LITTLE JOURNEYS BOVE all men in the realm of letters Robert Louis had that peculiar and divine thing called "charm." To know him was to love him, and those who did not love him did not know him This welling grace of spirit was also the possession of his wife. In his married life Stevenson was al ways the lover, never the loved. The habit of his mind was shown in these lines: TO MY WIFE Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, With eyes of gold and bramble dew, Steel true and blade straight, The Great Artisan made my mate. Honor, courage, valor, fire, A love that life could never tire, Death quench nor evil stir, Teacher, pupil, comrade, wife, The august Father gave to me. Edmund Gosse gives a pen-picture of Stevenson thus: QI came home dazzled with my new friend, saying as Constance does of Arthur, "Was ever such a gracious creature born?" That impression of ineffable mental charm was formed at the first moment of acquaintance, about 1877, and it never lessened or became modified. Stevenson's rapidity in the sympathetic interchange of ideas was, doubtless, the source of it. He has been described as an "egotist," but I challenge the description. If ever there was an altruist it was Louis Stevenson; he seemed to feign an interest in himself merely to stimulate you to be liberal in your confidences. Those who have written about him from later impressions than these of which I speak seem to me to give insufficient prominence to the gaiety of Stevenson. It was his cardinal quality in those early days. A childlike mirth leaped and danced in him; he seemed to skip the hills of life. He was simply bubbling with quips and jest; his inherent earnestness or passion about abstract things was incessantly relieved by jocosity; and when he had built one of his intellectual castles in the sand, a wave of humor was certain to sweep in and destroy it. I cannot, for the life of me recall any of his jokes; and written down in cold blood, they might not seem funny if I did. They were not wit so much as humanity, the many-sided outlook upon life. I am anxious that his laughter-loving mood should not be forgotten because later on it was partly, but I think never wholly quenched by ill health, responsibility, and the advance of years. He was often, in the old days excessively and delightfully silly-silly with silliness of an inspired schoolboy; and I am afraid that our laughter sometimes sounded ill in the ears of age. LITTLE LITTLE JOURNEYS VISIT to Scotland and the elders capitulated, apologized and asked quarter. Thomas Stevenson was so delighted with Lloyd Osbourne that he made the boy his chief heir, and declared in presence of Robert Louis that he only regretted that his own son was never half so likely a lad. To which Robert Louis replied, "Genius always skips one generation." Health had come to Robert Louis in a degree he had never before known. He also had dignity and a precision such as his parents and kinsmen had despaired of ever seeing in one so physically and mentally vacillating doo Stevenson was once asked by a mousing astrologer to When Robert Louis, after a hemorrhage, sat propped ca er. ed e by two tender, loving fairies. Was ever a man so Again he begins the day by inditing a poem, "To the SUCCESS E has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much, who has enjoyed the trust of good women, and the respect of intellectual men and the love of little children, who has filled his niche and accomplished his task, and who has left the world better than he found it whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul, who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it, who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had, whose life was an inspiration, and whose memory is a benediction.-Bessie A. Stanley. The above transcribed on charcoal paper 12x15, THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, N. Y. |