ltered; then I look back on my cleared grass, and count
myself an ally in a fair quarrel, and make stout my heart."

Here, again, is the way in which he celebrates an act of friendly
kindness on the part of Mr Gosse:

"MY DEAR GOSSE,--Your letter was to me such a bright spot that I
answer it right away to the prejudice of other correspondents or--dants
(don't know how to spell it) who have prior claims. . . . It is the
history of our kindnesses that alone makes this world tolerable. If
it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind
letters, multiplying, spreading, making one happy through another and
bringing forth benefits, some thirty, some fifty, some a thousandfold,
I should be tempted to think our life a practical jest in the worst
possible spirit. So your four pages have confirmed my philosophy as
well as consoled my heart in these ill hours."

CHAPTER VIII--WORK OF LATER YEARS

Mr Hammerton, in his _Stevensoniana_ (pp. 323-4), has given the humorous
inscriptions on the volumes of his works which Stevenson presented to Dr
Trudeau, who attended him when he was in Saranac in 1887-88--very
characteristic in every way, and showing fully Stevenson's fine
appreciation of any attention or service. On the _Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde_
volume he wrote:

"Trudeau was all the winter at my side:
I never saw the nose of Mr Hyde."

And on _Kidnapped_ is this:

"Here is the one sound page of all my writing,
The one I'm proud of and that I delight in."

Stevenson was exquisite in this class of efforts, and were they all
collected they would form indeed, a fine supplement and illustration of
the leading lesson of his essays--the true art of pleasing others, and of
truly pleasing one's self at the same time. To my thinking the finest of
all in this line is the legal (?) deed by which he conveyed his birthday
to little Miss Annie Ide, the daughter of Mr H. C. Ide, a well-known
American, who was for several years a resident of Upolo, in Samoa, first
as Land Commissioner, and later as Chief Justice under the joint
appointment of England, Germany, and the United States. While living at
Apia, Mr Ide and his family were very intimate with the family of R. L.
Stevenson. Little Annie was a special pet and protege of Stevenson and
his wife. After the return of the Ides to their American home, Stevenson
"deeded" to Annie his birthday in the following unique