Robert Louis Stevenson first came to California in 1879 for the purpose
of getting married. The things that delayed his marriage are
sufficiently set forth in his "Letters" (edited by Sidney Colvin) and in
his "Life" (written by Graham Balfour). It is here necessary to refer
only to the last of the obstacles, the breaking down of his health. It
is in connection with the evil thing that came to him at this time that
be first makes mention of "the sea fogs," that beset a large part of the
California coast. He speaks of them as poisonous; and poisonous they are
to any one who is afflicted with pulmonary weakness, but bracing and
glorious to others. They give the charm of climate to dwellers around
the great bay. How he took this first very serious attack of the
terrible malady is indicated in the letter to Edmund Gosse, dated April
16, 1880. His attitude toward death is shown here, and is further shown
in his little paper AEs Triplex, in which he successfully vindicates his
generation from the charge of cowardice in the face of death.
Stevenson's two distinguishing characteristics were his courage and his
determination to be happy as the right way of making other people happy.
His courage, far more than change of scene and climate, gave him
fourteen more years in which to contribute to the sweetness and light of
the world. These years were made fruitful to others by his determined
happiness, a happiness in which the main factor, outside of his own
determination, came from the companionship which his marriage brought to
him. The great principles by which he lived influenced those who did not
know him personally, through his gift of writing. He always maintained
that it was not a gift but an achievement, and that any one could write
as well as he by taking as much pains. We may well doubt the soundness
of this theory, but we cannot doubt the spiritual attitude from which it
came. It came from no mock humility, but from a feeling that nothing was
creditable to him except what he did. He asked no credit for the talents