Robert Louis Stevenson: A Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial

to reveal a man. The letters must have been written with no idea of being used for this end, ho

gift in pleasing and adapting himself to those with whom he corresponded, and his great power at once of adapting himself to his circumstances and o

his charming essays. He descends Powell, crosses Market, and descends in Sixth on a branch of the original Pine Street Coffee-House, no less. . . . He seats himself at a table covered with waxcloth, and a pampered menial of High-Dutch extraction, and, indeed, as yet only partially extracted, lays before him a cup of

n axe), and daily surprised at the perpetuation of his fingers. The reason is this: That the sill is a strong supporting beam, and that blows of the same emphasis in other parts of his room might knock the entire shanty into hell. Thenceforth, for from three hours, he is engaged darkly with an ink-bottle. Yet he is not blacking his boots, for the only pair that he possesses are innocent of

t should be said that, after his long spell of weakness at Bournemouth, Stevenson had gone West in search of health among the bleak hill summits-'on the Canadian border of New York State, very unsettled and primitive and cold.' He had made the voyage in an oce

oard like little bluish babies; and the big monkey, Jacko, scoured about the ship and rested willingly in my arms, to the ruin of my clothing; and the man of the stallions made a bower of the black tarpaulin, and sat therein at the feet of a raddled divinity, like a picture on a box of chocolates; and the other passengers, when they were not sick,

comparable to life on a villainous ocean tramp, rolling

a year is as much as anybody can possibly want; and I have had more, so I know, for the extra coins were of no use, excepting for illness, which damns everything. I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have believed it possible; we had the beastliest weather, and many discomforts; but the mere fact of its being a tramp ship gave us many comforts. We could cut about with

the pier among the holiday yachtsmen-that's fa

x of a house," which suited the invalid, but, on the other hand, invalided

ed. . . . I have done most of the big work, the quarrel, duel between the brothers, and the announcement of the death to Clementina and my Lord-Clementina, Henry, and Mackellar (nicknamed Squaretoes) are really very fine fellows; the Master is all I know of the devil; I have known hints of him, in the world,

ill, and Stevenson has

wn to give you as much news as I have spirit for, after such an engagement. Glass is a thing that really breaks

The Master, and very characteristically gets dissatisfied with

s is his judgment

aw all his strength and all his sweetness up into one ball'? I cannot remember Marvell's words.) So the critics have been saying to me; but I was never capable of-and surely never guilty of-such a debauch of production. At this rate his works will soon fill the habitable globe, and surely he w

g rose to take our places. Certainly Kipling has the gifts; the fairy g

ands, he settled near Apia, in Samoa, early in 1890, cleared some four hundred acres, and built a house; where, while he wrote what delighted the English-speaking race, he took on himself the defence of the natives against foreign interlopers, writing under the title A Footnote to History, the most powerful exposé of the mischief they had done and were do

le and eminently satisfactory reason that it is less civilised. Can you not conceive that it is awful fun?" His house