rrounded by his friends and his
faithful, devoted band of young men, his Samoan followers; in the royal
boat-house at Honolulu, seated side by side with his Majesty King
Kalakaua; on board the _Casco_. Here, evidently anxious for a really good
picture, he has taken off his hat, standing in the sun bareheaded. At a
native banquet, surrounded by all the delicacies of the season, bowls of
_kava_, _poi_, _palo-sami_, and much good company. Then the later ones at
Vailima; in the clearing close to his house, in the verandah. Later
still, writing in his bed. Coming to the "inn" he talks about in
1873--coming so close, close, unexpectedly, but not unprepared--Robert
Louis Stevenson has passed the veil. Not dead, but gone before, he lives
in the hearts of all people. But not so palpably, so outwardly, so
proudly, as in the hearts of these people of the Sunny Land, who, standing
on the extreme verge of the Western world, shading their eyes from the
shining glory, watch the sunshine go out through the Golden Gate, out on
its way across the pearly Pacific to the lonely Mountain of Samoa where
lies the body of the man "Tusitala," whose songs and lessons and stories
fill the earth, and the souls of the people thereof.

On the fly-leaf of the copy of "The Silverado Squatters," sent to "Virgil
Williams and Dora Norton Williams," to whom it was dedicated, is the
following poem in the handwriting of the author, written at Hyeres, where,
as he says in his diary, he spent the happiest days of his life--

Here, from the forelands of the tideless sea,
Behold and take my offering unadorned.
In the Pacific air it sprang; it grew
Among the silence of the Alpine air;
In Scottish heather blossomed; and at last,
By that unshapen sapphire, in whose face
Spain, Italy, France, Algiers, and Tunis view
Their introverted mountains, came to fruit.
Back now, my booklet, on the diving ship,
And posting on the rails to home, return
Home, and the friends whose honouring name you bear.
--_The Sketch, Feb. 26, 1896_

STEVENSON AND HAZLITT

Of the many books which Robert Louis Stevenson planned and discussed with
his friends in his correspondence there is none, perhaps, which would have
been more valued than the biography of William Hazlitt. Whenever Stevenson
refers to Hazlitt, whether in his essay on "Walking Tours" or in his
letters, he makes one wish he would say more. This is what he wri