, the beginning as the world knows, of a life long friendship with
both these gentlemen.

Stevenson's first introduction to the reading world at large was on the
occasion of an article which appeared in the _Portfolio_ for December,
1873, with the signature L. S. Stoneven appended.

Already Stevenson had begun to reap the benefit of acquaintanceship and
association with the little coterie of literary folk whom he had fallen in
with in London. For a time he sojourned in the artistic colony which had
taken up its abode in the Forest of Fontainebleau, and has recorded its
charms of life and association in the essay "Fontainebleau." He also came
to know Bohemian Paris as well, and in certain circles which there exist,
or did at one time exist, the memory of M. Stevenson still fondly lingers.
Returning to Edinburgh Stevenson hung forth his placard at the now famous
17 Heriot Row, which read Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate. He did not,
however, hang for long between the balance of Law and Literature, and it
has been said, he never tried a case. Finally it was but apparent that he
was so firmly wedded to literature that, needs must, he should devote
himself to it and with the publication of "Virginibus Puerisque," he is
truly said to have emerged from the threatening obscurity of his early
struggles.

"An Inland Voyage" has recorded Stevenson's travels in Belgium in 1876,
and "Travels with a Donkey in The Cevennes," chronicles another wandering
in search of the picturesque, undertaken at about the same time. It is
doubtful if either volume proved financially profitable at first though
they proved, in connection with the volume of essays before mentioned, the
means of introducing the name and work of Robert Louis Stevenson to an
ever widening circle of fame.

During this period Stevenson was a frequent contributor to the London
literary journals, and he had also rewritten an early production in the
form of a play; this in collaboration with Mr. W. E. Henley, and had also
contributed his notes on "Picturesque Edinburgh" to Hamerton's
_Portfolio_.

In 1879 Stevenson set sail for the new world taking ship as a mere
emigrant, crossing the ocean as a steerage passenger and afterwards by
emigrant train, across the American continent to the Golden Gate; a rude
but romantic method of travel for one who had been nurtured in comfort and
a chronic sufferer from ill health; a long journey though destined to be
but the beginnings of a