STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (BALFOUR). 



727 



summit of Mount Vaea, a precipitous peak that 

 rises close behind his Samoan home to a height of 

 700 feet above it and 1,400 feet above the sea, 

 and ends in a little platform but a few rods 

 wide. Here, over his grave, it is said 

 that his friends intend to build a monu- 

 ment, which will be visible for a great 

 distance at sea, like the light towers of 

 his fathers. The attachment of the 

 Samoans to him was shown in many 

 ways at his death : chiefs and people 

 came to kiss his hand, and to bring 

 mats (the customary funeral offering 

 to near friends) for the burial of " Tusi- 

 tala " (the story teller). 



Robert Louis Stevenson was beyond J 



question one of the masters of language J 



of his time ; a novelist, romance writer . 



or perhaps better, in the words just 

 used, a story teller of great and most J^_ 



attractive powers; and, what is some- 

 what overshadowed by these for the j 

 time with the majority of his readers, j 

 an essayist of qualities "for which he will .4^ 

 probably be quite as long remembered. 

 In poetry he had undertaken no long ^ 

 or ambitious flights, but there are verses jj 

 of his that will take their place in per- 

 manent literature, and many that touch r* 

 a note quite by itself. Among his books "^ 

 the judgment of the majority of his i 

 admirers will probably go with his own 'J 

 in preferring " Kidnapped," but this 

 opinion is by no means universal. The j 

 first part of " The Master of Ballantrae " | 

 is unsurpassed in its kind. But it is 

 too early to speculate as to the relative 

 permanence of his novels. That his 

 essays will be classic is not to be doubt- 

 ed, though he himself, with his intense 

 love of action and life, apparently at- 

 tached to them less importance than 

 they deserved. The fine courage of his 

 personal character, unquenched by a <* 

 life of illness (to which he seldom re- 

 ferred and of which he never complained 

 or made excuse), will make him always 

 an inspiring figure ; and indeed the pe- 

 culiar vividness and intensity of all his 

 personal traits, felt not only by friends 

 but by his readers, will keep his person- 

 ality almost as long remembered as his ' j 

 work. He lived long enough to see the 

 beginning of the " Edinburgh edition " ^ 

 of his collected works, now to be the ^* 

 edition definitive, of which (January, 

 1895) 2 volumes have appeared. The 

 following is a list of the individual 

 works as published, most of which have 

 been already named : " An Inland Voy- 

 age" (1878); "Edinburgh" (1879); 

 " Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes " (1879) ; 

 "Deacon Brodie," a play with W. E. Henley 

 (1880) ; " Virginibus Puerisque " (1881) ; " New 

 Arabian Nights" (1882); "Familiar Studies of 

 Men and Books" (1882); "Treasure Island" 

 (1883); "The Silverado Squatters" (1883); 

 " Prince Otto " (1885) : " The Dynamiter "with 

 Mrs. Stevenson (1885) ; " A Child's Garden of 

 Verses " (1885) ; " Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and 

 Mr. Hyde" (1886): "Kidnapped" (1886); "The 



Merry Men "(1887); "Memories and Portraits'' 

 (1887); "Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin" (18N<); 

 "Underwoods" (1887): "The Black Arrow" 

 (1888); "The Master of Ballantrae" (1889); 



" The Wrong Box "with Lloyd Osbourne (1889); 

 " Ballads " (1890) ; " Father Damien : An Open 

 Letter " (1890) ; " Across the Plains " (1892) ; " A 

 Footnote to History " (1892) ; " The Wrecker " 

 (1892); "Three Plays" with W. E. Henley" 

 (1892) ; " Island Nights' Entertainments " (1893) ; 

 " Catriona "in America called " David Balfour" 

 (1893) ; " The Ebb Tide " (1894). There has also 

 been brought out in the United States since his 

 death a small volume, "An Amateur Emi- 



