Good cheer from RL Stevenson
Edinburgh - home of many great writers. We’ve got J.K.Rowling; Rankin; Alexander McCall Smith.
And, my favourite of the lot, Robert Louis Stevenson.
Stevenson was born not far from where I live, and throughout his childhood was expected to go into the family trade and build lighthouses.
His dad was sorely vexed that instead of lighthouse building, Stevenson spent his time boozing in a seamy Edinburgh bar, Rutherford’s, and reading novel after novel.
As it turned out though, Stevenson was to eclipse the lot of them.
Yesterday, I came across a plaque on a street corner just close to Rutherford’s on Drummond Street. [The bar’s still there by the way; I must visit it with Idle Tom.]
The plaque had a quote - a charming quote - from a letter that Stevenson had written to a friend.
At the time, Stevenson was out in the South Seas and at the very height of his popularity. And as he sailed the Pacific, Stevenson thought back to his days as a student in Edinburgh …
"It came on me like a flash of lightning. I simply returned thither, and into the past. And when I remember all I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford’s in the rain and the east wind; how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, yet timidly hoped not; how I feared I should never have a friend, far less a wife, and yet passionately hoped I might; how I hoped (if I did not take to drink) I should possibly write one little book. And then now—what a change! I feel somehow as if I should like the incident set upon a brass plate at the corner of that dreary thoroughfare for all students to read, poor devils, when their hearts are down."