y practical, very sensible, very patient. Then she
had wit, insight, sympathy and that fluidity of spirit which belongs
only to the Elect Few who know that nothing really matters much either
way. Such a person does not contradict, set folks straight as to dates,
and shake the red rag of wordy warfare, even in the interests of truth.

Then keeping house on Silverado Hill was only playing at "keep-house,"
and the way all hands entered into the game made it the genuine thing.
People who keep house in earnest or do anything else in dead earnest are
serious, but not sincere. Sincere people are those who can laugh--even
laugh at themselves--and thus are they saved from ossification of the
heart and fatty degeneration of the cerebrum. The Puritans forgot how to
play, otherwise they would never have hanged the witches or gone after
the Quakers with fetters and handcuffs. Uric acid and crystals in the
blood are bad things, but they are worse when they get into the soul.

That most delightful story of "Treasure Island" was begun as a tale for
Lloyd Osbourne, around the evening campfire. Then the hearers begged
that it be written out, and so it was begun, one chapter a day. As fast
as a chapter was written it was read in the evening to an audience that
hung on every word and speculated as to what the characters would do
next. All applauded, all criticized--all made suggestions as to what was
"true," that is to say, as to what the parties actually did and said.
"Treasure Island" is the best story of adventure ever written, and if
anybody knows a better recipe for story-writing than the plan of writing
just for fun, for some one else, it has not yet been discovered.

The miracle is that Robert Louis the Scotchman should have been so
perfectly understood and appreciated by this little family from the
other side of the world.

The Englishman coming to America speaks a different language from
ours--his allusions, symbols, aphorisms belong to another sphere. He
does not understand us, nor we him. But Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny
Osbourne must have been "universals," for they never really had to get
acquainted: they loved the same things, spoke a common language, and
best of all recognized that what we call "life" isn't life at the last,
and that an anxious stirring, clutching for place, pelf and power is not
nearly so good in results as to play the flute, tell stories and keep
house just for fun.

The Stevenson spirit of gentle