Making these poems known, in fact, to the world at large. Otherwise they would have remained scattered and hidden indefinitely in the hands of various collectors. They will be found extra-ordinarily interesting in their self-revelation, and some, indeed, are so intimate and personal that one understands why Stevenson withheld them from all eyes save his own. The love-poems in particular, though they are of very unequal merit, possess in common a really affecting sincerity. That Stevenson should have preserved these poems through all the vicissitudes of his wandering life shows how dearly he must have valued them.
