Health I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me:

All I ask the heaven above,
And the road below me."

True; this is put in the mouth of another, but Stevenson could not
have so voiced it, had he not been the born rover that he was, with

longing for the roadside, the high hills, and forests and newcomers
and variedmiscellaneous company. Here he does more directly speak

in his own person and quite to the same effect:
"I will make you brooches and toys for your delight

Of bird song at morning, and star shine at night,
I will make a palace fit for you and me,

Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.
"I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,

Where white flows the river, and bright blows the broom,
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white,

In rainfall at morning and dew-fall at night.
"And this shall be for music when no one else is near,

The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,

Of the broad road that stretches, and the roadside fire."
Here Stevenson, though original in his vein and way, but follows a

great and gracious company in which Fielding and Sterne and so many
others stand as pleasant proctors. Scott and Dickens have each in

their way essayed it, and made much of it beyond what mere
sentiment would have reached. PICKWICK itself - and we must always

regard Dickens as having himself gone already over every bit of
road, described every nook and corner, and tried every resource -

is a vagrant fellow, in a group of erratic and most quaint
wanderers or pilgrims. This is but a return phase of it; Vincent

Crummles and Mrs Crummles and the "Infant Phenomenon," yet another.
The whole interest lies in the roadways, and the little inns, and

the odd and unexpected RENCONTRES with oddly-assorted fellows there
experienced: glimpses of grim or grimy, or forbidding, or happy,

smiling smirking vagrants, and out-at-elbows fellow-passengers and
guests, with jests and quips and cranks, and hanky-panky even. On

high roads and in inns, and alehouses, with travelling players,
rogues and tramps, Dickens was quite at home; and what is yet more,

he made us all quite at home with them: and he did it as Chaucer
did it by thorough good spirits and "hail-fellow-well-met." And,

with all his faults, he has this merit as well as some others, that
he went willingly on pilgrimage always, and took others, promoting

always love of comrades, fun, and humorous by-play. The latest
great romancer, too, took his side: like Dickens, he was here full

brother of Dan Chaucer, and followed him. How characteristic it is
when he tells Mr Trigg that he preferred Samoa to Honolulu because

it was more savage, and therefore yielded more FUN.
CHAPTER XXX - LORD ROSEBERY'S CASE

IMMEDIATELY on reading Lord Rosebery's address as Chairman of the
meeting in Edinburgh to promote the erection of a monument to R. L.

Stevenson, I wrote to him politely asking him whether, since he
quoted a passage from a somewhat early essay by Stevenson naming

the authors who had chiefly influenced him in point of style, his
Lordship should not, merely in justice and for the sake of balance,

have referred to Thoreau. I also remarked that Stevenson's later
style sometimes showed too much self-conscious conflict of his

various models in his mind while he was in the act of writing, and
that this now and then imparted too much an air of artifice to his

later compositions, and that those who knew most would be most
troubled by it. Of that letter, I much regret now that I did not

keep any copy; but I think I did incidentally refer to the
friendship with which Stevenson had for so many years honoured me.

This is a copy of the letter received in reply:
"38 BERKELEY SQUARE, W.,

17th DECEMBER 1896.
"DEAR SIR, - I am much obliged for your letter, and can only state

that the name of Thoreau was not mentioned by Stevenson himself,
and therefore I could not cite it in my quotation.

"With regard to the style of Stevenson's later works, I am inclined
to agree with you.-Believe me, yours very faithfully,

ROSEBERY.
"Dr ALEXANDER H. JAPP."

This I at once replied to as follows:
"NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB,

WHITEHALL. PLACE, S.W.,
19TH DECEMBER 1896.

"MY LORD, - It is true R. L. Stevenson did not refer to Thoreau in
the passage to which you allude, for the good reason that he could

not, since he did not know Thoreau till after it was written; but
if you will oblige me and be so good as to turn to p. xix. of

Preface, BY WAY OF CRITICISM, to FAMILIAR STUDIES OF MEN AND BOOKS
you will read:

"'Upon me this pure, narrow, sunnily-ascetic Thoreau had exercised
a wondrous charm. I HAVE SCARCE WRITTEN TEN SENTENCES SINCE I WAS

INTRODUCED TO HIM, BUT HIS INFLUENCE MIGHT BE SOMEWHERE DETECTED BY
A CLOSE OBSERVER.'

"It is very detectable in many passages of nature-description and
of reflection. I write, my Lord, merely that, in case opportunity

should arise, you might notice this fact. I am sure R. L.
Stevenson would have liked it recognised. - I remain, my Lord,

always yours faithfully, etc.,
ALEXANDER H. JAPP."

In reply to this Lord Rosebery sent me only the most formal
acknowledgment, not in the least encouraging me in any way to

further aid him in the matter with regard to suggestions of any
kind; so that I was helpless to press on his lordship the need for

some corrections on other points which I would most willingly have
tendered to him had he shown himself inclined or ready to receive

them.
I might also have referred Lord Rosebery to the article in THE

BRITISH WEEKLY (1887), "Books that have Influenced Me," where,
after having spoken of Shakespeare, the VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE,

Bunyan, Montaigne, Goethe, Martial, Marcus Aurelius's MEDITATIONS,
and Wordsworth, he proceeds:

"I suppose, when I am done, I shall find that I have forgotten much
that is influential, as I see already I have forgotten Thoreau."

I need but to add to what has been said already that, had Lord
Rosebery written and told me the result of his references and

encouraged me to such an exercise, I should by-and-by have been
very pleased to point out to him that he blundered, proving himself

no master in Burns' literature, precisely as Mr Henley blundered
about Burns' ancestry, when he gives confirmation to the idea that

Burns came of a race of peasants on both sides, and was himself
nothing but a peasant.

When the opportunity came to correct such blunders, corrections
which I had even implored him to make, Lord Rosebery (who by

several London papers had been spoken of as "knowing more than all
the experts about all his themes"), that is, when his volume was

being prepared for press, did not act on my good advice given him
"FREE, GRATIS, FOR NOTHING"; no; he contented himself with simply

slicing out columns from the TIMES, or allowing another man to do
so for him, and reprinting them LITERATIM ET VERBATIM, all

imperfect and misleading, as they stood. SCRIPTA MANET alas! only
too truly exemplified to his disadvantage. But with that note of

mine in his hand, protesting against an ominous and fatal omission
as regards the confessed influences that had operated on Stevenson,

he goes on, or allows Mr Geake to go on, quite as though he had
verified matters and found that I was wrong as regards the facts on

which I based my appeal to him for recognition of Thoreau as having
influenced Stevenson in style. Had he attended to correcting his

serious errors about Stevenson, and some at least of those about
Burns, thus adding, say, a dozen or twenty pages to his book wholly