"O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne
Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years."
Richmond is on the river Thames, close to the city of London.]
[Note 9: Lord Macaulay may escape from school honours. Stevenson here alludes to the oft-heard statement that the men who succeed in after life have generally been near the foot of their classes at school and college. It is impossible to prove either the falsity or truth of so general a remark, but it is easier to point out men who have been successful both at school and in life, than to find sufficient evidence that school and college prizes prevent further triumphs. Macaulay, who is noted by Stevenson as an exception, was precocious enough to arouse the fears rather than the hopes of his friends. When he was four years old, he hurt his finger, and a lady inquiring politely as to whether the injured member was better, the infant replied gravely, "Thank you, Madam, the agony is abated.">[
[Note 10: The Lady of Shalott. See Tennyson's beautiful poem (1833).
"And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.">[
[Note 11: Some lack-lustre periods between sleep and waking. Cf. King Lear, Act I, Sc. 2, vs. 15. "Got 'tween asleep and wake.">[
[Note 12: _Kinetic Stability … Emphyteusis … Stillicide For Kinetic Stability, see any modern textbook on Physics. Emphyteusis is the legal renting of ground; Stillicide, a continual dropping of water, as from the eaves of a house. These words, Emphyteusis and Stillicide, are terms in Roman Law. Stevenson is of course making fun of the required studies of Physics and Roman Law, and of their lack of practical value to him in his chosen career.]
[Note 13: The favourite school of Dickens and of Balzac. The great English novelist Dickens (1812-1870) and his greater French contemporary Balzac (1799-1850), show in their works that their chief school was Life.]
[Note 14: Mr. Worldly Wiseman. The character in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678), who meets Christian soon after his setting out from the City of Destruction. Pilgrim's Progress was a favorite book of Stevenson's; he alludes to it frequently in his essays. See also his own article Bagster's Pilgrim's Progress, first published in the Magazine of Art in February 1882. This essay is well worth reading, and the copies of the pictures which he includes are extremely diverting.]
[Note 15: Sainte-Beuve. The French writer Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) is usually regarded today as the greatest literary critic who ever lived. His constant change of convictions enabled him to see life from all sides.]