Robert Louis Stevenson [63]
two languages since he has been lying there. I SHALL TRY TO BE OF USE TO HIM."
Secondly, this passage from Stevenson's dedication of VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE to "My dear William Ernest Henley":
"These papers are like milestones on the wayside of my life; and as I look back in memory, there is hardly a stage of that distance but I see you present with advice, reproof, or praise. Meanwhile, many things have changed, you and I among the rest; but I hope that our sympathy, founded on the love of our art, and nourished by mutual assistance, shall survive these little revolutions, undiminished, and, with God's help, unite us to the end."
Thirdly, two scraps from letters from Stevenson to Henley, to show that the latter was not always a depreciator of R. L. Stevenson's work:
"1. I'm glad to think I owe you the review that pleased me best of all the reviews I ever had.... To live reading such reviews and die eating ortolans - sich is my aspiration.
"2. Dear lad, - If there was any more praise in what you wrote, I think - (the editor who had pruned down Mr Henley's review of Stevenson's PRINCE OTTO) has done us both a service; some of it stops my throat. . . . Whether (considering our intimate relations) you would not do better to refrain from reviewing me, I will leave to yourself."
And, lastly, this extract from the very last of Stevenson's letters to Henley, published in the two volumes of LETTERS:
"It is impossible to let your new volume pass in silence. I have not received the same thrill of poetry since G. M.'s JOY OF EARTH volume, and LOVE IN A VALLEY; and I do not know that even that was so intimate and deep. . . . I thank you for the joy you have given me, and remain your old friend and present huge admirer, R. L. S."
It is difficult to decide on which side in this literary friendship lies the true modesty and magnanimity? I had rather be the author of the last message of R. L. Stevenson to W. E. Henley, than of the last words of W. E. Henley concerning R. L. Stevenson.
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 well or ill, he was safe to come out unabashed and cheerful.' Now if Mr Henley does not mean that for the very express picture of a rascal without a conscience he has been most strangely infelicitous in his choice of terms, and he is one of those who make so strong a profession of duty towards mere vocables that we are obliged to take him AU PIED DE LA LETTRE. A man who goes after whatever he wants with an entire contempt of consequences is a scoundrel, and the man who emerges from such an enterprise unabashed and cheerful, whatever his conduct may have been, and justifies himself on the principles of the Shorter Catechism, is a hypocrite to boot. This is not the report we have of Robert Louis Stevenson from most of those who knew him. It is a most grave and dreadful accusation, and it is not minimised by Mr Henley's acknowledgment that Stevenson was a good fellow. We all know the air of false candour which lends a disputant so much advantage in debate. In Victor Hugo's tremendous indictment of Napoleon le Petit we remember the telling allowance for fine horsemanship. It spreads an air of impartiality over the most mordant of Hugo's pages. It is meant to do that. An insignificant praise is meant to show how a whole Niagara of blame is poured on the victim of invective in all sincerity, and even with a touch of reluctance.
"Mr Henley, despite his absurdities of ''Tis' and 'it were,' is a fairly competent literary
Secondly, this passage from Stevenson's dedication of VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE to "My dear William Ernest Henley":
"These papers are like milestones on the wayside of my life; and as I look back in memory, there is hardly a stage of that distance but I see you present with advice, reproof, or praise. Meanwhile, many things have changed, you and I among the rest; but I hope that our sympathy, founded on the love of our art, and nourished by mutual assistance, shall survive these little revolutions, undiminished, and, with God's help, unite us to the end."
Thirdly, two scraps from letters from Stevenson to Henley, to show that the latter was not always a depreciator of R. L. Stevenson's work:
"1. I'm glad to think I owe you the review that pleased me best of all the reviews I ever had.... To live reading such reviews and die eating ortolans - sich is my aspiration.
"2. Dear lad, - If there was any more praise in what you wrote, I think - (the editor who had pruned down Mr Henley's review of Stevenson's PRINCE OTTO) has done us both a service; some of it stops my throat. . . . Whether (considering our intimate relations) you would not do better to refrain from reviewing me, I will leave to yourself."
And, lastly, this extract from the very last of Stevenson's letters to Henley, published in the two volumes of LETTERS:
"It is impossible to let your new volume pass in silence. I have not received the same thrill of poetry since G. M.'s JOY OF EARTH volume, and LOVE IN A VALLEY; and I do not know that even that was so intimate and deep. . . . I thank you for the joy you have given me, and remain your old friend and present huge admirer, R. L. S."
It is difficult to decide on which side in this literary friendship lies the true modesty and magnanimity? I had rather be the author of the last message of R. L. Stevenson to W. E. Henley, than of the last words of W. E. Henley concerning R. L. Stevenson.
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 well or ill, he was safe to come out unabashed and cheerful.' Now if Mr Henley does not mean that for the very express picture of a rascal without a conscience he has been most strangely infelicitous in his choice of terms, and he is one of those who make so strong a profession of duty towards mere vocables that we are obliged to take him AU PIED DE LA LETTRE. A man who goes after whatever he wants with an entire contempt of consequences is a scoundrel, and the man who emerges from such an enterprise unabashed and cheerful, whatever his conduct may have been, and justifies himself on the principles of the Shorter Catechism, is a hypocrite to boot. This is not the report we have of Robert Louis Stevenson from most of those who knew him. It is a most grave and dreadful accusation, and it is not minimised by Mr Henley's acknowledgment that Stevenson was a good fellow. We all know the air of false candour which lends a disputant so much advantage in debate. In Victor Hugo's tremendous indictment of Napoleon le Petit we remember the telling allowance for fine horsemanship. It spreads an air of impartiality over the most mordant of Hugo's pages. It is meant to do that. An insignificant praise is meant to show how a whole Niagara of blame is poured on the victim of invective in all sincerity, and even with a touch of reluctance.
"Mr Henley, despite his absurdities of ''Tis' and 'it were,' is a fairly competent literary