Robert Louis Stevenson | Page 7

the point from a new quarter by a searching question
couched in the simplest language, or reveal his own latest conviction
finally, by a few sentences as nicely rounded off as though they had
been written, while he rose and gently moved about, as his habit was, in
the course of those more extended remarks. Then a chapter or two of
THE SEA-COOK would be read, with due pronouncement on the main
points by one or other of the family audience.
The reading of the book is one thing. It was quite another thing to hear
Stevenson as he stood reading it aloud, with his hand stretched out
holding the manuscript, and his body gently swaying as a kind of
rhythmical commentary on the story. His fine voice, clear and keen it
some of its tones, had a wonderful power of inflection and variation,
and when he came to stand in the place of Silver you could almost have
imagined you saw the great one-legged John Silver, joyous-eyed, on
the rolling sea. Yes, to read it in print was good, but better yet to hear
Stevenson read it.

CHAPTER II
- TREASURE ISLAND AND SOME REMINISCENCES

WHEN I left Braemar, I carried with me a considerable portion of the
MS. of TREASURE ISLAND, with an outline of the rest of the story. It
originally bore the odd title of THE SEA-COOK, and, as I have told
before, I showed it to Mr Henderson, the proprietor of the YOUNG
FOLKS' PAPER, who came to an arrangement with Mr Stevenson, and
the story duly appeared in its pages, as well as the two which succeeded
it.

Stevenson himself in his article in THE IDLER for August 1894
(reprinted in MY FIRST BOOK volume and in a late volume of the
EDINBURGH EDITION) has recalled some of the circumstances
connected with this visit of mine to Braemar, as it bore on the
destination of TREASURE ISLAND:
"And now, who should come dropping in, EX MACHINA, but Dr Japp,
like the disguised prince, who is to bring down the curtain upon peace
and happiness in the last act; for he carried in his pocket, not a horn or a
talisman, but a publisher, in fact, ready to unearth new writers for my
old friend Mr Henderson's YOUNG FOLKS. Even the ruthlessness of a
united family recoiled before the extreme measure of inflicting on our
guest the mutilated members of THE SEA-COOK; at the same time,
we would by no means stop our readings, and accordingly the tale was
begun again at the beginning, and solemnly redelivered for the benefit
of Dr Japp. From that moment on, I have thought highly of his critical
faculty; for when he left us, he carried away the manuscript in his
portmanteau.
"TREASURE ISLAND - it was Mr Henderson who deleted the first
title, THE SEA-COOK - appeared duly in YOUNG FOLKS, where it
figured in the ignoble midst without woodcuts, and attracted not the
least attention. I did not care. I liked the tale myself, for much the same
reason as my father liked the beginning: it was my kind of picturesque.
I was not a little proud of John Silver also; and to this day rather admire
that smooth and formidable adventurer. What was infinitely more
exhilarating, I had passed a landmark. I had finished a tale and written
The End upon my manuscript, as I had not done since THE
PENTLAND RISING, when I was a boy of sixteen, not yet at college.
In truth, it was so by a lucky set of accidents: had not Dr Japp come on
his visit, had not the tale flowed from me with singular ease, it must
have been laid aside, like its predecessors, and found a circuitous and
unlamented way to the fire. Purists may suggest it would have been
better so. I am not of that mind. The tale seems to have given much
pleasure, and it brought (or was the means of bringing) fire, food, and
wine to a deserving family in which I took an interest. I need scarcely
say I mean my own."
He himself gives a goodly list of the predecessors which had found a
circuitous and unlamented way to the fire

"As soon as I was able to write, I became a good friend to the
paper-makers. Reams upon reams must have gone to the making of
RATHILLET, THE PENTLAND RISING, THE KING'S PARDON
(otherwise PARK WHITEHEAD), EDWARD DAVEN, A COUNTRY
DANCE, and A VENDETTA IN THE WEST. RATHILLET was
attempted before fifteen, THE VENDETTA at twenty-nine, and the
succession of defeats lasted unbroken till I was thirty-one."
Another thing I carried from Braemar with me which I greatly prize -
this was a copy of CHRISTIANITY CONFIRMED BY JEWISH AND
HEATHEN