silver, and the boy who has it is quite contented." In the same
manner he transformed a coddling shawl into a wrap fit for a soldier
on a night march. To the end of his days he was eager to be happy.
We are told

"Two men looked out from prison bars;
One saw mud, the other stars."

When bodily ailments held Stevenson as a captive in bonds, his keen
sight pierced through the obstructions which held him caged. We are
not left in doubt, when we read his books, as to whether his gaze
was earthwards or to heaven's distant lamps. He taught others to see
with his clear vision, and he expounded his gospel in so taking a
manner, even if the import of it had savoured more of mud than
stars, it would have been studied for its style. He had the true
artist soul within him. He wished to create or represent what came
within the range of those brilliant dark eyes of his, so, with
infinite care and effort, he strove to attune his words to the even
cadence and harmony with which he wished to amaze us, for, as A.J.
Balfour said, "he was a man of the finest and most delicate
imagination, a style which, for grace and suppleness, for its power
of being at once turned to any purpose which the author desired, has
seldom been matched." It is difficult for those who knew him before
he had, by pure hard work, won his way to fame, to realise how one
physically so fragile, of so light-somely versatile and whimsical a
nature, apparently so ready to be diverted from the main high-road
by a desire to explore any brambly lane, had in him the deliberate
goal-winning gait of the tortoise. His stubborn tenacity of purpose
he owed to his antecedents. The Scot's inalienable prerogative of
pedigree exercised an influence over him, though he appeared as a