Sam McClure socializing at the 1922 annual meeting of the Stevenson Society of America. (Photo provided)

(In 1922, Sam McClure was invited by the Stevenson Society of America to be guest speaker at their annual meeting held on the grounds of the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage in Saranac Lake. When the time came, he spoke to the assembled members and guests seated on the lawn from Baker’s veranda. These excerpts from his address comprise this segment of The Hunter’s Home, the series.)

“I have told you how it happened that Stevenson went to the South Seas. I arranged for 50 letters complete for which I agreed to pay $10,000. His health was good and he did produce a large body of material during those years and was able to leave a very considerable fortune. I think that during those four or five years — and I am speaking entirely from the outset of this voyage — that he must have acquired ownership of over $150,000 by his pen. During those five years I was always planning to go out and see him, but I never got there.

“And then one morning, I remember returning from a trip and seeing a picture of Stevenson on the outside of the New York World. I got a copy quickly, wondering why it was there, and saw the announcement of his death. I remember how different the world seemed to me after that. I went to my desk, put my head down and wept. The next time I was at the Pacific Coast it seemed as if a curtain had come down and shut out a large part of the world. The last time I saw Stevenson was in this cottage before he started out with his family on that trip to the South Seas. …

“… I came up here to bid him goodbye. I had been here several times before and had had a very considerable correspondence with him, had been doing things for him, getting books, etc., for when we began to plan this trip he began to collect such books as a directory of the South Pacific and of the North Pacific and many books of research; for example, narratives by mariners, adventure stories, and other writings that ran for hundreds of years back — all about the tides and different islands in every part of the Pacific. It would seem that most of the Islands of the Pacific were discovered by mariners running their ships on to them! …

“… During this time I got to know Stevenson very well. Of course I read every line he wrote those days and anybody reading what he wrote got to love him. When it came to our last moment together I just seized his hand and kissed it and he said, ‘Oh, you dear fellow!’ He threw his arm around me and kissed me on the cheek. I always expected to see him again but here this inevitable thing happened and he was gone! A young man 44 years of age — having achieved, one might say, a new thing in the world, that is a new thing in this extraordinary personality. One might say he was greater than what he wrote or that what he wrote was greater than he. Either, or both is true; he was as great and noble as anything he ever wrote.

“It is impossible to understand Stevenson or to talk about him, without talking about Mrs. Stevenson who was in many respects the most remarkable and one of the most lovable and charming women I ever met. She was made to be the mate of Robert Louis Stevenson. Next year when you have Mr. Low here with you ask him to tell you of those marvelous days in France, when this youth, Stevenson, running by a window of an hotel, suddenly jumped up so that he could see into the dining room and saw her as she was rising from the table, looked straight into her eyes; how he determined, as he went on up the street, that she was the only woman in the world whom he would ever marry. Mrs. Stevenson had an exotic, Spanish beauty which was at its height when Stevenson met her, and with this beauty she had a wealth of experience, a reach of imagination, a sense of humor which he never met in any other woman.

“… Will H. Low, who knew I was coming up here today, wrote me a long letter. I have had it typed so I could read you part of it — if any of you ever get a letter from Low you will have to make a real business of reading it; — He says, ‘Aug. 17, I see by a notice received that you are to go to Saranac on the 26th to talk about our R.L.S. I wish that I, from various reasons, felt able to go with you for I have long wished to attend one of these annual meetings of the Society, which has done me the honor to enroll me as an honorary member.’ (I wonder if he knows he has been made president? There is no man in the world so worthy of that position as Mr. Low.)

“He further says — ‘A distinction that touched me deeply as you will understand, sharing as you have intimate association with one whose genius for friendship, for getting down to our common plane, and as man to man, trying to solve the problems of life has, I know, left an impression on our lives that stands alone; that, I am tempted to say, is a precious personal possession which, without lessening in any way our appreciation of a master of English letters, make the friend paramount in our memory.’ … ‘It is upon this basis of personal association that the Stevenson Society is founded and you particularly must be now almost the only one who saw Louis in the house at Saranac, which the pious efforts of the Stevenson Society seeks to perpetuate. I was less lucky, or rather the more faulty, for to Louis’ appeal to come and occupy the ‘prophet’s chamber’ at Bakers that memorable winter of ’87, I foolishly permitted one after the other of the trivial concerns of daily life to intervene and so I never got to Saranac.’ …

“… This man can give you, as no other man can, the aroma of the most splendid stock of human experiences that could be put into literature, something finer than the finest about the life of this youth, so brilliant, so wonderful.

“… I have mentioned Stevenson’s willingness to be edited — how I had him cut out the first five chapters of one of his romances, a thing which only an ignorant and inexperienced editor would have asked him to do. When he came to publish his South Sea letters he wrote me saying — ‘McClure, cut and slash; you are publishing far too much. Cut it; do not publish so much. Use your own judgment.’ That willingness, of course, is the highest mark of greatness in an author. Only the big fellows will do that. Your little man will not permit you to leave a line out.

“…. There was another curious thing about him (Stevenson); of course, he was first of all an artist; he simply had to produce according to his kind and according to his mind; but he lacked a self-confidence, an aggressiveness over other people’s minds. With each new book that he published some of his most ardent friends, those in whose critical faculties he had most faith, would say, ‘Well you have fallen down; this is not worthy of your reputation.’

“Then time would pass and they would realize that it was worthy. But Stevenson worked under conditions of continual discouragement, from those whose judgment he valued most. One of the benefits of his life in the South Seas was that it placed him farther from these inhibiting influences.

“He was a true artist, he had the ability to deal with facts and materials and to work out his ideals according to his own lights, but when other people’s minds opposed him it became a great burden to him …

“… Only two other times in my life have I known men where those who knew them formed a sort of association; one of these men was a college professor and the other was President Roosevelt. Their friends and admirers have formed just such an association as this Stevenson Society. But I suppose in all our world today — not in our past memory not at the present time — can there be or does there exist a fellowship s is represented here today. I think it was Emerson who said that when a great man dies we immediately look around for his successor. But his successor never comes. And Stevenson’s successor never comes. We shall never — nor will our children — ever see his like again.”