years passed
with him have helped me greatly to have a better
conception of life and later on when it came to a
' Parting of our ways ' it helped to bear many injustices
which nearly broke my heart.
But I am satisfied. I have had my day. And
now, as I am getting old, I can look life in the face,
and go on watering my sun flowers in my little garden.
MEMORIES.
DR THOMAS BODLEY SCOTT.
NEARLY forty years ago, it fell to my fortunate
lot to be called in to attend Robert Louis
Stevenson and to help him to bear his burden
for the next few years. He was then almost unknown
and appreciated only by the discerning few. In his
well moments he was the most delightful companion
and conversationalist that one could imagine. I can
see him pacing up and down his room, gesticulating in
his forcible way and talking sometimes in English,
sometimes in French, and very occasionally in Latin.
If Henry James and W. E. Henley were there it was
one of the Nodes Ambrosiance never to be forgotten.
On his bad days, and they were very frequent, he
made a fine fight to be cheerful, but, as he expressed
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 213
it, his brain was in a condition of dry rot and it seemed
to him always that it would never produce again, so
the world became very dark ; but this mood rarely lasted.
I can recall one morning particularly; it was before
his success was ensured, and when he was in financial
difficulties, for his publishers especially were pressing
him. It was the period of the shilling shockers, ' Called
Back ', etc., and they were urging him, much against his
inclination, to write such a book. He greeted me on
my visit in the morning with these words, ' I Ve got
my shilling shocker,' and he described a dream that he
had had in the night, the circumstantial foundation of
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. This was carried to a com-
pletion in about a week, was rapidly in print, and formed
the text of an eloquent sermon in St Paul's Cathedral
directly afterwards. This little book raised him out of
his partial obscurity into real popular appreciation.
Thenceforward his fine literary position, which had
begun with Treasure Island, was assured, and his fame
became world-wide. Successes like this lifted him for
a time out of his invalidism, but he was so often seriously
ill that his work suffered or was delayed. Again and
again his buoyant spirit brought him up to the surface,
and his mind triumphed over his defective body. The
phrase ' auto-suggestion ' was at that time unin vented,
but Dr Coue would have delighted in him : his imag-
ination and his will-power were always coming to his
rescue.
What a contrast and a lesson to most of us who spend
the greater part of our days auto-suggesting trouble and
illness to ourselves, and who naturally get more or less
what we suggest and what we deserve.
He was one of those delightful men who never
attempt to formulate their philosophy nor their religion
either to others or to themselves, who are content to be
centres of radiation of light to the darkness of the world,
and whose light grows not dim as the years pass by.
Needless to say, he was full of humour and sometimes
214 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
of sarcasm, but always of the kindly sort. He valued
fully any kindness shown to him, even from the most
obscure and humble folk. His relations with his father,
which had been somewhat strained in early life, became
very cordial later, and each appreciated the other ; the
severity of the paternal presbyterianism became tem-
pered by the kindly universalism of the son.
Stevenson pere, however, when ill was a confirmed
pessimist: I recall the joyful humour in Louis's face
when he recounted this scene to me one morning. His
father had an attack of jaundice and consequently
many sleepless nights, which involved his wife in
insomnia also ; a night came when they both happily
fell off to sleep, but in a few hours the poor lady was
violently roused to hear this dreadful statement, in
good pulpit Scots, ' My dear, the end is now come ; I
have lost the power of speech/
In Across the Plains there is this bold statement
which would deeply shock the Calvinistic moralist:
'Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all
morality : they are the perfect duties. If your morals
make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong.'
This is almost an auto-description ; at the same time I
must say his non-morality was a thing unknown to me.
His friendship and his memory are my never-forgotten
treasures.
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
THOMAS HARDY, O.M.
rriHE memories I have of Louis Stevenson are very
JL meagre, as I saw him but a few times. I met
him once possibly on the first occasion at Mr
(now Sir) Sidney Colvin's house at the British Museum.
There were no other guests, and I can recall no par-
ticulars of the meeting further than that he said he
liked wandering about the precincts of the Museum.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
A more distinct image of him accompanies my recol-
lections of the first and last visit he paid me at
Dorchester, in August, 1885. He came out to my
house unexpectedly from the King's Arms Hotel in the
town, where he was staying for a day or two with
Mrs Stevenson, her son, and a lady who was Louis's
cousin. He said that they were on their way to Dart-
moor, the air of which he had been told would benefit
him. He appeared in a velveteen jacket, with one
hand in a sling. I asked him why he wore the sling,
as there seemed nothing the matter with his hand : his
answer (I am almost certain) was that he had been
advised to do it to lessen the effort of his heart in its
beats. He particularly wanted to see the room I
wrote in, but as I had come into the house quite
recently I had not settled into any definite writing-
place, and could only show him a temporary corner I
used. My wife and I went the next day to call on
them at the hotel just before they left, where we bade
them good-bye, expecting next to hear of them from
Dartmoor. To our great surprise and regret a letter
from Mrs Stevenson arrived about three weeks later,
dated from an hotel in Exeter, and informing us that
Louis had been taken ill on reaching that city, and
could get no further ; and that they were coming back
to Bournemouth immediately he was well enough to
travel.
From this point my mind is a blank, excepting as to
one fact that shortly after the publication of The
Mayor of Casterbridge in the May of the following
year, he wrote to ask if I would permit him to
dramatise it, as he had read the story, and thought
Henchard 'a great fellow', adding that he himself
was keeping unusually well. I wrote back my ready
permission ; and there the matter ended. I heard no
more about the play ; and I think I may say that to
my vision he dropped into utter darkness from that
date : I recall no further sight of or communication
216 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
from him, though I used to hear of him in a round-
about way from friends of his and mine. I should add
that some years later I read an interview with him that
had been published in the newspapers, in which he
stated that he disapproved of the morals of Tess of the
dUrbervilles, which had appeared in the interim, and
probably had led to his silence.
STEVENSON A GODFATHER.
R. A. ROBERTSON.
DEAR Miss MASSON, I am sending you with this
three letters from R. L. S. These have never
been published, and you may think them worthy
of inclusion in your forthcoming book.
R. L. S., if he had lived, would now have been the
same age as myself. I first met him at an early period
through my close friendship with his cousin R. A. M. S.
I think this must have been about 1867, or possibly
earlier. During the next few years the three of us were
much together, but soon health compelled R. L. S. to
make prolonged absences from Edinburgh, and I then
saw him only during his summer visits. His genius
was then in the ascendant and I became conscious of a
befittingly reverent attitude. After I married in 1875,
however, my wife helped in a revival of the old re-
lationship, and our friendship continued with occasional
glimpses of him until he finally left this country.
The letters I send you tell their own tale; but
perhaps a word is desirable by way of explanation.
R. L. S. was Godfather to one of my boys, and it would
appear that he had promised my wife a copy of the
Child s Garden of Verses for him. The first letter, dated
llth March 1885, sends the book ; and, if I may venture
to say so, it is particularly interesting in the reason for
the appeal for *a special grace for this little person/
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 217
showing his wonderful understanding of child-nature.
The book arrived shortly after my boy's death. We
found that the copy sent to us was inscribed to Sargent.
On hearing of this, R. L. S. wrote the second letter
(undated). Then follows the third letter, dated 22nd
October, sending another copy of the Child's Garden
with the special sonnet in it. Yours sincerely,
R. A. ROBERTSON.
BONALLIE TOWER, BOURNEMOUTH,
March llth, 1885.
DEAR MRS ROBERTSON, My publishers have played me a sad
trick or you should have heard from me long since ; but I waited
every day to have the book, of which I now inclose an early copy.
I fear my Godson will scarce be able to read it for awhile ; but I
do most earnestly hope he will be much more healthy and no less
happy than I was, in that strange period of man's life through
which he must now begin to pass. A Godfather is a merely
ornamental figure ; and I believe a very good thing ; but let me
beg a special grace for this little person : let me ask you not to
expect from him a very rigid adherence to the truth, as we pedd-
ling elders understand it. This is a point on which I feel keenly
that we go often wrong. I was myself repeatedly thrashed for
lying when Heaven knows, I had no more design to lie than I had,
or was capable of having, a design to tell the truth. I did but
talk like a parrot. I think I will take the liberty of sending you
another of my books : of which I ask you to try to read nothing
but the paper called 'Child's Play'; which will more fully plead my
cause and that of the little ones.
Please observe, dear Mrs Robertson, the curious piece of writing
which I have enclosed in lines. This sheet was taken from near
the middle of a packet ; and here had some one, probably before
the paper was folded, written on this corner the word ' She.' It
sounds mysterious nor can I throw light upon the mystery ; but I
thought it right to explain that it was no fault of mine.
Believe me, with every good wish for the youngster,
Very truly yours, ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
MY DEAR MRS ROBERTSON, I hope you will not trouble to
write to me just now. This has been a very short story, but
thank God, we cannot suppose it to be at all a sad one for the
child.
218 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
' Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather,' the song says, as
good as many texts ; and into that zone of quiet, the child has
gone very straight. It is sad for you, and for Robertson ; sad
too, for me for this was after all a little fellow on whom a child-
less man might look, in the future, with a half-sense of property ;
but happily not sad for him, who has escaped out of the snare, and
gone straight home.
Please ask your husband to return me Sargent's copy it was
Sargent the painter, and I had mixed the parcels ; I shall see that
you get back the right one.
Meanwhile believe me, with all sympathy,
Yours very truly, ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH,
Oct. 22, 1885.
MY DEAR ROBERTSON, After a long summer of uselessness and
sickness I am beginning to try to get my shattered affairs into
order ; one of the first things I find, is that I have never sent you
the copy of my book, in which your child's name was written, and
to which I have added a few lines to yourself and Mrs Robertson.
I hope you will excuse this delay and take the verses as they were
intended.
Believe me, My dear Robertson,
Yours very truly, ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
P.S. Oblige me by not speaking of my state of health. You
will remember I am sure that you live in the same town with my
father, and that he is an old man ? A word goes easily and might
have cruel consequences. R. L. S.
(The following is the ' Special Sonnet ' written by Stevenson in
the copy sent of A Child's Garden of Verses.) [Eo.]
Before this little gift was come,
The little owner had made haste for home ;
And from the door of where the eternal dwell,
Looked back on human things and smiled Farewell.
O may this grief remain the only one !
O may your house keep still a garrison
Of smiling children ; and forever more
The tune of little feet be heard along the floor !
April 3rd, 1885. R. L. S.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 219
REMINISCENCES.
WILLIAM ARCHER.
MY clearest personal recollection of Stevenson re-
lates to his last evening in England. I called
upon him about eight o'clock at Armfield's
Hotel I think that was the name close to Finsbury
Circus. He was sitting up in bed, in a large, well-
lighted room. The moment I arrived, he told me that
he was in a difficulty : his steamer for New York sailed
from Tilbury first thing next morning, and it had just
occurred to him that he wanted legal advice as to a
codicil he proposed to add to his will could I possibly
get hold of a lawyer for him ? Nowadays, in such a
case, one would have turned immediately to the tele-
phone-directory ; but at that time the telephone was
barely struggling into use. All lawyers' offices were
of course closed, and I did not know the private
address of even a solicitor's clerk. After consultation
with Mrs Stevenson, however, I agreed to do the best
I could, and set off in quest of a nocturnal jurisconsult.
Though not then a member of any club, I knew several
men who belonged to the National Liberal. Thither
I betook myself and asked for Mr (now Sir) Henry
Norman, trusting that he might be able to introduce
me to a solicitor. I found him in company, not with
a solicitor, but with a barrister Mr A. H. Spokes,
afterwards Recorder of Reading. As soon as I had
stated the case, Mr Spokes very kindly placed himself
at my service, and I returned with him in triumph
to Armfield's Hotel. The scene of the following half-
hour is graven on my memory. Mrs Stevenson and I
sat talking at one end of the room, while in the further
corner Mr Spokes, at the bedside, engaged in close con-
fabulation with the testator. Louis (always pronounced
220 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Lewis) still wore his hair rather long, and, as it was not
very abundant, it fell in straggling wisps round his long,
lank, ivory face. A claret-coloured blanket, faded and
stained, hung round his shoulders ; I am not sure that
it was not a poncho, or blanket with a hole cut for
the head. His knees were drawn up as a rest for his
writing-materials ; and, with all its gauntness, there
was a certain grace about the curves of the figure.
The well-known relief of Stevenson in bed fairly repre-
sents the attitude ; but the colour and the chiar'oscuro
would have been worth recording.
I stayed a short time after Mr Spokes had left, but
can recall only one snatch of our conversation. There
lay on the bed a complete set of a pocket edition of the
works of a certain novelist, now dead, a gift, I fancy,
from the author. I remarked that I had a great
respect for this writer, but could not read him. ' Be-
tween ourselves,' said Stevenson, in a low voice, 'no
more can I.' The novelist, of course, was not Meredith,
whom Stevenson read with avidity. He once surprised
me, I remember, by calling Rhoda Fleming his greatest
work.
Of the many long talks I had with Stevenson in his
Bournemouth days, I am extremely sorry to confess
that only one fragment remains quite clear in my
memory. I used to criticise the resolute, aggressive
optimism of his philosophy, and accuse him of a certain
deliberate suppressio veri a tendency to cook his
accounts with Destiny. One evening I had been
talking in this strain, and saying, I suppose, that he
did not make enough allowance for the amount of
sheer boredom involved in existence. He was pacing
up and down the drawing-room at Skerryvore, with
his swift, somewhat feline tread, his arm in a sling,
and a ragged cigarette in his fingers. As soon as he
heard the word * boredom', he turned sharply round
upon me, and said with slow, impressive emphasis : ' I
never was bored in my life ! ' I might have retorted,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 221
but probably didn't, that this was a fine example of the
suppressio veri wherewith I reproached him.
His character-sketches and anecdotes of odd person-
alities which he had encountered were among the most
delightful features of his talk. I remember especially
his stories of an American artist named B in whom
he took great delight. B was one day observed
outside an inn at Barbizon, in a posture of deep dejec-
tion, his arms resting on a table and his head buried in
his hands. Some one went up to him, slapped him on
the shoulder, and said, ' Hallo, B ! what 's the
matter ? ' The artist looked up and replied with great
solemnity, * I am old I am poor and I am bald ! '
and bowed his head once more under the weight of
these afflictions. On another occasion Stevenson ac-
companied him to a pianoforte recital given by Sir
Charles Halle at the old St James's Hall, on the site
of the present Piccadilly Hotel. On leaving the hall
they walked down Piccadilly in utter silence till they
reached the corner of the Green Park, where B
lifted up his voice and said : ' The proceedings of the
aged statesman at the piano were austere and chill-
ing.' No one who remembers 'the aged statesman'
can fail to realize the terse felicity of this appreciation.
Stevenson or another perhaps I myself may
already have told these anecdotes in print. Bad as
my memory is, I can vouch for the literal accuracy
with which I record the sayings of B as Stevenson
related them.
STEVENSON AT THE LEPER SETTLEMENT.
BROTHER JOSEPH BUTTON.
. . . BUT, for your R. L. S. book, if it can possibly
be in time, this item might be a good one. I shall write
it out on separate sheets, hoping it will be in time. . . .
222 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Notes written by me, Joseph Dutton, at Kalawao,
Molokai, Territory of Hawaii, giving a brief account
of an edifying visit to the Leper Settlement by
Mr Robert Louis Stevenson, about May 1889.* Written
while fresh in the memory for a friend, who passed
the notes as written to Prof. John O'Connor Jr., of
Mellon Institute, University of Pittsburgh, who requested
data to complete a sketch he was preparing, for private
distribution. Its title was Of the Chivalry of Christ.
It was published by The Aldine Press, Pittsburgh,
1916. I am copying from that now, not having kept
any retain copy. If the notes are now used in this work
treating of Mr Stevenson, it would be just to credit
Prof. O'Connor Jr. and his lovely little book.
Very Respectfully, JOSEPH DUTTON.
KALAWAO, MOLOKAI.
July Wth, 1922.
THE NOTES :
Dr Swift (the Settlement physician) had mentioned
to me about some writer there (Kalaupapa)t but I did
not pay attention to it, so when Mr Stevenson called
at our old place I did not know who he was. He came
in the latter part of his week here (on this Island)
I was busy, and looked for someone to show him over
the place the old home but saw no one suitable. The
crowd with me were having sores dressed. Mr Steven-
son looked cool and pleasant in yachting cap and suit.
Name on capband * Casco.' I said he would have to
take me. He dismounted and we went over the place
together, and saw the bad cases. He was sympathetic.
Mr Stevenson was highly interested, and showed it
in sympathetic feeling and expression. Highly strung
organization and temperament, quick to feel, quick to
love a very affectionate disposition. Seemed as if he
* It was of this visit that R. L. S. wrote : ' I can only say that the sight
of so much courage, cheerfulness, and devotion strung me too high to mind the
infinite pity and horror of the sights.' [ED.]
t The medical headquarters. [ED.]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 223
had not completed his plans. He was looking for a
place wherein to end his days weak inquired as to
danger of contracting leprosy here how it would be
with one advanced with other disease. He knew of
course his physical condition, I could judge only partly.
His objects were only suggested ; but when I knew
later who he was and more of him, these thoughts
seemed more clear that he was going to put himself
away somewhere to spend his dying years.
I heard the same gentle melody, observed the same
earnest desire, that had been features of my own aim
and hungry search for what might be my greatest good
while trying to do good for others.
Looking over the old place, quaint and strange to
him, quaint now to me, as memory goes back to those
days, as we walked and looked, particularly seeing and
sympathising with all of the sick and far advanced
cases, and as we talked even to the time of his remount-
ing the horse and slowly walking toward the gate, he
seemed more and more interested, and with consum-
mate skill drew from me the motives that controlled me
in coming here. He showed a deep sympathy with
those motives and inquired very particularly as to the
life here.
When I heard he had located at Samoa the thought
came back that when here he was 'looking around.'
Considering his family, however, he could hardly have
settled here even if he ever thought of it.
From H. J. MOORS'S With Stevenson In Samoa.
EARLY in December 1889, the schooner Equator,
with Stevenson on board, entered Apia harbour.
I went aboard. A young-looking man came
forward to meet me. He appeared to be about thirty
years of age, although really nine years older, of fair
and somewhat sallow complexion, and about five feet
224 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
ten inches in height. He wore a slight, scraggy
moustache, and his hair hung down about his neck
after the fashion of artists. This was Stevenson
R. L. S., 'the best-loved initials in recent literature '-
and I knew it even before he spoke. He was not a
handsome man, and yet there was something irresist-
ibly attractive about him. The genius that was in
him seemed to shine out of his face. I was struck at
once by his keen, inquiring eyes. Brown in colour,
they were strangely bright, and seemed to penetrate
you like the eyes of a mesmerist. . . . Stevenson was
charmed with Samoa, and he bubbled over with
delight as one enchanted. The prospect that opened
out before him seemed to get into his very veins.
' It 's grand ! ' he exclaimed. ... I needed not to be told
he was in indifferent health, for it was stamped on his
face. He appeared to be intensely nervous, highly
strung, easily excited. When I first brought him
ashore he was looking somewhat weak, but hardly had
he got into the street (for Apia is practically a town
with but one street) when he began to walk up and
down it in a most lively, not to say eccentric, manner.
He could not stand still. When I took him into my
house, he walked about the room, plying me with
questions, one after another, darting up and down,
talking on all sorts of subjects, with no continuity
whatever in his conversation. His wife was just as
fidgety as himself, Lloyd Osbourne not much better.
The long lonesome trip on the schooner had quite
unnerved them, and they were delighted to be on
shore again. . . .
At last one day Stevenson told me he would like to
make his home in Samoa permanently. ' I like this
place better than any I have seen in the Pacific,' he
said. He had been to Honolulu, and liked it ; Tahiti
and the Marquesas had pleased him ; but of all places
he liked Samoa the best. 'Honolulu's good very
good,' he added ; ' but this seems more savage ! ' . . .
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 225
When in a rage he was a study. Once excite him,
and you had another Stevenson. I have seen him
in all moods. I have seen him sitting on my table,
dangling his long legs in the air, chatting away in the
calmest manner possible ; and I have seen him, becom-
ing suddenly agitated, jump from that table and stalk
to and fro across the floor like some wild forest
animal, to which he has, indeed, been already com-
pared. His face would glow and his eyes would flash,
darkening, lighting, scintillating, hypnotising you with
their brilliance and the burning fires within. In calm
they were eyes of strange beauty, with an expression
that is almost beyond the power of pen to describe.
'Eyes half alert, half sorrowful/ said our common
friend, Mr Carruthers, once ; and I have neither read nor
heard anything which seems to approach so near the
mark. They carried in them a strange mixture of
what seemed to be at once the sorrow and joy of life,
and there appeared to be a haunting sadness in their
very brightness. . . .
Stevenson rose as a rule at six o'clock, though he was
up, often enough, as early as four, writing by lamp-light.
He wrote at all hours, and at all times. Oftentimes
he would come down town on * Jack ' and tell me he
had got 'stuck' in some passage of a story and was
out in search of an inspiration. ' The orange is
squeezed out,' he would say. He used generally to
wear a little white yachting cap worth about twenty-
five cents. As he was very thin and boyish in appear-
ance, the cap suited him. I never saw him in a stiff
shirt nor a stand-up collar in my life. Up at Vailima
they all went about in their bare feet, except when
expecting guests, and generally looked about half-
dressed. When Stevenson came into Apia he still
looked only half-dressed. He always came down with
a soft shirt on and generally white flannel trousers,
sometimes with a red sash tied round the waist. He
was very careless about his personal adornment, just
R.L.S. O
226 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
6 a man of shirt-sleeves ' ; and his clothes invariably had
the appearance of being a misfit, because of his ex-
tremely slight frame. . . .
Stevenson was a charming host, and it mattered
not whether he was receiving Europeans or natives.
Everybody felt thoroughly at home at Vailima. There
were invariably several dinner-parties there when a
British or American warship put into port. In him
the navy had a great champion, and he used to have a
printed list of the warships that had been to Apia fixed
up in front of his house, and every succeeding ship
that arrived duly had its name printed there. To
meet the officers from these ships a number of friends
would be invited to Vailima, for the afternoon and
evening. While dinner was being prepared the guests
would sit on the wide veranda, smoking and talking,
and an 'appetiser' would be handed round. Those
were happy times. Stevenson the writer, the talker,
the charmer, was in his element. He loved to have
friends around him. Over the dinner plates he en-
tertained the company with his anecdotes. But he
never monopolised the conversation ; he was as ready
a listener as he was a ready talker. After dinner,
music, or more smoking and more talking on the
veranda and coffee par excellence coffee the sugar
in which had first of all been soaked in burnt
brandy ! . . .
MEETINGS ON THE PACIFIC.
CAPTAIN JOHN CAMERON.
I can remember Robert Louis Stevenson my first
meeting with him, if my memory does not play
me false, occurred in 1890. I was acting as super-
cargo on the schooner Lizzie Derby, owned by A.
Crawford and Co., San Francisco. The vessel was
on a trading trip through the Gilbert Islands, from
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 227
the firm's trading -station at Jaluit, Marshall Islands.
While trading at the Island of Tarawa, Gilbert group,
the steamer Janet Nicoll, owned by Henderson and
Macfarlane of Sydney, on a trading expedition, dropped
anchor close to the Lizzie Derby. I went on board to
have a yarn with the captain and officers whom 1
knew. R. L. S. was having a game of chess with the
chief engineer. I knew Mr Stevenson immediately
from being familiar with his photos in many papers.
He was dressed in light marching order, a thin cotton
undershirt, blue serge pants held up by a red sash,
barefooted and bareheaded just a comfortable rig for
that part of the world. After being introduced to
him, I remarked that I had just finished reading his
book Prince Otto. He asked my opinion of the book,
and I told him it was well written but the story did
not appeal to me. While we were talking about the
merits of the book, Mrs Stevenson joined us, and, Mr
Stevenson informing her of my comments on Prince
Otto, they both had a hearty laugh over my criticism
of the book. Well, when Greek meets Greek then
comes the tug-of-war ; when Dutch meets Dutch then
comes the lager beer; not being Dutch, we, Mr and
Mrs Stevenson and myself, went below to wet our
whistles with some stout; if I remember well it was
Guiness's. As the Janet Nicoll was making a call at
a distant station on the same island, I stayed on board,
coming back to my vessel overland after a good soak-
ing, the boat getting swamped in the surf. I regret
very much that my recollections of our conversation
cannot be recalled. What I do remember was giving
R. L. S. the history of the Wandering Minstrel disaster
and a letter to our Manager in Jaluit, a Mr Anderson,
to permit Mr Stevenson to have access to my notes
concerning the wreck.
My next meeting with R. L. S. happened in Apia,
Samoa. I was Master of the schooner Ebon and sailed
from Jaluit in 1891 or 1892, taking along, as passengers,
228 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Captain Lovdahl, his wife and two children ; their
vessel, the Pannonia, was wrecked in the Marshall
group, and to get back to San Francisco, it was
necessary to catch the mail steamer at Apia. While
I was in Mr Moors's store on business, R. L. S. came
in, dressed pretty much the same as when I saw him on
board the Janet Nicoll, only that his pants were rolled
up, nearly to his knees, and he had a well-worn straw
hat on. He was quite surprised to see me in Samoa,
asking what good wind blew me there. He rode into
Apia on an old white plug of a horse that had seen
better days it reminded me of the plug with many
points that Mark Twain hired in Honolulu. I can
remember but very little of our conversation then ;
he advised me strongly always to wear woollen under-
clothing to prevent my catching cold. That was the
last time I saw R. L. S. ; what a delightful character
he was ! So very unassuming and attractive.
TRIFLING MEMORIES OF R. L. S.
ROBERT SCOT-SKIRVING, M.B., C.M.
I first saw Stevenson in Great Stuart Street, in
Edinburgh, at the house of Fleeming Jenkin, and
I remember well his curious eager face, and bright
eyes, and quaint clothes, not violently suitable to the
time and place. He had longish hair, some kind of soft
shirt, a black short velvet coat, and either then or later
some sort of jersey. I daresay many of us would say
that his general rig was affected and foolish perhaps it
was ; but such was the compelling charm of R. L. S.
that, in him, oddities like those of clothes had a kind of
charm, while in others, I am afraid now, at any rate
I would say, 'Who is that affected young fool?'
Apropos, Stevenson loved fooling, and he did it so
well! I remember Mrs Fleeming Jenkin, whom all
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 229
we young people held in no small awe, being a little
put out by Stevenson's lateness in coming one night.
In walked R. L. S., clad in the garments of uncon-
ventionality, but with a smile against which one couldn't
keep a stiff face. 'I'm sorry but why did you wait
for this withered rose-bud ? ' How I remember a speech
so trifling I can't say, except that one recollected almost
anything he said especially tomfoolery. One night my
sister, who greatly admired him, was at supper next him.
He turned, and said, * Could you eat three Bath buns
before breakfast ? ' ( Yes, I could in Islay,' replied my
sister. ' Thank God, you are yet young ! ' said R. L. S.
Many years later, after I had settled in Sydney,
Stevenson came there more than once. I rang him up
at his hotel, for in Sydney we had telephones even then,
and his voice replied I remembered it at once. He
had a marked but agreeable Lothian accent. He said,
'Are you the man who acted at the Jenkins' theatricals ? '
I modestly said that I had been call-boy ! He then
came to my house, and I spent various evenings with
him. He was very full of writing an account of the
navigational knowledge of the South Sea Islanders as
explanatory of the populating of islands so widely
separated from each other. He never carried out this
piece of work. I talked much with him on this subject
and on sea-things. He had a good landman's know-
ledge of ships, but not a technically correct one, as
some errors in his sea-stories show.
On one occasion his mother, and I think his cousin
Graham Balfour, (who went out sailing with me), and I,
spent an evening, in which we agreed to talk broad
Scots. R. L. S. was at his best witty, learned, and
wholly delightful. On this occasion he had his step-
son and step-daughter with him. Stevenson had a bad
bronchial attack on one of his visits to Sydney. His
wife looked after him. I went to call on him while he
was seedy, and I noted that Mrs Stevenson saw to his
welfare. Before he wrote the long paper on Father
280 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Damien I happened to see him, and I asked him what
he was doing with himself. * Well,' said he, ' for the
next few days I propose to devote myself to writing
a libel but it will be a justified and a righteous one.'
I think he wrote it in the Union Club in Sydney.*
His mother, when I saw her in Sydney, was a most
attractive lady good-looking, bright, and alert-minded
a fit mother for such a son. I cannot recall the
personality of his father. It is so difficult after all
these years to remember conversations, even with a
Stevenson. It is the general look of the man and his
extraordinary vivid personality that remain with me I
who knew him in the flesh.
TUSITALA : A NEW REMINISCENCE OF R. L. S.
REV. S. J. WHITMEE.
Reprinted from OUTWARD BOUND, February 1922.
IT was on a Monday morning in 1891, before ten
o'clock, that I received my first visit from Robert
Louis Stevenson, who rode down from Vailima
thus early to call on me on my arrival at Apia, the
principal Samoan port, to which I had sailed from
San Francisco.
Samoa was no new land to me, for I had laboured
there from 1863 to 1878, but in 1891 I was asked by
the Directors of the London Missionary Society to
return there on a special mission, and within forty-
nine days of receiving the request, I landed on a
Sunday morning once again in the island.
It was a great surprise and a great pleasure so soon
to meet R. L. S. He told me he would have called on
the day of my arrival ; but, knowing how strictly the
Samoans kept Sunday, he did not risk compromising
me in their eyes. He said that since the news of my
* The famous * Letter to Dr Hyde,' a defence of Father Damien. Written
in February 1890, at the Union Club, Sydney. [ED.]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 23 1
coming arrived a month before, he had been anticipat-
ing seeing me, for in his study of the Samoan language
he had been greatly helped by the additions I had
made to Mr Pratt's grammar, from the second edition
of which he was learning the language.
Before the first week was ended I rode up to
Vailima to return Mr Stevenson's call. I intended to
make my visit short ; but in that I literally ' reckoned
without my host/ A short visit there I afterwards
found to be almost an impossibility. Both Mr and Mrs
Stevenson on that day combined to defeat my intention.
Mrs Stevenson had an idea that I was a botanist and
a gardener. She had started a kitchen -garden on a
plot of cleared forest land a little distance from the
house, and was making experiments with vegetables
not indigenous to the Tropics.
By the time we were back at the house it was nearly
time for luncheon, and R. L. S. had prepared a salad, at
which culinary art he was a specialist. To him the
salad was all the better because the vegetables in it
were from his wife's garden, and I could, without any
lack of sincerity, praise both the ingredients and their
combination.
After luncheon we went on to the balcony in front
of the drawing-room. This overlooks the undulating
forest down to the sea ; and beyond, a vast expanse of
ocean is visible. Stevenson was that day free from
pain, in high spirits, and in his best mood for conversa-
tion. I noticed several of his characteristics. He
was as active and restless as if his veins had been
filled with quicksilver. He had a cigarette between
his fingers, and occasionally between his lips ; but it
was constantly going out after a few puffs. There was
a strong rail running along the front of the balcony
for safety. He, like the rest of us, had a chair ; but he
occupied it only a few minutes at a time. Then he
strode along the balcony, and poised himself upon the
rail. Anon, he slid off, took a few steps, and dropped
232 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
into his chair. Sometimes he came and stood im-
mediately in front of me, discussing some matter or
other. . . .
One morning R. L. S. rode down to Apia and called
on me in order to make a special request. But
he wished me to promise that I would not grant
it if I had any scruple about giving my time to what
he was about to ask from me. He said he wanted
some help in his study of the Samoan language,
especially the idioms, and he would not ask for more
than one hour a week. I suggested that each Monday
he should ride down to Apia for tea at five o'clock at
Mr and Mrs Clarke's, where I boarded, and I would
give him an hour after, which was a missionary's
one leisure hour before lamps were lighted for evening
work. In a delicate way R. L. S. said he knew I
would not accept remuneration, but he would see that
the Missionary Society should not suffer loss. At
each Missionary meeting in May, while he was my
pupil, there was a contribution which did not come
from a Samoan. Mr Stevenson wished to write a
story in Samoan for the natives, and I suggested that
he should bring a portion of his MS. for me to read
aloud and criticise. This exactly suited him. Those
points in grammar and idiom, also the appropriateness
of words, about which he was almost fastidious, could
be discussed. I found him to be a keen student ;
and the peculiarities and niceties of the language
greatly interested him. He thought the language
was wonderful, and quite agreed with me that the
Samoans must have descended from a much higher
condition of intellectual culture, to possess such a
tongue. The extent of the vocabulary, the delicate
differences of form and expressive shades of meaning,
the wonderful varieties of the pronouns and particles,
astonished him. The hour we spent together was
always a treat to the teacher whatever it might be to
the pupil.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 233
When the weather was bad, Mrs Stevenson wisely
exercised her influence to keep him at home ; and
sometimes he was not well enough to come. Then he
sent a messenger with an explanation. I always knew
some time before the hour when he was not coming.
Generally he sent a short note. These notes were
sometimes amusing. Here is a copy of one : 'My
dear Mr Whitmee, the weather seems impossible, and
my family will not let me go. Please excuse The
Class.' Another was sent the only time that he played
truant. It is : ' My dear Count Whitmee, I have
just finished a novel, which you will understand if you
consider it's like a hundred and twenty sermons on
end I simply cannot put my mind to Samoan
or anything else. I am like an empty bag. I can,
and I will, do nothing. Your unfruitful pupil,
Tusitala.' The novel just finished was Catriona.
Two of his letters sent when he was prevented from
coming to his lessons with me show that he was
reading the Samoan Bible for practice. His notes
were seldom dated. . . .
When Mr Stevenson decided to settle as a resident
in Samoa, the question of his name had to be con-
sidered. In the Samoan language no syllable contains
more than one consonant and every syllable ends with
a vowel. Had the natives Samoanised his name
that is, given it a form which they could pronounce
they would have made it Setevinisoni, a name six
syllables long, which would have been intolerable to
him.
I was informed by a person who was present when
the form of his name was being discussed, that the
late Rev. J. E. Newell, then one of the tutors of the
Malua L.M.S. College, said, 'Why not Tusitala? ' This
means ' Writer of Stories,' tusi, to write, and tala, a
story or stories, according to the particle which precedes
it. The suggestion was acclaimed by all who heard it, and
no one gave it greater approval than Stevenson himself,
234 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
It was his only name used by Samoans. It was a
name, a title, and a description of his occupation, all
in one word. . . .
Tusitala was greatly interested in a high school for
promising young women from all the Samoan Islands,
under the care of two lady missionaries, the founding
of which I had undertaken. As this was half-way
between Apia and Vailima, we often met there.
Stevenson seldom wrote after noon, and was always
glad to have a friend with him after his work was
done. It was often my privilege to be that friend.
Sometimes he rode to Papauta to fetch me ; but I
had no scruple about going uninvited for lunch, being
quite sure of a welcome.
STEVENSON IN SYDNEY, 1893.
REV. WILL BURNETT, B.D.
STEVENSON came up to Sydney in February of
1893. It was not a very successful holiday, for
he struck the season when the climate of Sydney
is at its most depressing state. A combination of heat
and moisture, suggestive of a Chinese laundry, a breeze
from the ocean that brings no coolness but indeed an
aggravation of discomfort, a night that is less refresh-
ing than the day these were not likely to make for
Stevenson's health and comfort ; and he spent part of
the time in bed.
As might be expected it was through the Church
that I came to meet him. I was then Minister of a
Presbyterian Church in Sydney. It was the time of
the General Assembly: and that clerical gathering,
hearing that Stevenson was in the city, sent ' a deputa-
tion ' (the proper course for a Church Court) to call on
Stevenson in his hotel. The Assembly being not too
numerous, the representative elders had the praise-
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 235
worthy practice of providing lunch for the members
every day in the Hotel Australia. The deputation,
who (I think) found Stevenson sitting in his familiar
position in bed with a writing-board on his knees, asked
him to be the guest of the Assembly at one of these
lunches, and he accepted the invitation. The joyful
day arrived, the weather was slightly more agreeable,
and the guest was able to be present.
I found myself not far from him, and able to study
him when he rose to speak a man rather over medium
height, his height apparently increased by an exceeding
thinness ; a magician who drew to him your heart as
well as your eyes. But it was your eyes first: they
sought their joy in his. I don't think I have seen any
portrait or photograph that conveys these eyes to me.
Some make them flat and far apart : others give
them a 'sleekit' appearance. They may have had
these evil qualities I don't know, the charm of them
dispelled all critical faculty. He had not dressed for
the part, nor had he dressed away from it (his taste
for the bizarre was gone, and the accusation of studied
indifference, not to say intended discourtesy, in dress
is unsupported) ; he came as he liked to be, in what the
tailor would describe as a lounge-suit, soft neck-wear,
and a jacket of velvet. A duty hung upon that jacket,
for the author's use of that jacket was characteristic.
He placed his two hands in the respective pockets, he
took himself in charge, and gradually tightening his
grip, appeared almost to reach breaking-point. He
was very thin, and yet so full of life and energy ! In
the happiest vein himself, he spread happiness all round.
He cared no more for his appearance than we cared for
it. I remember his saying somewhere that he never
resented any (however inaccurate) description of him-
self save that of the American reporter who said, ' Mr
Stevenson had a tall willowy figure, surmounted by a
classic head, from which issued a hacking cough.'
His speech was concerned, as may be imagined, with
236 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Scotland, Scotsmen, and the Scottish Church. One
story ran somewhat like this. In his youth he was in
bed suffering a childish sickness, and all the visitors to
the house were visitors to his room. Among these
visitors was a relative who had come to Edinburgh to
attend the General Assembly. The Church was then
rent over the organ question, and Master Stevenson
was opposed to the views of Dr Robert Lee (of Old
Greyfriars). When the relative was taking leave, little
Louis raised a menacing finger, and thus warned him :
'You are going to the General Assembly. Whatever
you do, have nothing to do with that man Lee.'
It is the atmosphere and magnetism of Robert Louis
Stevenson's speech that remain in the memory, when
the contents have long been absorbed. He spoke to
those simple preachers with as much carefulness of
style and virility of thought as if he had been address-
ing a gathering of literati. He spoke as if he enjoyed
it, and would do anything to make his audience happy.
I felt then (and the feeling has been confirmed by
every incident I read or hear of) that Stevenson pos-
sessed more than a genius for friendship ; he had a
good heart, whose goodness no evil fortune ever
impaired. Perhaps that is the real source of such
genius.
It was delightful in that place to hear a man speak
with a good Scots accent. If he and I had met in
the capital of Scotland we should have agreed that all
Edinburgh men spoke the best of English without any
accent at all. After a period of the cockney twang of
New South Wales, I thought I detected symptoms of
that drawl and turn which our enemies declare attend
the man born in Edinburgh. It was none the less dear
to me : the great author faded away : I heard the tones
of a fellow-countryman, citizen with me of our own
romantic town.
Through the friendship of the Rev. Dr Geikie, of
Bathurst, a cousin of Sir Archibald and Professor James
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 237
Geikie, I was allowed to join Stevenson and a few
others after lunch in a private room of the * Australia.'
I hope I took the modest part in the conversation that
became a young man. * I can remember ' that he spoke
with keen interest of his family and its history, and, as
events showed, he was at that very time collecting
material for his Family of Engineers, which he was
writing, and was finding the distance from Scotland a
drawback. He was pleased to find a worshipper and
constant student in that far-off city, and with the
attentive charm of a royal personage he was interested
to hear how intimately certain passages in my personal
history were bound up with a paper- covered edition
(the first by Arrowsmith of Bristol) of Dr Jekyll and
Mr Hyde.
We went our several ways. I saw him no more ;
but again I can remember how I got the news of his
death, as it was passed almost from mouth to mouth
in a Sydney suburban train. There was a distinct
sense of personal loss, even in that pleasure-loving city,
and among many who had never known him. It was
not the way he thought to die: more tragic, more
glorious perhaps. But nothing could lessen the grief
of those who loved him, those who had basked even a
short hour in the sunshine of his smile.
MEMORIES OF R. L. S.
ROBERT CATTON.
' T can remember Robert Louis Stevenson.' It was in
X 1889 that he first visited Honolulu and stayed
here about six months, finishing The Master of
Ballantrae and getting acquainted with King Kalakaua
and many more of the residents, prominent and other-
wise ; but it was not till September 1893, on the
occasion of his second visit, after the death of Kala-
kaua and the deposition of his sister, Liliuokalani,
238 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
from the throne of Hawaii, that I got to know him.
A mutual friend, the late Allen Herbert, brought him
to my office one day, to meet 'a brither Scot', and
afforded me an hour or more of exquisite enjoyment.
His extreme physical delicacy was only too apparent
at first sight, and evoked an emotion of pity, but
that was all dissipated as soon as he began to talk.
We talked of Edinburgh and of my native village,
Aberdour, well known to Edinburgh people ; we
talked he talked, I should say, about all sorts of
things, but what seemed to be uppermost in his mind,
at that time, in connection with Scotland, was the
theory, exploded soon afterwards, about his being
descended from Rob Roy Macgregor.* In this genea-
logical mood, he assumed that I was connected in
some way with the great Clan Chattan, and professed
to be disappointed when I told him my father was a
Yorkshireman. He said he had known, or known of,
one Catton before, an assistant to Professor Tait, at
the University of Edinburgh, about the year 1867.
I got him to talk about his books a bit, which he did
in the same unconventional way that he discussed
other matters, and almost in the third person. I had
then just read The Beach of Falesa for the first time,
and, on my telling him how I had enjoyed it, he said,
'Yes, I never enjoyed reading anything more than
that and the writing of it was capital fun.' I spoke of
David Balfour, then being published in the Weekly
Scotsman, and said I couldn't get the full benefit of it
in that shape, which seemed to please him, for he said,
* It is but a poor book that one can be content to take
in weekly numbers '
By -and -bye he asked if there wasn't somewhere
we could go and 'have a drink'. That was easy!
And on our way to The Royal Hawaiian Hotel
we passed by the Palace Grounds, where something
political was going on ; those were the days of the
* See R L. S., letter quoted on p. 289. [ED.]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 239
Provisional Government which intervened between the
Monarchy and the Republic later the Territory of
Hawaii and was termed, colloquially, by the ' man-in-
the-street' the P.G. Government. I remarked, * Those
Royalists and P.G.'s remind me a good deal of Wilt-
shire and Case.' 'Yes,' he replied, * especially Case.'
Coming from Samoa where he had identified himself
so closely with the natives, he was not in favour of
annexation, by the United States, of these islands,
and said he was afraid he would have to write about
it. That would have been worth reading and I en-
couraged the idea, from the literary not the political
point of view ; but when I mentioned it again, he said
he thought he had better stay with his Samoans and
leave the Hawaiians alone, believing, apparently, that
he had enough aboriginal work in hand at home.
The most interesting event of Stevenson's stay here,
at that time, to his fellow-countrymen, was the talk
he gave us at the Thistle Club. Meeting him on
the street that day, I asked him what he was going
to tell us in the evening ; ' I have not the slightest
idea,' was his reply. But when the time came he had
no hesitation in announcing as his subject, 'That
long drawn-out brawl entitled the History of Scot-
land,' and surely the 'brawlers,' Wallace, Bruce,
Queen Mary, Prince Charlie, and many others, were
never treated so ironically, all excepting John Knox,
' a name,' the speaker said, ' I should never presume
to mention in a jocular manner.'
The peroration, of which I have a copy, was very
fine: 'I received a book the other day called The
Stickit Minister with a dedication to myself which
affected me strangely, so that I could not read without
a gulp. It was addressed to me in the third person,
and bade me remember those places, " Where about
the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying, his
heart remembers how." Now when I think upon my
latter end, as I do sometimes, especially of late years
240 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
when it seems less imminent, I feel that when I shall
come to die out here among these beautiful islands, I
shall have lost something that had been my due, my
native, predestinate and forfeited grave among honest
Scots sods. And I feel that I shall never quite attain to
what Patrick Walker calls my " resting grave," unless
it were to be upon one of our purple hillsides, under
one of those old, quaint, and half-obliterated table-tomb-
stones, slantin' doon the brae, " Where about the
graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying, my heart
remembers how."
We made him Honorary Chieftain of the Thistle
Club of Honolulu and gave him a silver thistle to
wear, which he wore till the day of his death, and it
was buried with him ! *
That 'lecture' was delivered on the evening of
Wednesday the 27th of September, and on the follow-
ing Wednesday, I went to see the * lecturer ' at what
was then the Hotel Sans Souci, and found him sitting
up in bed, smoking a cigarette and reading a novel.
What 's matter, sick ? ' I asked. Yes/ he said, * I
have had a sharp spell of some confounded kind of
fever and can't get about yet, so I 'm trying to make
the best of it here. It 's a grand opportunity for re-
flection, but I need scarcely say that I don't do any
reflecting at all.' During our half -hour's chat, I
asked him if I couldn't lend him some books. He
asked me what books I had, and selected Carlyle's
Essays, which I sent him next day, and now I can
turn to Carlyle's estimate of Voltaire's pecuniary con-
dition in after-life which, ' by one means and another
. . . raises his income from 800 francs a -year to
more than centuple that sum,' and find the follow-
ing R. L. S. note on the margin : ' 80,000 3200?
I doubt ye, T. C.' In the Dr Francia essay, the
author says, ' After all, brevity is the soul of wit !
There is an endless merit in a man's knowing when
* See also pages 289-290. [ED.]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 241
to have done/ and so on throughout a short paragraph ;
R.L.S. says, <Et Toi, O Tammas ?' And further on,
in the same chapter, some of the writer's theories are
characterised as ' drivel.' I was showing those notes
to a friend and his wife, one evening, when he turned
to her and said : * Just think of it, Grace ! Carlyle's
Voltaire annotated by Stevenson ! '
When her husband did not return to Samoa as he
had intended, Mrs Stevenson came up to take care of
him and effectively put her foot down on the pro-
posal, to which he had good-naturedly assented, of
repeating his * lecture ' on Scotland, or saying some-
thing else, to a larger audience. They sailed for Apia
about the end of October 1893, after Stevenson
had been some six weeks in Honolulu, and I never
saw him again; her I got to be well acquainted with
and among my most valued possessions are 'A Letter
to Mr Stevenson's Friends, for private circulation',
and a photograph of that tomb on the summit of
Vaea, with these words written on the margin, ' Robert
Catton, his friend and mine, with much affection from
Fanny van de G. Stevenson.'
To my slight acquaintance with him whose initials
R.'L. S. are, according to Margaret Ogilvy's son, ' the
best beloved in recent literature,' I am indebted,
not only for the privilege of making this trifling con-
tribution to his memory, but also for acquiring, as
correspondents, several of his friends who knew him
much better than I did. I shall mention only Alison
Cunningham, who was as pleased to meet one who had
known ' Lou ' as I was delighted to know ' Cummy.'
I have a 3 x 4 photograph of a group on the back of
which she has written, ' Meant for me, photographer's
wife & children. Of course it is just a snapshot';
arid in most of her eight or ten letters that I have
preserved, she refers to dogs generally ' doggies ',
saying in one of them that they are * The only friends
that never grieve us till they leave us.'
R.L.S. P
242 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I CAN REMEMBER HAVING DINNER WITH ROBERT
Louis STEVENSON, IN HONOLULU, WHEN I
WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD.
ANDREW A. CATTON.
IT was on a bright sunny afternoon in October 1893,
that my mother picked me up, on my way home
from school, and introduced me to the lady that
she had with her in the little, old phaeton, whom she
was taking down town on a shopping expedition :
'This is my boy, Andrew, Mrs Stevenson,' and
' Andrew, this is Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson ; you Ve
read Treasure Island, haven't you ? '
4 Yes/
' Well, it was Mrs Stevenson's husband who wrote it.'
The shopping done, we took Mrs Stevenson to where
she and her husband were staying at Waikiki, about
four miles from the City proper, and that, in those days
of mule-trams and one-horse buggies, was considered
quite a distance. When we got there, mother tele-
phoned to father to let him know where we were and
that we had been asked to stay to dinner. She reported :
' Father says " all right," and that he will come for us
later/
* He 's a sensible man,' said R. L. S.
I cannot recall any more of his sayings, but I
remember thinking how funny it was that his hair
should be so long, longer than his wife's. He was not
very well then, and soon after dinner Mrs Stevenson
said to him : * Louis, it is past your bed-time, you had
better say good -night,' which he did, and that seemed
funny too, the idea of a real man having to go to bed
so early, so much earlier than I, just a little boy, had
to at home.
The next day father and I were talking about
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 243
the Stevensons and the dinner I had had with them.
' You 11 be proud of that some day, my boy,' he said, and
when I asked him ' why ? ' he replied, * Because Robert
Louis Stevenson is going to be a very famous man/
And father's words were true in both senses, as they
so often are.
A RECOLLECTION*
ED TOWSE.
ONE thing R. L. S. liked about Honolulu was its
informality. In his day at the Court of Kala-
kaua, and down to 1893, the town was absolutely
indifferent in the matter of other people's affairs. This
pleased him and he dressed as he liked and wandered
widely. I met him very late one night at an unusual
gathering near his quarters in Waikiki. A police cap-
tain had invited me to attend a raid on some gamblers
and we drove to the beach. They were at it under a
big tree with several lanterns. For a time we looked
and listened. Then the officers closed in. A few of
the card-players and dice-throwers escaped. A dozen
or more were captured. Of course they all took it
good-naturedly, and of course they all joined in the
laughter of R. L. S., who had been a most interested
spectator. The Hawaiians and Chinese all somehow
knew him for a friend and w r ere proud of the
acquaintance.
SAMOA.
LLOYD OSBOURNE.
From the Introduction to the Vailima Edition.
IN a little family of three, leading an existence of
extraordinary isolation, I assumed a disproportion-
ate importance. Stevenson was in the position of a
prisoner who makes friends with a mouse and I was the
mouse. I had, too, an understanding beyond my years ;
244 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
or rather, I suppose, that in such a mental forcing-house
a certain precocity was inevitable. He shared enthusi-
astically in all my games tin soldiers, marbles, chess,
drafts, and others even more interesting that he invented
for our joint amusement especially a mimic war-game
that required hundreds of tin soldiers, the whole attic
floor to play it on, and weeks of time. We were
partners in my little printing-press ; he wrote verses
and engraved blocks for the miniature books I printed
and sold ; he painted scenery for my toy theatre and
we gave performances with my mother as the only
audience. All our spare time was passed together.
I commented on his work when he read it aloud,
and was encouraged to criticise it. In general I
thought it was beautifully written, but lacking in
interest. I was always plaguing him to write some-
thing 'interesting/ and finally to please me he wrote
Treasure Island.
He liked too, best of all, I think the beautiful and
touchingly patriarchal aspect of family devotions ; the
gathering of the big, hushed household preparatory
to the work of the day, and the feeling of unity
and fellowship thus engendered. It was certainly a
picturesque assembly Stevenson in imposing state at
the head of the table, I at his right with the Samoan
Bible before me, ready to follow him with a chapter
in the native language, the rest of the family about us,
and in front the long row of half-naked Samoans, with
their proud free air and glistening bodies. We were
the Sa Tusitald, the clan of Stevenson, and this was
the daily enunciation of our solidarity.
..
There is an unconscious pathos in Stevenson's fond-
ness for his flageolet. He played it so badly, so halt-
ingly, and, as his letters show, he was always poking
fun at himself in regard to it. Certainly no one would
get the impression that he was possessed of a very real
JtOBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 245
love of music or that its deprivation left unanswered
one of the most insistent appeals of his nature. Yet I
believe that in a certain sense his whole life was starved
in one of its essentials. This conviction has grown
upon me by degrees, but I feel it strongly.
Looking back, I can recall how constantly he spoke
of music. He would recur again and again to the
dozen or so of operas he had heard in his youth, repeat-
ing the names of the singers all of them German
mediocrities in a zest of recollection ; and he would
talk with the same warmth and eagerness of the few
great instrumentalists he had heard in London concerts.
And it was always, of course, with an air of finality,
as of a man speaking of past and gone experiences that
could never be repeated. He bought an extraordinary
amount of printed music Chopin, Grieg, Bach, Beet-
hoven, Mozart and would pore over it for hours at a
time, trying here and there, and with endless repetitions,
to elucidate it with his flageolet.*
It was amazing the amount of pleasure he got out
of the effort. The doleful, whining little instrument
was one of his most precious relaxations. He played it
persistently, and even attempted to write compositions
of his own for it. He studied counterpoint ; he was
constantly transposing, simplifying, and rearranging
music to bring it within the scope of his trumpery
' pipe ' ; the most familiar sound in Vailima was that
strange wailing and squeaking that floated down from
his study. To us at the time it all seemed very
amusing, and Stevenson laughed as heartily as any one
at our raillery. But to me now it takes on a different
aspect and my eyes are misty at the recollection.
At no time in his life had he ever had musical
friends. All of them except Henley were positively
indifferent to music. Yet some humble little profes-
sional pianist, violinist, or singer, had Stevenson been
* See p. 160 (2nd par.). Also Letters of R. L. Stevenson, vol. ii., pp. 281-2,
289-90. [ED.]
246 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
fortunate enough to have had such an acquaintance,
would have gladdened and enriched his life beyond
measure. If only, indeed, he might have known in-
timately some of his own great musical contemporaries
Jean or Edouard de Reszke, for instance Sarasate
or Paderewski ! Instead, he had nothing but his pitiful
flageolet and those great stocks of music with no key
to unlock them. The longing was there, the hunger,
but how poor was the satisfaction.
To-day when I see on every side those wonderful
mechanical devices for the reproductions of vocal and
instrumental music, I feel an almost unbearable regret
that they have come too late for Stevenson. . . . What
a difference, for instance, they would have made to
Stevenson, and what a surpassing joy and solace they
would have been to him.
But all he had was his little flageolet and the far-
away memories of his youth.
I remember on one occasion his looking up from the
book he was reading, a copy of Don Quixote, and
remarking with a sigh : ' That 's what I am, Lloyd
just another Don Quixote ! ' His smile as he spoke
was a little poignant, for the description was not
without its sting. Intolerant of evil ; almost absurdly
chivalrous; passionately resentful of injustice; impul-
sive, headstrong, utterly scornful of conventions when
they were at variance with what he considered right
his was a nature that was sure to be misjudged and
as surely ridiculed by many. The Greathearts of the
world have always seemed * erratic ', * affected ', and ' un-
balanced' to the timid and envious souls who have
jotted down these supposed deficiencies for posterity.
It is a pleasure to praise here Will Low's Chronicle
of Friendships, in which, in my opinion, Stevenson is
more illuminatingly revealed than in anything ever
written of him. Here is the true Stevenson the
Stevenson I would fain have the reader know and take
ROBERT tOtJtS STEVENSON. 247
to his heart boyish, gay, and of all things approachable
to the poorest and shabbiest; a man bubbling over
with talk and no less eager to listen ; a man radiating
human kindness and goodwill, in whom the gift of
genius had not displaced the most winning, the most
lovable of personal qualities.
STEVENSON AS I KNEW HIM IN SAMOA.
REV. A. E. CLAXTON.
From CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL, October 1922.
IT was my privilege to enjoy the friendship of R. L. S.
from December 1889 till April 1892, when I left
the Samoan Islands with my family for England.
Stevenson arrived in Samoa on the 7th of December
1889, and came to lunch in my missionary home at Leu-
lumoenga, eighteen miles from Apia, about a week later.
The town of Leulumoenga had been the headquarters
of the opposition government of Tamasese and had
been taken and burnt out by the Malietoa army not
long before. When I took my guest to the boundary
wall of my garden and pointed out to him a large
native house on the other side of the wall, he said : ' This
looks like something official, why wasn't this one also
burnt?'
I shall never forget the astonishment on his face and
in his voice when I told him that the house was the
Fale Fono (Parliament House) of the Tamasese party
and that it had been spared because the Malietoans
would not endanger the mission bungalow, which,
being so near, and having a thatch roof, might have
caught fire if they had set fire to the Fale Fono. ' Is
it possible they could under such circumstances be so
considerate ? ' was his exclamation. * How very remark-
able ! How convinced both parties must have been of
the inflexible neutrality of missionaries, since you must
248 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
have had daily dealings with the rebels all around you
and were living almost under the shadow of the rebel
headquarters/
Surprise followed surprise as instances were men-
tioned, such as the rendering of surgical aid to the
wounded of both parties and the continuance of schools
and classes. I told him that both sides in the civil war
observed Sunday by a truce every Saturday night, and
not only refrained from fighting on Sundays, but asked
us to send preachers into their respective camps to hold
services and to preach. It had never entered into his
imagination that among a people reputed to be half-
savage such a relation of trust and loyalty, not only
between Mission and People, but also between hot
combatants, could have been possible. No wonder it
is unbelievable by the general mass of mankind, when
a man of Stevenson's vivid imagination and quickness
of apprehension could be so astonished. It was such
revelations as the above that led him to write later:
' I went there (to the South Sea Islands) with a great
prejudice against missions, but that prejudice was
soon annihilated. . . . The missionary is a great and
beneficent factor.'
Stevenson alarmed my family very much by exhibi-
tions of restless activity when we returned to the
bungalow veranda. He could not be induced to sit
for more than a few minutes at a time. He preferred
to keep moving. I was on tenter-hooks of apprehension
lest he should presently need to be picked up out of the
flower-beds which bordered the railless veranda. He
literally pranced about as he talked rapidly and fasci-
natingly on all sorts of subjects. In the middle of
some absorbing topic, to which we were listening spell-
bound, he suddenly called across to me : ' Claxton, can
you lend me a razor? I haven't had a shave to-day.'
I said, Come along inside, I '11 soon find one, and will
have hot water in a few moments.' 'Oh thanks, I
don't need hot water if your razor has any kind of an
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 249
edge to it ; and I '11 manage it out here.' So he dry-
shaved as he pranced and talked, and, to our great
relief, without accidents.
Early in 1890 I was transferred from Leulumoenga
to Apia and came into closer touch with Stevenson.
One of my duties at Apia was to originate and edit a
periodical in the Samoan language which was called
O le Sulu Samoa. This periodical was to contain,
besides very full lesson helps for Sunday School teachers,
special articles, general information and news. Mr
Newell (then our Senior missionary), at my suggestion,
sounded R. L. S. as to his willingness to let me translate
and publish one of his short stories in the Sulu. To
this he agreed, and The Bottle Imp was the one selected.
That is how it came to pass that this story was read
in nearly every home in Samoa before it was published
in English. By mutual agreement, Stevenson and I
spent an evening together each month, going over each
chapter before it was printed, and discussing my trans-
lation. He was rapidly picking up a knowledge of the
Samoan language and he seemed to enjoy the balancing
of rival expressions in the Samoan idiom. If we were
prevented from meeting to talk it over, correspondence
passed between us concerning the next monthly chapter.
Unfortunately most of this correspondence has been
lost by shipwreck in the rapids of the Yangtze River in
China. The story was at once very popular with the
Samoan s, and it led to a great increase in the circulation
of the Sulu. Stevenson said to me one day : ' I some-
times almost wish I had not agreed to the printing of
The Bottle Imp in your paper, for I get such a lot of
Samoan visitors who stay a long time keeping me from
my work, and when I am obliged to excuse myself they
shyly ask if they might just have a peep at the Imp
himself before they go away. They think I keep him
in my safe.'
When a reprint of the story in Samoan was called
for a few years later, Mr Newell, who succeeded me
250 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
in the editorship of the Sulu, could only lay his hand
upon a single copy.
Another of my duties at Apia was the charge
for a time of the English Services in the Church for
white residents. Stevenson attended occasionally. I
remember meeting him one Monday morning in the
town, when he greeted me with these words : ' I say,
Claxton, that 's a hot shop, that Kirk of yours ; you
nearly broiled me last night.' I asked him if he was
alluding to the physical temperature, or was it my
theology that made him so hot. He replied : ' No, I
don't think it was the theology that made me say that ;
I really meant the physical heat.' The Church had then
an iron roof which did not get properly cool till about
midnight. ' But,' he went on, * since you ask me con-
cerning the doctrine, I must say that you stirred me
up when you said that a man should realise that he
is accountable to God all the time, even when he has
put his slippers on at the end of his day's work.'
A day or two later he wrote further on the matter.
That letter has been lost; but in a subsequent note,
which is still in my possession, he said :
'I am sorry I wrote you so hurriedly the other day. I knew
after I had begun I should leave a false impression that your
sermon had really something to do with my heat ; but I was too
deeply engaged to begin again, and let it go. I do not know why
you should care : but I had no fault to find. Only the strong
statement how shall I say ? wearied me. I once wrote, long
ago, something like this : " I know there is no discharge in this
war, but shall there be no furlough ? " And your expression
seemed to blot all furloughs out ; and, believe me, I understood
not only the sense in which it was true, but (what is more to the
purpose) the sense in which it would be needful for some among
your hearers perhaps even ... for ... the immaculate R. L. S.'
Stevenson's sympathetic help was always to be relied
on. When the little iron Church was replaced by a
better building he heartily sent me a donation and
attended the opening Services of the first instalment of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 251
the new building a new Chancel. At the close, with
characteristic kindliness, he waited to congratulate me
on the brightness and suitability of the Service, and
especially on the ' artistic unity of the mise en scene'
If religion could have been always and only artistic
he would have been religious always, but he deplored
the marring, and often the destruction, of ' the artistic
or aesthetic unity ' by puritanic doctrine. That is why
I think he used to argue so fervently for the revival
of Samoan dances, which the earlier, mostly Scottish,
missionaries had sternly discouraged. 'Ethical prin-
ciples/ he would say, ' are excellent sometimes, but they
are oftener irrelevant. They must not be introduced
unless the artistic unity demands them. Under any
other circumstances they are an unwarrantable intru-
sion.' It might be interesting to discuss the religion of
R. L. S., but that has been very brilliantly done by
Dr John Kelman in his The Faith of Robert Louis
Stevenson, and the limits set for these ' Recollections '
are prohibitive.
Stevenson was a racy raconteur, a delightful and
fascinating conversationalist, especially when with a
few chosen and kindred spirits, and if given a free
hand and an occasional lead ; but while he could think
best with pen in hand, and even speak brilliantly to a
small circle of sympathetic hearers, it was a real torture
to him to speak to the general public. He once, as he
said, ' in a weak moment,' agreed to give a lecture in
the Apia English Church. He repented but once, and
that was for ever after. To himself his effort proved a
terrible trial, but to himself only, for his lecture was
a treat to his friends. I was put into the Chair and had
to introduce him, and I did my best -to put him and his
audience, about eighty persons of many nationalities,
en rapport. He had copious notes, almost a manu-
script, but that was a matter to deplore. If he had
trusted to his great gift as a raconteur and had left
his notes at home, he too would have enjoyed it.
252 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I like to recall the day when I went to Vailima to
say good-bye to him before leaving Samoa, whose
climate had proved too enervating for my wife, and
had necessitated my returning with her to England in
April 1892. At the moment of saying farewell he fol-
lowed me to the steps which led down from the veranda,
and then a very kindly thought came to him. He
said, * Will you be going to Edinburgh ? ' I said I
hoped it might be possible, for I had never had the
privilege. He then went indoors again, and presently
came back with a very friendly letter of introduction
to Mr Charles Baxter, in which he asked his old friend
to do anything he possibly could to enable me to see the
best of Edinburgh. To my great regret I did not get
to Edinburgh, and did not therefore see Mr Baxter.
Being in Sydney a year later, at the time when
Stevenson's deportation from Samoa was under con-
sideration, because he persisted in supporting the
Mataafa faction against Malietoa and the three Treaty
Powers, I received an invitation to breakfast with Sir
John Thurston, then Governor of Fiji and High Com-
missioner for the Pacific. A whole morning was spent
answering questions and explaining the situation. I
was able to assure the High Commissioner that Steven-
son was not urging Mataafa towards armed resistance
(though some others were), but that, to the best of
my belief, R. L. S. was striving to secure some fit-
ting position for Mataafa within the government of
Malietoa, w^hich was recognised by America, Britain,
and Germany.
In this endeavour Stevenson found his greatest
difficulty lay in persuading Mataafa. Sir John finally
said that what he had ascertained from me had con-
firmed him in his opinion that it would be a mistake
to deport Stevenson.
Stevenson's choice of Samoa to settle in after several
years of wandering among the islands was character-
istic. Mountain ranges, sunny clime, luxuriant tropical
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 253
vegetation, a delightful race with gentle and courtly
manners in times of peace and savage daring in war,
a race on the borderland between savagery and Western
culture, and history in the crucible ready for the making,
all appealed to him. Nothing that happened escaped
his notice or failed to enlist his ardent interest. His
impressionable, artistic temperament lent itself to every
influence. He had a rare power of being all things to
all men.
To the obvious attractions of the artistic and psycho-
logical kinds another and very strong attraction was a
potent factor. Samoa was now the meeting-place of
three Western nations with a primitive child-race just
becoming self-conscious. The situation held prospects
of lively situations and perhaps a unique and happy
sequel. The situation, to a man of Stevenson's gifts,
was pregnant with possibilities. I gathered from many
talks I had with him that behind all the other attrac-
tions mentioned, which were only subsidiary, there lay
deep in his heart another attraction and another motive,
the desire to complete the artistic unity of the scene
by the creation of a new and visible Utopia in that
virgin soil.
He congratulated himself on being an * exile ', as his
friends called him. He pitied, not ironically, but quite
sincerely, those friends who were in bondage to the
conventionalities of Edinburgh and London and Paris,
because, to his many-sided mentality, life in these cities
was tame by comparison.^
One cannot help thinking that the depression of
the last months of his life was largely caused by the
growing conviction that the day was drawing near
when Germany would get her own way and would
ere long have undisputed right to work her own will
in the most important and larger half of the Samoan
archipelago.
Some of us deplored, as did Sir Sidney Colvin,
* See pp. 264, 265. [ED.]
254 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
that Stevenson allowed himself to be drawn into the
whirlpool of local politics. He exhausted himself by
partisanship. Had he taken up an attitude of greater
detachment and impartiality he would probably have
prolonged his life, and would assuredly have added to
his already- won laurels as * the first of living stylists/
I CAN REMEMBER ROBERT Louis STEVENSON
A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON.
WHO, once having met Robert Louis Stevenson
in the last years of his life in Samoa, could not
remember him ? A dull brain, if his aesthetic
sun tanned face did not survive as a beacon to awaken
the memory of days when he stood amongst the crowd
of sailormen and traders in the bars of old Apia. It
would be nearer the truth to say that R. L. S., hail-
fellow-well-met with all who chanced his way, met
me not I him ! He dubbed Samoa ' The Half- way
Inn of the Pacific'; and it was his secret delight to
mingle with the strange characters who came in on the
schooners, men from Nowhere and bound for No-
where ! I was a lad at the time, and it was my violin-
playing that attracted R. L. S.'s attention to myself.
Most of all I recall his almost boyish delight when the
Homeric leg-puller from bluffland, just in from the
Pacific wine-dark seas, told his splendid yarns. ' Well
now ! seems impossible,' the author of Treasure Island
would ejaculate. And only the close observer could
detect the twinkle in his eyes when he banged his old
peaked cap on his leg, and inspired the long-pull from
the bar as well as from the nerveless narrator of the
wide and wonderful.
But it was when amongst the Samoan children that
one gained an insight into the true Stevenson. On
one occasion, when I was engaged as first violin in the
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 255
German orchestra at a native festive dance, R. L. S.
arrived on the scene. His interest seemed to be all for
the weird Samoan music with its ear-haunting minor
strains. After the dance my friend and I came across
a group of children who were sitting by a lagoon near
Safata, by moonlight. In their midst, arrayed in duck
suit and hatless, sat the Poet-author, listening in wrapt
attention to pretty Nina's creation-myth, a story that
told how the gods sent the first cocoa-nut trees to
Samoa from shadowland. So intent was R. L. S. as he
jotted down notes in his pocket-book and encouraged
the children to speak, that he did not notice our ap-
proach. 'Beautiful! incredible!' was his enthusiastic
comment when the native maid finished her tale, adding
to my friend McNab, ' Unbelievable ! Why, man, our
folk across the sea would say we exaggerated were we
to write down the true poetry poured out of the mouths
of these sun- tinted children.' It was evident that he
was deeply impressed by the beauty of the legends.
' As poetic and refined in sentiment as they are hand-
some in form and feature,' he remarked, as he beat the
jungle bush with his stick and we plunged into the
scrub that separated him from his home, Vailima.
SIR BERRY CUSACK-SMITH, BART., K.C.M.G.
Extract from Note.
I only knew Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa, and
my outstanding memory of him is of a man who
fought every day to prevent serious ill-health from
preventing his enjoying life. All his work while in
Samoa was done in the face of constant illness ; but he
got every ounce of satisfaction that could be got out of
the wonderful scenery and climate of the South Seas.
I very seldom saw him without a smiling face and with-
out receiving a very cheery greeting, though he felt
things in which he was interested very deeply, such as
256 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
the capture of the rebel chief Mataafa, whom he had
befriended for a long time. I remember, on returning
to the Consulate after a very long day on board a
British warship, after having successfully captured the
rebel, that Robert Louis Stevenson in a state of great
distress pleaded with rne for Mataafa's life.
I was able to assure him that the British Govern-
ment had no intention of doing any harm to the rebel
chief, beyond being absolutely determined to put an
end to the mischief which had been going on. ...
A REMINISCENCE.
J. C. THIERSENS.
I met the late Robert Louis Stevenson once only,
and that was when I was travelling from San
Francisco to New Zealand on the steamship
Mariposa in October 1893. We called at Honolulu,
and amongst the passengers who joined our steamer at
that port were R. L. S., his wife and his step-daughter,
who were bound for Samoa.
My recollection is that they were somewhat reserved
and did not converse much with other passengers.
R. L. S., however, seemed to be very fond of chess and
I remember he played constantly with Dr Findlay of
Wellington, N.Z.
R. L. S. did not seem to trouble much about his
outward appearance, indeed he struck one as being
'artistically grubby.' During the week he was on
board he wore the same clothes, namely, a dingy flannel
shirt, an aged brown velvet coat, and his trousers and
shoes had evidently seen better days.
After a week's run from Honolulu we arrived at Apia
in Samoa, and the natives at once came off to the
steamer bringing with them large wreaths of tropical
flowers, which they hung around the necks of R. L. S.,
his wife and step-daughter.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 257
Soon afterwards the Stevensons left the steamer for
their house, which was situated on the hill.
I believe I am right in thinking that the Samoan
natives were very fond of R. L. S. and would have
done almost anything for him.
Our steamer left for New Zealand that night and
I never met R. L. S. again.
A VISIT TO ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
S. R. LYSAGHT.
Reprinted from a Letter to the Editor of THE TIMES, Dec. 4, 1919.
HAVING, as a traveller from West to East, lost
a certain number of minutes daily for some
months, and found these again accumulated and
restored to me in the addition of a new day to my
calendar, it happened that it was Easter Sunday in
1894 on board a little steamer bound from the Friendly
Islands to Samoa on the morning before we arrived at
Apia, and it was also Easter Sunday next morning
when we landed. The minutes of the days lost on the
journey from England had not been missed ; the day
gained, that second Easter Sunday, is one of the most
memorable of my life, for it introduced me to Robert
Louis Stevenson.
A deep blue sea, a coral shore fringed with palm
trees, and, beyond it, mountains covered to the summits
in tangled forest is the first impression you get of
the island. Further acquaintance hardly changes it;
the skies seem always blue, the seas always calm, in the
forest there is always silence, in the distance a lonely
sound of water breaking on the coral reef ' A land in
which it seemed always afternoon.' You might think
that no man who had lived here for any length of time
could escape its influence, that possibly a poet might
write something like the Lotus Eaters here, probably
R.L.S. Q
258 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
write nothing at all, but that he could not produce
work to stir the pulses of men and kindle their heroic
instincts. Until you had met and spoken with Steven-
son : then you realised how little dependent a man of
genius is on his surroundings, how much more he has
to give from within himself than to receive from with-
out. From the road that led up through the tropical
forest I passed through the gate of Vailima into the
north country. I had been drifting among the islands,
receiving idle impressions, desiring neither to think nor
to act and meeting no one who did either ; and an hour
after finding myself in Stevenson's company I was in
a world of movement and activity, of brave effort and
stimulating ideas. The silence of the forests enfolded
us, the great blue ring of untroubled ocean lay beyond
them, and the hush of the waters on the reef reached
our ears, but now the atmosphere seemed rather that
of bracing north-eastern coasts and of morning on the
hills of heather.
Something, perhaps, of the welcome I received from
Stevenson was due to my privilege of bearing a letter
of introduction to him from the man whose work he
ranked higher than that of any living author. Anyone
sent to him by Mr George Meredith would have been
sure of kindness, but such kindness as I received was
more than vicarious; it was, as others have found it,
spontaneous and complete, the outcome of a nature
that neither knew half-heartedness nor understood the
meaning of condescension. As I was one of the last
of his British visitors and saw him some years later than
most of the friends at home who keep a loving memory
of his appearance in their hearts, it may be interesting
to give a sketch, however rough, of the man as he im-
pressed me. The first thing that struck me was his
bearing. He was so slender that he looked taller than
he really was ; he was barefooted and walked with a
long and curiously marked step, light but almost
metrical, in accord, it seemed, with some movement of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 259
his mind. It was his constant habit to pace to and fro
as he conversed, and his step and speech seemed in
harmony. He spoke always deliberately, if not slowly,
but he never halted or hesitated ; the fitting word was
as ready to his tongue as to his pen perhaps more
ready, for we know the pains which he took in seeking
it in his writing. He did not stoop, but in walking
his body was somewhat inclined forward, and in his
attitude generally there was something unusual, dis-
tinguished, almost fantastic. His bearing remains in
my memory as unlike that of any other human being I
ever saw, and only less noteworthy than his eyes. His
face was illumined by his eyes : it was his eyes you saw
first, his eyes you remembered. Regarded separately,
you might notice in his jaw and chin, especially when
seen in profile, contours of rude, almost aggressive
strength ; in the lines about his mouth an expression
which suggested exceptional power of scorn or sarcasm
rather than that kindness in judgment and generous
affection which were most characteristic of him in his
attitude to his fellow men. But his eyes transfigured
his face, and in their light its hardest lines grew attrac-
tive. You may see them in his many photographs, wide
apart, alert as at times when he was listening attentively,
but not as when they brightened at a memory, nor as
when they flashed with indignation, nor as when the
smile forerunning a humorous thought was dawning
in them.
I had expected after all I had heard of his ill-health
to find a pale, delicate-looking man, and his photographs
had led me to picture one with long hair worn some-
what after the fashion in which popular fancy adorns a
bard ; but in both preconceptions I was wrong. His
skin was of a ruddy tinge, his face had a look of health,
in spite of thinness, and his hair was cut short and
brushed in a very ordinary fashion. Of all the photo-
graphs I have seen of him, that taken at Sydney in 1892
and reproduced as a frontispiece to the Vailima Letters
260 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
(the Edinburgh edition reproduction is better than the
etching in the first edition) is most in accord with the
impression I got of him when I saw him in that last
year of his life.
Of the life in Samoa there is abundant record in the
Vailima Letters, and I could add little that would be
of value. There is much of interest in the island, but
its chief attraction was conferred by Stevenson's pres-
ence, and what little I have to relate must be of him-
self. His immediate surroundings struck me as being
essentially happy, affection and cheerfulness reigned in
his home, the true spirit of comradeship was found
there, *the true word of welcome was spoken in the
door/ This atmosphere of fellowship extended beyond
the inner family circle ; the strong clan instinct which
survived in the master of the house found a response
in the sentiments of the natives ; his servants, all men,
sixteen in number at the time of my visit, were as
members of one family, jealous for its honour, as ready
to fight as to cook or dig on its behalf; and his influ-
ence had gradually extended far outside the limits of
his household and gave him a position something akin
to that of the chief of a clan in his part of the island.
Of this I heard much and saw something ; for while I
was staying in the house there were constant visits,
sometimes from parties of natives, sometimes from
chiefs of the surrounding districts, seeking his advice
and ready to obey his counsel in connexion with the
political troubles of which he has spoken so fully in
The Footnote to History and the letters to The Times.
These visitors would be received with ceremony, for he
never failed to observe the traditional native customs,
and, before parting, the Khava would be mixed and
served with solemn rites. I believe he was proud of
the position of authority he had won, without effort, by
mere force of character and sympathy, and that the
responsibilities which it brought upon him added much
to the interest of his life in the island. At the time of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 261
my visit there was a little war going on. Tamase'se',
who represented the native party hostile to the German
influence, was in rebellion, and the woods about Vailima
were full of native warriors. Eight of the servants were
away fighting, some few heads had been taken, and the
ladies (Mrs Stevenson and Mrs Strong) had been sent
down to Apia for their better safety. Their hospitality,
however, was great and their fear small, for they made
the presence of a guest a sufficient reason for their
return. There are no doors at Vailima, curtains only
divide the lower rooms from the verandah ; and before
retiring on the night of my revival I asked Stevenson
whether, as the woods were full of armed men, some of
them perhaps enemies of the house, it would be well
to have my revolver loaded in case of surprise. He
laughed at the idea and said it was an unknown thing
in the annals of the island for attack to be made upon
sleepers that, indeed, the native rules of war are more
like those which governed old tournaments than modern
battles, each side being allowed the fullest opportunity
for preparation, and a notification being sent from one
side to the other before a battle naming the hour pro-
posed for the attack.
I remember waking at six o'clock next morning and
finding Tusitala, as Stevenson was always called, stand-
ing at my bedside. Having congratulated me on my
escape from assassination during the night, and spoken
after the manner of the earlier riser on the beautiful
hours of morning already wasted in bed, he conducted
me across the enclosure of cleared forest west of the
house and showed me the bathing place, a deep pool in
the stream which flowed under Vaea Mountain. He ex-
plained to me that it was after the three streams which
met hard by that the estate was named, but that the
word for ' three waters ' not being euphonious, ' Vailima,'
which means *four waters,' had been substituted, a
poetic licence which he thought permissible. After my
experience of the heat of the previous day the extreme
262 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
cold of the water was a surprise, and at that time in the
morning the air was so fresh and invigorating that it
was difficult to believe that you were in the tropics;
indeed, for Stevenson the cold of the stream was too
severe, and he had to be content with a tub indoors.
After bathing the subsequent order of the day was as
follows : We breakfasted at seven, clothed in flannels
and barefooted, for no one at Vailima wore shoes until
dinner time. After breakfast I believe Stevenson was
in the habit of working up to lunch time ; but for the
week I was with him he almost entirely abandoned
work, and no one was sorry for this, for he had been
working over hard, and rest and conversation with one
who knew many of his old friends did him good. I
was, indeed, a gainer by his abstention, for I had for
long hours daily the most wonderful of comrades : his
spirits never flagged, his talk was always inspiriting, his
point of view always original. There was nothing of
the invalid, no suggestion of failing strength about
him ; he had a zest for life, he ' cherished it in every
fibre ' ; there was a gift of light in him which seemed
to radiate and make every topic he touched bright.
During these conversations he talked often of home
and old friends, much of literature and of his own work,
especially Weir ofHermiston. I can see him now sitting
on the side of his camp bed in the little room in which he
did most of his work and reading to me the first chapters
of that great book ; I can hear the tone of his voice
and see the changing expression of his face as he read,
for he was in love with the work, happier in it, perhaps,
than in anything he had ever done, and his reading
showed his interest. He had no more false modesty in
praising his own work when it pleased him than con-
tempt in condemning it when he disapproved. * Now,
isn't that confoundedly good ? ' he said to me after
finishing one of the chapters in Weir. He expressed
to me, as I believe he wrote to Sir Sidney Colvin, his
opinion that in this story he had touched his high-water
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSOtf. 263
mark ; he told me something of its outline, and as in
one, and that an important, point, it differed from
the notes furnished by Mrs Strong, it will be heard
with interest. The strongest scene in the book, he
said the strongest scene he had ever conceived
or would ever write was one in which the younger
Kirstie came to her lover when he was in prison and
confessed to him that she was with child by the man he
had murdered. His eyes flashed with emotion as he
spoke about it, and I cannot think that he had aban-
doned this climax. It is a climax, too, which would
seem to be much more in harmony with the genius and
conception of the story and characters than the ending
sketched in the notes, which was no doubt an alterna-
tive with which he coquetted.
The other reading which I remember with greatest
pleasure was of poems afterwards published among the
Songs of Travel. We had had much discussion about
rhythm, especially as to a tendency towards subtler
and less regular rhythmical effects. He was disposed
to think that in English verse the career of the regular
and well-marked metres was almost complete, and that
the poetry of the future would find expression in more
complex harmonies. He cited the work of Mr W. B.
Yeats (whose poem ' The Lake Isle of Innesfree ' was
then a notable instance of the case in point) as an
achievement in this direction, and he admitted that he
had been attempting to tread the same path in some
of his own later verse. Such were the second of the
poems entitled ' Youth and Love,' ' To the heart of
youth the world is a high way side ' and that beginning
* In the highlands in the country places/ and perhaps
also that most beautiful of all his poems, ' Home no
more home to me/ where the music depends no less on
the actual rhythm than the right emphasis and sym-
pathetic pause. Indeed, I believe that if I had not
heard him read it I should have missed much of its
rhythmical beauty. His aim was towards a greater
264 &OBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
subtlety of rhythm, a very different thing from the
abandonment of metrical restriction which marks so
many horrible productions in v ers libre.
In a conversation on his own writings I alluded,
perhaps injudiciously, to a fear expressed by George
Meredith that his banishment from the great world of
men, his inability to keep in close touch with the social
development of the time, might be a disadvantage to
his work. He showed in reply an unexpected warmth
which suggested that he really felt the burden of his
exile but refused to admit it. ' It is all the better for
a man's work if he wants it to be good and not merely
popular,' he said, 'to be removed from these London
influences. Human nature is always the same, and you
see and understand it better when you are standing
outside the crowd.' Meredith thought otherwise, and
defended his contention on hearing from me of Steven-
son's comment. 'Human nature is not always the
same,' he replied. ' The same forces may be always at
work, but they find different expression in every genera-
tion, and it is the expression that chiefly concerns the
writer of fiction.' It is an interesting subject for reflec-
tion, the more so that it produced such a divergence of
opinion between two of the most distinguished writers
of our time.
At the time of Stevenson's death I read some reports
in the papers that he had grown despondent latterly
about his own work, and believed that he was losing
ground with his public. I believe these to have had
no foundation. It struck me from all he said that he
believed his best work was yet within him and that
he was only beginning to get it outside him in Weir
of Hermiston. Nor was there the slightest trace of
despondency in his tone either in reference to his work
or his circumstances. The nearest approach to regret
in anything he said about his work was a remark to the
effect that he had fewer inspirations than when he was
a younger man ; but he suggested that he knew better
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 265
how to entertain the inspirations when they came.
And as to his surroundings he was undoubtedly not
discontented. His banishment from his friends at home
was, of course, keenly felt ; but he knew that it was
inevitable and made the best of it, alluding rather to
those expressions of old affection and new sympathy
which every mail brought him from home than to the
deprivations of his exile. The hope of seeing many of
his friends as his guests at Vailima in the future was
also constantly with him, and he never tired of speak-
ing of old days and old friends ; of Edinburgh, of the
British Museum, of the Savile Club, of Box Hill, most
frequently.
Much of our time was passed in conversation and
reading, remaining indoors or on the verandah during
the hotter hours of the day, and once or twice, when
it grew cooler, walking or riding down to Apia. His
appearance on horseback was amusing dressed in
white, with riding boots and a French peaked cap,
chivalrous in his bearing, but mounted on a horse which
would not have been owned by any self-respecting
English costermonger, he almost suggested a South
Sea Don Quixote. But in spite of appearances his
horse was not an unserviceable beast, and perhaps few
better could be found on the island. At dinner in the
evening, when all the household was assembled, Mrs
Stevenson and Mrs Strong, Lloyd Osbourne and Count
Wurmbrand, a charming and cultivated Austrian soldier
acting at the time as chief cowherd on the Stevenson
farm, with the addition, on one or two occasions, of
M. de Lautreppe, a French naturalist on a visit to the
island, a delightful companion, we were a merry and
odd-looking party. The evening dress of the island is
of white drill for men, and generally white of some
other material for ladies, but there is no very strict
insistence on detail. But one rule was recognised by
all of us, and that was the wearing of shoes and
socks which had been dispensed with during the day.
266 ROBERT LOUIS
Stevenson's costumes were remarkable, and it struck
me that, though quite free from vanity, he found a
curious pleasure in dressing, or as children say, 'in
dressing up/ On one evening at dinner I remember
he wore an Indian costume, an embroidered thing
folded and crossed upon his chest. The dinner itself
was always excellent, abounding in strange dishes of
the Island, chiefly vegetable, and, in spite of the absence
at the war of the head cook, admirably served. And
the wine was a surprise : one does not expect to find
good wine in the South Sea Islands, but here was
of the best. Stevenson's artistic tastes and instincts
included wine, and the Burgundy laid down in the
Vailima cellar was worthy of its destination. Tusitala
had not only the art of conversation but the art of
making others talk their best and of establishing
general conversation; and, with Mrs Stevenson, her-
self one of the most brilliant of talkers, also present,
the guests who did not find good cheer at table
deserved to spend the rest of their lives in solitude and
fasting. The music which followed dinner was perhaps
the worst ever heard ; it was not native music, which
is beautiful, but was produced by Count Wurmbrand
and myself. Every evening the Count sang the * Cruis-
keen Lawn,' which he had learnt in broken Irish at
Vailima and sang to a tune of his own, and I played,
with improprieties which were hardly noticed, so much
out of tune was the piano, Scottish and Irish reels and
jigs. Then arose Tusitala and, placing Teuila (Mrs
Strong) opposite to him, danced on the polished floor
with a vigour seldom matched and a delight splendid
to see.
It was usually between eleven and twelve o'clock
before we went to bed, and as we never rose later than
six in the morning the day must have been a long one,
though it did not seem so at the time. My host was
in the habit of conducting me to my room each night,
for he was punctual in the observation of courtesies,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 267
and on our way thither we generally lingered on the
verandah. Out over the great plain of the Pacific was
a sky of such starlight as we do not see at home ; the
tropical forest all about us was profoundly silent, and
from far away came the unvarying sound of the waters
breaking on the coral reefs. He revelled in the beauty
of the scene, but he admitted that he would gladly have
exchanged it for the mist-enfolded coasts of the little
islands he had left far away in the wintry seas.
My stay with him was too short : it would have been
longer if I had known that I was not to see him again,
and it was my own fault that it was not prolonged ; but
in one week he allowed me to know him intimately,
and he was one of those whom to know is to love.* He
had the power of winning affection as well as admira-
tion by his writings from people who had never met
him, and all that personal charm which shines through
his work was found in a more marked degree in him-
self. It is difficult to write of him critically or without
enthusiasm. He seemed to me to be the most inspir-
ing comrade that ever put hope into his fellows, the
most courteous gentleman that ever conferred a favour
while seeming to ask one, and the most heroic spirit
that ever fought and fought to win with a good heart
against desperate odds.
THE GIFT OF A BIRTHDAY.
MRS BOURKE COCKRAN.
MY friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson began
before I actually met him. My father, who was
the American Land Commissioner in Samoa
in 1891, went out to the Islands without his family.
An intimacy soon sprang up between him and the
*'...! find myself telling myself, "0, I must tell this to Lysaght,"
or, "This will interest him," in a manner very unusual after so brief an
acquaintance.' (From a letter of R. L. S.'s to George Meredith, April 17th,
1894.) [ED.]
268 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
great writer. One day he happened to mention to
Mr Stevenson that one of his daughters was born on
Christmas Day, and had felt seriously the loss of a
separate birthday. Mr Stevenson instantly responded,
with the quick sympathy and whimsical turn of mind
so characteristic of him, that he himself had a birthday
which had become rather timeworn and which he had
long since ceased to value. He would, therefore,
S'adly present it to the little girl born on Christmas
ay. I was that little girl. Proceeding to give effect
to this impulse he drew up what he called a deed of
gift assigning the birthday to me. Here is a copy
of it :
I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar, author
of The Master of Ballantrae and Moral Emblems, stuck civil
engineer, sole owner and patentee of the Palace and Plantation
known as Vailima in the island of Upolu, Samoa, a British Subject,
being in sound mind, and pretty well, thank you, in body :
In consideration that Miss Annie H. Ide, daughter of H. C. Ide
in the county of Caledonia, in the state of Vermont, United States
of America, was born out of all reason upon Christmas Day, is
therefore out of all justice denied the consolation and profit of a
proper birthday :
And considering that I, the said Robert Louis Stevenson, have
attained an age when O we never mention it, and that I have now
no further use for a birthday of any description :
And in consideration that I have met H. C. Ide, the father of
the said Annie H. Ide, and found him about as white a land-
commissioner as I require :
Have transferred and do hereby transfer, to the said Annie H.
Ide, all and whole my rights and privileges in the thirteenth day
of November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby and henceforth,
the birthday of the said Annie H. Ide to have, hold, exercise, and
enjoy the same in the customary nmnner, by the sporting of fine
raiment, eating of rich meats, and receipt of gifts, compliments
and copies of verse, according to the manner of our ancestors :
And direct the said Annie H. Ide to add to the said name of
Annie H. Ide the name of Louisa, at least in private, and I charge
her to use my said birthday with moderation and humanity, et
tanquam bona filia familwe, the said birthday not being so young
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 269
as it once was, and having carried me in a very satisfactory manner
since I can remember :
And in the case the said Annie H. Ide shall neglect or con-
travene either of the above conditions I hereby revoke the
donation and transfer my rights in the said birthday to the
President of the United States of America for the time being.
In witness thereof I have hereto set my hand and seal this
nineteenth day of June in the year of grace eighteen hundred and
ninety-one. ROBERT Louis STEVENSON ^~ ^
Witness LLOYD OSBOURNE. (Seal )
Witness HAROLD WATTS. V */
This was duly sent to me by mail, and my answer
acknowledging it evoked the following letter in
response :
To Miss Anne Ide.
VAILIMA SAMOA.
November 1891.
MY DEAR LOUISA, Your picture of the church the photograph
of yourself and your sister and your very witty and pleasing
letter came all in a bundle and made me feel I had my money's
worth for that birthday. I am now, I must be, one of your
nearest relatives ; exactly what we are to each other I do not
know, I doubt if the case has ever happened before your papa
ought to know, and I don't believe he does ; but I think I ought
to call you in the meanwhile and until we get the advice of
counsel learned in the law my name-daughter.
Well, I was extremely pleased to see by the church that my
name-daughter could draw ; by the letter, that she was no fool ;
and by the photograph that she was a pretty girl, which hurts
nothing. See how virtues are rewarded ! My first idea of adopt-
ing you was entirely charitable ; and here I find that I am quite
proud of it, and of you, and that I chose just the kind of name-
daughter I wanted, for I can draw too, or rather I mean to say
that I could before I forgot how ; and I am very far from being a
fool myself, however much I may look it ; and I am as beautiful
as the day, or at least I once hoped that perhaps I might be
going to be. And so I might. So you see we are well met, and
peers on these important points. I am very glad also that you
are older than your sister. So should I have been if I had
had one. So that the number of points and virtues which you
inherited from your name-father is already quite surprising.
270 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
You are quite wrong as to the effect of the birthday on your
age. From the moment the deed was registered (as it was in the
public press with every solemnity) the thirteenth of November
became your own and only birthday and you ceased to have been
born on Christmas Day. Ask your father: I am sure he will
tell you this is sound law. You are thus become a month and
twelve days younger than you were, but will go on growing
older for the future in the regular and human manner from one
thirteenth of November to the next. The effect on me is more
doubtful ; I may as you suggest live for ever, I might on the
other hand come to pieces like the one horse shay at a moment's
notice : doubtless the step is risky but I do not the least regret
that which enables me to sign myself your revered and delighted
name-father. ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
The first celebration of the birthday thus given me, on
the next thirteenth of November, was made memorable
because Mr Stevenson sent me a Samoan painting
made by Mrs Stevenson's son-in-law, Joe Strong, and
also an autograph poem which he called a Nursery
Jingle.
Within the following year it was fated that I should
meet the donor of the birthday.
My father, having returned to the United States in
1892, was appointed the following year Chief Justice of
Samoa (under the three-power treaty between Germany,
Britain, and the United States). On this occasion he
took his three young daughters with him. In San
Francisco we learned that Mr and Mrs Stevenson were
then in Honolulu, and would return to the Islands on
our steamer The Mariposa.
As the time drew near for actually meeting the hero
of my childish dreams, I was in a panic of shyness and
apprehension. The great moment finally arrived, how-
ever, and I received the warmest possible greeting from
both Mr and Mrs Stevenson. I was still too terrified
to do more than repeat a few stilted sentences I had
rehearsed elaborately in my cabin. We often laughed
together afterwards about it.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 271
One of the most delightful characteristics of this
altogether charming man was his sympathetic instinct
for understanding others, which amounted almost to
genius. To him there were no secrets in the heart of a
child. At sunset time, he asked me to take a walk on
the deck. We went up to the bow, and sat together
on the big old-fashioned anchor. Much to my astonish-
ment I found myself pouring out the thoughts and
interests of my inmost soul to this new-found friend.
For the first time in my life, I discovered the thrill of
real conversation. He not only had the gift of giving
out his own brilliant and humorous thoughts, but he
inspired every listener to express his own half-formed
ideas in a w r ay which I have never seen equalled.
During the year in which I was privileged to see him
two or three times a week, his spell was never broken.
We all sat excitedly on the edge of our chairs drinking
in every word he said, shouting with laughter, and pant-
ing to get our own points of view into circulation.
During this first memorable talk, he said to me,
* Don't look for a minute, I have something wonderful
to show you. It is the Southern Cross. I make a
prediction that you will have a very interesting and
unusual life; and much of it will be under the Southern
Cross. I want to be the first person to show it to you.
Now turn round, and behold.' I have never since seen
the Southern Cross, which was our nightly constellation
in different parts of the world for years, without remem-
bering this first wonderful introduction.
The Mariposa reached Apia on the 3rd November
1893, and my first glimpse of these beautiful Islands
had the additional glamor of Mr Stevenson's vivid
imagination and genuine love for place and people.
We were instantly adopted by Mrs Stevenson's son
and daughter, Lloyd Osbourne and Mrs Strong, as
part of their family, and our friendship has lasted with-
out interruption to this day.
It had been the habit of the natives to prepare a great
272 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Samoan feast for Tusitala (Robert Louis Stevenson's
native name) on each November 13th, and it was tact-
fully explained to me that they might not understand
that I was sole possessor of the birthday, so we should
share the honours for once. The birthday feast was
served at noon on big banana leaves spread on the lawn.
About one hundred people sat down cross-legged in
Samoan fashion, mostly natives, with a sprinkling of
whites, Mr Stevenson's mother wore her black silk
dress and starched cap with long streamers, to which
she clung persistently, in spite of the tropical climate.
We all ate with our fingers in native style, a tribute
to our Samoan hosts' sensibilities, and a custom which
they observe with elegance and dignity.
Tusitala and I waited until all the guests were seated,
walked out arm in arm, and sat side by side on leaves
on the ground at the head of the long table. There
were dozens of whole roast pigs, shrimps, wild pigeons,
and Samoan dishes. I was decorated by Tusitala
with native necklaces of shells, red seeds and garlands
of flowers. We both wore red hibiscus over our ears.
It was the proudest moment of my life. The gift of
the birthday to me was explained in many speeches in
Samoan and English, most of which must have been
unintelligible, as among the many beneficent customs
of that delightful land, no records of ages are kept.
After dinner, the gifts were divided fine mats, tapa
cloth, fans, baskets, etc., were piled before us and I
received my share. The high chiefs sat beside us in
our post of honor on the steps of the veranda, while
songs, written for the occasion, and siva dances kept the
celebration going till dark.
We became extremely intimate with the Stevenson
family, and dined and lunched back and forth con-
stantly. The house was run on the most hospitable
lines, and I recall the brilliant talk, the delicious food
over which Mrs Stevenson exercised personal super-
vision, the old 1840 Madeira, of which I was now and
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 273
then given a glass in view of my position as name-
daughter, and a thousand and one festivities, all delight-
ful memories.
Sometimes we used to dance in the great hall, the
music furnished by a hand organ ground out by one
of the devoted Samoan retainers, who took a lively and
conversational interest in the proceedings. Tusitala
himself was by way of being a pupil, and we practiced
strange steps, polkas and mazurkas taught by an exiled
Austrian Count, and very strenuous lancers engineered
by the English midshipmen from the warships in the
harbor.
He decided that our education, however, must take
some more tangible shape than all these entertainments,
and offered to supplement the instructors my father had
found for us by giving my elder sister, Adelaide, and me
lessons in French. My sister Marjorie, to her secret
relief, was deemed too young. As Adelaide had had
two years' instruction in French, and my own knowledge
of that tongue was limited to * Parlez-vous Fran9ais ? '
with no answer available, I started with some trepida-
tion. I worked so hard, still retaining a little of my
awe of the great man, that I memorized French sentences
as I would have so much Hindustani. His quick mind
soon discerned this, and he began to skip around in their
English equivalents instead of giving them to me in
sequence, and I was hopelessly lost. He threw back his
head in shouts of laughter, but made me go back and
learn it properly. And while I have to confess that I
am not a credit to him, still he did make us really study
and really learn. He gave us, too, the most amusing
exercises. He had an enemy (due to difference in
Samoan politics) who was the editor of one of the local
papers. It was his delight to give us sentences like the
following, to be put into French.
' Blank is a silly ass. Blank hasn't an idea in his fat
head. What do you suppose I would do to Blank if
I came up behind him ? ' etc.
RL.8.
274 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
On the occasion of a particularly vitriolic editorial
against him, Stevenson was led to charge us with having
dropped some of his French exercises on our way home
which the editor found. When my sister Adelaide left
for America, to return to school, she was given a letter to
any future instructors saying that she had been under
his tuition in French, with equal advantage to both
master and pupil.
Mr Stevenson had many sides, all intense, and not
the least of these was his religion. He decided that it
would be a good example to many of the renegade
whites who flocked to the South Seas, for us all to
take classes in Sunday School. So he, my sisters and
I started in as Sunday School teachers. My own
struggles with a row of open-mouthed little half-castes
and wriggling brown children were excessively painful,
and Tusitala fared little better. One day he confessed
himself talked out and looked for a response but, for
once, even he failed. Finally, being very tired, a bright
idea struck him and he said * I will give sixpence to the
first boy who asks me a question about the lesson/
Stolid silence. Desperately he went on and raised the
offer to a shilling. He rose to half-a-crown, when one
little youngster raised his hand and in trembling tones
inquired ' Who made God ? ' He said it was worth the
half-crown, but ended his career as a missionary.
Quite a different twist of his brain was the love of
dramatic detective stories and murder accounts in the
newspapers. He liked to figure out the possibilities of
innocence or guilt, and weigh the evidence in his own
mind.
I remember listening once for three hours while he
questioned my father eagerly about every detail of the
Lizzie Borden murder, which occurred in Rhode Island
and created a great sensation, and the mystery of which
was never solved.
In describing my own impressions of Tusitala I doubt
if I can add much to those already published by his
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 275
myriads of friends and admirers. The most poignant
memory to me is his eyes, which seemed to blaze in
intensity, or twinkle with fun, and to see everything.
Nothing escaped that kindly gaze. His remarkable and
unceasing cheeriness, and his intense sympathy, were
his most prominent characteristics ; added, of course,
to his vital interest in everything in life and in every-
body with whom he came in contact. He never im-
pressed me as being an invalid. I never heard him
cough. I never heard him refer to his health, although
I have seen Mrs Stevenson frequently move him out of
a draught, or put an extra coat over his shoulders, or
make him lie down for a few minutes' nap.
On one occasion I was listening, which seems, in these
reminiscences, to have been the principal role I played,
while some local scandal was being discussed. It was in
whispers, for my benefit, but I gathered that a woman
had some kind of shocking tragedy in her life. I
expected a chorus of condemnation, but I distinctly
remember being startled, as by something quite novel,
when Tusitala exclaimed ' Poor thing, poor thing ! I
am so sorry for her. I wonder if we could do some-
thing for her.' It was a lesson which I have tried
never to forget.
We had a second birthday celebration together on
the 13th of November, 1894, a duplicate of the first with
a papalagi (white people's) dinner in the evening. My
sister Marjorie was ill with fever, and Mrs Stevenson
came down to help nurse her, and advised taking her to
a colder climate. So we made hurried plans to go to
New Zealand. The night before we sailed, (and as it
turned out three days before his death), Tusitala rode
down on horseback to say goodbye to us. Every
incident in that day is as vivid in my mind as the events
of yesterday. He had on a new riding habit, corduroy
breeches, a brown velvet coat such as he always wore,
and a fresh white cap. As he walked up the drive our
cockatoo was sitting on the rail of the porch, and
B.L.S. r
276 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
shouted 'Hello, Cocky!' He instantly exclaimed,
'Now, how did that bird know exactly how I felt
in my new suit ? '
We sat and talked on the veranda, and I had never
ceen him more brilliant, more fascinating, and more
lovable. My father asked him to stay to dinner : he
agreed and spent the whole evening. He told us that
for the first time in his life he found writing uphill work ;
that he had had great difficulty in not being depressed
about it, but it sometimes seemed to him that he had
done nothing, in spite of all his great dreams. ' After
all/ he said ' a few tales for boys is about the sum of
my achievement.' This mood was not habitual with
him. In fact, it was the only glimpse I ever had of
anything of this kind, and must have been, I suppose, a
preliminary warning of the end that was to come so
soon.
We did not hear of his death for over a month, as
there was no cable to Samoa in those days. I broke
down and wept bitterly in public when I heard the
news. And I wish I could do justice to the great
legacy he left me, not only the birthday which has
proved a source of so many varied advantages, but also
the great good fortune of having been admitted to close
friendship and intimacy with this most wonderful man.
A FEW RECOLLECTIONS OF R. L. STEVENSON
AND HIS FAMILY IN SAMOA.
JUDGE E. W. GURR.
JUSTICE HENRY C. IDE, who was appointed
by the then Three Great Powers The United
States, Great Britain and Germany to be Chief
Justice of Samoa, had invited the Stevensons and the
Gurrs to dinner. His residence stood on rising ground
which sloped down to the road at Motootua, a suburb
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 277
of Apia. It was then one of the most conspicuous
dwelling places in that vicinity and had been built
by a good American, David Stout Parker, especially
for the home of the first American Chief Justice of
Samoa, and it was Parker's boast that the first
American Chief Justice occupied his property. Mr
and Mrs Stevenson with Mrs Strong (Teuila) had
ridden from Vailima in the early part of the evening
and were the first guests to arrive and to get settled
down. After dark, at about half past seven o'clock,
E. W. Gurr, who was then Natives' Attorney, his
wife, Fanua, and his sister alighted from their buggy
and began to ascend the pathway leading to the Ides'
Residence. When nearing the house two figures were
reflected on the window blind of the reception room.
One figure was undoubtedly that of the Chief Justice,
the other was that of a person standing and appearing
to ' be laying down the law ' and punctuating sentences
with the arm and index finger. It looked like that
of a woman and I said to Fanua ' 1 wonder who that
can be, it looks like Mrs Bell.' Fanua replied, 'Yes,
it does look like Mrs Bell and what can her trouble
be to cause her to appear before the Chief Justice
at night time and just as he is about to dine ? ' Now,
Mrs Bell was a very respectable school teacher, who,
with her husband, had been many years in Samoa
conducting an English School, but both were notori-
ous for voluminous language and occasional grievances.
Upon reaching the house and being ushered into the
reception we naturally looked around to ascertain if
Mrs Bell were in the room but the only occupants
were Mr Stevenson and the Chief Justice. We con-
cluded that the figure reflected on the curtain was
not that of Mrs Bell but that of Mr R. L. Stevenson.
Fanua immediately opened out, * Oh Tusitala, on
coming up the road we thought we saw Mrs Bell
talking to the Chief Justice, but it was you.' This
remark caused some surprise for there was no similarity
278 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
between the two persons, but what will a silhouette on
a window curtain do ? Mrs Stevenson and Mrs Strong
then entered the room and they were informed that
Fanua had been pleased to confer on Tusitala a new
name, that of Mrs Bell. This caused much merriment
and laughter and became the stock jest of the evening.
Mr Stevenson retaliated by calling Fanua Mr Bell,
and these names were afterwards frequently referred
to especially when either of them wanted to chaff the
other.
Fanua was also styled on many other occasions by
Mr Stevenson as * Le Aitu ' which designates a visitor
from the spirit world, and Fanua in reply would address
him by a title assumed by himself when asked if Fanua
be an 'Aitu' what then can Mr Stevenson be? Mr
Stevenson replied 'A Plain Human Being.'
Both Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanua Eleitino
Gurr were great friends from the time of their first
meeting till his death, and even unto the time of her
death in December 1917 she frequently spoke most
lovingly of Mr Stevenson and all the members of his
talented family. She was a frequent guest of Vailima.
Sometimes for several months at a stretch Fanua and
her husband were favored guests of the family and
occupied Tusitala's Library. For the gracious and
homely bearing of Mrs Margaret Stevenson, mother
of Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanua expressed great
admiration and would frequently remark during her
lifetime that Mrs Margaret Stevenson had a disposi-
tion which immediately attracted all Samoans who
met her. She was courteous and loving and these
spread a magnetic influence towards all near her.
Fanua received lessons in English from the mother,
together with Austin Strong prior to his departure
to New Zealand to school, and there is no doubt
that her observations of Mrs Margaret Stevenson's
character and attitude had a great deal to do with
shaping the future conduct of Fanua. Both deplored
LOUIS STEVENSOtf.
scandal and it was common repute that up to the
time of her death Fanua had never been known to
say a bad word of any other person. Of the practi-
cability of Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson Fanua learned
much and she admired the great devotion of Aolele,
the wife, to Tusitala.
On the occasion of Fanua's marriage in December
1890 Mr R. L. Stevenson was a guest at the wedding
breakfast and he delivered a happy speech. There
were also present at this event the British Consul,
now Sir Thomas Berry Cusack-Smith, Harold Marsh
Sewall, the American Consul-General, and Lieut.
John Parker U.S.N., afterwards Governor of American
Samoa.
Teuila (Mrs Strong) and Fanua Eleitino Gurr
were bosom friends and when Mrs Gurr's daughter
was born the whole Stevenson family showed great
interest and Mr Stevenson insisted that he should
have the right of giving the child a name and it
was agreed that her first name should be ' Teuila.'
It was of the home life of the Stevenson family
in Samoa that Fanua was wont to talk about with
her friends of later years. Like as the chief of
a clan in Scotland Mr Robert Louis Stevenson as
Tusitala was the ' Matai ' or head of his Samoan clan
or family. His treatment of the Samoans employed
by him was equivalent of the treatment of a Samoan
Matai to his followers, and then in addition to his
family of employees there were chiefs and chieftain-
esses included in the family also. Taking in all, Mr
Stevenson had quite a large gathering of followers
who revered him and extended to him the respect
shown to the highest chiefs. Courteousness to all,
even to the humblest employee, was Tusitala's attitude.
Disputes sometimes happened amongst the Samoans
of the household which Lloyd Osbourne and Teuila
generally dealt with but occasionally a reference would
be made to Tusitala as the ' Matai ' and his judgments
280 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSOtf.
were always considered fair and readily accepted by
the obstinate disputants.
Tusitala, by his usual conduct, not only showed a
moral example to the Samoans associated with him,
"but he even set an example of work by tackling
certain physical work himself. On one occasion Fanua
had been busy during the day helping the family plant
cocoa beans. This was a most interesting and inspiring
scene. Tusitala and Fanua were packing the small
plaited baskets with good brown rich mould brought
in by the ' boys ', and these were passed on to Aolele
(Mrs R. L. Stevenson) who took up the delicate seeds
and after covering them with ashes to help resist the
insect raid she would carefully put the seed in the
basket of earth with the right side uppermost. Aolele
would not allow even Tusitala to handle the seeds and
insisted that she alone could do this properly. Then
as the work was progressing hot cocoa, with a bounti-
ful supply of milk and sugar, was handed round to
everyone employed in order that they may have an
idea of the nutritious beverage that can be made from
the fruits of the seeds they were engaged in planting.
The gathering of the family after dusk when the
lamps are lit, as expressed by the Samoans was one
of the pleasures of the Vailima household which
delighted Fanua. Tusitala would have something to
say to them concerning the events of the day and if
a mail steamer should have arrived then he would
pass on news he had read which was always eagerly
sought for by the Samoans. One of the leaders of
the Samoans would then suggest time for 'lotu' and
a hymn would be sung and then a short prayer. The
working members would then depart and the inner
circle of the Stevenson family would then indulge in
conversation or games until the time for retiring
arrived.
I believe that Fanua played against Tusitala in his
last game of tennis. I had arrived at Vailima from
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 281
my office in Apia just before dusk of one of the days
when we were stopping at Vailima. Tusitala had been
playing rather more vigorously than usual in order to
extinguish the 'Aitu.' The game was drawing to a
close when Mr Stevenson was compelled to cease
playing owing to a hemorrhage starting. Mrs Steven-
son then insisted that he should not play tennis any
more, and I believe this was his last game, a few months
before his death.
VAILIMA MEMORIES, 1892-94
SIR GRAHAM BALFOUR.
A generation has passed since the death of Steven-
son : nearly all the survivors who knew him
intimately are old or elderly people. If any
further records of him in his habit as he lived are to
be snatched from oblivion, there are but few years left,
and the Club has done well to focus the lights of
memory upon such points of reminiscence as may be
worth preserving. Diverse as Stevenson was, there
are two main aspects of him which here claim our
attention : we may regard him as the writer with varied
style and vivid pen or as the personality in which
charm and spirit were so attractively blended.
But of the writer there is less need to speak : the
written letter is handed down, though its continued
life must depend upon its capacity to meet new needs
and to take on new meanings. If an author can
achieve this, he will appeal to the next and succeeding
generations without adventitious help. There is here
question only of the slender figure of charm and geni-
ality, at sight of whom all eyes brightened and all
hearts leaped and all tongues were loosened. If no
personal memories were recorded, Tusitala would leave
behind him in the darkening distance only the fading
image and the voice so soon becoming inaudible.
282 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Nothing less than a multiplicity of reminiscences can
enable our successors to form any definite conception
of what he was like or to understand why in his life-
time he appealed to so many of those who came in
contact with him.
It was only in the three last years of his life that I
knew my cousin, but during that time I had the great
good fortune to spend in all more than twelve months
in his household and to see Samoa and its people in
the light of his experience and interpretation.
In the Life I have set down as definitely as possible
such characteristic words and actions of Stevenson as I
could remember, and the details of his personal appear-
ance and mode of life. There is now little left for me
to glean, but perhaps at this distance of time I may
speak more freely of recollections and relations personal
to myself, however trivial they may be. Among some
notes which I wrote for Sir Sidney Colvin in 1895 I
find the following paragraph. ' I never actually met
Louis until I arrived in Samoa in August 1892. I
will not say merely that we were good friends at once :
you know how attractive his talk, how irresistible his
manner, if his sympathies were engaged or his interest
excited. We had common ground in kin and tastes,
and in studies both voluntary and compulsory. In a
few weeks or even days there seemed to be established
between us that complete understanding that rarely
comes except from long friendship and old association.
It was never put into words, and no record of it exists :
it seemed simply to be taken for granted.' The ex-
ternals of that free and unconventional life appealed
to me as by nature. To take the first small incident :
I found Louis and the family going barefoot about the
house and in the woods of Vailima, and the first after-
noon I fell readily into the practice. This reassured
them at once, and increased, if possible, the warmth of
my welcome : no doubt it had its share in leading to
Louis' complimentary explanation : ' He 's the same kind
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 288
of fool that we are.' It was the smallest of episodes, but
it opened at once the way to closer understanding. * It
was a wonderful trait of Louis/ the note goes on, ' that
emotional and dramatic as he was in some of his actions
and relations, towards myself he almost invariably
maintained that stoical and Scottish reserve of de-
meanour and utterance, which we both knew to be in
so many ways at variance with our own feelings. It was
a streak in his character, one of the minor parts in his
list of natural roles, and he enjoyed playing it, just as
he revelled in assuming Braxfield. When I said good-
bye to him for the last time, as it proved, in October
1894, in front of Vailima, we parted as if it were but
for the absence of a few days.' Yet when I first went
away in November 1892, and by the shore was faltering
out some inadequate words of thanks for all his com-
panionship and hospitality, I remember the extraordinary
and almost reproachful tenderness of his farewell.
So always, if people were neither cruel nor dishonest,
whatever their nationality or their colour, were the
warmth and charm of his welcome. To Lady Jersey,
to captains of men-of-war, to the ex-queen of Hawaii
and Samoan chiefs of unparalleled dignity down to
the humblest of human creatures he was the same.
On the German plantations ' blackboys ' were employed,
Melanesians from the western Pacific, of low type,
quite unaccustomed even to humanity from their mas-
ters. Louis always greeted them in passing, and one
day the last of a long file who had gone by in silence
rewarded him with : ' You good man, you always say
"Good morning".' On the other hand I remember
riding over to the German overseer's house alone with
Louis. ' It is a lovely ride, halfway down our mountain
towards Apia, then turn to the right, ford the river, and
three miles of solitary grass and cocoa palms, to where
the sea beats and the wild wind blows almost unceas-
ingly about the plantation house.' (Letters III. 312.)
I always like to think of hini as he was that afternoon,
284 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
enjoying the weather and the exercise with all his
faculties and talking his best. As we passed the build-
ings, a scantily draped, elderly Melanesian woman came
out, with ape-like countenance and pendulous breasts.
He looked at her and turned to me. * I deny that I
am descended from the same stock as that lady : if
I am, I draw out.'
There may some day again be realised the contrast
of a home, full of books and pictures and the refine-
ments of housekeeping, and its setting in the midst of
a native race and a tropical wilderness of the greatest
beauty. But will the inmates ever, day by day, and night
by night, share such talk and hear the instalments of
such writings as may hardly be found in the world of
civilization they have left behind? The talk had its
rewards and its dangers. If ever one touched an idea
which Stevenson had taken to his heart and made his
own, then it received new life and brilliancy as he set it
forth in the delight and freshness of his words. I had
this good fortune one day in speaking of the soldier
who in peace had served until middle age without
knowing whether he could rely on his own courage
when the moment of danger came. Recent years have
made this only too familiar an experience : it was not
new then to Stevenson, and his depicting of the crisis
was a revelation. Once trivially I quoted a legend,
found some years before in an old Saturday Review,
of a Swiss inn bearing the name of ' Hotel Anglais
et Pension God-dam.' I was almost startled at the
interest he displayed, until he explained that this
was an invention of his own in old days at the S a vile
Club.
Such talk also had its dangers. Louis was speaking
one day of his hope of visiting India and his great
desire of seeing the old Danish settlements on the Bay
of Bengal. I ventured to suggest the greater beauty
and historical attraction of Agra and Delhi, which I
had seen the year before, but (perhaps he was even less
KOBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 285
likely to go so far north) he assailed me and insisted on
the superior interest and romantic history of places
whose names I have long since forgotten. And another
day when I said a word in praise of common sense, I
was assailed with a denunciation of its meanness, its
lack of imagination and its poverty of spirit, which,
even through twenty years of an official career, have
ever since caused me rather to distrust that bourgeois
rule of life.
But as he himself said of talk : ' The spice of life is
battle ; the friendliest relations are still a kind of con-
test ; and if we would not forgo all that is valuable in
our lot, we must continually face some other person,
eye to eye, and wrestle a fall whether in love or
enmity/ Of good talk there was abundance, and of
' that amicable counter-assertion of personality which is
the gauge of relations and the sport of life.' In that
household all gave and took, and there were no scars.
The mistress was in vividness and character and warmth
of heart the equal of the master, and with full and
perfect affection and loyalty to one another they held
their own paths. On one occasion a controversy on
some line of policy or conduct had run high between
them ; either of the two in turn appealed subsequently
to my judgment, and I was young enough to express
my agreement with certain points on either side. The
inevitable followed and both fell upon me with indig-
nation, which indeed (though for a different reason)
I deserved. But next morning at dawn Stevenson
appeared at my bedside with an apology, the generosity
of which I have never forgotten.
An instance where Stevenson himself was arbitrator
was equally characteristic and may be quoted for en-
tertainment. Once Lloyd Osbourne and I had an
argument over the pronunciation of the word * subaltern'
in the sense of subordinate. He was for the accent upon
the second syllable, I upon the first, and after a spirited
discussion we appealed to Louis. Without hesitation
286 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSOtf.
he gave it to Lloyd, and in the same breath declared
that everybody else accented the first syllable, and that
everybody else was wrong.
As in talk, so in action. -Whatever Stevenson did,
he did with the utmost zest, and if he could share an
experience with anyone who shared his delight, his
pleasure was all the greater. Two rides with him stand
out among the most intense pleasures of my life ; one
on the day (28th June 1893) when I induced him to
yield to his longing to gallop out and see Mataafa's
outposts under arms in the field. ' The impression on
our minds was extraordinary ; the sight of that picket
at the ford, and those ardent, happy faces whirls in my
head ; the old aboriginal woke in both of us and
knickered like a stallion. . . . We were all wet. We
had been about five hours in the saddle, mostly riding
hard ; and we came home like schoolboys, with such a
lightness of spirits, and I am sure such a brightness of
eye, as you could have lit a candle at!' (Letters IV.
188.) The second was less active. We were riding
slowly together down the lane of limes from Vailima
towards the coast on one of those mornings following
rain, such as Stevenson has described : * Heaven upon
earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of
unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken only by
the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the rich piping
of a single bird.' The best company in the world,
and scenery and weather unsurpassed. Suddenly the
thought came into my mind with a flash : * This is too
good to last,' and before the year was out it was gone
by for ever.
For the reasons I gave at the outset, I have preferred
to speak of Stevenson in these notes as a man among
men, and not as a writer, but I will add here two
literary reminiscences.
One day he was talking of style, and ended with :
* I 'd like to know who 's going to explain the secret of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 287
some of Burns's songs,' and he quoted with rapture the
two lines
6 Yestreen, when to the trembling* string
The dance gaed through the lichtit haV
Another time he was talking of Shakespeare and, as
he said, * the admirable art of Troilus and Cressida ' :
he went on to quote some fragments of his favourite
speech from Antony and Cleopatra
' I am dying, Egypt, dying, . . .
. r . and do not now basely die,
Nor cowardly put off my helmet to
My countryman, a Roman, by a Roman
Valiantly vanquished.'
Then he burst out with : * By God, sir ! That 's the
way to write : if you can only do it/
So much of my own recollections. But there came
to me in France three years ago from my friend, Mr
Henry Johnstone, so graphic an account of an episode
which he had at first hand from his friend the doctor
to whom it happened that I should like to take the
opportunity which he kindly allows me of placing it
here on record, t I give it as far as possible in Mr
Johnstone's own words. Dr Peter A. Young of Manor
Place, known from his stature as Peter the Great, was
a friend of Stevenson, and one day in 1875 in Hanover
Street met him walking up the hill from Heriot Row
(presumably in Frederick Street), carrying on his head
an easy-chair. * Come, this is rather strong, even for
you/ said Young. * What on earth are you doing ? '
' Oh ! ' said Louis, ' a friend of mine has just come out
of the Infirmary ; he 's had an operation, and he hasn't
a chair to sit down upon, and I am taking him one.
* The actual word is stentit, (meaning taut, or stretched) ; but it is often
given as * trembling,' and ' trembling ' was the word E, L. S. used. [ED.]
f See the Edinburgh Academy Chronicle, Feb. 1895, p. 39.
288 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
And now I come to think of it, he hasn't a doctor
either, and 1 11 take him one too.' And so saying, he
cleiked his arm into Dr Peter's, and took him along
with him to pay Young's first visit to W. E. Henley.
SIR JAMES BALFOUR PAUL, C.V.O., LL.D.,
LYON KING OF ARMS.
A Letter.
DEAR Miss MASSON, You tell me you are on
the quest for any recollections of Louis Stevenson
that I can give you. I am afraid these are not
many ; I have indeed more vivid recollections of his
parents than of Louis himself. Tom Stevenson I
always thought a delightful person, very able, charm-
ingly quaint and original, and though very religious not
in the least the dour Calvinistic Scot some journalists
have made him out to be. His mother, * Maggie
Stevenson/ as I always heard her called, was a charm-
ing character, so sweet and gentle, with much quiet
humour, and altogether very lovable, though there was
nothing ' clever ' about her.
Although we were second cousins, I never came
much in contact with Louis, or ' Smout ' as his mother
used to call him, after we were quite young boys. One
of the latest recollections I have of him as a boy is of
an occasion when I drove over from Whitekirk, where
I was staying, to North Berwick, where the Stevensons
were. In scrambling about the rocks I slipped my foot
and fell into a pool and had to be incased in a suit of
his father's till mine was dry. It is rather curious that
in the only letter I had from Louis after he grew up he
alluded to the incident and remembered the very book
I had been reading on the way over to him.
This was one of the last letters Louis ever wrote, as
it was written only three days before his death. It
shows that at this time he was engaged in tracing the
From a photograph taken in 1893 at Sydney.
(Lent by Sir Graham Balfour.)
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 289
more remote origin of his family. I append an extract
from it, which may perhaps be of interest.
VAILIMA, SAMOA
Dec. 1st 1894
... I am almost ashamed to recall myself to your notice, it is
such a bitter long time since we got ducked together on the rocks
in front of North Berwick, and you drove over from Whitekirk
reading Washington Irving's Mahomet. At the same time I am
driven, at the suggestion of Sir Herbert Maxwell, to come before
the great Lyon King, like a tinkler's tyke, in a little matter
concerning him and me. It is about the name of Stevenson, why,
when and to what extent, did the McGregors use that name ? Sir
Herbert tells me that they have even registered Stevenson arms,
or at least the chevron. What truth is there in this ? I have a
certain amount of direct evidence as to people using both names, but
cannot glean one scintilla of evidence as to the wherefore of the
thing. If you can throw any light upon it, you will greatly
oblige me . . . Your affectionate cousin,
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.*
A LETTER OF INTRODUCTION.
MRS ISOBEL FIELD.
NOT long after Mr Stevenson's death I happened
to be in Apia on steamer day when a number
of tourists were ashore. One of them, a plain,
middle-aged man who looked as though he might have
been a steerage passenger, stopped me and asked to be
directed to the post office as he wished to buy some
Samoan stamps. I pointed out the way and was about
to pass on when I caught sight of something that
glittered on his coat.
'What is that you are wearing?' I asked, and my
eyes filled with tears as he showed it to me. Louis had
always worn just such an emblem the little bronze
thistle of the Robert Burns Society. When he changed
his riding coat for his velvet jacket, when he dressed
for dinner, he never failed to slip the thistle into his
* See p. 238' Rob Roy Macgregor.' [ED.]
290 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
button -hole. It was buried with him. The last
memory I have of him is lying on the couch in the
centre of the big hall at Vailima surrounded by fine
mats and masses of bright-coloured flowers, the British
flag across his knees and Scotland's emblem on his
breast.
I not only took the man who had spoken to me to
the post office, but I arranged that he should see more
of Samoa in the few hours of his stay than the average
tourist could in a month. He was introduced to
Samoan chiefs, he was welcomed in native houses, he
saw flower-bedecked maidens do the siva, warriors
perform their famous knife-throwing dance ; a boy ran
up a palm-tree and gathered cocoanuts for him, he took
part in a native feast and joined in the kava ceremony.
When he was leaving with his arms full of presents :
tapa, fans, baskets, strings of scarlet seeds and cun-
ningly contrived tortoise-shell finger rings, he was
fairly overcome with gratitude. * How can I ever thank
you?' he asked with that burr of the Scottish accent
that always thrills me, recalling as it does the memory
of a voice I shall never hear again. * You could not
have been kinder to me if I had come with a letter of
introduction. 5
' You did come with one,' I said. ' It is on your coat
the little bronze thistle of Scotland.' *
I CAN REMEMBER ROBERT Louis STEVENSON.
THE DOWAGER COUNTESS OF JERSEY.
I was once with a friend on the Palatine Hill in
Rome when an archaeologist was explaining to us
the construction of the Palace of the Csesars and
of the Roman walls.
Suddenly, I forget how, the name of Robert Louis
Stevenson was mentioned : the archaeologist and I had
* See p. 240 (2nd par.). [ED.]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 291
both known him : instantly antiquity and history faded
into mist, and the wand of Tusitala, Teller of Tales,
brought back the glow of the Southern Seas, and the
enchanter who had wielded it.
My friend sighed and I said half-enviously that those
who had known Stevenson seemed to possess in common
something denied to others. This is true; he had,
beyond any man or woman whom I have met, the
singular power of attracting to himself those with whom
he became acquainted and of leaving with them a
memory never to be lost. They feel unconsciously that
they have known not only a writer of romances, but a
hero of romance, and that whatever of the dull routine
of life they may afterwards encounter they can recal
those happy hours when they were for a time permitted
to dwell with him in fairyland.
AN ECHO.
SIR JAMES M. BARRIE, O.M.
S I never saw Stevenson face to face I have no
right to be in this volume ; but I should like to
step into some obscure corner of it so that I may
cheer and cheer as the procession of him goes by. Such
a fine array of flag-bearers, Colvin, Gosse, Archer, Lady
Colvin and many another, the much loved Colvin
always to be thought of first I should forget to couple
Mary Lamb with Charles as soon as think of R. L. S.
without taking off my hat to Sidney Colvin. Even
now when you sit with Colvin you feel that Stevenson
is nearer than in any other mortal room ; some very
slight disturbance of the atmosphere and he would break
into the conversation.
When I came to London there was a blank spot in
it ; Stevenson had gone. It could not be filled till he
came back, and he never came back. I saw it again in
292 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Edinburgh the other day. It is not necessarily that he
was the greatest, I don't think he was the greatest, but
of the men we might have seen he is the one we would
like best to come back.
Had he lived another year I should have seen him.
All plans arranged for a visit to Vailima, ' to settle on
those shores for ever/ he wrote, or something to that
effect, ' and if my wife likes you what a time you will
have, and if she does not, how I shall pity you.*
There is some waterfall at the top of which I was to
sit, let go, and in a second or two come to my senses
in a glassy pool. I was warned that the natives would
not think much of my works until I had done that.
I can't think I should have done it, but there is no
telling if he had been there to bid me let go. I was
elaborating a scheme for taking him by surprise, ex-
plaining a rakish craft that bore him off in the night
and made him walk the plank, when the news came
that he had gone up the hill behind Vailima for the
last time.
THE END.
Edinburgh :
Printed by W & R. Chamber*, Limited.
PR Mas son, Rosaline Orme
5A93 I can remember Robert
Louis Stevenson
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
