money but spreads reputation," writes his son, "and my
father's instruments enter anonymously into a hundred light rooms and
are passed anonymously over in a hundred reports, where the least
considerable patent would stand out and tell its author's story."

He was beloved among a wide circle of friends and the esteem of those in
his profession was shown when in 1884 they chose him for president of
the Royal Society of Edinburgh. To the general public, however, he
remained unknown in spite of the fact that "His lights were in all parts
of the world guiding the mariners."

CHAPTER II

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

"As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the window of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play."

--"Child's Garden of Verses."

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was born at No. 8 Howard Place,
Edinburgh, Scotland, November 13, 1850.

In 1852 the family moved from Howard Place to Inverleith Terrace, and
two years later to No. 17 Heriot Row, which remained their home for many
years.

As a child Louis was very delicate and often ill, for years hardly a
winter passed that he did not spend many days in bed.

Edinburgh in winter is extremely damp and he tells us: "Many winters I
never crossed the threshold, but used to lie on my face on the nursery
floor, chalking or painting in water-colors the pictures in the
illustrated newspapers; or sit up in bed with a little shawl pinned
about my shoulders, to play with bricks or what not."

The diverting history of "Hop-O'-My-Thumb" and the "Seven-League Boots,"
"Little Arthur's History of England," "Peter Parley's Historical Tales,"
and "Harry's Ladder to Learning" were books which he delighted to pore
over and their pages bore many traces of his skill with the pencil and
paint-brush.

Those who have read the "Child's Garden of Verses" already know the
doings of his childish days, for although those rhymes were not written
until he was a grown man he was "one of the few who do not forget their
own lives" and "through the windows of this book" gives us a vivid and
living picture of the boy who dwelt so much in a world of his own with
his quaint thoughts.

If his body was frail his spirit was strong and his power of
imagination so great that he cheered himself through many a weary day by
playing he was "captain of a tidy little ship," a