IX
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Stevenson spent his life, like an only and lonely child, in playinggames with himself. Most boys who read romances have the dramaticinstinct; they must forthwith incarnate the memories of their reading,and anything will do for a _mise en scene_. The mudpuddle becomes anocean, where the pirate ship is launched; a scrubby apple tree hasinfinite possibilities. Armed with a wooden sword, the child salliesforth in the rain, and fiercely cuts down the mulleins; could we onlysee him without being seen, we should observe the wild light in his eye,and the frown of battle on his brow. He walks cautiously in theunderbrush, to surprise the ambushed foe; and it is with rapture that hegoes to sleep in a tent, pitched six yards from the kitchen door. Thisspirit of adventure remains in some men's hearts, even after the hairhas grown grey or gone; they hear the call of the wild, lock up thedesk, go into the woods, and there rejoice in a process ofdecivilisation.
In order to enjoy life, one must love it; and nobody ever loved lifemore than Stevenson. "It is better to be a fool than to be dead," saidhe. To him the world was always picturesque, whether he saw it throughthe mists of Edinburgh, or amid the snows of Davos, or in the tropicalheat of Samoa. "Where is Samoa?" asked a friend. "Go out of the GoldenGate," replied Stevenson, "and take the first turn to the left." Thiscounsel makes up in joyous imagination what it lacks in latitude andlongitude. Everything in Stevenson's bodily and mental life was anadventure, to be begun in a spirit of reckless enthusiasm. In histravels with a donkey, he was a beloved vagabond, whose waysideacquaintances are to be envied; in compulsory expeditions in search ofhealth, he set out with as much zest as though he were after buriedtreasure; everything was an adventure, and his marriage was the greatestadventure of all. He read books with the same enthusiasm with which hetramped, or paddled in a canoe; every new novel he opened with thespirit of an explorer, for who knows in its pages what people one maymeet? William Archer sent him a copy of Bernard Shaw's story, _CashelByron's Profession_, and Stevenson wrote in reply from Saranac Lake,"Over Bashville the footman I howled with derision and delight; I doteon Bashville--I could read of him for ever; _de Bashville je suis lefervent_--there is only one Bashville, and I am his devoted slave....It is all mad, mad and deliriously delightful.... It is HORRID FUN....(I say, Archer, my God, what women!)" What would authors give for areading public like that?
Prone in bed, when his attention was not diverted by a hemorrhage, helived amid the pageantry of gorgeous day-dreams, presented on the stageof his brain. We know that Ben Jonson saw the Romans and Carthaginiansfighting, marching and countermarching, across his great toe. Stevensonwould have understood this perfectly. No pain or sickness ever dauntedhim, or held him captive; his mind was always in some picturesque orimmensely interesting place. In composition, he seemed to have a doubleconsciousness; he moulded his sentences with the fastidious care of agreat artist; at the same moment he felt the growing sea-breeze, andknew that his hero would very soon have to shorten sail.
It is pleasant to remember that a man who had such genius forfriendship, who so generously admired the literary work of hiscontemporaries, and who loved the whole world of saints and sinners,received such widespread homage in return. His career as a man ofletters extended over twenty years; and during the last eight his namewas actually a household word. To be sure, he published much work of ahigh order without getting even a hearing; his _Inland Voyage_,_Travels with a Donkey_, _Virginibus Puerisque_, _Familiar Studies_,_New Arabian Nights_, and even _Treasure Island_, attracted very littleattention; he remained in obscurity. But when, in the year 1886,appeared the _Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, he found himselffamous; the thrilling excitement of the story, combined with itspowerful moral appeal, simply conquered the world. And although his ownplays were failures, he had the satisfaction of knowing that thousandsof people in theatres were spellbound by the modern Morality made out ofhis novel. Few writers have become "classics" in so short a time; duringthe years that remained to him, he was compelled to prepare a superbedition of his _Complete Works_. Without ever appealing to the animalnature of humanity, he had the keen satisfaction of reigning in thehearts of uncultivated readers, and of receiving the almost universaltribute of refined critics. There are authors who are the delight of abookish few, and there are authors with an enormous public and noreputation. There are poets like Donne, and prose-masters like Browne,precious to the men and women of patrician taste; and there are somefamiliar examples of the other kind, needless to call by name. Stevensonpleases us all; for he always has a good story, and the subtlety of hisart gives to his narrative imperishable beauty.
Stevenson's appearance as a novelist was in itself an adventure. Heseemed at first as obsolete as a soldier of fortune. He was asunexpected and as picturesque among contemporary writers of fiction asan Elizabethan knight in a modern drawing-room. When he placed _TreasureIsland_ on the literary map, Realism was at its height in somelocalities, and at its depth in others. But it was everywhere thestandard form, in which young writers strove to embody their visions.Zola had just made an address in which he remarked that Walter Scott wasdead, and that the fashion of his style had passed away. Theexperimental novel would go hand in hand with the advance of scientificthought. And there were many who believed that Zola spoke the truth.This state of affairs was a tremendous challenge to Stevenson, and heaccepted it in the spirit of chivalry. The very name of his first novel,_Treasure Island_, was like the flying of a flag. Those critics who sawit must have smiled, and shaken their wise heads, for had not the timefor such follies gone by? Stevenson was fully aware of what he wasdoing; in the midst of contemporary fiction he felt as impatient and asill at ease as a boy, imprisoned in a circle of elders, whoseconversation does not in the least interest him. His sentiments areclearly shown in a letter to the late Mr. Henley, written shortly afterthe appearance of _Treasure Island_, and which is important enough toquote somewhat fully:--
"I do desire a book of adventure--a romance--and no man will get or write me one. Dumas I have read and reread too often; Scott, too, and I am short. I want to hear swords clash. I want a book to begin in a good way; a book, I guess, like _Treasure Island_, alas! which I have never read, and cannot though I live to ninety. I would God that someone else had written it! By all that I can learn, it is the very book for my complaint. I like the way I hear it opens; and they tell me John Silver is good fun. And to me it is, and must ever be, a dream unrealised, a book unwritten. O my sighings after romance, or even Skeltery, and O! the weary age which will produce me neither!
CHAPTER I
The night was damp and cloudy, the ways foul. The single horseman, cloaked and booted, who pursued his way across Willesden Common, had not met a traveller, when the sound of wheels--
CHAPTER I
'Yes, sir,' said the old pilot, 'she must have dropped into the bay a little afore dawn. A queer craft she looks.'
'She shows no colours,' returned the young gentleman, musingly.
'They're a-lowering of a quarter-boat, Mr. Mark,' resumed the old salt. 'We shall soon know more of her.'
'Ay,' replied the young gentleman called Mark, 'and here, Mr. Seadrift, comes your sweet daughter Nancy tripping down the cliff.'
'God bless her kind heart, sir,' ejaculated old Seadrift.
CHAPTER I
The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to the top of a great house in the Isle St. Louis to make a will; and now, his duties finished, wrapped in a warm roquelaure and with a lantern swinging from one hand, he issued from the mansion on his homeward way. Little did he think what strange adventures were to befall him!--
That is how stories should begin. And I am offered HUSKS instead.
What should be: What is: The Filibuster's Cache. Aunt Anne's Tea Cosy. Jerry Abershaw. Mrs. Brierly's Niece. Blood Money: A Tale. Society: A Novel.
"
The time was out of joint; but Stevenson was born to set it right. Notseven years after the posting of this letter, the recent RomanticRevival had begun. In the year of his death, 1894, it was in full swing;everybody was reading not only Stevenson, but _The Prisoner of Zenda_,_A Gentleman of France_, _Under the Red Robe_, etc. Whatever we maythink of the literary quality of some of these then popular stories,there is no doubt that the change was in many ways beneficial, and thatthe influence of Stevenson was more responsible for it than that of anyother one man. This was everywhere recognised: in the _Athenaeum_ for 22December, 1894, a critic remarked, "The Romantic Revival in the Englishnovel of to-day had in him its leader.... But for him they might havebeen Howells and James young men." As a germinal writer, Stevenson willalways occupy an important place in the history of English prosefiction. And seldom has a man been more conscious of his mission.
Stevenson's high standing as an English classic depends very largely onthe excellence of his literary style, although Scott and Cooper wonimmortality without it. (One wonders if they could to-day.) When somefifteen years ago a few critics had the temerity to suggest that he wasequal, if not superior, to these worthies, it sounded like blasphemy;but such an opinion is not uncommon now, and may be reasonably defended.Stevenson lacked in some degree the virility and the astonishingfertility of invention possessed by Scott; but he exhibited a technicalskill undreamed of by his great predecessor. From the prefatory versesto _Treasure Island_, we know that he admired Cooper; and he loved SirWalter, without being in the least blind to his faults. "It isundeniable that the love of the slap-dash and the shoddy grew upon Scottwith success." He "had not only splendid romantic, but splendid tragic,gifts. How comes it, then, that he could so often fob us off withlanguid, inarticulate twaddle?... He was a great day-dreamer, a seer offit and beautiful and humorous visions, but hardly a great artist;hardly, in the manful sense, an artist at all." Stevenson seems to havefelt that Scott's deficiencies in style were not merely artistic, butmoral; he lacked the patience and the particular kind of industryrequired. Scott loved to tell a good story, but he loved the storybetter than he did the telling of it; Stevenson, on the other hand, wasfully as much absorbed by the manner of narration as by the narrationitself. Stevenson was keenly alive to the fact that writers of romancesdid not seem to feel the necessity of style; whereas those who wrotenovels wherein nothing happened, felt that a good style atoned for boththe lack of incident and the lack of ideas. Stevenson's articles ofliterary faith apparently included the dogma that a mysterious,blood-curdling romance had fully as much dignity as a minute examinationof the dreary, commonplace life of the submerged; and that the formermade just as high a demand on the endowment and industry of amaster-artist. If he had had not an idea in his head, he could not havewritten with more elegance.
There is, of course, some truth in the charge that Stevenson was notonly a master of style, but a stylist. He is indeed something of amacaroni in words; occasionally he struts a bit, and he loves to showhis brilliant plumes. He performed dexterous tricks with language, likea musician with a difficult instrument. He liked style for its own sake,and was not averse to exhibiting his technique. In a slight degree, hisattitude and his influence in mere composition are somewhat similar tothose of John Lyly three hundred years before. Lyly delighted hisreaders with unexpected quips and quiddities, with a fantastic displayof rhetoric; he showed, as no one had before him, the possibleflexibility of English prose. There is more than a touch of Euphuism inStevenson; he was never insincere, but he was consciously fine. Manyhave swallowed without salt his statement that he learned to write byimitation; that by the "sedulous ape" method, employed with unwearyingstudy of great models, he himself became a successful author. Men ofgenius are never to be trusted when they discuss the origin anddevelopment of their powers; it is no more to be believed that Stevensonlearned to be a great writer by imitating Browne, than that _The Raven_really reached its perfection in the manner so minutely described byPoe. The faithful practice of composition will doubtless help anyambitious young man or woman. But Stevensons are not made in thatfashion. If they were, anyone with plenty of time and patience couldbecome a great author. This "ape" remark by Stevenson has had oneinteresting effect; if he imitated others, he has been strenuouslyimitated himself. Probably no recent English writer has been moreconstantly employed for rhetorical purposes, and there is none whoseinfluence on style is more evident in the work of contemporary aspirantsin fiction.
The stories of Stevenson exhibit a double union, as admirable as it israre. They exhibit the union of splendid material with the most delicateskill in language; and they exhibit the union of thrilling events with aremarkable power of psychological analysis. Every thoughtful reader hasnoticed these combinations; but we sometimes forget that Silver, Alan,Henry, and the Master are just as fine examples of character-portrayalas can be found in the works of Henry James. It is from this point ofview that Stevenson is so vastly superior to Fenimore Cooper; just as inliterary style he so far surpasses Scott. _Treasure Island_ is muchbetter than _The Red Rover_ or _The Pirate_; its author actually beatScott and Cooper at their own game. With the exception of _HenryEsmond_, Stevenson may perhaps be said to have written the best romancesin the English language; the undoubted inferiority of any of his booksto that masterpiece would make an interesting subject for reflexion.
The one thing in which Scott really excelled Stevenson was in thedepiction of women. The latter has given us no Diana Vernon or JeannieDeans. For the most part, Stevenson's romances are Paradise before thecreation of Eve. The snake is there, but not the woman. Thisextraordinary absence of sex-interest is a notable feature, and manyhave been the reasons assigned for it. If he had not tried at all, weshould be safe in saying that, like a small boy, he felt that girls werein the way, and he did not want them mussing up his games. There isperhaps some truth in this; for the presence of a girl might have ruined_Treasure Island_, as it ruined the _Sea Wolf_. Her fuss and feathersbring in all sorts of bothersome problems to distract a novelist, benton having a good time with pirates, murders, and hidden treasure.Unfortunately for the complete satisfaction of this explanation,Stevenson wrote _Prince Otto_, and tried to draw a real woman. Theresult did not add anything to his fame, and, indeed, the whole bookmissed fire. He was unquestionably more successful in _David Balfour_,but, when all is said, the presence of women in a few of Stevenson'sromances is not so impressive as their absence in most. It is only inthat unfinished work, _Weir of Hermiston_, which gave every promise ofbeing one of the greatest novels in English literature, that he seemedto have reached full maturity of power in dealing with the masterpassion. The best reason for Stevenson's reserve on matters of sex wasprobably his delicacy; he did not wish to represent this particularanimal impulse with the same vivid reality he pictured avarice,ambition, courage, cowardice, and pride; and thus hampered byconscience, he thought it best in the main to omit it altogether. Atleast, this is the way he felt about it, as we may learn from the_Vailima Letters_:--
"This is a poison bad world for the romancer, this Anglo-Saxon world; I usually get out of it by not having any women in it at all." (February, 1892.)
"I am afraid my touch is a little broad in a love story; I can't mean one thing and write another. As for women, I am no more in any fear of them; I can do a sort all right; age makes me less afraid of a petticoat, but I am a little in fear of grossness. However, this David Balfour's love affair, that's all right--might be read out to a mothers' meeting--or a daughters' meeting. The difficulty in a love yarn, which dwells at all on love, is the dwelling on one string; it is manifold, I grant, but the root fact is there unchanged, and the sentiment being very intense, and already very much handled in letters, positively calls for a little pawing and gracing. With a writer of my prosaic literalness and pertinency of point of view, this all shoves toward grossness--positively even towards the far more damnable _closeness_. This has kept me off the
sentiment hitherto, and now I am to try: Lord! Of course Meredith can do it, and so could Shakespeare; but with all my romance, I am a realist and a prosaist, and a most fanatical lover of plain physical sensations plainly and expressly rendered; hence my perils. To do love in the same spirit as I did (for instance) D. Balfour's fatigue in the heather; my dear sir, there were grossness--ready made! And hence, how to sugar?" (May, 1892.)
On the whole, I am inclined to think, that with the omission of thefragment, _Weir of Hermiston_, Stevenson's best novel is hisfirst--_Treasure Island_. He wrote this with peculiar zest; first ofall, in spite of the playful dedication, to please himself; second, tosee if the public appetite for Romance could once more be stimulated. Henever did anything later quite so off-hand, quite so spontaneous. Hismaturer books, brilliant as they are, lack the peculiar _brightness_ of_Treasure Island_. It has more unity than _The Master of Ballantrae_; andit has a greater group of characters than _Kidnapped_.
Stevenson told this story in the first person, but, by a clever device,he avoided the chief difficulty of that method of narration. The speakeris not one of the principal characters in the story, though he shares inthe most thrilling adventures. We thus have all the advantages of directdiscourse, all the gain in reality--without a hint as to what will bethe fate of the leading actors. Stevenson said, in one of the _VailimaLetters_, that first-person tales were more in accord with histemperament. The purely objective character of this novel is noteworthy,and entirely proper, coming from a perfectly normal boy. The _Essays_show that Stevenson could be sufficiently introspective if he chose, and_Dr. Jekyll_ is really an introspective novel, differing in every wayfrom _Treasure Island_. But here we have romantic adventures seenthrough the fresh eyes of boyhood, producing their unconscious reflexaction on the soul of the narrator, who daily grows in courage andself-reliance by grappling with danger. In Henry James's fine andpenetrating essay on Stevenson, he says of this book, "What we see in itis not only the ideal fable, but the young reader himself and his stateof mind: we seem to read it over his shoulder, with an arm around hisneck." This particular remark has been much praised; but it seems in away to half-apologise for a man's interest in the story, and to explainit like an affectionate uncle's sympathetic interest in a child's game,who mainly enjoys the child's enthusiasm. Now I venture to say that noone can any more outgrow _Treasure Island_ than he can outgrow _RobinsonCrusoe_. The events in the story delight children; but it is a book thatin mature years can be read and reread with ever increasing satisfactionand profit. No one needs to regret or to explain his interest in thisnovel; it is nothing to be sorry for, nor does it indicate a low orderof literary taste. Many serious persons have felt somewhat alarmed bytheir pleasure in reading _Treasure Island_, and have hesitated toassign it a high place in fiction. Some have said that, after all, it isonly a pirate story, differing from the Sleuths and Harkaways merely inbeing better written. But this is exactly the point, and a veryimportant point, in criticism. In art, the subject is of comparativelylittle importance, whereas the treatment is the absolute distinguishingfeature. To insist that there is little difference between _TreasureIsland_ and any cheap tale of blood-and-thunder, is equivalent to sayingthat there is little difference between the Sistine Madonna and acottage chromo of the Virgin.
Pew is a fearsome personage, and a notable example of the triumph ofmind over the most serious of all physical disabilities. Theoretically,it seems strange that able-bodied individuals should be afraid of a manwho is stone blind. But the appearance of Pew is enough to make anybodytake to his heels. He is the very essence of authority and leadership.The tap-tapping of his stick in the moonlight makes one's blood runcold. We are apt to think of blind people as gentle, sweet, pure, andholy; made submissive and tender by misfortune, dependent on thekindness of others. Old Pew has lost his eyes, but not his nerve. To seeso black-hearted and unscrupulous a villain, his sight taken away as itwere by the hand of God, and yet intent only on desperate wickedness,upsets the moral order; he becomes an uncanny monstrosity; he takes onthe hue of a supernatural fiend. John Silver has lost a leg, but hecircumvents others by the speed of his mind; amazingly quick inperception, a most astute politician, arrested from no treachery ormurder by any moral principle or touch of pity, he has the darksplendour of unflinching depravity. He is no Laodicean. He never lets Idare not wait upon I would. His course seems fickle and changeable, buthe is really steering steadily by the compass of self-interest. He canbe witty, affectionate, sympathetic, friendly, submissive, flattering,and also a devilish beast. He is the very chameleon of crime. Stevensonsimply had not the heart to kill so consummate an artist in villainy. Itwas no mean achievement to create two heroes so sinister as Pew andSilver, while depriving one of his sight and the other of a leg. Onewearies of the common run of romances, where the chief character is aman of colossal size and beautifully proportioned, so that his victoriesover various rascals are really only athletic records. In _TreasureIsland_, the emphasis is laid in the right place, whence leadershipcomes; everybody is afraid of Long John, and nobody minds Ben Gunn, deador alive.[14]
[14] It is interesting to remember that the crippled poet, W. E. Henley,was the original of Silver. Writing to Henley, May, 1883, Stevensonsaid, "I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimedstrength and masterfulness that begot John Silver."
There are scenes in this story, presented with such dramatic power, andwith such astonishing felicity of diction, that, once read, they cannever pass from the reader's mind. The expression in Silver's face, ashe talks with Tom in the marsh, first ingratiatingly friendly, thensuspicious, then as implacable as malignant fate. The hurling of thecrutch; the two terrific stabs of the knife. "I could hear him pantaloud as he struck the blows." The boy's struggle on the schooner withIsrael Hands; the awful moment in the little boat, while Flint's gunneris training the "long nine" on her, and the passengers can do nothingbut await the result of the enemy's skill; the death of the faithful oldservant, Redruth, who said he thought somebody might read a prayer.
Much has been written in both prose and verse of the fascination ofStevenson's personality. He was so different in different moods that notwo of his friends have ever agreed as to what manner of man he reallywas. As he chose to express his genius mainly in objective romances,future generations will find in the majority of his works no hint as tothe character of the author. From this point of view, compare for amoment _The Master of Ballantrae_ with _Joseph Vance_! But fortunately,Stevenson elected to write personal essays; and still more fortunately,hundreds of his most intimate letters are preserved in type. Some thinkthat these _Letters_ form his greatest literary work, and that they willoutlast his novels, plays, poems, and essays. For they will have aprofound interest long after the last person who saw Stevenson on earthhas passed away. They are the revelation of a man even more interestingthan any of the wonderful characters he created; they show that men likePhilip Sidney were as possible in the nineteenth century as in thebrilliant age of Elizabeth. The life of Stevenson has added immensely toour happiness and enjoyment of the world, and no literary figure inrecent times had more radiance and wholesome charm. His optimism wasbased on a chronic experience of physical pain and weakness; to him itwas a good world, and he made it distinctly better by his presence. Hewas a combination of the Bohemian and the Covenanter; he had all thegraces of one, and the bed-rock moral earnestness of the other. "Theworld must return some day to the word 'duty,'" said he, "and be donewith the word 'reward.'" He was the incarnation of the happy union ofvirtue and vivacity.