diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/rlswr10.txt | 1396 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/rlswr10.zip | bin | 0 -> 32768 bytes |
2 files changed, 1396 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/rlswr10.txt b/old/rlswr10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..740d022 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rlswr10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1396 @@ +*Project Gutenberg's Etext of the book "Robert Louis Stevenson" + +by Sir Walter Raleigh + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Robert Louis Stevenson + +by Walter Raleigh + +September, 1995 [Etext #333] + + +*Project Gutenberg's Etext of the book "Robert Louis Stevenson" +*****This file should be named rlswr10.txt or rlswr10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, rlswr11.txt. +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, rlswr10a.txt. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $4 +million dollars per hour this year as we release some eight text +files per month: thus upping our productivity from $2 million. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is 10% of the expected number of computer users by the end +of the year 2001. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois +Benedictine College). (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go +to IBC, too) + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Michael S. Hart, Executive +Director: +hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (internet) hart@uiucvmd (bitnet) + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext90 through /etext95 +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET INDEX?00.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + +Robert Louis Stevenson by Walter Raleigh. 1906 edition. +Scanned and proofed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +WHEN a popular writer dies, the question it has become the fashion +with a nervous generation to ask is the question, 'Will he live?' +There was no idler question, none more hopelessly impossible and +unprofitable to answer. It is one of the many vanities of +criticism to promise immortality to the authors that it praises, to +patronise a writer with the assurance that our great-grandchildren, +whose time and tastes are thus frivolously mortgaged, will read his +works with delight. But 'there is no antidote against the opium of +time, which temporally considereth all things: our fathers find +their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be +buried in our survivors.' Let us make sure that our sons will care +for Homer before we pledge a more distant generation to a newer +cult. + +Nevertheless, without handling the prickly question of literary +immortality, it is easy to recognise that the literary reputation +of Robert Louis Stevenson is made of good stuff. His fame has +spread, as lasting fame is wont to do, from the few to the many. +Fifteen years ago his essays and fanciful books of travel were +treasured by a small and discerning company of admirers; long +before he chanced to fell the British public with TREASURE ISLAND +and DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE he had shown himself a delicate +marksman. And although large editions are nothing, standard +editions, richly furnished and complete, are worthy of remark. +Stevenson is one of the very few authors in our literary history +who have been honoured during their lifetime by the appearance of +such an edition; the best of his public, it would seem, do not only +wish to read his works, but to possess them, and all of them, at +the cost of many pounds, in library form. It would be easy to +mention more voluminous and more popular authors than Stevenson +whose publishers could not find five subscribers for an adventure +like this. He has made a brave beginning in that race against Time +which all must lose. + +It is not in the least necessary, after all, to fortify ourselves +with the presumed consent of our poor descendants, who may have a +world of other business to attend to, in order to establish +Stevenson in the position of a great writer. Let us leave that +foolish trick to the politicians, who never claim that they are +right - merely that they will win at the next elections. Literary +criticism has standards other than the suffrage; it is possible +enough to say something of the literary quality of a work that +appeared yesterday. Stevenson himself was singularly free from the +vanity of fame; 'the best artist,' he says truly, 'is not the man +who fixes his eye on posterity, but the one who loves the practice +of his art.' He loved, if ever man did, the practice of his art; +and those who find meat and drink in the delight of watching and +appreciating the skilful practice of the literary art, will abandon +themselves to the enjoyment of his masterstrokes without teasing +their unborn and possibly illiterate posterity to answer solemn +questions. Will a book live? Will a cricket match live? Perhaps +not, and yet both be fine achievements. + +It is not easy to estimate the loss to letters by his early death. +In the dedication of PRINCE OTTO he says, 'Well, we will not give +in that we are finally beaten. . . . I still mean to get my health +again; I still purpose, by hook or crook, this book or the next, to +launch a masterpiece.' It would be a churlish or a very dainty +critic who should deny that he has launched masterpieces, but +whether he ever launched his masterpiece is an open question. Of +the story that he was writing just before his death he is reported +to have said that 'the goodness of it frightened him.' A goodness +that frightened him will surely not be visible, like Banquo's +ghost, to only one pair of eyes. His greatest was perhaps yet to +come. Had Dryden died at his age, we should have had none of the +great satires; had Scott died at his age, we should have had no +Waverley Novels. Dying at the height of his power, and in the full +tide of thought and activity, he seems almost to have fulfilled the +aspiration and unconscious prophecy of one of the early essays: + + + +'Does not life go down with a better grace foaming in full body +over a precipice, than miserably straggling to an end in sandy +deltas? + +'When the Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods +love die young, I cannot help believing that they had this sort of +death also in their eye. For surely, at whatever age it overtake +the man, this is to die young. Death has not been suffered to take +so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a- +tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passes at a bound on to +the other side. The noise of the mallet and chisel is scarcely +quenched, the trumpets are hardly done blowing, when, trailing with +him clouds of glory, this happy starred, full-blooded spirit shoots +into the spiritual land.' + + +But we on this side are the poorer - by how much we can never know. +What strengthens the conviction that he might yet have surpassed +himself and dwarfed his own best work is, certainly no immaturity, +for the flavour of wisdom and old experience hangs about his +earliest writings, but a vague sense awakened by that brilliant +series of books, so diverse in theme, so slight often in structure +and occasions so gaily executed, that here was a finished literary +craftsman, who had served his period of apprenticeship and was +playing with his tools. The pleasure of wielding the graven tool, +the itch of craftsmanship, was strong upon him, and many of the +works he has left are the overflow of a laughing energy, arabesques +carved on the rock in the artist's painless hours. + +All art, it is true, is play of a sort; the 'sport-impulse' (to +translate a German phrase) is deep at the root of the artist's +power; Sophocles, Shakespeare, Moliere, and Goethe, in a very +profound sense, make game of life. But to make game of life was to +each of these the very loftiest and most imperative employ to be +found for him on this planet; to hold the mirror up to Nature so +that for the first time she may see herself; to 'be a candle-holder +and look on' at the pageantry which, but for the candle-holder, +would huddle along in the undistinguishable blackness, filled them +with the pride of place. Stevenson had the sport-impulse at the +depths of his nature, but he also had, perhaps he had inherited, an +instinct for work in more blockish material, for lighthouse- +building and iron-founding. In a 'Letter to a Young Artist,' +contributed to a magazine years ago, he compares the artist in +paint or in words to the keeper of a booth at the world's fair, +dependent for his bread on his success in amusing others. In his +volume of poems he almost apologises for his excellence in +literature: + + + +'Say not of me, that weakly I declined +The labours of my sires, and fled the sea, +The towers we founded, and the lamps we lit, +To play at home with paper like a child; +But rather say: IN THE AFTERNOON OF TIME +A STRENUOUS FAMILY DUSTED FROM ITS HANDS +THE SAND OF GRANITE, AND BEHOLDING FAR +ALONG THE SOUNDING COASTS ITS PYRAMIDS +AND TALL MEMORIALS CATCH THE DYING SUN, +SMILED WELL-CONTENT, AND TO THIS CHILDISH TASK +AROUND THE FIRE ADDRESSED ITS EVENING HOURS.' + + +Some of his works are, no doubt, best described as paper-games. In +THE WRONG BOX, for instance, there is something very like the card- +game commonly called 'Old Maid'; the odd card is a superfluous +corpse, and each dismayed recipient in turn assumes a disguise and +a pseudonym and bravely passes on that uncomfortable inheritance. +It is an admirable farce, hardly touched with grimness, unshaken by +the breath of reality, full of fantastic character; the strange +funeral procession is attended by shouts of glee at each of its +stages, and finally melts into space. + +But, when all is said, it is not with work of this kind that +Olympus is stormed; art must be brought closer into relation with +life, these airy and delightful freaks of fancy must be subdued to +a serious scheme if they are to serve as credentials for a seat +among the immortals. The decorative painter, whose pencil runs so +freely in limning these half-human processions of outlined fauns +and wood-nymphs, is asked at last to paint an easel picture. + +Stevenson is best where he shows most restraint, and his peculiarly +rich fancy, which ran riot at the suggestion of every passing whim, +gave him, what many a modern writer sadly lacks, plenty to +restrain, an exuberant field for self-denial. Here was an +opportunity for art and labour; the luxuriance of the virgin +forests of the West may be clipped and pruned for a lifetime with +no fear of reducing them to the trim similitude of a Dutch garden. +His bountiful and generous nature could profit by a spell of +training that would emaciate a poorer stock. From the first, his +delight in earth and the earth-born was keen and multiform; his +zest in life + + +'put a spirit of youth in everything, +That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him;' + + +and his fancy, light and quick as a child's, made of the world +around him an enchanted pleasance. The realism, as it is called, +that deals only with the banalities and squalors of life, and +weaves into the mesh of its story no character but would make you +yawn if you passed ten minutes with him in a railway-carriage, +might well take a lesson from this man, if it had the brains. +Picture to yourself (it is not hard) an average suburb of London. +The long rows of identical bilious brick houses, with the +inevitable lace curtains, a symbol merely of the will and power to +wash; the awful nondescript object, generally under glass, in the +front window - the shrine of the unknown god of art; the sombre +invariable citizen, whose garb gives no suggestion of his +occupation or his tastes - a person, it would seem, only by +courtesy; the piano-organ the music of the day, and the hideous +voice of the vendor of half-penny papers the music of the night; +could anything be less promising than such a row of houses for the +theatre of romance? Set a realist to walk down one of these +streets: he will inquire about milk-bills and servants' wages, +latch-keys and Sunday avocations, and come back with a tale of +small meannesses and petty respectabilities, written in the +approved modern fashion. Yet Stevenson, it seems likely, could not +pass along such a line of brick bandboxes without having his pulses +set a-throbbing by the imaginative possibilities of the place. Of +his own Lieutenant Brackenbury Rich he says: + + + +'The succession of faces in the lamplight stirred the lieutenant's +imagination; and it seemed to him as if he could walk for ever in +that stimulating city atmosphere and surrounded by the mystery of +four million private lives. He glanced at the houses and marvelled +what was passing behind those warmly lighted windows; he looked +into face after face, and saw them each intent upon some unknown +interest, criminal or kindly.' + + +It was that same evening that Prince Florizel's friend, under the +name of Mr. Morris, was giving a party in one of the houses of West +Kensington. In one at least of the houses of that brick wilderness +human spirits were being tested as on an anvil, and most of them +tossed aside. So also, in, THE RAJAH'S DIAMOND, it was a quiet +suburban garden that witnessed the sudden apparition of Mr. Harry +Hartley and his treasures precipitated over the wall; it was in the +same garden that the Rev. Simon Rolles suddenly, to his own +surprise, became a thief. A monotony of bad building is no doubt a +bad thing, but it cannot paralyse the activities or frustrate the +agonies of the mind of man. + +To a man with Stevenson's live and searching imagination, every +work of human hands became vocal with possible associations. +Buildings positively chattered to him; the little inn at +Queensferry, which even for Scott had meant only mutton and currant +jelly, with cranberries 'vera weel preserved,' gave him the +cardinal incident of KIDNAPPED. How should the world ever seem +dull or sordid to one whom a railway-station would take into its +confidence, to whom the very flagstones of the pavement told their +story, in whose mind 'the effect of night, of any flowing water, of +lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean,' +called up 'an army of anonymous desires and pleasures'? To have +the 'golden-tongued Romance with serene lute' for a mistress and +familiar is to be fortified against the assaults of tedium. + +His attitude towards the surprising and momentous gifts of life was +one prolonged passion of praise and joy. There is none of his +books that reads like the meditations of an invalid. He has the +readiest sympathy for all exhibitions of impulsive energy; his +heart goes out to a sailor, and leaps into ecstasy over a generous +adventurer or buccaneer. Of one of his earlier books he says: +'From the negative point of view I flatter myself this volume has a +certain stamp. Although it runs to considerably upwards of two +hundred pages, it contains not a single reference to the imbecility +of God's universe, nor so much as a single hint that I could have +made a better one myself.' And this was an omission that he never +remedied in his later works. Indeed, his zest in life, whether +lived in the back gardens of a town or on the high seas, was so +great that it seems probable the writer would have been lost had +the man been dowered with better health. + + +'Whereas my birth and spirit rather took +The way that takes the town, +Thou didst betray me to a ling'ring book, +And wrap me in a gown,' + + +says George Herbert, who, in his earlier ambitions, would fain have +ruffled it with the best at the court of King James. But from +Stevenson, although not only the town, but oceans and continents, +beckoned him to deeds, no such wail escaped. His indomitable +cheerfulness was never embarked in the cock-boat of his own +prosperity. A high and simple courage shines through all his +writings. It is supposed to be a normal human feeling for those +who are hale to sympathize with others who are in pain. Stevenson +reversed the position, and there is no braver spectacle in +literature than to see him not asking others to lower their voices +in his sick-room, but raising his own voice that he may make them +feel at ease and avoid imposing his misfortunes on their notice. +'Once when I was groaning aloud with physical pain,' he says in the +essay on CHILD'S PLAY, 'a young gentleman came into the room and +nonchalantly inquired if I had seen his bow and arrow. He made no +account of my groans, which he accepted, as he had to accept so +much else, as a piece of the inexplicable conduct of his elders; +and, like a wise young gentleman, he would waste no wonder on the +subject.' Was there ever a passage like this? The sympathy of the +writer is wholly with the child, and the child's absolute +indifference to his own sufferings. It might have been safely +predicted that this man, should he ever attain to pathos, would be +free from the facile, maudlin pathos of the hired sentimentalist. + +And so also with what Dr. Johnson has called 'metaphysical +distresses.' It is striking enough to observe how differently the +quiet monasteries of the Carthusian and Trappist brotherhoods +affected Matthew Arnold and Robert Louis Stevenson. In his well- +known elegiac stanzas Matthew Arnold likens his own state to that +of the monks: + + +'Wandering between two worlds, one dead, +The other powerless to be born, +With nowhere yet to rest my head, +Like these on earth I wait forlorn. +Their faith, my tears, the world deride - +I come to shed them at their side.' + + + +To Stevenson, on the other hand, our Lady of the Snows is a +mistaken divinity, and the place a monument of chilly error, - for +once in a way he takes it on himself to be a preacher, his +temperament gives voice in a creed: + + +'And ye, O brethren, what if God, +When from Heaven's top He spies abroad, +And sees on this tormented stage +The noble war of mankind rage, +What if His vivifying eye, +O monks, should pass your corner by? +For still the Lord is Lord of might; +In deeds, in deeds, He takes delight; +The plough, the spear, the laden barks, +The field, the founded city, marks; +He marks the smiler of the streets, +The singer upon garden seats; +He sees the climber in the rocks; +To Him, the shepherd folds his flocks; +For those He loves that underprop +With daily virtues Heaven's top, +And bear the falling sky with ease, +Unfrowning Caryatides. +Those He approves that ply the trade, +That rock the child, that wed the maid, +That with weak virtues, weaker hands, +Sow gladness on the peopled lands, +And still with laughter, song, and shout +Spin the great wheel of earth about. + +But ye? - O ye who linger still +Here in your fortress on the hill, +With placid face, with tranquil breath, +The unsought volunteers of death, +Our cheerful General on high +With careless looks may pass you by!' + + +And the fact of death, which has damped and darkened the writings +of so many minor poets, does not cast a pallor on his conviction. +Life is of value only because it can be spent, or given; and the +love of God coveted the position, and assumed mortality. If a man +treasure and hug his life, one thing only is certain, that he will +be robbed some day, and cut the pitiable and futile figure of one +who has been saving candle-ends in a house that is on fire. Better +than this to have a foolish spendthrift blaze and the loving cup +going round. Stevenson speaks almost with a personal envy of the +conduct of the four marines of the WAGER. There was no room for +them in the boat, and they were left on a desert island to a +certain death. 'They were soldiers, they said, and knew well +enough it was their business to die; and as their comrades pulled +away, they stood upon the beach, gave three cheers, and cried, "God +bless the King!" Now, one or two of those who were in the boat +escaped, against all likelihood, to tell the story. That was a +great thing for us' - even when life is extorted it may be given +nobly, with ceremony and courtesy. So strong was Stevenson's +admiration for heroic graces like these that in the requiem that +appears in his poems he speaks of an ordinary death as of a hearty +exploit, and draws his figures from lives of adventure and toil: + + +'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.' + + +This man should surely have been honoured with the pomp and colour +and music of a soldier's funeral. + +The most remarkable feature of the work he has left is its singular +combination of style and romance. It has so happened, and the +accident has gained almost the strength of a tradition, that the +most assiduous followers of romance have been careless stylists. +They have trusted to the efficacy of their situation and incident, +and have too often cared little about the manner of its +presentation. By an odd piece of irony style has been left to the +cultivation of those who have little or nothing to tell. Sir +Walter Scott himself, with all his splendid romantic and tragic +gifts, often, in Stevenson's perfectly just phrase, 'fobs us off +with languid and inarticulate twaddle.' He wrote carelessly and +genially, and then breakfasted, and began the business of the day. +But Stevenson, who had romance tingling in every vein of his body, +set himself laboriously and patiently to train his other faculty, +the faculty of style. + + +I. STYLE. - Let no one say that 'reading and writing comes by +nature,' unless he is prepared to be classed with the foolish +burgess who said it first. A poet is born, not made, - so is every +man, - but he is born raw. Stevenson's life was a grave devotion +to the education of himself in the art of writing, + + +'The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne, +Thassay so hard, so sharp the conquering.' + + +Those who deny the necessity, or decry the utility, of such an +education, are generally deficient in a sense of what makes good +literature - they are 'word-deaf,' as others are colour-blind. All +writing is a kind of word-weaving; a skilful writer will make a +splendid tissue out of the diverse fibres of words. But to care +for words, to select them judiciously and lovingly, is not in the +least essential to all writing, all speaking; for the sad fact is +this, that most of us do our thinking, our writing, and our +speaking in phrases, not in words. The work of a feeble writer is +always a patchwork of phrases, some of them borrowed from the +imperial texture of Shakespeare and Milton, others picked up from +the rags in the street. We make our very kettle-holders of pieces +of a king's carpet. How many overworn quotations from Shakespeare +suddenly leap into meaning and brightness when they are seen in +their context! 'The cry is still, "They come!" ' - 'More honoured +in the breach than the observance,' - the sight of these phrases in +the splendour of their dramatic context in MACBETH and HAMLET casts +shame upon their daily degraded employments. But the man of +affairs has neither the time to fashion his speech, nor the +knowledge to choose his words, so he borrows his sentences ready- +made, and applies them in rough haste to purposes that they do not +exactly fit. Such a man inevitably repeats, like the cuckoo, +monotonous catchwords, and lays his eggs of thought in the material +that has been woven into consistency by others. It is a matter of +natural taste, developed and strengthened by continual practice, to +avoid being the unwitting slave of phrases. + +The artist in words, on the other hand, although he is a lover of +fine phrases, in his word-weaving experiments uses no shoddy, but +cultivates his senses of touch and sight until he can combine the +raw fibres in novel and bewitching patterns. To this end he must +have two things: a fine sense, in the first place, of the sound, +value, meaning, and associations of individual words, and next, a +sense of harmony, proportion, and effect in their combination. It +is amazing what nobility a mere truism is often found to possess +when it is clad with a garment thus woven. + +Stevenson had both these sensitive capabilities in a very high +decree. His careful choice of epithet and name have even been +criticised as lending to some of his narrative-writing an excessive +air of deliberation. His daintiness of diction is best seen in his +earlier work; thereafter his writing became more vigorous and +direct, fitter for its later uses, but never unillumined by +felicities that cause a thrill of pleasure to the reader. Of the +value of words he had the acutest appreciation. VIRGINIBUS +PUERISQUE, his first book of essays, is crowded with happy hits and +subtle implications conveyed in a single word. 'We have all +heard,' he says in one of these, 'of cities in South America built +upon the side of fiery mountains, and how, even in this tremendous +neighbourhood, the inhabitants are not a jot more impressed by the +solemnity of mortal conditions than if they were delving gardens in +the greenest corner of England.' You can feel the ground shake and +see the volcano tower above you at that word 'TREMENDOUS +neighbourhood.' Something of the same double reference to the +original and acquired meanings of a word is to be found in such a +phrase as 'sedate electrician,' for one who in a back office wields +all the lights of a city; or in that description of one drawing +near to death, who is spoken of as groping already with his hands +'on the face of the IMPASSABLE.' + +The likeness of this last word to a very different word, +'IMPASSIVE,' is made to do good literary service in suggesting the +sphinx-like image of death. Sometimes, as here, this subtle sense +of double meanings almost leads to punning. In ACROSS THE PLAINS +Stevenson narrates how a bet was transacted at a railway-station, +and subsequently, he supposes, 'LIQUIDATED at the bar.' This is +perhaps an instance of the excess of a virtue, but it is an excess +to be found plentifully in the works of Milton. + +His loving regard for words bears good fruit in his later and more +stirring works. He has a quick ear and appreciation for live +phrases on the lips of tramps, beach-combers, or Americans. In THE +BEACH OF FALESA the sea-captain who introduces the new trader to +the South Pacific island where the scene of the story is laid, +gives a brief description of the fate of the last dealer in copra. +It may serve as a single illustration of volumes of racy, humorous, +and imaginative slang; + + +' "Do you catch a bit of white there to the east'ard?" the captain +continued. "That's your house. . . . When old Adams saw it, he +took and shook me by the hand. 'I've dropped into a soft thing +here,' says he. 'So you have,' says I. . . . Poor Johnny! I never +saw him again but the once . . . and the next time we came round +there he was dead and buried. I took and put up a bit of stick to +him: 'John Adams, OBIT eighteen and sixty-eight. Go thou and do +likewise.' I missed that man. I never could see much harm in +Johnny." + +' "What did he die of ?" I inquired. + +' "Some kind of sickness," says the captain. "It appears it took +him sudden. Seems he got up in the night, and filled up on Pain- +Killer and Kennedy's Discovery. No go - he was booked beyond +Kennedy. Then he had tried to open a case of gin. No go again: +not strong enough. . . . Poor John!" ' + + +There is a world of abrupt, homely talk like this to be found in +the speech of Captain Nares and of Jim Pinkerton in THE WRECKER; +and a wealth of Scottish dialect, similar in effect, in KIDNAPPED, +CATRIONA, and many other stories. It was a delicate ear and a +sense trained by practice that picked up these vivid turns of +speech, some of them perhaps heard only once, and a mind given to +dwell on words, that remembered them for years, and brought them +out when occasion arose. + +But the praise of Stevenson's style cannot be exhausted in a +description of his use of individual words or his memory of +individual phrases. His mastery of syntax, the orderly and +emphatic arrangement of words in sentences, a branch of art so +seldom mastered, was even greater. And here he could owe no great +debt to his romantic predecessors in prose. Dumas, it is true, is +a master of narrative, but he wrote in French, and a style will +hardly bear expatriation. Scott's sentences are, many of them, +shambling, knock-kneed giants. Stevenson harked further back for +his models, and fed his style on the most vigorous of the prose +writers of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the +golden age of English prose. 'What English those fellows wrote!' +says Fitzgerald in one of his letters; 'I cannot read the modern +mechanique after them.' And he quotes a passage from Harrington's +OCEANA: + + +'This free-born Nation lives not upon the dole or Bounty of One +Man, but distributing her Annual Magistracies and Honours with her +own hand, is herself King People.' + + +It was from writers of Harrington's time and later that Stevenson +learned something of his craft. Bunyan and Defoe should be +particularly mentioned, and that later excellent worthy, Captain +Charles Johnson, who compiled the ever-memorable LIVES OF PIRATES +AND HIGHWAYMEN. Mr. George Meredith is the chief of those very few +modern writers whose influence may be detected in his style. + +However it was made, and whencesoever the material or suggestion +borrowed, he came by a very admirable instrument for the telling of +stories. Those touches of archaism that are so frequent with him, +the slightly unusual phrasing, or unexpected inversion of the order +of words, show a mind alert in its expression, and give the sting +of novelty even to the commonplaces of narrative or conversation. +A nimble literary tact will work its will on the phrases of current +small-talk, remoulding them nearer to the heart's desire, +transforming them to its own stamp. This was what Stevenson did, +and the very conversations that pass between his characters have an +air of distinction that is all his own. His books are full of +brilliant talk - talk real and convincing enough in its purport and +setting, but purged of the languors and fatuities of actual +commonplace conversation. It is an enjoyment like that to be +obtained from a brilliant exhibition of fencing, clean and +dexterous, to assist at the talking bouts of David Balfour and Miss +Grant, Captain Nares and Mr. Dodd, Alexander Mackellar and the +Master of Ballantrae, Prince Otto and Sir John Crabtree, or those +wholly admirable pieces of special pleading to be found in A +LODGING FOR THE NIGHT and THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR. But people +do not talk like this in actual life- ' 'tis true, 'tis pity; and +pity 'tis, 'tis true.' They do not; in actual life conversation is +generally so smeared and blurred with stupidities, so invaded and +dominated by the spirit of dulness, so liable to swoon into +meaninglessness, that to turn to Stevenson's books is like an +escape into mountain air from the stagnant vapours of a morass. +The exact reproduction of conversation as it occurs in life can +only be undertaken by one whose natural dulness feels itself +incommoded by wit and fancy as by a grit in the eye. Conversation +is often no more than a nervous habit of body, like twiddling the +thumbs, and to record each particular remark is as much as to +describe each particular twiddle. Or in its more intellectual +uses, when speech is employed, for instance, to conceal our +thoughts, how often is it a world too wide for the shrunken nudity +of the thought it is meant to veil, and thrown over it, formless, +flabby, and black - like a tarpaulin! It is pleasant to see +thought and feeling dressed for once in the trim, bright raiment +Stevenson devises for them. + +There is an indescribable air of distinction, which is, and is not, +one and the same thing with style, breathing from all his works. +Even when he is least inspired, his bearing and gait could never be +mistaken for another man's. All that he writes is removed by the +width of the spheres from the possibility of commonplace, and he +avoids most of the snares and pitfalls of genius with noble and +unconscious skill. + +If he ever fell into one of these - which may perhaps be doubted - +it was through too implicit a confidence in the powers of style. +His open letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde in vindication of Father +Damien is perhaps his only literary mistake. It is a matchless +piece of scorn and invective, not inferior in skill to anything he +ever wrote. But that it was well done is no proof that it should +have been done at all. 'I remember Uzzah and am afraid,' said the +wise Erasmus, when he was urged to undertake the defence of Holy +Church; 'it is not every one who is permitted to support the Ark of +the Covenant.' And the only disquietude suggested by Stevenson's +letter is a doubt whether he really has a claim to be Father +Damien's defender, whether Father Damien had need of the assistance +of a literary freelance. The Saint who was bitten in the hand by a +serpent shook it off into the fire and stood unharmed. As it was +in the Mediterranean so it was also in the Pacific, and there is +something officious in the intrusion of a spectator, something +irrelevant in the plentiful pronouns of the first person singular +to be found sprinkled over Stevenson's letter. The curse spoken in +Eden, 'Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all +the days of thy life,' surely covered by anticipation the case of +the Rev. Dr. Hyde. + + +II. ROMANCE. - The faculty of romance, the greatest of the gifts +showered on Stevenson's cradle by the fairies, will suffer no +course of development; the most that can be done with it is to +preserve it on from childhood unblemished and undiminished. It is +of a piece with Stevenson's romantic ability that his own childhood +never ended; he could pass back into that airy world without an +effort. In his stories his imagination worked on the old lines, +but it became conscious of its working. And the highest note of +these stories is not drama, nor character, but romance. In one of +his essays he defines the highest achievement of romance to be the +embodiment of 'character, thought, or emotion in some act or +attitude that shall be remarkably striking to the mind's eye.' His +essay on Victor Hugo shows how keenly conscious he was that +narrative romance can catch and embody emotions and effects that +are for ever out of the reach of the drama proper, and of the essay +or homily, just as they are out of the reach of sculpture and +painting. Now, it is precisely in these effects that the chief +excellence of romance resides; it was the discovery of a world of +these effects, insusceptible of treatment by the drama, neglected +entirely by the character-novel, which constituted the Romantic +revival of the end of last century. 'The artistic result of a +romance,' says Stevenson, 'what is left upon the memory by any +powerful and artistic novel, is something so complicated and +refined that it is difficult to put a name upon it, and yet +something as simple as nature. . . . The fact is, that art is +working far ahead of language as well as of science, realizing for +us, by all manner of suggestions and exaggerations, effects for +which as yet we have no direct name, for the reason that these +effects do not enter very largely into the necessities of life. +Hence alone is that suspicion of vagueness that often hangs about +the purpose of a romance; it is clear enough to us in thought, but +we are not used to consider anything clear until we are able to +formulate it in words, and analytical language has not been +sufficiently shaped to that end.' He goes on to point out that +there is an epical value about every great romance, an underlying +idea, not presentable always in abstract or critical terms, in the +stories of such masters of pure romance as Victor Hugo and +Nathaniel Hawthorne. + +The progress of romance in the present century has consisted +chiefly in the discovery of new exercises of imagination and new +subtle effects in story. Fielding, as Stevenson says, did not +understand that the nature of a landscape or the spirit of the +times could count for anything in a story; all his actions consist +of a few simple personal elements. With Scott vague influences +that qualify a man's personality begin to make a large claim; 'the +individual characters begin to occupy a comparatively small +proportion of that canvas on which armies manoeuvre and great hills +pile themselves upon each other's shoulders.' And the achievements +of the great masters since Scott - Hugo, Dumas, Hawthorne, to name +only those in Stevenson's direct line of ancestry - have added new +realms to the domain of romance. + +What are the indescribable effects that romance, casting far beyond +problems of character and conduct, seeks to realise? What is the +nature of the great informing, underlying idea that animates a +truly great romance - THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, MONTE CRISTO, LES +MISERABLES, THE SCARLET LETTER, THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE? These +questions can only be answered by de-forming the impression given +by each of these works to present it in the chop-logic language of +philosophy. But an approach to an answer may be made by +illustration. + +In his AMERICAN NOTEBOOKS Nathaniel Hawthorne used to jot down +subjects for stories as they struck him. His successive entries +are like the souls of stories awaiting embodiment, which many of +them never received; they bring us very near to the workings of the +mind of a great master. Here are some of them: + + +'A sketch to be given of a modern reformer, a type of the extreme +doctrines on the subject of slaves, cold water, and the like. He +goes about the streets haranguing most eloquently, and is on the +point of making many converts, when his labours are suddenly +interrupted by the appearance of the keeper of a madhouse whence he +has escaped. Much may be made of this idea.' + +'The scene of a story or sketch to be laid within the light of a +street lantern; the time when the lamp is near going out; and the +catastrophe to be simultaneous with the last flickering gleam.' + +'A person to be writing a tale and to find it shapes itself against +his intentions; that the characters act otherwise than he thought, +and a catastrophe comes which he strives in vain to avert. It +might shadow forth his own fate - he having made himself one of the +personages.' + +'Two persons to be expecting some occurrence and watching for the +two principal actors in it, and to find that the occurrence is even +then passing, and that they themselves are the two actors.' + +'A satire on ambition and fame from a statue of snow.' + + +Hawthorne used this idea in one of his sketches. + + +'A moral philosopher to buy a slave, or otherwise get possession of +a human being, and to use him for the sake of experiment by trying +the operation of a certain vice on him.' + + +M. Bourget, the French romancer, has made use of this idea in his +novel called LE DISCIPLE. Only it is not a slave, but a young girl +whom he pretends to love, that is the subject of the moral +philosopher's experiment; and a noisy war has been waged round the +book in France. Hawthorne would plainly have seized the romantic +essence of the idea and would have avoided the boneyard of 'problem +morality.' + + +'A story the principal personage of which shall seem always on the +point of entering on the scene, but shall never appear.' + + +This is the device that gives fascination to the figures of +Richelieu in MARION DELORME, and of Captain Flint in TREASURE +ISLAND. + + +'The majesty of death to be exemplified in a beggar, who, after +being seen humble and cringing in the streets of a city for many +years, at length by some means or other gets admittance into a rich +man's mansion, and there dies - assuming state, and striking awe +into the breasts of those who had looked down upon him.' + + +These are all excellent instances of the sort of idea that gives +life to a romance - of acts or attitudes that stamp themselves upon +the mind's eye. Some of them appeal chiefly to the mind's eye, +others are of value chiefly as symbols. But, for the most part, +the romantic kernel of a story is neither pure picture nor pure +allegory, it can neither be painted nor moralised. It makes its +most irresistible appeal neither to the eye that searches for form +and colour, nor to the reason that seeks for abstract truth, but to +the blood, to all that dim instinct of danger, mystery, and +sympathy in things that is man's oldest inheritance - to the +superstitions of the heart. Romance vindicates the supernatural +against science and rescues it from the palsied tutelage of +morality. + +Stevenson's work is a gallery of romantic effects that haunt the +memory. Some of these are directly pictorial: the fight in the +round-house on board the brig COVENANT; the duel between the two +brothers of Ballantrae in the island of light thrown up by the +candles from that abyss of windless night; the flight of the +Princess Seraphina through the dark mazes of the wood, - all these, +although they carry with them subtleties beyond the painter's art, +yet have something of picture in them. But others make entrance to +the corridors of the mind by blind and secret ways, and there +awaken the echoes of primaeval fear. The cry of the parrot - +'Pieces of eight' - the tapping of the stick of the blind pirate +Pew as he draws near the inn-parlour, and the similar effects of +inexplicable terror wrought by the introduction of the blind +catechist in KIDNAPPED, and of the disguise of a blind leper in THE +BLACK ARROW, are beyond the reach of any but the literary form of +romantic art. The last appearance of Pew, in the play of ADMIRAL +GUINEA, written in collaboration with Mr. W. E. Henley, is perhaps +the masterpiece of all the scenes of terror. The blind ruffian's +scream of panic fear, when he puts his groping hand into the +burning flame of the candle in the room where he believed that he +was unseen, and so realises that his every movement is being +silently watched, is indeed 'the horrors come alive.' + +The animating principle or idea of Stevenson's longer stories is +never to be found in their plot, which is generally built +carelessly and disjointedly enough around the central romantic +situation or conception. The main situation in THE WRECKER is a +splendid product of romantic aspiration, but the structure of the +story is incoherent and ineffective, so that some of the best +passages in the book - the scenes in Paris, for instance - have no +business there at all. The story in KIDNAPPED and CATRIONA wanders +on in a single thread, like the pageant of a dream, and the reader +feels and sympathises with the author's obvious difficulty in +leading it back to the scene of the trial and execution of James +Stewart. THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE is stamped with a magnificent +unity of conception, but the story illuminates that conception by a +series of scattered episodes. + +That lurid embodiment of fascinating evil, part vampire, part +Mephistopheles, whose grand manner and heroic abilities might have +made him a great and good man but for 'the malady of not wanting,' +is the light and meaning of the whole book. Innocent and +benevolent lives are thrown in his way that he may mock or distort +or shatter them. Stevenson never came nearer than in this +character to the sublime of power. + +But an informing principle of unity is more readily to be +apprehended in the shorter stories, and it is a unity not so much +of plot as of impression and atmosphere. His islands, whether +situated in the Pacific or off the coast of Scotland, have each of +them a climate of its own, and the character of the place seems to +impose itself on the incidents that occur, dictating subordination +or contrast. The events that happen within the limits of one of +these magic isles could in every case be cut off from the rest of +the story and framed as a separate work of art. The long +starvation of David Balfour on the island of Earraid, the sharks of +crime and monsters of blasphemy that break the peace of the shining +tropical lagoons in TREASURE ISLAND and THE EBB TIDE, the captivity +on the Bass Rock in CATRIONA, the supernatural terrors that hover +and mutter over the island of THE MERRY MEN - these imaginations +are plainly generated by the scenery against which they are thrown; +each is in some sort the genius of the place it inhabits. + +In his search for the treasures of romance, Stevenson adventured +freely enough into the realm of the supernatural. + +When he is handling the superstitions of the Scottish people, he +allows his humorous enjoyment of their extravagance to peep out +from behind the solemn dialect in which they are dressed. The +brief tale of THRAWN JANET, and Black Andy's story of Tod Lapraik +in CATRIONA, are grotesque imaginations of the school of TAM O' +SHANTER rather than of the school of Shakespeare, who deals in no +comedy ghosts. They are turnip-lanterns swayed by a laughing +urchin, proud of the fears he can awaken. Even THE STRANGE CASE OF +DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE and the story of THE BOTTLE IMP are +manufactured bogeys, that work on the nerves and not on the heart, +whatever may be said by those who insist on seeing allegory in what +is only dream-fantasy. The supernatural must be rooted deeper than +these in life and experience if it is to reach an imposing stature: +the true ghost is the shadow of a man. And Stevenson shows a sense +of this in two of his very finest stories, the exquisite idyll of +WILL O' THE MILL and the grim history of MARKHEIM. Each of these +stories is the work of a poet, by no means of a goblin-fancier. +The personification of Death is as old as poetry; it is wrought +with moving gentleness in that last scene in the arbour of Will's +inn. The wafted scent of the heliotropes, which had never been +planted in the garden since Marjory's death, the light in the room +that had been hers, prelude the arrival at the gate of the +stranger's carriage, with the black pine tops standing above it +like plumes. And Will o' the Mill makes the acquaintance of his +physician and friend, and goes at last upon his travels. In the +other story, Markheim meets with his own double in the house of the +dealer in curiosities, whom he has murdered. It is not such a +double as Rossetti prayed for to the god of Sleep: + + +'Ah! might I, by thy good grace, +Groping in the windy stair +(Darkness and the breath of space +Like loud waters everywhere), +Meeting mine own image there +Face to face, +Send it from that place to her!' + + +but a clear-eyed critic of the murderer, not unfriendly, who lays +bare before him his motives and history. At the close of that +wonderful conversation, one of the most brilliant of its author's +achievements, Markheim gives himself into the hands of the police. +These two stories, when compared with the others, serve to show how +Stevenson's imagination quickened and strengthened when it played +full upon life. For his best romantic effects, like all great +romance, are illuminative of life, and no mere idle games. + + +III. MORALITY. - His genius, like the genius of Nathaniel +Hawthorne, was doubly rich in the spirit of romance and in a wise +and beautiful morality. But the irresponsible caprices of his +narrative fancy prevented his tales from being the appropriate +vehicles of his morality. He has left no work - unless the two +short stories mentioned above be regarded as exceptions - in which +romance and morality are welded into a single perfect whole, +nothing that can be put beside THE SCARLET LETTER or THE MARBLE +FAUN for deep insight and magic fancy joined in one. Hence his +essays, containing as they do the gist of his reflective wisdom, +are ranked by some critics above his stories. + +A novel cannot, of course, be moral as an action is moral; there is +no question in art of police regulations or conformity to +established codes, but rather of insight both deep and wide. +Polygamy and monogamy, suttee, thuggism, and cannibalism, are all +acceptable to the romancer, whose business is with the heart of a +man in all times and places. He is not bound to display allegiance +to particular moral laws of the kind that can be broken; he is +bound to show his consciousness of that wider moral order which can +no more be broken by crime than the law of gravitation can be +broken by the fall of china - the morality without which life would +be impossible; the relations, namely, of human beings to each +other, the feelings, habits, and thoughts that are the web of +society. For the appreciation of morality in this wider sense high +gifts of imagination are necessary. Shakespeare could never have +drawn Macbeth, and thereby made apparent the awfulness of murder, +without some sympathy for the murderer - the sympathy of +intelligence. These gifts of imagination and sympathy belong to +Stevenson in a very high degree; in all his romances there are +gleams from time to time of wise and subtle reflection upon life, +from the eternal side of things, which shine the more luminously +that they spring from the events and situations with no suspicion +of homily. In THE BLACK ARROW, Dick Shelton begs from the Duke of +Gloucester the life of the old shipmaster Arblaster, whose ship he +had taken and accidentally wrecked earlier in the story. The Duke +of Gloucester, who, in his own words, 'loves not mercy nor mercy- +mongers,' yields the favour reluctantly. Then Dick turns to +Arblaster. + + +' "Come," said Dick, "a life is a life, old shrew, and it is more +than ships or liquor. Say you forgive me, for if your life is +worth nothing to you, it hath cost me the beginnings of my fortune. +Come, I have paid for it dearly, be not so churlish." + +' "An I had my ship," said Arblaster, "I would 'a' been forth and +safe on the high seas - I and my man Tom. But ye took my ship, +gossip, and I'm a beggar; and for my man Tom, a knave fellow in +russet shot him down, 'Murrain,' quoth he, and spake never again. +'Murrain' was the last of his words, and the poor spirit of him +passed. 'A will never sail no more, will my Tom." + +'Dick was seized with unavailing penitence and pity; he sought to +take the skipper's hand, but Arblaster avoided his touch. + +' "Nay," said he, "let be. Y' have played the devil with me, and +let that content you." + +'The words died in Richard's throat. He saw, through tears, the +poor old man, bemused with liquor and sorrow, go shambling away, +with bowed head, across the snow, and the unnoticed dog whimpering +at his heels; and for the first time began to understand the +desperate game that we play in life, and how a thing once done is +not to be changed or remedied by any penitence.' + + +A similar wisdom that goes to the heart of things is found on the +lips of the spiritual visitant in Markheim. + + +' "Murder is to me no special category," replied the other. "All +sins are murder, even as all life is war. I behold your race, like +starving mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of +famine, and feeding on each other's lives. I follow sins beyond +the moment of their acting; I find in all that the last consequence +is death; and to my eyes the pretty maid, who thwarts her mother +with such taking graces on a question of a ball, drips no less +visibly with human gore than such a murderer as yourself." ' + + +The wide outlook on humanity that expresses itself in passages like +these is combined in Stevenson with a vivid interest in, and quick +appreciation of, character. The variety of the characters that he +has essayed to draw is enormous, and his successes, for the +purposes of his stories, are many. Yet with all this, the number +of lifelike portraits, true to a hair, that are to be found in his +works is very small indeed. In the golden glow of romance, +character is always subject to be idealised; it is the effect of +character seen at particular angles and in special lights, natural +or artificial, that Stevenson paints; he does not attempt to +analyse the complexity of its elements, but boldly projects into it +certain principles, and works from those. It has often been said +of Scott that he could not draw a lady who was young and beautiful; +the glamour of chivalry blinded him, he lowered his eyes and +described his emotions and aspirations. Something of the same +disability afflicted Stevenson in the presence of a ruffian. He +loved heroic vice only less than he loved heroic virtue, and was +always ready to idealise his villains, to make of them men who, +like the Master of Ballantrae, 'lived for an idea.' Even the low +and lesser villainy of Israel Hands, in the great scene where he +climbs the mast to murder the hero of TREASURE ISLAND, breathes out +its soul in a creed: + + +' "For thirty years," he said, "I've sailed the seas, and seen good +and bad, better and worse, provisions running out, knives going, +and what not. Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come o' +goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don't +bite; them's my views - Amen, so be it." ' + + +John Silver, that memorable pirate, with a face like a ham and an +eye like a fragment of glass stuck into it, leads a career of +wholehearted crime that can only be described as sparkling. His +unalloyed maleficence is adorned with a thousand graces of manner. +Into the dark and fetid marsh that is an evil heart, where low +forms of sentiency are hardly distinguishable from the all- +pervading mud, Stevenson never peered, unless it were in the study +of Huish in THE EBB TIDE. + +Of his women, let women speak. They are traditionally accredited +with an intuition of one another's hearts, although why, if woman +was created for man, as the Scriptures assure us, the impression +that she makes on him should not count for as much as the +impression she makes on some other woman, is a question that cries +for solution. Perhaps the answer is that disinterested curiosity, +which is one means of approach to the knowledge of character, +although only one, is a rare attitude for man to assume towards the +other sex. Stevenson's curiosity was late in awaking; the heroine +of THE BLACK ARROW is dressed in boy's clothes throughout the +course of the story, and the novelist thus saved the trouble of +describing the demeanour of a girl. Mrs. Henry, in THE MASTER OF +BALLANTRAE, is a charming veiled figure, drawn in the shadow; Miss +Barbara Grant and Catriona in the continuation of KIDNAPPED are +real enough to have made many suitors for their respective hands +among male readers of the book; - but that is nothing, reply the +critics of the other party: a walking doll will find suitors. The +question must stand over until some definite principles of +criticism have been discovered to guide us among these perilous +passes. + +One character must never be passed over in an estimate of +Stevenson's work. The hero of his longest work is not David +Balfour, in whom the pawky Lowland lad, proud and precise, but 'a +very pretty gentleman,' is transfigured at times by traits that he +catches, as narrator of the story, from its author himself. But +Alan Breek Stewart is a greater creation, and a fine instance of +that wider morality that can seize by sympathy the soul of a wild +Highland clansman. 'Impetuous, insolent, unquenchable,' a condoner +of murder (for 'them that havenae dipped their hands in any little +difficulty should be very mindful of the case of them that have'), +a confirmed gambler, as quarrel-some as a turkey-cock, and as vain +and sensitive as a child, Alan Breek is one of the most lovable +characters in all literature; and his penetration - a great part of +which he learned, to take his own account of it, by driving cattle +'through a throng lowland country with the black soldiers at his +tail' - blossoms into the most delightful reflections upon men and +things. + +The highest ambitions of a novelist are not easily attainable. To +combine incident, character, and romance in a uniform whole, to +alternate telling dramatic situation with effects of poetry and +suggestion, to breathe into the entire conception a profound +wisdom, construct it with absolute unity, and express it in perfect +style, - this thing has never yet been done. A great part of +Stevenson's subtle wisdom of life finds its readiest outlet in his +essays. In these, whatever their occasion, he shows himself the +clearest-eyed critic of human life, never the dupe of the phrases +and pretences, the theories and conventions, that distort the +vision of most writers and thinkers. He has an unerring instinct +for realities, and brushes aside all else with rapid grace. In his +lately published AMATEUR EMIGRANT he describes one of his fellow- +passengers to America: + + +'In truth it was not whisky that had ruined him; he was ruined long +before for all good human purposes but conversation. His eyes were +sealed by a cheap school-book materialism. He could see nothing in +the world but money and steam engines. He did not know what you +meant by the word happiness. He had forgotten the simple emotions +of childhood, and perhaps never encountered the delights of youth. +He believed in production, that useful figment of economy, as if it +had been real, like laughter; and production, without prejudice to +liquor, was his god and guide.' + + +This sense of the realities of the world, - laughter, happiness, +the simple emotions of childhood, and others, - makes Stevenson an +admirable critic of those social pretences that ape the native +qualities of the heart. The criticism on organised philanthropy +contained in the essay on BEGGARS is not exhaustive, it is +expressed paradoxically, but is it untrue? + + +'We should wipe two words from our vocabulary: gratitude and +charity. In real life, help is given out of friendship, or it is +not valued; it is received from the hand of friendship, or it is +resented. We are all too proud to take a naked gift; we must seem +to pay it, if in nothing else, then with the delights of our +society. Here, then, is the pitiful fix of the rich man; here is +that needle's eye in which he stuck already in the days of Christ, +and still sticks to-day, firmer, if possible, than ever; that he +has the money, and lacks the love which should make his money +acceptable. Here and now, just as of old in Palestine, he has the +rich to dinner, it is with the rich that he takes his pleasure: and +when his turn comes to be charitable, he looks in vain for a +recipient. His friends are not poor, they do not want; the poor +are not his friends, they will not take. To whom is he to give? +Where to find - note this phrase - the Deserving Poor? Charity is +(what they call) centralised; offices are hired; societies founded, +with secretaries paid or unpaid: the hunt of the Deserving Poor +goes merrily forward. I think it will take a more than merely +human secretary to disinter that character. What! a class that is +to be in want from no fault of its own, and yet greedily eager to +receive from strangers; and to be quite respectable, and at the +same time quite devoid of self-respect; and play the most delicate +part of friendship, and yet never be seen; and wear the form of +man, and yet fly in the face of all the laws of human nature: - and +all this, in the hope of getting a belly-god burgess through a +needle's eye! Oh, let him stick, by all means; and let his polity +tumble in the dust; and let his epitaph and all his literature (of +which my own works begin to form no inconsiderable part) be +abolished even from the history of man! For a fool of this +monstrosity of dulness there can be no salvation; and the fool who +looked for the elixir of life was an angel of reason to the fool +who looks for the Deserving Poor.' + + +An equal sense of the realities of life and death gives the force +of a natural law to the pathos of OLD MORTALITY, that essay in +which Stevenson pays passionate tribute to the memory of his early +friend, who 'had gone to ruin with a kingly abandon, like one who +condescended; but once ruined, with the lights all out, he fought +as for a kingdom.' The whole description, down to the marvellous +quotation from Bunyan that closes it, is one of the sovereign +passages of modern literature; the pathos of it is pure and +elemental, like the rush of a cleansing wind, or the onset of the +legions commanded by + + +'The mighty Mahmud, Allah-breathing Lord, +That all the misbelieving and black Horde +Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul +Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.' + + +Lastly, to bring to an end this imperfect review of the works of a +writer who has left none greater behind him, Stevenson excels at +what is perhaps the most delicate of literary tasks and the utmost +test, where it is successfully encountered, of nobility, - the +practice, namely, of self-revelation and self-delineation. To talk +much about oneself with detail, composure, and ease, with no shadow +of hypocrisy and no whiff or taint of indecent familiarity, no +puling and no posing, - the shores of the sea of literature are +strewn with the wrecks and forlorn properties of those who have +adventured on this dangerous attempt. But a criticism of Stevenson +is happy in this, that from the writer it can pass with perfect +trust and perfect fluency to the man. He shares with Goldsmith and +Montaigne, his own favourite, the happy privilege of making lovers +among his readers. 'To be the most beloved of English writers - +what a title that is for a man!' says Thackeray of Goldsmith. In +such matters, a dispute for pre-eminence in the captivation of +hearts would be unseemly; it is enough to say that Stevenson too +has his lovers among those who have accompanied him on his INLAND +VOYAGE, or through the fastnesses of the Cevennes in the wake of +Modestine. He is loved by those that never saw his face; and one +who has sealed that dizzy height of ambition may well be content, +without the impertinent assurance that, when the Japanese have +taken London and revised the contents of the British Museum, the +yellow scribes whom they shall set to produce a new edition of the +BIOGRAPHIE UNIVERSELLE will include in their entries the following +item: - 'STEVENSON, R. L. A PROLIFIC WRITER OF STORIES AMONG THE +ABORIGINES. FLOURISHED BEFORE THE COMING OF THE JAPANESE. HIS +WORKS ARE LOST.' + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Robert Louis Stevenson + diff --git a/old/rlswr10.zip b/old/rlswr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b644205 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rlswr10.zip |