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Show Cold Responsible for Error of Stevenson's? i Robert Louis Stevenson never was In sympathy with those to whom snow and Ice brought joy. During a cold spell In I-Min burgh he wrote: "1 feel fit for liltle else besides prayer I can not he comforted; my wits are frozen. . . . Life Is an amusement amuse-ment totally unsuitable for winter. I place a claim to Immortality on lliHt phrase. How can you nilnd ahoul Shelley? You wouldn't if you were as cold as I an." It may nave been this loathing ot cold which, by some psychological twist, betrayed Stevenson's wits into his worst literary blunder, the Man Chester Guardian sivrgosts. When Marcel Schowh sought permission to translate "The Master of Ballantrae." Stevenson implored him to make a variation In the original. "Pray do not let Mrs. Henry thrust the sword up to the hilt In the frozen ground," he wrote ; "one of my incon ceivable blunders, an exaggeration to stagger Hugo. Say she sought to t ti rust It Info the ground." |