been wanting on my part to gather together these fallen leaves, but I am conscious that many must have been swept out of sight or wafted away on the breezes of oblivion. I have been especially anxious to discover the truth of the story which alleges that Stevenson did work for the Californian press during his visit to the United States in 1879–80, of which a partial description is given in The Amateur Emigrant. According to Mr. Graham Balfour,[1] 'he made inquiries about work on the San Francisco Bulletin, but the payment offered by that newspaper for literary articles, which were all he was ready to undertake, was too small to be of any use to a writer so painstaking and so deliberate. The Bulletin afterwards accepted at its own rates a couple of papers which he had not written specially for it, but his connection with the San Francisco press was absolutely limited to this transaction.' On seeking particulars from Mr. Lloyd Osbourne regarding the articles in question, I received the following reply, which, notwithstanding the circumstantial nature of Mr. Balfour's information, appears to me to set at rest the question of Stevenson's connection with the San Francisco press:—
'In reply to your letter of February 26th, I regret to say that I can be but of negative service to you. Mr. Stevenson never contributed anything to the San Francisco Bulletin or any other San Francisco paper. Not from any pride about journalism, etc., but due to the fact that in those days local pay was derisory. He actually offered an article on "The Fourth of July in America" to several of the papers, but would not accept the
- ↑ Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, i. 170.
