Although he looked so unhappy at dances or 'at homes,' at dinners, if the guests were fitly chosen, he was thoroughly at his ease and exceedingly amusing. With his few intimate friends too he was seen at his best; but in general society he was usually as bored as he looked.
The Edinburgh of that day was very pleasant socially. Its world seemed somewhat smaller than it is now, less ostentatiously rich, more seriously cultured; or so at least it appeared to the young folk who belonged to the old-fashioned law and professional set in which the Stevensons largely had their acquaintance. People in that set still lived, more than they do to-day, eastwards or northwards of Heriot Row, in the large old houses which were so homelike and so comfortable. The centre of things was in those grand grey houses from Heriot Row upwards to Charlotte Square, westwards to Randolph Cliff and a little way over the Dean Bridge. Drumsheugh Gardens was an innovation. The terraces, Royal, Regent, and Carlton, that 'west end of the east,' were still fashionable, and few people had, as yet, migrated southwards to
'That proud part of Morningside,
Where houses girt with gardens
Do stretch down far and wide.'
It was not a very large world, but it was a very agreeable one, and one which had its notabilities. Lord Neaves with his delightful songs, and the other old-time judges were still with us. Sir David Brewster was not so very long dead; Sir James Y. Simpson was yet a very recent memory. Professor Blackie was in the zenith of his fame. Sir Daniel Macnee told his wonderful stories; Professor, now Sir, Douglas Maclagan sang his delightful songs. Mr Sam Bough's hearty laugh rang out among the artists, and Sir R. Christison, and Syme, and Keith, and Lister, had made the Edinburgh medical world famous. Professors Masson, Tait, Kelland, Crum-Brown, Fleeming-Jenkin—in whose theatricals R. L. Stevenson took a picturesque part—and a host of other well-known names were among the guests at dinners, and most beloved personality of all, perhaps, Dr John Brown, accompanied by his 'doggies' still nodded to us out of his carriage window, or left wonderful scraps of drawings on the hall tables as he passed out from seeing a patient. And everywhere in that pleasant world the Stevenson family were welcome and well known.
By the host of young people who are now in turn taking the busy work of life, from which so many of the elders are resting for ever, parties at 17 Heriot Row and at Swanston were much appreciated. Dinner parties for young people were not then so common as now, and the delightful ones given by Mr and Mrs Thomas Stevenson were greatly enjoyed. The guests were carefully chosen, and limited to ten or twelve, so that conversation at dinner was general. And how amusing that conversation was! The humour of father and son as they drew each other out was wonderful, they capped each other's good things, and somehow made less gifted folk shine in the conversation also in a way peculiar to them and which was fully shared by Mrs Thomas Stevenson, who made the most charming of hostesses. Father and son on these occasions were simply full of jests and jollity, everything started an argument, and every argument lent itself to fun. It is odd that nothing definite of those clever sayings of theirs seems to return to one; it is only, as it were, the memory of an aroma that filled the air sweetly at the time, and is still faintly present with one that remains; the actual 'bon-mots' have unhappily passed away. It is consoling to find that Mr Edmund Gosse, who in Kit-Cats writes delightfully of his friend Louis Stevenson, notes the same intangible character of his talk.
After the little dinners there were delightful informal dances, to which nephews, nieces, friends, and neighbours came as well as the dinner guests, and one can still remember with a smile, perilously near to tears, Mr Thomas Stevenson driving his unwilling son to dance the old-time dance 'Sir Roger de Coverley,' which the elder man loved and the younger professed to scorn even while he entered with a zeal that finally satisfied his father into the performance of it, that always ended an informal evening at 17 Heriot Row.
Music, too, was a pleasant feature of those little parties, and one still recalls, especially, the songs and the lovely voice of a favourite niece of Mrs Stevenson, whose early death made the first break in the home at 'The Turret,' too soon to be followed by the passing away of all save one of that happy household. Even now, after the lapse of so many years, one seems to see Mr Thomas Stevenson leaning eagerly forward as she sang such sweet old songs as 'My Mother bids me bind my Hair,' and 'She wore a wreath of Roses,' or Robert Louis applauding his favourites, 'I shot an Arrow into the Air,' and 'The Sea hath its Pearls.'