mild kind of way, and some have been absolutely indifferent to it.

To which of the two first-mentioned classes our brave Stevenson belonged
it would be somewhat difficult to say. That he was musical at all will
probably be regarded as a revelation to most people; and indeed it is
only since the recent publication of his correspondence that even the
elect have realized the full extent of his musical tastes and
accomplishments. That he took at least a mild interest in music might have
been inferred from various allusions to the art in his tales and essays.
In "The Wrong Box," for example, we have the humorous situation where the
young barrister pretends that he is engaged on the composition of an
imaginary comic opera. It is in the same story, again, that there occurs a
veritable "locus classicus" on the art of playing the penny whistle, and
the difference between the amateur and the professional performer.
Stevenson, as we shall see, was himself devoted to the penny whistle, and
in view of that devotion it is curious to remark the observation in this
story that one seldom, if ever, encounters a person learning to play that
instrument. "The young of the penny whistler," as he puts it, "like those
of the salmon, are occult from observation." He endows David, his forbear
at Pilrig, with a musical ear, for the Laird received David Balfour "in
the midst of learned works and musical instruments, for he was not only a
deep philosopher, but much of a musician."

It is, however, needless to dwell upon these vague impersonal references
to music when so much that is directly explicit on the subject is to be
found both in the Vailima letters and in the latter correspondence. Miss
Blantyre Simpson, who knew Stevenson in his early days, says that he had
not much of a musical ear, and had only a "rudimentary acquaintance" with
"Auld Lang Syne" and "The Wearing of the Green." It is clear that he
improved as the years went on, but his family seem always to have regarded
his musical accomplishments with something like scorn. In 1874, when he
was 24, he was at Chester with his father, and the verger was taking the
visitors round the cathedral.

"We got into a little side chapel, whence we could hear the choir
children at practice, and I stopped a moment listening to them with,
I dare-say, a very bright face, for the sound was delightful to me.
'Ah,' says he (the verger), 'You're very fond of music.' I said I
was.