g of literature. He knew that finish counted for much,
perhaps for half. Has he not been reported as saying that it wasn't
worth a man's while to attempt to be a writer unless he was quite
willing to spend a day if the need were, on the turn of a single
sentence? In general this means the sacrifice of earthly reward; it
means that a man must work for love and let the ravens feed him. That
scriptural source has been distinctly unfruitful in these latter days,
and few authors are willing to take a prophet's chances. But Stevenson
was one of the few.

He laid the foundations of his reputation with two little volumes of
travel. _An Inland Voyage_ appeared in 1878; _Travels with a Donkey in
the Cevennes_, in 1879. These books are not dry chronicles of drier
facts. They bear much the same relation to conventional accounts of
travel that flowers growing in a garden bear to dried plants in a
herbarium. They are the most friendly and urbane things in modern
English literature. They have been likened to Sterne's _Sentimental
Journey_. The criticism would be better if one were able to imagine
Stevenson writing the adventure of the _fille de chambre_, or could
conceive of Lawrence Sterne writing the account of the meeting with
the Plymouth Brother. 'And if ever at length, out of our separate and
sad ways, we should all come together into one common-house, I have a
hope to which I cling dearly, that my mountain Plymouth Brother will
hasten to shake hands with me again.' That was written twenty years
ago and the Brother was an old man then. And now Stevenson is gone.
How impossible it is not to wonder whether they have yet met in that
'one common-house.' 'He feared to intrude, but he would not willingly
forego one moment of my society; and he seemed never weary of shaking
me by the hand.'

The _Inland Voyage_ contains passages hardly to be matched for beauty.
Let him who would be convinced read the description of the forest
Mormal, that forest whose breath was perfumed with nothing less
delicate than sweet brier. 'I wish our way had always lain among
woods,' says Stevenson. 'Trees are the most civil society.'

Stevenson's traveling companion was a young English baronet. The two
adventurers paddled in canoes through the pleasant rivers and canals
of Belgium and North France. They had plenty of rain and a variety of
small misadventures; but they also had sunshine, fresh air, and
experiences among the people of the country such as th