n-handed of men, the most liberal and cheerful of givers; and whether
to Samoans in distressful times, or to others who sought his aid, his
purse was never closed; while his hospitality was like Sir Walter's.
Probably, in his hour of greatest success, he never was among "the best
sellers." But any financial anxieties which may have beset him were
assuaged, and his heart was greatly held up, by the success of the
beautiful "Edinburgh Edition" of his works, conceived and carried out by
the energy of his friend of old Edinburgh days, Mr. Charles Baxter.

His latest work was "Weir of Hermiston"; the plenitude of his genius
shines in every page. He himself thought that this was his best work;
so far as we can judge by the considerable fragment that exists, he
was in the right. There is nothing immature, nothing here of the boy;
he is approaching, in his tale, a fateful point of passion and
disaster; his characters, especially the elder woman, the nurse, are
entirely human, with no touch of caprice; they all live their separate
lives in our memories. Then the end came. One moment of bewildered
consciousness--then unconsciousness and death. He had written to me,
some months before, a letter full of apprehensions of the fate of
Scott and Swift; whether warned by some monitory experience, or
whether he had merely chanced to be thinking of the two great men who
outlived themselves. To him death had come almost as a friend in the
fullness of his powers; there was no touch of weakness or decay, and
he was mourned like a king by his Samoans, by his family, by all who
had known him, and by many thousands who had never seen his face.
There was mourning at home in Scotland (where we hoped against hope
that the news was untrue), in England, in Europe, in America, in
Australia and the Isles. He who had been such "a friendly writer," who
had created for us so many friends in his characters, had made more
friends for himself, friends more and more various in age, race,
tastes, character, and temper, than any British writer, perhaps, since
Dickens. He was taken from us untimely; broken was our strong hope in
the future gifts of his genius, and there was a pain that does not
attend the peaceful passing, in the fullness of years and wisdom and
honour, of an immortal like Tennyson.

Any attempt by a contemporary to "place" Stevenson, to give him his
"class" in English literature, would be a folly. The future must judge
for itself, and, if we