. Stevensoniana; an anecdotal life and appreciation of Robert Louis Stevenson. Edited from the writings of Barrie [and others]. this day in Europe you may go through parts of the countrywhere all is marsh and bush, and perhaps after strugglingthrough a thicket you shall come forth upon an ancient road,solid and useful as the day it was made. You shall see menand women bearing their burdens along that even way, and youmay tell yourself that it was built for them perhaps fifteen hundredyears before—perhaps before the coming of Christ—by theRomans. And the people still remember
. Stevensoniana; an anecdotal life and appreciation of Robert Louis Stevenson. Edited from the writings of Barrie [and others]. this day in Europe you may go through parts of the countrywhere all is marsh and bush, and perhaps after strugglingthrough a thicket you shall come forth upon an ancient road,solid and useful as the day it was made. You shall see menand women bearing their burdens along that even way, and youmay tell yourself that it was built for them perhaps fifteen hundredyears before—perhaps before the coming of Christ—by theRomans. And the people still remember and bless them for thatconvenience, and say to one another, that as the Romans werethe bravest to fight, so they were the best at building roads. Chiefs, our road is not built to last a thousand years, yet in asense it is. When a road is once built it is a strange thing howit collects traffic; how every year, as it goes on, more and morepeople are found to walk thereon, and others are raised up torepair and perpetuate it and keep it alive; so that perhaps eventhis road of ours may, from reparation to reparation, continue. — w - -9. oo o ISLAND DAYS 127 to exist and be useful hundreds and hundreds of years after weare mingled in the dust. And it is my hope that our far-awaydescendants may remember and bless those who laboured forthem to-day. In a letter to Mr. Sidney Colvin, published in theZzw^j, January 7, 1895, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne states thaton the da) he died Stevenson had said he felt so strong and well that if the worst came to the worst c r^ • i • • r Stevensons in Samoa, with uermany intriguing for pos- ^ ^u session of the islands, he would go to America and try to raise public opinion by a course of lectures. Mr. Osbournes letter is dated December 3, 1894, and reads: When we returned from summoning the doctor it was dark, thelights were lit in the great room, and Louis was lying on a chair,breathing very labouredly. He was unconscious from the begin-ning
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