STEVENSON'S TWO MOTHERS
held him captive in the house, to see, for as Ruskin says, "Thousands can think for one who can see; to see clearly is poetry, prophecy, religion, all in one:"
he wrote in after life, which was a sentiment he learned when he was a light-hearted ruler of the nursery realm, cheerful if autocratic.
These two fervent smiths who forged this bright sword[1] of literature had good metal wherewith to fashion their blade and they knew it, for they proudly dreamed of a brilliant future for their little Loo even when he dictated havers to Cummy. He put up a door-plate on 17, Heriot Row, with "R. L. Stevenson, Advocate," thereon, and they knew his deed box in the Parliament House was guiltless of briefs, and everyone thought he was a born idler, or as he himself said, "base," not to follow the profession of his fathers. They believed he would yet shine. Instead of dry legal pages he was these years preparing to bring into life David Balfour, to resurrect Lord Braxfield as Weir of Hermiston, and brighten our shelves with "Memories and Portraits." His first essays in print, "The Charity Bazaar," "The Pentland Rising," and a few papers in the Edinburgh University Magazine (now all so valued by the bibliomaniac) were often read and praised by his first amanuenses and critics. His mother with keen maternal insight early guessed wherein his genius lay, guessed what would be his ablest weapon, and fostered his inclination to hold by the pen as he held by the truant Arethusa's paddle. In his Table Talk Shirley bears this out. "It was from this cottage (Swanston) that possibly the most charming of our younger Scottish writers went out into the world to try his luck. Hardly anyone except his mother guessed as yet what was in store. But she was prescient as mothers are."
"Be good yourself—make others happy," Mrs. Stevenson wrote as a motto on a quilt after her signature. "That," she added, as she finished the "happy," "is the Gospel
- ↑ "So like a sword the son shall roam
On nobler missions sent;
And as the smith remained at home
In peaceful turret pent,
So sits the while the mother well content."
—"Underwoods," by R.L.S.
