alvinist in daily action--from
him, no doubt, our subject drew much of his interest in certain
directions--John Knox, Scottish history, the '15 and the '45, and no
doubt much that justifies the line "something of shorter-catechist," as
applied by Henley to Stevenson among very contrasted traits indeed.

But strange truly are the interblendings of race, and the way in which
traits of ancestors reappear, modifying and transforming each other. The
gardener knows what can be done by grafts and buddings; but more
wonderful far than anything there, are the mysterious blendings and
outbursts of what is old and forgotten, along with what is wholly new and
strange, and all going to produce often what we call sometimes
eccentricity, and sometimes originality and genius.

Mr J. F. George, in _Scottish Notes and Queries_, wrote as follows on
Stevenson's inheritances and indebtedness to certain of his ancestors:

"About 1650, James Balfour, one of the Principal Clerks of the Court
of Session, married Bridget, daughter of Chalmers of Balbaithan,
Keithhall, and that estate was for some time in the name of Balfour.
His son, James Balfour of Balbaithan, Merchant and Magistrate of
Edinburgh, paid poll-tax in 1696, but by 1699 the land had been sold.
This was probably due to the fact that Balfour was one of the
Governors of the Darien Company. His grandson, James Balfour of
Pilrig (1705-1795), sometime Professor of Moral Philosophy in
Edinburgh University, whose portrait is sketched in _Catriona_, also
made a Garioch [Aberdeenshire district] marriage, his wife being
Cecilia, fifth daughter of Sir John Elphinstone, second baronet of
Logie (Elphinstone) and Sheriff of Aberdeen, by Mary, daughter of Sir
Gilbert Elliot, first baronet of Minto.

"Referring to the Minto descent, Stevenson claims to have 'shaken a
spear in the Debatable Land and shouted the slogan of the Elliots.' He
evidently knew little or nothing of his relations on the Elphinstone
side. The Logie Elphinstones were a cadet branch of Glack, an estate
acquired by Nicholas Elphinstone in 1499. William Elphinstone, a
younger son of James of Glack, and Elizabeth Wood of Bonnyton, married
Margaret Forbes, and was father of Sir James Elphinstone, Bart., of
Logie, so created in 1701. . . .

"Stevenson would have been delighted to acknowledge his relationship,
remote though it was, to 'the Wolf of Badenoch,'