The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls, The

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Title: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls
Author: Jacqueline M. Overton
Release Date: April 4, 2005 [EBook #15547]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE LIFE OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

BY
JACQUELINE M. OVERTON

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1933

[Illustration: Robert Louis Stevenson, from a photograph by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne]

TO THE BOYS AT THE YORKVILLE LIBRARY AND TO ALL OTHER BOYS WHO LOVE TO TRAMP AND CAMP AND SEEK ADVENTURE I DEDICATE THIS BOOK WITH THE HOPE OF MAKING THEM BETTER FRIENDS WITH A MAN WHO ALSO LOVED THESE THINGS

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE LIGHTHOUSE BUILDERS 3
II. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 16
III. THE LANTERN BEARER 31
IV. EDINBURGH DAYS 47
V. AMATEUR EMIGRANT 72
VI. SCOTLAND AGAIN 93
VII. SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA 108
VIII. IN THE SOUTH SEAS 121
IX. VAILIMA 148
BIBLIOGRAPHY 175

ILLUSTRATIONS
Robert Louis Stevenson Frontispiece From a photograph by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne FACING PAGE
No. 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Stevenson's birthplace 18
Colinton Manse 26
Swanston Cottage 42
Edinburgh Castle 64
Skerryvore Cottage, Bournemouth 98
The Treasure Island map 100
Facsimile of letter sent to Cummy with "An Inland Voyage" 106
Bas-relief of Stevenson by Augustus Saint Gaudens 112
South Sea houses 130
The house at Vailima 154
A feast of chiefs 162
The tomb of Stevenson on V?a Mountain 172

THE LIFE OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

"Write me as one who loves his fellowmen." --HUNT.
CHAPTER I
THE LIGHTHOUSE BUILDERS
"... For the sake Of these, my kinsmen and my countrymen, Who early and late in the windy ocean toiled To plant a star for seamen."
The pirate, Ralph the Rover, so legend tells, while cruising off the coast of Scotland searching for booty or sport, sank the warning bell on one of the great rocks, to plague the good Abbot of Arbroath who had put it there. The following year the Rover returned and perished himself on the same rock.
In the life of one of Scotland's great men, Robert Louis Stevenson, we find proud record of his grandfather, Robert Stevenson, having built Bell Rock Lighthouse on this same spot years afterward.
No story of Robert Louis Stevenson's life would be complete that failed to mention the work done for Scotland and the world at large by the two men he held most dear, the engineers, his father and grandfather.
When Robert Stevenson, his grandfather, received his appointment on the Board of Northern Lights the art of lighthouse building in Scotland had just begun. Its bleak, rocky shores were world-famous for their danger, and few mariners cared to venture around them. At that time the coast "was lighted at a single point, the Isle of May, in the jaws of the Firth of Forth, where, on a tower already a hundred and fifty years old, an open coal-fire blazed in an open chaufer. The whole archipelago thus nightly plunged in darkness was shunned by seagoing vessels." [Footnote: Stevenson, "Family of Engineers."]
The board at first proposed building four new lights, but afterward built many more, so that to-day Scotland stands foremost among the nations for the number and splendor of her coast lights.
Their construction in those early days meant working against tremendous obstacles and dangers, and the life of the engineer was a hazardous one.
"The seas into which his labors carried him were still scarce charted, the coasts still dark; his way on shore was often far beyond the convenience of any road; the isles in which he must sojourn were still partly savage. He must toss much in boats; he must often adventure much on horseback by dubious bridle-track through unfrequented wildernesses; he must sometimes plant his lighthouses in the very camp of wreckers.
"The aid of steam was not yet. At first in random coasting sloop, and afterwards in the cutter belonging to the service, the engineer must ply and run amongst these multiplied dangers and sometimes late into the stormy autumn."
All of which failed to daunt Robert Stevenson who loved action and adventure and the scent of things romantic.
"Not only had towers to be built and apparatus transplanted, the supply of oil must be maintained and the men fed, in the same inaccessible and distant scenes, a whole service with its routine ... had to be called out of nothing; and a new trade (that of light-keeper) to be taught, recruited and organized."
Bell Rock was only one of twenty lighthouses Robert Stevenson helped to build, but it was by far the most difficult one