The Life of Robert Louis StevensonMethuen, 1915 - 451 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acquaintance afterwards already Apia Balfour beautiful began boat Bournemouth called Casco CHAPTER character Charles Baxter chief chiefly Colinton cruise dark Davos death delight early Edinburgh essays father Fleeming Jenkin forest French friends garden hand heart hill Inland Voyage interest island Jenkin knew later less letters lighthouse lived London looked LOUIS STEVENSON master memory miles mind months morning mother native never night once Osbourne passed perhaps play realised ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Robert Stevenson Samoa schooner Scotland Scottish seemed ship Sidney Colvin Silverado Squatters Skerryvore South Seas spent spirit stayed story Tahiti talk thing Thomas Stevenson thought tion told took Vailima venson verses W. E. Henley walked weeks Weir of Hermiston whole wife winter words write written wrote
Popular passages
Page 317 - There are, so far as I know, three ways, and three ways only, of writing a story. Yon may take a plot and fit characters to it, or you may take a character and choose incidents and situations to develop it, or lastly — you must bear with me while I try to make this clear...
Page 12 - Thy foot he'll not let slide, nor will He slumber that thee keeps. -Behold, he that keeps Israel, He slumbers not, nor sleeps.
Page 82 - All through my boyhood and youth I was known and pointed out for the pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own private end, which was to learn to write.
Page 48 - When two of these asses met, there would be an anxious "Have you got your lantern?" and a gratified "Yes!" That was the shibboleth, and very needful too; for, as it was the rule to keep our glory contained, none could recognize a lantern-bearer, unless (like the pole-cat) by the smell.
Page 82 - I would either read, or a pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn to write.
Page 318 - ... situations to develop it, or lastly — you must bear with me while I try to make this clear" — (here he made a gesture with his hand as if he were trying to shape something and give it outline and form) — "you may take a certain atmosphere and get action and persons to express and realise it. I '11 give you an example — The Merry Men.
Page 331 - UNDER the wide and starry sky Dig the grave, and let me lie. Glad did I live, and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me : Here he lies where he longed to be ; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.
Page 84 - That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether I have profited or not, that is the way.
Page 83 - Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and...
Page 357 - Now the man who has his heart on his sleeve, and a good whirling weathercock of a brain, who reckons his life as a thing to be dashingly used and cheerfully hazarded...