INTRODUCTION

I

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Robert Louis Stevenson was born November 13, 1850, at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh. On his mother's side he came of a line of Scottish philosophers and preachers; on his father's, of active workers and scientists-lovers of life out of doors, especially of life connected with the sea. His grandfather, Robert Stevenson, an engineer and the son of an engineer, built the famous Bell Rock Lighthouse off the coast of Fife; and when, as his grandson relates, the newly erected structure took a "thrawe" and his workmen fled, the builder “sat unmoved reading his Bible-or affecting to read-till one after another slunk back with confusion of countenance to their engineer." Robert Louis's father, Thomas Stevenson, followed in the footsteps of his ancestors, invented and improved various forms of beacon lights, and attained a world-wide reputation in that branch of science. "A man of a somewhat antique strain," his son calls him, "with a blended sternness and softness that was wholly Scottish and at first somewhat bewildering."

Unlike these sturdy forbears, Robert Louis was a delicate child. A victim from the first of acute and painful disease, his life was preserved only through the watchfulness of his mother, who was herself an invalid, and of his devoted nurse, Alison Cunningham. For the latter he always cherished a warm affection, calling her his second mother. He dedicated to her the book of verses in which he recalls his childhood memories; and his letters throughout the entire course of his life bear eloquent witness to his gratitude for her faithful care.

During his boyhood, the Stevensons made various changes of residence in Edinburgh; and Louis, to whose health the crowded city life was unfavorable, spent much of his time in the Manse of Colinton, the home of his mother's father, the Reverend Mr. Balfour. Here, invalid though he was, the boy reveled in the freedom and beauty of his surroundings. "It was a place in that time like no other; the garden cut into provinces by a great hedge of beech, and overlooked by the church and the terrace of the churchyard, where the tombstones were thick, and after nightfall 'spunkies' might be seen to dance, at least by children; flower pots lying warm in sunshine; laurels and the great yew making elsewhere a pleasing horror of shade; the smell of water rising from all round, with an added tang of paper-mills; the sound of water everywhere, and the sound of mills-the wheel and the dam singing their alternate strain; the birds on every bush and from every corner of the overhanging woods pealing out their notes until the air throbbed with them; and in the midst of this, the manse.

Here the future novelist first tasted the delights of romance. The ability to read had come somewhat slowly; but when, after he had mastered the art, a volume of The Arabian Nights chanced his way, he was quick to respond. "I was just well into the story of the Hunchback," he recalls, "when my clergyman grandfather . . . came in behind me. I grew blind with terror. But instead of ordering the book away, he said he envied me. Ah, well he might!"

The passion for stories of adventure, natural to a child, and fostered in his case by the ill-health which kept him much within doors, remained with Stevenson throughout his whole life. As a man, he delighted to sit for a long, solitary, lamplit evening by the fire, with a volume of the great French romancer, Alexandre Dumas, reveling in "the clatter of musketry" and "the stir of talk." "I carried the thread of that epic" (he is writing of The Vicomte de Bragelonne) 'into my slumbers, I woke with it unbroken, I rejoiced to plunge

into the book again at breakfast, it was with a pang that I must lay it down and turn to my own labors; for no part of the world has ever seemed to me so charming as these pages, and not even my friends are quite so real, perhaps quite so dear, as d'Artagnan."

The creative imagination of the boy, aroused by these realms of gold in which he wandered, was early at work making stories of his own. Even at the age of six, before he could either write or read, he dictated a history of Moses. An account of his travels in Perth marks his ninth year, and every year of his boyhood saw endless experiments in composition. Irregular in his attendance at school, and none too studious even when his precarious health permitted him to work, he was yet constantly studying the art of expression. "All through my boyhood and youth," he writes, "I was known and pointed out as the 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 version-book would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I practiced to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with myself. Description was the principal field of my exercise; for to any one with senses, there is always something worth describing, and town and country are but one continuous subject. . . . Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at once and

set myself to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful and always unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts, I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the co-ordination of parts. . . . That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether I have profited or not, that is the way."

It has been said that Stevenson was not a very systematic worker at the various preparatory schools which he attended; nor was he much more faithful to his duties when, in 1867, he was entered at the University of Edinburgh. He describes himself as a “lean, ugly, idle, unpopular student,” with “infinite yawnings during lecture and unquenchable gusto in the delights of truantry." But any inattention to his set tasks was more than compensated by his industry in the reading of his choice, and by the wide and various acquaintance which the democratic life of the Scotch university afforded.* Nor does it appear that he was altogether unpopular, for his fellow-students and instructors, both at this period and in his earlier preparatory school days, bear witness to the fascination of his talk and his personal charm.

During his university life, Stevenson cast about with some uncertainty for a profession. Destined by his family to be an engineer, he spent some time in the study of mechanics, and displayed, it would seem, a fair degree of proficiency; but it was early apparent that he lacked strength for the active part of the work. Turning from this to the law, he studied creditably, though not, it must be said, brilliantly, and was called to the bar in 1875.

Mear while he had traveled much around the coast of Scotland during his training as an engineer, and in southern Europe during the intervals of his legal studies. His ac

*For interesting comments on the Scotch university life of the period, see Stevenson's essays, "Some College Memories" and "A College Magazine," published in Memories and Portraits. Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, by the same author, affords delightful glimpses of the aspects and traditions of the town as a whole.

quaintance with men and things was rapidly enlarging, and his experiments in composition were beginning to take form. He had made friends with men of literary judgment and influence (notably Mr. Leslie Stephen, at that time editor of the Cornhill Magazine), who were to aid him materially in his adventures into literature; and the publishers were beginning to recognize his ability. Several essays in criticismamong them the one on "Victor Hugo's Romances" (1874),* which, in his judgment, marked the beginning of his command of style, and "Ordered South" (1874), a series of reflections suggested by a term of invalidism in southern France-met with recognition general enough to encourage him to further effort.

After his admission to the bar, Stevenson made some desultory efforts to practice his profession. But briefs were not forthcoming, and literature was absorbing him more and more. The years 1875 to 1879 were years of improved health and considerable literary activity. "A Lodging for the Night” (1877), "The Sire de Malétroit's Door" (1878), and “Will o' the Mill" (1878) showed his skill in the field of the short story. The New Arabian Nights (1878), in which he transplanted to London and Paris the spirit and manner of the classic which had been his first boyhood discovery, revealed a new and unique phase of his art; and in Virginibus Puerisque, a series of spirited essays, first contributed to a periodical (1876) and afterwards published in book form (1881), he attacked the cheap conventionalities and smug respectabilities of life. These years saw also the publication of his first book, An Inland Voyage (1878), a delightful account of a canoe trip from Antwerp to Grez. This was followed in the next year by Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes in which he recounted his adventures in an autumn tramp through the mountains of southern France. It may be noted in passing that, in the midst of the natural

*Dates throughout, when not otherwise specified, indicate the year of ublication.