| Show ISTE LIFE IN SCOTLAND AND SAMOA special correspondence GOOD many years ago as I 1 hurried a hotfoot student on early summer mornings eager to alt sit at the feet or rather a good deal over the head of the venerable veu rable professor of botany in t royal botanic gardens dIn burgh sorely tempted to linger outside wit the pur 1 joiners of alluring rose rosen 1 I passed unconsciously then the birthplace of the now world famous chink I 1 may aay say world beloved authery robert louie louis stevenson As ih ill cable car swings round cannon mills bridge at the foot of the long descent from princes street to row one finds or ones right a row of comfortable comfor for table two story dwelling houses each with a miniature garden in front defended by tho the usual stone parapet and iron railing admitting to its it grass and trees all the sunlight that can overtop or ou outflank the opposing ten tenements in no 8 was born the delicate boy here were passed the early yearn of a childhood perhaps more brightly and vividly recorded than ama a obber ot herIn in tho the childs garden of verses my uy acquaintance with stevenson began at a small school kept by y mr robert thomson at 40 frederick street edinburgh edir burgh a house I 1 abger ed not witheat a pang of re getret tret being 11 1 1 robert louis steventon SteVe neon lately demolished my fa fathers hers house at Mur murrayfield rayfield so v vividly described as tho the scene of a murde I li ii i the mis nils adventures of john nicholson situated on the crest of the eastmo sf bt slope of the hill and commanding even from its one storied windows views of ath th and largo law in the past to pentland range in the tho south became a center from THE GRAVE OF R L one of the places I 1 always associate very intimately with stevenson la Is the prince princes street at Gar gardens dons gardens which marred as they are by br railway encroachments encroach ments form on sunny daya days 31 wrt jort of paradise par adlae or happy valley separating the grim minatory castle roch rock with its massive shadows from the shining morning face of princes fit I 1 ef I 1 we reproduce from black and white the above portrait of 0 stevenson dresse I aa as one of a group of 0 natives aari u stevenson Is also of the party the por trait give gives a good aad iden idea of 0 the pic turp aie idyllic life led by tb the 0 novel tot lit in his south pacific horn home street whose gay length on sunny days Is like a long parterre par terro of moving flowers here as schoolboys we went almost dally daily at an interval beav between een lessons and no doubt propounded to each other the callow wisdom of the boyish mind here too later when that wisdom had some show of feather wo we went for quiet to report progress to each other in confidential chat it would be impossible in the space at my disposal to enumerate except in dry catalogue the places intimately associated with stevenson even within that cradle land of his to which I 1 have confined myself to attempt to follow him even up to manhood through every change of scene which left its mark on an a mind at once extraordinarily tra ordinarily Impressio impressionable nabla and retentive ten tive he had harl to fly south with the swallows to the south of england or fiandt Fian rt to suh auh aa as torquay and 31 mentone and these interruptions to his surroundings and to practice and new impressions must have cone gone much to keep sharp the edge ot of interest Int orest in wa surroundings and to gratice and strengthen his fresh and keen rowers of observation by which he at once stimulated and schooled his ardent imagination I 1 have been on track in parts of the earth as in aue aus and new zealand I 1 talked of him with james chalmers almera Ch in new STEVENSON AT SAMOA V T under ue te wide und 2 on y sk aay DIC the grave and if aft me illy lie glad did I 1 live and gladly die and I 1 laid me dorn with a will which stevenson with me and other school friends radiated to the north lies the mansion of elston with its legends cud ruined tower surrounded by the home grounds westward from these covering a considerable part of too the hill llo the boods of nav elston to which tor for man many years of our childhood wu we had bad ree access a and in these stevenson vallima Val llma Stev entorf homo in samoa and our comrades often strolled with me on saturdays at tho the crest crea of the kirk road leading to Is the famous coign 0 vantage va for a view of EdInbur edinburgh gb an nest rest and be thankful and anti here it Is that ste stevenson enson locates e la parting of david and alan la in kidnapped IN this be bp the vree ye yo brave grave for me m here he lies where he longed ion aed to be home la is the bailor sallo home from sea a aid the hunter rhome from th the hill guinea not far as we reckon it from this distance from the of tho cruel murder of Ta tamate matell and bis his party last year I 1 vaa was to have visited him in samoa but alas let tho the opportunity port unity go by and after his death I 1 brooded sadly over the 0 e things in the pine wood above davos plats within view of the house he occupied thoro there everyone knows known that last residence was on or his vallima estate near apia abia on one of tto samoan island islands where he espeut the last years of blo life and where no be died here he hep lived with so athing of 0 tho the dignity and regard it if not tae pomp of great thane or chief dispensing reward and punishment ilke a very patriarch but beloved and honored by his d alsky myrmidons as few men have been honored and beloved idere ne fought out his long struggle against disease and death to its inevitable end with the same bame heroic resolve and gay mercurio uke ilke courage by he bad at al ways displayed here even amidee certain forebodings of ot which ch appear clearly in his letters to me he be produced among other good work the magnificent torso of weir of hermas ton which beggared the praises of his warmest and most discriminating admirers alike hence wae was his body orne by his hill faithful fAlth ful and sorrowing henchmen to the tle summit surn mIt of steep vaca enero ho he lies iles as another beacon and landmark lari dmark on the world track of an indomitable race |
