In Ballantrae!'
To this Mr Stevenson promptly replied in equally fine Doric, and with a playful allusion to the early 'grizzelled' hair which gives to Mr Andrew Lang an appearance venerable beyond his years.
Mr Crockett, in the delightful dedication to The Stickit Minister, celebrates his friendship with Mr Stevenson; and among the younger school of writers, for whose work he had so generous an appreciation, he had many friends as well as admirers. Mr Barrie, Mr Rudyard Kipling, Mr Le Galliene, and a host of others loved him as a friend, as well as looked up to him as a literary leader. To many of them he wrote charming letters, although in several cases no actual meeting had ever taken place. It was a keen disappointment to both men that circumstances prevented Mr Rudyard Kipling from paying a visit to Samoa.
In his island home he was not forgetful of his 'own romantic town,' nor of the interests of one, at least, of its publishing firms, whose travellers and agents he introduced to new fields of usefulness in India and the South Seas. One of his own favourite books was Coral Island, by Mr R. M. Ballantyne, published by the Messrs Nelson.
But Stevenson, whose charm of personality was even greater than his fame, had other friends, whose friendship is not measured by the intellect but by the heart. Little children and young folk everywhere loved the man whose Child's Garden of Verses shows such a marvellous insight into the hearts of children.
The ass Modestine, the Samoan horse Jack, well knew that the indignant flow of language meant nothing, and that their master's heart was altogether in the right place, although, when they were too provoking, his words might be very unparliamentary.
For dogs he had as great an attraction as they had for him, and the master of Coolin the wise, and Woggs, or Bogue, the gallant, discourses as few men could do about canine thoughts and feelings in his essay The Character of Dogs.
No fear of his being among the foolish people who remark that 'they like dogs in their proper place,' and, as he stingingly adds, say, '"Poo' fellow! Poo' fellow!" and are themselves far poorer!' He knew, because he had taken the trouble to study him, that 'to the dog of gentlemanly feelings, theft and falsehood are disgraceful vices.'