The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

Back Forward Menu

within the first five minutes for a master spirit and man of genius."

Louis's long absences from home often troubled his mother and caused her
to complain when writing. In one answer to her about this time he said:

"You must not be vexed at my absences, you must understand I shall be a
nomad, more or less, until my days be done. You don't know how much I
used to long for it in the old days; how I used to go and look at the
trains leaving, and wish to go with them. And now, you know, that I have
a little more that is solid under my feet, you must take my nomadic
habit as a part of me. Just wait till I am in swing and you will see
that I shall pass more of my life with you than elsewhere; only take me
as I am and give me time. I _must_ be a bit of a vagabond."

For all so little of his writing was ever done in his own country,
nevertheless he turned to Scotland again and again for the setting of
his stories and the subject of his essays. Although he often spoke