I LOVE MY NATIVE AIR, BUT IT DOES NOT LOVE ME;
and the end of this delightful period was a cold, a fly blister, and
a migration, by Strathairdle and Glenshee, to the Castleton of Brae-
mar. There it blew a good deal and rained in a proportion. My
native air was more unkind than man's ingratitude; and I must con
sent to pass a good deal of my time between four walls in a house
lugubriously known as "the late Miss M'Gregor's cottage And now
admire the finger of predestination. There was a schoolboy in the
late Miss M'Gregor's cottage, home for the holidays, and much in
want of "something craggy to break his mind upon". He had no
thought of literature; it was the art of Raphael that received his
fleeting suffrages, and with aid of pen and ink and a shilling box
of water-colours, he had soon turned one of the rooms into a picture-
gallery. My more immediate duty towards the gallery was to be show
man; but I would sometimes unbend a little, join the artist (so to
speak) at the easel, and pass the afternoon with him in a generous
emulation, making coloured drawings. On one of these occasions I
made the map of an island; it was elaborately and (I thought)
beautifully coloured; the shape of it took my fancy beyond expres
sion; it contained harbours that pleased me like sonnets; and with
the unconsciousness of the predestined, I ticketed my performance
Treasure Island. I am told there are people who do not care for
maps, and find it hard to believe.
Fragment uit het inleidende hoofdstuk van Treasure Island door Robert Louis
Stevenson.
