to his personal qualities. People loved him, not because he was an admirable writer, but because he was a cheerful consumptive. There has been far too much said about his ill health, and nothing is so painful to contemplate as the lack of reserve on the part of relatives and executors which thrusts every detail of a man's life before the public eye. It provokes maudlin sentiment on the one side, and ungracious asperity on the other. But, in Mr. Stevenson's case, silence is hard to keep. He was a sufferer who for many years increased the gayety of life.
Genius alone can do this on a large scale; but everybody can do it on a little one. Our safest guide is the realization of a hard truth,—that we are not privileged to share our troubles with other people. If we could make up our minds to spare our friends all details of ill health, of money losses, of domestic annoyances, of altercations, of committee work, of grievances, provocations, and anxieties, we should sin less against the world's good-humour. It may not be given us to add to the treasury of mirth; but there is considerable merit in not robbing it. I have read that "the most objec-
