infinitesimal difficulties. I was ill; I did really fear, for my
wife was worse than ill. Well, 'tis out now; and though I have

already observed several carelessnesses myself, and now here is
another of your finding - of which indeed, I ought to be ashamed -

it will only justify the sweepinghumility of the preface.
"Symonds was actually dining with us when your letter came, and I

communicated your remarks, which pleased him. He is a far better
and more interesting thing than his books.

"The elephant was my wife's, so she is proportionately elate you
should have picked it out for praise from a collection, let us add,

so replete with the highest qualities of art.
"My wickedcarcass, as John Knox calls it, holds together

wonderfully. In addition to many other things, and a volume of
travel, I find I have written since December ninety Cornhill pp. of

Magazine work - essays and stories - 40,000 words; and I am none
the worse - I am better. I begin to hope I may, if not outlive

this wolverine upon my shoulders, at least carry him bravely like
Symonds or Alexander Pope. I begin to take a pride in that hope.

"I shall be much interested to see your criticisms: you might
perhaps send them on to me. I believe you know that I am not

dangerous - one folly I have not - I am not touchy under criticism.
"Sam and my wife both beg to be remembered, and Sam also sends as a

present a work of his own. - Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON."

As indicating the estimate of many of the good Edinburgh people of
Stevenson and the Stevensons that still held sway up to so late a

date as 1893, I will here extract two characteristic" target="_blank" title="a.特有的 n.特性">characteristic passages from
the letters of the friend and correspondent of these days just

referred to, and to whom I had sent a copy of the ATALANTA
Magazine, with an article of mine on Stevenson.

"If you can excuse the garrulity of age, I can tell you one or two
things about Louis Stevenson, his father and even his grandfather,

which you may work up some other day, as you have so deftly
embedded in the ATALANTA article that small remark on his acting.

Your paper is pleasant and modest: most of R. L. Stevenson's
admirers are inclined to lay it on far too thick. That he is a

genius we all admit; but his genius, if fine, is limited. For
example, he cannot paint (or at least he never has painted) a

woman. No more could Fettes Douglas, skilful artist though he was
in his own special line, and I shall tell you a remark of Russel's

thereon some day. (4) There are women in his books, but there is
none of the beauty and subtlety of womanhood in them.

"R. L. Stevenson I knew well as a lad and often met him and talked
with him. He acted in private theatricals got up by the late

Professor Fleeming Jenkin. But he had then, as always, a pretty
guid conceit o' himsel' - which his clique have done nothing to

check. His father and his grandfather (I have danced with his
mother before her marriage) I knew better; but 'the family

theologian,' as some of R. L. Stevenson's friends dabbed his
father, was a very touchy theologian, and denounced any one who in

the least differed from his extreme Calvinistic views. I came
under his lash most unwittingly in this way myself. But for this

twist, he was a good fellow - kind and hospitable - and a really
able man in his profession. His father-in-law, R. L. Stevenson's

maternal grandfather, was the Rev. Dr Balfour, minister of Colinton
- one of the finest-looking old men I ever saw - tall, upright, and

ruddy at eighty. But he was marvellously feeble as a preacher, and
often said things that were deliciously, unconsciously,

unintentionally laughable, if not witty. We were near Colinton for
some years; and Mr Russell (of the SCOTSMAN), who once attended the

Parish Church with us, was greatly tickled by Balfour discoursing
on the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, remarking that Mrs P-'s

conduct was 'highly improper'!"
The estimate of R. L. Stevenson was not and could not be final in

this case, for WEIR OF HERMISTON and CATRIONA were yet unwritten,
not to speak of others, but the passages reflect a certain side of

Edinburgh opinion, illustrating the old Scripture doctrine that a
prophet has honour everywhere but in his own country. And the

passages themselves bear evidence that I violate no confidence
then, for they were given to me to be worked into any after-effort

I might make on Stevenson. My friend was a good and an acute
critic who had done some acceptableliterary work in his day.

CHAPTER III - THE CHILD FATHER OF THE MAN
R. L. STEVENSON was born on 13th November 1850, the very year of

the death of his grandfather, Robert Stevenson, whom he has so
finelycelebrated. As a mere child he gave token of his character.

As soon as he could read, he was keen for books, and, before very
long, had read all the story-books he could lay hands on; and, when

the stock ran out, he would go and look in at all the shop windows
within reach, and try to piece out the stories from the bits

exposed in open pages and the woodcuts.
He had a nurse of very remarkablecharacter - evidently a paragon -

who deeply influenced him and did much to form his young mind -
Alison Cunningham, who, in his juvenile lingo, became "Cumy," and

who not only was never forgotten, but to the end was treated as his
"second mother." In his dedication of his CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES

to her, he says:
"My second mother, my first wife,

The angel of my infant life."
Her copy of KIDNAPPED was inscribed to her by the hand of

Stevenson, thus:
"TO CUMY, FROM HER BOY, THE AUTHOR.

"SKERRYVORE, 18TH JULY 1888."
Skerryvore was the name of Stevenson's Bournemouth home, so named

after one of the Stevenson lighthouses. His first volume, AN
INLAND VOYAGE has this pretty dedication, inscribed in a neat,

small hand:
"MY DEAR CUMY, - If you had not taken so much trouble with me all

the years of my childhood, this little book would never have been
written. Many a long night you sat up with me when I was ill. I

wish I could hope, by way of return, to amuse a single evening for
you with my little book. But whatever you think of it, I know you

will think kindly of
THE AUTHOR."

"Cumy" was perhaps the most influential teacher Stevenson had.
What she and his mother taught took effect and abode with him,

which was hardly the case with any other of his teachers.
"In contrast to Goethe," says Mr Baildon, "Stevenson was but little

affected by his relations to women, and, when this point is fully
gone into, it will probably be found that his mother and nurse in

childhood, and his wife and step-daughter in later life, are about
the only women who seriously influenced either his character or his

art." (p. 32).
When Mr Kelman is celebrating Stevenson for the consistency and

continuity of his undogmatic religion, he is almost throughout
celebrating "Cumy" and her influence, though unconsciously. Here,

again, we have an apt and yet more strikingillustration, after
that of the good Lord Shaftesbury and many others, of the deep and

lasting effect a good and earnest woman, of whom the world may
never hear, may have had upon a youngster of whom all the world

shall hear. When Mr Kelman says that "the religious element in
Stevenson was not a thing of late growth, but an integral part and

vital interest of his life," he but points us back to the earlier
religious influences to which he had been effectually subject.

"His faith was not for himself alone, and the phases of
Christianity which it has asserted are peculiarly suited to the

spiritual needs of many in the present time."
We should not lay so much weight as Mr Kelman does on the mere

number of times "the Divine name" is found in Stevenson's writings,
but there is something in such confessions as the following to his

father, when he was, amid hardship and illness, in Paris in 1878:
"Still I believe in myself and my fellow-men and the God who made

us all.... I am lonely and sick and out of heart. Well, I still
hope; I still believe; I still see the good in the inch, and cling