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Weir of Hermiston. Weir of Hermiston (1896) is an unfinished novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is markedly different from his previous works in style and has often been praised as a potential masterpiece. [1][2] It was cut short by Stevenson's sudden death in 1894 from a cerebral haemorrhage. The novel is set at the time of the Napoleonic Wars.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- 1896
- To My Wife
- Introductory
- Chapter I—Life and Death of Mrs. Weir
- Chapter Ii—Father and Son
- Chapter III—In The Matter of The Hanging of Duncanjopp
- Chapter Iv—Opinions of The Bench
- Chapter V—Winter on The Moors
- Chapter Vi—A Leaf from Christina’Spsalm-Book
- Chapter Vii—Enter Mephistopheles
- Chapter Viii—A Nocturnal Visit
I saw rain falling and the rainbowdrawn On Lammermuir. Hearkening I heard again In my precipitous city beaten bells Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar, Intent on my own race and place, I wrote. Take thou the writing: thine itis. For who Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal, Held still the target higher, chary of praise And prodigal of ...
In the wild end of a moorland parish, far out of the sight ofany house, there stands a cairn among the heather, and a littleby east of it, in the going down of the brae-side, a monumentwith some verses half defaced. It was here that Claverhouseshot with his own hand the Praying Weaver of Balweary, and thechisel of Old Mortality has clinked on that ...
The Lord Justice-Clerk was a stranger in that part of thecountry; but his lady wife was known there from a child, as herrace had been before her. The old “riding Rutherfordsof Hermiston,” of whom she was the last descendant, hadbeen famous men of yore, ill neighbours, ill subjects, and illhusbands to their wives though not their properties. Talesof...
My Lord Justice-Clerk was known to many; the man Adam Weirperhaps to none. He had nothing to explain or to conceal;he sufficed wholly and silently to himself; and that part of ournature which goes out (too often with false coin) to acquireglory or love, seemed in him to be omitted. He did not tryto be loved, he did not care to be; it is probable th...
It chanced in the year 1813 that Archie strayed one day intothe Justiciary Court. The macer made room for the son ofthe presiding judge. In the dock, the centre of men’seyes, there stood a whey-coloured, misbegotten caitiff, DuncanJopp, on trial for his life. His story, as it was raked outbefore him in that public scene, was one of disgrace and vic...
Late the same night, after a disordered walk, Archie wasadmitted into Lord Glenalmond’s dining-room, where he satwith a book upon his knee, beside three frugal coals offire. In his robes upon the bench, Glenalmond had a certainair of burliness: plucked of these, it was a may-pole of a manthat rose unsteadily from his chair to give his visitorwelcom...
I. At Hermiston
The road to Hermiston runs for a great part of the way up thevalley of a stream, a favourite with anglers and with midges,full of falls and pools, and shaded by willows and natural woodsof birch. Here and there, but at great distances, a bywaybranches off, and a gaunt farmhouse may be descried above in afold of the hill; but the more part of the time, the road wouldbe quite empty of passage and the hills of habitation. Hermiston parish is one of the least populous in Scotland; and,by the time...
2. Kirstie
Kirstie was now over fifty, and might have sat to asculptor. Long of limb, and still light of foot,deep-breasted, robust-loined, her golden hair not yet mingledwith any trace of silver, the years had but caressed andembellished her. By the lines of a rich and vigorousmaternity, she seemed destined to be the bride of heroes and themother of their children; and behold, by the iniquity of fate,she had passed through her youth alone, and drew near to theconfines of age, a childless woman. The ten...
3. A Border Family
Such an unequal intimacy has never been uncommon in Scotland,where the clan spirit survives; where the servant tends to spendher life in the same service, a helpmeet at first, then a tyrant,and at last a pensioner; where, besides, she is not necessarilydestitute of the pride of birth, but is, perhaps, like Kirstie, aconnection of her master’s, and at least knows the legendof her own family, and may count kinship with some illustriousdead. For that is the mark of the Scot of all classes: thath...
Archie was sedulous at church. Sunday after Sunday hesat down and stood up with that small company, heard the voice ofMr. Torrance leaping like an ill-played clarionet from key tokey, and had an opportunity to study his moth-eaten gown and theblack thread mittens that he joined together in prayer, andlifted up with a reverent solemnity in the act o...
Two days later a gig from Crossmichael deposited Frank Innesat the doors of Hermiston. Once in a way, during the pastwinter, Archie, in some acute phase of boredom, had written him aletter. It had contained something in the nature of aninvitation or a reference to an invitation—precisely what,neither of them now remembered. When Innes had received ...
Kirstie had many causes of distress. More and more as wegrow old—and yet more and more as we grow old and arewomen, frozen by the fear of age—we come to rely on thevoice as the single outlet of the soul. Only thus, in thecurtailment of our means, can we relieve the straitened cry ofthe passion within us; only thus, in the bitter and sensitiveshynes...
Weir of Hermiston: An Unfinished Romance. Weir of Hermiston, fragment of an uncompleted novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, published posthumously in 1896. Stevenson used the novel in part as an effort to understand his youthful quarrel with his own father. Rich in psychological characterizations, with masterful dialogue and a beautiful prose ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
weir THE Lord Justice-Clerk was a stranger in that part of the country; but his lady wife was known there from a child, as her race had been before her. The old "riding Rutherfords of Hermiston," of whom she was the last descendant, had been famous men of yore, ill neighbours, ill subjects, and ill husbands to their wives though not their properties.
Dec 1, 1995 · About this eBook. "Weir of Hermiston: An Unfinished Romance" by Robert Louis Stevenson is a novel likely written in the late 19th century. The story unfolds in a Scottish moorland setting, focusing on themes of familial duty, social morality, and the contrasts between the characters' inner lives and their public personas.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- English
- 1896
- Weir of Hermiston: An Unfinished Romance
Weir of Hermiston reads as if it were shaping up to be a dramatic novel, by Stevenson’s definition, “founded on one of the passionate cruces of life, where duty and inclination come nobly to the grapple.” The stern old “hanging judge,” Lord Hermiston, father of the sensitive, reclusive Archie Weir, is ultimately to be complicit in condemning his son to death for murder, and to die of ...
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Jan 1, 2009 · The Floating Press, Jan 1, 2009 - Fiction - 206 pages. Although considered by many to be Robert Louis Stevenson's greatest work of literature, Weir of Hermiston was left unfinished by its author's untimely death in 1894. Archie Weir is estranged from his father, a harsh criminal court judge with no time for Archie's Romantic sensibilities.
