Two of his initial Memories and
Portraits depict his hill-folk neighbors, the Shepherd and the
Gardener. It was at a church "atween the muckle Pentland's knees"
that Archie Weir of Hermiston noted young Kirsty, and that same
"little cruciform place" was the scene of his "PETIT POEME EN
PROSE," where we can all spend a peaceful "Lowden Sabbath morning"
with his "living Scotch" sounding in our ears. However far away
Louis Stevenson roved, there was mirrored on the tablets of his
memory his own country, its speech, its very atmosphere. He wrote a
New Arabian Nights, but from the old (he tells us how his minister
grandfather envied him his first reading thereof) he had acquired
the secret of the magic carpet, and could be transported at will
from the tropics back to where the curlews and the plovers wailed
and swooped above the whins and the heather on his hills of sheep.
STEVENSON'S APPRENTICESHIP
In his early days, Louis was sociable, pleased when he met
compatriot children, ready to be dressed and go to parties.
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