Page:Robert Louis Stevenson - a Bookman extra number 1913.djvu/26

 his spells. If we crowd round it is not to acclaim what is new-fangled and abnormal, but because we rightly prize Rarity, because the One is ever more to us than the Many, knowing as we do that in diversity of types lies the wealth of our literature as of our flora, and that every fresh literary form strikes light from yet another facet of the complex crystal of human mind. Whether the Magician will ever mellow into the Seer I cannot tell. All that he has yet done seems but of the nature of exercise and experiment—the capricious fluttering to and fro, the sportive circling of a swiftwinged bird that purposes a flight high and far. But Genius knows best its own time to soar, and should time, health, and circumstance bar its rise, should he never pen another line, Robert Louis Stevenson—graceful and melodious singer, accomplished essayist, enthralling story-teller, inspirer of generous boys, cheering comrade of tired men, high priest of the arcana of our glorious tongue-with honour and without reproach will pass over to Treasure Island having deserved well of the Commonwealth of Letters.

1892.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON:

A REMINISCENCE

enough, it was in what might be called an arena of abstract science that I first made the acquaintance of a young man who is now one of the most distinguished littérateurs of the age. On a sunny spring morning, now, alas! a score of years ago—sunny, though the huge stove was still roaring away in the corner with a rumbling sound like the rush of an express train through a tunnel—we were sitting in the mathematical class-room of the University of Edinburgh, awaiting the incoming of our dear old Professor (Kelland), I being then deep in the Daily News description of the German entry into Paris, when I felt a hand gently laid on my shoulder, and, turning round, beheld a young man with whose face I was quite familiar, though not yet cognisant of his name. Having always had a sharp and roving eye for varieties of type and