e it in his least-considered letters,
introduced his own figure as a sort of foil--he was childless. That word,
uttered with regret, has, perhaps, a pang which the heart of a widow might
imagine she should be spared. Again, in one of the Vailima Letters,
Stevenson refers to his having been happy only once in his life, and that,
too, on the chance of its misinterpretation, may be ashes in Mrs.
Stevenson's mouth. Yet who does not know "R. L. S." as a man of moods? He
is that, and nothing else, in some of his letters. And no chance phrase
of his will ever be read to the discredit of Mrs. Stevenson--she may take
the English reader's oath on that.

In one of his Vailima Letters Stevenson speaks of the "incredible" pains
he has given to the first chapter of "Weir of Hermiston." Yet, after that
even he remodelled it. It was worth the trouble, and the other seven and a
bit are worthy of it. The very title was a serious trouble to him.
"Braxfield" he would have liked it to be, but the judge of that name was
not treated with enough historical care to warrant the adoption of it.
Another name, "The Hanging Judge," he abandoned; also "The Lord Justice
Clerk," also "The Two Kirsties of Cauldstaneship," and "The Four Black
Brothers." No doubt in choosing "Weir of Hermiston"--with some of the
sound-romance of Dobell's "Keiths of Revelston" about it--he chose finally
for the best.--_The Sketch._

[Illustration:

NOTICE
OF A
NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT LIGHT
FOR LIGHTHOUSES.

BY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

_From the Transactions of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts,
Vol. VIII._, 1870-1871

EDINBURGH
PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY
1871]

A VISIT TO STEVENSON'S PACIFIC ISLE

It is a curious fact that Stevenson, whom we all regarded at home as being
the personification of Samoa--indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say
that the average Englishman's idea of Samoa was "some island or other in
the Pacific where Stevenson lives,"--has left very little behind him in
the way of tradition or story in the island he loved so well. He lived in
the midst of a society which, outside his immediate family surroundings,
must have been eminently uncongenial to a man of his refined nature, yet
he damaged his fame here, at least, by meddling in the petty squabbles
which agitate the beach at Apia, and his "Footnote to History" has made
him a host of enemies, notably among the German colony, who, by the mouth
of