the ocean
depths in a diver's dress and in the company of a professional diver,
but this Robert Louis Stevenson actually did. His account of it, in
bygone days, was gruesomely graphic, his pen-and-ink sketch of it, to be
read in _Random Memories_, is not less so; and the thing itself must
have been an experience well worth having to a mind like his. Well worth
knowing too, both to the man and to the future creator of character,
were those brave hardy sons of toil who did the rough work of his firm's
harbours and lighthouses; and many a good yarn he must have heard them
spin as he stood side by side with them on some solid block of granite,
or on some outlying headland, or chatted and smoked with the captain and
the sailors of _The Pharos_ as she made her rounds among the islands.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] Although Mr Stevenson spoke and wrote of this personage as
'the Duke of Modena Sidonia,' he was in reality Don Jan Gomez de Modena,
who is mentioned in T. M'Crie's 'Life of Andrew Melville.'

CHAPTER V

HOME LIFE

'O, pleasant party round the fire.'
--R. L. STEVENSON.

Often a little indifferent, sometimes politely bored in general society,
it was at home that Robert Louis Stevenson seemed to me to be seen to
the greatest advantage. That little household of three, that delightful
trio who so thoroughly appreciated each other were charming everywhere,
but only quite perfect when taken together within the hospitable walls
that enshrined so true a home. Not a house or an abiding place merely,
whence the business or the gaieties of life could be comfortably
indulged in, but a _home_ where, however much the amusements of the
Scotch capital were shared in and appreciated, the truest happiness lay
around the quiet fireside where the mother, father, and son loved and
understood each other with a love the deeper, that the intense Scotch
reticence of all made it, like a hidden jewel, the more precious because
so rarely displayed to strangers' eyes.

No son could be more fortunate in his parents, no parents could have
given a child a more unselfish devotion, a more comprehending sympathy.
His very delicacy and the anxiety it had so often caused them had drawn
their hearts more tenderly to him, and, absolutely happy in each other,
they were equally happy in their pride and pleasure in their son's
evident genius and most original personality.

In days when discontent and extravagance h