The Sea Fogs

Robert Louis Stevenson first came to California in 1879 for the purpose of getting married.

The things that delayed his marriage are sufficiently set forth in his Letters (edited by Sidney Colvin) and in his Life (written by Graham Balfour).

It is here necessary to refer only to the last of the obstacles, the breaking down of his health.

It is in connection with the evil thing that came to him at this time that be first makes mention of the sea fogs, that beset a large part of the California coast.

He speaks of them as poisonous; and poisonous they are to any one who is afflicted with pulmonary weakness, but bracing and glorious to others.

They give the charm of climate to dwellers around the great bay.

How he took this first very serious attack of the terrible malady is indicated in the letter to Edmund Gosse, dated April 16, 1880.

His attitude toward death is shown here, and is further shown in his little paper AEs Triplex, in which he successfully vindicates his generation from the charge of cowardice in the face of death