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On the 13th of November, 1850, in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, a boy was born to a young, fair-haired mother and a stern, Puritanical father. This baby later became known as Robert Louis Stevenson. In his infancy and childhood, however, according to his mother's diary,1 he was known as Smout, Smoutie, or Baron Broadnose.
This diary tells us much that is interesting about little Smout. When he walked, when he talked, when he saw his first elephant. It also tells us a number of things, directly and indirectly, about Smout, the nursling. This latter material is perhaps the most interesting in that it throws so much light on the future development and character of the man.
Chronologically, the diary gives us the following facts. The boy was born on the 13th of November; he was weaned on the 25th of the following June, when he was seven and a half months old. Immediately thereafter began a series of oral activities, which seemed to determine the whole future course of his life. Coincident with these activities went a sense of insecurity and personal loss, which he never completely overcame.
There is little doubt, from the evidence, that the boy was constitutionally a pronounced oral type. Anal and phallic activities developed, but his final emphasis was predominantly oral with a