Editing Robert Louis Stevenson (section)

==Death==
[[File:Robert Louis Stevenson and "Jack".jpg|thumb|Stevenson on horseback]]

On 3 December 1894, Stevenson was talking to his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine when he suddenly exclaimed, "What's that?", then asked his wife, "Does my face look strange?", and collapsed.<ref name=":0">Balfour, Graham (1906). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=GrA5nEhnLh0C The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson]'' London: Methuen. 264</ref> (Some sources have stated that he was, instead, attempting to make mayonnaise when he collapsed.<ref name="Farrell 2017 p. 199">{{cite book | last=Farrell | first=J. | title=Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa | publisher=Quercus Publishing | year=2017 | isbn=978-1-84866-882-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KI9EDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT199 | access-date=10 March 2023 | page=199 | archive-date=10 March 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310054215/https://books.google.com/books?id=KI9EDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT199 | url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Theroux 2017 p. 507">{{cite book | last=Theroux | first=A. | title=Einstein's Beets | publisher=Fantagraphics Books | series=Mersion: Emergent Village Resources for Communities of Faith Series | year=2017 | isbn=978-1-60699-976-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-XpSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA507 | language=de | access-date=10 March 2023 | page=507 | archive-date=10 March 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310054215/https://books.google.com/books?id=-XpSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA507 | url-status=live }}</ref>) He died within a few hours, at the age of 44, possibly as the result of a brain haemorrhage.<ref>{{cite web |title=Letter tells of final hours of Robert Louis Stevenson |url=https://media.nls.uk/news/letter-tells-of-final-hours-of-robert-louis-stevenson |website=National Library of Scotland Newsroom |access-date=16 December 2024 |date=2 December 2016}}</ref> According to research published in 2000, Stevenson might have suffered from  [[hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia]] (Osler-Rendu-Weber Syndrome). This would explain his chronic respiratory complaints, recurrent episodes of pulmonary haemorrhage, and his early death. It might also explain his mother's hitherto unreported but apparent stroke, at age 38 years.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Guttmacher |first1=Alan E. |last2=Callahan |first2=J.R. |title=Did Robert Louis Stevenson have hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia? |journal=American Journal of Medical Genetics |date=6 March 2000 |volume=91 |issue=1 |pages=62–65 |doi=10.1002/(sici)1096-8628(20000306)91:1<62::aid-ajmg11>3.0.co;2-3|pmid=10751091 }}</ref>

After his death, the Samoans insisted on surrounding his body with a watch-guard during the night and on bearing him on their shoulders to nearby [[Mount Vaea]], where they buried him on a spot overlooking the sea on land donated by British Acting Vice Consul [[Thomas Trood]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stevenson's tomb |url=http://www.nls.uk/rlstevenson/pics/picture-i3.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208193430/http://www.nls.uk/rlstevenson/pics/picture-i3.html |archive-date=8 December 2008 |access-date=20 October 2008 |publisher=National Library of Scotland }}</ref> Based on Stevenson's poem "Requiem",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stevenson |first=Robert Louis |url=https://archive.org/details/underwoods00stevrich/page/43/mode/1up |title=Underwoods |year=1887 |location=London |publisher=Chatto and Windus |page=43}}</ref> the following epitaph is inscribed on his tomb:<ref>{{cite web|title=Wide and Starry Sky|last=Mattix|first=Micah|website=Washington Examiner|date=4 November 2018|url=https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/wide-and-starry-sky|access-date=21 November 2022|archivedate=7 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201107231947/https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/wide-and-starry-sky|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{poemquote|Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie
Glad did I live and gladly die
And I laid me down with a will
This be the verse you grave for me
Here he lies where he longed to be
Home is the sailor home from the sea
And the hunter home from the hill}}

Stevenson was loved by the Samoans, and his tombstone epitaph was translated to a Samoan song of grief.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jolly |first=Roslyn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=72BxumU5mlsC&pg=PA160 |title=Robert Louis Stevenson in the Pacific: Travel, Empire, and the Author's Profession |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-7546-6195-5 |page=160}}</ref> The requiem appears on the eastern side of the grave. On the western side the biblical passage of Ruth 1:16–17 is inscribed:

{{poemquote|Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge:
And thy people shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God:
Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried.<ref>Harry J. Moors, ''With Stevenson in Samoa'', Boston: Small, Maynard, 1910,  [https://archive.org/details/withstevensonins00mooruoft/page/214/mode/2up?q=cooper p. 214].</ref>}}

The ensign flag draped over his coffin in Samoa was returned to Edinburgh and now resides in a glass case over the fireplace of rooms in Edinburgh University's Old College owned by [[The Speculative Society]], of which he was a member.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://canmore.org.uk/site/254527/edinburgh-south-bridge-university-of-edinburgh-old-college-rooms-of-the-speculative-society |title=Edinburgh, South Bridge, University of Edinburgh, Old College, Rooms of the Speculative Society |date= |website=Canmore |publisher=Historic Environment Scotland |access-date=9 July 2024}}</ref>