The Little Bookfellow Series
Stevenson at Manasquan
Other Titles in this series:
Estrays. Poems by Thomas Kennedy, GeorgeSeymour, Vincent Starrett, and Basil Thompson.
William De Morgan, a Post-Victorian Realist,by Flora Warren Seymour.
Lyrics, by Laura Blackburn.
Pen and Ink Sketch of Robert Louis Stevenson, byWyatt Eaton
Kind permission of Mr. S. S. McClure
Stevenson at Manasquan
By
Charlotte Eaton
With a Note on the Fate of the Yacht"Casco" by Francis Dickie and Six Portraitsfrom Stevenson by George Steele Seymour
CHICAGO
THE BOOKFELLOWS
1921
Three hundred copies of this book by Charlotte Eaton,Bookfellow No. 550, Francis Dickie, Bookfellow No. 716,and George Steele Seymour, Bookfellow No. 1, have beenprinted. Mrs. Eaton's memoir is an elaboration of onepreviously published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co. of NewYork under the title "A Last Memory of Robert LouisStevenson"; Mr. Dickie's notes have appeared in theNew York World, and Mr. Seymour's "Portraits" haveappeared in "Contemporary Verse" and "The Star" ofSan Francisco.
Copyright, 1921, by
Flora Warren Seymour
THE TORCH PRESS
CEDAR RAPIDS
IOWA
STEVENSON AT MANASQUAN
When I came face to face with Robert LouisStevenson it was the realization of one of mymost cherished dreams.
This was at Manasquan, a village on the NewJersey coast, where he had come to make a farewellvisit to his old friend Will Low, the artist.Mr. Low had taken a cottage there that summerwhile working on his series of Lamia drawingsfor Lippincott's, and Stevenson, hearing that wewere on the other side of the river, sent wordthat he would come to see us on the morrow.
"Stevenson is coming," was announced at thebreakfast-table as calmly as though it were adaily occurrence.
Stevenson coming to Manasquan!
I was in my 'teens, was an enthusiastic studentof poetry and mythology, and Stevenson was myhero of romance. Was it any wonder the intelligenceexcited me?
My husband, the late Wyatt Eaton, and Stevenson,were friends in their student days abroad,and it was in honor of those early days that Iwas to clasp the hand of my favorite author.
It was in the mazes of a contradance at Barbizon,in the picturesque setting of a barn lighted[Pg 6]by candles, that their first meeting took place,where Mr. Eaton, though still a student in theschools of Paris, had taken a studio to be nearJean François Millet, and hither Stevenson hadcome, with his cousin, known as "Talking Bob,"to take part in the harvest festivities among thepeasants.
These were the halcyon days at Barbizon,when Millet tramped the fields and the favoritehaunts of R