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ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON a record, an estimate, and a memorial
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON a record, an estimate, and a memorial
By ALEXANDER H. JAPP, LL.D., F.R.S.E author of “ thoreau : his life and aims ”; “ memoir of thomas de quincey ”; “ de quincey memorials ,” etc. , etc. WITH HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED LETTERS FROM R. L. STEVENSON IN FACSIMILIE . . . second edition NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE 1905 Printed in Great Britain . Robert Louis Stevenson, from a sketch in oils by Sir William B. Richmond, K.G.B., R.A. Dedicated to C. A. LICHTENBERG, Esq. and Mrs LICHTENBERG, of villa margherita , trevis
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PREFACE
PREFACE
A few words may here be allowed me to explain one or two points. First, about the facsimile of last page of Preface to Familiar Studies of Men and Books . Stevenson was in Davos when the greater portion of that work went through the press. He felt so much the disadvantage of being there in the circumstances (both himself and his wife ill) that he begged me to read the proofs of the Preface for him. This illness has record in the letter from him (pp. 28-29). The printers, of course, had dire
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CHAPTER I—INTRODUCTION AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS
CHAPTER I—INTRODUCTION AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS
My little effort to make Thoreau better known in England had one result that I am pleased to think of. It brought me into personal association with R. L. Stevenson, who had written and published in The Cornhill Magazine an essay on Thoreau, in whom he had for some time taken an interest. He found in Thoreau not only a rare character for originality, courage, and indefatigable independence, but also a master of style, to whom, on this account, as much as any, he was inclined to play the part of
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CHAPTER II—TREASURE ISLAND AND SOME REMINISCENCES
CHAPTER II—TREASURE ISLAND AND SOME REMINISCENCES
When I left Braemar, I carried with me a considerable portion of the MS. of Treasure Island , with an outline of the rest of the story. It originally bore the odd title of The Sea-Cook , and, as I have told before, I showed it to Mr Henderson, the proprietor of the Young Folks’ Paper , who came to an arrangement with Mr Stevenson, and the story duly appeared in its pages, as well as the two which succeeded it. Stevenson himself in his article in The Idler for August 1894 (reprinted in My First
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CHAPTER III—THE CHILD FATHER OF THE MAN
CHAPTER III—THE CHILD FATHER OF THE MAN
R. L. Stevenson was born on 13th November 1850, the very year of the death of his grandfather, Robert Stevenson, whom he has so finely celebrated. As a mere child he gave token of his character. As soon as he could read, he was keen for books, and, before very long, had read all the story-books he could lay hands on; and, when the stock ran out, he would go and look in at all the shop windows within reach, and try to piece out the stories from the bits exposed in open pages and the woodcuts. H
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CHAPTER IV—HEREDITY ILLUSTRATED
CHAPTER IV—HEREDITY ILLUSTRATED
At first sight it would seem hard to trace any illustration of the doctrine of heredity in the case of this master of romance. George Eliot’s dictum that we are, each one of us, but an omnibus carrying down the traits of our ancestors, does not appear at all to hold here. This fanciful realist, this näive-wistful humorist, this dreamy mystical casuist, crossed by the innocent bohemian, this serious and genial essayist, in whom the deep thought was hidden by the gracious play of wit and phantas
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CHAPTER V—TRAVELS
CHAPTER V—TRAVELS
His interest in engineering soon went—his mind full of stories and fancies and human nature. As he had told his mother: he did not care about finding what was “the strain on a bridge,” he wanted to know something of human beings. No doubt, much to the disappointment and grief of his father, who wished him as an only son to carry on the traditions of the family, though he had written two engineering essays of utmost promise, the engineering was given up, and he consented to study law. He had al
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CHAPTER VI—SOME EARLIER LETTERS
CHAPTER VI—SOME EARLIER LETTERS
Carlyle was wont to say that, next to a faithful portrait, familiar letters were the best medium to reveal a man. The letters must have been written with no idea of being used for this end, however—free, artless, the unstudied self-revealings of mind and heart. Now, these letters of R. L. Stevenson, written to his friends in England, have a vast value in this way—they reveal the man—reveal him in his strength and his weakness—his ready gift in pleasing and adapting himself to those with whom h
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CHAPTER VII—THE VAILIMA LETTERS
CHAPTER VII—THE VAILIMA LETTERS
The Vailima Letters, written to Mr Sidney Colvin and other friends, are in their way delightful if not inimitable: and this, in spite of the idea having occurred to him, that some use might hereafter be made of these letters for publication purposes. There is, indeed, as little trace of any change in the style through this as well could be—the utterly familiar, easy, almost child-like flow remains, unmarred by self-consciousness or tendency “to put it on.” In June, 1892, Stevenson says: “It cam
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CHAPTER VIII—WORK OF LATER YEARS
CHAPTER VIII—WORK OF LATER YEARS
Mr Hammerton, in his Stevensoniana (pp. 323-4), has given the humorous inscriptions on the volumes of his works which Stevenson presented to Dr Trudeau, who attended him when he was in Saranac in 1887-88—very characteristic in every way, and showing fully Stevenson’s fine appreciation of any attention or service. On the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde volume he wrote: “Trudeau was all the winter at my side: I never saw the nose of Mr Hyde.” And on Kidnapped is this: “Here is the one sound page of all my
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CHAPTER IX—SOME CHARACTERISTICS
CHAPTER IX—SOME CHARACTERISTICS
In Stevenson we lost one of the most powerful writers of our day, as well as the most varied in theme and style. When I use the word “powerful,” I do not mean merely the producing of the most striking or sensational results, nor the facility of weaving a fascinating or blood-curdling plot; I mean the writer who seemed always to have most in reserve—a secret fund of power and fascination which always pointed beyond the printed page, and set before the attentive and careful reader a strange but f
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CHAPTER X—A SAMOAN MEMORIAL OF R. L. STEVENSON
CHAPTER X—A SAMOAN MEMORIAL OF R. L. STEVENSON
A few weeks after his death, the mail from Samoa, brought to Stevenson’s friends, myself among the number, a precious, if pathetic, memorial of the master. It is in the form of “A Letter to Mr Stevenson’s Friends,” by his stepson, Mr Lloyd Osbourne, and bears the motto from Walt Whitman, “I have been waiting for you these many years. Give me your hand and welcome.” Mr Osbourne gives a full account of the last hours. “He wrote hard all that morning of the last day; his half-finished book, Herm
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CHAPTER XI—MISS STUBBS’ RECORD OF A PILGRIMAGE
CHAPTER XI—MISS STUBBS’ RECORD OF A PILGRIMAGE
Mrs Strong, in her chapter of Table Talk in Memories of Vailima , tells a story of the natives’ love for Stevenson. “The other day the cook was away,” she writes, “and Louis, who was busy writing, took his meals in his room. Knowing there was no one to cook his lunch, he told Sosimo to bring him some bread and cheese. To his surprise he was served with an excellent meal—an omelette, a good salad, and perfect coffee. ‘Who cooked this?’ asked Louis in Samoan. ‘I did,’ said Sosimo. ‘Well,’ sa
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CHAPTER XII—HIS GENIUS AND METHODS
CHAPTER XII—HIS GENIUS AND METHODS
To have created a school of idolaters, who will out and out swear by everything, and as though by necessity, at the same time, a school of studious detractors, who will suspiciously question everything, or throw out suggestions of disparagement, is at all events, a proof of greatness, the countersign of undoubted genius, and an assurance of lasting fame. R. L. Stevenson has certainly secured this. Time will tell what of virtue there is with either party. For me, who knew Stevenson, and loved
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CHAPTER XIII—PREACHER AND MYSTIC FABULIST
CHAPTER XIII—PREACHER AND MYSTIC FABULIST
In reality, Stevenson is always directly or indirectly preaching a sermon—enforcing a moral—as though he could not help it. “He would rise from the dead to preach a sermon.” He wrote some first-rate fables, and might indeed have figured to effect as a moralist-fabulist, as truly he was from beginning to end. There was a bit of Bunyan in him as well as of Æsop and Rousseau and Thoreau—the mixture that found coherency in his most peculiarly patient and forbearing temper is what gives at once th
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CHAPTER XIV—STEVENSON AS DRAMATIST
CHAPTER XIV—STEVENSON AS DRAMATIST
In opposition to Mr Pinero, therefore, I assert that Stevenson’s defect in spontaneous dramatic presentation is seen clearly in his novels as well as in his plays proper. In writing to my good friend, Mr Thomas M’Kie, Advocate, Edinburgh, telling him of my work on R. L. Stevenson and the results, I thus gathered up in little the broad reflections on this point, and I may perhaps be excused quoting the following passages, as they reinforce by a new reference or illustration or two what has just b
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CHAPTER XV—THEORY OF GOOD AND EVIL
CHAPTER XV—THEORY OF GOOD AND EVIL
We have not hitherto concerned ourselves, in any express sense, with the ethical elements involved in the tendency now dwelt on, though they are, of necessity, of a very vital character. We have shown only as yet the effect of this mood of mind on dramatic intention and effort. The position is simply that there is, broadly speaking, the endeavour to eliminate an element which is essential to successful dramatic presentation. That element is the eternal distinction, speaking broadly, between g
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CHAPTER XVI—STEVENSON’S GLOOM
CHAPTER XVI—STEVENSON’S GLOOM
The problem of Stevenson’s gloom cannot be solved by any commonplace cut-and-dried process. It will remain a problem only unless (1) his original dreamy tendency crossed, if not warped, by the fatalistic Calvinism which was drummed into him by father, mother, and nurse in his tender years, is taken fully into account; then (2) the peculiar action on such a nature of the unsatisfying and, on the whole, distracting effect of the bohemian and hail-fellow-well-met sort of ideal to which he yielded,
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CHAPTER XVII—PROOFS OF GROWTH
CHAPTER XVII—PROOFS OF GROWTH
Once again I quote Goethe: “Natural simplicity and repose are the acme of art, and hence it follows no youth can be a master.” It has to be confessed that seldom, if ever, does Stevenson naturally and by sheer enthusiasm for subject and characters attain this natural simplicity, if he often attained the counterfeit presentment—artistic and graceful euphony, and new, subtle, and often unexpected concatenations of phrase. Style is much; but it is not everything. We often love Scott the more that
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CHAPTER XVIII—EARLIER DETERMINATIONS AND RESULTS
CHAPTER XVIII—EARLIER DETERMINATIONS AND RESULTS
Stevenson’s earlier determination was so distinctly to the symbolic, the parabolic, allegoric, dreamy and mystical—to treatment of the world as an array of weird or half-fanciful existences, witnessing only to certain dim spiritual facts or abstract moralities, occasionally inverted moralities—“tail foremost moralities” as later he himself named them—that a strong Celtic strain in him had been detected and dwelt on by acute critics long before any attention had been given to his genealogy on bot
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CHAPTER XIX—EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN’S ESTIMATE
CHAPTER XIX—EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN’S ESTIMATE
It should be clearly remembered that Stevenson died at a little over forty—the age at which severity and simplicity and breadth in art but begin to be attained. If Scott had died at the age when Stevenson was taken from us, the world would have lacked the Waverley Novels ; if a like fate had overtaken Dickens, we should not have had A Tale of Two Cities ; and under a similar stroke, Goldsmith could not have written Retaliation , or tasted the bitter-sweet first night of She Stoops to Conquer .
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CHAPTER XX—EGOTISTIC ELEMENT AND ITS EFFECTS
CHAPTER XX—EGOTISTIC ELEMENT AND ITS EFFECTS
From these sources now traced out by us—his youthfulness of spirit, his mystical bias, and tendency to dream—symbolisms leading to disregard of common feelings—flows too often the indeterminateness of Stevenson’s work, at the very points where for direct interest there should be decision. In The Master of Ballantrae this leads him to try to bring the balances even as regards our interest in the two brothers, in so far justifying from one point of view what Mr Zangwill said in the quotation we h
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CHAPTER XXI—UNITY IN STEVENSON’S STORIES
CHAPTER XXI—UNITY IN STEVENSON’S STORIES
The unity in Stevenson’s stories is generally a unity of subjective impression and reminiscence due, in the first place, to his quick, almost abnormal boyish reverence for mere animal courage, audacity, and doggedness, and, in the second place, to his theory of life, his philosophy, his moral view. He produces an artificial atmosphere. Everything then has to be worked up to this—kept really in accordance with it, and he shows great art in the doing of this. Hence, though, a quaint sense of sa
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CHAPTER XXII—PERSONAL CHEERFULNESS AND INVENTED GLOOM
CHAPTER XXII—PERSONAL CHEERFULNESS AND INVENTED GLOOM
Now, it is in its own way surely a very remarkable thing that Stevenson, who, like a youth, was all for Heiterkeit , cheerfulness, taking and giving of pleasure, for relief, change, variety, new impressions, new sensations, should, at the time he did, have conceived and written a story like The Master of Ballantrae —all in a grave, grey, sombre tone, not aiming even generally at what at least indirectly all art is conceived to aim at—the giving of pleasure: he himself decisively said that it “la
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CHAPTER XXIII—EDINBURGH REVIEWERS’ DICTA INAPPLICABLE TO LATER WORK
CHAPTER XXIII—EDINBURGH REVIEWERS’ DICTA INAPPLICABLE TO LATER WORK
From many different points of view discerning critics have celebrated the autobiographic vein—the self-revealing turn, the self-portraiture, the quaint, genial, yet really child-like egotistic and even dreamy element that lies like an amalgam, behind all Stevenson’s work. Some have even said, that because of this, he will finally live by his essays and not by his stories. That is extreme, and is not critically based or justified, because, however true it may be up to a certain point, it is not
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CHAPTER XXIV—MR HENLEY’S SPITEFUL PERVERSIONS
CHAPTER XXIV—MR HENLEY’S SPITEFUL PERVERSIONS
More unfortunate still, as disturbing and prejudicing a sane and true and disinterested view of Stevenson’s claims, was that article of his erewhile “friend,” Mr W. E. Henley, published on the appearance of the Memoir by Mr Graham Balfour, in the Pall Mall Magazine . It was well that Mr Henley there acknowledged frankly that he wrote under a keen sense of “grievance”—a most dangerous mood for the most soberly critical and self-restrained of men to write in, and that most certainly Mr W. E. Henl
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CHAPTER XXV—MR CHRISTIE MURRAY’S IMPRESSIONS
CHAPTER XXV—MR CHRISTIE MURRAY’S IMPRESSIONS
Mr Christie Murray , writing as “Merlin” in our handbook in the Referee at the time, thus disposed of some of the points just dealt with by us: “Here is libel on a large scale, and I have purposely refrained from approaching it until I could show my readers something of the spirit in which the whole attack is conceived. ‘If he wanted a thing he went after it with an entire contempt for consequences. For these, indeed, the Shorter Catechist was ever prepared to answer; so that whether he did we
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CHAPTER XXVI—HERO-VILLAINS
CHAPTER XXVI—HERO-VILLAINS
In truth, it must indeed be here repeated that Stevenson for the reason he himself gave about Deacon Brodie utterly fails in that healthy hatred of “fools and scoundrels” on which Carlyle somewhat incontinently dilated. Nor does he, as we have seen, draw the line between hero and villain of the piece, as he ought to have done; and, even for his own artistic purposes, has it too much all on one side, to express it simply. Art demands relief from any one phase of human nature, more especially of
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CHAPTER XXVII—MR G. MOORE, MR MARRIOTT WATSON AND OTHERS
CHAPTER XXVII—MR G. MOORE, MR MARRIOTT WATSON AND OTHERS
From our point of view it will therefore be seen that we could not have read Mr George Moore’s wonderfully uncritical and misdirected diatribe against Stevenson in The Daily Chronicle of 24th April 1897, without amusement, if not without laughter—indeed, we confess we may here quote Shakespeare’s words, we “laughed so consumedly” that, unless for Mr Moore’s high position and his assured self-confidence, we should not trust ourselves to refer to it, not to speak of writing about it. It was a rev
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CHAPTER XXVIII—UNEXPECTED COMBINATIONS
CHAPTER XXVIII—UNEXPECTED COMBINATIONS
The complete artist should not be mystical-moralist any more than the man who “perceives only the visible world”—he should not engage himself with problems in the direct sense any more than he should blind himself to their effect upon others, whom he should study, and under certain conditions represent, though he should not commit himself to any form of zealot faith, yet should he not be, as Lord Tennyson puts it in the Palace of Art: “As God holding no form of creed, But contemplating all,” bec
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CHAPTER XXIX—LOVE OF VAGABONDS
CHAPTER XXIX—LOVE OF VAGABONDS
What is very remarkable in Stevenson is that a man who was so much the dreamer of dreams—the mystic moralist, the constant questioner and speculator on human destiny and human perversity, and the riddles that arise on the search for the threads of motive and incentives to human action—moreover, a man, who constantly suffered from one of the most trying and weakening forms of ill-health—should have been so full-blooded, as it were, so keen for contact with all forms of human life and character, w
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CHAPTER XXX—LORD ROSEBERY’S CASE
CHAPTER XXX—LORD ROSEBERY’S CASE
Immediately on reading Lord Rosebery’s address as Chairman of the meeting in Edinburgh to promote the erection of a monument to R. L. Stevenson, I wrote to him politely asking him whether, since he quoted a passage from a somewhat early essay by Stevenson naming the authors who had chiefly influenced him in point of style, his Lordship should not, merely in justice and for the sake of balance, have referred to Thoreau. I also remarked that Stevenson’s later style sometimes showed too much self-
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CHAPTER XXXI—MR GOSSE AND MS. OF TREASURE ISLAND
CHAPTER XXXI—MR GOSSE AND MS. OF TREASURE ISLAND
Mr Edmund Gosse has been so good as to set down, with rather an air of too much authority, that both R. L. Stevenson and I deceived ourselves completely in the matter of my little share in the Treasure Island business, and that too much credit was sought by me or given to me, for the little service I rendered to R. L. Stevenson, and to the world, say, in helping to secure for it an element of pleasure through many generations. I have not sought any recognition from the world in this matter, and
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CHAPTER XXXII—STEVENSON PORTRAITS
CHAPTER XXXII—STEVENSON PORTRAITS
Of the portraits of Stevenson a word or two may be said. There is a very good early photograph of him, taken not very long before the date of my visit to him at Braemar in 1881, and is an admirable likeness—characteristic not only in expression, but in pose and attitude, for it fixes him in a favourite position of his; and is, at the same time, very easy and natural. The velvet jacket, as I have remarked, was then his habitual wear, and the thin fingers holding the constant cigarette an insepa
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CHAPTER XXXIII—LAPSES AND ERRORS IN CRITICISM
CHAPTER XXXIII—LAPSES AND ERRORS IN CRITICISM
Nothing could perhaps be more wearisome than to travel o’er the wide sandy area of Stevenson criticism and commentary, and expose the many and sad and grotesque errors that meet one there. Mr Baildon’s slip is innocent, compared with many when he says (p. 106) Treasure Island appeared in Young Folks as The Sea-Cook . It did nothing of the kind; it is on plain record in print, even in the pages of the Edinburgh Edition , that Mr James Henderson would not have the title The Sea-Cook , as he did
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GREETING
GREETING
(TO ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, IN SAMOA) We, pent in cities, prisoned in the mart, Can know you only as a man apart, But ever-present through your matchless art. You have exchanged the old, familiar ways For isles, where, through the range of splendid days, Her treasure Nature lavishly displays. There, by the gracious sweep of ampler seas, That swell responsive to the odorous breeze. You have the wine of Life, and we the lees! You mark, perchance, within your island bowers, The slow departure of th
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R. L. S., IN MEMORIAM.
R. L. S., IN MEMORIAM.
An elfin wight as e’er from faeryland Came to us straight with favour in his eyes, Of wondrous seed that led him to the prize Of fancy, with the magic rod in hand. Ah, there in faeryland we saw him stand, As for a while he walked with smiles and sighs, Amongst us, finding still the gem that buys Delight and joy at genius’s command. And now thy place is empty: fare thee well; Thou livest still in hearts that owe thee more Than gold can reckon; for thy richer store Is of the good
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THE LAND OF STEVENSON, ON AN AFTERNOON’S WALK
THE LAND OF STEVENSON, ON AN AFTERNOON’S WALK
Will there be a “Land of Stevenson,” as there is already a “Land of Burns,” or a “Land of Scott,” known to the tourist, bescribbled by the guide-book maker? This the future must tell. Yet will it be easy to mark out the bounds of “Robert Louis Stevenson’s Country”; and, taking his native and well-loved city for a starting-point, a stout walker may visit all its principal sites in an afternoon. The house where he was born is within a bowshot of the Water of Leith; some five miles to the south
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