In 1880, Robert Louis Stevenson stood atop Mt. Tamalpais, marveled at the panorama below, then through his spyglass zeroed in on a small mound of land between San Francisco and Oakland. His tour guide whispered, "Sir, that's known as Treasure Island." It was a moment of revelation for the Scottish author, and his writer's block was finally broken--he decided right then and there that he would write a novel of intrigue, pirates and buried treasure. "Get me off this damned mountain so I can find pen and paper!" he shouted. (With a Scottish burr, of course).
Well, as Long John Silver might have exclaimed, "Aaaaarg, nay!" Stevenson didn't find inspiration for his first successful novel looking down from Mt. Tam, because our little artificial Treasure Island wasn't created until 1936/1937 (with fill from dredging). No, it was the other way around--the island off the Bay Bridge (yes, that one) was named after Stevenson's masterwork, which was written back in the early 1880s in Scotland. But having lived in San Francisco for a short time, Stevenson did experience Marin's mountain, and no other natural feature in the Bay Area made as big of an impression on the author. "There is no place on earth so beautiful as Tamalpais," he proclaimed. Another writing: "...the fine bulk of Tamalpais looking down on San Francisco, like Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh." And this view from an Oakland-San Francisco ferry: "A spot of cloudy gold lit first upon the head of Tamalpais, and then widened downward on its shapely shoulder; the air seemed to awaken, and began to sparkle; and suddenly 'The tall hills Titan discovered,' and the city of San Francisco, and the bay of gold and corn, were lit from end to end with summer daylight." And yet another observation from a hill in Vallejo: "…For Tamalpais stands sentry, like a lighthouse, over the Golden Gate, between the bay and the open ocean, and looks down indifferently on both."
Mr. Stevenson discovered a treasure unburied, and we get to reap the riches still.
Comments