2, vs. 15. "Got 'tween asleep and wake."]

[Note 12: _Kinetic Stability ... _Emphyteusis ... Stillicide_ For Kinetic Stability, see any modern textbook on Physics. _Emphyteusis_ is the legal renting of ground; _Stillicide_, a continual dropping of water, as from the eaves of a house. These words, _Emphyteusis_ and _Stillicide_, are terms in Roman Law. Stevenson is of course making fun of the required studies of Physics and Roman Law, and of their lack of practical value to him in his chosen career.]

[Note 13: _The favourite school of Dickens and of Balzac_. The great English novelist Dickens (1812-1870) and his greater French contemporary Balzac (1799-1850), show in their works that their chief school was Life.]

[Note 14: _Mr. Worldly Wiseman_. The character in Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ (1678), who meets Christian soon after his setting out from the City of Destruction. _Pilgrim's Progress_ was a favorite book of Stevenson's; he alludes to it frequently in his essays. See also his own article _Bagster's Pilgrim's Progress_, first published in the _Magazine of Art_ in February 1882. This essay is well worth reading, and the copies of the pictures which he includes are extremely diverting.]

[Note 15: _Sainte-Beuve._ The French writer Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) is usually regarded today as the greatest literary critic who ever lived. His constant change of convictions enabled him to see life from all sides.]

[Note 16: _Belvedere of Commonsense_. Belvedere is an Italian word, which referred originally to a place of observation on the top of a house, from which one might enjoy an extensive prospect. A portion of the Vatican in Rome is called the Belvedere, thus lending this name to the famous statue of Apollo, which stands there. On the continent, anything like a summer-house is often called a Belvedere. One of the most interesting localities which bears this name is the Belvedere just outside of Weimar, in Germany, where Goethe used to act in his own dramas in the open air theatre.]

[Note 17: _The plangent wars_. Plangent is from the Latin _plango_, to strike, to beat. Stevenson's use of the word is rather unusual in English.]

[Note 18: _The old shepherd telling his tale_.. See Milton, _L'Allegro:_--

"And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale."

"Tells his tale" means of course "counts his sheep," not "tells a story." The old use of the word "tell" for "count" survives to-day in the word "teller" in a parliamentary assemblage, or in a bank.]

[Note 19: _Colonel Newcome ... Fred Bayham ... Mr. Barnes ... Falstaff ... Barabbases ... Hazlitt ... Northcote._ Colonel Newcome, the great character in Thackeray's _The Newcomes_ (1854). _Fred Bayham_ and _Barnes Newcome_ are persons in the same story. One of the best essays on Falstaff is the one printed in the first series of Mr. Augustine Birrell's _Obiter Dicta_ (1884). This essay would have pleased Thackeray. One of the finest epitaphs in literature is that pronounced over the supposedly dead body of Falstaff by Prince Hal--"I could have better spared a better man." (_King Henry IV_, Part I, Act V, Sc. 4.) _Barabbas_ was the robber who was released at the time of the trial of Christ.... _William Hazlitt_ (1778-1830), the well-known essayist, published in 1830 the _Conversations_ of _James Northcote_ (1746-1831). Northcote was an artist and writer, who had been an assistant in the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Stevenson projected a _Life of Hazlitt_, but later abandoned the undertaking. (_Life,_ I, 230.)]

[Note 20: _The quality of mercy_. See Portia's wonderful speech in the _Merchant of Venice_, Act IV, Scene I.]

[Note 21: _Joan of Arc_. The famous inspired French peasant girl, who led the armies of her king to victory, and who was burned at Rouen in 1431. She was variously regarded as a harlot and a saint. In Shakspere's historical plays, she is represented in the basest manner, from conventional motives of English patriotism. Voltaire's scandalous work, _La Pucelle_, and Schiller's noble _Jungfrau von Orleans_ make an instructive contrast.

Robert Louis Stevenson
Classic Literature Library

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