my, or by Darwin in natural
science.... _Major Dyngwell I know not_.]

[Note 15: _Burly_. Burly is Stevenson's friend, the poet William
Ernest Henley, who died in 1903. His sonnet on our author may be found
in the introduction to this book. Leslie Stephen introduced the two
men on 13 Feb. 1875, when Henley was in the hospital, and a very close
and intimate friendship began. Henley's personality was exceedingly
robust, in contrast with his health, and in his writings and talk he
delighted in shocking people. His philosophy of life is seen clearly
in his most characteristic poem:

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the Captain of my soul."

After the publication of Balfour's _Life of Stevenson_ (1901), Mr.
Henley contributed to the _Pall Mall Magazine_ in December of that
year an article called _R.L.S._, which made a tremendous sensation. It
was regarded by many of Stevenson's friends as a wanton assault on his
private character. Whether justified or not, it certainly damaged
Henley more than the dead author. For further accounts of the
relations between the two men, see index to Balfour's _Life_, under
the title _Henley_.]

[Note 16: _Pistol has been out-Pistol'd_. The burlesque character in
Shakspere's _King Henry IV_ and _V_.]

[Note 17: _Cockshot_. (The Late Fleeming Jenkin.) As the note says,
this was Professor Fleeming Jenkin, who died 12 June 1885. He
exercised a great influence over the younger man. Stevenson paid the
debt of gratitude he owed him by writing the _Memoir of Fleeming
Jenkin_, published first in America by Charles Scribner's Sons, in
1887.]

[Note 18: _Synthetic gusto; something of a Herbert Spencer_. The
English philosopher, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), whose many volumes
in various fields of science and metaphysics were called by their
author the _Synthetic Philosophy_. His most popular book is _First
Principles_ (1862), which has exercised an enormous influence i