d sentiment he was ever on the wing, and when in after years
as a seeker after health he proved none the less a careful observer than
he had been in his schoolboy days, small wonder it is that he was able to
give to the reading world such charming and novel descriptions of things
seen.

In his schooldays he journeyed far into the country round about, the
inevitable outcome of which was for him to ultimately to write out in his
own picturesque and imaginative words a record of his observations. From
"Random Memories" we learn of his pleasure at having taken a journey in
company with his father around among the lighthouses of the Scottish
coast, "_the first in the complete character of a man, without the help of
petticoats_." And with these excursions into Fife began his wanderings so
charmingly and characteristically chronicled in his later letters and
reminiscences.

In 1862 he went abroad to Germany and Holland, and in the next year and in
that following to Italy and the Riviera. In 1865 he wintered at Torquay,
an English winter resort on the south coast.

At seventeen, at Edinburgh University, Stevenson became a pupil of
Fleeming Jenkin, Professor of Engineering, whose biography he wrote with
much pride and devotion some years later.

Thus it is seen from early childhood that Stevenson was constantly putting
forth the product of his pen, in Verses, Essays, Plays, Parodies, and
Tales. In the "Stevenson Medley," a privately issued volume published as a
sort of supplement to the "Edinburgh Edition" of his writings are to be
found reprints of various of his early efforts, including the famous
pamphlet "The Pentland Rising," which, in its original form, is now
considered as being perhaps the rarest of all "Stevensoniana."

Quoting from a letter of Stevenson's to a friend, he says: "_I owned that
I cared for nothing but literature; my father saying that that was no
profession but that I might be called to the Bar, if I chose * * * * so
at the age of twenty-one I began to study law._" Accordingly the next few
years were spent with ardous reading of Blackstone and his contemporaries,
and arriving at the age of twenty-five, in 1875, Stevenson passed the
examinations and was formally called a few days thereafter. During his
matriculation at the law schools Stevenson was all the while perfecting
himself in the profession of his heart's choice.

About this time he came to know Mr. Sidney Colvin and Mr. William Ernest
Henley