Page:The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Edition, Volume 8, 1922.djvu/100

PREFATORY NOTE toys still sacredly cherished,—found that he must turn his thoughts into other channels, or he would be unable to fulfil the duties that now devolved upon him. He resolutely sat himself at his desk and wrote The Ballad of Ticonderoga, the theme of which had already been discussed with his father before that fine intellect had become obscured by the clouds that settled round his last days.

The verses, entitled A Portrait, so unlike anything else my husband ever wrote, do not explain themselves, and must have puzzled many of his readers. He had just finished, with wondering disgust, a book of poems in the most musical English, but excessively morbid and unpleasant in sentiment. His criticisms were generally sympathetic and kind; but this "battener upon garbage" with his "air of saying grace" was more than my husband could endure, and in the first heat of his indignation he wrote A Portrait.

It is said that when Mr. Kipling is heard humming a tune he is supposed to be composing a poem to fit the music. I think my husband must have used something of the same method, for in his library I found, among others, these verses written out to airs that had pleased him: 86