His father, and his father’s father, were engineers connected with the Board of Northern Lights. This sounds like being related to the Aurora Borealis; and indeed there was something of mystery and magic about Stevenson, as if an influence from that strange midnight dawn had entered his blood. But as a matter of fact the family occupation was nothing more uncanny than that of building and maintaining lighthouses and beacons along the Scottish coast, a profession in which they won considerable renown and to which the lad himself was originally assigned. He made a fair try at it, and even won a silver medal for an essay on improvements in lighthouses. But the calling did not suit him, and he said afterward that he gained little from it except “properties for some possible romance, or words to add to my vocabulary.” This lanky, queer, delicate, headstrong boy was a dreamer of dreams, and from youth desperately fond of writing. He felt himself a predestinated author, and like a true Scot toiled diligently to make his calling and election sure. But there was one thing for which he cared more than for writing, and that was living. He plunged into it eagerly, with more zest than wisdom, trying all the games that cities offer, and learning some rather disenchanting lessons at a high price. For in truth neither his physical, nor (as he later discovered) his moral, nature was suited to the sowing of wild oats. His constitution was one of the frailest ever exposed to the biting winds and soaking mists of the North British Boston. Early death seemed to be written in his horoscope. But an indomitable spirit laughs at dismal predictions. Robert Louis Stevenson, (as he now called himself, velvet-jacketing his own name,) was not the man to be easily snuffed out by weak lungs or wild weather. Mocking at “bloody Jack” he held fast to life with grim, cheerful, grotesque courage; his mother, his wife, his trusty friends, heartened him for the combat; and he succeeded in having a wider experience and doing more work than falls to the lot of many men in rudely exuberant health. To do this calls for a singular kind of bravery, not inferior to, nor unlike, that of the good soldier who walks with Death undismayed. Undoubtedly Stevenson was born with a _Wanderlust_. “My mistress was the open road And the bright eyes of danger.”