t difficult ascent
to place him with reverent hands in that grave which was so fitting a
resting-place for the man who had loved, above all things, the freedom
of the open air, the glory of the sea and the sky, the sighing of God's
winds among the trees, and the silent companionship of the stars.

* * * * *

Life for those who remained in the Samoan home became an impossible
thing without him, and so Mrs Stevenson, with her son and daughter,
by-and-bye left Vailima, and the home of so much happiness is now
falling into ruin, the cleared ground lapsing back to the bush. And
perhaps it is best so; without him Vailima is like a body without a
soul; and he who so dearly loved nature would hardly have regretted that
the place he loved should return to the mother heart of the earth and
become once more a solitude--a green place of birds and trees.

CHAPTER XIII

HIS LIFE-WORK

'Art's life, and when we live we suffer and toil.'
--MRS BARRETT BROWNING.

'A healthful hunger for the great idea,
The beauty and the blessedness of life.'
--JEAN INGELOW.

It is perhaps impossible for those who knew Mr Stevenson and came under
the influence of the rare attraction of his charming personality, to
assign to him and to his work a suitable place in the world of letters.
Probably it is still too early for anyone to say what rank will in the
future be held by the man who in his life-time assuredly stood among the
masters of his craft. Fame, while he lived, was his, and, better than
fame, such love as is seldom given by the public to the writer whose
books delight it.

Deservedly popular as the books are, the man was still more popular; and
the personality that to his friends was so unique and so delightful,
made friends of his readers also. He was so frank, so human, in his
relations with his public.

His dedications not only gave pleasure to the members of his family, or
to the many friends to whom he wrote them, they, as it were, took his
readers into his confidence also, and let them share in the warmth of
his heart. His prefaces are delightfully autobiographical, and are
valuable in proportion to the glimpses they give of one of the most
amiable and most widely sympathetic natures imaginable.

His methods of work were singularly conscientious; even in the days
when, as a truant lad, he carried in his p