and having long been the domain of "Boguey" in his lifetime, became at last his resting-place. Having been sent to hospital to recover from wounds received in battle, he broke loose, in his maimed state attacked another dog more powerful than himself, and so perished. His master and mistress were inconsolable, and never, even in Samoa, could bring themselves to allow any successor.

I have already referred to the easy access to Bournemouth, which was, of course, a prime consideration with his parents. But Stevenson's friends had seen little of him for several years past, so in this also there was a welcome change from Hyères. Nearly all the old and tried companions whom I have mentioned came to Skerryvore during these years: R. A. M. Stevenson and his wife, and his sister, Mrs. de Mattos, and her children; Miss Ferrier, Mr. Baxter, Professor Jenkin and Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Colvin, and Mr. Henley all paid more or less frequent visits. Among the newcomers were Mr. Sargent, who twice came to paint his host's portrait; Mr. James Sully, an old friend at the Savile Club; Mr. William Archer, who owed his first coming to his severe but inspiring analysis of Stevenson, and remained as one of the most valued of his critics and appreciative of his friends; and last and most welcome of the admissions into the inmost circle, his very dear friend, Mr. Henry James.

One of the most frequent visitors was R. A. M. Stevenson, who had, after some time, decided to give up the thankless task of producing pictures for the public which were not those he wanted to paint, and to use his technical knowledge and matchless powers

of exposition in the criticism of art. That other art of writing, however, which Louis had spent his life in learning, could not be mastered in a day for the purposes of journalism even by so brilliant a talker as Bob, and it fell to Louis and Mr. Henley to give him many hints and put him through an apprenticeship in the technical part of the new profession in which he so rapidly made his mark.

Nor were the residents of Bournemouth to be overlooked, although (besides Dr. Scott, to whom Underwoods was chiefly dedicated, and Mrs. Boodle and her daughter, the "Gamekeeper" of the Letters) close friendship was confined to two families-Sir Henry Taylor and his wife and daughters, and Sir Percy and Lady Shelley. Sir Percy, the son of the poet, was devoted to yachting and the theatre (especially melodrama), and his genial, kindly nature, in which shrewdness and simplicity were most attractively blended, endeared him to his new as to all his old friends, while Lady Shelley, no less warm-hearted, took the greatest fancy to Louis, and discovering in him a close likeness to her renowned father-in-law, she forthwith claimed him as her son.

But it was the Taylors with whom he lived in more intimate relations in spite of the impression he seems here again to have produced of a being wholly transitory and detached, a bird of passage resting in his flight from some strange source to regions yet more unknown. Sir Henry indeed died almost before the friendship had commenced, but Lady Taylor and her daughters continued to live at Bournemouth until long after Skerryvore was transferred to other hands.

But before Sir Henry Taylor passed away, Stevenson had suffered a more unexpected and a heavier blow in the death of his friend Fleeming Jenkin on June 12th, 1885. Only once again in his life was he to lose one very near to him, and the subsequent task of writing his friend's life not only raised his great admiration, but even deepened the regret for his loss.

To some of his friends in these days, and chiefly to Miss Una Taylor, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Henley, and his cousin Bob, he owed the revival of his interest in music, which now laid greater hold upon him than ever before. He began to learn the piano, though he never reached even a moderate degree of skill; he flung himself with the greatest zeal into the mysteries of composition, wherein it is but honest to say that he failed to master the rudiments. "Books are of no use," he says; "they tell you how to write in four parts, and that cannot be done by man. Or do you know a book that really tells a fellow? I suppose people are expected to have ears. To my ear a fourth is delicious, and consecutive fifths the music of the spheres. As for hidden fifths, those who pretend to dislike 'em I can never acquit of affectation. Besides (this in your ear) there is nothing else in music; I know; I have tried to write four parts."

His delight and eagerness were enhanced rather than decreased by difficulties, and in a period of his life when nearly all pleasures were taken away from him, he was able at least to sit at the piano and create for the ear of his imagination some of the heavenly joys it is the prerogative of music to bestow.

Besides enjoying the company of his friends, he made good use of his few other opportunities. Since at

Bournemouth his health hardly ever allowed him to pass beyond the gate of Skerryvore, the chance seldom presented itself to him of meeting men of any other class whose lives lay outside his own, but those who fell in his way received unusual attention at his hands, more especially if they possessed originality or any independence of character. Thus, the barber that came to cut his hair, the picture-framer, the "vet" who attended "Boguey," each in their different way were originals to a man whose life was so secluded; their coming was welcomed, they invariably stayed to meals, and, sooner or later, told the story of their lives.

Such was his own life, and such were his surroundings at this period; and yet to leave the picture without a word of warning would be wholly to misrepresent Stevenson. A popular novelist, toiling incessantly at his writing, and confined by ill-health almost entirely within the walls of a suburban villa at an English watering-place, is about as dreary a figure as could be formed from the facts. The details are as accurate as if they were in a realistic novel, and yet the essence is wholly untrue to life. It is necessary to insist again and again on the "spirit intense and rare," the courage, the vivacity, the restless intellect ever forming new schemes with unceasing profusion. There are people who might live a life of the wildest adventure, of the most picturesque diversity, and yet be dull. Stevenson could lie in a sick-room for weeks without speaking, and yet declare truly, as he asserted to Mr. Archer, "I never was bored in my life." When everything else failed, and he was entirely incapable of work, he would build card-houses, or lie in bed modelling small figures

of wax or clay, taking the keenest interest in either process. On being told that a friend of his "has fallen in love with stagnation," from his invalid chair he protests that the dream of his life is to be "the leader of a great horde of irregular cavalry," and his favourite attitude "turning in the saddle to look back at my whole command (some five thousand strong) following me at the hand-gallop up the road out of the burning valley by moonlight."1 In him at least the romantic daydream called out as completely the splendid virtues of courage and enterprise and resolution as he could ever have displayed them on the field of battle.

Illness and anxiety had, as he afterwards said, put an end to the happiness of Hyères, but he was maintaining the unequal fight with much of the spirit and gaiety that he always showed; his sufferings did not dull the kindliness and sympathy which largely formed the fascination of his character, unique, perhaps, in being at once so lovable and so brilliant.

In the meantime he was hard at work. His interest in all questions relating to the methods of literature was unfailing. A lecture from Sir Walter Besant and an answer by Mr. Henry James brought Stevenson in his turn into the pages of Longman's Magazine for December, 1884. In" A Humble Remonstrance" he urged the paramount claims of the "story" in fiction, and dwelt. on the problems involved for the student of method. Several months later he followed this up by a most inspiring but more strictly professional disquisition on "The Technical Elements of Style," "the work of five days in bed," which appeared in the Contemporary 1 Letters, i. 311.