Robert Louis Stevenson [4]
to a rare piece of grotesque, titled A PEAK IN DARIEN -
'Broad-gazing on untrodden lands, See where adventurous Cortez stands, While in the heavens above his head, The eagle seeks its daily bread. How aptly fact to fact replies, Heroes and eagles, hills and skies. Ye, who contemn the fatted slave, Look on this emblem and be brave."
Another, THE ELEPHANT, has these lines -
"See in the print how, moved by whim, Trumpeting Jumbo, great and grim, Adjusts his trunk, like a cravat, To noose that individual's hat; The Sacred Ibis in the distance, Joys to observe his bold resistance."
R. L. Stevenson wrote from Davos Platz, in sending me THE BLACK CANYON:
"Sam sends as a present a work of his own. I hope you feel flattered, for THIS IS SIMPLY THE FIRST TIME HE HAS EVER GIVEN ONE AWAY. I have to buy my own works, I can tell you."
Later he said, in sending a second:
"I own I have delayed this letter till I could forward the enclosed. Remembering the night at Braemar, when we visited the picture-gallery, I hope it may amuse you: you see we do some publishing hereaway."
Delightfully suggestive and highly enjoyable, too, were the meetings in the little drawing-room after dinner, when the contrasted traits of father and son came into full play - when R. L. Stevenson would sometimes draw out a new view by bold, half- paradoxical assertion, or compel advance on the point from a new quarter by a searching question couched in the simplest language, or reveal his own latest conviction finally, by a few sentences as nicely rounded off as though they had been written, while he rose and gently moved about, as his habit was, in the course of those more extended remarks. Then a chapter or two of THE SEA-COOK would be read, with due pronouncement on the main points by one or other of the family audience.
The reading of the book is one thing. It was quite another thing to hear Stevenson as he stood reading it aloud, with his hand stretched out holding the manuscript, and his body gently swaying as a kind of rhythmical commentary on the story. His fine voice, clear and keen it some of its tones, had a wonderful power of inflection and variation, and when he came to stand in the place of Silver you could almost have imagined you saw the great one-legged John Silver, joyous-eyed, on the rolling sea. Yes, to read it in print was good, but better yet to hear Stevenson read it.
CHAPTER II - TREASURE ISLAND AND SOME REMINISCENCES
WHEN I left Braemar, I carried with me a considerable portion of the MS. of TREASURE ISLAND, with an outline of the rest of the story. It originally bore the odd title of THE SEA-COOK, and, as I have told before, I showed it to Mr Henderson, the proprietor of the YOUNG FOLKS' PAPER, who came to an arrangement with Mr Stevenson, and the story duly appeared in its pages, as well as the two which succeeded it.
Stevenson himself in his article in THE IDLER for August 1894 (reprinted in MY FIRST BOOK volume and in a late volume of the EDINBURGH EDITION) has recalled some of the circumstances connected with this visit of mine to Braemar, as it bore on the destination of TREASURE ISLAND:
"And now, who should come dropping in, EX MACHINA, but Dr Japp, like the disguised prince, who is to bring down the curtain upon peace and happiness in the last act; for he carried in his pocket, not a horn or a talisman, but a publisher, in fact, ready to unearth new writers for my old friend Mr Henderson's YOUNG FOLKS. Even the ruthlessness of a united family recoiled before the extreme measure of inflicting on our guest the mutilated members of THE SEA-COOK; at the same time, we would by no means stop our readings, and accordingly the tale was begun again at the beginning, and solemnly redelivered for the benefit of Dr Japp. From that moment on, I have thought highly of his critical faculty; for when he left us, he carried away the manuscript in his portmanteau.
"TREASURE ISLAND - it was Mr Henderson who deleted the first title,
'Broad-gazing on untrodden lands, See where adventurous Cortez stands, While in the heavens above his head, The eagle seeks its daily bread. How aptly fact to fact replies, Heroes and eagles, hills and skies. Ye, who contemn the fatted slave, Look on this emblem and be brave."
Another, THE ELEPHANT, has these lines -
"See in the print how, moved by whim, Trumpeting Jumbo, great and grim, Adjusts his trunk, like a cravat, To noose that individual's hat; The Sacred Ibis in the distance, Joys to observe his bold resistance."
R. L. Stevenson wrote from Davos Platz, in sending me THE BLACK CANYON:
"Sam sends as a present a work of his own. I hope you feel flattered, for THIS IS SIMPLY THE FIRST TIME HE HAS EVER GIVEN ONE AWAY. I have to buy my own works, I can tell you."
Later he said, in sending a second:
"I own I have delayed this letter till I could forward the enclosed. Remembering the night at Braemar, when we visited the picture-gallery, I hope it may amuse you: you see we do some publishing hereaway."
Delightfully suggestive and highly enjoyable, too, were the meetings in the little drawing-room after dinner, when the contrasted traits of father and son came into full play - when R. L. Stevenson would sometimes draw out a new view by bold, half- paradoxical assertion, or compel advance on the point from a new quarter by a searching question couched in the simplest language, or reveal his own latest conviction finally, by a few sentences as nicely rounded off as though they had been written, while he rose and gently moved about, as his habit was, in the course of those more extended remarks. Then a chapter or two of THE SEA-COOK would be read, with due pronouncement on the main points by one or other of the family audience.
The reading of the book is one thing. It was quite another thing to hear Stevenson as he stood reading it aloud, with his hand stretched out holding the manuscript, and his body gently swaying as a kind of rhythmical commentary on the story. His fine voice, clear and keen it some of its tones, had a wonderful power of inflection and variation, and when he came to stand in the place of Silver you could almost have imagined you saw the great one-legged John Silver, joyous-eyed, on the rolling sea. Yes, to read it in print was good, but better yet to hear Stevenson read it.
CHAPTER II - TREASURE ISLAND AND SOME REMINISCENCES
WHEN I left Braemar, I carried with me a considerable portion of the MS. of TREASURE ISLAND, with an outline of the rest of the story. It originally bore the odd title of THE SEA-COOK, and, as I have told before, I showed it to Mr Henderson, the proprietor of the YOUNG FOLKS' PAPER, who came to an arrangement with Mr Stevenson, and the story duly appeared in its pages, as well as the two which succeeded it.
Stevenson himself in his article in THE IDLER for August 1894 (reprinted in MY FIRST BOOK volume and in a late volume of the EDINBURGH EDITION) has recalled some of the circumstances connected with this visit of mine to Braemar, as it bore on the destination of TREASURE ISLAND:
"And now, who should come dropping in, EX MACHINA, but Dr Japp, like the disguised prince, who is to bring down the curtain upon peace and happiness in the last act; for he carried in his pocket, not a horn or a talisman, but a publisher, in fact, ready to unearth new writers for my old friend Mr Henderson's YOUNG FOLKS. Even the ruthlessness of a united family recoiled before the extreme measure of inflicting on our guest the mutilated members of THE SEA-COOK; at the same time, we would by no means stop our readings, and accordingly the tale was begun again at the beginning, and solemnly redelivered for the benefit of Dr Japp. From that moment on, I have thought highly of his critical faculty; for when he left us, he carried away the manuscript in his portmanteau.
"TREASURE ISLAND - it was Mr Henderson who deleted the first title,