Memories and Portraits By: Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
First Page: MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON [Picture: Graphic] FINE PAPER EDITION LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1912 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh TO MY MOTHER IN THE NAME OF PAST JOY AND PRESENT SORROW I DEDICATE THESE MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS S.S. “ Ludgate Hill ” within sight of Cape Race NOTE This volume of papers, unconnected as they are, it will be better to read through from the beginning, rather than dip into at random. A certain thread of meaning binds them. Memories of childhood and youth, portraits of those who have gone before us in the battle—taken together, they build up a face that “I have loved long since and lost awhile,” the face of what was once myself. This has come by accident; I had no design at first to be autobiographical; I was but led away by the charm of beloved memories and by regret for the irrevocable dead; and when my own young face (which is a face of the dead also) began to appear in the well as by a kind of magic, I was the first to be surprised at the occurrence. My grandfather the pious child, my father the idle eager sentimental youth, I have thus unconsciously exposed. Of their descendant, the person of to day, I wish to keep the secret: not because I love him better, but because, with him, I am still in a business partnership, and cannot divide interests. Of the papers which make up the volume, some have appeared already in The Cornhill , Longman’s , Scribner , The English Illustrated , The Magazine of Art , The Contemporary Review ; three are here in print for the first time; and two others have enjoyed only what may he regarded as a private circulation. R. L S. CONTENTS I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES III. OLD MORALITY IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE V. AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER VI. PASTORAL VII. THE MANSE VIII. MEMORIES OF AN ISLET IX. THOMAS STEVENSON X. TALK AND TALKERS: FIRST PAPER XI. TALK AND TALKERS: SECOND PAPER XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS XIII. “A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED” XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS’S XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE CHAPTER I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME “This is no my ain house; I ken by the biggin’ o’t.” Two recent books {1} one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the busiest over population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on St. Michael’s Bay, the house of the last Cornish speaking woman... Continue reading book >>

Memories and Portraits By: Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

First Page:

MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

[Picture: Graphic]

FINE PAPER EDITION

LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1912

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

TO MY MOTHER IN THE NAME OF PAST JOY AND PRESENT SORROW I DEDICATE THESE MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS

S.S. “ Ludgate Hill ” within sight of Cape Race

NOTE

This volume of papers, unconnected as they are, it will be better to read through from the beginning, rather than dip into at random. A certain thread of meaning binds them. Memories of childhood and youth, portraits of those who have gone before us in the battle—taken together, they build up a face that “I have loved long since and lost awhile,” the face of what was once myself. This has come by accident; I had no design at first to be autobiographical; I was but led away by the charm of beloved memories and by regret for the irrevocable dead; and when my own young face (which is a face of the dead also) began to appear in the well as by a kind of magic, I was the first to be surprised at the occurrence.

My grandfather the pious child, my father the idle eager sentimental youth, I have thus unconsciously exposed. Of their descendant, the person of to day, I wish to keep the secret: not because I love him better, but because, with him, I am still in a business partnership, and cannot divide interests.

Of the papers which make up the volume, some have appeared already in The Cornhill , Longman’s , Scribner , The English Illustrated , The Magazine of Art , The Contemporary Review ; three are here in print for the first time; and two others have enjoyed only what may he regarded as a private circulation.

R. L S.

CONTENTS

I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES III. OLD MORALITY IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE V. AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER VI. PASTORAL VII. THE MANSE VIII. MEMORIES OF AN ISLET IX. THOMAS STEVENSON X. TALK AND TALKERS: FIRST PAPER XI. TALK AND TALKERS: SECOND PAPER XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS XIII. “A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED” XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS’S XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE

CHAPTER I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME

“This is no my ain house; I ken by the biggin’ o’t.”

Two recent books {1} one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the busiest over population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on St. Michael’s Bay, the house of the last Cornish speaking woman... Continue reading book >>

Genres for this book
Essay/Short nonfiction
Literature

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