ast flowed the artist's vital tide!
And now the apologetic bard
Demands indulgence for his pard."

STEVENSON'S LATER LETTERS

_London Bookman, Dec. 1899._

Out of these noble volumes of Stevenson letters two things come to me of
new, of which the first is the more important. Before and above all else
these books (with their appendage, the Vailima Correspondence) are the
record of as noble a friendship as I know of in letters. And perhaps, as
following from this, we have here a Stevenson without shadows. Not even a
full statue, but rather a medallion in low relief--as it were the St.
Gaudens bust done into printer's ink.

It is difficult to say precisely what one feels, with Mr. Colvin (and long
may he be spared) still in the midst of us. And yet I cannot help putting
it on record that what impresses me most in these volumes, wherein are so
many things lovely and of good report, is the way in which, in order that
one friend may shine like a city set on a hill, the other friend
consistently retires himself into deepest shade. Yet all the same Mr.
Colvin is ever on the spot. You can trace him on every page--emergent only
when an explanation must be made, never saying a word too much, obviously
in possession of all the facts, but desirous of no reward or fame or glory
to himself if only Tusitala continue to shine the first among his peers.
Truly there is a love not perhaps _sur_passing the love of women, but
certainly _passing_ it, in that it is different in kind and degree.

Obviously, however, Mr. Colvin often wounded with the faithful wounds of a
friend, and sometimes in return he was blessed, and sometimes he was
banned. But always the next letter made it all right.

To those outside of his family and familiars Stevenson was always a
charming and sometimes a regular correspondent. To myself, with no claim
upon him save that of a certain instinctive mutual liking, he wrote with
the utmost punctuality every two months from 1888 to the week of his
death.

It is the irony of fate that about thirty of these letters lie buried
somewhere beneath, above, or behind an impenetrable barrier of 25,000
books. In a certain great "flitting" conducted by village workmen these
manuscripts disappeared, and have so far eluded all research. But at the
next upturning of the Universe, I doubt not they will come to light and be
available for Mr. Colvin's twentieth edition. It was a great grief to me
that I had no more to c