portrait, and they spent many
delightful hours together while the sketches were being made for it.

One day the sculptor brought his eight-year-old son, Homer, with him,
and years afterward gave the following description of the child's visit:

"On the way I endeavored to impress on the boy the fact that he was
about to see a man whom he must remember all his life. It was a lovely
day and as I entered the room Stevenson lay as usual on rather a high
bed. I presented Homer to him ... but since my son's interest,
notwithstanding my injunctions, was to say the least far from
enthusiastic, I sent him out to play.

[Illustration: Bas-relief of Stevenson by Augustus Saint Gaudens]

"I then asked Stevenson to pose but that was not successful ... all the
gestures being forced and affected. Therefore I suggested to him that if
he would try to write, some natural attitude might result. He assented
and taking a sheet of paper ... he pulled his knees up and began.
Immediately his attitude was such that I was enabled to create something
of use and continued drawing while he wrote with an occasional smile.
Presently I finished and told him there was no necessity for his writing
any more. He did not reply but proceeded for quite a while. Then he
folded the paper with deliberation, placed it in an envelope, addressed
it, and handed it to me. It was to 'Master Homer St. Gaudens.'

"I asked him: 'Do you wish me to give this to the boy?'

"'Yes,'

"'When? Now?'

"'Oh, no, in five or ten years, or when I am dead.'

"I put it in a safe and here it is:

"May 27, 1888.

"DEAR HOMER ST. GAUDENS--Your father has brought you this day to see me
and tells me it is his hope you may remember the occasion. I am going to
do what I can to carry out his wish; and it may amuse you, years after,
to see this little scrap of paper and to read what I write. I must begin
by testifying that you yourself took no interest whatever in the
introduction, and in the most proper spirit displayed a single-minded
ambition to get back to play, and this I thought an excellent and
admirable point in your character. You were also,--I use the past tense
with a view to the time when you shall read rather than to that when I
am writing,--a very pretty boy, and to my European views startlingly
self-possessed. My time of observation was so limited that you must
pardon me if I can say no more ... but you may perhaps like to know that
the lean, flushed man in bed,