[Note 10:  The Lady of Shalott.  See Tennyson’s beautiful poem (1833).

  “And moving thro’ a mirror clear
  That hangs before her all the year,
  Shadows of the world appear.”]

[Note 11:  Some lack-lustre periods between sleep and waking. Cf. King Lear, Act I, Sc. 2, vs. 15.  “Got ’tween asleep and wake.”]

[Note 12:  Kinetic Stability ... Emphyteusis ...  Stillicide_ For Kinetic Stability, see any modern textbook on Physics. Emphyteusis is the legal renting of ground; Stillicide, a continual dropping of water, as from the eaves of a house.  These words, Emphyteusis and Stillicide, are terms in Roman Law.  Stevenson is of course making fun of the required studies of Physics and Roman Law, and of their lack of practical value to him in his chosen career.]

[Note 13:  The favourite school of Dickens and of Balzac.  The great English novelist Dickens (1812-1870) and his greater French contemporary Balzac (1799-1850), show in their works that their chief school was Life.]

[Note 14:  Mr. Worldly Wiseman.  The character in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), who meets Christian soon after his setting out from the City of Destruction. Pilgrim’s Progress was a favorite book of Stevenson’s; he alludes to it frequently in his essays.  See also his own article Bagster’s Pilgrim’s Progress, first published in the Magazine of Art in February 1882.  This essay is well worth reading, and the copies of the pictures which he includes are extremely diverting.]

[Note 15:  Sainte-Beuve. The French writer Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) is usually regarded today as the greatest literary critic who ever lived.  His constant change of convictions enabled him to see life from all sides.]

[Note 16:  Belvedere of Commonsense.  Belvedere is an Italian word, which referred originally to a place of observation on the top of a house, from which one might enjoy an extensive prospect.  A portion of the Vatican in Rome is called the Belvedere, thus lending this name to the famous statue of Apollo, which stands there.  On the continent, anything like a summer-house is often called a Belvedere.  One of the most interesting localities which bears this name is the Belvedere just outside of Weimar, in Germany, where Goethe used to act in his own dramas in the open air theatre.]

[Note 17:  The plangent wars.  Plangent is from the Latin plango, to strike, to beat.  Stevenson’s use of the word is rather unusual in English.]

[Note 18:  The old shepherd telling his tale..  See Milton, L’Allegro:—­

  “And every shepherd tells his tale
  Under the hawthorn in the dale.”

“Tells his tale” means of course “counts his sheep,” not “tells a story.”  The old use of the word “tell” for “count” survives to-day in the word “teller” in a parliamentary assemblage, or in a bank.]