Transcribed from the 1921 Chatto and Windus edition by DavidPrice,
MORAL EMBLEMS
& OTHER POEMS WRITTEN AND
ILLUSTRATED WITH WOODCUTS
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
FIRST PRINTED AT THE DAVOS
PRESS BY LLOYD OSBOURNE
AND WITH A PREFACE
BY THE SAME
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1921
All rights reserved
p.vPREFACE
It is with some diffidence that Isit down at an age so mature that I cannot bring myself to nameit, to write a preface to works I printed and published attwelve.
I would have the reader see a little boy living in achâlet on a Swiss mountain-side, overlooking a stragglingvillage named Davos-Platz, where consumptives coming to get wellmore often died. It was winter; the sky-line was broken byfrosty peaks; the hamlet—it was scarcely morethen—lay huddled in the universal snow. Morning camelate, and the sun set early. A still, silent and icy nighthad an undue share of the round of hours, which at least it hadthe grace to mitigate by a myriad of shining stars.
The little boy thought it was a very jolly place. Heloved the tobogganing, the skating, the snow-balling; loved thecrisp, p.vitingling air, and the woods full of Christmas trees,glittering with icicles. Nor with his toy theatre andprinting-press was the indoor confinement ever irksome. Hebut dimly appreciated that his stepfather and mother were lesshappy in so favoured a spot. His mother’s face wasoften anxious; sometimes he would find her crying. Hisstepfather, whom he idolised, was terribly thin, and even tochildish eyes looked frail and spectral. The stepfather wasan unsuccessful author named Robert Louis Stevenson, who wouldnever have got along at all had it not been for his rich parentsin Edinburgh. The little boy at his lessons in the roomwhich they all shared grew used to hearing a sentence that struckat his heart. Perhaps it was the tone it was uttered in;perhaps the looks of discouragement and depression that went withit.
‘Fanny, I shall have to write to my father.’
It served to make the little boy very p. viiprecociousabout money. In a family perennially short of it he learnedits essentialness early. He knew too, that he was adreadfully expensive child. His stepfather paid fortypounds for his winter’s tutoring, not to speak of anadditional outlay on a dying Prussian officer who taught himGerman with the aid of a pocket-knife stuck down his throat togive him the right accent. It was with consternation thathe once heard his stepfather say in a voice of tragedy:‘Good Heavens, Fanny, we are spending ten pounds a week onfood alone!’
The little boy, under the stress of this financial urgency,decided to go into business, finding a capital opening in theHotel Belvidere, where a hundred programmes were required weeklyfor the Saturday night concerts. A gentleman with a