Robert Louis Stevenson Part 12

Cosmopolite in culture, in breadth of view, in openness of mind, Mr Stevenson was yet before all things a Scotsman, and one to whom Scotland and his native Edinburgh were peculiarly dear. Condemned by his delicate and uncertain health to make his dwelling-place far from the grey skies and the biting east winds of his boyhood's home, these grey Scotch skies, these bitter winds, still haunt him and appear in his books with the strange charm they have for the sons and daughters of the north who, even while they revile them, love them, and in far lands long for them with a heart-hunger that no cloudless sky, no gentle zephyr, no unshadowed suns.h.i.+ne of the alien sh.o.r.e can appease.[6]

In all his wanderings his heart turned fondly to the old home, to the n.o.ble profession of his fathers, and on smiling seas and amid sunny islands he never forgot the bleak coasts of Scotland, that his ancestors' hands had lighted from headland to headland, and his heart

'In dreams (beheld) the Hebrides.'

A Scot of whom Edinburgh and Scotland are justly proud, he was a man whose life and faith did credit to the stern religion and the old traditions of his covenanting forefathers, and although, like so many men and women of earnest minds and broad culture in the present day, he early left behind him much of the narrowness of churches and of creeds, he held closely to 'the one thing needful,' a humble and a trusting belief in G.o.d that filled all his soul with strength and patience, and gave to him that marvellous sympathy with humanity which made him a power among men, whether they were the learned and the cultured, or simple children of nature like the Samoans, who so truly understood and loved him.

The books undoubtedly are great, but the man is greater; and it is not only as a writer of no small renown that he will be revered and remembered but as a man among men whose patience and courage gave to his too short life a pathos and a value. Among his friends he was beloved in a manner quite unique, he had a peculiar place of his own in their regard. By the younger school of writers, whose work he so fully and so generously appreciated, he was regarded as a master; and one of the pleasures to be enjoyed on the publication of that _Life_, which Mr Sydney Colvin presently has in preparation, will be to learn more about his agreeable relations with his literary juniors.

Of his sacred home life no outsider can speak; but it is the truest test of perfect manhood when the man who is not unknown in the great world shows himself at his best in the smaller world of home, and has a brighter and a sweeter side of his nature to display to wife and mother and close fireside circle than he has to his admiring public. Mr Stevenson never despised the trivial things of life, and the everyday courtesies, the little unselfishnesses--which are often so much more difficult to practise than the great virtues--were never forgotten all through the years in which so much of pain and of weariness might have made occasional repining, occasional forgetfulness of others, almost pardonable.

Eager in his own work, untiring in his literary activity, he was equally eager to toil in the great vineyard, to do something for G.o.d and for man, to make his faith active and not pa.s.sive. This was his att.i.tude through life; he would always have 'tholed his paiks' that the poor might 'enjoy their play,' the imprisoned go free; and the position which he took up in regard to Samoan troubles was a practical proof that he was, as he called himself, 'a ready soldier,' willing to spend and be spent for others. Of one whose position was that of 'the ready soldier,'

no more fitting concluding words can be said than those in his mother's note-book, and written to her by the wife of the Rev. Mr Clark, his Samoan friend, in November 1895:--

... 'So few knew your dear son's best side--his Christian character. Of course, men don't write often on that subject, and to many he was the author, and they only knew him as such. To me his lovely character was one of the wonderful things, so full of love and the desire to do good.

I love to think of him.' ...

That the man and his work are appreciated is amply proved by the monument already erected to his memory in San Francis...o...b.. the zeal of the American Committee, and by the enthusiastic meeting in his own Edinburgh, presided over by Lord Rosebery, in the autumn of 1896, at which Mr J. M. Barrie made an interesting and an appreciative speech; and by the equally enthusiastic gathering in Dundee in the spring of 1897.

At these meetings it was proposed to receive subscriptions, and to erect a Stevenson memorial in some form to be afterwards decided on. The suggestion was largely responded to, but it is probable the response would have been even more cordial had it been determined that the memorial should take a practical rather than an ornamental form.

Monuments are cold things whereby to perpetuate love and admiration; an 'arbour of Corinthian columns,' which one paper recently suggested, would have appealed to Mr Stevenson himself only as an atrocity in stone. His sole sympathy with stone was when it served the n.o.ble purpose to which his father had put it, and, as lighthouse or harbour, contributed to the service of man. If the memorial might have been too costly in the form of a small sh.o.r.e-light, a lifeboat seemed a thing that would have been dear to his own heart. And as, in years to come, men read of rescues by the _Robert Louis Stevenson_, on some wreck-strewn, rock-bound corner of our coasts, the memory of the man who loved the sea, and of the race who toiled to save life in its storms, would have been handed down to future generations in a fitting fas.h.i.+on.

The memorial is to take the form of a mural monument with a medallion portrait of his head in high relief. It is to be placed in the Moray Aisle of St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, which it is thought might be a suitable 'Poets' Corner' for Scotland. If there is sufficient money, and if the necessary permission is obtained, a stone seat may also be erected on the Calton Hill at the point from which Mr Stevenson so greatly admired the view. The medallion is to be entrusted to Mr A.

Saint Gaudens, an American sculptor of repute, who studied in France, and who had the great advantage of personally knowing Mr Stevenson in America in 1887 and 1888, and at that time getting him to sit for a medallion, which is considered by his widow and family to be the best likeness of him that they have seen. It is satisfactory that at last someone has been found who can do justice to the quaint, mobile face, and give to the memorial some of the living charm of the man. It is also pleasant to know that Mrs Stevenson and her family have expressed themselves perfectly satisfied with the choice of a sculptor.

The San Francisco monument is in the form of a sixteenth century s.h.i.+p, of thirty guns, careening to the west, with golden sails full spread, and with a figure of Pallas, looking towards the setting sun, in its prow. The s.h.i.+p is about five feet high, and behind it, on a simple granite plinth, is engraved the famous pa.s.sage from his Christmas sermon:--'To be honest, to be kind; to earn a little, to spend a little less; to keep a few friends, and these without capitulations.'

On one surface of the plinth is a spigot and a cup, and underneath a drip-stone, where thirsty dogs can drink. The drinking place is a.s.suredly a part of the monument that would have commended itself to the man who loved his canine friends and all other animals so truly.

Even if a monument has about it something of the commonplace, it is well that the memory of the man and of his work should be perpetuated; but of all memorials of him, the Samoan 'Road of Grat.i.tude' is likely to be for ever remembered as the most suitable and the most perfect.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] It is on record that Mr Stevenson, who always talked to a compatriot when he could, was, _a propos_ of his home in Samoa, told by a sailor with whom he was having a chat, that he 'would rather gang hame an' be hanged in auld Scotland than come an' live in this ---- hole.' No doubt, Mr Stevenson appreciated the st.u.r.dy mariner's patriotism, although it was expressed in language more forcible than polite!

FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES

_The following Volumes are now ready:--_

THOMAS CARLYLE. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON.

ALLAN RAMSAY. By OLIPHANT SMEATON.

HUGH MILLER. By W. KEITH LEASK.

JOHN KNOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES.

ROBERT BURNS. By GABRIEL SETOUN.

THE BALLADISTS. By JOHN GEDDIE.

RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor HERKLESS.

SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON.

THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIKIE.

JAMES BOSWELL. By W. KEITH LEASK.

TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By OLIPHANT SMEATON.

FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. OMOND.

THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS.

NORMAN MACLEOD. By JOHN WELLWOOD.

SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor SAINTSBURY.

KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By LOUIS A. BARBe.

ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. GROSART.

JAMES THOMSON. By WILLIAM BAYNE.

MUNGO PARK. By T. BANKS MACLACHLAN.

DAVID HUME. By Professor CALDERWOOD.

WILLIAM DUNBAR. By OLIPHANT SMEATON.

SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. By Professor MURISON.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By MARGARET MOYES BLACK.