a most unselfish character, and made an
excellent husband and father. He was a notable volunteer in the days
when a French invasion was greatly feared, and all his life he took a
keen interest in the volunteering movement.

Like his son Thomas, Mr Robert Stevenson was a man of much intellect and
humour, though of a grave and serious character. He was also a keen
Conservative and a loving member of the Established Church of Scotland.
He was warmly beloved and his society was greatly sought after by his
friends; a voyage of inspection with him on his tours round the coast
was much appreciated. On one occasion Sir Walter Scott made one of the
party which accompanied him. Mr Robert Stevenson died in July 1850, a
few months before the birth of his grandson, Robert Louis.

That this grandson held in high esteem the deeds and sterling qualities
of his grandfather is amply proved by his Samoan Letters to Mr Sydney
Colvin, published in 1895. In many of them he speaks of the history of
his family, which he intended to write, and into which he evidently felt
that he could put his best work. Alas! like so much that the brave
spirit and the busy brain planned, it was not to be, and the writer
passed to his rest without leaving behind him a full record of the
workers who had made his name famous.[1]

Mr Alan, Mr David, and Mr Thomas Stevenson worthily handed on the
traditions of their father, and in its second generation the lustre of
the great engineering family shone undimmed; while now the sons of Alan
Stevenson maintain the reputation of their forefathers, and the
Stevenson name is still one to conjure with wherever their saving lights
shine out across the sea.

Mr Thomas Stevenson served under his brother Alan in building the famous
lighthouse of 'Skerryvore,' and with his brother David he built 'The
Chickens,' 'Dhu Heartach,' and many 'shore lights' and harbours. He was
a notable engineer, widely known and greatly honoured at home and
abroad, besides being a very typical Scotsman.

When one thinks of his grand rugged face, and remembers how the stern
eyes used to light up with humour and soften with tenderness, as their
glance fell on his wife and his son, one realises what a very perfect
picture of such a character in its outward sternness and its inward
gentleness, lies in those lines of Mr William Watson's, in which he
speaks of

'The fierceness that from tenderness is never far.'

Mr Stevenson's broad shou