g. He attended first (1858-61) a preparatory
school kept by a Mr. Henderson in India Street; and next (at intervals
for some time after the autumn of 1861) the Edinburgh Academy.

Schooling was interrupted in the end of 1862 and first half of 1863 by
excursions with his parents to Germany, the Riviera, and Italy. The love
of wandering, which was a rooted passion in Stevenson's nature, thus
began early to find satisfaction. For a few months in the autumn of
1863, when his parents had been ordered for a second time to Mentone for
the sake of his mother's health, he was sent to a boarding-school kept
by a Mr. Wyatt at Spring Grove, near London. It is not my intention to
treat the reader to the series of childish and boyish letters of these
days which parental fondness has preserved. But here is one written from
his English school when he was about thirteen, which is both amusing in
itself and had a certain influence on his destiny, inasmuch as his
appeal led to his being taken out to join his parents on the French
Riviera; which from these days of his boyhood he never ceased to love,
and for which the longing, amid the gloom of Edinburgh winters, often
afterwards gripped him by the heart.

_Spring Grove School, 12th November 1863._

MA CHERE MAMAN,--Jai recu votre lettre Aujourdhui et comme le jour
prochaine est mon jour de naisance je vous ecrit ce lettre. Ma grande
gatteaux est arrive il leve 12 livres et demi le prix etait 17
shillings. Sur la soiree de Monseigneur Faux il y etait quelques belles
feux d'artifice. Mais les polissons entrent dans notre champ et nos feux
d'artifice et handkerchiefs disappeared quickly, but we charged them out
of the field. Je suis presque driven mad par une bruit terrible tous les
garcons kik up comme grand un bruit qu'il est possible. I hope you will
find your house at Mentone nice. I have been obliged to stop from
writing by the want of a pen, but now I have one, so I will continue.

My dear papa, you told me to tell you whenever I was miserable. I do not
feel well, and I wish to get home. Do take me with you.

R. STEVENSON.

This young French scholar has yet, it will be discerned, a good way to
travel; in later days he acquired a complete reading and speaking, with
a less complete writing, mastery of the language, and was as much at
home with French ways of thought and life as with English.

For one more specimen of his boyish style, it may be not amiss to give
the