The Life of Robert Louis StevensonMethuen, 1915 - 451 pages |
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acquaintance afterwards already Andrew Lang Apia Balfour 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 journey knew later less letters lighthouse lived London looked Louis Stevenson manse master memory 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 whole wife winter words write written wrote yacht
Popular passages
Page 321 - There are, so far as I know, three ways, and three ways only, of writing a story. You 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 14 - 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 50 - That was the shibboleth, and very needful, too ; for, as it was the rule to keep our glory contained, none could recognise a lantern-bearer, unless (like a polecat) by the smell. Four or five would sometimes climb into the belly of a ten-man lugger, with nothing but the thwarts above them — for the cabin was usually locked — or choose out some hollow of the links where the wind might whistle overhead. There the coats would be unbuttoned and the bull's-eyes discovered ; and in the chequering glimmer,...
Page 84 - 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 178 - MY DEAREST PEOPLE, — I have had a great piece of news. There has been offered for Treasure Island — how much do you suppose? I believe it would be an excellent jest to keep the answer till my next letter. For two cents I would do so. Shall I ? Anyway, I'll turn the page first. No — well — A hundred pounds, all alive, O! A hundred jingling, tingling, golden, minted quid. Is not this wonderful?
Page 336 - Neat-footed and weak-fingered : in his face — Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea, The brown eyes radiant with vivacity— There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace Of passion, impudence, and energy. Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist: A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, Much Antony, of Hamlet...
Page 85 - 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 I knew it...
Page 335 - Requiem 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 sea, And the hunter home from the hill.
Page 83 - Books were the proper remedy : books of vivid human import, forcing upon their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, importance and immediacy of that life in which they stand ; books of smiling or heroic temper, to excite or to console ; books of a large design, shadowing the complexity of that game of consequences to which we all sit down, the hanger-back not least.
Page 336 - Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably, Neat-footed and weak-fingered: in his face Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea, The brown eyes radiant with vivacity There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace Of passion and impudence and energy.