Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 1, 1894 - Miscellanies, Volume I

MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS
their limits without anger or alarm. His last recorded
remark, on the last night of his life, was after he had
been arguing against Calvinism with his minister and
was interrupted by an intolerable pang. 'After all,'
he said, 'of all the 'isms, I know none so bad as
rheumatism.' My own last sight of him was some
time before, when we dined together at an inn ; he
had been on circuit, for he stuck to his duties like a
chief part of his existence ; and I remember it as the
only occasion on which he ever soiled his hps with
slang — a thing he loathed. We were both Roberts ;
and as we took our places at table, he addressed me
with a twinkle : ' We are just what you would call
two bob.' He offered me port, I remember, as the
proper milk of youth ; spoke of 'twenty-shilling
notes ' ; and throughout the meal was full of old-
world pleasantry and quaintness, like an ancient boy
on a holiday. But what I recall chiefly was his con-
fession that he had never read Othello to an end.
Shakespeare was his continual study. He loved
nothing better than to display his knowledge and
memory by adducing parallel passages from Shake- '
speare, passages where the same word was employed,
or the same idea differently treated. But Othello
had beaten him. 'That noble gentleman and that
noble lady — h'm — too painful for me.' The same
night the hoardings were covered with posters, ' Bur-
lesque of Othello,'' and the contrast blazed up in my
mind like a bonfire. An unforg-ettable look it g-ave
me into that kind man's soul. His acquaintance
was indeed a liberal and pious education. All the
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