PR 5413 ^1 STEVENSON'S WORKSHOP ttfcJ & L n ? STEVENSON'S WORKSHOP WITH TWENTY-NINE MS. FACSIMILES EDITED BY/ WILLIAM P. TRENT PRINTED EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEMBERS OF THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY BOSTON MDCDXXI *1 c3 Copyright 1921, by The Bibliophile Society All rights reserved DEC 2 THE TORCH PRESS CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA ©CU654071 FOREWORD In selecting the pages of Stevenson's man- uscript for reproduction in this volume the purpose has been to include only such speci- mens as will have a special interest for Stev- ensonians, either because the pages contain more or less fragmentary material never be- fore printed, or for the reason that they show the initial drafts, with interesting variants, of pieces that afterwards became a part of the author's published works. As Professor Trent has pointed out, there are a number of unpublished pieces that were destined for A Child's Garden of Verses, which would not have discredited that vol- ume, and it is possible that future editors and students of Stevenson's works will wish to avail themselves of valuable information conveyed through these pages, and not other- wise accessible to those who are not privi- [7] leged to examine the original manuscripts, which are privately owned. It is not to be expected that the rather dis- connected contents of this volume will make a strong appeal to the general reader, but students and lovers of Stevenson will derive both knowledge and enjoyment from the va- rious facsimile pages showing the evolution of the author's thoughts. It is worthy of remark that the extant MSS. of Stevenson's earliest poems show very few changes, such as elisions or inter- lineations, — possibly because he destroyed the original drafts, — while those of many of his later poems are so changed and inter- lined, emended and transposed that it is ex- ceedingly difficult to decipher them. Al- though the writing in some of these photo- graphic reproductions is so small as to re- quire the use of a strong reading glass, they are nevertheless given in their original size, and are almost as clear as the originals them- selves. It needs no argument to convince the bibli- ophile that in the examination of an author's chirography there is an element of satisfac- [8] tion not to be experienced in reading cold type ; for as a photograph discloses the line- aments of the face, so does an author's hand- writing convey an unequivocal reflection of his mind and personality. These manuscript facsimiles will furthermore furnish an inti- mate and comprehensive exposition of the methods employed by Stevenson in rounding out and polishing his work, and will be of unquestionable interest to all who admire his writings. Mutilated and complex as some of the pages are, many readers will find plea- sure in deciphering them, in puzzling out un- certain and baffling words, and in placing their own estimate upon the literary quality of various unprinted poems and fragments of poems which were discarded either by Stevenson or by early editors of his works. For a case in point, let the reader turn to the verses entitled "Windy Nights," at page 25 of this volume and judge for himself whether the poem did not suffer a severe injury by the omission of the last four stanzas. Only the first two were ever printed, but fortun- ately the others were preserved in the note book in which they were originally written. [9] Again, the poem at pages 56-59, wherein Stevenson commemorates his appearance and discomfort while wearing a respirator with a hideous " snout" for the inhalation of pine oil, although not to be regarded as a thing of idyllic beauty* is as characteristic of Stevenson as anything he ever wrote. He laments — For ladies ' love I once was fit, But now am rather out of it. And nothing can befall — damn ! To make me uglier than I am. While it is doubtful if one literary critic in a hundred would recommend the piece for its poetic qualities, yet many a Stevenson enthu- siast will welcome its rescue from the dis- card. Among other unused verses which have a peculiarly personal interest — because in writing them Stevenson almost certainly drew upon his recollections of a healthless childhood — are those about the lollypops, written for his Penny Whistles, where he says : — [10] I wish I had the lollypops From all the apothecary's shops; They only give me one a day To take the nasty taste away. How can they leave the sweets about And give their nasty medicines out f Stevenson had great difficulty in deciding what to call his collection of poems for chil- dren (now known as A Child's Garden of Verses), and although he had still greater difficulty in getting it published, it eventually contributed much to his fame. In a letter to his old nurse, Alison Cunningham, dated February 1883, he says: "I have just seen that the book in question must be dedicated to Alison Cunningham, the only person who will really understand it. . . . This little book, which is all about my childhood, should indeed go to no other person than you, who did so much to make that childhood happy. " * The next month he wrote to W. E. Henley : "I am going to dedicate 'em to Ciunmy; it will please her, and lighten my burthen of i It is doubtful if many readers realize that this now world- renowned little book is almost wholly autobiographical. [»] ingratitude. A low affair is the Muse busi- ness ! "O, I forgot.— As for the title, I think Nursery Verses the best. Poetry is not the strong point of the text, and I shrink from any title that might seem to claim that qua- lity; otherwise we might have Nursery Muses, or Songs of Innocence (but that were a blasphemy), or Byrnes of Innocence — the last not bad — or— an idea — The Jews' Harp, or — now I have it,— The Penny Whistle, . . . The Penny Whistle is the name for me. "Fool! this is all wrong,— here is the true name : — Penny Whistles For Small Whistlers "The second title is queried; it is perhaps better as simply Penny Whistles." The book finally went to print as Penny Whistles, but when the proof sheets came out, Stevenson disapproved of the name, and for various reasons the publication was delayed. The next year, after Treasure Island had brought him into popular repute as a writer, the projected Penny Whistles volume came [12] out under the title of A Child's Garden of Verses. It is said that only two copies of the little Penny Whistles book are now known to be in existence. It should be borne in mind that much of the inedited matter shown in these facsimiles was written before Stevenson achieved re- nown, and this may have been a determining factor with the author, as well as with con- temporary advisers, editors and publishers, in judging the quality of the rejected pieces. Many of these appear among the manu- scripts written for Penny Whistles (after- wards A Child's Garden of Verses), con- cerning which Stevenson wrote as follows to his friend and literary counsellor, Sir Sid- ney Colvin, — "If you don't like 'A Good Boy,' I do ... I will delete some of those condemned, but not all. ' ' H. H. H. [13] STEVENSON'S WOBKSHOP By Professor William P. Trent Readers in these days of well nigh uni- versal education seem to be as numerous as the leaves of trees, and, as with leaves, no two are exactly alike. They may be roughly classified, however, and of the many cate- gories into which they fall, two stand out, even upon the most superficial observation. Some readers are concerned mainly with the incontinent enjoyment or utilization of what a book gives them, tearing the heart out of it, as certain famous public characters have been known to do. These are very tigers in their reading. Other readers suggest more peaceful animals, especially such as merely browse and graze. Their enjoyment may be not a whit less genuine, and their utilization may often be more beneficial both to them- selves and to others, but they are far less [iS] swift, flashing, compulsive in their processes. Their likes and dislikes are less marked, their enthusiasms and their aversions less contagious. These two classes shade, of course, into each other, and the same person may belong to the first class in respect to one line of reading, and to the second in respect to an- other line. But it is scarcely a rash general- ization to affirm that collectors of first edi- tions, students who enjoy tracing the evolu- tion of a masterpiece from an imperfect man- uscript draft to the printed pages of the writer's final authoritative version, connois- seurs of illustration and binding — in short, bibliophiles of most sorts — have no close re- lationship with the tiger class of readers. We may forbear to insist upon their resemb- lance to cattle chewing the cud, but we shall run little risk in averring that they are more domesticated than the springing and rending denizens of the jungle. It is clearly to the less predacious reader that the present volume, which is designed to give a glimpse into Stevenson's workshop, will make its main appeal. No such import- [16] ance attaches to it as belongs to the collection of the facsimiles of the manuscripts of Mil- ton's early poems preserved at Trinity Col- lege, Cambridge, yet where, in the absence of the manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays and poems, can such priceless documents as those from Milton's pen be found? It is not fair to bring into comparison with what we have to offer such a treasure of superlative worth as Milton 's draft of ' ' Lycidas. ' ' That would scarcely be eclipsed in glory if some fortun- ate excavator were to recover for us that 1 ' One precious tender-hearted scroll of pure Simonides" for which Wordsworth longed. But it is fair to ask who among modern writers has awakened more widespread in- terest in the phases of his personality and the evolution of his genius than Robert Louis Stevenson. To the better understanding of those phases and of that evolution the fac- similes here gathered and for the first time presented will make, it is believed, a contri- bution of definite value, and in this belief we may now begin to scrutinize them after two points have been briefly emphasized. The hasty reader, whether or not he be- [17] long to the tiger class, will do well to remem- ber that in an author's erasures, hesitations, and afterthoughts, as exhibited in the first drafts of his writings, not only may the curi- ous take legitimate interest and pleasure, but the thoughtful may find a point of view from which to obtain a better insight into the sig- nificance of the published work. If that work be of classic excellence, the possession of the original manuscript, apart entirely from sentiment and financial value, may be of very great benefit both to students and to readers. Then, too, for the literary neophyte at the outset of his career there is often profit to be derived from a close study of the work of some great forerunner in its making. The taste of a portion of the lettered world, there- fore, for such relics of great authors as we here present is much more than a mere indi- cation of sentimentalism ; it is a taste born of knowledge and experience. Of the twenty-nine facsimiles given in this volume, the greater part of which are taken from a note book 1 used by Stevenson through 1 It is distinguished by a slip of paper marked " R. L. S. — C, " pasted on the front cover. [iS] *■ A.V v O &£-/> ;' e h»*-*} — 1 — -■ > ^"•/%AA*^*-N •yXi/V^^A I « .v- 1 . AS .*o> - T5Sfif* K >vm_ 'C~ 6-vv~juJ ^ yS*"* ~ . , " IT" V*- -Jf 1- V I 1 L- ik^c- /&-. * ! < •~^0 W- ^' • / VX^ v . 1 *'" ' iv ■ >bJ ?ju^ a number of years, more than a third have to do with what is undoubtedly the best known and most cherished part of his poetry, A Child's Garden of Verses. Facsimile No. 1 shows a draft of the famous stanzas en- titled "A Good Play," which begin with the lines — We built a ship upon the stairs, All made of the back-bedroom chairs, and constitute the thirteenth poem in A Child's Garden. The variations between the poem as we read it today and the form it took in Penny Whistles (No. 15), the ex- tremely scare forerunner of A Child's Gar- den, are but trifling, if w r e may judge from the statement made in the superb catalogue of the Harry Elkins Widener Collection of Stevensoniana ; but here we have several in- teresting particulars brought to light. We loaded it with sofa pillows, as line three originally stood, was happily changed, perhaps speedily, to the present version — And filled it full of sofa pillows. [19] What is now the third and last division of the short poem was at first made the second stanza of three, all of which, as is not the case at present, were intended to consist of four lines each. The last of the original stanzas together with the five lines written to the side of the original draft of the poem, finish out, with some eliminations, the second division of the verses as we now have them, and one cannot but conclude that Stevenson became eventually as skilful an artificer of his poem as the two children were of their ship. We are perhaps sorry to have the young mariners go without their "plate of breakfast crumbs," to say nothing of "half an ounce of sugar plums," but "papa" must have been glad that they did not take his hat. The other verses in facsimile No. 1 are not specially important, but some readers may wish that Stevenson had finished the line dealing with Will, the would-be soldier. Doubtless "keep" would have been used as a rhyme for "sweep," but whether "step," or "line," or something else would have been preserved in orderly fashion, must remain a pleasant mystery. — [20] ■■•" a - S.J, . .W3<_ *■"— VUA !■>. -XL*- '» fr j u * ^tfj^^Jb^ ,V>^ '^>< K9-4>^ I 1 «- Ovt Vx .^^sl/- ■ -> J.' —v. ^ >. fi^JL »V - 0-2-4*- 'I P ^V-^V U J^(\ 7 U H I 4 \%a. c'.-^*^ rl-.r^tiy* ^r- *H! ^-' N >W~- , 1X7, rt> -, i , t. ^ • h ^ ^fc. '^"Y , . i • - Jim would be a sailor, and Tom would be a sweep, Rose would be a baker, to eat the sugar bread ; But Will would be a soldier, with the [men in line to keep] , And he himself a-marching so finely at the head. Facsimile No. 2 gives us drafts of two poems that appear in A Child's Garden (No. 7, "Pirate Story," which is Penny Whistles No. 8; and No. 8, "Foreign Lands," which is Penny Whistles No. 9). The destinations of the young adventurers of the first poem read in our draft — Shall it be to India a-steering of the boat, To Providence or Malaga, or off to Malabar ? The second line, except for punctuation, reads in Penny Whistles as it does here ; but in the first edition of A Child's Garden, Stev- enson — whether to get rid of the repetition "Mala," or for some other reason — made the line read — To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar. Between writing the present draft and printing in Penny Whistles and later A [21] Child's Garden, he doubtless discovered for himself, or else was told by some friend, that Malabar is to be found on the map of India, and he proceeded to substitute " Africa" for "India," to the distinct advantage of his poem. The close reader of the facsimile will observe other variations, and will probably conclude that Stevenson's changes were clearly for the better. This conclusion appears to hold for the alterations to be found in ' ' Foreign Lands, ' ' but it is permissible to wonder whether the lines in Penny Whistles and A Child's Gar- den which run — To where the grown-up river slips Into the sea among the ships, charming though they be, are not somewhat more sophisticated and less in character than those Stevenson wrote in the present draft, — Till I at last should catch a glance Of vessels sailing off to France. A similar query applies, although perhaps less pertinently, to the lines of the Child's Garden version running — [22] I saw the dimpling river pass And be the sky 's blue looking-glass, which here and in Penny Whistles appear as — I saw the river dimple by, Holding its face up to the sky. On turning, however, to facsimile No. 3, we perceive that Stevenson did not finish "Foreign Lands" on Number 2. He repeated the first two lines of stanza four, as we have the poem, then wrote two other lines which he forgot to cross out, then two lines which he did cross out, then went along for eight lines, the last four constituting, w r ith some variations, the fifth and last stanza of the poem as it now stands; the four preceding forming a charming passage, the first line of which may be, as we have seen, sophisticated, but can scarcely be held to lessen the beauty of the whole. — To where the grown-up river slips Along between the anchored ships, And lastly, between harbor walls, Into the bright Atlantic falls. [23] If these four lines do not bear strong testimony to Stevenson's mastery of ca- dence, the present editor's ear is greatly at fault. The remaining portions of facsimile No. 3 throw light on the methods Stevenson used for securing rhymes, and exhibit a frag- mentary draft of a sprightly play poem, which, had he persevered, might have been fashioned into something good. — Bring out the dolls, bring out the blocks, Bring out the horse and dray, And let us in our oldest frocks, At once proceed to play. More important, however, is the fact that it gives us, in connection with facshnile No. 4, an interesting draft of "Windy Nights" (No. 10 of Penny Whistles and No. 9 of A Child's Garden), which exhibits significant variations from the printed text, and fur- nishes no less than four entirely new stanzas. It is difficult to understand why these im- portant stanzas were omitted, as the poem may be regarded by most readers as incom- plete without them. From the two sheets [24] ^ H/YT^' r*- : / ^ o j V O ^ u - l,AAX?>* 0A-~ \ V.A Jtf&b A* i ' 3 /v. '-:c »x .vJ. i'.U.. A *^A~C H^<- — ! — "^ ^^ ij-^~~c-v*~xx~ — -| «p;f| A^i <»-> W %<■ 2_^ \JU_I} 1 t/N. L-.wl ^y ***y^, ^ ; :— Y -.; ) . ..^, ;. aU^, ;'.' 0-~«( t^, ■'U dC^jyUr-X^C ^v-b-^ / u^ / u u / ^ u — ;&6 ^(j-wi JU— U^-r-^-L ■ 5 < f _ - . J b i^V-^ Vajl La. 64aJP» . « 1 Vr*A L& ,' iw f ^fc--. U4a^~ w4JU> |}\-. , *£*£> j ■ ■> fivwt <>-> w i n ; ; Ci^ — «. zi ■<-^s^u. V 11 i ' \ • l Jj ^ a " J^Xa^C^XTX»3^ ^jt-W^ ^ll^ ■ ■ ' ^ UV-C JL»— lift. i>. r5» ^ '(^-^ JW^rt-^ fcf ^rv-A v^ w^v\ I^-nJ^. 'U Ih_ k -■ :\Xt» ~ . Ja J. ^ f , i , * \s~ ;.'-, ^ ys* L '■-•- - CVv^^l.'V [q£ -.,, ^\-.--) A ,■ j 3 . i ■' v Aa* >- J Vf - lo .V£> ■ • /' - we are now able to give the first printed edition of the whole original poem as fol- lows : — WINDY NIGHTS Whenever the moon and stars are set, Whenever the wind is high, All night long in dark and wet A man goes riding by. Late in the night when the fires are out, Why does he gallop and gallop about? Whenever the trees are crying aloud, And ships are sinking at sea, By, on the highway, low and loud, By at the gallop goes he. By at the gallop he goes, and then By he comes back at the gallop again. Where is he riding at night so late, With nobody riding besides? Hark, as the cinders fall in the grate, To the ring of his spurs as he rides. Where is he riding at night so late, — Why does he ride so fast? Why does he come when the wind is great And gallop before the blast? [2 5 ] Galloping ever and all night long, Galloping still when the wind is strong, — Where and where and where can he go ? Who and who can he be? Maybe St. Nicholas, to and fro, To buy my presents for me — Eiding and riding as hard as he can, Bringing a drum to a good little man. To the side of the final verses of " Foreign Lands" on facsimile No. 3 and immediately above the opening stanzas of " Windy Nights, ' ' Stevenson wrote what appear to be the titles of eight contemplated poems, two of which titles he eliminated. Of the re- maining six "The Lamplighter" seems to have come into existence as No. 40 of Pen- ny Whistles and No. 30 of A Child's Gar- den. "Wind at Night" is doubtless but an- other title for "Windy Nights," with regard to which one may remark that Stevenson seems always to have been singularly sensi- tive to the effects produced by the wind, and that galloping at night-time exercised a fas- cinating influence on his imagination. An- other title, "Sick Child," 1 probably became 1 There is a poem in the first book of Underwoods (No. 26) [26] later "The Land of Counterpane" (No. 18 of Penny Whistles and No. 16 of A Child's Garden) . Facsimile No. 4 shows at the side of the concluding stanzas of "Windy Nights" two quatrains which appeared later in Penny Whistles (No. 11), but of which only the first and third lines seem to have been used, with slight changes, in A Child's Garden to usher in the tenth poem, the verses entitled "Travel." Since the present draft varies from the Penny Whistles version as repro- duced in the Widener Catalogue, it may be well to print the stanzas as they appear in the facsimile : — I should like to rise and go And wander on my feet, Where all the golden apples grow And things are nice to eat. All down beside the water brooks, And past the harbour bar, And o 'er the hills, in story books, Where bears and lions are. entitled ' ' The Sick Child. ' ' — See also the Bibliophile edition of 1916, II, 146-148 — but it is very doubtful whether Stevenson had this in mind when he was jotting down these titles. [27] Probably Stevenson intended to make a separate poem of the couplets written imme- diately below these quatrains, but he appears to have left them unutilized. The following lines are quotable : — All the trees that stood around Dropped crumpled leaves upou the ground ; All the winds, so soft and sweet, Kept chasing leaves away to eat j 1 And all the squirrels up the trees Were eating beechnuts, if you please. Finally, facsimile No. 4 gives us a draft of "Singing" (No. 12 of Fenny Whistles and No. 11 of A Child's Garden). Perhaps the variations, although slight, justify the print- ing of the two stanzas : — Of speckled eggs the birdie sings And nests among the trees ; The sailors sing of ropes and things And ships upon the seas. The children sing in far Japan, The children sing in Spain, The organ with the organ man Is singing in the rain. i The reader will observe that occasionally a little punctua- tion has been introduced. [28] rv^(/Aa« ^J /■ W J*sS, ( -<-' \ ■ itt ' C I ctft, .^w>y C»T»t The fifth is one of the most interesting of all the facsimiles. Optimists will undoubt- edly prefer "Happy Thought" (No. 30 of Penny Whistles and No. 24 of A Child's Garden) which runs — The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings to the couplet at the head of the facsimile page — The world is so great and I am so small, I do not like it at all, at all — but psychologists and unsentimental readers may wonder whether the latter expression of child self-consciousness is not more realistic than the exuberance displayed in the more widely known verses. 1 The quatrain which follows in the manu- script needs no comment, and this is measur- i Headers of Sir Graham Balfour 's biography of Stevenson may recall that the biographer quotes this earlier couplet in a footnote (London, 1901, I, 34), and connects it with "the sense of disproportion" which sometimes haunted Stevenson in his youth. The later version, "Happy Thought," is for Sir Graham Balfour ' ' brave and characteristic ; ' ' for Mr. Gilbert K. Chesterton it seems to be something much more wonderful. (See, J. A. Hammerton's "Stevensoniana," Edinburgh, 1910, p. 150.) [29] ably true of the draft of "At the Sea-Side" (No. 3 of both Penny Whistles and A Child's Garden). In the seaside verses, as usually printed, a period is placed after "cup" in the fourth line. Since Stevenson used no punct- uation here, some readers may feel that the lines would be improved by substituting a semicolon, or possibly a comma. The next quatrain, though negligible, may serve to remind us of the opening line of "My Treasures" (No. 5 of "The Child Alone ") . The version of the famous and ad- mirable "Bed in Summer" (No. 1 of both Penny Whistles and A Child's Garden) shows, not only that Stevenson first wrote "older" for the better "grown-up," but also that he added in the present draft what seem to be two entire new stanzas and the begin- ning of a third. — In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candlelight ; In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day. I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, [30] Or hear the older people's feet Still going past me in the street. And does it not seem hard to you, When all the sky is clear and blue, And I should like so much to play, To have to go to bed by day 1 When big and strong and wise I grow I forth to foreign lands will go ; And pleasant places I shall see, With berries growing on the tree. Lions and tigers, dogs and trees, And bullpups march along with these ; I shut my eyes for all are shy, Still in my bed I seem to lie ; Yet as the crowd That the poet was well advised in retaining only the three published stanzas of the verses is a judgment which will be disputed by but few readers, although most Stevensonians will doubtless welcome the opportunity to read the other two. It is not certain whether in the eighteenth line Stevenson intended to write "bullpups' 7 or "bullfrogs," but since the bullpup would be likely to have an advantage over his am- [31] phibious neighbor in keeping step with the procession, we have given him the prefer- ence. The initial letter of the second syllable certainly resembles Stevenson's "f," but on the other hand, the final letters seem unques- tionably to be his characteristic "ps." It is barely possible that the last letter is "p" in- stead of "ps," and that the youthful versifier may have had a special "pup" in mind whom he excluded from the category of common "dogs." A draft of the poem, "The Land of Coun- terpane," which appears on facsimile No. 6, exhibits interesting variations from the printed text. The tray upon the knees seems finally to have been dispensed with, as well as the idea of making the "country all com- plete." In addition we seem to be justified in inferring that the excellent concluding stanza of the printed versions, beginning "I w r as the giant great and still," was an after- thought. The original version in our draft runs as follows : — When I was ill and lay in bed I had two pillows at my head ; [32] JV-~-> W v ' .70 ; 0 »Ua/-a , it\A-i , ^*-V<_ UVJ W^/v-o ^ *— J « i j . i/J ' ! i) — IP. ' ' . ■ M ■ ir» • - 1 • * <*- \ ^4a \ ... it And all my toys beside me lay [Upon my knees and in a tray] To keep me happy all the day. Sometimes for an hour or so I watched my leaden soldiers go, [7 placed my soldiers row by row And then I sat and watched] 1 "With different uniforms and drills, Among the bedclothes, through the hills, And sometimes sent my ships in fleets All up and down across the sheets ; Or brought my trees and houses out And set them here and there about To make a country all complete. This poem, we thought, was possibly antic- ipated on facsimile No. 3 by the jotted title 1 ' Sick Child. ' ' Perhaps another of those jot- ted titles, "Apothecary's bottles," was a forecast of the unpublished quatrain found at one side of the top of facsimile No. 6 : — In all the tidy chemists' shops They have things full of lollypops. i This incomplete, but not stricken out, couplet which would doubtless have ended with ' ' them go, ' ' was written, as the fac- simile will show, to the side and partly over the line "Some- times for an hour or so." [33] How can they leave the sweets about And give their 1 nasty medicines out? When it is recalled that much of Steven- son's childhood was spent in illness, it will not seem strange that " chemist's shops," ' ' nasty medicines ' ' and the ' ' lollypops ' ' made an abiding impression upon his mind. In another place (on facsimile No. 17) the thought of the foregoing lines is expressed in another form : — I wish I had the lollypops From all the apothecary's shops; They only give me one a day To take the nasty taste away. Neither of these versions would have dis- graced A Child's Garden, but Stevenson was perhaps right in discarding them. Whether, if he had continued the poem begun with a reference to the candle light and the organ man, we should have had another child's clas- sic must remain in doubt ; but it is plain that 1 As the reader will perceive from the facsimile, Stevenson was not clear as to the propriety of inserting this word. It makes the line too long, therefore we have omitted the second word "then," as he would perhaps have done in retaining the word he inserted between the lines. [34] ftgJ^C#JjfrA Asa. '-o «v*^- i>.^ U* AW* *« Si ^ l.v^ H^iVi Vm It. > in i i i J I \* L ■ «*^— » W- «y w ' y fr y • V Vr <\X/WVr~» - cs. (w» ^. lie thought enough of the stanzas that finish out the sheet to preserve them, with some changes, for "The Child Alone," where they are entitled "My Ship and I." Facsimile No. 7 contains, besides the play dedication dated Davos, 1881, four drafts of poems later included in Penny Whistles and A Child's Garden, a quatrain included in Penny Whistles, but not in A Child's Gar- den, and another quatrain, apparently un- published. The draft of "A Thought" (No. 2 of both Penny Whistles and A Child's Garden) cor- responds with the version given in the former as is indicated by the facsimile to be found in the Widener Catalogue. That authority (p. 87) states that the versions of Penny Whis- tles and of the first edition of A Child's Gar- den agree. We are therefore left wondering why some editions of Stevenson's poems leave out the " so" of the first line — It is so very nice to think. The draft of "Young Night Thought" (No. 4 of both Penny Whistles and A Child's Garden) omits the closing couplet of the [35] third stanza, if we may judge from this single sheet of facsimiles. This couplet runs in Penny Whistles — Though I 'm so sleepy, yet I find That I can never stay behind. In A Child's Garden it is bettered to — For every kind of beast and man Is marching in that caravan. The other features of the present draft distinguishing it from the printed versions may be easily determined, and seem to need no comment. — All night long, and every night, As soon as mama puts out the light, I see the people marching by As plain as day before my eye. Armies and emperors and kings All carrying different kinds of things, And marching in so strange a way I never saw the like by day. So fine a show was never seen At the great circus on the green. At first they move a little slow, But still the faster on they go, [36] And still beside them close I keep Until we reach the town of sleep. 1 The draft of "The Whole Duty of Chil- dren " (No. 5 of both Penny Whistles and A Child's Garden) shows that Stevenson at first began with the line — A child should do his best to grow — and then improved it to the present form — A child should always say what's true. The punctuation of our manuscript draft that follows may seem better than that of the printed version: — A child should always say what \s true And speak when he is spoken to ; And behave mannerly at table, At least as far as he is able. The draft of "Bain" (No. 7 of Penny i It is needless to call attention to the fact that some punctu- ation has been introduced, but it is not needless to say that the statement that Stevenson omitted the closing couplet of the third stanza is an assumption. He may not have intended at first to divide his couplets into stanzas, although the presence of a short line between the first and second stanzas and at the top of the final stanza, as these are printed, seema to indicate that from the beginning he had a stanzaie division in mind. [37] Whistles and No. 6 of A Child's Garden) shows that Stevenson first wrote "tower" for "field," and that he originally intended "the grassy ground" to rhyme with "a- round." The reader will note other varia- tions, and may determine the punctuation for himself : — The rain is raining all around, It falls on field and tree ; It rains upon the umbrellas here, And out on ships at sea. Some may feel that this draft, although it is less smooth than the printed text, does not really suffer on that account. Others may feel that the point raised is as undetermin- able as it is unimportant. Not so unimpor- tant is the question whether Stevenson, des- pite the short line drawn between the stan- zas, meant at first to give "Rain" two stan- zas, the second running as follows : — Now all the roads are full of mire, Both in and out of town, And children sit beside the fire And hear it patter down. The fact that the first and third lines [38] rhyme just as the same lines were originally intended to do in the first stanza, and the farther fact that the short line, or dash, might have been drawn between the stanzas after Stevenson determined to alter and keep only the first of the two seem to give ground for the assumption that the poem at the be- ginning consisted of two stanzas. If this be so, one is led to inquire why the second was omitted from the printed editions. Perhaps Stevenson found that it lacked the note of humor — to the adult mind, of course — pre- sent in the first. The two remaining scraps of verse found on facsimile No. 7 need not long detain us. The quatrain, — Papa is away to the office I see And Johnnie has gone to the school ; Come, Peter, and sit in the corner with me, And pretend to be hunting a bull was used as No. 6 of Penny Whistles and was called "The Bull Hunt," — the version given in the Widener Catalogue differing slightly from our draft. Then Stevenson discarded the verses when he issued A Child's Garden. [39] As we shall see later, he seems to have liked the names of John and Peter. Whether he was wise in not finishing the other set of verses on the upper left-hand side or, at least, in not using the first four lines in his printed collections, is a question which may divide readers. The lines run : — You must not suppose that a child is a fool, For 1 1 have been thinking for long That a man is no better for going to school And the old people all in the wrong. Facsimiles 8 and 9 go naturally together. The draft of "The Land of Nod," when com- pared with the versions of Penny Whistles (No. 19) and of A Child's Garden (No. 17), is chiefly interesting as exhibiting Steven- son's skill in changing what seems to have been the original order of his stanzas. The draft, omitting the changes, runs : — From breakfast on through all the day At home among my friends I stay, But every night I go abroad Afar into the land of nod. i It looks as if Stevenson first wrote ' ' Hence. ' ' [40] i**jHiw»x *~ ^ M cMJ^ri^y V\~t_ occ i -t. ru> c <)> > _ T^JS^JoOr-u^. i^^^-r^.^JT^ * A w. *Awj^K w^" U^dUU** si '• tat* /&*y jL i u -few* u-«. -w^^- Kco *- ^ — A., u-'w^ k*^^ 8.JX ,-tL ; &*tc . iff" »-^~ Av U-*l — * ' *A. Gv Aa/wv ■—3 JA^AA-tX ^JC ^jbo — . faA*~- H*.. -WFJua iX, t/vyvO p T t U - 1 - - -^; ^r~ ^7 ^— - VT. ' - ..- . • I ^-^ - Cv-A-*4 ', — >iC -. w2s». va bL/Y ■ e a ,.^K ftJr>4^Lj Curious things are there for me, Both things to eat and things to see ; And many frighting sights abroad Till morning in the land of nod. Try as I like to find the way, I never can get there by day, Nor can remember plain and clear The curious music that I hear. And all alone I have to go* — It 's very dangerous, don 't you know — All alone beside the streams And up the mountain sides of dreams. The cancelled lines at the left, which again bring in John and Peter, together with the apparently companion couplet, are not greatly missed from Penny Whistles and A Child's Garden. The draft of the poem "My Shadow 7 " (No. 20 of Penny Whistles and No. 18 of A Child's Garden), like the draft of "The Land of Nod," is interesting in the * It is not clear whether the word ' ' And, ' ' which precedes "All" in this line, belongs to this poem or to the one struck out at the side; but in all probability it should go in here, as it completes the line. In the same line the fifth word might be "love" instead of "have," but "have" seems to continue the mood of the preceding couplets, and it harmonizes with the line that follows. [41] light it throws on Stevenson's art of building up his poems, — not merely in its arrange- ment of stanzas, but also in its shifting of couplets. The couplets that follow "My Shadow" on facsimile No. 9 are probably not to be taken as forming a single poem, since the first is separated from the others by a dash 1 and is to be found by itself, under the title, "The Hunt Interrupted," as No. 21 of Penny Whistles, where "I'm going to" takes the place of "I mean to:" — Hi! nursie, you come back again, behind the deodar, For that's the place I mean to hunt, where all the tigers are. While probably well advised in printing this as four lines in Penny Whistles, Steven- son seems to have been better advised in dropping it entirely from A Child's Garden. Whether he would not have done well to retain and perfect the remaining couplets is i This may, however, have been an afterthought, and it will be observed that the facsimile seems to show a semicolon at the end of the second line. See G. Balfour 's biography, 1901, I, page 41, note 1, for an interesting touch connected with this couplet. [42] a question we need spend no time over ; but they are surely good enough to be printed here, although not new in their entirety, the second couplet having served as a basis for the second couplet of "A Good Boy" 1 (No. 25 of Penny Whistles and No. 20 of A Child's Garden). — The children all go homeward — you can hear the mothers cry, The little birds are silent now upon the treetops high. 2 At last the golden sun begins to go behind the wood, — Another day is over, and I know that I 've been good. I love the even shadow as I loved the noonday sun, i Of this poem, Stevenson wrote, in November 1883, to Mrs. Milne, the playmate of his childhood : ' ' You were a capital fel- low to play: how few there were who could! . . . See 'A Good Boy' in the Penny Whistles, much of the sentiment of which is taken direct from one evening at the Bridge of Allan, when we had a great play with the little Glasgow girl. ' ' 2 This couplet, it will be observed, has been apparently can- celled; and as a matter of fact the poem might begin with the next line ; but, as it seems to divide itself into stanzas of four lines each, it is doubtless best to pay no attention to the can- cellation. [43] And cousin Tom has painted me the picture of a gun. I pounded little pebbles on the beach below the trees, And climbed the sandy mountain in the nettles to my knees. So now along the shadows I'm returning home to bed, And then when all is over, and my evening pray- er is said, I'll lie among the pleasant sheets and close my happy eyes, And wait until time comes to call me by surprise. Returning now for a moment to "My Sha- dow" (facsimiles 8 and 9), we find that that poem has left its trace in a line or two on facsimile No. 18. This, which must be treat- ed along with Numbers 16 and 17, since all deal with Stevenson's famous respirator, contains also other fragments that seem to belong to A Child's Garden, at least, to have been originally intended for it. — This is the mill that makes the bread, might, one fancies, have been worked into a [44] V- ■' < . vo ; , o ■ J A. ? c .-,. ,/ - C~~-lk A ^ -* i*J^L<- W- Hv-L Aw,. vZfa Vt^jc a* -«-<>^^ v/ (v^t o^^ W satisfactory poem, and this is also true of the unused lines — Across the road and past the dene I know a meadow white and green. So high the grass and daisies grow, It must he where the fairies go. The reader will find other fragments of verse on the crowded sheet, and he may be pleased with what almost constitutes an en- tire new poem : — I rose before they told me to, When all the lawn was thick with dew; 1 It was the very peep of day, And night had hardly gone away. The dew stood in the butter cup, — Only the birds and me were up, — All the trees stood very still, Both round the house and on the hill, And all the shadows lay so long — Leaving now — not without regret — A Child's Garden of Verses, we come to the miscellaneous sheets of facsimiles. First in interest among these are Numbers 10 and 11, ' Stevenson appears to spell "due," but he writes the word correctly later. [45 1 containing an early draft of "In Memoriam F. A. S." (No. 27 of the first book of Under- woods), Stevenson's famous and deeply mov- ing elegy on the young son of Mrs. Sitwell, later Lady Colvin. The verses were written at Davos in 1881, and they are here reprint- ed, as nearly as possible as they stand in the facsimile, together with the final version of the poem as it appears in Underwoods. The reader will note that Stevenson seems to have begun to write in a somewhat Tennysonian blank verse, which was happily abandoned for rhyme. — If that which should be is not ; that which is, Oh God, so greatly should not be ; and all From Dawn to sunset and from birth to grave Be, or appear, Oh God, evil alone ; If that be so, then silence were the best ; Yet, broken heart, remember, Remember, All has not been evil from the start. April came to bloom at least, and no December Laid its chilling frosts upon the head or heart. Life indeed of months, and not of years ; a being Trod the flowery April blithely 1 for a while, Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing, i The MS. seems to spell blythely. [46] Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to smile. Came and went, a dream; and now when all is finished, You alone have trod the melancholy stream. Yours the pang, but his, his the undiminished, Undecaying glory, undisturbed dream. All that life contains of torture, toil and treason, Shame, dishonour*-- death, to him were but a name. Here for all his youth he dwelt — Ere the day of sorrow, departed, as he came — Here a youth he stayed through all the singing season. The following is the final version as it ap- peared in Undertvoods : — IN MEMORIAM F. A. S. Yet, stricken heart, remember, O remember How of human days he lived the better part. April came to bloom and never dim December Breathed its killing chills upon the head or heart. Doomed to know not winter, only spring, a being Trod the flowery April blithely for a while, Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing, [47] Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to smile. Came and stayed and went, and now when all is finished, You alone have crossed the melancholy stream ; Yours the pang, but his, his, the undiminished, Undecaying gladness, undeparted dream. All that life contains of torture, toil, and treason, Shame, dishonour, death, to him were but a name. Here, a boy, he dwelt through all the singing season And ere the day of sorrow, departed as he came. 1 Facsimile No. 12 contains a portion of "Our Lady of the Snows" (No. 23 of Under- woods). In the first line Stevenson seems originally to have written "man" instead of "men," the present reading. In the second line he substituted, in the printed version, the weak With agonizing folds of flesh i For variations see the Widen er Catalogue, page 44. [48] j * I &-l,-\^-«_ M^^ lr~Mfv-A <7i "y& U\ ( G X j ; > ^j- V- '- & * ■ ; : . Mf»- ■ V vv ^ AAA— &** Facsimile No. 12 for the strong line in the present manu- script — In that Nessus robe of flesh, desiring perhaps to avoid a commonplace of mythology ; or fearing that readers untrain- ed in the classics might not recognize the Centaur whose blood proved mortal to his slayer, Hercules. Lines 5-8 — Whom the bold heart beating high, Yet prompts to suffer and enjoy, And like the soldier's drum, its sound Recruits and calls the passions round were omitted from the printed version, pos- sibly not only to get rid of the antiquated rhyme, but also to avoid reminding readers of a famous ode by Collins. Lines 11-14 were likewise omitted, with the loss, it would seem, of two rather good, although not highly indi- vidual, verses : — To hold the peace, to fold the hands, And in unnoticeable sands Drain out the useless lees of time, Far from Nature, far from crime. The substitution in line 18 of "About my [49] human" for 'About my father's" both avoids a suggestion of the Scriptures, which might offend some readers, and imparts to the pass- age a true Stevensonian flavor. Facsimile No. 13 affords little that requires comment. Stevenson apparently liked to make lists, — here one of proverbs which he may have intended to work into rhymes. The sheet also yields a new stanza the substance of which possesses value, whatever may be thought of the form : — ■r> J Plough land and lea, stubble and trees, Nature's aid is silent for ever; So one standing hears and sees Men deducing and talking clever, But cares no whit for them or these. Facsimile No. 14 is important if, as seems plausible from the character of the initial verses and from the proverb, "Give a dog a bad name and hang him," strung along down the right-hand margin, we may assume that the following uncouth poem was suggested by Stevenson's own stormy and somewhat unpromising youth in Edinburgh. So far as [So] 1 r ' • ^?r^y^2 C ir. U — -~A A,^^J ^ , dO-#- L*- 7 K| 7w . f*\-t*-\s^ c/ .o^-w (r^N-A-t/s. cn^^cK V. J we know, it has never been printed else- where. — For laughing I very much vote, Yet was never opposed to the church ; , So why do grave people agree To leave me alone in the lurch? From my birth 1 a desirable youth, In amenity ever I shone, Yet no merry andrew was I To be carelessly flouted upon. High, angry and sour are the words "With which I have ever been curst, And yet though impenitent now, I was easily led at the first. The remainder of facsimile No. 14 is occu- pied by what seems to be a short independent poem, over which Stevenson worked with more assiduity than success. The somewhat bizarre subject might have yielded perhaps — when he was in happier vein — verses more worthy of his genius ; but even so, it may be desirable to transcribe them : — i Stevenson seems to have written "bih, '-' but be probably intended to write "birth." [51] Look out, my friend, it's on the card, A babe forever squalling hard And shorn of any 1 outer aid, A person mantled in a plaid And bound to be that baby's page In nightly pale apprenticeage. Facsimile No. 15 represents the conclusion of a poem which is so confused in the ar- rangement of its lines that perhaps each reader will claim the privilege of construct- ing his own text. Its date is probably about 1881, as may be seen from the following bit of prose, which does not appear in the fac- simile, but is transcribed from another near- by page of the original note book. — "It is impossible to keep lines of rail, for any great distance, close along the side of a range of granite mountains. It is the more to be supposed that this 'puma of the moun- tains,' as it has been poetically called, acts directly on the locomotive engines, since the discovery by Mr. Browning that they hear i The original seems to contain a superfluous stroke of the pen, and might be deciphered as "every" but for the very plain initial letter " a. " [52] ^- /_ < L ' - f ' I * ~ 0-.( • CATv^ a \ ^ • Jit : /■ 6^--^ > ' ; r ■ . ■'._. '■ i .- . i \ \** >- \ x \ ■ r\ each other's screams across the night and tremble like wild animals. Read in a dream Thursday, May 12th/81." Immediately below this passage follow, on page 40 of the note book, the lines begin- ning — The still air sharpened to a blast, as given below. Stevenson thought enough of his engine- verses, if we may so denominate them, to en- ter them in a sort of index he kept on the verso of the front cover of his note book — or else, as seems unlikely, a later hand has done this. One naturally thinks of "Kubla Khan," and may, without suggesting any real rivalry with that, urge that Stevenson's couplets, even if their arrangement be difficult to de- termine, constitute one of the most truly imaginative poems he ever wrote : — Earth's oldest veins our dam and sire, Iron chimeras fed with fire or And in the darkness, far and nigh, We heard our iron compeers cry [53] may be cited in support of this view. But the poem, chaotic and unpolished though it be, is better than any comments upon it. The first five lines are copied from the page in the note book immediately preceding the one here re- producd in facsimile : — The still air sharpened to a blast, The canyon thundered as we past ; With roar and rattle, scream and clang The many-antred mountain rang; And plunging from the light of day, The many-antred mountain rang, And shook through all her pillars, but that stead In our black stable near the sea Five and twenty stalls you see, Five and twenty strong are we. The lanterns tossed the shadows round, Live coals were scattered on the ground ; The swarthy ostlers echoing stept, But silent all night long we slept. Inactive we, steeds of the day, And shakers of the mountains lay, Earth's oldest 1 veins our dam and sire, i Query, "eldest?" [54] Iron chimaeras fed with fire. [We slept; and while we slept, we heard 1 J And trembled as we slept to hear, All we, 2 the unweary lay at rest, The sleepless lamp burned on our crest, And in the darkness, far and nigh, We heard our iron compeers cry. Mom came at last ; the morning star Burned in the amber heavens afar ; Dew and the early day abroad. Facsimiles 16, 17, and 18 3 give us couplets intended to make a poem or poems "on wear- ing an inhaler with a snout." Some of these lines were used in a letter written to Henley from Braemar in 1881, and we are informed by Sir Sidney Covlin that they were occa- sioned by the fact that "Stevenson's uncle, Dr. George Balfour, had recommended him to wear a specially contrived and hideous res- pirator for the inhalation of pine-oil. " Some i There is some doubt whether Stevenson meant to keep this line or not. In the latter case, a comma should probably re- place the period after "fire." 2 This may possibly be ' ' eve. ' ' s Facsimiles 17 and 18 also contain material already treated under the discussion of the drafts of poems written for A Child's Garden. [ 55 ] persons may think the lines scarcely more comely than the instrument they celebrate, but, since the letter to Henley is printed in Stevenson's correspondence, it is probably well to give such readers as care for R. L. S. in his jocular moods a chance to peruse the original couplets from which a portion of that letter was derived, even if the language is sometimes more expressive than elegant. — Sir, while we tread the paths of day Still downward slopes the narrowing way, And still, alas ! on one and all, Undue humiliations fall. 1 The speaking changes of my face, And that well-known, insidious grace, Cock of the eye, or strut of walk, Or sweet, sequacious flow of talk, And all that erst so well became My youth, my talents and my name : Must these, ere yet my prime be sped, These, one and all, be buried Beneath, my revered Creator, 1 Here Stevenson may have intended to interpolate the fol- lowing lines, which appear in the right-hand margin: — If oil of pines I now must breathe Here all my arts let me bequeath, My arts, my hopes, [56] 7: f — ? ', .• - , u*~-o K*>^ »-C^ Us* o* > • J - ^ (-• - ^Wa/vA , /w% * • ' '.' . y/c — c/Tcjcstt tv^ ^^- y *»A -, (s^ cAA * ^ l - 1>- - c <.»^A^ fc~J^, /-' .-#• / |f4^,^-y Cw (a^X- ^4V — \ k^^kS c — t^ v*M - y~~^ £w. L*^Jw~/» l-X \TAaJU*. J 1" Caaa-^ 1) J^ U*~y A~_^ |«L>t ( tiAcX , wI«JL •" — ^ U-CA 3 /*-<& La—-* t; \~*XvJ&. , oLc^— ; \*~t (U-*_ ^< f ft; ^Xa — Ik. fr-i~^M^Av~^. L — U3c i~> — GZ u-e*^^,. Sji v* UwJ«4_ Jr o-L** , t^A, ^jkx^ Jute t*t£u C^. ^1 VT*- }Jt^, ]'*• -ll^—V-* ^*— -*~j \*r~~v A 'v-a; ■. *w-^^- °1 I , t ■"^ t>«~« £>■ ■ * • » fit ' a ! "tt- S« — tf J — I'^-c • ■• , V~ i. 5 i s ^— o,^ ^L*. i«vt- Vv--*' U. >>N W4^-Ur-^r-v:v rv^TtAp=E=; cX- ~~ i-sk^. *** — * u • GUM. .;. V , I •V**^. Cu I 1 ri : • tfc -...J- An air-nasal respirator! Must I, alas ! disfigured go Among my fellows, to and fro — Among the ladies, in and out, Blessed with an artificial snout? Ariel to Bottom altered, Don Giovanni, with a false face on, Must I — ye graces, pause and hear! — Angel de-angelised appear? With my pig's snout upon my face I now inhale, with fishy grace, My gills outflapping right and left — 01. pin. sylvest. 1 I am bereft Of a great deal of charm by this — Not quite the bull's eye for a kiss — But like a gnome of olden time Or boguey in a pantomine. For ladies' love I once was fit, But now am rather out of it. Where 'er I go revolted curs Snap round my military spurs ; The children all retire in fits And scream their bellowses to bits. Little I care — the worst 's been done ; Now let the cold, impoverished sun Drop frozen from its orbit — let i Oil of pinus sylvestris, said to be the only British species of pine. [57] Fuiy and fire, cold, wind and wet, And cataclysmal, mad reverses Rage through the federate universes ; Let Lanisin [ ?] triumph, cakes and ale, Whiskey and hock and claret fail, Tobacco, Love and Letters perish, And all that cultured man should cherish — You it may touch — not me : I dwell Too deep, already, deep in hell ; Too deep in grief already lie, And nothing can befall — damn ! — To make me uglier than I am. Time was when physical disorders Bloomed bright in the poetic borders ; Heroes and heroines together Slunk southward from the winter weather ; From Astrakhan to the Atlantic No malady was more romantic. Time is : the courtly auscultator Breathes " air-nasal respirator," Breathes but the word ; and at the sound Fate from your fancies cuts the ground ; The fabled charm dissolves like winking, And leaves you both deformed and stinking. Conceive — you've only three, I hope, A section of black telescope ; [58] i JL' W- J^. j, . I-cJ L( «. A .- \a < l ' —c-tf . *>-e^ - ! 7 ' " vV ■ I _i **l •f - • eat j — i ~ j ^"~-/ w &**"• — r* . I ( > 'U[a A"^-«i- M»(aU ta£ U> r.vC*^.^L, ' a- ^-U^ •■/ .aC U tA**-\* ' ■■ C *-*-~-3 >- - '-!/?..' ■ •, 4r^ : . Up «, 3 i:.. 0U ' i~e&. F.VCSIMIl In shape it apes, though rather big, The snout of the domestic pig ; On either hand — I tell no crammers- Valves like minute piano-hammers Go up and down with every breath To make a sexton laugh to death. 1 Facsimile No. 19 may be passed over with but little comment. It, however, contains a few apparently unpublished lines that are worthy of scrutiny, notably the following : — Royal ladies are not all Fit to kiss a country thrall ; Famous bards (no time ago) Sing old songs, unhearkened to : With attention use your eyes, Here 2 a proverb buried lies, With old wisdom shining lit, Terse as is the soul of wit. The following lines, more typically Steven- sonian in spirit than in poetic beauty, appear 1 Other lines that are associated with this effusion may be obtained by any reader who will closely examine facsimile No. 18. 2 Stevenson carelessly wrote ' ' Hear, ' ' although it is barely possible to construct a meaning with "Hear" by mentally in- terpolating ' ' which ' ' after ' ' proverb. ' ' [59] at the bottom of the sheet. They were prob- ably written while he was living at Davos. Our high, alfresco, Alpine kind of life, Tho ' dull, I say, is free at least from strife. Here you can wear, unchid, your oldest clo' — A fair set-off to what you undergo. You sit or walk, do that or this, Each as though all the place were his ; Or bet terrific sums perhaps, On ... . [f J 1 or other billiard chaps. Facsimiles 20 and 21 are given as evidence of the care with which Stevenson labored on the verses "In Scots' ' that make up the second book of Under woods. Number 20 rep- resents a portion of ' ' The Maker to Posteri- ty," with new material; Number 21 repre- sents in a similar way "A Lowden Sabbath Morn." 2 Facsimile No. 22 contains an amusing set of seemingly unpublished couplets addressed to Henley, in which Stevenson says that, since — i Possibly the reader may find some amusement in decipher- ing this word. It is perhaps the name of some friend who was a billiard player. 2 See the Bibliophile edition of 1916, II, 152-153. [60] ■ • vW . T % _>jv- — w— c/i";".v v- - Ir* U_ lAH^t^V^ I a I — ', . J J t l «■ ' ft » ■- - i r ' *~j/ I tU c>— C)X< n^AWH tv\j " - ' ' i > /• j f. I i '• ' Garden and to end with the Stevenson of the bored student period may seem at first blush a questionable procedure. Yet, after all, a "Workshop" volume will possess little value if it does not serve to bring into greater relief the sheerly human qualities of the writer to whom it is devoted. It is chiefly Stevenson's inexhaustible humanity, rather than the per- fection of his literary art or the power and charm of his genius, that endears him to most of his readers. That humanity finds higher expression in the period of the famous ro- mances and in the Samoan years, but it is abundantly manifest also in his early verses and in what we know about his college days. There is nothing more human than exaspera- tion w r ith a bore, and, although Stevenson later acquired much of the patience of the philosophic mind and of the charitable heart, we need not apologize for taking leave of him as an irreverent caricaturist of some Edin- burgh pundit. [ 6 3 1 , H— I /< wX } j / **-fc V>^ k K M I A - V ! T I'T N ' .A a a e ) l 1 ' * N W 6 L r 1 L tLLLl, L > v \^C\ /wj> ) ; - ^ — ft J «^vW- &. 2 ; c ^ tW^; fc Ql) Ow.i \\A* ' \ *J* VVw^ ? L . o**-~e^- » \a - ^ W^SL^ — X : Ll^~^-iM^l^^, / - ^ & ik ^* 9^1. ^.- ^ ^ /- v > / / >-? / / Facsimile No. 26 i JJxr&y t" *X-**L ; - \ g&l ■ / »«. '-- i tM^L^ / I ■.■'."' J ^W- : > * uAJ tfc .'. W&^\ S ,'' V- . '■■■ ■ - . w« - . r. — _ JU i / \ 6 ' . Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: May 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 iNGuuaiiiii iy aycm. iviaynes Treatment Date: May 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION