of himself." This seems a startling doctrine (and it runs through all he wrote), but it is easy to see what is meant. To make money, to know more languages than most other men, to live in a cloister and forget God's sunshine, these are laudable enough ambitions, but we should not forget that they do not exhaust the possibilities of life. The conclusion he brings us to is that we should cultivate the finer feelings, lest the sober employments of life should stifle them, and the time of enjoyment never come. Above all, we

should be afraid of neither life nor death. Not even Browning excels him in expounding the lesson of boldness and thoroughness in our actions. It is easy to see that he touches a high, heroic note in his teaching, and it explains his own bouyancy and the spirit of romantic enthusiasm which is so pleasing in his novels.

He

A less philosophic but a more frankly autobiographical and softer note is touched in the later essays. Age has softened the crude ideas of youth. There you have the crisp and mellow reflections of one looking backward across the years that are no more. lingers with love over faded memories. The world, he knew, has many attractions; but, after all, home, the old familiar faces, the old loves, the old books are best. When I was a boy," he writes, "I was a bit puzzled, and hardly knew whether it was myself or the world that was curious and worth looking into. Now I know it is myself and stick to that." We may rejoice at his decision, for it has given us one of the most delicate and refined exponents of human life, and especially of that human life which Stevenson knew most of his own.

In his criticisms, Stevenson, because he knew himself so well, at once seems to see with the eyes of his author and to know his mind. What fine discrimination in his essay on that enigma of seventeenth-century character, Samuel Pepys! What anatomizing and analysis of François Villon, blackguard and poet! It is doubtful if any of the host of writers who have blamed or excused Robert Burns has arrived more

nearly at the truth than this keen critic in his famous essay on the "Old Hawk." Yet he neither weeps nor grows abusive. He is sane, truthful, judicious. Or take that other on John Knox. Dr. McRie's portly tomes shiver and collapse before the humor and knowledge of this short study.

To that youthful and adventurous spirit of which we have spoken we owe some of the most delightful travel pictures that have ever been penned. Each of them reveals the same desire to test the meaning of life at different points. Two of Stevenson's curious journeys took place in France-his canoe voyage with Sir Walter Simpson in 1877, and his solitary journey on foot through the Cevennes in 1878. Solitary, but how could he be solitary with Modestine, subject of alternate blows and caresses, a steed which will surely rank in future with Bacephalus and Rosinante! Later on he crossed the Atlantic in the steerage of an emigrant ship, and the great plains of America in a train, and of both journeys he has given the record. There are no loudsounding adventures in these sketches; but there is exact coloring, the evidence of a mind attuned to the passing scene and ready to listen to its voices, of a heart which pined for fields and woods and hills. Here there is not the glaring correctness of a photograph, but the work of an imaginative and sympathetic artist. Things seen and heard have passed through the alembie of his own brain and been transmuted into the fine gold. Stevenson has lent a part of his personality to every page. Withal there is a piquancy, an antique flavor in these books; to read them is to inhale the scent of the earth and of an old herb garden after long pining in a sick-room; a serious passage jostles one full of a quiet and sarcastic humor; in truth, no books of travel remind one more of Sterne than do these; but there is no aping a pathos which is not felt, and no coquetting with unpleasant themes.

Stevenson's earliest attempts in the field of fiction were short sketches; the first of these, "The Story of a Lie," is replete with all the grace and power

which marked his later work. As a novelist it was Stevenson's fate to quicken the long dead love of pure romance. And in his stories there is no dull moralizing, no double entendre, nor, happily, is our author the writer of novels with a purpose. He simply tells a story, and, to say truth, that is what the world always likes. Hence the long life of Homer, of "The Arabian Nights," of the national ballads. Hence, too, the inevitable oblivion which awaits nine-tenths of the "literature" which froths and foams in our time. With Stevenson (and, happily, many have followed him) every incident, every phrase, has its place, and serves to usher you to the dénoue ment. And you have all the pleasure of being carried out of yourself for the time, out of the whirl of kirk or market, into a world whose sun gives the "light that never was on sea or land."

re

Treasure Island" at once sets you on shipboard. You smell the brine and feel that you are off on a quest for buried treasure. "The Master of Ballantrae," "Kidnapped," "Kidnapped," "Catriona," plunge you, with the the speed of Prince Houssain's magic carpet, into the Scottish world just after the '45. And there you main till you have closed the book. In writing this trilogy Stevenson wisely chase the period after the conflict, though the passionate force it stirred still swelled. For his sympathies were doubtful; had he written of the strife itself (as Scott did) he would have found himself in the equivocal position of one who would run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, who doubts whether George is not as good as Charles or James. Stevenson was a doubtful Jacobite; he was also, however, a more than doubtful Whig. As to the style in which these stories are written it is indefinable, yet it haunts the memory. It has just that touch of archaism which hints at the veritable date of the story, and just that balance and harmoniousness which recall the English classics. Stevenson's early environment, his love of exciting situations, his knowledge of all such situations in his own country's story, his

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fondness for Scott and Dumas, explain his novels. He loved the romantic side of things, of the sea, of adventure. He had a passion for the weird and bizarre, which he exercised to the full in such stories as Thrawn Janet" and "Markheim," and in such a play as "Deacon Brodie." And, once more, the mysterious side of life attracted him, and attracts us too, in his "Master of Ballantrae," in "The Pavilion on the Links." There were few forms of the novel which he did not experiment in, witness" Prince Otto," and, generally speaking, he won success. Indeed, the variety of his themes, though by no means equal, is yet akin to the similar variety of Balzac.

"Treasure Island" is, properly speaking, a boy's book, but, like "Robinson Crusoe" (the only book with which it ought to be compared, though "Reuben Davidger" runs it close), children of a larger growth are fascinated by it. There is not a dull pagein it, and every incident seems to be, in turn, more effective than the other. We hurry through it, eager to be in at the death; we feel, at the end, as if we had been among the pirates and endured many a strange adventure; and then we read it again, rolling it, like a sweet morsel, under the tongue. Nothing, again, can be more effective than the opening chapters of “The Master of Ballantrae;" they have the same glamour as suffuses "The Antiquary" and "The Heart of Midlothian." Yet, as we go on, the story drags somewhat, and it is only toward the end that the same breathless interest is awakened. The truth is that in all Stevenson's novels there is a deficiency of plot. His strongest point lay in the effectiveness of incident and in the number of such incidents he was capable of giving, and also in the power of his dialogue. Each character speaks as actively and strongly as if he were playing a game of fives. Such incidents in "The Master" as the duel by candlelight, the discovery that the body is gone, the Master acting as tailor in New York, the camp in the forest, the resurrection of the Master, are really inimitable,

and carry their air of convincing reality with them. So, in "Kidnapped" and "Catriona," it is more the incidents and the conversations that please than the plot. In the former one feels one's heart in one's mouth all the time David Balfour is wandering and escaping disaster. In the latter there are situations powerfully conceived and as powerfully described. As for the characters, Alan Breck has the true Stevenson trade-mark upon him; Miss Grant has walked bodily out of some unwritten novel of Scott's, there is no denying her vitality; the Lord Advocate and James More are duplicates of the same character, only James inclines to the side of vice and the Advocate to the side of virtue. David and Catriona make love in a manner peculiarly Stevensonian, and a trifle. artificially. Some one has said that Stevenson never was in love, but that as a friend he was unequalled, and there is probably as much truth in this as in most epigrammatic sayings. "Catriona" as a whole will, no doubt, rank as the finest of his completed novels.

One other thing limits the field of many of his novels, and that is the autobiographical style of telling the story. Of course the omniscience of the novelist and the judicious use of other sources when necessary amplify the constricted sphere in which the narrator dwells. Still, no one can use this manner long without seeing its narrowing effect upon the complete result. It is doubtful, again, whether he has given us a large gallery of really flesh-and-blood characters, like Fielding or Thackeray. We almost feel that we are dealing with mere puppets, not men and women, yet puppets endowed with an amazing mechanism which we are easily deluded into taking for life itself. This is seen at its height in the "New Arabian Nights," but few of his stories escape it. It probably resulted from his living so much in a land of make-believe, and from his "always supposing." Hence, some of his characters are unconvincing, if not farcical, and certainly fantastic. You can never be sure how they will jerk

their limbs next. For all that, none but Stevenson could have imagined them. He himself is all his characters; he has given to each a pound of his own flesh; but is not the vital blood wanting? He speaks again and again. in his essays of the infinite capabilities of the human spirit. "There is nothing so monstrous but that we can believe it of ourselves." The novels are expositions of this text, and show us Stevenson posing, now as this, now as that other of his characters.

readable, which

As a writer of short stories Stevenson was unequalled. It may seem easy to write a short story, but the truth is a long work of fiction is not so difficult an undertaking. How are you to give the hint of true character, to make the presentment vivid and the incidents truthful in a few pages? There must be compression without the evidence of it. A short story is easy enough in one sense, but a short story which will be readable, which you will go back to with pleasure, is not a common object in literature. The French excel us in this, but Stevenson runs them very close. "The Pavilion on the Links" is a good example of his powers. The story of the Italians tracking the vile banker to that lonely house on the bleak and desolate seaboard is unique of its kind. There is the usual element of the mysterious and the weird; we are fairly in Stevenson land: there are whiffs of the sea, dark nights, flashing lights, and mysterious voices. Yet once more the figures are mere puppets. Northmour is a doubtful figure with his coarse humors; Cassilis is nothing so much as Stevenson's double; Clara is better and more lifelike; her father is more in Stevenson's best vein-a kind of Master of Ballantrae quoting Scripture and masking his sensual vices under a covering of hypocrisy. "Thrawn Janet," again, is still shorter, but it is a fearsome piece of gruesome diablerie told in the lowland dialect and tricked out by the effective use of Scots words, fear-inspiring in sound and meaning alike, yet with all that circumstance of grim humor which is never absent from the stories of the lowlander. To convey its full flavor to the mind, it

should be read alone at the mirk midnight hour, but with help within call, as the results may be disastrous. "The Merry Men" is homelier, though not wanting in horror. The lonely island with the booming of the sea, the glorying of the Calvinist in his ill-gotten gains mixed with his fears of the sea, his sudden horror at the appearance of the black man, and then the clap of judgment which turns his brain and hustles him on to his death -all this is most admirably told together with that tang of the sea, that vision of Spanish treasure, that appearance of piratical visitors, of which Stevenson was so fond.

In a different vein, full of a subtle. pathos, is that sweet sketch, "Will o' the Mill." It has something of the manner of the best German story-tellers; that homely, pensive style, that gentle kind of character-drawing which we find in them. The chief difference is that in this study there is more of the conscious, or it may be self-conscious artist. We are back again in the weird, mysterious region in such stories as "Olalla" and "A Lodging for the Night." The latter, a story of François Villon, reads like a chapter from his biography, so lifelike is the presentation, so well have the horror and the wintry cold struck into it. In his short stories Stevenson seems to occupy a middle place between Hawthorne and Poe. He is neither SO moonstruck an idealist as the former, nor so ghastly a realist as the latter. If he does terrify us now and then, the feeling is mixed with delight and wonder at his marvellous skill, his absolute precision in his epithets and phrases, his consummate artistic power.

Stevenson was never one to go with the scorners who, in their writings, with a demoniac art make sin look a pleasant thing. He had been well trained in a stern but upright faith; he knew that morality was the braver path to follow; and his books witness to the worth of the virtues and the religious sentiments. "It is by our evil," says Charles to his uncle in "The Merry Men," "that God leads us into good; we sin, I dare not say by His tempta

tion, but I must say with His consent; and to any but the brutish man his sins are the beginning of wisdom." No more accurate and sound statement was ever penned outside of a sermon. It is of a piece with the purview of religion and ethics which Stevenson always takes, and one feels thankful that after writing so much he still kept constant to these high ideals. In his own way he was what we might call a lay preacher. preacher. His essays are of the stoical cast; he is for no deep renunciations, yet still he sees that life demands many a sacrifice from us, and that its true secret is not to be grasped by the selfseeker. But in certain of his short stories the note of the preacher rings out loudly, as in "Markheim" and "Dr. Jekyll," which, apart from the sombre thoughts they arouse, deserve well of the student of morals. Both are sermons on that strange duality of nature which we find in ourselves, with this difference-that Markheim believes himself the mere creature of circumstances, circumstances which Jekyll courted and played into the hands of, knowing well that he was free to baffle them. St. Paul told us long ago the evil that I would not, that I do." It is almost as if Stevenson had taken this as his text, and, seeing the vast capabilities, both moral and artistic, lying dormant in it, had preached from it with the tongue of a master.

One other matter in connection with the novels falls to be considered herethe criticism that he has given us no effective heroine. This would be a serious defect if true. But he has done this as well as most; for few men can give much more than a lay-figure when discussing a heroine, just as women's heroes are seldom other than women posing as men. Scott gave us few real women. Dickens none, Thackeray not many. In the regions of the drama it is different; Shakespeare's women are all alive, so are Goethe's. For all that, where were the critic's eyes? One who discoursed so fluently of love and marriage was not likely to leave the subject alone when he ventured afield into the blithe regions of romance. What do they make of Mary in "The Merry

Men," of Olalla, of Catriona, of Miss Grant, of that sportive damsel in “The Story of a Lie," of Alison Graeme? One will not say that he holds a brief for the sex, or that he has succeeded any better than most novelists of his own sex. He is no amourist and would have cut a poor figure as a troubadour; yet he is wise, candid, and once or twice touches a passionate note.

As a novelist Stevenson has been set on a level with Scott, but surely this is but the ignorant enthusiasm of the claqueur; and one is sorry for those who believe it. For all that he is characterized by the same qualities as Scott, only lesser in degree. To him, as to Scott, man is the traveller afoot through time, and it is on the broad. highway of human sympathies that he sits and tells his tales. But Scott's trumpet tones, his colossal genius, his massive strength, his wide canvas, his numerous interests, he has nothing of. He does share with him his glamour, his vividness, his manliness, his love of a sheer story. He gives us few mere lay-figures; Scott has given us a dozen. As a story-teller he is, perhaps, as clever, but Scott is infinitely greater. Scott is a general marshalling brigades; Stevenson is but a captain with his company. Both do their work, however, with equal vigor and love, and with equal success on their own level. One thing Scott could not do: he could not write essays like Stevenson's nor was he master of such a magic style.

Yet,

In many ways Stevenson was a unique literary phenomenon. But nothing is so unique as his life in Upolu. Landor lived all his days in Rome; Byron fell in love with Greece and Italy; but Stevenson, combining the functions of barbaric king, story-teller in chief to the islanders, and man of letters, is quite unparalleled. in that lonely sea-girt isle, he was like nothing so much as Prospero, summoning Ariel and his elves to do his bidding. That exile was for the sake of health, yet, though he was always weak and ill, there is scarce a trace of it in his writings: they are not sad; the beautiful essay, "Ordered South," is

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the only one where he poses as the invalid, yet even there he is cheerful. For he was not one to wear his heart on his sleeve, nor does he depict the deeper emotions with much passion. Only the strong man and the wealthy can afford to be pathetic. He has certainly none of that cheap, maudlin sentiment which, adopted from France, delights in making its bow to the reader and saying, "Look how pathetic I am!" Yet, now and again he speaks a word of real pathos, all the more striking because it is so rare-especially in "Child's Play," "El Dorado," and "Ordered South." To him living and working had their rewards; he kept a bold face and a warm heart to the end, lest by giving way to his pains and weakness he should lose sight of the generous emotions which he loved. He agreed with Browning that a bold start and a great failure are better than whimpering cowardice and paltry aims. And if he expressed his beliefs jestingly, and thought that a good dinner and a bottle of wine are sufficient answers to the brevity and uncertainty of existence, after all he spoke not without truth. For we do not value our good things enough, and we are all apt to listen with an over-grave sincerity to the moaning of the Preacher.

To the end Stevenson's was a fine nature, capable of many thrills, educated to appreciate niceties that others, more gross, would pass by. To the end he was a keen observer of life, a careful, painstaking writer, a master of curious phrases and of style. He was no stoic, yet there was in him the stoic gravity and austerity, the product, shall we say? of climate and race plus a grounding in the Shorter Catechism. Nor yet is he an epicurean, though there were few parts of life which he had not made trial of. He has been called a Pyrrhonist, like Montaigne, but it is difficult to see the reason for the title. It is true that now and then his mind is in a state of balance, but, for the most part, he is too certain in his opinions, too dogmatic in stating. them, to continue long in a state of suspended judgment. He changed, as age went on, in his thoughts and opinions;

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