de Boisgobey. Arrived at my
destination, down I sat one morning to the unfinished tale;
and behold! it flowed from me like small talk; and in a
second tide of delighted industry, and again at a rate of a
chapter a day, I finished TREASURE ISLAND. It had to be
transcribed almost exactly; my wife was ill; the schoolboy
remained alone of the faithful; and John Addington Symonds
(to whom I timidly mentioned what I was engaged on) looked on
me askance. He was at that time very eager I should write on
the characters of Theophrastus: so far out may be the
judgments of the wisest men. But Symonds (to be sure) was
scarce the confidant to go to for sympathy on a boy's story.
He was large-minded; 'a full man,' if there was one; but the
very name of my enterprise would suggest to him only
capitulations of sincerity and solecisms of style. Well! he
was not far wrong.
TREASURE ISLAND - it was Mr. Henderson who deleted the first
title, THE SEA COOK - appeared duly in the story paper, where
it figured in the ignoble midst, without woodcuts, and
attracted not the least attention. I did not care. I liked
the tale myself, for much the same reason as my father liked
the beginning: it was my kind of picturesque. I was not a
little proud of John Silver, also; and to this day rather
admire that smooth and formidable adventurer. What was
infinitely more exhilarating, I had passed a landmark; I had
finished a tale, and written 'The End' upon my manuscript, as
I had not done since 'The Pentland Rising,' when I was a boy
of sixteen not yet at college.
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