The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-03-31
THE AUTHOR OF "DR. JEKYLL."

THE AUTHOR OF "DR. JEKYLL."
A correspondent of the Book Buyer
having visited Robert Louis Stevenson
in his Adirondack home, writes as fol-
lows about him:
Fortunately for the fancy of his read
ers, he bears the test of personal contact
with something more than success; he IN
terprets his work and gives new ground
for impressions already formed. Slender
in person, nervous in movement, his face
is singularly sensitive to emotion and
thought. His manner is gracious and
free; without either self consciousness or
the affectation of indifference to the in
terest which brings people to him.
Standing before the open fire in the
quaint, low room of the old house IN
which he is passing the winter, he de-
lights his visitor by the freshness and
charm Of his manner and talk. He
speaks not with his lips only, often the
usual Anglo. Saxon manner, but with his
whole person. His large, luminous eyes
suggest the depths of experience and
thought out of which his psychological
romances and studies have issued, and
his constant changes of attitude, as he
loses himself in the conversation, dis
close the dominance of the mind over the
physique. His thought is made more
eloquent by this unconscious sympathy
OF the whole person.
Mr.. Stevenson's talk is very like his
writing; it is fresh, rscy, redolent of the
soil out of which he has grown. His
phrases have not been worn smooth by
use; they are full Of sharp outlines; to
recall his own characteristic description
of talker of his acquaintance che must
have worn the words next to his skin and
slept with them" He sees everything
from his own point of view, and puts his
case, not dogmatically, but pictorially,
graphically, with pith and force of per-
fectly direct and sincere nature. As he
talks, one OF those quaint and racy es-
says in Memories and Portraits" seems
to be precipitating itself; observation
comment, criticism, keen perception of
character and fact long held in the solu-
ton of thought, swiftly crystalline into
memorable phrase. Mr.. Stevenson does
not indulge in monologue; he can supply
his own cues, but he is quite ready to
take them from others, and he touches
subject after subject lightly, effective
ly, with a brilliant distinctiveness, both
of perception and impression. So active
is his mind, so alert his imagination, that
he needs but hint, and your tentative
inquiry draws forth a series of observa-
tons full of pith and graphic force.
There is nothing commonplace in Mr..
Stevenson; he uses none OF the well-worn
conventionalisms, fences himself with
none of the customary reserves. He gives
himself as readily in his speech as in his
books; he scorns to do less, and he could
/ OF do more.
Such man is well worth hearing
discourse at ease before his fire. With
out the snow lies deep on the hills, and
the river runs dark among it's spruces
and frs, to lose itself in the hollow OF
the mountains; few books are scattered
about, the companions of a man who evil
IDENTIFY reads into books as we'll as through
them. Above all, the man himself holds
you by his simple earnestness and the
fresh and penetrating charm Of his quail
ity; something purely individual and
temperamental. You rejoice in his appa-
rent vigor, in the nervous force of his at
titude and voice, in the clear health of
his wonderful eye, in the promise of
years of life and work that are in him.