The Novels and Tales of Robert Louis Stevenson (Volume 15) (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1895. Excerpt: ... VI. RANDOM MEMORIES H. THE EDUCATION OF AN ENGINEER Anstruther is a place sacred to the Muse; she inspired (really to a considerable extent) Tennant's vernacular poem Anst'er Fair; and I have there waited upon her myself with much devotion. This was when I came as a young man to glean engineering experience from the building of the breakwater. What I gleaned, I am sure I do not know; but indeed I had already my own private determination to be an author; I loved the art of words and the appearances of life; and travellers, and headers, and ruhhle, and polished ashlar, and pierres perdues, and even the thrilling question of the stringcourse, interested me only (if they interested me at all) as properties for some possible romance or as words to add to my vocabulary. To grow a little catholic is the compensation of years; youth is one-eyed; and in those days, though I haunted the breakwater by day, and even loved the place for the sake of the sunshine, the thrilling seaside air, the wash of waves on the sea-face, the green glimmer of the divers' helmets far below, and the musical chinking of the masons, my one genuine preoccupation lay elsewhere, and my only industry was in the hours when I was not on duty. I lodged with a certain Bailie Brown, a carpenter by trade; and there, as soon as dinner was despatched, in a chamber scented with dry rose-leaves, drew in my chair to the table and proceeded to pour forth literature, at such a speed, and with such intimations of early death and immortality, as 1 now look back upon with wonder. Then it was that 1 wrote Voces Fidelium, a series of dramatic monologues in verse; then that I indited the bulk of a covenanting novel -- like so many others, never finished. Late I sat into the night, toiling (as I thought) under the very dart of death, toil...