Stevenson's field. Well, both fields were his, and I cannot say
whether I would be more sorry to lose _Virginibus Puerisque_ and "Studies
of Men and Books," or "Treasure Island" and "Catriona." With the decease
of G. B., Pactolus dried up in its mysterious sources, _London_ struggled
and disappeared.
Mr. Stevenson was in town, now and again, at the old Saville Club, in
Saville Row, which had the tiniest and blackest of smoking-rooms. Here,
or somewhere, he spoke to me of an idea of a tale, a Man who was Two Men.
I said "'William Wilson' by Edgar Poe," and declared that it would never
do. But his "Brownies," in a vision of the night, showed him a central
scene, and he wrote "Jekyll and Hyde." My "friend of these days and of
all days," Mr. Charles Longman, sent me the manuscript. In a very
commonplace London drawing-room, at 10.30 P.M., I began to read it.
Arriving at the place where Utterson the lawyer, and the butler wait
outside the Doctor's room, I threw down the manuscript and fled in a
hurry. I had no taste for solitude any more. The story won its great
success, partly by dint of the moral (whatever that may be), more by its
terrible, lucid, visionary power. I remember Mr. Stevenson telling me,
at this time, that he was doing some "regular crawlers," for this purist
had a boyish habit of slang, and I _think_ it was he who called Julius
Caesar "the howlingest cheese who ever lived.
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