California gional oility THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES EDINBURGH THE HOME AND EARLY HAUNTS OF R. L. STEVENSON 1895 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY W.BROWN MACDOUGALL THE HOME AND EARLY HAUNTS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON BY MARGARET ARMOUR WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN PHOTOGRAVURE INCLUDING NEW PORTRAIT BY W. BROWN MACDOUGALL i Edinburgh Riverside Press W. H. WHITE & CO. 1895 Pill C^. o, A. AND M. B. McD. IN MEMORIAM R. L. STEVENSON W 3n /Dbemoriam R. L. STEVENSON ' The birds come and cry there, and twitter in the chimney. But I go for ever and come again no tnore.' Mourn for the dead, departed With unreturning feet ; The bright, the hero-hearted No comrade more shall greet ; Mourn him whom shadows cover, Unstricken by the years j Mourn, Scotland, for thy lover, Nor stint his meed of tears. Waft, O winds ! our wailing Beyond the twilight verge ; In sorrow unavailing Chant o'er his grave your dirge ! Alack ! the wand is broken, And mute the magic tongue, Ere half the words were spoken. Or half the song was sung. IN MEMORIAM Oh, fair may be his pillow 'Mid waters of the West, And blue the shining billow Round the haven of his rest ! But ah ! the rugged mountains And the tempests of the north Were dearer than the fountains Of the land that drew him forth. How soft had been his sleeping Beneath his country's sod, Within the quiet keeping Of the acre green of God, With the daisied turf for cover Where the drowsy shadows lie, And the throstle singing over, And the ash against the sky. But though in vain his yearning For the land he shall not greet, And though no Spring, returning. Shall tempt his tarrying feet. Though few shall weep above him, Or wander by his shore. Here, in the hearts that love him. His home is evermore. Margaret Armour. LIST OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS W^ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY W. BROWN MACDOUGALL Frontispiece EDINBURGH CASTLE . . . -25 THE BIRTHPLACE OF STEVENSON, 8 HOWARD PLACE . • • 35 IN THE GARDEN, HERIOT ROW . 39 COLINTON MANSE . . . .47 WHERE THE RIVER LIES DEEP AND DARKLING $1 THE COLLEGE QUADRANGLE, EDIN- BURGH 59 THE CALTON GRAVEYARD . . .69 SWANSTON COTTAGE . . -79 THE GARDEN, SWANSTON . . .83 SWANSTON VILLAGE . . . • 9X NIGHT SCENE ON HALKERSIDE . 95 THE HOME AND EARLY HAUNTS OF STEVENSON GOTLAND has produced many a son of Anak, but none whose proportions were more gracious ly noble than Stevenson's, or whose loss has left her more sorrowful. THE HOME AND EARLY We may be " dwindled sons of little men," yet one ele- ment of greatness remains in us. We can admire without envy those who revive the colossal tradition, and who, by taking thought and giving it art - utterance, restore by their cubit our ancient stat- ure. When bidden shake our heads over their own empti- ness, and resign ourselves to it as the common lot, it is cheering to think of one who found the wherewithal to fill his full from sources acces- sible to everybody ; and when tempted despairingly to ac- cept Emerson's abstract of i8 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON Thackeray's teaching — to "renounce ideals and accept London " — how encouraging is contact with a heart frankly aglow with romance and enthusiasm, and unerr- ingly responsive to every sweet and deep appeal of life! To Stevenson the world is a " brave gymnasium, full of sea - bathing, horse - exercise, and bracing manly virtues." Into his outlook Cockneydom does not enter. Fortunate the man whose genius, like his, permits him to refuse the dusty paths, and strike for a worthy goal across the dewy tracks of fancy; who 19 THE HOME AND EARLY goes exploring virgin forests of adventure, fingering the oaten pipe and discoursing wisely by pastures green ! Keenly and widely cognisant of life, Stevenson had, more- over, that spiritual vision by which alone the rareeshow of Destiny can be viewed in proper perspective. He was more than a citizen of the world ; he had the freedom of the universe. With head, heart, and soul, he has served his generation, and none are so poor, let us hope, as not to " do him reverence." And from him, as from all the earth's great ones, 20 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON a wealth accrues indirectly. Everything ever connected with these receives an imag- inative enhancement. Those who have lived with them, spoken with them, touched but the hem of their gar- ment; the fields where they have walked; the house that has held them ; the spots where they have sojourned — all receive an extrinsic value. The hero's way winds lu- minous through the comings and goings of lesser men, and he showers abroad the lar- gess of enriched association. True, there are our Shake- speares whose obliterated 21 THE HOME AND EARLY track continues to baffle our geographers of greatness. But with Stevenson it is not so. He, himself, has drawn the chart of his journeyings ; a complete itinerary may be compiled from his books ; nay, in his "Memories and Portraits," he turns back from the later highways express- ly to strew with finger-posts the sequestered scenes of his youth. These lay, as every- one knows, in the Lothians of Scotland. Or if any are ignorant, it is not Stevenson's fault, for never were early haunts dwelt on with such loving insistance. 22 EDINBURGH CASTLE fi HAUNTS OF STEVENSON Scotland is happy in her sons. They grow to be her lovers, and among them is rarely wanting some poet- voice to praise her. She glows with the reflected light of literature. With Burns, Scott, Stevenson to proclaim her sovereignty, what wonder she sits proudly in her mists, receiving the homage of the nations ! Each of these sings her as a whole, but each has some chosen part on which he specially dwells. With Burns it is the banks and braes of Ayrshire ; Scott's heart is divided between the Highlands and the Eildons 27 THE HOME AND EARLY by Tweed. Edinburgh won notes from both in passing; but with Stevenson it is the burden of the song. He was born there at 8 Howard Place, in the year 1850. As the only child of deep - hearted parents, and surrounded by a sufficiency of wealth, in spite of a fragile physique, he may be said to have started with a firm foot on life. His roots were struck into soil of heredity unusually rich. " It is the chief recommendation," he says, "of long pedigrees that we can follow backward the careers of our homunculos 28 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON and be reminded of our anti- natal lives. Our conscious years are but a moment in the history of the elements that build us up." And so he whimsically saddles his homunculus with its share in his grandfather's doings as he "ran races under the green avenue at Pilrig ; trudged up Leith Walk, which was still a country place, and sat on the High School benches, and was thrashed, perhaps, by Dr. Adam." He has excusable difficulty in joining himself on to the reverend doctor of his conscious knowledge, the Presbyterian patriarch 29 THE HOME AND EARLY who stood "contented on the old ways," with a pulse suit- ably sobered to his calling. But between his father and him the coupling irons are obvious. His father's talk, he tells us, " compounded of so much sterhng sense and so much freakish humour, and clothed in language so apt, droll and emphatic, was a perpetual delight to all who knew him. . . . His own stories, that every night he put himself to sleep with, dealt perpetually with ships, roadside inns, robbers, old sailors, and commercial tra- vellers before the use of 30 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON steam." Surely the son is just the father in print; in the parent the material is lying loose, which nature welds into genius for the child. Little is said explicitly about nursery winters in town, but the "Child's Gar- den of Verses," in which they are embalmed, breathes an atmosphere of cosy kind- ness. Alison Cunningham, the heroine of that "bright, fireside, nursery clime" will live forever as the peerless nurse — " My second mother, my first wife, The angel of my infant life." Such praise from her boy 31 THE HOME AND EARLY must ring sweetly, albeit sadly, in the ears of the old woman, still alive in Edin- burgh, for whom the childish prattle and the full voice of manhood have now become an equal silence. There is no startHng auto- biography in the " Garden of Verses" — only evidence of a finely sensitised mental plate for the receiving and storing of impressions ; excursions into that land of phantasy where there were, one day, to be such great possessions ; fealty to f amiUar things ; lavish gratitude ; and the paramount need to love and 32 THE BIRTHPLACE OF STEVENSON •fr 8 HOWARD PLACE IN THE GARDEN HERIOT ROW •?!•> ^1^ B k i HAUNTS OF STEVENSON worship. Stevenson was never without his hero. " Leerie," the lamphghter, founded the dynasty that had its grand rnonarque in Dumas. When he set him- self to it, he could be acutely critical, as his Familiar Studies of Men and Books prove ; but he was happier in enthusiasm, and, given a king worth throning, he favoured the theory of Divine right. After his parents removed to Heriot Row, the common garden in front was his play- ground. It is well kept and bosky, but withal somewhat 41 THE HOME AND EARLY serious. The little poet's in- genuity must have been taxed to transfigure it to romantic uses, and fancy have been forced to make its bricks there with rather a scarcity of straw. But with his country haunts it was otherwise. The chief of these, and the most tenderly recalled, is Colinton Manse, about three miles out of Edinburgh, in a deep green dell. His mater- nal grandfather. Dr. Balfour, held the charge there for thirty - seven years, during the last eight of which he was favoured by frequent 42 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON visits from his little grand- son. The high-road, above, seems the usual distance from heaven when you are on it ; but by the time you have plunged down the in- terminable flight of steps by the inn, that lead to the lower village, the upper level seems to neighbour the sky, and, with the high bank opposite, to form a lofty gallery round the secluded theatre where the Colinton folk play their un- pretentious parts. A short climb and another plunge land you, past the church 43 THE HOME AND EARLY door, in the Manse garden. The depth is abysmal, but only the depth. The river has here an acre or so of flat margin, on which the roomy Manse and lawn lie large, as if miles were at their dis- posal. On one side towers a sheer, wooded bank, and, on the other, the gravestones rise in solemn terrace. This is the garden with its water- door where, behind the weir, the river " lies deep and dark- ling, and the sand slopes into brown obscurity with a glint of gold," looking as low as Styx under the enormous bank opposite. Within a 44 COLINTON MANSE WHERE THE RIVER LIES DEEP AND DARKLING mwr I HAUNTS OF STEVENSON stone's throw is the mill, and, stretching up the hill, the miller's garden. Yonder are the plots behind the currant row where, " old and serious, brown and big," the gardener worked, who never seemed to want to play. This is the be- loved valley, " brimmed like a cup -wath sunshine and the song of birds." Small wonder that the fairest blossoms in the " Garden of Verses " are culled from it. It was all enchanted ground, dear and delightful in itself, and en- riched tenfold by merry, childish make-believe. Here Stevenson, in sailor suit, 53 THE HOME AND EARLY frolicked with other little folk, played Indian wars, saw " valiant battles lost and won," and was " all the thou- sand things that children are." But the sunny picture fades, and the sad lines come to haunt us, " All these are vanished clean away. And the old manse is changed to-day ; It wears an altered face And shields a stranger race. The river, on from mill to mill. Flows past our childhood's garden still ; But ah ! we children never more Shall watch it from the water-door ! Below the yew — it still is there — Our phantom voices haunt the air As we were still at play. 54 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON The eternal dawn, beyond a doubt, Shall break on hill and plain, And put all stars and candles out. Ere we be young again. " The flour mill and the weir that served it are both gone ; the river brawls shallow over stones, the miller's garden is annexed to the graveyard, no more to bloom in season with the hollyhock and rose, but to cherish indefinitely another seed, of late and doubtful flower. " And it is but a child of air That lingers in the garden there." Change has exceeded pro- phecy; alas! it has falsified it too. 55 THE HOME AND EARLY " Years may go by and the wheel in the river Wheel as it wheels for us children to- day, Wheel, and keep roaring and foaming forever. Long after all of the boys are away. You with the bean that I gave when we quarrelled, I with your marble of Saturday last, Honoured and old and all gaily appar- elled, Here we shall meet and remember the past." Exile had not yet thrown its shadow. Doubtless the old manse is the scene still of worthy- labours, and its to-days full of life and interest as the yesterdays it recalls. But 56 THE COLLEGE QUADRANGLE EDINBURGH fSW HAUNTS OF STEVENSON beautiful as it is, it looks like the burial place of dead joy. These " rhymes of old delight" have fixed our fancy forever to the vanished hours and their owners. Stevenson's early school days do not bulk largely in the "Memories." In fact he was not much at school. His father had a terror of education (so called), and often plumed himself on having been the author of Louis' success in life, by keeping him as much as possible from pedagogic in- fluence. That the paternal c 6i THE HOME AND EARLY efforts met with filial sup- port, Stevenson's own con- fession assures us. "All through my boyhood and youth," he writes, "I was known and pointed out for the pattern of an idler " ; and this was highly prob- able, for his industry was by no means the sort to be recognised in scholastic high places. He was a day pupil first at Henderson's, Inver- leith Row, and then, for a year, at the Edinburgh Academy. While at the latter he edited an MS. school magazine, called the "Sunbeam." A water-colour 62 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON sketch by him in connection with this is still extant. It shows a small boy (the cousin who owns the pic- ture) wrestling in the agonies of illicit composition for the " Sunbeam," in school hours, unconscious of the other agony that menaces from behind in the shape of uplifted " taws." The colour is delightful, and, in spite of doubtful ethics, the sketch uncommonly good. Had not writing been the only pro- ficiency that attracted Stevenson, his budding draughtmanship might have blossomed, and art have 63 THE HOME AND EARLY been added to his many con- quered provinces. Of boyish holiday haunts there were many. A cousin and early playmate recalls Craigleith Quarry, on the Queensf erry Road, and " very sportive places " behind it ; also the picturesque path that winds from Musselburgh up the Esk, where, he says, "the rounder, larger leaves gave the place a look of never seeing any one but us." Burns were followed to the sea, and links and copse allowed to tempt to many an hour of "idlesse." A favourite tramp of the more 64 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON bracing sort was round by Liberton and the Braids. Spots further afield, too, were visited. The Hawes Inn at Queensferry, that made such a call on Steven- son's fancy, and figured in Kidnapped, later, saw him often, and never failed, he tells us, to put him in a flutter, and "on the heels, as it seemed, of some adven- ture that should justify the place." The lonely, blue bay of Gullane, with its amphi- theatre of golden sand dunes, played an important part in KaMona. Cramond, North Berwick — the Forth, 65 THE HOME AND EARLY up and down for many miles, gave material for day- dreams and adventure. Sandwiched into those years there are experiences of travel. Two winters were spent with his mother at Mentone, where he attended school. At the age of thirteen, at Nice, he began his acquaintance with Dumas, through the study of illustrated dessert plates. Early journeys into England, too, there were. We read of the windmills the Scotch child falls in love with, and that keep turning in his dreams; "the warm, habit- 66 THE CALTON GRAVEYARD ^ " Where he went to be unhappy^ HAUNTS OF STEVENSON able age of towns and ham- lets; the green, settled ancient look of the country ; the lush hedge-rows, stiles, and privy pathways in the fields; the sluggish brimming rivers, chalk, and smock - frocks ; chimes of bells, and the rapid, pertly sounding Eng- lish speech, ... all set to English airs in the child's story that he tells himself at night." Each scene makes its own impression, not effac- ing but accentuating the one before, and all becoming mutually determinative. There was also half a year's experience of a boarding 71 THE HOME AND EARLY school near Islewortli, of whose fights and games and politics he talked much. But, ere long, memory is busy again with the old haunts. Edinburgh Uni- versity, in all innocence, in- scribes a new classic on her roll. In the self-likeness he has left us of this period, he is a " lean, ugly, idle, un- popular student." He takes care here, too, that his education shall not be interfered with, by acting upon " an exten- sive and highly rational system of truantry." In the intervals, however, of his 72 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON serious work — scribbling in penny version books, noting down features and scenes, and commemorating halting stanzas — his professors get some of his attention. But even then it is more as men than teachers. He could have written much better papers on themselves than on their subjects. Indeed, he has done so. Kelland he has immortalised. "No man's education is complete or truly liberal who knew not Kelland. There were un- utterable lessons in the mere sight of that frail, old clerical gentleman, lively as a boy, 73 THE HOME AND EARLY kind like a fairy godfather." The best of these lessons Stevenson no doubt mastered. He may have failed to square the circle, but he learned to measure a gracious nature. If getting at the human juicy fibre of things, rather than the dead skeleton had meant medals, he would have been hung with them. As it was, his main achievement was to escape from the stage of studentship "not openly shamed." One of the many exploits on By-path Meadow during this term of desultory study, was the penny version-books' 74 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON transformation into the printed pages of a college magazine. The magazine, though it failed, cannot alto- gether be accounted a fiasco, since An Old Scotch Gardener is recast from its pages. Other of his by-path doings were his strolls in the Calton Churchyard. As a child at Colinton he had hobnobbed with gravestones, and in the grim town cemetery he re- newed the sombre fellowship. Thither he " went to be un- happy" and to moralise the spectacle into a thousand similes. But all this time there 75 THE HOME AND EARLY were the legitimate roving- grounds, the hoHday excur- sions, and the long summers in the Pentlands. Among his loafing-gear, you may be sure, the straight -jacket of convention did not figure. Even in town, that hung mostly in his wardrobe ; in- deed, it had a brand new look to the end. These were his days of velveteen coat, long hair, and straw hat. Stretched on the warm grass or heather, he continued to eschew with devoutness the busyness which he con- sidered an indication of defective vitality. He cul- 76 SWANSTON COTTAGE ^ 'M fe^ 'ij^^Hl^llg -^„*!>'*<>">' n>K>4»vuii> NIGHT SCENE ON HALKERSIDE ¥ HAUNTS OF STEVENSON of those brave trampings in his company, over Halker- sicle during the solitary winter spent at Swans- ton. The early darkening, and the weird stretch of snow -landscape beneath it ; the excitement of the sheep review ; the racy talk of the wrathful, kindly man, en- thralling with tales of the old droving days, and with dog stories that would have shamed any sporting paper. Then, the bracing ordeal over, there is the night in the lamp-lit snuggery, the croon of the wind along the moors, mingling with the 97 THE HOME AND EARLY musketry of Dumas. En- viable the life that could fill itself at such simple sources, and turn all water into wdne ! Alas ! here, too, the old house *' wears an altered face And shields a stranger race." Here, too, phantom voices haunt the air. While I write the sky is bleak. Nature's shutters are up. White hills and plains lie sheeted like a dwelling closed in the ab- sence of its master. The west wind will blow again and air them, and the sun season them with its 98 HAUNTS OF STEVENSON fires, but one tenant has departed to " come again no more." 99 University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. THE UBRPKY HEgiTY OF r.^i. ? ?.'•» L03 ANGELEt. l^-OHmkJS PR ^k9h The home and fi7^ early ha mvbs_of_ Robert Louis Stev e nson AA 000 367 589 9 PR Sh9h A73