Sometimes Dr. Trudeau, also an exile of the mountains, would drop in professionally on these stormy evenings and would stay until about midnight, having entirely forgotten the nature of his visit. Stevenson had this faculty of making friends of those who served him. To the restaurant keeper of Monterey, Jules Simoneau, who trusted him when he was penniless and unknown, he presented a set of his books, leather-bound, each volume autographed, and this worthy man has since refused a thousand dollars for the set. "Well," he explained, "I do not need the money, and I value the gift for itself." I think this friend of Stevenson's must feel like Father Tabb in the library of his friend when he said:
"To see, when he is dead,
The many books he read,
And then again, to note
The many books he wrote;
How some got in, and some got out.
'Tis very strange to think about."
But to return to our story.
Stevenson's Isle-of-the-blest was calling to him, and hope lay that way, where life was elementary and where a man with but one lung to his account might live indefinitely. Not that he feared to die. Oh, no! It takes more courage sometimes to live, but it was hard to give up at forty, when one just begins to enter into the knowledge of one's own powers. A blind lady once said to me, in speaking of a mutual friend, "When Mr. B. comes, I feel as if there was a sprite in the room," and this is the way I felt about Stevenson, for during those moments of serious discussion when most people are tense, he moved actively about, and his philosophies were humanized by his warm, brown eyes and merry exclamations.
Another reason for the sprite feeling, was that he was consciously living in the past that day, and each face was like reseeing a milestone long passed, on some half-forgotten journey.