I occasionally sent out books needed for Mr. Stevenson's studies, of
which more will be said. But I must make it plain that, in the body, we
met but rarely. His really intimate friends were Mr. Colvin and Mr.
Baxter (who managed the practical side of his literary business between
them); Mr. Henley (in partnership with whom he wrote several plays); his
cousin, Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson; and, among other _literati_, Mr. Gosse,
Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. Saintsbury, Mr Walter Pollock, knew him well. The
best portrait of Mr. Stevenson that I know is by Sir. W. B. Richmond,
R.A., and is in that gentleman's collection of contemporaries, with the
effigies of Mr. Holman Hunt, Mr. William Morris, Mr. Browning, and
others. It is unfinished, owing to an illness which stopped the
sittings, and does not show the subject at his best, physically speaking.
There is also a brilliant, slight sketch, almost a caricature, by Mr.
Sargent. It represents Mr. Stevenson walking about the room in
conversation.
The people I have named, or some of them, knew Mr. Stevenson more
intimately than I can boast of doing. Unlike each other, opposites in a
dozen ways, we always were united by the love of letters, and of
Scotland, our dear country. He was a patriot, yet he spoke his mind
quite freely about Burns, about that apparent want of heart in the poet's
amours, which our countrymen do not care to hear mentioned.
Pages:
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63