The Manse

Robert Louis Stevenson as a boy often spent time in the Manse of Colinton, where his grandfather Dr Balfour was "a herd of men"! (Or a minister!) He describes it in his essay of 1895 "The Manse". It is reproduced in this lovely volume of 1914.

A colleague of mine lived in that house for many years. He describes how in a little short passage between two rooms there were still the original shelves that were there in Dr Balfour's time, and how fascinating it was to pass every day those shelves often touched - no doubt - by the young Stevenson.

"It was a place in that time like no other: the garden cut into provinces by a great hedge of beech, and over-looked by the church and the terrace of the churchyard, where the tombstones were thick, and after nightfall 'spunkies' might be seen to dance at least by children; flower-plots lying warm in sunshine; laurels and the great yew making elsewhere a pleasing horror of shade; the smell of water rising from all round, with an added tang of paper-mills; the sound of water everywhere, and the sound of mills - the wheel and the dam singing their alternate strain; the birds on every bush and from every corner of the overhanging woods pealing out their notes until the air throbbed with them; and in the midst of this, the manse. I see it, by the standard of my childish stature, as a great and roomy house. In truth, it was not so large as I supposed, nor yet so convenient, and, standing where it did, it is difficult to suppose that it was healthful"