The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-03-11
Robert Louis Stevenson in his
Mountain Home.
HIS MANNER AND APPEARANCE
by Recent Visitor to His Home
Some Gems in the Collection.
NEW YORK, March l, 1888.
Special Correspondence of THE HERALD.

~ lALcIcStluS W Guo pUUllC as IlUDSIb
Louis Stevenson, and anything written
either by or of him seems to have q
strange fascination for the reading pub
lie. This is unquestionably due for the
larger part that in Stevenson the PEG
pie have an original and thoroughly
characteristic writer who is only like
unto himself, and no one else. ''Give
that man an old broomstick, and he'll
write one of the most beautiful essays
in our language about it," says ia
nous literary man a few days since,
and certainly nothing more true has
been said of any modern writer. For
tunately, for the fancy OF his readers
Robert Louis Stevenson bears the test
Of personal contact with as much sue
cess as with his writings; he interprets
his work, and gives new ground for i'm
pressions already formed. No better
description of the famous romancer has
been given than that of friend who
visited the author of CDR. Jekyll and
Mr.. Hyde" at his Saranac Mountain
home, and who. in the next issue of the
Book Buyer of the Scribners, will print
an interesting article concerning him.
His friend describes the novelist as
slender in person, nervous in move
ment, with face singularly sensitive
to emotion and thought. His manner
is gracious and free, without either self
CONSCIOUSNESS or the affectation of in
difference to the interest which brings
people to him. Standing before the
lopen fire, in the quaint, low room of
the old house in which he is passing the
winter, he delights his visitors 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 issusd, and his constant change:
of attitudes, as he loses himself in the
conversation, disclose the dominance o.
the mind over the physique.
His thought is made m re eloQuen
by this unconscious sympathy of thu
whole person. Mr.. Stevensen's talk il
very much like his writing; it is fresh
racy, redolent of the soil out of which
he has grown. His phrases have no
been worn smooth by use, they are full
iof sharp outlines; to recall his owl
characteristic description of talker o
his own acquaintance, 'he must hav
worn the words next to his skin ant
slept with them" He sees everything
from his own point of view, and put
his case. dogmatically, but pictorially
graphically, with pitn and force of
perfectly direct and sincere nature. A
= he talks, one OF those quaint and rae
essays in Memories and Portraits
seem to be precipitatIng itself; obse.
walton, comment, criticism, keen per
ceptlon of character and fact long hei
in the solution of thought, swift
crystalline into memorable phrase. Nj
Stevenson does not indulge in mono
r logue; he can supply his own cues. bu
he is quite ready to take them fror
others, and he touches subject afte
subject lightly, effectively, with brill
liant distinctness, both of percep,io
and impression. So active is his minC
30 alert his imagination, that he neeC
but hint and your tentative inquir
draws forth a series of observations fu
of pith and graphic force.
THERE IS NOTHING COMMONPLACE
= in Mr.. Stevenson; he uses none of til
J well-worn conventions, fences himse
with none of the customary reserve
He gives himself as readily in his speec
as in his books; he scorns to do less, an
he could not do more. Such man
well worth hearing discourse at ease b.
fore his fire. Without the snow liz
deep on the hills, and the river rur
dark among its spruces and frs. to los
itself in the hollow of the mountains
few books are scattered about, tn
companion of a man who evidentl
- reads into books as well as throug
them. Above all, the man himse
holds you by his simple earnestnei
and the fresh and penetrating charm {
his quality-a something purely ind
vidual and temperamental. You re
loice in his apparent vigor, in the nerv
Gus force of his attitude and voice, i
the clear health of his wonderful eye, i
the promise of years Of life and wor
that are IN him.
HAMILTON GIBsoN's PICTURES.
A forthcoming exhibition and sale
which there will be conferred consider
able literary interest is shortly to t
held at the American Art Associatio
Galleries, in New York City, when M
3 Hamilton Gibson will present for publ
inspection and subsequent purchase,
large number of the originals of th
illustrations which have charmed mag
azine readers and lovers of books {
nature. The works to he exhibited wi
represent the accrued labors of the frs
ten years of Mr.. Gibson's professions
life. A visit to the studio of Mr.. Glib
. son o-day presents striking contra:
- to the hospitable pict res to which hi
friends are accust med. Rugs sweL
into piles in corners walls denuded {
the familiar drawings. sketches an
tpaintings, which now abound in tiers
often two feet deep, following the vain
Y scoting of these rooms. are now under
q going the process of cataloguing.