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THE LIFE OF

ROBERT LOUIS

STEVENSON

BY

GRAHAM BALFOUR

:

I ?/3

TWELFTH EDITION

METHUEN & CO. LTD.
56 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

This Book was First Published (Two Volumes)
Second Edition „ „

Third and Cheaper Edition (One Volume 6s.) .

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October ri)or

October tqoi

November 1906

January K)o8

J une IQIO

IQII

1911

1QII

September

November

December

May

January

January

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — HIS ANCESTORS - - - - tfocj ft

II. — HIS PARENTS - '•;*«* - - "19

III. — INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD — 1850-59 - 27

IV. — BOYHOOD — 1859-67 - - - - 41

V. — STUDENT DAYS 1867-73 " ''. '*": '" ' 53

VI. LIFE AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY — 1873-76 - 78

VII. — TRANSITION — 1876-79- ( ,*ty, - - IO3

VIII. — CALIFORNIA — 1879-80- ... n8

IX. — DAVOS AND THE HIGHLANDS — l88o-82 129

X. — THE RIVIERA — 1882-84 ... 143

XI. — BOURNEMOUTH — 1884-87 - - - I$I

XII. — THE UNITED STATES — 1887-88 - - l68

XIII. — THE EASTERN PACIFIC — 1888-89- - l8°

XIV. — THE CENTRAL PACIFIC 1889-91 - - 2O3

XV. — VAILIMA — 1891-94 .... 228

XVI. — THE END — 1894 ----- 259

XVII.— R. L. S. 271

PREFACE

THE duty of writing this book was finally en-
trusted to me because during the last two and
a half years before my cousin's death I had on his
invitation made Vailima my home and the point of
departure for my journeys, and, apart from the
members of his own family, I had been throughout
that period the only one of his intimate friends in
touch with every side of his life.

In order to include the book in the present series
it has been necessary to reduce it in bulk, but this
opportunity has been used solely for the purpose of
lightening it and rendering it generally more read-
able. Part of the matter omitted, such as the
Vailima Prayers, has now been published elsewhere :
the chief part of the remainder related either to
Samoan politics or contained details concerning some
of Stevenson's minor works, which were of interest
only to the special student. Some quotations have
been abridged and a few trivial paragraphs omitted.
The framework has been slightly cut down : the
general effect of the picture has, so fax as I could
manage, remained unaltered.

G. B.

THE LIFE OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

CHAPTER I

HIS ANCESTORS

" The ascendant hand is what I feel most strongly ;
I am bound in and in with my forbears. , . . We are
all nobly born ; fortunate these who know it ; blessed
those who remember." — R. L. S., Letters, iii. 269.

" The sights and thoughts of my youth pursue me ;
and I see like a vision the youth of my father, and of
his father, and the whole stream of lives flowing down
there far in the north, with the sound of laughter and
tears, to cast me out in the end, as by a sudden freshet,
on these ultimate islands. And I admire and bow my
head before the romance of destiny." — R. L, S., Dedica-
tion of Catriona.

" IT is the chief recommendation of long pedigrees,"
1 as Stevenson once wrote, " that we can follow
back the careers of our component parts and be re-
minded of our ante-natal lives." But the threads
are many and tangled, and it is hard to distinguish
for more than a generation or two the transmission
of the characteristics that are combined in any indivi-
dual of our own day. When a man has been dead
for a hundred years, it is seldom that anything is
remembered of him but his name and his occupation ;
he has become no more than a link in a pedigree, and
the personal disposition is forgotten which made him
loved or feared, together with the powers that gained

8 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

him success, or the weaknesses that brought about
his failure. Therefore it is no unusual circumstance
that, while we can trace the line of Stevenson's ances-
tors on either side for two and four hundred years
respectively, our knowledge of them, in any real sense
of the word, begins only at the end of the eighteenth
century. After that date we have four portraits,
drawn in part by his own hand, together with the
materials for another sketch ; in these may be dis-
cerned some of the traits and faculties which went
to make up a personality so unusual, so fascinating,
and so deeply loved.

The record of his father's people opens in 1675 with
the birth of a son, Robert, to James Stevenson, " pre-
sumably a tenant farmer " of Nether Carsewell in the
parish of Neilston, some ten miles to the south-west
of Glasgow. Robert's son, a maltster in Glasgow,
had ten children, among whom were Hugh, born
1749, and Alan, born June, 1752.

" With these two brothers my story begins," their
descendant wrote in A Family of Engineers. " Their
deaths were simultaneous ; their lives unusually brief
and full. Tradition whispered me in childhood they
were the owners of an islet near St. Kitts ; and it
is certain they had risen to be at the head of con-
siderable interests in the West Indies, which Hugh
managed abroad and Alan at home," almost before
they had reached the years of manhood. In 1774
Alan was summoned to the West Indies by Hugh.
" An agent had proved unfaithful on a serious scale ;
and it used to be told me in my childhood how the
brothers pursued him from one island to another in
an open boat, were exposed to the pernicious dews
of the tropics, and simultaneously struck down. The
dates and places of their deaths would seem to indicate
a more scattered and prolonged pursuit." At all
events, " in something like the course of pest, both
were called away, the one twenty-five, the other
twenty-two*" v

HIS ANCESTORS 9

Alan left behind him a wife and one child, Robert,
aged two, the future engineer of the Bell Rock, who
was destined to be the grandfather of Robert Louis
Stevenson. The widow was daughter of David
Lillie, a Glasgow builder, several times Deacon of the
Wrights, but had lost her father only a month before
her husband's death, and for the time, at any rate,
mother and son were almost destitute. She was,
however, " a young woman of stsong sense, well fitted
to contend with poverty, and of a pious disposition,
which it is like that these misfortunes heated. Like
so many other widowed Scotswomen, she vowed her
son should wag his head in a pulpit ; but her means
were inadequate to her ambition." He made no
great figure at the schools in Edinburgh to which she
could afford to send him ; but before he was fifteen
there occurred an event " which changed his own
destiny and moulded that of his descendants — the
second marriage of his mother."

The new husband was " a merchant burgess of
Edinburgh of the name of Thomas Smith," a widower
of thirty-three with children, who is described as " a
man ardent, passionate, practical, designed for affairs,
and prospering in them far beyond the average." He
was, among other things, a shipowner and under-
writer ; but chiefly he " founded a solid business in
lamps and oils, and was the sole proprietor of a con-
cern called the Greenside Company's Works — ' a
multifarious concern of tinsmiths, coppersmiths,
brassfounders, blacksmiths, and japanners.' ' Con-
sequently, in August, 1786, less than a year before
his second marriage, " having designed a system of
oil lights to take the place of the primitive coal fires
before in use, he was dubbed engineer to the newly-
formed Board of Northern Lighthouses."

The profession was a new one, just beginning to
grow in the hands of its first practitioners ; in it
Robert Stevenson found his vocation and so entered
with great zest into the pursuits of his stepfather.
" The public usefulness of the service would appeal

io LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

to his judgment, the perpetual need for fresh exped-
ients stimulate his ingenuity. And there was another
attraction which, in the young man at least, ap-
pealed to, and perhaps first aroused a profound and
enduring sentiment of romance ; I mean the attrac-
tion of the life >The seas into which his labours
carried the new engineer were still scarce charted,
the coasts still dark ; his way on shore was often far
beyond the convenience of any road, the isles in which
he must sojourn were still partly savage. He must
toss much in boats ; he must often adventure on
horseback by the dubious bridle-track through
unfrequented wildernesses ; he must sometimes plant
his lighthouse in the very camp of wreckers ; and he
was continually enforced to the vicissitudes of out-
door life. The joy of my grandfather in this career
was strong as the love of woman. It lasted him
through youth and manhood, it burned strong in age,
and at the approach of death his last yearning was
to renew these loved experiences. At the age of
nineteen I find him already in a post of some authority,
superintending the construction of the lighthouse on
the isle of Little Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde. The
change of aim seems to have caused or been accom-
panied by a change of character. It sounds absurd
to couple the name of my grandfather with the word
indolence ; but the lad who had been destined from
the cradle to the Church, and who had attained the
age of fifteen without acquiring more than a moderate
knowledge of Latin, was at least no unusual student.
From the day of his charge at Little Cumbrae he steps
before us what he remained until the end — a man of
the most zealous industry, greedy of occupation,
greedy of knowledge, a stern husband of time, a
reader, a writer, unflagging in his task of self-im-
provement. Thenceforward his summers were spent
directing works and ruling workmen, now in unin-
habited, now in half-savage islands ; his winters were
set apart, first at the Andersonian Institution, then at
the University of Edinburgh, to improve himself in

HIS ANCESTORS 1 1

mathematics, chemistry, natural history, agriculture,
moral philosophy, and logic."

His mother's marriage made a great change also in
his domestic life : an only child hitherto, he had
become a member of a large family, for his stepfather
had already five children. However, " the perilous
experiment of bringing together two families for once
succeeded. Mr. Smith's two eldest daughters, Jean
and Janet, fervent in piety, unwearied in kind deeds,
were well qualified both to appreciate and to attract
the stepmother," just as her son found immediate
favour in the eyes of her husband. Either family, it
seems, had been composed of two elements ; and in
the united household " not only were the women
extremely pious but the men were in reality a trifle
worldly. Religious the latter both were ; conscious,
like all Scots, of the fragility and unreality of that
scene in which we play our uncomprehended parts ;
like all Scots, realising daily and hourly the sense of
another will than ours, and a perpetual direction in
the affairs of life. But the current of their endeav-
ours flowed in a more obvious channel. They had
got on so far, to get on further was their next ambi-
tion— to gather wealth, to rise in society, to leave
their descendants higher than themselves, to be (in
some sense) among the founders of families. Scott
was in the same town nourishing similar dreams.
But in the eyes of the women these dreams would be
foolish and idolatrous."

The connection thus established was destined yet
further to affect the life of the young man, and this
contrast in the household was still to be perpetuated.
" By an extraordinary arrangement, in which it is
hard not to suspect the managing hand of a mother,
Jean Smith became the wife of Robert Stevenson.
The marriage of a man of twenty-seven and a girl of
twenty, who have lived for twelve years as brother
and sister, is difficult to conceive. It took place,
however, and thus in 1799 the family was still further
cemented by the union of a representative of the male

12 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

or worldly element with that of the female and
devout.

" This essential difference remained unabridged,
yet never diminished the strength of their relation.
My grandfather pursued his design of advancing in the
world with some measure of success ; rose to distinc-
tion in his calling, grew to be the familiar of members
of Parliament, judges of the Court of Session, and
' landed gentlemen ' ; learned a ready address, had a
flow of interesting conversation, and when he was
referred to as ' a highly respectable bourgeois,' resented
the description. My grandmother remained to the
end devout and unambitious, occupied with her Bible,
her children, and her house ; easily shocked, and
associating largely with a clique of godly parasites. . .

" The cook was a godly woman, the butcher a
Christian man, and the table suffered. The scene has
been described to me of my grandfather sawing with
darkened countenance at some indissoluble joint —
' Preserve me, my dear, what kind of a reedy, stringy
beast is this ? ' — of the joint removed, the pudding
substituted and uncovered ; and of my grandmother's
anxious glance and hasty, deprecatory comment,
' Just mismanaged 1 ' Yet with the invincible obsti-
nacy of soft natures, she would adhere to the godly
woman and the Christian man, or find others of the
same kidney to replace them."

Readers of Weir of Hermiston will recognise in this
picture the original of Mrs. Weir in all her piety,
gentleness, and incompetence, yet in real life, ' hus-
band and sons all entertained for this pious, tender
soul the same chivalrous and moved affection.'1

It is no part of my purpose to follow the profes-
sional life of Robert Stevenson, which was, moreover,
written by his son David. In 1807 he was appointed
sole engineer to the Board of Northern Lights, and
in the same year began his great work at the Bell
Rock, the first lighthouse ever erected far from land
upon a reef deeply submerged at every tide. He
built twenty lighthouses in all. and introduced many

HIS ANCESTORS 13

inventions and improvements in the systems of
lighting. He did not resign his post until his powers
began to fail in 1843, and he died in 1850, four months
before the birth of the most famous of his grandsons.

" He began to ail early in that year, and chafed for
the period of the annual voyage, which was his medi-
cine and delight. In vain his sons dissuaded him
from the adventure. The day approached, the
obstinate old gentleman was found in his room,
furtively packing a portmanteau, and the truth had
to be told him ere he would desist — that he was
stricken with a malignant malady, and that before
the yacht should have completed her circuit of the
lights, must himself have started on a more distant
cruise. My father has more than once told me of the
scene with emotion. The old man was intrepid ; he
had faced death before with a firm countenance ; and
I do not suppose he was much dashed at the nearness
of our common destiny. But there was something
else that would cut him to the quick — the loss of
the cruise, the end of all his cruising ; the knowledge
that he had looked his last on Sumburgh, and the wild
crags of Skye, and that Sound of Mull, with the praise
of which his letters were so often occupied ; that he
was never again to hear the surf break in Clashcar-
nock ; never again to see lighthouse after lighthouse
(all younger than himself, and the more part of his
own device) open in the hour of dusk their flowers of
fire, or the topaz and the ruby interchange on the
summit of the Bell Rock. To a life of so much
activity and danger, a life's work of so much interest
and essential beauty, here came a long farewell."

" My grandfather was much of a martinet, and had
a habit of expressing himself on paper with an almost
startling emphasis. Personally, with his powerful
voice, sanguine countenance, and eccentric and
original locutions, he was well qualified to inspire a
salutary terror in the service. ... In that service he
was king to his finger-tips. All should go in his way,
from the principal lightkeeper's coat to the assistant's

14' LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

fenderj from the gravel in the garden- walks to the bad
smell in the kitchen, or the oil-spots on the storeroom
floor It might be thought there was nothing more
calculated to awake men's resentment, and yet his rule
was not more thorough than it was beneficent. His
thought for the keepers was continual, and it did not
end with their lives. . . . While they lived, he wrote
behind their backs to arrange for the education of
their children, or to get them other situations if they
seemed unsuitable for the Northern Lights. When
he was at a lighthouse on a Sunday he held prayers
and heard the children read. When a keeper was
sick, he lent him his horse and sent him mutton and
brandy from the ship. ' The assistant's wife having
been this morning confined, there was sent ashore
a bottle of sherry and a few rusks — a practice which
I have always observed in this service.' . . . No
servant of the Northern Lights came to Edinburgh
but he was entertained at Baxter's Place to breakfast.
There at his own table my grandfather sat down
delightedly with his broad-spoken, home-spun officers.
His whole relation to the service was, in fact, patri-
archal ; and I believe I may say that throughout its
ranks he was adored. I have spoken with many who
knew him ; I was his grandson, and their words may
very well have been words of flattery ; but there was
one thing that could not be affected, and that was the
look and light that came into their faces at the name
of Robert Stevenson."

Sir Walter Scott accompanied the Commissioners
and their officer on one of the annual voyages of the
Pharos round the coasts of Scotland, and his Journal
shows that he found Robert Stevenson an appreciative
and intelligent companion.

While the great engineer was the man of action
that his grandson longed to be, he also essayed
authorship to some purpose. He wrote and pub-
lished an Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, which,
as his grandson says, "is of its sort a masterpiece,
and has been so recognised by judges ; ' the romance

HIS ANCESTORS 15

of stone and lime,' it has been called, and ' the Robin-
son Crusoe of engineering,' both happy and des-
criptive phrases. Even in his letters, though he
cannot always be trusted for the construction of his
sentences, the same literary virtues are apparent —
a strong sense of romance and reality, and an almost
infallible instinct for the right detail."

Traits are obliterated and the characteristics of a
family may change, but the old man's detestation of
everything slovenly or dishonest, " his interest in
the whole page of experience, and his perpetual
quest and fine scent for all that seems romantic to a
boy," were handed down, if ever taste was trans-
mitted, to his grandson. Of the one as of the other
it might well have been said that " Perfection was
his design." But when we come to Thomas Steven-
son, we shall find in him even more of the habits of
mind and temper which distinguished his more
celebrated son.

Stevenson's mother was the youngest daughter
of the Rev. Lewis Balfour, D.D., minister of Colinton,
a parish on the stream known as the Water of Leith,
four miles to the south-west of Edinburgh. The
earliest known member of this family was one Alex-
ander Balfour, placed in charge of the King's Cellar
by James IV., in 1499, and of the Queen's Cellar in
1507 ; he held the lands of Inchrye in Fife, and was
in all probability one of the Balfours of Mount-
quhannie, a numerous family, high in the favour
of King James. The descendants of Alexander
were chiefly ministers, advocates, or merchants.

His grandson James Balfour, one of the ministers
of St. Giles', Edinburgh, from 1589 to 1613, married
a niece of Andrew Melville the Reformer, and was,
as a brass in his church now records, " one of those
who, summoned by James VI. to Hampton Court
in 1606, refused to surrender their principles to his
desires for the establishment of Episcopacy in Scot-
land." James, born 1680, whose father was one of
the Governors of the Darien Company, bought the

i6 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

estate of Pilrig, lying between Edinburgh and Leith,
with which the family has ever since been connected,
and to which David Balfour is brought in Catriona.
The laird whom David met was James, born 1705,
who, having studied at Leyden, became Professor
of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh,
and then exchanged this Chair for that of the Laws
of Nature and Nations. His wife was a daughter
of Sir John Elphinstone of Logic and granddaughter
of Sir Gilbert Elliot, known as Lord Minto, a judge
of the Court of Session. It was through this con-
nection that Stevenson was able to say, " I have
shaken a spear in the Debateable Land and shouted
the slogan of the Elliots." Sir Gilbert's grandmother,
Margaret Elliot, was a daughter of " Auld Wat Scott "
of Harden and Mary Scott his wife, known as The
Flower of Yarrow, who were thus common ancestors
of Louis Stevenson and of Sir Walter Scott. John
Balfour, son of the Professor and father of the minister
of Colinton, married his cousin Jean Whyte ; and
so by this marriage Stevenson's mother was a second
cousin of the novelist, Major George Whyte-Melville.

Lewis Balfour was born at Pilrig in 1777 ; about
the age of twenty he showed symptoms of a weak
chest, and was sent for a winter to the Isle of Wight
with the most entire success. On returning, he took
orders, went to his first Ayrshire parish, and there
fell in love with, and married, a daughter of Dr. Smith
of Galston, the Dr. Smith who in Burns's Holy Fair
" opens out his cauld harangues on practice and on
morals.'1 In 1823 he came to the parish of Colinton,
and there remained until his death thirty-seven years
later. In 1844 he lost his wife, a woman of great
personal beauty and force of character, and the care
of the household fell into the hands of his eldest
unmarried daughter. His is the manse of Memories
and Portraits, the favourite home of his grandson's
childhood. The essay in question describes him " as
a man of singular simplicity of nature ; unemotional,
and hating the display of what he felt ; standing

HIS ANCESTORS 17

contented on the old ways ; a lover of his life and
innocent habits to the end. We children admired
hm — partly for his beautiful face and silver hair,
for ione more than children are concerned for beauty
and, above all, for beauty in the old ; partly for the
solemn light in which we beheld him once a week,
the observed of all observers, in the pulpit. But his
strictness and distance, the effect, I now fancy, of
old age, slow blood, and settled habit, oppressed us
with a kind of terror. . . . He had no idea of spoil-
ing children, leaving all that to my aunt ; he had
fared hard himself, and blubbered under the rod in
the last century ; and his ways were still Spartan

for the young When not abroad, he sat

much alone, writing sermons or letters to his scattered
family in a dark and cold room with a library of
bloodless books — and these lonely hours wrapped
him in the greater gloom for our imaginations. But
the study had a redeeming grace in many Indian
pictures, gaudily coloured and dear to young eyes.
I cannot depict (for I have no such passions now)
the greed with which I beheld them ; and when I
was once sent in to say a psalm to my grandfather,
I went, quaking indeed with fear, but at the same
time glowing with hope that if I said it well, he might
reward me with an Indian picture.

" Thy foot He'll not let slide, nor will
He slumber that thee keeps/'

it ran — a strange conglomerate of the unpronounce-
able, a sad model to set in childhood before one who
was himself to be a versifier, and a task in recitation
that really merited reward.

" And I must suppose the old man thought so too,
and was either touched or amused by the performance;
for he took me in his arms with most unwonted tender-
ness and kissed me, and gave me a little kindly sermon
for my psalm ; so that, for that day, we were clerk and
parson." The picture was not given (how should it
have been ?) but on that, and more than one other

1 8 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

occasion, the minister showed himself in a gracious
and sympathetic mood to his little kinsman " Try
as I please," wrote the grandson in later days, " I
cannot join myself on with the reverend doctor ;
and all the while, no doubt, and even as I write the
phrase, he moves in my blood, and whispers «vords
to me, and sits efficient in the very knot and centre
of my being." Yet even if no individual traits or
physical resemblances can be traced to the old
minister, much of the general Scottish cast of char-
acter in Stevenson — the " strong Scots accent of the
mind " — was confirmed by this strain ; aid it is
evident that his intensity, his ethical preoccupations,
and, as he himself says, his " love of preiching "
were due, at all events in part, to the fact that he
was a " grandson of the manse."

Such, at any rate, was the history of his maternal
ancestors, the Balfours, a family who possessed in a
high degree the domestic virtues of the Lowland Scot.
Till after the date I have reached, few of the cadets
ever sought their fortunes abroad, though the next
generation was more enterprising, and four out of
Mrs. Stevenson's five brothers spent much of their
lives in India or New Zealand. But for the most
part the family were stay-at-home folk, and adven-
tures, which are to the adventurous, came not near
their peaceful dwellings.

If it be difficult to follow his ancestors, it is
manifestly impossible to find any safe ground for
speculating on the race to which Stevenson belonged.
None of his forbears for many centuries, so far as
we can tell, were newcomers to Scotland ; and it is
probable that in him, as in almost any other native
of the same region, several strains of the long-
established races were combined. The word " Bal-
four," as Cluny reminds us in Kidnapped, is " good
Gaelic," its meaning being " cold croft or farm."
The place of that name is in Fife. The estate was
held by the Bethunes for five hundred years, until
recently it passed again into the hands of a Balfour

HIS PARENTS 15

" of that ilk." But the appellation of a family need
sigaify no more than the former possession of some
holding to which the Celts had already given a name,
and the Balfours of Pilrig belonged apparently to an
East Lowland type. Renfrew, on the other hand,
was part of the Celtic kingdom of the Britons of
Alclyde, and it was in that territory that the name
of Stevenson had been chiefly found, and that this
particular family was settled. Neither name nor
locality, however, is any sure guide to an origin so
remote ; and we can be certain of no more than this,
that Louis Stevenson and his father and grandfather
exhibited many moods and tendencies of mind attri-
buted to the Celtic race.

CHAPTER II

HIS PARENTS

" We are the pledge of their dear and joyful union,
we have been the solicitude of their days and the anxiety
of their nights, we have made them, though by no will
of ours, to carry the burden of our sins, sorrows, and
physical infirmities. ... A good son, who can fulfil what
is expected of him, has done his work in life. He has
to redeem the sins of many, and restore the world's con-
fidence in children." — R. L. S., " Reflections and Remarks
on Human Life," Miscellanea, p. 27.

WITHOUT a knowledge of his parents it would be
hard to understand the man whose life and
character are set forth in these pages. Yet of
Thomas Stevenson, at any rate, I should despair of
presenting any adequate image, were it not for the
sketch in Memories and Portraits, and an account of
his boyhood, written by his son in 1887, and as yet
unpublished, which would have formed a later chapter
of A Family of Engineers.

He was born in 1818, the youngest son of Robert
Stevenson, and one of a family of thirteen children.

20 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

" He had his education at a private school, kept
by a capable but very cruel man called Brown, in
Nelson Street, and then at the High School at Edin-
burgh. His first year was in the old building down
Infirmary Street, and I have often heard him tell
how he took part in the procession to the new and
beautiful place upon the Calton Hill. Piper was his
master, a fellow much given to thrashing. He never
seems to have worked for any class that he attended ;
and in Piper's took a place about half-way between
the first and last of a hundred and eighty boys.

" For there was this difference between father and
son. Robert took education and success at school
for a thing of infinite import ; to Thomas, in his
young independence, it all seemed Vanity of Vanities.
Indeed, there seems to have been nothing more rooted
in him than his contempt for all the ends, processes,
and ministers of education. Tutor was ever a by-
word with him ; ' positively tutorial,' he would say
of people or manners he despised ; and with rare
consistency, he bravely encouraged me to neglect
my lessons, and never so much as asked me my place
in school. . . .

" My father's life, in the meantime, and the truly
formative parts of his education, lay entirely in his
hours of play.

" No. i Baxter's Place, my grandfather's house,
must have been a paradise for boys. It was of great
size, with an infinity of cellars below, and of garrets,
apple-lofts, etc., above ; and it had a long garden,
which ran down to the foot of the Calton Hill, with
an orchard that yearly filled the apple-loft, and a
building at the foot frequently besieged and defended
by the boys, where a poor golden eagle trophy of
some of my grandfather's Hebridean voyages, pined
and screamed itself to death. Its front was Leith
Walk with its traffic ; at one side a very deserted
lane, with the office door, a carpenter's shop, and the
like ; and behind, the big, open slopes of the Calton
Hill. Within, there was the seemingly rather awful

HIS PARENTS 21

nile of the old gentleman, tempered, I fancy, by the
mild and devout mother with her ' Keep me's.'
There was a coming and going of odd, out-of-the-way
characters, skippers, light-keepers, masons, and fore-
men of all sorts, whom my grandfather, in his
patriarchal fashion, liked to have about the house,
and who were a never-failing delight to the boys.
Tutors shed a gloom for an hour or so in the evening,
. . . and these and that accursed schoolgoing were
the black parts of their life."

Robert Stevenson had intended only one of his sons
to follow his own profession. But in the end their
natural tastes prevailed, and no less than three of
the brothers entered the business, practised it at large
with great ability and success, and were all three, con-
jointly or in turn, appointed to the official post their
father and grandfather had held of Engineer to the
Board of Northern Lights. Thomas Stevenson did
much valuable work in lighthouse building and in the
improvement of rivers and harbours, but it is in
connection with the illumination of lighthouses that
his name will be remembered. He brought to per-
fection the revolving light, and himself invented " the
azimuthal condensing system." More familiar to the
world at large, if less remarkable, are the louvre-
boarded screens which he applied to the protection
of meteorological instruments. He became moreover
a recognised authority on engineering ; he gave much
weighty evidence before Parliamentary committees ;
and his position in the scientific world was marked in
1884 by his election to the Presidentship of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh.

His entire life was devoted to the unremitting
pursuit of a scientific profession, in which it was his
dearest wish to see his son following in his footsteps ;
yet it was from him that Louis derived all the
romantic and artistic elements that drew him
away from engineering, and were the chief means
by which he became an acknowledged master of
his art.

22 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The apparent inconsistencies of the father were
numerous, but all of them were such as add force and
picturesqueness to a character, and only increased the
affection of those who knew and understood him most
thoroughly.

" He was a man," writes his son, " of a somewhat
antique strain ; with a blended sternness and softness
that was wholly Scottish and at first somewhat be-
wildering ; with a profound essential melancholy of
disposition and (what often accompanies it) the most
humorous geniality in company ; shrewd and childish;
passionately attached, passionately prejudiced ; a
man of many extremes, many faults of temper, and
no very stable foothold for himself among life's
troubles. Yet he was a wise adviser ; many men,
and these not inconsiderable, took counsel with him
habitually. . . . He had excellent taste, though
whimsical and partial ; . . . took a lasting pleasure
in prints and pictures ; . . . and, though he read
little, was constant to his favourite books. He was
a strong Conservative or, as he preferred to call him-
self, a Tory ; except in so far as his views were
modified by a hot-headed chivalrous sentiment for
women. He was actually in favour of a marriage
law under which any woman might have a divorce
for the asking, and no man on any ground whatever ;
and the same sentiment found another expression in
a Magdalen Mission in Edinburgh, founded and largely
supported by himself. This was but one of the many
channels of his public generosity ; his private was
equally unrestrained. The Church of Scotland, of
which he held the doctrines (though in a sense of his
own), and to which he bore a clansman's loyalty,
profited often by his time and money ; and though,
from a morbid sense of his own unworthiness, he
would never consent to be an office-bearer, his advice
was often sought, and he served the church on many
committees. What he perhaps valued highest in his
work were his contributions to the defence of Chris-
tianity ; one of which, in particular, was praised by

HIS PARENTS 23

Hutchison Stirling, and reprinted at the request of
Professor Crawford.

" His sense of his own unworthiness I have called
morbid ; morbid, too, were his sense of the fleeting-
ness of life and his concern for death. He had never
accepted the conditions of man's life or his own
character ; and his inmost thoughts were ever tinged
with the Celtic melancholy. Cases of conscience
were sometimes grievous to him, and that delicate
employment of a scientific witness cost him many
qualms. But he found respite from these trouble-
some humours in his work, in his lifelong study of
natural science, in the society of those he loved, and
in his daily walks, which now would carry him far
into the country with some congenial friend, and now
keep him dangling about the town from one old book-
shop to another, and scraping romantic acquaintance
with every dog that passed. His talk, compounded
of so much sterling sense and so much freakish
humour, and clothed in language so apt, droll, and
emphatic, was a perpetual delight to all who knew
him before the clouds began to settle on his mind.
His use of language was both just and picturesque ;
and when at the beginning of his illness he began to
feel the ebbing of his power, it was strange and pain-
ful to hear him reject one word after another as inade-
quate, and at length desist from the search and leave
his phrase unfinished rather than finish it without
propriety. It was perhaps another Celtic trait that
his affections and emotions, passionate as these were
and liable to passionate ups and downs, found the
most eloquent expression both in words and gestures.
Love, anger, and indignation shone through him and
broke forth in imagery, like what we read of Southern
races. For all these emotional extremes, and in spite
of the melancholy ground of his character, he had
upon the whole a happy life ; nor was he less fortun-
ate in his death, which at the last came to him un-
aware."

The characteristics of the father in his boyhood

24 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

might be ascribed with little alteration to his son.
The circumstances differed, but the spirit, the freaks,
and the idleness were the same. Every night of his
life Thomas Stevenson made up stories by which he
put himself to sleep, dealing perpetually " with ships,
roadside inns, robbers, old sailors, and commercial
travellers before the era of steam." With these and
their like he soothed his son's troubled nights in child-
hood, and when the son grew up and made stories of
his own, he found no critic more unsparing than his
father, and none more ready to take fire at " his own
kind of picturesque."

The differences between the pair were slight, the
points of resemblance many. The younger man
devoted his life to art and not to science, and the hold
of dogma upon him was early relaxed. But the
humour and the melancholy, the sternness and the
softness, the attachments and the prejudices, the
chivalry, the generosity, the Celtic temperament, and
the sensitive conscience passed direct from father to
son in proportions but slightly varied, and to some
who knew them both well the father was the more
remarkable of the two. One period of misunder-
standing they had, but it was brief, and might have
been avoided had either of the pair been less sincere or
less in earnest. Afterwards, and perhaps as a con-
sequence, their comprehension and appreciation of
each other grew complete, and their attachment was
even deeper than that usually subsisting between
father and only son. In the conditions of their lives
there was this further difference : if the son missed
the healthy boyhood, full of games and of companions,
he was spared at the last the failure which he also
dreaded ; no less fortunate than his father in the un-
consciousness of his death, he died before his prime
and the fulness of his power, " in mid-career laying
out vast projects," and so, " trailing with him clouds
of glory," he was taken away as one whom the gods
loved.

Of Mrs. Thomas Stevenson not a line of any sketch

HIS PARENTS 25

remains among the work of her son : a want easily
explained by the fact that she survived him. It is the
more necessary to supply in some measure this de-
ficiency, as the warmth of Louis' gratitude to his
nurse has unjustly reacted to the prejudice of his
mother, and has quite wrongly been supposed by those
who did not know them to indicate neglect on one side
and on the other a lack of affection.

In person she was tall, slender, and graceful ; and
her face and fair complexion retained their beauty, as-
her figure and walk preserved their elasticity, to the
last. Her vivacity and brightness were most attrac-
tive ; she made on strangers a quick and lasting
impression, and the letters written on the news of her
death attest the devotion and number of her friends.
As a hostess she had great social charm, and her
hospitality was but the expression of her true kindli-
ness of heart.

Her undaunted spirit led her when nearly sixty to
accompany her son, first to America, and then, in a
racing schooner, through the remotest groups of the
Pacific, finally to settle with him in the disturbed spot
where he bad chosen his home.

She had ia the highest degree that readiness for en-
joyment which makes light of discomfort, and turns
into a holiday any break of settled routine. Her
desire to be ple-ased, her prompt interest in any ex-
perience, however new or unexpected, her resolute
refusal to see the unpleasant side of things, all
had their court terpart in her son, enabling him to
pass through tLe many dark hours that would have
borne far more heavily upon his father's tempera-
ment.

Of her devotion and of her incessant thought for
the boy there can bs no question. I have before me
as I write a series of pocket-diaries, complete (but for
the second year) from 1851 until the year of her death.
The earlier books are occupied exclusively with her
husband and her child, and in the later volumes these
two are still the staple of her entries. Louis' place in

26 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

class is scrupulously noted, and that, we may be sure,
with no encouragement from his father. When he
was small, she read to him a great deal, and to her he
owed his first acquaintance with much that is best in
literature. Almost every scrap of his writing that
ever passed into her hands was treasured. His first
efforts at tales or histories, taken down by herself, or
some other amanuensis, before he was able or willing
to write ; nearly every letter he ever sent her ; every
compliment to him, and every word of praise — all
were carefully preserved, long before he showed any
definite promise of becoming famous ; and by her
method and accuracy she was able to record for his
biographer, with hardly an exception, where he spent
each month of his life.

The son's attachment to his mother was no less
deep and lasting. Through all her illnesses and
whenever she needed his care, he was always most
sedulous and affectionate, displaying at times a tender-
ness almost feminine. The most irregular of corres-
pondents, he was well-nigh regular to her ; master
of his pen though he was, several times after he had
become a man of letters he bursts out into impatience
at the difficulty he finds in expressing to her and to
his father the depth of his affection and gratitude to
them both.

After his father's death, when the doctors had
ordered him to go to America, if he wanted to live,
he wrote to her : " Not only would we not go to
America without you ; we should not persist in
trying it, if we did not believe that it would be on the
whole the best for you." From that time, but for
two absences in Scotland, she made her home with
him and his family, and had the reward of realising
that the exile which severed him from so many of
his friends had brought her to an even more intimate
knowledge of his life and an even closer place in his
affection.

CHAPTER III

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 1850-59

" I please myself often by saying that I had a Covenant
Ing childhood." — R. L. S., MS. fragment.

" I am one of the few people in the world who do not
forget their own lives." — R. L. S., Letters, iii. 59.

ROBERT LEWIS BALFOUR STEVENSON was
born at No. 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, on
the 1 3th November 1850, and a few days after his
birth was baptized by his grandfather, the minister
of Colinton, according to the Scots custom, in his
father's house. He was called after his two grand-
fathers, and to their names that of his mother's family
was added.1

His birthplace was the home which Thomas Steven-
son had prepared for his bride two years before ; a

JIt was as Robert Louis Stevenson that he was known
to all the world, and the earlier variations of his name,
remembered but by few, are of small importance. Never-
theless it may be as well to set them down here.

In his earliest letters, and down to 1865, the boy signed
himself " R. Stevenson." After that he occasionally used
" R. L. B. Stevenson," but in 1868 asked his mother in
place of this to address him as " Robert Lewis." For
the next five years he was generally but not invariably
" R. L. Stevenson," until about 1873 the final change is
marked by his usage and an undated letter to Mr. Baxter
belonging to this period (now the property of the Savile
Club). " After several years of feeble and ineffectual
endeavour with regard to my third initial (a thing I
loathe), I have been led to put myself out of reach of
such accident in the future by taking my first two names
in full."

The change of the name of Lewis from the Scots form
to the French was made when he was about eighteen ;
the exact date is not easy to fix on account of his practice
of using the initial only in his signature at that period.
It was only the spelling that Stevenson changed and
never the pronunciation : Lewis he remained at all times
in the mouth of his family and of his intimate friends.

27

28 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

small, unpretentious, comfortable stone house, form-
ing part of a row still standing, situated on low ground
just to the north of the Water of Leith. Two and a
half years later this was changed for No. i Inverleith
Terrace, a more commodious dwelling on the other
side of the same road ; but that, having three outside
walls, proved too cold for the delicate boy. Accord-
ingly, in 1857, the little family of three — for Louis
remained an only child — moved half a mile further
south into what was then the centre of the New Town,
and occupied No. 17 Heriot Row, which continued
to be their home in Edinburgh for thirty years. This
was a substantial house of grey stone, built with the
solidity so customary in Scotland and now so unusual
in the South, looking across the Queen Street Gardens,
where the lilacs bloom in spring and the pipe of the
blackbird may still be heard ; while from its back
windows could be seen the hills of " the kingdom of
Fife."

For the first year of his life the infant seemed
healthy and made satisfactory progress. But with
his mother's brightness of disposition he had unfor-
tunately inherited also from her a weakness of chest
and a susceptibility to cold, which affected the whole
course of his life.

" My ill-health principally chronicles itself by the
terrible long nights that I lay awake, troubled contin-
ually with a hacking, exhausting cough, and praying
for sleep or morning from the bottom of my shaken
little body. I principally connect these nights, how-
ever, with our third house, in Heriot Row ; and
cannot mention them without a grateful testimony
to the unwearied sympathy and long-suffering dis-
played to me on a hundred such occasions by my good
nurse. It seems to me that I should have died if I
had beer left there alone to cough and weary in the
darkness. How well I remember her lifting me out
of bed, carrying me to the window, and showing me
one or two lit windows up in Queen Street across the
dark belt of gardens ; where also, we told each other.

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD— 1850-59 29

there might be sick little boys and their nurses wait-
ing, like us, for the morning. Other night scenes
connected with my ill-health were the little sallies of
delirium that used to waken me out of a feverish sleep
in such agony of terror as, thank God, I have never
suffered since. My father had generally to come up
and sit by my bedside, and feign conversations with
guards or coachmen or inn-keepers, until I was
gradually quieted and brought to myself ; but it was
long after one of those paroxysms before I could bear
to be left alone.

" That I was eminently religious, there can be no
doubt. I had an extreme terror of Hell, implanted
in me, I suppose, by my good nurse, which used to
haunt me terribly on stormy nights, when the wind
had broken loose and was going about the town like
a bedlamite. I remember that the noises on such
occasions always grouped themselves for me into the
sound of a horseman, or rather a succession of horse-
men, riding furiously past the bottom of the street
and away up the hill into town ; I think even now that
I hear the terrible howl of his passage, and the clinking
that I used to attribute to his bit and stirrups. On
such nights I would lie awake and pray and cry, until
I prayed and cried myself asleep ; and if I can form
any notion of what an earnest prayer should be, I
imagine that mine were such. . . .

"Although I was never done drawing and painting,
and even kept on doing so until I was seventeen or
eighteen, I never had any real pictorial vision, and
instead of trying to represent what I saw, was merely
imitating the general appearance of other people's
representations. I never drew a picture of anything
that was before me, but always from fancy, a sure
sign of the absence of artistic eyesight ; and I beauti-
fully illustrated my lack of real feeling for art, by a
very early speech, which I have had repeated to me
by my mother : " Mamma," said I, " I have drawed
a man. _ Shall I draw his soul now ? "

His nurse was, it will already be seen, even more

30 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

than is usual with children, an important factor in
his life. When he was eighteen months old, Alison
Cunningham — " Cummie " to him for the rest of his
days — came to him and watched over his childhood
with the most intense devotion. She refused, it is
said, an offer of marriage, that she might not have to
leave her charge, and she remained with the family
long after the care of him had passed out of women's
hands, never taking another place, as indeed she had
no need to do. Her true reward has been a monument
of gratitude for which a parallel is hard to find. At
twenty (an age when young men are not generally
very tender to such memories) Louis wrote the paper
on Nurses printed in Juvenilia. Fifteen years later
the dedication of the Child's Garden was " To Alison
Cunningham, From Her Boy," and this was but the
preface to one of the happiest sets of verses in one of
the happiest books. Of all his works he sent her
copies ; throughout his life he wrote letters to her ;
when he had a house, he had her to stay with him,
and even proposed to bring her out on a visit to Samoa.
In another fragment of autobiography he has again
described her services : " My recollection of the long
nights when I was kept awake by coughing are only
relieved by the thought of the tenderness of my nurse
and second mother (for my first will not be jealous),
Alison Cunningham. She was more patient than I
can suppose of an angel ; hours together she would
help and console me . . . till the whole sorrow of the
night was at an end with the arrival of the first of
that long string of country carts, that in the dark
hours of the morning, with the neighing of horses, the
cracking of the whips, the shouts of drivers, and a
hundred other wholesome noises, creaked, rolled, and
pounded past my window."

Thus she tended his bodily life, watchfully and un-
weariedly : to his spiritual welfare, as she conceived it,
she gave, if possible, even greater care. His father
and mother were both genuinely religious people :
the former clung, with a desperate intensity, to the

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD— 1850-59 31

rigid tenets of his faith ; the latter was a true " child
of the manse," and visited and befriended churches
and missions wherever she went. But if Louis spent,
as he tells us, " a Covenanting childhood," it was to
Cummie that this was due. Besides the Bible and
the Shorter Catechism, which he had also from his
mother, Cummie filled him with a love of her own
favourite authors, M'Cheyne and others, Presby-
terians of the straitest doctrine. It was she, in all
probability, who first introduced him to " The
Cameronian Dream." That poem, he afterwards
told Mr. Gosse, made the most indelible impression on
his fancy, and was the earliest piece of literature
which awakened in him the sentiment of romantic
Scottish history.

From her, too, he first heard some of the writings of
the Covenanters, Wodrow, Peden, and others, who
directly influenced his choice of subjects, and accord-
ing to his own testimony (Letters, iv. 227) had a great
share in the formation of his style. A special favourite
also was an old copy of A Cloud of Witnesses, which
had belonged to his nurse's grandmother.

In matters of conduct Cummie was for no half-
measures. Cards were the Devil's books. Mr. and
Mrs. Stevenson played whist, decorous family whist —
the mother had the keenest zest for all games — and
Louis could remember praying fervently with his
nurse that it might not be visited on them to their
perdition. The novel and the playhouse were alike
anathema to her ; and this would seem no very likely
opening for the career of one who was to be a novelist
and write plays as well. For her pupil entered fully
into the spirit of her ordinances, and insisted on a
most rigorous observance of her code.

In spite of her restrictions, Cummie was full of life
and merriment. She danced and sang to her boy,
and read to him most dramatically. She herself tells
how, the last time she ever saw him, he said to her
*' before a room full of people, ' It's you that gave me
a passion for the drama, Cummie.' ' Me, Master

32 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Lou,' I said ; ' I never put foot inside a playhouse in
my life.' ' Ay, woman,' said he ; ' but it was the
grand dramatic way ye had of reciting the hymns.' "

It was in the end of 1856 that Louis was for the first
time experiencing " the toils and vigils and distresses "
of composition. His uncle, David Stevenson, offered
to his children and nephews a prize for {he best
history of Moses. Louis was allowed to try for it by
dictating his version to his mother, and to this he
devoted five successive Sunday evenings. A Bible
picture-book was given to him as an extra prize, and,
adds his mother, " from that time forward it was the
desire of his heart to be an author."

For this he had already a qualification, which chil-
dren either seldom possess, or of which at any rate
they but seldom remember the possession. In a late
reminiscence he greatly applauds his nurse's ear and
speaks of her reading to him " the works of others as
a poet would scarce dare to read his own ; gloating
on the rhythm, dwelling with delight on the asson-
ances and alliterations." So he tells us of the delight
he already took in words for their own sake, and of the
thrill which the mere sound of " Jehovah Tsidkenu "
produced in him without reference to any possible
meaning. To the same source I must refer for his
account of the imagery called up in his mind from
local surroundings by the metrical version of the
twenty-third Psalm ; the " pastures green " being
stubble-fields by the Water of Leith, and " death's
dark vale " a certain archway in the Warriston
Cemetery.

But in these suburbs only a part of his childhood
was spent. Of other and happier playing-places he
has left a record, written probably about 1872, and
manifestly the quarry from which was drawn most
of the material for " The Manse " in Memories and
Portraits.

From this it may be seen that Stevenson, alike at
two-and-twenty and at five-and-thirty, remembered
his childhood as it is given to few grown men and

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD— 1850-59 33

women to remember, and the paper contains the raw
material or perhaps rather the prose version of many
passages in the Child's Garden of Verses.

" One consequence of my ill-health was my frequent
residence at Colinton Manse. Out of my reminis-
cences of life in that dear place, all the morbid and
painful elements have disappeared. That was my
golden age : et ego in Arcadia vixi. There is some-
thing so fresh and wholesome about all that went on
at Colinton, compared with what I recollect of the
town, that I can hardly, even in my own mind, knit
the two chains of reminiscences together ; they look
like stories of two different people, ages apart in time
and quite dissimilar in character.

" The Water of Leith, after passing under Colinton
Bridge, makes a curve, following the line of the high,
steep, wooded bank on the convex, but on the concave
enclosing a round flat promontory, which was once, I
suppose, a marsh, and then a riverside meadow. . . .
Immediately after crossing the bridge the roadway
forks into two ; one branch whereof tends upward to
the entrance of the churchyard ; while the other,
green with grass, slopes downward, between two
blank walls and past the cottage of the snuff-mill, to
the gate of the manse.

" There were two ways of entering the manse
garden : one the two-winged gate that admitted the
old phaeton, and the other a door for pedestrians on
the side next the kirk. . . .

. . . "In the garden on summer afternoons the
sloping lawn was literally steeped in sunshine ; and all
the day long, from the impending wood, there came
the sweetest and fullest chorus of merles and thrushes
and all manner of birds, that it ever was my lot to
hear. The lawn was just the centre of all this — a
perfect goblet for sunshine, and the Dionysius' ear
for a whole forest of bird-songs. This lawn was a
favourite playground ; a lilac that hung its scented
blossom out of the glossy semicirque of laurels was
identified by my playmates and myself as that tree

34 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

whose very shadow was death. In the great laurel
at the corner I have often lain perdu, with a toy-gun
in my hand, waiting for a herd of antelopes to defile
past me down the carriage drive, and waiting (need
I add ?) in vain. Down at the corner of the lawn
next the snuff-mill wall there was a practicable passage
through the evergreens and a door in the wall, which
let you out on a small patch of sand, left in the corner
by the river. Just across, the woods rose like a wall
into the sky ; and their lowest branches trailed in the
black waters. Naturally, it was very sunless. . . .
There was nothing around and above you but the
shadowy foliage of trees. It seemed a marvel how
they clung to the steep slope on the other side ; and,
indeed, they were forced to grow far apart, and
showed the ground between them hid by an under-
growth of butter-bur, hemlock, and nettle. ... I
wish I could give you an idea of this place, of the
gloom, of the black slow water, of the strange wet
smell, of the draggled vegetation on the far side
whither the current took everything, and of the
incomparably fine, rich yellow sand, without a grit
in the whole of it, and moving below your feet
with scarcely more resistance than a liquid. ... I
remember climbing down one day to a place where
we discovered an island of this treacherous material.
O the great discovery 1 On we leapt in a moment ;
but on feeling the wet, sluicy island flatten out into a
level with the river, and the brown water gathering
about our feet, we were off it again as quickly. It
was a ' quicksand," we said ; and thenceforward the
island was held in much the same regard as the
lilac-tree on the lawn.

" The wall of the church faces to the manse, but the
churchyard is on a level with the top of the wall, that
is to say, some eight or ten feet above the garden, and
the tombstones are visible from the enclosure of the
manse. The church, with its campanile, was near
the edge, so that on Sundays we could see the cluster
of people about the door. Under the retaining wall

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD— 1850-59 35

was a somewhat dark pathway, extending from the
stable to the far end of the garden, and called ' The
Witches' Walk,' from a game we used to play in it.
At the stable end it took its rise under a yew, which
is one of the glories of the village. Under the circuit
of its wide, black branches, it was always dark and
cool, and there was a green scurf over all the trunk
among which glistened the round bright drops of
resin. . . . This was a sufficiently gloomy commence-
ment for the Witches' Walk ; but its chief horror
was the retaining wall of the kirkyard itself, about
which we were always hovering at even with the
strange attraction of fear. Often after nightfall
have I looked long and eagerly from the manse
windows to see the ' spunkies ' playing among the
graves, and have been much chagrined at my failure ;
and this very name of spunkie recalls to me the most
important of our discoveries in the supernatural walk.
Henrietta, Willie (my cousins), and I, just about
dusk, discovered a burning eye looking out from a
hole in the retaining wall, in the corner where it joins
the back of the stable. In hushed tones we debated
the question ; whether it was some bird of ill omen
roosting in the cranny of the wall, or whether the
hole pierced right through into a grave, and it was
some dead man who was sitting up in his coffin and
watching us with that strange fixed eye. If you
remember the level of the churchyard, you will see
that this explanation suited pretty well ; so we drew
a wheelbarrow into the corner ; one after another
got up and looked in ; and when the last was satisfied,
we turned round, took to our heels, and never stopped
till we were in the shelter of the house. We ourselves,
in our after-discussions, thought it might have been
the bird, though we preferred the more tremendous
explanation. But for my own part, I simply believe
that we saw nothing at all. The fact is, we would
have given anything to have seen a ghost, or to
persuade ourselves that we had seen a ghost. . . .
I remember going down into the cellars of our own

B 2

36

house in town, in company with another, . . . and
persuading myself that I saw a face looking at me
from round a corner ; and I may even confess, since
the laws against sorcery have been for some time in
abeyance, that I essayed at divers times to bring up
the devil, founding my incantations on no more
abstruse a guide than Skelt's Juvenile Drama of Der
Freisckiitz. I am about at the end of horrors now ;
even out of the Witches' Walk, you saw the manse
facing towards you, with its back to the river and the
wooded bank, and the bright flower-plots and stretches
of comfortable vegetables in front and on each side
of it ; flower-plots and vegetable borders, by the way,
on which it was almost death to set foot, and about
which we held a curious belief — namely, that my
grandfather went round and measured any footprints
that he saw to compare the measurement at night
with the boots put out for brushing ; to avoid which
we were accustomed, by a strategic movement of the
foot, to make the mark longer. . . .

" So much for the garden ; now follow me into the
house. On entering by the front-door you had before
you a stone-paved lobby, with doors on either hand,
that extended the whole length of the house. There
stood a case of foreign birds, two or three marble
deities from India, and a lily of the Nile in a pot ;
and at the far end the stairs shut in the view. . . .
With how many games of ' tig ' or brick-building
in the forenoon is the long low dining-room connected
in my mind.

..." But that room is principally dear to me from
memories of the time when I, a sickly child, stayed
there alone. First, in the forenoon about eleven,
how my aunt1 used to open the storeroom at the one

1 " I have mentioned my aunt. In her youth she was
a wit and a beauty, very imperious, managing and self-
sufficient. But as she grew up, she began to suffice for
all the family as well. An accident on horseback made
her nearly deaf and blind, and suddenly transformed this
wilful empress into the most serviceable and amiable of

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD— 1850-59 37

end and give me out three Albert biscuits and some
calf-foot jelly in a black pot with a sort of raised
white pattern over it. That storeroom was a most
voluptuous place with its piles of biscuit boxes and
spice tins, the rack for buttered eggs, the little window
that let in sunshine and the flickering shadow of
leaves.

..." But I come to the crown of my dining-room
reminiscences, for after dinner, when the lamp was
brought in and shaded, and my aunt sat down to read
in the rocking-chair, there was a great open space
behind the sofa left entirely in the shadow. This was
my especial domain : once round the corner of the
sofa, I had left the lightsome, merry indoors, and was
out in the cool, dark night. I could almost see the
stars. I looked out of the back window at the bushes
outside. I lay in the darkest corners, rifle in hand,
like a hunter in a lonely bivouac. I crawled about
stealthily watching the people in the circle of lamp-
light, with some vague remembrance of a novel that
my aunt had read to me, where some fellow went out
from ' the heated ballroom ' and moralised in the
' Park.' "

His mother and his nurse also, as we have seen, read
to him, indefatigably, and so it was not until he was
eight years old that he took any pleasure in reading
to himself. The consciousness of this delight came
upon him suddenly ; its coming was connected in his
memory with a book called Paul Blake, " a visit to

women. There were thirteen of the Balfours as (oddly
enough) there were of the Stevensons also, and the chil-
dren of the family came home to her to be nursed, to be
educated, to be mothered, from the infanticidal climate
of India. There must sometimes have been half a score
of us children about the manse ; and all were born a second
time from Aunt Jane's tenderness." Jane Whyte Balfour,
" chief of my Aunts," of A Child's Garden of Verses, died
at the age of ninety-one in 1907, the last of her generation,
stone deaf and nearly blind, but with a keener interest in
all belonging to her than any of her juniors, and a greater
zest in life.

38 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

the country, and an experience unforgettable. The
day had been warm ; Henrietta and I had played
together charmingly all day in a sandy wilderness
across the road ; then came the evening with a great
flash of colour and a heavenly sweetness in the air.
Somehow my playmate had vanished, or is out of the
story, as the sagas say, but I was sent into the village
on an errand ; and, taking a book of fairy-tales, went
down alone through a fir-wood, reading as I walked.
How often since then has it befallen me to be happy
even so ; but that was the first time : the shock of
that pleasure I have never since forgot, and if my
mind serves me to the last, I never shall ; for it was
then that I knew that I loved reading."

This day must have been followed closely by the
evening recorded in another essay. " Out of all the
years of my life I can recall but one home-coming to
compare with these (when he returned with some new
play for his toy- theatre), and that was on the night
when I brought back with me the Arabian Entertain-
ments in the fat, old, double-columned volume with
the prints. I was just well into the story of the
Hunchback, I remember, when my clergyman grand-
father (a man we counted pretty stiff) came in behind
me. I grew blind with terror. But instead of
ordering the book away, he said he envied me. Ah,
well he might."

Although an only child and rendered more soli-
tary by illness, Louis was not without companions,
drawn (as often happens in early years) chiefly from
the crowded ranks of his cousins, of whom he was
nearly sure to find some at Colinton. By them he
seems to have been treated, as Sir Sidney Colvin so
happily says, " as something of a small sickly prince " ;
over them he cast the spell of his imagination in
devising games, and they submitted to the force of
his character in accepting the rules which he saw fit
to allot. " We children had naturally many plays
together," he says of Colinton ; " I usually insisted
on the lead, and was invariably exhausted to death

INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD— 1850-59 39

by the evening. I can still remember what a fury of
play would descend upon me." Of his games he
wrote : " I was the best player of hide and seek going ;
not a good runner, I was up to every shift and dodge,
I could jink very well, I could crawl without any
noise through leaves, I could hide under a carrot
plant ; it used to be my favourite boast that I always
walked into the den."

The country and the summer months gave him more
companions, but the whole winter of 1856-57 was
spent in Heriot Row by the most brilliant of them all,
the one who had most in common with Louis, and of
all his kin was his closest friend in after-life, Robert
Alan Mowbray Stevenson, the only son of his uncle
Alan. He was the cousin of Child's Play, who ate
his porridge " with sugar, and explained it to be a
country continually buried under snow," while Louis
took his " with milk, and explained it to be a country
suffering gradual inundation."

" We lived together in a purely visionary state,"
wrote Louis, " and were never tired of dressing up."

It was during this winter and in this company that
Louis, at the age of six, first entered the realms of
gold described in "A Penny Plain and Twopence
Coloured " (Memories and Portraits), the region of the
toy-theatre and the " scenery of Skeltdom." The
romance of purchasing the plays for himself came
a little later, for during these months he could hardly
leave the house ; but now began the delight in the
book and the dramatis persona. Years afterwards
he described himself as "no melodramatist, but a
Skelt-drunken boy ; the man who went out to find
the Eldorado of romantic comedy." Now also began
the joys of illumination. Now he painted the char-
acters " with crimson-lake (hark to the sound of it —
crimson-lake ! — the horns of elf -land are not richer
on the ear) — with crimson-lake and Prussian blue
a certain purple is to be compounded, which, for
cloaks especially, Titian could not equal."

The last of his reminiscences of childish days that I

4o LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

have to give was written in Samoa, and describes, with
all the resources of his perfected art, a state of mind
more subtle and tragic than any that we are accus-
tomed to associate with the confines of infancy.

" I was born within the walls of that dear city of
Zeus, of which the lightest and (when he chooses) the
tenderest singer of my generation sings so well. I was
born likewise within the bounds of an earthly city, illus-
trious for her beauty, her tragic and picturesque asso-
ciations, and for the credit of some of her brave sons.
Writing as I do in a strange quarter of the world, and
a late day of my age, I can still behold the profile of
her towers and chimneys, and the long trail of her
smoke against the sunset ; I can still hear those strains
of martial music that she goes to bed with, ending
each day, like an act of an opera, to the notes of
bugles ; still recall, with a grateful effort of memory,
any one of a thousand beautiful and specious circum-
stances that pleased me, and that must have pleased
anyone, in my half-remembered past. It is the
beautiful that I thus actively recall ; the august airs
of the castle on its rock, nocturnal passages of lights
and trees, the sudden song of the blackbird in a
suburban lane, rosy and dusky winter sunsets, the
uninhabited splendours of the early dawn, the building
up of the city on a misty day, house above house,
spire above spire, until it was received into a sky of
softly glowing clouds, and seemed to pass on and
upwards, by fresh grades and rises, city beyond city,
a New Jerusalem, bodily scaling heaven. . . .

" Memory supplies me, unsolicited, with a mass of
other material, where there is nothing to call beauty,
nothing to attract — often a great deal to disgust.
There are trite street corners, commonplace, well-to-
do houses, shabby suburban tan-fields, rainy beggarly
slums, taken in at a gulp nigh forty years ago, and
surviving to-day, complete sensations, concrete, poig-
nant and essential to the genius of the place. From
the melancholy of these remembrances I might sup-
pose them to belong to the wild and bitterly unhappy

BOYHOOD— 1859-1867 41

days of my youth. But it is not so ; they date, most
of them, from early childhood ; they were observed
as I walked with my nurse, gaping on the universe,
and striving vainly to piece together in words my
inarticulate but profound impressions. I seem to
have been born with a sentiment of something moving
in things, of an infinite attraction and horror coupled."

CHAPTER IV

BOYHOOD — 1859-1867

" Not all roads lead to Rome — only that you have
begun to travel." — R. L. S,

IT was not till 1859 that the boy's continuous
schooling began, but to his formal education
little or no importance attaches. The changes of his
teachers were frequent, his absences from school
innumerable, but both were due almost entirely to
his health, and especially his susceptibility to colds.
In the autumn of 1857 he had gone to Mr. Henderson's
preparatory school in India Street, in the near neigh-
bourhood of his home, as all his day-schools were.
After a few weeks he had to give it up, and did not
return there till October, 1859. In 1861 he was trans-
ferred to the Edinburgh Academy, then, as now, the
leading school of Edinburgh ; there he spent a year
and a half under Mr. D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson,
author of Day Dreams of a Schoolmaster and other
works, a teacher with views far in advance of his day,
and subsequently for many years Professor of Greek
in the Queen's College, Galway. Then for one term,
his mother being abroad, he was sent to an English
boarding-school at Spring Grove, Isleworth, in Middle-
sex. Finally, in 1864, he was again shifted — to a
day-school kept by Mr. Thomson in Frederick Street,
Edinburgh, which he attended with more or less
regularity until he went to the University in 1867.

42 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Besides his ordinary classes he had many tutors for
longer or shorter periods, in Edinburgh and elsewhere
both when he was unable to leave the house, and also
in order to supplement and help his school-work, a
custom prevalent in Scotland.

The teachers who gave him private lessons spoke of
his intelligence in high terms, but in large classes he
evaded the eye of the master and drew on himself
as little notice as possible. The Reverend Peter
Rutherford, who taught him when he was at Mr.
Henderson's, says : " He was without exception the
most delightful boy I ever knew ; full of fun, full of
tender feeling ; ready for his lessons, ready for a
story, ready for fun " ; and the master of the Burgh
School of Peebles, who gave him lessons in 1864,
found him the most intelligent and best informed boy
in all his experience. A glowing interest in any
subject that took his fancy marked his earliest boy-
hood no less than his later years. But if he was bright
and ready when he was interested, his attention was
often short-lived, and to many of the subjects in his
curriculum it never was given at all. In every lang-
uage that he ever learned, the rules of its grammar
remained unknown to him, however correctly he
might use its idioms, and the spelling of his own
tongue was dark to him to the very last. Latin,
French, and mathematics seem to have been every-
where the staple of his education. German he began
with a private tutor in 1865 at Torquay, where he also
received his only lessons in ordinary drawing. The
only prize that ever fell to him was at Mr. Henderson's
school for his reading, which was commended, as he
tells us, with the criticism : " Robert's voice, though
not strong, is impressive."

On the physical side of his education, dancing,
despite the Covenanters, was persistently taught him
with but scanty success : riding he learned chiefly
in the summers of 1865 and 1866, though he first had
a pony in 1856. In 1860 and 1864 he was bathing
with great enjoyment, and in the latter year he was

BOYHOOD— 1859-1867 43

also rowing on the Tweed. But of games proper there
is little mention. From Spring Grove he wrote :
" Yesterday I was playing at football. I have never
played at cricket, so papa may comfort himself with
that. I like football very much." Against this we
have to set his confession that even at football " I
knew at least one little boy who was mightily exer-
cised about the presence of the ball, and had to spirit
himself up, whenever he came to play, with an
elaborate story of enchantment, and take the missile
as a sort of talisman bandied about in conflict between
two Arabian nations." And at North Berwick he
says : " You might golf if you wanted, but I seem to
have been better employed."

But if his health were unequal to constant school-
work or severe exercise, it greatly improved after
1863, and did not disable him from other boyish pur-
suits. Already, in 1857, his mother had written :
" Louis is getting very wild and like a boy." In 1864
she records that " Whatever there was in him of
' Puck ' came very much to the front this summer.
He was the leader of a number of boys who went about
playing tricks on all the neighbours on Springhill,
tapping on their windows after nightfall," and all
manner of wild freaks. The following year at Peebles
he became a reckless rider. A girl companion of those
days recollected the time " when my brother Bob,
Louis, and I used to ride together. Bob had a black
pony, and Louis called it ' Hell ' ; his own was brown,
and was called ' Purgatory ' ; while mine was named
' Heaven.' Once the two boys galloped right through
the Tweed on the way to Innerleithen, and I had to
follow in fear of my life — poor ' Heaven ' had the
worst of it on that occasion."

"In this year, too," says Louis himself, " at the
ripe age of fourteen years, I bought a certain cudgel,
got a friend to load it, and thenceforward walked the
tame ways of the earth my own ideal, radiating pure
romance — still but a puppet in the hand of Skelt."

Nor was another element wanting. He speaks of

44 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Neidpath Castle in the close vicinity of Peebles;
" bosomed in hills on a green promontory : Tweed at
its base running through the gamut of a busy river,
from the pouring shallow to the brown pool. In the
days when I was thereabouts, that part of the earth
was made a heaven to me by many things now lost,
by boats and bathing, and the fascination of streams,
and the delights of comradeship and those (surely the
prettiest and simplest) of a boy and girl romance."

Earlier experiences belonging to North Berwick
and the autumn of 1862 are described in Memories
and Portraits ; these included fishing, bathing, wad-
ing, and " crusoeing " — " a word that covers all ex-
tempore eating in the open air : digging, perhaps, a
house under the margin of the links, kindling a fire
of the sea-ware and cooking apples there." But the
crown of all was the business of the lantern-bearers,
a sport which was afterwards to Stevenson the type
of all that was anti-realist and romantic.

" Toward the end of September, when school-time
was drawing near and the nights were already black,
we would begin to sally from our respective villas, each
equipped with a tin bull's-eye lantern. The thing
was so well known that it had worn a rut in the com-
merce of Great Britain ; and the grocers, about the
due time, began to garnish their windows with our
particular brand of luminary. We wore them buckled
to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such
was the rigour of the game, a buttoned top-coat.
They smelled noisomely of blistered tin ; they neve^r
burned aright, though they would always burn our
fingers ; their use was naught ; the pleasure of them
merely fanciful ; and yet a boy with a bull's-eye under
his top-coat asked for nothing more. The fishermen
used lanterns about their boats, and it was from them,
I suppose, that we had got the hint ; but theirs were
not bull's-eyes, nor did we ever play at being fisher-
men. The police carried them at their belts, and we
had plainly copied them in that ; yet we did not
pretend to be policemen. Burglars, indeed, we may

BOYHOOD— 1859-1867 45

have had some haunting thoughts of ; and we cer-
tainly had an eye to past ages when lanterns were
more common, to certain story-books in which we had
found them to figure very largely. But take it for all
in all, the pleasure of the thing was substantive ; and
to be a boy with a bull's-eye under his top-coat was
good enough for us.

" When two of these asses met, there would be an
anxious ' Have you got your lantern ? ' and a gratified
' Yes.' That was the shibboleth, and very needful,
too ; for, as it was the rule to keep our glory con-
tained, none could recognise a lantern-bearer, unless
(like a polecat) by the smell. Four or five would
sometimes climb into the belly of a ten-man lugger,
with nothing but the thwarts above them — for the
cabin was usually locked — or choose out some hollow
of the links where the wind might whistle overhead.
There the coats would be unbuttoned and the bull's-
eyes discovered ; and in the chequering glimmer,
under the huge windy hall of the night, and cheered
by a rich steam of toasting tinware, these fortunate
young gentlemen would crouch together in the cold
sand of the links or on the scaly bilges of the fishing-
boat, and delight themselves with inappropriate talk.

Meanwhile, apart from his schools, the boy was
gaining a wider knowledge of the world and having
his first experiences of travel. In Scotland his long
summer holidays were spent in the country much as
before, until the Manse at Colinton began to " shield
a stranger race." Now at some time he paid a visit
to one of his uncles in the parish of Stow, on which,
perhaps, he afterwards drew in Weir of Hermiston for
his knowledge of the Lammermuirs. In 1857 he had
crossed the Border with his parents for the first time,
and visited the English Lakes. In 1862, the year of
the second International Exhibition, his father's
health brought the family to London and the South
of England, and Louis saw not only the sights of the
capital, but also Salisbury, Stonehenge, and the Isle
of Wight. In July, the same cause took them all for

46 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

a month to Homburg, which Louis liked very well;
though he wearied sorely for the company of other
boys. But this was only the beginning of his wander-
ings : in the winter of the same year Mrs. Stevenson
was ordered to Mentone, and it was decided that her
husband, her son, and a niece of Mr. Stevenson's
should accompany her. Thither they went in Janu-
ary, and there they stayed two months. In March
they made a tour through Genoa, Naples, Rome,
Florence, Venice, and Innsbruck, returning home by
the Rhine. His mother stayed behind in England,
and Louis travelled from London by himself for the
first time, reaching Edinburgh on the 2Qth of May.

In the autumn he accompanied his father on a brief
tour of lighthouse inspection in Fife, and on one day
they visited seventeen lights.

At Christmas 1863, Mrs. Stevenson was again at
Mentone ; there Louis joined her from his boarding-
school and they remained in the Riviera till the
beginning of May. The two next springs were passed
by mother and son at Torquay, but after that it
proved unnecessary for them to leave Scotland for
any part of the winter. For the last three winters
they were joined by Miss Jessie Warden, another
niece of Mr. Stevenson, a clever and original girl, just
grown to womanhood. In 1867, to their great
grief, she died ; she had filled an important part in
their small circle, had been a delightful companion to
Louis, and always held a bright place in his memory.

The curious point about the foreign journeys is
that they seem to have had very little manifest
influence upon Stevenson, and to have passed almost
entirely out of his mind.

His cousin Mrs. Napier, who was one of the party
in 1863, recollected very distinctly how much he
developed at this period. " In some ways," she wrote
" he was more like a boy of sixteen. My uncle had
a great belief (inherited from his father) in the educa-
tional value of travel, and to this end and for the
benefit of Louis he devoted his whole energies in the

BOYHOOD— 1859-1867 47

five months abroad. In the hotel at Nice he began
to take Louis to the smoking-room with him ; there
my uncle was always surrounded by a group of eager
and amused listeners — English, American, and
Russian — and every subject, political, artistic, and
theological, was discussed and argued. Uncle Tom's
genial manner found friends wherever he went, and
the same sort of thing went on during the whole
journey. Then in regard to what we saw, his keen
admiration of art and architecture seemed to be
shared by Louis ; they would go into raptures over
a cathedral, or an old archway, or a picture. I still
remember Louis' eager interest in Pompeii and in the
Catacombs at Rome ; Venice, too, he specially en-
joyed. In some of his books there are touches which
his mother and I both recognised as due to places
and persons seen in that long past journey. And in
the Vailima prayers I seem to hear again an old
melody that I know well — the echo of his father's
words and daily devotions."

Yet nowhere, so far as I know, did Louis allude to
any of the more famous towns he then visited, as if
they had come within his personal ken. Mr. Horatio
Brown frequently discussed Venice with him at Davos,
but without even discovering that he had ever set
foot in Italy. Rome meant to Stevenson in after-
life a great deal : the Roman Empire was far more
of a reality to him than to many better scholars and
many frequenters of the city of Rome. Yet Mr.
Lloyd Osbourne tells me that the only reference he
ever heard his step-father make to this time was on
one occasion when he recalled with delight the
picturesque appearance of their military escort in
horsemen's cloaks riding through the Papal States.
Five years later his correspondence proves him already
a keen observer, and yet half an hour with a guide-
book would have furnished him with all the know-
ledge of Italian cities that he ever displayed.

But if his stores of experience were but little
increased by these changes of scene, at least the boy

48 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

was learning to exercise the savoir-faire which came
very naturally to his disposition. At hotels he used
to go to the table d'hote alone, if necessary, and
made friends freely with strangers. On his return
from Homburg, he made great friends on the steamer
with a Dutchman, who kept saying over to himself,
" I loike this booy." His French master at Mentone
on his second visit gave him no regular lessons, but
merely talked to him in French, teaching him piquet
and card tricks, introducing him to various French
people, and taking him to convents and other places.
So his mother remarks of his other masters at home,
" I think they found it pleasanter to talk to him than
to teach him."

Of the other side of his character, of the solitary,
dreamy, rather unhappy child, but little record sur-
vives, or little evidence which can be assigned with
certainty to these years. In one of his books he
touches a chord which thrills with a personal emotion
as he describes " a malady most incident to only
sons." " He flew his private signal and none heeded
it ; it seemed he was abroad in a world from which
the very hope of intimacy was banished." It was
a slightly older lad of whom he was thinking at the
moment, but the malady begins at an early age, and
tends unfortunately to be chronic.

His reading progressed : for the date of his first
introduction to Shakespeare there seems to be no
evidence, and but for the strength of its impression it
may have belonged to the earlier period. " I never
supposed that a book was to command me until, one
disastrous day of storm, the heaven full of turbulent
vapours, the street full of the squalling of the gale,
the windows resounding under bucketfuls of rain, my
mother read aloud to me Macbeth. I cannot say I
thought the experience agreeable ; I far preferred the
ditch-water stories that a child could dip and skip and
doze over, stealing at times materials for play ; it was
something new and shocking to be thus ravished by
a giant, and I shrank under the brutal grasp. But the

BOYHOOD— 1859-1867 49

spot n memory is still sensitive ; nor do I ever read
that tsagedy but I hear the gale howling up the valley
of the T^eith."

His frst acquaintance with Dumas began in 1863
with th« study of certain illustrated dessert plates
in a hotel at Nice : his first enthusiasm for Scott's
novels belongs with certainty to the time when he had
begun to select his books for himself.

" My father's library was a spot of some austerity ;
the proceedings of learned societies, some Latin
divinity, cyclopaedias, physical science, and, above
all, optics, keld the chief place upon the shelves, and
it was only in holes and corners that anything really
legible existed as by accident. The Parent's Assist-
ant, Rob Rcy, Waverley, and Guy Mannering, the
Voyages of Captain Woodes Rogers, Fuller's and
Bunyan's Holy Wars, The Reflections of Robinson
Crusoe, The Female Bluebeard, G. Sand's Mare au
Diable (how came it in that grave assembly !), Ains-
worth's Tower of London, and four old volumes of
Punch — these were the chief exceptions. . . . Time
and again I tried to read Rob Roy, with whom, of
course, I was acquainted from the Tales of a Grand-
father ; time and again the early part with Rashleigh
and (think of it !) the adorable Diana, choked me off ;
and I shall never forget the pleasure and surprise
with which, lying on the floor one summer evening, I
struck of a sudden into the first scene with Andrew
Fairservice. ' The worthy Dr. Lightfoot ' — ' mys-
trysted with a bogle ' — ' a wheen green trash ' —
' Jenny, lass, I think I ha'e her ' ; from that day to
this the phrases have been unf or gotten. I read on, I
need scarce say ; I came to Glasgow, I bided tryst on
Glasgow Bridge, I met Rob Roy and the Bailie in the
Tolbooth, all with transporting pleasure ; and then
the clouds gathered once more about my path ; and
I dozed and skipped until I stumbled half-asleep into
the Clachan of Aberfoyle, and the voices of Iverach
and Galbraith recalled me to myself. With that
scene and the defeat of Captain Thornton the book

50 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

concluded ; Helen and her sons shocked evtn the
little schoolboy of nine or ten with their unieality ;
I read no more, or I did not grasp what I was leading ;
and years elapsed before I consciously met Diana and
her father among the hills, or saw Rashleigt dying in
the chair. When I think of that novel and that
evening, I am impatient with all others ; :hey seem
but shadows and impostors ; they caniot satisfy
the appetite which this awakened."

What neither instruction nor travel could do for
him was none the less coming about ; ihe boy was
educating himself ; learning to write patiently, per-
sistently, without brilliance or any apparent prospect
of success. The History of Moses of 1856 had been
followed the next year by a History of Joseph, after
a brief interval devoted to a story " in slavish imita-
tion of Mayne Reid." Two years later came an ac-
count (still dictated) of his travels in Perth. Before
thirteen he wrote a description of the inhabitants of
Peebles in the style of the Book of Snobs. When he
was fourteen he developed a facility for extemporising
doggerel rhymes, and composed the libretto of an
opera called The Baneful Potato, of which only the
names of two characters survive — " Dig-him-up-o,"
the gardener, and " Seek-him-out-o," the policeman,
and the first line of an aria sung by the heroine, " My
own dear casement window."

At his last school and in his home circle he was
always starting magazines. These were all in manu-
script, generally illustrated with profusion of colour,
and were sometimes circulated at a charge of one
penny for reading. The Schoolboys' Magazine of
1863, of which one number survives, contained four
stories, and its readers must have been hard to
satisfy if they did not have then- fill of horrors. In
the first tale, " The Adventures of Jan van Steen,"
the hero is left hidden in a boiler under which a fire
is lit. The second is " A Ghost Story " of robbers
in a deserted castle in " one of those barren places
called plains in the north of Norway." A traveller

BOYHOOD— 1859-1867 51

finds a man, " half killed with several wounds,"
hidden under the floor, who dresses up as a ghost.
The thiid story is called, by a curious anticipation,
" The Wreckers." On the shore at North Berwick
" were tvo men. The older and stronger of the two
was a tail, ill-looking man with grizzled hair and a
red nose. He was dressed in a tarnished, gold-laced,
blue coat, a red waistcoat, and leggings. The other,
who might have been a fisherman except for the fact
that from each of the pockets of his pea-jacket there
projected a pistol. He was a more villainous-looking
fellow than the other. ' Dan,' said the first, ' what
is that clinging to that mast ? ' 'I think,' said the
other, ' it is a sailor. You had better go and secure
him.' " Last and not least terrible is " Creek Island,
or Adventures in the South Seas." A line-of-battle
ship called the Shark is wrecked in the Southern
Ocean on its way to India, and two midshipmen fall
into the hands of the Indians. " They had a council
which pronounced death, but which death would we
have to suffer ? It was to be burned alive. . . .
Next morning very early we had to get up and prepare
to be burned ah' ve. When we arrived at the place of
execution, we shuddered to think of being killed so
soon. But I forgot to tell you that I had made love
to [sic] beautiful girl even in one day, and from all I
knew she loved me. The next thing they did was to
build round us sticks and rubbish of all kinds till we
could hardly see what they were doing. At last they
finished. They then set fire to it, and after it had got
hold well, they began to dance, which is called a
war-dance. (To be continued.)"

" / forgot to tell you that I had made love to beautiful
girl." " Was ever woman in this humour wooed ? "
At least the author remembered his own boyish
taste, when heroines were excluded from Treasure
Island. And yet this was the hand that at the last
drew Barbara Grant and the two Kirstie Elliotts.

In these days he had endless talks with Mr. H. B.
Baildon, who seems to have been the first of his friends

52 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

in whom he found a kindred interest in letters, and
at one of these discussions he produced a drarca which
was apparently the earliest draft of Deacon Brodie.
The story was lamiliar to him from childhood, as a
cabinet made by the Deacon himself formed part of
the furniture of his nursery. His deepest and most
lasting interest was, however, centred in the Coven-
anters, of whom he had first learned from his nurse.
He has told us how his attention was fixed on Hackston
of Rathillet, who sat on horseback " with the cloak
about his mouth," watching the assassination of
Archbishop Sharp, in which he would take no part,
lest it should be attributed to his private quarrel.
Stevenson's first novel on the subject was attempted
before he was fifteen, and " reams of paper," then and
at a later date, were devoted to it in vain.

A similar fate attended a novel on the Pentland
Rising — an episode well known to him from his in-
fancy, as the Covenanters had spent the night before
their defeat in the village of Colinton.

This last composition, however, was not wholly
without result. Though the novel was destroyed,
his studies issued in a small green pamphlet, entitled
The Pentland Rising : a Page of History, 1666,
published anonymously, in 1866, by Andrew Elliot
in Edinburgh.

His aunt Jane Balfour wrote : "I was at Heriot
Row in 1866 from the 29th October to 23rd November,
and Louis was busily altering the Pentland Rising
then to please his father. He had made a story of it,
and by so doing, had, in his father's opinion, spoiled
it. It was printed not long after in a small edition,
and Mr. Stevenson very soon bought all the copies in,
as far as was possible."

Thus the period closes somewhat surprisingly with
Stevenson's first appearance as a printed author.
The foundations were being well laid, but the structure
raised upon them was premature. The publication
was probably due to his father's approval of the
subject-matter rather than to any belief in the literary

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 53

ripeness of the style. At the same time, it was the
best work that he had yet done, and the plentiful
quotations from the pages of Wodrow and Kirkton,
and of their opponent, Sir James Turner, are interest-
ing in view of Stevenson's confession in Samoa,
" My style is from the Covenanting writers."

CHAPTER V

STUDENT DAYS — 1867-73

" Light foot, and tight foot,
And green grass spread,
Early in the morning,
But hope is on ahead."

R. L. S.

THE time had come for the boy to leave school,
and for his education to be shaped in some
conformity with the profession supposed to lie before
him. What this would be was never for a moment
in doubt. Father and sons, the Stevensons were civil
engineers, and to the grandsons naturally, in course of
time, the business would be transferred. The family
capacity for the work, though undeniable, was very
elusive, consisting chiefly of a sort of instinct for
dealing with the forces of nature, and seldom mani-
fested clearly till called forth in actual practice.
The latest recruit had certainly shown no conspicuous
powers at any of his schools, but to such a criterion
no one could have attached less value than his father.
That he did possess the family gift was proved before
he left the profession ; but even had he never written
his paper " On a New Form of Intermittent Light,"
no one could reasonably have condemned on his
behalf the choice of this career.

Accordingly, the next three and a half years were
devoted to his preparation for this employment. He
spent the winter, and sometimes the summer, sessions

54 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

at the University of Edinburgh, working for a
Science degree, and saw something of the practical
work of engineering during the other summer
months.

For the first two years he attended the Latin class,
Greek being abandoned as hopeless after the first
session ; to Natural Philosophy he was constant, so
far as his constancy in such matters ever went ;
Mathematics then replaced Greek, and Civil Engineer-
ing took the room of Latin. But all this was none of
his real education. Although he remembered that
" the spinning of a top is a case of Kinetic Stability "
(one of the few facts recorded in a notebook still
surviving), and that " Emphyteusis is not a disease,
nor Stillicide a crime," and would not willingly part
with such scraps of science, he never " set the same
store by them as by certain other odds and ends that
he came by in the open street while he was playing
truant." The last word recurs with every reference
to his education. In fact, as far as the University
was concerned, he " acted upon an extensive and
highly rational system of truantry, which cost him a
great deal of trouble to put in exercise" ; and " no
one ever played the truant with more deliberate care,
and none ever had more certificates (of attendance)
for less education."

In the summer of 1868 Stevenson spent the month
of July at Anstruther, and the six weeks following at
Wick : records of which he has left in various letters
written to his parents at the time, and in the essay
on " Random Memories " entitled " The Education
of an Engineer." In the first-named place he was
privileged to hear it said of him for the first time,
" That's the man that's in charge." At Wick, besides
his descent in a diving-suit (" one of the best things I
got from my education as an engineer "), an accident
afforded him one of those opportunities for prompt
action, of which his life contained all too few. It
comes as the postscript to a short business letter to his
father.

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 55

" September, 1868.

" P.S. — I was forgetting my only news. A man
fell o£E the staging this forenoon. I heard crying, and
ran out to the end. By that time a rope had been
lowered and the man was holding himself up by it,
and of course wearing himself out. Some were away
for a boat. ' Hold on, Angus,' they cried. ' I can
NOT do it,* he said, with wonderful composure. I
told them to lower a plank ; everybody was too busy
giving advice to listen to me ; meantime the man was
drowning. I was desperate, and could have knocked
another dozen off. One fellow, Bain, a diver, listened
to me. We got the plank out and a rope round it ;
but they would not help us to lower it down. At last
we got assistance, and were just about to lower it
down, when some one cried, ' Hold your hand, lads !
Here comes the boat.1 And Angus was borne safely
in. But my hand shook so, that I could not draw
for some time after with the excitement. — R. S."

The following year he went with his father in the
Pharos, the steamer of the Commissioners of Northern
Lights, to Shetland, a part of the same cruise as that
on which his grandfather had attended Sir Walter
Scott. It was years afterwards that mentioning a
boat-cloak, the use of which belonged chiefly to these
days, he said : " The proudest moments of my life
have been passed in the stern-sheets of a boat with
that romantic garment about my shoulders. This,
without prejudice to one glorious day when, standing
upon some water-stairs at Lerwick, I signalled with
a pocket-handkerchief for a boat to come ashore for
me. I was then aged fifteen or sixteen [eighteen].
Conceive my glory."

In 1870, besides a week at Dunoon, to look after
some work that was being done there, and one or two
expeditions with the University Engineering class, he
spent three weeks on the little island of Earraid^ off
Mull, the scene of David Balfour's shipwreck. It was
commemorated later in Memories and Portraits, but

56 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

at this date it was the headquarters for the building
of the deep-sea lighthouse of Dhu Heartach.

All this was the attractive part of his work. " As
a way of life," he wrote, " I wish to speak with sym-
pathy of my education as an engineer. It takes a
man into the open air ; it keeps him hanging about
harbour-sides, which is the richest form of idling ; it
carries him to wild islands ; it gives him a taste of
the genial dangers of the sea ; it supplies him with
dexterities to exercise ; it makes demands upon his
ingenuity ; it will go far to cure him of any taste (if
he ever had one) for the miserable life of cities."

But even the open-air life had only a very slight
hold upon him, as far as it was devoted to professional
work. Nothing could be more convincing than the
little picture of his father and himself, given in the
Family of Engineers.

" My father would pass hours on the beach, brood-
ing over the waves, counting them, noting their least
deflection, noting when they broke. On Tweedside,
or by Lyne and Manor, we have spent together whole
afternoons ; to me, at the time, extremely wearisome ;
to him, as I am now sorry to think, extremely morti-
fying. The river was to me a pretty and various
spectacle ; I could not see — I could not be made to
see — it otherwise. To my father it was a chequer-
board of lively forces, which he traced from pool to
shallow with minute appreciation and enduring in-
terest. ' That bank was being undercut,' he might
say. ' Why ? Suppose you were to put a groin out
here, would not the filum ftuminis be cast abruptly
off across the channel ? and where would it impinge
upon the other shore ? and what would be the result ?
Or suppose you were to blast that boulder, what
would happen ? Follow it — use the eyes that God
has given you : can you not see that a great deal of
land would be reclaimed upon this side ? ' It was
to me like school in holidays ; but to him, until I had
worn him out with my invincible triviality, a delight."

In Heriot Row he had now for his own use the two

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 57

rooms on the top floor of his father's house, which had
been his nurseries. The smaller chamber, to the east,
was his bedroom, while the other held his books, and
was used as his study as long as he li ved in Edinburgh.

At the beginning of this period a change was made
in the household arrangements, which was of material
service both to his health and also to his subsequent
work. In May, 1867, his father took the lease of a
house known as Swanston Cottage, lying in a nook at
the foot of the Pentland Hills, at a distance of some
five miles from Edinburgh and two and a half from
the boy's paradise of Colinton.

This was afterwards the home of the heroine of
St. Ives, and in the Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh its
situation and history were described.

" Upon the main slope of the Pentlands ... a
bouquet of old trees stands round a white farmhouse ;
and from a neighbouring dell you can see smoke rising
and leaves rustling in the breeze. Straight above,
the hills climb a thousand feet into the air. The
neighbourhood, about the time of lambs, is clamorous
with the bleating of flocks ; and you will be awakened
in the grey of early summer mornings by the barking
of a dog, or the voice of a shepherd shouting to the
echoes. This, with the hamlet lying behind unseen,
is Swanston. . . . Long ago, this sheltered field was
purchased by the Edinburgh magistrates for the sake
of the springs that rise or gather there. After they
had built their water-house and laid their pipes, it
occurred to them that the place was suitable for
junketing. . . . The dell was turned into a garden ;
and on the knoll that shelters it from the plain and
the sea winds, they built a cottage looking to the hills.
They brought crockets and gargoyles from old St.
Giles', which they were then restoring, and disposed
them on the gables and over the door and about the
garden ; and the quarry which had supplied them
with building material, they draped with clematis
and carpeted with beds of roses. In process of time
the trees grew higher, and gave shade to the cottage,

58 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

and the evergreens sprang up and turned the dell into
a thicket."

Here for the next fourteen years the family spent a
large part of their summers in place of taking a fur-
nished house at North Berwick or elsewhere.

Hither at all seasons Louis would often retire alone
or in the company of a friend ; here he gained a know-
ledge of the Pentlands only to be acquired by living
among them ; here he saw something of the country
folk, and enriched his vocabulary of Lallan ; here he
made the acquaintance of John Todd the shepherd,
and Robert Young the gardener, and the military
beggarman who had a taste for Keats. This was to
him ille terrarum angulus of Underwoods ; on the hill
above Swanston there lies the tiny pool, overhung by
a rock, where he " loved to sit and make bad verses,"
and to this spot he asked his old nurse, four months
before he finally left England, " some day to climb
Halkerside for me (I am never likely to do it for
myse'f), and sprinkle some of the well water on the
turf."

Here one winter- tide he read Dumas again. " I
would return in the early night from one of my patrols
with the shepherd : a friendly face would meet me
in the door, a friendly retriever scurry upstairs to
fetch my slippers ; and I would sit down with the
Vicomte de Bragelonne for a long, silent, solitary,
lamplit evening by the fire. ... I would rise from
my book and pull the blind aside, and see the snow
and the glittering hollies chequer a Scottish garden,
and the winter moonlight brighten the white hills."

Now he joined in various sports ; at first he rode a
good deal, and was even known to follow the hounds.
At this time he skated, chiefly from Edinburgh, at
Duddingston Loch. It was in these years that he
was in Glenogil, in Mr. Barrie's country, and there
caught as many as three dozen trout in one day, and
forthwith forswore fishing. Now he made his first
acquaintance with canoes, which at this time were
introduced by Mr. Baxter on the Firth of Forth.

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 59

Sir Walter Simpson, the companion of the Inland
Voyage, was another pioneer, and owned a large
double canoe that often carried Stevenson, who had
no boat of his own. His more experienced friends
had no high opinion of his skill, but he occasionally
joined them at Granton, and later at Queensferry, and
spent many an afternoon in the fresh air of the Forth
and the healthful employment of his paddle.

Conventional persons and conventional entertain-
ments never had any attraction for him, and from
general society in Edinburgh he was not long in with-
drawing himself. There were exceptions of course ;
for several years after 1871 he took part in the private
theatricals at Professor Fleeming Jenkin's house : at
first as prompter, and afterwards in some minor parts,
for he never was proficient as an actor. But mostly
he preferred to see his friends apart from general
company, and as for his clothes, of which a great deal
has been said — he dressed to please himself.

He joined the University Conservative Club, an
organisation for elections, and made his first speech
at its dinner ; he dined with his Academy class for
several years ; and — more important than any of
these — he was elected to the " Speculative Society " —
that " Spec." of which the fame has gone abroad in
the world largely by means of his writings.

" It is a body of some antiquity, and has counted
among its members Scott, Jeffrey, Horner, Benjamin
Constant, Robert Emmet, and many a legal and local
celebrity besides. By an accident, variously ex-
plained, it has its rooms in the very buildings of the
University of Edinburgh : a hall, Turkey-carpeted,
hung with pictures, looking, when lighted up with
fire and candle, like some goodly dining-room, a
passage-like library, walled with books in their wire
cages ; and a corridor with a fireplace, benches, a
table, many prints of famous members, and a mural
tablet to the virtues of a former secretary. Here a
member can warm himself and loaf and read ; here,
in defiance of Senatus-consults, he can smoke."

60 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The Society is limited to thirty ordinary members,
who acquire honorary privileges at the end of four
years. Meetings are held once a week from November
to March ; first an essay is read and criticised, and
then a motion is debated. The roll is called thrice
on each of these evenings, and at each call every
ordinary member is bound to be present ; an elab-
orate system of procedure has grown up, fenced in
with penalties and fines. Stevenson was elected a
member on i6th February, 1869, and in the pro-
ceedings he took an increasing interest. During his
first complete session he attended six, during the
next eight, and during the third session thirteen out
of nineteen meetings. And in 1873 he wrote to one
of his fellow-members : " O, I do think the Spec, is
about the best thing in Edinburgh."

The " Spec." was probably the first place where
Stevenson came into contact and rivalry with con-
temporaries who, being his equals, were not necessarily
the friends of his own choice ; and upon the members
in general he seems to have made small impression.
He was elected one of the five Presidents of the
Society in 1872, but was at the bottom of the list and
had only seven votes, whereas the first received
eighteen, and the man next above him had thirteen
supporters. In 1873 he was re-elected apparently
without a contest ; in his valedictory address, deli-
vered in the same year, there is an amusing picture of
the members, ending with a sketch of himself : —
" Mr. Stevenson engaged in explaining to the other
members that he is the cleverest person of his age
and weight between this and California."

But while the external course of his life seemed
smooth, the deeper current had far more troubled
a stream. For one thing, as we have seen, he was
not interested in engineering, and all the time he
could spare from it was given up to the pursuit which
had taken firm possession of him. The art of writing
was his one concern, and to learn this he was giving
all his real self.

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 61

There were, however, besides the misspending of
his time and the misdirection of his labour, other
difficulties that were far more grave. He had begun
to work out for himself his own views of life : his
religion and his ethics, his relations to society and his
own place in the universe. He was following out the
needs of his mind and nature : strictly sincere with
himself, he could never see things in their merely
conventional aspect. He was " young in youth," and
travelling at the fiery pace of his age and tempera-
ment ; his senses were importunate, his intellect in-
quiring, and he must either find his own way, or, as
he well might have done, lose it altogether.

Of all Stevenson's difficulties those concerned with
religion were the most important, if for no other
reason than that they alone affected his relations with
his father. The one was questioning dogmas and
observances which the other regarded it as impious
to examine ; and no sacrifice was too great for the
father, no duty too arduous, if it could only avert
from his child the doom of the freethinker. On the
other hand, sooner than be tied to the doctrines of
Calvinism, the lad called himself an atheist — such is
ever the youthful formula of independence. Of the
precise nature of his difficulties at this time he has
left no record. He was revolting generally against
doctrines held with severity and intolerance, and
struggling for that wider view and larger conception
of life, which he afterwards found to be less incom-
patible than he thought with the lessons of his earliest
years.

He speaks of the startling effect that the Gospel of
St. Matthew produced on him, but this seems to have
been chiefly upon the social side. He was never at
any time prone to compromise, and the discrepancy
between Christ's teaching and the practice of Christian
societies he was neither ready to explain away nor able
to ignore. As in religion he designated himself for
the moment an atheist, so he seems in economics, if
not in politics, to have become " a red-hot Socialist."

62 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The direction of his views was no doubt partly due to
the " healthy democratic atmosphere " of the Scottish
University system.

"At an early age the Scottish lad begins his . . .
experience of crowded class-rooms, of a gaunt quad-
rangle, of a bell hourly booming over the traffic of the
city to recall him from the public-house where he has
been lunching, or the streets where he has been wan-
dering fancy-free. His college life has little of re-
straint, and nothing of necessary gentility. He will
find no quiet clique of the exclusive, studious, and
cultured ; no rotten borough of the arts. All classes
rub shoulders on the greasy benches. The raffish
young gentleman in gloves must measure his scholar-
ship with the plain, clever, clownish laddie from the
parish school."

Unfortunately the well-meant action of his parents
added to his general unhappiness a touch of squalor.
They were generosity itself ; they provided for their
son all that they thought a young man could possibly
want. So long as he cared for such entertainments,
they gave dinners and dances to his friends, whom
they welcomed (if thought suitable) on all occasions
to their house ; for his health and education there
was nothing they were not ready to do. One thing
only was wanting to him, and that was liberty, or
rather the means of using it. They knew how gener-
ous he was by nature, probably they guessed how
open-handed he was likely to be, and until he was
three-and-twenty they restricted him — as others of
his friends also were restricted — to half-a-crown or,
at the most, five shillings a week as pocket-money
The result was that the lad went his own way, and
frequented places which consorted with his means.
This may have extended the future novelist's know-
ledge of man and woman and of the many aspects of
human life ^but it was scarcely a successful policy in
his father's eyes (had he but known) which placed
his son's headquarters at a tobacconist's shop, and
sent him to the Lothian Road and a succession of such

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 63

public-houses as " The Green Elephant," " The
Twinkling Eye," and " The Gay Japanee."
Stevenson's own account of it ran thus : —
" I was always kept poor in my youth, to my great
indignation at the time, but since then with my com-
plete approval. Twelve pounds a year was my
allowance up to twenty-three (which was indeed far
too little), and though I amplified it by a very con-
sistent embezzlement from my mother, I never had
enough to be lavish. My monthly pound was usually
spent before the evening of the day on which I re-
ceived it ; as often as not, it was forestalled ; and for
the rest of the time I was in rare fortune if I had five
shillings at once in my possession. Hence my ac-
quaintance was of what would be called a very low
order. Looking back upon it, I am surprised at the
courage with which I first ventured alone into the
societies in which I moved ; I was the companion of
seamen, chimney-sweeps, and thieves ; my circle was
being continually changed by the action of the police
magistrate. I see now the little sanded kitchen,
where Velvet Coat (for such was the name I went by)
has spent days together, generally in silence and
making sonnets in a penny version-book ; and rough
as the material may appear, I do not believe these
days were among the least happy I have spent. I
was distinctly petted and respected ; the women were
most gentle and kind to me ; I might have left all my
money for a month, and they would have returned
every farthing of it. Such indeed was my celebrity,
that when the proprietor and his mistress came to
inspect the establishment, I was invited to tea with
them ; and it is still a grisly thought to me, that I
have since seen that mistress, then gorgeous in velvet
and gold chains, an old, toothless, ragged woman, with
hardly voice enough to welcome me by my old name
of Velvet Coat."

The days were the days of green-sickness, and they
were often miserable. Many a time he leaned over
the great bridge which connects the New Town with

64 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

the Old, and watched the trains smoking out from
under him, and vanishing into the tunnel on a voyage
to brighter skies. Often he haunted the station itself
envying the passengers ; and again, " in the hot fits of
youth," he went to the Calton burying-ground, " to
be unhappy." " Poor soul," he says of himself, " I
remember how much he was cast down at times, and
how life (which had not yet begun) seemed already
at an end, and hope quite dead, and misfortune and
dishonour, like physical presences, dogging him as he
went."

Yet the days were the days of youth, and often
they were days of happiness. The clouds rolled
away in their season ; most of the troubles were
subjective, and though they were acutely felt, yet
their ultimate solution was certain.

The one difficulty most immediately affecting his
outer life — the pursuit of engineering — was, however,
among the first to be solved. On April 8th, 1871,
Louis told his father of his extreme disinclination for
the work, and asked to be allowed to follow literature.
It must have come as a heavy disappointment to
Thomas Stevenson, who, as we have seen, was de-
voted to the practice of his calling. Moreover, only
twelve days previously Louis had read before the
Royal Scottish Society of Arts his first and only
contribution to the literature of his profession, a
paper on a New Form of Intermittent Light, which
was afterwards judged " well worthy of the favour-
able consideration of the Society, and highly credit-
able to so young an author." The father felt the
blow, but he must to some extent have been prepared
for it by his son's entire lack of interest in the solution
of problems which to him were the most entrancing
in the world. He seems to have met the request
with calm ; his wife's diary records that he was
" wonderfully resigned " ; and the matter was com-
promised without difficulty or delay. Engineering
was to be given up forthwith, but lest Louis should
find himself with no other profession than that of

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 65

" failed author," he was to read Law and to be called
to the Scottish Bar. If he chose to practise, he
would have his profession ; his necessary legal and
historical studies would add more or less to his
general culture, and he would be able during his
preparation to carry on the literary training that was
already occupying so large a portion of his time.

The general alleviation of his position was more
gradual, but of this he has left an account, the frag-
ment of a larger scheme of biography written in San
Francisco in the beginning of 1880.

" I had a happy afternoon scrambling with Bob
upon the banks of the Water of Leith above Slate-
ford. And so I may leave this part of my life and
take it up in another direction. At last I am now
done with morbidity and can wash my hands.

" BOOK III. — FROM JEST TO EARNEST

" I date my new departure from three circum-
stances : natural growth, the coming of friends, and
the study of Walt Whitman. The order or degree
of their effectiveness I shall not seek to distinguish.
But I shall first say something of my friends.

" My cousin Bob, who had now, after a long
absence, returned to Edinburgh, is the man likest
and most unlike to me that I have ever met. Our
likeness was one of tastes and passions, and, for
many years at least, it amounted in these particulars
to an identity. He had the most indefatigable,
feverish mind I have ever known ; he had acquired
a smattering of almost every knowledge and art ;
he would surprise you by his playing, his painting,
his writing, his criticism, his knowledge of philosophy,
and above all, by a sort of vague, disconnected and
totally inexplicable erudition. What was specially
his, and genuine, was his faculty for turning Qver
a subject in a conversation. There was an insane
lucidity in his conclusions ; a singular, humorous
eloquence in his language, and a power of method,
bringing the whole of life into the focus of the subject

c

66 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

under hand ; none of which I have ever heard
equalled or even approached by any other talker.
I am sure that he and I together have, in a brief,
conspectory manner, turned over the stuff of a year's
reading in one half-hour of talk. He was the most
valuable man to talk to, above all in his younger
days ; for he twisted like a serpent, changed like
the patterns in a kaleidoscope, transmigrated (it is
the only word) from one point of view to another
with a swiftness and completeness that left a stupid
and merely logical mind panting in the rear ; and
so, in an incredibly brief space of time, helped you
to view a question upon every side. In sheer trench-
ancy of mind, I have ever been his humble and distant
follower. The multiplicity and swiftness of his
apprehensions, if they do not bewilder, at least
paralyse his mind. He is utterly without measure.
He will spend a week in regulating the expenses of
an imaginary navy ; and then in ten minutes crush
a subtle fallacy or create a new vein of criticism. We
have perhaps only one moral quality in common : a de-
sire to do justice to those with whom we are at enmity.

" The next friend who came to me (I take them
in the order of time) was, I think, Charles Baxter.
I cannot characterise a personality so unusual in the
little space that I can here afford. I have never
known one of so mingled a strain. As a companion,
when hi spirits, he stands without an equal in my
experience. He is the only man I ever heard of who
could give and take in conversation with the wit and
polish of style that we find in Congreve's comedies.
He is likewise the only person I ever knew who could
advise, or, to explain more perfectly my meaning,
who could both make helpful suggestions and at the
same time hold his tongue when he had none to offer.

" The next was James Walter Ferrier. It is only
now when I come to describe them that I perceive
how strange a crew were my associates ; but Ferrier's
strangeness was of a tragic character. The grandson
of old Wilson, the son of Ferrier the metaphysician

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 67

he was gifted with very considerable abilities ; he was
by nature the most complete and gentle gsntleman (I
must risk the pleonasm) I have known.

[" I never knew any man so superior to himself.
The best of him only came as a vision, like Corsica
from the Corniche. He never gave his measure either
morally or intellectually. The curse was on him.
Even his friends did not know him but by fits. I have
passed hours with him when he was so wise, good, and
sweet, that I never knew the like of it in any other.]

" The fourth of these friends was Sir Walter Simp-
son, son of Sir James who gave chloroform to the
world. He was, I think, the eldest of my associates ;
yet he must have been of a more deliberate growth,
for when we encountered, I believe we were about
equal in intellectual development. His was a slow
fighting mind. You would see him, at times, wrestle
for a minute at a time with a refractory jest, and
perhaps fail to throw it at the end. I think his special
character was a profound shyness, a shyness which
was not so much exhibited in society as it ruled in his
own dealings with himself. I have said his mind was
slow, and in this he was an opposite and perhaps an
antidote to Bob. I have known him battle a question
sometimes with himself, sometimes with me, month
after month for years ; he had an honest stubbornness
in thinking, and would neither let himself be beat nor
cry victory.

" The mere return of Bob changed at once and for
ever the course of my life ; I can give you an idea
of my relief only by saying that I was at last able to
breathe. The miserable isolation in which I had
languished was no more in season, and I began to be
happy. To have no one to whom you can speak
your thoughts is but a slight trial ; for a month or
two at a time, I can support it almost without regret ;
bat to be young, to be daily making fresh discoveries
and fabricating new theories of life, to be full of flimsy,
whimsical, overpowering humours, that seem to leave
you no alternative but to confide them or to die, and
a 2

68 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

not only not to have, but never to have had a confi-
dant, is an astounding misery. I now understand it
best by recognising my delight when that period was
ended. I thought I minded for nothing when I had
found my Faithful ; my heart was like a bird's ; I
was done with the sullens for good ; there was an end
of green-sickness for my life as soon as I had got a
friend to laugh with. Lai ghter was at that time our
principal affair, and I doubt if we could have had a
better. . . .

" As Bob said, we did nothing obvious ; the least
joke was spiced to us by being imbedded in mountains
of monotony."

Here the manuscript breaks off. Some notes on an
earlier page enable us to learn in what direction it
might have been continued. "Whitman: humanity:
L.J.R.1 : love of mankind : sense of inequality : justi-
fication of art : decline of religion : I take to the New
Testament : change startling : growing desire for
truth : Spencer : should have done better with the
New Test."

Thus the coming of happiness was due partly to his
friends and partly to his reading. To the list of the
former there is still an addition to be made — the name
of Fleeming Jenkin. It was in 1868 that Jenkin came
to Edinburgh as Professor of Engineering, and it was
first in the character of a truant that Stevenson came
under his notice. The professor was fifteen years
older than his pupil — a difference in age which is often

1 At this point it may be as well to refer to the L. J. R.,
" that mysterious society." It consisted of six members,
and its meetings, of which only five took place, were held
at a public-house situated, I believe, in Advocates' Close,
which had apparently been visited by Burns. Its com-
plete name was concealed with a mystery as deep and not
less important than that which broods over the Greek
letter societies 4of American colleges. Its principles,
generally speaking, were liberty of thought and freedom
from prejudice. The abolition of the House of Lords was.
it is said, one of its tenets.

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 69

difficult to surmount. But besides his boundless
energy and vitality, there was about Jenkin a per-
petual boyishness, which showed itself not least in
this, that his development continued to the end of
his life. His delight in all that was high-minded
and heroic, his fiery enthusiasm, his extraordinary
readiness and spirit, were just the qualities to win
and to stimulate the younger man. Moreover, at
the time that Stevenson fell under his influence, the
detachment and independence of Jenkin's religious
views rendered that influence of far greater weight
than if he had been content to yield a lifeless assent
to established observances and conventional creeds.
Stevenson was in revolt, or meditating an outbreak.
Here was a man, ready to question everything,
exercising a clear-sighted judgment, and yet full of
earnestness and piety, who " saw life very simple,"
who did not love refinements, but was " a friend to
much conformity in unessentials." And about Jen-
kin there were these further points which distinguished
him from Stevenson's other friends, and gave him a
great advantage. He was the only one who had already
fought the battle of life, and not only was victorious
but knew how to carry his success. Moreover, he
was the first of Stevenson's friends who was already
married. Perhaps the most charming passages in
the Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin are those which sug-
gest rather than describe the infinite tenderness and
romance which marriage brought into his life and
made his house all it was to those who frequented it.
Mrs. Jenkin, writing in 1895, savs that her husband
loved Louis best of all his friends, and Stevenson,
when he came to write Jenkin's biography, records
what mingled pain and pleasure it was " to dig into
the past of a dead friend, and find him, at every
spadeful, shine brighter."

Of his first introduction to Mrs. Jenkin, she has
herself given an account. Late on a winter afternoon
in 1 868 she paid her first visit to 1 7 Heriot Row, and
there found Mrs. Stevenson sitting by the firelight,

70 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

apparently alone. They began to talk, when " sud-
denly, from out of a dark corner beyond the fireplace,
came a voice, peculiar, vibrating : a boy's voice, I
thought at first. ' Oh ! ' said Mrs. Stevenson, ' I
forgot that my son was in the room. Let me intro-
duce him to you.' The voice went on : I listened
in perplexity and amazement. Who was this son
who talked as Charles Lamb wrote ? this young Heine
with the Scottish accent ? I stayed long, and when
I came away the unseen converser came down with
me to the front-door to let me out. As he opened it,
the light of the gas-lamp outside (' For we are very
lucky, with a lamp before the door,1 he sings) fell on
him, and I saw a slender, brown, long-haired lad, with
great dark eyes, a brilliant smile, and a gentle, depre-
cating bend of the head. ' A boy of sixteen,' I said
to myself. But he was eighteen, looking then, as he
always did, younger than his age. I asked him to
come and see us. He said, ' Shall I come to-mor-
row ? ' I said ' Yes," and ran home. As I sat
down to dinner I announced, ' I have made the ac-
quaintance of a poet 1 * He came on the morrow, and
from that day forward we saw him constantly. From
that day forward too, our affection and our admiration
for him, and our delight in his company, grew."

Thus much of his friends and their influence. There
was also the other continual and stimulating influence
of books, and though Stevenson was never a scholar
in the strict and more arid sense, few men ever brought
so great an enthusiasm to the studies of their choice.
His ardour was now at its height. Twenty years
later he wrote : " I have really enjoyed this book as
I — almost as I — used to enjoy books when I was going
twenty — twenty-three ; and these are the years for
reading."

" Books were the proper remedy : books of vivid
human import, forcing upon the minds of young men
the issues, pleasures, busyness, importance, and im-
mediacy of that life in which they stand ; books of
smiling or heroic temper, to excite or to console ;

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 71

books of a large design, shadowing the complexity
of that game of consequences to which we all sit down,
the hanger-back not least."

Besides his books at home, he had always access to
the Advocates' Library, the great public library of
Edinburgh, which is entitled to receive a copy of
everything published in the kingdom. But for the
present the question is of those works with which a
man lives, which for the time become an intimate
part of himself, and closer than any friend. Such
were to Stevenson the three already mentioned, the
New Testament, Walt Whitman, and Herbert Spen-
cer. Of the first he says but little, and of that I have
already spoken : to Whitman he has done a measure
of justice in one of the Familiar Studies, and also in
a paper on '* Books which have influenced me." In
the latter, too, Mr. Herbert Spencer also receives his
meed of gratitude, and to him succeed Shakespeare,
Dumas, Bunyan, Montaigne, and many others in
rapid sequence, until the writer was manifestly over-
whelmed in returning thanks to the whole world of
books which brought him so much wisdom and
happiness.

But learning to write — there was the business of
life. Although the description of the method by
which he taught himself this most difficult of arts has
been quoted again and again, and has long ago be-
come classical, I have no alternative and no desire
but to give it in this place. The process described
had long begun, when this period opened, as it con-
tinued after its close ; but to these years it chiefly
refers — a space of protracted and laborious applica-
tion without encouragement or immediate reward.

" All through my boyhood and youth I was known
and pointed out for the pattern of an idler ; and yet
I was always busy on my own private end, which was
to learn to write. I kept always two books in my
pocket, one to read, one to write in. As I walked,
my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appro-
priate words ; when I sat by the roadside, I would

72 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

either read, or a pencil and a penny version-book
would be in my hand, to note down the features of
the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas.
Thus I lived with words.

" And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use ;
it was written consciously for practice. It was not so
much that I wished to be an author (though I wished
that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn to
write. That was a proficiency that tempted me ;
and I practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle,
in a wager with myself. Description was the prin-
cipal field of my exercise ; for to anyone with senses
there is always something worth describing, and
town and country are but one continuous subject.
But I worked in other ways also ; often accompanied
my walks with dramatic dialogues, in which I played
many parts ; and often exercised myself in writing
down conversations from memory.

" Whenever I read a book or a passage that par-
ticularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or an
effect rendered with propriety, in which there was
either some conspicuousf orce or some happy distinction
in the style, I must sit down at once and set myself
to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I knew
it ; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful, and
always unsuccessful ; but at least in these vain bouts
I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in con-
struction and the co-ordination of parts.

" I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to
Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to
Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire
and to Obennann. I remember one of these monkey-
tricks, which was called ' The Vanity of Morals ' ;
it was to have had a second part ' The Vanity of
Knowledge ' ; but the second part was never at-
tempted, and the first part was written (which is my
reason for recalling it, ghost-like, from its ashes) no
less than three times : first in the manner of Hazlitt,
second in the manner of Ruskin, who had cast on me
a passing spell, and third, in a laborious pasticcio of

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 73

Sir Thomas Browne. So with my other works : Cain,
an epic, was (save the mark !) an imitation of Sor-
dello : Robin Hood, a tale in verse, took an eclectic
middle course among the fields of Keats, Chaucer,
and Morris : in Monmouth, a tragedy, I reclined on
the bosom of Mr. Swinburne ; in my innumerable
gouty-footed lyrics, I followed many masters ; in the
first draft of The King's Pardon, a tragedy, I was on
the trail of no less a man than John Webster ; in the
second draft of the same piece, with staggering ver-
satility, I had shifted my allegiance to Congreve,
and of course conceived my fable in a less serious
vein — for it was not Congreve's verse, it was his
exquisite prose that I admired and sought to
copy

" That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write ;
whether I have profited or not, that is the way. It
was so Keats learned, and there was never a finer
temperament for literature than Keats. . . .

"It is the great point of these imitations that
there still shines, beyond the student's reach, his
inimitable model. I must have had some disposi-
tion to learn ; for I clear-sightedly condemned my
own performances. I liked doing them indeed ;
but when they were done, I could see they were
rubbish. In consequence, I very rarely showed
them even to my friends ; and such friends as I chose
to be my confidants I must have chosen well, for they
had the friendliness to be quite plain with me.
.' Padding,' said one. Another wrote : ' I cannot
understand why you do lyrics so badly.' No more
could I 1 Thrice I put myself in the way of a more
authoritative rebuff, by sending a paper to a maga-
zine, These were returned, and I was not surprised
or even pained. If they had not been looked at, as
(like all amateurs) I suspected was the case, there
was no good in repeating the experiment ; if they
had been looked at — well then I had not yet learned
to write, and I must keep on learning and living."

Thus the secret of learning was — for the right man

74 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

— only the secret of taking pains : and yet in the
history of his endeavours we find, where we should
least expect it, a hereditary trait. It seems as absurd
to couple with indolence the name of the indefatigable
writer, as it was for him to bring his grandfather into
a similar connection : but it is from himself that we
hear of this failing, although we know not to which
year it must be referred.

" I remember a time when I was very idle, and
lived and profited by that humour. I have no idea
why I ceased to be so, yet I scarce believe I have the
power to return to it ; it is a change of age. I made
consciously a thousand little efforts, but the deter-
mination from which these arose came to me while
I slept and in the way of growth. I have had a
thousand skirmishes to keep myself at work upon
particular mornings, and sometimes the affair was
hot ; but of that great change of campaign, which
decided all this part of my life and turned me from
one whose business was to shirk into one whose
business was to strive and persevere, it seems to me
as though all that had been done by some one else.
The life of Goethe affected me ; so did that of Balzac ;
and some very noble remarks by the latter in a pretty
bad book, the Cousine Bette. I dare say I could
trace some other influences in the change. All I
mean is, I was never conscious of a struggle, nor
registered a vow, nor seemingly had anything person-
ally to do with the matter. I came about like a well-
handled ship. There stood at the wheel that unknown
steersman whom we call God."

As to the products of his labours, editors, as he has
told us, would have nothing to say to them. So he
became an editor himself. Magazines had risen and
fallen wherever the boy had gone ; but none of his
serials had yet attained the distinction of type. The
idea of the Edinburgh University Magazine was started
in the rooms of the " Spec." by four of the members of
that society, of which Stevenson was the youngest and
least esteemed ; and the history of its rise and fall

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 75

(for print did not save it from the fate of its manu-
script predecessors) may be read in Memories and
Portraits.

" The magazine appeared in a yellow cover, which
was the best part of it, for at least it was unassuming ;
... it ran four months in undisturbed obscurity,
and died without a gasp. The first number was
edited by all four of us, with prodigious bustle ; the
second fell principally into the hands of Ferrier and
me ; the third I edited alone ; and it has long been a
solemn question who it was that edited the fourth. . .

" It was no news to me, but only the wholesome
confirmation of my judgment, when the magazine
struggled into half-birth, and instantly sickened and
subsided into night. ... I cleared the decks after
this lost engagement ; had the necessary interview
with my father, which passed off not amiss ; paid
over my share of expense ; . . . and then, reviewing
the whole episode, I told myself that the time was
not yet ripe, nor the man ready ; and to work again
I went with my penny version-books, having fallen
back in one day from the printed author to the manu-
script student."

In 1871 he wrote the paper on " A New Form of
Intermittent Light for Lighthouses," which was
highly praised, and received a ^3 medal from the
Royal Scottish Society of Arts, and in May 1873 his
paper " On the Thermal Influence of Forests " was
communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by
h4s father, and duly appeared in the Proceedings of
that Society.

Meanwhile their author was reading for the Bar,
or at any rate attending some of the necessary lectures
in Civil Law, Public Law, and Political Economy.
In the second of these subjects he was even third in
the class and received honourable mention, and from
Professor Hodgson he gained a certificate for essays.

During the years 1872 and 1873 he spent some
months in the office of Messrs. Skene and Peacock..
Writers to the Signet, in order to learn conveyancing.

76 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The senior partner of this firm was the well-known
historian and antiquary, Mr. W. F. Skene, the author
of Celtic Scotland, but it seems that he was hardly at
all brought into connection with his pupil, and that,
in later years, either learned with much regret what
they might have found in one another's society.

In November, 1872, Stevenson, having no degree or
qualification for exemption, passed the preliminary
examination for the Scottish Bar ; the circumstances
are worth mention only for the light they throw on
his character and his education. French was one of
the subjects offered, and only the day before the
examination he discovered that questions would be
set him in the grammar of that language. He forth-
with procured a book and realised that here was a
body of knowledge, the very existence of which had
been unknown to him. It was manifestly useless to
attempt to get it up in four-and-twenty hours, so he
went in, relying on his practical acquaintance with
the idiom. His ignorance was exposed, but his know-
ledge and his plausibility induced and enabled the
examiner " to find a form of words," and his French
was accepted as adequate. Another subject was
Ethical and Metaphysical Philosophy, and Hamilton
or Mackintosh (it is undesirable to be too precise)
was the book prescribed. I give Stevenson's own
account of what took place, as I have heard him tell
the story. " The examiner asked me a question, and
I had to say to him, ' I beg your pardon, but I do
not understand your phraseology.' ' It's the text-
book,' he said. ' Yes ; but you couldn't possibly
expect me to read so poor a book as that.' He laughed
like a hunchback, and then put the question in
another form ; I had been reading Maine, and
answered him by the historical method. They were
probably the most curious answers ever given in the
subject ; I don't know what he thought of them, but
they got me through."

In 1872 he proposed to take a summer session at
some German university with Sir Walter Simpson;

STUDENT DAYS— 1867-73 77

who was also studying Law. But his mother grew so
nervous that he gave up the scheme, and in place
of it the friends spent two or three weeks together
during the first part of August, chiefly in lodgings in
Frankfurt. His parents joined him at Baden-Baden,
and he then went for a short walking tour in the Black
Forest.

But Stevenson as he was in the later years of this
period may best be seen in the curiously diverse entries
of a short diary kept on a folio sheet of paper upon his
first entrance to the lawyers' office.

" Thursday, May gth (1872) — Went to office for
first time. Had to pass an old sailor and an idiot boy,
who tried both to join company with me, lest I should
be late for office. A fine sunny, breezy morning,
walking in. A small boy (about ten) calling out
' Flory ' to a dog was very pretty. There was a
quaint little tremolo in his voice that gave it a longing,
that was both laughable and touching. All the rest
of the way in, his voice rang in my memory and made
me very happy.

" Sunday, May i2th. — My father and I walked over
to Glencorse to church. A fat, ruddy farm wench
showed us the way ; for the church, although on the
top of a hill, is so buried among the tree-tops that
one does not see it till one trips against the plate.
It is a quaint old building, and the minister, Mr.
Torrance (his father and grandfather were here before
him), is still more quaint and striking. He is about
eighty ; and he lamed himself last summer dancing
a reel at a wedding. He wears black thread gloves ;
and the whole manner of the man in the pulpit
breathes of last century.

" Monday, May i$th. — *n all day at the office. In

the evening dined with Bob. Met X , who was

quite drunk and spent nigh an hour in describing his
wife's last hours — an infliction which he hired us to
support with sherry ad lib. Splendid moonlight night.
Bob walked out to Fairmilehead with me. We were
in a state of mind that only comes too seldom in a

78

lifetime. We danced and sang the whole way up the
long hill, without sensible fatigue. I think there was
no actual conversation — at least none has remained
in my memory ; I recollect nothing but ' profuse
bursts of unpremeditated song.1 Such a night was
worth gold untold. Avepia testa I

" Friday, July $th. — A very hot sunny day. The
Princes Street Gardens were full of girls and idle men,
steeping themselves in sunshine. A boy lay on the
grass under a clump of gigantic hemlocks in flower,
that looked quite tropical and gave the whole garden
a southern smack that was intensely charming in my
eyes. He was more ragged than one could conceive
possible. It occurred to me that I might here play
le dieu des pauvres gens, and repeat for him that
pleasure that I so often try to acquire artificially
for myself by hiding money in odd corners and hope-
lessly trying to forget where I have laid it ; so I
slipped a halfpenny into his ragged waistcoat pocket.
One might write whole essays about his delight at
finding it."

CHAPTER VI

LIFE AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY 1873-76

" Since I am sworn to live my life
And not to keep an easy heart,
Some men may sit and drink apart,
I bear a banner in the strife.
Some can take quiet thought to wife,
I am all day at tierce and carte,
Since I am sworn to live my life
And not to keep an easy heart.
I follow gaily to the fife,
Leave Wisdom bowed above a chart,
And Prudence brawling in the mart,
And dare Misfortune to the knife,
Since I am sworn to live my life."

R. L. S.

EIGHTEEN hundred and seventy - three was a
*-* decisive year : for although it left Stevenson,

LIFE AT FIVE- AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 79

as it found him, a law student with literary tastes,
it yet marked a definite change in his life. It saw
the religious question come to a crisis, and by so
much, therefore, nearer to a settlement ; it brought
him new friends with both interest and influence in
the career for which he was longing ; and it fore-
shadowed the beginning of that career in the
acceptance and publication of the first of the magazine
articles which, being either travel-notes or essays,
were for some time to come his principal, and as some
critics have held, his most characteristic achieve-
ment.

The most important event of the year for him
sounds in itself one of the most trivial that can well
be imagined — a visit to a country parsonage in
Suffolk. A granddaughter of the old minister of
Colinton had several years before married the Rev.
Churchill Babington, Disney Professor of Archaeology
in the University of Cambridge, and formerly a
Fellow of St. John's College, who had taken the
college living of Cockfield, a few miles from Bury St.
Edmunds. Here Stevenson had paid a visit in 1870,
one of those excursions into England of which he
speaks in the essay on " The Foreigner at Home,"
and from which he received " so vivid an impression
of foreign travel and strange lands and manners."
These sensations were now renewed and deepened,
but the later visit was to have other and more lasting
effects : Stevenson now met for the first time two
fellow-guests, whose friendship became at once an
important element in his life, affecting his develop-
ment, changing his horizon, and opening for him
a direct outlook into the world of letters in which he
was to be hereafter so brilliant a figure. The first of
these, a connection by marriage and intimate friend
of his hostess, was the Mrs. Sitwell to whom those
letters were addressed, which throw so much light
on the inner feelings and thoughts of the ensuing
period of Stevenson's life. The second was Sir
Sidney Colvin, who then and there began that

8o LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

friendship which was so immediately helpful, which
survived all shocks of time and change, which
separation by half the world seemed only to render
more close and assiduous, and which has its monu-
ment in the Vailima Letters, in the volumes of
Stevenson's other correspondence, and in <£ the
Edinburgh Edition of his works. Mr. Colvin was
then still resident at Cambridge as a Fellow of Trinity
College, and had that same year been elected Slade
Professor of Fine Art in the University. Although
Stevenson's elder by only a few years, he had already
established for himself a reputation as a critic in
literature and art, was favourably regarded by
editors, and was fast becoming a personage of influence
and authority.

It might seem that the list of Stevenson's friends
already included as many as one man could retain in
intimate relation ; but for these two, and others yet
to come, there was ample room. Only six months
before, in one of the morbid moods he was gradually
putting behind him, as he sloughed the unhappiness
of his youth, he had written down the chief desires
of his heart. " First, good health ; secondly, a small
competence ; and thirdly, O Du Lieber Gott !
friends." Seldom was any prayer more fully an-
swered than this last petition. Had he but known,
the means of gaining it were already within his
hands in a measure rarely granted to any man.
At this very time, Mr. Colvin tells us, " his social
charm was already at its height. He was passing
through a period of neatness between two of
Bohemian carelessness as to dress, and so its effect
was immediate." But indeed at any time he " had
only to speak in order to be recognised in the first
minute for a witty and charming gentleman, and
within the first five for a master spirit and man of
genius."

At all events, by his hosts and by his fellow-guests
his attraction was quickly felt, and the month of
August, which passed away with no other episodes

LIFE AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 81

thaLa croquet party or a school feast, was neverthe-
less a'andmark in his career.

Fron. Suffolk he returned to Swanston with
increase^ confidence and raised hopes, and at once
plunged i»to work. The essay on " Roads " was
completed fend sent to the Saturday Review, and he
began a papec on " Walt Whitman." ff

But the prectding winter had tried him in mind and
body, and he wts now further weakened by a severe
attack of diphtheria. In February his father had
come across a draft of the constitution of the L. J. R.
(p. 68), and had taken the society as seriously as the
youngest of its members could have wished. The
acute misunderstanding was limited to part of this
year, and then by degrees it passed away. When
Mr. Stevenson had determined beforehand on any
course of action, he would throw himself into the part
he had proposed with an energy and emphasis which
were often, unconsciously to himself, far in excess of
the situation or of the words he had intended to
employ. " I have the family failing of taking strong
views," he had written to his future wife in 1848,
"and of expressing those views strongly." A scene
with him was no figure of words : he suffered
the extreme of the emotions he depicted ; and the
knowledge and fear of this result made any
difference between them very painful to his son.
The differences arose, or threatened to arise again,
the winter was coming on, and Louis' work came to
an end.

An idea had arisen that he might be called not to
the Scottish, but to the English Bar ; and as his hopes
were now directed towards London, the scheme was
very welcome. To London accordingly he went in
the last week of October with a view of entering one
of the Inns of Court and passing the preliminary
examination, if he could convince the examiners.
The scheme was quickly laid aside. His friends in
town found him so unwell that they at once insisted
on his seeing Dr. (afterwards Sir Andrew) Clark.

82 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The diagnosis was plain — nervous exhaustion »ith a
threatening of phthisis ; the prescription waf chiefly
mental — a winter in the Riviera by himself and in
complete freedom from anxiety or worry. Kis mother
came and saw him off, and on the 5th o' November
he started for Mentone, three weeks before his article
on " Roads " had appeared in the Portfolio, of which
P. G. Hamerton was editor.

How he sat in the sun and read George Sand his
letters tell us ; and all that he thought and felt and
saw during the first six weeks wat written down next
spring in Ordered South : a paper " not particularly
well written," he thought, but "scrupulously correct."
In the meantime, in " numbness of spirit " he rested
and recovered strength. It was one of the halting
places of life, and there he sat by the wayside to
recruit and prepare for a fresh advance. Mrs. Sitwell's
letters brightened his solitude, as they had already
cheered and helped him in Edinburgh. His answers
to her show better than any analysis or description
the solace and the strength which came to him from
her hands.

In his hotel at Mentone Stevenson made the
acquaintance of two or three congenial people, who
lent him Clough and other books which he read with
interest ; but as yet he was too weak for any serious
reading, and was hardly fit for the exertion of talking
to strangers.

By the middle of December one stage of his con-
valescence was already made. He was now to
experience another advantage of his newly formed
friendships, as Sidney Colvin joined him at Mentone
and supplied the intimate conversation and discussion
which had become his chief need. There was no great
change in his life ; they passed the time quietly
enough, together or apart, as the fancy took them ;
reading Woodstock aloud, or plunged in talk on any
or all subjects ; sitting in the olive yards or in a boat,
basking in the sun ; or in " some nook upon St.
Martin's Cape, haunted by the voice of breakers, and

LIFE AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 83

fragrant with the threefold sweetness of the rosemary
and th° sea pines and the sea."

For a few days they went to Monte Carlo, where
they " produced the effect of something unnatural
upon the people," because where everybody gambled
all night, they spent their evenings at home ; but they
soon returned to Mentone, and there in the hotel to
which the chance of accommodation brought them,
were fortunate in finding a small but very cosmopoli-
tan society, which greatly brightened Stevenson's
stay when his companion had to leave him. The
chief members of this little coterie were a Georgian
lady and her sister with two little daughters ; M.
Robinet, a French painter ; and an American and his
wife and child, " one of the best story-tellers in the
world, a man who can make a whole table-d'hote
listen to him for ten minutes while he tells how he lost
his dog and found him again." With the younger
of the Russian children, Nelitschka, " a little polyglot
button " of only two and a half, who spoke six
languages, or fragments of them, Stevenson at once
struck up a great friendship, and his letters for the
next three months are full of her, and her sayings
and doings.

She was almost, if not quite, the only very young
child who ever came much under his notice after the
days of his own boyhood, and she seems to have been
so extraordinarily brilliant and fascinating a little
creature that there is nothing to wonder at in
the great attraction which she had for him. The
ladies, moreover, were women of cultivation and
refinement ; full of spirits, and always devising fresh
amusements : telling fortunes, writing characters,
dancing Russian dances and singing Russian airs, and
charmed, to Stevenson's intense delight, by what he
afterwards loved to call, with James Mohr, " the
melancholy tunes of my native mountains." It was
one of the episodes of real life ; an introduction of
characters, who never reappear in the story, an epi-
sode such as literature rejects ; but it made Stevenson's

84 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

path smoother at a time when he was unable tc climb
steep places, and it took his thoughts off himself and
hastened his recovery, while he was still unfit for
prolonged exertion or any serious study.

Their circle was afterwards increased by the
arrival of another friend of the Russians, the prince
whose clever and voluble talk he has described in one
of his letters, by whom he was nearly persuaded to
take a course of Law, during the summer, at the
University of Gottingen. At this time and place
also began Stevenson's friendship with Mr. Andrew
Lang, who was then staying in the Riviera and one
day called upon Sir Sidney Colvin. The impression
Stevenson produced was, Mr. Lang confesses, " not
wholly favourable " : —

" A man of twenty -two, his smooth face, the more
girlish by reason of his long hair, was hectic. Clad
in a wide blue cloak, he looked nothing less than
English, except Scotch." In spite of so tepid a
beginning the acquaintance prospered, and grew into
a friendship which endured until the end.

When Sidney Colvin, after one brief absence, finally
returned to England, his companion was already
working again, though still far from strong. Even
by the middle of March, he says that he is " idle ;
but a man of eighty can't be too active, and that is
my age."

In April he described the course of his gradual
recovery to his mother. " I just noticed last night a
curious example of how I have changed since I have
been a little better : I burn two candles every night
now ; for long, I never lit but one, and when my eyes
were too weary to read any more, I put even that out
and sat in the dark. Any prospect of recovery
changed all that."

In the beginning of April he reached Paris, and there
found his cousin R. A. M. Stevenson, who had now
taken up painting as a profession, and had been
studying during the winter at Antwerp. This was
Louis' first independent acquaintance with Paris,

LIFE AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 85

and he delayed his return to Edinburgh till the end of
the month, when the weather in the North might be
more favourable. But this w.as only a measure of
caution, and for several years to come we hear no
more of his health as affecting his movements, or
seriously hindering his work.

On his return home he found that many of his
troubles had vanished. He had not of course solved
the riddle of the universe, nor adjusted all contending
duties, nor mastered all his impulses and appetites.
He had not learned to handle his pen with entire
precision, or to say exactly the thing he wished in the
manner perfectly befitting it ; nor was his way of life
open before him. But his relations with his parents
were on the old footing once more, and in the religious
question a modus vivendi seems to have been estab-
lished with his father.

The question of his allowance was now reconsidered.
The man who had been trusted freely with all the
money necessary for his expensive sojourn abroad;
could not be put back to his small pocket-money, and
it was settled that in future he was to receive seven
pounds a month, more even than he himself had
thought of suggesting.

Money at his command and friends in the South
forthwith changed his mode of life. For the whole
seven years of the preceding period he had only
crossed the Border thrice, but henceforth he was
never continuously at home for more than three
months at a time. Three springs and two autumns
he spent in Edinburgh or at Swanston, but in the
intervals his face became familiar in London, Paris,
and the resorts of painters near Fontainebleau. But
all the time he never went far afield, and between
1874 and 1879 seems not to have travelled further
than three hundred miles from the English coast.

In Edinburgh his attention still had for some little
time to be given to the study and pursuit of the law.
In the winter session of 1874 he resumed his attend-
ance at the lectures of the University professors on

86 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Conveyancing, Scots Law, and Constitutional Law and
History.* On July 14, 1875, he successfully passed his
Final Examination, and two days after was called to
the Scottish Bar. On the 25th he had his first
complimentary brief, and the following day he sailed
for London on his way to France. , " Accept my
hearty congratulations on being done with it,"
Jenkin wrote. " I believe that is the view you like
to take of the beginning you must have made."
Stevenson returned, however, in the end of September,
and during the next few months made some sort of
effort to practise, although he does not seem to have
impressed anybody outside his own family as being
a serious lawyer. He frequented the great hall of the
Parliament House, which, like Westminster in old
days, is the centre of the courts, and the haunt of
advocates waiting for business. The brass plate
with his name, usual in Scotland, was affixed to the
door of 1 7 Heriot Row, and he had the fourth or fiftk
share in the services of a clerk, whom it is alleged that
he did not know by sight. He had in all four briefs,
and the total of his fees never reached double figures.
One piece of business might, he told me, have assumed
real importance, but a compromise brought it to an
end. " If it had prospered," he said, " I might have
stuck to the Bar, and then I suppose I should have
been dead of the climate long ago."

The Advocates' Library in the Parliament House is
the best in Scotland ; and here Stevenson hoped to
get some of his literary work done, while he was
waiting for briefs. But the division of interests and
the attractive company of his fellows were too un-
settling ; he soon returned to his own upper room
in his father's house, and came no more to the Satte
des Pas Perdus.

But although, after he abandoned Parliament
House, he was no longer confined to the city of his
birth, it was still his home and the point of return
from his wanderings in England or abroad. Three
of the first four friends named in the preceding

LIFE AT FIVE- AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 87

chapter, were like himself, now released from the
necessity oi living constantly in Edinburgh, yet their
connection with it was maintained ; and they con-
tinued more or less frequently to visit it ; while
Professor Jenkin and Charles Baxter remained
resident there as before.

Nor did Stevenson's manner of life, at the times
when he was in Edinburgh, suffer any sudden change.
We must think of him in Scotland at this time as
living chiefly in the society of a few intimates, still
wandering about the city and its neighbourhood,
" scraping acquaintance with all classes of man and
woman-kind," travelling deliberately through his
ages and getting the heart out of his own liberal
education, still to some extent in bonds to himself,
though he had escaped in a degree from circumstance.
No longer as a supplement to professional studies,
but now as his avowed business, he wrote and re-
wrote, he blotted and recast his essays, tales, verses
and plays as before, and accomplished much solid
work. From general society he still held aloof, and
it was in 1875 that he last took part in the Jenkins'
theatricals, acting the Duke in Twelfth Night.

" He played no character on the stage as he could
play himself among his friends " was his verdict upon
Jenkin, and it was even more applicable to himself
where his own friends were concerned ; but as yet he
could not modify his attitude towards the burgess or
the Philistine, or forgo the intolerance of youth.

All this did not heighten his popularity or the esti-
mation in which he was held, nor was he generally
looked upon at this time as likely ever to bring
honour to his native city. Mostly people perceived
little more than the exterior of the lad, with his
dilapidated clothes, his long hair, and distaste for
office life. The companions who knew him best did
not spare their criticism or laughter, and it was at this
time that names like Flibbertigibbet and Mr. Fas-
tidious Brisk were aimed at his volubility and exag-
geration on the one hand> and a supposed tendency

88 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

to sprightliness and affectation of phrase upon the
other.

It was chiefly the older men who looked with a
kindly glance upon the manifestations of his youth,
such as old Mr. Baxter, who had for him as warm an
appreciation as his son Charles had found in turn at
the hands of Thomas Stevenson ; J. T. Mowbray, the
family lawyer, a grim, dry, warm-hearted old bachelor,
whom I have always fancied to be the original of
Mr. Utterson in Jekyll and Hyde ; Robert Hunter, of
whom Stevenson has left a speaking portrait in the
second part of Talk and Talkers ; and other friendly
veterans. These seem best to have realised the good
that was in him, and indeed the husk is hardly notice-
able to those who can read (as his contemporaries
could not) how the frail lad found a lost child of three
crying in the street in the middle of the night, and
carried him half over Edinburgh, wrapped in his own
greatcoat, while he sought in vain for the missing
parents.

And still, as in his childhood and as in most of his
books, happiness came to him chiefly in the country.
Long walks in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh ;
summer evenings in the garden at Swanston, or on
Caerketton or Allermuir ; days passed in canoeing on
the Forth at Queensferry, or skating upon Dudding-
ston Loch — these were the chief part of his outdoor
life, and the last of his time that was spent amid the
scenery of his boyish days.

In August, 1874, he was yachting for a month with
Sir Walter Simpson and Mr. T. Barclay on the West
coast of Scotland. " Some of the brightest moments
of my life were passed over tinned mulligatawny in
the cabin of a sixteen-ton schooner storm-stayed in
Portree Bay." The Heron, a fore and aft schooner,
had two Devon men as crew, and their labours were
supplemented by the help of the owners and their
friends. " My health is a miracle. I expose myself
to rain, and walk, and row, and over-eat myself. I
eat, I drink, I bathe in the briny, I sleep." His

LIFE AT FIVE- AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 89

return to Swanston was characteristically announced :
" I left my pipe on board the yacht, my umbrella in
the dog-cart, and my portmanteau by the way," and he
reached home without his luggage, in a hat borrowed
from one of his friends and a coat belonging to another.

In the following winter there came to him a new
friendship. " Yesterday, Leslie Stephen, who was
down here to lecture, called on me and took me up
to see a poor fellow, a poet who writes for him, and
who has been eighteen months in our infirmary, and
may be, for all I know, eighteen months more. It
was very sad to see him there in a little room with
two beds, and a couple of sick children in the other
bed ; a girl came in to visit the children, and played
dominoes on the counterpane with them ; the gas
flared and crackled, the fire burned in a dull, economi-
cal way ; Stephen and I sat on a couple of chairs, and
the poor fellow sat up in his bed with his hair and
beard all tangled, and talked as cheerfully as if he
had been in a king's palace, or the great King's
palace of the blue air."

Here was no ordinary patient : the poet was W. E.
Henley, who had come to Edinburgh to be under the
care of Lister. The cheerful talk was but the first of
many ; if we may treat Stevenson's essays as auto-
biographical, for a part of his youth he was wont to
" avoid the hospital doors, the pale faces, the sweet
whiff of chloroform," but that time was now past.
Here was a man of kindred spirit to himself, in need
of the companionship that none could better give,
and from that time forth Stevenson was his friend,
and placed himself, and all that he had, at his disposal.
He soon returned, bringing books, piles of Balzac,
" big yellow books, quite impudently French," and
with the books he brought Mr. Baxter and others of
his friends.

In these years he first discovered that taste for
classical music which was afterwards fostered by
successive friends. The revelation dated from a con-
cert in Edinburgh for which some one had given him

90 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

a ticket, and to which he went with reluctance. It
was a Beethoven quartet, I think, that then burst
upon him for the first time, and on that day he
permanently added another to the many pleasures he
so keenly enjoyed.

To London in these years he paid frequent visits,
and several times stayed with Sidney Colvin at
Cambridge, besides spending a week or two with him
at Hampstead in June, 1874. This last occasion,
however, and a return to the same place in the autumn
of that year were practically indistinguishable from
his life in London. On June 3rd, 1874, after only six
weeks' delay, he was elected a member of the Savile
Club, which had been founded five years before, and
was still in its original house, 15 Savile Row. This
was for the next five years the centre of his London
life, and though it would probably be a mistake to
speak as if it were at once to him all that it afterwards
became, yet, since he was of all men the most club-
able, from the beginning it gave him ample oppor-
tunities of acquaintance with men of various tastes,
many of them of great ability, even if they had not
yet achieved or were not achieving a reputation.
Some of the members he already knew. Sir Charles
Dilke and Mr. Andrew Lang he had previously met in
the Riviera ; Professor Masson was an Edinburgh
friend of the family ; to Dr. Appleton, editor of the
Academy, and Mr. Walter Pollock, editor of the
Saturday Review, he was soon introduced ; but it
would be long to enumerate the friends, and idle to
recapitulate the acquaintances that Stevenson soon
mzxie within those walls.

Into formal society nothing would ever have
induced him to go in London any more than in
Edinburgh ; he invariably refused the opportunities
which presented themselves to him. In 1874, when
he came to London for the first time unQer new
auspices, he seems to have met Miss Thackeray;
Mrs. Lynn Linton, and a few other well-known people,
chiefly at the house of Sir Leslie Stephen, to whom

LIFE AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 91

he had been introduced by Sidney Colvin. His
great and natural desire to see Carlyle was frustrated,
for Stephen, on whose kind offices he depended, found
the sage in one of his darker moods and at a moment
of irritation. He had just been suffering at the hands
of an interviewer for whom he fancied Stephen was
responsible, and when Stevenson was mentioned as
a young Scot who was most anxious to meet him, and
who had taken to the study of Knox, the senior would
only say that he did not see why anybody should
want either to see his " wretched old carcase " or to
say anything more about Knox, and that the young
man had better apply when he had put his studies
into an articulate shape. So Stevenson never met
his fellow-countryman.

Besides the visits to London and Cambridge there
were many journeys and excursions ; and the impor-
tance of such travel to him in these days may be
estimated by the degree in which it formed the topic
of his early writings. Between 1871 and 1876 no
less than nine of his papers deal with travel or the
external appearance of places known to him ; and it
is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that his
first three books were the Inland Voyage, the Pic-
turesque Notes on Edinburgh, and the Travels with a
Donkey in the Cevennes.

In 1875 came the walk up the valley of the Loing
with Sir Walter Simpson, in which Stevenson's
costume led to the incarceration described in An
Epilogue to An Inland Voyage, and this trip being cut
short, he joined his parents, as he had intended, at Wies-
baden, and went with them to Homburg and Mainz.

In 1876 he spent the second week in. January
walking in Carrick and Galloway, when he slept a
night at Ballantrae, and later in the year, after a
visit in August to the Jenkins, near Loch Carron, he
joined Sir Walter Simpson again and took the canoe
journey of the Inland Voyage from Antwerp to
Brussels, and then from the French frontier by the
Oiae almost to the Seine.

92 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

These journeys and the general change in Steven-
son's life were rendered possible, as I have said, by
the liberality of his father (some ten years later he
wrote, " I fall always on my feet ; but I am con-
strained to add that the best part of my legs seems
to be my father "), yet it must not be supposed that
Stevenson even now was often in funds. He was
open-handed to a fault ; and he had many wants of
his own which often went unsatisfied. It is to this
period that a story belongs which he was fond of
telling against himself. He was staying in London,
and had protracted his visit to the extreme limit of
his resources. On his way back to the North he
arrived at the station with a sum barely sufficient
for the cheapest ticket, available only by a night
journey, and a newly bought copy of Mr. Swinburne's
Queen Mother and Rosamond. On learning his defi-
ciency, he tried his best powers of persuasion on the
booking-clerk, but in vain : the man, in his blindness,
refused to accept the book as any part of the pay-
ment, and, if I remember right, Stevenson passed the
day in the station without food, and reached home
next morning in a famished condition.

Thus, as we have seen, with the exception of
his release from law, and the friendship with W. E.
Henley, conditions in Edinburgh remained much the
same ; the Savile and the people he met there were,
together with Sidney Colvin's advice and help, the
principal feature of his life in England ; it is to France
that we must turn for the other influences chiefly
affecting him, and for the circumstances of most
importance in determining his development at this
period. In the winter of 1873-74 he had, as we
have seen, renewed acquaintance with the Riviera,
which in later days was to become yet more familiar.
For the present he returned to that neighbourhood
no more, but there was no year from 1874 to 1879 in
which he did not pay one or more visits of several
weeks' duration to another part of France. Except
for the time that he was in the Cevennes and on his

LIFE AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 93

cruise down the Oise, he stayed mostly in the out-
skirts of the forest of Fontainebleau, in the valley of
the Loing, or in Paris itself. Sometimes, as at Monas-
tier, he was alone ; sometimes, as at Nemours or at
Cernay la Ville, he was with his cousin Bob or Sir
Walter Simpson ; but for the most part he lived in
familiar intercourse with the artists who frequented
his favourite resorts. French was the only foreign
tongue he ever mastered, and in that he acquired real
proficiency. His knowledge of the language and
literature was considerable, and its influence on his
work was entirely for good, as it increased the delicacy
and clearness of his style, and yet left his originality
unimpaired.

When his friends were painting, he often betook
himself to lonely walks and meditations among the
rocks and woods, but company and conversation
counted for a great deal. " I knew three young men
who walked together daily for some two months in
a solemn and beautiful forest and in cloudless summer
weather ; daily they talked with unabated zest, and
yet scarce wandered that whole time beyond two
subjects — theology and love."

His earliest and perhaps his most frequent haunt
was Barbizon. It had been the home of Millet, and
its fields were the scene of the Angelus. In the village
there existed an inn which was reserved for the artists,
a strange society compounded of all nationalities, in
which French, English, and Americans predominated.
Stevenson himself has described it in an essay.

" I was for some time a consistent Barbizonian ;
et ego in Arcadia vixi ; it was a pleasant season ; and
that noiseless hamlet lying close among the borders of
the wood is for me, as for so many others, a green spot
in memory. The great Millet was just dead ; the
green shutters of his modest house were closed ; his
daughters were in mourning. The date of my first
visit was thus an epoch in the history of art.

" Siron's inn, that excellent artists' barrack, was
managed upon easy principles At any hour of the

94 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

night, when you returned from wandering in the
forest, you went to the billiard-room and helped
yourself to liquors, or descended to the cellar and
returned laden with beer or wine. The Sirons were
all locked in slumber ; there was none to check your
inroads ; only at the week's end a computation was
made, the gross sum was divided, and a varying share
set down to every lodger's name under the rubric,
estrats. At any hour of the morning, again, you
could get your coffee or cold milk and set forth into
the forest. The doves had perhaps wakened you,
fluttering into your chamber ; and on the threshold
of the inn you were met by the aroma of the forest.
Close by were the great aisles, the mossy boulders, the
interminable field of forest shadow. There you were
free to dream and wander. And at noon, and again
at six o'clock, a good meal awaited you on Siron's
table. The whole of your accommodation, set aside
that varying item of the estrats, cost you five francs a
day ; your bill was never offered you until you asked
for it ; and if you were out of luck's way, you might
depart for where you pleased and leave it pending.

" Theoretically, the house was open to all comers ;
practically, it was a kind of club. The guests pro-
tected themselves, and, in so doing, they protected
Siron. Formal manners being laid aside, essential
courtesy was the more rigidly exacted ; the new
arrival had to feel the pulse of the society ; and a
breach of its undefined observances was promptly
punished. A man might be as plain, as dull, as
slovenly, as free of speech as he desired ; but to a
touch of presumption or a word of hectoring these
free Barbizonians were as sensitive as a tea-party of
maiden ladies. I have seen people driven forth from
Barbizon ; it would be difficult to say in words what
they had done, but they deserved their fate. They
had shown themselves unworthy to enjoy these
corporate freedoms ; they had pushed themselves ;
they had ' made their head ' ; they wanted tact to
appreciate the ' fine shades ' of Barbizonian etiquette.

LIFE AT FIVE- AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 95

And, once they were condemned, the process of ex-
trusion was ruthless in its cruelty ; after one evening
with the formidable Bodmer, the Bailly of our com-
monwealth, the erring stranger was beheld no more ;
he rose exceeding early the next day, and the first
coach conveyed him from the scene of his discom-
fiture. These sentences of banishment were never, in
my knowledge, delivered against an artist ; swch
would, I believe, have been illegal ; but the odd and
pleasant fact is this, that they were never needed.
Painters, sculptors, writers, singers, I have seen all of
these in Barbizon, and some were sulky, and some
were blatant and inane ; but one and all entered into
the spirit of the association. . . .

" Our society, thus purged and guarded, was full
of high spirits, oi laughter, and of the initiative of
youth. The few elder men who joined us were still
young at heart, and took the key from their com-
panions. We returned from long stations in the
fortifying air, our blood renewed by the sunshine, our
spirits refreshed by the silence of the forest ; the
Babel of loud voices sounded good ; we fell to eat and
play like the natural man ; and in the high ian cham-
ber, panelled with indifferent pictures, and lit by
candles guttering in the night air, the talk and laugh-
ter sounded far into the night. It was a good place
and a good life for any naturally minded youth ;
better yet for the student of painting, and perhaps
best of all for the student of letters. He enjoyed a
strenuous idleness full of visions, hearty meals, long,
sweltering walks, mirth among companions ; and;
still floating like music through his brain, foresights
of great works that Shakespeare might be proud to
have conceived, headless epics, glorious torsos of
dramas, and words that were alive with import. . . .
We were all artists ; almost all in the age of illusion,
cultivating an imaginary genius, and walking to the
strains of some deceiving Ariel ; small wonder, in-
deed, if we were happy 1 "

Barbizon, however, was by no means the only

96 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

resort of painters in this neighbourhood, nor the only
one which Stevenson frequented : in the same paper
he enumerates its rivals from his full knowledge.
Marlotte, Montigny, and Chailly-en-Biere he knew ;
Cernay la Ville was a favourite of his cousin Bob ;
but it was Grez which, in spite of an unpromising
introduction, was his favourite quarters, and has the
most important place in his history.

" Barbizon [Summer '75],

" MY DEAR MOTHER, — I have been three days at
a place called Grez, a pretty and very melancholy
village on the plain. A low bridge, with many arches
choked with sedge ; green fields of white and yellow
water-lilies ; poplars and willows innumerable ; and
about it all such an atmosphere of sadness and slack-
ness, one could do nothing but get into the boat and
out of it again, and yawn for bedtime. ... I was
very glad to be back again in this dear place, and
smell the wet forest in the morning."

But later he wrote how delightful it was " to wake
in Grez, to go down the green inn-garden, to find the
river streaming through the bridge, and to see the
dawn begin across the poplared level. The meals
are laid in the cool arbour, under fluttering leaves.
The splash of oars and bathers, the bathing costumes
out to dry, the trim canoes beside the jetty, tell of a
society that has an eye to pleasure. There is ' some-
thing to do ' at Grez. Perhaps, for that very reason,
I can recall no such enduring ardours, no such glories
of exhilaration, as among the solemn groves and un-
eventful hours of Barbizon. But Grez is a merry
place after its kind ; pretty to see, merry to inhabit.
The course of its pellucid river, whether up or down,
is full of attractions for the navigator ; the mirrored
and inverted images of trees ; lilies, and mills, and
the foam and *hunder of weirs. And of all noble
sweeps of roadway, none is nobler, on a windy dusk,
than the highroad to Nemours between its lines of
talkin rr.r."

LIFE AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 97

If the country had the more influence in the end,
Paris provided more variety and more diversion.
There Stevenson stayed, in all manner of lodgings,
varying from Meurice's Hotel (which was little to his
liking) to students' accommodation in the Quartier
Latin, and scattered throughout a region extending
from Montmartre on the north to Mont Parnasse on
the south.

At one time he writes : " I am in a new quarter, and
fldne about in a leisurely way. I dine every day in a
cre'merie with a party of Americans, an Irishman, and
sometimes an English lady." Again : " I am living
along with some fellows, and we partly make our own
food, and have great fun marketing." Another time :
" I have been engaged in a wild hunt for books — all
forenoon, all afternoon, with occasional returns to
Rue Racine with an armful. I have spent nearly all
my money ; and if I have luck in to-day's hunt, I
believe I shall lay my head on the pillow to-night a
beggar. But I have had goodish luck, and a heap of
nice books. Please advance me £10 of my allow-
ance. . . . Heaps of articles growing before me.
Hurray." An attempt to work in some of the public
libraries of Paris failed : the face of officialism was too
daunting. " They are worse than banks — if that be
possible. ... In public offices of all kinds I feel like
Esther before Ahasuerus."

This was the period when his letters were least
frequent and least satisfactory, but of his sojourns in
Paris no other memorial survives except Mr. Will. H.
Low's Chronicle of Friendships and the first chapters
of The Wrecker, which partly in detail and wholly in
spirit are drawn from Stevenson's recollections of
these years. In addition I have collected a few frag-
ments of letters and papers, which may help to eke out
the scanty material for a picture of that time.

" 1 1 th October, Paris. — Here I am so far on my way
home. . . . Yesterday I had a splendid day. Lux-
embourg in the morning. Breakfast. Bob, Gaudez
the sculptor, Low and I : hours of very good talk in

98 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

the French idiom. All afternoon in the Louvre, till
they turned us out unwilling. At night, the Francais,
Rome Vaincue, an impossible play, with Sarah Bern-
hardt as the blind grandmother, most sublime to
behold. At breakfast we had lobster mayonnaise,
kidneys, brochet, and tomates farcies, with lots of
Carton. Dinner was a mere hurried sustentation of
the immortal spirit before exposing it to another
excitement. A splendid day, but two running would
not do."

The theatre was a great delight to him. Although
he had read (and written) plays from his early years,
had revelled in the melodramas of the toy-theatre,
and had acted with the Jenkins and in other private
theatricals, I find no reference to his having visited a
theatre before December, 1874, when he found Ir^n^'s
Hamlet " interesting (for it is really studied) biftfjiiot
good " ; and there is no sign of his having be6h: really
impressed until he saw Salvini as Macbeth at Edin-
burgh in the spring of 1876. Of this performaifai&'fce
wrote a criticism for the Academy, which heafter^VaiSs
condemned as dealing with a subject that wa§ -'Still
beyond the resources of his art. He himself, -TJ kin
told, was never a tolerable actor, and derta&ily^w^is
never allotted a part of any importance. But his
enthusiasm for the drama was great; knd- duriȣ thfiie
years was heightened and instructed^? the two chief
friends who shared his taste — FlSeflifeg'Jenkin>and
W. E. Henley. T.ioups:

One of his visits to the theatre 1eU ta it i^ry charac-
teristic scene, described long aftfertyards-iw a 1
Mr. Archer. The play had
Dumas ftls, in the last act ofyiwllicft'OBvie'r1 -
employs an unworthy stratagem1 ffc^^kist -th'
who had been his mistresfc^q^q bn£ eiaiJal lo

" I came forth from tiia
heat of indignation.
Frangais stairs, I trod'O4
whereupon, with
me, I turned about to 'apologise, and on the instant;

LIFE AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 99

repenting me of that intention, stopped the apology
midway, and added something in French to this
effect : ' No, you are one of the Idches who have been
applauding that piece. I retract my apology.1 Said
the old Frenchman, laying his hand on my arm, and
with a smile that was truly heavenly in temperance,
irony, good-nature, and knowledge of the world, ' Ah,
monsieur, vous etes bien jeune.' "

To this time also belongs the story reported by Mr.
Andrew Lang. Stevenson, one day at a cafe, hear-
ing a Frenchman say that the English were cowards,
promptly hit him across the face. " Monsieur, vous
m'avez frappe 1 " said the Gaul. " A ce qu'il paralt,"
said the Scot, and there the incident ended. It is an
instance the more of his fearlessness ; for, although he
would never have hesitated, he was quite incompetent
to fight a duel with either pistol or sword.

The effect produced upon outsiders must some-
times have been rather bewildering. He used to tell
how one day he and his cousin Bob, happening
to be rather more in funds than usual, went to dine
in one of the cafes of the Palais Royal. " The cafe
was not very full," so I remember the story, " and
there was nobody near us, but presently a gentleman
and his wife came in and sat down at the next table.
They were evidently people of good position, well
dressed and distinguished in appearance. But they
were talking French, and we paid not the slightest
attention to them. We had lately got hold of the
works of Thomas Aquinas, and our conversation was
on the most extraordinary medley of subjects — on
men, women, and things, with a very large leaven
of mediaeval theology, and on all we spoke in English
with the most startling frankness and with the
most bewildering transitions. Bob is the best talker
in the world ; I never knew him more brilliant, and
I did my best.

" Those people sat and had their dinner and took
not the slightest notice of us, but talked quietly to one
another in Parisian French. Just before they got

loo LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

up to go, the gentleman turned to his wife and said to
her in English without a trace of accent, ' My dear,
won't you take anything more ? ' I have often
wondered who they were, and what on earth they
thought of us."

His deficiencies in letter-writing and his protracted
absences from home led very naturally to protests
from his parents and especially from his mother.
The answer was characteristic.

Euston Hotel, i6th Oct., 1874.

" You must not be vexed at my absences. You
must understand that I shall be a nomad, more or
less, until my days be done. You don't know how
much I used to long for it in old days ; how I
used to go and look at the trains leaving, and wish to
go with them. And now, you know, that I have a
little more that is solid under my feet, you must take
my nomadic habits as a part of me. Just wait till
I am in swing, and you will see that I shall pass
more of my life with you than elsewhere ; only take
me as I am, and give me time. I must be a bit of a
vagabond ; it's your own fault, after all, isn't it ?
You shouldn't have had a tramp for a son."

While the man was in the making during these
years, the writer also was passing through the stages
of a development which was unusually protracted.
The perfecting of his style was necessarily a work of
time, but in the meanwhile, if he had seen his way
-to use the gifts at his command, his love of romance,
his imagination, and his vivid interest in life might
well have enabled him to produce work which wouW
have secured him immediate popularity and reward.

Nothing of the sort, however, was accomplished,
and, high as his standard always was, this delay may
well have been a gain for his ultimate success.
During the six years between his first appearance
as a printed and paid author and the publication of
the Travels with a Donkey, his published work con-
sisted of some six-and-twenty magazine articles,

LIFE AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY— 1873-76 101

chiefly critical and social essays, just half of which
were in the Cornhill Magazine ; two small books of
travel ; two books in serial instalments, afterwards
reprinted ; and five short stories also in periodicals.
There were besides a few rejected articles, a certain
amount of journalism, and at least eight stories or
novels, none of which ever saw the light, as well as a
play or two and some verses, a small part of which
were ultimately included in his published works.

In September, 1873, he wrote : " There is no word
of ' Roads * ; I suspect the Saturday Review must
have looked darkly upon it — so be it ; we must just
try to do something better." And so, as we have
seen, the article appeared in the Portfolio for Decem-
ber. Three weeks later, in a letter to his mother,
he expressed the opinion that "it is quite the best
thing I have ever done, to my taste. There are
things expressed in it far harder to express, than in
anything else I ever had ; and that, after all, is the
great point. As for style, ca viendra peut-etre."

In 1874 he had five articles in four different
magazines : these included " Ordered South " in
Macmillan's, and, still more important, the paper
on " Victor Hugo's Romances " in the Cornhill.
The former, which took him three months to write,
was his first work ever republished in its original
form ; the latter, which was anonymous, but after-
wards reappeared in Familiar Studies of Men and
Books, marked, in his own judgment, the beginning
of his command of style. Long afterwards in Samoa,
in answer to a question, he told me that in this essay
he had first found himself able to say several things
in the way in which he felt they should be said. It
may also be noticed that this was his first appearance
in the magazine which by the discernment of Leslie
Stephen did so much for him in taking his early work.

In January, 1875, Stevenson proposed to The
Academy a series of papers on the Parnassiens —
de Banville, Coppee, Soulary, and Prudhomme — and
when this was not accepted, he devoted a good deal

102 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

of his time to the study of the French literature
of the fifteenth century, which resulted in the articles
on Villon and Charles of Orleans. The same reading
led to the experiments in the French verse metres
of that date which were almost contemporary with
the work of Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. Austin Dobson,
who brought the Ballade and Rondeau back to favour
in England.

To 1876 we owe the only piece of dramatic criticism
that Stevenson ever published, and four articles in
the Cornhill Magazine, which from this time onward
marked all his contributions to its pages with the
initials R. L. S.

The same year thrice saw the rejection of the
article on " Some Portraits by Raeburn," afterwards
included in Virginibus Puerisque. It was refused
in turn by the Cornhill, the Pall Mall Gazette, and
Blackwood's Magazine, though it is only fair to
Stephen to say that he helped the author in trying
to place it elsewhere.

The event of this year was, of course, the canoe
voyage. Stevenson, as we have already seen, had
for some time shared his friends' taste for navigating
the Firth of Forth in these craft, which the enthusiasm
of " Rob Roy " Macgregor had made popular ten
years before. A good deal of time was spent, as we
have seen, on the river at Grez, and canoes were
introduced there by the English colony, headed by
Sir Walter Simpson and his brother, and by R. A. M.
Stevenson, who devised a leather canoe of his own
" with a niche for everything," and, as his friends
said, " a place for nothing.'1 Mr. Warington
Baden-Powell had published in the pages of the
Cornhill Magazine in 1870 the log of the Nautilus
and I sis canoes on a journey through Sweden and on
the Baltic. But the idea of the journey itself seems
to have been suggested by Our Autumn Holiday on
French Rivers, by Mr. J. L. Molloy, published in 1874,
the account of a journey up the Seine and down the
Loire in a four-oared outrigger.

TRANSITION— 1 876-79 103

That the cruise itself was on the whole rather a
cheerless experience is seen by the following letter,
in which Stevenson lets us behind the scenes, and for
once even grumbles a little.

" Compiegne, gth Sept. 1876. [Canoe Voyage.]
" We have had deplorable weather quite steady
ever since the start ; not one day without heavy
showers ; and generally much wind and cold wind
forby. ... I must say it has sometimes required a
stout heart ; and sometimes one could not help
sympathising inwardly with the French folk who
hold up their hands in astonishment over our pleasure
journey. ... I wake at six every morning ; and we
are generally in bed and asleep before half-past nine.
Last night I found my way to my room with a dark
cloud of sleep over my shoulders, so thick that the
candle burnt red at about the hour of 8.40. If that
isn't healthy, egad, I wonder what is."

CHAPTER VII

TRAN SITION — 1 876-79

" You may paddle all day long ; but it is when you
come back at nightfall, and look in at the familiar room,
that you find Love or Death awaiting you beside the
stove ; and the most beautiful adventures are not those
we go to seek."

The concluding words of " An Inland Voyage."

*~PHE next three years of Stevenson's life were so
1 closely similar to the three preceding, that at
first sight, but for his own selection of the age of
five-and-twenty as the limit of youth, it might seem
almost unnecessary to draw any division between
them. He continued to spend his time between
France, London, and Edinburgh, to lead a more or
less independent life, and to give the best of his
talents and industry to his now recognised profession.

104 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The year 1877 was marked by the acceptance of the
first of his stories ever printed — A Lodging for the
Night — and from that date his fiction began to take
its place beside, and gradually to supersede, the
essays with which his career had opened. The month
of May, 1878, saw not only the appearance of his first
book — An Inland Voyage — but also the beginning of
his two first serial publications — the New Arabian
Nights and the Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh ; and
they were followed at the end of the year by the
Edinburgh in book form, and in June, 1879, by the
Travels with a Donkey. All these, however, were but
a measure of the author's growing reputation, and of
the facility with which he could now find a publisher.
Original as these writings were, and unlike the
work of his contemporaries, none of them constituted
any new departure in his life or any alteration in his
attitude to the world : and the change that now
came arrived from another quarter. His friendships,
as we have seen, counted for a great deal with
Stevenson, and though the roll of them was not yet
closed, and ended indeed only at his death, it was
at the beginning of this period that he made the
acquaintance which affected him more than any
other — he now met for the first time the lady who
was afterwards to be his wife.

<• Already it is becoming difficult to realise that
there was a time not long distant when study for all
the professions, including that of art, was hedged
about with arbitrary restrictions for women. At the
date of which I am speaking these limitations had
been removed to some extent in Paris as far as the
studios were concerned, but the natural consequences
had not yet followed in country quarters, and women
artists were as yet unknown in any of the colonies
about Fontainebleau. Hitherto these societies had
been nearly as free from the female element as were
afterwards the early novels of Stevenson himself : the
landlady, the chambermaid, the peasant girl passed
across the stage, but the leading roles were filled by

TRAM S1T1OIS— 1876-79 105

men alone. But when Stevenson and Sir Walter
Simpson, the " Arethusa " and the "Cigarette," came
from the Inland Voyage to their quarters at Grez.
they found the colony in trepidation at the expected
arrival of the invader.

The new-comers, however, were neither numerous
nor formidable ; being only an American lady and
her two children — a young girl and a boy. Mrs.
Osbourne had seen her domestic happiness break up
in California, and had come to France for the educa-
tion of her family. She and her daughter had thrown
themselves with ardour into the pursuit of painting,
and thus became acquainted with some of the English
and American artists in Paris. After profiting by
the opportunities afforded them in the capital, they
were in search of country lodgings, and accordingly,
having taken counsel with their artist friends, they
came to Grez.

So here for the first time Stevenson saw the woman
whom Fate had brought half-way across the world
to meet him. He straightway fell in love ; he knew
his own mind, and in spite of all dissuasions and
difficulties, his choice never wavered. The difficulties
were so great and hope so remote that nothing was
said to his parents or to any but two or three of his
closest friends. But in the meantime life took on a
cheerful hue, and the autumn passed brightly for
them all until the middle of October, when Stevenson
must return to Edinburgh, there to spend the
winter.

In January, 1877, he came to London for a fort-
night, and first met Mr. Gosse, who, being immedi-
ately added to the ranks of his intimate friends, has
given us a most vivid and charming description of
the effect croduced on strangers at that time by
Stevenson.

" It was in 1877, or late in 1876, that I was pre-
sented to Stevenson, at the old Savile Club, by
Mr. Sidney Colvin, who thereupon left us to our
devices. We went downstairs and lunched together.

106 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

and then we adjourned to the smoking-room. As
twilight came on I tore myself away, but Stevenson
walked with me across Hyde Park, and nearly to
my house. He had an engagement, and so had I,
but I walked a mile or two back with him. The
fountains of talk had been unsealed, and they drowned
the conventions. I came home dazzled with my new
friend, saying, as Constance does of Arthur, ' Was
ever such a gracious creature born ? *

" . . . . Those who have written about him from
later impressions than those of which I speak, seem
to me to give insufficient prominence to the gaiety
of Stevenson. It was his cardinal quality in those
early days. A childlike mirth leaped and danced in
him ; he seemed to skip upon the hills of life. He
was simply bubbling with quips and jests ; his in-
herent earnestness or passion about abstract things
was incessantly relieved by jocosity ; and when he
had built one of his intellectual castles in the sand,
a wave of humour was certain to sweep in and destroy
it. I cannot, for the life of me, recall any of his
jokes ; and written down in cold blood, they might
not be funny if I did. They were not wit so much
as humanity, the many-sided outlook upon life. I
am anxious that his laughter-loving mood should not
be forgotten, because later on it was partly, but I
think never wholly, quenched by ill-health, responsi-
bility, and the advance of years.

" My experience of Stevenson during these first
years was confined to London, upon which he would
make sudden piratical descents, staying a few days
or weeks, and melting into air again. He was much
at my house ; and it must be told that my wife and
I, as young married people, had possessed ourselves
of a house too large for our slender means immedi-
ately to furnish. The one person who thoroughly
approved of our great, bare, absurd drawing-room
was Louis, who very earnestly dealt with us on the
immorality of chairs and tables, and desired us to
sit always, as he delighted to sit, upon hassocks on

TRANSITION— 1 876-79 107

the floor. Nevertheless, as armchairs and settees
straggled into existence, he handsomely consented
to use them, although never in the usual way, but
with his legs thrown sideways over the arms of them,
or the head of a sofa treated as a perch. In par-
ticular, a certain shelf, with cupboards below, attached
to a bookcase, is worn with the person of Stevenson,
who would spend half an evening while passionately
discussing some great question of morality or litera-
ture, leaping sideways in a seated posture to the
length of this shelf, and then back again. He was
eminently peripatetic, too, and never better company
than walking in the street, this exercise seeming to
inflame his fancy."

It was in these years especially that he gave the
impression of something transitory and unreal, some-
times almost inhuman.

" He was careful, as I have hardly known any other
man to be, not to allow himself to be burdened by the
weight of material things. It was quite a jest with us
that he never acquired any possessions. In the
midst of those who produced books, pictures, prints,
bric-a-brac, none of these things ever stuck to Steven-
son. There are some deep-sea creatures, the early
part of whose life is spent dancing through the waters ;
at length some sucker or tentacle touches a rock,
adheres, pulls down more tentacles, until the creature
is caught there, stationary for the remainder of its
existence. So it happens to men, and Stevenson's
friend caught the ground with a house, a fixed
employment, a ' stake in life ' ; he alone kept
dancing in the free element, unattached."

These were the days when he most frequented the
Savile Club, and the lightest and most vivacious part
of him there came to the surface. He might spend
the morning in working or business, and would then
come to the Club for luncheon. If he were so fortu-
nate as to find any congenial companions disengaged,
or to induce them to throw over their engagements,
he would lead them off to the smoking-room, and

io8 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

there spend an afternoon in the highest spirits and
the most brilliant and audacious talk.

The whim of independence to which Mr. Gosse
refers was carried out to an extreme by the two
Stevenson cousins, about this time, in one of their
visits to Paris, an experience which Louis afterwards
transferred to the pages of The Wrecker. " Stennis,"
it may be explained, was the nearest approach to their
name possible to Barbizon, and accordingly it was as
Stennis aine and Stennis fr&re that the pair were
always known.

" The two Stennises had come from London, it
appeared, a week before with nothing but greatcoats
and tooth-brushes. It was expensive, to be sure, for
every time you had to comb your hair a barber must
be paid, and every time you changed your linen one
shirt must be bought and another thrown away ; but
anything was better, argued these young gentlemen,
than to be the slaves of haversacks. ' A fellow has
tc get rid gradually of all material attachments : that
was manhood,' said they ; ' and as long as you were
bound down to anything — house, umbrella, or port-
manteau— you were still tethered by the umbilical
cord.' "

When he broke through this rule, his inconsistency
was equally original and unexpected.

"Paris, Jan., 1878. — I have become a bird fancier.
I carry six little creatures no bigger than my thumb
about with me almost all the day long ; they are so
pretty ; and it is so nice to waken in the morning
and here them sing." Six or seven years later he
?\gain alludes to these or to other similar pets.
"There is only one sort of bird that I can tolerate
caged, though even then I think it hard, and that is
what is called in France the Bec-d'Argent. I once
had two of these pigmies in captivity ; and in the
quiet, bare house upon a silent street where I was
then living, their song, which was not much louder
than a bee's, but airily musical, kept me in a per-
petual good-humour. I put the cage upon my table

TRANSITION— 1876-79 109

when I woriced, carried it with me when I went for
meals, and kept it by my head at night : the first
thing in the morning, these maestrini would pipe up."

The following letter written from Paris has pre-
served a record of one of the thousand little kind and
thoughtful acts, which were so characteristic of
Stevenson. Most of them are nameless and un-
remembered, but this — thanks to his perception of
its humour — has been handed down to us.

" ist Feb., 1877, Paris. — My dear mother, — I have
ordered a picture. There is magnificence for you.
Poor — is, as usual, hard up, and I knew wanted to
make me a present of a sketch ; so I took the first
word and offered him 5of. for one. You should have
seen us. I was so embarrassed that I could not
finish a single phrase, and kept beginning, ' You
know,' and 'You understand,1 and 'Look here, — ,*
and ending in pitiful intervals of silence. I was

perspiring all over. Suddenly I saw begin to

break out all over in a silvery dew ; and he just
made a dive at me and took me in his arms — in a
kind of champion comique style, you know, but with
genuine feeling."

This letter is also an indirect confirmation of what
has been said in the preceding chapter as to Steven-
son's poverty. About this time, however, his father
followed the precedent set in his own case, and paid
to Louis as an instalment of his patrimony a consider-
able sum, amounting, I believe, to not less than a
thousand pounds. The fact is certain, the date and
exact details have been lost. In the end Stevenson
derived small benefit himself. " The little money
he had," as Sir Sidney Colvin says, " was always
absolutely at the disposal of his friends." In 1877
he had still /8oo, but, owing to misfortunes befalling
his friends, in none of which was he under any obliga-
tion to intervene, within less than two years nothing
of it remained. His income from writing was as yet
extremely small, the payment for his essays amount-
ing to a guinea a page, so that until 1878 he probably

1 10 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

from all sources had never made ^50 in any one
year.

If the year 1877 had little to show, it was only
because much of it was spent in preparing for the
next year's harvest. 1878 was at once in quantity
and in quality the richest year he had yet known.
An Inland Voyage was published in May : the
journey with the donkey was taken, and an elaborate
diary of it kept : there were four essays and a story
in Cornhill ; three essays, a story, and the New
Arabian Nights in London ; a story in Temple Bar ;
while Picturesque Notes of Edinburgh ran in the
Portfolio from June till December, and then came
out in book form.

London was a weekly journal, founded by Robert
Glasgow Brown, Stevenson's colleague on the Edin-
burgh University Magazine, and after December,
1877, edited by W. E. Henley, who some time before
had left Edinburgh.

Much of Henley's lighter verse appeared first
in its columns, and among its less irregular contri-
butors were Mr. Andrew Lang, and the late Grant
Allen and James Runciman. It was a staunch
opponent of Mr. Gladstone and all his works, and won
the favourable notice of Lord Beaconsfield. But the
foundations of its finance were laid in sand, and it
survived its originator little more than a year. It
was the first paper edited by Henley, but though
he never admitted to his columns work more brilliant
of its kind, the Arabian Nights series was supposed
by more than one of the proprietors sufficiently to
account for the unpopularity of their journal.

The conception of these stories is recorded in a
letter to R. A. M. Stevenson. " The first idea of all
was the hansom cabs, which I communicated to you
in your mother's drawing-room in Chelsea. The
same afternoon the Prince de Galles and the Suicide
Club were invented, and several more now forgotten."
The first half was actually written partly at Burford
Bridge, partly at Swanston, while the Rajah's

TRANSITION— 1876-79 in

Diamond was written at Monastier, before the author
set out with his dnesse. The Sire de Maletroit's Door
(Door being substituted for the original " Mousetrap' *j
was invented in France, first told over the fire one
evening in Paris, and ultimately written at Penzance.

Providence and the Guitar was based upon a story
told by a strolling French actor and his Bulgarian
wife, who had stayed at Grez. The man had played
inferior parts at a good theatre, and the woman also
had been on the stage. They were quiet, innocent
creatures, who spent all the daytime in fishing in
the river. They had their meals on a bare table in
the kitchen, and in the evening they sang in the
dining-room and had a little " tombola " as in the
story. They made the best of the most hideous
poverty, but the worst of it was that they were forced
to leave their only child with a peasant woman, while
they were tramping from village to village. She
had let the child fall, and it was in consequence a
hunchback. Stevenson had much talk with them,
taking great pleasure in their company and delight
in hearing of their experiences. But there is no
further foundation for the legend that he went
strolling with them, or ever acted to a French audi-
ence. When his story appeared in print he sent to
the pair the money it brought him, and he received
a most charming letter of thanks; which unfortunately
has disappeared.

In 1877 Stevenson having spent part of February
and of June and July in France, returned there
again from August to November, and spent some
time with Sir Walter Simpson either at Nemours
or at Moret where the Loing joins the Seine. Their
experience of the Oise had suggested the charms of
the life on board a barge, their imagination was
kindled, nothing would content them but to acquire
such a vessel for themselves, well found in all things
they could desire, picturesque and romantic as craft had
never yet been ; and in this fashion they should make
a leisurely progress along the waterways of Europe.

112 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

" There should be no white fresher, and no green
more emerald than ours, in all the navy of the canals.
There should be books in the cabin, and tobacco
jars, and some old Burgundy as red as a November
sunset, and as fragrant as a violet in April."

The Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne was " pro-
cured and christened," but on that cruise and under
that flag she never started. A financial difficulty
arose, and both barge and canoes alike had to be
sold.

In 1878 he seems to have spent no more than a
fortnight in Scotland until December, although he
was in London four or five times. In April he stayed
with his parents at the inn at Burford Bridge, under
Box Hill, " with its arbours and green garden and
silent, eddying river," " known already as the place
where Keats wrote some of his Endymion, and Nelson
parted from his Emma," and connected hereafter,
it may be, with the New Arabian Nights, and the
friendship between Stevenson and George Meredith,
of which this visit saw the beginning. All this
summer he was acting as private secretary to Pro-
fessor Fleeming Jenkin, who was a juror at the
International Exhibition at Paris ; the only post
approaching any regular position or employment
that Stevenson ever held.

An Inland Voyage had been accepted by Messrs.
Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. at the beginning of the
year ; and on the i7th February we find the author
writing from Paris : "I have now been four days
writing a — preface, a weary preface."

A week later he says : "I am getting a lot of work
ready in my mind, and as soon as I am able to square
my elbows, I shall put it through my hands rapidly.
What a blessing work is 1 I don't think I could face
life without it ; and how glad I am I took to literature I
It helps me so much."

In the whirl of Paris, during the same month, he
wrote this letter to his father, sitting at a cafe in the
Quartier Latin :

TRANSITION— 1 876-79 113

Caf£ de la Source, Bd. St. Michel, Paris, i$th Feb. 1878.
" A thought has come into my head which I think
would interest you. Christianity is, among other
things, a very wise, noble, and strange doctrine of
life. Nothing so difficult to specify as the position
it occupies with regard to asceticism. It is not
ascetic. Christ was of all doctors (if you will let
me use the word) one of the least ascetic. And yet
there is a theory of living in the gospels which is
curiously indefinable, and leans towards asceticism
on one side, although it leans away from it on the
other. In fact, asceticism is used therein as a means,
not as an end. The wisdom of this world consists
in making oneself very little in order to avoid many
knocks ; in preferring others, in order that, even
when we lose, we shall find some pleasure in the
event ; in putting our desires outside of ourselves,
in another ship, so to speak, so that, when the worst
happens, there will be something left. You see, I
speak of it as a doctrine of life, and as a wisdom for
this world. People must be themselves, I suppose.
I feel every day as if religion had a greater interest
for me ; but that interest is still centred on the little
rough-and-tumble world in which our fortunes are
cast for the moment. I cannot transfer my interests,
not even my religious interests, to any different
sphere. ... I have had some sharp lessons and
some very acute sufferings in these last seven-and-
twenty years —more even than you would guess.
I begin to grow an old man ; a little sharp, I fear,
and a little close and unfriendly ; but I still have a
good heart, and believe in myself and my fellow-men

and the God who made us all There are not

many sadder people in the world, perhaps, than I. I
have my eye on a sick-bed ; I have written letters
to-day that it hurts me to write, and I fear it will
hurt others to receive ; I am lonely and sick and out
of heart. Well, I still hope ; I still believe ; I still
see the good in the inch, and cling to it. It is not
much, perhaps, but it is always something.

>;ddn't know

\timoa, lo thfe-/efieetit^HtcaHftittngs wcfrkritogether for
gaatiotogtfcase vfrk> %)iiBBifatn£drd.i/o^ J&trange as it
ita5»«eto»ttoejn«tjJevfeiiytttth^)Jias>dDeeai in one way
orotheoqthelit, ^iilJmgaiMtf afQitflfcttiearer to what I
ttrinkyottlwouMiiikeaie to bba f^Sis A' strange world;
i*adedd,.'but\tli8;re«i»iaofaiaHBfa3± God for those who
cftre totookios'iailRfiol srft to ^rro

8J"dHifa.'is3fetcjan^ solemn ietteif flat my surroundings
innflaitbosy edafifesr/ttufeStridibon^ny heart to write it ;
awft; md3ed;i<Ii Washout: of -the Humour for anything
lightera-*B»ariyoii* kfectionate son,

alaianoo bhow airfi tei^s^ft^ Louis STEVENSON.

Yn^m biovfi oi idbio ni aQ)ir

nSVP.SfcftrfWkalei J aaa ^BBititag gravely, let me say one
woftkl nmoiag£diqha/T»<'.t4lDen a step towards more
intimate relations with you. But don't expect too
much of me. . . . Try to take me as I am. This
is a rare moment, and I have profited by it ; but take
it as a rare moment. Usually I hate to speak of what
I really feel, to that extent that when I find myself
cornered, I have a tendency to say the reverse.

f'R. L. S."

This graver tone was beginning to grow upon him;
ior all his spirits and light-heartedness. It seemed;
indeed, as if happiness had shown him her face only
that he might be filled with inextinguishable longing
and regret. Mrs. Osbourne had hitherto remained
•in France, but this year she returned to California.
All was dark before them. She was not free to follow
"her inclination, and though the step of seeking a
<iivorce was open to her, yet the interests and feelings
of others had to be considered, and for the present
all idea of a union was impossible. Stevenson, on
his side, was still far from earning his own livelihood,
and could not expect his parents to give their assist-
ance or even their consent to the marriage. So there
came the pain of parting without prospect of return,
and he who was afterwards so long an exile from his

TRANSITION— 1876-79 115

friends, now suffered separation from his dearest by
the breadth of a continent and an ocean.

At first he continued to lead his life as if nothing
had happened. After his Exhibition work was over;
he went to Monastier, a mountain town near the
sources of the Loire, and there occupied himself with
a strenuous effort in completing both the New Arabian
Nights and the Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh, both
at this time in their serial career.

At Monastier he spent some three weeks and com-
pleted his work, finding time also for some pencil
sketches of the country and of the people, and obtain-
ing, as always, a pleasant footing among the inhabi-
tants, most of whom probably had never seen an
Englishman (or Scotchman) in their lives.

On September 23rd he set out with his donkey on
his eleven days1 journey through the Cevennes, but
here too his thoughts pursued him.

" I heard the voice of a woman singing some sad,
old, endless ballad not far off. It seemed to be about
love and a bel amoureux, her handsome sweetheart ;
and I wished I could have taken up the strain and
answered her, as I went on upon my invisible wood-
land way, weaving, like Pippa in the poem, my own
thoughts with hers. What could I have told her ?
Little enough ; and yet all the heart requires. How
the world gives and takes away, and brings sweet-
hearts near only to separate them again into distant
and strange lands ; but to love is the great amulet
which makes the world a garden ; and ' hope, which
comes to all,' outwears the accidents of life, and
reaches with tremulous hand beyond the grave and
death. Easy to say : yea, but also, by God's mercy,
both easy and grateful to believe 1 " *

The Inland Voyage had been published in May,
1878, producing no more sensation than a small book,
written for the sake of style by an unknown author,
was likely to produce among the public, although the
reviews showed uniform favour and occasional dis-
cernment. The author wrote to his mother : "I

n6 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

was more surprised at the tone of the critics than I
suppose anyone else. And the effect it has produced
on me is one of shame. If they liked that so much;
I ought to have given them something better, that's
all. • And I shall try to do so. Still it strikes me as
odd ; and I don't understand the vogue."

The Travels with a Donkey were written in the
winter and published in June, 1879. In the spring
Louis wrote to R. A. M. Stevenson : " My book is
through the press. It has good passages. I can
say no more. . . . Lots of it is mere protestations
to F., most of which I think you will understand.
That is to me the main thread of interest. Whether
the damned public But that's all one."

He returned to London and began to collaborate
with Henley in a play based on the latest of his
drafts of Deacon Brodie, which he had not touched
since he was nineteen.

It was probably at this time that he made the social
experiment recorded in the Amateur Emigrant of
practising upon the public by " going abroad through
a suburban part of London simply attired in a sleeve-
waistcoat."

" The result was curious. I then learned for the
first time, and by the exhaustive process, how much
attention ladies are accustomed to bestow on all male
creatures of their own station ; for, in my humble rig,
each one who went by me caused a certain shock of
surprise and a sense of something wanting. In my
normal circumstances, it appeared, every young
lady must have paid me some passing tribute of a
glance ; and though I had often been unconscious of
it when given, I was well aware of its absence when it
was withheld. My height seemed to decrease with
every woman who passed me, for she passed me like a
dog. This is one of my grounds for supposing that
what are called the upper classes may sometimes
produce a disagreeable impression in what are called
the lower ; and I wish some one would continue my
experiment, and find out exactly at what stage of

TRANSITION— 1876-79 117

toilette a raan becomes invisible to the well-regulated
female eye."

But life was not to be lived upon the old terms.
His heart was elsewhere, and the news which reached
him was disquieting. For some time it was fairly
good ; then Mrs. Osbourne fell seriously ill. There
had been, there could be, no restoration of her home
life ; but it appeared that she would be able to obtain
a divorce without causing any unnecessary distress
to her family, and in this conjuncture Stevenson could
not see clearly what his course of action ought to be.
He was first at Swanston with Henley, finishing
Deacon Brodie ; then in London ; at Swanston again,
this time alone, writing his chapters on Lay Morals ;
then at the Gareloch with his parents. In May he
went to London, and, after staying with George
Meredith, crossed over to France. Had he found a
companion, he would perhaps have gone to the
Pyrenees, but he spent most of his time at Cernay la
Ville, and returned to London in the end of June.

The Travels with a Donkey had been published in
June, and obtained the same unsubstantial success
as the Inland Voyage, although, contrary to its
author's own judgment of the two books, it afterwards
had slightly the better sale.

On 1 4th July he returned to Edinburgh, and by the
3oth his mind was made up — to California he must go.
From Edinburgh he came back to London, presumably
to make arrangements for his start ; and wherever he
went, he found his friends unanimous in their opinion
that he ought to stay at home. Under these circum-
stances it seemed to him so hopeless to expect any
other judgment on the part of his parents, that he
did not even go through the form of consulting them
on the matter, and with open eyes went away, know-
ing that he need look for no further countenance from
home. Perhaps he hardly realised the distress which
he would inevitably cause his parents by leaving them
without a word and in almost total ignorance of the
hopes and motives which inspired him.

CHAPTER VIII

CALIFORNIA — 1879-80

" What a man truly wants, that will he get, or he will
be changed in trying." — R. L. S., Aphorism.

" To MY WIFE.

" Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,
With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
Steel-true and blade-straight
The great artificer
Made my mate.

Honour, anger, valour, fire ;
A love that life could never tire,
Death quench or evil stir,
The mighty master
Gave to her.

Teacher, tender, comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through lif«,
Heart-whole and soul-free
The august father
Gave to me."

Songs o] Travel, No. xxvi,

POM London he went north, and on August 7th,
1879, sailed from the Clyde in the steamship
Devonia, bound for New York. She carried a number
of emigrants, but Stevenson, though mixing freely
with them, had, chiefly to obtain a table for his
writing, taken his passage in the second cabin, which
was almost indistinguishable from the steerage. His
object in travelling in this fashion was, in the first
instance, economy, and next to that, a desire to gain
first-hand knowledge for himself of emigrants and
emigration, which might be of immediate use for
making a book and of ultimate service to him in a
thousand ways. He suffered a good deal on the
voyage, being already anxious and highly strung
before he started, but he stuck manfully to his work
and wrote " in a slantindicular cabin, with the table
playing bob-cherry with the ink-bottle," the greater

ill

CALIFORNIA— 1879-80 119

part of The Story of a Lie. The rest of his time he
devoted to making the acquaintance of his fellow-
passengers, learning their histories, studying their
characters, and — as anyone may see between the
lines of The Amateur Emigrant — rendering them
endless unobtrusive services, and helping and cheer-
ing them in every way possible.

The voyage passed without event, and the steamer
arrived at New York on the evening of the i8th of
August. Stevenson passed the night in a shilling
Irish boarding-house, Re-Union House, No. 10 West
Street. " A little Irish girl," he writes, " is now
reading my book aloud to her sister at my elbow ;
they chuckle, and I feel flattered. P.5. — Now they
yawn, and I am indifferent : such a wisely conceived
thing is vanity."

Within four-and-twenty hours of his first arrival he
was already on his way as an emigrant to the Far West,
a chief part of his baggage being " Bancroft's History
of the United States in six fat volumes."

The railway journey began in floods of rain and the
maximum of discomfort. The record of it is in the
hands of all to read, and I need say only that it occu-
pied from a Monday evening to the Saturday morning
of the following week, and that the tedium and stress
of the last few days in the emigrant train proper were
almost unbearable.

On the 3oth of August Stevenson reached San Fran-
cisco, but so much had the long journey shaken him
that he looked like a man at death's door. The news
so far was good ; Mrs. Osbourne was better, but that
was all. To recover from the effects of his hardships
he forthwith went another hundred and fifty miles
to the south, and camped out by himself in the coast
range of mountains beyond Monterey. But he had
overtaxed his strength, and broke down. Two nights
he " lay out under a tree in a sort of stupor," and if
two frontiersmen in charge of a goat-ranche had not
taken him in and tended him, there would have been
an end of his story.

120 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

" I am now lying in an upper chamber, with a
clinking of goat bells in my ears, which proves to me
that the goats are come home and it will soon be time
to eat. The old bear-hunter is doubtless now infusing
tea ; and Tom the Indian will come in with his gun
in a few minutes."

Here he spent a couple of weeks, passing the morn-
ings in teaching the children to read, and then went
down to Monterey, where he remained until the
middle of December. In those days it still was a
small Mexican town, altered but slightly by the
extraordinarily cosmopolitan character of the few
strangers who visited it. In his own words, it was
" a place of two or three streets, economically paved
with sea-sand, and two or three lanes, which were
watercourses in the rainy season, and at all times
were rent up by fissures four or five feet deep. There
were no street lights. . . . The houses were for the
most part built of unbaked adobe brick, many of
them old for so new a country, some of very elegant
proportions, with low, spacious, shapely rooms, and
walls so thick that the heat of summer never dried
them to the heart. . . There was no activity but in
and around the saloons, where people sat almost all
day long playing cards. . . The smallest excursion
was made on horseback. You would scarcely ever
see the main street without a horse or two tied to
posts, and making a fine figure with their Mexican
housings. . . In a place so exclusively Mexican as
Monterey, you saw not only Mexican saddles, but
true Vaquero riding — men always at the hand-gallop
up hill and down dale, and round the sharpest corner,
urging their horses with cries and gesticulations and
cruel rotatory spurs, checking them dead with a
touch, or wheeling them right-about-face in a square
yard. . . Spanish was the language of the streets.
It was difficult to get along without a word or two of
that language for an occasion. The only com-
munications in which the population joined were with
a view to amusement. A weekly public ball took

CALIFORNIA— 1879-80 ia>.

place with great etiquette, in addition to the numer-
ous fandangoes in private houses. There was a
really fair amateur brass band. Night after night,
serenaders would be going about the street, some-
times in a company and with several instruments and
voices together, sometimes severally, each guitar
before a different window. It was a strange thing
to lie awake in nineteenth-century America, and
hear the guitar accompany, and one of these old,
heart-breaking Spanish love-songs mount into the
night air, perhaps in a deep baritone, perhaps in that
high-pitched, pathetic, womanish alto which is so
common among Mexican men, and which strikes on
the unaccustomed ear as something not entirely
human, but altogether sad."

Here Stevenson found quarters curiously to his
taste, which was simple, though discriminating. He
lodged with the doctor, and for his meals went to a
restaurant.

" Of all my private collection of remembered inns
and restaurants — and I believe it, other things being
equal, to be unrivalled — one particular house of
entertainment stands forth alone. I am grateful,
indeed, to many a swinging signboard, to many a
rusty wine-bush ; but not with the same kind of
gratitude. Some were beautifully situated, some
had an admirable table, some were the gathering-
places of excellent companions ; but take them for
all in all, not one can be compared with Simoneau's at
Monterey.

" To the front, it was part barber's shop, part bar ;
to the back, there was a kitchen and a salle a manger.
The intending diner found himself in a little, chill,
bare, adobe room, furnished with chairs and tables,
and adorned with some oil sketches roughly brushed
upon the wall in the manner of Barbizon and Cernay.
The table, at whatever hour you entered, was already
laid with a not spotless napkin, and, by way of
epergne, with a dish of green peppers and tomatoes,
pleasing alike to eye and palate. If you stayed there

122 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

to meditate before a meal, you would hear Simoneau
all about the kitchen, and rattling among the dishes."

The fragment breaks off, or we should have had a
picture of M. Simoneau, the proprietor, with whom
Stevenson " played chess and discussed the universe "
daily. At his table there " sat down, day after day,
a Frenchman, two Portuguese, an Italian, a Mexican,
and a Scotsman ; they had for common visitors an
American from Illinois, a nearly pure-blood Indian
woman, and a naturalised Chinese ; and from time
to time a Switzer and a German came down from
country ranches for the night."

This society afforded Stevenson most of the
diversion that he could now spare the time to enjoy.
Of his adventures in the forest he has told us, and
chiefly of that day, when, setting fire to a tree in mere
experiment and idleness of mind, he ran for his life
in fear of being lynched. But during all these weeks
he was working as he had hardly worked before.
Half of a novel called A Vendetta in the West was
written, and the whole of The Pavilion on the Links,
which he had begun in London, was despatched to
England. But the strain of exertion and anxiety
was too great, and " while leading a dull regular life
in a mild climate," he developed pleurisy, and had
for a few days to relax his exertions.

All this time he was the kindly and bright com-
panion ; his gaiety and courage never flagged.
" There is something in me worth saying," he wrote
to Henley, " though I can't find what it is just yet."

About the middle of December he came to San
Francisco, and there hired the cheapest lodging he
could find, a single room in a poor house in Bush
Street. All his meals he took outside at some of the
small restaurants ; he lived at seventy cents a day,
and worked yet harder than before. He made
inquiries about work on the San Francisco Bulletin,
but the payment offered by that newspaper for
literary articles was too small to be of any use to a
writer so deliberate.

CALIFORNIA— 1879-80 123

But the worst part of the change from Monterey
was that he was thrown more upon himself. In
place of the bright social life of the little Spanish
town, a life such as is common on the Continent of
Europe, but is hardly to be found in England, he was
plunged into the terrible solitude of a large city. On
the 26th December he writes : " For four days I have
spoken to no one but my landlady or landlord, or to
restaurant waiters This is not a gay way to pass
Christmas, is it ? " And again : " After weeks in this
city, I know only a few neighbouring streets ; I
seemed to be cured of all my adventurous whims,
and even of human curiosity, and am content to sit
here by the fire and await the course of fortune."

His friends were very few, and those of but a few
weeks' standing. They hardly extended, indeed,
beyond Virgil Williams and his wife, the artist couple
to whom The Silverado Squatters was afterwards dedi-
cated, and Charles Warren Stoddard, whose picturesque
lodgings were commemorated in The Wrecker.

In Virgil Williams he found a man of great culture
and refinement, a scholar as well as a painter, who
was always ready to respond to his verses, and,, to-
gether with his wife, able and eager to discuss the
literatures of Europe. Their house was always open,
to Stevenson, and their only regret was that he could
not come more frequently. To Charles Stoddard
also he was no less welcome a companion ; from him
he borrowed the delightful books of Herman Melville,
Typee and Omoo, and the South Sea Idylls, which
charmed Stevenson alike with their subject and their
style. So here in his darkest hour he received the
second impulse, which in the end was to " cast him
out as by a freshet " upon those " ultimate islands."

San Francisco itself was still far from a prosaic
place ; its early history and its large foreign popula-
tion rendered it not less dangerous than picturesque.
Kearney, the Irish demagogue, had only just " been
snuffed out by Mr. Coleman, backed by his San Fran-
cisco Vigilantes and three Catling guns." Stevenson

124 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

himself was not without experiences, perhaps less
uncommon there at that time than in other large
cities. " There are rough quarters where it is dan-
gerous o' nights ; cellars of public entertainment
which the wary pleasure-seeker chooses to avoid.
Concealed weapons are unlawful, but the law is con-
tinually broken. One editor was shot dead while I
was there ; another walked the streets accompanied
by a bravo, his guardian angel. I have been quietly
eating a dish of oysters in a restaurant, where, not
more than ten minutes after I had left, shots were
exchanged and took effect ; and one night, about
ten o'clock, I saw a man standing watchfully at a
street corner with a long Smith-and- Wesson glittering
in his hand behind his back. Somebody had done
something he should not, and was being looked for
with a vengeance."

>But his private needs now pressed upon him ;
money was growing scarce ; the funds he had brought
with him were exhausted, and those transmitted from
England, being partly his own money and partly the
payment for his recent work, very frequently failed
to reach him. In the end of January he had to drop
from a fifty cent to a twenty-five cent dinner, and
already had directed his friend Charles Baxter to
dispose of his books in Edinburgh and to send him
the proceeds.

His prospects were gloomy ; for although the manu-
scripts he had sent home were accepted by editors, yet
the judgment of his friends upon some of them was
justly unfavourable, and at this crisis he could not
afford rejection or even delay in payment.

His correspondence with his parents since his
departure had been brief and unsatisfactory. His
father, being imperfectly informed as to his motives
and plans, naturally took that dark view of his son's
conduct to which his temperament predisposed him.
But even so, hearing of Louis' earlier illness, he sent
him a twenty-pound note, though, as fate would have
it, this was one of the letters that miscarried.

CALIFORNIA— 1 879-80 12

Lonely, ill, and poor ; estranged from his people,
unsuccessful in his work, and discouraged in his
attempt to maintain himself, Stevenson yet did not
lose heart or go back for one moment from his resolu-
tion. He wrote to Baxter : 2Oth Jan. — " I lead a
pretty happy life, though you might not think it.
I have great fun trying to be economical, which I
find as good a game to play as any other. I have
no want of occupation, and though I rarely see any-
one to speak to, have little time to weary."

He stuck to his work ; even, a harder feat, he had
the determination to give himself a week's holiday.
But though his spirit was indomitable, his physical
powers were exhausted ; his landlady's small child
was very ill, and he sat up nursing it. The child
recovered, but Stevenson a short while afterwards
broke down, and could go on no more.

He was, as he afterwards wrote to Mr. Gosse, on
the verge of a galloping consumption, subject to cold
sweats, prostrating attacks of cough, sinking fits in
which he lost the power of speech, fever, and all the
ugliest circumstances of the disease.

Fortunately by this date his future wife had ob-
tained her divorce, and was at liberty to give him as
nurse those services, for which there was unfortunately
only too frequent occasion during the next few years.
It was a very anxious time, and he was nearer " the
grey ferry " than he had been since childhood. Slowly
he mended, and his recovery was helped by his letters
and telegrams from home. Already by the middle
of February he must have heard that his father
admitted that the case was not what he supposed, and
that if there were as long a delay as possible, he was
prepared to do his best in the matter. At that very
date Mr. 'Stevenson was writing again that it was
preposterous of Louis to scrimp himself, and that if
he would inform him what money he wanted, it would
be sent by telegram, if required. And early in April
a telegram came, announcing to Louis that in future
he might count upon two hundred and fifty pounds

a year. His gratitude was unbounded, he realised
very clearly what his extremity had been and the fate
from which he had been rescued.

To Mr. Baxter again he wrote :

" It was a considerable shock to my pride to break
down ; but there — it's done, and cannot be helped.
Had my health held out another month, I should
have made a year's income ; but breaking down when
I did, I am surrounded by unfinished works. It is a
good thing my father was on the spot, or I should
have had to work and die."

All obstacles were at last removed, and on May 19,
1880, Robert Louis Stevenson was married to Fanny
Van de Grift at San Francisco, in the house of the
Rev. Dr. Scott, no one else but Mrs. Scott and Mrs.
Williams being present.

Of the marriage it need only be said that from the
beginning to the end husband and wife were all in all
to one another. His friends rejoiced to find in her,
as Sir Sidney Colvin says, " a character as strong,
interesting, and romantic almost as his own ; an
inseparable sharer of all his thoughts, and staunch
companion of all his adventures ; the most open-
hearted of friends to all who loved him ; the most
shrewd and stimulating critic of his work ; and in
sickness, despite her own precarious health, the most
devoted and most efficient of nurses."

Two years before his death Stevenson wrote, in
reference to another love match : " To be sure it is
always annoying when people choose their own wives ;
and I know only one form of consolation — they know
best what they want. As I look back, I think my
marriage was the best move I ever made in my life.
Not only would I do it again ; I cannot conceive the
idea of doing otherwise."

Of his devotion to his wife he was even more
reticent than of his affection to his parents. " I love
my wife," he once wrote, " I do not know how much,
nor can, nor shall, unless I lost her." And once or
twice in letters to those who knew and loved them

wlncH; ':f6r the test, T& ^mbodied 4n!:/tfa.e dp He? written ift;
his death; and panted at the hea&
A£< tie livedv'to'h^fdie^iaad-t^
nseiou^rtess -were oceiipied witii;

the attempt to lift the bui&tea qf|4cajfl^jodiiig: /wJaiob/

^VeigBiiig^d'hSa^ifytfpOiPlltehwfeuianpsano^ a!

srii ni yhB3 qu navig nsad yilBnA fafiri ag^JioO note

Btfspson went to the country tfe&y miles

tains. How they took possession of

t isolation, gtnd indepen-

; sri

. and

;W^Pldi^ia^-iOT nothtag^m tfae^worid so rawh
as to see his face again, to make the

It was ,

«|*»tyfic»^ai l^rte, Caltetoga, but
6i -Aii gust they mailed from NQW York, aii4,
late*?' ^ foruarislThJDfnaist£bbevertJO»

'' yek? bef drejiLaBia feid; -written jftf
aL1taKr9i^infe iuumf,,^ i«Utfe fqjjiMl
fcrfet tto® htnsr>JI lowelihafi maaig&g is

wife hadii4irthei|; i

choice \vere-feOonndiaveii tfarcrai[ .theii; tMnda^ -and

new-comer ; 4ms-trede4?sned'-.i

much readiness and cordiality as if it.

son i# particular disto^eored 130. his.daugliter-in-law so
'

128 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

himself, that his natural liking passed rapidly into
an appreciation and affection such as are usually the
result only of years of intimacy. In his own wife's
notes 1 find that before his death he made his son
promise that he would " never publish anything
without Fanny's approval."

In consequence of the new order of things, Swan-
ston Cottage had finally been given up early in the
summer, and the family party, passing hastily through
Edinburgh, went on first to Blair Athol and then to
Strathpeffer, returning to Heriot Row in the middle
of September.

The exile's return to his native country was of short
duration, for the hardships he had endured and his
consequent illness had rendered him quite unable to
face a Scottish winter. On consulting his uncle,
Dr. George Balfour, the well-known Edinburgh doctor,
he was informed of his condition, and advised to try
the climate of the High Alps, which had lately come
into favour as a resort for patients suffering from
phthisis.

Accordingly, on October 7th, Stevenson left Edin-
burgh with his wife and stepson and a new member
of the family, who held a high place in their affections,
and was an important element in all their arrange-
ments for the next half-dozen years. This was a
black Skye terrior, a present from Sir Walter Simpson,
after whom he was called, until " Wattie " had passed
into " Woggs," and finally became unrecognisable as
" Bogue." In Heriot Row every dog worshipped
Thomas Stevenson (with the sole exception of " Jura,"
who was alienated by jealousy) and so Louis never
had a dog until now who really regarded him as
owner. But Woggs was a person of great character,
with views and a temper of his own, entirely devoted
to his master and mistress, and at odds with the
world at large.

In London, Dr. Andrew Clark confirmed both the
opinion and the advice which had been given, and
a few days only were spent in seeing Stevenson's

129

friends, who now found their first opportunity to
welcome him back and to make the acquaintance of
his wife.

CHAPTER IX

DAVOS AND THE HIGHLANDS — l88o-82

" A mountain valley, an Alpine winter, and an invalid's
weakness make up among them a prison of the most
effective kind."

R. L. S, Pall Mall Gcuette, 2ist February, 1881.

BY the middle of October the party again started,
made a journey broken by frequent halts, and
on the fourth of November reached Davos Platz,
where they were to spend the winter. They took up
their quarters in the Hotel Belvedere, the nucleus of
the present large establishment, and there they
stayed until the following April.

The great feature of the place for Stevenson was
the presence of John Addington Symonds, who,
having come there three years before on his way to
Egypt, had taken up his abode in Davos, and was
now building himself a house. To him, the new-comer
bore a letter of introduction from Mr. Gosse. On
November 5th, Louis wrote to his mother : " We got
to Davos last evening ; and I feel sure we shall like
it greatly. I saw Symonds this morning, and
already like him ; it is such sport to have a literary
man around. My father can understand me, when
he thinks what it would be to come up here for a
winter and find TAiT.1 Symonds is like a Tait to me ;
eternal interest in the same topics, eternal cross-
causewaying of special knowledge. That makes
hours to fly." And a little later he wrote : " Beyond

1 Professor P. G. Tait, the eminent man of science,
Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of
Edinburgh, 1860-1901 : a close friend of Thomas
Stevenson,

T 30 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

its splendid climate, Davos has but one advantage—-
the neighbourhood of J. A. Symonds. I dare say
you know his work, but the man is far more
interesting."1

This first winter Stevenson produced but little.
The doctor in a few weeks spoke hopefully of his
case, but the climate, though beneficial in the long
run, was not at first conducive to any deliberate
effort.

There was much that he disliked in Davos, more
especially the cut-and-dry walks alone possible to
him, the monotonous river, the snow (in which he
could see no colour), and the confinement to a single
valley. " The mountains are about you like a
trap," he wrote ; " you cannot foot it up a hillside
and behold the sea as a great plain, but live in holes
and corners, and can change only one for the other."

The drawbacks of hotel life seem to have affected
him but little ; he had the company of his wife, and
a constant interest in his stepson, who, having
brought the toy-press given him the previous spring
in California and used at Silverado, now devoted to
printing all the time he could secure from lessons
with his tutor.

A characteristic story which I have from Mrs.
Stevenson belongs to this period. When they were
leaving for Davos, her father-in-law, warned by the
experiences of Louis in California, made her promise
that she would let him know if at any time they were
in want of money.

" The time came," she says, " when Louis had
influenza and did need more, but he would not let
me tell his father. I used every argument. At last
I said, ' What do you think should be done with the
money your father has so carefully laid by for the use
of his family ? ' 'It should be given,' said Louis,
to some young man of talent, who is in poor health
and could not otherwise afford to get a necessary

1 Dictionary 0} National Biography, sub " Symonds."

DAVOS AND THE HIGHLANDS— 1880-82 131

change of climate.' ' Oh, very well,' said I, ' I
shall appeal to your father at once in the case of a
young man named Stevenson, who is in just that
position.1 At this Louis could only laugh, and I
wrote the story to his father, who was much amused
by it, and of course sent the necessary supplies."

In these days, indeed, and, throughout his life, he
was often unreasonable, but this very unreason seems
always to have had a quality and a charm of its
own, which only endeared Stevenson the more to
those who suffered under its caprice, as two other
anecdotes of Davos may serve to show. A young
Church of England parson, who knew him but
slightly, was roused one morning about six o'clock
by a message that Stevenson wanted to see him
immediately. Knowing how ill his friend was, he
threw on his clothes and rushed to Stevenson's
room, only to see a haggard face gazing from the
bed-clothes, and to hear an agonised voice say,
" For God's sake , have you got a Horace ? "

Another friend had received from Italy a present
of some Christmas roses, to which particular associa-
tions gave a personal sentiment and value. Steven-
son was seeking high and low for some flowers — the
occasion, I think, was the birthday of a girl who
could never live to see another — he heard of the
arrival of these. He came, he stated the paramount
necessity of depriving his friend, and he bore the
flowers away. The two stories might end here,
and show Stevenson in rather an unamiable light :
their point is that neither of his friends ever dreamed
of resenting his conduct or regarding it with any
other feeling but affectionate amusement.

Often in the evening he would turn into the billiard-
room, and there his talk might be heard at its best.
A fellow-visitor has given a spirited and sympathetic
description of him in those days, and adds : " Once
only do I remember seeing him play a game of billiards
and a truly remarkable performance it was. He
played with all the fire and dramatic intensity that

• z

i 32 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

he was apt to put into things. The balls flew wildly
about, on or off the table as the case might be, but
seldom indeed ever threatened a pocket or got within
a hand's-breath of a cannon. ' What a fine thing a
game of billiards is,' he remarked to the astonished
onlookers, ' — once a year or so ! '

When he was well, Stevenson had to be out of doors
a good deal, and spent the time mostly in walks, often
with his dog for a companion.

" i$th December, 1880. — My dear Mother, — I shall
tell you about this morning. When I got out with
Woggs about half-past seven, the sky was low and
grey ; the Tinzenhorn and the other high peaks were
covered. It had snowed all night, a fine, soft snow ;
and all the ground had a gloss, almost a burnish,
from the new coating. The woods were elaborately
powdered grey — not a needle but must have had a
crystal. In the road immediately below me, a long
train of sack-laden sledges was going by, drawn by
four horses, with an indescribable smoothness of
motion, and no sound save that of the bells. On the
other road, across the river, four or five empty sledges
were returning towards Platz, some of the drivers
sitting down, some standing up in their vehicles ;
they glided forward without a jolt or a tremor, not
like anything real, but like cardboard figures on a
toy-like theatre. I wonder if you can understand
how odd this looked."

Occasionally he joined in skating and, more fre-
quently, in the tobogganing then newly introduced.

" Perhaps," he wrote, " the true way to toboggan
is alone and at night. First comes the tedious climb,
dragging your instrument behind you. Next a long
breathing space, alone, with snow and pine woods,
cold, silent, and solemn to the heart. Then you push
off ; the toboggan fetches way : she begins to feel the
hill, to glide, to swim, to gallop. In a breath you are
out from under the pine-trees, and a whole heavenful
of stars reels and flashes overhead. Then comes a
vicious effort ; for by this time your wooden steed is

DAVOS AND THE HIGHLANDS— 1880-82 133

speeding like the wind, and you are spinning round a
corner, and the whole glittering valley and the lights
in all the great hotels lie for a moment at your
feet ; and the next you are racing once more in the
shadow of the night, with close shut teeth and beating
heart. Yet a little while and you will be landed on
the highroad by the door of your own hotel. This,
in an atmosphere tingling with forty degrees of frost,
in a night made luminous with stars and snow, and
girt with strange white mountains, teaches the pulse
an unaccustomed tune, and adds a new excitement to
the life of man upon his planet."

A health-resort, from its very conditions, often casts
upon a visitor shadows of death and bereavement, but
this year the Stevensons were affected with the deepest
sympathy for a loss that touched them nearly ; their
friend Mrs. Sitwell arrived unexpectedly with her son,
who was already in the last stages of a swift consump-
tion, and before the end came in April, there were but
the alternations of despair and of hoping against hope
until the blow fell.

Shortly afterwards Stevenson and his wife set out
for France, accompanied only by Woggs, for the boy
had gone to England to school. They spent several
weeks, first at Barbizon ; then in Paris, whence they
were driven by drains ; and at St. Germain, where
Stevenson for the first time in his life heard a nightin-
gale sing, and, having proclaimed that no sounds in
nature could equal his favourite blackbird, forthwith
surrendered all prejudice and fell into an ecstasy.
They found themselves in straits at St. Germain,
owing to the failure of supplies and the general sus-
picious appearance of Stevenson's wardrobe ; being
suddenly delivered from insults, they left their land-
lord, as Mrs. Stevenson alleged, in the belief that he
had turned from his doors the eccentric son of a
wealthy English nobleman.

They reached Edinburgh May 3ist, 1881, and three
days later started with his mother for Pitlochry, where
they spent two months at Kinnaird Cottage : his

134 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

father coming to them as often as business permitted-
Louis had written to his parents that for country
quarters his desiderata were these : " A house, not
an inn, at least not an hotel ; a burn within reach ;
heather and a fir or two. If these can be combined,
I shall be pretty happy." These requisites he found,
and, indeed, the man would be hard to satisfy who
asked more of any stream — " a little green glen with
a burn, a wonderful burn, gold and green and snow-
white, singing loud and low in different steps of its
career, now pouring over miniature crags, now fretting
itself to death in a maze of rocky stairs and pots ;
never was so sweet a little river. Behind, great
purple moorlands reaching to Ben Vrackie."

In these two months he wrote " Thrawn Janet "
and the " Merry Men." " The Body Snatcher "
belongs to the same time, all three being intended for
a volume of tales of the supernatural. For " Thrawn
Janet " Stevenson afterwards claimed that if he had
never written anything but this tale and the story of
" Tod Lapraik " in Catriona, he would yet have been
a writer. 1 It was the outcome of a study of the Scotch
literature of witchcraft, and is hardly open to any
other criticism than that which its author himself
found against it. " Thrawn Janet " has two defects ;
it is true only historically, true for a hill parish in
Scotland in old days, not true for mankind and the
world. Poor Mr. Soulis' faults we may eagerly
recognize as virtues, and we feel that by his conversion
he was merely worsened ; " and this, although the story
carries me away every time I read it, leaves a painful
impression on my mind."

On August 2nd the party left for Braemar ; on the
journey, Stevenson first conceived the family of Dur-
risdeer and the earlier part of The M"bster of Ballan-
trae, though both as yet were nameless, and it was six
years and more before he began to set any word of it
on paper.

1 Letters, iv. 155.

DAVOS AND THE HIGHLANDS— 1880-82 135

At Braemar, having more accommodation, they
were able to enjoy the society of some of their friends
— Sidney Colvin, Charles Baxter, and others. One
of the fiist who arrived was the late Dr. Alexander
Hay Japp, a new acquaintance, invited to discuss
Thoreau, and to set Stevenson right upon one or two
points in his history. Thoreau was duly discussed,
but before the visitor left, he heard the first eight or
ten chapters of Treasure Island, then newly written,
which he carried off in order to offer it to a publisher.
Stevenson himself has told the history of the book.
With what gusto he describes beginning the first
chapter, in words that glow like the beginning of an
adventure. " On a chill September morning, by the
cheek of a brisk fire, and the rain drumming on the
window, I began The Sea Cook, for that was the
original title." Having first drawn the chart of an
island (charts being to him " of all books the least
wearisome to read and the richest in matter "), he
then, from the names marked at random, constructed
a story in order to please his schoolboy stepson, who
asked him to try and write " something interesting " ;
his father, another schoolboy in disguise, took fire at
this and urged him on, helping him with lists and sug-
gestions ; unconscious memory came to his aid, and
Treasure Island was half written.

Mr. Gosse immediately succeeded Dr. Japp as the
family visitor, and under his congenial influence the
story grew at the rate of a chapter a day ; before
Stevenson left Braemar, nineteen chapters had been
written. As soon as the idea of publication occurred,
the book had been intended for Messrs. Routledge,
but by Dr. Japp's good offices it was accepted for
Young Folks by Mr. Henderson, the proprietor, when
he saw the opening chapters and heard an outline of
the story.

In this summer Stevenson first began to write the
verses for children, which were afterwards published
in the Child's Garden. His mother tells how she had
Miss Kate Greenaway's Birthday Book for Children,

136 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

with verses by Mrs. Sale Barker, then newly pub-
lished, and how Louis took it up one day, and saying,
" These are rather nice rhymes, and I don't think
they would be difficult to do," proceeded to try his
hand. About fourteen numbers seem to have been
written in the Highlands, and, apparently, after three
more had been added, they were then discontinued
for a time.

But in the meanwhile the weather grew suddenly
bad ; Stevenson made a hurried flight (in a respirator)
from Braemar on September 23rd, and after a few
days in Edinburgh, passed on to London. Here he
called on his new publisher ; "a very amusing visit
indeed ; ordered away by the clerks, who refused
loudly to believe I had any business ; and at last
received most kindly by Mr. Henderson."

From London they passed to Paris and so to Davos,
which they reached on October 1 8th. This year they
had taken for the winter a chalet belonging to the
Hotel Buol, where Symonds was still living ; they
hired a servant of their own, and only occasionally
took meals in the hotel.

This winter differed considerably from the last.
Stevenson was in better health, and being accustomed
to the climate, and also less subject to interruption,
produced a great deal more work, though, as be-
fore, a certain proportion of his labours was futile.
Treasure Island was already beginning its serial
course, with the latter half of it yet unwritten.
Fortunately the inspiration that had failed the author
returned, the last fourteen chapters took but a fort-
night, and at the second wave the book was finished
as easily as it was begun. It appeared under the
signature of " Captain George North," and ran an
obscure career in the pages of its magazine from
October to January, openly mocked at by more than
one indignant reader. But it did not make its
appearance as a book till nearly two years later.

In January Stevenson gives an irresistible descrip-
tion of himself : "I dawdle on the balcony, read and

DAVOS AND THE HIGHLANDS— 1880-82 137

write, ana have fits of conscience and indigestion.
The ingenious human mind, face to face with some-
thing it downright ought to do, does something else.
But the relief is temporary."

Temporary also was the idleness. The Silverado
Squatters, the record of the circumstances of his
honeymoon, was written, and no less than five
magazine articles, including the first part of " Talk
and Talkers " and the " Gossip on Romance." Still
this did not satisfy him. He wrote to his mother :
" I work, work away, and get nothing, or but little
done ; it is slow, slow, slow ; but I sit from four to
five hours at it, and read all the rest of the time for
Hazlitt." And to Charles Baxter a little later he
wrote : "I am getting a slow, steady, sluggish stream
of ink over paper, and shall do better this year than
last." Before April, he can say : " I have written
something like thirty-five thousand words since I
have been here, which shows at least I have been
industrious."

To this time apparently belong the verses called
" The Celestial Surgeon," which are as characteristic
of Stevenson as anything he ever wrote. An eloquent
modern preacher treating of the deadly sin of accidie,
" gloom and sloth and irritation," the opposite of
" the vertue that is called fortitude or strength,"
quotes these " graceful, noble lines " at length, and
says, " Surely no poet of the present day, and none,
perhaps, since Dante, has so truly told of the inner
character of accidie, or touched more skilfully the
secret of its sinfulness."

Housekeeping was a burden and a doubtful
economy, but the chalet in other respects was a
great success. For one thing, it got the sun an hour
sooner, and kept it an hour later, than the hotels ;
for another, it provided its master with a spot where
he was at liberty to create and develop for himself
the amusement which pleased him best of all — the
game of war. Deeds of arms would always raise a
thrill in his breast, but so far as I know, there was

138 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

no outward sign of this interest in warfare or strategy
during his youth or early manhood. In December,
1878, he wrote from the Savile Club : " I am in such
glee about Peiwar. (Lord Roberts's victory over the
Afghans.) I declared yesterday I was going to add
the name to mine, and be Mr. Peiwar Stevenson for
the future." In October, 1880, an old general who
was a friend of the family came to see him in London,
and brought as a present Sir Edward Hamley's
Operations of War. R. A. M. Stevenson was there
at the time, and both cousins were transported with
enthusiasm. " I am drowned in it a thousand fathom
deep," wrote Louis, " and ' O that I had been a
soldier ' is still my cry." He had never made any
affectation of abandoning a pursuit he was supposed
to have outgrown. He clung to the colouring of
prints and to childish paintings long after most boys
of his age have given up the diversions of the nursery.
A large part of the winter of 1877 he spent in building
with toy-bricks in his room at Heriot Row, and
regretted that he had not been an architect. Steven-
son, deterred by no false shame, always extracted
from toys much of the zest of reality, and raised
their employment almost to the intensity of active
life. And now, beginning to help his schoolboy with
games, he became absorbed in the pursuit, and
developed a kriegspiel of his own, adapted to the
conditions under which, of necessity, he played. But
his enthusiasm and the thoroughness and ingenuity
he exhibited are best described in the account given
by his adversary, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne —

" The abiding spirit of the child in him was seldom
shown in more lively fashion than during those days
of exile at Davos, where he brought a boy's eagerness,
a man's intellect, a novelist's imagination, into the
varied business of my holiday hours ; the printing-
press, the toy-theatre, the tin soldiers, all engaged
his attention. Of these, however, the tin soldiers
most took his fancy ; and the war game was con-
stantly improved and elaborated, until, from a few

DAVOS AND THE HIGHLANDS— 1880-82 139

hours, a ' war ' took weeks to play, and the critical
operations in the attic monopolised half our thoughts.
This attic was a most chilly and dismal spot, reached
by a crazy ladder, and unlit save for a single frosted
window ; so low at the eaves and so dark that we
could seldom stand upright, nor see without a candle.
Upon the attic floor a map was roughly drawn in
chalks of different colours, with mountains, rivers,
towns, bridges and roads of two classes. Here we
would play by the hour, with tingling fingers and
stiffening knees, and an intentness, zest, and excite-
ment that I shall never forget. The mimic battalions
marched and counter-marched, changed by measured
evolutions from column formation into line, with
cavalry screens in front and massed supports behind
in the most approved military fashion of to-day.
It was war in miniature, even to the making and
destruction of bridges, the intrenching of camps ;
good and bad weather, with corresponding influence
on the roads ; siege and horse artillery, proportion-
ately slow, as compared to the speed of unimpeded
foot, and proportionately expensive in the upkeep ;
and an exacting commissariat added the last touch
of verisimilitude.

' ' The strength of the enemy in any given spot could
only be ascertained according to strictly defined
regulations, and an attempt was even made to mark
certain districts as unhealthy and to settle by the
hazard of the dice-box the losses incurred by all
troops passing through them.

" During one war Stevenson chronicled the operations
in a series of extracts from the Glendarule Times and
the Yallobally Record, until the editor of the latter
sheet was hanged by order of General OsbouTie and
its place supplied by the less offensive Herald. <

" Year after year, he reverted to the game, and even
in Samoa there was a campaign room with the map
coloured on the floor, although the painful realities of
actual warfare, either present or imminent, occupied all
our thoughts for the closing period of Stevenson's life.

I4o LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

But, busy as he was this winter, he had time not
only for this game, but also, turning aside to help
young Osbourne with his printing, he first wrote
verses for the toy-press, and then, getting hold of a
bit of rough wood, began to design and cut illustra-
tions for his text, or in some cases to create pictures
which a text must elucidate.

In February, 1882, he sent to his parents " two
woodcuts of my own cutting ; they are moral em-
blems ; one represents ' anger,' and the other ' pride
scorning poverty.' They will appear among others,
accompanied by verses, in my new work published
by S. L. Osbourne. If my father does not enjoy
these, he is no true man." And to his mother :
" Wood-engraving has suddenly drave between me
and the sun. I dote on wood-engraving. I'm a
made man for life. I've an amusement at last."

Of these blocks about two dozen in all were cut,
most of them by Stevenson's own hands, though the
elephant, at any rate, was due to his wife, and " the
sacred ibis in the distance " was merely the result of
an accident turned to advantage. He had in his
boyhood received a few lessons in drawing as a polite
accomplishment : later he found great difficulty in
the mechanical work of his original profession, in
which, of course, he had been specially trained. Thus,
in 1868, he wrote to his mother, "It is awful how
slowly I draw, and how ill." Barbizon seemed to
rouse in him no tendency to express himself in line or
colour, and it was not till he was alone at Monastier
in 1878, that he made for his own pleasure such
sketches as any grown man with no technical educa-
tion might attempt.

In April again the family quitted the Alps, but this
year with welcome news. " We now leave Davos for
good, I trust, Dr. Ruedi giving me leave to live in
France, fifteen miles as the crow flies from the sea,
and if possible near a fir wood. This is a great
blessing : I hope I am grateful."

They crossed the Channel with little delay ; Louis

DAVOS AND THE HIGHLANDS— 1880-82 141

stayed first at Weybridge, and then at Burford
Bridge, where he renewed his friendship with George
Meredith. By May 2oth he was in Edinburgh, and
there spent most of June, though he made a week's
expedition with his father to Lochearnhead, hard by
the Braes of Balquhidder. Here he made inquiries
about the Appin murder, perpetrated only forty miles
away, and was successful in finding some local tradi-
tions about the murderer still extant.

The flow of work at the beginning of the year was
followed by a long period of unproductiveness after
he returned to this country. He had an article in
each number of the Cornhill from April to August,
but, except the second part of " Talk and Talkers,"
these had been written at Davos. After this his con-
nection with the magazine came to an end. During
the past seven years its readers had grown accustomed
to look eagerly every month in hope of finding an
article by R. L. S., and all its rivals have, by com-
parison, ever since seemed conventional and dull.

On June 26th, the family went to the manse of
Stobo, in Peeblesshire for the summer. But the
weather was bad, the house shut in by trees, and the
result most unbeneficial. In a fortnight Louis was
ordered away, went to London to consult Dr. Andrew
Clark, and in accordance with his advice started on
July 22nd for Speyside in the company of Sidney
Colvin. The rest of the family soon joined him at
Kingussie, and here again by a burn — " the golden
burn that pours and sulks," he spent the last entire
month he ever passed in Scotland. Having gone to
France to write about Edinburgh, in the Highlands
he turned again to France, and now wrote most of the
Treasure of Franchard. The weather again did its
worst ; he had an invitation to meet Cluny Macpher-
son, and was eagerly looking forward to a talk about
the Highlands. But a hemorrhage intervened,
Stevenson had to leave in haste, and by September 9th
he was in London, again asking the advice of
Dr. Clark. The opinion was so far favourable that

142 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

there was no need to return to Davos, which disagreed
with Mrs. Stevenson, and of which they were both
heartily tired. They were thus at liberty to seek a
home in some more congenial spot.

CHAPTER X

THE RIVIERA — 1882-84

" Happy (said I), I was only happy once, that was at
Hyeres ; it came to end from a variety of reasons, decline
of health, change of place, increase of money, age with
his stealing steps ; since then, as before then, I know not
what it means." — Letters, iii. 245.

A CCORDINGLY about the middle of September
** Stevenson started for the south of France, and,
since he was unfit to go alone, and his wife was
too ill to undertake the journey, he started in
the charge and company of his cousin, R. A. M.
Stevenson. Their object was to discover some place
suitable for both husband and wife, possessing more
of the advantages of a town and fewer of the draw-
backs of a health-resort than the Alpine valley from
which they were now finally released. Paris was
left without delay, and Montpellier was next tried
and rejected, but not until Louis had a slight hemorr-
hage. He wrote to his wife : "I spent a very
pleasant afternoon in the doctor's consulting-room
among the curious, meridional peasants, who quar-
relled and told their complaints. I made myself
very popular there, I don't know how."

His companion had to return home, and Louis
made his way to Marseilles, where, a few days later,
on October nth, he was joined by his wife.

No time was wasted ; within three days a house
that seemed all they could desire was found and
taken. It was a commodious maison de campagne
with a large garden, situated about five miles from
Marseilles, with such facilities of communication with

THE RIVIERA— 1882-84 143

the city as a considerable suburb ensures. " In a
lovely spot, among lovely wooded and cliffy hills —
most mountainous in line — far lovelier to my eye
than any Alps."

In another week they were installed in Campagne
Defli, and had sent for such property as they needed.
But whether the house, or the neighbourhood, or the
season was unhealthy, St. Marcel proved a most
unfortunate choice. Stevenson was never well there
and never for more than three or four days at a time
capable of any work. He had several slight hemorr-
hages and mended very slowly. By Christmas he
wrote : "I had to give up wood-engraving, chess,
latterly even Patience, and could read almost nothing
but newspapers. It was dull but necessary. I seem
hopelessly hide-bound, as you see ; nothing comes
out of me but chips."

At the end of the year an epidemic of fever broke
out in St. Marcel, and he found himself so unwell,
that in desperation he went to Nice lest he should
become too ill to move. They were unprepared for
the move, and his wife stayed behind until they
could obtain further supplies. In the meantime
telegrams and letters went astray, and at the end
of a week Mrs. Stevenson arrived at Nice quite
distraught. She had received no news whatever of
her husband, having telegraphed in all directions
for three days in vain, and had been assured by
every one that he must have had a fresh hemorrhage,
have left the train at some wayside station, and
there died and been buried.

In the meantime all went well, but it was obviously
impossible for Stevenson to think of returning to St.
Marcel ; by the middle of February, 1883, they got
the Campagne Defli off their hands, and were at
liberty to seek a fresh settlement. After a short
visit to Marseilles, they went to a hotel at Hydres,
and there by the end of March were once more estab-
lished in a house Of their" own — Chalet La Solitude.
It was situated just above the town, on a slope of

144 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

the hill on which the castle stands, commanding a
view of Les Oiseaux and the lies d'Or ; a cottage
scarce as large as the Davos chalet, " with a garden
like a fairy-story and a view like a classical landscape."

Here for a year, or, to be strictly accurate, for a
little more than nine months, Stevenson was to find
happiness, a greater happiness than ever came to
him again, except perhaps at moments in his exile.
Hardly anything seemed wanting ; his wife was
always able to be with him, and he had, besides, the
company of his stepson, in which he delighted.
There was the affectionate intercourse with his
parents, clouded only by the gradual failure in his
father's spirits ; there was the correspondence with
his friends ; already in March he had been able to
welcome Sidney Colvin as the first of his visitors ;
and, not least, he found a measure of health once
more and a renewed capacity for employing his
increased skill.

Of the first of these elements in his happiness he
wrote to his mother in 1884 : " My wife is in pretty
good feather ; I love her better than ever and admire
her more ; and I cannot think what I have done to
deserve so good a gift. This sudden remark came
out of my pen ; it is not like me ; but in case you
did not know, I may as well tell you, that my mar-
riage has been the most successful in the world. I
say so, and being the child of my parents, I can
speak with knowledge. She is everything to me ;
wife, brother, sister, daughter and dear companion ;
and I would not change to get a goddess or a saint.
So far, after four years of matrimony." And of his
delight in his surroundings he said in 1883 : " This
house and garden of ours still seem to go between
us and our wits." Their material comfort was
further increased in May, when Valentine Roch
entered their service, an extremely clever and capable
French girl, who remained with them for six years,
and even accompanied them on their first cruise in
the Pacific.

THE RIVIERA— 1882-84 145

For a period of nearly eight months he had been
unable to earn any money or to finish any work,
and it was therefore with the greatest delight that
in the beginning of May he received an offer from
Messrs. Cassell for the book-rights of Treasure Island
in advance. " How much do you suppose ? I
believe it would be an excellent jest to keep the
answer till my next letter. For two cents I would
do so. Shall I ? Anyway, I'll turn the page first.
No — well, a hundred pounds, all alive, O 1 A hun-
dred jingling, tingling, golden, minted quid. Is not
this wonderful ? " ..." It is dreadful to be a
great, big man, and not to be able to buy bread."

Already, before he reached La Solitude, his en-
forced leisure had come to an end. Verse writing
with him was almost always a resource of illness or
of convalescence, and he now took advantage of his
recovery to increase the poems of childhood (for
which his first name was Penny Whistles), until they
amounted to some eight-and-forty numbers. Now,
also, in answer to an application from R. W. Gilder,
the editor of the Century Magazine, the Silverado
Squatters was finished and despatched to New York,
and so began his first important connection with
any of the American publishers who were afterwards
to prove so lucrative to him. Of course, like others,
he had suffered at the hands of persons who had not
only appropriated his books without licence, but,
even, a less usual outrage, had wantonly misspelt
his name. " I saw my name advertised in a number
of the Critic as the work of one R. L. Stephenson ;
and, I own, I boiled. It is so easy to know the
name of the man whose book you have stolen ; for
there it is, at full length, on the title-page of your
booty. But no, damn him, not he I He calls me
Stephenson."

The ground was now clear before him, and on April
roth he set to work once more from the beginning
upon Prince Otto, which had been begun in California
in its present form some three years before. Ten days

146 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVE^7SON

later he wrote : " I am up to the waist in a, story ; a
kind of one volume novel ; how do they ever puff
them out into three ? Lots of things happen in this
thing of mine, and one volume will swallow it without
a strain." At first all went swimmingly. By May
5th — in five-and-twenty days — he had drafted fifteen
chapters. But there was a stumbling-block in
his path — he had yet to reckon with his women
characters. When he came to the scenes where the
intervention of the Countess von Rosen is described,
his resources were taxed to their utmost, and when the
battle went against him, he renewed his attack again
and again. Seven times was the fifteenth chapter
rewritten, and it was only the eighth version which
finally was suffered to pass.

In June he went for a week to Marseilles, and on
July ist left for Royat. The latter visit was most
successful, as his parents joined the party and there
spent several weeks, but early in September Louis
and his wife were back at La Solitude. Treasure
Island had been prepared for press, and was already
in the hands of the printers with the sole exception of
the chart out of which the story had grown. This,
having been accidentally mislaid, had now to be
reconstructed from the text, and was being drawn in
the Stevensons' office in Edinburgh.

On September igth Stevenson heard of the death of
his old friend Walter Ferrier, who had long been in
bad health, but was not supposed to be in any
immediate danger. The record of their friendship is
contained in the essay called "Old Mortality," which
was written this winter ; part of the letter has already
been quoted which Stevenson wrote to Henley at this
time upon hearing of their common loss, a letter which
is, moreover, given at length in Sir Sidney Colvin's
collection. Hence there is no occasion to say more
here than that this was the first breach death had
made in the inner circle of Stevenson's friends.

That very spring he had written in a letter of con-
solation, " I am like a blind man in speaking of these

THE RIVIERA— 1882-84 147

things, for I have never known what mourning is, and
the state of my health permits me to hope that I shall
carry this good fortune unbroken to the grave." The
hope was not to be fulfilled, but never again, with the
exception of his father and of Fleeming Jenkin, did
any loss so nearly affect him as the death of Walter
Ferrier.

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

Treasure Island was published as a book in the end
of November, when Stevenson obtained his first popu-
lar success. Its reception reads like a fairy-tale.
Statesmen and judges and all sorts of staid and sober
men became boys once more, sitting up long after
bedtime to read their new book. The story goes that
Mr. Gladstone got a glimpse of it at Lord Rosebery's
house, and spent the next day hunting over London
for a second-hand copy. The editor of the Saturday
Review, the superior, cynical "Saturday " of old days,
wrote excitedly to say that he thought Treasure Island
was the best book that had appeared since Robinson
Crusoe •, and James Payn, who, if not a great novelist
himself, yet held an undisputed position among nove-
lists and critics, sent a note hardly less enthusiastic.
Mr. Andrew Lang spent over it " several hours of

148 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

unmingled bliss." " This is the kind of stufl a fellow
wants. I don't know, except Tom Sawyer and the
Odyssey, that I ever liked any romance so well." It
was translated and pirated in all directions, appearing
within a couple of years as a feuilleton even in Greek
and Spanish papers. For all this, it brought in no
great emolument, for during the first year no more
than five thousand six hundred copies were sold in
this country.

Its author, at all events, did not lose his head or
over-estimate his merits. Writing to his parents he
says : " This gives one strange thoughts of how very
bad the common run of books must be ; and generally
all the books that the wiseacres think too bad to print
are the very ones that bring me praise and pudding."

One link with the past had snapped, one friendship
had vanished, and Stevenson was looking forward all
the more eagerly to seeing two of his oldest friends,
Henley and Charles Baxter, who were coming out to
spend a long-promised holiday with him. The New
Year came, his friends arrived at Hydres, and for
about a week he enjoyed the delights to which he had
looked forward. But the house was too small for
their reception, and Stevenson proposed that they
should all go away together to some other place, that
he might share with them the benefit of a change.
Accordingly the party of four went to Nice, and there
almost at once Stevenson took cold. At first it
seemed slight, and his friends who were due to return
home went away without thought of anxiety. The
cold, however, resulted in congestion of the lungs, and
suddenly the situation became grave. " At a con-
sultation of doctors," Mrs. Stevenson says, " I was
told there was no hope, and I had better send for some
member of the family to be with me at the end. Bob
Stevenson came, and I can never be grateful enough
for what he did for me then. He helped me to nurse
Louis, and he kept me from despair as I believe no one
else could have done ; he inspired me with hope when
there seemed no hope."

THE RIVIERA— 1882-84 H9

Very slowly he grew better ; it was some time
before he was out of danger, and a month before he
was able to set foot outside the house ; but at last
they returned to La Solitude.

The illness, however, marked the beginning of a
new and protracted period of ill-health, which
lasted with but little intermission until he had left
Europe.

Miss Ferrier, his friend's sister, came out at this
time and stayed with them until their return to
England, proving an unfailing support to them in
their increasing troubles. For in the first week in
May Stevenson was attacked with the most violent
and dangerous hemorrhage he ever experienced. It
occurred late at night, but in a moment his wife was
by his side. Being choked with the flow of blood and
unable to speak, he made signs to her for a paper and
pencil, and wrote in a neat firm hand, " Don't be
frightened ; if this is death, it is an easy one." Mrs.
Stevenson had always a small bottle of ergotin and
a minim glass in readiness ; these she brought in
order to administer the prescribed quantity. Seeing
her alarm, he took the bottle and glass away from
her, measured the dose correctly with a perfectly
steady hand, and gave the things back to her with
a reassuring smile.

Recovery was very slow and attended by numerous
complications, less dangerous, but ever more painful
than the original malady. The dust of street refuse
gave him Egyptian ophthalmia, and sciatica descend-
ing upon him caused him the more pain, as he was
suffering already from restlessness. The hemorrhage
was not yet healed, and we now hear for the first time
of the injunctions to absolute silence, orders patiently
obeyed, distasteful as they were In silence and the
dark, and in acute suffering, he was still cheery and
undaunted. When the ophthalmia began and the
doctor first announced his diagnosis, Mrs. Stevenson
felt that it was more than anyone could be expected
to bear, and went into another room, and there, in

ISO LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

her own phrase, " sat and gloomed." Louis rang his
bell and she went to him, saying, in the bitterness of
her spirit, as she entered the room, " Well, I suppose
that this is the very best thing that could have
happened ! " " Why, how odd I " wrote Louis on a
piece of paper, "I was just going to say those very
words." When darkness fell upon him and silence
was imposed, and his right arm was in a sling on
account of the hemorrhage, his wife used to amuse
him for part of the day by making up tales, some of
which they afterwards used in the Dynamiter ; when
these were at an end, he continued the Child's Garden,
writing down the new verses for himself in the dim
light with his left hand. When he got a little better
he wrote to his mother : " I do nothing but play
patience and write verse, the true sign of my de-
cadence. With careful nursing he began to mend."
In a few days Mrs. Stevenson was able to write to
her mother-in-law : —

" [iSth May, 1884.] — . . . The doctor says, ' Keep
him alive till he is forty, and then although a winged
bird, he may live to ninety." But between now and
forty he must live as though he were walking on eggs,
and for the next two years, no matter how well he
feels, he must live the life of an invalid. He must be
perfectly tranquil, trouble about nothing, have no
shocks or surprises, not even pleasant ones ; must
not eat too much, drink too much, laugh too much ;
may write a little, but not too much ; talk very
little, and walk no more than can be helped."

His recovery was steady and satisfactory ; with
great caution and by the aid of a courier the party
made their way to Royat without mishap early in
June. Thence he made up his mind to return to
England in order to obtain a final medical opinion
upon his health and prospects. The only course
before him apparently was to " live the life of a
delicate girl " until he was forty. But uncongenial
as this seemed, his spirits were as high as ever, and

BOURNEMOUTH— 1884-87 151

he signed the letter with a string of names worthy of
Bunyan's own invention — " I am, yours,

Mr. Muddler.

Mr. Addlehead.

Mr. Wandering Butterwits.

Mr. Shiftless Inconsistency.

Sir Indecision Contentment."

The journey was safely accomplished, and Steven-
son and his wife reached England on the ist of July,
the day before the first representation on the London
stage of Deacon Brodie.

CHAPTER XI

BOURNEMOUTH — 1 884-87'

' This is the study where a smiling God
Beholds each day my stage of labour trod,
And smiles and praises, and I hear him say :
' The day is brief ; be diligent in play.' "

R. L, S.

THE next three years Stevenson was to spend in
England — the only time he was ever resident in
this country — and then Europe was to see him no more.
At first sight the chronicle of this time would seem to
be more full of interest than any other period of his
life. Treasure Island, his " first book," had just
been given to the world ; the year after his return
A Child's Garden of Verses and Prince Otto were
published, and Jekyll and Hyde and Kidnapped
appeared in the following year. To have written
almost any one of these brilliant yet widely dis-
similar books would be to challenge the attention of
the most distinguished contemporary men of letters ;
and to meet Stevenson at this time was instantly to
acknowledge the quality and charm of the man and
the strong fascination of his talk. For the whole of the
period he made his home at Bournemouth, within

152 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

easy reach of London visitors ; and in London itself
Sidney Colvin (who had now become Keeper of Prints
at the British Museum) not only had a house always
open to him, but delighted to bring together those
who by their own powers were best fitted to appreciate
his society.

Yet the reality is disappointing. To produce
brilliant writings it is not necessary at the time to
live an exciting or even a very full life, and Stevenson's
health deprived him more and more of the ordinary
incidents which happen to most men in their daily
course. Looking back on this period in after days,
he cries out : " Remember the pallid brute that lived
in Skerryvore like a weevil in a biscuit." Nearly all
the time which was not devoted to contending with
illness was taken up with his work, and as he rarely
left home without returning in a more or less disabled
condition, he stayed in his own house and led the
most retired of lives. Even there it was no un-
common experience for a visitor who had come to
Bournemouth specially to gee him, to find himself put
to the door, either on the ground of having a cold, to
the contagion of which it was unsafe for Stevenson to
be exposed, or because his host was already too ill
.to receive him.

Having passed a few days in a hotel at Richmond,
'Stevenson and his wife went down to Bournemouth,
where Lloyd Osbourne had for some months past
been at school. After staying at a hotel, and trying
first one and then another set of lodgings o^ the West
'Cliff, at the end of October they migrated into a
furnished house in Branksome Park. The doctors
"whom he consulted were equally divided in their
•Opinions, two saying it would be safe for him to stay
in this country, while two advised him to go abroad ;
and in the end he yielded only to the desire to be
near his father, who, though still at work, was evi-
dently failing fast.

Meanwhile the first two months at Bournemouth
were spent chiefly in the company of W. E. Henley,

BOURNEMOUTH— 1884-87 . 153

and were devoted to collaboration over two new plays.
The reception of Deacon Brodie had been sufficiently
promising to serve as an incentive to write a piece
which should be a complete success, and so to grasp
some of the rewards which now seemed within reach
of the authors. They had never affected to disregard
the fact that in this country the prizes of the drama-
tist are out of all proportion to the payment of the
man of letters, and already in 1883 Stevenson had
written to his father : " The theatre is the gold mine ;
and on that I must keep an eye." Now that they
were again able to meet, and to be constantly together,,
the friends embarked upon some of the schemes they
had projected long ago, and no doubt had talked over
at Nice at the beginning of the year. By October the
drafts of Beau Austin and Admiral Guinea were
completed and set up in type ; and in the following
spring, at the suggestion of Mr. Beerbohm Tree, the
two collaborators again set to work and produced their
English version of Macaire. These were to have been
but the beginning of their labours, but more necessary
work intervened, and the plays were never resumed.

Meanwhile, on receiving an application from the
proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette for a Christmas
story, Stevenson attempted to produce a new tale for
the occasion. It proved, however, what, in the slang
of the studio, he called a " machine," and " Markheim,"
which was now ready, being too short, as a last re-
source he bethought himself of " The Body Snatcher,"
one of the " tales of horror " written at Pitlochry in
1881, and then " laid aside in a justifiable disgust."
It was not one of his greater achievements, and would
probably have excited little comment, had it not been
for the gruesome and unauthorised methods of
advertisement.

By the end of January so successful had the winter
been that Thomas Stevenson bought a house at
Bournemouth as a present for his daughter-in-law.
Its name was forthwith changed to Skerry vore in
commemoration of the most beautiful and the most

154 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

difficult to build of all the lighthouses erected by the
family. It was no great distance from where they
were already living : a modern brick house, closely
covered with ivy ; and from the top windows it was
possible to catch a glimpse of the sea. There was
half an acre of ground very charmingly arranged,
running down from the lawn at the back, past a bank
of heather, into a chine or small ravine full of rhodo-
dendrons, and at the bottom a tiny stream.

Wanderer as he was, and still gave the impression of
being, Stevenson entered into his new property with
a keenness of delight that must have amused those
of his friends who remembered his former disparage-
ment of all household possessions. " Our drawing-
room is now a place so beautiful that it's like eating
to sit in it. No other room is so lovely in the world ;
there I sit like an old Irish beggarman's cast-off bauchle
in a palace throne-room. Incongruity never went
so far ; I blush for the figure I cut in such a bower."

The large dovecot is commemorated in Underwoods ;
the garden was an endless pleasure to Mrs. Stevenson,
and long having been the domain of " Boguey " in his
life-time, became at last his resting-place. Having
been sent to hospital to recover from wounds received
in battle, he broke loose, in his maimed state attacked
another dog more powerful than himself, and so
perished. His master and mistress were inconsolable,
and never, even in Samoa, could bring themselves to
allow any successor.

I have already referred to the easy access to Bourne-
mouth, which was, of course, a prime consideration
with his parents. But Stevenson's friends had seen
little of him for several years past, so in this also there
was a welcome change from Hy£res. Nearly all the
old and tried companions whom I have mentioned
came to Skerryvore during thess years : R. A. M.
Stevenson and his wife, and his sister, Mrs. de Mattos,
and her children ; Miss Ferrier, Charles Baxter,
Fleeming Jenkin and Mrs. Jenkin, Sidney Colvin, and
W. E. Henley all paid more of less frequent visits.

BOURNEMOUTH— 1884-87 155

Among the new-comers were Mr. Sargent, who twice
came to paint his host's portrait ; Mr. James Sully,
an old friend at the Savile Club ; Mr. William Archer,
who owed his first coming to his severe but inspiring
analysis of Stevenson, and remained as one of the
most valued of his critics and appreciative of his
friends ; and, last and most welcome of the admis-
sions into the inmost circle, his very dear friend, Mr.
Henry James.

One of the most frequent visitors was R. A. M.
Stevenson, who had, after some time, decided to give
up the thankless task of producing pictures for the
public which were not those he wanted to paint, and
to use his technical knowledge and matchless powers
of exposition in the criticism of art. That other art
of writing, however, which Louis had spent his life
in learning, could not be mastered in a day for the pur-
poses of journalism even by so brilliant a talker as
Bob, and it fell to Louis and Henley to give him many
hints and put him through an apprenticeship in the
technical part of the new profession in which he so
rapidly made his mark.

Nor were the residents of Bournemouth to be over-
looked, although (besides Dr. Scott, to whom Under-
woods was chiefly dedicated, and Mrs. Boodle and her
daughter, the " Gamekeeper " of the Letters) close
friendship was confined to two families — Sir Henry
Taylor and his wife and daughters, and Sir Percy and
Lady Shelley. Sir Percy, the son of the poet, was
devoted to yachting and the theatre (especially melo-
drama), and his genial, kindly nature, in which shrewd-
ness and simplicity were most attractively blended,
endeared him to his new as to all his old friends, while
Lady Shelley, no less warm-hearted, took the greatest
fancy to Louis, and discovering in him a close likeness
to her renowned father-in-law, she forthwith claimed
him as her son.

But it was the Taylors with whom he lived in more
intimate relations in spite of the impression he seems
here again to have produced of a being wholly

156 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

transitory and detached, a bird of passage resting in his
flight from some strange source to regions yet more
unknown. Sir Henry indeed died almost before the
friendship had commenced, but Lady Taylor and her
daughters continued to live at Bournemouth until
long after Skerryvore was transferred to other hands.

But before Sir Henry Taylor passed away, Steven-
son had suffered a more unexpected and a heavier
blow in the death of his friend Fleeming Jenkin on
June 12, 1885. Only once again in his life was he to
lose one very near to him, and the subsequent task of
writing his friend's life not only raised his great
admiration but even deepened the regret for his loss.

To some of his friends in these days, and chiefly to
Miss Una Taylor, Mrs. Jenkin, W. E. Henley, and his
cousin Bob, he owed the revival of his interest in
music, which now laid greater hold upon him than
ever before. He began to learn the piano, though he
never reached even a moderate degree of skill ; he
flung himself with the greatest zeal into the mysteries
of composition, wherein it is but honest to say that he
failed to master the rudiments. " Books are of no
use," he says ; " they tell you how to write in four
parts, and that cannot be done by man. Or do you
know a book that really tells a fellow ? I suppose
people are expected to have ears. To my ear a
fourth is delicious, and consecutive fifths the music of
the spheres. As for hidden fifths, those who pretend
to dislike 'em I can never acquit of affectation.
Besides (this in your ear) there is nothing else in
music I know ; I have tried to write four parts."

His delight and eagerness were enhanced rather
than decreased by difficulties, and in a period of his
life when nearly all pleasures were taken away from
him, he was able at least to sit at the piano and create
for the ear of his imagination those heavenly joys it is
the prerogative of music to bestow.

Besides enjoying the company of his friends, he
made good use of his few other opportunities. Since
at Bournemouth his health hardly ever allowed him

BOURNEMOUTH— 1884-87 157

to pass beyond the gate of Skerryvore, the chance
seldom presented itself to him of meeting men of any
other class whose lives lay outside his own, but those
who fell in his way received unusual attention at his
hands, more especially if they possessed originality
or any independence of character. Thus, the barber
chat came to cut his hair, the picture-framer, the
" vet " who attended " Boguey," each in their differ-
ent way were originals to a man whose life was so
secluded ; their coming was welcomed, they invariably
stayed to meals, and, sooner or later, told the story of
their lives.

Such was his own life, and such were his surround-
ings at this period ; and yet to leave the picture
without a word of warning would be wholly to mis-
represent Stevenson. A popular novelist, toiling
incessantly at his writing, and confined by ill-health
almost entirely within the walls of a suburban villa
at an English watering-place, is about as dreary a
figure as could be formed from the facts. The details
are as accurate as if they were in a realistic novel,
and yet the essence is wholly untrue to life. It is
necessary to insist again and again on the " spirit
intense and rare," the courage, the vivacity, the
restless intellect ever forming new schemes with
unceasing profusion. There are people who might
live a life of the wildest adventure, of the most
picturesque diversity, and yet be dull. Stevenson
could lie in a pickroom for weeks without speaking,
and yet declare truly, as he asserted to Mr. Archer,
" I never was bored in my life." When everything
else failed, and he was entirely incapable of work, he
would build card-houses, or lie in bed modelling small
figures of wax or clay, taking the keenest interest in
either process. On being told that a friend of his
" has fallen in love with stagnation," from his invalid
chair he protests that the dream of his life is to be
" the leader of a great horde of irregular cavalry,"
and his favourite attitude " turning in the saddle to
look back at my whole command (some five thousand

158 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

strong) following me at the hand-gallop up the road
out of the burning valley by moonlight." In him at
least the romantic daydream called out as completely
the splendid virtues of courage and enterprise and
resolution as he could ever have displayed them on
the field of battle.

In March, 1885, A Child's Garden of Verses was
published at last, after having been set up twice in
proof. In April Prince Otto began to run in Longman's
Magazine, coming out as a book in October, and by
May More New Arabian Nights appeared. Soon after
the issue of Prince Otto, Stevenson wrote to Henley :
" I had yesterday a letter from George Meredith,
which was one of the events of my life. He cottoned
(for one thing), though with differences, to Otto ;
cottoned more than my rosiest visions had inspired
me to hope ; said things that (from him) I would
blush to quote." Mr. Meredith's letter unfortunately
has disappeared, but in another from the same source
there occur these words : "I have read pieces of
Prince Otto, admiring the royal manner of your
cutting away of the novelist's lumber. Straight to
matter is the secret. Also approvingly your article
on style."

Still, with all this production, and with praise from
so high a quarter, it must not be supposed that
Stevenson's writing as yet brought in any very
extravagant payment. His professional income for
this year, in fact, was exactly the same as that which
he had averaged for the three years preceding, and
amounted to less than four hundred pounds. Nor
were his receipts materially increased before he
reached America.

A subject much in his thoughts at this time was the
duality of man's nature and the alternation of good and
evil ; and he was for a long while casting about for a
story to embody this central idea. Out of this frame
of mind had come the sombre imagination of " Mark-
heim," but that was not what he required. The true
case still delayed, till suddenly one night he had a

BOURNEMOUTH— 1 884-87 1 59

dream. He awoke, and found himself in possession
of two, or rather three, of the scenes in the Strange
Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Its waking existence, however, was by no means
without incident. He dreamed these scenes in con
siderable detail, including the circumstances of the
transforming powders and so vivid was the impression
that he wrote the story off at a red heat, just as it had
presented itself to him in his sleep.

He had lately had a hemorrhage, and was strictly
forbidden all discussion or excitement. No doubt the
reading aloud was contrary to the doctor's orders ;
at any rate Mrs. Stevenson, according to the custom
then in force, wrote her detailed criticism of the
story as it then stood, pointing out her chief objec-
tion— that it was really an allegory, whereas he had
treated it purely as if it were a story. In the first
draft Jekyll's nature was bad all through, and the
Hyde change was worked only for the sake of a
disguise. She gave the paper to her husband and
left the room. After a while his bell rang ; on her
return she found him sitting up in bed (the clinical
thermometer in his mouth), pointing with a long
denunciatory finger to a pile of ashes. He had burned
the entire draft. Having realised that he had taken
the wrong point of view, that the tale was an allegory
and not another " Markheim," he at once destroyed
his manuscript, acting not out of pique, but from
a fear that he might be tempted to make too much
use of it, and not rewrite the whole from a new
standpoint.

It was written again in three days (" I drive on
with Jekyll : bankruptcy at my heels ") ; but the
fear of losing the story altogether prevented much
further criticism. The powder was condemned as too
material an agency, but this he could not eliminate,
because in the dream it had made so strong an
impression upon him.

" The mere physical feat," Mr. Osbourne continues,
" was tremendous ; and instead of harming him, it

i6o LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

roused and cheered him inexpressibly." Of course
it must not be supposed that these three days repre-
sent all the time that Stevenson spent upon the
story, for after this he was working hard for a month
or six weeks in bringing it into its present form.

The manuscript was then offered to Messrs. Long-
mans for their magazine ; and on their judgment the
decision was taken not to break it up into monthly
sections, but to issue it as a shilling book in paper
covers. " The little book was printed," says Mr.
Charles Longman, " but when it was ready the book-
stalls were already full of Christmas numbers, etc.,
and the trade would not look at it. We therefore
withdrew it till after Christmas. In January it was
launched — not without difficulty. The trade did not
feel inclined to take it up, till a review appeared in
the Times1 calling attention to the story. This gave
it a start, and in the next six months close on forty
thousand copies were sold in this country alone."
Besides the authorised edition in America, the book
was widely pirated.

Its success was probably due rather to the moral
instincts of the public than to any conscious percep-
tion of the merits of its art. It was read by those
who never read fiction, it was quoted in pulpits, and
made the subject of leading articles in religious news-
papers. But as literature also it was justly received
with enthusiasm. Even Symonds, though he doubted
" whether anyone had the right so to scrutinise the
abysmal depths of personality," admitted, " The art
is burning and intense " ; and the cry of horror and
pain which he raised was in another sense a tribute
to its success. " How had you the ilia dura ferro el
cere triplici duriora to write Dr. Jekyll ? I know now
what was meant when you were called a sprite."

In his Chapter on Dreams, Stevenson has told his
readers how the " brownies " suddenly became useful
in providing him with stories for his books, but in

1 The Times, January 25th, 1886.

BOURNEMOUTH— 1884-87 161

spite of this statement it appears that besides Jekyll
and Hyde there is only one other plot thus furnished
which he ever actually completed. This was "Olalla,"
which appeared in the Christmas number of the
Court and Society Review. To Lady Taylor he wrote :
" The trouble with ' Olalla ' is, that it somehow
sounds false. . . . The odd problem is : What makes
a story true ? ' Markheim ' is true ; ' Olalla ' false ;
and I don't know why, nor did I feel it while I worked
at them ; indeed I had more inspiration with ' Olalla,'
as the style shows. I am glad you thought that
young Spanish woman well dressed ; I admire the
style of it myself, more than is perhaps good for me ;
it is so solidly written. And that again brings back
(almost with the voice of despair) my unanswerable :
Why is it false ? "

Kidnapped was begun in March, 1885, as another
story for boys, and with as little premeditation as
afterwards sufficed for its sequel. But when once
the hero had been started upon his voyage, the tale
was laid aside and not resumed until the following
January, just after the publication of Jekyll and
Hyde.

" In one of my books, and in one only, the char-
acters took the bit in their teeth ; all at once, they
became detached from the flat paper, they turned
their backs on me and walked off bodily ; and from
that time my task was stenographic — it was they
who spoke, it was they who wrote the remainder of
the story."

But within two months Stevenson began to flag,
and not long after a visit for his father's sake to
Matlock, where he had made small progress with the
writing, he decided, at his friend Colvin's suggestion,
to break off with David's return to Edinburgh and
leave the tale half told. Mr. Henderson gladly
accepted the story for Young Folks, where it ran
under Stevenson's own name from May to Tuly, and
was then published by Messrs. Cassell & Co."

The whole took him, as he said, " probably fiv*

1 62 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

months' actual working ; one of these months
entirely over the last chapters, which had to be put
together without interest or inspiration, almost
word for word, for I was entirely worked out." But
as a whole, the author thought it the best and most
human work he had yet done, and its success was
immediate with all readers. To mention two
instances only : — Matthew Arnold, who apparently
knew Stevenson's work little, if at all, before this,
was at once filled with delight, and we are told that
it was the last book Lord Iddesleigh was able to
read with pleasure — " a volume," adds Mr. Lang,
" containing more of the spirit of Scott than any
other in English fiction."

The elder Stevenson had for several years, as we
have seen, been declining in health and spirits, and
the shadows began to close about his path. In
1885 he gradually reduced the amount of his work,
though he still continued his practice, and could not
altogether refuse the solicitations he received to
appear as a scientific witness before Parliamentary
Committees.

The tenderness of the relation between father and
son now became pathetic in the extreme. As the
old man's powers began to fail, he would speak to
Louis as though he were still a child. When they
went to the theatre together, and Louis stood up in
his place, the father put his arm round him, saying :
*' Take care, my dearie, you might fall." At night
as he kissed his son, he would say reassuringly :
" You'll see me in the morning, dearie." " It was,"
says his daughter-in-law, " just like a mother with
a young child."

It was chiefly in the summers and autumns that
Louis left Bournemouth, but even then he rarely
travelled any distance or was absent for any length
of time. In 1885 he went to London in June, and
then accompanied his wife on a last visit to Cambridge
to stay with Sidney Colvin, who was now resign-
ing his professorship. In August he started for

BOURNEMOUTH— 1884-87 163

Dartmoor, but after meeting Mr. Thomas Hardy and
his wife at Dorchester, was laid up with a violent
hemorrhage at Exeter, in the hotel, and was com-
pelled to remain there for several weeks, before he
was able to return home. In the following year he
went to town in June, and again in August, the latter
time extending his journey to Paris, in the company
of his wife and W. E. Henley, to see their friends
Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Low, then, after a long interval,
revisiting France for the first time.

Meeting once more in their early haunts, the old
friends revived many memories. One trivial remini-
scence of this occasion is yet so characteristic of
Stevenson, and so illustrates the working of his mind,
that it may find a place here. The two friends,
painter and writer, both possessing a fine palate
for certain wines, had always laughed at one another's
pretensions to such taste. In 1875 or 1876, soon
after Mr. Low's marriage, he and his wife had gone to
dine with Stevenson at the Cafe of the Musee de
Cluny in the Boulevard St. Michel. Mr. Low
hesitating for a moment in his choice of a wine,
Stevenson turned to Mrs. Low, and on the spot made
up and elaborately embellished a story of how her
husband had once gone with him to dine at a restau-
rant, and had tasted and rejected every vintage the
establishment was able to offer. At last — so the tale
ran — the proprietor confessed that there was one
bottle even finer in his cellar, which had lain there
forty years, but that he was ready to give it up to such
a master, although it was like surrendering a part of
his life. A procession was formed, first the proprietor,
then the cellarman, then the waiters of the establish-
ment, and they all went down to the cellar to get
the famous bottle. Back they came in the same
order with the priceless treasure borne tenderly in
the arms of the cellarman, a man with a long beard
down to his waist, who had been so much in the
cellar that the light made him blink. Slowly and
reverently they approached the table, and then the}'

164 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

all sighed. The bottle was deliberately and cere-
moniously uncorked, and the wine poured into small
glasses, while the waiters looked on with breathless
reverence. The two connoisseurs touched glasses
and slowly carried them to their lips. There was
absolute silence. All eyes were upon them, and when
they drank deeply and expressed their satisfaction,
the whole establishment heaved a sigh of relief.

Mrs. Low now reminded Stevenson of this story,
and he, declaring it was no " story," but an historical
account of what had actually happened, repeated it
word for word as he had originally told it. When he
came to the end, he added, " And the cellarman,
overcome with emotion, dropped dead." As he
said these words, he saw by his hearers' faces that
this was a divergence from the original tale, and
added quickly, " That about the cellarman is not
really true ! "

The visit to Paris was most successful, its chief
event being a visit to Rodin, the sculptor, to whom
Stevenson was introduced by Henley. He came
home in what was for him exceptionally good health ;
but returning in October to The Monument — his
invariable name for Sidney Colvin's house at the
British Museum — he did not escape so easily. The
second holiday began delightfully, for it was on this
occasion that he met some of the most distinguished
of his elders in the world of letters and of art —
especially, as Mr. Colvin records, Browning, Lowell
and Burne- Jones. But soon the visitor was taken
ill, confined to bed, and unable to return home until
the very end of November, when a succession of fogs
made the danger of remaining in London greater
than the risk of any journey.

By this time he had begun to write the Memoir of
his friend Jenkin, the only biography which he ever
actually carried to an end. A few months later
Mrs. Jenkin came to Skerryvore to afford him what
assistance he needed, and of his method of dealing
mth the work, she has given a description.

BOURNEMOUTH— 1884-87 165

" I used to go to his room after tea, and tell him
all I could remember of certain times and circum-
stances. He would listen intently, every now and
then checking me while he made a short note, or
asking me to repeat or amplify what I had said, if
it had not been quite clear. Next morning I went
to him again, and he read aloud to me what he had
written — my two hours of talk compressed into a
page, and yet, as it seemed to me, all there, all
expressed. He would make me note what he had
written word by word, asking me, ' Does this express
quite exactly what you mean ? ' Sometimes he
offered me alternative words, ' Does this express it
more truly ? ' If I objected to any sentence as not
conveying my meaning, he would alter it again and
again — unwearied in taking pains."

His life in England led him to take, both in home
and in foreign politics, a closer interest than he had
felt before. He was deeply moved during these years
by two events, though neither in the end led to any
action on his part, nor even an open declaration of
his views. These were the death of Gordon and a
case of boycotting women in Ireland.

In 1884, he had felt acutely the withdrawal of
the garrisons from the Soudan. " When I read
at Nice that Graham was recalled from Suakim
after all that butchery, I died to politics. I saw
that they did not regard what I regarded, and
regarded what I despised ; and I closed my account.
If ever I could do anything, I suppose I ought to do
it ; but till that hour comes, I will not vex my
soul."

This was no passing wave of sentiment ; Gordon's
fate was laid even more deeply to heart, and one of
the motives which induced Stevenson to begin his
letters to the Times upon Samoan affairs, was the
memory that in 1884, he had stood by in silence while
a brave man was being deserted and a population,
dependent for help on the government of this country,
was handed over to the mercies of barbarism. So

166 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

when he finally came to the point of writing a letter
to Mr. Gladstone about the Iron Duke, he could
think of no other signature open to him than
" Your fellow-criminal in the eyes of God," and
forbore.

But although the passionate indignation and " that
chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound "
were highly characteristic of Stevenson, at the most
they could have led to nothing more than a series of
letters to the papers. They might have stirred the
public conscience, but though Stevenson would have
been dealing with matters less remote from the know-
ledge of his readers, his part in any agitation or
protest would not have differed greatly from his
efforts in the cause of Samoa. The other project, on
the contrary, would, if he had been able to carry it
out, have led to a definite and entire change of the
whole course of his life. On Nov. 13, 1885, Mr. John
Curtin had been murdered by a party of moonlighters
in his house, Castle Farm, at Castle Island, County
Kerry. His grown-up sons and daughters had shown
the greatest courage, and one of the murderers had
been shot. For this, the family were cut off as far as
possible from all the necessaries of life, and in April,
1887, the boycott still continued. Stevenson, while
admitting the wrongs of Ireland, had always the most
profound regard for the paramount claims of the law,
and had long been shocked, both by the disregard of
it in Ireland, and by the callous indifference of the
English to the needs of those engaged in its support.
He now pitched upon the case of the Curtin family,
as a concrete instance in which it behoved England
to do her duty, and since no one else was forthcoming
for the task, he prepared to offer himself as an agent,
and, if need were, a martyr in the cause. As a man
of letters he was not tied down to any one place to
do his work, so he proposed to take the Curtins" farm
and there live with his wife and his stepson. His
wife added her protests to those of all his friends who
heard of the project, but in vain, and so without

BOURNEMOUTH— 1884-87 167

sharing his illusions she cheerfully prepared to
accompany him.

It is impossible to conceive a more quixotic design.
Many of the objections to it Stevenson realised him-
self, or was told by his friends. But perhaps he
never suspected how little he understood the Irish,
or how utterly futile his action would have proved.
It was, in the end, however, nothing but his father's
illness which kept him for the time in this country.
He abandoned the design with reluctance, and,
as Sir Sidney Colvin says, " to the last he was
never well satisfied that he had done right in giving
way."

It was driven from his mind, however, by events
which touched him more nearly. In the autumn his
parents had taken a house in Bournemouth for the
winter, that Mr. Stevenson might have the com-
panionship of his son. In February the father was
taken by his wife to Torquay, but came back to
Bournemouth on the first of April. By the twenty-
first he was so ill that it was thought better to bring
him home, and he returned to Edinburgh. The
accounts of him grew so alarming, that Louis
followed on the sixth of May, but was too late
for his coming to be of any use, and on the eighth
all was over.

Of the son's affection, and of his appreciation for
his father, enough has been said to'show how great the
sense of his loss must have been. The shock of having
found his father no longer able to recognise him
preyed upon his mind, and for some time to come he
was haunted day and night with " ugly images of
sickness, decline, and impaired reason," which in-
creased yet further his sadness and the physical
depression that weighed him down.

In the meantime he took cold, was not allowed to
attend the funeral, and never left the house until, at
the end of May, he was able to return to Bournemouth,
and quitted Scotland for the last time.

CHAPTER XII

THE UNITED STATES — 1887-88

" But, indeed, I think we all belong to many countries.
I am a Scotchman, touch me and you will find the thistle ;
I am a Briton, and live and move and have my being in
the greatness of our national achievements ; but am I
to forget the long hospitality of that beautiful and kind
country, France ? Or has not America done me favours
to confound my gratitude ? Nay, they are all my rela-
tives ; I love them all dearly ; and should they fall out
among themselves (which God in His mercy forbid !),
I believe I should be driven mad with their conflicting
claims upon my heart."

R, L. S., MS. of The Silverado Squatters.

rTlHE chief link which bound Stevenson to this
A country was now broken, for his mother was
free to follow him and his wife to whatever climate
the advice of the doctors might send him. Year after
year the struggle with ill-health was becoming more
painful ; "an enemy who was exciting at first, but
has now, by the iteration of his strokes, become
merely annoying and inexpressibly irksome." He
seemed condemned to a life in the sickroom, and even
there, to be steadily losing ground. Under the altered
circumstances, his uncle. Dr. George Balfour, peremp-
torily insisted on a complete change of climate for a
year, suggesting a trial of either one of the Indian
hill-stations or Colorado ; this advice was reinforced
by his Bournemouth physician, Dr. Scott, and, for
several obvious reasons, America was preferred. As
soon as his mother's promise to accompany the party
was obtained, Skerryvore was let, and by the middle
of July their tickets were taken for New York.

Early in the same month he had written to his
mother : "... I can let you have a cheque for
£100 to-morrow, which is certainly a pleasant thing
to be able to say. I wish it had happened while my
father was still here ; I should have liked to help
him once — perhaps even from a mean reason ; that

1 68

THE UNITED STATES— 1887-88 169

he might see I had not been wrong in taking to
letters. But all this, I dare say, he observes, or, in
some other way, feels. And he, at least, is out of
his warfare, as I could sometimes wish I were out of
mine. The mind of the survivor is mean ; it sees the
loss, it does not always feel the deliverance. Yet,
about our loss, I feel it more than I can say — every
day more — that it is a happy thing that he is now
at peace."

But the invalid was not to escape from England
without another illness ; worn as he was by his recent
experiences, he once more broke down, and was laid
up again with hemorrhage.

On the 2oth August, however, he left Bournemouth
for London, and spent Sunday in the city, at Arm-
field's Hotel. Here, those of his closest friends who
at that season were within reach came to bid him
farewell, a last good-bye as it proved for all, since he
never saw any one of them again. " In one way or
another," he had written, " life forces men apart and
breaks up the goodly fellowships for ever," and he
himself was now to become " no more than a name,
a reminiscence, and an occasional crossed letter very
laborious to read."

As Sidney Colvin had been the first to welcome
him on his return from America, so he was the last to
take leave of him the next day, when the party of five
— for Valentine Roch accompanied them — embarked
on the steamship Ludgate Hill.

The beginning of their voyage was an unpleasant
surprise, for their passages had been taken in ignor-
ance that the ship was used as a cattle-boat, and it
was only when the family came on board that they
learned that they were going to put in at Havre for
their cargo before sailing for America. But Steven-
son, ill as he was, did not allow mere discomfort to
affect him. His mother's diary contains an entry
highly characteristic both of herself and of her son :
" We discover that it is a cattle-ship, and that we are
going to Havre to take in horses. We agree to look

i;o LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

upon it as an adventure and make the best of it. ...
It is very amusing and like a circus to see the horses
come on board." Not only was there a shipload of
horses, but the vessel resembled the fleet of Ophir at
least in this, that she carried a consignment of apes
of which " the big monkey, Jacko, scoured about the
ship," and took a special fancy to Stevenson. # The
other passengers were not unentertaining, and the
voyage itself was to him a pure delight, until they
came to the Banks off Newfoundland, where he again
caught cold. " I was so happy on board that ship,"
he wrote to his cousin Bob ; "I could not have be-
lieved it possible. We had the beastliest weather,
and many discomforts ; but the mere fact of its being
a tramp-ship gave us many comforts ; we could cut
about with the men and officers, stay in the wheel-
house, discuss all manner of things, and really be a
little at sea. And truly there is nothing else. I had
literally forgotten what happiness was, and the full
mind — full of external and physical things, not full
of cares and labours and rot about a fellow's be-
haviour. My heart literally sang ; I truly care for
nothing so much as for that."

By this time his reputation had crossed the At-
lantic, and, chiefly by means of Jekyll and Hyde, had
spread there to an extent which he had probably not
yet realised. The first indication reached him, how-
ever, before he had sighted the coast-line of the States,
for, on September 6th, when the pilot came on board,
it turned out that he was known on his boat as Hyde,
while his better- tempered partner was called Jekyll.

The next day the Ludgale Hill arrived at New York,
where Stevenson was met by a crowd of reporters,
and — what was more to his taste — by his old friend,
Mr. Will H. Low. He was forthwith carried off to an
hotel were Mr. and Mrs. Charles Fairchild had made
all arrangements for his reception, and the next day
he proceeded to their house at Newport. But on the
journey he caught fresh cold, and spent a fortnight
there chiefly in bed.

THE UNITED STATES— 1887-88 171

On his return to New York he saw a few people,
mostly old friends like Mr. Low and his wife, and first
made the personal acquaintance of Mr. Charles
Scribner and Mr. Burlingame. Augustus St. Gaudens,
the eminent American sculptor, now began to make
the necessary studies for the large medallion, which
was not completed until five years later. It is the
most satisfactory of all the portraits of Stevenson,
and has been reproduced with one or two slight modi-
fications for the memorial in St. Giles' Cathedral.
The artist was a great admirer of Stevenson's writings,
and had said that if he ever had the chance he would
gladly go a thousand miles for the sake of a sitting.
The opportunity came to his doors ; he now modelled
the head and shoulders from life, and in the following
spring made casts as well as drawings of the hands.

In February, 1883, he had written to his mother:
" My six books (since 1878) have brought me in up-
wards of £600, about £400 of which came from maga-
zines." So great was the change in four years. It
must be remembered that in England also he had now
reached the turning-point of his fortunes ; and early
in the following year he became a member of the
Athenaeum Club in London, under the rule permitting
the committee to elect nine persons annually " as
being of distinguished eminence in Science, Literature
or the Arts, or for Public Services." In this very year
it had been found worth while to collect and re-publish
with additions, such of his stories, essays, and verse
as had hitherto appeared only in magazines. But
though the change was not solely due to the greater
enterprise of American publishers, it is none the less
striking.

His first need, however, for the present, was to
select a climate where he could best pass tht. winter.
He had come to America in search of health, and was
now advised to go to a place in the Adirondack
Mountains, close to the Canadian border. There, a
sanatorium for consumptive patients had recently
been established near the shores of Saranac lake.

172 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Thither went accordingly Mrs. Louis Stevenson and
her son, and there they succeeded in finding a house
which would serve as winter-quarters for the family.
Stevenson arrived with his mother on October 3rd,
and here he remained until the middle of the following
April. It was no very pleasant spot, at all events in
the winter months, and formed a curious contrast to
his experience in the tropics. The climate comprised
every variety of unpleasantness : it rained, it snowed,
it sleeted, it blew, it was thick fog ; it froze — the cold
was Arctic ; it thawed — the discomfort was worse ;
and it combined these different phases in every
possible way. Two things only could be advanced
in its favour, the first and vital fact that Stevenson's
health did not suffer, but actually improved ; and
secondly, it served at times to remind him of Scotland
— a Scotland " without peat and without heather,"
but that is no very hard task with the true Scot, as
may be seen with Stevenson himself in the Pacific.

The place was still somewhat undeveloped ; the
railway was opened to Saranac itself only during the
course of the winter. In Dr. Trudeau, the physician,
Stevenson found an agreeable companion, and he also
enjoyed the society of some of the resident patients,
though he went but little beyond the limits of his own
family. They occupied a house belonging to a guide,
a frame-house of the usual kind with a verandah ;
here, with the services of Valentine and a cook, and a
boy to chop wood and draw water, they made them-
selves as comfortable as possible during the winter.

The younger Mrs. Stevenson began the campaign by
a hasty visit to Canada to lay in a supply of furs for
the family, and her foresight was well rewarded. In
December the cold began, and by January the ther-
mometer was sometimes nearly 30 degrees below zero.
There was a stove in each chamber, and an open fire-
place for logs in the central living-room, but these
were of little avail. " Fires do not radiate," wrote
Stevenson ; " you burn your hands all the time on
what seem to be cold stones." His mother gives an

THE UNITED STATES— 1 887-88 173

illustration : " Cold venison was crunching with ice
after being an hour in the oven, and I saw a large lump
of ice still unmelted in a pot where water was steaming
all round it."

Stevenson himself stood the cold better than any
of his family, and, arrayed in a buffalo coat, astrakhan
cap, and Indian boots, used to go out daily. He
would take short walks on a hill behind the house,
and skated on the lake when the ice could be kept
clear. But both the ladies were ordered away for
their health at different times, while in February the
maid was laid up with a severe attack of influenza,
the next victim being Stevenson himself.

In the meantime he had not been idle. By Decem-
ber he had written four of the essays for the magazine,
and was already on the threshold of a new Scotch
story, later to be The Master of Ballantrae.

" I was walking one night in the verandah of a
small house in which I lived, outside the hamlet of
Saranac. It was winter ; the night was very dark ;
the air extraordinarily clear and cold, and sweet with
the purity of forests. From a good way below, the
river was to be heard contending with ice and boul-
ders : a few lights appeared, scattered unevenly
among the darkness, but so far away as not to lessen
the sense of isolation. For the making of a story, here
were fine conditions. . . . There cropped up in my
memory a singular case of a buried and resuscitated
fakir,of which I had often been told by an uncle of mine,
then lately dead, Inspector-General John Balfour.
On such a fine frosty night, with no wind and the
thermometer below zero, the brain works with much
vivacity ; >nd the next moment I had seen the cir-
cumstance transplanted from India and the tropics
to the Adirondack wilderness and the stringent cold
of the Canadian border. ... If the idea was to be
of any use at all for me, I had to create a kind of evil
genius to his friends and family, take him through
many disappearances, and make this final restoration
from the pit of death, in the icy American wilderness,

174 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

the last and grimmest of the series. I neeo not tell
my brothers of the craft that I was now in the most
interesting moment of an author's life ; the hours that
followed that night upon the balcony, and the follow-
ing nights and days, whether walking abroad or lying
wakeful in my bed, were hours of unadulterated joy.

" And while I was groping for the fable and the
character required, behold I found them lying ready
and nine years old in my memory. . . . Here, think-
ing of quite other things, I had stumbled on the
solution, or perhaps I should rather say (in stage-
wright phrase) the Curtain or final Tableau of a story
conceived long before on the moors between Pitlochry
and Strathairdle, conceived in Highland rain, in the
blend of the smell of heather and bog-plants, and with
a mind full of the Athole correspondence and the
Memoirs of the Chevalier de Johnstone. So long
ago, so far away it was, that I had first evoked the
faces and the mutual tragic situation of the men of
Durrisdeer."

At Saranac Mr. Osbourne wrote entirely on his own
account a story called at first The Finsbury Tontine
and afterwards The Game of Bluff, which, after the
lapse of many months, and a course of collaboration
with his stepfather, was to appear as The Wrong Box.
At first this was an independent book, but as soon
as the idea of collaboration had occurred to them,
several projects were speedily set on foot, since the
joint books would have this advantage, that Mr.
Osbourne being an American citizen, they could be
copyrighted in the United States.

Of their methods Mr. Osbourne writes : " When
an idea for a book was started, we used to talk it
over together, and generally carried the tale on from
one invention to another, until, in accordance with
Louis' 'vwn practice, we had drawn out a complete
list of the chapters. In all our collaborations I always
wrote the first draft, to break the ground, and it is
a pleasure to me to recall how pleased Louis was,
for instance, with the first three chapters of The Ebb

THE UNITED STATES— 1887-88 175

Tide. As a rule, he was a man chary of praise, but
he fairly overflowed toward those early chapters, and
I shall never forget the elation his praise gave me.
The first draft was then written again and re-written
by Louis and myself in turn. It was then worked
over and over by each of us, as often as was neces-
sary. For instance, the chapter at Honolulu where
Dodd goes out to the lighthouse must have been
written and re-written eleven times. Naturally it
came about that it was the bad chapters that took
the most re-writing. After this how can anybody but
Louis or myself pretend to know which of us wrote
any given passage ? The Paris parts of The Wrecker
and the end of The Ebb Tide (as it stands) I never
even touched. (Letters, iv. 305.) The collaboration
was a mistake, for me, nearly as much as for him ;
but I don't believe Louis ever enjoyed any work
more. He liked the comradeship — my work coming
in just as his energy flagged, or vice versa ; and he
liked my applause when he — as he always did — pulled
us magnificently out of sloughs. In a way, I was
well fitted to help him. I had a knack for dialogue
— I mean, of the note-taking kind. I was a kodaker :
he, an artist and a man of genius. I managed the
petty makeshifts and inventions which were con-
stantly necessary ; I was the practical man, so to
speak, the one who paced the distances, and used the
weights and measures ; in The Wrecker, the storm
was mine ; so were the fight and the murders on the
Currency Lass ; the picnics in San Francisco, aad the
commercial details of London's partnership. Nares
was mine and Pinkerton to a great degree, and
Captain Brown was mine throughout. But although
the first four chapters of The Ebb Tide remain, save
for the text of Herrick's letter to his sweetheart,
almost as I first wrote them, yet The Wrong Box
was more mine as a whole than either of the others.
It was written and then re- written before there was
any thought of collaboration, and was actually finished
and ready for the press. There was, in consequence,

176 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

far less give and take between us in this book than
in the others. Louis had to follow the text very
closely, being unable to break away without jeopardis-
ing the succeeding chapters. He breathed into it, of
course, his own incomparable power, humour, and
vivacity, and forced the thing to live as it had never
lived before ; but, even in his transforming hands,
it still retains (it seems to me) a sense of failure ;
and this verdict has so far been sustained by the
public's reluctance to buy the book."

But, already, in the heart of the mountains, Steven-
son had been laying plans of travel, which were to
lead him far and wide across the seas, and to end in
a continued exile of which at this time he had never
dreamed. He had always nourished a passion for the
sea, whether in romance or in real life ; it ran in
his blood, and came to him from both his father and
his grandfather. As a boy, on Saturday afternoons,
he would make a party to go down to Leith to see
the ships, for in those days, as always, he loved a
ship " as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak." The
sea was to him the redeeming feature of engineering,
and a year or two after he had given up the pro-
fession, he wrote with eager anticipation of a projected
trip in the Pharos, the lighthouse steamer. Then for
ten years he hardly mentioned the sea again, and
even in crossing the Atlantic as an amateur emigrant,
he seems to have taken more interest in his fellow-
passengers than in the ocean. But his feelings were
unchanged : in 1883 his idea of a fortune is to " end
with horses and yachts and all the fun of the fair " ;
and in some verses written at Hyeres, contrasting
his wife's aspirations with his own, he declares —

" She vows in ardour for a horse to trot,
I stake my votive prayers upon a yacht."

We have seen how he enjoyed his voyage across
the Atlantic ; and to this pleasure he was perpetually
recurring : "I have been made a lot of here, . . .
but I could give it all up, and agree that was

THE UNITED STATES— 1887-88 177

the author of my works, for a good seventy-ton
schooner and the coins to keep her on. And to think
there are parties with yachts who would make the
exchange 1 I know a little about fame now ; it is
no good compared to a yacht ; and anyway there
is more fame in a yacht, more genuine fame."

It was, therefore, no unexpected development, no
outbreak of any new taste, when it became a favourite
diversion of the winter nights at Saranac to plan a
yachting cruise. So far, indeed, were the discussions
carried, that the place for the piano in the saloon
and the number and disposition of the small-arms
were already definitely settled. At first, in spite of
the severity of the climate and the proverbial rough-
ness of the weather, they had looked chiefly to the
Atlantic seaboard, but in the end of March, when
Mrs. Stevenson left Saranac for California on a visit
to her people, she was instructed to report if she
could find any craft suitable for their purpose at
San Francisco.

At last, by the middle of April, Stevenson was free
to return to the cities if he chose. He made a heroic
effort to deal with the arrears of his correspondence :
"In three of my last days I sent away upwards of
seventy letters " ; and then, turning his steps to New
York, he there spent about a fortnight. The time to
which he recurred with the greatest pleasure, was an
afternoon he spent on a seat in Washington Square
enjoying the company and conversation of " Mark
Twain." But of the city he soon wearied ; in the
beginning of May he crossed the Hudson, and went
to an hotel near the mouth of the Manasquan, a
river in New Jersey, where with his mother and
stepson he spent nearly a month. The place had
been recommended to him by Mr. Low, who was able
to spend some time there, and who says : " Though
it was early spring and the weather was far from
good, Louis (pretending that, in comparison with
Scotland at least, it was fine spring weather) was
unusually well, and we had many a pleasant sail on

i;8 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

the river and some rather long walks. Louis was
much interested in the "cat-boat," and, with the aid
of various works on sailing-vessels, tried to master
the art of sailing it with some success.

" He was here at Manasquan when a telegram
arrived from his wife, who had been in San Francisco
for a few weeks, announcing that the yacht Casco
might be hired for a trip among the islands of the
South Seas.C I was there at the time, and Louis made
that decision to go, which exiled him from his dearest
friends — though he little suspected at the time —
while the messenger waited."

The decision taken, Stevenson returned to New
York on the 28th, and by the 7th June he had reached
California. Who, that has read his description of
crossing the mountains on his first journey to the
West, but remembers the phrase — " It was like
meeting one's wife I " And this time his wife herself
was at Sacramento to meet him.

It was a busy time. The Casco was the first ques-
tion— a fore and aft schooner, ninety-five feet in
length, of seventy tons burden, built for cruising
in Californian waters, though she had once been
taken as far as Tahiti. She had most graceful lines,
and with her lofty masts, white sails and decks and
glittering brasswork, was a lovely craft to the eye,
as she sat like a bird upon the water. Her saloon
was fitted most luxuriously with silk and velvet of
gaudy colours, for no money had been spared in her
construction ; nevertheless her cockpit was none
too safe, her one pump was inadequate in size, and
almost worthless ; the sail-plan forward was meant
for racing and not for cruising, and even if the masts
were still in good condition, they were quite unfitted
for hurricane weather. *

Nevertheless the vessel was chartered, and all
preparations were put in hand. The owner, Dr.
Merritt, an eccentric Californian millionaire, was at
first most backward about the whole affair, and, with-
out having seen him, displayed the greatest distrust

THE UNITED STATES— 1887-88 179

of Stevenson. The latter was very unwell, and
getting rapidly worse, for San Francisco disagreed
with him. Matters hung fire, but at last his wife
discovered that Dr. Merritt wanted to meet him.
An interview took place and all difficulties vanished.
" I'll go ahead now with the yacht," said the doctor :
" I'd read things in the papers about Stevenson,
and thought he was a kind of crank ; but he's a plain,
sensible man, that knows what he's talking about
just as well as I do."

Along with the yacht, at the owner's request, they
gladly engaged his skipper, Captain Otis, who knew
the Casco well, and the cook, a Chinaman, who passed
himself off as a Japanee. The former choice they
had no reason to regret, for the captain showed him-
self a bold and skilful seaman, who, beginning the
voyage with a supreme contempt for his new
employers, ended it as an intimate and valued friend,
whose portrait for the rest may be found in the pages
of The Wrecker. A crew of four deck-hands, " three
Swedes and the inevitable Finn," was engaged by
the captain, and four " sea-lawyers " they proved
to be ; a reporter, trying to ship himself as a hand,
was ejected, and a passage was, with great difficulty,
refused to a Seventh-Day Adventist, who after-
wards with a crew of his fellow-believers travelled
over the whole of the South Seas.

The destination of the Casco was next to be settled.
For a time the choice lay between two groups of
islands at a considerable distance, the Galapagos
and the Marquesas groups. But after some discussion
it was the latter which had been chosen, and so to
the Marquesas they went.

In the meantime they were living at the Occidental
Hotel in San Francisco. Virgil Williams was now
dead, but Mrs. Williams was indefatigable in their
service, and other friends gathered round them,
among whom Stevenson was especially drawn to
Dr. George Chismore, alike for his Scotch blood, his
love of literature, and the force and tenderness of

:8o LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

his character. But, as he himself had known trouble
in this city, here least of all was he likely to disregard
the misfortunes of others. An Australian journalist
seven years afterwards wrote to The Times : —

" Some years ago I lay ill in San Francisco, an
obscure journalist, quite friendless. Stevenson, who
knew me slightly, came to my bedside and said,
' I suppose you are like all of us, you don't keep
your money. Now, if a little loan, as between one
man of letters and another — eh ? '

" This to a lad writing rubbish for a vulgar sheet in
California."

At last, on June 26th, the party took up their
quarters on the Casco, and at the dawn of the 28th
she was towed outside the Golden Gate, and headed
for the south across the long swell of the Pacific.

So with his household he sailed away beyond the
sunset, and America, like Europe, was to see him
no more.

CHAPTER XIII

SOUTH SEA CRUISES — THE EASTERN PACIFIC
JUNE, 1888 JUNE, 1889

" This climate ; these voyagings ; these landfalls at
dawn ; new islands peaking from the morning bank ;
new forested harbours ; new passing alarms of squalls
and surf ; new interests of gentle natives — the whole
tale of my life is better to me than any poem."

Letters, iii. 131,

FOR nearly three years to come, Stevenson wan-
dered up and down the face of the Pacific,
spending most of his time in the Hawaiian Islands
and the Gilberts, in Tahiti, and in Samoa, his future
home ; during this period, he visited, however cur-
sorily, almost every group of importance in the
Eastern and Central Pacific.

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1888-89 181

The delight these experiences kindled for him can
never be expressed, since, apart from one or two
phrases in his letters, he has failed to convey any
image of it himself. It is hardly too much to say
that nobody else in the world would have derived such
keen or such varied enjoyment from cruising through
these islands, so wild, so beautiful — among their
inhabitants so attractive, so remote from experience —
in these waters, so fascinating and so dangerous.
The very romance that hangs about the South Seas
is fatal to any attempt to sustain, among the mazes of
detail and necessary explanation, the charm sug-
gested by their name. Stevenson himself set out to
write an account of his wanderings and adventures
among the islands it had for years been the dream
of his life to see, but as soon as he essayed the task,
he was overwhelmed with a mass of legend and
history and anthropology. It is hard for people
at their own firesides to realise the differences between
the islands visited in one cruise in the same ocean.
Perhaps some vague and general conception of the
diversity of Stevenson's experiences might be formed
by imagining a rapid visit to the islands of Sardinia,
Sicily, Majorca, and Tenerife, a fresh departure for
Jersey and the lies d'Or, ending with a passing
glimpse at the West Indies.

The point now to be considered is not, however, the
customs and character of the natives whom Stevenson
encountered, but rather how he was affected and in-
fluenced by what he saw, the characteristics which
were called out in him during the course of his travel,
and the impressions which he himself produced.

The first point, as we have seen, was the Mar-
quesas, a group of high1 islands of extreme beauty,

1 Islands in the Pacific are usually divided into " high "
and " low " ; the former being, generally speaking,
islands of volcanic origin, often rising several thousand
feet above the sea, densely wooded and beautiful in the
extreme. These frequently have a barrier reef of coral,
protecting what would otherwise be an ironbound coast,

182 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

occupied by the French and but seldom visited by
travellers, remote from any other group and out of
the track of ships and steamers. For these the Casco
now steered a course of three thousand miles across
the open sea. Fortunately the main object of the
cruise seemed likely to be gained without delay ; the
warmer climate and the sea air suited Stevenson at
once, and he grew stronger day by day. The voyage
was pleasant but without event other than the passing
squalls ; and after two-and-twenty days at sea they
made their landfall. " The first experience can
never be repeated. The first love, the first sunrise,
the first South Sea Island, are memories apart and
touched a virginity of sense. On the 28th of July,
1888, the moon was an hour down by four in the
morning, . . . and it was half-past five before we
could distinguish our expected islands from the clouds
on the horizon. The interval was passed on deck
in the silence of expectation, the customary thrill of
landfall heightened by the strangeness of the shores
that we were then approaching. Slowly they took
shape in the attenuating darkness. Uahuna, piling
up to a truncated summit, appeared the first upon
the starboard bow ; almost abeam arose our destina-
tion, Nukahiva, whelmed in cloud ; and betwixt,
and to the southward, the first rays of the sun dis-
played the needles of Uapu. These pricked about
the line of the horizon, like the pinnacles of some
ornate and monstrous church, they stood there, in
the sparkling brightness of the morning, the fit sign-
board of a world of wonders. . . . The land heaved
up in peaks and rising vales ; it fell in cliffs and
buttresses ; its colour ran through fifty modulations

but their main structure is igneous rock. " Low " islands
are atolls or mere banks built by the coral insect, never
more than twenty feet above water, and owing any
beauty they possess to the sea, the sun, and the palm-
tree. The Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa, and the Hawaiian
group are high islands ; the Paumotus, the Gilberts, and
the Marshalls are low.

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1888-89 183

in a scale ol pearl and rose and olive ; and it was
crowned above by opalescent clouds. The suffusion
of vague hues deceived the eye ; the shadows of
clouds were confounded with the articulations of the
mountain ; and the isle, and its unsubstantial canopy,
rose and shimmered before us like a single mass.
There was no beacon, no smoke of towns to be ex-
pected, no plying pilot. . .

" We bore away along the shore. On our port-
beam we might hear the explosions of the surf ; a
few birds flew fishing under the prow ; there was no
other sound or mark of life, whether of man or beast,
in all that quarter of the island. Winged by her own
impetus and the dying breeze, the Casco skimmed
under cliffs, opened out a cove, showed us a beach
and some green trees, and flitted by again, bowing
to the swell. . . . Again the cliff yawned, but now
with a deeper entry ; and the Casco, hauling her
wind, began to slide into the bay of Anaho. Rude
and bare hills embraced the inlet upon either hand ;
it was enclosed to the landward by a bulk of shattered
mountains. In every crevice of that barrier the forest
harboured, roosting and nesting there like birds about
a ruin ; and far above, it greened and roughened the
razor edges of the summit.

" Under the eastern shore, our schooner, now bereft
of any breeze, continued to creep in ; the smart
creature, when once under way, appearing motive
in herself. From close aboard arose the bleating of
young lambs ; a bird sang in the hillside ; the scent
of the the land, and of a hundred fruits or flowers
flowed forth to meet us ; and, presently, a house or
two appeared. . . . The mark of anchorage was a
blow-hole in the rocks, near the south-easterly corner
of the bay. Punctually to our use, the blow-hole
spouted ; the schooner turned upon her heel ;' the
anchor plunged. It was a small sound, a great event ;
my soul went down with these moorings whence no
windlass may extract nor any diver fish it up ; and
I, and some part of my ship's company, were from

1 84 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

that hour the bond - slaves of the isles of
Vivien."

This was Nukahiva, the island of Herman Mel-
ville's Typee, and here for three weeks they lay in
Anaho Bay, where there lived only natives and one
white trader. They then sailed round to the south
coast of the same island, to Taiohae, the port of entry
and the capital of the group.

The two special features of the Marquesas which
differentiate them from the other islands which
Stevenson saw, are first, that the natives were till
very recently the most inveterate cannibals of Poly-
nesia, and second, that their population was melting
away like snow off a dyke, so that extinction seemed
imminent within the next few years.

Into the details of his visit I have no intention of
going — partly they may be read in his own volume
In the South Seas — but I would draw attention to
Stevenson's attitude toward the native races, for
though I shall have occasion to return to it again in
Samoa, there was but little growth or development
of his essential feelings or principles in dealing with
them. Intelligent sympathy was the keynote, and
the same kindliness to them as to all men. He never
idealised them, and his view was but rarely affected
by sentiment. His sense of history, combined with
his power of seeing things in a new light, and the
refusal to accept commonplaces without examina-
tion, here stood him in good stead.

Five years before, in the Riviera, he had written :
" There is no form of conceit more common or more
silly than to look down on barbarous codes of morals.
Barbarous virtues, the chivalrous point of honour, the
fidelity of the wild Highlander or the two-sworded
Japanese, are of a generous example."

This was of the Japanese in their recent feudal
period . here is one of his earliest notes in the Mar-
quesas, after meeting the natives face to face : —

" August $rd. — Tropical Night Thoughts. I awoke
this morning about three ; the night was heavenly in

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1888-89 185

scent and temperature ; the long swell brimmed into
the bay and seemed to fill it full and then subside ;
silently, gently, and deeply the Casco rolled ; only at
times a block piped like a bird. I sat and looked sea-
ward towards the mouth of the bay at the headlands
and the stars ; at the constellation of diamonds, each
infinitesimally small, each individual and of equal
lustre, and all shining together in heaven like some
old-fashioned clasp ; at the planet with the visible
moon, as though he were beginning to re-people
heaven by the process of gemination ; at many other
lone lamps and marshalled clusters. And upon a
sudden it ran into my mind, even with shame, that
these were lovelier than our nights in the north, the
planets softer and brighter, and the constellations
more handsomely arranged. I felt shame, I say, as at
an ultimate infidelity : thai I should desert the stars
that shone upon my father ; and turning to the shore-
side, where there were some high squalls overhead, and
the mountains loomed up black, I could have fancied I
had slipped ten thousand miles away and was an-
chored in a Highland loch ; that when day came and
made clear the superimpending slopes, it would show
pine and the red heather and the green fern, and roofs
of turf sending up the smoke of peats, and the alien
speech that should next greet my ears should be
Gaelic, not Kanaka.1

" The singular narrowness of this world's range,
and, above all, the paucity of human combinations,
are forced alike upon the reader and the traveller.
The one ranging through books, the other over peopled
space, comes with astonishment on the same scenery,
the same merry stories, the same fashion, the same
stage of social evolution. Unfler cover of darkness
here might be a Hebridean harbour ; and if I am to
call these men savages (which no bribe would induce

1 Kanaka, the Hawaiian word for a man, is used
by white men throughout the Pacific as equivalent to
" native," " Polynesian." In Australia and Fiji it
generally means Melanesian = black boy.

r86 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

me to do), what name should I find for Hebridean
man ? The Highlands and Islands somewhat more
than a century back were in much the same convul-
sive and transitionary state as the Marquesas to-day.
In the one, the cherished habit of tattooing ; in the
other, a cherished costume, proscribed ; in both, the
men disarmed, the chiefs dishonoured, new fashions
introduced, and chiefly that new pernicious fashion of
regarding money as the be-all and end-all of exist-
ence ; the commercial age, in each case, succeeding at
a bound to the age militant : war, with its truces and
its courtesies, succeeded by peace with its meanness
and its unending effort : the means of life no longer
wrested with a bare face from hereditary enemies,
but ground or cheated out of next-door neighbours
and old family friends ; in each case, a man's luxury
cut off, beef driven under cover of night from lowland
pastures denied to the meat-loving Highlander, long
pig pirated from the next village to the man-eating
Kanaka."

And here is the practical outcome of his experience
as a traveller, written in 1890, a passage specially
selected for praise by so able and original an investi-
gator as Mary Kingsley : —

" When I desired any detail of savage custom, or of
superstitious belief, I cast back in the story of my
fathers, and fished for what I wanted with some trait
of equal barbarism : Michael Scott, Lord Derwent-
water's head, the second-sight, the Water Kelpie, —
each of these I have found to be a killing bait ; the
black bull's head of Stirling procured me the legend
of Rahero ; and what I knew of the Cluny Macpher-
sons, or the Appin Stewarts, enabled me to learn, and
helped me to understand, about the Tevas of Tahiti.
The native was no longer ashamed, his sense of kin-
ship grew warmer, and his lips were opened. It is this
sense of kinship that the traveller must rouse and
share ; or he had better content himself with travels
from the blue bed to the brown."

It is pleasant to read of the farewell of Prince

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1888-89 18?

Stanilao, an intelligent and educated gentleman, from
whom Stevenson had learned much of the history and
condition of the islands, and with whom he had spent
a long afternoon, telling him the story of Gordon,
" and many episodes of the Indian Mutiny, Lucknow,
the second battle of Cawnpore, the relief of Arrah, the
death of poor Spottiswoode and Sir Hugh Rose's hot-
spur midland campaign." How many white men
would have been at the pains to give so much instruc-
tion or so much pleasure to a native in a foreign pos-
session ? This is the result : " Ah vous devriez
rester ici, mon cher ami. Vous etes les gens qu'il faut
pour les Kanaques ; vous etes doux, vous et votre
famille ; vous seriez obeis dans toutes les lies."

It was the same at Anaho, the same afterwards in
Atuona : he understood the natives ; he treated them
with understanding, and they liked him. The higher
the rank, for the most part, the greater the liking,
the more complete the appreciation. Stanilao and
Vaekehu, the aged queen, were the great folk of the
archipelago ; Stevenson, in whom snobbishness was
unknown, found them also the most estimable.

" This is the rule in Polynesia, with few exceptions ;
the higher the family, the better the man — better in
sense, better in manners, and usually taller and
stronger in body. A stranger advances blindfold.
He scrapes acquaintance as he can. Save the tattoo
in the Marquesas, nothing indicates the difference in
rank ; and yet almost invariably we found, after we
had made them, that our friends were persons of
station."

But his attention was by no means limited to
natives ; the behaviour that he enjoined on mission-
aries he exercised freely himself ; to white men and
half-castes he was equally genial and accessible. The
governor and the gendarmes, the priests and the lay-
brothers, the traders and the ' Beach,' all found him
kindly and courteous, and the best of company.

The Resident carried him off to show him the
prison, but it was empty ; the women were gone

1 88 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

calling and the men were shooting goats upon the
mountains. The gendarmes told him stories of the
Franco-German war, and gave him charming French
meals. Of the missionaries, the portraits of the great
and good Dordillon, the veteran bishop only just
dead, and of Frere Michel, the architect, may be
found in the South Sea volume ; from Stevenson's
notes I give the charming picture of Pere Simeon : —

" P£re Sim6on, the small frail figure in the black
robe drawing near under the palms ; the girlish, kind
and somewhat pretty face under the straw hat ; the
strong rustic Gascon accent ; the sudden lively
doffing of the hat, at once so French and so ecclesi-
astical ; he was a man you could not look upon with-
out visions of his peasant ancestors, worthy folk,
sitting at home to-day in France, and rejoiced (I
hope often) with letters from their boy. Down we
sat together under the eaves of the house of Taipi-
Kikino, and were presently deep in talk. I had
feared to meet a missionary, feared to find the
narrowness and the self-sufficiency that deface their
publications, that too often disgrace their behaviour.
There was no fear of it here ; Pere Sim6on admired
these natives as I do myself, admired them with
spiritual envy ; the superior of his congregation had
said to him on his departure : ' You are going among
a people more civilised than we — peut-etre plus
civilises que nous-memes ' : in spite of which warning,
having read some books of travel on his voyage, he
came to these shores (like myself) expecting to find
them peopled with lascivious monkeys. Good
Bishop Dordillon had opened his eyes : ' There are
nothing but lies in books of travel,' said the bishop.

" What then was P6re Simeon doing here ? The
question rose in my mind, and I could see that he
read the thought. Truly they were a people, on the
whole, of a mind far liker Christ's than any of the
rac% of Europe ; no spiritual life, almost no family
life, but a kindness, a generosity, a readiness to give
anl-^o forgive, without parallel ; to some extent that

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1888-89 189

was the bishop's doing ; some of it had been since
undone ; death runs so busy in their midst, total
extinction so instantly impended, that it seemed a
hopeless task to combat their vices ; as they were,
they would go down in the abyss of things past ; the
watchers were already looking at the clock ; Pere
Simeon's business was the visitation of the sick, to
smooth the pillows of this dying family of man."

In contrast to this melancholy vigil were Steven-
son's ecstasy of life and the joy with which he entered
into gathering shells upon the shore.

" Ashore to the cove and hunted shells, according
to my prevision ; but the delight of it was a surprise.
To stand in the silver margin of the sea, now dry shod,
now buried to the ankle in the thrilling coolness, now
higher than the knee ; to watch, as the reflux drew
down, wonderful marvels of colour and design fleeting
between my feet, to grasp at, to miss, to seize them ;
and now to find them what they promised, and now
to catch only maya of coloured sand, pounded frag-
ments, and pebbles, that, as soon as they were dry,
became as dull and homely as the flint upon a garden
path. I toiled about this childish pleasure in the
strong sun for hours, sharply conscious of my in-
curable ignorance, and yet too much pleased to be
ashamed. Presently I came round upon the shelves
that line the bottom of the cliff ; and there, in a pool
where the last of the surf sometimes irrupted, making
it bubble like a spring, I found my best, that is, my
strangest, shell. It was large, as large as a woman's
head, rugged as rock, in colour variegated with green
and orange ; but alas, the ' poor inhabitant ' was at
home. On the struggles of conscience that ensued I
scorn to dwell ; but my curiosity, - after several
journeys in my hand, returned finally to his rock
home, of whose sides he greedily laid hold, and he
gained a second term of the pleasures of existence."

On August 22nd the Casco left Nukahiva and
arrived the following day at Taahauku in the island
of Hiva-oa, a more remote and even more thinly

190 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

populated island. Here they stayed twelve days,
and here Stevenson and his family went through the
ceremony of adoption into the family of Paa-aeua,
the official chief of Atuona, while Mr. Osbourne " made
brothers " also with the deposed hereditary chief,
Moipu.

These observances meant anything or nothing,
according to the desire of the initiated. I single
them out for mention here because (apart from white
men living among the Kanakas) they were offered
to and accepted by those only who, like Bishop
Dordillon, had a close intimacy and sympathy with
the natives.

The time had come to start for Tahiti by a course
lying through the Paumotus or Dangerous Archi-
pelago, a group of numerous low islands, unlighted
save for one or two pier-head lamps, and most in-
adequately laid down upon the chart.

For this reason at Taiohae they had shipped a mate
who knew those waters well. The much-travelled
" Japanese" cook had been returned to his home, and
his place taken by a genuine Chinaman. Ah Fu came
to the Marquesas as a child and had grown up among
the natives ; he now followed the fortunes of his
new masters with entire devotion for two years until
the claims of his family were asserted and took him
home reluctantly to China.

On September 4th the Casco sailed, and three days
later, before sunset, the captain expected to sight
the first of the Paumotus.

It was not, however, till sunrise on the following
morning that they saw land, and then it was not
the island they had expected to make ; in place of
having been driven to the west, they had been swept
by a current some thirty miles in the opposite direc-
tion. The first atoll was " flat as a plate in the sea,
and spiked with palms of disproportioned altitude."
The next, seen some hours later, was " lost in blue
sea and sky ; a ring of white beach, green underwood,
and tossing palms, gemlike in colour ; of a fairy, of

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1888-89 i$i

a heavenly prettiness. The surf was all round it,
white as snow, and broke at one point, far to seaward,
on what seems an uncharted reef."

Night fell again, and found them amid a wilderness
of reefs corresponding so little with the maps that
the schooner must lie to and wait for the morning.

The next day they ran on to Fakarava, and entered
the lagoon in safety. It was a typical low island,
some eighty miles in circumference by a couple of
hundred yards broad, chosen to be the headquarters
of the government only on account of two excellent
passages in the barrier reef, one of which was sure
to be always available.

In one respect they were fortunate : " We were
scarce well headed for the pass before all heads were
craned over the rail. For the water, shoaling under
our board, became changed in a moment to sur-
prising hues of blue and grey ; and in its transparency
the coral branched and blossomed, and the fish of
the inland sea cruised visibly below us, stained and
striped, and even beaked like parrots. ... I have
since entered, I suppose, some dozen atolls in different
parts of the Pacific, and the experience has never
been repeated. That exquisite hue and transpar-
ency of submarine day, and these shoals of rainbow
fish, have not enraptured me again."

A fortnight spent in Fakarava passed uneventfully
away. There were few inhabitants left on the island,
which was never very populous at any time. Steven-
son lived ashore in a house among the palms, where
he learned much of the natives and their customs
and beliefs from the half-caste Vice-President, M.
Donat.

In the last week of September they left for Tahiti,
and in two days were anchored safely at Papeete,
the capital and port of entry of the Society group.
Beautiful as all the high islands of the South Seas
are, it is in Tahiti and its neighbours — the Otaheite
of Captain Cook — that the extreme point of sublimity
and luxuriance is reached. The vegetation is not

I92 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

less lovely, nor the streams and waterfalls less beau-
tiful or less abundant than elsewhere, but the crags
and pinnacles of the lofty mountains there are far
more picturesque, and so abrupt that they are not
smothered io the greenery which gives an appear-
ance of tameness to other islands in the same latitudes.

Stevenson and his wife lived ashore in a small
house, where he prepared his correspondence for the
outgoing mail. He was very unwell ; he went
nowhere, saw no one of any interest, native or foreign,
and soon grew tired of Papeete. A cold caught at
Fakarava increased, with access of fever and an
alarming cough. He mended a little, but Papeete
was not a success, so after a time the Casco, with
a pilot on board, took the party round to Taravao
on the south side of the island. On this passage
they were twice nearly lost. The first day they had
a long beat off the lee-shore of the island of Eimeo ;
and the following day were suddenly becalmed, and
began to drift towards the barrier reef of Tahiti.
" The reefs were close in," wrote Stevenson, " with,
my eye 1 what a surf I The pilot thought we were
gone, and the captain had a boat cleared, when a
lucky squall came to our rescue. My wife, hearing
the order given about the boats, remarked to my
mother, ' Isn't that nice ? We shall soon be
ashore 1 * Thus does the female mind unconsciously
skirt along the verge of eternity." Their danger was
undoubtedly great, greater far than they suspected.

The atmosphere at Taravao was close, and mos-
quitoes were numerous ; by this time Stevenson was
so ill that it was necessary, without a moment's
delay, to secure more healthy quarters. Accordingly
his wife went ashore, and following a path, discovered
the shanty of a Chinaman who owned a wagon and
a pair of horses. These she hired to take them to
Tautira, the nearest village of any size, a distance
of sixteen miles over a road crossed by one-and-
twenty streams. Stevenson was placed in the cart,
and, sustained by small doses of coca, managed, with

SOUTH SEA CRUISES-i888-89 193

the help of his wife and Valentine, to reach his
Jtmation before he collapsed altogether. Being
introduced at Tautira by the gendarme, they werl
asked an exorbitant rent for a suitable house but
they secured it, and there made the patient as com-
fortable as possible. The next day there arrived
the Princess Moe, ex-Queen of Raiatea, one of the
kindest and most charming of Tahitians, who lives
m the pages of Pierre Loti and Miss Gordon-Cum-
mmg. She had come to the village, and hearing
there was a white man very ill, she came over to the
house. " I feel that she saved Louis' life," writes
Mrs. Stevenson. " He was lying in a deep stupor
when she first saw him, suffering from congestion
the lungs and in a burning fever. As soon as he
was well enough, she invited us to live with her in
the house of Ori, the sub-chief of the village, and we
gladly accepted her invitation."

Meanwhile, at Taravao, it was discovered that the
schooner's jib-boom was sprung ; it was duly spliced,
and when Stevenson was really better, the Casco
came round to Tautira. Here a more startling dis-
covery was made, and the party learned what their
true position had been two or three weeks before.
The elder Mrs. Stevenson gave a feast on board to
the women of Tautira, and one old lady offered up
a prayer, asking that if anything were wrong with
the masts it might be discovered in time. As soon
as the guests were gone, the Yankee skipper, acting
no doubt on the principle of keeping his powder dry,
went aloft, and subjected the masts to a close ex-
amination. They were both almost eaten out with
dry-rot. Had either of them gone by the board
during the voyage in the Moorea channel, or off the
reefs in any of the islands, nothing could have saved
the Casco, even if her passengers and crew had escaped
in one of the boats. It was now considered hardly
safe for any one to remain on deck ; but, with many
reefs in her mainsail, the schooner was sent to
Papeete, where the masts were patched up as far as
G

194 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

was possible, no new spars of sufficient size being
obtainable.

The intended visit to the neighbouring islands of
Huahine, Raiatea, and Borabora was abandoned,
Stevenson and his party remaining at Tautira until
the Casco should be ready to take them back to
civilisation. His health again recovered, and he
enjoyed the new conditions of life beyond words —
scenery, climate, and company. Tautira was " the
most beautiful spot " and " its people the most
amiable " he had ever encountered. Except for the
French gendarme and Pere Bruno, the priest, a Dutch-
man from Amsterdam who had forgotten his own
language, the travellers had passed beyond the range
of Europeans and lived in a Tahiti touched as little
as might be by any foreign influence. They dwelt in
one of the curious " bird-cage " houses of the island,
and were on the friendliest terms with all the
village.

Their host, Ori, was a perpetual delight to them all.
" A Life-guardsman in appearance," as Mr. Osbourne
describes him, " six foot three in bare feet ; deep and
broad in proportion ; unconsciously English to an
absurd extent ; feared, respected, and loved."

It was one of the happiest periods in the exile's life,
and perhaps in consequence his " journal," an
irregularly kept notebook, was dropped, never to be
resumed. And so it happens that to this passage in
his life he never returned, pen in hand, and of it he has
left no other record than one or two pages in his
correspondence.

He " actually went sea-bathing almost every day " ;
he collected songs and legends, materials for the great
book ; he began to work once more at his novel, The
Master of Ballantrae, and " almost finished " it. At
Moe's instance special exhibitions of the old songs and
dances of Tahiti were given for him in the hall of
assembly in Tautira. He was adopted into the clan
of the Tevas, to which Ori belonged, and exchanged
names with that chief, who thenceforward signed

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1888-89 *95

himself as " Rui,"1 Louis himself receiving also, in
more formal fashion, the name of Teriitera.

He now wrote the greater part of his two Polynesian
ballads, The Feast of Famine, relating to the Mar-
quesas, and The Song of Rahero, a genuine legend of
the Tevas. In the same days, however, his music
brought him to write for the old Scots tune of " Wan-
dering Willie " that most pathetic cry of his exile : —

" Home no more home to me, whither must I wander ? "

almost the only complaint, even in a dramatic form
that he ever allowed himself to make.

The repairs of the Casco took an unexpected time ;
the weather became bad, and a stormy sea and rivers
in flood prevented any communication between Tautira
and Papeete. The visitors used up all their money :
Ori had taken charge of it for them and doled it out,
a small piece at a time, until all was gone. Their
supplies of food being exhausted, they were reduced
to living on the bounty of the natives, and though
Stevenson himself continued to eat sucking-pig with
continual enjoyment, the others pined for a change.
When time passed and no ship came, the whole
countryside began to join in their anxiety. Each
morning, as soon as the dawn lifted, a crowd ran to the
beach, and the cry came back : " E ita pahi ! " (No
ship) .

At last Ori took a party of young men in a whale-
boat, although the weather was still bad, and went to
Papeete to find out the cause of the delay. " When
Ori left," says Mrs. Stevenson, " we besought him not
to go, for we knew he was risking the lives of himself
and his men. Then he was gone a week over time,
which made us heart-sick. He brought back the
necessary money and a store of provisions, and a letter
from the captain telling us when to look for him.
Amongst the food was a basket of champagne. The
next day we gave a commemoration dinner to Ori,

1 »,««, Louis : there being no L in Tahitiani
o 2

196 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

when we produced the champagne. Ori drank his
glass and announced it beyond excellence, a drink for
chiefs. ' I shall drink it continually,' he added,
pouring out a fresh glass. ' What is the cost of it by
the bottle ? ' Louis told him, whereupon Ori solemnly
replaced his full glass, saying, ' It is not fit that even
kings should drink a wine so expensive.' It took him
days to recover from the shock."

At last the Casco was ready for sea, and on Christ-
mas Day the party embarked for Honolulu. The
farewell with Ori was heart-breaking, and all vowed
never again to stay so long as two months in one
place, or to form so deep and yet so brief a friendship.

They sighted the outlying Paumotus and the mail
schooner, and after that their voyage was without
other incident than squalls and calms. For a while
they skirted hurricane weather, though nothing came
of it ; but between calms and contrary winds their
progress was slow, and they nearly ran out of provi-
sions. " We were nearly a week hanging about the
Hawaiian group," says Mr. Osbourne, " drifting
here and there with different faint slants of wind.
We had little luxuries kept back for our farewell
dinner — which took place at least three times with a
diminishing splendour that finally struck bottom on
salt horse. It was a strange experience to see the
distant lights of Honolulu, and then go to bed
hungry ; to rise again in the morning, and find our-
selves, not nearer, but further off. When at last the
weather altered and we got our wind, it was a snorting
Trade, and we ran into the harbour like a steamboat.
It was a dramatic entry for the overdue and much-
talked-of Casco, flashing past the buoys and men-of-
war, with the pilot in a panic of alarm. If the Casco
ever did thirteen knots, she did it then."

Arrived at Honolulu they found that their safety
had been despaired of by all, including even Mrs.
Stevenson's daughter, Mrs. Strong, who was then
living there with her husband and child.

Of the capital city of the Hawaiian kingdom it is

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1888-89 »97

difficult to give any true impression, so curious in
those days was the mixture of native life and civilisa-
tion. To any one coming from the islands it seemed
a purely American city — not of the second or even of
the third rank, modified only by its position in the
verge of the tropics ; for any one who entered these
latitudes and saw a native population for the first
time, it must have been picturesque and exotic
beyond words.

Stevenson sent the yacht back to San Francisco,
and took a house at Waikiki, some four miles from
Honolulu along the coast. Here he took up his
abode in a lanai — a sort of large pavilion, off which
the bedrooms opened, built on native lines, and
provided only with jalousied shutters ; and here he
settled down in earnest to finish The Master of
Ballantrae — " the hardest job I ever had to do " —
already running in Scribner's Magazine, and to be
completed within a given time.

He did not end his task till May — " The Master is
finished, and I am quite a wreck and do not care for
literature." When the story was finally published
in the autumn, it was at once recognised on all hands
as the sternest and loftiest note of tragedy which its
author had yet delivered. " I'm not strong enough
to stand writing of that kind," said Sir Henry
Yule on his deathbed to Mr. Crockett, who had
been reading it to hini ; " it's grim as the road to
Lucknow."

In the meantime, though Stevenson was constantly
unwell, even his want of health at the worst of these
times was very different from his invalid life at
Bournemouth. He retired with his wife to a small
and less draughty cottage about a hundred yards
from the lanai, and there continued his work as
before.

The little colony was very comfortably settled.
Valentine had left their service and departed to
America, but Ah Fu had established himself in the
kitchen with his pots and pans,

198 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

In spite of his worse health, Stevenson was able to
go about as usual, and saw a good many people,
especially in the large circle of his step-daughter's
acquaintance. Through this connection he found
from the beginning a ready entree to the Royal
Palace, where Kalakaua, the last of the Hawaiian
kings, held his court of Yvetot : a large, handsome,
genial, dissipated monarch, a man of real ability and
iron constitution, versed beyond any of his subjects
in the history and legends of his kingdom. From the
very beginning of the acquaintance his relations with
Stevenson were most friendly in no conventional
sense. They genuinely liked one another from the
start, and Kalakaua, holding out every inducement,
really tried very hard to get his visitor to settle in
Hawaii.

At Honolulu, Stevenson already began to hear a
good deal of Samoa and its troubles, for several of
his new friends had formed part of the amazing
embassy Kalakaua had sent to Apia in the preceding
year to propose a native federation of the Polynesian
Islands. It was on the information now received
that he was driven to write the first of his letters to
The Times.

The letter appeared on the nth March, and before
the week was out there occurred the great Samoan
hurricane which sunk or stranded six men-of-war
in the harbour of Apia, when the Calliope alone, by
virtue of her engines, steamed out of the gap in the
very teeth of the gale.

Immediately afterwards, Stevenson records a
curious episode at Honolulu in a letter to Mr.
Baxter : —

" zjth April, 1889. — A pretty touch of seaman
manners : the English and American Jacks are
deadly rivals : well, after all this hammering of both
sides by the Germans, and then the news of the
hurricane from Samoa, a singular scene occurred
here the Sunday before last. The two church parties
sponte propria fell in line together, one Englishman

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1888-89 199

to one American, and marched down to the harbour
like one ship's company. None were more surprised
than their own officers. I have seen a hantle of the
seaman on this cruise ; I always liked him before ;
my first crew on the Casco (five sea -lawyers)
near cured me ; but I have returned to my first
love."

At Samoa we shall see that he had many friends
in the navy : in nothing did he take more delight
than in their company and friendship. Of this
there was already a beginning at Honolulu with the
wardroom of H.B.M.S. Cormorant. " I had been
twice to lunch on board, and H.B.M.'s seamen are
making us hammocks ; so we are very naval. But
alas, the Cormorant is only waiting her relief, and I
fear there are not two ships of that stamp in all the
navies of the world."

The hammocks were part of his preparations for a
new cruise. He had arrived with the intention of
crossing America during the course of the summer,
and so returning to England, with ultimate views
of Madeira as a winter refuge. But even Honolulu
was too cold for him, and by the end of March he was
full of another scheme of South Sea travel. This
time his voyage was to be to the Gilbert Islands to
the south-west, on board the vessel belonging to the
Boston Mission or whatever other craft he could
induce to take him. His mother decided to return
to Scotland and visit her sister, but hn wife and
stepson looked eagerly forward to sharing with him
this new experience.

In the end of April he paid a visit by himself to the
lee-shore of the island of Hawaii, and spent a week
on the coastlands, living with a native judge. Here
he took long rides, and saw and learned as much of
native life and characteristics as lay within his reach ;
the most thrilling event of the visit being the depar-
ture of some natives to be immured in the lazaretto
of Molokai.

A month later he visited the island of Molokai

200 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

itself, and spent by special permission a week in the
leper settlement. Father Damien had died on the
fifteenth of April, so that Stevenson heard only by
report of the man whose memory he did so much to
vindicate. <&

The scene of Damien's labours is one of the most
striking places in the world. A low promontory,
some three miles long, with a village upon either side
of it, lies at the foot of a beetling precipice, that shuts
it off from the remainder of the island to which there
is no access except by a most difficult bridle-track.
Hither, since 1865, have been sent all persons in the
group who are found to have contracted leprosy, and
here they are tended by doctor and priest, by officers
and sisters and nurses, until they die. Who can do
justice to such a place, to such a scene ? Here
Stevenson spent a week, and afterwards wrote a
fragmentary and incomplete account of his visit.
The best record of it is contained in the letters written
at the time to his wife, and shortly afterwards to
James Payn and Sidney Colvin. The description of
his landing cannot be omitted.

" Our lepers were sent (from the steamer) in the
first boat, about a dozen, one poor child very horrid;
one white man leaving a large grown family behind
him in Honolulu, and then into the second stepped
the sisters and myself. I do not know how it would
have been with me had the sisters not been there.
My horror of the horrible is about my weakest
point ; but the moral loveliness at my elbow blotted
all else out ; and when I found that one of them was
crying, poor soul, quietly under her veil, I cried a
little myself ; then I felt as right as a trivet, only a
little crushed to be there so uselessly. I thought it
was a sin and a shame she should feel unhappy ; I
turned round to her, and said something like this :
" Ladies, God Himself is here to give you welcome.
I'm sure it is good for me to be beside you ; I hope
it will be blessed to me ; I thank you for myself
and the good you do me." It seemed to cheer her

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1888-89 201

up ; but indeed I had scarce said it when we were
at the landing-stairs, and there was a great crowd,
hundreds of (God save us !) pantomime masks in
poor human flesh, waiting to receive the sisters and
the new patients.

' . . . Gilfillan, a good fellow, I think, and far
from a stupid, kept up his hard Lowland Scottish
talk in the boat while the sister was covering her face ;
but I believe he knew, and did it (partly) in embarrass-
ment, and part perhaps in mistaken kindness. And
that was one reason, too, why I made my speech to
them. Partly, too, I did it, because I was ashamed
to do so, and remembered one of my golden rules,
' When you are ashamed to speak, speak up at
once.1 But, mind you, that rule is only golden with
strangers ; with your own folks, there are other
considerations. ' '

After leaving the leper settlement the steamer
landed him upon another part of the island, where he
and the captain took horse and rode a long way to
the house of some Irish folk, where Stevenson slept.
Next day he continued with a native guide until he
reached the summit of the pass above Kalawao,
down which alone the settlement could be entered
by land.

Of his ride across the island he wrote : — " Maui
behind us towered into clouds and the shadow of
clouds. The bare opposite island of Lanai — the reef
far out, enclosing a dirty, shoal lagoon — a range of
fish-ponds, large as docks, and the slope of the shady
beach on which we mostly rode, occupied the left
hand. On the right hand the mountain rose in steeps
of red clay and spouts of disintegrated rock, sparsely
dotted with the white-flowering cow-thistle. Here
and there along the foreshore stood a lone pandanus,
and once a trinity of dishevelled palms. In all the
first part of that journey, I recall but three houses
and a single church. Plenty of horses, kine and
sullen-looking bulls were there ; but not a human
countenance. ' Where are the people ? ' I asked,

202 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

' Pau Kanaka mak& : done : people dead,' replied
the guide, with the singular childish giggle which the
traveller soon learns to be a mark of Polynesian
sensibility."

From this expedition he returned to complete his
preparations for immediate departure. The family
now possessed an unrivalled fund of information
about " the Islands," and had accumulated not only
the necessary stores but also a collection of all the
resources of civilisation best fitted td appeal to the
native heart, ranging from magic lanterns and Ameri-
can hand-organs to " cheap and bad cigars." The
only difficulty was the ship, and the Morning Star
not being available, the Equator, a trading schooner
of sixty-two tons register, Captain Denis Reid, was
chartered. The terms agreed upon were original and
entertaining ; Stevenson paid a lump sum down for
a four months' cruise with a proviso for renewal, if
necessary. The ship agreed for a fixed daily extra
price to land at any place in the line of its trading
cruise on Stevenson's written demand. On the other
hand, when it stopped anywhere for its own business,
were it only to land a sewing-machine or to take on
board a ton of copra, it was bound, if the charterer
so desired, to remain there three days without extra
charge.

The twenty-fourth of June arrived : Stevenson and
his wife and stepson were on board with the indis-
pensable Ah Fu, and the schooner was ready to cast
off. At the last moment two fine carriages drove
down at full speed to the wharf and there deposited
King Kalakaua and a party of his native musicians.
There was but a minute for good-bye and a parting
glass, for Kalakaua had none of Ori's scruples over
champagne. The king returned to shore and stood
there waving his hand, while from the musicians, lined
up on the very edge of the wharf, came the tender
strains of a farewell.

CHAPTER XIV

SOUTH SEA CRUISES — THE CENTRAL PACIFIC
JUNE, l88g — APRIL,

" I will never leave the sea, I think ; it is only there
that a Briton lives : my poor grandfather, it is from him
that I inherit the taste, I fancy, and he was round many
islands in his day ; but I, please God, shall beat him at
that before the recall is sounded. . , . Life is far better
fun than people dream who fall asleep among the chimney-
stacks and telegraph wires." — Letters, iii. 134,

THE object of the new cruise for Stevenson was to
visit a native race of a different character from
those he had already seen, living as far as was still
possible under purely natural conditions. The Gil-
berts are a group of some sixteen low islands of no
great size, densely populated, situated close to the
Equator. At this time they were independent, nearly
every island being governed by its own king or council
of elders. Scenery in all of them is reduced to the
simplest elements, a strand with cocoa-nut-palms
and pandanus, and the sea — one island differing from
another only in having or not having an accessible
lagoon in its centre ; in none of them is the highest
point of land as much as twenty feet above sea-level.
This very flatness and absence of striking features
render the -islands a more perfect theatre for effects
of light and cloud, while the splendours of the aea are
further enhanced by the contrast of the rollers break-
ing on the reef and the still lagoon sleeping within
the barrier, of the dark depths of ocean outside, and
the brilliant shoal-water varying infinitely in hue with
the inequalities of the shallows within.

Stevenson's former experience lay, his future was
almost entirely to lie, among the Polynesians — the
tall, fine, copper-coloured race, speaking closely allied
dialects of the same language, and including among
their family the Hawaiians, Marquesans, Tahitians,
Samoans, and the Maoris of New Zealand. The

203

204 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Gilbert and Marshall natives, on the other hand, are
Micronesians — darker, shorter, and to my taste less
comely folk — speaking languages widely removed
from the Polynesian — people with a dash of black
blood, stricter in morals and more ferocious, with an
energy and backbone which the others but rarely
possess. It is noteworthy that Polynesians never
commit suicide ; on the Line it is not uncommon ;
and the frequent causes are unrequited love, or grief
for the dead.

When this visit should be finished, the travellers
were not finally committed to any plan, but their
latest intention was to proceed to the Marshalls and
thence to the Carolines, and so " return to the light
of day by way of Manila and the China ports."

Scarcely, however, were they at sea before these
schemes were modified. One moonlight night, in
the neighbourhood of Johnstone Island, the talk fell
upon the strange history of the loss of the brigantine,
Wandering Minstrel, and from this germ was quickly
developed the plot of the The Wrecker. The life of
cruising was for the time all that Stevenson could
desire : after the depression of Honolulu he had en-
tirely recovered his health and spirits on the open
sea, and the only difficulty in continuing his cure was
its great expense. Surely if he possessed a schooner
of his own, he might make his home on board and pay
the current charges, at all events in part, by trading.
So The Wrecker was to be written and sent to a
publisher from Samoa, and there, with the proceeds,
they were to buy a schooner, stock the trade-room,
and start upon their wanderings under the guidance
of Denis Reid, who threw himself heart and soul into
the spirit of the new venture.

It was a wild scheme. Versatile as Stevenson was,
it is impossible even to think of him as a " South Sea
merchant,'1 haggling with natives over the price of
copra, and retailing European goods to them at a
necessarily exorbitant rate. But the project, though
never realised, did finally determine the course of his

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 205

life, for instead of taking him to Ponape, Guam, and
the Philippines, it sent him south to Samoa, there to
take up his abode and live and die.

In the meanwhile the first part of the voyage was
safely performed, and the schooner arrived at the
town of Butaritari in the island of Great Makin.
Under ordinary conditions a white man, if he con-
ducted himself reasonably, might wander through all
the group in perfect safety, but the arrival of the
Equator fell at an unpropitious moment. For the
first and probably the only time in his wanderings,
Stevenson was in real danger of violence from natives.

The two principal firms trading in Butaritari be-
longed to San Francisco ; the missionaries in the
group were sent there by the Boston Society, and the
influence of American ideas was considerable. Nine
days before Stevenson's arrival was the Fourth of
July, the day on which American Independence is
celebrated throughout the States. The king of
Butaritari had observed the festival with enthusiasm,
but not wisely, nor in accordance with missionary
views, for he had removed the taboo upon spirits
which ordinarily was imposed for all his subjects.

Neither sovereign nor courtiers had been sober
since, and though, with a lofty Sabbatarianism, the
king declined to be photographed upon a Sunday, it
was not to be supposed that he could be refused more
drink if he offered to purchase it at the usual price.
There was this further difficulty in the way of restoring
sobriety to his dominions, that even if one firm de-
clined to supply him, there was the rival house, which,
having as yet sold less of its liquor, might be less
anxious for the special open season to come to an end.
So the carnival continued for ten days more, and all
the white men could do was to get out their pistols
and show in public such skill as they possessed in
shooting at a mark.

Twice a large stone was hurled at Stevenson as he
sat in his verandah at dusk, just as the lamp was
brought out and placed beside him. He now entered

206 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

into negotiations with the German manager of the
other firm, whom he found to take a far more serious
view of the situation than any of them, and whom he
induced by diplomacy to cease to supply the natives.
The crisis was now reached : would the populace,
irritated by refusal, carry either of the bars with a
rush ?

Fortunately all passed off smoothly. The king
came to his senses, and the taboo was re-imposed.
Quiet was restored, and only just in time, for a day or
two later a large body of rather turbulent natives
arrived from the next island for a dance competition,
quite ready to profit by any political trouble.

The danger having been averted, the party lived
at peace in the house of Maka, the Hawaiian mission-
ary, one of the most lovable of men. They saw the
dances, they gave exhibitions of their magic lantern,
and as all pictures were supposed to be photographs,
and photographs could only be taken from actual
scenes, their slides of Bible history brought about a
distinct religious reaction among the people. They
made friends with various natives, but the end of
their stay was by comparison tame and dull, and after
about a month the Equator returned and carried them
away.

The terms of the elaborate charter party were
entirely disregarded. The captain from the beginning
acted as though the vessel were Stevenson's yacht,
and went or stayed according to the wishes of his
passenger. Stevenson, on his part, took a keen
interest in the ship's fortunes, and was as eager to
secure copra as any one on board. The captain acted
as showman of the group. " I remember once," says
Mr. Osbourne, " that he banged the deck with a
marlinspike and called below to Louis : ' Come on
deck, quick ; here's the murderer and the poisoner
I told you of, coming off in a boat.' "

They visited the island of Nonuti, and were then
continuing on a southward course, when the wind
veered and they made for Apemama, a large island

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 207

ruled by the despot Tembinok1 who allowed no
white man in his kingdom. As an exceptional favour,
however, granted only after a long inspection of the
party and two days devoted to consideration, Steven-
son and his family were admitted as the special guests
of the king. He cleared a site for them, pitched four
houses upon it for their accommodation, and tabooed
with a death penalty their well and their enclosure
against all his subjects. The settlement was begun
to the discharge of a rifle ; the cook who was lent to
the Stevensons, and was guilty of gross misbehaviour,
received six shots from the king's Winchester over
his head, at his feet, and on either side of him ; and
though no one was actually killed while the white
men were on the island, yet the power of life and
death in the king's hands was plainly shown to be no
obsolete prerogative.

In Apemama the party spent a couple of months
in daily intercourse with this very remarkable per-
sonage, with whom they entered into close relations
of friendship. Of all the chiefs Stevenson knew in
the Pacific, Ori, the Tahitian, was probably the one
for whom he had most affection ; Mataafa, in Samoa,
probably he most respected ; but Tembinok* was
unquestionably the strongest character, and the man
who interested him the most. Who that has read the
South Sea chapters has forgotten his appearance ?

" A beaked profile like Dante's in the mask, a mane
of long black hair, the eye brilliant, imperious, and
inquiring ; for certain parts in the theatre, and to
one who could have used it, the face was a fortune.
His voice matched it well, being shrill, powerful, and
uncanny, with a note like a sea-bird's. Where there
are no fashions, none to set them, few to follow them
if they were set, and none to criticise, he dresses —
as Sir Charles Grandison lived — ' to his own heart.'
Now he wears a woman's frock, now a naval uniform,
now (and more usually) figures in a masquerade
costume of his own design — trousers and a singular
jacket with shirt tails, the cut and fit wonderful for

208 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

island workmanship, the material always handsome,
sometimes green velvet, sometimes cardinal red silk.
This masquerade becomes him admirably. I see him
now come pacing towards me in the cruel sun, soli-
tary, a figure out of Hoffmann."

In spite of this grotesque disguise, there was noth-
ing ridiculous about the man. He had been a fighter
and a conqueror, " the Napoleon " of his group ; he
was, besides, a poet, a collector, the sole trader and
man of business, and a shrewd judge of mankind.
Having admitted the missionaries to his island, he
had learned to read and write ; having found the
missionaries interfering, as he thought, with his trade
and his government, without hesitation he had ban-
ished them from his domains.

For the account of this unique society, this master-
ful sway, I must refer the reader to the seventy pages
of Stevenson's own description, which were the part
of his diary least disappointing to himself. It could
hardly be told in fewer words, and extracts can do it
no justice. It is the more valuable in that it re-
presents a state of things which is gone for ever.
Only five years later, when I visited the island in 1894
all was changed. Tembinok' was dead, the Gilbert
Islands had been annexed by Great Britain, and a
boy was king under the direction of a British Resi-
dent. How severe the old discipline had been was
proclaimed by a large " speak-house " at Tuagana,
some two hours' sail down the coast, where all round
the interior of the house, at the end of the roof-beams
there had been a set of eight-and-forty human skulls,
of which nearly twenty were still remaining. The
house had been built by Tembinok's father, and the
heads were those of malefactors, both white and
native, or, at all events, of people who had caused
displeasure to the king. The Stevensons had never
heard of the existence of this place from Tembinok',
though his father's grave was here, and here also
were lying the two finest sea-going canoes in all the
island.

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 209

But for the history of Tembinok', and for Steven-
son's experience — how he was mesmerised for a cold
by a native wizard, and how, with many searchings
of conscience, he bought for Mr. Andrew Lang the
devil-box of Apemama, the reader must go — and will
thank me for sending him — to Stevenson's own pages.
I will quote here only the king's leave-taking of his
guest, and the impression which Stevenson had pro-
duced upon this wild, stern, and original nature : —

" As the time approached for our departure Tem-
binok' became greatly changed ; a softer, more
melancholy, and in particular, a more confidential
man appeared in his stead. To my wife he contrived
laboriously to explain that though he knew he must
lose his father in the course of nature, he had not
minded nor realised it till the moment came ; and
that now he was to lose us, he repeated the experience.
We showed fireworks one evening on the terrace. It
was a heavy business ; the sense of separation was in
all our minds, and the talk languished. The king was
specially affected, sat disconsolate on his mat, and
often sighed. Of a sudden one of the wives stepped
forth from a cluster, came and kissed him in silence,
and silently went again. It was just such a caress
as we might give to a disconsolate child, and the
king received it with a child's simplicity. Presently
we said good-night and withdrew ; but Tembinok1
detained Mr. Osbourne, patting the mat by his side
saying : ' Sit down. I feel bad, I like talk.' ' You
like some beer ? ' said he ; and one of the wives
produced a bottle. The king did not partake, but sat
sighing and smoking a meerschaum pipe. • I very
sorry you go,' he said at last. ' Miss Stlevens he
good man, woman he good man, boy he good man ;
all good man. Women he smart all the same man.
My woman,' glancing towards his wives, ' he good
woman, no very smart. I think Miss Stlevens he
big chiep all the same cap'n man-o'-wa'. I think
Miss Stlevens he rich man all the same me. All go
schoona. I very sorry. My patha he go, my uncle

210 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

he go, my cutcheons he go, Miss Stlevens he go ; all
go. You no see king cry before. King all the same
man : feel bad, he cry. I very sorry.'

" In the morning it was the common topic in the
village that the king had wept. To me he said :
' Last night I no can 'peak: too much here,' laying
his hand upon his bosom. ' Now you go away all
the same my pamily. My brothers, my uncle go
away. All the same.' This was said with a dejection
almost passionate. . . The same day he sent me a
present of two corselets, made in the island fashion
of plaited fibre, heavy and strong. One had been
worn by his grandfather, one by his father, and, the
gift being gratefully received, he sent me, on the
return of his messengers, a third — that of his uncle. . ,

" The king took us on board in his own gig, dressed
for the occasion in the naval uniform. He had little
to say, he refused refreshments, shook us briefly by
the hand, and went ashore again. That night the
palm-tops of Apemama had dipped behind the sea,
and the schooner sailed solitary under the stars."

The remainder of Stevenson's notes on the Gilberts
relate chiefly to the white, or, at any rate, the alien
population of the group, which at that date was
naturally a sort of No Man's Land — one of the last
refuges for the scoundrels of the Pacific. Not that
all the traders by any means were black sheep ; some
of them and some of the captains and mates working
in those waters vrere decent fellows enough, but
among them were thieves, murderers, and worse,
patriots who showed an uncommon alacrity in
changing their nationality when any man-of-war of
their own Government happened to come their way.
When the Gilberts were finally annexed in 1892, a
labour vessel took a shipload of these gentry on
board, bound for a South American republic, which,
fortunately for that State, they never reached — the
vessel being lost at sea with all hands.

Of the stories that were then current Stevenson
collected a number, and had he been a realist, his

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 211

readers might have been depressed through many
volumes by the gloom and squalor of these tragedies ;
as it was, he utilised only a little of what he had
actually seen as material for the darker shadows
in the romantic and spirited Beach of Falesa.

After returning to Butaritari, the Equator, with
Stevenson and his party on board, left for Samoa.
The trip was tedious but for the excitement of run-
ning by night between the three different positions
assigned by the charts to a reef which possibly had
no real existence. There were the usual squalls, in
one of which, during the night, the safety of the ship
depended entirely on the cutting of a rope. The
fore-topmast snapped across and the foresail down-
haul fouled in the wreckage, but Ah Fu climbed to
the top of the galley with his knife, and the position
was saved. Next morning, however, the signal hal-
yard had disappeared, nor was its loss accounted
for until several weeks afterwards, when the
Chinaman presented his mistress with a neat coil
of the best quality of rope. He had once heard
her admiring it, and took occasion of the squall
and extremity of danger to procure it for her as a
present.

The schooner arrived about the 7th of December
at Apia, the capital and port of Upolu, the chief of
the group known collectively as Samoa1 or the Navi-
gator Islands, which Stevenson now saw for the first
time, and which he had every intention of leaving
finally within two months of his arrival.

The Equator's charter now came to an end. Hiring
a cottage in the hamlet a mile above the town, Steven-
son began to collect the material necessary for those
chapters which should be allotted to Samoa in his
book upon the South Seas. This obtained, he

1 The first two syllables are long : Sa-moa ; similarly
Vai-llma ; but FSlg-sa. The first A in X-pIa is shorter
but the vowel-sounds throughout are as in Italian. The
consonants are as in English, but g = ng. Thus Pago-
pago is pronounced Pangopango.

212 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

proposed to start at once for Sydney, and thence
proceed to England.

The Samoan record, as he anticipated from the
outset would deal chiefly with the history of the
recent war, and for this he engaged in a most pains-
taking and — so far as I can judge — most successful
judicial investigation into the actual facts and the
course of events within the last few years. It is
difficult for any one who has not lived hard by a
South Sea " Beach " to realise how contradictory
and how elusive are its rumours, and how widely
removed from anything of the nature of " evidence."
But into this confused mass Stevenson plunged,
making inquiries of every one to whose statements
he could attach any importance, American or English
or German (my order is alphabetical), and invoking
the aid of interpreters for native sources of informa-
tion. He weighed and sifted his information with
the greatest care, and I have never heard any of the
main results contested which were embodied in
A Footnote to History.

For the sake of this work he lived chiefly in Apia
at the house of an American trader, Mr. H. J. Moors.
He made the acquaintance of Colonel de Coetlogon,
the English consul, with whom he maintained the
most friendly terms, who had been with Gordon in
Khartoum ; of Dr. Stuebel, the German Consul-
General, perhaps the ablest and most enlightened,
and certainly not the least honourable diplomatist
that the Great Powers ever sent to the South Seas ;
of the Rev. W. E. Clarke and other members of the
London Mission, his warm friends then and in later
days ; and especially of the high chief Mataafa, who
impressed him at once as the finest of the Samoans.

It was the only time Stevenson ever lived in Apia
or its immediate suburbs, and a few words in passing
should be devoted to the Beach, with which, now,
more than at any time, he was brought into contact.
This term, common to other South Sea islands, com-
prises, as I understand, every white resident in a

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 213

place who has not some position that can be definitely
described ; in the last instance it denotes the mere
beach-combers, loafers or mean whites, although most
people would include in it all persons of markedly
less consideration than themselves. There was much
kindliness and generosity even among the lowest, and
not more want of energy or of scruple than might
have been expected. There was also a genial readi-
ness to believe rumours, balanced by a willingness
to think no worse of the persons against whom they
were told. The number of white or half-caste
residents in Apia was supposed to be about three
hundred, of whom about two-thirds were British
subjects, the bulk of the remainder being Germans.

At first Stevenson was not greatly struck either by
the place or by the natives ; the island was " far less
beautiful than the Marquesas or Tahiti ; a more
gentle scene, gentler acclivities, a tamer face of
nature ; and this much aided, for the wanderer, by
the great German plantations, with their countless
regular avenues of palms." Nor was he " specially
attracted by the people ; but they are courteous ;
the women very attractive, and dress lovely ; the
men purposelike, well set up, tall, lean, and dignified."

In the end of December he made a boat expedition
with Mr. Clarke some dozen miles to the east, partly
on mission business, and partly on his own account
to visit Tamasese, the chief whom the Germans had
formerly set up as king ; not long afterwards he made
a similar journey to the west to Malua, where the
London Mission have long had a training college for
native students. It was on this latter occasion that
he was first introduced to the natives by the Rev. J.
E. Newell as " Tusitala," " The Writer of Tales,'1 the
name by which he was afterwards most usually
known in Samoa. Here he gave an address which
was translated for their benefit ; and a few days
later he delivered a lecture in Apia upon his travels;
on behalf of a native church, Dr. Stuebel taking the
chair.

214 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

From his notes made on the first expedition I draw
one or two passages, descriptive of Samoan customs
and of Samoan scenery, which is nowhere more
beautiful than in the inlet he then visited.

" Fagaloa, Dec. 31 st.

" Past Falefa where the reef ends and the coaster
enters on the open sea, all prettinesses, as if they were
things of shelter, end. The hills are higher and more
imminent, and here and there display naked crags.
The surf beats on bluff rocks, still overhung with
forest ; the boat, still navigated foolishly near the
broken water, is twisted to and fro with a drunken
motion, in the backwash and broken water of the
surf ; and though to-day it is exceptionally smooth,
another boat that crosses us appears only at intervals
and for a moment on the blue crest of the swells.
At last, rounding a long spit of rocks on which the
sea runs wildly high, the bay, gulf, or rather (as the
one true descriptive word) the loch of Fagaloa opens.
With a new song struck up, we begin to enter the
enchanted bay ; high clouds hover upon the hilltops ;
thin cataracts whiten lower down along the front of
the hills ; all the rest is precipitous forest, dark with
the intensity of green, save where the palms shine
silver in the thicket ; it is indeed a place to enter with
a song upon our lips.

" . . . . Fagaloa is the original spot where every
prospect pleases. It was beautiful to see a vast
black rain squall engulf the bottom of the bay, pass
over with glittering skirts, climb the opposite hill,
and cling there and dwindle into rags of snowy cloud ;
beautiful too was a scene, where a little burn ran
into the sea between groups of cocos and below a
rustic bridge of palm-stems ; something indescribably
Japanese in the scene suggested the idea of setting
on the bridge three gorgeously habited young girls,
and these relieved in their bright raiment against the
blue of the sky and the low sea-line completed the
suggestion ; it was a crape picture in the fact. We

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 215

went on further to the end of the bay, where the
village sits almost sprayed upon by waterfalls among
its palm-grove, and round under the rocky promon-
tory, by a broken path of rock among the bowers
of foliage ; a troop of little lads accompanied our
progress, and two of them possessed themselves of
my hands and trotted alongside of me with endless,
incomprehensible conversation ; both tried continu-
ally to pull the rings off my fingers ; one carried my
shoes and stockings, and proudly reminded me of
the fact at every stoppage. They were unpleasant,
cheeky, ugly urchins ; and the shoe-bearer, when we
turned the corner and sat down in the shade and the
sea-breeze on black ledges of volcanic rock, splashed
by the sea, nestled up to my side and sat pawing
me like an old acquaintance. . . ."

But Stevenson was now to take a step that proved
more decisive than for the moment he imagined.
The winter home he had once projected at Madeira
was to be transferred to Samoa ; he purchased some
three hundred acres in the bush, three miles behind
and six hundred feet above the level of the town of
Apia. The ground was covered, not exactly with
virgin forest, for it had formerly been occupied
(according to tradition) by a Samoan bush town —
but with vegetation so dense that on her first visit
his wife had been quite unable to penetrate to the
spot where the house afterwards stood. The land;
however, was to be cleared and a cottage erected,
which would at any rate shelter the family during
such intervals between their cruises as it should suit
them to spend in Samoa. But the real reason for
the selection of this island for a settlement, lay prin-
cipally in the facilities of communication. In the
matter of mails, Samoa was exceptionally fortunate.
The monthly steamers between Sydney and San
Francisco received and deposited their mail-bags in
passing, and very soon after began to call at the
port of Apia. A German steamer, the Lubeck, ran
regularly between Apia and Sydney, and the New

216 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Zealand boat, the Richmond, called on her circular
trip from Auckland to Tahiti.

So the ground was bought, the money paid, and
orders were left to begin the necessary operations.
Early in February the party sailed for Sydney, where
Mrs. Strong was now waiting to see them on their
way home to England for the summer.

Soon after reaching Australia, Stevenson found in
a religious paper a letter from Dr. Hyde, a Presby-
terian minister in Honolulu, depreciating the labours
of Father Damien at Molokai, and reviving against
his memory some highly unchristian and unworthy
slanders. The letter was written in a spirit peculiarly
calculated to rouse Stevenson's indignation, and when
he heard at the same time a report which may or
may not have been true, but which he, at any rate,
fully believed, to the effect that a proposed memorial
to Damien in London had been abandoned on account
of this or some similar statement, his anger knew
no bounds. He sat down and wrote the celebrated
letter to Dr. Hyde, which was forthwith published
in pamphlet form in Sydney, and subsequently in
Edinburgh, in the Scots Observer. He had the courage
of his opinions, and realised the risks he was taking :
" I knew I was writing a libel : I thought he would
bring an action ; I made sure I should be ruined ;
I asked leave of my gallant family, and the sense
that I was signing away all I possessed kept me up
to high-water mark, and made me feel every insult
heroic."

But in place of the news for which his friends were
waiting, that he had started upon his homeward
voyage, there came a telegram to Mr. Baxter on the
loth April : " Return Islands four months. Home
September."

He had taken cold in Sydney, and after the lapse
of eighteen months, having again started a hemorr-
hage, was very ill and pining for the sea. Mrs.
Stevenson heard of a trading steamer about to start
for " The Islands," applied for three passages, and

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 217

was refused, went to the owners and was again
refused, but stating inflexibly that it was a matter
of life or death to her husband, she carried her point
and extorted their unwilling consent.

This vessel was the steamship Janet Nicoll, an iron
screw-steamer of about six hundred tons, chartered
by Messrs. Henderson and Macfarlane, a well-known
South Sea firm. There was a dock strike in Sydney
at the time, but with a " blackboy " crew on board,
the Janet got away, carrying a full complement of
officers and engineers, and the trio to whom Island
Nights' Entertainments was afterwards dedicated —
Mr. Henderson, one of the partners ; Ben Hird, the
supercargo ; and " Jack " Buckland, the living
original of Tommy Haddon in The Wrecker.

Unwelcome guests though they had been, no sooner
had they started than they met with the greatest
kindness and cordiality from every one on board;
and when they reached Auckland the invalid was
himself again. They left that port under sealed
orders, but were not yet clear of the lighthouse before
some fireworks, left in Buckland's berth, set his
cabin on fire. The saloon was filled with dense
smoke, and a rosy glow. " Let no man say I am
unscientific," wrote Stevenson. " When I ran, on
the alert, out of my stateroom, and found the main
cabin incarnadined with the glow of the last scene
of a pantomime, I stopped dead. ' What is this ? '
said I. ' This ship is on fire, I see that ; but why
a pantomime ? ' And I stood and reasoned the point,
until my head was so muddled with the fumes that
I could not find the companion. By singular good
fortune, we got the hose down in time and saved the
ship, but Lloyd lost most of his clothes, and a great
part of our photographs was destroyed. Fanny saw
the native sailors tossing overboard a blazing trunk ;
she stopped them in time, and behold, it contained
my manuscripts."

After this episode all went well ; the steamer put in
to Apia, and stayed there long enough to enable the

218 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

party to visit their new property and see what progress
had been made. After that she went to the east and
to the north, calling at three-and-thirty low islands,
including the Ellice, Gilbert and Marshall groups ;
their stay in almost every case was limited to a few
hours, and, as Stevenson wrote on this cruise, " hack-
ney cabs have more variety than atolls." They saw
their friend King Tembinok* again, and received a
welcome from him almost too pathetic to be hearty.
He had been ill, and the whole island had been at-
tacked by measles, a disaster which was apparently
attributed by the victims to the sale of their " devil-
box." In the centre of the big house was a circular
piece of " devil- work " in the midst of a ring of white
shells, and the worship of " Chench," the local deity
had obviously received an impetus from recent events.

The altered conditions of navigation were a great
interest to Stevenson, and he was never weary of
admiring the captain's skill in handling the steamer,
one specimen of which he has recorded in the account
of his first visit to a pearl-shell island, such as, to his
great disappointment, he had failed to visit from
Fakarava.

" Nearly two years had passed before I found my-
self in the trading steamer Janet Nicoll, heading for
the entrance of Penrhyn or Tongareva. In front, the
line of the atoll showed like a narrow sea-wall of bare
coral, where the surges broke ; on either hand the
tree-tops of an islet showed some way off : on one,
the site of the chief village ; the other, then empty,
but now inhabited, and known by the ill-omened
name of Molokai. We steamed through the pass and
were instantly involved amidst a multiplicity of coral
lumps, or horse's heads, as they are called by sailors.
Through these our way meandered ; we would have
a horse's head athwart the bow, one astern, one upon
either board ; and the tortuous fairway vas at times
not more than twice the vessel's beam. The Janet
was, besides, an iron ship ; half the width of the
Pacific severed us from the next yard of reparation ;

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 219

one rough contact, and our voyage might be ended,
and ourselves consigned to half a year of Penrhyn.
On the topgallant forecastle stood a native pilot, used
to conning smaller ships, and unprepared for the
resources of a steamer ; his cries rang now with agony,
now with wrath. The best man was at the bridge
wheel ; and Captain Henry, with one hand on the
engine signal, one trembling towards the steersman,
juggled his long ship among these dangers, with the
patient art of one fitting up a watch, with the swift
decision of a general in the field. I stood by, thrilling
at once with the excitement of a personal adventure
and the admiration due to perfect skill.

" We were presently at anchor in a singular berth,
boxed all about ; our late entrance, our future exit
not to be discovered ; in front the lagoon, where I
counted the next day upwards of thirty horse's heads
in easy view ; behind, the groves of the isle and the
crowded houses of the village. Many boats lay there
at moorings : in the verandah, folk were congregated
gazing at the ship ; children were swimming from the
shore to board us ; and from the lagoon, before a
gallant breeze, other boats came skimming homeward.
The boats were gay with white sails and bright paint ;
the men were clad in red and blue, they were gar-
landed with green leaves or gay with kerchiefs ; and
the busy, many-coloured scene was framed in the
verdure of the palms and the opal of the shallow sea.

" It was a pretty picture, and its prettiest element,
the coming of the children. Every here and there we
saw a covey of black heads upon the water. . . . Soon
they trooped up the side-ladder, a healthy, comely
company of kilted children ; and had soon taken post
upon the after-hatch, where they sat in a double row,
singing with solemn energy."

But on the whole Stevenson did not benefit greatly
by the voyage. The heat of the steamer, driven
before the wind, was often intolerable ; he had another
hemorrhage, and remained languid and unfit for work.
On the return journey the Janet turned o£ to New

220 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Caledonia, and thence went direct to Sydney. Steven-
son, however, landed at Noumea, where he spent a
few days by himself, observing the French convict
settlement, and learning something of the methods
of dealing with natives.

He followed his wife and stepson to Sydney, whence
Mr. Osbourne left for England, finally to arrange their
affairs, and bring out the furniture from Skerryvore
for the " yet unbuilt house on the mountain."

All idea of this journey had been given up by
Stevenson himself in the course of the past voyage,
and indeed, having reached Sydney, he was confined
to his room in the Union Club, and left it only to
return to Samoa. From this time forth, although he
formed various projects, never realised, of seeing his
friends, and especially Sidney Colvin, in Egypt,
Honolulu, or Ceylon, he never, so far as I know, again
looked forward to setting foot upon his native shores.

With his wife he left for Apia, and on their arrival
they camped in gipsy fashion in the four-roomed
wooden house, which was all, except a trellised arbour,
that had yet been erected on the property. Here for
the next six months they lived alone with one servant,
until the ground was further cleared and the per-
manent house built.

Into the details of Stevenson's life at this time there
is no need to go ; it was a period of transition, and it
is sufficiently described in the Vailima Letters. Most
of his material difficulties were crowded into it ; but
even from them he derived a great deal of enjoyment.
There were daily working on the land a number of
labourers, partly Samoans, partly natives of other
groups. After a while, as soon as the lie of the ground
could be more clearly seen, the site of the new house
was selected on a plateau a couple of hundred yards
higher up the hill, and the building itself was begun
by white carpenters.

This was the only time their food-supply ever ran at
all short ; but after their experiences in schooners and
on low islands, they found little to complain of, as they

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 22*

felt that if it ever came to the worst, two miles off there
was always an open restaurant. Their one servant
was a German ex-steward, a feckless, kindly creature,
who seemed born with two left hands, but was always
ready to do his best. But the less competent the
servant, the more numerous and miscellaneous were
the odd jobs which devolved upon his master and
mistress.

Thus in the meantime Stevenson's own work went
on under great disadvantages. This was the time
when he saw most of the virgin forest, and his solitary
expeditions and the hours spent in weeding at the
edge of the " bush " were not without effect upon his
writing.

In January, 1891, he left his wife in sole charge and
went to Sydney to meet his mother, who was to arrive
there from Scotland on her way to Samoa. The shaft
of the Lubeck broke when she was near Fiji, at the
worst of seasons and in the most dangerous of waters ;
but it was patched up with great skill, and, under
sail and to the astonishment of the whole port, she
arrived at her destination only four days late. Steven-
son as usual " fell sharply sick in Sydney," but was
able to go on board the Lubeck again and convoy his
mother to her new home. The house, after all, was
not ready to receive her, and, having taken her first
brief glimpse of Samoa, she returned to the Colonies
for another couple of months.

Stevenson then accompanied Mr. Harold Sewall,
the American Consul-General, upon a visit to Tutuila;
the easternmost island of the group, now added to the
territory of the United States.

Here they spent three weeks, partly by the shores
of the great harbour of Pagopago, partly on an
attempt to reach the islands of Manu'a in a small
schooner, and partly in circumnavigating Tutuila by
easy stages in a whale-boat. It was the best view
Stevenson ever had of the more remote Samoans in
their own homes, and the scenery and the life attracted
him more than ever. Fortunately he kept a diary,

222 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

from which I have taken a few characteristic
passages : —

'* PAGOPAGO

" The island at its highest point is nearly severed in
two by the long-elbowed harbour, about half a mile in
width, cased everywhere in abrupt mountain-sides.
The tongue of water sleeps in perfect quiet, and laps
round its continent with the flapping wavelets of a
lake. The wind passes overhead ; day and night
overhead the scroll of trade-wind clouds is unrolled
across the sky, now in vast: sculptured masses, now in
a thin drift of debris, singular shapes of things, pro-
tracted and deformed beasts and trees and heads and
torsos of old marbles, changing, fainting, and vanish-
ing even as they flee. Below, meanwhile, the harbour
lies unshaken and laps idly on its margin ; its colour
is green like a forest pool, bright in the shallows, dark
in the midst with the reflected sides of woody moun-
tains.

" Right in the wind's eye, and right athwart the
dawn, a conspicuous mountain stands, designed like
an old fort or castle, with naked cliffy sides and a
green head. In the peep of the day the mass is out-
lined dimly ; as the east fires, the sharpness of the
silhouette grows definite, and through all the chinks
of the high wood the red looks through, like coals
through a grate. From the other end of the harbour,
and at the extreme of the bay, when the sun is down
and night beginning, and colours and shapes at the
sea-level are already confounded in the greyness of the
dusk, the same peak retains for some time a tinge of
phantom rose.

" Last night I was awakened before midnight by the
ship-rats which infest the shores and invade the
houses, incredible for numbers and boldness. I went
to the water's edge ; the moon was at the zenith ;
vast fleecy clouds were travelling overhead, their
borders frayed and extended as usual in fantastic
arm? and promontories. The level of their flight is

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 223

not really high, it only seems so ; the trade-wind
although so strong in current, is but a shallow stream,
and it is common to see, beyond and above its carry,
other clouds faring on other and higher winds. As I
looked, the skirt of a cloud touched upon the summit
of Pioa, and seemed to hang and gather there, and
darken as it hung. I knew the climate, fled to shelter,
and was scarce laid down again upon the mat, before
the squall burst. In its decline, I heard the sound
of a great bell rung at a distance ; I did not think there
had been a bell upon the island. I thought the hour a
strange one for the ringing, but I had no doubt it was
being rung on the other side at the Catholic Mission,
and lay there listening and thinking, and trying to
remember which of the bells of Edinburgh sounded the
same note. It stopped almost with the squall. Half
an hour afterwards, another shower struck upon the
house and spurted awhile from the gutters of the
corrugated roof ; and again with its decline the bell
began to sound, and from the same distance. Then
I laughed at myself, and this bell resolved into an
eavesdrop falling on a tin close by my head. All
night long the flaws continued at brief intervals.
Morning came, and showed mists on all the moun-
tain-tops, a grey and yellow dawn, a fresh accumula-
tion of rain imminent on the summit of Pioa, and
the whole harbour scene stripped of its tropic
colouring and wearing the appearance of a Scottish
loch.

" And not long after, as I was writing on this page,
sure enough, from the far shore a bell began indeed
to ring. It has but just ceased, boats have been
passing vhe harbour in the showers, the congregation
is within now, and the mass begun. How very
different stories are told by that drum of tempered
iron I To the natives a new, strange, outlandish
thing : to us of Europe, redolent of home ; in the ear
of the priests, calling up memories of French and
Flemish cities, and perhaps some carved cathedral
and the pomp of celebrations ; in mine, talking of the

224 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

grey metropolis of the north, of a village on a stream;
of vanished faces and silent tongues.

" THE BAY OF OA

" We sailed a little before high-water, and came
skirting for some while along a coast of classical
landscapes, cliffy promontories, long sandy coves
divided by semi-independent islets, and the far-
withdrawing sides of the mountain, rich with every
shape and shade of verdure. Nothing lacked but
temples and galleys ; and our own long whale-boat
sped (to the sound of song) by eight nude oarsmen
figured a piece of antiquity better than perhaps we
thought. No road leads along this coast ; we scarce
saw a house ; these delectable inlets lay quite desert,
inviting seizure, and there was none like Keats'
Endymion to hear our snowlight cadences. On a
sudden we began to open the bay of Oa. At the first
sight my mind was made up — the bay of Oa was the
place for me. We could not enter it, we were assured ;
and being entered we could not land ; but a little
gentle insistence produced a smiling acquiescence,
and the eight oars began to urge us slowly into a bay
of the JEneid,. Right overhead a conical hill arises ;
its top is all sheer cliff of a rosy yellow, stained with
orange and purple, bristled and ivied with individual
climbing trees ; lower down the woods are massed ;
lower again the rock crops out in a steep buttress,
which divides the arc of beach. The boat was eased
in, we landed and turned this way and that like fools
in a perplexity of pleasures ; now some way into the
wood towards the spire, but the woods had soon
strangled the path — in the Samoan phrase, the way
was dead — and we began to flounder in impenetrable
bush. Now along the beach ; it was grown upon
with crooked, thick-leaved trees down to the water's
edge. Our landing and the bay itself had nearly
turned my head. ' Here are the works of all the poets
passim,' I said, and just then my companion stopped.
' Behold an omen,' said he, and pointed. It was a

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 225

sight I had heard of before in the islands, but not
seen : a little tree such as grows sometimes on
infinitesimal islets on the reef, almost stripped of its
leaves, and covered instead with feasting butterflies.
These, as we drew near, arose and hovered in a cloud
of lilac and silver-grey. . . .

" All night the crickets sang with a clear trill of
silver ; all night the sea filled the hollow of the bay
with varying utterance ; now sounding continuous
like a millweir, now (perhaps from further off) with
swells and silences. I went wandering on the beach,
when the tide was low. I went round the tree before
our boys had stirred. It was the first clear grey oi
the morning ; and I could see them lie, each in his
place, enmeshed from head to foot in his unfolded
kilt. The Highlander with his belted plaid, the
Samoan with his lavalava, each sleep in their one
vesture unfolded. One boy, who slept in the open
under the trees, had made his pillow of a smouldering
brand, doubtless for the convenience of a midnight
cigarette ; all night the flame had crept nearer, and
as he lay there, wrapped like an oriental woman, and
still plunged in sleep, the redness was within two
handbreadths of his frizzled hair.

" I had scarce bathed, had scarce begun to enjoy
the fineness and the precious colours of the morning,
the golden glow along the edge of the high eastern
woods, the clear light on the sugar-loaf of Maugalai,
the woven blue and emerald of the cone, the chuckle
of morning bird-song that filled the valley of the woods
when upon a sudden a draught of wind came from the
leeward and the highlands of the isle, rain rattled on
the tossing woods ; the pride of the morning had come
early, and from an unlooked-for side. I fled for refuge
in the shed ; but such of our boys, as were awake
stirred not in the least ; they sat where they were,
perched among the scattered boxes of our camp, and
puffed at their stubborn cigarettes, and crouched
a little in the slanting shower. So good a thing it is
to wear few clothes. I, who vas largely unclad — a

226 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

pair of serge trowsers, a singlet, woollen socks, and
canvas shoes ; think of it — envied them in their light
array.

" Thursday. — The others withdrew to the next
village. Meanwhile I had Virgil's bay all the morning
to myself, and feasted on solitude, and overhanging
woods, and the retiring sea. The quiet was only
broken by the hoarse cooing of wild pigeons up the
valley, and certain inroads of capricious winds that
found a way hence and thence down the hillside and
set the palms clattering ; my enjoyment only dis-
turbed by clouds of dull, voracious, spotted, and not
particularly envenomed mosquitoes. When I was
still, I kept Buhac powder burning by me on a stone
under the shed, and read Livy, and confused to-day
and two thousand years ago, and wondered in which
of these epochs I was flourishing at that moment ;
and then I would stroll out, and see the rocks and the
woods, and the arcs of beaches, curved like a whorl
in a fair woman's ear, and huge ancient trees, jutting
high overhead out of the hanging forest, and feel the
place at least belonged to the age of fable, and awaited
^Eneas and his battered fleets.

" Showers fell often in the night; some sounding
from far off like a cataract, some striking the house,
but not a drop came in. ... At night a cry of a wild
cat-like creature in the bush. Far up on the hill one
golden tree ; they say it is a wild cocoa-nut : I know
it is not, they must know so too ; and this leaves me
free to think it sprang from the gold bough of Proser-
pine.

" The morning was all in blue ; the sea blue, blue
inshore upon the shallows, only the blue was name-
less ; the horizon clouds a blue like a fine pale porce-
lain, the sky behind them a pale lemon faintly
warmed with orange. Much that one sees in the
tropics is in water-colours, but this was in water-
colours by a young lady."

The mention of Livy on the last page recalls a

SOUTH SEA CRUISES— 1889-91 227

curious circumstance, and raises besides the question
of Stevenson's classical studies.

A year or two later he told me that he had read
several books of Livy at this time, but found the style
influencing him to such an extent that he resolved to
read no more, just as in earlier days he had been
driven to abandon Carlyle. Mr. Gosse has recorded
that Walter Pater in turn refused to read Stevenson
lest the individuality of his own style might be affected,
but it is more curious to find Stevenson himself at so
late a stage fearing the influences of a Latin author.

As to his classics, he was ignorant of Greek, and
preferred the baldest of Bohn's translations to more
literary versions that might come between him and the
originals. His whole relation to Latin, however, was
very curious and interesting. He had never mastered
the grammar of the language, and to the end made the
most elementary mistakes. Nevertheless, he had a
keen appreciation of the best authors, and, indeed, I
am not sure that Virgil was not more to him than any
other poet, ancient, or modern. From all the qualities
of the pedant he was, of course, entirely free. Just
as he wrote Scots as well as he was able, " not caring if
it hailed from Lauderdale or Angus, from the Mearns
or Galloway," but if he had ever heard a good word,
he " used it without shame," so it was with his Latin.
Technicalities of law and the vocabulary of Ducange
were admitted to equal rights with authors of the
Golden Age.

Latin no doubt told for much in the dignity and
compression of his style, and in itself it was to him —
as we see in his diary — always a living language. But
as an influence, Rome counted to him as something
very much more than a literature — a whole system
of law and empire.

From this expedition he returned to Apia in an
open boat, a twenty-eight hours' voyage of sixty-five
miles, on which schooners have before now been lost.
But for the journey and the exposure Stevenson was

•I

228 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

none the worse. „ " It is like a fairy-story that I should
have recovered liberty and strength, and should go
round again among my fellow-men, boating, riding,
bathing, toiling hard with a wood-knife in the forest."

Before the end of April the family were installed
in the new house, and in May they were reinforced
not only by the elder Mrs. Stevenson, but also by Mrs.
Strong and her boy from Sydney, who thenceforward
remained under Stevenson's protecting care.

His wanderings were now at an end, and he was to
enter upon a period of settled residence. Stevenson
has been generally regarded as a tourist and an outside
observer in Samoa, especially by those who least
knew the Pacific themselves. It must always be
borne in mind that before Stevenson settled down for
the last three and half years of his life in his house of
Vailima, he had spent an almost equal length of time
in visiting other islands in the Pacific. On his travels
he enjoyed exceptional opportunities of gathering
information, and in general knowledge of the South
Seas, and of Samoa in particular, he was probably
at the time of his death rivalled by no more than two
or three persons of anything like his education or
intelligence.

CHAPTER XV

VAILIMA 1891-94

" We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell ;
for the love that unites us ; for the peace accorded to us
this day, for the hope with which we expect the morrow ;
for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies
that make our lives delightful ; for our friends in all
parts of the earth and our friendly helpers in this foreign
isle. . . . Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet
mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.
Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours.
If it may not, give us strength to encounter that which

VAILIM A— 1891-94 229

is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribula-
tion, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune
and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to
another."— R. L, S., Vailima Prayers.

HTHE new house and the augmentation of his house-
1 hold marked the definite change in Stevenson's
life, which now assumed the character that it preserved
until the end. In private his material comfort was
increased, and he was delivered from most of the in-
terruptions to which his work had lately been subject ;
in public it now became manifest that he was to be a
permanent resident in Samoa, enjoying all the advan-
tages of wealth and fame, and the consideration
conferred by numerous retainers.

To the world of his readers, and to many who never
read his books, his position became one of extreme
interest. He was now living, as the legend went,
among the wildest of savages, who were clearly either
always at war or circulating reports of wars imme-
diately to come ; settled in a house, the splendour
and luxury of which were much exaggerated by
rumour ; dwelling in a climate which was associated
with all the glories of tropic scenery and vegetation,
and also, in the minds of his countrymen at all events,
with a tremendous cataclysm of the elements, from
which the British navy had emerged with triumph.
It was little wonder that, as Mr. Gosse wrote to him,
" Since Byron was in Greece, nothing has appealed
to the ordinary literary man so much as that you
should be living in the South Seas."

It is clear that a mode of life so unusual for a man
of letters not only absolves his biographer from the
duty of withholding as far as possible the details of
everyday existence, but even lays upon him the neces-
sity of explaining various trivial matters, which, if
they belonged to the life of cities or of states, it would
be his first anxiety to suppress.

The island of Upolu on which Stevenson lived was
the central and most important of the three principal
islands composing the group to which the collective

230 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

name of Samoa is applied. It is some five-and-forty
miles in length and about eleven in average breadth,
The interior is densely wooded, and a central range of
hills runs from east to west. Apia, the chief town, is
situated about the centre of the north coast, and it was
on the hills about three miles inland that Stevenson
made his home.

The house and clearing lay on the western edge of
a tongue of land several hundred yards in width,
situated between two streams, from the westernmost
of which the steep side of Vaea Mountain, covered
with forest, rises to a height of thirteen hundred feet
above the sea. On the east, beyond Stevenson's
boundary, the ground fell away rapidly into the deep
valley of the Vaisigano, the principal river of the
island. On the other hand, the western stream,
formed by the junction of several smaller water-
courses above, ran within Stevenson's own ground,
and, not far below the house, plunged over a barrier
of rock with a fall of about twelve feet into a delight-
ful pool, just deep enough for bathing and arched
over with orange-trees. A few hundred yards lower
down it crossed his line with an abrupt descent of
forty or fifty feet. It was from this stream and its
four chief tributaries that Stevenson gave to the
property the Samoan name of Vailima, or Five
Waters.

The place itself lay, as has been said, some three
miles from the coast, and nearly six hundred feet
above sea-level. From the town a good carriage-
road, a mile in length, led to the native village of
Tanugamanono, where the Stevensons had lodged
upon their first arrival. Beyond that point there
was for a time nothing but the roughest of footpaths,
which led across the hills to the other side of the
island through a forest region wholly uninhabited,
all the native villages being either by the sea, or
within a short distance of the coast.

The track to Vailima was made over and over again
by Stevenson, occasionally in concert with some of the

VAILIMA — 1891-94 231

owners of the lower lands, until it gradually assumed
the appearance of a road, and could be traversed in
dry weather by wagons or even by a buggy. But to
the last the carrying for the house was done by the
two big New Zealand pack-horses. East and west and
south of the clearing the land was covered with thick
bush, containing many scattered lofty forest trees,
like those judiciously spared by the axemen where
they did not endanger the new house. Here and
there in the forest was a great banyan with branching
roots, covering many square yards of surface, and
affording a resting-place for the flying-foxes, the great
fruit-eating bats, which sally forth at dusk with
slow, heavy flight, like a straggling company of rooks,
making for the coast. Even to the north, most of
the ground between Vailima and Apia had to some
extent been cultivated, yet along the " road " the
trees grew close and high, and on a dark night the
phosphorescence gleamed on fallen logs amid the
undergrowth, twinkling and flickering to and fro,
like the hasty footsteps of the witches the Samoans
believed it to be. On the estate itself the route lay
by the lane of limes, a rugged, narrow, winding path,
that seemed, as Stevenson said, " almost as if it was
leading to Lyonesse, and you might see the head and
shoulders of a giant looking in." But this part of
the track was afterwards cut off by the Ala Loto
Alofa, the Road of the Loving Heart, built by the
Mataafa chiefs in return for Tusitala's kindness to
them in prison. It was a broader and more level way,
also leading past a fragrant lime-hedge, and having
as the centre of its view for any one journeying to
Vailima the wooded crest of Vaea.

The house of Vailima was built of wood throughout,
painted a dark green outside, with a red roof of cor-
rugated iron, on which the heavy rain sounded like
thunder as it fell and ran off to be stored for household
purposes in the large iron tanks. The building finally
consisted of two blocks of equal size, placed, if I may
use a military phrase in this connection, in Echelon.

232 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

It was the great defect of the house in its master's
eyes that from a strategical point of view it was not
defensible, but fortunately there was never an occa-
sion during his lifetime when it would have been
desirable to place it in a state of siege. It fulfilled
many of the requirements both of structure and more
especially of position which he had laid down for his
ideal house.

After December, 1892, the downstairs accommoda-
tion consisted of three rooms, a bath, a storeroom and
cellars below, with five bedrooms and the library up-
stairs. On the ground-floor, a /erandah, twelve feet
deep, ran in front of the whole house and along one
side of it. Originally there had been a similar gallery
above in front of the library, but it so darkened that
room as to make it almost useless for working.
Stevenson then had half of the open space boarded
in, and used it as his own bedroom and study, the
remainder of the verandah being sheltered, when
necessary, by Chinese blinds. The new room was thus
a sort of martin's nest, plastered as it were upon the
outside of the house ; but except for being somewhat
hot in the middle of the day, it served its purpose to
perfection. A small bedstead, a couple of bookcases,
a plain deal kitchen table and two chairs were all its
furniture, and two or three favourite Piranesi etchings
and some illustrations of Stevenson's own works hung
upon the walls. At one side was a locked rack con-
taining half-a-dozen Colt's rifles for the service of the
family in case they should ever be required. One
door opened into the library, the other into the
verandah : one window, having from its elevation
the best view the house afforded, looked across the
lawns and pasture, over the tree-tops, out to the
sapphire sea, while the other was faced by the abrupt
slope of Vaea. The library was lined with books, the
covers of which had all been varnished to protect them
from the climate. The most important divisions were
the shelves allotted to the history of Scotland, to
French books either modern or relating to the fifteenth

VAILIMA — 1891-94 233

century, to military history, and to books relating to
the Pacific.

At this height the beat of the surf was plainly to be
heard, but soothing to the ear and far away ; other
noises there were none but the occasional note of a
bird, a cry from the boys at work, or the crash of a
falling tree. The sound of wheels or the din of
machinery was hardly known in the island : about
the house all went barefoot, and scarcely in the world
could there be found among the dwellings of men a
deeper silence than in Stevenson's house in the forest.
The chief feature within was the large hall that
occupied the whole of the ground-floor of the newer
portion of the house — a room some fifty feet long and
perhaps five and thirty wide, lined and ceiled with
varnished redwood from California. Here the marble
bust of old Robert Stevenson twinkled with approval
upon many a curiously combined company, while a
couple of Burmese gilded idols guarded the two posts
of the big staircase leading directly from the room to
the upper floor. An old Samoan chief, being one day
at his own request shown over the house, and having
seen many marvels of civilisation of which he had
never dreamed, showed no sign of interest, far less of
amazement, but as he was departing he looked over
his shoulder at the two Buddhas and asked indiffer-
ently : " Are they alive ? " In one corner was built
a large safe, which, being continually replenished from
Apia, rarely contained any large amount of money at
a time, but was supposed by the natives to be the
prison of the Bottle Imp, the source of all Stevenson's
fortune. In this room hung Mr. Sargent's portrait of
Stevenson and his wife, Sir George Reid's portrait of
Thomas Stevenson, two reputed Hogarths which the
old gentleman had picked up, two or three of R. A. M.
Stevenson's best works, a picture of horses by Mr.
Arthur Lemon, and — greatly to the scandal of native
visitors — a plaster group by Rodin.

In front of the house lay a smooth green lawn of
couch-grass, used for tennis or croquet, and bounded

234 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

on two sides by a hibiscus hedge which, within a few
months of its planting, was already six feet high and
a mass of scarlet double blossoms — the favourite
flowers of the Samoan.

Immediately behind the mansion lay the wooden
kitchen and a native house for the cook. A hundred
yards to one side the original cottage in which Steven-
son first lived had been re-erected, to serve upstairs as
bedrooms for Mr. Osbourne and myself, downstairs
for the house boys (i.e., servants), for stores, tool-
house, and harness-room.

Upon the other side another native house lay, half-
way towards the stream. The ground below the home
fence was all used for pasture ; in front, the milking-
shed occupied the site of the old house ; and the pig-
pen, impregnably fenced with barbed wire, lay a
couple of hundred yards in the rear. At the back
also were the old disused stables, for in later days the
horses were always kept out at grass in the various
paddocks, coming up for their feed of corn every
morning and evening.

But even when the house itself was provided, its
service was the great difficulty. Competent and
willing white helpers were not to be procured, and
though there were many natives employed in Apia,
yet Samoa, less fortunate than India, possessed no
class of servants ready to minister to a white master
with skill and devotion for a trifling wage.

At first Stevenson tried European and colonial
servants. Two German men cooks passed through
his kitchen : a Sydney lady's-maid brought dissen-
sions into the household : a white overseer and three
white carters came and left, causing various degrees
of dissatisfaction. Then Mrs. Stevenson went away
for a change to Fiji ; in her absence the family made a
clean sweep of the establishment, and Mrs. Strong and
her brother took the entire charge of the kitchen into
their own hands with complete success. This was of
necessity a passing expedient. One day, however,
Mr. Osbourne found a Samoan lad, with a hibiscus

VAILIM A— 1891-94 235

flower behind his ear, sitting on an empty packing-case
beside the cook-house. He had come, it seemed, to
collect half a dollar which the native overseer owed
him, and he was quite content to wait for several hours
until his debtor should return. In the meantime he
was brought into the kitchen, and then and there
initiated into the secrets of the white man's cookery.
He was amused, interested, fascinated, and he plunged
enthusiastically into the mysteries of his future pro-
fession. Fortunately in Samoa cookery was regarded
as an art worthy of men's hands, and was practised
even by high chiefs. The new-comer showed great
aptitude ; Mr. Osbourne persuaded him to stay, sent
for his chest, and for several days would hardly let him
out of his sight. So from that time forth Ta'alolo was
head cook of Vailima, soon having a " boy " under him
as scullion, taking only a few occasional holidays, and
perfecting his art by visits to the kitchen of the
French priests. In time he brought into the house-
hold several of his relations who were Catholics like
himself, and proved the best and most trustworthy of
all the boys.

A very few days after my first arrival one of these
new-comers appeared in the character of assistant
table-boy, a clumsy, half-developed, rather rustic
youth, who of course knew no English, a sign that he
was at any rate free from the tricks of the Apia-bred
rascal. At the first, Sosimo seemed unlikely material,
but there was a certain seriousness and resolution
about him which quickly produced their effect. He
soon became known as " The Butler," and before
long was promoted to be head boy in the pantry.
From the beginning he attached himself to Tusitala
with a whole-hearted allegiance He waited on him
hand and foot, looked scrupulously after his clothes,
devoted special attention to his pony ' ' J ack, ' ' and made
one of the most trustworthy and efficient servants I
have ever known. When the end came, few if any
showed as much feeling as Sosimo, and his loyalty to
his master's memory lasted to the end of his own life.

^36 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

These two men were the best ; but as I write, I
recall Leuelu, and Mitaele, and lopu, and old Lafaele,
and many more, not all such good servants, not all
so loyal or so honest as those first named, but all
with many solid merits, many pleasing traits, and a
genuine personal devotion to Tusitala which pleased
him as much as many more brilliant qualities.

The table was fully provided with white napery
and silver and glass according to the usual English
custom, as it had prevailed in the house of Stevenson's
father. The cookery was eclectic and comprised
such English and American dishes as could be
obtained or imitated, together with any native food
which was found palatable. Of the supplies I shall
speak later : it was the contrast between table and
servants that was most striking. Nothing could
have been more picturesque than to sit at an ordinary
modern dinner-table and be waited on skilfully by a
noble barbarian with perfect dignity and grace of
carriage and manners hardly to be surpassed, who
yet, if the weather were warm and the occasion
ordinary, had for all his clothing a sheet of calico,
in which his tattooed waist and loins alone were
draped.

The actual house-servants were usually about
half a dozen in number, two in the kitchen, two or
three for house and table service ; one, Mrs. Steven-
son's special boy, for the garden and her own general
service, and one more to take charge of the cows and
pigs. Besides these, there was always a band of
outside labourers under a native overseer supervised
by Mr. Osbourne, working on the plantation, varying
in number, according to the amount of clearing in
hand, from half-a-dozen to twenty or thirty men.
The signal for beginning and leaving off their work
was always given by blowing the '' pu," a large
conch shell, that made a great booming sound that
could be heard in the farthest recesses of the planta-
tion.

The great fear of the householder in Samoa used to

VAILIMA — 1891-94 237

be the dread of war, lest he should wake one morning
and find that all his servants had been ordered out on
service by their respective chiefs. By Stevenson's
intervention the Vailima household staff was gener-
ally kept at home, but the plantation was several
times deserted and had to await the restoration of
peace.

The government of the household was as far as
possible on the clan system. " It is something of
your own doing," Stevenson had written to his
mother from Bournemouth in 1886, "if I take
a somewhat feudal view of our relation to ser-
vants. . . . The Nemesis of the bourgeois who has
chosen to shut out his servants — his ' family ' in the
old Scotch sense — from all intimacy and share in the
pleasures of the house, attends us at every turn.
An impossible relation is created, and brings confusion
to all."

If this were his attitude among the artificial
conditions of England, he was not likely to adopt
a more modern position in Samoa, where the patri-
archal stage of society still prevailed. Accordingly
from the first he used all opportunities to consolidate
the household as a family, in which the boys should
take as much pride and feel as much common interest
as possible. His ideal was to maintain the relation
of a Highland chief to his clan, such as it existed
before the '45, since this seemed to approach most
nearly to the actual state of things in Samoa at the
time, and best met the difficulties which beset the
relations of master and servant in his own day. He
adopted the Stuart tartan for the Vailima kilt, to
be worn on high days and holidays ; he encouraged
the boys to seek his help and advice on all matters
and was specially delighted when they preferred to
him such requests as to grant his permission to a
marriage.

It must not, however, be supposed that they were
allowed their own way, or indulged when they mis-
behaved themselves. On such occasions the whole

238 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

household would be summoned, a sort of " bed of
justice " would be held, and sharp reprimands and
fines inflicted.

Even with all these servants, the white man was
separated from the material crises of life by a some-
what thin barrier, for even the best and most respon-
sible natives were at times brought face to face with
emergencies beyond their powers, and had to fall
back upon their master's help. Such occasions of
course befell Stevenson most frequently in the early
days when he was living in the cottage with his wife
and the white cook. Much of his time was then
taken up unexpectedly with such pieces of business
as may be found in the first pages of the Vailima
Letters : in measuring land, rubbing down foundered
cart-horses, ejecting stray horses during the night
or wandering pigs during the day, or even in little
household tasks which no one else was available to
discharge. In later days his wife and all the family
were able jealously to prevent such encroachments
on his time, but during the last two years I can
remember the master of the house himself helping
with delight to feed a refractory calf that refused the
bottle, driving out an angry bull, or doctoring stray
natives suffering from acute colic or wounded feet,
to say nothing of chance hours spent in planting or
in weeding the cacao.

One morning's work stands out conspicuously in
my memory. A hogshead of claret had, after many
misadventures, arrived from Bordeaux slightly
broached, so that it had to be bottled immediately.
Stevenson feared the effect of the fumes even of the
light wine upon the natives, so he himself with our
aid undertook the work. The boys were sent off
to the stream with relays of bottles to wash while we
tapped the cask, and the red wine flowed all the
morning into jugs and basins beneath. It was
poured away into the bottles, and they were corked
and dipped into a large pot of green sealing-wax
kept simmering on the kitchen fire. There seemed

VAILIMA — 1891-94 239

not to be any fumes to affect us, but the anticipation;
and the pressure to get done, the novelty of the work,
and, above all, Stevenson's contagious enthusiasm,
produced a great feeling of delight and exhilaration,
and made a regular vintage festival of the day.
Stevenson was in his glory, as he always was when
he felt that he was doing a manual task, and, above
all, when he was able to work in concert with others,
and give his love of camaraderie full scope.

And throughout his life, for Stevenson to throw
himself into any employment which could kindle his
imagination was to see him transfigured. The little
boy who told himself stories about his football came
to weed in Samoa, and was there ever such an account
of weeding since the world began ? He drove stray
horses to the pound, and it became a Border foray.
He held an inquiry into the theft of a pig, and he
bore himself as if he were the Lord President in the
Inner House. But on the memorable day when we
scampered through the outposts of Mataafa's troops,
and for the first time in his life Louis saw armed men
actually taking the field, even his own words hardly
serve to express his exhilaration and outburst of
spirit : "So home a little before six, in a dashing
squall of rain, to a bowl of kava and dinner. But 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
awoke in both of us and nickered like a stallion. . . .
War is a huge entratnement ; there is no other tempta-
tion to be compared to it, not one. 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."

When any special entertainment was to be given,
a dinner-party or a large luncheon, the whole family
of course set to work to see that everything was
properly done. Some saw to the decoration of the
table or the polishing of the silver, or the blending

240 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

of the preliminary " cocktail " ; Stevenson loved to
devote himself to the special cleaning of what he
called in the Scots phrase " the crystal," and his use
of the glass-cloth on decanter and wine-glasses* would
have rejoiced the heart of an expert.

As for the food, when there was a large household
to be supplied and a daily delivery from Apia had
been arranged, there was no great difficulty in cater-
ing, apart from the expense.- The meat came from
the butcher, and the bread from the baker, the
groceries, if needed, from the grocer, and the washing
from the washerwoman, as in less romantic com-
munities. There was a large storeroom, plentifully
supplied from the Colonies and from home. There
were generally three or four cows in milk, and a
supply of pigs and chickens being reared for the table.
The herd of wild cattle sold with the estate certainly
did not exist within many miles of its boundaries,
though I have seen tracks which showed that the
animals were not mythical but led a real existence
in another part of the island, whither they had be-
taken themselves. But if there were no four-footed
creatures, birds were plentiful. Large pigeons were
brought in from the surrounding woods, especially at
the season when they had been feeding on the wild
nutmeg-trees. The only game to be obtained was
an occasional mallard, a rail, or a gallinule, unless the
manume'a be reckoned, the one surviving species of
dodo, a bird about the size of a small moorhen,
which has only recovered its present feeble powers of
flight since cats were introduced into the island. I
have found it in the woods above Vailima, but we
never shot it ourselves, and its dark flesh was as rare
upon the table as it was delicious. Prawns came
from the stream, and now and again some sea-fish
might be sent up from the coast, where it was
abundant. Vegetables were hardly to be bought,
but a piece of swampy ground half a mile from the
house was turned into a patch for taro, the finest
of all substitutes for the potato. Bananas and

VAILIMA— 1891-94 241

bread-iruittrees were planted, and Mrs. Stevenson
developed under her own supervision a garden in which
all sorts of xew plants were tried, and most of them
successfully adopted. Cocoa-nuts, oranges, guavas
and mangoei grew already on the estate or in a
paddock just below, which was taken on lease ; and
many more of the most improved kinds of these trees
were planted aid throve. The common hedges on
the estate were torn posed of limes, the fruit being so
abundant that it was used to scour the kitchen floors
and tables, and crrons were of so little account that
they rotted on the trees. Several acres were planted
with pineapples, which, after only a little cultivation,
equalled the best varieties of their kind. There was
also an unrivalled plantation of kava, the shrub
whose powdered root yields the Samoan national
drink. Wherever the ground was cleared, the papaw
or mummy-apple at or.ce sprang up and bore its
wholesome and insipid fruit. Cape gooseberries were
mere weeds ; soursops, the large granadillas and
avocado pears, lemons aid plums, egg-plants and
sweet potatoes all did well in that rich volcanic soil
and that marvellous climate. Nothing failed of
tropical products except the ambrosiarmangosteen,the
capricious child of the Malay Peninsula. The cacao,
of which frequent mention is made in the Vailima
Letters, grew and came into bearing ; but the broken
and rocky surface of the ground made it difficult to
keep clean, and also caused the plantation to be very
straggling and irregular.

But, in truth, if Stevenson were unfitted for a South
Sea trader, he was even less likely to be the successful
manager of a plantation run for his own profit. No
Samoan had either need or desire to work regularly
for any sum less than seven dollars a month and his
food, but these wages and the amount of work
rendered for them were quite incompatible with the
idea of competition in the markets of the civilised
world. Stevenson fed his men, paid them regularly
in cash and not in trade, and neither worked them

242 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

in bad weather nor discharged them for sickness, if
he thought it was brought on by exposure in the
course of doing work for him. If all thisoe accounted
only common fair dealing, he had besides an unusual
measure of that generosity he has attributed to
others, " such as is possible to those who practise
an art, never to those who drive a trade." At
any rate, the little plantation aever paid its
way, and never seriously promised to become self-
supporting.

The temperature was generally between 85° and
90° Fahrenheit at noon, and alwiys fell during the
darkness to 70°, or less. I have never seen it at any
time lower than 62° nor higher tian 95° in the shade.
But in the early morning the lower temperature
strikes one by contrast as bitterly cold, and so acutely
had Stevenson felt it in his cottage in the bush that
two large fireplaces with a 2>rick chimney were built
in the big house, though after a while they were never
used. It was the contrast that was trying, even at
higher temperatures. " The thermometer is only
80°, " wrote Stevenson, " and it's as cold as charity
here. You would think it warm. What makes these
differences ? Eighty degrees is a common tempera-
ture with us, and usually pleasant. And to-day it
pricks like a half frost in a wet November." Through
the dry season from April to October a fresh trade-
wind blew during the day from the south-east, and
during the other months, although heavy rain was
more frequent, the fine days were beyond words
delightful. u The morning is, ah 1 such a morning
as you have never seen ; heaven upon earth for
sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of unimagin-
able colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment
only by the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the
rich piping of a single bird."

The rainfall is said to average about one hundred
and thirty inches during the year, but as five or six
inches fall during a really wet twenty-four hours, it
does not argue many wet days, and, moreover,

VAILIMA — 1891-94 243

showers fall freely during the so-called dry season.
The climate, of course, is not bracing, but it is prob-
ably as little debilitating as that of any place lying
in the same latitude and no further removed from
the sea-level.

There is a total absence of tropical and malarial
fevers, which must be due to the fact that the germ-
bearing mosquito either does not exist, or finds no
virus to convey. And this is the more remarkable,
because in the Western limits of the Pacific the fevers
of New Guinea and New Britain are the deadliest
of their kind.

Samoa, in common with the rest of Polynesia, is
fortunate in this also, that it contains nothing more
venomous than a few centipedes, and even these
have been accidentally imported with merchandise.

Stevenson's ordinary manner of life was this : He
would get up at six, or perhaps earlier, and begin
work. From my bed in the cottage I commanded
a view of his verandah, and often and often I have
waked in the chill early dawn to see through the
window the house with the mass of Vaea towering
behind it : in the midst there would be the one spot
of bright light where Tusitala, the only other person
awake of all the household, was already at his labours.
Down below, the monotonous beating of the surf
could be heard ; above, through the chill air, there
rang the repeated call of the manu-iao, " the bird of
dawn " — a succession of clear phrases recalling with
a difference the notes at once of the thrush and of the
blackbird. The sky brightened ; the lamp was ex-
tinguished ; the household began to stir ; and about
half-past six a light breakfast was taken to the master.
He continued to work by himself, chiefly making
notes, until Mrs. Strong, her housekeeping finished;
was able to begin his writing, generally soon after
eight. Then they worked till nearly noon, when the
whole household met for the first time at a substantial
meal of two or three courses in the large hall.

244 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Afterwards there would be talk, or reading aloud,
or a game of piquet ; a bowl of kava was always
made early in the afternoon, and, having been served
once, was then left in the verandah. When Austin
Strong was at Vailima, his " Uncle Louis " would at
some time during the day give him a history lesson,
and also began to teach him French ; for the boy's
education was undertaken by the household at large.
Later in the afternoon there might follow a visit to
Apia, or a ride, or a stroll into the woods or about
the plantation, or a game of croquet or tennis, until
close upon six o'clock, when the dinner was served.
Then followed a round game at cards, or reading,
or talk as before, or music, if there were any visitor
in the house able to play the piano or sing, for in the
end Stevenson had altogether given up the practice
of his flute. Soon after eight on an ordinary night
the members of the household had generally dispersed
to their rooms, to go to bed at what hour they chose.
The master of the house used, I think, to do most of
his reading at these times, but usually he was in bed
soon after ten, if not actually before.

His own favourite exercise was riding, and though
for the dozen years before he came to the Pacific he
had probably never mounted a horse, he was an ex-
cellent rider. His light weight (I doubt if he ever
actually weighed eight stone) served him in good
stead, and Jack, the Samoan-bred pony which he
bought in 1890, carried him well. The first and un-
flattering mention describes Jack as " a very plain
animal, dark brown, but a good goer, and gentle,
except for a habit of shying and sitting down on his
tail, if he sees a basket in the road, or even a bunch
of bananas. However, he will make a very good
makeshift." He reigned alone in Stevenson's affec-
tion, and, never having been mounted again,
passed a peaceful old age in a friend's paddock in
Upolu.

Except on the roads of the Neutral Territory and
in the big German plantation, the ground was not

VAILIMA— 1891-94 245

very suitable for horses, and a dozen miles was usually
the limit of an afternoon's excursion.

I have called this the ordinary mode of life, but it
was subject to endless variations. If Stevenson were
in a hot fit of work with a story just begun or some
new episode just introduced, he could do nothing and
think of nothing else, and toiled all day long ; for if
there were no interruptions and no other pressing
business, he would at such times return to his labours
for all the afternoon and evening. On the other hand
if he were ailing or disinclined for writing, he would
stop work some time before luncheon. But almost at
any time he was at the mercy of visitors, ^fhite or
brown, and the matters which were referred to him
for advice or settlement were endless. Mr. Osbourne
has well described them : —

" He was consulted on every imaginable subject.
. . . Government chiefs and rebels consulted him
with regard to policy ; political letters were brought
to him to read and criticise ; his native following
was so widely divided in party that he was often kept
better informed on current events than any one person
in the country. Old gentlemen would arrive in stately
procession with squealing pigs for the ' chief-house
of wisdom,' and would beg advice on the capitation
tax or some such subject of the hour ; an armed party
would come from across the island with gifts, and a
request that Tusitala would take charge of the funds
of the village and buy the roof-iron for a proposed
church Parties would come to hear the latest news
of the proposed disarming of the country, or to arrange
a private audience with one of the officials ; and poor
war-worn chieftains, whose only anxiety was to join
the winning side, and who wished to consult with
Tusitala as to which that might be. Mr. Stevenson
would sigh sometimes as he saw these stately folk
crossing the lawn in single file, their attendants follow-
ing behind with presents and baskets, but he never
failed to meet or hear them."

During his mother's first period of residence at

246 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Vailima, Stevenson used every morning at eight to
have prayers at which th<2 whole household were
present. A hymn was sung in Samoan from the
Mission book, a chapter read verse by verse in English
and two or three prayers were read in English, ending
with the Lord's Prayer in Samoan. But it was im-
possible to assemble before anybody had begun work,
and so much delay was caused by summoning the
household from their various labours, that the practice
was reserved in the end for Sunday evenings only,
when a chapter of the Samoan Bible was read, Samoan
hymns were sung, and a prayer, written by Stevenson
himself for the purpose, was offered in English, con-
cluding, as always, with the native version of the
Lord's Prayer.

There is one feature in Stevenson's residence in
Samoa which has probably never yet been mentioned,
and that is the constancy with which he stayed at
home in Vailima. After his visit to Tutuila in 1891
I know of only two occasions during his life in Upolu
— the two separate nights which he passed at Malie —
when he did not sleep either at Apia or in his own
house. This was largely a precaution for the sake of
health, since there was little good accommodation
outside those two places, but it entirely prevented
his becoming personally acquainted with many
interesting spots in the islands and many of the
Samoans whom he would have been glad to meet.

Thus he never crossed the central range of his own
island, the track over which passed near his house ; he
never visited Lanuto'o, the crater lake, set in the
midst of the forest among the hills, only a dozen miles
away, or the stone circle known as " The House of
the Cuttle-fish," in a neighbouring glen, the crater
islet of Apolima, or (to cut short my list) even any of
the lovely villages along the south-western shore.

Now and again, for some special reason, generally
connected with the arrival of the mail steamer, he
would sleep in Apia, but on all ordinary occasions he
preferred to return home. At these times he liked

VAILIM A— 1891-94 247

the lamps left burning in his absence, that he
might ride up the dark road and out into the
solitary and silent woods, there to find the house
lighted up to welcome his return even at the dead of
night.

At Vailima visitors were always coming and going.
All white residents who chose to appear were made
welcome. The American Chief- Justice Ide and his
family ; Herr Schmidt, the President ; the Consuls ;
the Land Commissioners, especially his friend Bazett
Haggard ; the Independent and Wesleyan mission-
aries ; the French Bishop, the priests and sisters ;
the doctor, the magistrate, the postmaster, the sur-
veyor ; the managers of firms and their employes,
English or German ; and traders from all parts of
the islands : such were some of the residents who
might arrive at any time. To them might be added
passing visitors, spending a week or two in Samoa
between two steamers, or remaining several months
to see the islands more thoroughly. The latter, if not
actually staying in the house, were yet sure to be fre-
quently invited to Vailima. Mr. Barrie and Mr.
Kipling, to their own bitter regret, too long deferred
the visits for which their host was so eager ; but of
those who came, the Countess of Jersey, Mr. Lafarge
the artist, and Mr. Charles Adams the historian are
the most familiar names.

And perhaps most frequent and certainly not least
welcome were the officers and men of the warships,
of which Apia saw only too many for her peace in
those troubled days. The Germans toiled but seldom
up the hill, the American vessels came rarely to the
islands ; but in the four years of Stevenson's residence
at least eight British men-of-war entered the harbour,
and one — his favourite Curapoa — not only came most
frequently, but stayed the longest, spending in the
group seven out of the last eight months of his life.
The experience which I think gave him more pleasure
than any other in that time was his visit as a guest
in the Curacoa to the outlying islets of Manu'a, which

248 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

he had in vain tried to reach three years before with
Mr. Sewall.

In wardroom and gunroom some were, of course,
closer friends than others, but I think there was not
an officer in the ship, from the captain to the youngest
midshipman, who was not definitely a friend. The
most intimate were perhaps Dr. Hoskyns, Hugo
Worthington, the Marine officer, Lieutenant (now
Commander) Eeles ; but the road leading from Apia
became known as the " Cura£oa track," and if any
one of the officers was placed upon the sick-list, he
was speedily invited to stay in the house and try the
effect of the climate of Vailima. With the men also,
petty officers, bluejackets, and marines, Stevenson's
relations were of the happiest. " A most interesting
lot of men," he wrote of another ship ; " this educa-
tion of boys for the Navy is making a class, wholly
apart — how shall I call them ? — a kind of lower-
class public-school boy, well-mannered, fairly intelli-
gent, sentimental as a sailor."

He had doubted at Honolulu if the navies of the
world held such another ship as the Cormorant, and
the answer came to his door.

There was also the merchant service : the captains
and officers of the mail-steamers, both of the San
Francisco vessels and the local New Zealand boats.
" Captain Smith of The Taviuni," as Mr. Osbourne
reminds me, " once paid a visit to Vailima with some
friends. On his road home he passed the ' Ala Loto
Alofa ' on which the chiefs were then working like
good fellows. He asked — and was told — the reason
of their task ; and the bluff, hearty old seaman at
once insisted on getting off his horse and felling one
of the trees himself. ' 7 must be in that, too,' he
said, with a genuine emotion ; and spent ha!f an hour
swinging an axe."

Other and stranger visitors would turn up from the
various islands which the family had visited. As
Stevenson wrote to Mr. Barrie : " Another thing you
must be prepared for — and that is the arrival of

VAILIMA — 1891-94 249

strange old shell-back guests out of every quarter
of the island world, their mouths full of oaths for
which they will punctiliously apologise ; their clothes
unmistakably purchased in a trade room, each pro-
bably followed by a dusky bride. These you are to
expect to see hailed with acclamation and dragged
in as though they were dukes and duchesses. For
though we may be out of touch with ' God knows
what,' we are determined to keep in touch with
appearances and the Marquesas."

The bust of old Robert Stevenson, looking down
upon the hall, must have been reminded again and
again of the breakfasts in Baxter's Place, and his
" broad-spoken, home-spun officers."

The departure of one of these old traders was most
characteristic, and would, hardly, I think, occur in
just the same way outside the South Seas. He had
come from his island, he had made his way to Vailima
and renewed his friendship ; he had enjoyed himself
and received such kindness and consideration as
perhaps he did not often get. When he rose to take
his leave, " Now don't you move," he said, " don't
one of you move. Just let me take a last look of you
all sitting there on that verandah, and I shall have
that always to think of, when I'm away."

It was Stevenson's intimate knowledge of this class
which made him particularly anxious to heal as far as
possible the unnecessary division between them and
the missionaries.

His personal relations with the Protestant mis-
sionaries in Samoa were most pleasant. He was a
loyal and generous friend to every man and woman
among them, told them quite plainly whenever he
disagreed with them or disapproved of their line of
conduct, and was a most stimulating and liberal in-
fluence on their work. It is almost invidious to single
out names, but the Rev. W. E. Clarke and his wife
were his closest and most thorough-going friends
among the residents. Outside Samoa, the Rev.
George Brown, the Rev. F. E. Lawes of Savage Island.

250 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

and the Rev. F. Damon of Honolulu held high places
in his affection and regard ; but for Mr. Chalmers,
•' Tamate " of New Guinea, he felt a kind of hero-
worship, a greater admiration probably than he felt
for any man of modern times except Charles Gordon.

His appreciation of the Mission he showed not only
by giving his influence and his money, but also by
offering his services to take a Bible-class of young
half-caste lads on Sunday afternoons. Nothing was
more irksome to him than a periodical engagement.
The boys, it is gathered, were quite impenetrable,
and the process was that of cutting blocks with a
razor ; but for several months Stevenson held firmly
to his undertaking, and in the end it was dropped
only from some urgent external cause, and never
resumed.

With the Catholics Stevenson was on equally
pleasant, but quite different terms. His interest in
Molokai, even apart from Father Damien, always
made his heart warm towards the priests and Catholic
sisters ; the accidental circumstance that all his best
boys at Vailima belonged to the Church of Rome
strengthened the connection. For the Bishop he had
a real appreciation : "a superior man, much above
the average of priests " : " Monseigneur is not un-
imposing ; with his white beard and his violet girdle
he looks splendidly episcopal, and when our three
waiting lads came one after another and kneeled
before him in the big hall, and kissed his ring, it did
me good for a piece of pageantry."

Of the spiritual merits of their work he was of
course in no position to judge ; but he always had
a special admiration for the way in which they
identified themselves with the natives and encouraged
all native habits and traditions at all compatible
with Christianity. Above all things he welcomed the
fact that the inflveice of the chiefs was increased
instead of weakened by their efforts. He agreed with
them that it was betfer to concentrate their forces
on people of rank, than to impose such a democracy

VAI LIMA— 1891-94 251

as that of some of the Protestant societies, for he
felt that the salvation of Samoa lay in the chiefs,
and that it was unfortunate that all white influence
except that of the Catholics was in the line of diminish-
ing their authority.

Thus the priests and the sisters from the Savalalo
convent were always welcome guests, and not the
less from the fact that French was the usual medium
of intercourse.

Besides open house at Vailima, there also were
many special entertainments, both those given in the
house, and those shared with others or given by
them in return in Apia. In addition to ordinary
lunches or dinners, it was Stevenson's greatest delight
to organise any festivity in which the natives could
have a share, the entertainment of a man-of-war's
band, a feast on the completion of a Samoan house,
or, above all, the great banquet given in native
fashion to celebrate his own birthday. In Apia public
balls were not infrequent ; Stevenson became a
willing pupil in the hands of his stepdaughter, and
thenceforward took his part in the dances with
delight.

But the balls in themselves deserve a passing word,
for, nowhere since the world began, can the juxta-
position of incongruous elements have reached so
high a point. Almost every one in Apia, without
regard for social station, was invited, and all were
welcome. Diplomatists and naval officers, traders
and bar-keepers, clerks and mechanics, all came ;
and the residents brought their wives and daughters,
white, half-caste, or whole Polynesian. On one point
only was etiquette inexorable — no Samoan man could
hope for admission, unless some elderly and august
chief were introduced as a spectator. But invitations
were issued to such native girls as could dance and
were otherwise suitable, and the " maid of a village "
might frequently there be seen, dancing away in a
native dress even more elaborate and scanty than
those of her white sisters. And not only was social

252 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

exclusiveness waived, but hostilities, public and pri-
vate, were suspended at these remarkable entertain-
ments. One night Stevenson found himself vis-A-vis
with Chief- Justice Cedercrantz in a square dance, at
a time when either was eagerly compassing the
removal of the other from the island. " We dance
here in Apia," he wrote, " a most fearful and wonder-
ful quadrille ; I don't know where the devil they
fished it from, but it is rackety and prancing and
embraceatory beyond words ; perhaps it is best
denned in Haggard's expression of a gambado."
And of his rival : " We exchanged a glance and then
a grin ; the man took me in his confidence ; and
through the remainder of that prance, we pranced
for each other."

Another time, during the fiercest moments of
Anglo-German animosity, Mr. Osbourne, by the adroit
use of a bow and arrow, secured the hand of the
German Consul's wife for a cotillon ; and at a Fourth
of July dance given by the American Vice-Consul,
all that gentleman's enemies might have been seen
joining hands and dancing round him, while they
sang, " For he's a jolly good fellow." One ineffable
family indeed carried out the rules of the game with
so much rigour as to accept partners with whom they
were not on speaking terms, and then to dance and
speak not a word. But for the most part people
entered readily into the spirit of the thing, and ill-
will was left outside, while not only the lion and the
lamb but the rival beasts of prey all frolicked happily
together.

There is one difficulty to which I have not yet
alluded — the question of language. Stevenson had,
as he wrote, on entering the Pacific, " journeyed out
of that comfortable zone of kindred languages, where
the curse of Babel is so easy to be remedied," but
the obstacle proved much less than he had antici-
pated. It is true that in Samoa few of the natives
speak or really understand anything but their own
tongue, but except for the fact that this has no

VAILIMA— 1891-94 253

analogies with any European speech, it is not very
difficult to acquire for practical purposes. To it he
soon addressed himself, and over the study of Samoan
he spent a good deal of pains, even taking regular
lessons from the Rev. S. J. Whitmee of the London
Mission, the best Samoan scholar in the islands, in
that language there is a special vocabulary for ad-
dressing or mentioning high chiefs, which is naturally
used on all solemn occasions and in all important
correspondence. Stevenson mastered this sufficiently
to understand it when it was spoken well, and not
only to be able to write it with facility, but even to
satisfy his own fastidious requirements in composing
letters. The everyday speech he used for all house-
hold purposes, and could understand it himself with-
out difficulty. But when there came a voluble rustic
from a remote district, some small chief perhaps,
who sat and " barked," as his unfortunate hearer
said, in either dialect about matters beyond Tusitala's
ken, the result was confusion. In matters of impor-
tance, where it was of the highest urgency that
Stevenson should not be misunderstood, a good and
really trustworthy interpreter was hardly to be
procured outside the Mission, and from anything
approaching politics the missionaries for the most
part wisely held aloof. But this difficulty was
gradually solved by Mr. Osbourne, who learned both
usages very thoroughly, and spoke them in the end
with fluency and ease.

There are few matters in which English readers have
taken less interest than the political history of Samoa,
even when it was written by Stevenson himself.
Nevertheless, if I were to omit all reference to these
affairs and the criticisms which Stevenson passed
upon them, it would be supposed that I was letting
judgment go against him by default. I therefore
give only the briefest possible description of the
government as it was from 1889 to 1894.

Throughout the period of Stevenson's residence in
Samoa, the government of the islands was controlled

254 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

by a Treaty, entered into at Berlin in 1889, between
America, England, and Germany. Under this the
native king was recognised by these three Great
Powers, by whom two new white officials were also
appointed — a Chief- Justice, receiving ^1200 a year
out of the Samoan treasury, and a President of the
Municipal Council, who was to be paid ^1000 a year
by the Municipality and also act as adviser to the
king. A Land Commission of three representatives,
one appointed by each of the three Powers, was to
investigate all equitable claims of foreigners to the
ownership of land in Samoa, and after the registration
of such titles as were valid, none but a native might
acquire the freehold of any part of Samoan territory.

The American and German Consuls-General and the
British Consul retained their jurisdiction, and pre-
served much of the prestige they had enjoyed in the
days before the Berlin Treaty, when the Consular
Board had been the chief controlling power in Samoa.

The British Consul, also, as a Deputy-Commissioner,
had very despotic powers over all British subjects
under the Western Pacific Orders in Council, issued
under the Pacific Islanders' Protection Act (38 and
39 Viet. c. 51).

It is impossible to say whether the system thus
founded could ever have worked satisfactorily among
so many contending interests, and at so great a dis-
tance from the paramount Governments, seated as
these were at Berlin, London, and Washington, even
if two competent Treaty officials, possessed of ex-
perience and common sense, had been promptly sent
out to the scene of their duties. But there was undue
delay, the wrong men were chosen, and the system
was doomed.

The Chief- Justiceship was, failing the unanimous
choice of the three Powers, given by the King of
Sweden to a Swedish Assistant- Judge, Mr. Conrad
Cedercrantz, while Baron Senfft von Pilsach, a
German Regierungs-Assessor, was appointed by the
Powers to be President of the Municipal Council.

VAILIM A— 1891-94 255

For more than two years the pair drew their salaries,
and discharged what they conceived to be their duties,
in a fashion which is perfectly incredible until it is
studied by the V cold light of consulai reports."
Stevenson was finally kindled to indignation by the
outrage of the dynamite — a proposal to blow up some
Samoan chiefs imprisoned for a political offence of no
great gravity, if any attempt were made by their
people to rescue them from jail. He wrote to The
Times a series of letters which at first were generally
disbelieved, but were afterwards confirmed in every
important detail that was made known.

The fight was keen, for the two Treaty officials did
their best, as Stevenson believed, to have him de-
ported ; but the end was certain, whether it was due
to the diplomatists or The Times, and the pair de-
parted for other scenes of activity. But the evil had
been done, and such opportunity as their successors
had was frustrated by the arbitrary and vacillating
interference of the consuls.

Stevenson took the chair at one public meeting in
Apia, and apart from this, his local interference in
politics was limited to a few formal visits to native
chiefs. Once, however, by an accident it nearly took
the most startling form of intervention possible. The
king was all but shot dead in the large hall at Vailima
by Mrs. Stevenson in her husband's presence. Sud-
denly one day in 1894 Malietoa came up without
warning to pay a secret visit of reconciliation to
Tusitala, attended only by a black-boy interpreter.
In the course of the visit he happened to mention his
wish for a revolver ; Stevenson immediately went to
the big safe in the corner of the room and produced
one, which he emptied of the cartridges, and handed
to his wife. Mrs. Stevenson found that there was
something wrong with the trigger and tried it several
times Four times it clicked, the king leaned over in
front to examine it, and then some unaccountable
impulse made her inspect the pistol again. „ fn the
next chamber lay a cartridge which would inevitably

256 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

have sent its charge into the king's brain. The smile
and wave of the hand with which Malietoa greeted
and dismissed the discovery were worthy of a stronger
monarch and of a far greater kingdom. Had the
bullet gone to its mark, it is idle to speculate on what
would have happened, but it is clear at any rate that
Stevenson could no longer have found a home in
Samoa.

On most occasions he confined himself to giving his
advice when it was asked, or when he saw any reason-
able chance of its being accepted. I need hardly say
that he never contributed one farthing or one far-
thing's worth towards any arming or provisioning of
the natives, nor did he ever take any step or give any
counsel or hint whatsoever that could possibly have
increased the danger of war or diminished the hopes
of a peaceful settlement.

During these three years his work was as consider-
able in amount and as diverse as ever. He turned to
the South Seas and wrote The Island Nights' Enter-
tainments : stirred by the wrongs of Samoa, he wrote
against time A Footnote to History. He laboured
long to carry out a contract with Messrs. McClurc for
letters on his voyages, of which in the end he sent some
seventy to America. The material used in these was
afterwards to be embodied in a monumental book on
the Pacific, but even the letters (published later as
" In the South Seas ") proved refractory, and the
great work was never even begun. His new experi-
ences were also utilized in The Wrecker and The Ebb
Tide which had been already started in collaboration
with Mr. Osbourne and were now brought to a con-
clusion. The Fables, too, begun in England, received
additions, and most of the Songs of Travel were written
in these years. But it was still in his stories of Scot-
land that his best work was done. St. Ives, it is true,
was begun as a short story and never became a good
long one, but Catriona, written in four months, was a
spirited sequel to the fine beginning of Kidnapped.
As usual with his work most of these books as well as

VAILIM A— 1891-94 257

A Family of Engineers, the history of his family,
were taken up from time to time and again laid
down, while fresh schemes were always taking
shape.

It so happened one afternoon at Vailima that I was
the only person available, and Louis carried me off to
debate the claims of two stories which he then un-
folded— one that was to be called Sophia Scarlet, and
the other which afterwards became Weir of Hermiston.
Either on that day or about that time I remember
very distinctly his saying to me : " There are, so far
as I know, three ways, and three ways only, of writing
a story. You may take a plot and fit character to it,
or you may take a character and choose incidents and
situations to develop it, or lastly — you must bear with
me while I try to make this clear " — (here he made a
gesture with his hand as if he were trying to shape
something and give it outline and form) — " you may
take a certain atmosphere and get action and
persons to express and realise it. I'll give you aa
example — The Merry Men. There I began with
the feeling of one of those islands on the west coast of
Scotland, and I gradually developed the story to
express the sentiment with which that coast affected
me."

It was on this last scheme that Sophia Scarlet had
been conceived, the atmosphere being that of a large
plantation in Tahiti, such as Mr. Stewart's had been
at Atimono twenty years before. It may be that
the method did not lend itself readily to an effective
sketch of the plot ; the draft of the beginning of the
story seems to me better than I thought the outline
at the time. But in any case there could be no hesi-
tation in the choice. Weir of Hermiston was begun,
and for three or four days Stevenson was in such a
seventh heaven as he has described : he worked all
day and all evening, writing or talking, debating
points, devising characters and incidents, ablaze with
enthusiasm, and abounding with energy. No finished
story was, or ever will be, so good as Weir of He^wi^nn,

I

258 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

shown to us in those days by the light of its
author's first ardour of creation.

Besides the works already mentioned, and the
letters to The Times, as well as his private corre-
spondence, there were endless other schemes, for the
most part projected and perhaps not even begun,
never, certainly, brought near to completion. He
wrote to Mr. Charles Baxter : " My schemes are all
in the air, and vanish and reappear again like shapes
in the clouds." So likewise to Miss Boodle : " I
have a projected, entirely planned, love-story — every-
body will think it dreadfully improper, I'm afraid —
called Canonmills. And I've a vague, rosy haze
before me — a love-story too, but not improper — called
The Rising Sun. It's the name of the wayside inn
where the story, or much of the story, runs ; but it's
a kind of a pun : it means the stirring up of a boy
by falling in love, and how he rises in the estimation
of a girl who despised him, though she liked him,
and had befriended him ; I really scarce see beyond
their childhood yet, but I want to go beyond, and
make each out-top the other by successions : it
should be pretty and true if I could do it."

Neither of these was ever written. There was also
a play for home representation, showing the ad-
ventures of an English tourist in Samoa ; and I can
remember two more serious schemes which were
likewise without result. In the August before he
died, he drew up with Mr. Osbourne the outline of a
history, or of a series of the most striking episodes
of the Indian Mutiny, to be written for boys, and he
sent home for the books necessary for its execution.
Another day he sketched the plan of an English
grammar, to be illustrated by examples from the
English classics. These are but a few : the many
are unremembered ; but all alike belong, not to the
fleet of masterpieces unlaunched, but the larger and
more inglorious squadron whose keels were never
even laid down.

CHAPTER XVI

THE END — 1894

" Brief day and bright day

And sunset red,
Early in the evening,
The stars are overhead."

R. L. S.

" Wanted Volunteers
To do their best for twoscore years I
A ready soldier, here I stand,
Primed for Thy command,
With burnished sword.
If this be faith, O Lord,
Help Thou mine unbelief
And be my battle brief."

Envoy to No, XXV. of Songs of Travel,

TTHE climate of Samoa had apparently answered
1 the main purpose of preserving Stevenson from
any disabling attacks of illness, and allowing him to
lead a life of strenuous activity. " I do not ask for
health," he had said to his stepson at Bournemouth,
" but I will go anywhere and live in any place where
I can enjoy the ordinary existence of a human being."
And this had now been granted to him beyond his
utmost hope.

In all the time he was in Samoa he had but two or
three slight hemorrhages, that were cured within a
very few days. The consumption in his lungs was
definitely arrested, but it seems certain that a struc-
tural weakening of the arteries was slowly and
inevitably going on, although his general health was
apparently not affected. He had influenza at least
once ; occasionally he was ailing, generally with some
indefinite lassitude which was attributed to malaria
or some other unverifiable cause. In the summer
of 1892, he was threatened with writer's cramp,
which had attacked him as long ago as 1884. From

12 259

2<5o LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

this time forth, however, his stepdaughter wrote to
his dictation nearly all his literary work and corre-
spondence, and, thanks to her quickness and un-
wearying devotion, he suffered the least possible
inconvenience from this restriction of his powers.
He had one or two threatenings of tropical diseases,
which were promptly averted ; and for several periods,
to his own intense disgust, he gave up even the very
moderate quantity of red wine which seemed to be a
necessity of life to him, and — worst deprivation of
all — he abandoned at these times the cigarettes
which usually he smoked all day long.

It was his friends and his country that he missed.
From the day that Sidney Colvin went down the
ship's side in the Thames, or the day that Will H. Low
parted from him in New York, Stevenson never again
saw any one of his old and intimate companions.
Fortune was against him in the matter. They were
all busy people, with many engagements and many
ties, and when at last Charles Baxter was able to
start for Samoa, he had not yet reached Egypt before
the blow fell. Nor was this perversity of fortune
confined to his old friends alone ; it also affected
the younger writers with whom, in spite of distance,
he had formed ties more numerous, and, in pro-
portion to their number, more intimate than have
ever before been established and maintained at any
such distance by correspondence alone. And it was
the more tantalising, because the paths of several
seemed likely to lead them past the very island where
he lived. So he had to content himself as best he
might with his mail-bag, which, especially in the
answers to the Vailima Letters, did much to remove
for him the draw-backs of his isolation and of absence
from the centres of literature to which he always
looked for praise and blame.

But, besides the loss of intercourse, he, more than
most men, suffered from another pang. The love of
country which is in all Scots, and beyond all others
lies deepest in the Celtic heart, flowed back upon

THE END— 1894 261

him again and again with a wave of uncontrollable
emotion. When the " smell of the good, wet earth "
came to him, it came " with a kind of Highland
touch." A tropic shower discovered in him " a
frame of mind and body that belonged to Scotland,
and particularly to the neighbourhood of Callander."
When he turned to his grandfather's life, he was filled
with this yearning, and the beautiful sentences in
which he has described the old man's farewell to
" Sumburgh and the wild crags of Skye " were his
own valediction to those shores. No more was he
to " see the topaz and the ruby interchange on the
summit of the Bell Rock, no more to see the castle
on its hill or the venerable city which he must
always think of as his home." As he wrote of himself,
" Like Ley den I have gone into far lands to die, not
stayed like Burns to mingle in the end with Scottish
soil."

It is not to be wondered that his letters show moods
of depression which his indomitable spirit prevented
him from manifesting at the time to those around
him, and which perhaps beset him most when he
turned to his correspondence. As has been well said :
" He was an exile, and though his exile lay in pleasant
places, he had an exile's thoughts, and these were
bound to be uppermost when he wrote to his old
intimates."

The difficulty of the life in Samoa was its great
expense. In 1887 Stevenson had written : " Wealth
is only useful for two things — a yacht and a string
quartette. Except for these, I hold that ^700 a
year is as much as anybody can possibly want."
But though he had neither the music nor the vessel,
and was now making an income of six or seven times
the amount mentioned, it was no more than enough
to meet the cost of his living, and the needs of his
generosity, while he was occasionally haunted by
a fear lest his power of earning sLould come to an
end.

During the period of his residence at Vailima he

262 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

returned but twice to the world of populous cities.
In the early part of 1893 he paid a visit of several
weeks to Sydney, and though, as usual there, he was
much confined to his room, he derived from the trip
a good deal of enjoyment. For the first time he
realised that his fame had reached the Colonies, and
though no man was ever under fewer illusions upon
the point, he enjoyed the opportunities it gave him
of meeting all sorts of people. Artists and Presby-
terian ministers alike vied in entertaining him ; at
Government House he was just in time to see
the last of Lord and Lady Jersey ; and by this
time there were at Sydney a number of friends in
whose company he delighted, especially Dr. Fairfax
Ross and the Hon. B. R. Wise. But the event
which pleased and cheered him most was his
meeting at Auckland with the veteran Sir George
Grey, with whom he had more than one prolonged
and most inspiring discussion upon the affairs of
Samoa.

In September, 1893, he came up with me to Hono-
lulu for the sake of the voyage, intending to return by
the next steamer. After a week spent there I left
him apparently quite well, and intending to sail
for Samoa the next day. But in those four-and-
twenty hours he developed pneumonia, and remained
ill at Waikiki until his wife's arrival, and they did
not reach Apia again before November. ^

On his return to Samoa several events occurred
which gave him great pleasure. He had never
wearied in his kindness and generosity towards any
of the natives who were in trouble, and he was
constant in seeing to the real needs of the Mataafa
chiefs who were in prison. These services he ren-
dered to them, as he rendered all service, without
thought of reward or fear of misunderstanding, and
it was all the more pleasant to him when the chiefs
gave him first an elaborate native feast with full
honours in the jail where they were still confined ;
and secondly, as soon as they were released, came as

THE END— 1894 263

a mark of gratitude, and cleared and dug and com-
pleted the roadway which thereafter led to his house —
the " Ala Loto Alofa," the Road of the Loving Heart.
It took a number of men several weeks to make, and
they bore the whole labour and the whole cost ; it
was not prompted from outside, and no ulterior
motive has ever, so far as I am aware, been suggested
by anybody to whom the circumstances were known.
When it was finished, there was a solemn returning
of thanks, and Stevenson's speech, which may be
found at the end of the fourth volume of the Letters,
was his best and most outspoken utterance to the
people of Samoa.

In the end of September he wearied of St. Ives
within sight of its conclusion, and fortunately turned
again to Weir of Hermiston. It was the third time
he had taken it in hand, for he would not work at it
when he felt uncertain of himself. But his insight
was at its clearest, his touch most sure, and his style,
as always when he approached Scotland in his novels,
was at its simplest and best. " He generally makes
notes in the early morning," wrote Mrs. Strong
in her diary on September 24, " which he elaborates
as he reads them aloud. In Hermiston he has hardly
more than a line or two to keep him on the track,
but he never falters for a word, but gives me the
sentences with capital letters and all the stops, as
clearly and steadily as though he were reading from
an unseen book."

October and November passed ; Stevenson re-
mained hard at work, and to all appearance in his
ordinary health. His birthday was celebrated by
the usual native feast, and on Thanksgiving Day,
November 29, he gave a dinner to all his American
friends. What remains to tell has been so related by
Mr. Osbourne that no other account is possible or to
be desired.1

1 1 had left Samoa five weeks before for a long cruise
in the Islands, and the news first reached me in the
Carolines in the following March, On November 25tb

264 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

" He wrote hard all that morning of the last day ;
his half- finished book, Hermislon, he judged the
best he had ever written, and the sense of successful
effort made him buoyant and happy as nothing else
could. In the afternoon the mail fell to be answered ;
not business correspondence — for this was left till
later — but replies to the long, kindly letters of distant
friends, received but two days since, and still bright
in memory.

" At sunset he came downstairs ; rallied his wife
about the forebodings she could not shake off ; talked
of a lecturing tour to America that he was eager to
make, 'as he was now so well,' and played a game
at cards with her to drive away her melancholy.
He said he was hungry ; begged her assistance to
help him make a salad for the evening meal ; and to
enhance the little feast, he brought up a bottle of
old Burgundy from the cellar. He was helping his
wife on the verandah, and gaily talking, when
suddenly he put both hands to his head, and cried
out, ' What's that ? ' Then he asked quickly,
' Do I look strange ? * Even as he did so he fell
on his knees beside her. He was helped into the
great hall, between his wife and his body-servant,
Sosimo, losing consciousness instantly, as he lay
back in the armchair that had once been his grand-
father's. Little time was lost in bringing the doctors
— Anderson, of the man-of-war, and his friend Dr.
Funk. They looked at him and shook their heads ;
they laboured strenuously, and left nothing undone ;
but he had passed the bounds of human skill.

" The dying man lay back in the chair, breathing
heavily, his family about him frenzied with grief,
as they realised all hope was past. The dozen and
more Samoans that formed part of the little clan of
which he was chief sat in a wide semicircle on the
floor, their reverent, troubled, sorrow-stricken faces

we had sighted the roofs of Vailima from the sea, but
the future was hidden from us, and we continued on our
way.

THE END— 1894 265

all fixed upon their dying master. Some kuclt on
one knee, to be instantly ready for any command
that might be laid upon them. A narrow bed was
brought into the centre of the room, the master was
gently laid upon it, his head supported by a rest, the
gift of Shelley's son. Slower and slower grew his
respiration, wider the interval between the long,
deep breaths. The Rev. Mr. Clarke was now come,
an old and valued friend, he knelt and prayed as the
life ebbed away.

" He died at ten minutes past eight on Monday
evening the 3rd of December, in the forty-fifth year
of his age.

" The great Union Jack that flew over the house was
hauled down, and laid over the body, fit shroud for a
loyal Scotsman. He lay in the hall which was ever his
pride, where he had passed the gayest and most
delightful hours of his life, a noble room with open
stairway and mullioned windows. In it were the
treasures of his far-off Scottish home ; the old, carved
furniture, the paintings and busts that had been in
his father's house before him. The Samoans passed
in procession beside his bed, kneeling and kissing his
hand, each in turn, before taking their places for the
long night watch beside him. No entreaty could
induce them to retire, to rest themselves for the pain-
ful and arduous duties of the morrow. It would
show little love for Tusitala, they said, if they did
not spend their last night beside him. Mournful and
silent, they sat in deep dejection, poor, simple, loyal
folk, fulfilling the duty they owed their chief.

" Sosimo asked, on behalf of the Roman Catholics,
that they might be allowed to recite the prayers for
the dead. Till midnight the solemn chants continued,
the prolonged, sonorous prayers of the Church of
Rome, in commingled Latin and Samoan. Later
still, a chief arrived with his retainers, bringing a
precious mat to wrap about the dead.

" He, too, knelt and kissed the hand of Tusitala,
and took his place amid the sleepless watchers.

266 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

" The morning of the 4th of December broke cool
and sunny, a beautiful day, rare at this season of the
year. More fine mats were brought, until the Union
Jack lay nigh concealed beneath them.

" A meeting of chiefs was held to apportion the
work and divide the men into parties. Forty were
sent with knives and axes to cut a path up the steep
face of the mountain, and the writer himself led
another party to the summit — men chosen from the
immediate family — to dig the grave on a spot where
it was Mr. Stevenson's wish that he should lie.
Nothing more picturesque can be imagined than the
narrow ledge that forms the summit of Vaea, a place
no wider than a room, and flat as a table. On either
side the land descends precipitously ; in front lies
the vast ocean and the surf-swept reefs ; to the right
and left, green mountains rise, densely covered with
the primeval forest. Two hundred years ago the eyes
of another man turned towards that same peak of
Vaea as the spot that should ultimately receive his
war-worn body : Soalu, a famous chief.

" All the morning, Samoans were arriving with
flowers ; few of these were white, for they have not
learned our foreign custom, and the room glowed
with the many colours. There were no strangers on
that day, no acquaintances ; those only were called
who would deeply feel the loss. At one o'clock a
body of powerful Samoans bore away the coffin, hid
beneath a tattered red ensign that had flown above
his vessel in many a corner of the South Seas. A path
so steep and rugged taxed their strength to the utmost,
for not only was the journey difficult in itself, but
extreme care was requisite to carry the coffin shoulder
high.

" Half an hour later, the rest of his friends followed.
It was a formidable ascent, and tried them hard.
Nineteen Europeans, and some sixty Samoans,
reached the summit. After a short rest, the Rev.
W. E. Clarke read the burial service of the Church of
England, interposing a prayer that Mr. Stevenson

THE END— 1894 267

had written and had read aloud to his family only the
evening before his death :

'* We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with

favour, folk of many families and nations,

gathered together in the peace of this roof ;

weak men and women, subsisting under the

covert of Thy patience.

*' Be patient still ; suffer us yet a while longer —
with our broken purposes of good, with our
idle endeavours against evil — suffer us a
while longer to endure, and (if it may be)
help us to do better. Bless to us our
extraordinary mercies ; if the day come
when these must be taken, have us play the
man under affliction. Be with our friends ;
be with ourselves. Go with each of us to
rest ; if any awake, temper to them the dark
hours of watching ; and when the day
returns, return to us, our sun and comforter,
and call us up with morning faces and with
morning hearts — eager to labour — eager to
be happy, if happiness shall be our portion —
and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong
to endure it.

" We thank Thee and praise Thee ; and in the
words of Him to whom this day is sacred,
close our oblation.

" Another old friend, the Rev. J. E. Newell, who
had risen from a sick-bed to come, made an address
in the Samoan language.

" No stranger's hand touched him. It was his
body-servant that interlocked his fingers and arranged
his hands in the attitude of prayer. Those who loved
him carried him to his last home ; even the coffin
was the work of an old friend. The grave was dug
by his own men."

So there he was laid to rest, and in after time a large
tomb in the Samoan fashion, built of great blocks of
cement, was placed upon the grave. On either side

268 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

there is a bronze plate : the one bearing the words in
Samoan, " The Tomb of Tusitala," followed by the
speech of Ruth to Naomi, taken from the Samoan
Bible :

" Whither thou goest I will go ; and where thou
lodgest, I will lodge : thy people shall be my people,
and thy God my God : where thou diest, will I die, and
there will I be buried."

At the sides of the inscription were placed a thistle
and a hibiscus flower.

Upon the other panel, in English, is his own
Requiem :

ROBERT LOUIS
1850 STEVENSON. 1894

" 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 Jrom the hill."

After his death the chiefs tabooed the use of fire-
arms upon the hillside where he lies, that the birds
might live there undisturbed, and raise about his
grave the songs he loved so well.

The proposal that a memorial pillar should be
erected on the hill to serve as a sea-mark, was aban-
doned. Besides the difficulties of transport, and of
keeping the summit always clear of trees, there was
the real danger of the slight but frequent shocks of
earthquake by which any kind of column would,
sooner or later, have been overthrown.

" Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably,
Neat-footed and weak-fingered : in his face —
Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with

race,

Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea,
The brown eyes radiant with vivacity —

THE END -i 894 269

There shines a brilliant and romantic grace,

A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace

Of passion, impudence, and energy.

Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck,

Most vain, most generous, sternly critical,

Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist :

A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck,

Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all,

And something of the Shorter-Catechist,"

A Book of Verses, p. 41, by W. E. Henley,
published by D. Nutt, 1888.

Of Stevenson's personal aspect and bodily powers it
may be fitting here to make mention. Of his appear-
ance the best portraits and photographs give a fair
idea, if each be considered as the rendering of only
one expression. The eyes were the most striking
feature of the face ; they were of the deepest brown
in colour, set extraordinarily wide apart. At most
times they had a shy, quick glance that was most
attractive, but when he was moved to anger or any
fierce emotion, they seemed literally to blaze and glow
with a fiery light. His hair was fair and even yellow
in colour until he was five-and-twenty ; after that it
rapidly deepened, and in later years was quite dark,
but without any touch of black. When he reached
the tropics, and the fear of taking cold was to some
extent removed, he wore it short once more, to his own
great satisfaction and comfort. His complexion was
brown and always high, even in the confinement of the
sick-room ; the only phrase for it is the " rich-tinted "
used by W. E. Henley in the spirited and vivid lines
which he kindly permitted me to quote.

'In height he was about five feet ten, slender in
figure, and thin to the last degree. In all his move-
ments he was most graceful : every gesture was full
of an unconscious beauty, and his restless and supple
gait has been well compared to the pacing to and fro
of some wild forest animal. To this unusual and most
un-English grace it was principally due that he was
often taken for a foreigner. We have seen that Mr.
Lang found his appearance at three-and-twenty like

270 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

anything but that of a Scotsman, and the same diffi-
culty pursued Stevenson through life, more especially
on the Continent of Europe. " It is a great thing,
believe me," he wrote in the Inland Voyage, " to
present a good normal type of the nation you belong
to " ; and, as he says in the same chapter, " I might
come from any part of the globe, it seems, except from
where I do." In France he was sometimes taken for
a Frenchman from some other province ; he has re-
corded his imprisonment as a German spy ; and at a
later date he wrote : " I have found out what is wrong
with me — I look like a Pole."

His speech was distinctly marked with a Scottish
intonation, that seemed to every one both pleasing
and appropriate, and this, when he chose, he could
broaden to the widest limits of the vernacular. His
voice was always of a surprising strength and reson-
ance, even when phthisis had laid its hand most
heavily upon him. It was the one gift he really
possessed for the stage, and in reading aloud he was
unsurpassed. In his full, rich tones there was a sym-
pathetic quality that seemed to play directly on the
heart-strings like the notes of a violin. Mrs. Steven-
son writes : "I shall never forget Louis reading Walt
Whitman's Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, followed
by O Captain, my Captain, to a room full of people,
some of whom had said that Whitman lacked senti-
ment and tenderness. All alike, men and women, sat
spellbound during the reading, and I have never seen
any audience so deeply moved/' Nor, for my part,
shall I forget his rendering of the Duke of Wellington
Ode on the evening after the news of Tennyson's
death had arrived at Vailima.

When his attention was given to objects or persons,
his observation was singularly keen and accurate, but
for the most part his memory for the faces of his
acquaintances was positively bad. His hearing was
singularly acute, although the appreciation of the
exact pitch of musical notes was wanting. But
between delicate shades of pronunciation he could

R. L. S. 271

discriminate with great precision. I can give an
instance in point. The vowels in Polynesian lan-
guages are pronounced as in Italian, and the diph-
thongs retain the sounds of the separate vowels, more
or less slurred together. Thus it can be understood
that the difference between ae and ai at the end of a
word in rapid conversation is of the very slightest, and
in Samoa they are practically indistinguishable. In
the Marquesas Stevenson was able to separate them.
At Vailima one day we were making trial of these and
other subtleties of sound ; in almost every case his ear
was exactly correct. Nothing more shook his admira-
tion for Herman Melville than that writer's inability
to approximate to the native names of the Marquesas
and Tahiti : and in his own delicate hearing lay perhaps
the root of his devotion to style.

CHAPTER XVII

R. L. S.

" Who is it that says most ? which can say more
Than this rich praise — that you alone are you ? "

PR any who have read the foregoing pages it
should be unnecessary here to dwell upon the
sources of many qualities which distinguished Steven-
son throughout his life, or the degree to which they
were called forth in turn or affected by the many
variations of his environment. A Scot born, we
have seen how Edinburgh and Swanston set the seal
upon his nationality, and how from father and mother
he drew diverse elements of temperament and char-
acter. We have seen the effect of his schooling, such
as it was, and the prolonged leisure of his boyhood ;
of the influence of his friends and his reading ; the
results of his training as an engineer and as an advo-
cate ; of his wanderings in France, his breakdown
in America, and the happiness of his married life.
In several respects it must be owned that he was

272 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

fortunate. His long preludes and painful apprentice-
ship would clearly have proved impossible, had it been
necessary for him to make money at an early age,
and even the history of his maturity would have been
materially changed if he had been compelled to rely
solely upon his writing to meet the expenses of his
household. His late beginning had, again, this ad-
vantage : tardy in some ways as he was, he had left
behind him the ignobler elements of youth before his
voice was heard or recognised. The green-sickness
of immaturity was over, at the worst, only one or two
touches of self-consciousness remained, and even in
his earliest published essays there rings out the note
of high spirit and cheerfulness which issued from the
sick-room of later years, deceived for a time the most
penetrating of critics, and was perhaps the best part
of his message to a world that had fallen on weary days.
In regarding Stevenson, both as man and writer, we
find that the most unusual fact about him, was the
coupling of the infinite variety of his character and
intellect, with the extraordinary degree in which he
was moved by every thought and every feeling. Few
men are acted upon by so wide a range of emotions and
ideas ; few men hold even two or three ideas, or feel
even a few emotions, with nearly as much intensity as
compelled him under all. When we have considered
both number and degree, we shall find other gifts no less
remarkable and even more characteristic — the unfail-
ing spirit of chivalry and the combination of qualities
that went to make up his peculiar and individual
charm. Though it is inevitable thus to take him
piecemeal and to dwell upon one side at a time to the
exclusion of the others he so rapidly turned upon us,
we must never allow this process to efface in our minds
what is far more essential — the image of the living
whole.

I. If I have failed to produce a correct impression
of his intense energy, I have quoted him and written
to little purpose. The child with his " fury of play " ;

R. L. S. 273

the boy walking by himself in the black uight and
exulting in the consciousness of the bull's-eye beneath
his coat ; the lad already possessed with the invincible
resolve of learning to write, which for the time over-
came the desire of all other action : these were but
the father of the man. So vehement were his emo-
tions, his own breast was too small to contain them.
He paid a visit at nineteen to a place he had not seen
since childhood. " As I felt myself on the road at
last that I had been dreaming of for these many days
before, a perfect intoxication of joy took hold upon
me ; and I was so pleased at my own happiness that
I could let none past me till I had taken them into my
confidence."

It is useless to go on quoting : through life he did
the thing he was doing as if it were the one thing in
the world that was worth being done.

" The formal man is the slave of words," he said ;
and as a consequence of his own fiery intensity, no
man was ever less imposed upon by the formulas of
other people. His railing against the burgess, for
example, was no catchword, but the inmost and
original feeling of his heart. Consequently, whenever
he uttered a commonplace, it will be usually found
that he had rediscovered the truth of it for himself,
did not say it merely because he had heard it from
somebody else, and generally invested it with some
fresh quality of his own. Perhaps his most emphatic
utterance in this respect, and that most resembling
his conversation in certain moods, is the Lay Morals,
all the more outspoken because it was never finished
for press. It abounds in sayings such as these :
" It is easy to be an ass and to follow the multitude
like a blind, besotted bull in a stampede ' and that,
I am well aware, is what you and Mrs. Grundy mean
by being honest." " It is to keep a man awake, to
keep him alive to his own soul and its fixed design of
righteousness, that the better part of moral and
religious education is directed ; not only that of
words and doctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity

274 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

under which we are all God's scholars till we die."
" Respectability : the deadliest gag and wet blanket
that can be laid on men." " I have only to read
books, to think . . . the mass of people are merely
speaking in their sleep."

So when he spoke, he spoke direct from his own
reflection and experience, and when he prayed, he did
not hesitate to pass beyond the decorous ring-fence
supposed to include all permissible objects of prayer ;
he gave thanks for " the work, the food, and the
bright skies that make our lives delightful," and
honestly and reverently made his petition that he
might be granted gaiety and laughter. These in-
stances are on the surface, but in spiritual matters
he had a rare power of leaving on one side the non-
essential and going straight to the heart of the diffi-
culty, that was hardly realised by the world at large.
Taine's charge against Scott that " he pauses on the
threshold of the soul " has been renewed against
Stevenson. For one thing, in spite of his apparent
frankness, he had a deep reserve on the things that
touched him most profoundly, and never wore his
heart upon his sleeve. So far as the criticism applies
to his writings, it is little less untrue than that which
called him " a faddling hedonist," and its injustice
has been shown by Sir Sidney Colvin ; so far as it
applies to himself, it must be met by a contradiction.
He was a man who had walked in the darkest depths
of the spirit, and had known the bitterness of humilia-
tion. But in that valley — of which he never spoke —
he too, like the friend whom he commemorates,
" had met with angels " ; he too had " found the
words of life."

To return to his plain speaking, in literature he was
equally sincere. Sir Walter Scott was for him " out
and away the king of the romantics." But if a dis-
cerning estimate of Scott's shortcomings, as well as
his merits, is desired, it can hardly be found more
justly expressed in few words than on the last page
but one of A Gossip on Romance.

R. L. S. 275

In composition also no one who produced so much
has probably ever been so little the victim of the
stereotyped phrase as Stevenson. A few mannerisms
he had, no doubt — " it was a beautiful clear night of
stars " — but they were from his own mint, and it was
ofteriest he himself who first called attention to them.

For the most part the effect on his writing of the
ardour of which I am speaking is to be seen in two
ways — in his diligence and in the intellectual intensity
of the work produced. If ever capacity for taking
pains be accounted genius in literature, no one can
deny the possession of the supreme gift to Stevenson.
To Mr. lies he wrote, in 1887 : " I imagine nobody had
ever such pains to learn a trade as I had ; but I
slogged at it day in and day out ; and I frankly
believe (thanks to my dire industry) I have done
more with smaller gifts than almost any man of letters
in the world." In 1876 he reckoned that his final
copy involved ten times the actual quantity of
writing ; in 1888 the articles for Scribner's Magazine
were written seven or eight times ; the year before
his death he told Mr. Crockett that it had taken him
three weeks to write four-and-twenty pages. His
prose works, exclusive of his published letters, run to
nearly eight thousand pages of the Edinburgh Edition
— three hundred words to a page. Nine-tenths of
this was written within less than twenty years ; and
there were, besides, more or less completely conceived,
many novels, stories, essays, histories, biographies,
and plays which occupied no inconsiderable amount
of his attention within that time.

The present point, however, is the energy and per-
severance which prepared and secured the mastery;
and in reviewing the amount of Stevenson's finished
work, neither the quantity sacrificed in the process
must be forgotten, nor the extreme compression of
the remainder. His was not the pen that covers
page after page without an effort, unblotted and
uncondensed, but the tool of the man who, in Mr.
Kipling's phrase " makes most delicate inlay-work

276 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

in black and white, and files out to the fraction of a
hair." In his own words, the only test of writing
that he knew was this : " If there is anywhere a thing
said in two sentences that could have been as clearly
and as engagingly and as forcibly said in one, then
it's amateur work." And the main thing in which
he thought his own stories failed was this : " I am
always cutting the flesh off their bones."

Of such material he produced nearly four hundred
pages a year for twenty years, and of the conditions
under which most of it was done he wrote to George
Meredith in 1893 :

" For fourteen years I have not had a day's real
health ; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary ;
and I have done my work unflinchingly. I have
written in bed, and written out of it, written in
hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by
coughing, written when my head swam for weakness ;
and for so long, it seems to me I have won my wager
and recovered my glove. I am better now, have
been, rightly speaking, since first I came to the
Pacific ; and still, few are the days when I am not in
some physical distress. And the battle goes on — ill
or well, is a trifle ; so as it goes. I was made for a
contest, and the Powers have so willed that my battle-
field should be this dingy, inglorious one of the bed
and the physic bottle."

But besides the energy spent on the work there is
also the intensity of his intelligence. He had no vast
memory like Scott's, but he remembered to a most
unusual extent his own emotions, and sensations, and
the events of his past life, and what remained in his
mind preserved its freshness and a lifelike sharpness
of outline.

If Stevenson's claim to genius is to be based upon
any single gift, it is this quality that most deserves
such recognition, nor can it well be refused, if
Baudelaire's definition be regarded as adequate :
Le genie n'est que I'enfance retrouvee A volonte. The
paper on Child's Play, the Child's Garden of Verses,

R. L. S. 277

and certain passages quoted in the earlier pages of
this book display a power of returning to the ideas
and feelings of childhood which has seldom if ever
been shown in a higher degree, or has existed except
along with intellectual powers of a very considerable
calibre.

It related also to the ordinary sensations of matur-
ity. We have all been active and all been tired, but
who has given us such pictures of activity and of
fatigue as Stevenson ? Consider the account of his
tobogganing, place beside it the calm of weariness
following exercise described in Walking Tours, or the
drowsy labour of the end of the Inland Voyage, and
then recall David Balfour. " By what I have read
in books, I think few that have held a pen were ever
really wearied, or they would write of it more strongly.
I had no care of my life, neither past nor future, and
I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David
Balfour ; I did not think of myself, but just of each
fresh step, which I was sure would be my last, with
despair, and of Alan, who was the cause of it, with
hatred."

As in books so in correspondence. Letters were
at times to Stevenson an irksome duty, at others a
welcome opportunity for the outpouring of himself
to his friends, but in haste or in delight it was entirely
without calculation that he dictated or wrote.

To see him was utterly to disbelieve in any regard
of ulterior motives. He was his father's son, and
with him also, " his affections and emotions, passionate
as these were, and liable to passionate ups and downs,
found the most eloquent expression both in words
and gestures. Love, anger, and indignation shone
through him and broke forth in imagery, like what
we read of Southern races." If he were talking, he
was seldom for a moment still, but generally paced
restlessly up and down the room, using his hands
continually to emphasise what he was saying, but
with gestures that seemed purely necessary and
natural.

278 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

It is very difficult to give the impression of his
demeanour and the brilliancy of his talk without
falling into the contrary error, and suggesting a self-
consciousness full of acting and exaggeration. Noth-
ing could be further from the truth, and it is easily
shown. His singleness of mind always, in later days,
at any rate, impressed friends and foes alike with his
sincerity of purpose. He was no sportsman and no
athlete — fragile and long-haired — yet nobody ever
hinted he was unmanly : he was given to preaching,
and himself not beyond reproach, yet no one for an
instant suspected him of hypocrisy. Whatever he
did he did with his whole heart, and it was hard for
any one to think otherwise. All the foibles of
mysteriousness and secrecy which formed a part of
his life in student days fell away from him before the
end. The burden of responsibility had diminished,
it may be, the gaiety of his temper ; but his character
shone out the more clearly, as the years showed the man.

II. If Stevenson delivered himself over, heart and
soul, as I have said, to the absorbing interest or the
ruling passion of the moment, it was assuredly not
for the want of other interests or other passions. Of
the many-sidedness of his mind the variety of his
works is surely sufficient evidence, and even these by
no means exhausted the whole of his resources. He
wrote novels — the novel of adventure, the novel of
character, the novel of incident ; he wrote short
stories and essays of all kinds — their variety it is
impossible even to characterise ; he wrote history and
biography, fables and moralities, and treatises on
ethics ; he wrote poems — blank verse, lyrics and
ballads, songs and poetry for children ; he wrote plays,
ranging from melodrama to genteel comedy ; books of
travel reflective and descriptive ; he composed
prayers and lay sermons, and even ventured on
political speculation.

All were not of equal merit — that is not now to the
point — but it would not be difficult to pick out at

R. L. S. 279

least ten works differing widely from each other, but
all definitely belonging to the highest class of their
kind. Only one verdict is possible, and for that it
is necessary to lay hands upon a commonplace, and
appropriate it to the benefit of the man who has best
right to the distinction. It is curious that the saying
was first made for Goldsmith, the best loved among
our authors of the eighteenth century, the one who,
in Professor Raleigh's phrase, shares with Stevenson
"the happy privilege of making lovers among his
readers." But of Stevenson it is even more true
to say with Dr. Johnson : Nullum fere scribendi genus
non teligit, nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.

For this diversity of power and achievement I have
relied on the evidence of his published writings,
because it would otherwise appear incredible. But
account must also be taken of at least a part of his
unfinished and unpublished work, differing again in
kind ; and to that in turn must be added the indica-
tions in his letters of other veins of character or
reflection that were never worked at all. Over and
above all there was the talk of the man himself, in
which the alterations were even more rapid and
more striking. Wit, humour, and pathos ; the
romantic, the tragic, the picturesque ; stern judg-
ment, wise counsel, wild fooling, all fell into their
natural places, followed each other in rapid and easy
succession, and made a marvellous whole, not the
least of the wonder being the congruity and spon-
taneity which gave to it the just effect of being a
perfectly natural utterance.

The quality was, of course, not without its defects,
the chief of which were an apparent detachment and
a sort of fickleness, or want of persistence. It was
probably the former of these which led several persons
quite independently of each other to give Stevenson
the name of " Sprite," a being exempt from the
limitation^ of mankind, an Ariel free to wander
through the realms of imagination, turning hither
and thither as his fancies prompted him.

28o LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Of the abandonment of his inventions I have
already spoken. " He was always full of schemes,
and plans, and fancies," wrote W. E. Henley. •' You
left him hot on one, and the next time you saw him,
you found to your distress (having gone all the way
with him) that he had forgotten all about it."

Thus if he saw life on each of its many sides in turn
with an intensity denied to a wider range of vision,
he was liable at times to see it neither steadily nor
whole. For the latter he was somewhat compensated
by the fact that he saw so many aspects of it in
rapid succession that he speedily corrected any
narrowness of consideration, his nature further help-
ing him in this — that he never saw it with any
narrowness of temper.

Taken together with the kindliness of his nature
it also, to a great extent, explains his extraordinary
gift of sympathy. He seemed to divine from his own
experience how other people felt, and how best they
might be encouraged or consoled. I doubt if any
one ever remained for long in his company either
reticent or ill at ease. Mr. Gosse reminds us of
Stevenson's talks at Sydney with a man formerly
engaged in the " blackbirding " trade, who was with
great difficulty induced to speak of his experiences.
" He was very shy at first," said Stevenson, " and
it was not till I told him of a good many of my
escapades that I could get him to thaw, and then
he poured it all out. I have always found that the
best way of getting people to be confidential." We
have seen with what success he approached the
natives in this manner ; in like fashion, no doubt,
he inquired of Highlanders about the Appin murder.

But even where he had some set purpose in, view,
his talk seemed to be a natural and purely spon-
taneous outpouring of himself. It never seemed to
me to be vanity — if it were, it was the most genial
that ever existed — but rather a reference to instances
within his own knowledge to illustrate the point in
hand. He never monopolised the conversation

R. L. S. 281

however eager he might be, but was faithful to his pre-
ference for talk which is in its nature a debate ;
" the amicable counter-assertion of personality," and
" the Protean quality which is in man " enabled him,
without ceasing to be himself, to meet the temper
of his company.

With this multiplicity one might expect to find
room in his character for many contradictory qualities
or the presence in excess and defect of the very same
virtues, and this in truth was so. To reconcile
opposites was a task he thought of but little impor-
tance, and a favourite phrase with him was Whit-
man's : " Do I contradict myself ? Very well, then
I contradict myself." Consistency was a virtue for
which it was easy to pay too high a price, and often
it had to be surrendered for matters of greater import.
Aspiration and humour, shrewdness and romance,
profusion and self-denial, self-revelation and reserve,
in him were curiously matched. On his frankness
and his reticence I have already dwelt. He speaks
of himself, as Professor Raleigh says, " with no
shadow of hypocrisy and no whiff or taint of indecent
familiarity " ; he tells you everything, as you think
at first, and so simply and so frankly that it is only
gradually you realise that he has not been revealing
the things nearest his heart, that you learn no secrets
of his home or his religion, nor of anything that it
was not for you to know. Self-denial, again, he
showed in many ways ; in his youth, especially, when
money was scarce with him, if any one had to go
without, he was the first to surrender his claim and
sacrifice himself. On the other hand, with " that
virtue of frugality which is the armour of the artist "
he was but ill-equipped.

Of his self-restraint in literature there can be no
better instance than the very sparing use he makes
of the pathetic. In the early essay on Nurses it is
perhaps a trifle forced ; there are hardly two more
beautiful or dignified examples of it in English litera-
ture than in the essay on Old Mortality, and the

283 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

death of the fugitive French colonel in St. Ives. But
it was only in conversation that one realised the
extraordinary degree to which he possessed the power
of moving the heart-strings. It was not that he
made frequent or unmanly use of it, but being less
upon his guard, the pathetic aspect of some person
or incident would appeal to him, and in a moment
he would have the least tender-hearted of his hearers
hardly less deeply moved than himself. Ordinarily
even in conversation he used it chiefly as a weapon
of chivalry in defence of the neglected and the old ;
but as Swift " could write beautifully about a broom-
stick," so Stevenson one day described a chair,
enlarging upon the hard lot of the legs that had to
support the idle seat, until the boy to whom he was
talking was almost in tears. On the other side must
be set his description of " Home, Sweet Home " in
Across the Plains, as " belonging to that class of art
which may be best described as a brutal assault
upon the feelings. Pathos must be redeemed by
dignity of treatment. If you wallow naked in the
pathetic, like the author of ' Home, Sweet Home,'
you make your hearers weep in an unmanly fashion."

But the supreme instance of diverse elements in
him was patience and its opposite. Never have I
heard of any one in whom these contradictories were
both shown in so high a degree. His endurance in
illness and in work we have seen : no pain was too
great to bear, no malady too long : he never mur-
mured until it was over. No task was too irksome,
no revision too exacting — laboriously, and like an
eager apprentice he went through with it to the end.

Sternness and tenderness in him were very equally
matched, though the former was kept mainly for
himself and those nearest to him, of whom he aslcpd
nearly as much as of himself : tenderness, on the
other hand, was for the failings of others. For like
many chivalrous people, he expected but little of
what he gave with so much freedom. His tenderness
had something feminine, yet without lacking the

R. L. S. 283

peculiar strength that distinguishes it in a man. The
Roman quality of sternness he so much admired came
to himself, no doubt, with his Scottish blood. It is a
virtue that for the most part requires exclusive
dominion over a character for its proper display, and
in Stevenson it had many rivals. But that it was
genuine his appreciation of Lord Braxfield and his
rendering of it in Lord Hermiston place beyond all
doubt.

Sternness and pity it is quite possible to harmonise,
and the secret in Stevenson's case is perhaps solved
in the following letter : "I wish you to read Taine's
Origines de la France Contemporaine . . . and to try
and understand what I have in my mind (ay, and in
my heart !) when I preach law and police to you in
season and out of season. What else do we care for,
what else is anything but secondary, in that embroiled
confounded ravelment of politics, but to protect the
old, and the weak, and the quiet, from that bloody
wild beast that slumbers in man ?

" True to my character, I have to preach. But
just read the book. It is not absolutely fair, for
Taine does not feel, with a warm heart, the touching
side of their poor soul's illusions ; he does not feel
the infinite pathos of the Federations, poor pantomime
and orgie, that (to its actors) seemed upon the very
margin of heaven ; nor the unspeakable, almost
unthinkable tragedy, of such a poor, virtuous wooden-
headed lot as the methodistic Jacobins. But he tells,
as no one else, the dreadful end of sentimental politics."

III. To deal with Stevenson's intellectual qualities
alone is to approach his less fascinating side, and to
miss far more than half the influence of his charm.
I have referred to his chivalry, only to find that in
reality I was thinking of every one of the whole group
of attributes which are associated with that name.
Loyalty, honesty, generosity, courage ; courtesy,
tenderness, and self-devotion ; to impute no unworthy
motives and to keep no grudge ; to bear misfortune

284 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

with cneerfulness and without a murmur ; to strike
hard for the right and take no mean advantage ; to
be gentle to women and kind to all that are weak ;
to be very rigorous with oneself and very lenient to
others — these, and any other virtues ever implied in
" chivalry," were the traits that distinguished
Stevenson. They do not make life easy, as he fre-
quently found. One day, his stepson tells me, they
were sitting on the deck of a schooner in the Pacific,
and Stevenson was reading a copy of Don Quixote.
Suddenly he looked up, and, with an air of realisation,
said sadly, as if to himself, " That's me."

In spite of his knowledge of the world and his
humour, and a vein of cynicism most difficult to
define, many were his quixotries and many the wind-
mills at which he tilted, less often wholly in vain
than we thought who watched his errantry. The
example remains ; and

" Would to-day, when Courtesy grows chill,
And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest,
Some fire of thine might burn within us still I
Ah, would but one might lay his lance in rest,
And charge in earnest — were it but a mill I "

Of some of the virtues I have cited it would be
superfluous to say more. There is no need to repeat
how he faced death in the Riviera or bore the weari-
ness of exile. But I may be pardoned if I dwell upon
a few of the more striking instances in which he dis-
played his open-mindedness, his generosity of temper,
his hatred of cruelty, and his readiness to forgive
offences.

Generosity is a word in sore danger of being limited
to the giving of money, but to Stevenson the quality
must be attributed not only in this, but also in the
widest possible application. It is a virtue that from
its nature is easily abused ; this did but make Steven-
son think the more highly of it, and it can have no
more splendid motto than his own aphorism, of which
one version runs : " The mean man doubted, Great-
heart was deceived. ' Very well/ said Greatheart."

R. L. S. 285

Of Stevenson's own generous temper there is no
better illustration than a letter written in early days
when he had been called to task by Henley for some
words of depreciation.

" I think the crier-up has a good trade ; but I like
less and less every year the berth of runner-down ;

and I hate to see my friends in it. What is 's

fault ? That he runs down. What is the easiest
thing to do ? To run down. What is it that a strong
man should scorn to do ? To run down. And all
this comes steeply home to me ; for I am horrified to
gather that I begin myself to fall into this same
business which I abhor in others."

No one ever more eagerly welcomed the success of
younger writers, entirely unknown to himself ; but of
this point the published letters are quite sufficient proof.

Any offence against himself he forgave readily,
nor did he find it difficult to make excuses for almost
any degree of misconduct on the part of others.
He could be angry enough and stern enough upon
occasion, but never was there any one so ready to
melt at the least appeal to his compassion or mercy.
In his political quarrels he found the greatest diffi-
culty in keeping up an open breach with persons whom
he liked in themselves, and for whom his sympathy
was engaged, although he was convinced that they
were ruining Samoa. Truly he might say : " There
was no man born with so little animosity as I."

In the narrower sense he was generous to a fault,
but was ready to take any amount of personal trouble,
and exercised judgment in his giving "Pray re-
member that if ever X should be in want of

help, you are to strain my credit to breaking, and to
mortgage all I possess or can expect, to help him."
But in another case : "I hereby authorise you to pay

when necessary £ to Z ; if I gave him more,

it would only lead to his starting a gig and a Pomer-
anian dog. I hope you won't think me hard about
this. If you think the sum insufficient, you can
communicate with me by return on the subject."

286 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

But Stevenson's best service was ofcen in the words
with which he accompanied his gift. To his funeral
only ^lose personal friends were invited, but there
appeared a tall gaunt stranger, whom nobody re-
membered to have seen before. He came up and
apologised for his presence, and said he could not keep
away, for Stevenson had saved him one day when he
was at his lowest ebb. " I was wandering despond-
ently along the road, and I met Mr. Stevenson, and I
don't know whether it was my story, or that he saw I
was a Scotchman, but he gave me twenty dollars and
some good advice and encouragement. I took heart
again, and I'm getting on all right now, but if I hadn't
met Mr. Stevenson, and he hadn't helped me, I should
have killed myself that day." And the tears ran
down his face.

Of Stevenson's open mind there could perhaps be
no better proof than the passage in his last letter to
R. A. M. Stevenson, written only two months before
his death. If there was a class of men on this earth
whom Louis loathed and placed beyond the pale of
humanity, it was the dynamiters and anarchists ;
yet he could write of them in the following strain : —
" There is a new something or other in the wind
which exercises me hugely : anarchy — I mean
anarchism. People who (for pity's sake) commit
dastardly murders very basely, die like saints, and
leave beautiful letters behind 'em (did you see Vaillant
to his daughter ? it was the New Testament over
again) ; people whose conduct is inexplicable to me,
and yet their spiritual life higher than that of
most. This is just what the early Christians must
have seemed to the Romans. ... If they go on being
martyred a few years more, the gross, dull, not un-
kindly bourgeois may get tired or ashamed or afraid
of going on martyring ; and the anarchists come out
at the top just like the early Christians."

I have never met any one who hated cruelty of any
kind with so lively a horror — I had almost said with
so fanatical a detestation — from his earliest years.

R. L. S. 287

" Do you remember telling me one day when I came
in," wrote the Rev. Peter Rutherford, his tutor, to
Mrs. Thomas Stevenson after her son's death, " how
it was his eyes were so swollen : tear-swollen ? You
had found him in the study sobbing bitterly over a
tale of cruelty he had been reading all alone." At the
other end of his life I can remember his own impas-
sioned account, given late one Sunday evening on his
return from Apia, of how he had found a crowd of
natives watching a dog-fight. He had plunged into
their .midst and stopped it, and turned to rebuke
them. " But I found all my Samoan had clean gone
out of my head, and all I could say to them was
' Pala'ai, Pala'ai ! ' (Cowards, Cowards !)." But the
most characteristic of all his utterances was at
Pitlochry in 1881, when he saw a dog being ill-treated.
He at once interposed, and when the owner resented
his interference and told him : It's not your dog, "he
cried out : " It's God's dog, and I'm here to protect it."

Irksome as ill-health was to Stevenson, it was yet
the possible effect on his own character that he most
dreaded, for he suspected that " being an invalid was a
fatal objection to a human being," and his horror of
valetudinarianism was due to its being " the worst
training upon earth."

The question of Stevenson's ill-health brings one to
the consideration which troubled him now and again
in his later days : whether he had not after all made
a mistake in adopting literature as his profession.
With him, as with Scott, " to have done things worthy
to be written was a dignity to which no man made any
approach who had only written things worthy to be
read." At times he thought with a passing regret of
the life of action he had forsaken, and was struck by
the irony that his father, who had opposed his choice
of the profession of literature, had come to approve of
it before he died, while he whom nothing but that
change of life would satisfy, had himself lived to
doubt its wisdom. But in these comparisons it was
an ideal life that he contemplated, where he should be

288 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

always well and always strong, doing his work in the
open air.

There was this about him, that he was the only man
I have ever known who possessed charm in a high
degree, whose character did not suffer from the posses-
sion. The gift comes naturally to women, and they
are at their best in its exercise. But a man requires
to be of a very sound fibre before he can be entirely
himself and keep his heart single, if he carries about
with him a talisman to obtain from all men and all
women the object of his heart's desire. Both gifts
Stevenson possessed, not only the magic but also the
strength of character to which it was safely intrusted.

But who shall bring back that charm ? Who shall
unfold its secret ? He was all that I have said : he
was inexhaustible, he was brilliant, he was romantic,
he was fiery, he was tender, he was brave, he was kind.
With all this there went something more. He always
liked the people he was with, and found the best and
brightest that was in them ; he entered into all the
thoughts and moods of his companions, and led them
along pleasant ways, or raised them to a courage and a
gaiety like his own. If criticism or reminiscence has
yielded any further elucidation of his spell, I do not
know : it defies my analysis, nor have I ever heard it
explained.

There linger on the lips of men a few names that
bring to us, as it were, a breeze blowing off the shores
of youth. Most of those who have borne them were
taken from the world before early promise could be
fulfilled, and so they rank in our regard by virtue of
their possibilities alone. Stevenson is among the
fewer still who bear the award both of promise and of
achievement, and is happier yet in this : besides
admiration and hope, he has raised within the hearts
of his readers a personal feeling towards himself which
is nothing less deep than love.

INDEX

Academy, The, 90, 98, 101
Academy, Edinburgh, 41
Account of the Bell Rock

Lighthouse, An. By

Robert Stevenson, 14
Across the Plains, 282
Adams, Charles, 247
Adirondacks, The, 171-178
Admiral Guinea, 153
Ah Fu, 190, 197, 211
Ainsworth, W. H., 49
Ala Loto Alofa, " The Road

of the Loving Heart,"

231, 248, 263
Allen, Grant, no
A mateur Emigrant, The,

116, 119
Americans in the South

Seas, 205, 252
Anarchists, 286
Anderson, Dr., 264
Apia, 211, 212, 220, 230,

240, 246, 251
Appin Murder, The, 280
Appleton, Dr., 90
Aquinas, Thomas, 99
Arabian Nights, The, 38
Archer, William, 98, 155,

157

" Arethusa," The, 105
Arnold, Matthew, 162
Arts, Royal Scottish So-
ciety of, 64, 75
Athenaeum Club, The, 171
Atolls, 182, 218
Auckland, 216, 217, 262
" Auntie " ; see Balfour,
Jane Whyte

Australia ;• see Sydney
" Azimuthal Condensing
System, The," 21

Babington, Rev. Churchill,

79

Baden-Baden, 76
Baden-Powell, Warington,

1 02

Baildon, H. B., 51
Balfour Family, The, 15,

16, 18
meaning of the name

18
• David (in Catriona),

16, 55
Dr. George ; uncle of

R.L. S., 128, 168

James (in Catriona), 16

jane Whyte ; " Chiet

of my Aunts," 36,

37, 52

John, Inspector-

General, 173

Lewis ; grandfather

of R. L. S., 15-18,
36,38

Ballantrae, 91
Ballantrae, Master of. Sea

Master of Ballantrae.
Balls at Apia, 251, 252
Balzac, 74, 89
Bancroft's History of the

United States, 119
Banville, de, 101
Barbizon, 93-95, 121, 133
Barclay, T., 88
Barrie, J, M., 58, 247, 248

289

290 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Baudelaire, 72, 276
Baxter. Charles, 58, 66, 87,
89, 124, 125, 126,

135, 137, 148, 154,
198, 216, 258, 260

Edmund, 88

Baxter's Place ; Robert

Stevenson's Edinburgh
House, 14, 20, 249

" Beach," The, 212, 213

Beach of Falesa, The, 211

Beaconsfield, Lord, 1 10

Bean Austin, 153

Beethoven, 90

Bells, 223

Bell Rock Lighthouse, The,
9, 12, 13, 14, 261

Berlin Treaty, The, 254

Bernhardt, Sarah, 98

Bethunes, The, 18

Bible, The, 73

Blackwood's Magazine, 102

Board of Northern Light-
houses, The, 9, 12, 14,

21, 55
Body Snatcher, The, 134,

153

" Bogue." See " Wattie."
Boodle, Mrs., 155

Miss, 155, 258

Books, R. L. S. on, 70, 71
Books, R. L. S.'s library,

252, 253

Books which have Influ-
enced Me, 71
Bottle Imp, The, 233
Bournemouth, 151-167, 169
Boycotting in Ireland, 166
Braxfield, Lord, 283
British Museum, 152, 164
Brown, Rev. George, 249

Horatio, 47

Robert Glasgow, no

Browne, Sir Thomas, 72,
73

Browning, Robert, 73, 164
Buckland, " Jack," 217
Bunyan, 49, 71, 151
Burlingame, E. L., 171
Burne- Jones, Sir E., 164
Burns, Robert, 16
Byron, 229

California, 117, 118-129,

177-180

Cambridge, 90, 162
Cameronian Dream, The,

3i

Campagne Defli, 143
Canoeing, 58, 59, 88, 102
" Captain George North,"

136

Carlyle, 91, 227
" Casco," The, 178-197;

nearly wrecked, 192, 193
Cassell and Co., Messrs.,

145, 161

Catriona, 7, 16, 134, 256
Cedercrantz, Conrad ; Chief

Justice of Samoa, 252,

254

Celestial Surgeon, The, 137
Celtic traits of the Steven-
son family, 19, 23, 24
Century Magazine, The, 145
Cevennes, The, 92, 115
Chalmers, Rev. James, 250
Chapter on Dreams, A, 160
Charles of Orleans, 102
Chaucer, 73
" Chench," 218
Chiefs, Native, in Samoa,

250, 251
Child's Garden of Verses,

A, 30, 33, 37, 135, MS,

150, 151, 158, 276
Child's Play, 39, 276
Chismore, Dr. George, 179
Christianity, R. L. S. on,

II3» "4

INDEX

291

Chronicle of Friendships, A ,

97

" Cigarette," The, 105
Clark, Sir Andrew, 81, 128,

141
Clarke, Rev. W. E., 212,

213, 249, 265, 266
Clemens, S. (Mark Twain),

177

Cloud of Witnesses, The, 31
Clough, A. H., 82
Cockfield Rectory, 79
Coetlogon, Colonel de ;

British Consul in Samoa,

212, 254
Colinton Manse, 15, 16, 27,

33-37, 45

Colvin, Sir Sidney, 38, 79,
80, 82, 84, 90, 91, 92,
105, 109, 126, 127, 135,
141, 144, 146, 152, 154,
161, 162, 164, 167, 169,
200, 220, 260, 274

Congreve, 66, 73

Consul, British, in Samoa,
212, 254

Convict Settlement at Nou-
mea, 220

Coppe, 101

Cormorant, H.M.S,, 199,
248

Cornhill Magazine, The,

IOI, IO2, IIO, 141

Court and Society Review,

The, 161
Covenanters, The, 31, 42,

52, 53

Crawford, Professor, 23
Crockett, S. R., 197, 275
" Cummie." See Cunning

ham,
Cunningham, Alison ;

R. L, S.'s nurse, 28, 30-

32
Curacoa, H.M,S.t 247

Curtin family, boycotting
of, 1 66

Damien, Father, 200, 216,

250

Damon, Rev. F., 250
Darien Company, The, 15
Davos, 129-133, 136-142
Daydreams of a School-
master, 41
Deacon Brodie, 52, 116,

"7i iSi, 153

de Coetlogon. See Co6tlogon
Defoe, 49, 72
de Mattos, Mrs., 154
Dilke, Sir Charles, 90
Disraeli, no
Dobson, Austin, 102 ;

quoted, 284
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,

See Strange Story of
Dreams, A chapter on, 160
Dreams, Stories suggested

in, 158, 159, 160, 161
Dumas, 49, 58, 71
Dynamite in Samoa, 255
Dynamiter, The, 150
Dynamiters, 286

Ebb Tide, The, 174, 175,

256

Edinburgh, R.L.S.'s des-
cription of, 40, 41

Academy, 41

Royal Society of, 21,

75

Picturesque Notes on,

57,91,104, 110,115

University Magazine,

74, 75, no
Education of an Engineer,

The, 54

Eeles, Commander, 248
" Eleven Thousand Virgins

of Cologne," The, in

292 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Elliot, Sir Gilbert (Lord

Minto), 1 6
Elphinstone of Logie, Sir

John, 16

Emigrants, 118, 119
Emmet, Robert, 59
Engineer, The Education

of an, 54
Engineers, A Family of,

8, 19, 56, 257
Epilogue to an Inland

Voyage, 91
"Equator," The, 202, 205,

211

Exeter, 163

Fables, The, 256

Fagaloa, 214

Fairchild, Mr. and Mrs.

Charles, 170

Falesa, Beach of, The, 211
Familiar Studies of Men

and Books, 71, 101
Family of Engineers, A,

8, 19, 56, 257
Feast of Famine, The, 195
Ferrier, James Walter,
66, 75, 146, 147

Miss, 149, 154

Fontainebleau, Forest of,

85, 93-95
Footnote to History, A,

212, 256
Forests, On the Thermal

Influence of, 75
Fourth of July in the

South Seas, 205, 252
Frankfurt, 77
Freischuti, Der, Juvenile

Drama of, 36
French Literature, 102
Funk, Dr., 264

Gaudez, 97

Germans at Apia, 252

Ghosts, 35

Gilbert Islands, The, 203,

210

Gilder, R. W., 145
Gladstone, W, E., no,

147, 166
Goethe, 74

Goldsmith, Oliver, 279
Gordon, General, 165, 187,

212, 250

Gordon-Gumming, Miss, 193
Gosse, Edmund, 105, 108,

125, 129, 135, 227, 229,

280
Gossip on Romance, A,

137, 274

Grammar, English, Pro-
jected, 258
Greek, 54, 227
Greenaway, Kate, 135
Grey, Sir George, 262
Grez, 96

Haggard, Bazett, 247, 252

Hamerton, P. G., 82

Hamley, Sir Edward, 138

Hardy, Thomas, 163

Hawaii, 196-202

Hawthorne, 72

Hazlitt, 72, 137

Heine ; R. L, S. compared
to, 70

Henderson, A. ; Publisher
of Young Folks, 135,
136, 161, 162

Henderson, H., of Syd-
ney, 217

Henderson, Mr. ; Head-
master of R. L, S.'s first
school, 41, 42

Henley, W. E., 89, 92, 98,
no, 122, 146, 148, 152,
iS4, iSS, 156, 158, 163,
164, 269, 280, 285

INDEX

293

Heriot Row j Thomas
Stevenson's Edinburgh
House, 28, 56, 69,
86, 128

Hird, Ben, 217

History of the United
States, Bancroft, 119

Hogarth, 233

Homburg, 46, 48, 91

" Home, Sweet Home," 2 82

Honolulu, 196, 197, 262

Horace, 131

Hoskyns, Dr., 248

Hugo, Victor, 101

Hunter, Robert, 88

Hyde, Rev. Dr., 216

Hydres, 142, 143-151

Iddesleigh, Lord, 162

Ide, Mr.} Chief Justice
of Samoa, 247

lies, G., 275

In the South Seas, 184,
256

Indian Mutiny, The, 187,
258

Inland Voyage, An, 59,
91, 103, 104, 105, no,
112, 115, 117, 270, 277
Epilogue to. An, 91

Intermittent Light, A
New Form of, 53, 75

Ireland, 166

Irving, Sir Henry, 98

Island Nights' Entertain-
ments, The, 217, 256

" Jack," 235, 244
James, Henry, 155
Janet Nicoll, The, 217
Japp, Dr. Alexander Hay,

i35

Jeffrey, Francis, 59
Jekyll and Hyde. See

Strange Story of

Jenkin, Professor Fleeming,
59, 68, 69, 86, 87,
91, 98, 112, 147,

154, 156
Mrs., 69, 70, 156, 164,

165
— — Fleeming, A Memoir

of, 69, 164, 165
Jersey, Earl of, 262

Countess of, 247, 262

Juvenilia, 30

Kalakaua, 198, 202
Keats, 73, 112, 224
Kidnapped, 18, 151, 161,

256

Kingsley, Mary, 186
Kipling, Rudyard, 247,

275

Kirkton, 53
Knox, John, 91
Kriegspiel, 138, 139

Lafarge, J,, 247

Lamb, Charles, 72 ; R. L, S.

compared to, 70
Lammermuirs, The, 45
Land Commissioners of

Samoa, The, 247, 254
Lang, Andrew, 84, 90, 99,

102, no, 147, 148, 162,

209, 269
Language of Samoa, The,

252, 253, 271
" La Solitude," 143, 147
Latin, 42, 227
Law, R. L. S.'s Study of,

65, 75. 76, 86
Lawes, Rev. F. E., 249
Lay Morals, 117, 273
Lemon, Arthur, 233
Leper Settlement at Molo-

kai, 199-201
Letters of R, L. S., 7, 31,

203

294 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Lighthouses, Board of
Northern, 9, 12, 14, 21, 55

L. J. R., 68, 81 ^,

Light, A New Form of Inter-
mittent, 53, 75

Lillie, David ; great-grand-
father of R. L. S., 9

Linton, Mrs. Lynn, 90

Livy, 226, 227

Lodging for the Night, A ;
first published story of
R. L. S., 104

London, no

London Mission, The, 212,
213

Longman, Charles, 160

Longman's Magazine, 158
1 60

Loti, Pierre, 193

Low, William H., 97, 147,
163, 170, 171, 177, 260

Lowell, J, R., 164

Macaire, 153
Macbeth, 48, 98
McClure, Messrs., 256
Macmillan's Magazine, 101
Macpherson, Cluny, 141
Madeira, 199, 215
Magazine Articles, 137, 171
Maka, 206
Malietoa Laupepa ; King

of Samoa, 255, 256
Manse, The, 32
Markheim, 153, 158, 159,

161

Masson, Professor, 90
Master of Ballantrae, The,

134, 194, 197
Mataafa, 207, 212, 239
Mataafa Chiefs, The, 231
Melville, Andrew, The Re-
former, 15

Melville, Herman, 123, 184,
271

Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin,

A, 69, 164, 165 >
Memories and Portraits,

16, 19, 32, 39, 44, 55,

75
Men and Books, Familiaf

Studies of, 71, 101
Meredith, George, 112, 117,

141, 158, 276

Merry Men, The, 134, 257
Method of writing, R. L. S.'s

164, 165, 174, 175, 263
Micronesians, 204
Millet, 93
Minto, Lord (Sir Gilbert

Elliot), 1 6
Missionaries, 188, 208, 247,

249-351

MoS, Princess, 193, 194
Molloy, J. L., 1 02
Molokai, 199-202, 250
Monastier, 93, 115, 140
Montaigne, 71, 72
Monterey, 120-122
Moonlighters, 166
Moors, H, J., 212
More New Arabian Nights,

158

Morris, William, 73
Mowbray, J, T,, 88

Napier, Mrs. ; cousin of
R. L, S., 46

Naval officers at Samoa,
247, 248

Nelitschka, 83

Nether Carsewell ; birth-
place of the Stevenson
Family, 8

New Arabian Nights, 104,
no, in, 112, 115

New Form of Intermittent
Light, A, 53, 75

Newell, Rev. J. E., 213

New Testament, The, 71

INDEX

295

" North, Captain George,"

136

Noumea, 220
Nukahiva, 182-184
Nurse, R. L. S.'s. See

Cunningham.
Nurses, Essay on, 30, 281

Oa, Bay of, 224-226
Obermann, 72
Olalla, 161

Old Mortality, 146, 281
Operations of War, Sir Ed-
ward Hamley's, 138
Ordered South, 82, 101
Ori, 194-196, 207
Osbourne, Lloyd, 47, 105,
127, 130, 138 144,

152, 159, 174, 190,
199, 206, 209, 217,

220, 230, 234, 235,
236, 245, 248, 252,
253, 256, 258, 263,
284

Mrs. See Stevenson,

Mrs. R. L.
Otis, Captain, 179

Paa-aeua, 190

Pagopago, 211, 221, 222-

224

Pall Mall Gazette, 102, 153
Paris, 84, 93, 97-100, 104,

108, 133, 142, 163
Pater, W., 227
Paul (Kegan), Trench & Co,,

112
Pavilion on the Links, The,

122

Payn, James, 147, 200
Pedigrees, R. L. S. on, 7
Peiwar, Battle of, 138
Penny Plain and Twopence

Coloured, 39
Penny Whistles, 145

Pentland Rising, The (R
L. S.'s first published
work), 52

Picturesque Notes on Edin-
burgh, 57, 91, 104, no,

U5

Pilrig, near Edinburgh, 16

Pilsach, Baron Senfft von ;
President of the Munici-
pal Council of Samoa, 254

Piracy, Literary, 145, 148,
1 60

Pitlochry, 133, 174

Pollock, W. H., 90

Polynesians, 203

Polynesian Language, The,
252, 253, 271

Portfolio, The, 82, 101, no

Prince Otlo, 145, 146, 151,
158

Prudhomme, 101

Raeburn, Some Portraits by,

102

Rahero, The Song of, 195
Raleigh, Professor Walter

279, 281

Random Memories, 54
Reid, Denis, 202, 204, 206

Mayne, 50

Sir George, 233

Requiem, 268

Riviera, The, 46, 82-84, 92»

142-150
" Road of the Loving Heart,

The," 231, 248, 263
Roads, Essay on, 81, 82,

101

Roberts, Lord, 138
Robinson Crusoe, 49, 147
Rob Roy, 49
" Rob Roy " Macgregor,

102
Roch, Valentine, 144, 169,

197

296 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Rodin, 164, 233

Roman Catholics in Samoa,
250, 251

Romance, A Gossip on, 137,
274

Rosebery, Lord, 147

Ross, Dr. Fairfax, 262

Royal Scottish Society of
Arts, The, 64, 77

Royal Society of Edin-
burgh, The, 21, 75

Runciman, James, no

Ruskin, 72

Russians at Monte Carlo,

83

Rutherford, Rev. Peter, 42,
287

St. Gaudens, Augustus, 171
St. lyes, 57, 256, 263, 282
Salvini, 98
Samoa, first sight of, 211

first settlement at, 2 1 5

• climate of, 242, 243

description of, 230

• Government of, 254,

255

language, 252, 253,

271

political history, 212,

253-256,

white residents in, 247

Samoan affairs — Letters to

The Times on, 165, 198
Sand, George, 49, 82
San Francisco, 119, 122-

127, 178-180
Sargent, J. S., 155, 233
Saturday Review, The, 90,

101, 147
Savile Club, The, 90, 92,

105, 107, 138, 155.
Schoolboy's Magazine, The,

SO
Schmidt, President, 247

Scots Observer, The, 216
Scott, Dr. T. B., 155
Sir Walter, 11, 14, 16,

49, 55, 59, 274,

276, 287

Scribner, Charles, 171
Scribner's Magazine, 197,

275
Servants at Vailima, 234-

238

Sewall, Harold, 221, 248
Shakespeare, 48, 71
Shelley, Sir Percy, 155, 265

Lady, 155

Silverado Squatters, The,

123, 127, 137, 145, 168

Simeon, Pere, 188

Simoneau's Inn at Mon-
terey, 121, 122

Simpson, Sir James, 67

Sir Walter, 59, 67, 76,

88, 91,93,105,111,
128
Siron's Inn at Barbizon,

93

Sitwell, Mrs., 79, 82, 133
Skelt, 39, 43
Skene, W. F., 76
Skerry vore, 153, 154
Smith, Captain, 248
Smith, Rev. G., of Galston ;
great - grandfather of
R. L. S., 16

Smith, Thomas ; grand-
father of R. L. S., 9
Soalu, 266

"Solitude, La," 143, 147
Some Portraits by Raeburn,

1 02

Song of Rahero, The, 195
Songs of Travel, 118, 256,

259

Sophia Scarlet, 257
Sosimo, 235, 264, 265
Soudan, The, 165

INDEX

297

Soulary, 101

South Seas, In the, 184, 256

Speculative Society, The,

59, 60

Spencer, Herbert, 68, 71
Spring Grove School, 41
" Sprite," 279
Stanilao, Prince, 187
" Stennis," 108
Stephen, Leslie, 89, 90,

101
Stevenson family, The, 8-1 5

Alan ; great - grand-

father of R. L. S., 8

David; uncle of

R. L. S., 12, 32

Robert; grandfather

of R. L. S., 9-15,
249, 261

Robert Alan Mow-

bray, cousin of
R. L. S., 39, 43, 65,
66, 67, 77, 78, 84,

93, 99, IO2> IC)8,
no, 116, 138, 142,
148, 154, 155, 156,
170, 233, 286
STEVENSON, ROBERT

Louis :

accessibility, 157, 245
acting, 59, 87, 98, 270,

271

animals, love of, 287
appearance, 69, 70, 84,

269

Bar, called to the, 86
Bible class in Samoa, 250
billiards, 131
birth, 27

books, 71, 232, 233
brief, first, 86
called to the Bar, 86
canoeing, 58, 59, 88, 102
character, similarity to
that of his father, 24

STEVENSON, ROBERT

Louis — cont. ,
charm, 80, 106, 272, 288
chivalry, 98, 272, 283
Christianity, 113, 114
classics, knowledge of,

227

collaboration, 174-176
courage, 125, 149, 150,

157

cruelty, hatred of, 286
cynicism, 284
dancing, 251
death, 264, 265
drama, love of, 31, 39,

98

dramatic writings, 153
dress, 59, 80, 116, 134
early compositions, 32,

So, 51
Edinburgh, love of, 40,

41, 223, 224, 260, 261
energy, 272, 273, 275
engineering, 54-56, 64
examinations, 76
fishing, 58
friends, inner circle of,

79, 80, 104, 146, 169,

260

funeral, 265-268
gaiety, 106
games, childish, 33-38,

44, 45, 138

generosity, 109, 180, 242,
261, 284-286

grace, 269

hatred of cruelty, 286

health, 28, 41, 43, 81,
88, 113, 119, 122, 125
128, 141, 142, 143, H8,
182, 192, 204, 216, 219,
228, 259, 262, 276, 287

hearing, 270, 271

impatience, 131

inconsistency, 281

298 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

STEVENSON, ROBERT

Louis — cont.
industry, 71, 137, 275,

276

last day, 264, 265
lateness of his literary

development, 272
law, study of, 65, 75, 76,

86
learning to write, 71-74,

273
literary reputation,

growth of, 104, 170,

229, 262
loneliness as a child, 38,

48, 67, 68, 113
love of animals, 287
mannerisms, 275
manual labour, 238, 239
marriage, 126, 144
memory, 276
method of work, 164,

165, 257, 275
mode of life in Samoa,

243-252
money, 62, 92, 109, 124,

130, 261
music, love of, 89, 90,

156, 261

name, variations of, 27
natives, relations with,

184, 186, 187, 190,

194, 205, 209, 231
nurse. See Cunningham
originality, 273, 274
parents, relations with,

64, 81, 85, 114, 117,

124, 125, 127, 144, 162
pathos, use of, 281
patience, 125, 149, 282
pets, 1 08, 109, 128
politics, 61, 165, 245, 255,

256
poverty, 62, 92, 109, 124,

130

STEVENSON, ROBERT

Louis — cont.
practises at the Bar, 86
printing, 130, 138, 140
quixotry, 166, 284
religion, 61, 79, 113
reputation, literary, 104,

170, 229, 262
reserve, 274
riding, 42, 43, 58, 244
schools, 41, 42
Scotland, love of, 223,

224, 260, 261
signature, 27, 102
sketch of at the age of

eighteen, 69, 70
sketch of at the age of

twenty-two, 84
sketch of at the age of

twenty-seven, 105-107
soldiers, 138, 157
sternness, 282
style, 100, 227, 271, 275,

276

sympathy, 280
tenderness, 282
theatre, love of, 39, 98
tobogganing, 132, 133
trader, proposes to set

up as a, 204
travelling, love of, 85, 100
unreasonableness, 131
versatility, 272, 278, 279
war, fascination of, 138,

157, 158, 239
wood-engraving, 140, 143
yachting, 88,176, 177, 261

Mrs. R. L., (Fanny

Van de Grift). First
meeting, 104, 105 J
114, 117, 119, 125 ;
marriage, 126; 127,

144, H9> 159, J72,
209, 217, 221, 255,
264

INDEX

299

Stevenson, Thomas ; father
of R. L. S., 15, 19-
24, 62, 64, 81, 85,
92, 113, 114, 127,
130, 141, 144, 147,
152, 153, 162, 167,

168, 169, 283
Mrs.Thomas(Margaret

Isabella Balfour),
mother of R.I,. S.,
24-26, 46, 144, 1 68,

169, 172, 199, 221,
228, 237, 245, 287

Stirling, Hutchison, 23
Stoddard, Charles, 123
Story of a Lie, 119
Strange Story of Dr. Jekyll

and Mr. Hyde, The, 88,

I5I> JS9> J6o, 161, 170
Strong, Austin, 244
— — Mrs.; daughter of Mrs.
Stevenson, 105, 196,
228, 234, 243, 251,
260

Stuebel, Dr., 212, 213
Style of R. L. S. See

Stevenson, R. L.
Sully, James, 155
Suicide in the South Seas

204
Swanston, 57, no, 117, 128,

271

Swinburne, 73, 92
Sydney, 216, 217, 220, 221,

262
Symonds, John Addington,

129, 130, 160

Ta'alolo, 235
Taine, H., 274, 283
Tait, Professor P. G., 129
Talk and Talkers, 88, 137,

141

Tamasese, 213
" Tamate," 250

Tanugamanono, 230
Taylor, Sir Henry, 155,
156

Lady, 155, 156,161

Miss Una, 156

Tembinok, 207-210, 218
Temple Bar, no
Thackeray, W. M., 50

Miss, 90

Thermal Influence of Forests

The, 75
Thompson, D'Arcy Went-

worth, 41
Thoreau, 135
Thrawn Janet, 134
Times, The, Letters to, 165,.

166, 198, 255, 258
Tobogganing, 132, 133
Traders in the South Seas,

210, 247-249
Travel, Songs of, 118, 256,

259

Travels with a Donkey, 91,.
100, 104, no, 115,
116, 117

Treasure Island, 51, 135,.
136, 145, 146, 147,

151

of Franchard, The, 141

Tree, Sir H. Beerbohm,.

153

Turner, Sir James, 53
" Tusitala," 213
Twain, Mark, 177

Underwoods, 154, 155
Upolu, 229

Vaea, 230, 266

Vailima, purchase of, 215

description, of, 230—

234

garden, 241

. meaning of the name,.

230

300 LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Vailima Letters, 80, 134,
142, 220, 238, 241,
260, 263

Prayers, 47, 229, 246,

266

Vaillant, anarchist, 286

Van de Grift, Fanny. See
Stevenson, Mrs. R. L.

Vendetta in the West, A,
122

Villon, 1 02

Virgil, 227

Virginibus Puerisque, 102

Walking Tours, 277
War in Samoa, 237, 239
fascination of, 138,

157, 158, 239
Warden, Jessie ; cousin of

R. L. S., 46
" Wattie," 128, 132, 133,

154, 157
"Webster, Jolm, 73

Weir of Hermiston, 12, 45,

257, 263, 264
Wellington, Duke of, 166
Whitman, Walt., 65, 71,

270, 281

Whitmee, Rev, S. J., 253
Whyte-Melville, George, 16
Williams, Virgil, 123

Mrs., 123, 126, 179

Wise, Hon. B. R., 262
" Woggs." See " Wattie."
Wood-engraving, 140, 143
Wordsworth, 72
Worthington, Hugo, 248
Wrecker, The, 97, 108,

123, 175, 179, 204, 217,

256
Wrong Box, The, 174, 175

Yachting, 88, 176, 177,

261

Young Folks, 135, 161
Yule, Sir H., 197

WY1.1AN t SONS LTD., PRINTERS. READING AND LONDON

THE LETTERS OF
ROBERT LOUIS

STEVENSON

EDITED BY

SIR SIDNEY GOLVIN

A New Edition in Four Volumes
with 150 New Letters

F'cap, 8vo. Cloth, 5s. each
F'cap. 8vo. Leather, 5s. net each

Vol. I. 1868-1880

Vol. II. 1880-1887

Scotland
France
California

Alps and Highlands
Hyeres
Bournemouth

Vol. III. 1887-1891

Vol. IV. 1892-1894

The Adirondacks
Pacific Voyages
First Year at Vailima

Second, Third and
Fourth Years at
Vailima

The End

[P.T.O.

THE

LETTERS OF ROBERT
LOUIS STEVENSON

'IpHIS is a new and, at least for the present
generation of readers, a definite edition of
the Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. It has
been prepared and edited by Sir Sidney Colvin, to
whom was entrusted, at the special wish of the
author and his family, the preparation of the exist-
ing editions both of Stevenson's " Vailima Letters"
and of his " Letters to his Family and Friends."
The special points about the new edition are —

(1) that it includes over 150 letters hitherto
unpublished, especially among those dating from
his early days in Scotland and on the Riviera {

(2) that the letters previously published are
re-edited, with corrections of date and additions of
matter both in the text and notes ; (3) that the
letters written to the Editor from Samoa, originally
published as a separate volume under the title of
" Vailima Letters," are broken up and inserted in
chronological order among those addressed to other
correspondents ; and (4) that the edition is issued
in four handy volumes (purchasable either as a
set or separately), bound in leather, of the size and
form which Mr. Kipling's Poems and Mr. Lucas's
Anthologies have made popular and familiar.

Fourteen Companionable Volumes
By

E. V. Lucas

F'cap. 8vo, gilt top, Cloth, 53 each

The Open Road
The Friendly Town

The Gentlest Art
Her Infinite Variety

Good Company

The Second Post

Fireside and Sunshine

Listener's Lure

Over Bemerton's

Mr. Ingleside

Character and Comedy

One Day and Another

Old Lamps for New

A Wanderer in Paris

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RUDYARD KIPLING

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

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Barrack-Room Ballads.

' Mr. Kipling's verse is strong, vivid, full of character.
Unmistakable genius rings in every line.' — Times.

' The ballads teem with imagination, they palpitate with
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metres throb in our pulses, the cunningly ordered words
tingle with life ; and if this be not poetry, what is ? ' —
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The Seven Seas.

' All the pride of empire, all the intoxication of power,
all the ardour, the energy, the masterful strength and the
wonderful endurance and death-scorning pluck which are
the very bone and fibre and marrow of the British character
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Departmental Ditties.

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" In Spring-Time," so much, that (suprem^ compliment)
I have copied it out here.' — Andrew Lang in 'Longman's
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The Five Nations.

* In " The Five Nations " Mr. Kipling shows a serener
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effect. To summarise the book would be to summarise
Mr. Kipling's gifts, and of those we are all aware.' —
Morning Post.

OCT 0 8 1985

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