The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-11-26

writers-to-wit Prince Otto, The
cav of Thoreau was in hand. too. and
the Amateur Immigrant had been
sent in manuscript to his friend and
counselor. Colvin only to be returned
riddled with merciless criticisms
Some OF the best work which was to
come from his pen was either actually
under way or shaping itself in his mind.
and the stress of composition was sup
ported nv = diet which would have
been the death of any man not sus-
tained by an inexhaustible nervous
force.
His room was in the workman's
lodging house at COS Bush street, Sl-5e a
week; he worked by candle light and
sometimes ate az Joe's coffee house. a
restaurant KEEP by an italian and now
patronized-at feast once-by Stevenson
sentimentalists who visit San B'rancis-
co. His breakfas. was a roll. a cup OF
coffee and a pat OF butter. which cost
him 10 cents Dinner, when he was
prosperous: cost so cents, and was a
table q hote- Supper was q repetition
OF breakfast. the cup Of coffee being
sometimes replaced by bowl of soup.
Friends in England and Scotland
wrote him sagacious letters Of advice at
this period, and more than once his
tired. sick soul rebelled. He wrote to
an English correspondent: mot one
soul ever giSes me any news. Every
body writes me sermons. which is hard
ly good for a man who lives all alone
on 45 cents a day and sometimes less"
As poverty pinched tighter he expert
mented with his viands. A doughnut
was tried in place Of the rolls. and
when the 50-eent table d'hote was be-
yond his means. a bowl OF soup was
made to serve the purposes Of the mid
day dinner.
He was a weird sight in those days"
obs ar,ar- 90
who saw Stevenson about the Chronicle
office. His face was CHASTITY in its PAL
lor his clothes seemed to have been
flung upon him. and his trousers and
his shoe tops disagreed by at least two
inches. 1 have seen men jump at the
sound of his cough and rub their eyes
at first sight Of him. His manner
towards his equals betrayed a conscious
sense of superiority-or, perhaps. 1t
was only lack of sympathy-and he
was awkward to a degree
lit is easy to see now that contact
with a sympathetic man friend would
have meant a great deal TO him during
his miserable winter in San Francisco.
but he didn't seek friends and the
newspaper men. who. as a class. are
apt to get brutalized by their disillu-
sions. SHE'D off at the queer, silent
Scotchman who, by all signs, was a
stranded fakir."
The SUSPICIOUS looking party. WnOIIh
doubtless the brisk reporter sent out
to recover his Salvation Army story,
gazed upon with pity and contempt,
was 80 years old at this time. had seen
four Of his books published and had
what Sidney Colvin estimated as a
half established reputation Steven
son looked his situation squarely in the
face and saw all the bitterness OF II.
In happier days he wrote OF the San
Francisco period as being the time
when he was q .-penniiess and dying
author and when IL seemed strange
not to be able to afford a drink"
Yet, despite the hardships of the days
and the little he had to thank the town
for. he always wrote kind things about
II. as indeed he did of our people gen
orally. In very pleasant contrast. II
seems to me. to the guile of MIR. Kip
ling. who seemed TO think it a proper
business that he should weave his i'm
preSsions OF a San Francisco house OF
ill-fame and its inmates into a consid-
Grafton of American hfe-
San Francisco didn't help Stevenson
in his hour of bitterest trouble. but
since his death IL has raised & pretty
monument TO his memory in Ports
mouth square. where he loved to lounge
on bright days. and Joe's coffee house
is daily haunted by people who feel a
belated and yinous grief for him. The
people can tell you no end of pleasant
stories about him now-aN except the
PROPRIETOR Of the coffee house himself,
who frankly cOnfesses he hasn't the
least remembrance Of the gentleman.
ana wonders why people should be SD
keen to learn at just what table for
gotten patron used 10 eat.