beyond his years.

Mr Crockett, in the delightful dedication to _The Stickit Minister_,
celebrates his friendship with Mr Stevenson; and among the younger
school of writers, for whose work he had so generous an appreciation, he
had many friends as well as admirers. Mr Barrie, Mr Rudyard Kipling, Mr
Le Galliene, and a host of others loved him as a friend, as well as
looked up to him as a literary leader. To many of them he wrote charming
letters, although in several cases no actual meeting had ever taken
place. It was a keen disappointment to both men that circumstances
prevented Mr Rudyard Kipling from paying a visit to Samoa.

In his island home he was not forgetful of his 'own romantic town,' nor
of the interests of one, at least, of its publishing firms, whose
travellers and agents he introduced to new fields of usefulness in India
and the South Seas. One of his own favourite books was _Coral Island_,
by Mr R. M. Ballantyne, published by the Messrs Nelson.

But Stevenson, whose charm of personality was even greater than his
fame, had other friends, whose friendship is not measured by the
intellect but by the heart. Little children and young folk everywhere
loved the man whose _Child's Garden of Verses_ shows such a marvellous
insight into the hearts of children.

The ass Modestine, the Samoan horse Jack, well knew that the indignant
flow of language meant nothing, and that their master's heart was
altogether in the right place, although, when they were too provoking,
his words might be very unparliamentary.

For dogs he had as great an attraction as they had for him, and the
master of Coolin the wise, and Woggs, or Bogue, the gallant, discourses
as few men could do about canine thoughts and feelings in his essay _The
Character of Dogs_.

No fear of his being among the foolish people who remark that 'they like
dogs in their proper place,' and, as he stingingly adds, say, '"Poo'
fellow! Poo' fellow!" and are themselves far poorer!' He knew, because
he had taken the trouble to study him, that 'to the dog of gentlemanly
feelings, theft and falsehood are disgraceful vices.'

CHAPTER IX

HIS ESSAYS AND POEMS

'Golden thoughts that ever will resound,
And be re-echoed to the utmost parts of land and sea.'
--R. S. MUTCH.

Mr Stevenson inherited both from the Stevenson and Balfour families some
measure of literary talent. His father and his grandfath