Robert Louis Stevenson | Page 5

may be sure, sir, I would
give up most other things to be as good a man as Thoreau. Even my
knowledge of him leads me thus far.
"Should you find yourself able to push on so far - it may even lie on
your way - believe me your visit will be very welcome. The weather is
cruel, but the place is, as I daresay you know, the very WALE of
Scotland - bar Tummelside. - Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON."
Some delay took place in my leaving London for Scotland, and hence
what seemed a hitch. I wrote mentioning the reason of my delay, and
expressing the fear that I might have to forego the prospect of seeing
him in Braemar, as his circumstances might have altered in the
meantime. In answer came this note, like so many, if not most of his,
indeed, without date:-
THE COTTAGE, CASTLETON OF BRAEMAR. (NO DATE.)
"MY DEAR SIR, - I am here as yet a fixture, and beg you to come our
way. Would Tuesday or Wednesday suit you by any chance? We shall
then, I believe, be empty: a thing favourable to talks. You get here in
time for dinner. I stay till near the end of September, unless, as may
very well be, the weather drive me forth. - Yours very sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON."
I accordingly went to Braemar, where he and his wife and her son were
staying with his father and mother.
These were red-letter days in my calendar alike on account of pleasant
intercourse with his honoured father and himself. Here is my
pen-and-ink portrait of R. L. Stevenson, thrown down at the time:
Mr Stevenson's is, indeed, a very picturesque and striking figure. Not
so tall probably as he seems at first sight from his extreme thinness, but
the pose and air could not be otherwise described than as distinguished.
Head of fine type, carried well on the shoulders and in walking with the
impression of being a little thrown back; long brown hair, falling from
under a broadish-brimmed Spanish form of soft felt hat,
Rembrandtesque; loose kind of Inverness cape when walking, and
invariable velvet jacket inside the house. You would say at first sight,
wherever you saw him, that he was a man of intellect, artistic and
individual, wholly out of the common. His face is sensitive, full of
expression, though it could not be called strictly beautiful. It is longish,
especially seen in profile, and features a little irregular; the brow at
once high and broad. A hint of vagary, and just a hint in the expression,
is qualified by the eyes, which are set rather far apart from each other
as seems, and with a most wistful, and at the same time possibly a
merry impish expression arising over that, yet frank and clear, piercing,
but at the same time steady, and fall on you with a gentle radiance and
animation as he speaks. Romance, if with an indescribable SOUPCON
of whimsicality, is marked upon him; sometimes he has the look as of
the Ancient Mariner, and could fix you with his glittering e'e, and he
would, as he points his sentences with a movement of his thin white
forefinger, when this is not monopolised with the almost incessant
cigarette. There is a faint suggestion of a hair-brained sentimental trace
on his countenance, but controlled, after all, by good Scotch sense and
shrewdness. In conversation he is very animated, and likes to ask
questions. A favourite and characteristic attitude with him was to put
his foot on a chair or stool and rest his elbow on his knee, with his chin
on his hand; or to sit, or rather to half sit, half lean, on the corner of a
table or desk, one of his legs swinging freely, and when anything that
tickled him was said he would laugh in the heartiest manner, even at
the risk of bringing on his cough, which at that time was troublesome.

Often when he got animated he rose and walked about as he spoke, as if
movement aided thought and expression. Though he loved Edinburgh,
which was full of associations for him, he had no good word for its east
winds, which to him were as death. Yet he passed one winter as a
"Silverado squatter," the story of which he has inimitably told in the
volume titled THE SILVERADO SQUATTERS; and he afterwards
spent several winters at Davos Platz, where, as he said to me, he not
only breathed good air, but learned to know with closest intimacy John
Addington Symonds, who "though his books were good, was far finer
and more interesting than any of his books." He needed a good deal of
nursery attentions, but his invalidism was never obtrusively