Robert Louis Stevenson | Page 8

TESTIMONY, by Mr Stevenson's father, with his
autograph signature and many of his own marginal notes. He had
thought deeply on many subjects - theological, scientific, and social -
and had recorded, I am afraid, but the smaller half of his thoughts and
speculations. Several days in the mornings, before R. L. Stevenson was
able to face the somewhat "snell" air of the hills, I had long walks with
the old gentleman, when we also had long talks on many subjects - the
liberalising of the Scottish Church, educational reform, etc.; and, on
one occasion, a statement of his reason, because of the subscription, for
never having become an elder. That he had in some small measure
enjoyed my society, as I certainly had much enjoyed his, was borne out
by a letter which I received from the son in reply to one I had written,
saying that surely his father had never meant to present me at the last
moment on my leaving by coach with that volume, with his name on it,
and with pencilled notes here and there, but had merely given it me to
read and return. In the circumstances I may perhaps be excused quoting
from a letter dated Castleton of Braemar, September 1881, in
illustration of what I have said -
"MY DEAR DR JAPP, - My father has gone, but I think I may take it
upon me to ask you to keep the book. Of all things you could do to
endear yourself to me you have done the best, for, from your letter, you
have taken a fancy to my father.
"I do not know how to thank you for your kind trouble in the matter of
THE SEA-COOK, but I am not unmindful. My health is still poorly,
and I have added intercostal rheumatism - a new attraction, which
sewed me up nearly double for two days, and still gives me 'a list to
starboard' - let us be ever nautical. . . . I do not think with the start I
have, there will be any difficulty in letting Mr Henderson go ahead

whenever he likes. I will write my story up to its legitimate conclusion,
and then we shall be in a position to judge whether a sequel would be
desirable, and I myself would then know better about its practicability
from the story-telling point of view. - Yours very sincerely, ROBERT
LOUIS STEVENSON."
A little later came the following:-
"THE COTTAGE, CASTLETON OF BRAEMAR. (NO DATE.)
"MY DEAR DR JAPP, - Herewith go nine chapters. I have been a little
seedy; and the two last that I have written seem to me on a false venue;
hence the smallness of the batch. I have now, I hope, in the three last
sent, turned the corner, with no great amount of dulness.
"The map, with all its names, notes, soundings, and things, should
make, I believe, an admirable advertisement for the story. Eh?
"I hope you got a telegram and letter I forwarded after you to Dinnat. -
Believe me, yours very sincerely, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON."
In the afternoon, if fine and dry, we went walking, and Stevenson
would sometimes tell us stories of his short experience at the Scottish
Bar, and of his first and only brief. I remember him contrasting that
with his experiences as an engineer with Bob Bain, who, as manager,
was then superintending the building of a breakwater. Of that time, too,
he told the choicest stories, and especially of how, against all orders, he
bribed Bob with five shillings to let him go down in the diver's dress.
He gave us a splendid description - finer, I think, than even that in his
MEMORIES - of his sensations on the sea-bottom, which seems to
have interested him as deeply, and suggested as many strange fancies,
as anything which he ever came across on the surface. But the
possibility of enterprises of this sort ended - Stevenson lost his interest
in engineering.
Stevenson's father had, indeed, been much exercised in his day by
theological questions and difficulties, and though he remained a
staunch adherent of the Established Church of Scotland he knew well
and practically what is meant by the term "accommodation," as it is
used by theologians in reference to creeds and formulas; for he had
over and over again, because of the strict character of the subscription
required from elders of the Scottish Church declined, as I have said, to
accept the office. In a very express sense you could see that he bore the
marks of his past in many ways - a quick, sensitive, in some ways even

a fantastic-minded man, yet with a strange solidity and common-sense
amid it all, just as though ferns with the veritable fairies' seed were