...island in Samoa, wrote something the year before he died at 44 that has always struck me as heroic: "For fourteen years I have not had a day's real health; I have awakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have done my work unflinchingly. I have written in bed,...

...Louis Stevenson was one of the greatest writers of the century, but just read this statement from him: "For fourteen years I have not had a day's real health...hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by coughing, written when my head swam for weakness ; and for so long, it seems to me I have won my wager and recovered...

...life, none which he met with more unflagging courage. Two years later he wrote to George Meredith. "For fourteen years I have not had a day's real health...weary ; and I have done my work unflinchingly. . . I was made for a contest, and the Powers have so willed that my battlefield should be this dingy inglorious...