place so brands a man," he declared; and, in his turn, Stevenson
left his brand on the romantic city of his birth, for now no book on
Scotland's capital is written without mention of the haunts and
homes of that changeling-looking son of hers. The door-plate of 17
Heriot Row bore the inscription of R. L. Stevenson, Advocate. No
blue-bag laden clerk dropped briefs then into its letter-box. In one
of its sun-facing drawing-room windows there stood a big Australian
vine, carefully tended and trained. It was behind it, in the far
window, the eighteen-year-old lad sat when, in the winter's
gloamin', Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin, calling on his mother, was startled
by his voice joining in the conversation. The visitor says, "I
listened in perplexity and arnasement. Who was this son who talked
as Charles Lamb wrote? this young Heine with the Scotch accent? When
I came away the unseen converser came down with me to the front door
to let me out. As he opened it, the light of the gas lamp outside
('For we are very lucky with a lamp before the door,' he says) fell
on him, and I saw a slender, brown, long-haired lad, with great dark
eyes, a brilliant smile, and a gentle, deprecating bend of the head.
I asked him to come and see us. He said, 'Shall I come to-morrow?'"
He called next day, for Louis grasped at anything or any person that
he felt drawn to. He took part in their theatricals, but otherwise
eschewed social functions in Edinburgh. An old friend of his
father's asked him to come to fill a gap at his table, though his
own son had informed him Louis never went to prearranged feasts.
Louis himself replied to this invitation: "C. is textually correct,
only there are exceptions everywhere to prove the rule. I do not
hate dining at your house. At seven, on Wednesday, his temples
wreathed with some appropriate garland, you will behold the victim
come smiling to the altar." The last words are characteristic of his
attitude when he was lured into society,--he went a willing victim,