Robert Louis Stevenson [62]
OF LA REINE MARGOT and BRAGELONNE, of DAVID COPPERFIELD and A TALE OF TWO CITIES; while if good writing and some other things be in my appetite, are there not always Hazlitt and Lamb - to say nothing of that globe of miraculous continents; which is known to us as Shakespeare? There is his style, you will say, and it is a fact that it is rare, and IN THE LAST times better, because much simpler than in the first. But, after all, his style is so perfectly achieved that the achievement gets obvious: and when achievement gets obvious, is it not by way of becoming uninteresting? And is there not something to be said for the person who wrote that Stevenson always reminded him of a young man dressed the best he ever saw for the Burlington Arcade? (10) Stevenson's work in letters does not now take me much, and I decline to enter on the question of his immortality; since that, despite what any can say, will get itself settled soon or late, for all time. No - when I care to think of Stevenson it is not of R. L. Stevenson - R. L. Stevenson, the renowned, the accomplished - executing his difficult solo, but of the Lewis that I knew and loved, and wrought for, and worked with for so long. The successful man of letters does not greatly interest me. I read his careful prayers and pass on, with the certainty that, well as they read, they were not written for print. I learn of his nameless prodigalities, and recall some instances of conduct in another vein. I remember, rather, the unmarried and irresponsible Lewis; the friend, the comrade, the CHARMEUR. Truly, that last word, French as it is, is the only one that is worthy of him. I shall ever remember him as that. The impression of his writings disappears; the impression of himself and his talk is ever a possession. . . . Forasmuch as he was primarily a talker, his printed works, like these of others after his kind, are but a sop for posterity. A last dying speech and confession (as it were) to show that not for nothing were they held rare fellows in their day."
Just a month or two before Mr Henley's self-revealing article appeared in the PALL MALL MAGAZINE, Mr Chesterton, in the DAILY NEWS, with almost prophetic forecast, had said:
"Mr Henley might write an excellent study of Stevenson, but it would only be of the Henleyish part of Stevenson, and it would show a distinct divergence from the finished portrait of Stevenson, which would be given by Professor Colvin."
And it were indeed hard to reconcile some things here with what Mr Henley set down of individual works many times in the SCOTS AND NATIONAL OBSERVER, and elsewhere, and in literary judgments as in some other things there should, at least, be general consistency, else the search for an honest man in the late years would be yet harder than it was when Diogenes looked out from his tub!
Mr James Douglas, in the STAR, in his half-playful and suggestive way, chose to put it as though he regarded the article in the PALL MALL MAGAZINE as a hoax, perpetrated by some clever, unscrupulous writer, intent on provoking both Mr Henley and his friends, and Stevenson's friends and admirers. This called forth a letter from one signing himself "A Lover of R. L. Stevenson," which is so good that we must give it here.
A LITERARY HOAX. TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR.
SIR - I fear that, despite the charitable scepticism of Mr Douglas, there is no doubt that Mr Henley is the perpetrator of the saddening Depreciation of Stevenson which has been published over his name.
What openings there are for reprisals let Mr Henley's conscience tell him; but permit me to remind him of two or three things which R. L. Stevenson has written concerning W. E. Henley.
First this scene in the infirmary at Edinburgh:
"(Leslie) Stephen and I sat on a couple of chairs, and the poor fellow (Henley) sat up in his bed with his hair and beard all tangled, and talked as cheerfully as if he had been in a king's palace, or the great King's palace of the blue air. He has taught himself
Just a month or two before Mr Henley's self-revealing article appeared in the PALL MALL MAGAZINE, Mr Chesterton, in the DAILY NEWS, with almost prophetic forecast, had said:
"Mr Henley might write an excellent study of Stevenson, but it would only be of the Henleyish part of Stevenson, and it would show a distinct divergence from the finished portrait of Stevenson, which would be given by Professor Colvin."
And it were indeed hard to reconcile some things here with what Mr Henley set down of individual works many times in the SCOTS AND NATIONAL OBSERVER, and elsewhere, and in literary judgments as in some other things there should, at least, be general consistency, else the search for an honest man in the late years would be yet harder than it was when Diogenes looked out from his tub!
Mr James Douglas, in the STAR, in his half-playful and suggestive way, chose to put it as though he regarded the article in the PALL MALL MAGAZINE as a hoax, perpetrated by some clever, unscrupulous writer, intent on provoking both Mr Henley and his friends, and Stevenson's friends and admirers. This called forth a letter from one signing himself "A Lover of R. L. Stevenson," which is so good that we must give it here.
A LITERARY HOAX. TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR.
SIR - I fear that, despite the charitable scepticism of Mr Douglas, there is no doubt that Mr Henley is the perpetrator of the saddening Depreciation of Stevenson which has been published over his name.
What openings there are for reprisals let Mr Henley's conscience tell him; but permit me to remind him of two or three things which R. L. Stevenson has written concerning W. E. Henley.
First this scene in the infirmary at Edinburgh:
"(Leslie) Stephen and I sat on a couple of chairs, and the poor fellow (Henley) sat up in his bed with his hair and beard all tangled, and talked as cheerfully as if he had been in a king's palace, or the great King's palace of the blue air. He has taught himself