own temper and feeling too. He makes us feel his confidants and

friends, as has been said. One could almost construct a biography
from his essays and his novels - the one would give us the facts of

his life suffused with fancy and ideal colour, humour and fine
observation not wanting; the other would give us the history of his

mental and moral being and development, and of the traits and
determinations which he drew from along a lengthened line of

progenitors. How characteristic it is of him - a man who for so
many years suffered as an invalid - that he should lay it down that

the two great virtues, including all others, were cheerfulness and
delight in labour.

One writer has very well said on this feature in Stevenson:
"Other authors have struggled bravely against physical weakness,

but their work has not usually been of a creative order, dependent
for its success on high animal spirits. They have written

histories, essays, contemplative or didactic poems, works which may
more or less be regarded as 'dull narcotics numbing pain.' But

who, in so fragile a frame as Robert Louis Stevenson's, has
retained such indomitable elasticity, such fertility of invention,

such unflagging energy, not merely to collect and arrange, but to
project and body forth? Has any true 'maker' been such an

incessant sufferer? From his childhood, as he himself said apropos
of the CHILD'S GARDEN, he could 'speak with less authority of

gardens than of that other "land of counterpane."' There were,
indeed, a few years of adolescence during which his health was

tolerable, but they were years of apprenticeship to life and art
('pioching,' as he called it), not of serious production. Though

he was a precocious child, his genius ripened slowly, and it was
just reaching maturity when the 'wolverine,' as he called his

disease, fixed its fangs in his flesh. From that time forward not
only did he live with death at his elbow in an almost literal sense

(he used to carry his left arm in a sling lest a too sudden
movement should bring on a haemorrhage), but he had ever-recurring

intervals of weeks and months during which he was totally unfit for
work; while even at the best of times he had to husband his

strength most jealously. Add to all this that he was a slow and
laborious writer, who would take more pains with a phrase than

Scott with a chapter - then look at the stately shelf of his works,
brimful of impulse, initiative, and the joy of life, and say

whether it be an exaggeration to call his tenacity and fortitude
unique!"

Samoa, with its fine climate, prolonged his life - we had fain
hoped that in that air he found so favourable he might have lived

for many years, to add to the precious stock of innocent delight he
has given to the world - to do yet more and greater. It was not to

be. They buried him, with full native honours as to a chief, on
the top of Vaea mountain, 1300 feet high - a road for the coffin to

pass being cut through the woods on the slopes of the hill. There
he has a resting-place not all unfit - for he sought the pure and

clearer air on the heights from whence there are widest prospects;
yet not in the spot he would have chosen - for his heart was at

home, and not very long before his death he sang, surely with
pathetic reference now:

"Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moorfowl,
Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers,

Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley,
Soft flow the stream thro' the even-flowing hours;

Fair the day shine, as it shone upon my childhood -
Fair shine the day on the house with open door;

Birds come and cry there, and twitter in the chimney -
But I go for ever and come again no more."

CHAPTER X - A SAMOAN MEMORIAL OF R. L. STEVENSON
A FEW weeks after his death, the mail from Samoa, brought to

Stevenson's friends, myself among the number, a precious, if
pathetic, memorial of the master. It is in the form of "A Letter

to Mr Stevenson's Friends," by his stepson, Mr Lloyd Osbourne, and
bears the motto from Walt Whitman, "I have been waiting for you

these many years. Give me your hand and welcome." Mr Osbourne
gives a full account of the last hours.

"He wrote hard all that morning of the last day; his half-finished
book, HERMISTON, he judged the best he had ever written, and the

sense of successful effort made him buoyant and happy as nothing
else could. In the afternoon the mail fell to be answered - not

business correspondence, for this was left till later - but replies
to the long, kindly letters of distant friends received but two

days since, and still bright in memory. At sunset he came
downstairs; rallied his wife about the forebodings she could not

shake off; talked of a lecturing tour to America that he was eager
to make, 'as he was now so well'; and played a game of cards with

her to drive away her melancholy. He said he was hungry; begged
her assistance to help him make a salad for the evening meal; and,

to enhance the little feast he brought up a bottle of old Burgundy
from the cellar. He was helping his wife on the verandah, and

gaily talking, when suddenly he put both hands to his head and
cried out, 'What's that?' Then he asked quickly, 'Do I look

strange?' Even as he did so he fell on his knees beside her. He
was helped into the great hall, between his wife and his body-

servant, Sosimo, losing consciousnessinstantly as he lay back in
the armchair that had once been his grandfather's. Little time was

lost in bringing the doctors - Anderson of the man-of-war, and his
friend, Dr Funk. They looked at him and shook their heads; they

laboured strenuously, and left nothing undone. But he had passed
the bounds of human skill. He had grown so well and strong, that

his wasted lungs were unable to bear the stress of returning
health."

Then 'tis told how the Rev. Mr Clarke came and prayed by him; and
how, soon after, the chiefs were summoned, and came, bringing their

fine mats, which, laid on the body, almost hid the Union jack in
which it had been wrapped. One of the old Mataafa chiefs, who had

been in prison, and who had been one of those who worked on the
making of the "Road of the Loving Heart" (the road of gratitude

which the chiefs had made up to Mr Stevenson's house as a mark of
their appreciation of his efforts on their behalf), came and

crouched beside the body and said:
"I am only a poor Samoan, and ignorant. Others are rich, and can

give Tusitala (6) the parting presents of rich, fine mats; I am
poor, and can give nothing this last day he receives his friends.

Yet I am not afraid to come and look the last time in my friend's
face, never to see him more till we meet with God. Behold!

Tusitala is dead; Mataafa is also dead. These two great friends
have been taken by God. When Mataafa was taken, who was our

support but Tusitala? We were in prison, and he cared for us. We
were sick, and he made us well. We were hungry, and he fed us.

The day was no longer than his kindness. You are great people, and
full of love. Yet who among you is so great as Tusitala? What is

your love to his love? Our clan was Mataafa's clan, for whom I
speak this day; therein was Tusitala also. We mourn them both."

A select company of Samoans would not be deterred, and watched by
the body all night, chanting songs, with bits of Catholic prayers;

and in the morning the work began of clearing a path through the
wood on the hill to the spot on the crown where Mr Stevenson had

expressed a wish to be buried. The following prayer, which Mr
Stevenson had written and read aloud to his family only the night

before, was read by Mr Clarke in the service:
"We beseech thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, folk of many

families and nations, gathered together in the peace of this roof;
weak men and women, subsisting under the covert of Thy patience.

Be patient still; suffer us yet a while longer - with our broken
purposes of good, with our idle endeavours against evil - suffer us

a while longer to endure, and (if it may be) help us to do better.