but his equally magnanimous contemporary. There was no thought of
rivalry or competition in either mind. The younger romancists who arose
after Mr. Stevenson went to Samoa were his friends by correspondence;
from them, who never saw his face, I hear of his sympathy and
encouragement. Every writer knows the special temptations of his tribe:
they were temptations not even felt, I do believe, by Mr. Stevenson. His
heart was far too high, his nature was in every way as generous as his
hand was open. It is in thinking of these things that one feels afresh
the greatness of the world's loss; for "a good heart is much more than
style," writes one who knew him only by way of letters.

It is a trivial reminiscence that we once plotted a Boisgobesque story
together. There was a prisoner in a Muscovite dungeon.

"We'll extract information from him," I said.

"How?"

"With corkscrews."

But the mere suggestion of such a process was terribly distasteful to
him; not that I really meant to go to these extreme lengths. We never,
of course, could really have worked together; and, his maladies
increasing, he became more and more a wanderer, living at Bournemouth, at
Davos, in the Grisons, finally, as all know, in Samoa. Thus, though we
corresponded, not unfrequently, I never was of the inner circle of his
friends. Among men there were school or college companions, or
companions of Paris or Fontainebleau, cousins, like Mr. R. A. M.
Stevenson, or a stray senior, like Mr. Sidney Colvin. From some of them,
or from Mr. Stevenson himself, I have heard tales of "the wild Prince and