lowers, fearless,
beautiful, and of unique charm--where could another woman have
been found so marvellously gifted to be the wife of a romancer?
It seems odd that Philadelphia and Edinburgh, the two most
conservatively minded cities of the Anglo-Saxon earth, should
have combined to produce this, the most radiant pair of
adventurers in our recent annals.

The reading of this delightful book has taken us back into the
very pang and felicity of our first great passion--our idolatry,
if you will--which we are proud here and now to re-avow. When was
there ever a happier or more wholesome worship for a boy than the
Stevenson mania on which so many of this generation grew up? We
were the luckier in that our zeal was shared in all its gusto and
particularity by a lean, long-legged, sallow-faced, brown-eyed
eccentric (himself incredibly Stevensonian in appearance) with
whom we lay afield in our later teens, reading R. L. S. aloud by
the banks of a small stream which we vowed should become famous
in the world of letters. And so it has, though not by our
efforts, which was what we had designed; for at the crystal
headwater of that same creek was penned "The Amenities of Book
Collecting," that enchanting volume of bookish essays which has
swelled the correspondence of a Philadelphia business man to
insane proportions, and even brought him offers from three
newspapers to conduct a book page. It seems appropriate to the
present chronicler that in a quiet library overlooking the clear
fount and origin of dear Darby Creek there are several of the
most cherished association volumes of R. L. S.--we think
particularly of the "Child's Garden of Verses" which he gave to
Cummy, and the manuscript of little "Smoutie's" very first book,
the "History of Moses."

* * * * *

Was there ever a more joyous covenant of affection than that of
Mifflin McGill and ourself in our boyish madness for Tusitala? It
is a happy circumstance, we say, for a youth, before the
multiplying responsibilities of maturity press upon him, to pour
out his enthusiasm in an obsession such as that; and when this
passion can be shared and doubled and knitted in partnership with
an equally freakish, insane, and innocent idiot (such as our
generously mad friend Mifflin) admirable adventures are sure to
follow. The quest begun on Darby Creek took us later on an
all-summer progress among places in England and Scotland hallowed
to us by associ