The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1889-12-04
STEVENSON AND JEFEERIEs.

There are two men-one is still liv-
ing, the other died but yesterday-who
not only madc-believe when they, were
children, but in their grown-up years
have been able to tell us all about the
fairyland in which they once lived; who
not only have invented adventures and
shipwrecks, and savages and heroes,
and hunters, and all the other things,
but have taken us into their confidence,
and shown US the make-believe from
the very beginning. These two men
are Robert Louis Stevenson and
Richard Jefferies; and there are no
writers of books who should be more
dear to children still making-believe,
and to men and women still capable of
thrill of pleasure in recalling the
make-believes of the past.
Mr.. Stevenson, of course, has written
stories as real and as true as "Robin-
son Crusoe." There is no make-believe
about John Silver and David Balfour
and Alan Breck; we know they lived
as certainly as we know Robin Hood
went shooting through Sherwood
Forest, or Ulysses went wandering
from shore to shore. But there is a
little volume called the 'Child's, Gar
den of Verses" which is nothing more
than a record of the make-belieyes of
the little Robert Louis Stevenson, when
he and his cousins Willie and Henrietta,
in the old manse and the garden by the
mill-stream, were
king and queen,
Were hunter. soldier tar,
And all the thousand things that children are !:
a record of the days when I'm the bas-
ket on the lea" he was pirate a-steer-
ing of his boat to Providence, or
Babylon, or off to Malabar; or at even
ing, when the lamp was lighted, a hun
ter with. his gun, crawling
"Round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back"
Grown-up people have to travel long
and far in search of adventure. and
strange lands; but, in childhood, giants
and enchanters and witches, and, better
still, great heroes long since dead, wait
for us at our front doors; in the tiniest
garden we can see more marvels than
are to be met with in journey round
the world; in one morning we can do
more great deeds than Napoleon in
his lifetime. In his other books
Stevenson is constantly showing. in
one way or another his love of adven-
ture and daring; but his Garden of
Verses" is filled with that romance
which comes to US all when we are
children, but which goes forever, once
we take our seats by the fire with our
elders and refuse ''to play at any
thing"
l am afraid Richard Jefferies Is less
we'll known than Stevenson. He was
not what the world calls a successful
man, though he wrote books which will
be read until the English language is
forgotten. His life was a long strug-
gle to make both ends meet. and his
last years were still further darkened
by i'll health and cruel pain. But he
forgot his troubles when he was at
work. As a boy, he had lived in a
country which, for cultivated England,
is wild enoungh. His home was beau.
tiful old farmhouse, and close by were
wide, rolling downs-really tups" OF
hills - marked here and there with
great Druidical stones, and remains of
British earth-works. Above all things
he loved this wild and lovely country,
and, next to it, he loved his books
the story of Ulysses, ballads, the ad-
ventures of travellers in strange and
savage lands. Like the little Steven
son he was always playing at the books
he read. One who knew him as a boy
tells how the two favorite pastimes of
his happy young years were, ''those of
living on desert island, and of wag-
ing war with the Indians"
As a man he remembered with keen
pleasure these delightful make-believes
and put them all into book that other
little boys might enjoy them with him,
Like Stevenson he wrote some stories
in which there was even more make-be-
lieve, because he tried to pretend there
was MT any make-believe at all
EiizcbGth RobiRs Penaael, IN st. NiGhQkas.