Ad Martialem
GO(D)
knows,
my
Martial,
if
we
two
could
be
To
enjoy
our
days
set
wholly
free;
To
the
true
life
together
bend
our
mind,
And
take
a
furlough
from
the
falser
kind.
No
rich
saloon,
nor
palace
of
the
great,
Nor
suit
at
law
should
trouble
our
estate;
On
no
vainglorious
statues
should
we
look,
But
of
a
walk,
a
talk,
a
little
book,
Baths,
wells
and
meads,
and
the
veranda
shade,
Let
all
our
travels
and
our
toils
be
made.
Now
neither
lives
unto
himself,
alas!
And
the
good
suns
we
see,
that
flash
and
pass
And
perish;
and
the
bell
that
knells
them
cries:
"Another
gone:
O
when
will
ye
arise?"
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, on November 13, 1850. He was a sickly youth, and an only son, for whom his parents had high hopes. When at last Stevenson was able to attend school, he did extremely well and entered the university at sixteen. His family expected him to become a lighthouse engineer, a family profession, but Stevenson agreed, as a compromise, to study law instead. He was a young rebel; he thought that his parents' religion was an abomination, and he soon became known as a bohemian, ranting about bourgeois hypocrisy.