-nobbing with all
sorts and conditions of men, this desire of wide contact and intercourse
has little show in his novels--the ordinary fibre of commonplace human
beings not receiving much celebration from him there; another case in
which his private bent and sympathies received little illustration in his
novels. But the fact lies implicit in much I have written.

I have to thank many authors for permission to quote extracts I have
used.

ALEXANDER H. JAPP.

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS
II. _TREASURE ISLAND_ AND SOME REMINISCENCES
III. THE CHILD FATHER OF THE MAN
IV. HEREDITY ILLUSTRATED
V. TRAVELS
VI. SOME EARLIER LETTERS
VII. THE VAILIMA LETTERS
VIII. WORK OF LATER YEARS
IX. SOME CHARACTERISTICS
X. A SAMOAN MEMORIAL OF R. L. STEVENSON
XI. MISS STUBBS' RECORD OF A PILGRIMAGE
XII. HIS GENIUS AND METHODS
XIII. PREACHER AND MYSTIC FABULIST
XIV. STEVENSON AS DRAMATIST
XV. THEORY OF GOOD AND EVIL
XVI. STEVENSON'S GLOOM
XVII. PROOFS OF GROWTH
XVIII. EARLIER DETERMINATIONS AND RESULTS
XIX. MR EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN'S ESTIMATE
XX. EGOTISTIC ELEMENT AND ITS EFFECTS
XXI. UNITY IN STEVENSON'S STORIES
XXII. PERSONAL CHEERFULNESS AND INVENTED GLOOM
XXIII. EDINBURGH REVIEWERS' DICTA INAPPLICABLE TO LATER WORK
XXIV. MR HENLEY'S SPITEFUL PERVERSIONS
XXV. MR CHRISTIE MURRAY'S IMPRESSIONS
XXVI. HERO-VILLAINS
XXVII. MR G. MOORE, MR MARRIOTT WATSON, AND OTHERS
XXVIII. UNEXPECTED COMBINATIONS
XXIX. LOVE OF VAGABONDS
XXX. LORD ROSEBERY'S CASE
XXXI. MR GOSSE AND MS. OF _TREASURE ISLAND_
XXXII. STEVENSON PORTRAITS
XXXIII. LAPSES AND ERRORS IN CRITICISM
XXXIV. LETTERS AND POEMS IN TESTIMONY
APPENDIX

CHAPTER I--INTRODUCTION AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS

My little effort to make Thoreau better known in England had one result
that I am pleased to think of. It brought me into personal association
with R. L. Stevenson, who had written and published in _The Cornhill
Magazine_ an essay on Thoreau, in whom he had for some time taken an
interest. He found in Thoreau not only a rare character for originality,
courage, and indefatigable independence, but also a master of style, to
whom, on this account, as much as any, he was inclined to play the part
of the "sedulous ape," as he had acknowledged doing to many others--a
later exercise, perhaps in some ways as fruitful as any that had gone
before. A recent poe