...tevenson A Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson is a publication of the Penns... ...nt or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way. Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson, the Pennsylvania State Unive... ................................... 57 4 Robert Louis Stevenson RECORDS OF A FAMILY OF ENGINEERS by Robert Louis Stevenson INTRODUCTION THE SURNAME OF S... ...nson (co. Lanark) swore fealty to Ed- ward I in 1296, and the last of that family died after the Restoration. Stevensons of Hirdmanshiels, in Midlothi... ...e Gaelic which in olden days may have been sometimes reversed. Roy becomes Reid; Gow, Smith. A great Highland clan uses the name of Robertson; a sept ... ...rkable, especially to those who were strangers to the operations. Mr. John Reid, principal lightkeeper, who also acted as master of the floating light... ... the pointing the joints of the walls with cement was intrusted to William Reid and William Kennedy, who stood upon a scaffold suspended over the wall... ...ourse of things, he would, in all prob- ability, have accompanied Mr. John Reid, the principal lightkeeper of the floating light, to the Bell Rock Lig... ... prevent the exhibition of the light in the course of the winter, Mr. John Reid, formerly of the float- ing light, was now put in charge of the lighth...

Excerpt: Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson.

... here presented to those who have already made acquain- tance with the May family, and may be willing to see more of them. It would beg to be consider... ...e of them. It would beg to be considered merely as what it calls itself, a Family Chronicle—a domestic record of home events, large and small, during ... ...t too, disregarding a tumultuous skirmish going on in that division of the family collectively termed “the boys,” namely, Harry, Mary, and Tom, until ... ... the Saturday’s reading and catechising. It was pleasant to see that large family in the hush and reverence of such teaching, the mother’s gentle powe... ...r weekly holiday there on Saturday—the happiest day in the week to the May family, when alone, they had the company at dinner of Norman and Harry, oth... ...ldren enter into it very nicely, Margaret. Did I tell you how nicely Ellen Reid answered about the hymn, ‘From Greenland’s icy mountains’? She did not...

...e of personal jealousies, old grudges, thorny nicknames, prickly memories, family curses, Judas betrayals and sacred pledges, a horrible rubbish thick... ... contrived that they should pay their rent partly or entirely per stone of family annually produced. And he has also proposed that “diplomas” should b... ... reader of Doctor Nordau will add “sanity.” And the reader of Mr. Archdall Reid will round up the list with “immunity” from dipsoma- nia and all conta... ...are simple, specific and transmis- sible. Those who have read Mr. Archdall Reid’s Alcoholism, for example, will know that he deals constantly with wha... ... divorce to include this ugly and disastrous habit. I am not averse to Mr. Reid’s remedies because I think of the wife and the home, but I would not g... ...mpt to whittle down the “in- herited craving” to a habit does not meet Mr. Reid’s argu- ment from the gradual increase of resisting power in races sub... ...ervening six or seven generations, and it is also a difficult fact for Mr. Reid that drunkenness has increased in France. In most of the cases cited b... ...e popular belief in ruthless suppression whenever there is “madness in the family” will not stand an intelligent scrutiny. The man in the street think... ...s, and let us tell them plainly, “It is time a lunatic mar- ried into your family.” Let no one run away from this with the statement that I propose su...