Photo by Kurtz, N. Y.
To the woman who loves becoming toilets and the vivacity and movement of life in literary and social centres, and who, moreover, possesses the useful hands and right instincts both in artistic and domestic relationships, the long sojourns in desolate places, the doing with makeshifts and the like that these entail, are a real deprivation, and a persistent irritation that calls for the counteraction of an exceptional degree of poise and self-mastery.
Nothing, in short, emphasizes this sense of her isolation, to my mind, so strongly as Stevenson himself in describing her quarters on board the schooner Equator, as a "beetle-haunted most unwomanly bower," and this simultaneously with the reminder that it will be long before her eyes behold again the familiar scenes of rural beauty dear to her memory.
The pen sketch of Stevenson forming the frontispiece was drawn by Mr. Eaton in a few minutes from memory. I regret to say that it is reproduced from a reproduction, the original (owned by Mr. S. S. McClure) could not be found, when wanted, Mr. McClure being in France at the time, but we were glad to obtain one of these copies, now becoming rare.
I have never seen a portrait of Stevenson that equalled his appearance that day. The bas-relief by Saint Gaudens approximates it somewhat in ethereal thinness, but the verve, the glow, the vital spark, are lacking even in that.
It has always been a satisfaction to me that our meeting was on an occasion when his illness was least apparent. My memory of his face has nothing of that pain-worn expression so often seen in photographs.
The afternoon of the day we received his message, I caught a glimpse of him at a distance from my window. He was coming up from the Inlet, where, no doubt, he had gone to take a plunge. There was a briskness about his movements that seemed like the unconscious enjoyment of sound health, and in appearance he certainly was as romantic a figure as any of his own characters. Whenever I read "In the Highlands," I see him as he appeared at that moment, treading through a maze of bright sabatia and sweet clover, the mental picture, as it were, becoming a part of that beautiful and touching poem:
In the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens quiet eyes;