Wisdom and Virtue

To sit still and contemplate—to remember the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy, and yet content to remain where and what you are—is not this to know both wisdom and virtue, and to dwell with happiness?

-       Robert Louis Stevenson[1]

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[1] Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1850. He was the son of Thomas Stevenson, a leading lighthouse engineer, and Margaret Isabella Balfour. He inherited from his mother a “weak chest” and a tendency to coughs and fevers. Illness would be a recurrent feature of his adult life, and left him extraordinarily thin. His frequent illnesses often kept him away from his first school, and he was taught for long stretches by private tutors. Throughout his childhood he was compulsively writing stories. His father was proud of this interest; he paid for the printing of Robert’s first publication at sixteen, an account of the covenanters’ rebellion, published on its two hundredth anniversary.

In 1867 he entered the University of Edinburgh to study engineering, but did not like it. In 1871, he announced to his father his decision to pursue a life of letters. His father was disappointed, but accepting.  He felt that to provide some security, Stevenson should study law and be called to the Scottish bar; Stevenson agreed. But he was moving away from his upbringing. His dress became more Bohemian: he already wore his hair long, but now took to wearing a velveteen jacket. Most distressingly, he had come to reject Christianity. In 1873, his father found that Stevenson had joined a club which advocated disregarding parents’ teachings. This led to a long period of dissension with both parents.

The next four years were spent writing, and in travel in search of a climate that would be more beneficial for his health. He made long and frequent trips to France. During this period he made most of his lasting friendships and met his future wife, Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, an American who was 10 years his senior and married at the time. The two met again early in 1877 and became lovers. Stevenson spent much of the following years with her and her children in France. The next year, Fanny returned to her home in San Francisco, California. Stevenson set off to join her the next year, against the advice of his friends and without notifying his parents. The trip broke his health, and he was near death when he arrived in Monterey. He was nursed back to health by some ranchers there. By late 1879 he had recovered enough to continue to San Francisco, where he struggled to support himself through his writing, but by the end of the winter his health was broken again, and he found himself at death’s door. Vandegrift—now divorced and recovered from her own illness—came to Stevenson’s bedside and nursed him to recovery.

In May, 1880, Stevenson married Fanny. At the end of summer, he took his new family (including stepson Lloyd) back to Britain, and was warmly welcomed by his parents. Fanny helped patch up differences between father and son through her charm and wit. Between 1880 and 1887 Stevenson searched in vain for a home suitable to his state of health. He spent his summers at various places in Scotland and England and winters in France. In spite of his ill health he produced the bulk of his best known work: Treasure Island, his first widely popular book; Kidnapped; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; and two volumes of verse, A Child’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods.

On the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson felt free to follow the advice of his physician to try a complete change of climate. He went to America, and the following summer, chartered the yacht Casco and set sail with his family from San Francisco. The salt sea air and thrill of adventure for a time restored his health; and for nearly three years he wandered the eastern and central Pacific, visiting important island groups. Then he purchased four hundred acres of land in Upolu, one of the Samoan islands. He worked hard to set up a home, which he named Vailima (“Five Rivers”). In addition to building his house and clearing his land and helping the natives in many ways, he found time to work at his writing. In 1894, he died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage; he is buried on Upolu.  (Source: Wikipedia)