The age-herald., 1901-11-17
SNe cf Robert
 NoWAs Stevenson

The life of Robert Louis Stevenson, by Graham BaIfour, his kinsman, has just appeared from the press of Charles scribner's Sons, and Is the book of the week. Stevenson's letters have fortunate ly revealed the man so thoroughly to his friends and readers that a biographer has no need to try to tell us what man. ner of man he was. It Is the story of a life such as few men in our days of stren- uosity and material ideals try to live. Stevenson had to battle with physical conditions as few men have to do who plan for themselves such an ambitious career. For, his ambition and self-con- hdence nerved him for a continual strug- gle for perfection in his art and for re- cognition from the world at large.
 To George Meredith he wrote in 1893:
 For fourteen years I have not had days real health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have done my work unfiinchingly. I have written in bed and written out of it. written in hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by coughing, written when my head swan Tor weakness 1 am better now have been, rightly speaking, since first l came to the Pacific. and still few are the days when I am not in some physi- cal distress. And the battle goes on-ill or well Is a trifie; so as 1t goes. l was made for a contest, and the powers have so willed that my battlefield should be this dingy, inglorious one of the bed and-physic battle"
 Stevenson's heroic life is a lesson of inestimable worth to all of us, and it is safe to say that there are few men in literature who will be loved as time goes on with the deep affection that will be given to Stevenson.
 Many young writers are inclined to ascribe too much to Stevenson's inborn genius and too little to his infinite capac- ity for taking pains" Of his apprentice ship he said, T imagine nobody had ever such pains to learn a trade as I had, but slogged at it day in and day out, and I frankly believe (thanks to my dire industry I have done more with smaller gifts than almost any man of letters in the world" Stevenson, unlike other men of letters trusted his all to the frail bark of pure literature. Generally an editorial place or professorship is first gained to secure the necessary expenses of life. Stevenson died at the early age of 45, and yet some one has spoken of him tenderly as the man who was forty years in dying and never once gave way to despair and melancholy" SThe public is under many obligations to MT. Balfour for his admirable biography, and lovers of Stevenson will read the book many, many times.
 Apropos of this biography it is said that the English literary world is greatly amazed that their publishers have issued a first edition as large as 5000 copies. This seems an extraordinary circum- stance" says our London correspondent, 'as the biography is a two-volume work and by no means inexpensive" But the American publishers of the Life of Stevenson" made their first edition 11,000 copies and no one seems surprised at all
 Italian Journeys" by w. D. Howells, has recently been brought out in a new holiday edition." It is one of the au- thor's most delightful volumes in which he describes with characteristic felicity and charm Venice, Ferrara. Genoa. Ma ples, Rome, Pisa, Trieste, Como and oth- CT Italian cities.
 Mir. Joseph Pennell has visited the cities described by MT. Howells. and has made forty-eight full-page designs, and about twenty text illustrations, which in sub ject, variety and artistic treatment ad- mirably illustrate the work.
 Mater Coronata," the poem recited at the bicentennial celebration of Yale Uni