PR 5493 'iiiiiis LIBRARY OF CONGRESi D3nbD51 ^/ .4.^' '^d. •-«©^,* . '^ • ^^' > - t • o ^ "^ r. '^bv* :^K^'^ '^-^0^ r'^^M': ^ov^^ ,-?;■ '- "^^ ^^"^ /.aV/^'c '^^^ A"* V*,^"! ;^j;^v^ ^ V^^'-^^.. .^ O^ . P " » V-i s?"*. ^ ^W^i *^ 0^ * ^ y ^o^*.-^ ^^< ^'^'^r ^v*^ t..^^ v ^•^ >s» A^ ♦rfCVwA". ^ c /"•* IN SIMILAR FORM 16mo, Boards, net 50c. Leather, net Jl.OO Maty Raymond Shipman Andrews The Perfect Tribute The Lifted Bandage Maltbie Davenport Babcock The Success of Defeat Katharine Holland Brown The Messenger Richard Harding Davis The Consul Robert Herrick The Master of the Inn Frederick Landis The Angel of Lonesome Hill Robert Louis Stevenson A Christmas Sermon Prayers Written at Vailima Aes Triplex Isabel Strong Robert Louis Stevenson Henry van Dyke School of Life The Spirit of Christmas The Sad Shepherd ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ROBERT LOUIS STEVKNSON (An unpublished portrait) ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON BY Isobel Strong Author with Lloyd Osbour VIEMORIES OF VAILIMA Joint Author with Lloyd Osbourne of MEMORIES OF VAILIMA NEW YORK Charles Scribner's Sons 1911 P\b \'^ Copyright, 1911, by Charles Scribner's Sons Vv"-, ©CI.A2t)7:r35 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE CHILD r>EFORE R. L. S. was known to the world as a writer, the name of Stevenson called to mind the light- houses that guard the coast of Scot- land and "open in the dusk their flowers of fire." Twenty sentinels they stand, built upon rocks in the midst of angry seas, solidly defying the storms of the North while bear- ing mute testimony to the daring skill of their builders. It was from these brave men that Robert Louis Stevenson inherited his name and [31 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON his courage. He wrote in "Under- woods": "Say not of me that weakly I declined The labours of my sires and fled the sea, The towers we founded and the lamps we lit. To play at home with paper like a child. But rather say: In the afternoon of time A strenuous family dusted from its hands The sand of granite, and beholding far Along the sounding coast its pyramids And tall memorials catch the dying sun. Smiled well content, and to this childish task Around the fire addressed its evening hours." He "played with paper" to such good effect that now the name of Stevenson spells romance, courage against all odds, and the bright gos- pel of hope. He was born in Edinburgh on the 13th of November, 1850, and chris- [4] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON tened Robert Lewis Balfour Steven- son. The spelling, but not the pro- nunciation, of his second name was changed later and the Balfour dropped. The climate of his native land was a cruel one for a delicate child — or perhaps the climate made the child delicate. At any rate, the story of his early life would be sad reading were it not for the radiance of his spirit that glowed through the dull clouds of ill-health like a burning lamp. When he was five years old he was asked by his mother what he had been doing, and the answer is the key-note of his character: "I have been playing all day," he said, "or at least I have been making myself cheerful." His eager eyes looked brightly [5] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON through the mist of pain and found charm and interest in everything about him. Through his rose-col- oured glasses the next-door garden was a foreign land; he heard gallop- ing hoofs in the wind at night, and his sick-bed, touched by the magic of his fancy, changed to "The Pleasant Land of Counter-pane." "Once," he wrote, *'as I lay playing hunter, hid in a thick laurel, and with a toy gun upon my arm, I worked myself so hotly into the spirit of the play that I think I can still see the herd of ante- lope come sweeping down the lawn and round the deodar — it was al- most a vision." In the evening, after dinner, one can imagine the "wee laddie" sitting by the fire, his head leaning on his hand, his eyes tightly shut, dreaming ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON of fairy lands, of forests, and the "rain-pool sea," and then "When my eyes I once again Open and see all things plain, High bare walls, great bare floor, Great big knobs on drawer and door. Great big people perched on chairs Stitching tucks and mending tears, Each a hill that I could climb And talking nonsense all the time. O dear me That I could be A sailor on the rain-pool sea, A climber in the clover tree, And just come back, a sleepy-head. Late at night to go to bed." Mr. Stevenson explained to me once, a little whimsically, that he wrote his books with the faith of a child playing a game. He believed his characters were real people, and saw them as clearly as the herd of [7] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON antelope galloping across his grand- father's lawn. If he once discovered they were only pen-and-ink, his story would come to an end. He said "an author must live in a book as a child in a game, oblivious to the world." He had no patience with half-hearted people. Once while wait- ing in a drawing-room he saw a small boy playing boat on a sofa. The little man rowed and put up sail and hauled in imaginary ropes, and final- ly, tiring of the game, jumped off the make-believe craft and walked to the door. "Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Steven- son reproachfully. "For God's sake swim ! " Though little Louis was an only child, he had cousins, and they all, himself included, adored "Auntie," his mother's sister. Miss Balfour, of [8] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON whom I quote this interesting de- scription: — "I have mentioned my aunt. In her youth she was a wit and a beauty, very imperious, managing, and self-sufficient. But as she grew up she began to suffice for all family as well. An accident on horse-back made her nearly deaf and blind, and suddenly transformed this wilful em- press into the most serviceable and amiable of women. There were thir- teen of the Balfours as (oddly enough) there were of the Stevensons, and the children of the family came home to her to be nursed, to be educated, to be mothered, from the infanticidal climate of India. There must some- times have been half-a-score of us children about the manse, and all were born a second time from Aunt Jane's tenderness. It was strange [9] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON when a new party of these sallow young folk came home, perhaps with an ayah. This little country manse was the centre of the world, and Aunt Jane represented Charity. The text, my mother says, must have been written for her and Aunt Jane: 'More are the children of the bar- ren than the children of the married wite. A happy day at the manse was too often followed by illness, and then Alison Cunningham cared for the sick boy. To her he wrote: "For the long nights you lay awake And watched for my unworthy sake: For your most comfortable hand That led me through the uneven land: For all the story-books you read. For all the pains you comforted: For all you pitied, all you bore, In sad and happy days of yore: — [10] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON My second mother, my first wife, The angel of my infant life — From the sick child, now well and old, Take, nurse, the little book you hold ! And grant it, Heaven, that all who read May find as dear a nurse at need. And every child who lists my rhyme In the bright fireside nursery clime May hear it in as kind a voice As made my childish heart rejoice." In after years, whenever Stevenson spoke of his childhood, the sick-room, the wakeful nights, even the pain he suffered, served merely as a back- ground to " Cummy's" rare devotion. He was grateful to her all his Hfe. He wrote letters to her, he sent her copies of all his books as they came out, he had her to stay with him in Bourne- mouth, and even proposed sending for her to pay a visit to Samoa. *' Cummie was full of life and merri- [111 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON merit.* She sang and danced to her boy and read to him most dramat- ically. She herself tells how, the last time she ever saw him, he said to her before a room full of people: 'It's you that gave me a passion for the drama, Cummie.' ' Me, Master Lou,' I said. 'I never put foot inside a play-house in all my life!' *Ay, woman,' said he, 'but it was the grand dramatic way ye had of recit- ing the hymns!' " Louis Stevenson was one of the few people who recall their early days. In a way he never outgrew them. In- stead of passing through the phases of childhood and youth, he went on carrying them with him through life, growing richer with the years. In "A * Writes Graham Balfour in "Life of Robert Louis Stevenson." fl2l ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Child's Garden" one sees how vividly he remembered, for that book was not written for children; it was the recollections of his own childhood put into verse: "But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear you. He intent Is all on his play-business bent. He does not hear, he will not look, Nor yet be lured out of this book. For, long ago, the truth to say. He has grown up and gone away, And it is but a child of air That lingers in the garden there." 13 THE YOUTH ^T^HOUGH Stevenson's parents were well to do and the lad was surrounded by every comfort and even luxury, the odds were against him. The climate of his native land was an impossible one, that made living in Edinburgh a constant fight for health; but his father would not forego his ambition to make his son a lighthouse engineer. The boy went obediently to Skerryvore, and the Bass Rock to inspect the construc- tion of the works, bringing home, not technical knowledge, but romantic impressions that he used afterward in his books, "David Balfour's" de- [14] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON scription of the old rock shows how clear some of them were. "The strange nature of this place, and the curiosities with which it abounded, held me busy and amused. ... I . . . continually explored the surface of the isle wherever it might support the foot of man. The old garden of the prison was still to be observed, with flowers and pot-herbs running wuld, and some ripe cherries on a bush. A little lower stood a chapel or a hermit's cell; who built or dwelt in it, none may know, and the thought of its age made a ground of many meditations. . . . There were times when I thought I could have heard the pious sound of psalms out of the martyr's dungeons, and seen the soldiers tramp the ramparts with their glinting pikes [15] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON and the dawn rising behind them out of the North Sea." Thomas Stevenson took his son on many wild trips about the North Coast of Scotland, trying to interest him in the profession that was so dear to his own heart. Stevenson respected the work and admired his father's share of it, as we read in "Thomas Stevenson, Civil Engineer." "At this time his lights were in every part of the world, guiding the mariner; his firm were the consulting engineers to the Indian, the New Zea- land, and the Japanese lighthouse boards, so that Edinburgh was a world centre for that branch of ap- plied science; in Germany he had been called *the Nestor of light- house illumination'; even in France, where his claims were long denied, [16] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON he was at last, on the occasion of the late exposition, recognised and med- alled." It must have needed a great deal of courage to tell such a man that his dearest hopes were to be dashed to the ground. Happily, the differences between father and son were of short duration, and they became in later years the best and closest of friends. The intense interest that Stevenson took in people, and life, and birds, and scenery, his constant scribbling in note-books, seemed to his father a waste of time. To the son, the study of lighthouse engineering became an impossibility, and he finally gave it up after an interview that must have been an exceedingly unhappy one for them both. Colvin describes this period of the [171 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON boy's life most vividly: "The ferment of youth was more acute and more prolonged in him than in most men of genius; and for several years he was torn hither and thither by fifty cur- rents of speculation, impulse and de- sire. ... I have tried to give some notion of the many various strains and elements which met in him and which were in these days pulling one against another in his half-formed being, at the great expense of spirit and body. Add the storms, which from time to time attacked him, of shivering repulsion from the climate and conditions of life in the city which he yet deeply and imagina- tively loved. . . . the seasons of temptation most strongly besetting the ardent and poetic temperament to seek escape into freedom and the [18] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ideal through that grotesque back door opened by the crude alhirements of the city streets; the moods of spir- itual revolt against the harsh doc- trine of the creed in which his parents were deeply and his father even pas- sionately attached." The sensitive lad battled gallantly with fate. "Does it not seem surpris- ing," I quote from one of his youth- ful letters, "that I can keep the lamp alight through all this gusty weather in so frail a lantern ? And yet it burns cheerily." He took life, and his lessons, pain and play, changes from one school to another, lapses into illness and consequent travels on the continent, everything that came his way, in a spirit of intense appreciation and ab- sorbed interest. [19] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON None of the experiences of his youth were wasted or forgotten. From his hot-headed quarrels with his father he gathered the wisdom and insight to write "Crabbed Age and Youth," an essay that has helped many a parent to understand his son. His long tramps over the Scottish heather formed material for the most striking chapter in "Kidnapped." He paid a visit to an uncle in the parish of Stow on which he after- ward drew in "Hermiston" for knowledge of the Lammermuirs. The happy adventurous days of his youth that he spent exploring the Edin- burgh castle were minutely remem- bered and turned to good account in "St. Ives." He used the scenery of Brenner Pass, which he never saw after 1863, for the background of [20] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON *'Will o' the Mill." From his boyish resentment against the dogmas and narrow creed of his elders he evolved the broad, kindly tolerant, hopeful faith that inspired the "Prayers." Through the turbulent years of his youth Stevenson was sustained and upheld by a stout heart "radiating pure romance." He was like the lad- die with a lantern under his coat in the same he described so well. "We wore them buckled to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigour of the game, a buttoned topcoat. They smelled noisomely of blistered tin; they never burned aright though they always burned our fingers; their use was naught; the pleasure of them merely fanciful ; and yet a boy w4th a bull's eye under his topcoat asked for nothing more!" [21] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON He was indeed a strange lad. The savour went out of life for him if he could "no longer see satyrs in the thicket, or picture a highwayman riding down the lane." In that same essay, "A Retrospect," he wrote: '' Et ego in Arcadia vixit would be no empty boast upon my grave. If I de- sire to live long it is that I may have the more to look back upon." "All through my boyhood," he ex- plained, "I was known and pointed out for a pattern of an idler, and yet I was always busy on my own private end, which was to learn to write. I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. As I walked my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either read, or a pencil and a penny [22] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON version book would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stan- zas. Thus I lived with words." [23] THE MAN T^T'ITH his heart set upon liter- ature as a profession, scrib- bling every spare moment and writing an astonishing number of essays (they fill a large volume of the "Edinburgh Edition"), it must have been uphill work for Stevenson to put his mind upon engineering at all. However, he was so successful as to receive a medal for an invention of " A New Form of Intermittent Light" and was commended by the Royal Scottish Society of Arts for his paper on that subject. When, in 1871, his father allowed him to abandon engineering, offering the law as a compromise, Louis fell [24] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON upon the new drudgery with such studious fury that he was called to the Scottish bar in July, 1875. On the 25th he received his first complimen- tary brief and the next day he sailed for France. That his attitude of mind was well understood by his friends is shown by a letter from Fleeming Jenkin congratulating him, not upon entering a new profession, but on "getting rid of the law forever." By this time the young man's es- says were beginning to attract atten- tion, enough, at any rate, for his father to feel justified in giving him an allowance with full permission to follow the art he loved. From that moment to the day of his death Stev- enson devoted himself to literature with a passion and fervour that never failed. He had won out against all ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON odds and though success came to him slowly it came surely. He who had defended idleness so valiantly knew himself when he said, " I have a goad in the flesh continually pushing me to work, work, work." He was never without a pencil and a note- book, never so happy as when in the full tide of a new story or novel. He loved the "ring of words" and the game of sorting and arranging them to fit the exact meaning of his mind. He turned to letter-writing as a skilled cabinet-maker might fashion an elegant toy — for the fun of using his tools skilfully. In long hours of sickness and enforced rest from seri- ous work he scribbled verses to pass the time. He thought so little of these that "The Child's Garden of Verse" and "Underwoods" would not have [26] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON been printed had not many a poem been rescued from the margins of magazines, the fly-leaves of books he was reading, and even the waste- paper basket. He was very modest about his work and said of his first small success: "I begin to have more hope in the story line and that should improve my income." He laughed incredulously when a friend said to him, "I believe the day will come, Louis, when people will speak of 'Stevenson's Works.' " He lived long enough to hear the world ringing with his fame. When the "Edinburgh Edition" was in course of preparation he wrote to his old friend, Charles Baxter: "Do you remember — how many years ago I would be afraid to hazard a guess — one night when I communicated to [27] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON you certain intimations of early death and aspirations after fame? ... If any one at that moment could have shown me the 'Edinburgh Edition' I suppose I should have died. It is with gratitude and wonder that I con- sider 'the way in which I have been led.' Could a more presumptuous idea have occurred to us in those days when we used to search our pockets for coppers, too often in vain, and combine forces to produce the three- pence necessary for two glasses of beer, or wander down the Lothian Road without any, than that I should be strong and well at the age of forty- three in the island of Upolu, and that you should be at home bringing out the 'Edinburgh Edition'.?'' At Vailima, where he lived the last four years of his life, the monthly [281 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON mail brought up the mountain trail on a pack-saddle was overflowing with requests for his autograph, books from young authors begging for a word of approval from "the Master," and many letters from the brilliant and successful writers of the day, French, American, and English, prais- ing his latest work and hailing him generously as the greatest of them all. The profession of letters is one that is singularly free from jealousy, as was shown, when an author began to make himself known, by the enthusi- astic letters from fellow-writers call- ing Stevenson's attention to the new star on the horizon. Stevenson fought against all odds for the wife of his choice as he had done for his profession. From the first moment he met, at the little village of [291 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Grez in the forest of Fontainebleau, *' the woman for whom he was to dare so much, to receive in return* such entire devotion, and to leave in prose and verse, and in his uttered words to all his intimates, a tribute such as few women have been privileged to receive," until their marriage in San Francisco three years later, he sur- mounted one obstacle after another. The last book he wrote [that was left unfinished by his sudden death] was dedicated "To my Wife." "I saw the rain falling and the rain-bow drawn On Lammermuir. Hearkening, I heard again In my precipitous city beaten bells Winnow the keen sea-wind. And here afar, Intent on my own race and place I wrote. *W. H. Low, "A Chronicle of Friendships." [30] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Take thou the writing; thine it is. For who Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal, Held still the target higher; chary of praise And prodigal of counsel — who but thou ? So now in the end; if this the least be good. If any deed be done, if any fire Burn in the imperfect page, the praise be thine." This is to the critic, in acknowledg- ment of her influence and help in his literary work. To the wife he wrote: "Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, With eyes of gold and bramble-dew. Steel true and blade straight The great artificer made my mate. Honor, anger, valor, fire, A love that life could never tire. Death quench, or evil stir The mighty master gave to her. [31] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Teacher, tender comrade, wife, A fellow farer true through life. Heart whole and soul free. The August Father gave to me." [32] THE TRAVELLER "l^^HEN Stevenson found himself free to go where he would, he took the first road that offered — and it led him to France. "Then follow you wherever lie The travelling mountains of the sky Or let the streams, in civil mode Direct your choice upon the road. For one and all, or high or low Will lead you where you wish to go And one and all go night and day Over the hills and far away!" He and his friend, Sir Walter Simp- son, a young fellow of his own age, took a canoeing trip that he described afterward in "An Inland Voyage." [33] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON He enjoyed it all, good fortune and ill, wet and stormy days as well as fair, and only stopped to commiserate a poor fellow who had to stay behind. He was " the driver of the hotel om- nibus; a mean enough looking little man, as well as I can remember; but with a spark of something human in his soul. He had heard of our little journey, and came to me at once in envious sympathy. How he longed to travel! he told me. How he longed to be somewhere else, and see the round world before he went to his grave! *Here I am,' said he; *I drive to the station. Well. And then I drive back again to the hotel. And so on every day and all the week round. My God, is that life ! ' I could not say I thought it was — for him. He pressed me to tell him where I had been and where [34] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON I hoped to go; and as he Hstened I declare the fellow sighed. Might not this have been a brave African trav- eller, or gone to the Indies after Drake? But it is an evil age for the gipsily inclined among men. He who can sit squarest on a three-legged stool, he it is who has the w^ealth and glory." After many days of adventure they came to "La Fere of Cursed Mem- ory." Here they were taken for ped- lars and refused a night's lodging, to Stevenson's fury. "For my part," he stormed, "when I was turned out of the Stag or the Hind, or whatever it was, I would have set the temple of Diana on fire if it had been handy. There was no crime complete enough to express my disapproval of human institutions." After wading about in [35] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON the dark and rain for hours they found "La Croix de Malte," where they were received. " Little did the Bazins know how much they served us. We were charged for candles, for food and drink, and for the beds we slept in. But there was nothing in the bill for the husband's pleasant talk nor the pretty spectacle of their married life." It is only by a letter to a friend that one learns of the risks he took with his health, and even that is written in a cheerful vein. "I have had to fight against pretty mouldy health, so that, on the whole, the essayist and review- er has shown, I think, some pluck. Four days ago I was not a hundred miles from being miserably drowned, to the immense regret of a large circle of friends and the permanent impov- erishment of British Essayism and [361 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Reviewery. My boat culbutted me under a fallen tree in a very rapid cur- rent; and I was a good while before I got on to the outside of that fallen o tree, rather a better while than I cared about." His next journey was afoot, his com- panion a donkey, " a love, price sixty- five francs and a glass of brandy." "His love" refused to move beyond a snail's pace until a passing peasant taught him the art of donkey driv- ing and gave him the magic word "proot." "The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into a good round pace, which she kept up without flag- ging and without exhibiting the least symptoms of distress as long as the peasant kept beside us." When his preceptor left and they "started to climb an interminable hill upon the [37] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON other side, ' proot ' seemed to have lost its virtue. I prooted Hke a Hon. I prooted mellifluously hke a sucking dove ; but Modestine would be neither softened nor intimidated. She held doggedly to her pace." Finally an inn- keeper made Stevenson a goad and all went well. The innkeeper's wife understood the object of his journey perfectly, "She sketched at what I should put into my book when I got home. * Whether people harvest or not in such and such a place; if there were forests; studies of names; what, for example, I and the Master of the house say to you; and the beauty of nature and all that.' " Such is the story of "Travels with a Donkey" done into perfect prose. A far different journey was his next one, when he travelled as "An Ama- [38] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON teur Emigrant to California Across the Plains." He knew France well, spoke the language fluently, and un- derstood the customs of the people. The United States was a foreign land. "With half a heart I wander here As from an age gone by, A brother — yet though young in years An elder brother, I. You speak another tongue than mine Though both were English born — I towards the night of time decline You mount into the morn. Youth shall grow great and strong and free But age must still decay — Tomorrow for the States — for me England and yesterday!" It was not until after ten years of in- creasing illness, after he had vainly sought health in Hyeres, Davos- Platz, Bournemouth, and the Adi- [39] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON rondacks, that Fate, suddenly relent- ing, sent him to the South Seas. "By strange pathways God hath brought you Tusitala. In strange webs of fortune caught you. Led you by strange moods and measures To this paradise of pleasures."* It was indeed a paradise to Steven- son, a new world full of sunlight and warmth, romance, and strange ad- venture. "The first experience can never be repeated. The first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea Is- land, are memories apart." When his yacht, the Casco, plunged its an- chor into the waters of Nuka-hiva Bay, "it was a small sound, a great event," Stevenson wrote, "but my soul went down with these moorino-s o * Edmund Gosse in the dedication, "In Russet and Silver." [40] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON whence no windlass may extract or diver fish it up, and I, and some part of my ship's company were from that hour the bond slaves of the isles of Vivien." After more than a year of voyaging among the islands he moored his bark on the shore of the most beautiful of them all, Upolu of the Samoan group. *'For here," he declared, "if more days are granted me they shall be passed where I have found life most pleasant and man most interesting!" [41] THE WRITER npHE first of Stevenson's books to make a success was " Treas- ure Island." The idea of the story was suggested by a map which he drew for Lloyd Osbourne, his step- son, "a schoolboy home from the holidays and much in need of some- thing craggy to break his mind upon." "He had no thought of literature; it was the art of Raphael that received his fleeting suffrages; ... I would sometimes unbend a little, join the artist (so to speak) at the easel, and pass the afternoon with him in a generous emulation, making coloured drawings. On one of these occasions, [42] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON I made the map of an island; it was elaborately and (I thought) beauti- fully coloured; the shape of it took my fancy beyond expression; it con- tained harbours that pleased me like sonnets; and, with the unconscious- ness of the predestined, I ticketed my performance 'Treasure Island.'" He was soon at work writing out a list of chapters. "It was to be a story for boys; no need for psychology or fine writing; and I had a boy at hand to be a touchstone. ... I had counted on one boy, I found I had two in my audience. My father caught fire at once with all the romance and child- ishness of his original nature. . . . When the time came for Billy Bones's chest to be ransacked, he must have passed the better part of a day pre- paring, on the bayk of a legal envel- [43] ROBERT I.OUIS STEVENSON ope, an inventory of its contents, which I exactly followed; and the name of 'Flint's old ship' — the Wal- rus — was given at his particular re- quest." "Treasure Island" was dedicated to Lloyd Osbourne, An American Gentleman, In accordance with whose classic taste The following narrative has been designed. It is now in return for numerous delightful hours And with the kindest wishes dedicated By his affectionate friend, The Author. Prince Otto surrounded by his charming court, in the midst of ro- mance, mystery, and intrigue, was the first modern novel laid in an imaginary kingdom; it has been so widely imitated, that one loses the effect of originality which so startled [44] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON its first readers. Stevenson said of this book, in a rather mocking hu- mour: "It is queer and a Httle, little bit free; and some of the parties are immoral, and the whole thing is not a romance, nor yet a comedy; nor yet a romantic comedy ; but a kind of preparation of some of the element of all three in a glass jar." But, all the same, in another letter he wrote: "A brave story, I swear, and a brave play, too, if we can find the trick to make the end." And his heart warms to his hero, *'my poor, clever, feather- headed Prince whom I love already." He worked hard over the book, de- scribing it as "a strange example of the diflSculty of being ideal in an age of realism." There is a beautiful passage in "Prince Otto" that is often quoted. [45] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON The Princess had been wandering in the woods all night. "At last she began to be aware of a wonderful revolution, compared to which the fire of Mitt Walden Palace was but the crack and flash of a percussion- cap. The countenance with which the pines regarded her began insensibly to change; the grass, too, short as it was, and the whole winding staircase of the brook's course, began to wear a solemn freshness of appearance. And this slow transfiguration reached her heart, and played upon it, and transpierced it with a serious thrill. She looked all about; the whole face of nature looked back, brimful of meaning, finger on lip, leaking its glad secret. She looked up. Heaven was almost emptied of stars. Such as still lingered shone with a changed [46] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON and waning brightness, and began to faint in their stations. "And the colour of the sky itself was the most wonderful ; for the rich blue of the night had now melted and softened and brightened; and there had succeeded in its place a hue that has no name, and that is never seen but as the herald of the morning. ' O,' she cried, joy catching at her voice; 'O it is the dawn!' " Stevenson was in Saranac when the idea came to him for the story of "The Master of Ballantrae." "It was winter, the night was very dark; the air extraordinarily clear and cold, and sweet with the purity of forests." He had been reading the "Phantom Ship." "'Come,' said I to my engine; 'let us make a tale, a story of many years and countries, of the sea and the [47] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON land, savagery and civilisation.' " He tells us that "On such a fine frosty night, with no wind and the thermom- eter below zero, the brain works with much vivacity; and the next moment I had seen the circumstance trans- planted from India and the tropics to the Adirondack wilderness and the stringent cold of the Canadian bor- der." In the dedication to Sir Percy and Lady Shelley he tells the strange story of its writing: "Here is a tale which extends over many years and travels into many countries. By a peculiar fitness of circumstance the writer be- gan, continued it, and concluded it among distant and divers scenes. Above all, he was much upon the sea. The character and fortune of the fra- ternal enemies, the hall and shrub- [48] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON bery of Durrisdeer, the problem of MacKellars homespun and how to shape it for superior flights; these were his company on deck in many star reflecting harbours, ran often in his mind at sea to the tune of slatting canvas, and were dismissed (something of the suddenest) on the approach of squalls. It is my hope that these surroundings of its manu- facture may to some degree find favour for my story with sea-farers and sea-lovers like yourselves. "And at least here is a dedication from a great way off; written by the loud shores of a subtropical island near upon ten thousand miles from Boscombe Chine and Manor; scenes which rise before me as I write along with the faces and voices of my friends." [49] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON The list of his complete writings would be a long one, including as they do, the wide range of essays, fables, critical reviews, plays, trav- els, romances, memoirs, verses, and novels. The book that made the greatest sensation, that sold forty thousand copies in England and over a quar- ter of a million in America, is "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." It is an allegory written in the form of a story that has been played in theatres and preached in churches. A slim book in size but great in power, that leaves the reader thrilled with horror, not only at the monster Hyde but at the possibilities of evil in one's own heart. [50] THE TEACHER OTEVENSON was one of the first to teach the optimistic doctrine of Hfe. "The disease of pessimism," he declared, "springs never from real troubles, which it braces a man to bear, which it delights men to bear well. Nor does it readily spring at all in minds that have conceived of life as a field of ordered duties not as a chase in which to hunt for grati- fications." He upheld "gentleness and cheer- fulness, these come before all moral- ity ; they are the perfect duties. If your morals make you dreary depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say *give them up,' for they may be all you [51] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON have; but conceal them Hke a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of bet- ter and simpler people." "Noble disappointment, noble self- denial are not to be admired, not soon to be pardoned if they bring bitter- ness." "Nature is a good guide through life, and the love of simple pleasures next, if not superior to, virtue." "There is no duty we so much un- derrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which re- main unknown even to ourselves, or when they are disclosed, surprise no body so much as the benefactor." "A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of good- will; and their entrance into a room ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON is as though another candle had been Hghted." These are inspiring words, and they go far and sink deep coming from a man Hke Stevenson whose pul- pit was a sick-bed; who had linked arms with Pain and smiled in the face of Death. He encouraged you " by all means to finish your folio ; even if the doctor does not give you a year ; even if he hesitates about a month, make a brave push and see what can be ac- complished in a week. It is not only in finished undertakings that we ought to honour useful labour. A spirit goes out of the man who means execution which outlives the most untimely ending. All who have meant good work with their whole hearts have done good work although they may die before they have time to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong [53] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world and bettered the traditions of mankind." *' To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little and spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce, when that shall be necessary and not to be em- bittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation — above all, on the same grim conditions, to keep friends with himself — here is a task for all that a man has of forti- tude and delicacy." ^' Eire et jjas avoir to be not to possess — that is the problem of life. To be wealthy a rich nature is the first requisite, and money but the second. To be of a quick and healthy blood, to share in all honourable curiosities, to be rich in admiration and free from envy, to [54] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON rejoice greatly in the good of others, to hve with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness — these are the gifts of fortune which money can- not buy and without which money can buy nothing." He tells us that "a man is not to expect happiness, only to profit by it gladly when it shall arise; he is on duty here ; he knows not how or why, and does not need to know; he knows not for what hire, and must not ask. Somehow or other, though he does not know what goodness is, he must try to be good; somehow or other, though we cannot tell what will do it, he must try to give happiness to others." *' Mankind is not only the whole in general, but every one in particular. [55] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Every man or woman is one of man- kind's dear possessions; to his or her just brain, and kind heart, and ac- tive hands, mankind intrusts some of its hopes for the future; he or she is a possible well-spring of good acts and source of blessings to the race." He does not preach only to the wise or the clever or the great ; he declares that "the man who has his heart on his sleeve, and a good whirling weath- ercock of a brain, who reckons his life as a thing to be dashingly used and cheerfully hazarded, makes a very different acquaintance of the world, keeps all his pulses going true and fast, and gathers impetus as he runs, until, if he be running towards anything better than wildfire, he may shoot up and become a constellation in the end." And then " when the [56] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON time comes that he should go there need be few illusions left about him- self. Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much; — surely that may be his epitaph, of which he need not be ashamed, nor will he complain at the summons which calls a defeated soldier from the field; de- feated, ay, if he were Paul or Marcus Aurelius! — but, if there is still one inch of fight in his old spirit, undis- honoured. The faith which sustained him in his lifelong blindness and lifelong disappointment will scarce even be required in this last formality of laying down his arms. Give him a march with his old bones; there, out of the glorious sun coloured earth, out of the day and dust and the ec- stacy — there goes another Faithful Failure!" [57] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 'If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness; If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face; If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies. Books and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain; — Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Choose Thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin. And to my dead heart run them in!'* [58] THE FRIEND OTEVENSON had the gift of making friends, for *' there was that about him," says Graham Bal- four, "that he was the only man I have ever known who possessed charm in high degree, whose char- acter did not suffer from the pos- session. The gift comes naturally to women, and they are at their best in its exercise. But a man requires to be of a very sound fibre before he can be entirely himself and keep his heart single, if he carries about with him a talisman to obtain from all men and all women the object of his heart's desire. Both gifts Stevenson pos- sessed, not only the magic but also [591 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON the strength of character to which it was safely intrusted." That he was utterly unconscious of possessing any such attribute is shown by a fragment written in his youth, describing the three wishes of his heart: "First, good health; secondly, a small competence; thirdly, du Lieber Gott friends!" They came in answer to that call by the thousands, many of them his readers who had never known the man Stevenson. Even his intimate and personal friends were many, from all walks in life, rich and poor, philosopher and fisherman, white and brown. It is not surprising that he should have had such friends as Sidney Colvin, pro- fessor of arts; Edmund Gosse, poet; Will H. Low, painter, and nearly all the prominent writers of his day, but [60] IN THE LinRARY AT VAILIMA, DICTATING TO MRS. STRONG ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON every one who ever came in contact with him, man or woman, that per- son was his friend for Hfe, even imitating his mannerisms and tricks of speech — his landladies, bell-boys, hotel porters, innkeepers. It was at Monterey that he first met Simoneau. In '*the old Pacific capital," he said, "of all my private collection of remembered inns and restaurants — and I believe it, others things being equal, to be unrivalled — one particular house of entertainment stands forth alone. I am grateful, in- deed, to many a swinging sideboard, to many a dusty wine-bush; but not with the same kind of gratitude. Some were beautifully situated, some had an admirable table, some were the gath- ering places of excellent companions ; but take them for all in all, not one [611 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON can be compared with Simoneau's at Monterey." Stevenson was taken ill there and the Frenchman visited and befriended him, "a most pleasant old boy with whom I discuss the universe and play chess daily." In after years, as each of his books came out, a copy with an inscription was sent to Simoneau till the old man had a complete set of first editions, besides many letters and photographs. His restaurant had failed, and he supported himself by selling "tamales" on the street, and though he was offered a very hand- some sum of money for his Steven- son books and letters he refused to part with them. Mrs. Stevenson, in grateful recognition of the old man's loyalty, was able to make his declin- ing years comfortable, hastened to his [62] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON bedside when he died, and erected a handsome tombstone to his memory. Every doctor who ever attended Stevenson became his friend; to his admiration of the medical practi- tioner and his personal gratitude we owe the beautiful dedication to "Underwoods" that begins: " There are men and classes of men that stand above the common herd; the soldier, the sailor, and the shep- herd not unf requently ; the artist rarely; rarelier still, the clergyman; the physician almost as a rule. He is the flower (such as it is) of our civil- isation. . . . Generosity he has, such as is possible to those who practice an art, never to those who drive a trade; discretion, tested by a hundred secrets; tact, tried in a thousand em- barrassments; and, what are more im- [03] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON portant, Herculean cheerfulness and courage. So it is that he brings air and cheer into the sick-room, and often enough, though not so often as he wishes, brings healing." Tembinok, the last King of the Gil- bert Islands, was a friend for whom Stevenson had a profound admira- tion. He describes their leave-taking in his South Sea book: "As the time came for our departure Tembinok became greatly changed; a softer, more melancholy, and, in particular, a more confidential man appeared in his stead. To my wife he contrived laboriously to explain that though he knew he must lose his father in the course of nature, he had not minded nor realised it till the moment came; and now that he was to lose us, he re- peated the experience. ... 'I very [G4] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON sorry you go,' he said at last. 'Miss Stlevens he good man, woman he good man, boy he good man; all good man. Woman he smart all same man. My woman,' glancing toward his wives, ' he good woman no very smart. I think Miss Stlevens he big chiep all the same cap'n man-o'-war. I think Miss Stlevens he rich man all same me. All go schoona. I very sorry. My patha he go, my uncle he go, my cutcheons he go. Miss Stlevens he go: all go. You no see King cry before. King all the same man; feel bad, he cry. I very sorry.' " On one of the South Sea voyages Stevenson and his party were de- tained at a native village two months. The Chief, Ori a' Ori, sent a farewell letter when they left that " as for me," Stevenson said, "I would rather have [65 1 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON received it than written ' Redgauntlet ' or the 'Sixth .Eneid.' " This is the translation : "I make you to know my great affection. At the hour when you left us, I w^as filled with tears; my wife, Rui Telime, also, and all of my house- hold. When you embarked I felt a great sorrow. It is for this that I went upon the road, and you looked from that ship, and I looked at you on the ship with great grief until you had raised the anchor and hoisted the sails. When the ship started I ran along the beach to see you still; and when you were on the open sea I cried out to you, 'Farewell, Louis,' and when I was coming back to my house I seemed to hear your voice crying, *Rui, farewell.' Afterward I watched [66] ROBERT I.OUIS STEVENSON the ship as long as I could until the night fell, and when it was dark I said to myself, 'If I had wings I should fly to the ship.' I will not for- get you in my memory. Here is the thought. I desire to meet you again. It is my dear Teriitera (Stevenson) makes the only riches I desire in this world. It is your eyes I desire to see again. It must be that your body and my body shall eat together at one table; there is what would make my heart content. But now we are sepa- rated. May God be with you all. May His word and His mercy go with you, so that you may be well and we also, according to the words of Paul. "Ori a' Ori." I have not the space to tell the story of the Princess Moe of Tahiti, of [671 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Tati Salmon with whom Stevenson made brothers in the island fashion, of the beautiful Princess Kaiulani that he knew "in the April of her age and at Waikiki within easy walk of Kaiulani's banyan," of the French fisherman of Monterey whom he met at Marseilles after many years and entertained at his hotel, of Mother Mary Anne of saintly memory, of the blind white leper at Molokai, of the Captains and Supercargoes of the many ships on which he sailed, of mad, handsome, romantic "Tin Jack," original of "Tommy Had- don " in " The Wrecker" ; of the Mis- sionaries, Protestant, Catholic, Mor- mon, and Wesley an, for these are a few only of the many friends of him who said, "If we find but one to whom we can speak out of our heart [68] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON freely, with whom we can walk in love and simplicity without dissimula- tion, we have no ground of quarrel with the world or God." [69] THE POET OTEVENSON was not only able to express his thoughts in beau- tiful language, he was born with a poet's soul, and nature spoke to him as to an intimate. Of a pleasant French landscape he wrote: "From time to time a warm wind rustled down the valley and set all the chest- nuts dangling their branches of foli- age and fruit; the ear was filled with rustling music and the shadows danced in tune." A passing phase of beatitude brought forth this charming expla- nation: "some thoughts, which sure would be the most beautiful, vanish before we can rightly scan their [70] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON faces; as though a God travelling by our green highways should but ope the door, give one smiling look into the house, and go again forever. Was it Apollo, Mercury, or Love with folded wings? Who shall say? But we go the lighter about our busi- ness and feel peace and pleasure in our heart." He found exquisite beauty in "Every fairy wheel and thread Of cobweb dew — bediamonded," and frosts that "enchant the pool And make the cart-ruts beautiful." To him the world was full of ro- mance. It was his birthright "to hear The great bell beating far and near — [711 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON The odd unknown, enchanted gong That on the road hales men along. That from the mountain calls afar. That lures the vessel from a star And with a still aerial sound Makes all the earth enchanted ground." The little verses from "A Child's Garden " brighten many of the school books in England and America with their pleasant lessons of happiness in simple things: "How do you like to go up in a swing Up in the air so blue ? Oh I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do!" and such gentle admonitions as — "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." For the comfort of sick children [72] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON there was never anything more brave and beautiful than "The Land of Counterpane." And all of us, old and young, are bet- ter for the motto that hangs in many a nursery, sewing-room, office, and workshop : "The World is so full of a number of things I am sure we should all be as happy as kings." The "Ballads," that include many of the legends of Tahiti done into verse, was dedicated to the Chief Ori a' Ori: "Ori my brother in the island mode, In every tongue and meaning much my friend, This story of your country and your clan, In your loved house, your too much hon- oured guest, [73] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON I made in English. Take it, being done; And let me sign it with the name you gave, Teritera." In "Underwoods" many of his best and most serious poems are found both in Scotch and English; but in " Songs of Travel" Stevenson touches a gayer, Hghter note that breathes of returning health and the salt sea breezes. "I will make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace, fit for you and me. Of green days in forests and blue days at sea. I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom. And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white [74] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON In rainfall at morning and dew-fall at night. And this shall be for music when no one else is near The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear : That only I remember, that only you ad- mire Of the broad road that stretches and the road-side fire." Many of the verses in " The Child's Garden" and "Songs of Travel" have been set to music: "Bright is the ring of words When the right man rings them. Fair the fall of songs When the singer sings them. Still they are carolled and said — On wings they are carried — After the singer is dead And the maker buried. Low as the singer lies In the field of heather, [75] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Songs of his fashion bring The swains together. And when the west is red With the sunset embers, The lover Hngers and sings And the maid remembers." [76] THE CHIEF AFTER more than ten years of the sick-room, his "horizon four walls," it is not strange that Steven- son should have loved Samoa, where he found comparative health and was able to live out-of-doors. His let- ters to his friends were enthusiastic. "I wouldn't change my present in- stallation for any post, dignity, honour, or advantage conceivable to me. It fills the bill. I have the loveliest time." "This is a hard and interesting and beautiful life we lead now." "Our fine days are certainly fine like Heaven; such a blue of the sea, such green of the trees, and such crimson of the hibiscus flowers you [77] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON never saw; and the air as mild and gentle as a baby's breath — and yet not hot." "The sea, the islands, the islanders, the island life and climate make and keep me truly happier." To his old friend Colvin he wrote: "After breakfast 1 rode home. Con- ceive such an outing, remember the pallid brute that lived in Skerryvore like a weevil in a biscuit, and receive the intelligence that I was rather the better for my journey. Twenty miles ride, sixteen fences taken, ten of the miles in a drenching rain, seven of them fasting and in the morning chill, and six stricken hours' political dis- cussion by an interpreter; to say nothing of sleeping in a native house at which many of our litterati would have looked askance in itself." In a speech to an assemblage of ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Samoan chiefs Stevenson said: "I love Samoa and her people. I love the land. I have chosen it to be my home while I live and my grave after I am dead, and I love the people and have chosen them to be my people to live and die with." He bought a tract of land, built a large house which he furnished from his old home in Bournemouth and his father's place in Edinburgh, gath- ered his family about him, and lived like a country gentleman with many horses, a dairy, vegetable gardens, acres of pineapples, bananas and cacao, the grounds laid out with ten- nis courts and beautified by tropical trees and flowers. One of his prayers breathes the atmosphere of Vailima. '*We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell; for the love that [79] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON unites us; for the peace accorded us this day ; for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food, and bright skies that make our Hves dehghtful; for our friends in all parts of the earth and our friendly helpers in this foreign isle. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our inno- cent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, tem- perate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving, one to an- other." He described the house in one of his letters as "three miles from town, [80] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON in the midst of great silent forests. There is a burn close by, and when we are not talking you can hear the burn, and the birds, and the sea breaking on the coast three miles away and six hundred feet below us." Stevenson worked in the mornings, usually by dictation, which made his correspondence and novels much less trying to his strength. He was deeply interested in the government of the country and outlined a policy that has since been adopted with success by the Germans in their occupation of Upolu and Savaii. He rode a good deal on his brown horse, Jack, and was one of the "hounds" in a cross- country paper chase; he paid visits to the other islands, studied the Samoan language, read until late nearly every night, and often at- [81] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON tended the entertainments given by the men-of-war or townspeople at the Apia Pubhc Hall, where he joined in the dance which he described as *'a most fearful and wonderful qua- drille; I don't know where the devil they fished it from, but it is rackety and prancing and embraciatory be- yond words ; perhaps it is best defined in Haggard's expression as a gam- bado." Stevenson had been shut in from the world for so many weary years that he loved to keep open house; Vailima was the scene of numerous entertainments, balls, dinners, tennis parties on the lawn, and no holiday, English, American, or Samoan, was allowed to pass without an appro- priate celebration. At Christmas time the house would [821 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON be filled with guests for several days, dancing, playing charades and games, and there was always an old-fash- ioned Christmas tree loaded with gifts. The first cotillon ever seen in Samoa was held at Vailima in honour of Washington's birthday. There was a dinner to all the English officers and officials in town on the occasion of Queen Victoria's jubilee. The thir- teenth of November, the anniversary of Stevenson's birth, was celebrated by a grand feast given in the native fashion, the chiefs and their families arriving early in the day with pres- ents of turtles, kava root, fans, model canoes, rings, live pigs carried on poles, and rolls of tapa and fine mats. The midshipmen and officers of the men-of-war in port, the various offi- [83] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON cials of England, Germany and the United States, the missionaries and their wives, the Samoan chiefs with their famihes and retainers, passing tourists, even the sailors on their liberty day ashore, all found a wel- come at Vailima. He who said "it is better to lose life like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it than die daily in the sick-room" was spared the horror of a linoerino; illness. In the best health he had ever en- joyed; in the midst of his work on "Weir of Hermiston," that he be- lieved to be his masterpiece, with those he loved most around him, his plans laid for weeks ahead, in the fulness of his powers, in the forty- fourth year of his age, the end came r84i ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON suddenly and painlessly by a stroke of apoplexy. He died at ten minutes past eight on Monday evening the third of Decem- ber, 1894. He lay as though asleep, on a nar- row couch in the middle of the great hall. The Union Jack that flew above Vailima was lowered and draped over the body. All through the night, as the sad news spread about the island, parties of Samoans came to pay their last respects to the truest friend they had ever known. He had chosen Mount Vaia to be his last resting-place ; the pathway up the steep hillside through the jungle was cut in the night by forty loyal Samoans, and on the morning of the fourth he was laid to rest. "Nothing more picturesque can be ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON imagined* than the narrow ledge that forms the summit of Mount Vaia, a place no wider than a room and flat as a table. On either side the land de- scends precipitately; in front lie the vast ocean and the surf -swept reefs; to the right and left green mountains rise, densely covered with the prime- val forest." On this spot the tomb was built that took several months in the making; it is of solid blocks of cement welded together in a noble design with two large bronze tablets let in on either side. One bears the inscription in Samoan, *'The resting place of Tusitala," followed by the quotation (in the same language), **Thy country shall be my country and thy God my God." On the other * Lloyd Osbourne in "A Letter to Mr. Stevenson's Friends." [8G] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON side are the name and dates and the requiem: "Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: 'Here he lies where he longed to be. Home is the sailor home from the sea And the hunter home from the hill.' *'* [87] 9,(\ % \/' 0^ ^•;;^%^°. "^0^ . . -. • o,^ ^oV^ . V , . . , -^^ " ^'^' - - "^ C^ * *fK\ «» /h!*" "^^ A^ **^'^w^^^ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proces! Cy' * ;^^^\^%/6^ ** "^"^ ° /^^ 5^ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide ^ ~ '^^bli^^ * 9 ^ * ^^^#^ Treatment Date; May 2009 ^^ **^!^** ^^^ '%^ "•X^, PreservationTechnologies .0 A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATIOI 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 (724)779-2111 4 O. ^^r^ -iJJ/^.^' :MM' •\..*^ /# V WERT BOOKBINDING .,^,.y JAN 1989 GraniviUe, PA ^0^