The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 23

20

The letter breaks off here.

21

Thomas Basin or Bazin, the historian of Charles VIII. and Louis XI.

22

R. Glasgow Brown lay dying in the Riviera.

23

Engraisser, grow fat.

24

Pall Mall Gazette.

25

Here follows a long calculation of ways and means.

26

Addison’s.

27

In reference to the father’s estrangement at this time, Sir James Dewar, an old friend of the elder Stevenson, tells a story which would have touched R. L. S. infinitely had he heard it. Sir James (then Professor) Dewar and Mr. Thomas Stevenson were engaged together on some official scientific work near Duns in Berwickshire. “Spending the evening together,” writes Sir James, “at an hotel in Berwick-on-Tweed, the two, after a long day’s work, fell into close fireside talk over their toddy, and Mr. Stevenson opened his heart upon what was to him a very sore grievance. He spoke with anger and dismay of his son’s journey and intentions, his desertion of the old firm, and taking to the devious and barren paths of literature. The Professor took up the cudgels in the son’s defence, and at last, by way of ending the argument, half jocularly offered to wager that in ten years from that moment R. L. S. would be earning a bigger income than the old firm had ever commanded. To his surprise, the father became furious, and repulsed all attempts at reconciliation. But six and a half years later, Mr. Stevenson, broken in health, came to London to seek medical advice, and although so feeble that he had to be lifted out and into his cab, called at the Royal Institute to see the Professor. He said: “I am here to consult a doctor, but I couldna be in London without coming to shake your hand and confess that you were richt after a’ about Louis, and I was wrang.” The frail old frame shook with emotion, and he muttered, “I ken this is my last visit to the south.” A few weeks later he was dead.

28

In San Francisco.

29

“The whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be in Sir Robert’s house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons.” – See Wandering Willie’s Tale in Redgauntlet, borrowed perhaps from Christ’s Kirk of the Green.

30

The Davoser Landwasser.

31

In architecture, a series of piles to defend the pier of a bridge.

32

The translator of Sophocles in Bohn’s Classics.

33

Anne Killigrew.

34

Gentleman’s library.

35

i. e. breathed in, inhaled: a rare but legitimate use of the word.

36

Parliament House.

37

“He knew the rocks where angels haunt,
Upon the mountains visitant.”

Wordsworth’s Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle.

38

Mr. Hamerton had been an unsuccessful candidate for the Professorship of Fine Art at Edinburgh University.

39

The Chalet am Stein (or Chalet Buol) at Davos.

40

In the summer of 1870: see above, pp. 24-30, and the essay Memories of an Islet in Memories and Portraits.

41

From Landor’s Gebir: the line refers to Napoleon Bonaparte.

42

The Editor’s defence was in the following terms: “That which you condemn is really the best story now appearing in the paper, and the impress of an able writer is stamped on every paragraph of the Treasure Island. You will probably share this opinion when you have read a little more of it.”

43

I struggle as hard as I know how against both, but a judicious postcard would sometimes save me the expense of the second.