Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great | Page 6

self-confession.
Stevenson was a hundred men in one and "his years were anything
from sixteen to eighty," says Lloyd Osbourne in his "Memoirs." But
when a letter came from San Francisco saying Fanny Osbourne was
sick, all of that dilatory, procrastinating, gently trifling quality went out
of his soul and he was possessed by one idea--he must go to her!

The captain of the ship had no authority to follow the order of an
unknown person and put him ashore, so the telegram was given to the
man to whom it referred.
He read the message, smiled dreamily, tore it into bits and dropped it
on the tide. And the ship turned her prow toward America and sailed
away. So this was the man who had no firmness, no decision, no will!
Aye, heretofore he had only lacked a motive. Now love supplied it.
* * * * *
It is life supplies the writer his theme. People who have not lived, no
matter how grammatically they may write, have no real message.
Robert Louis had now severed the umbilical cord. He was going to live
his own life, to earn his own living. He could do but one thing, and that
was to write. He may have been a procrastinator in everything else, but
as a writer he was a skilled mechanic. And so straightway on that ship
he began to work his experiences up into copy. Just what he wrote the
world will never know, for although the manuscript was sold to a
publisher, yet Barabbas did not give it to the people. There are several
ways by which a publisher can thrive.
To get paid for not publishing is easy money--it involves no risk. In this
instance an Edinburgh publisher bought the manuscript for thirty
pounds, intending to print it in book form, showing the experience of a
Scotchman in search of a fortune in New York.
In order to verify certain dates and data, the publisher submitted the
manuscript to Thomas Stevenson. Great was that gentleman's interest in
the literary venture of his son. He read with a personal interest, for he
was the author of the author's being. But as he read he felt that he
himself was placed in a most unenviable light, for although he was not
directly mentioned, yet the suffering of the son on the emigrant ship
seemed to point out the father as one who disregarded his parental
duties. And above all things Thomas Stevenson prided himself on
being a good provider. Thomas Stevenson straightway bought the
manuscript from the publisher for one hundred pounds.

On hearing of the fate of his book, Robert Louis intimated to his father
that thereafter it would be as well for them to deal direct with each
other and thus save the middleman's profits.
However, the father and son got together on the manuscript question
some years later, and the over-sensitive parent was placated by striking
out certain passages that might be construed as aspersions, and a few
direct complimentary references inserted, and the printer got the book
on payment of two hundred pounds. The transaction turned out so well
that Thomas Stevenson said, "I told you so," and Robert Louis saw the
patent fact that hindsight, accident and fear sometimes serve us quite as
well as insight and perspicacity, not to mention perspicuity. We aim for
one target and hit the bull's-eye on another. We sail for a certain port,
where, unknown to us, pirates lie in wait, and God sends His storms
and drives us upon Treasure Island. There we load up with ingots; the
high tide floats us, and we sail away for home with our unearned
increment to tell the untraveled natives how we most surely are the
people and that wisdom will die with us.
* * * * *
Robert Louis was a sick man. The ship was crowded and the fare and
quarters were far from being what he always had been used to. The
people he met in the second cabin were neither literary nor artistic, but
some of them had right generous hearts. On being interrogated by one
of his messmates as to his business, Robert Louis replied that he was a
stone-mason. The man looked at his long, slim, artistic fingers and
knew better, but he did not laugh.
He respected this young man with the hectic flush, reverenced his
secret whatever it might be, and smuggled delicacies from the cook's
galley for the alleged stone-mason. "Thus did he shovel coals of fire on
my head until to ease my heart I called him aft one moonlight night and
told him I was no stone-mason, and begged him to forgive me for
having sought to deceive one of God's own gentlemen." Meantime,
every day our emigrant