practice were quite opposed to this.

I am sorry I CANNOT find the link in Mr Symons' essay, which would
quite make these two statements consistentlycoincide critically.

As an enthusiastic, though I hope still a discriminating,
Stevensonian, I do wish Mr Symons would help us to it somehow

hereafter. It would be well worth his doing, in my opinion.
CHAPTER XXXIV - LETTERS AND POEMS IN TESTIMONY

AMONG many letters received by me in acknowledgment of, or in
commentary on, my little tributes to R. L. Stevenson, in various

journals and magazines, I find the following, which I give here for
reasons purely personal, and because my readers may with me, join

in admiration of the fancy, grace and beauty of the poems. I must
preface the first poem by a letter, which explains the genesis of

the poem, and relates a striking and very touchingincident:
"37 ST DONATT'S ROAD,

LEWISHAM HIGH ROAD, S.E.,
1ST MARCH 1895.

"DEAR SIR, - As you have written so much about your friend, the
late Robert Louis Stevenson, and quoted many tributes to his genius

from contemporary writers, I take the liberty of sending you
herewith some verses of mine which appeared in THE WEEKLY SUN of

November last. I sent a copy of these verses to Samoa, but
unfortunately the great novelist died before they reached it. I

have, however, this week, received a little note from Mrs Strong,
which runs as follows:

"'Your poem of "Greeting" came too late. I can only thank you by
sending a little moss that I plucked from a tree overhanging his

grave on Vaea Mountain.'
"I trust you will appreciate my motive in sending you the poem. I

do not wish to obtrude my claims as a verse-writer upon your
notice, but I thought the incident I have recited would be

interesting to one who is so devoted a collector of Stevensoniana.
- Respectfully yours,

F. J. COX."
GREETING

(TO ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, IN SAMOA)
We, pent in cities, prisoned in the mart,

Can know you only as a man apart,
But ever-present through your matchless art.

You have exchanged the old, familiar ways
For isles, where, through the range of splendid days,

Her treasure Nature lavishly displays.
There, by the gracious sweep of ampler seas,

That swell responsive to the odorous breeze.
You have the wine of Life, and we the lees!

You mark, perchance, within your island bowers,
The slow departure of the languorous hours,

And breathe the sweetness of the strange wild-flowers.
And everything your soul and sense delights -

But in the solemn wonder of your nights,
When Peace her message on the landscape writes;

When Ocean scarcely flecks her marge with foam -
Your thoughts must sometimes from your island roam,

To centre on the sober face of Home.
Though many a league of water rolls between

The simple beauty of an English scene,
From all these wilder charms your love may wean.

Some kindly sprite may bring you as a boon
Sweets from the rose that crowns imperial June,

Or reminiscence of the throstle's tune;
Yea, gladly grant you, with a generous hand,

Far glimpses of the winding, wind-swept strand,
The glens and mountains of your native land,

Until you hear the pipes upon the breeze -
But wake unto the wild realities

The tangled forests and the boundless seas!
For lo! the moonless night has passed away,

A sudden dawn dispels the shadows grey,
The glad sea moves and hails the quickening day.

New life within the arbours of your fief
Awakes the blossom, quivers in the leaf,

And splendour flames upon the coral reef.
If such a prospectstimulate your art,

More than our meadows where the shadows dart,
More than the life which throbs in London's heart,

Then stay, encircled by your Southern bowers,
And weave, amid the incense of the flowers,

The skein of fair romance - the gain is ours!
F. J. COX.

WEEKLY SUN, 11TH November 1904.
R. L. S., IN MEMORIAM.

AN elfin wight as e'er from faeryland
Came to us straight with favour in his eyes,

Of wondrous seed that led him to the prize
Of fancy, with the magic rod in hand.

Ah, there in faeryland we saw him stand,
As for a while he walked with smiles and sighs,

Amongst us, finding still the gem that buys
Delight and joy at genius's command.

And now thy place is empty: fare thee well;
Thou livest still in hearts that owe thee more

Than gold can reckon; for thy richer store
Is of the good that with us aye most dwell.

Farewell; sleep sound on Vaea's windy shrine,
While round the songsters join their song to thine.

A. C. R.
APPENDIX

The following appeared some time ago in one of the London evening
papers, and I make bold, because of its truth and vigour, to insert

it here:
THE LAND OF STEVENSON,

ON AN AFTERNOON'S WALK
WILL there be a "Land of Stevenson," as there is already a "Land of

Burns," or a "Land of Scott," known to the tourist, bescribbled by
the guide-book maker? This the future must tell. Yet will it be

easy to mark out the bounds of "Robert Louis Stevenson's Country";
and, taking his native and well-loved city for a starting-point, a

stout walker may visit all its principal sites in an afternoon.
The house where he was born is within a bowshot of the Water of

Leith; some five miles to the south are Caerketton and Allermuir,
and other crests of the Pentlands, and below them Swanston Farm,

where year after year, in his father's time, he spent the summer
days basking on the hill slopes; two or three miles to the westward

of Swanston is Colinton, where his mother's father, Dr Balfour, was
minister; and here again you are back to the Water of Leith, which

you can follow down to the New Town. In this triangular space
Stevenson's memories and affections were firmly rooted; the fibres

could not be withdrawn from the soil, and "the voice of the blood"
and the longing for this little piece of earth make themselves

plaintively heard in his last notes. By Lothian Road, after which
Stevenson quaintly thought of naming the new edition of his works,

and past Boroughmuirhead and the "Bore Stane," where James
FitzJames set up his standard before Flodden, wends your southward

way to the hills. The builder of suburban villas has pushed his
handiwork far into the fields since Stevenson was wont to tramp

between the city and the Pentlands; and you may look in vain for
the flat stone whereon, as the marvelling child was told, there

once rose a "crow-haunted gibbet." Three-quarters of an hour of
easy walking, after you have cleared the last of the houses will

bring you to Swanston; and half an hour more will take the stiff
climber, a little breathless, to