ed the genius of Mr Stevenson.
Among old Edinburgh friends of long standing were his many Balfour and
Stevenson cousins and his old comrades of early days, and among the
latter Mr Charles Baxter and the late Sir Walter G. Simpson held a
principal place in his regard. Mr Sydney Colvin he had first met in
1873, Mr Henley he first knew in Edinburgh about the end of 1874, and Mr
Edmund Gosse was another much valued friend of long standing. Mr Colvin
was to the last one of the friends highest in his regard, and to him
were written _The Vailima Letters_.

His wonderful attire, at the Savile Club and elsewhere in orthodox
London, at first astonished and somewhat repelled literary men
accustomed to a more conventional garb than the velvet coats, the long
loose hair, and the marvellous ties Mr Stevenson delighted in; but very
soon they found out the charm of the personality that lay behind a
certain eccentricity of appearance, and Mr Leslie Stephen, Mr James
Payn, Dr Appleton, Professor Clifford, Mr Cosmo Monkhouse, and Mr George
Meredith, whom he met in 1878 and whose work he so much admired, were
numbered among his life-long friends. Mr Henley's description of him in
these days is better than any picture:

'Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably,
Neat-footed, weak-fingered, in his face,--
Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race,
Bold-lipped, rich tinted, mutable as the sea,
The brown eyes radiant with vivacity,--
There shines a brilliant and romantic grace,
A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace
Of passion, impudence, and energy.'

Another friend of those days, Mr Andrew Lang, also lets his friendship
run into rhyme, and sends across the seas to the author of _The Master
of Ballantrae_ a quaint greeting in the best of Southland Doric:

'Whan Suthern winds gar spindrift flee
Abune the clachan, faddumes hie,
Whan for the cluds I canna see
The bonny lift,
I'd fain indite an odd to thee
Had I the gift!...

... 'O Louis, you that writes in Scots,
Ye're far awa' frae stirks and stots,
Wi' drookit herdies, tails in knots,
An unco way!
My mirth's like thorns aneth the pots
In Ballantrae!'

To this Mr Stevenson promptly replied in equally fine Doric, and with a
playful allusion to the early 'grizzelled' hair which gives to Mr Andrew
Lang an appearance venerable