{"1": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2858", "width": "1772", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0001.jp2"}, "2": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0002.jp2"}, "3": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0003.jp2"}, "4": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0004.jp2"}, "5": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0005.jp2"}, "6": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0006.jp2"}, "7": {"fulltext": "ROBERT LOUIS\\nSTEVENSON\\nBY\\nL. COPE CORNFORD\\nM\\nNEW YORK\\nDODD, MEAD AND COMPANY\\n1900", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0007.jp2"}, "8": {"fulltext": "TWO COPIES RECfilVEO,\\nIJbrarf of C^omgfM^ a\\n\u00c2\u00a9fUcn i the ^ti\\nCopyright, 1899\\nBy Dodd, Mead and Company\\nA II rights reserved\\n2antbersttg ^rrss\\nJohn Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0008.jp2"}, "9": {"fulltext": "PREFACE.\\nAs I have always been an eager student of\\nRobert Louis Stevenson s work, so it was with\\npeculiar pleasure that I entered upon the study\\nof his finished achievement, and of his person-\\nality and temperament as expressed in that\\nachievement. For, such were the terms of my\\nambition: and they may serve (at least) to\\ndefine the limits of this essay. Beyond those\\nlimits it was not mine to adventure. That Mr\\nSidney Colvin has in preparation the authorised\\nbiography of Stevenson, is matter of common\\nknowledge; and this consideration naturally\\nprevented me from recording aught of the\\nmain facts of Stevenson s career, that has not\\nbeen made public property already; and, for\\nthe same reason, I have abstained from making\\nany use of the series of Stevenson s Letters\\nwhich have recently been published in a monthly\\nmagazine.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0009.jp2"}, "10": {"fulltext": "VI PREFACE.\\nWith the name of Robert Louis Stevenson\\nis indissolubly connected the name of William\\nErnest Henley: and I delight to acknowledge,\\nwith the liveliest gratitude, the help which Mr\\nHenley has given me in the making of this\\nessay towards a just appreciation of his old\\ncomrade. And to John William Simpson, my\\nold master in a noble and difficult art, I would\\nrender thanks for the service he did me in sign\\nof our common admiration for Stevenson, the\\nartist.\\nL. COPE CORNFORD.\\nOviNGDEAN Grange,\\nnear Brighton, September, 1899.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0010.jp2"}, "11": {"fulltext": "CONTENTS.\\nPack\\nI. Prologue: His Heritage i\\nII. His Ancestry 13\\nIII. Outline of His Life 27\\nIV. The Moralist 79\\nV. The Artist 107\\nVI. The Romantic 115\\nVII. The Novelist 149\\nVIII. The Limner of Landscape 166\\nIX. His Style 184\\nX. Epilogue 195\\nINDEX 199", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0011.jp2"}, "12": {"fulltext": "APPARITION.\\nThin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably^\\nNeat-footed and weak-fingered in his face\\nLean, large-botied, curved of beak, and touched with race^\\nBold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea,\\nThe brown eyes radiant with vivacity\\nThere shines a brilliant and romantic grace,\\nA spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace\\nOf passion and impudence and energy.\\nValiant in velvet, light in ragged luck,\\nMost vain, most generous, sternly critical.\\nBuffoon and poet, lover and sensualist\\nA deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck,\\nMuch Antony, of Hamlet most of all.\\nAnd something of the Shorter-Catechist.\\nW. E. Henley, Rhymes and Rhythms.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0012.jp2"}, "13": {"fulltext": "ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.\\nI.\\nPROLOGUE: HIS HERITAGE.\\nDo you remember can we e er forget?\\nHow, in the coiled perplexities of youth,\\nIn our wild climate, in our scowling town,\\nWe gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed, and feared\\nThe belching winter wind, the missile rain,\\nThe rare and welcome silence of the snows.\\nThe laggard mom, the haggard day, the night.\\nThe grimy spell of the nocturnal town,\\nDo you remember Ah, could one forget t\\nR. L. S., To my Familiars.\\nWhen Robert Louis Stevenson, some five-and-\\ntwenty years since, went to and fro to his studies\\nin the University of that city which was his\\nbirthplace and his home, and which always re-\\nmained to him as the image of the dear city of\\nZeus, the old Scots order, giving place to the\\nnew, was even then suffering the last processes\\nI", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0013.jp2"}, "14": {"fulltext": "2 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nof dissolution. In what the old order consisted,\\nin ancient Edina, a city of clubs and talk and\\ngood-fellowship, a city of harlotry and high jinks,\\na city (above all) of drink, it is hard for an\\nEnglishman rightly to comprehend. It is odds\\nbut he will never attain to a true conception of\\nthe old society; he must content himself with\\nmere hints and adumbrations. Let us turn, for\\ninstance, to Sir Walter s discreetly jovial pages.\\nWhen Colonel Mannering went seeking Mr\\nPleydell the advocate in Edinburgh, his con-\\nductor, the Highland chairman, suddenly\\ndived with him into a very steep paved lane.\\nTurning to the right, they entered a scale stair-\\ncase, as it is called, the state of which, so far as\\nit could be judged of by one of his senses,\\nannoyed Mannering s delicacy not a little. It\\nwas up this wynd, atop of this foul scale stair-\\ncase, that the prosperous advocate had his dwell-\\ning. But it was Saturday at e en; and, says the\\nchairman, His honour will be at Clerihugh s\\nabout this time Hersel could hae tell d ye that,\\nbut she thought ye wanted to see his house.\\nSo to Clerihugh s they go accordingly, together\\n1 W. E. Henley, Essay on Robert Burns, 5^f.\\nDiscreetly I use the word advisedly for, it was for just\\nsuch a club as that which Mr Paulas Pleydell presided, that\\nBurns made the famous collection of sculduddery which is known\\nas The Merry Muses of Caledonia.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0014.jp2"}, "15": {"fulltext": "PROLOGUE: HIS HERITAGE. 3\\nwith the great Dandle Dinmont, who divided\\nthe press, shouldering from him, by the mere\\nweight and impetus of his motion, both drunk\\nand sober passengers. The causeway, you\\nobserve, is thronged with brither Scots in their\\naccustomed Saturday-at-e en altitudes. The\\nparty turns into a dark alley then up a\\ndark stair and then into an open door\\nMannering looked around him, and could hardly\\nconceive how a gentleman of a liberal profession\\nand good society should choose such a scene for\\nsocial indulgence The passage in which\\nthey stood had a window to the close, which\\nadmitted a little light during the daytime, and\\na villanous compound of smells at all times, but\\nmore especially towards evening. The tavern,\\nin fact, owns premises even more disreputable\\nthan the private flat in the land. And here\\nmen and women, half undressed, were busied\\nin baking, broiling, roasting oysters, and pre-\\nparing devils on the gridiron while, in the\\nnext room, Mr Counsellor Pleydell and his fel-\\nlow-counsellors, highly flushed with claret and\\nbrandy, were rioting at the ancient and now\\nforgotten pastime of High Jinks Mr\\nCounsellor Pleydell, such as we have described\\nhim, was enthroned, as a monarch, in an elbow-\\nchair placed on the dining-table, his scratch-wig", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0015.jp2"}, "16": {"fulltext": "4 R. L. STEVENSON.\\non one side, his head crowned with a bottle-slider,\\nhis eye leering with an expression betwixt fun\\nand the effects of wine, while his court around\\nhim resounded with such crambo scraps of verse\\nas these\\nWhere is Gerunto now and what s become of him\\nGerunto s drowned because he could not swim, c., c.\\nSuch, O Themis, adds Sir Walter, v/ere\\nanciently the sports of thy Scottish children\\nLiquor and letters, in fact, but especially liquor.\\nI have quoted the incident^ somewhat at\\nlength, because it seems to me entirely typical.\\nAnd observe, that upon the entrance of the\\nvisitors, it is the visitors who are dismayed.\\nMr Pleydell does, indeed, blush a little but\\nDinmont, the wild Borderer, stands aghast.\\nDeil o the like o that ever I saw says he.\\nAnd on Sunday morning, behold our reveller\\nin a nicely-dressed bob-wig, upon every hair of\\nwhich a zealous and careful barber had bestowed\\nits proper allowance of powder; a well-brushed\\nblack suit, with very clean shoes and gold\\nbuckles and stock-buckle; a manner rather\\nreserved and formal than intrusive, walking\\ndemurely through the blinded streets (which\\nremained unswept on the Sabbath) to hear and\\n1 Guy Manner ing, vol. ii.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0016.jp2"}, "17": {"fulltext": "PROLOGUE: HIS HERITAGE. 5\\ndigest, with a solemn and perfectly sincere gusto,\\na sermon in which the Calvinism of the Kirk\\nof Scotland was ably supported, yet made the\\nbasis of a sound system of practical morals.\\nSir Walter, sane, humorous, kindly, is content\\nto do no more than indicate the condition of\\nmanners. One may compare the observations\\nof Mr Edward Burt, who made a tour in\\nScotland and the Highlands about the middle of\\nthe last century a feat, in those days, sufficient\\nto justify the writing of a book. But when\\npersons of fortune will suffer their Houses to be\\nworse than Hog-sties, I do not see how they\\ndiffer, in that particular, from Hottentots, says\\nthe fastidious Englishman. And, I have often\\nadmired at the zeal of a pretty well-dressed\\nJacobite, when I have seen her go down one of\\nthe narrow steep Wytidcs in Edinburgh, through\\nan Accumulation of the worst Kind of Filth, and\\nwhip up a blind Stair-case almost as foul, yet\\nwith an Air as degage, as if she was going to\\nmeet a favourite Lover in some poetic Bower.\\nThe Pleydells and Nicol Jarvies of Sir Walter\\nwere douce religious citizens let us set beside\\ntheir portraits a sketch limned by the elder poet,\\nAllan Ramsay, in his Elegy on Maggy Johnston,\\nwho died mmo 1 7 1 1\\n1 Burt s Letters, 1755.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0017.jp2"}, "18": {"fulltext": "6 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nTo tell the Truth, now Maggy dang,\\nOf Customers she had a bang;\\nFor Lairds and Souters a did gang\\nTo drink bedeen\\nThe Barn and Yard was aft sae thrang,\\nWe took the Green.\\nAnd there by Dizens we lay down,\\nSyne sweetly ca d the Healths arown,\\nTo bonny Lasses black or brown,\\nAs we loo d best\\nIn Bumpers we dull cares did drown,\\nAnd took our Rest.\\nWhen in our Poutch we fand some Clinks,\\nAnd took a turn o er Brunesfield Links,\\nAften in Maggy s at Hy jinks.\\nWe guzl d Scuds,\\nTill we could scarce, wi hale out Drinks,\\nCast aff our Duds.\\nWe drank and drew, and fill d again,\\nO wow but we were blyth and fain\\nWhen ony had their Court mistain,\\nO it was nice\\nTo hear us a cry, Pike your Bain,\\nAnd spell yer Dice.\\nFor close we us d to drink and rant,\\nUntil we did baith glowr and gaunt,\\nRight swash I trow\\nThen of auld Stories we did cant\\nWhen we were fou.\\nAnd so on, and so forth. The lust of drink,\\nyou see, is described in terms of unmistakable", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0018.jp2"}, "19": {"fulltext": "PROLOGUE: HIS HERITAGE. J\\nenthusiasm; an enthusiasm whose shadow sur-\\nvives to this day among a certain class in the\\nNorth, although hard drinking be the fashion\\nthere no longer. Drink and talk and secret\\nlicence were, it seems, the compensations de-\\nmanded by human nature for the grievous\\noppressions of the Kirk, which had long exer-\\ncised a tyranny nigh impossible of apprehen-\\nsion by the English mind. Some half-century\\nlater we find Robert Fergusson (to name but\\nhim), Ramsay s direct heir in the descending\\nheritage of letters, versifying upon the old theme.\\nWhen the Scotch eighteenth-century makers\\ntreat of other themes, the result is frequently\\nbald, meaningless, and conventional. But take\\nliquor or sculduddery, and you shall find the\\nMuse, with loins girded and lamp briskly burn-\\ning, ready to discourse with eloquence and fire.\\nAuld Reekie thou rt the canty hole\\nA bield for mony a cauldrife soul,\\nWho snugly at thine ingle loll,\\nBaith warm and couth\\nWhile round they gar the bicker roll.\\nTo weet their mouth.\\nThus Fergusson. And\\nAn frae ilk corner o the nation,\\nWe ve lasses eke o recreation,\\n1 R. Fergusson, 77^1? Daft Days.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0019.jp2"}, "20": {"fulltext": "8 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nThat at close-mou s tak up their station\\nBy ten o clock.\\nThe Lord deliver frae temptation\\nA honest fowk!\\nThe poet is not superfluous to mark the time of\\nday it was at ten o clock P.M. so the dis-\\ngusted Burt informs us that the windows were\\nopened, and the refuse of the many-storeyed\\nlands was poured bodily into the street.\\nAlthough Robert Fergusson died seventy-six\\nyears ere Robert Louis Stevenson was born, and\\nalthough, in the interval, the star of Robert Burns\\nhad risen and burned and fallen in ashes, and Sir\\nWalter had founded his imperishable monument,\\nthe mention of Fergusson, our Edinburgh poet,\\nBurns s model, brings us directly to Stevenson;\\nif only for Stevenson s strange fancy notorious\\nnow to every reader of the daily newspaper\\nthat by some esoteric process of transmigration,\\nwhose secret was hidden in the heavens, Fer-\\ngusson s spirit lived again within him. And as\\nin Robert Burns we have the last expression, the\\nfinal avatar, of the old Scots peasant-world,\\nso, I think, in Robert Louis Stevenson we have\\nR. Fergusson, Answer to Mr J. S. s Epistle.\\nR. L. S., Picturesque Azotes on Edinburgh.\\nThe poor-living, lewd, grimy, free-spoken, ribald, old Scots\\npeasant-world came to a full, brilliant, even majestic close in his\\nwork. W. E. Henley, Essay on Robert Burns, ^c.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0020.jp2"}, "21": {"fulltext": "PROLOGUE: HIS HERITAGE. 9\\nthe consummation of the old Scots middle-class\\ncivic tradition the tradition of letters, of talk, of\\nfree-living, and of theology.\\nStevenson was born into a city and a time\\nwhen the old manners and customs and opinions\\nwere changing every day, giving place to the\\nAnglified modern polity we know the face\\nof the old city was fast losing its ancient linea-\\nments and the last of old Edinburgh, observed,\\nwhen he was still a youth, with Stevenson s\\nromantic vision and chronicled in his golden\\nphrase, lives very fitly in the pages of his\\nPicturesque Notes on EdinbiirgJi. The book is\\nwritten from the romantic point of view through-\\nout. There was none of that indefinable quality\\nwhich we have agreed to call romance in Fer-\\ngusson none in Allan Ramsay, none (as Mr\\nHenley has demonstrated) in Burns. Realism\\nthere was in plenty in these urban poets but, for\\nromance, we must look to another spiritual an-\\ncestor, Sir Walter Scott, the Borderer. And in\\nStevenson we find the two qualities curiously\\nconjoined. Upon this point, we may note that\\nM. Marcel Schwob has the following obser-\\nvation in an acutely analytical essay, which is\\neven more interesting in the light it throws\\nupon the predilections of the author, as a\\nFrench contemporary artist profoundly versed", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0021.jp2"}, "22": {"fulltext": "10 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nin English literature, than in its explication\\nof Stevenson\\nNous avions trouv6 chez bien des ^crivains le pouvoir\\nde hausser la reality par la couleur des mots je ne\\nsais pas si on trouverait ailleurs des images qui, sans\\nI aide des mots, sont plus violentes que les images\\nr^elles. Ce sont des images romantiques, puisqu elles\\nsont destinies a accroitre I ^clat de Taction par le\\nd^cor; ce sont des images irr^elles, puisqu aucun ceil\\nhumain ne saurait les voir dans le monde que nous\\nconnaissons. Et cependant elles sont, a proprement\\nparler, la quintessence de la r^alit^.^\\nUpon which there falls one remark to be made\\nthat the ceil humain of Stevenson did, in\\nefTect, behold these vivid images.\\nWho save Stevenson could have written the\\nfollowing description of an Edinburgh relic?\\nThe tallest of these lands, as they are locally termed,\\nhave long since been burned out but to this day it is\\nnot uncommon to see eight or ten windows at a flight\\nand the cliff of building which hangs imminent over\\nWaverley Bridge would still put many natural preci-\\npices to shame. The cellars are already high above\\nthe gazer s head, planted on the steep hill-side as for\\nthe garret, all the furniture may be in the pawn-shop,\\nbut it commands a famous prospect to the Highland\\nhills. The poor man may roost up there in the\\n1 Marcel Schwob, R. L. S., New Review, February 1896.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0022.jp2"}, "23": {"fulltext": "PROLOGUE: HIS HERITAGE. II\\ncentre of Edinburgh, and yet have a peep of the\\ngreen country from his window he shall see the\\nquarters of the well-to-do fathoms underneath, with\\ntheir broad squares and gardens he shall have\\nnothing overhead but a few spires, the stone top-\\ngallants of the city and perhaps the wind may\\nreach him with a rustic pureness, and bring a smack\\nof the sea, or of flowering lilacs in the spring\\nTimes are changed. In one house, perhaps, two\\nscore families herd together; and, perhaps, not one\\nof them is wholly out of the reach of want. The\\ngreat hotel is given over to discomfort from the\\nfoundation to the chimney-tops everywhere a pinch-\\ning, narrow habit, scanty meals, and an air of sluttish-\\nness and dirt. In the first room there is a birth, in\\nanother a death, in a third a sordid drinking bout,\\nand the detective and the Bible-reader cross upon\\nthe stairs One night I went along the Cowgate\\nafter every one was abed but the policeman, and\\nstopped by hazard before a tall land. The moon\\ntouched upon its chimneys, and shone blankly on\\nthe upper windows there was no light anywhere in\\nthe great bulk of building; but as I stood there it\\nseemed to me that I could hear quite a body of\\nquiet sounds from the interior doubtless there were\\nmany clocks ticking, and people snoring on their\\nbacks. And thus, as I fancied, the dense life within\\nmade itself faintly audible in my ears, family after\\nfamily contributing its quota to the general hum,\\nand the whole pile beating in tune to its timepieces,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0023.jp2"}, "24": {"fulltext": "12 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nlike a great disordered heart It is true that over-\\npopulation was at least as dense in the epoch of lords\\nand ladies, and that nowadays some customs which\\nmade Edinburgh notorious of yore have been fortu-\\nnately pretermitted But an aggregation of comfort\\nis not distasteful like an aggregation of the reverse [not\\nthus would that adventurous traveller, Mr Burt, have\\nwritten]. Nobody cares how many lords and ladies,\\nand divines and lawyers, may have been crowded into\\nthese houses in the past perhaps the more the\\nmerrier [But], the Bedouins camp within\\nPharaoh s palace-walls, and the old war-ship is\\ngiven over to the rats. We are already a far way\\nfrom the days when powdered heads were plentiful\\nin these alleys, with jolly, port-wine faces under-\\nneath\\nA far way indeed, O graceful moralist were it\\nonly by the modern touch observable in every\\nline of your picture, we should remember that.\\nA far way, but the end of the road is near and\\nthe sentimental youth who stands elegantly\\nmoralising beneath the stone top-gallants of\\nthe immemorial city, savouring the tang of the\\nsea that lies beyond, with a vagrant thought\\nupon the flowering lilacs in the spring, is\\npresently to decorate, with a surprising variety\\nof charming sculptures, the cenotaph of Old\\nScotland.\\nR. L. S., Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0024.jp2"}, "25": {"fulltext": "II.\\nHIS ANCESTRY.\\nPeace and her huge invasion to these shores\\nPuts daily home innumerable sails\\nDawn on the far horizon and draw near;\\nInnumerable loves, uncounted hopes\\nTo our wild coasts, not darkling now, approach\\nNot now obscure, since thou and thine are there,\\nAnd bright on the lone isle, the foundered reef.\\nThe long, resounding foreland. Pharos stands.\\nR. L. S., To my Father. Underwoods.\\nAs I have tried to indicate, however lightly, the\\ndrift of that broad tide in human affairs which\\nshaped the destinies of Robert Louis Stevenson,\\nso I would endeavour to trace, as briefly as pos-\\nsible, the influences which flowed to him by the\\ndirecter current of heredity. In his little history,\\nA Family of Engine erSy and his portrait of Thomas\\nStevenson} himself has told us all that we need\\nto know.\\nAlan Stevenson, great-grandfather of Robert\\n1 R. L. S., Memories and Portraits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0025.jp2"}, "26": {"fulltext": "14 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nLouis, and his brother Hugh, were West Indian\\nmerchants, Alan managing the business at home,\\nHugh abroad. Both brothers died young; and\\nAlan left a widow, and a son, Robert Stevenson.\\nThe bereaved wife, Jean, was the daughter of one\\nDavid Lillie, a builder in Glasgow, and several\\ntimes Deacon of the Wrights and so in\\nhim we note a craftsman linked to that family\\nwhich was presently to be renowned throughout\\nthe world for cunning craftsmanship. When\\nher son Robert was fifteen, Jean Lillie married\\nThomas Smith, merchant burgher of Edinburgh\\nand thus we come to a second craftsman, who\\nwas also something of an inventor, and some-\\nthing of a commercial force.\\nHe appears [says Stevenson] as a man, ardent, pas-\\nsionate, practical, designed for affairs and prospering\\nin them far beyond the average. He founded a solid\\nbusiness in lamps and oils, and was the sole pro-\\nprietor of a concern called the Greenside Company s\\nWorks He was also, it seems, a shipowner and\\nunderwriter. He built himself a land Nos. i and\\n2 Baxter s Place, then [within the present century] no\\nsuch unfashionable neighbourhood and died, leaving\\nhis only son in easy circumstances, and giving to his\\nthree surviving daughters portions of five thousand\\npounds and upwards. There is no standard of suc-\\ncess in life [remarks the biographer] but in one of\\nits meanings, this is to succeed.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0026.jp2"}, "27": {"fulltext": "HIS ANCESTRY. 1 5\\nIn 1786 Thomas Smith was appointed engineer\\nto the newly-formed Board of Northern Light-\\nhouses (the superiority of his proposed lamp and\\nreflectors over open fires of coal secured his ap-\\npointment) and thus begins the famous tradition\\nwhich indissolubly connects the name of Steven-\\nson with sea-lights and beacons all the world\\nover. For Robert Stevenson, Thomas Smith s\\nstepson, became the engineer s assistant, and\\nlater his partner, and in due time, by an extra-\\nordinary arrangement, in which it is hard not to\\nsuspect the managing hand of a mother, Jean\\nSmith became the wife of Robert Stevenson,\\nThe women of this double household, we are\\ntold, were immersed in such extremes of piety\\nthat the men scrupulous, godly, honest, indus-\\ntrious, even heroical souls as they were appear\\nto have depressed these elect females as some-\\nthing worldly. That strange, artificial cleavage\\nbetween things human and things divine, which\\nthe English mind (consciously or unconsciously)\\nrejects as something deformed, begins already to\\nappear in the Stevensonian annals.\\nCunning of brain and art of hand already con-\\ntrive to co-exist with arrogant theology; and in\\nthe mind of Robert Stevenson, the real founder\\nof the family, a fine working compromise was\\neffected, such a compromise as may so often be", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0027.jp2"}, "28": {"fulltext": "l6 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nobserved in kindly, simple natures, unaffectedly\\nin love with their calling. Were it not for such\\ngentle, illogical reasonableness, the world must\\nsurely have ceased to spin upon its axis long ago.\\nRobert Stevenson did a man s work in the\\nworld, and left an enduring inheritance.\\nThe seas into which his labours carried the new\\nengineer were still scarce charted, the coasts still\\ndark his way on shore was often far beyond the\\nconvenience of any road the isles in which he must\\nsojourn were still partly savage. He must toss much\\nin boats he must often adventure on horseback by\\nthe dubious bridle-track through unfrequented wilder-\\nnesses he must sometimes plant his lighthouse in\\nthe very camp of wreckers and he was continually\\nexposed to the vicissitudes of out-door life. The joy\\nof my grandfather in this career [continues R. L. S.\\nwith an evident access of sympathy] was strong as the\\nlove of woman. It lasted him through youth and man-\\nhood, it burned strong in age, and at the approach\\nof death his last yearning was to renew these loved\\nexperiences. What he felt himself he continued to\\nattribute to all around him. And to this supposed\\nsentiment in others I find him continually, almost\\npathetically, appealing often in vain.\\nIn 1807, upon the retirement of his stepfather,\\nThomas Smith, Robert Stevenson became sole\\nengineer to the Board of Northern Lights and\\nin the same year he began the building of the", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0028.jp2"}, "29": {"fulltext": "HIS ANCESTRY. 1 7\\nBell Rock Lighthouse. Himself has written the\\nhistory of that notable achieven ent and his\\ngrandson has appended an abric ^ment to his\\nFamily of Engineers. It is enough ^r my purpose\\nto remark, in this narration, the c Id man s con-\\nstant delight in the picturesque side of his work,\\na delight which was only subordinate to the inde-\\nfatigable industry and unsleeping vigilance of a\\nmaster-craftsman an industry and a vigilance\\nwhich carried to accomplishment an extremely\\nhazardous task, extending over four years, with-\\nout a single mishap which might have been\\nforeseen or prevented. Here, for instance, is\\nan extract from Robert Stevenson s journal, in\\nwhich he preserved a very full and minute\\nrecord of these laborious years\\nThe incident just noticed [says the engineer that\\nof the waves pouring suddenly upon his head, over\\nthe new walls, then fifty-eight feet high, of the rising\\nlighthouse] the incident just noticed did not create\\nmore surprise in the mind of the writer than the\\nsublime appearance of the waves as they rolled\\nmajestically over the rock. This scene he greatly\\nenjoyed while sitting at his cabin-window; each\\nwave approached the beacon like a vast scroll un-\\nfolding and in passing discharged a quantity of air,\\nwhich he not only distinctly felt, but was even sufficient\\nto lift the leaves of a book which lay before him.^\\nR. L. S., A Family of Engineers,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0029.jp2"}, "30": {"fulltext": "1 8 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nWith this same vision would his grandson have\\nlooked forth of the cabin-window in the same\\nspirit though not precisely in the same terms\\nwould he have chronicled his observation.\\nAnd again\\nTo windward, the sprays fell from the height above\\nnoticed [sixty-four feet above the rock] in the most\\nwonderful cascades, and streamed down the walls of\\nthe building in froth as white as snow. To leeward of\\nthe lighthouse the colUsion or meeting of the waves\\nproduced a pure white kind of drift it rose about\\nthirty feet in height, like a fine downy mist, which in\\nits fall felt upon the face and hands more like a dry\\npowder than a liquid substance.^\\nCompare his grandson s description of the\\nbreakers the Merry Men in the Roost of\\nAros\\nOn such a night, he peers upon a world of\\nblackness, where the waters wheel and boil, where the\\nwaves joust together with the noise of an explosion,\\nand the foam towers and vanishes in the twinkling of\\nan eye The fury, height, and transiency of their\\nspoutings was a thing to be seen and not recounted.\\nHigh over our heads on the cliif rose their white\\ncolumns in the darkness; and at the same instant,\\nlike phantoms, they were gone. Sometimes three at\\na time would thus aspire and vanish sometimes a\\n1 R. L. S., A Family of Engineers.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0030.jp2"}, "31": {"fulltext": "HIS ANCESTRY. I9\\ngust took them, and the spray would fall about us,\\nheavy as a wave.^\\nEvery stone of that tall building on the Bell\\nRock, which with the leaping waves makes so\\nfine a picture to the architect, as he sits observ-\\nant at his cabin-window, was cut out with his own\\nhands in the model; and the manner in which\\nthe courses were fitted, joggled, trenailed, wedged,\\nand the bond broken, is intricate as a puzzle and\\nbeautiful by ingenuity. And the same artist\\ngrew to be the familiar of members of Parlia-\\nment, judges of the Court of Session, and landed\\ngentlemen learned a ready address, had a flow\\nof interesting conversation, and when he was re-\\nferred to as a highly respectable bourgeois re-\\nsented the description. 2 With all that, no\\nservant of the Northern Lights came to Edin-\\nburgh but he was entertained at Baxter s Place\\nto breakfast. There, at his own table, my\\ngrandfather sat down delightedly with his broad-\\nspoken homespun officers. Moreover, as In-\\nspector of Lighthouses, Robert Stevenson shows\\nhimself, in his reports and letters, as an unflinch-\\ning martinet; he was king in the service to\\nhis finger-tips. All should go in his way, from\\n1 R. L. S., The Merry Men.\\nR. L. S., Family of Engineers. Ibid.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0031.jp2"}, "32": {"fulltext": "20 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nthe principal lightkeeper s coat to the assist-\\nants fender, from the gravel in the garden-\\nwalks to the bad smell in the kitchen, or the\\noil-spots on the store-room floor. His\\nwhole relation to the service was, in fact,\\npatriarchal.\\nHere, then, we have the picture of a man who\\nis, before all things, a maker and a contriver;\\nwho is also of a strongly adventurous turn, a\\nshrewd judge of character as any man must be\\nwhose relations with any given body of men are\\npatriarchal a man of humour, of natural\\npiety, of great kindness of heart, of an unbending\\nsense of duty, and a man, withal, owning some-\\nthing of a bias towards the romantic and pictur-\\nesque, which he loved to express, not without\\nsome obscure sense of pleasure in the pomp and\\nsound of language. This man, then, marries\\nJean Smith, daughter of his stepfather, the first\\nlighthouse engineer and of this union comes a\\nfamily, of whom three sons, Alan, David, and\\nThomas, were all, successively or conjointly,\\nengineers to the Board of Northern Lights.\\nThomas Stevenson was born in Edinburgh\\nin the year i8r8. The Bell Rock, his\\nfather s great triumph, was finished before he was\\nborn but he served under his brother Alan in\\n1 R. L. S., A Fa7nily of Enghteers.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0032.jp2"}, "33": {"fulltext": "HIS ANCESTRY. 21\\nthe building of Skerryvore, the noblest of all\\nextant deep-sea lights. The tradition, so\\nnobly begun, was nobly carried forward; the\\nfirm of Stevenson were consulting engineers\\nto the Indian, the New Zealand, and the Jap-\\nanese Lighthouse Boards, so that Edinburgh\\nwas a world-centre for that branch of applied\\nscience.\\nUpon the character of Thomas Stevenson I\\ncannot do better than quote the words of his\\nson, Robert Louis. It is curious to note, in\\nthat portrait, the mingled features of his father\\nwho was before him, and those of his son,\\nRobert Louis, who came after him, and whose\\nworks we know-\\nHe was a man [says Stevenson] of a somewhat\\nantique strain with a blended sternness and soft-\\nness that was wholly Scottish, and at first somewhat\\nbewildering with a profound essential melancholy of\\ndisposition and (what often accompanies it) the most\\nhumorous geniality in company shrewd and childish\\npassionately attached, passionately prejudiced a man\\nof many extremes, many faults of temper, and no very\\nstable foothold for himself among life s troubles. Yet\\nhe was a wise adviser many men, and these not in-\\nconsiderable, took counsel with him habitually\\nHe had excellent taste, though whimsical and partial\\nR. L. S., Memories and Portraits. Ibid.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0033.jp2"}, "34": {"fulltext": "22 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nand though he read Httle, was constant to his\\nfavourite books Lactantius, Vossius, and Car-\\ndinal Bona were his chief authors When he\\nwas indisposed, he had two books, Guy Mannering\\nand The Parent s Assistant, of which he never\\nwearied The Church of Scotland, of which\\nhe held the doctrines (though in a sense of his\\nown [mark the saving clause]) and to which he\\nbore a clansman s loyalty, profited often by his\\ntime and money His sense of his own un-\\nworthiness I have called morbid morbid, too, were\\nhis sense of the fleetingness of life and his concern\\nfor death. He had never accepted the conditions\\nof man s life or his own character; and his inmost\\nthoughts were ever tinged with the Celtic melan-\\ncholy His talk, compounded of so much\\nsterling sense and so much freakish humour, and\\nclothed in language so apt, droll, and emphatic,\\nwas a perpetual delight to all who knew him before\\nthe clouds began to settle on his mind. His use\\nof language was both just and picturesque and\\nwhen at the beginning of his illness he began to\\nfeel the ebbing of this power, it was strange and\\npainful to hear him reject one word after another\\nas inadequate, and at length desist from the search\\nand leave his phrase unfinished rather than finish\\nit without propriety. It was perhaps another Celtic\\ntrait that his affections and emotions, passionate as\\nthese were, and liable to passionate ups and downs,\\nfound the most eloquent expression both in words", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0034.jp2"}, "35": {"fulltext": "HIS ANCESTRY. 23\\nand gestures. Love, anger, and indignation shone\\nthrough him and broke forth in imagery, like what\\nwe read of in Southern races.\\nAnd when Stevenson is writing Treasure Island,\\nhe tells us that his father caught fire at once\\nwith all the romance and childishness of his\\noriginal nature. His own stories, that every\\nnight of his life he put himself to sleep with,\\ndealt perpetually with ships, roadside inns,\\nrobbers, old sailors, and commercial travellers\\nbefore the era of steam. And this, be it noted,\\nwas the man who wrote also in defence of\\nChristianity, and his work was highly praised\\nby many learned authorities. His Layman s\\nSermoji is to be found in a volume of his Life\\nand Work.\\nAltogether a striking figure; one to command\\nrespect, to call forth affection and admiration.\\nAnd when Thomas Stevenson married the\\ndaughter of Dr Balfour the divine, an ingre-\\ndient of theology again tinctures the family\\nstrain, and again from the female side.\\nR. L. S., Memories and Portraits.\\n2 R. L. S., Essays and Fragme7tts.\\n8 E. Blantyre Simpson, Robert Louis Stevenson s Edinburgh\\nDays.\\nAnd there came more than that. At past sixty, after a life-\\ntime of conventional Edinburgh, this lady broke up the house in\\nHeriot Row, removed herself and her belongings to Apia, learned", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0035.jp2"}, "36": {"fulltext": "24 R- L. STEVENSON.\\nNow I often wonder, says Stevenson, dis-\\ncoursing in his pleasantly egoistic vein, what I\\nhave inherited from this old minister. I must\\nsuppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching\\nsermons, and so am I, though I never heard it\\nmaintained that either of us loved to hear them.\\nWell, it may seem to us now, looking back\\nupon the history of the country of his birth, and\\nthe mingled charactery of his ancestors, that a\\nscion of the nature of Robert Louis Stevenson\\nmight have been predicted with some assurance.\\nWe have the old Scottish tradition of letters,\\nfree-living, and theology; the first and last\\nelements, the love of learning and of theology,\\nare marked in the Stevensonian line the second\\nelement, of (what I have called) free-living, seems\\ncounteracted by a strong and religious char-\\nacter; we have, in addition, in the Stevensons\\nand the Smiths, the inherited faculty of inven-\\ntion, the romantic bias, the insight into char-\\nacter, the delight in words for their own sake,\\nand, above all, the austere devotion, as a point\\nof honour, to perfect craftsmanship.\\nAssume, for the nonce, that the Stevenson\\nto ride bare-backed and to go bare-footed, and took on the life at\\nVailima and the life of Tusitala s native friends with equal gusto\\nand intelligence. Stevenson was fond of calling himself a tramp\\nand a gipsy; and that he could do so with justice was owing to\\nthe fact that his mother was Margaret Balfour.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0036.jp2"}, "37": {"fulltext": "HIS ANCESTRY 2$\\nwhom we know through his work is strangely-\\ncompounded of these elements a thesis which\\nit is my business to exemplify in the pages that\\nfollow assume, I say, that he had a certain\\nscholarship, and loved preaching, and romance,\\nand the infinite diversity of the creature that\\nwith a keen vision and a faculty of ingenious\\ninvention he joined incomparable workmanship\\nassume all this, and I must still remark two\\nmain distinctions betwixt Stevenson and his\\nimmediate forebears.\\nAnd first, in the records of the engineers his\\nforefathers, we find no trace of, what are called,\\nirregular courses of life, which are among the\\ncommonest influences of the time in which they\\nlived and worked. But, how should Stevenson,\\nsuch as he was, born into the last decaying\\nperiod of the old order of things, escape its\\ninfluence? I cannot but think that the old\\nScottish grossness, how transfigured and de-\\ncorated soever, reappears in the gruesome and\\nugly elements of which he makes such striking\\nuse in his work.\\nAnd for my second distinction these engi-\\nneers were men of strong body, who, in health\\nand vigour, accomplished an amazing amount of\\nwork. He sought health in his youth in the\\nIsle of Wight, says Robert Louis Stevenson,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0037.jp2"}, "38": {"fulltext": "26 R. L. STEVENSON.\\ngossiping of his mother s father, and I have\\nsought it in both hemispheres; but whereas he\\nfound and kept it, I am still on the quest.\\nHe was still, courageous seeker, upon the\\nquest when death took him and in considering\\nhis work, with all its brilliancy and variety and\\ncharm, we must still bear in mind that it is the\\nwork of a man of frail constitution, often beset\\nby sickness, often indomitably toiling indeed,\\nso intense was his need of self-expression, that\\nI had almost written amusing himself in\\nthe very clutch of the enemy.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0038.jp2"}, "39": {"fulltext": "III.\\nOUTLINE OF HIS LIFE.\\nSay not of me that weakly I declined\\nThe labours of my sires, and fled the sea,\\nThe towers we founded and the lamps we lit,\\nTo play at home with paper like a child.\\nBut rather say In the afternoon of tit/ie\\nA streniiojis family dusted from its hands\\nThe sand of granite, and beholding far\\nAlong the sounding coast its pyramids\\nAnd tall memorials catch the dying stin.\\nSmiled well content, and to this childish task\\nAround the fire addressed its evening hours.\\nR. L. S., Underwoods.\\nThere never came a Fool out of Scotland.\\nOld Saiu.\\nRobert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, the only\\nchild of Thomas Stevenson, civil engineer, and\\nMargaret Isabella his wife, youngest daughter\\nof James Balfour, minister of the parish of\\nColinton in Mid-Lothian, was born on the\\n13th of November 1S50, at 8 Howard Place,\\nEdinburgh. From about his eighteenth year\\nhe chose to sign himself Robert Louis Steven-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0039.jp2"}, "40": {"fulltext": "28 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nson.^ Robert Louis seems to have been a child\\nof a vain, delicate, and excitable temperament,\\nsuffering frequently from illness and, not less\\nfrequently, from the penalties of a romantic im-\\nagination. As his works, both by accident and\\ndesign, reflect and chronicle the history of him-\\nself from stage to stage of his career in a manner\\npeculiarly his own among writers, so we may\\nlearn all we need to know of his childhood\\nthe childhood of a born romantic as of his later\\nlife, from his own verses and essays. Hence,\\nin A Child s Garden of Verses, Child s Play,\\nRandom Memories, The Manse, id. Plain, 2d.\\nColoured, and A Chapter on Dreams, we seem\\nto disengage the picture of an eager, frail\\nlittle boy, with remarkable eyes, lustrous and\\nbrown, dwelling largely in a world of his own\\ninvention loving to read, or to hear read, books\\nof the romantic order; and even desirous, with\\ninfantine zeal, to write them. Mr Sidney Colvin\\ntells us that A History of Moses, dictated\\nin his sixth year, and an account of Travels\\nin Perth in his ninth, are still extant;\\n1 Louis, because there was a certain Bailie extant whose poli-\\ntical opinions revolted young Stevenson s soul, and whose sur-\\nname was (insolently) Lewis. But Stevenson s friends continued\\nto pronounce his name Lewis to the end.\\n2 Dictionary of National Biography: art., Stevenson, Robert\\nLouis.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0040.jp2"}, "41": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 29\\nand in Miss E. Blantyre Simpson s account of\\nStevenson s childish days^ we find him engaged\\none winter, together with his cousin, R. A. M.\\nStevenson, witli a series of adventures which\\nhappened upon a fabulous island. Robert Louis s\\nisland was called Noseingdale, the island of R.\\nA. M. Stevenson, Encyclopaedia, and each\\nchieftain illustrated his island s history. Many\\nchildren begin so, it is true, and afterwards they\\nchange. The point is, that as it was in the\\nbeginning with Stevenson, so it was with him\\nto the end.\\nIn May, 1857, Mr and Mrs Stevenson, after\\nan intermediate sojourn of four years at No. i\\nInverleith Terrace, took up their abode at 17\\nHeriot Row, which remained the family head-\\nquarters until the death of Thomas Stevenson\\nin 1887. When he was eight years old, the boy\\nRobert Louis was put to a preparatory school\\nkept by a Mr Henderson, in India Street, where\\nhe remained for two or three years; in his\\neleventh year he began an attendance at the\\nEdinburgh Academy a junior rival to the\\nHigh School where Scott was educated\\nwhich lasted, at intervals, for some time. Here\\nE. Blantyre Simpson, Robert Louis Stevenson s Edinburgh\\nDays.\\n2 Ibid.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0041.jp2"}, "42": {"fulltext": "30 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nhe started a school magazine in manuscript, TJie\\nSwibeani, which seems to have been almost en-\\ntirely written, edited, and illustrated by himself.^\\nWhen he was thirteen he went for a few months\\nto a boarding-school kept by a Mr Wyatt at\\nSpring Grove, near London. Coming home\\nagain to Edinburgh, he was sent next year\\nto Mr Thompson s private school in Frederick\\nStreet, where he remained until his seventeenth\\nyear. And here, in his fifteenth year, he showed\\nto his schoolmate Baildon a drama based upon\\nthe history of Deacon Brodie, the genesis of the\\nplay written, fourteen years later, in collabora-\\ntion with Mr Henley.^ Would we learn what\\nmanner of schoolboy was little Robert Louis,\\nwe may turn to his own description:\\nMany writers [he says] have vigorously described\\nthe pains of the first day or the first night at school\\nto a boy of any enterprise I believe they are more\\noften agreeably exciting. Misery or at least misery\\nunrelieved is confined to another period, to the days\\nof suspense and the dreadful looking-for of de-\\nparture when the old life is running to an end, and\\nthe new life, with its new interests, not yet begun\\nand to the pain of an imminent parting, there is added\\nthe unrest of a state of conscious pre-existence. The\\n1 E. Blantyre Simpson, Robert Louis Sievettson^s Edinburgh\\nDays.\\n2 Ibid.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0042.jp2"}, "43": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 31\\narea railings, the beloved shop-window, the smell of\\nsemi-suburban tan-pits, the song of the church-bells\\nupon a Sunday, the thin high voices of compatriot\\nchildren in a playing-field what a sudden, what an\\noverpowering pathos breathes to him from each familiar\\ncircumstance The assaults of sorrow come not from\\nwithin, as it seems to him, but from without. I was\\nproud and glad to go to school had I been let alone\\nI could have borne up like any hero but there was\\naround me, in all my native town, a conspiracy of\\nlamentation: Poor little boy, he is going away\\nunkind little boy, he is going to leave us so the\\nunspoken burthen followed me as I went, with yearn-\\ning and reproach. And at length, one melancholy\\nafternoon in the early autumn, and at a place where it\\nseems to me, looking back, it must be always autumn\\nand generally Sunday, there came suddenly upon the\\nface of all 1 saw the long empty road, the lines of\\nthe tali houses, the church upon the hill, the woody\\nhillside garden a look of such a piercing sadness that\\nmy heart died and seating myself on a door-step, I\\nshed tears of miserable sympathy. A benevolent cat\\ncumbered me the while with consolations we two\\nwere alone in all that was visible of the London Road\\ntwo poor waifs who had each tasted sorrow and\\nshe fawned upon the weeper, and gambolled for his\\nentertainment, watching the efifect, it seemed, with\\nmotherly eyes.\\nFor the sake of the cat, God bless her I confessed\\nat home the story of my weakness It was judged,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0043.jp2"}, "44": {"fulltext": "32 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nif I had thus brimmed over on the pubUc highway,\\nsome change of scene was (in the medical sense)\\nindicated; my father at the time was visiting the\\nharbour lights of Scotland and it was decided that\\nhe should take me along with him around a portion of\\nthe shores of Fife my first professional tour, my first\\njourney in the complete character of man, without the\\nhelp of petticoats.^\\nDoubtless some change of scene in the medi-\\ncal sense was indicated; but no migration\\nmight change the acutely sensitive, romantic-\\nally sentimental, egoistic temperament, which\\nwas able, not only to receive so vivid and\\npicturesque an impression in early boyhood a\\nfaculty which is, after all, no uncommon char-\\nacteristic of that golden age but, to retain it for\\nsome years in all its pristine freshness, and then\\ngracefully to set the memory in words. And\\nwith that excursion to Fife, Robert Louis Steven-\\nson s education may be said to have begun\\nfrom that time forth, from choice or necessity,\\nhe became a traveller and a wanderer. And\\nso, while he was yet at Mr Thompson s school,\\nhe made frequent visits to health-resorts in\\nScotland occasional excursions with his father\\non his nearer professional rounds d?. to the\\ncoasts and lighthouses of Fife in 1864; and also\\n1 R. L. S., Random Memories.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0044.jp2"}, "45": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 33\\nlonger journeys to Germany and Holland in\\n1862, to Italy in 1863, to the Riviera in the\\nspring of 1864, and to Torquay in 1865\\n1866; and although we learn, also, that he\\nenjoyed the privilege of instruction from private\\ntutors upon most of these occasions, it was then,\\nas always, the things which lay aside from the\\ncommon road of knowledge which counted in\\nhis education. We have his own (oft-quoted)\\nstatement of the matter: All through my boy-\\nhood and youth I was known and pointed out\\nfor the pattern of an idler; and yet. he adds,\\nI was always busy on my own private end,\\nwhich was to learn to write. At the age of\\nseventeen Robert Louis Stevenson was entered\\nas a student at Edinburgh University; and\\nduring the time of his attendance at the classes\\nthere, we have the same story: Indeed, I denied\\nmyself many opportunities acting upon an ex-\\ntensive and highly rational system of truantry,\\nwhich cost me a great deal of trouble to put\\nin exercise perhaps as much as would have\\ntaught me Greek and sent me forth into the\\nworld and the profession of letters with the\\nmerest shadow of an education.\\nDictionary of National Bio,::;rapJ7y art., Steveuson, Robert\\nLouis.\\nR. L. S., Memories and Portraits. Ibid.\\n3", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0045.jp2"}, "46": {"fulltext": "34 R- L. STEVENSON.\\nAt the same time, says Mr Colvin, he\\nread precociously and omnivorously in the belles-\\nlettres, including a very wide range of English\\npoetry, fiction, and essays, and a fairly wide\\nrange of French. Later in life, he devoted\\nmuch time to the study of the history of the\\nHighlands, French history of the fifteenth cen-\\ntury, and to the records of the First Napoleon\\nand the Duke of Wellington. At the time when\\nRobert Louis left school, his father bought\\nSwanston Cottage, which, lying in the Pentland\\nHills, three miles from Edinburgh, became the\\ncountry residence of the family. Here Steven-\\nson made acquaintance with John Todd, the\\nshepherd, as related in the Pastoral and it\\nwas from John Todd, I am told, that he ac-\\nquired at first-hand much of his knowledge of\\nthe classic vernacular. Originally intended for\\nthe family profession, Stevenson, while at the\\nUniversity, was at first a pupil of Fleeming\\nJenkin, Professor of Engineering, whose bio-\\ngraphy, in course of time, he came to write.\\nHere is an extract from the Memoir of that\\nsingular, admirable being, Fleeming Jenkin,\\nwhich discovers to us (as biographies are apt\\n1 Dictionary of National Biography art., Stevenson, Robert\\nLouis.\\n2 R. L. S., Memories and Portraits,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0046.jp2"}, "47": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 35\\nto do) at least as much of the author as of\\nhis hero.\\nI was incUned [says Stevenson] to regard any pro-\\nfessor as a joke, and Fleeming as a particularly good\\njoke, perhaps the broadest in the vast pleasantry of my\\ncurriculum. I was not able to follow his lectures I\\nsomehow dared not misconduct myself, as was my\\ncustomary solace and I refrained from attending.\\nThis brought me at the end of the session into a\\nrelation with my contemned professor that completely\\nopened my eyes. During the year, bad student as I\\nwas, he had shown a certain leaning to my society I\\nhad been to his house he had asked me to take a\\nhumble part in his theatricals I was a master in the\\nart of extracting a certificate even at the cannon s\\nmouth and I was under no apprehension. But when\\nI approached Fleeming I found myself in another\\nworld he would have naught of me. It is quite\\nuseless {or you to come to me, Mr Stevenson. There\\nmay be doubtful cases, there is no doubt about yours.\\nYou have simply no^ attended my class. The docu-\\nment was necessary to me for family considerations\\nand presently I stooped to such pleadings and rose to\\nsuch adjurations as make my ears burn to remember.\\nHe was quite unmoved he had no pity for me.\\nYou are no fool, said he, and you chose your\\ncourse. I showed him that he had misconceived\\nhis duty, that certificates were things of form, attend-\\nance a matter of taste. Two things, he replied, had\\nbeen required for graduation a certain competency", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0047.jp2"}, "48": {"fulltext": "36 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nproved in the final trials, and a certain period of\\ngenuine training proved by certificate if he did as I\\ndesired, not less than if he gave me hints for an\\nexamination, he was aiding me to steal a degree.\\nYou see, Mr Stevenson, these are the laws and I am\\nhere to apply tliem, said he. I could not say but\\nthat this view was tenable, though it was new to me\\nI changed my attack it was only for my father s eye\\nthat I required his signature, it need never go to the\\nSenatus, I had already certificates enough to justify\\nmy year s attendance. Bring them to me I cannot\\ntake your word for that, said he. Then I will\\nconsider. The next day I came charged with my\\ncertificates, a humble assortment. And when he had\\nsatisfied himself, Remember, said he, that I can\\npromise nothing, but I will try to find a form of\\nwords. He did find one, and I am still ashamed\\nwhen I think of his shame in giving me that paper.\\nHe made no reproach in speech, but his manner was\\nthe more eloquent it told me plainly what a dirty\\nbusiness we were on and I went from his presence,\\nwith my certificate indeed in my possession, but with\\nno answerable sense of triumph. That was the bitter\\nbeginning of my love for Fleeming I never thought\\nlightly of him afterwards.\\nThis little story strikes the English reader,\\nunused to the traditions of a Scottish university,\\nwith a mild amaze. A student, bone-idle and\\nquite irresponsible, comes, first to demand, and\\n1 R. L. S., Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0048.jp2"}, "49": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 37\\nthen to beg, from his professor a certificate of at-\\ntendance at classes which he did not attend. It\\nis necessary to him, he says, for family consider-\\nations not a new proposition, but sufficiently\\nintelligible. The student is astonished to find\\nthat his professor considers himself in justice\\nbound to refuse that prayer. Thereupon he\\npleads with the professor as with one labouring\\nunder singular misconceptions and he actually\\nprevails and, finally, when he writes that\\nprofessor s memoir many years afterwards, he\\ncites the whole incident (careless of his own\\ncharacter) as an example of the extraordinary\\nprobity (or what?) of the said professor.\\nThe summer vacations of Stevenson s eigh-\\nteenth and two following years were devoted\\nto visiting the works of his father s firm, which\\nwere in progress at various points on the Scottish\\ncoast.\\nAnd all the while [he says, when upon one of these\\nexpeditions] I was aware that this life of sea-bathing\\nand sun-burning was for me but a holiday. In that\\nyear cannon were roaring for days together on French\\nbattlefields and I would sit in my isle (I call it mine,\\nafter the use of lovers) and think upon the war, and\\nthe loudness of these far-away battles, and the pain of\\nthe men s wounds, and the weariness of their marching.\\nAnd I would think too of that other war which is as", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0049.jp2"}, "50": {"fulltext": "38 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nold as mankind, and is indeed the life of man the\\nunsparing war, the grinding slavery of competition;\\nthe toil of seventy years, dear-bought bread, precarious\\nhonour, the perils and pitfalls, and the poor rewards.\\nIt was a long look forward the future summoned me\\nas with trumpet-calls, it warned me back as with a\\nvoice of weeping and beseeching and I thrilled and\\ntrembled on the brink of life, like a childish bather on\\nthe beach,\\nWhatever these sentiments denote, they hardly\\ndenote the point of view of the heaven-born\\nengineer, such as the essayist s father and\\ngrandfather were before him.\\nThis was [he says in another place] when I came as\\na young man to glean engineering experience from the\\nbuilding of the breakwater. What I gleaned, I am\\nsure I do not know but indeed I had already my\\nown private determination to be an author; I loved\\nthe art of words and the appearances of life and\\ntravellers, and headers, and rubble, and polished ashlar,\\nand pierres perdues, and even the thrilling question of\\nthe string-course, interested me only (if they interested\\nme at all) as properties for some possible romance or\\nas words to add to my vocabulary My only\\nindustry was in the hours when I was not on duty\\nThen it was that I wrote Voces Fidelium, a series\\nof dramatic monologues in verse then that I indited\\n1 R. L. S., Memories and Portraits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0050.jp2"}, "51": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 39\\nthe bulk of a Covenanting novel like so many others,\\nnever finished.^\\nPlainly, this dilettante young man was not\\nmade of the fibre which the generations of\\nStevensons had been accustomed to look for\\nin the making of a civil engineer.\\nI was educated [he says, in a letter to a friend]\\nfor a civil engineer on my father s design, and was at\\nthe building of harbours and lighthouses, and worked\\nin a carpenter s shop and a brass foundry, and hung\\nabout wood-yards and the like. Then it came out I\\nwas learning nothing, and, on being tightly cross-\\nquestioned during a dreadful evening walk, I owned I\\ncared for nothing but literature. My father said that\\nwas no profession, but I might be called to the Bar if I\\nchose. At the age of twenty-one I began to study law.**\\nFrom childhood, Stevenson had been con-\\nstantly writing: writing verse, and essays, and\\nromances and plays, and imitations everything\\nfor the sake of practice in literary gymnastic.\\nOf these studies. The Peiitland Rising, written in\\nthe author s sixteenth year, was first published\\nas a pamphlet (which, as he increased in re-\\nnown, became a treasure desired of collectors),\\nand again, among the collected works in the\\nR. L. S., Afefnories and Portraits.\\n2 E. Blantyre Simpson, Robert Louis Stevenson s Edinburgh\\nDays.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0051.jp2"}, "52": {"fulltext": "40 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nEdinburgh Edition, together with two or three\\nother juvenile pieces. It is curious, and encour-\\naging to the aspirant, to note how little natural\\nfacility of expression is manifested in it. There\\nis nothing in the essay to distinguish it from the\\nperformance of any other bookish youth of six-\\nteen and that one born so weak-fingered\\nshould eventually attain to the mastery of a\\nsingular opulence of diction, argues fine qualities\\nof perseverance and tenacity of mind broken\\ntenacity of mind is his own expression.^\\nAmong all the perplexities and changing aims\\nand fancies of youth, he seems to have held an\\nunswerving course to this one clear bourne he\\nwould learn to write. He read for the Bar, and\\nin due time, at the age of five-and-twenty, on\\n14th July 1875, he passed his final examination\\nwith credit, and was called to the Bar on the\\ni6th but all the legal erudition was by the\\nway. During the four or five years from the time\\nhe abandoned the engineering profession to his\\ncall to the Bar, Stevenson was really graduating,\\nin many ways, for the profession of letters. To\\nbegin with, he was still writing, and again writ-\\ning, and always writing.\\n1 R. L. S., Vailima Letters.\\n2 Dictionary oj National Biography art, Stevenson, Robert\\nLouis.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0052.jp2"}, "53": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 4I\\nI must have had some disposition to learn [he says\\nof himself confidential as usual at this period of his\\nlife], for I clear-sightedly condemned my own per-\\nformances. I liked doing them indeed but when\\nthey were done, I could see they were rubbish. In\\nconsequence, I very rarely showed them even to my\\nfriends and such friends as I chose to be my con-\\nfidants. I must have chosen well, for they had the\\nfriendliness to be quite plain with me. Padding,\\nsaid one. Another wrote I cannot understand why\\nyou do lyrics so badly. No more could I Thrice\\nI put myself in the way of a more authoritative rebuff,\\nby sending a paper to a magazine. These were re-\\nturned and I was not surprised, or even pained. If\\nthey had not been looked at, as (like all amateurs) I\\nsuspected was the case, there was no good in repeating\\nthe experiment if they had been looked at well,\\nthen I had not yet learned to write, and I must keep\\non learning and living.^\\nOne remarks, first of all, the admirable seri-\\nousness with which the apprentice takes his\\nchosen trade. Names are familiar to us whose\\nowners were authors of repute, and glibly earn-\\ning quite comfortable little incomes at an age\\nwhen Stevenson is still clear-sightedly (and\\nprobably with perfect justice) condemning his\\nown performances and yet, in the end, he\\nhas outstripped the most of his contemporaries\\n1 R. L. S Ilfetnories and Poj-traits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0053.jp2"}, "54": {"fulltext": "42 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nBut, one remarks in addition, that the aspirant\\nhas begun at last to suspect that the manner of\\nliterature is not entirely and absolutely every-\\nthing necessary to the perfect author, but that\\nthe matter, also, counts for a little I must\\nkeep on learning and living^ he says.\\nAnd it was during those four or five years of\\nhis life, from his twentieth year to his twenty-\\nfifth, that the Stevenson whom we know upon\\nthe narrow stage of literary history was making\\nhimself. In the beginning of these years, to\\nthe vain, introspective, hyper-sensitive youth of\\nThe Pent land Rising, The Wreath of Immor-\\ntelles, and the rest the valetudinarian boy\\nwho spent much of his time in the seclusion\\nof his bed-chamber, heaped about with manu-\\nscripts there came his cousin, the same with\\nwhom he had once played at the game of\\nmagic islands in the nursery, Mr R. A. M.\\nStevenson, recently emancipated from the Uni-\\nversity of Cambridge. Mr R. A. M. Stevenson\\nwas the elder of the two, and he forthwith under-\\ntook (it seems) the education of his cousin Louis,\\nin the modern city where the dying light of the\\nold order still smouldered among discredited\\nashes.\\nTo know what you like [says Stevenson, writing in\\nmiddle life,] is the beginning of wisdom and of old age.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0054.jp2"}, "55": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 43\\nYouth is vvholl}^ experimental. The essence and charm\\nof that unquiet and dehghtful epoch is ignorance of self\\nas well as ignorance of life. These two unknowns the\\nyoung man brings together again and again, now in the\\nairiest touch, now with a bitter hug now with exquisite\\npleasure, now with cutting pain but never with in-\\ndifference, to which he is a total stranger, and never\\nwith that near kinsman of indifference, contentment.\\nIt is not beauty that he loves, nor pleasure that\\nhe seeks, though he may think so his design and his\\nsufficient reward is to verify his own existence and taste\\nthe variety of human fate.^\\nAnd in verifying his own existence and tasting\\nthe variety of human fate whatever these ex-\\npressions may connote did Stevenson, together\\nwith his senior, spend the next two or three\\nyears a period whose inner records were written\\nin the sand, and survive not the waves of time.^\\nR. L. S., Later Essays.\\n2 Mr Colvin s reference to these years {Dictionary of National\\nBiography, art, Stevenson, Robert Louis is, perhaps, a little\\nmisleading. No doubt the differences of which they were com-\\npounded were not all reputable. But it was a time of walking\\nand canoeing as well as of drink and jink and the L. J. R.\\n(that mysterious and strange society and it took our author out\\nof himself, it brought him face to face with life and character, it\\ntaught him to be something other than the sedulous ape of\\nsome one else, and (for his intimates were all talkers and moral-\\nists) it initiated and developed a practice of discussion and debate\\nwhich left no theme of speculation unattempted nor many unex-\\nhausted.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 W. E. H.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0055.jp2"}, "56": {"fulltext": "44 R- L- STEVENSON.\\nAmong his friends at this period were Mr\\nCharles Baxter, the late Sir Walter Grindlay\\nSimpson, Fleeming Jenkin, and James Walter\\nFerrier. Later, he came to know Mr Sidney\\nColvin and, a year or two afterwards, in the\\nearly days of 1875, he first met Mr W. E.\\nHenley, who was then a patient in the Edin-\\nburgh Old Infirmary. In the lines which I am\\nso fortunate as to be allowed to print at the\\nbeginning of this volume, Mr Henley has deline-\\nated Robert Louis Stevenson as he knew him, in\\nthe beginning of a friendship which lasted long.\\nAnd in his essay on Talk and Talkers (the\\nfirst series) Stevenson has left a picture of the\\nsociety of his friends. Their identity is masked\\nunder pseudonyms in the text but the matter is\\nan open secret; and there is now no breach of\\nconfidence in discovering Burly as Mr W. E.\\nHenley, Spring;- Hee I d Jack as Mr R. A. M.\\nStevenson, Athelred and Cockshot as the late Sir\\nW. G. Simpson and Fleeming Jenkin. In this\\nsociety Stevenson learned to talk and it is\\nupon record that he became a proficient in the\\nart. At this time, too, he was a member of\\nthe Edinburgh Speculative Society.\\nThe Speculative Society [he says] is a body of some\\nantiquity, and has counted among its members Scott,\\nBrougham, Jeffrey, Horner, Benjamin Constant,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0056.jp2"}, "57": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE 45\\nRobert Emmet, and many a legal and local celebrity\\nbesides. By an accident, variously explained, it has\\nits rooms in the very buildings of the University of\\nEdinburgh a hall, Turkey-carpeted, hung with pic-\\ntures, looking, when lighted up at night with fire and\\ncandle, like some goodly dining-room a passage-like\\nlibrary, walled with books in their wire cages and a\\ncorridor with a fireplace, benches, a table, many prints\\nof famous members, and a mural tablet to the virtues\\nof a former secretary. Here a member can warm\\nhimself and loaf and read here, in defiance of the\\nSenatus-consults, he can smoke.\\nAnd here it was that the Edinburgh University\\nMagazine was founded by James Walter Ferrier,\\nRobert Glasgow Brown, Stevenson himself, and\\nanother. Stevenson contributed six papers to\\nthe magazine, which are included in the Edin-\\nburgh edition. The sixth, and last, An Old\\nScots Gardener, is included in his Memories and\\nPortraits. The piece is highly tentative but to\\nus (who know, tis true, the sequel) it seems to\\ncarry a promise of much greater things. It is,\\nR. L. S., Mevtories and Portraits. And, In the early\\nseventies, says Miss Simpson, Louis was twice president of\\nthe Speculative. He wrote several papers for this society:\\nThe Influence of the Cmenanting Perseaition on the Scottish\\nMind (1S71) lYotes on ^Paradise Lost (1872); A otes on the\\nNirteteenth Century, Two Questions in the Relations between\\nChrist s Teaching and Modern Christianity (1873) Law and\\nFree Will Notes on the Duke of Argyll", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0057.jp2"}, "58": {"fulltext": "46 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nat least, a considerable advance on the earlier\\nattempts included in \\\\htjiruenilia.\\nStevenson first appeared before the greater\\nworld in a little essay on Roads, which, after\\nbeing refused by the Saturday Review, was pub-\\nlished in the Portfolio for December 1893, and\\nwhich was signed L. S. Stoneveit} By this time\\nhe had visited London, and had there become\\nacquainted with writers whose names are familiar\\nto us. And, by this time, in the intervals of\\nhis legal studies, he was already at work\\nupon the first of those essays which were after-\\nwards collected under the title of Familiar\\nStudies of Men and Books. In 1875, in his\\ntwenty-fifth year, he went to France for a\\ntime, to the forest of Fontainebleau, where Mr\\nR. A. M. Stevenson was then living in the\\npainter-settlements. The visit was the first of\\nseveral, and in his Fontainebleau (and, inci-\\ndentally, in The Wrecker) he has made a picture\\nof these village communities of painters\\nand there is in Paris a. certain cafe, which\\nowns a little room lined with paintings and\\nopening upon the river, where M. Stevenson is\\nstill remembered.\\n1 E. Blantyre Simpson, Robert Louis Stevenson s Edinburgh\\nDays.\\n2 R. L. S., Later Essays.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0058.jp2"}, "59": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 47\\nThe charm of Fontainebleau [he says] is a thing\\napart. It is a place that people love even more than\\nthey admire. The vigorous forest air, the silence,\\nthe majestic avenues of highway, the wilderness of\\ntumbled boulders, the great age and dignity of certain\\ngroves these are but ingredients, they are not the\\nsecret of the philtre. The place is sanative the air,\\nthe light, the perfumes, and the shapes of things con-\\ncord in happy harmony. The artist may be idle and\\nnot fear the blues. He may dally with his life\\nI was for some time a consistent Barbizonian\\nei ego in Arcadia vixi it was a pleasant season and\\nthat noiseless hamlet lying close among the borders of\\nthe wood is for me, as for so many others, a green\\nspot in memory. The great Millet was just dead the\\ngreen shutters of his modest house were closed his\\ndaughters were in mourning. The date of my first\\nvisit was thus an epoch in the history of art in a\\nlesser way it was an epoch in the history of the Latin\\nQuarter. The Petit C/nacle was dead and buried\\nMurger and his crew of sponging vagabonds were all\\nat rest from their expedients the tradition of their\\nreal life was nearly lost and the petrified legend of\\nthe Vie de Bohcme had become a sort of gospel, and\\nstill gave the clue to zealous imitators.^\\nIn the summer of the same year, 1875, Steven-\\nson was called to the Bar, had a brass door-plate\\n(at 17 Heriot Row) engraved with the legend\\nRobert Louis Stevenson, Advocate, and began\\nR. L. S., Later Essays.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0059.jp2"}, "60": {"fulltext": "48 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nto pace the Parliament House in the mornings,\\naccording to the Scots custom in use among\\nbriefless advocates. Among the legal fry of\\nScotland, to whom he was known as The Gifted\\nBoy, Stevenson seems to have walked apart and\\nsolitary, nursing his soul. At this point, one\\nmay observe that he was never popular in\\nhis native city. The society of Edinburgh\\ncourted him not, neither in his inglorious youth,\\nnor his middle age of renown. Edinburgh\\nhe says, is a metropolitan small\\ntown where college professors and the lawyers\\nof the Parliament House give the tone, and\\npersons of leisure, attracted by educational\\nadvantages, make up much of the bulk of\\nsociety. He was not of that society, and\\nthat society knew it, as he knew it. Indeed,\\nit is probable that the little fellowship I have\\nenumerated made the whole of his visiting\\nacquaintance in Edinburgh. Since the facts are\\ncommon property, I need have no scruple in re-\\nferring to them. The coteries which had been\\naccustomed to regard the Stevenson family with\\nrespect and esteem, declined to recognise the wil-\\nful eccentric who elected to drive down Princes\\nStreet (that classic thoroughfare) clothed in boat-\\ning flannels and a straw hat, upon a summer s\\nR. L. S., Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0060.jp2"}, "61": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 49\\nafternoon whose chosen attire in mid-winter\\nwas a pork-pie hat embroidered with silver, a\\nvelvet jacket, and a Spanish cloak who wore\\nhis hair curling below the bottom of his advo-\\ncate s wig who attended evening parties in a\\nblue-black flannel shirt; and who (it is upon\\nrecord) delighted to outrage the decorous con-\\nventions which govern Anglified Edinburgh.\\nStevenson did not waste overmuch time in the\\nParliament House. If he ever held a brief,\\nwhich seems doubtful, he held but one for by\\nthis time he was fast wedded to literature. And,\\nin 1876, we behold the Scot emancipated.\\nIn the publication of the Virginibus Ptierisque\\nessays, Stevenson emerges at last from the difficult\\nobscurity of his long probation, and unfurls his\\nflag upon the capital city of his own peculiar\\ncountry. The years have done their work by\\nwhat way soever the young man travelled to his\\n1 Margaret Moyes Black, R. Louis Stevenson.\\n2 He came to an informal evening in these garments, and, in\\ntheir lemoval, appeared in a dress-coat, a blue flannel shirt, a\\nknitted tie, pepper-and-salt trousers, silk socks, and patent leather\\nshoes (he was exceeding vain of his foot, which was neat and ele-\\ngant). His hair fell to his collar; he waltzed, he talked, he ex-\\nploded, he was altogether wonderful. And the women (this would\\nhave touched him, had he known it) were in fits of laughter till\\na whole Romantic Movement in his cloak and turban he\\ndeparted. To dream (it may be) over a sentence of Sir Thomas\\nBrowne s and a gin-and-ginger at Rutherford s. W. E. H.\\n4", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0061.jp2"}, "62": {"fulltext": "50 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nown, he came to his own at last. As he was\\nborn a Stevenson and a Balfour, so he was\\nborn a theologian, a moralist, and a sectary in\\na word, a Shorter Catechist. And a Shorter\\nCatechist he remains to the end, though he came\\nto wear his rue with a difference. In the Vir-\\nginibus Puerisque essays, which might well be\\ncalled, as the author thought at first of calling\\nthem, Zz/^ at Tzve7ity-Five,\\\\h sectary has broken\\nhis bonds and cast away his cords, has faced to\\nthe right-about, and is found laying down the\\nlaw in gay contradiction. He is still, you ob-\\nserve, promulgating morality a morality with\\na difference still a theologian and a moralist;\\nand, to the last day of his life, the Shorter\\nCatechist with inextinguishable zest, was em-\\nployed in finding and formulating a rule of con-\\nduct for himself and others, and for others still\\nmore than himself. And Virginihiis Puerisque, of\\nwhich I shall have more to say, contains work of\\nStevenson s which remains unsurpassed by any-\\nthing achieved by the artist in later life; and\\nfrom that point he went straight forward.\\nIn the spring of this year (1876), he made the\\ncanoe trip through Belgium with Sir Walter\\nSimpson, as related in An Inland Voyage and in\\nthe autumn he travelled in the Cevennes, as re-\\nlated in the Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0062.jp2"}, "63": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 5 1\\nNeither of these two excellent little books brought\\nprofit to their author, nor did they, at the first,\\nextend his fame beyond the immediate circle of\\nhis friends. During this year, also, Stevenson\\ncontributed to the Academy, Vanity Fair, and\\nLondon, a weekly review founded in Sir Walter\\nSimpson s rooms by Robert Glasgow Brown, and\\ninvented largely, if not wholly, by Stevenson and\\nW. E. Henley. Soon afterwards, upon Brown s\\nuntimely death at Mentone, Mr Henley suc-\\nceeded to the conduct of the journal and it\\nwas during his reign that Stevenson contributed\\nto London the brilliant series of TJie New\\nArabian Nights a series which was supposed,\\nby more than one of the proprietors of London,\\nsufficiently to account for the unpopularity of\\ntheir paper. Meanwhile, the essays of Familiar\\nStudies of Meii and Books, and Stevenson s first\\npublished stories, A Lodging for the NigJit\\n{Temple Bar), The Sire de Maletroifs Door\\n(Temple Bar), and Providence and the Guitar\\n(London), had appeared. About this time, also,\\nthe play Deacon Brodie was written in col-\\nlaboration with Mr Henley; and when he\\nwas seven- or eight and -twenty, Stevenson\\nwrote Will d the Mill, which remains, to the\\nmind of the present writer at least, his highest\\nachievement in literature. And early in 1879", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0063.jp2"}, "64": {"fulltext": "52 R. L. STEVENSON.\\n(in his twenty-ninth year), while he was still in\\nEdinburgh, he drafted (as Mr Colvin tells us),\\nbut afterwards laid by, four chapters on ethics\\n(a study to which he once referred as being al-\\nways his veiled mistress under the name of\\nLay Morals, which have been included in the\\nEdinburgh Edition.\\nIn the summer of the same year, Stevenson\\nfound himself compelled to dififer from his\\nfather upon the crucial question of his mar-\\nriage; and, in consequence of that unfortu-\\nnate difference, he was left, for the first time, to\\ngain his living by his own exertions. As yet,\\nas I have said, outside the minority of persons\\ninterested in literature, the work of Stevenson,\\nbrilliant and personal as it was, went almost un-\\nregarded and the prospects of the young author,\\nwho had by this time finally abandoned the law,\\nwere highly discouraging. The lady, an Ameri-\\ncan by birth, whom he desired to make his wife,\\nMrs Osbourne {n(fe Van de Grift), and whose ac-\\nquaintance he had made in France, had returned\\nto California. To the West, then, Stevenson\\nresolved to go; and thither he went, travelling\\nas an emigrant, by emigrant ship and emigrant\\ntrain a rude but satisfying experience for a\\nromantic gentleman nurtured in comfort, and\\nsufferinsf from uncertain health. Thus did", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0064.jp2"}, "65": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 53\\nhe begin those travels and voyages which\\nlanded him at last, a lifelong exile, upon that\\nultimate island where he died. In The Ama-\\nteur Emigrant he has written of his experi-\\nences\\nAs I walked the deck and looked round upon my\\nfellow-passengers, I began for the first time\\nto understand the nature of emigration. Day by day\\nthroughout the passage, and thenceforward across all\\nthe States, and on to the shores of the Pacific, this\\nknowledge grew more clear and melancholy. Emi-\\ngration, from a word of the most cheerful import,\\ncame to sound most dismally in my ear.\\nIt came, indeed, to sound most dismally ere\\nthe author arrived at his journey s end, for the\\nmisery and discomfort set a heavy strain upon\\nhis frail constitution. But he spent his time in\\nmaking acquaintance with his fellow-passengers,\\nin studying them, and sitting down to moralise\\nhis observations on paper, and making pictur-\\nesque notes of the voyage, until the deserts are\\ncrossed, and few people have praised God more\\nhappily than I did, he says. And\\nThe day was breaking as we crossed the ferry the\\nfog was rising over the citied hills of San Francisco\\nthe bay was perfect not a ripple, scarce a stain, upon\\nits blue expanse everything was waiting, breathless,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0065.jp2"}, "66": {"fulltext": "54 R- L. STEVENSON.\\nfor the sun. A spot of cloudy gold lit first upon the\\nhead of Tamalpais, and then widened downward on\\nits shapely shoulder the air seemed to awaken, and\\nbegan to sparkle and suddenly\\nThe tall hills Titan discovered,\\nand the city of San Francisco, and the bay of gold and\\ncorn, were lit from end to end with summer daylight.\\nThe Amateur Emigrant knows how to write a\\npiece of description a landscape in sunrise\\nyou perceive. Nevertheless, he had but scant suc-\\ncess in obtaining work upon the American jour-\\nnals. On the whole, his work was not thought\\nup to Californian standards, says Mr Colvifi,\\nwith cutting irony. During the eight months\\nv^hich Stevenson spent partly at Monterey and\\npartly at San Francisco, he fell a victim to one\\nof those severe attacks of illness to which he was\\nthenceforward liable yet, with the strenuous\\ncourage which was a main virtue of Stevenson s\\ncharacter, he managed, nevertheless, to write\\nthe story of The Pavilion on the Links, two or\\nthree essays for the Cornhill Magazine, a\\nfirst draft of the romance of Prince Otto, and the\\ntwo parts of The Amateur Emigrant!\\nDictmiary of A^ational Biography: art., Stevenson, Robert\\nLouis.\\n2 Ibid. 8 iifid.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0066.jp2"}, "67": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 55\\nIn the meantime, Mrs Osbourne had obtained\\na divorce from her husband; and in the spring\\nof 1880, when Stevenson was in his thirty-first\\nyear, Mrs Van de Grift was married to him.\\nWith the boy Samuel Lloyd Osbourne, Mrs\\nStevenson s son, the two went to live for a time\\nat Juan Silverado, the site of an old mining-\\ncamp above Calistoga, in the Californian coast\\nrange. Here, from TJie Silverado Squatters^ is\\nStevenson s description of the place\\nFor about a furlong we followed a good road along\\nthe hillside through the forest, until suddenly that\\nroad widened out and came abruptly to an end. A\\ncanon, woody below, red, rocky, and naked overhead,\\nv/as here walled across by a clump of rolling stones,\\ndangerously steep, and from twenty to thirty feet in\\nheight. A rusty iron chute on wooden legs came\\nflying, like a monstrous gargoyle, across the parapet.\\nIt was down this that they poured the precious ore\\nand below here the carts stood to wait their lading,\\nand carry it mill-ward down the mountain. The\\nwhole cailon was so entirely blocked, as if by some\\nrude guerilla fortification, that we could only mount\\nby lengths of wooden ladder, fixed in the hillside.\\nThese led us round the farther corner of the clump\\nand when they were at an end we still persevered\\nover loose rubble and wading deep in poison-oak, till\\nwe struck a triangular platform, filling up the whole\\nglen, and shut in on either hand by bold projections", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0067.jp2"}, "68": {"fulltext": "56 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nof the mountain. Only in front the place was open\\nlike the proscenium of a theatre, and we looked forth\\ninto a great realm of air, and down upon tree-tops and\\nhill-tops, and far and near on wild and varied country.\\nThe place still stood as on the day it was deserted a\\nline of iron rails with a bifurcation a truck in working\\norder a world of lumber, old wood, old iron a black-\\nsmith s forge on one side, half-buried in the leaves of\\ndwarf madronas; and on the other, an old brown\\nwooden house\\nHow Stevenson and his wife and stepson lived\\nin that old brovi^n vi^ooden house for several sunny\\nmonths, may be read at length in T/ie Silverado\\nSquatters. Meanwhile, the family difference\\nbefore referred to was brought to a happy conclu-\\nsion, and in August of the same year, 1880, the\\nStevensons came home to Scotland. Six weeks\\nlater, for health s sake, they went to Davos.\\nHere they made acquaintance with John Ad-\\ndin gton Symonds (the Opal stein of Talk and\\nTalkers and his family; and here it was that\\nStevenson and his stepson amused themselves\\nby designing, and printing upon a little press of\\ntheir own, such trifles as the Not and other\\nPoems, the Black Canyon, the Moral Emblems,\\nnow included in the supplementary volume to\\nthe Edinburgh Edition.\\nR. L. S., The Silverado Squatters.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0068.jp2"}, "69": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 57\\nIn May of next year, 188 r, the Stevensons\\nagain returned to Scotland, living, for four\\nmonths, at Pitlochry and Braemar. At this time\\nStevenson wrote TJira W}i Janet, one of the\\ngrisliest of his short stories, and a first draft of\\nThe Merry Men. In August, acting in part upon\\nthe advice of the retiring Professor of History\\nand Constitutional Law in Edinburgh, Sheriff\\n^neas Mackay, he became a candidate for the\\nvacant chair; but his candidature was declined.\\nAnd at this time also he began Treasure Island,\\nwhich remains, in some ways, the best of his\\nlonger works, even as its writing marked a defi-\\nnite stage in his career.\\nIt was far indeed from being my first book, for I\\nam not a novelist alone [says he, writing in a popular\\nmagazine some twelve years later]. But I am well\\naware that my paymaster, the Great Public, regards\\nwhat else I have written with indifference, if not aver-\\nsion Sooner or later, somehow, anyhow, I\\nwas bound to write a novel. It seems vain to ask\\nwhy although I had attempted the thing\\nwith vigour not less than ten or twelve times, I had\\nnot yet written a novel. All all my pretty ones\\nhad gone for a little, and then stopped inexorably like\\na schoolboy s watch. I might be compared to a\\ncricketer of many years standing who should never\\nhave made a run In the fated year I came\\nto live with my father and mother at Braemar.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0069.jp2"}, "70": {"fulltext": "58 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nThere it blew a good deal and rained in a proportion\\nmy native air was more unkind than man s ingratitude,\\nand I must consent to pass a good deal of my time\\nbetween four walls in a house lugubriously known as\\nthe Late Miss McGregor s Cottage. And now admire\\nthe finger of predestination. There was a schoolboy\\nin the Late Miss McGregor s Cottage, home from the\\nholidays, and much in want of something craggy to\\nbreak his mind upon. He had no thought of litera-\\nture it was the art of Raphael that received his\\nfleeting suffrages and with the aid of pen and ink\\nand a shilling box of water-colours, he had soon turned\\none of the rooms into a picture-gallery. My imme-\\ndiate duty towards the gallery was to be showman but\\nI would sometimes unbend a little, join the artist (so\\nto speak) at the easel, and pass the afternoon with\\nhim in a generous emulation, making coloured draw-\\nings. On one of these occasions I made the map of\\nan island it was elaborately and (I thought) beauti-\\nfully coloured the shape of it took my fancy beyond\\nexpression it contained harbours that pleased me like\\nsonnets and, with the unconsciousness of the predes-\\ntined, I ticketed my performance Treasure Island\\nNo child but must remember laying his head\\nin the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and\\nseeing it grow populous with fairy armies. Somewhat\\nin this way, as I paused upon my map of Treasure\\nIsland, the future character of the book began to\\nappear there visibly among imaginary woods and\\ntheir brown faces and bright weapons peeped out upon\\n1 Samuel Lloyd Osbourne.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0070.jp2"}, "71": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 59\\nme from unexpected quarters, as they passed to and\\nfro, fighting and hunting treasure, on these few square\\ninches of a flat projection. The next thing I knew I\\nhad some papers before me and was writing out a list\\nof chapters It seems as though a full-grown\\nexperienced man of letters might engage to turn out\\nTreasure Island at so many pages a day, and keep his\\npipe alight. But, alas this was not my case. Fifteen\\ndays I stuck to it, and turned out fifteen chapters\\nand then, in the early paragraphs of the sixteenth,\\nignominiously lost hold. My mouth was empty\\nthere was not one word of Treasure Island in my\\nbosom and here were the proofs of the beginning\\nalready waiting me at the Hand and Spear. Then\\nI corrected them, living for the most part alone, walk-\\ning on the heath at Weybridge in dewy autumn morn-\\nings, a good deal pleased with what I had done, and\\nmore appalled than I can depict to you in words at\\nwhat remained for me to do. I was thirty-one I\\nwas the head of a family I had lost my health I\\nhad never yet paid my way, never yet made ;^200 a-\\nyear my father had quite recently bought back and\\ncancelled a book that was judged a failure was this\\nto be another and last fiasco I was indeed very close\\non despair; but I shut my mouth hard, and during\\nthe journey to Davos, where I was to pass the winter,\\nhad the resolution to think of other things and bury\\nmyself in the novels of M. du Boisgobey. Arrived at\\nmy destination, down I sat one morning to the un-\\nfinished tale and behold it flowed from me like\\nThe Amateur Emigrant.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0071.jp2"}, "72": {"fulltext": "60 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nsmall-talk and in a second tide of delighted industry,\\nand again at the rate of a chapter a-day, I finished\\nTreasure Jsla?id}\\nThus the author, writing, in the days of his\\nsuccess, of the days when he was yet unknown\\nto fame. These confidential reminiscences seem\\nbetter fitted for the pages of a private letter than\\nfor the columns of a popular magazine. But\\nthere these records are and, such as they are,\\nwe find them interesting, and significant of the\\nwriter s character. The singular lack of reti-\\ncence which induced a man of letters of Steven-\\nson s eminence thus to respond to the request\\nof a popular magazine for a piece of private\\nhistory, and the curious fitful working the\\nbroken tenacity of a mind whose talent\\nlay always in dealing with episode, never with\\na lengthy and complicated narrative, which are\\nhere revealed, discover to us two essential char-\\nacteristics of the man s temperament.\\nStevenson finished Treasnre Island at Davos\\nduring the winter of 1881-82; in the following\\nsummer he returned to Scotland, whence he\\njourneyed south for the winter, taking up his\\nquarters near Marseilles. In January 1883 he\\nremoved his household to a chdlet, Chalet la\\nSolitude, near Hyeres. Meanwhile Treasure\\nR. L. S., Juvenilia, c.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0072.jp2"}, "73": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 6l\\nIsland had run its serial course in Voting Folks\\nPaper (at thirty shillings a chapter, I am told),\\nand had appeared as a volume. The book made\\nStevenson s first popular success^ one of those\\nsudden, extraordinary popular successes which\\nso often perplex and confound the critical but,\\nin this case, every one bought the book for the\\nadequate reason that it was good story, brilliantly\\ntold.\\nWhile he lived in the south, Stevenson wrote\\nthe Treasiire of Franchard, a short story which\\nseems, to me, to express one aspect of a many-\\nsided temperament as completely as Will d the\\nMill gives expression to another and The Black\\nArrow, a story of adventure written to succeed\\nTreasure Island in Yonng Folks Paper. The\\nreaders of Yonng Folks Paper, it is said, cared\\nlittle for Treasure Island but they were thought\\nto like The Black Arrow.\\nIn the eyes of readers who thought less than nothing\\nof Treasure Island [says the author, in one of those\\ndedications which afford a perennial pleasure to read].\\nThe Black Arroiv was supposed to mark a clear\\nadvance. Those who read volumes and those who\\nread story papers belong to different worlds. The\\nverdict on Treasure Island was reversed in the other\\ncourt I wonder, will it be the same with its successor?\\n1 It enchanted the proprietor of The Times, and drew a post-\\ncard from Mr Gladstone.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0073.jp2"}, "74": {"fulltext": "62 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nThe verdict was reversed so variable a thing is\\nthe thermometer of popular taste. At this time,\\nalso, Stevenson was writing essays for The Corn-\\nhill (in which periodical the Virginibiis Puerisque\\nseries had first appeared), and for The Magazine\\nof Art, which was then edited by Mr Hen-\\nley. He was, also, preparing for serial publi-\\ncation Pri^tce Otto, which had been drafted two\\nor three years before. His work suffered an\\ninterruption during almost the whole of the\\nensuing year, 1884, for, while still in the south,\\nStevenson was again attacked by serious illness\\nand returning to England, he settled in the\\nautumn at Bournemouth. There, in divers lodg-\\nings, he wrote the first and best of his Child s\\nGarden, together with his share of Beau Austin\\nand Admiral Guinea. And then, early in 1885,\\nhis father presented him with the house in which\\nhe lived until 1887, and which he called Skerry-\\nvore, after the noble and beautiful lighthouse\\ndesigned and built by his uncle, Alan Stevenson.\\nFor love of lovely words, and for the sake\\nOf those, my kinsmen and my countrymen.\\nWho early and late in the windy ocean toiled\\nTo plant a star for seamen, where was then\\nThe surfy haunt of seals and cormorants\\nI, on the lintel of this cot, inscribe\\nThe name of a strong tovver.i\\n1 R. L. S., Utiderivoods.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0074.jp2"}, "75": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 63\\nThe while he dwelt in Skerryvore, he was\\nnever, says Mr Colvin, free for many weeks\\ntogether from fits of haemorrhage and prostra-\\ntion. At this time, again, it seems that\\nhe must work under the disabilities of the\\ninvalid. Nevertheless, he continued to pursue\\nhis vocation with unfaltering and delighted\\nindustry. In this year (the thirty-fifth of his\\nage) he completed The Child s Garden of Verses,\\nand stringently revised Prince Otto (it had\\nbeen written six or seven times ere it got into\\nLongman s Magazine^) before the final appearance\\nof the story as a volume. He began The Great\\nNorth Road, a promising fragment which is in-\\ncluded in the Edinburgh Edition he wrote, with\\nMrs Stevenson, the second series of The New\\nArabiafi Nights he wrote sundry essays several\\nChristmas stories stories, that is to say, which\\nappeared in Christmas numbers of various peri-\\nodicals The Body Snatcher (not republished),\\nOlalla, The Misadvetitures of John Nicholson, and\\nMarkheim and about this period he and Mr\\nHenley remodelled Deacon Brodie and wrote\\n1 And, even after so much revision, there may be found in the\\ntext of Longman s Magazine a deal of blank verse which leads\\nus to remark that blank verse written in the place of prose is,\\nnot necessarily the result of careless workmanship (as some have\\nvainly dreamed), nor even of fatigue but, merely the natural\\noutcome of strong emotion.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0075.jp2"}, "76": {"fulltext": "64 R- L. STEVENSON.\\nRobert Macaire. His books, meanwhile, had\\nbrought him scant increase of fame or profit.\\n(Mr Colvin tells us that, until 1886, his thirty-\\nsixth year, Stevenson had never earned much\\nmore than ^^300 a-year: a record one would\\ncommend to the literary aspirant for his par-\\nticular consideration.) But, in 1886, he achieved\\na second popular victory, in The Sirajige Case of\\nDr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. That extraordinary\\nlittle work incidentally appealed, not only to\\nthat side of the British temperament which\\ndemands entertainment but, to the moral,\\nor religious, element inherent in the national\\ncharacter, that element to which no appeal,\\nhigh or low, righteous or fantastic or hysterical,\\nis ever wholly vain. The clergy at large espied\\nanother opportunity for pressing a secular phe-\\nnomenon into the service of the sanctuary;\\nand Dr Jekyll was captured and turned to great\\naccount as a pulpit metaphor. And there was\\none ingenious gentleman at least, who, living at\\nBournemouth, profited by a number of sermons\\nwhich he never heard. For, every one bought\\nand read Dr Jekyll; and, together with Kidnapped,\\nreprinted from Young Folks Paper about the same\\ntime, the little book considerably increased Ste-\\nvenson s reputation. His name, as such, became\\nof monetary value, a signature coveted of pub-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0076.jp2"}, "77": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 65\\nlishers; and, from henceforth, his income was\\nlargely augmented.\\nOf Stevenson s comrades of Edinburgh days,\\ndays from which, by time and chance and\\nchange, he was already far removed, several\\nhad gone the way of all men in Old Mortality,\\nhe had already commemorated James Walter\\nFerrier; and now, in 1886, he came to write\\nthe biography of Professor Fleeming Jenkin,\\nThen, in May of the following year, his father\\ndied and the death of Thomas Stevenson made\\none of the reasons which sent him upon his\\nsecond long exile, which his own death ended.\\nHis ill-health made another; and, says Mr\\nColvin, his wife s connections pointing to\\nthe west, he thought of Colorado, persuaded\\nhis mother to join them, and with his whole\\nhousehold mother, wife, and stepson sailed\\nfor New York on 17 Aug. 1887. At first\\nthe family stayed at Newport, then they settled\\nfor a time at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks,\\nthen Stevenson came to New York for a little\\nwhile, and then, leaving the city, he went for\\nsome weeks boating to Manasquan on the New\\nJersey coast. During this time, from August\\n1887 to May 1888, he had written Ticonderoga,\\n1 Dictionary of A^ational BiograJ^ky art., Stevenson, Robert\\nLouis.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0077.jp2"}, "78": {"fulltext": "66 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nand a series of twelve essays for Scribner s\\nMagazine, had begun The Master of Ballajiirae,\\nand had completed, together with his stepson\\nMr Lloyd Osbourne, the narrative farce, The\\nWrong Box.\\nWriting to Mr Colvin upon the aspect of\\nPiilvis et Umbra and the didactic pieces among\\nthe Scribner essays, Stevenson says I agree\\nwith you the lights seem a little turned down\\nthe truth is I was far through, and came none\\ntoo soon to the South Seas, where I was to\\nrecover peace of body and mind. And how-\\never low the lights, the stuff is true. If the\\nlights were low, they burned with radiance\\na radiance which can only be described as lurid;\\nbut as to that I shall have more to say. And,\\nin a fragment of an essay, written four or five\\nyears later, the author tells us how he came to\\nbegin The Master of Ballantrae, that sinister,\\ndisjointed, powerful work:\\nI was walking one night in the verandah of a small\\nhouse in which I lived, outside the hamlet of Saranac.\\nIt was winter the night was very dark the air extra-\\nordinary clear and cold, and sweet with the purity of\\nforests. From a good way below, the river was to be\\nheard contending with ice and boulders a few lights\\nR. L. S., Across the Plains.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0078.jp2"}, "79": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 6/\\nappeared, scattered unevenly among the darkness, but\\nso far away as not to lessen the sense of isolation.\\nFor the making of a story here were fine conditions.\\nI was, besides, moved with the spirit of emulation, for\\nI had just finished my third or fourth perusal of The\\nPhantom Ship. Come, said I to my engine, let\\nus make a tale, a story of many years and countries, of\\nthe sea and the land, savagery and civilisation a story\\nthat shall have the same large features, and may be\\ntreated in the same summary elliptic method as the\\nbook you have been reading and admiring\\nThere cropped up in my memory a singular case of\\na buried and resuscitated fakir, which I had been often\\ntold by an uncle of mine, then lately dead, Inspector-\\nGeneral John Balfour.\\nOn such a fine frosty night, with no wind and the\\nthermometer below zero, the brain works with much\\nvivacity and the next moment I had seen the circum-\\nstance transplanted from India and the tropics to the\\nAdirondack wilderness and the stringent cold of the\\nCanadian border. Here then, almost before I began\\nmy story, I had two countries, two of the ends of the\\nearth involved and thus though the notion of the\\nresuscitated man failed entirely on the score of general\\nacceptation, or even (as I have since found) accep-\\ntability, it fitted at once with my design of a tale of\\nmany lands and this decided me to consider further\\nof its possibihties.i\\nNow, in the spring of 1888 (when Stevenson\\n1 R. L. ii., Juvenilia, ^c.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0079.jp2"}, "80": {"fulltext": "68 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nwas in his thirty-eighth year), comes Mr S. S.\\nMcClure, the American publisher, offering Ste-\\nvenson ^2000 to cruise in the South Seas, and\\nto write the story of his voyages in a series\\nof letters. He accepted the offer; and in\\nJune the Stevenson family set sail from San\\nFrancisco in the schooner yacht Casco, Captain\\nOtis, for the Marquesas Islands thence to the\\nPaumotus thence to the Society Islands and\\nthence northward to Honolulu. The whole\\ncruise lasted about six months. Here, from\\nThe Wrecker (which work was begun at sea\\nabout this time), is Stevenson s picture of his\\nfirst sailing into those desired waters:\\nI love to recall the glad monotony of a Pacific\\nvoyage, when the trades are not stinted, and the ship,\\nday after day, goes free. The mountain scenery of\\ntrade- wind clouds, watched under every vicis-\\nsitude of light blotting stars, withering in the moon s\\nglory, barring the scarlet eve, lying across the dawn\\ncollapsed into the unfeatured morning bank, or at\\nnoon raising their snowy summits between the blue\\nroof of heaven and the blue floor of sea; the small,\\nbusy, and deliberate world of the schooner, with its unfa-\\nmiliar scenes, the spearing of dolphin from the bowsprit\\nend, the holy war on sharks, the cook making bread on\\nthe main hatch reefing down before a violent squall,\\nwith the men hanging out on the foot-ropes the\\nsquall itself, the catch at the heart, the opened sluices", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0080.jp2"}, "81": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 69\\nof the sky; and the relief, the renewed loveliness of\\nlife, when all is over, the sun forth again, and our out-\\nfought enemy only a blot upon the leeward sea. I\\nlove to recall, and would that I could reproduce that\\nlife, the unforgettable, the unrememberable. The mem-\\nory, which shows so wise a backwardness in regis-\\ntering pain, is besides an imperfect recorder of ex-\\ntended pleasures and a long-continued wellbeing\\nescapes (as it were, by its mass) our petty methods\\nof commemoration. On a part of our life s map\\nthere lies a roseate, undecipherable haze, and that\\nis all.\\nOf one thing, if I am at all to trust my own annals,\\nI was delightedly conscious. Day after day, in the sun-\\ngilded cabin, the whisky-dealer s thermometer stood at\\n84\u00c2\u00b0. Day after day the air had the same indescribable\\nliveliness and sweetness, soft and nimble, and cool as\\nthe cheek of health. Day after day the sun flamed\\nnight after night the moon beaconed, or the stars\\nparaded their lustrous regiment. I was aware of a\\nspiritual change, or, perhaps, rather a molecular re-\\nconstitution. My bones were sweeter to me. I had\\ncome home to my own climate, and looked back with\\npity on those damp and wintry zones miscalled the\\ntemperate.\\nThe Stevensons remained at Honolulu for\\nsome six months, and during this time Ste-\\nvenson made a visit to the leper island of\\nMolokai. From Honolulu they set sail upon\\n1 R. L. S., The Wrecker.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0081.jp2"}, "82": {"fulltext": "70 R. L. STEVENSON.\\na second cruise, just a year from the time they\\nstarted from San Francisco.\\nHence [says Stevenson], lacking courage to return to\\nmy old life of the house and sick-room, I set forth to\\nleeward in a trading schooner, the Equator, of a little\\nover seventy tons, spent four months among the atolls\\n(low coral islands) oi the Gilbert group, and reached\\nSamoa towards the close of 89. By that time grati-\\ntude and habit were beginning to attach me to the\\nislands I had gained a competency of strength I\\nhad made friends I had learned new interests the\\ntime of my voyages had passed hke days in fairyland\\nand I decided to remain.^\\nSo, for another six months, the Equator tramps\\namong the islands, visiting the Gilberts, and\\nfetching up about Christmas time, 1889, at\\nApia near Samoa, where the Stevensons stayed\\nfor some weeks. Here Stevenson bought an\\nestate of some four hundred acres, and called\\nit Vailima; and here he wrote The Bottle Imp,\\nthe first of his Pacific yarns. Thence, they\\nsailed to Sydney, where Stevenson, falling ill\\nagain, lost for a time his new-found health.\\nWhile at Sydney, he wrote the Open Letter\\n(printed in that Scots Observer, which, during\\nits conduct by Mr Henley, established a new\\nR. L. S., In the South Seas.\\n2 R. L. S., Later Essays.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0082.jp2"}, "83": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 7 1\\ntradition in literature, in criticism, and in\\njournalism and contended, single-handed, for\\ncertain ideals which the nation, though it\\ndraws from changed sources which claim the\\ninspiration as their own, is at last adopting) to\\nthe Reverend Dr Hyde of Honolulu in which\\nthat clergyman receives an unsparing casti-\\ngation. Dr Hyde had or Stevenson thought\\nhe had, for, after all, the matter seems a shade\\ndoubtful written a letter to a brother ecclesi-\\nastic, containing gross imputations upon the\\ncharacter of Father Damien, the leper evan-\\ngelist, which awoke Stevenson to vengeful indig-\\nnation, and moved him to produce a piece of\\ncapital invective.\\nA happier reminiscence of Sydney, for whose\\nrecord I am indebted to the kindness of Mr\\nRudyard Kipling, remains in the letters ad-\\ndressed by Mr Alan Breck Stuart to one Ter-\\nence Mulvaney. The fame of the said Terence\\nMulvaney has reached Mr Stuart (he says) even\\nin that antipodean city; Mr Mulvaney is in the\\nservice, as it appears to Mr Stuart, of a man\\nwith a strange name, to whom (Mr Stuart is of\\nopinion) he was sent directly from the Almighty.\\nTo this flattering effusion Mr Mulvaney re-\\nsponded in suitable terms whereupon Mr Stuart\\nincontinently despatches a cartel to Mr Mul-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0083.jp2"}, "84": {"fulltext": "72 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nvaney: he challenges him to make music or to\\nfight to pipes or broadswords or both and if\\nboth, then the pipes first and broadswords after,\\nor broadswords first and (if the parties survive)\\npipes after; just whichever Mr Mulvaney pleases;\\nalthough so far as Mr Stuart is able to make\\nout Mr Mulvaney is not of the dtiaine-uasal\\n(^Anglice, of gentle rank), nor does he hold\\nHis Majesty s commission; and therefore, he\\nis scarce of a rank with Alan Breck, who bears\\na king s name. Nevertheless, having in mind\\nMr Mulvaney s indubitable prowess, and the fact\\nof his bearing honourable service to the man of\\nthe strange name aforesaid, Mr Stuart, for the\\npleasure of meeting Mr Mulvaney, is willing\\n(as he says) to overlook these disabilities.\\nFrom Sydney, in April 1890, the Stevensons\\nsailed again in the trading steamer Janet Nicoll.\\nAboard the Janet Nicoll, Stevenson began the\\nseries of letters for Mr McClure, which were\\neventually published in the New York Sun, and,\\nin England, in Black and White, selections from\\nthem being presented in the Edinburgh Edition in\\nIn the South Seas. They exhibit the Scot abroad\\nin a somewhat dreary aspect. They are pictur-\\nesque and skilfully written, as all of Stevenson s\\nwork must be yet the author seems wilfully to\\nignore all of Polynesian life which might not have", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0084.jp2"}, "85": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 73\\nbeen set forth by a missionary discoursing at a\\ntea-party. It is hard to beHeve that In the South\\nSeas was written by the same hand which indited\\nthe earHer Stevensonian essays and stories the\\nhand, even, that wrote The Beach of Falcsd about\\nthe same time. In truth, it is likely that a\\nvision of more humane and catholic comprehen-\\nsion was requisite in dealing with the Islanders\\nthan was possessed by the Shorter Catechist\\nin his austerer middle age. Instead of the man\\nwhose eyes had been opened, it is John Calvin\\ncome alive again, and patrolling the isles of the\\nblest.\\nDuring the summer of 1890, the Janet Nicoll\\ncarried the Stevensons from Sydney and Auck-\\nland to the Penrhyn Islands, thence to the\\nUnion Islands, the Ellice Islands, and north-\\nward to the Gilbert and Marshall Islands,\\nthence back again by New Caledonia, Sydney,\\nand Auckland to Apia, where they landed in\\nSeptember. There, upon his estate of Vailima,\\nStevenson settled with his family. During his\\nvoyages, he had completed The Master of Bal-\\nlantrae, had written sundry verses (included in\\nSongs of Travel^ two dreary ballads of Poly-\\nnesian legend, The Song of RaJiero and The\\nFeast of Famine, had produced (at Samoa) The\\nBottle Imp, and (at Sydney) the Letter to Dr", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0085.jp2"}, "86": {"fulltext": "74 R- L- STEVENSON.\\nHyde, had begun the South Sea Letters, and,\\nwith Mr Lloyd Osbourne, TJie Wrecker. When\\nhe entered upon his residence at Samoa the\\nLetters and TJie Wrecker were still unfinished\\nwhile upon the new estate there were clear-\\ning and planting, and the completion of the\\nhouse to be superintended and how he settled\\ndown to cope with these labours, may be read\\nat large in the Vailijiia Letters addressed to\\nMr Sidney Colvin, and published in the Edin-\\nburgh Edition. In the following spring (1891),\\nMrs Stevenson the elder became a member of\\nthe Stevensonian household Stevenson s step-\\ndaughter, Mrs Strong, had joined the party two\\nyears before and thus, with his mother, wife,\\nstepdaughter, and stepson, with two serious\\ntasks to complete, an estate to lay out and a\\nhouse to build, we behold Stevenson cheerfully\\nentering upon those four arduous years in the\\nPacific which were the last of his life.\\nAt first, his health seemed almost entirely\\nrestored to him, and he accomplished a really\\namazing amount of work without distress. He\\nwrites for six or eight hours a-day, pioneers his\\nestate, rides, boats, and lavishly entertains the\\nisland population generally, both brown and\\nwhite. They called him Tusitala, the teller of\\ntales and indeed, albeit his knowledge of South", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0086.jp2"}, "87": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 75\\nSea life and the South Sea tongues was never\\nmore than a smattering, he liked to pose as\\na kind of a bard, and feudal chieftain. And\\nin the summer of 1891, when the political\\ntroubles of the island, the offspring of German\\nofficialism and native intrigue, began to threaten\\nwar, Stevenson, plunging gaily into that vexed\\nand complicated business, drew his sword upon\\nthe side of the oppressed in his letters to The\\nTimes} There was none to outvie the practised\\nwriter in that exercise; and, in consequence of\\nhis exposures, the three treaty Powers (Great\\nBritain, the United States, and Germany) were\\nconstrained to withdraw from their protectorate\\nthe Chief Justice, Mr Cedercrantz, and the Presi-\\ndent of the Council, Baron Senfift von Pilsach.\\nThe whole story of shifty diplomacy and native\\ncivil war may be read in Stevenson s Footnote to\\nHistory, a monograph which, on the top of all\\nhis other enterprises, he thought it his duty to\\nundertake during 1892; and a curious and in-\\nstructive work it is. The methods of the histo-\\nrian and of the novelist, as Stevenson himself\\nsomewhere observes, are often, ultimately, very\\nmuch the same; and the professional historian,\\nostensibly recording chronicles, sometimes sets\\nforth what is neither more nor less than a novel\\n1 R. L. S., Letters from Samoa.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0087.jp2"}, "88": {"fulltext": "j6 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nin disguise. And, in A Footnote to History we\\nobserve the professional novelist engaged in writ-\\ning history in little, with results highly charac-\\nteristic of the writer.\\nIn 1 891 The Wrecker was completed, and, later\\nin the year, the South Sea Letters. Besides writ-\\ning the Footnote to History during the ensuing\\nyear, Stevenson began Catriona, the sequel to\\nKidnapped, which had been written six years\\nbefore; The Ebb-Tide, in collaboration with Mr\\nLloyd Osbourne; Heathercat} The Young CJieva-\\nlier} Weir of Hermiston} and A Family of Engi-\\nneers} a short biography of the Stevenson ancestry.\\nOf these, only Catriona and The Ebb-Tide were\\ncompleted.\\nIt is evident from the Vailima Letters that, by\\nthis time, Stevenson was habitually overworking\\nhimself. To certain temperaments, working\\nunder certain conditions, there comes a time\\nwhen they cannot stop to rest is no longer in\\ntheir power; and only death will bring cessation.\\nMoreover, though Stevenson was earning an in-\\ncome which, for a man of letters, was large, his\\nexpenses, by his own account, continued to keep\\npace with his earnings. And, besides his proper\\nwork, this fiery thread-paper of a man was build-\\n1 R. L. S., Weir of Hermiston and other Fragments.\\nR. L. S., A Family of Engineers,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0088.jp2"}, "89": {"fulltext": "OUTLINE OF HIS LIFE. 7/\\ning, farming, colonising, working with his hands,\\nand dabbling in politics a highly exhausting\\ndissipation. And, one way and another, the\\nVailima Letters inevitably disengage the impres-\\nsion that the man was driven, that whether\\nby habit or by need, for what cause soever\\nStevenson, in these last years, was toiling under\\nthe lash. His work cost him more than he\\nhad any right to give, more than, in his earlier\\nyears, he would ever have consented to give.\\nBesides, as a man of letters, he had no super-\\nfluous strength wherewith to drive two or three\\nother trades. That the estate of Vailima\\nwould come in time to yield a sufficient main-\\ntenance, thus releasing him from the imme-\\ndiate necessity for toil, was his constant hope.\\nMeanwhile\\nI must own [he writes in December 1893] that I\\nhave overworked bitterly overworked there, that s\\nlegible. My hand is a thing that was, and in the\\nmeanwhile so are my brains. And here, in the very\\nmidst, comes a plausible scheme to make Vaihma pay,\\nwhich will perhaps let me into considerable expense\\njust when I don t want it.^\\nIn the previous January (1893) Stevenson s\\nhealth had again suffered severely from an attack\\nof influenza, from which, in all probability, it\\nR. L. S., Vailima Letters.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0089.jp2"}, "90": {"fulltext": "78 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nnever fully recovered. Prostrated by sickness,\\nhe began to dictate St Ives from his bed; and\\nwhen his voice failed, he continued to dictate\\nupon his fingers. Taking into consideration\\nthe circumstances in which it was composed,\\nSt Ives is a piece of heroism. It might be\\nsupposed that a novelist and man of letters of\\nestablished repute would, at forty-three, begin\\nto take a little ease. Stevenson never did.\\nWhatever the reason in the background, he\\nconceived it his duty to spur his ailing flesh\\nto the last ounce; and, to his honour be it\\nsaid, he fulfilled that conception to the letter.\\nIn the winter of 1894 he turned from St Ives\\nto continue Weir of Heruiiston and the last\\nsentence of that fragment contains the last\\nwords he ever wrote. On the afternoon of\\n4 Dec. 1894, he was talking gaily with his wife,\\nwhen the sudden rupture of a blood-vessel in\\nthe brain laid him at her feet, and within two\\nhours all was over.\\nSo Robert Louis Stevenson, whose first pub-\\nlished essay was rejected by the Saturday Review,\\ncame into his own peculiar kingdom at last;\\nand died and was buried upon the summit of\\nMount Vaea, in the island of his last exile,\\n1 Dictionary of National Biography art., Stevenson, Robert\\nLouis.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0090.jp2"}, "91": {"fulltext": "IV.\\nTHE MORALIST.\\nLife, my old shipmate, life, at any moment and in any\\nview, is as dangerous as a sinking ship and yet it is man s hand-\\nsome fashion to carry umbrellas, to wear indiarubber overshoes,\\nto begin vast works, and to conduct himself in every way as if he\\nmight hope to be eternal. And for my own poor part I should\\ndespise the man who, even on board a sinking ship, should omit\\nto take a pill or to wind up his watch. That, my friend, would\\nnot be the human attitude. R. L. S., Fables.\\nDoctor Desprez always rose early. Before the smoke arose,\\nbefore the first cart rattled over the bridge to the day s labour in\\nthe fields, he was to be found wandering in his garden. Now he\\nwould pick a bunch of grapes now he would eat a big pear\\nunder the trellis now he would draw all sorts of fancies on the\\npath with the end of his cane now he would go down and\\nwatch the river running endlessly past the timber landing-place\\nat which he moored his boat. There was no time, he used to\\nsay, for making theories like the early morning. R. L. S.,\\nThe Treasure of Franchard.\\nThere is no time, indeed, for making theories\\nlike the early morning. In his early youth\\nStevenson acquired that seductive habit, which\\nremained a passion with him to the end. And\\nthe method of his philosophy was ever the same.\\nWhen I was a boy, said his Will o the Mill,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0091.jp2"}, "92": {"fulltext": "\u00e2\u0096\u00a080 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nI was a bit puzzled, and hardly knew whether\\nit was myself or the world that was curious and\\nworth looking into. Now, I know it is myself,\\nand stick to that. Stevenson wrote Will the\\nMill when he was seven- or eight-and-twenty,\\nwhen his Edinburgh days of college, of engineer-\\ning, of law, of jink, and the rest, were done;\\nwhen the term of his nameless, self-ordained\\napprenticeship had expired and after the pub-\\nlication of the Virginibtis Puerisque essays and\\nthe two small books of travel. To me, at least,\\nthat melancholy and beautiful fable is the best\\nof Stevenson, and resumes his whole ideal\\nphilosophy of life. It is highly abstract and\\nvisionary, to be sure but there are a wonderful\\nfeeling for beauty, an extraordinary imaginative\\nperception, and the whole is informed with a\\nsort of fatalism, hopeless yet courageous, which\\nthe English mind sets to the account of the\\nCeltic temperament.\\nThe Treasure of Franchard, written some five\\nyears later, when the author was living in the\\nsouth of France (where, as he says in later life,\\nhe was really happy for once), embraces a\\nmore smiling picture of the ideal Stevenson in\\nDr Desprez, that unstable and meticulous phil-\\nosopher. Hark to the professor of the Art of\\nLife. We hardly know anything, my man.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0092.jp2"}, "93": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. 8 1\\nuntil we try to learn. Interrogate your conscious-\\nness^ cries the sage. Deeply in love with the\\nappearances of life, profoundly interested in\\ntheir effect upon himself, Stevenson was for ever\\nexploring his consciousness; and, with a sort of\\nnaive egoism, he has made the whole reading\\nworld partaker in the fruits of that fantastic\\ncountry.\\nFirst and foremost and always, be it remem-\\nbered, Stevenson was an artist, a maker. He\\nwas entirely employed in making works of art.\\nOut of the stuff of life to fashion something, to\\nproduce an effect this was his one absorbing\\noccupation. All else might be well or ill it was\\nby the way, and of little moment and although\\nthere were exceptions, times when the generosity\\nof the man compelled his partner, the exclusive\\nartist, to descend into the arena, as in the leading\\ninstances of the Stevensonian intervention on\\nbehalf of the luckless Samoans, harried and\\nbought and sold by German officials, and the\\nsmall-sword parade in the matter of Father\\nDamien and the Reverend Dr Hyde of Hono-\\nlulu, yet, even then, we find the champion\\nlamenting that the conditions of combat pre-\\nvented him from producing (what he called)\\nliterature. I do not go in for literature ad-\\ndress myself to sensible people rather than to\\n6", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0093.jp2"}, "94": {"fulltext": "82 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nsensitive, he says and, there is not even a\\ngood sentence in it {A Footjwte to History),\\nbut perhaps I don t know it may be found\\nan honest, clear volume. One may note in\\npassing that he is here quite inconsistent with\\nhis own express definitions of the scope of\\nliterature, to be found elsewhere in his works\\nbut Stevenson was far too clever an artist to be\\nfettered by his own theories. And, indeed, I\\nthink that the man of letters does not live, who\\nmight not feel a just satisfaction in the author-\\nship of that volume deprecated by its author,\\nA Footnote to History.\\nAnd so, among Stevenson s first essays, written\\nwhen he was a lad of twenty, loafing in Edin-\\nburgh, you find a little piece called The Wreath of\\nImmortelles, which is the performance of a hyper-\\nsensitive youth who loves to dally with words,\\nwords, words. The boy is only learning to use\\nhis various equipment; he is endowed with senti-\\nment, insight, imagination, wit, humour, and a\\nlove for style as a thing of intrinsic value; but,\\nhe has laborious years to expend before he can\\nexercise these gifts in harmonious combination.\\nAnd so, some twelve or fourteen years later, you\\nfind the mature artist who was far too intelli-\\ngent a person not to appreciate the situation\\nR. L. S., Vailima Letters.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0094.jp2"}, "95": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. 83\\nyou find the cunning workman preaching another\\nsermon upon the same text, using his old, un-\\nhappy experience, and dexterously superadding a\\nmoral upon the purgative influence of the hand\\nof time.\\nThe comparison of the two essays is instruc-\\ntive\\nThere is a certain frame of mind to which a\\ncemetery is, if not an antidote, at least an alleviation.\\nIf you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. It\\nwas in obedience to this wise regulation that the other\\nmorning found me lighting my pipe at the entrance\\nto old Greyfriars thoroughly sick of the town, the\\ncountry, and myself Just then I saw two\\nwomen coming down a path, one of them old, and\\nthe other younger, with a child in her arms. Both\\nhad faces eaten with famine and hardened with sin,\\nand both had reached that stage of degradation, much\\nlower in a woman than a man, when all care for dress\\nis lost. As they came down they neared a grave,\\nwhere some pious friend or relative had laid a wreath\\nof immortelles, and put a bell glass over it, as is the\\ncustom I was struck a great way off with\\nsomething religious in the attitude of these two un-\\nkempt and haggard women and I drew near faster,\\nbut still cautiously, to hear what they were saying.\\nSurely on them the spirit of death and decay had de-\\nscended I had no education to dread here should\\nI not have a chance of seeing nature Alas a pawn-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0095.jp2"}, "96": {"fulltext": "84 R- L. STEVENSON.\\nbroker could not have been more practical and com-\\nmonplace, for this was what the kneeling woman said\\nto the woman upright this and nothing more Eh,\\nwhat extravagance O nineteenth century, wonder-\\nful art thou indeed wonderful, but wearisome in thy\\nstale and deadly uniformity c., :c.\\nThus the youth, taking himself, apparently,\\nwith the most complete gravity. Now, listen to\\nthe man:\\nThere, in the hot fits of youth, I came to be un-\\nhappy But even while I still con-\\ntinued to be a haunter of the graveyard, I began\\ninsensibly to turn my attention to the grave-diggers,\\nand was weaned out of myself to observe the conduct\\nof visitors. This was dayspring, indeed, to a lad in\\nsuch great darkness. Not that I began to see men,\\nor to try to see them, from within, nor to learn charity\\nand modesty and justice from the sight but still\\nstared at them externally from the prison windows of\\nmy affectation. Once I remember to have observed\\ntwo working women with a baby halting by a grave\\nthere was something monumental in the grouping, one\\nupright carrying the child, the other with bowed face\\ncrouching by her side. A wreath of immortelles under\\na glass dome had thus attracted them; and, drawing\\nnear, I overheard their judgment on that wonder\\nEh, what extravagance To a youth afflicted with\\nthe callosity of sentiment, this quaint and pregrunt\\nsaying appeared merely base\\nR. L. S., Juvenilia.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0096.jp2"}, "97": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. 85\\nI would fain strike a note that should be more\\nheroical but the ground of all youth s suffering, soli-\\ntude, hysteria, and haunting of the graves, is nothing\\nelse than naked, ignorant selfishness.\\nThe question inevitably arises. What per-\\ncentage of Caledonian students had Stevenson\\nobserved to frequent the nearest municipal\\ncemetery? To hear this moralist, one would\\nimagine a habit of graveyard soliloquy to be\\nas common to youth as surreptitious smoking.\\nAnd then, with one of those singular contra-\\ndictions that surprise us at every turn in the\\nworks of Stevenson, we find this morbid dis-\\nsertation to be but the prologue to a noble\\nand manly passage, the funeral oration upon\\nthe author s departed friend. Here, as we\\nread, we perceive another example of that\\ngospel of courage which he was ever preaching.\\nFor, what are the Virginibus Puerisqne essays\\nbut so many gay calls to the slumbering courage\\neternal in the heart of man? The earlier chap-\\nters were written when the author was five-and-\\ntwenty the latter pieces, some three years later,\\nat the same time as Will d the Mill and I like\\nto set the whole series beside that incomparable\\nfable, and to take them together as the best of\\nStevenson. They are so kindly, humorous, and\\n1 R. L. S., Memories and Portraits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0097.jp2"}, "98": {"fulltext": "86 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nfantastically jovial, it is odds but you shall rise\\nfrom their perusal in quite a little glow of pleas-\\nure, and pleasure of a sparkling, crystal quality\\nfor which you may search the residue of Steven-\\nsonian works always excepting the Dedica-\\ntions, and, perhaps, parts of the Inland Voyage\\nand Travels with a Dotikey in the Cevetines in\\nvain. You shall receive other sensations in\\nplenty; of pity, and terror, and admiration,\\nand delight but never, I think, a sensation\\nquite so purely pleasing.-^\\nIt is true that the irresponsible essayist treats\\nof the passion of love as one who has never\\napprehended the significance of that formidable\\nexpression It is not at all within the province\\nof a prose-essayist to give a picture of this hyper-\\nbolical state of mind, he says, and perhaps he\\nis right. Nevertheless, we will gladly go with\\nhim where he goes, music accompanying our\\nsteps, though the grassy road delicately skirts\\nprecipices, and airily bridges some ugly abysms.\\nOr, as Stevenson puts it in his own charming\\nmanner, the reader s\\nway takes him along a by-road, not much fre-\\nquented, but very even and pleasant, which is called\\n1 The temper and style and air of Virginibus Puerisque won\\nthe author from a friend the nickname of Mr Fastidious Brisk,\\nan apt piece of essential criticism in which (I am told) he rejoiced.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0098.jp2"}, "99": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. 8/\\nCommonplace Lane, and leads to the Belvedere of\\nCommonsense. Thence he shall command an agree-\\nable, if no very noble prospect and while others\\nbehold the East and West, the Devil and the\\nSunrise, he will be contentedly aware of a sort of\\nmorning hour upon all sublunary things, with an\\narmy of shadows running speedily and in many\\ndifferent directions into the great daylight of Eter-\\nnity. The shadows and the generations, the shrill\\ndoctors and the plangent wars, go by into ultimate\\nsilence and emptiness but underneath all this, a\\nman may see, out of the Belvedere windows, much\\ngreen and peaceful landscape many firelit parlours\\ngood people laughing, drinking, and making love as\\nthey did before the Flood or the French Revolu-\\ntion and the old shepherd telling his tale under the\\nhawthorn.^\\nWe have come a long way from the boy and\\nhis sick musings in the sordid graveyard, you\\nsee; for all clouds roll away at last, and the\\ntroubles of youth in particular are things but\\nof a moment. This young gentleman, enter-\\ning already upon one province of his many-citied\\nkingdom, is discoursing of its polity to the grown\\nmen and women who live there; and though he\\npointedly deride them, this chief among special\\npleaders sets them all smiling; and some of\\nR. L. S., Virginilnis Puerisqiie.\\nR. L. S., Memories and Portraits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0099.jp2"}, "100": {"fulltext": "88 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nthem fall in love with him. For, as I have\\nsaid, the words of Stevenson are informed with\\na fine resolve to make the best of things; a\\nspirit the more admirable when we call to\\nmind (as I think we should) how the author\\nwas constantly liable to dangerous sickness, so\\nthat in his very boyhood we find him, as he\\ntells us, toiling (as I thought) under the very\\ndart of death and how he was acquainted,\\neven at twenty-five, with the deadly ills of total\\nnerve-prostration. In the Virginibiis series,\\nOrdered South is significantly set between the\\njovial Apology for Idlers and the brave Ais\\nTriplex; and in Ordered South we have the\\nartist, constant in extremity to the ruling\\npassion, making a serene, picturesque, even\\ncomfortable, little work of art out of the very\\nsensations that deprive him of sensation.\\nThe world is disenchanted for him. He seems to\\nhimself to touch things with muffled hands, and to see\\nthem through a veil. His life becomes a palsied\\nfumbling after notes that are silent when he has found\\nand struck them. He cannot recognise that this phleg-\\nmatic and unimpressionable body with which he now\\ngoes burthened is the same that he knew heretofore so\\nquick and delicate and alive.\\nR. L. S., Memories and Portraits.\\nR. L. S., Virginibiis Puerisque.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0100.jp2"}, "101": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. 89\\nHow many there must be in this generation\\nwho will recognise an eloquently just description\\nof their own plight, at one time or another in their\\nlives? And the essayist, who is an epicurean\\nand also a moralist, goes on to draw his moral.\\nAfter all, the spirit of delight comes often\\non small wings and the sick man finds con-\\nsolation in the face of death, in the thought\\nthat the Hfe he loved will continue still, in joy\\nand sorrow, when he is gone. It is true that\\nthe author, who, fortunately, did not die after\\nall, added a note after some years (in a manner\\nquite Ruskinian) to the effect that a man who\\nfancies himself a-dving will get cold comfort\\nfrom the very youthful view expressed in this\\nessay. Never mind; the youth did his best\\nwith his view and we like him the better for\\nhis performance although I am not sure, if\\nyou go to that I am not, I say, quite\\ncertain that silence were not still the better\\npart.\\nHad Stevenson been untimely overtaken by\\ndeath when he had written Virginibus Puerisqiie\\nand Will o the Mill and of all his works, had\\nonly these two gone down to posterity he would\\nstill have earned the reputation of a refined and\\nadmirable artist. The dual nature of man, one\\nR. L. S., Virgiuibus Puerisqiie. 2 Jbid,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0101.jp2"}, "102": {"fulltext": "90 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nof those root-ideas which we find germinating\\nin the minds of most great writers,^ and bring-\\ning forth all sorts of strange fruit, continually\\npossessed the mind and inspired the imagination\\nof Stevenson, The clergyman, in his spare\\nhours, may be winning battles, the farmer sailing\\nships, the banker reaping triumph in the arts;\\nall leading another life, plying another trade from\\nthat they chose, he says. The two lives are so\\ninextricably interwoven that to discourse upon\\nthe one without touching the other is nearly im-\\npossible; but I think that the little Virginibus\\ncycle may be loosely described as Stevenson s\\nidea of the conduct of that life which all must\\nlive, whether they will or no and that Will o\\nthe Mill is the Stevensonian pattern in the\\nheavens the story of a sojourn in the country\\nof the ideal. But, as I say, the two ideas are\\nnecessarily so intermingled, lie so largely be-\\nyond the province of language, and appear in\\neach other s places with aspects so protean,\\nthat separate definition is impossible. I make\\nbut an approximate suggestion let us take the\\nargument at that.\\n1 As, for example, the idea of the man whose life is secretly\\nspied upon by one who is unknown to him, or whom he believes to\\nbe dead, which haunted the mind of Dickens. Compare, notably,\\nOur Mutual Friend, Martin Chuzzlewit, and Edwin Drood.\\nR. L. S., Memories and Portraits,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0102.jp2"}, "103": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. 9I\\nI would not care to risk marring the perfect\\npresentment of Wi// 0 tJie Mill by any clumsy\\nanalysis, or even by quotation. Have you read\\nWill 6 the Mill? (if you have not, then if\\nyou own a taste for such fare there is a fine\\nlittle repast laid for you). Then you will re-\\nmember how that Will was the very type of the\\nperfect egoist; how, despite all his passionate\\naspirations, he never went down into the plain,\\nbut stayed in the mountains, beneath the pine-\\nwoods, beside the clear running water, like a\\nmiser hoarding his aspirations and magnificent\\nillusions, and savouring the while his simple joys\\nof life like an epicure how aspiration changes\\nto ambition, and still he stays how the fat\\nyoung man (whom I take to have been Mephisto\\nupon a holiday) came and scattered those illu-\\nsions in a breath, so that Will never afterwards\\ndared put his fortune to the test; how he lost\\nthe chief good of life, and never knew it until\\ntoo late; how, nevertheless, he continued to\\npossess the good which he had chosen, and\\nfor which he had paid the price and how, at\\nlast, Death came to him as a friend.\\nThere is no moral to this fable, but the Celtic\\nmoral of fatalism a fatalism which Stevenson\\nsometimes tacitly disavows, and sometimes poig-\\nnantly presents to you. And, when all is said,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0103.jp2"}, "104": {"fulltext": "92 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nwe are as much concerned with the thrilling,\\nvivid, picturesque presentment of the theme as\\nwith the theme itself. Style and treatment\\nexactly accord with the subject; and the scenes,\\nsucceeding each other in a natural progression,\\nremain like pictures in the memory. The mill\\nbeside the river in the mountain-pass; the clear\\nrunning water, the waving pine-trees; the\\npassage of the soldiers the vision of the valley\\nin the setting sun; the coming of the fat young\\nman; the figure of the parson s Marjory; above\\nall, the night when Will o the Mill goes at\\nlast upon his travels, which I venture to charac-\\nterise as one of the finest pieces of pictorial\\nnarration in English literature and, again, the\\nclear running water, the waving of the grave\\npine-woods, and, enfolding all like an atmos-\\nphere, the pure serenity of the mountains who\\nthat has once read of them does not count\\nthese things among the treasures of his fairy\\ncity of remembrance?\\nDisengaging the impression received from the\\nbeautiful accompanying images, we conceive of\\nthe central figure as of a strong man, statically\\nstrong like a tree, curiously studying himself,\\nand profoundly entertained by the workings of\\nthat quick and intricate organisation; clinging,\\nwith invincible tenacity, to all that ministers", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0104.jp2"}, "105": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. 93\\nto the pleasure of that divine constitution. He\\nloves the dawn and sunrise, the communings\\nof running water, the silent companionship of\\ntrees; the taste of these delights, he knows,\\nleaves no regret. Let these, then, suffice.\\nAnd in the amiable Dr Desprez, in The\\nTreasure of Fraiichard, we find the same quali-\\nties. The Treasure of Franchard is a story only-\\ntinctured with allegory; but in that tincture,\\nas I have said, I think we may discern a paral-\\nlel philosophy of the ideal, as it appealed to\\nStevenson\\nThe Doctor v/as a connoisseur of sunrises, and\\nloved a good theatrical effect to usher in the day\\nThe morning after he had been summoned to the\\ndying mountebank, the Doctor visited the wharf at\\nthe tail of his garden, and had a long look at the\\nrunning water. This he called prayer After\\nhe had watched a mile or so of the clear water\\nrunning by before his eyes, seen a fish or two\\ncome to the surface with a gleam of silver, and\\nsufficiently admired the long shadows of the trees\\nfalling half across the river from the opposite bank,\\nwith patches of moving sunhght in between, he\\nstrolled once more up the garden and through his\\nhouse into the street, feeling cool and renovated.\\nLet me compose myself, he says, after an\\nagitating interview And so he dismissed his\\npreoccupations by an effort of the will which he", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0105.jp2"}, "106": {"fulltext": "94 R. L, STEVENSON.\\nhad long practised, and let his soul roam abroad\\nin the contemplation of the morning. He inhaled\\nthe air, tasting it critically as a connoisseur tastes a\\nvintage, and prolonging the expiration with hygienic\\ngusto. He counted the little flecks of cloud along\\nthe sky. He followed the movements of the birds\\nround the church tower making long sweeps, hang-\\ning poised, or turning airy somersaults in fancy, and\\nbeating the wind with imaginary pinions. And in this\\nway he regained peace of mind and animal composure,\\nconscious of his limbs, conscious of the sight of his\\neyes, conscious that the air had a cool taste, like a\\nfruit, at the top of his throat.\\nThe picture is graceful, playful, sympathetic,\\nand a little inhuman. I cannot but think\\nthat the author had himself insistently present\\nto himself when he penned that portrait. There\\nis never any ambiguity about the work of\\nStevenson his pictures are so vivid, that when\\nhe paints from a mirror, we cannot but read\\nthe artist s own lineaments upon the canvas.\\nAnd so, in the ideal philosopher, I seem to\\ndiscover that singular lack the want of some\\nkindly, indefinable, human quality, which is apt\\nto haunt the reader through his perusal of the\\nworks of Stevenson.\\nThe same suspicion of a certain something\\nwanting is disengaged even from the jolly pages\\nof the two little books of voyages and travels,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0106.jp2"}, "107": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. 95\\nAn Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey\\nin the Cevennes. To say of a man that he is\\nimperfect, may seem a trite observation; but,\\nwhen such an one sets up to be a smiling philos-\\nopher of catholic sympathies, he undertakes an\\nenterprise which (according to evidence extant)\\ndoes actually fall within the circle of human\\ncompetence; and to detect an occasional blank\\nin his purview is surely not unfair (though\\nhighly ungrateful) criticism. Moreover, in these\\njourneyings the traveller went along with a\\nghostly companion, who once dwelt among men\\nas the Reverend Laurence Sterne, That com-\\npanion sharpens his pupil s vision in the day-\\ntime, and sits at his elbow the while he writes\\nup his journal at night. Had the Reverend\\nLaurence neglected to record the Sentimental\\nJourney, it is odds that Stevenson would neither\\nhave gone a-cruising in the Arethusa, nor a-roving\\nwith Mademoiselle Modestine, goading her deli-\\ncately with a pin. For these charming records\\nand witty moralisations are the Sentimental Jour-\\nney, minus the soft Irish spirit of Sterne, plus\\nthe dour Scots temperament and a perception\\nof the romance of landscape. This is no dis-\\npraise for none of us exist save by virtue of\\nancestry. Only, when Robert Louis Stevenson\\nwent about with the Reverend Laurence Sterne,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0107.jp2"}, "108": {"fulltext": "96 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nthe clergyman used, I think, to induce some-\\nthing of a pose. Turn to the Epilogue to the\\nInland Voyage, written some ten years after the\\nadventure, when Stevenson had rather discarded\\nthe Reverend Laurence, and you shall perceive, in\\nthat entertaining farce, a slight but characteristic\\ndifference from the earlier narrative.\\nThe next year after writing these gay philoso-\\nphies of travel, and Will d the Mill, we find\\nthe author drafting an austere treatise on Morals\\nLay Morals} if you please, in which one\\nmay recognise the groundwork of Pulvis et\\nUmbra and A Christmas Serniojil^ which were\\npublished eight or nine years later. Of the\\nLay Morals, it may be enough to say that\\nthe preacher enunciates, with a fine pomp\\nand eloquence of language, the sort of con-\\nclusions which sensible persons at all times\\nand in all places have come to of themselves,\\nand which they are usually content to hold\\nin unaggressive silence. But, to a Scot nurtured\\nin a babel of theological controversy, something\\nsickened, probably, with its tedious, inhuman\\nclamour, and inheriting, moreover, the talent\\nfor metaphysic common to his race, some ex-\\npression of aggravated opinion may well have\\nbecome a natural necessity.\\nR. L. ?i Juvenilia. R. L. S., Later Essays,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0108.jp2"}, "109": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. 97\\nPulvis et Umbra has been admiringly de-\\nscribed as a cosmic utterance and so, in\\nso far as it treats of the Kosmos by name, it\\nmay be. The picture is only true, so far as we\\nunderstand the truth, in a sense highly partial;\\nthe moral is picturesque, even noble. But from\\nsuch a Kosmos may heaven preserve all good\\nfolk Here is the keynote to this astounding\\nsymphony\\nBut take the Kosmos with a grosser faith, as our\\nsenses give it us. We behold space sown with rotatory\\nislands, suns and worlds and the shards and wrecks of\\nsystems some, like the sun, still blazing some rotting,\\nlike the earth others, like the moon, stable in deso-\\nlation. All of these we take to be made of something\\nwe call matter a thing which no analysis can help\\nus to conceive to whose incredible properties no\\nfamiliarity can reconcile our minds. This stuff, when\\nnot purified by the lustration of fire, rots uncleanly\\ninto something we call life seized through all its\\natoms with a pediculous malady swelling in tumours\\nthat become independent, sometimes even (by an\\nabhorrent prodigy) locomotory; one splitting into\\nmillions, millions cohering into one, as the malady\\nproceeds through varying stages. This vital putres-\\ncence of the dust, used as we are to it, yet strikes\\nus with occasional disgust, and the profusion of worms\\nin a piece of ancient turf, or the air of a marsh dark-\\nened with insects, will sometimes check our breathing,\\n7", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0109.jp2"}, "110": {"fulltext": "98 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nSO that we aspire for cleaner places. But none is\\nclean the moving sand is infected with lice the\\npure spring, where it bursts out of the mountain, is\\na mere issue of worms even in the hard rock the\\ncrystal is forming\\nWhat a monstrous spectre is this man, the disease\\nof the agglutinated dust, lifting alternate feet or lying\\ndrugged with slumber killing, feeding, growing, bring-\\ning forth small copies of himself; grown upon with\\nhair like glass, fitted with eyes that move and glitter\\nin his face a thing to set children screaming and\\nyet looked at nearlier, known as his fellows know him,\\nhow surprising are his attributes\\nWell after all things are not really like\\nthat. Here is a vision, monstrous, vivid, intol-\\nerable, as though beheld in the refracted vision\\nof fever. Jeremy Taylor might have written\\nwith an equal vigour and coloured magnifi-\\ncence of manner; but Jeremy Taylor would\\nhave discoursed in another vein, because he\\nwas inspired with, what he would have de-\\nsignated, faith in God. Shakespeare might\\nhave written these passages better; but, when\\nShakespeare was in this sort of mood, he pre-\\nferred to write Hamlet. It may be, that the\\ngreat and nameless fear which descends upon\\nman when some unknown prop or stay is sud-\\ndenly withdrawn from his spirit, the panic\\n1 R. L. S., Later Essays.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0110.jp2"}, "111": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. 99\\nterror which would now and again cast the\\nvain and valiant George Borrow to the ground,\\nand hold him with his face in the dust, has\\nhere assailed the bulwarks of Stevenson s private\\ncity of Zion. I do not know perhaps the\\nparallel is merely fanciful. In any case, Ptdvis\\net Umbra, this cosmic utterance, is the ut-\\nterance of a sick man in a strong access of\\npersonal emotion, curious of style, and invincibly\\nmoral, or rather Calvinistic, to the last extremity.\\nChilde Roland to the dark tower comes. And\\nin his strenuous moralisation of what is a pass-\\ning mood, it is the opulent style of the present-\\nment that is really admirable, and the moral\\nthat appeals to us is the implicit, unconscious\\nmoral of the author s courage in the face of\\nthese terrific phantasms the same conscious\\nyet unshaken courage which shines throughout\\nhis work.\\nA Christinas Sermon, written when the author\\nwas about forty years old, is conceived in a\\ndifferent vein. Nimbly discoursing from his\\nfavourite rostrum, the pulpit, he eloquently for-\\nmulates a series of witty and sensible criticisms\\nupon the common way of life. It is all werry\\nnice but, as I have said, the minority of\\npeople are content to hold these sentiments\\nwithout indulging in didactic zeal, a zeal in-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0111.jp2"}, "112": {"fulltext": "100 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nherent in the Stevensonian constitution. And,\\nin this case, the preacher had already said his\\nsay when he was still a youthful Ecclesiastes,\\ndiscoursing in the essays Virginibus Puerisque.\\nAt the first, he steps aside from the moving\\ncrowd, and winds a melodious defiance upon\\nhis horn a gallant defiance to pain, and\\nfailure, and death\\nWhether we regard life as a lane leading to a dead\\nwall a mere bag s end, as the French say or\\nwhether we think of it as a vestibule or gymnasium,\\nwhere we wait our turn and prepare our faculties for\\nsome noble destiny whether we thunder in a pulpit,\\nor pule in little atheistic poetry-books, about its vanity\\nand brevity whether we look justly for years of health\\nand vigour, or are about to mount into a bath-chair, as\\na step towards the hearse in each and all of these\\nviews and situations there is but one conclusion possi-\\nble that a man should stop his ears against paralysing\\nterror, and run the race that is set before him with\\na single mind.^\\nThus Stevenson, at seven- or eight-and-twenty.\\nHear him also in middle age:\\nTo look back upon the past year, and see how little\\nwe have striven, and to what small purpose j and how\\noften we have been cowardly and hung back, or teme-\\nrarious and rushed unwisely in and how every day\\nR. L. S., Virginibus Puerisqtie.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0112.jp2"}, "113": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. lOI\\nand all day long we have transgressed the law of kind-\\nness [here are the old accents of surpHce and bands,\\nbut there is no reason to suppose the preacher is not\\nperfectly serious] it may seem a paradox, but in the\\nbitterness of these discoveries a certain consolation\\nresides. Life is not designed to minister to a man s\\nvanity When the time comes that he should\\ngo, there need be few illusions left about himself.\\nHere lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed\\nmuch surely that may be his epitaph, of which he\\nneed not be ashamed. Nor will he complain at the\\nsummons which calls a defeated soldier from the field\\ndefeated, ay, if he were Paul or Marcus Aurelius\\nbut if there is still one inch of fight in his old spirit,\\nundishonoured. The faith which sustained him in\\nhis lifelong blindness and lifelong disappointment will\\nscarce even be required in this last formality of laying\\ndown his arms. Give him a march with his old bones\\nthere, out of the glorious sun-coloured earth, out of the\\nday and the dust and the ecstasy there goes another\\nFaithful Failure\\nIt is well meant, it is bravely said and yet,\\nis the conclusion entirely sound I hardly\\nthink that either the great Apostle or the august\\nEmperor would be honestly gratified by the\\ninscription upon their place of sepultur\u00c2\u00ae of the\\nepitaph made by Mr Stevenson, Anno Domini\\n1890 or so. These men are among the mighty\\n1 R. L. S., Later Essays.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0113.jp2"}, "114": {"fulltext": "I02 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nbuilders of the world their portion was not\\nfailure, but transcendent success; not defeat,\\nbut victory. But a half-truth balanced by its\\nopposite moiety is robbed of half its glory and\\nwhat becomes of the work of art under these\\ncircumstances? And the artist is bound to\\nwork within conditions imposed upon him from\\nwithout. Moreover, Stevenson was far too acute\\na logician not to look, when it suited his pur-\\npose, upon both sides of the shield and in his\\nFables he gives both obverse and reverse. The\\nFables were written at intervals during the latter\\nhalf of his career; and perhaps, of all the forms\\nof literary art employed by Stevenson and he\\nused most of those extant at one time or another\\nthat of the fable set his genius best. Here\\nromance and metaphysic, character and wit,\\nmay meet together in harmony in the realm\\nthat is both homely and ideal; and the prob-\\nlem of presentment offers valuable opportunities\\nin the matter of prose composition.\\nIn The Yellow Paint, The House of Eld, and\\nFaith, Half-Faith, and No Faith at all, is figured\\nthat nafve rebellion against stolid convention\\nwhich characterises an age of transition. Gen-\\neration succeeds generation, the son follows in\\nthe sire s footsteps, until a line of cleavage\\nstarts into view, and a gulf widens and across", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0114.jp2"}, "115": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. IO3\\nit young five-and-twenty, with scornful incom-\\nprehension, beholds his father as though that\\nrespectable elder belonged to another planet.\\nIt is, in fact, the case of the new wine and\\nthe old bottles the parable whose musical\\nphrases linger in the mind of childhood the\\ncareless mind, which, at the same time, tacitly\\ndeclines to remark any meaning in them.\\nVoltaire (between whom and Stevenson an in-\\nteresting parallel remains to be drawn by the\\ncurious) thought it eminently worth while to\\nsatirise the priestcraft of his day; and in The\\nYellow Paint Stevenson found consolation in\\ndirecting a quaint and witty satire against a\\ncertain subtle doctrine of what is known as\\nevangelicalism. Among the warring clans of sect\\nand Church, this peaceful word is a slogan, or\\nbattle-cry, carrying such dire associations, and\\ncharged with meanings so esoteric, that I employ\\nthe expression with a becoming hesitation. I\\nmake no comment upon the merits of the quarrel\\nin which Stevenson took sides so gaily. Al-\\nthough he loved preaching, he had small sym-\\npathy with the consecrated professors of that\\nart. The Yellow Paint gives one aspect of the\\nsituation, The Hotise of Eld an admirable\\nand picturesque fable gives the contrary view.\\nThe morals of both are quite inconclusive but", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0115.jp2"}, "116": {"fulltext": "I04 R- L. STEVENSON.\\nhere Stevenson is harping on his old theme the\\nunsatisfying nature of life. So in Faith, Half-\\nFaith, and No Faith at all, where, in a wilder-\\nness of discords, there strikes the one chivalric\\nnote.\\nIn the ancient days there went three men upon\\npilgrimage one was a priest, and one was a virtuous\\nperson, and the third was an old rover with his axe.\\nThe two first dispute upon the grounds of\\nfaith and as they go along, the adventures\\nthat befall them upset the priestly theories, to\\nthe satisfaction of the virtuous person. Mean-\\nwhile, the old rover with the axe holds his\\npeace; until\\nat last one came running, and told them all was lost\\nthat the powers of darkness had besieged the Heavenly\\nMansions, that Odin was to die, and evil triumph.\\nI have been grossly deceived, cried the virtuous\\nperson,\\nAll is lost now, said the priest.\\nI wonder if it is too late to make it up with the\\ndevil said the virtuous person.\\nO, I hope not, said the priest. And at any\\nrate we can but try. But what are you doing with\\nyour axe? says he to the rover.\\nI am off to die with Odin, said the rover.*\\n1 R. L. S., Fables.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0116.jp2"}, "117": {"fulltext": "THE MORALIST. IO5\\nAnd in Something in It, the best of the\\nfables, Stevenson, who was one like Glaucus\\nthat could change his shape, yet he could\\nbe always told, does the last justice to the\\nevangelist.\\nThe missionary was naturally incredulous of\\nthe tales the natives told him of their religion.\\nThere is nothing in it, said the missionary.\\nBut one day he was rapt into the heathen\\nplace of the hereafter the wrong heaven and\\nhis views were suddenly enlarged. The story\\nis perfectly told. And\\nThe next moment the missionary came up in the\\nmidst of the sea, and there before him were the palm-\\ntrees of the island. He swam to the shore gladly, and\\nlanded. Much matter of thought was in that mis-\\nsionary s mind.\\nI seem to have been misinformed upon some\\npoints, said he. Perhaps there is not much in it,\\nas I supposed but there is something in it after all.\\nLet me be glad of that.\\nAnd he rang the bell for service.^\\nAgain, in a word, courage is the moral,\\nthough it be not always precisely the moral\\nthat Stevenson intended. So it is in Markheim,\\nthat singular and vivid study. A high and\\n1 R. L. S., Fables.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0117.jp2"}, "118": {"fulltext": "I06 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nsimple courage shines through all his writ-\\nings, says Mr Raleigh. Courage, though\\nThe sticks break, the stones crumble,\\nThe eternal altars tilt and tumble,^\\nCourage qiiand meme. Here is the last word\\nof Stevenson s philosophy: as, indeed, it has\\nbeen that of how many millions of men and\\nwomen besides, renowned or ingloriously ob-\\nscure, who have lived and passed in silence.\\nBut Stevenson must find utterance, or he could\\nnot live. He was vocally inclined. Therein\\nlies the difference.\\n1 W. A. Raleigh, Robert Louis Stevenson.\\n2 R. L. S., Fables.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0118.jp2"}, "119": {"fulltext": "V.\\nTHE ARTIST.\\nIf to feel, in the ink of the slough,\\nAnd the sink of the mire,\\nVeins of glory and fire\\nRun through and transpierce and transpire,\\nAnd a secret purpose of glory in every part,\\nAnd the answering glory of battle fill my heart\\nTo thrill with the joy of girded men\\nTo go on for ever and fail and go on again.\\nAnd be mauled to the earth and arise,\\nAnd contend for the shade of a word and a\\nthing not seen with the eyes\\nWith the half of a broken hope for a pillow at\\nnight\\nThat somehow the right is the right\\nAnd the smooth shall bloom from the rough\\nLord, if that were enough\\nR. L. S., Songs of Travel.\\nWhen Stevenson flings his dainty glove in the\\niron face of destiny, mouths it in his private\\npulpit, or beguiles us by the wayside, we applaud\\nand admire, and are entertained but when the\\nartist discourses of his art, we are moved to lend\\na serious attention. I never cared a cent for", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0119.jp2"}, "120": {"fulltext": "I08 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nanything but art, and never shall, says Loudon\\nDodd and no more, I think, did his maker. A\\nman s theories are, ultimately, of value exactly\\nin proportion as the man himself is an example\\nof their efficacy. In art you must give your\\nskin and Stevenson never grudged that\\nsacrifice. Of his strictly technical disquisi-\\ntions I shall have something to say in another\\nplace it is the Stevensonian code of ethics re-\\nlating to the art of letters that I have here to\\nconsider.\\nWhen he was thirty years old, and when he\\nhad already written essays, verses, treatises on\\nmorals, criticisms, voyages and travels, and\\nstories, Stevenson promulgated his Morality of\\nthe Profession of Letters? Seven or eight years\\nlater, he wrote the Letter to a Young Gentleman\\nwho Proposes to Embrace the Career of Art. In\\nthat interval, as will be seen, the author s\\nprinciples seem in some degree to have suf-\\nfered a change. We can but suppose that\\nwhen the artist indited the Letter to a Young\\nGentleman, he wrote under the influence of a\\npassing mood, which led him, in one passage,\\nto a highly inconsistent piece of generalisation.\\nThe Morality of the Profession of Letter s is an\\nexcellent morality: going squarely into the ques-\\n1 R. L. S., The Wrecker. 2 r. l. S., Later Essays.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0120.jp2"}, "121": {"fulltext": "THE ARTIST. IO9\\ntion, setting a high and reasonable ideal, fit\\nboth to inspire and chasten the aspirant. The\\npreacher begins by unsparing denunciation of\\nthose who adopt this way of life (the craft\\nof writing) with an eye set singly on the liveli-\\nhood. This attitude of mind, he says, must\\ninfallibly produce a slovenly, base, untrue,\\nand empty literature he proceeds eloquently\\nto enforce the argument; and he goes on to\\nspecify the motives which alone should influence\\na young man to make his choice of a trade\\nThere are two just reasons for the choice of any way\\nof life the first is inbred taste in the chooser the\\nsecond some high utility in the industry selected.\\nLiterature, like any other art, is singularly interesting\\nto the artist and, in a degree peculiar to itself among\\nthe arts, it is useful to mankind So kindly is\\nthe world arranged, such great profit may arise from a\\nsmall degree of human reliance on oneself, and such,\\nin particular, is the happy star of this trade of writing,\\nthat it should combine pleasure and profit to both\\nparties and be at once agreeable, like fiddling, and use-\\nful, like good preaching. This is to speak of Uterature\\nat its highest and with the four great elders who are\\nstill spared to our respect and admiration, with Carlyle,\\nRuskin, Browning, and Tennyson before us, it would\\nbe cowardly to consider it at first in any lesser aspect.\\nBut while we cannot follow these athletes, while we\\nmay none of us, perhaps, be very vigorous, very ori-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0121.jp2"}, "122": {"fulltext": "no R. L. STEVENSON.\\nginal, or very wise, I still contend that, in the hum-\\nblest sort of literary work, we have it in our power\\neither to do great harm or great good So that\\nthe first duty of any man who is to write is intellect-\\nual. Designedly or not, he has so far set himself up\\nfor a leader of the minds of men and he must see\\nthat his own mind is kept supple, charitable, and\\nbright. To please is to serve and so far\\nfrom its being difficult to instruct while you amuse,\\nit is difficult to do the one thoroughly without the\\nother And so, if I were minded to welcome\\nany great accession to our trade, it should not be\\nfrom any reason of a higher wage, but because it\\nwas a trade which was useful in a very great and a\\nvery high degree.\\nHere are sentiments which must find an ap-\\nplauding echo in all honest and generous minds.\\nIn the second essay, written some years\\nlater, when the name of Robert Louis Steven-\\nson had become famous, the essayist addresses\\nan audience incomparably larger here was an\\nopportunity to strike another stroke which should\\ngo to the attainment of a certain recognised\\nstandard, or tradition, in letters; which tradi-\\ntion, as it is his heritage, so it is the business\\nof every honest man of letters to uphold and to\\nconfirm. He begins by drawing an analysis of\\nthe unstable mind of youth. He deals with the\\naspirant who stands at that painful juncture in", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0122.jp2"}, "123": {"fulltext": "THE ARTIST. Ill\\nlife when he must make his choice of a trade,\\nwith a sympathy both just and acute. Then,\\nin admirable terms, he lays down the stern\\nconditions under which the artist must exercise\\nhis art. And then, the consenting mind, fol-\\nlowing the preceptor with eagerness, is suddenly\\nbrought to a stand. After formulating the\\nquestionable doctrine that the artist should\\npay assiduous court to the bourgeois who\\ncarries the purse, our moralist goes on to carry\\nthe argument to its logical conclusion. These\\nare points we need not discuss the expression,\\nwhether of a passing mood, or of a piece of\\nspecial pleadixig, needs no elaborate refutation.\\nI prefer to remember that Stevenson the artist\\nnever quitted his task until the piece of work in\\nhand was as near perfect as he could make it.\\nSick or well, travelling or sitting at home, though\\nthe inspiration tarried, though he must write\\nand rewrite, and remodel from top to bottom,\\nthough he were deprived of speech and the power\\nto hold his pen, and must dictate upon his\\nfingers,^ the indomitable maker still toiled to\\nattain perfection, until there was left no stroke\\nuntried, and the voice of inspiration had found\\ncomplete utterance.\\nFrom the Vailima Letters we may gain some\\n1 R. L. S., Vailima Letters.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0123.jp2"}, "124": {"fulltext": "112 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nnotion of the way in which he went about\\nhis work.\\nWhatever the result, the mill has to be kept turning\\n[he writes], night or morning, I do my darndest,-\\nand if I cannot charge for merit, I must e en charge\\nfor toil, of which I have plenty, and plenty more ahead\\nbefore this cup is drained sweat and hyssop are the\\ningredients. [And some three months later.] Since\\nI last laid down my pen, I have written and rewritten\\nThe Beach of Falesd something like sixty thousand\\nwords of sterling domestic fiction (the story, you will\\nunderstand, is only half that length) and now I don t\\nwant to write any more again for ever, or feel so\\nand I ve got to overhaul it once again to my sorrow.\\nI was all yesterday revising, and found a lot of slack-\\nnesses. [And again.] I often work six and seven,\\nand sometimes eight hours. [And when he has\\nfinished The Ebb-Tide. But O [he writes], it has\\nbeen such a grind The devil himself would allow\\na man to brag a little after such a crucifixion And\\nindeed I m only bragging for a change before I\\nreturn to the darned thing lying waiting for me on\\np. 88, where I last broke down. I break down at\\nevery sentence, I may observe and lie here and\\nsweat, till I can get one sentence wrung out after\\nanother.\\nA month later, and he has already made some\\nway with A Family of Engineers.\\nSince I wrote this last, I have written a whole", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0124.jp2"}, "125": {"fulltext": "THE ARTIST. II3\\nchapter of my grandfather, and read it to-night; it\\nwas on the whole much appreciated, and I kind of\\nhope it ain t bad myself. T is a third writing, but\\nU wants a fourth. [And for a last extract.] I have\\nbeen recasting the beginning of the Hanging Judge,\\nor Weir of Hermiston then I have been cobbling\\non my grandfather, whose last chapter (there are only\\nto be four) is in the form of pieces of paper, a huge\\nwelter of inconsequence, and that glimmer of faith\\n(or hope) which one learns at this trade, that some-\\nhow and some time, by perpetual staring and glower-\\ning and rewriting, order will emerge.\\nThe practice is sound, you see, though the\\ntheory goes a little awry and whose theory does\\nnot? The son of the great engineers, the in-\\nheritor of an austere tradition, is ready to toil\\nwith a single eye to the point of honour until\\nthere is no more virtue in him.\\nFor the artist [he writes in that same wonderful,\\ninconsistent Letter to a Young Gentle?nan works\\nentirely upon honour. The public knows little or\\nnothing of those merits in the quest of which you\\nare condemned to spend the bulk of your endeavours.\\nMerits of design, the merit of first-hand energy, the\\nmerit of a certain cheap accomplishment, which a man\\nof the artistic temper easily acquires these they can\\nrecognise, and these they value. But to those more\\nexquisite refinements of proficiency and finish, which\\nthe artist so ardently desires and so keenly feels, for", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0125.jp2"}, "126": {"fulltext": "114 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nwhich (in the vigorous words of Balzac) he must toil\\nlike a miner buried in a landslip, for which, day\\nafter day, he recasts and revises and rejects the\\ngross mass of the pubhc must be ever blind. To those\\nlost pains, suppose you attain the highest pitch of merit,\\nposterity may possibly do justice suppose, as is so\\nprobable, you fail by even a hair s-breadth of the high-\\nest, rest certain they shall never be observed. Under\\nthe shadow of this cold thought, alone in his studio, the\\nartist must preserve from day to day his constancy to\\nthe ideal.^\\nSo Stevenson reads the Law and we know he\\nfulfilled it to the letter. And so, in his example\\nof unflinching industry, there lies the true moral\\nfor the aspirant. Here is the true lesson to the\\nyoung gentleman who proposes to embrace the\\ncareer of art.\\n1 R. L. S., Later Essays.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0126.jp2"}, "127": {"fulltext": "VI.\\nTHE ROMANTIC.\\nRomance,\\nThe Angel-Playmate, raining down\\nHis golden influences\\nOn all I saw, and all I dreamed and did,\\nWalked with me arm and arm,\\nOr left me, as one bediademed with straws\\nAnd bits of glass, to gladden at my heart\\nWho had the gift to seek and feel and find\\nHis fiery-hearted presence everywhere.\\nW. E. Henley,\\nArabian Nights Ente7-tninments.\\nStevenson was a born romantic. Romance,\\nwhich is the common heritage of childhood, re-\\nmained his possession to the end. With the\\nmost of us\\nYouth now flees on feathered foot.\\nFaint and fainter sounds the flute,\\nRarer songs of gods .1\\nand the years, steaHng on with muffled footsteps\\nand blinding fingers, still conspire to veil from\\nus the country of desire. But Stevenson never\\n1 R. L. S., Underwoods.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0127.jp2"}, "128": {"fulltext": "Il6 R, L. STEVENSON.\\ncrossed the marches of his own domain. To\\nhim, the inevitable change from youth to experi-\\nence carried with it no forgetfulness. The years\\nbrought gifts, but took httle away; the child\\nnever died, but lived on with the man; and\\nStevenson, at thirty-three or so, wrote the ro-\\nmance of childhood InA Child s Garden of VerseSy\\nbegun while he was living in Bournemouth.\\nCharles Dickens gave us the romance of\\nchildhood in prose, when he wrote the history\\nof David Copperfield; and the book came with\\nsomething of the force of a revelation upon a\\nworld of grown people who had fallen into the\\nhabit of shaping patterns of children all in the\\nlikeness of their own image. Dickens released\\nthe eternal child from this bondage of de-\\nformity; and the enfranchised spirit lives, and\\nsings, and plays with its fellows, in Stevenson s\\nsmiling verses. Read the Child s Garden to a\\nchild of a certain age, and ten to one he, or\\nshe, will lend a gratified attention. This, they\\nare thinking, is the kind of talk they can\\nunderstand.\\nThe rain is raining all around,\\nIt falls on field and tree,\\nIt rains on the umbrellas here.\\nAnd on the ships at sea.^\\n1 R. L. S., A Child s Garden of Verses.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0128.jp2"}, "129": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. II7\\nI know not what indefinable picture is con-\\njured up in these simple words, of desolate\\ncountry, shining street, and grey ships tossing\\non grey surges, but I know that such a vision\\nlives in the mind of childhood, and that it is of\\nstuff like this, of quaint, indefinite collocations\\nand associations, that a great part of child-\\nhood s happiness or unhappiness consists. Here\\nis another infantine piece\\nOf speckled eggs the birdie sings\\nAnd nests among the trees\\nThe sailor sings of ropes and things\\nIn ships upon the seas.\\nThe children sing in far Japan,\\nThe children sing in Spain\\nThe organ with the organ-man\\nIs singing in the rain.^\\nThe child Robert Louis was acquainted with\\nsickness and who that has been kept abed by\\nreason of illness, or perhaps misdemeanour, but\\nremembers the land of counterpane? It is not\\na bright province in the child-country; the\\nsojourn there is nearly always compulsory, and\\nrequires, so to speak, more intellectual effort\\nto get rid of a dull, even an intolerable, reality.\\nBed in the cold daylight, when all the coloured\\ni R. L. S., A Child s Garden of Verses.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0129.jp2"}, "130": {"fulltext": "Il8 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nworld is calling and calling here is a thing to\\ndash the stoutest courage\\nAnd does it not seem hard to you,\\nWhen all the sky is clear and blue,\\nAnd I should like so much to play,\\nTo have to go to bed by day\\nBut he makes the best of it\\nAnd sometimes for an hour or so\\nI watched my leaden soldiers go,\\nWith different unifoi ms and drills,\\nAmong the bed-clothes, through the hills;\\nAnd sometimes sent my ships in fleets\\nAll up and down among the sheets\\nOr brought my trees and houses out,\\nAnd planted cities all about.\\nI was the giant great and still\\nThat sits upon the pillow-hill.\\nAnd sees before him, dale and plain,\\nThe pleasant land of counterpane.^\\nAnd when he went to bed at night, torn\\nlamenting, reproved from the jolly fireside, the\\nlight and warmth, and the strange and fascinat-\\ning conversation of elders, do we not remember\\nhow\\nAll round the house is the jet-black night;\\nIt stares through the window-pane\\nIt crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,\\nAnd it moves with the moving flame.\\nR. L. S-, A Child s Garden of Verses.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0130.jp2"}, "131": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. II9\\nNow my little heart goes a-beating like a drum,\\nWith the breath of the Bogie in my hair;\\nAnd all round the candle the crooked shadows come,\\nAnd go marching along up the stair.\\nThe shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp,\\nThe shadow of the child that goes to bed\\nAll the wicked shadows coming, tramp, tramp, tramp,\\nWith the black night overhead.\\nThe treasures of that lost country of the\\nprimal years were esoterically precious and\\nlike the fairy gold, they are now all withered\\nleaves. Now, we can look upon a whole arsenal\\nof edge-tools without sensible emotion; but\\nhark to the treble voice\\nBut of all of my treasures the last is the king,\\nFor there s very few children possess such a thing;\\nAnd that is a chisel, both handle and blade,\\nWhich a man who was really a carpenter made.\\nA man who was really a carpenter there\\nis all Eden in that simple utterance. Here is\\nanother treasure, which is buried with a singu-\\nlar, characteristic impulse\\nWhen the grass was closely mown.\\nWalking on the lawn alone.\\nIn the turf a hole I found.\\nAnd hid a soldier underground.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0131.jp2"}, "132": {"fulltext": "120 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nUnder grass alone he lies,\\nLooking up with leaden eyes,\\nScarlet coat and pointed gun,\\nTo the stars and to the sun.\\nWhen the grass is ripe like grain,\\nWhen the scythe is stoned again,\\nWhen the lawn is shaven clear,\\nThen my hole shall reappear.\\nI shall find him, never fear,\\nI shall find my grenadier;\\nBut, for all that s gone and come,\\nI shall find my soldier dumb.\\nHe has lived, a little thing,\\nIn the grassy woods of spring;\\nDone, if he could tell me true.\\nJust as I should like to do.\\nHe has seen the starry hours\\nAnd the springing of the flowers\\nAnd the fairy things that pass\\nIn the forests of the grass.\\nDreams and terrors, exquisite joys and rend-\\ning griefs, a darling hoard of treasures, passion-\\nate love and hate as passionate, and the whole\\nworld for a playhouse, these are some of the\\nelements which make the children s life. Of\\nlove and hate Stevenson relates but little of\\nall else, he is eloquent; and here, for a last\\nR. L. S., A Child s Garden of Verses.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0132.jp2"}, "133": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 121\\nquotation, is a piece in the great green play-\\nhouse:\\nDear uncle Jim, this garden-ground,\\nThat now you smoke your pipe around.\\nHas seen immortal actions done,\\nAnd valiant battles lost and won.\\nBut yonder, see apart and high,\\nFrozen Siberia lies where I,\\nWith Robert Bruce and WilHam Tell,\\nWas bound by an enchanter s spell.\\nThere, then, a while in chains we lay,\\nIn wintry dungeons, far from day;\\nBut ris n at length, with might and main.\\nOur iron fetters burst in twain.\\nA thousand miles we galloped fast,\\nAnd down the witches lane we passed.\\nAnd rode amain, with brandished sword,\\nUp to the middle, through the ford.\\nLast we drew rein a weary three\\nUpon the lawn, in time for tea,\\nAnd from our steeds alighted down\\nBefore the gates of Babylon.\\nThe verses are very pleasant, although, as\\nverses, they have no great merit. Indeed, the\\nsame remark applies more or less to all the\\nverse of Stevenson: a good subject, a delight-\\n1 R. L. S., A Child s Garden of Verses.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0133.jp2"}, "134": {"fulltext": "122 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nful manner, but lacking, save in rare flashes here\\nand there, the last indefinable touch which is\\npoetry. Plangent and picturesque as the verse of\\nStevenson is, he seldom, I think, lights upon the\\nonly words in the only order and his finest\\nand most romantic strains seem to bear the\\nhammer-mark of the wielder of strong prose\\nharmonies, rather than the serene touch of the\\nborn singer to the lute.^ Take, for instance,\\nthe magnificent stanza from Mater Triumphans\\nwhich to the ear of the present writer, at\\nleast out of all the songs of Stevenson, rings\\nstrongest\\nInfant bridegroom, uncrowned king, unanointed priest,\\nSoldier, lover, explorer, I see you nuzzle the breast.\\nYou that grope in my bosom shall load the ladies with\\nrings,\\nYou, that came forth through the doors, shall burst the\\ndoors of kings.\\nIt is gorgeous, but it is scarcely poetry a dis-\\ntinction that need be no dispraise. And how\\nfine are the opening verses of the first stanza:\\nSon of my woman s body, you go, to the drum and fife.\\nTo taste the colour of love and the other side of life.\\nA kind of prose Herrick divested of the gift of verse, and\\nyou behold the Bard. Thus Stevenson, talking, in a letter to\\na friend, of himself.\\n2 R. L. S., Songs of Travel.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0134.jp2"}, "135": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 1 23\\nThe lines are surcharged with that indefinable\\nquality we call romance, which makes the better\\nhalf of life. Romance is indefinable it must be\\napprehended by the light of nature shining upon\\nillustration, or not at all. Stevenson has come\\nas near to definition as may be.\\nThe effect of night [he says], of any flowing water,\\nof lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the\\nopen ocean, calls up in the mind an army of anony-\\nmous desires and pleasures To come at all\\nat the nature of this quality of romance, we must bear\\nin mind the peculiarity of our attitude to any art. No\\nart produces illusion in the theatre we never forget\\nthat we are in the theatre and while we read a story,\\nwe sit wavering between two minds, now merely clap-\\nping our hands at the merit of the performance, now\\ncondescending to take an active part in fancy with the\\ncharacters. This last is the triumph of romantic story-\\ntelling when the reader consciously plays at being\\nthe hero, the scene is a good scene.\\nIt may be noted in passing how people who\\nare apt to grumble at the featureless character\\nof Scott s heroes or heroines, forget that the\\nlack of personality in the chief persons of the\\nstory is a prime cause of the readers enjoyment,\\nsince it enables them to push the hero aside,\\nand consciously play at being the hero, plung-\\ning into the tale in their own persons. Stevenson", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0135.jp2"}, "136": {"fulltext": "124 L. STEVENSON.\\nhimself could never suffer the colourless hero\\nhis Jim Hawkins comes the nearest to the con-\\nvention; and our young friend Jim, though he\\nwas scarcely the hero of the tale, being much\\neclipsed by Silver the Magnificent, was still the\\ningenious narrator of the best story (qud story)\\nStevenson ever accomplished. As for his David\\nBalfour, that dour, pragmatical, stubborn young\\nman, he compels us, with my Lord Advocate\\nPrestongrange, to a respect mingled with\\nawe. But this is by the way; let me not\\nanticipate I take that expression, says the\\nimmortal Doctor Marigold, out of a lot of\\nromances I bought. I never opened a\\nsingle one of em and I have opened many\\nbut I found the romancer saying, Let me not\\nanticipate which being so, I wonder why he\\ndid anticipate, or who asked him to it let\\nus return, I say, to the consideration of Steven-\\nson expounding his theory of Romance:\\nThe threads of a story [he goes on] come from\\ntime to time together and make a picture in the web\\nthe characters fall from time to time into some atti-\\ntude to each other or to nature, which stamps the\\nstory home like an illustration. Crusoe recoiling\\nfrom the footprint, Achilles shouting over against\\nthe Trojans, Ulysses bending the great bow, Christian\\nrunning with his fingers in his ears, these are each", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0136.jp2"}, "137": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. I25\\nculminating moments in the legend, and each has\\nbeen printed on the mind s eye for ever\\nThis, then, is the plastic part of literature to em-\\nbody character, thought, or emotion in some act\\nor attitude that shall be remarkably striking to the\\nmind s eye.-^\\nHere is a clear indication of part of the matter,\\nin a form which made a particular appeal to\\nhim for the embodiment of character, thought,\\nor emotion in some act or attitude that shall be\\nremarkably striking to the mind s eye, is the\\nsovereign merit of Stevenson or, as he else-\\nwhere expresses it, Vital that s what I am\\nat, first wholly vital, with a buoyancy of life.\\nThen lyrical, if it may be, and picturesque,\\nalways with an epic value of scenes, so that the\\nfigures remain in the mind s eye for ever.\\nFor a broader statement we must go to his\\nessay upon Victor Hugo s Romances^:\\nThe artistic result of a romance, what is left upon\\nthe memory by any really powerful and artistic novel,\\nis something so complicated and refined that it is\\ndifficult to put a name upon it and yet something\\nas simple as nature.\\n1 R. L. S., Memories and Portraits.\\nR. L. S., Vailinia Letters.\\n8 R. L. S., Familiar Studies of Men and Books.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0137.jp2"}, "138": {"fulltext": "126 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nTake this with a passage of Mr Raleigh s:\\nBut, for the most part, the romantic kernel of a story\\nis neither pure picture nor pure allegory, it can neither\\nbe painted nor moralised. It makes its most irresist-\\nible appeal neither to the eye that searches for form\\nand colour, nor to the reason that seeks for abstract\\ntruth, but to the blood, to all that dim instinct of\\ndanger, mystery, and sympathy in things that is man s\\noldest inheritance to the superstitions of the heart.\\nIn these two passages abstract definition\\ntouches its limits would we go further, we\\nmust embark in illustration. And here we\\nmay note that Stevenson s own romances hardly\\nserve as illustrations of a single wide effect,\\nunited though various, easy to apprehend though\\nimpossible to define. It is difficult to regard\\nany one of his long stories with the single\\nexception of Treasure Island as a whole. Re-\\ncall a Stevenson; and instead of a complicated\\nimpression, compounded of an infinite variety\\nof elements, there starts into the mind s eye a\\nseries of vivid episodes.\\nBut the artistic result of let us say a\\nDickens 2 is very different. The impression is\\nW. A. Raleigh, Robert Louis Stevenson.\\n2 A master for whom Stevenson owned a profound and lasting\\nadmiration an admiration which drew him to read Pickwick\\nonce (at least) every year. See also his remarks on Martin\\nChiizzlewit in a recently published letter.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0138.jp2"}, "139": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 12/\\nmultifarious as the remembrance of a year of\\ncrowded life, and yet one. For the great\\nCharles conducts his stories as a general con-\\nducts a campaign: battalion after battalion\\nis marshalled into position, and manoeuvres\\ntowards a common end regiments are de-\\ntached upon particular duties, advance, and\\nretire; now, the light falls upon a solitary figure\\nplodding by night towards its appointed bourne;\\nand again, the darkness lifts and discovers a\\nwhole army corps lying in position. And\\nwhen the campaign is done, the whole country\\nhas been subdued, and the reader is conscious\\nof a certain vicarious exaltation and triumph.\\nSo with Scott so with Dumas, the master of\\nnarrative art. So, in a lesser sense, with\\nThackeray; for Thackeray cared not much for\\nplot and counterplot, and the scheme of circum-\\nstance: so long as his characters are alive and\\ntalking, he is content. Here is one reason why\\nStevenson must take his place below these\\nmasters. His field of operations is more nar-\\nrowly circumscribed than theirs: it is as a\\nmaster of romantic pictorial episode that we\\nhave first to consider him.\\nBut, the spirit of romance resides not only\\nin the embodiment of character, thought, or\\nemotion in some act or attitude that shall be", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0139.jp2"}, "140": {"fulltext": "128 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nremarkably striking to the mind s eye, but\\ninspires and strikes through the most trivial\\nincident a momentary glance, an accidental\\nword, a gleam of landscape. This ineluctable\\ndivinity will move in the very dust upon the\\nstreet, peer from a beggar s rags, ride upon\\nthe wind, beckon from the fires of the dawn.\\nIt is not only when Lancelot of the Lake\\nis ranging the lists, when Porthos dies amid\\nwhelming disaster, when the Black Knight\\nthunders upon Front -de- Boeuf s castle doors,\\nwhen Sydney Carton mounts the scaffold\\nnot only when Crusoe is recoiling from the\\nfootprint, Achilles shouting over against the\\nTrojans, Ulysses bending the great bow,\\nthat the strong angel finds his avatar: but\\nhere, in the moonlit chamber opening upon\\nthe lagoons of old Venice, where Consuelo\\nlived and sung; in the dark shop, buried deep\\nin gloomy London, where Krook came by his\\nhideous end, with none but Lady Jane to speed\\nhim in the summer evening when Eugene\\nWrayburn voyaged leisurely up river upon a\\nlover s errand; in the city hospice, whither\\nColonel Newcome creeps home to die, here,\\nalso, lives the spirit of romance.\\nBorn of that spirit, Stevenson was essentially\\nand always a romantic; his very preaching is", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0140.jp2"}, "141": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 1 29\\nbut the romance of ethics; and so his work\\nis informed with romance to the smallest\\ndetail, the least word. Hence the extraordinary\\ndistinction of his work. It is never dull. You\\nmay read all his books from end to end, but\\nyou will light upon no dull passage.\\nRomance, then, ranges from what has been\\ncalled the Squalid-Picturesque to the highest\\nregions of the ideal. Stevenson, beginning with\\nromantic landscape, went on to the Squalid-\\nPicturesque. When he was seven-and-twenty,\\nliving still in Edinburgh, he published A Lodging\\nfor the Night an achievement savouring more of\\nthe study than of the open air, but none the less\\nremarkable for that. Here are the same quality\\nof vividness (what M. Marcel Schv^rob courage-\\nously calls romantic realism), and the same grim\\npleasure in the ugly, which are two of the\\nmarks of Stevenson. Thevenin Pensete, whose\\nbald head shone rosily in a garland of red\\ncurls what right has a man to have red\\nhair when he is dead says Villon), and Villon\\nsearching the dead jade in the snow, are things\\nwhich stick in the memory.\\nIn The Sire de MaUtroif s Door, another early\\nstory, there is the first fruit of that strange at-\\ntraction, or prepossession, of the Closed Door,\\nwhich used to exercise the mind of Stevenson.\\n9", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0141.jp2"}, "142": {"fulltext": "130 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nOne thing in life [he says] calls for another there\\nis a fitness in events and places Something, we\\nfeel, should happen we know not what, yet we pro-\\nceed in quest of it Some places speak distinctly.\\nCertain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder certain\\nold houses demand to be haunted certain coasts are\\nset apart for shipwreck.^\\nAnd we have M. Marcel Schwob ingeniously\\ncommenting thus\\nComme le fondeur de cire perdue coule le bronze\\nautour du noyau d argile, Stevenson coule son his-\\ntoire autour de I image qu il a cr^^e. La chose est\\ntres visible dans The Sire de Maletroi^s Door. Le\\nconte n est qu un essai d explication de cette vision\\nune grosse porte de chene, qui semble encastrde dans\\nle mur, cede au dos d un homme qui s y appuie,\\ntourne silencieusement sur des gonds huil^s et\\nI enferme automatiquement dans des t^nebres in-\\nconnues.^\\nM. Schwob speaks in accents of unmistakable\\nsympathy: he has tried the door business him-\\nself, in Ics Portcs de r Opium, and a terrifying\\nfantasy it is. A theory so ingenious is always\\nworth stating; this one is very likely to be\\npartly in accordance with the truth but the\\ntruth itself we may not know. C est encore\\nR. L. S., Memories and Portraits.\\nMarcel Schwob, R. L. S., New Review, F ebruary 1895.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0142.jp2"}, "143": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. I31\\nline porte qui hante d abord 1 imagination de\\nStevenson au debut de DrJekyllandMrHyde\\nM. Schwob goes on to say.\\nTerror waiting behind the Closed Door that\\nis the unseen image haunting the author s mind.\\nAs Drjekyll begins with the mystery behind the\\ndoor opening upon the common street, which\\nwas equipped with neither bell nor knocker,\\nwas blistered and distained, so it ends with\\nthe breaking down of the red baize door of the\\nstricken doctor s cabinet, and the death of the\\nThing hiding behind that frail barrier. And\\nterror lay waiting in ambush for Denis de Beau-\\nlieu behind the Sire de Maletroit s door; but, for\\nthe damoiseau, there was provided a way of\\nescape. The story is -d^ pastiche of the mediaeval\\nas for the Sire de Maletroit himself, he is pure\\nGothic, one with grotesque, and gargoyle, and\\nthe pictures in the bestiaries.\\nAfter Villon and the Sire de Maletroit comes\\nWill o the Mill, that white-winged flight\\nagainst the blue. The last scene, towards\\nwhich the whole story is so artfully conducted,\\nwherein all that has gone before chimes like an\\necho, thrills in the remembrance. The murky\\nnight air is crowded with the unseen dead,\\nloaded with the perfume of heliotropes the\\ncorner of the blind in the lighted window is", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0143.jp2"}, "144": {"fulltext": "132 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nlifted and let fall; the voice of the dead cries\\nout of the dark, the mysterious equipage waits\\nbeside the gate And it is not only the\\nmagnificent climax we remember, but the\\nflowers with which the way leading to this\\nwonderful scene is all bestrewn\\nSome way up, a long grey village lay like a seam or\\na rag of vapour on a wooded hillside and when the\\nwind was favourable the sound of the church bells\\nwould drop down, thin and silvery, to Will.\\nThe lilacs were already flowering, and the weather\\nwas so mild that the party took dinner under the\\ntrellis, with the noise of the river in their ears and the\\nwoods ringing about them with the songs of birds.\\nThere was one corner of the road whence he\\ncould see the church-spire wedged into a crevice of\\nthe valley between sloping fir-woods, with a triangular\\nsnatch of plain by way of background.\\nThere are not many romancers who border\\nthe road to fancy s bourne with pastures so en-\\nticing. And in the New Arabian Nights, not\\nonly the striking scenes, the main situations,\\nthrill the curious reader a lesser artist than\\nStevenson might have accomplished as much\\nbut the very threads and colours in the pattern\\nof the web are matter for delight.\\nWho can forget the advent of the Young Man\\nwith the Cream-tarts, or the entrance of the", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0144.jp2"}, "145": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 133\\nPresident of the Suicide Club, or the sight of\\nMr Malthus turning up the ace of spades, or the\\napparition of Dr Noel in Mr Silas O. Scud-\\ndamore s bedchamber, or the spectacle of Mr\\nHarry Hartley incontinently flinging himself\\nand his bandbox over the wall, or the Dictator\\npouring the drug into the coffee under the green\\ntrees in his garden, or the mysterious coil of\\nsmoke continually vomited from the lone man-\\nsion of the Destroying Angel, or the Fair Cuban\\nwatching Mr Caulder perish horribly in the\\nswamp who, I say, that has once beheld them,\\ndoes not vividly recall these scenes and inci-\\ndents These are the apotheoses of the story\\nthey are all entirely romantic. And in each and\\nall, it may be noted, there is something ugly, or\\nsinister and daunting for Stevenson, whose fore-\\nfathers dealt with strong sensations, inherited a\\ntradition that conjured with strong elements.\\nBut besides these great moments, contributing\\nto the sum of their effect, there remain soberer\\npassages.\\nWho was the very tall black man, with a\\nheavy stoop, who rises to warn the hesitating\\nremnant of the guests at Mr Morris s memorable\\nassembly.-* His action in the story is negative;\\nhe has only to appear on the stage for a moment,\\nto utter a word, and to vanish with the crowd;", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0145.jp2"}, "146": {"fulltext": "134 R- L. STEVENSON.\\nyet his apparition is so artfully figured that\\nhe awakes a sense of mystery, and the effect of\\nthe whole design is sensibly heightened, as by a\\npatch of blackness. And in the little interlude\\nwhen the Reverend Mr Rolles, with the Rajah s\\nDiamond in his pocket, visits his club in search\\nof counsel, how admirable is the introduction of\\nthe dens ex viachind\\nAt length, in the smoking-room, up many weary\\nstairs, he hit upon a gentleman of somewhat portly\\nbuild and dressed with conspicuous plainness. He\\nwas smoking a cigar and reading the Fortnightly Re-\\nview his face was singularly free from all sign of pre-\\noccupation or fatigue and there was something in\\nhis air which seemed to invite confidence and to ex-\\npect submission. The more the young clergyman\\nscrutinised his features, the more he was convinced that\\nhe had fallen on one capable of giving pertinent advice.\\nSir, said he, you will excuse my abruptness\\nbut I judge you from your appearance to be pre-\\neminently a man of the world.\\nI have indeed considerable claims to that dis-\\ntinction, replied the stranger, laying aside his maga-\\nzine with a look of mingled amusement and surprise.\\nI, sir, continued the Curate, am a recluse, a\\nstudent, a creature of ink-bottles and patristic folios.\\nA recent event has brought my folly vividly before my\\neyes, and I desire to instruct myself in life. By life,\\nhe added, I do not mean Thackeray s novels but", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0146.jp2"}, "147": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 135\\nthe crimes and secret possibilities of our society, and\\nthe principles of wise conduct among exceptional\\nevents. I am a patient reader; can the thing be\\nlearnt in books?\\nYou put me in a difficulty, said the stranger. I\\nconfess I have no great notion of the use of books,\\nexcept to amuse arailway journey although, I believe,\\nthere are some very exact treatises on astronomy, the\\nuse of the globes, agriculture, and the art of making\\npaper-flowers. Upon the less apparent provinces of\\nlife I fear you will find nothing truthful. Yet stay,\\nhe added, have you read Gaboriau\\nMr Rolles s definition of life is instructive:\\nthere are many authors who, starting from the\\nsame theorem, will gail} improvise at large,\\nunder the impression that to improvise is to\\nproduce literature. Sir Walter Scott, they read,\\nwrote his books before breakfast, and had\\nlittle care to revise his manuscript. Steven-\\nson it is upon record did not improvise\\nhe toiled with an indefatigable industry; and\\nso it is that even his minor passages are\\nwrought with remarkable excellence. He had\\ngreat endowments; but the faculty of quick\\nand sufficient invention seems to have been\\ndenied him. Consider what he accomplished\\ndespite all disability: and the record remains\\nboth for a lesson and an encouragement.\\nThe pose and manner assumed by the narra-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0147.jp2"}, "148": {"fulltext": "136 R. L. STEVENSON.\\ntor of the New Arabian Nights escape analysis in\\ntheir subtlety. The historian is fooling, fooling\\nexcellent well he knows it, he knows you know\\nit, but his sedate demeanour never for an instant\\nrelaxes. The manner is doubtless reminiscent\\nof Galland; nevertheless, to transliterate the\\nFrenchman thus is a feat of singular dexterity.\\nHe was in dress, for he had entertained the\\nnotion of visiting a theatre, says the historian,\\nrelating the adventure of Lieutenant Bracken-\\nbury Rich. The little pompous touch, the sug-\\ngestion of formality, in that simple statement,\\nconvey the whole attitude, an attitude which\\nexactly fits the occasion, and whose fitness\\nadds another pleasure to the narrative. But a\\npose, after all, is but a trick of legerdemain,\\nan exercise which is often the resource of\\nthe young man, training himself in the use of\\nanother s weapons while his own equipment is\\nforging. Stevenson, who was born with a talent\\nfor letters as well as a gift of romance, was a\\nproficient in such gymnastic: it is even a ques-\\ntion if the man of letters did not sometimes\\nhandicap, as well as help, the romancer.\\nTo pass from the earlier, bookish stories and\\nThe New Arabian Nights, to the short stories and\\nlonger romances which he continued to bring\\nforth until the last day of his life, is to find the", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0148.jp2"}, "149": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 137\\nsame assured, successful handling of the episode,\\nwith the same opulence of detail. Thrawn Janet,\\nand Black Andie s tale of Tod Lapraik in Cat-\\nriona, although they pale somewhat in lustre\\nbeside the master-achievement of its kind,\\nWandering Willie s Tale in Redgaimtlet, are ex-\\ncellent witch-stories both. The earlier of the\\ntwo, Thrawn Janet, which was written before\\nTreasure Island (from whose publication, when\\nhe was thirty-two, dates the popular fame of\\nStevenson), is the better of the two; although\\nthe effect is confused by the introduction of\\nthe Black Man. Such a story must be either\\nfrankly supernatural or materially intelligible.\\nStevenson leaves us in doubt as to whether the\\nBlack Man were a real black man or Sathanas\\nin person but if the Black Man who gave the\\nReverend Mr Soul is such an ugly fright were\\nnothing but a wandering irresponsible nigger\\n(as the author seems to imply), the whole struc-\\nture of the narrative is shaken. But the at-\\nmosphere and presentment of both stories are\\ncompletely effective. There is another black\\nman in The Merry Men, which was written about\\nthe same time as Thrawn Janet, who, again, has\\nnothing to do with the story which the author\\nhad, apparently, set out to tell, but who suddenly\\nrises out of the sea and finishes the anecdote in", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0149.jp2"}, "150": {"fulltext": "138 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nhis own way. Stevenson seems to have been\\nspell-bound for a time by a diabolical suggestion\\nto introduce a black into his stories. But,\\nagain, in The Merry Men, the atmosphere is per-\\nfectly rendered, the presentment eloquent and\\nvivid.\\nThe sun, which had been up some time, was already\\nhot upon the neck the air was listless and thundery,\\nalthough purely clear away over the north-west, where\\nthe isles lie thickliest congregated, some half a dozen\\nsmall and ragged clouds hung together in a covey;\\nand the head of Ben Kyaw wore, not merely a few\\nstreamers, but a solid hood of vapour. There was\\na threat in the weather As I walked upon the\\nedge I could see far and wide over the sandy bottom\\nof the bay the sun shone clear and green and steady\\nin the deeps the bay seemed rather like a great\\ntransparent crystal, as one sees them in a lapidary s\\nshop there was naught to show that it was water but\\nan internal trembling, a hovering within of sunglints\\nand netted shadows, and now and then a faint lap and\\na dying bubble round the edge.\\nThe storm which is to bring about the catas-\\ntrophe is approaching; there is the menace of\\ntempest in the aspect of sea and sky and air;\\nand when that impression is rendered, there\\nremains the indefinable presentiment of dis-\\naster, which must be directly expressed in so\\nmany words there was a threat in the", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0150.jp2"}, "151": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 1 39\\nweather and the effect is complete. There\\nis another impression of imminent storm, of a\\ndifferent effect, in the tremendous episode to-\\nwards the end of David Coppcrfield. The com-\\nparison of the two descriptions is curious.\\nDon t you think that, I asked the coachman, in\\nthe first stage out of London, a very remarkable sky\\nI don t remember to have seen one like it.\\nNor I not equal to it, he replied. That s\\nwind, sir. There ll be mischief done at sea, I ex-\\npect, before long.\\nIt was a murky confusion here and there blotted\\nwith a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp\\nfuel of flying clouds tossed up into most remarkable\\nheaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than\\nthere were depths below them to the bottom of the\\ndeepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild\\nmoon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread\\ndisturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her\\nway and were frightened. There had been a wind\\nall day and it was rising then, with an extraordinary\\ngreat sound.\\nIt is hardly fair to compare the respective\\nmerits of the two storm-pieces. Stevenson s\\nwas but a summer gale, sufficient to serve his\\npurpose; while Dickens s memorable tempest\\nwas of a sort which befalls but once in fifty\\nyears or so, and which came as the part\\nculmination of a great and lengthy work in-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0151.jp2"}, "152": {"fulltext": "140 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nvolving multifarious issues. But, after due\\nallowance is made for these distinctions, it is\\ninstructive to set Stevenson s whole account of\\nthe storm beside his elder s.\\nTreasure Island, which followed next in point\\nof time after The Merry Men, was the first long\\nstory written by Stevenson. It was also, strictly\\nspeaking, the last, with the doubtful exception\\nof The Wrecker. For, in Treasiire Island mcidtnt\\nand character and setting are subordinated to\\nthe business in hand, and the tale is rounded\\nto completion, with a success that he did not\\nafterwards attain. Kidnapped is an excellent\\nstory of adventure, but the plot is of slight con-\\nstruction that imposes very lax restrictions, so\\nthat it cannot fairly enter into comparison with\\nTreasure Island. But for the little business of\\nUncle Ebenezer and the stolen inheritance, the\\ntale would be pure picaresque, the persons of\\nthe story wandering in and out at will, the\\ninterest depending more upon character than\\nbrute incident. As it is, Alan Breck Stewart\\nis the central figure, and they are his sayings\\nand deeds of arms that go to make the chief\\ninterest: moreover, the tale breaks off, leaving\\nmore than one issue undecided and the sequel,\\nCatriona, is really made up of two short stories,\\nthe first concerning the Appin murder, the second,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0152.jp2"}, "153": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. I4I\\nthe wooing of Catriona Drummond. The Black\\nArrow, again, is but a series of gallant episodes,\\nstrung together by the frailest thread of intrigue.\\nPrince Otto stands in a different category. Orig-\\ninally designed as a play, a play it remains, set\\nwith palatial and landscape scenery of a romantic\\nmagnificence, a magnificence so alluring that\\nthe attention is continually and forcibly diverted\\nfrom the action. And The Wrong Box, which is\\na farce, also stands outside the question. TJie\\nMaster of Ballantrae is another example of the\\nlong story irremediably resolving itself into dis-\\ntinct episodes. In The Wrecker the real story\\ndoes not begin until the one hundred and sixty-\\nseventh page; and the tale goes all the way\\nheavily overloaded with incidental episode. The\\nform of the narrative, as the authors inform us\\nin the Epilogue, was something of an experi-\\nment and, as an experiment, it may without\\npresumption be described as a gallant failure.\\nThat brings us to the end of the books which\\nmake pretensions to the novel rank. In all,\\nthere are character, incident, and setting finely\\nand episodically pictured in all, save in Treas-\\nure Island, there is the singular impotence of\\nthe central idea to control and subordinate the\\nwhole; and in all, nevertheless, every phrase,\\neven every word, of this astonishing artist is", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0153.jp2"}, "154": {"fulltext": "142 R. L. STEVENSON,\\nworth reading for its own sake. Open a\\nnovel of Stevenson s at random, or recall its\\nperusal, and beautiful or striking passages will\\nisolate themselves naturally from the context.\\nAnd many of such passages are like the sub-\\nlimation of a dream. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is\\na dream-fantasy from beginning to end. The\\nextraordinary vividness of the presentment sug-\\ngests the heightening touch of fever. Who but\\nan inveterate dreamer could have imagined Dr\\nJekyll s horrible, involuntary transition\\nI sat in the sun on a bench [says Dr Jekyll], the\\nanimal within me licking the chops of memory; the\\nspiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent\\npenitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all,\\nI reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I\\nsmiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing\\nmy active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their\\nneglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious\\nthought a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and\\nthe most deadly shuddering. These passed away,\\nand left me faint and then, as in its turn the faint-\\nness subsided, I began to be aware of a change\\nin the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness,\\na contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of\\nobligation. I looked down my clothes hung form-\\nlessly on my shrunken limbs the hand that lay on\\nmy knee was corded and hairy. I was once more\\nEdward Hyde.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0154.jp2"}, "155": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 1 43\\nThe apparition of David Pew in Treasure Island,\\nthe tap-tapping of the blind pirate s stick,i\\nis like a horror of sleep. Olalla is all a\\ndream; indeed, in his Chapter on Dreams,\\nthe author has told us that the sudden\\nfrenzy of the Senorita was revealed to him\\nin a dream. The entrance to Markheim of\\nMephistopheles (in Markheim), and the mur-\\nderer s terror, belong to the shadowy land whose\\nking is Unreason\\nMarkheim stood and gazed at him with all his\\neyes. Perhaps there was a film upon his sight, but\\nthe outlines of the new-comer seemed to change and\\nwaver like those of the idols in the wavering candle-\\nlight of the shop and at times he thought he knew\\nhim and at times he thought he bore a likeness\\nto himself; and always, like a lump of living terror,\\nthere lay in his bosom the conviction that this thing\\nwas not of the earth and not of God.\\nThe curious intrusion into The Misadventures\\nof John Nicholson of the murder in the house\\nat Murrayfield is another case in point: the\\n1 Commenting upon Stevenson s weird and daunting treatment\\nof blindness as a property of fiction, in the figure of Pew, and\\nthat other sinister figure of the blind catechist, in Kidnapped, we\\nmay recall an extraordinary story of Sheridan Lefanu s, The\\nMystery of Wyvern Chase, and Dickens s blind man, Stagg, in\\nBarftaby Rudge.\\n2 R. L. S., Mefnories and Portraits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0155.jp2"}, "156": {"fulltext": "144 R- L. STEVENSON.\\nbody lying in the shuttered dining-room is\\nquite out of place in a farce. Indeed, the\\nutilisation of the poor dead shell of humanity\\nas a property of farce must always inflict an\\noutrage upon the feelings. This is the fatal\\nobjection to TJie Wro7ig Box: the mind be-\\ngrudges consent to expedients so wanton. Even\\nin The Arabian Nights Entertainments those of\\nScheherezade, not those of Stevenson the\\nHunchback was not really dead there is noth-\\ning wrong with him but a misplaced fish-bone;\\nand he comes to life again and lives happily\\never afterwards.\\nThe element of dream-fantasy lends an extra-\\nordinary potency to the work of Stevenson;\\nbut, like an enchanter s gift, the spell is only\\nefficacious upon somewhat cruel conditions.\\nFor such fantasy as his demands a partial sus-\\npension of the sober reason for its operation;\\nand hence it is that the work of Stevenson\\nis not always wholly sane. To say so is only\\nto mark a quality, for\\nI have seen the good ship sail\\nKeel upward, and mast downward, in the heavens,\\nAnd solid turrets topsy-turvy in air-\\nAnd here is truth;\\nThe goddess of Literature is divine in this,\\nthat she welcomes to her table guests of", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0156.jp2"}, "157": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 145\\nevery degree, so they come decently apparelled.\\nAnd Stevenson spared no expense in the equip-\\nment of his following. The most of his company\\nare men of their hands, skilled in arms, subtle\\nin strategy, adventurers all; of lovers, as of\\nladies, there are few. Of the two eternal\\nfactors in the destiny of man, warfare and\\nlove, he chiefly dealt with the first. Man s\\nduel with fortune, rather than the duel of\\nsex, was what interested him at first and\\nso the critics used to complain that Stevenson\\nknew nothing of love, and was unacquainted\\nwith the nature of woman. And in TJie Master\\nof Ballajitrae it cannot be denied that Mrs Henry\\nDurie is little more than a lost opportunity. No\\nintelligent woman could have occupied Mrs\\nDurie s position for a single day without, if\\nnot commanding, at least potently influencing,\\nthe situation. And The Wrecker deals entirely\\nwith the affairs of men, with the insidious and\\nvirulent wars of commerce unless you make\\nan exception of Mamie, who was quite common-\\nplace, and a trifle shrewish into the bargain.\\nBut, in Prince Otto we find the Prince unmis-\\ntakably in love with his wife; if Madame von\\nRosen be no woman, but a figment in lace\\npetticoats and black silk stockings, the male\\nnovelist may relinquish his pen, for the fields", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0157.jp2"}, "158": {"fulltext": "146 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nof this life are no longer a place for his exer-\\ncises; and as for Amalia Seraphina, Princess\\nCinderella, while we may leave the Prince to\\ngive her his heart, we cannot but yield her\\nadmiration. And in Catriona Mr David Balfour\\nis very much in love, in his dour Scots way;\\nand Miss Barbara Grant loves Mr Balfour;\\neven Catriona, simple as she is, perceives\\nthis clearly; and Catriona herself, although\\n(I own) I do not entirely believe in her, is a\\npleasant young lady enough. Dick Naseby, in\\nThe Sto7y of a Lie, is a young man hard hit,\\nif ever a young man was and he deserved a\\nbetter fate than Esther Van Tromp prepared\\nhim. Read the chapter called TJie Prodigal\\nFather goes 071 from Strength to Strength, and\\nthough it scarce comes up to the splendour of\\nits title you shall find a true picture of a certain\\nphase of passion. Read The Great N orth Road,\\nthat alluring fragment, and consider Nance\\nHoldaway and Mr Archer: the romance of her\\nlife is beginning for Nance alas we know not\\nhow it ended. Read TJie Yojtng Chevalier,\\nanother fragment of promise, and remark the\\npresentment of the wine-seller s wife. There are\\nfew more romantic passages in Stevenson\\nThey called the wine-seller Paradou. He was built\\nmore like a bullock than a man, huge in bone and", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0158.jp2"}, "159": {"fulltext": "THE ROMANTIC. 1 47\\nbrawn, high in colour, and with a hand like a baby for\\nsize. Marie-Madeleine was the name of his wife she\\nwas of Marseilles, a city of entrancing women, nor was\\nany fairer than herself. She was tall, being almost of\\na height with Paradou full-girdled, point-device in\\nevery form, with an exquisite delicacy in the face her\\nnose and nostrils a delight to look at from the fineness\\nof the sculpture, her eyes inclined a hair s-breadth\\ninward, her colour between dark and fair, and laid on\\neven like a flower s. A faint rose dwelt in it, as though\\nshe had been found unawares bathing, and had blushed\\nfrom head to foot. She was of a grave countenance,\\nrarely smiling yet it seemed to be written upon every\\npart of her that she rejoiced in life. Her husband\\nloved the heels of her feet and the knuckles of her\\nfingers he loved her like a glutton and a brute his\\nlove hung about her like an atmosphere one that\\ncame by chance into the wine-shop was aware of that\\npassion and it might be said that by the strength of\\nit the woman had been drugged or spell-bound. She\\nknew not if she loved or loathed him he was always\\nin her eyes like something monstrous, monstrous in\\nhis love, monstrous in his person, horrific but imposing\\nin his violence and her sentiment swung back and\\nforward from desire to sickness. But the mean,\\nwhere it dwelt chiefly, was an apathetic fascination,\\npartly of horror as of Europa in mid-ocean with her\\nbull.i\\nAnd, for a last consideration, there remains\\nR. L. S., The Young Chevalier.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0159.jp2"}, "160": {"fulltext": "148 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nthe unfinished Weir of Hermiston, upon which\\nthe author was at work when death took him.\\nThe story itself, as it stands, is but the first\\nsketch in the clay; with that we need have\\nno concern; had the author lived to complete\\nhis work, no doubt the effect whatever it was\\nwould have been marred by no inconsist-\\nency. As it stands, in the chapter A Leaf from\\nChristina s Psalm-book, he has achieved a little\\nmasterpiece of romance. In that scene of lovers\\nmeeting, wrought with a beauty and delicacy\\nthat, did we seek comparisons, would compel\\nus to recall the name of the artist who told\\nof the meeting of Richard Feveril and Lucy\\nbeside the river, Stevenson touched perfection.\\nIn the last weeks of his life [Mr Colvin tells us]\\nhe attacked the task IVeir of Hermistori] again, in a\\nsudden heat of inspiration, and worked at it ardently\\nand without interruption until the end came. No\\nwonder if during these weeks he was sometimes aware\\nof a tension of the spirit difficult to sustain. How\\ncan I keep this pitch? he is reported to have said\\nafter finishing one of the chapters and all the world\\nknows how that frail organism, overtaxed so long, in\\nfact betrayed him in mid-effort.\\nSo Stevenson s courage carried him to the\\nend; and he fell, like his elders, Dickens and\\nThackeray, leaving a task unaccomplished.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0160.jp2"}, "161": {"fulltext": "VII.\\nTHE NOVELIST.\\nHe was a type-hunter among mankind. He despised small\\ngame and insignificant personalities, whether in the shape of\\ndukes or bagmen, letting them go by like sea-weed; but show\\nhim a refined or powerful face, let him hear a plangent or a pene-\\ntrating voice, fish for him with a living look in some one s eye,\\na passionate gesture, a meaning or ambiguous smile, and his mind\\nwas instantaneously awakened. R. L. S., The Story of a Lie.\\nRomance (as Mr Raleigh has pointed out) is an\\nattribute of man s nature a passion, whose im-\\nperious desires may be denied or indulged, but\\nwhose nature suffers no observable process of\\nevolution. But the gift of apprehending charac-\\nter, like an ear for music, requires an assiduous\\ncultivation; the constant elements which make\\nup the human constitution, with their innumer-\\nable combinations, with the continual modifica-\\ntions wrought upon them by time and chance\\nand circumstance, must be observed with an\\n1 W. A. Raleigh, Robert Louis Stevenson,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0161.jp2"}, "162": {"fulltext": "150 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nunwearying vigilance, and learned by heart like\\na lesson. Charles Dickens was possessed by\\ninimitable genius; but there resides a dif-\\nference, by the whole width of heaven, between\\nthe characterisation of Nicholas Nickleby and the\\nportraiture in let us say Our Mutual Friend ox\\nEdwin Drood. And in the difference between\\nStevenson s earlier character studies and the\\ntransfigured portraiture of TJie New Arabian\\nNights, and his three desperadoes of TJie\\nEbb-Tide and the living men and women of\\nWeir of Hermistou, there is implied half a life-\\ntime of laborious study. He began with such\\nsentimental adumbrations as Ati old Scots Gar-\\ndener, diXiA John Todd the Shepherd and it is\\nalready a long step forward when he recre-\\nates Master Francis Villon in A Lodging for\\nthe Night. That sinister figure grew directly\\nout of his historical studies; so did Tabary,\\nThevenin Pensete, Dom Nicholas, Montigny,\\nthe Seigneur de Brisetout, Denis de Beaulieu,\\nand the Sieur de Maletroit; and, considering\\nthat the author s fancy was nourished only upon\\nthe arid figments of printed records, the force of\\nthe presentment is remarkable. Figures of his-\\ntorical romance like these exist upon a conven-\\ntion of their own; they have but to take their\\n1 R. L. S., Memories and Portraits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0162.jp2"}, "163": {"fulltext": "THE NOVELIST. I5I\\nplace in the intrigue of the piece, and to perform\\ncertain definite actions or feats of valour, or to\\nembody certain definite sentiments; and, so they\\nbe suitably equipped with the necessary qualities\\nso they are brave or cowardly, subtle, witty,\\nor amorous, as the case require we ask no\\nmore. It is in the extraordinary magnificence\\nof endowment with which he gifts his creations,\\ncombined with his unrivalled mastery of the\\nenchanting art of narrative, that makes the\\ngiant strength of Alexander Dumas. It is\\nthe same spirit which inspires the mediseval\\nromances of Sir Walter Scott whereas, in the\\nromances of that maker which deal with a\\nnearer generation, the element of idiosyncrasy\\na thing inconsistent with pure romance begins\\nto count as a factor in the general effect. And\\nthe same spirit, pushed to extreme issues, in-\\nspired Victor Hugo, the hunch-backed, essen-\\ntially histrionic descendant of Sir Walter. For\\nthe well-heads of this spring we may trace\\nbackward to the miracle-plays and the Morte\\nDartJuir and the curious may follow the clue\\nuntil it lead thern deep into the classic groves\\nof antiquity.\\nIf we except the youthful sketches, the heroes\\nof philosophical allegory, and the characters in\\nProvidence and the Guitar a story built upon", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0163.jp2"}, "164": {"fulltext": "152 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nan experience of the author s recounted in\\nAjt Inland Voyage the elder figures in Steven-\\nson s gallery, the vagabonds and soldiers in A\\nLodging for the Night and The Sieiir dc Mal^troif s\\nDoor, and the fantastic company of the New\\nArabian Nights, fall into the category of a par-\\nticular convention. But in The Story of a Lie,\\nwritten when the author was twenty-nine, we\\nare suddenly brought face to face with a study\\nfrom the life. The story is not a particularly\\ngood story, as Stevensonian stories go; but\\nDick Naseby is a real young man, despite his\\nslight Meredithian flavour; and the Admiral is\\na real, red-nosed, and entirely worthless old\\nscamp. Stevenson ever loved the Squalid-\\nPicturesque; and although Dick and Esther are\\nthe chief persons of the story, it is the Admiral\\nwho figures most conspicuously, and they are\\nthe Prodigal Father s red nose and ineffectual\\ncolour-box which linger in the memory. And\\nin The Pavilion on the Links (which was written\\nduring Stevenson s first sojourn in America,\\nafter his Amateur Emigrant experiences, and\\nwhich follows TJie Story of a Lie in point of\\ntime) it is neither Northmour s wild moods nor\\nClara s beauty that is the dominant impression,\\nbut the character and person of the absconding\\nbanker, Bernard Huddlestone:", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0164.jp2"}, "165": {"fulltext": "THE NOVELIST. 1 53\\nHe had a long and sallow countenance, surrounded\\nby a long red beard and side-whiskers. His broken\\nnose and high cheek-bones gave him somewhat the air\\nof a Kalmuck, and his light eyes shone with the excite-\\nment of a high fever. He wore a skull-cap of black\\nsilk a huge Bible lay open before him on the bed,\\nwith a pair of gold spectacles in the place, and a pile\\nof other books lay on a stand by his side. The green\\ncurtains lent a cadaverous shade to his cheek and, as\\nhe sat propped on pillows, his great stature was pain-\\nfully hunched, and his head protruded till it overhung\\nhis knees.\\nThere is the portrait; and the character of a\\nproper scoundrel is depicted in colours so for-\\ncible that, in spite of the fine romantic setting,\\nthe repulsive figure of Bernard Huddlestone\\ncomes near to usurping the whole picture.\\nAbout this time were written the studies of\\nThoreau and Samuel Pepys, studies of a shrewd\\nand delicate discrimination. There was some-\\nthing of the transcendental Thoreau, something\\nof Pepys the indefatigable hedonist, in Steven-\\nson; and so in these essays we have, not two\\nmen of parts but, three talented personages\\nanalysed with eloquence and insight.\\nAnd then, when Stevenson was thirty, came\\nTreasure Island, which marked a tide in his\\naffairs which in a word led on to fortune. To\\nname Treasure Island is to recall John Silver,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0165.jp2"}, "166": {"fulltext": "154 R- L- STEVENSON.\\nthat little masterpiece of characterisation. It is\\nmuch to the praise of the artist s powers of\\nrestraint that he was able to keep this opulent\\npersonality within the bounds of the story, and\\nso preserve an unity of effect. He did accomplish\\nthis feat; and John Silver, in his measure, is to\\nTreasure Island what Chicot the Jester is to the\\nValois cycle of romances, and especially to les\\nQuarante-cmq in that cycle. Both heroes play\\ntheir part to perfection and, in both cases, their\\npart is generously conceived, so that character\\nand opportunity rise and fall in striking and\\nharmonious combination. The delineation of\\nCap n Silver marks the point of Stevenson s\\nattainment to a high degree of proficiency in\\nhis art. After much bookish study of human\\nlife as refracted through the temperaments of\\nother men, he has come to consider life with\\nhis own eyes; and the formidable apparition\\nof the seafaring man with one leg stands\\n(balancing on his crutch) at the head of a con-\\nsiderable society, which lives and moves amid\\na landscape of singular beauty, a province re-\\nconquered in the many-citied land of the\\nunseen.\\nTreasure Island depends not at all for its\\ninterest upon the novelty of the theme. The\\ntheme is the old, stock theme of pirates and", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0166.jp2"}, "167": {"fulltext": "THE NOVELIST. 155\\nburied treasure. It is the personality of the\\npirates and the way they set about their\\nbusiness which (as in life) fascinate the reader.\\nIn such a story, were the element of character\\nreduced to a set of monotoned abstract qualities,\\nthe story might still remain an excellent story.\\nThere is little enough individuality of character\\nin Poe s sombre invention of The Gold Bug; yet\\nthe story is a model of its kind. And it is upon\\nrecord that the readers of Young Folks Paper,\\nfor whose delectation Treasure Island was serially\\npublished, cared little for Silver and his crew.\\nCharacter to the boy, says Stevenson, talking\\nof Treasure Island, is a sealed book a state-\\nment which contains a half-truth. But, character\\nto the grown person is at least as interesting\\nas the romance of circumstance; or, to put the\\nmatter another way, a person who does not care\\nfor the one will probably relish the other. And\\nStevenson brought down both kinds of bird in\\nTreasure Island.\\nIn The Black Arrow, which followed Treasure\\nIsland, the characterisation is necessarily more\\nconventional. For one thing, the period of\\nwhich the story treats is highly remote; and for\\nanother, the author was bent only upon amusing\\nboys and girls whereas, in Treasure Island, he\\nwas singly occupied in amusing himself. And", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0167.jp2"}, "168": {"fulltext": "156 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nyet, this mediaeval rout of nobles, priests, men-\\nat-arms, and outlaws is marshalled before us\\n(in a lingo artfully contrived out of TJie Paston\\nLetters) with some of the lineaments and the\\naccents of life;^ and the author, profoundly in-\\nterested in character as he is, cannot withhold\\nhis hand from adding little traits of idiosyncrasy.\\nAn ye prepare so carefully, said Dick [he is alone\\nwith Lawless in the outlaw s cave], I have here some\\npapers that, for mine own sake, and the interest of those\\nthat trusted me, were better left behind than found\\nupon my body. Where shall I conceal them. Will?\\nNay, replied Lawless, 1 will go forth into the\\nwood and whistle me three verses of a song mean-\\nwhile do you bury them where you please, and smooth\\nthe sand upon the place.\\nNever cried Richard. I trust you, man. I\\nwere base indeed if I not trusted you.\\nBrother, y are but a child, replied the old outlaw,\\npausing and turning his face upon Dick from the thresh-\\nold of the den. I am a kind old Christian, and no\\ntraitor to men s blood, and no sparer of mine own in a\\nfriend s jeopardy. But, fool child, I am a thief by\\ntrade and birth and habit. If my bottle were empty\\nand my mouth dry, I would rob you, dear child, as\\nsure as I love, honour, and admire your parts and per-\\nson Can it be clearer spoken? No.\\n1 Stevenson himself considered Richard Crookback to be\\nreally a very spirited puppet.\\n2 R. L. S., The Black Arrow.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0168.jp2"}, "169": {"fulltext": "THE NOVELIST. I 57\\nBetween the first series of The New Arabian\\nNights, written when the author was twenty-\\neight, and the second series, elapsed an interval\\nof six years; in that interval were written The\\nStory of a Lie, TJirawn Janet, The Merry Men,\\nTreasure Island, The Treasure of Frajichard, The\\nBlack Arrow, Prince Otto, and the excellent\\nfragment, never completed, of The Great North\\nRoad. Of these. The Story of a Lie, Treasure\\nIsla7id, Prince Otto, and The Great North Road,\\nwere largely built upon motives of character or\\npassion. And in the second series of The New\\nArabian Nights, though there be something lack-\\ning of the gaiety and freshness of the earlier\\nentertainments, there is an irresistible element\\nof individuality. We are conscious that the\\npersons of the story are flesh and blood; and,\\nwhereas the misadventures of Francis Q. Scud-\\ndamore or the Reverend Mr Rolles excite sym-\\npathy no more than do the mock disasters\\nwhich befall Harlequin or Pantaloon, when we\\nread of the degrading plight of Mr Edward\\nChalloner, the devotion of Harry Desborough,\\nthe fallen fortunes of Mr Theophilus Godall,\\neven the ghastly situation of the explosive gen-\\ntleman with the chin-beard, we are afflicted with\\nsomething like commiseration and they are the\\nartistic experiments in house agency of Mr Paul", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0169.jp2"}, "170": {"fulltext": "158 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nSomerset incidents arising directly from that\\ngentleman s peculiar tastes and character that\\nremain in the memory, rather than the cataclys-\\nmic inventions of Zero. And, while my Lady\\nVandeieur, Madame Zephyrine, and the Dicta-\\ntor s daughter pass with a flutter of perfumed\\nskirts and are gone, the fair Cuban and the\\nHonourable Mrs Luxmore are ladies to be seri-\\nously reckoned with. And the final chapter of\\nTJie Dynamiters is neither more nor less than\\na scene in a comedy of manners.\\nIt is this lively faculty of individual creation,\\nor, if you prefer it, of expert delineation tis\\nall one that gives to Stevenson s work a great\\npart of its interest and yet, the same faculty is\\nconstantly bringing him into difficulties. The\\nWrecker, for instance, with its great assemblage\\nof diverse characters, its admirable sketches of\\nstudent-life in Paris, drawn from Stevenson s\\nexperiences in his youth its mingling of races\\nand classes in the dollar-hunt, the fiery and not\\nquite unromantic struggle for existence, with its\\nchanging trades and scenery, and two types in\\nparticular, that of the American handy-man of\\nbusiness and that of the Yankee merchant\\nsailor with all this TJie Wrecker might have\\nbeen an admirable novel of character and man-\\nners, just as it might have been an admirable", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0170.jp2"}, "171": {"fulltext": "THE NOVELIST. 1 59\\nStory of adventure. But, as it stands, that long\\nbustling narrative, stuffed full of clever work,\\nfails of its effect as a whole. There is a deal\\nabout the students in Paris and not a word of\\nit has anything to do with the main intrigue:\\nthe whole troupe is presently hurried from the\\nstage, and we hear no more of it there is a vast\\namount of the San Francisco business, which\\nonly touches upon the story at one or two\\nisolated points; and the central interest of the\\nbook does not open until Norris Carthew begins\\nto spin his yarn at the end of the second\\nvolume. In a word, the book is a short story,\\nwith the material for three or four novels\\nof manners thrown in. Remark the figures of\\nLoudon Dodd (degraded creature though he be),\\nJim Pinkerton, Nares, Hemstead, Tommy Had-\\nden, and the three skippers, Bostock, Wicks,\\nand Trent and observe the whole crowd of\\nsubsidiary characters, all drawn to the life.\\nThe conventional prototypes of many estimable\\nacquaintances in fiction are known to all the\\nworld; but Stevenson s people, in common with\\nthe delineations of but two or three contem-\\nporary writers, step into the book in their habit\\nas they live. And once there, they often prefer\\nto exist by and for themselves, rather than be-\\ncome the mere vehicles of a story.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0171.jp2"}, "172": {"fulltext": "l60 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nPrince Otto (begun as Semiramis a Tragedy^\\nwhen the author was in his teens, taken up\\nagain when he was twenty-nine, rewritten five or\\nsix times, and finished several years afterwards),\\nagain, which might have become a play, or a\\nstory of adventure in Seaboard Bohemia, or a\\nlove-story, is all these things in part, and none\\nof them altogether. We are led at first to\\nexpect a romantically ingenious plot; still upon\\nthe trail of intrigue, we begin to think the book\\nis really drama after all, the characters are so\\ninsistently individual; then we return to the\\nstory and by that time the book is near its\\nend; and, despite the wonderful chapter of the\\nflight of the Princess, we turn the last page with\\na feeling not far from disappointment. We\\nhad been led to expect so much, you see. And,\\namid all that brilliant company, the sardonic\\nfigure of Sir John Crabtree is most clearly\\ndefined, although he plays but a subordinate\\npart in the main design.\\nBut when the reader comes to the last sen-\\ntence in TJie Great NortJi Road, begun by Steven-\\nson while he was living at Bournemouth, when\\nhe had finished Prince Otto, he is conscious of a\\ndifferent feeling he is painfully desirous to\\nknow the end of this seductive fragment. For,\\nhere is the beginning of a love-story indeed,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0172.jp2"}, "173": {"fulltext": "THE NOVELIST. l6l\\nnot to mention the highwayman business and\\nNance Holdaway is a real woman, sincerely\\nentertaining sentiments, new to her experi-\\nence, towards the mysterious and attractive\\nMr Archer.\\nMr Archer, disclaiming any thought of flattery,\\nturned off to other subjects, and held her all through\\nthe wood in conversation, addressing her with an air\\nof perfect sincerity, and Hstening to her answers with\\nevery mark of interest. Had open flattery continued,\\nNance would have soon found refuge in good sense\\nbut the more subtle lure she could not suspect, much\\nless avoid. It was the first time she had ever taken\\npart in a conversation illuminated by any ideas. All\\nwas then true that she had heard and dreamed of\\ngentlemen they were a race apart, like deities know-\\ning good and evil. And then there burst upon her\\nsoul a divine thought, hope s glorious sunrise since\\nshe could understand, since it seemed that she too,\\neven she, could interest this sorrowful Apollo, might\\nshe not learn? or was she not learning? Would not\\nher soul awake and put forth wings? Was she not,\\nin fact, an enchanted princess, waiting but a touch to\\nbecome royal? She saw herself transformed, radiantly\\nattired, but in the most exquisite taste her face grown\\nlonger and more refined her tint etherealised and\\nshe heard herself with delighted wonder talking like\\na book.^\\n1 R. L. S., The Great North Road.\\nII", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0173.jp2"}, "174": {"fulltext": "1 62 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nWe perceive there was much laid in store for\\npoor Nance that never came to pass, since her\\ncreator neglected to fulfil her destinies; for, in\\nthe capital opening of TJie Great North Road^\\nthere are evident indications of the sort of plot,\\nmore or less intricate, which attracts the reader s\\nattention from the outset with an element of\\nmystery a method which Stevenson usually\\nrejected. Nance Holdaway is so well drawn,\\nthat, had all her story been related, it is likely\\nshe would have taken her place with the rest\\nof those men and women, the leaders of the\\nStevensonian society, who stand forth from\\namong their fellows, and in whose conversation\\nwe forget the business upon which they are\\nostensibly engaged.\\nAs Francis Villon, in A Lodging for the Night,\\nthe Admiral, in The Story of a Lie, Bernard Rud-\\ndiest one, in The Pavilion on the Links, John\\nSilver, in Treasure Island, Sir John Crabtree, in\\nPrince Otto, Jim Pinkerton and Captain Nares,\\nin The Wrecker, do stand forth and clamantly\\nengross attention so David Balfour, the dour\\nScot who falls into dire misfortune, and then in\\nlove, and who took both adventures very hardly\\nAlan Breck Stewart, the bonny fighter and\\nconstant comrade; Mr Utterson, that inesti-\\nmable lawyer; Michael Finsbury, the lawyer of", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0174.jp2"}, "175": {"fulltext": "THE NOVELIST. 1 63\\na type extremely different James Durie, Master\\nof Ballantrae; Huish, the vile cockney; Wilt-\\nshire, the South Sea trader; Hermiston, the\\nHanging Judge, Kirstie, his servant, and Chris-\\ntina, beloved of his son: disengage themselves\\nfrom the rest of the Stevensonian romance and\\nfarce, from the ranks of their inferiors and the\\ncoil of circumstance, and dwell in knowledge like\\npeople with whom we have kept house.\\nAnd all the men, save two or three, have this\\nin common: their characters own something\\nsinister, and often repellent. Delight in the\\nSqualid-Picturesque drew Stevenson in his youth\\nto limn the dead rascal, Villon; in maturer age\\nhe gropes in a city sewer, and gives us Huish;\\nand Huish his dialect apart is a masterpiece\\nof portraiture. The rest of his men are mainly\\nadventurers, or grave personages dealing with\\nlarge affairs for, as I have said, Stevenson liked\\nbetter to paint the duel of fortune than the duel\\nof sex and it is perhaps inevitable that one\\nside of life, presented so entirely to the exclu-\\nsion of the other, should take on a rougher, more\\nharsh, more sanguinary aspect than it wears\\nin nature. In The Ebb-Tide, written at Apia\\nin the last years of his lifetime, the experi-\\nenced artist seems to have become conscious of\\nthis; and, although Huish is a thing to spit", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0175.jp2"}, "176": {"fulltext": "1 64 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nupon, the captain, with his searing memory of\\nhis child Adar, only daughter of Captain\\nJohn Davis and Mariar his wife, aged five\\nand Herrick, writing to his sweetheart, establish\\na sense of kinship that makes an invaluable relief\\nin the whole effect of that brilliant design.\\nStevenson s deliberate omission of the other\\nside of life, of the element of feminine char-\\nacter, in the most of his books, is the more re-\\nmarkable when we consider the women whom\\nhe did create. There is Barbara Grant, who\\ncoquetted with the stockish David with an ele-\\ngance and skill that deserved a better success;\\nthere is Catriona Drummond, though she, it is\\ntrue, is little more than a piece of petticoated\\ninnocence with a pair of grey eyes; and then,\\nthere are Christina Elliott and her aunt Kirstie\\nin Weir of Henniston. To peruse A Leaf from\\nChristina s Psalm-book from beginning to end,\\nand At the Weaver s Stone (the last chapter,\\nbroken midway, that Stevenson ever wrote), is to\\nrise up inspired with a deep delight in the pre-\\nsentment of scenes conceived in the high vein\\nof romance. Stevenson divined the inmost,\\nwordless thoughts of Christina s heart, when she\\nwent to her chamber to change her stockings\\nto the pink. He read her soul like an open\\npage, as she sat and waited for Archie Weir to", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0176.jp2"}, "177": {"fulltext": "THE NOVELIST. 165\\ncome to her at the Weaver s Stone. And in\\nKirstie Elliott, he began a monumental figure,\\neloquent of tragedy, a type of inexpugnable\\nsorrow. Peculiar treasure passing unclaimed\\nand unregarded, secret riches wasting all unused\\nhere is a common fate, a destiny more cruel\\nthan Desdemona s; and such a fate was Kirstie\\nElliott s.\\nThere is no more gay and airy trifling, no\\nmore excellent fooling no more reckless farce\\nin The Ebb- Tide and Weir of Heriniston the\\nnovelist is in earnest, he is giving all he has;\\nand when it comes to this point with him Chris-\\ntina, and the Hanging Judge, and Kirstie Elliott\\nrise into being; and in them is their creator s\\nmemory honoured.\\nAnd besides these, what a gallant, motley\\nregiment wears the badge of Stevenson Princes\\nand cabmen, murderers and ministers of state,\\nbuccaneers and princesses, beggarmen and\\nmillionaires, witches and clergymen, Yankee\\nsharpers and Poor Jack, Highlander, Lowlander,\\nand Cockney, pass in a vivid procession, with\\npassionate gesture and silent, eloquent speech,\\ninto the city of their ultimate habitation, founded\\nin the land of dreams.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0177.jp2"}, "178": {"fulltext": "VIII.\\nTHE LIMNER OF LANDSCAPE.\\nNature then\\nTo me was all in all I cannot paint\\nWhat then I was. The sounding cataract\\nHaunted me like a passion the tall rock,\\nThe mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,\\nTheir colours and their forms, were then to me\\nAn appetite;\\nWordsworth.\\nTo the youthful Stevenson, intensely preoccu-\\npied with the desire to write, to make something\\nin words that was a proficiency that tempted\\nme; and I practised to acquire it, as men learn\\nto whittle, in a wager with myself the study\\nof landscape offered, not only a vehicle of deli-\\ncate and pleasurable sensations but, a ready and\\ncongenial choice of subjects.\\nWith Wordsworth and the poets of his time [says\\nMr. J. A. Symonds, propounding a neat theory in his\\n1 R. L. S., Memories and Portraits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0178.jp2"}, "179": {"fulltext": "THE LIMNER OF LANDSCAPE. 1 6/\\nessay on Landscape],^ nature owns something corres-\\npondent to man s consciousness. A positive myth-\\nology, importing the imagination into science if I\\nmay so express this revolution in thought about the\\nuniverse replaces the anthropomorphism of the\\nGreeks, and fills at last the vacuum created by medi-\\naeval theology.\\nTo attempt to show in what the inheritance\\nbequeathed by Wordsworth and his successors\\nconsisted, would carry me far beyond my scope.\\nSuch as it was, Stevenson entered into his heri-\\ntage; and what chiefly concerns us is his use of\\nthat appreciation of landscape for its own sake,\\nwhich makes an integral part of modern art.\\nHe studied letters together with landscape, and\\nhe sees with the refracted vision of other seers as\\nwell as with his own eyes. Not his the elemen-\\ntal, savage delight in nature of Richard Jeffreys,\\nthe Leatherstocking of literature, nor the\\naustere, philosophical regard of Thoreau and\\nhis fellow-gymnosophists. Rather was his\\npassion for nature s beauty sensuous in kind;\\nand like many another young man, even the\\nProphet of the Lakes himself, it seems that he\\nentered to his proper field of minute and patient\\nstudy, the study of mankind, through the tre-\\nmendous portals of the mountain and the sun-\\n1 John Addington Symonds, Essays Speculative and Suggestive,", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0179.jp2"}, "180": {"fulltext": "1 68 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nrise. But, when the inevitable change had\\npassed, and the dainty landscape-limner had\\nflourished and blossomed into the creator and\\nromantic whom we know, he still clung to his\\nfirst love and the great effects of changing sky\\nand deep forest, smiling champaign, rolling hills,\\nand beating seas, which once wholly engaged\\nthe artist, serve now as the magnificent back-\\ngrounds to his designs.\\nSo, in the beginning, we find an eager, thread-\\npaper, sensitive youth wandering the fields, with\\nas he says always two books in my pocket,\\none to read, one to write in. As I walked, my\\nmind was busy fitting what I saw with appro-\\npriate words when I sat by the roadside, I\\nwould either read, or a pencil and a penny\\nversion-book would be in my hand, to note\\ndown the features of the scene or commemorate\\nsome halting stanzas.\\nHere are his notes of one such scene, An\\nAutumn Effect, from an essay published in The\\nPortfolio in 1875, when the author was twenty-\\nfive:\\nA pall of grey cloud covered the sky, and its colour\\nreacted on the colour of the landscape. Near at\\nhand, indeed, the hedgerow trees were still fairly green,\\nshot through with bright autumnal yellows, bright as\\n1 R. L. S., Memories and Portraits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0180.jp2"}, "181": {"fulltext": "THE LIMNER OF LANDSCAPE. 1 69\\nsunshine. But a little way off, the solid bricks of\\nwoodland that lay squarely on slope and hill- top were\\nnot green, but russet and grey, and ever less russet\\nand more grey as they drew off into the distance. As\\nthey drew off into the distance, also, the woods seemed\\nto mass themselves together, and lay thin and straight,\\nlike clouds, upon the limit of one s view The\\nsun came out before I had been long on my way;\\nand as I had got by that time to the top of the ascent,\\nand was now treading a labyrinth of confined by-roads,\\nmy whole view brightened considerably in colour, for\\nit was the distance only that was grey and cold, and\\nthe distance I could see no longer. Overhead there\\nwas a wonderful carolling of larks which seemed to\\nfollow me as I went A few hundred yards\\nfarther, and, passing through a gap in the hedge, I\\nbegan to go down hill through a pretty extensive tract\\nof young beeches. I was soon in shadow myself, but\\nthe afternoon sun still coloured the upmost boughs\\nof the wood, and made a fire over my head in the\\nautumnal foliage There was something about\\nthe atmosphere that brought all sights and sounds\\nhome to one with a singular purity, so that I felt as if\\nmy senses had been washed with water.-\\nThis epicurean young gentleman artist and\\ncolourman in words is enjoying himself ex-\\ntremely, you see; and it is a question which\\naffords him the greater pleasure, the contem-\\n1 R. L. Juvenilia.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0181.jp2"}, "182": {"fulltext": "170 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nplation of these manifold, serene beauties, or the\\nsetting them in precious words. But, there is\\nanother side to the picture. The epicure whose\\nsenses had been washed with water a deft\\nphrase presently wakes up to a different sen-\\nsation, which is recorded with the sort of quaint\\nsolemnity that makes part of the perennial\\ncharm of youth.\\n(^Added the next mornhig.) He who indulges habit-\\nually in the intoxicating pleasures of imagination, for\\nthe very reason that he reaps a greater pleasure than\\nothers, must resign himself to a keener pain, a more\\nintolerable and utter prostration. It is quite possible,\\nand even comparatively easy, so to enfold oneself in\\npleasant fancies that the realities of life may seem but\\nas the white snow-shower in the street, that only gives\\na relish to the swept hearth and lively fire within. By\\nsuch means I have forgotten hunger, I have sometimes\\neased pain, and I have invariably changed into the\\nmost pleasant hours of the day those very vacant and\\nidle seasons which would otherwise have hung most\\nheavily upon my hand Do not suppose that\\nI am exaggerating when I talk about all pleasures\\nseeming stale. To me, at least, the edge of almost\\neverything is put on by imagination and even nature,\\nin these days when the fancy is drugged and useless,\\nwants half the charm it has in better moments. I can\\nno longer see satyrs in the thicket, or picture a high-\\nwayman riding down the lane. The fiat of indiffer-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0182.jp2"}, "183": {"fulltext": "THE LIMNER OF LANDSCAPE. 171\\nence has gone forth I am vacant, unprofitable a\\nleaf on a river with no volition and no aim a mental\\ndrunkard the morning after an intellectual debauch.\\nYes, I have a more subtle opium in my own mind\\nthan any apothecary s drug but it has a sting of its\\nown, and leaves me as flat and helpless as does the\\nother.^\\nBut these are only the pains of a beginner;\\nthe faculty whose exercise seems to entail such\\npenalties is presently to become the absorbing\\npreoccupation of existence: meanwhile, we may\\nobserve the author consoling himself thereby,\\nas he puts his little record of emotions into\\nnice English.\\nAnd meanwhile, Stevenson follows the Scots\\ntradition, and goes to France, and lives in the\\nforest of Fontainebleau with the painters, and\\ndevelops theories upon style. Here, from his\\nwritings at five- or six-and-twenty, is a pic-\\nture, entirely French in effect, and rather like\\nMillet:\\nPerhaps the reader knows already the aspect of the\\ngreat levels of the Gatinais, where they border with\\nthe wooded hills of Fontainebleau. Here and there a\\nfew grey rocks creep out of the forest as if to sun\\nthemselves. Here and there a few apple-trees stand\\ntogether on a knoll. The quaint, undignified tartan\\nR. L. S., Juvenilia.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0183.jp2"}, "184": {"fulltext": "172 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nof a myriad small fields dies out into the distance\\nthe strips blend and disappear; and the dead flat\\nlies forth open and empty, with no accident save\\nperhaps a thin line of trees or faint church-spire\\nagainst the sky. Solemn and vast at all times, in\\nspite of pettiness in the near details, the impression\\nbecomes more solemn and vast towards evening.\\nThe sun goes down, a swollen orange, as it were\\ninto the sea. A blue-clad peasant rides home, with\\na harrow smoking behind him among the dry clods.\\nAnother still works with his wife in their little strip.\\nAn immense shadow fills the plain these people\\nstand in it up to their shoulders and their heads, as\\nthey stoop over their work and rise again, are relieved\\nfrom time to time against the golden sky.^\\nThat is well written; so far as landscape may\\nbe rendered in prose, that scene of the sun-\\nsetting upon the flat, cultivated champaign is\\nrendered. And, throughout the Inland Voyage,\\nand the travels in the Cevennes which followed\\nhis French experiences, the landscape is presented\\nin a series of alluring vignettes. By this time\\nStevenson is master of his trade so far as expres-\\nsion goes; he wields the English tongue with\\na fastidious and delighted mastery. Wherever\\nhe goes, in all quarters of the world, he paints\\nthese word-pictures for our delectation. Here\\nis one observed in America from the windows\\nR. L. Juvenilia.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0184.jp2"}, "185": {"fulltext": "THE LIMNER OF LANDSCAPE. 1 73\\nof the emigrant train, when, in 1879 twenty-\\nnine), he is playing the amateur emigrant:\\nThe train was then, in its patient way, standing\\nhalted in a by-track. It was a clear, moonlit night\\nbut the valley was too narrow to admit the moonshine\\ndirect, and only a diffused glimmer whitened the tall\\nrocks and relieved the blackness of the pines. A\\nhoarse clamour filled the air it was the continuous\\nplunge of a cascade somewhere near at hand among\\nthe mountains. The air struck chill, but tasted good\\nand vigorous in the nostrils a fine, dry, old mountain\\natmosphere When I awoke next morning,\\nI was puzzled for a while to know if it were day or\\nnight, for the illumination was unusual. I sat up at\\nlast, and found we were grading slowly downward\\nthrough a long snowshed and suddenly we shot into\\nan open and before we were swallowed into the next\\nlength of wooden tunnel, I had one glimpse of a huge\\npine-forested ravine upon my left, a foaming river, and\\na sky already coloured with the fires of dawn.-\\nAnd here, from the same continent, is a mar-\\nvellous night-piece, written a year or so later:\\nThe sky itself was of a ruddy, powerful, nameless,\\nchanging colour, dark and glossy like a serpent s back.\\nThe stars, by innumerable millions, stuck boldly forth\\nlike lamps. The milky way was bright, like a moonht\\ncloud half heaven seemed milky way. The greater\\nR. L. S., The Amateur Emigrant.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0185.jp2"}, "186": {"fulltext": "174 R- L. STEVENSON.\\nluminaries shone each more clearly than a winter s\\nmoon. Their light was dyed in every sort of colour\\nred, like fire blue, like steel green, like the tracks\\nof sunset and so sharply did each stand forth in its\\nown lustre that there was no appearance of that flat,\\nstar-spangled arch we know so well in pictures, but\\nall the hollow of heaven was one chaos of contesting\\nluminaries a hurly-burly of stars. Against this the\\nhills and rugged tree-tops stood out redly dark.\\nYou will not often match that for a piece of\\npictorial prose. And we read of no inglorious\\ncollapse next morning The habit of imaginative\\nobservation has become a part of the artist, like\\nhis appetite; and it is upon the exercise of the\\none, as much as the other, that he continues to\\nexist.\\nAnd in all the novels and stories of Stevenson\\nthe landscape co-exists and counts in the story\\nwith the characters and sometimes, as in Prince\\nOtto, the men and women are apt to look a trifle\\ninsignificant beside the gorgeous spectacle of the\\nnatural earth. It is possible to make the best\\nof stories without a particle of landscape, save\\nthe merest stage-properties, as in Fielding and\\nThackeray; or you may, if you choose, include\\nas factors in your design the aspect and opera-\\ntions of the visible universe, as in Scott, or\\nHugo, or Dickens. But Stevenson would prob-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0186.jp2"}, "187": {"fulltext": "THE LIMNER OF LANDSCAPE. 1 75\\nably have found it very difficult to work upon\\nthe former method, save in the construction of\\nplays; and when he was employed upon that\\nbusiness, he collaborated with Mr Henley. So,\\nin all his novels, we have romantic settings and\\nbeautiful, sunbright (to use an epithet dear to\\nhim) vignettes. Take, for instance, the sea-piece\\nfrom TJie Pavilion on the Links, written during\\nhis American sojourn\\nThe pavilion stood on an even space a little behind\\nit, the wood began in a hedge of elders huddled to-\\ngether by the wind in front a few tumbled sand-hills\\nstood between it and the sea The district\\nwas alive with rabbits, and haunted by gulls which\\nmade a continual piping about the pavilion. On\\nsummer days the outlook was bright, and even glad-\\nsome but at sundown in September, with a high\\nwind, and a heavy surf rolling in close along the\\nlinks, the place told of nothing but dead mariners\\nand sea disaster. A ship beating to windward on the\\nhorizon, and a huge truncheon of wreck half-buried\\nin the sands at my feet, completed the innuendo of the\\nscene,^\\nNote that neither the ship nor the wreckage\\nhas anything to do with the story, any more\\nthan the cream-tarts had any immediate relation\\nto the Suicide Club. It is worth remark, too,\\n1 R. L. S., The Pavilion on the Links.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0187.jp2"}, "188": {"fulltext": "176 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nhow large a part the picturesque aspect and\\nconfiguration of the place, the situation of the\\npavilion, and the condition of the weather play\\nin the story. The setting, to say the least, is\\nstronger than the love interest.\\nBut, in Treasure Islajid, the background is con-\\ntrived to admiration here is a single instance\\nIt was one January morning, very early a pinching\\nfrosty morning the cove all grey with hoar-frost, the\\nripple lapping softly on the stones, the sun still low\\nand only touching the hill-tops and shining far to\\nseaward. The captain had risen earlier than usual,\\nand set out down the beach, his cutlass swinging under\\nthe broad skirts of the old blue coat, his brass telescope\\nunder his arm, his hat tilted back upon his head. I\\nremember his breath hanging Hke smoke in his wake\\nas he strode off\\nThe scene is set for imminent peril, you see;\\nthere is a threat in the windless, grey winter\\nmorning, when the old buccaneer goes down to\\nkeep his accustomed watch for the seafaring man\\nwith one leg.\\nThe persons of the drama, in Prince Otto, move\\namid landscape and scenery beautiful with crag\\nand forest, running brooks and palaces and gar-\\ndens. Prince Otto should be twice perused, once\\nfor the story and again for the landscape. To\\nR. L. S., Treasure Island.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0188.jp2"}, "189": {"fulltext": "THE LIMNER OF LANDSCAPE. 1 7/\\nendeavour to combine the two is to spoil the\\neffect of both. The errant Prince, rising early,\\nwalks in his host s garden, and contemplates the\\ntiny river runningthrough that Arcadian estate\\nThe stream was a break neck, boiling, highland\\nriver. Hard by the farm, it leaped a little precipice\\nin a thick grey-mare s tail of twisted filaments, and\\nthen lay and worked and bubbled in a lynn. Into the\\nmiddle of this quaking pool a rock protruded, shelving\\nto a cape and thither Otto scrambled and sat down\\nto ponder. Soon the sun struck through the screen\\nof branches and thin early leaves that made a hanging\\nbower above the fall and the golden lights and flitting\\nshadows fell upon and marbled the surface of that\\nseething pot and rays plunged deep among the turn-\\ning waters and a spark, as bright as a diamond, lit\\nupon the swaying eddy. It began to grow warm\\nwhere Otto lingered, warm and heady; the lights\\nswam, weaving their maze across the shaken pool on\\nthe impending rock, reflections danced like butterflies\\nand the air was fanned by the waterfall as by a swinging\\ncurtain.\\nAnd here is a garden scene, where the Prince\\nis discovered at a certain crucial moment in his\\nlife:\\nThence he proceeded alone to where, in a round\\nclearing, a copy of Gian Bologna s Mercury stood\\ntiptoe in the twilight of the stars. The night was\\n1 R. L. S., Prince Otto.\\n12", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0189.jp2"}, "190": {"fulltext": "178 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nwarm and windless. A shaving of new moon had\\nlately arisen but it was still too small and too low\\ndown in heaven to contend with the immense host of\\nlesser luminaries and the rough face of the earth\\nwas drenched with starlight. Down one of the alleys,\\nwhich widened as it receded, he could see a part of\\nthe lamplit terrace where a sentry silently paced, and\\nbeyond that a corner of the town with interlacing\\nstreet lights. But all around him the young trees\\nstood mystically blurred in the dim shine and in\\nthe stock-still quietness the up-leaping god appeared\\nalive.\\nAnd here is an illustration from what is,\\nperhaps, in some ways the most excellent piece\\nof romantic description in Stevenson, the chapter\\nin Pi ince Otto where the discrowned Princess\\nwanders by night in the forest:\\nThe early evening had fallen chill, but the night was\\nnow temperate out of the recesses of the wood there\\ncame mild airs as from a deep and peaceful breathing\\nand the dew was heavy on the grass and the tight-\\nshut daisies. This was the girl s first night under the\\nnaked heaven and now that her fears were overpast,\\nshe was touched to the soul by its serene amenity and\\npeace. Kindly the host of heaven blinked down upon\\nthat wandering Princess and the honest brook had\\nno words but to encourage her.\\nAt last she began to be aware of a wonderful\\n1 R. L. S., Prince Otto.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0190.jp2"}, "191": {"fulltext": "THE LIMNER OF LANDSCAPE. 1 79\\nrevolution, compared to which the fire of Mittwalden\\nPalace was but the crack and flash of a percussion-cap.\\nThe countenance with which the pines regarded her\\nbegan insensibly to change the grass too, short as it\\nwas, and the whole winding staircase of the brook s\\ncourse, began to wear a solemn freshness of appear-\\nance. And this slow transfiguration reached her heart,\\nand played upon it, and transpierced it with a serious\\nthrill. She looked all about the whole face of na-\\nture looked back, brimful of meaning, finger on lip,\\nleaking its glad secret. She looked up. Heaven was\\nalmost emptied of stars. Such as still lingered shone\\nwith a changed and waning brightness, and began to\\nfaint in their stations. And the colour of the sky was\\nthe most wonderful for the rich blue of the night\\nhad now melted and softened and brightened and\\nthere had succeeded in its place a hue that has no\\nname, and that is never seen but as the herald of\\nmorning. 01 she cried, joy catching at her voice,\\nO it is the dawn\\nThe London street scenes in Dr Jeky II 2idm\\\\r-\\nably accord with the weird spirit of the tale.\\nThere is one effect of east wind which Dickens\\nhas also presented in his own way; and the dis-\\nparity between the points of view of these two\\nmasters of description is worth notice. Mr\\nUtterson goes to visit Dr Jekyll, and\\nIt was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with\\n1 R. L. S., Frtiice Otto.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0191.jp2"}, "192": {"fulltext": "l80 R. L. STEVENSON.\\na pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind\\nhad tilted her, and a flying wrack of the most diaphan-\\nous and lawny texture. The wind made talking diffi-\\ncult, and flecked the blood into the face. It seemed\\nto have swept the streets unusually bare of passengers,\\nbesides for Mr Utterson thought he had never seen\\nthat part of London so deserted. He could have\\nwished it otherwise never in his life had he been\\nconscious of so sharp a wish to see and touch his\\nfellow-creatures for, struggle as he might, there was\\nborne in upon his mind a crushing anticipation of\\ncalamity. The square, when they got there, was all\\nfull of wind and dust, and the thin trees in the garden\\nwere lashing themselves along the railing.^\\nThere is a menace in the air, too, in the\\nopening of Chapter xii. Book I. in Our Mutual\\nFriend:\\nIt was not summer yet, but spring and it was not\\ngentle spring ethereally mild, as in Thomson s Sea-\\nsons, but nipping spring with an easterly wind, as in\\nJohnson s, Jackson s, Dickson s, Smith s, and Jones s\\nSeasons. The grating wind sawed rather than blew;\\nand as it sawed the sawdust whirled about the sawpit.\\nEvery street was a sawpit, and there were no top-\\nsawyers every passenger was an under-sawyer, with the\\nsawdust blinding him and choking him The\\nwind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. The shrubs\\n1 R. L. S., The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde-\\nWritten in i8S6.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0192.jp2"}, "193": {"fulltext": "THE LIMNER OF LANDSCAPE. l8l\\nwrung their many hands, bemoaning that they had\\nbeen over-persuaded by the sun to bud the young\\nleaves pined the sparrows repented of their early mar-\\nriages, like men and women the colours of the rain-\\nbow were discernible, not in floral spring, but in the\\nfaces of the people whom it nibbled and pinched\\nThe just and subtle instinct of both artists\\nleads them to select the particular kind of ex-\\nternal circumstances, and the particular aspect\\nof them, which chime, in some indefinable way,\\nwith the process of events. So in TAe Master of\\nBallantrae, in the great scene of the book, the\\nduel by night:\\nIt was as he had said there was no breath stirring\\na windless stricture of frost had bound the air and as\\nwe went forth in the shine of the candles, the black-\\nness was like a roof over our heads. Never a word\\nwas said there was never a sound but the creaking of\\nour steps along the frozen path. The cold of the\\nnight fell about me like a bucket of water I shook as\\nI went with more than terror but my companions,\\nbare-headed like myself, and fresh from the warm hall,\\nappeared not even conscious of the change.\\nHere is the place, said the Master. Set down\\nthe candles.\\nI did as he bid me, and pr sently the flames went\\nup, as steady as in a chamber, in the midst of the\\n1 Charles Dickens, Gur Mutual Friend.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0193.jp2"}, "194": {"fulltext": "1 82 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nfrosted trees, and I beheld these two brothers take\\ntheir places.^\\nAnd so in TJie Wrecker, when the schooner\\nNorah Creina, driven by the gale, draws near\\nthe end of her voyage, and the crew of wreckers\\nat last behold their prize\\nLittle by little, in that white waste of water, I began\\nto make out a quarter where the whiteness appeared\\nmore condensed the sky above was whitish likewise,\\nand misty like a squall and little by little there thrilled\\nupon my ears a note deeper and more terrible than\\nthe yelling of the gale the long thundering roll of\\nbreakers. Nares wiped his night-glass on his sleeve\\nand passed it to me, motioning, as he did so, with his\\nhand. An endless wilderness of raging billows came\\nand went and danced in the circle of the glass now\\nand then a pale corner of sky, or the strong line of the\\nhorizon rugged with the heads of waves and then of\\na sudden come and gone ere I could fix it, with a\\nswallow s swiftness one glimpse of what we had come\\nso far and paid so dear to see the masts and rigging\\nof a brig pencilled on heaven, with an ensign stream-\\ning at the main, and the ragged ribbons of a topsail\\nthrashing from the yard. Again and again, with toilful\\nsearching, I recalled that apparition. There was no\\nsign of any land the wreck stood between sea and\\nsky, a thing the most isolated I had ever viewed but\\n1 R. L. S., The Master of Ballantrae, written in 1888-89.\\n2 Written in 1889-91.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0194.jp2"}, "195": {"fulltext": "THE LIMNER OF LANDSCAPE. 1 83\\nas we drew nearer, I perceived her to be defended by\\na line of breakers which drew off on either hand, and\\nmarked, indeed, the nearest segment of the reef.\\nHeavy spray hung over them Hke a smoke, some hun-\\ndred feet into the air and the sound of their con-\\nsecutive explosions rolled like a cannonade.\\nAnd, for a last illustration, take the direct,\\nromantic opening to The Beach of Falesd\\nI saw that island first when it was neither night nor\\nmorning. The moon was to the west, setting, but still\\nbroad and bright. To the east, and right amidships\\nof the dawn, which was all pink, the daystar sparkled\\nlike a diamond. The land breeze blew in our faces,\\nand smelt strong of wild lime and vanilla other things\\nbesides, but these were the most plain and the chill\\nof it set me sneezing. I should say I had been for\\nyears on a low island near the line, living for the most\\npart solitary among natives. Here was a fresh experi-\\nence even the tongue would be quite strange to me\\nand the look of those woods and mountains, and the\\nrare smell of them, renewed my blood\\nStevenson had a rare perception of romantic\\nlandscape; the beauty of the tangible world\\nwas set in his heart in the beginning, and to\\nthe end he rejoiced in it.\\n1 Written in 1891.\\n2 R. L. S., Island Nights Entertainments.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0195.jp2"}, "196": {"fulltext": "IX.\\nHIS STYLE.\\nFor the foundation of style is nothing else but this a fixed de-\\ntermination in any man to reveal the true nature of his thought\\nas distinguished, and contra-distinguished, from the thoughts of\\nall others his fellow-men, be they alive or dead. Not one of\\nthese shares fully the ideas that are man s; wherefore must he,\\nat the beginning, be content to stand utterly alone in the world,\\nuntil out of himself he can spin those threads which shall one\\nday serve to swing him back into the thoughts of his kind. O\\nawful isolation, awful incubation I O perilous flight through the\\nvoid air\\nThat is the meaning of style. C. F. Keary.\\nThere is a writer called Mr Robert Louis Stevenson, who\\nmakes most delicate inlay-work in black and white, and files\\nout to the fraction of a hair. Rudyard Kipling, Blackjack.\\nRobert Louis Stevenson was the very type\\nof the aristocrat the ragged aristocrat of\\nletters. The crown and flower of an old tradi-\\ntion, a tradition of sound scholarship, and good\\ntalk, and fastidious craftsmanship, a tradition\\nof wine and song and story, the evolution of\\nStevenson the writer, in accordance with the com-\\nmon law, left him intensely preocccupied with", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0196.jp2"}, "197": {"fulltext": "HIS STYLE. 185\\nthe study of form, as distinct in so far as it may\\nbe distinguished from substance. He was born\\nwith the single, imperious desire to make some-\\nthing in words. What that something should\\nconsist of, was of a secondary importance; and,\\nindeed, when this versatile maker came to\\nthe end of his life he left examples of nearly\\nevQvy g-enre known to polite literature. But, at\\nfirst, those were studies of form that absorbed\\nhis energies; and the direction of those studies\\nis highly characteristic of the man. His choice\\nof models and method of work are among the\\nstock illustrations of contemporary criticism.\\nIt was not so much that I wished to be an author\\n[he says] (though I wished that too) as that I had\\nvowed that I would learn to write Whenever I\\nread a book or a passage that particularly pleased me,\\nin which a thing was said or an effect rendered with\\npropriety, in which there was either some conspicuous\\nforce or some happy distinction in the style, I must\\nsit down at once and set myself to ape that quality.\\nI was unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried again,\\nand was again unsuccessful, and always unsuccessful\\nbut at least in these vain bouts I got some practice\\nin rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the co-\\nordination of parts. I have thus played the sedulous\\nape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir\\nThomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Mon-\\ntaigne, to Baudelaire, and to Obermann. That [he", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0197.jp2"}, "198": {"fulltext": "1 86 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nadds, with finality], like it or not, is the way to learn\\nto write; whether I have profited or not, that is the\\nway.^\\nWell, it was undoubtedly the way, and the\\nonly way, for Stevenson, since he deliberately\\nelected to become a perfect writer before he\\ncould, in the nature of things, have anything\\nparticular to say. Other writers, such as\\nCharles Dickens and Sir Walter, began by\\namassing material, and afterwards they learned\\nto shape it. But Stevenson preferred to carve\\nall his patterns and prepare his moulds; and\\nthen he collected the raw stuff, and slowly\\npoured it into a beautiful ready-made receptacle.\\nIt does not seem to matter which way you go\\nabout the business; only, there are more ways\\nthan the one, after all. And here there falls\\nto be made another distinction that, while the\\ncourse of gymnastic laid down by Stevenson so\\npositively may be a training essential to the man\\nof letters, as such yet, the story-teller stands\\nupon a slightly different footing. For, while\\nthe student, the critic, and the essayist, dealing\\nlargely with abstractions, may properly discourse\\nof the things of their knowledge in terms of the\\nstudy, the teller of tales, who deals directly with\\n1 R. L. S., Memories and Portraits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0198.jp2"}, "199": {"fulltext": "HIS STYLE. 187\\nreality, must tell of life in the dialect of life. So\\nlong as the novelist express his meaning clearly\\nand cleanly, the result if he care to know it\\nwill be literature. Now Stevenson, discoursing\\nof flesh and blood and of actual, momentous ex-\\nperience, sets forth his tale in terms of the study.\\nHe is never satisfied until his least phrase is ex-\\npressed in words which, irrespective of the main\\ndesign of the piece, shall connote and suggest\\nthe utmost value of association or suggestion of\\nwhich it is capable. It is possible to conceive of\\nthe main relation to the story of phrase or para-\\ngraph being taken away, and the structure still\\nstanding, alone and self-sufficient, like a costume\\nof brocade divested by its wearer.\\nBut, when we take, for an instance on the\\nother side, the case of old Dumas, as a master of\\nnarrative art, the idea of such an operation per-\\nformed upon the works of Alexander is totally\\ninconceivable. In order to present his theme\\nwith the greatest possible directness and vigour,\\nhe has reduced all expression to a naked, athletic\\nsimplicity. And so, if there be a criticism to\\noffer upon Stevenson s magnificent style, it is a\\nnegative objection, and cavils doubtfully of a\\nlack of simplicity. I say, if there be, advisedly;\\nfor, to a man of Stevenson s temperament, no\\nother expression were adequate or possible; he", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0199.jp2"}, "200": {"fulltext": "1 88 R. L. STEVENSON.\\npainted as he saw; and to deprecate his style,\\nis to find fault with Stevenson as God made\\nhim, with the artist as his most earnest toil\\nimproved his natural gifts. And, if his purely\\nnarrative works lose, considered from one point\\nof view, from a superfluity of beautiful vesture,\\nlooked at from another, the same quality adds\\nvastly to the pleasure of their perusal. It is\\nonly upon general grounds that we may take\\nexception; for a perfect and sufficient rule for\\nthe artist has never yet been established, during\\nimmemorial centuries; nor may Robert Louis\\nStevenson go down to posterity as the exponent\\nof the one infallible method.\\nNevertheless, his influence upon the writers of\\nhis generation is both active and salutary. Even\\nthe journalist is affected and there is scarce a\\nnewspaper of repute but unconsciously pays its\\ndaily tribute to the aristocracy of letters, in a\\npicked word here and there, or the turn of a\\nphrase, which were first legitimatised by Steven-\\nson. Generously gifted, not only with a fine\\nsense and love of words, of their colour and\\nvalue but, with the faculty of heroical industry,\\nStevenson (in the famous phrase) wrote like an\\nangel.\\nConsider his many volumes, in all their vari-\\nety; and a hundred different harmonies, ingeni-", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0200.jp2"}, "201": {"fulltext": "HIS STYLE. 189\\nous rhythms, nimble combinations and subtle\\ncontrasts of colour, apt and witty epithets, chime\\nin the memory\\nLook at one of your industrious fellows for a mo-\\nment, I beseech you Either he absents him-\\nself entirely from all fellowship, and lives a recluse in\\na garret, with carpet slippers a?id a leaden inkpot or\\nhe comes among people swiftly and bitterly, in a con-\\ntraction of his whole nervous system, to discharge\\nsome temper before he returns to work.^\\nThe victim begins to shrink spiritually he develops\\na fancy for parlours with a regulated temperature, and\\ntakes his morality on the principle of tin shoes and\\ntepid milk. The care of one important body or soul\\nbecomes so engrossing, that all the noises of the outer\\nworld begin to come thin and faint into the parlour\\nwith the regulated temperature and the tin shoes go\\nequably forward over blood and rain?\\nIt is true, replied Vandeleur. I have hunted\\nmost things, r^w men and women down to mosquitoes\\nI have dived for coral I have followed both whales and\\ntigers and a diamond is the tallest quarry of the loty^\\nA little before sundown in an open place with a\\nstream, and set about with barbarous mountains, Bal-\\nlantrae threw down his pack. I will go no farther,\\nsaid he, and bade me light the fire, damning my blood\\nin terms not proper for a chainnan.^\\nR. L. S., Virginibus Puerisque. Ibid.\\n8 R. L. S., New Arabian Nights.\\nR. L. S., Master of Ballantrae.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0201.jp2"}, "202": {"fulltext": "igO R. L. STEVENSON.\\nThe browsers, the biters, the barkers, the hairy\\ncoats of field and forest, the squirrel in the oak, the\\nthousand-footed creeper in the dust, as they share\\nwith us the gift of life, share with us the love of the\\nideal Even while they look, even while they\\nrepent, the foot of man treads thetn by thousands in the\\ndust, the yelping hounds burst upon their trail, the bullet\\nspeeds, the k?iives are heating in the den of the vivisec-\\ntionist or the dew falls, ajid the generation of a day is\\nblotted out}\\nBy means of the artful juxtaposition of words,\\nthese phrases I have italicised (and there are\\nmany hundreds more, for Stevenson wrought his\\nweb with prodigal magnificence) reflect, like\\ncrystals, beams and colours from all sorts of\\nmoving images, from the dust beneath our feet,\\nto the vault of heaven and remotest constella-\\ntions. Out of his studies in the English classics,\\nStevenson taught his generation new lessons in\\nthe plastic qualities of prose diction.\\nAnd consider the talk of the men and women\\n1 R. L. S., Later Essays.\\n2 In this connection, it is curious to recall a passage in Ben\\nJonson s Timber or Discoveries, c. What a deal of cold busi-\\nness doth a man mis-spend the better part of life in in scattering\\ncompliments, tendering visits, gathering and venting news, follow-\\ning feasts and plays, making a little winter-love in a dark corner.\\nThis was read aloud to Stevenson by a friend, who asked him\\nwhen he had written it whereupon Stevenson, in all good faith,\\nprotested that he had wholly forgotten the passage, and desired\\nto know where in his works it occurred.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0202.jp2"}, "203": {"fulltext": "HIS STYLE. 191\\nin his books; it is not only appropriate but in-\\nspired. Recall, for instance, the conversation\\nof the pirates in Treasure Island. Piracy is a\\nblack, revolting business in reality (compare,\\nfor example, Stevenson s own account of the\\nTeach affair in The Master of Ballantrae) and\\nyet, while the talk of these romantic scoun-\\ndrels is nothing else but quintessential piracy,\\nit remains wholly delightful. That is the privi-\\nlege of true romantic art to seize and present\\nthe essential element in things which makes for\\ndelight. So in all his books this Prometheus\\nhas stolen fire from heaven and gifted his crea-\\ntions with the gift of tongues. It is upon record\\nthat he was himself a chief among talkers, as\\nbefitted a scion of Old Scotland s aristocracy\\nof wit. And did he not write the essay on Talk\\nand Talkers^} an achievement of its kind. And\\nStevenson, like Thackeray, owns, not only the\\ndistinction of an executant but, the mastery of\\ndialogue, clean, athletic, eloquent, witty, and\\npicturesque.\\nBut Stevenson s most notable achievements as\\nan executant were, perhaps, his Dedications.\\nIt is upon record that Thomas Stevenson, when\\nall books failed him, as books will fail us all\\nat times, would take down the volumes of his\\nR. L. S., Memories and Portraits.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0203.jp2"}, "204": {"fulltext": "192 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nson and read the Dedications therein. These,\\nat least, never, to the last day of his life, failed\\nto give him the same pleasure. Since Ben\\nJonson wrote, there have been no better examples\\nof this form of composition, made up, as the\\nperfect Dedication must be, of tact, delicacy,\\neloquence, and cunning craftsmanship.\\nTake Virginihis Puerisgue, and read the first\\n(and, perhaps who can say the best) of the\\nmany Stevensonian Dedications, beginning:\\nMy dear William Ernest Henley, We ai-e all\\nbusy in this world building Towers of Babel; and the\\nchild of our imaginations is always a changeling when\\nit comes from nurse. This not only true in the greatest,\\nas of wars and folios, but in the least also, like the\\ntrifling volume in your hand\\nAnd:\\nTimes change, opinions vary to their opposite, and\\nstill this world appears a brave gytnnasiu7n, full of\\nsea-bathing, and horse-exercise, and bracing, manly vir-\\ntues and what can be more encouraging than to find\\nthe friend who was welcome at one age, still welcome at\\nanother? Our affections and beliefs are wiser than\\nwe the best that is in us is better than we can under-\\nstand; for it is grounded beyond experience, and guides\\nus, blindfold but safe, from one age to another.\\nOr the Dedication of The Merry Men, dated", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0204.jp2"}, "205": {"fulltext": "HIS STYLE. 193\\nfrom the author s house, Skerryvore, in Bourne-\\nmouth\\nTo your name, if I wrote on brass, I could add\\nnothing; it has already been written higher than I\\ncould dream to reach, by a strong and dear hand and\\nif I now dedicate to you these tales, it is not as the\\nwriter who brings you his work, but as the friend who\\nwould remind you of his affection.\\nOr the Dedication of Travels with a Donkey in\\nthe Cevennes, to Sidney Colvin, which is a little\\nrhapsody in praise of friendship, finished, elegant\\nor, prefixed to The Master of Ballantrae\\nA dedication from a great way off written by the\\nlone shores of a subtropical island near upon ten\\nthousand miles from Boscombe Chine and Manor scenes\\nwhich rise before me as I write, along with the faces\\nand voices of my friends.\\nAnd, last of all, take the Dedication of Catriona,\\nTo Charles Baxter, Writer to the Signet, written at\\nVailima, Upolu, Samoa, 1892 (two years before\\nthe author s death), ending thus:\\nYou are still as when first I saw, as when I last\\naddressed you in the wiener able city which I must\\nalways think of as my home. Aftd I have come so\\nfar, and the sights and thoughts of tny youth pursue\\nme and I see like a vision the youth of tny father,\\n13", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0205.jp2"}, "206": {"fulltext": "194 R- L. STEVENSON.\\nand of his father^ and the whole stream of lives flowing\\ndown there far in the north, with the sound of laughter\\nand tears, to cast me out in the end, as by a sudden\\nfreshet, on these ultimate islands. And I admire and\\nbow my head before the romance of destitiy.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0206.jp2"}, "207": {"fulltext": "X.\\nEPILOGUE.\\nMadam Life s a piece in bloom\\nDeath goes dogging everywhere\\nShe s the tenant of the room,\\nHe s the ruffian on the stair.\\nYou shall see her as a friend,\\nYou shall bilk him once and twice\\nBut he ll trap you in the end,\\nAnd he ll stick you for her price.\\nWith his kneebones at your chest,\\nAnd his knuckles in your throat.\\nYou would reason plead protest!\\nClutching at her petticoat\\nBut she s heard it all before,\\nWell she knows you ve had your fun.\\nGingerly she gains the door,\\nAnd your little job is done.\\nW. E. Henley, Echoes.\\nDestiny is the last word in the life of every\\nman. None may escape the thousand inherited\\nimpulses that mingle in his blood, nor avoid\\nthe irresistible influences of the time and place\\nand society into which he is born. And Robert\\nLouis Stevenson, the last, as I have tried to\\nshow, of a long tradition, the last heir to a", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0207.jp2"}, "208": {"fulltext": "196 R. L. STEVENSON.\\nrich inheritance, followed the ancient habit of\\nhis race, learned his elements in old Edina,\\nchanging then before his eyes to the Edinburgh\\nwe know, and went to France and learned what\\nhe might of an astute nation, and returned to\\nScotland, and again went forth and wandered\\nthe earth, and settled at length in an island\\nof the far seas, and became (they say) a kind\\nof feudal chieftain, and died there, leaving\\nbehind him a monument to the honour of his\\nnative city, which he loved.\\nAnd as Stevenson was the last expression of the\\nold Scottish aristocracy of letters which had its\\nhome in Edinburgh for many generations, so the\\nmonument of his works is the cenotaph of that\\npolite, illustrious society. A born artist, self-\\nconscious to his finger-tips, witty, sensitive,\\nsardonically humorous, endowed with a subtle\\ninsight and inheriting an incomparable faculty\\nof craftsmanship, he loved art and letters,\\nmetaphysic and talk, and all the lusty gifts\\nand magnificent appearances of life, with his\\nwhole heart. Of the passion of love he seems to\\nhave conceived imperfectly and partially, until\\nhe drew towards the end of his life, when it\\nseems he came near to beholding some image\\nof the true Eros. Constantly aflflicted with ill-\\nhealth, a fighting spirit of indomitable courage", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0208.jp2"}, "209": {"fulltext": "EPILOGUE. 197\\ncarried him triumphantly through troubles and\\nincredible labours, until, in middle age, we see\\nhim (in his Vailima Letters) desperately and\\ncheerfully toiling for reasons (apparently) like\\nto those which compelled Sir Walter Scott to\\nhis pathetic sacrifice, and labouring with a\\nheroism which brings to mind his august elder s\\ndemeanour in the last tragic scenes of his life.\\nBut, with all Stevenson s brilliant endowment\\nand all his amazing cleverness, the sane, serenely\\nhumorous vision of the great masters is denied\\nhim. Stevenson was no natural force let loose.\\nRather was he the very type of the athlete in\\nletters, with all his powers cultivated to their\\nutmost, informed with a rare and brave spirit,\\nrunning with many flourishes and tricks of\\npace the race that was set before him with\\nall his might.\\nThe portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson has\\nbeen drawn in little by a stronger hand than\\nmine, in the lines at the beginning of this vol-\\nume. Therein you shall behold the picture\\nof a man gifted with an endowment exquisite\\nyet strangely incomplete, who won great re-\\nnown in his brief lifetime as a beautiful and\\nrefined artist, an admirable executant.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0209.jp2"}, "210": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0210.jp2"}, "211": {"fulltext": "INDEX.\\nAcross the Plains, 66.\\nAdmiral Guinea, 62.\\nAmateur Emigrant, The, ^2, 54,\\n57. 173-\\nArabian Nights, The New, 51.\\n63, \\\\-^2etseq., 157, i8g.\\nAutumn Effect, An, 168.\\nBeachofFalesd, The, 73,112,183.\\nBeau Austin, 62.\\nBlack Arrow, The, 61, 14I, 155.\\nBlack Canyon, The, 56.\\nBlack, M. M., R. L. Stevenson,\\nby, 49.\\nBody Snatcher, The, 63.\\nBottle Imp, The, 70, T^^.\\nBurfis, Essay on, Henley s, 2, 8.\\nBurns, The Merrie Muses of\\nCaledonia, collected by, 2.\\nBurt, Edward, Letters, by, 5.\\nCatriona, 76, 140, 193.\\nChapter on Dreams, A, 2S.\\nChild s Garden of Verses, A, 28,\\n62, 63, 116 seq.\\nChild s Play, 28.\\nChristmas Sermon, A, 99.\\nColvin, Sidney, art. R. L. S.\\nin D. N. B., by, z%, 33, 40, 43,\\n54. 65, 78.\\nDeacon Brodie, 30, 51, 63.\\nDynamiters, The, 158.\\nEbb-Tide, The,-]( Ii2, 163, 165.\\nEdinburgh Days, R. L. Steven-\\nson s, by E. B. Simpson, 23,\\n29, 30. 39. 45-\\nEdinburgh, Picturesque Notes on,\\n8-12.\\nEdinburgh University Magazine,\\n45-\\nEngineers, A Family of, 13\\nseq., 17 et seq., 76, II2.\\nEpilogue to An Inland Voyage,^.\\nEssays and Fragments, 23.\\nEssays, Later, 43, 46, 70, 96, 98,\\nloi, 108, 114, 190.\\nEssays Speculative and Sugges-\\ntive, J. A. Symonds s, 167.\\nFables, 79, 102 et seq., 106.\\nFaith, Half-Faith, and No Faith\\nat all, 102, 104.\\nFamiliar Studies of Men and\\nBoo ks, 46, 51, 125.\\nFatnily of Engineers, A, i^ et\\nseq., 17 et seq., 76, 1 12.\\nFergusson, Robert, The Daft\\nDays, by, 7.\\nFleemitig Jenkin, Memoir of, 34,\\n48, 65.\\nFontatnebleau, 46.\\nFootnote to History, A, 75, 82.\\nGarden of Verses, A Child s, 28,\\n62, 63, \\\\i6 et seq.\\nGreat North Road, The, 63, 160\\net seq.\\nGuy Mannering, 2, 4.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0211.jp2"}, "212": {"fulltext": "200\\nINDEX.\\nHeathercat, 76.\\nHenley, W. E., Essay on Burns,\\nby, 2, 8 biographical foot-\\nnote by, 43, 49.\\nHistory of Moses, A, 28.\\nHouse of Eld, The, 102, 103.\\nIn the South Seas, 70, 72.\\nInland Voyage, An, 50, 86, 95,\\n172.\\nIsland Nights Entertainments,\\n183.\\nJuvenilia, 60, 67, 84, 96, 168 et\\nseq.\\nKidnapped, 64, 140.\\nLater Essays, 43, 46, 70, 96, 98,\\nloi, 108, 114, 190.\\nLay Morals, 52, 96.\\nLetter to a Young Gentleman,\\nc., 108 et seq., 113.\\nLetters, Burt s, 5.\\nLetters from Samoa, 75.\\nLodging for the Night, A, 51,\\n129.\\nManse, The, 28.\\nMarkheim, 63, 143.\\nMaster of Ballanirae, 66, 73, 141,\\n145, 181, 189, 191, 193.\\nMemoir of Fleeming Jenkin, 34,\\n48, 65.\\nMemories and Portraits, \\\\t, et\\nseq., 21, 33, 34, 38, 39, 45,\\n85 et seq., 125, 150, 166, 186,\\n191.\\nMerry Men, The, 18, 57, 137,\\n192.\\nMisadventures of John Nicholson,\\n63. 143-\\nMoral Emblems, 56.\\nMorality of the Profession of\\nLetters, 108.\\nNew Arabian Nights, The, 51,\\n63, 132 et seq., 157, 189.\\nNot I, and other Poems, 56.\\nOlalla, 63, 143.\\nOld Mortality, 65.\\nOpeti Letter to Dr Hyde, 70, 73.\\nPavilion on the Links, The, 54,\\n152, 175-\\nPentland Rising, The, 39, 42.\\nPicturesque Notes on Edinburgh,\\n8-12.\\nPritice Otto, 54, 62, 63, 145, 160,\\n176, 177 et seq.\\nProvidence and the Guitar, 51,\\n151-\\nPulvts et Umbra, 96, 97, 99.\\nRaleigh, W. A., R. L. Stevenson,\\nby, 106, 126, 149.\\nRamsay, Allan, Elegy on\\nMaggy Johnston, 5.\\nRandovi Memories, 28, 32.\\nRoads, essay on, 46.\\nRobert Macaire, 64.\\nSchwob, M. Marcel, criticism of\\nStevenson by, 10, 130.\\nScott, Guy Mannering, 2, 4.\\nSilverado Squatters, The, 55.\\nSimpson, E. B., Stevenson s\\nEdinburgh Days, by, 23, 29,\\n30. 39. 45-\\nSirede Malitroifs Door, The, 51,\\n1 29 et seq.\\nSo7nething in It, 105.\\nSongs of Travel, 73, 122.\\nSouth Sea Letters, 74-76.\\nStevenson, R. L., Memoir by\\nM.M. Black, 49 Monograph\\nby Professor Raleigh, 106, 126,\\n149 Marcel Schwob on, 130.\\nSt Ives, 78.\\nStory of a Lie, The, 152.\\nStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and\\nMr Hyde, The, 64, 142, 179.\\nSymonds, J. A., Essays Specula-\\ntive and Suggestive, by, 167.\\nTalk and Talkers, 44, 191.\\nThrawn Janet, 57, 137.\\nTiconderoga, 65.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0212.jp2"}, "213": {"fulltext": "INDEX.\\n201\\nTravels in Perth, 28.\\nTravels with a Donkey in the\\nCevemies, 50, 86, 95, 193.\\nTreasure Island, 23, 57, 60, 61,\\n126, 140, 141, 153, 176.\\nTreasure of Franchard, 61, 79)\\n80, 93.\\nUnderwoods, 62, 115.\\nVailima Letters, 40, 74, 77, 82,\\nin, 125, 197.\\nVirginibus Puerisque, 49, 50, 85\\net seq., 100, 189, 192.\\nVoces Fidelium, 38.\\nWeir of Hermiston, 76, 78, 113,\\n148, 164, 165.\\nWill d the Mill, 51, 80, 89 et\\nseq., 131.\\nWreath of Immortelles, The, 42,\\n82.\\nWrecker, The, 46, 68, 74, 76, 158,\\n182.\\nWrong Box, The, 66, 141, 144.\\nYellow Paint, The, 102, 103.\\nYoung Chevalier, The, 76, 146.", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0213.jp2"}, "214": {"fulltext": "3W7-7", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0214.jp2"}, "215": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0215.jp2"}, "216": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0216.jp2"}, "217": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0217.jp2"}, "218": {"fulltext": "Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process\\nNeutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide\\nTreatment Date: May 2009\\nPreservationTechnologies\\nA WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATIOI\\n111 Thomson Park Drive\\nCranberry Township, PA 16066", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0218.jp2"}, "219": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2676", "width": "1651", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0219.jp2"}, "220": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2904", "width": "1823", "jp2-path": "robertlouissteve01corn_0220.jp2"}}