Part 1 (1/2)
Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson.
by Robert Louis Stevenson.
PREFACE
The text of the following essays is taken from the Thistle Edition of Stevenson's _Works_, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, in New York. I have refrained from selecting any of Stevenson's formal essays in literary criticism, and have chosen only those that, while ranking among his masterpieces in style, reveal his personality, character, opinions, philosophy, and faith. In the _Introduction_, I have endeavoured to be as brief as possible, merely giving a sketch of his life, and indicating some of the more notable sides of his literary achievement; pointing out also the literary school to which these Essays belong. A lengthy critical Introduction to a book of this kind would be an impertinence to the general reader, and a nuisance to a teacher. In the _Notes_, I have aimed at simple explanation and some extended literary comment. It is hoped that the general recognition of Stevenson as an English cla.s.sic may make this volume useful in school and college courses, while it is not too much like a textbook to repel the average reader. I am indebted to Professor Catterall of Cornell and to Professor Cross of Yale, and to my brother the Rev. Dryden W.
Phelps, for some a.s.sistance in locating references. W.L.P., YALE UNIVERSITY, _13 February 1906_.
INTRODUCTION
I
LIFE OF STEVENSON
Robert Louis Stevenson[1] was born at Edinburgh on the 13 November 1850. His father, Thomas, and his grandfather, Robert, were both distinguished light-house engineers; and the maternal grandfather, Balfour, was a Professor of Moral Philosophy, who lived to be ninety years old. There was, therefore, a combination of _Lux et Veritas_ in the blood of young Louis Stevenson, which in _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ took the form of a luminous portrayal of a great moral idea.
In the language of Pope, Stevenson's life was a long disease. Even as a child, his weak lungs caused great anxiety to all the family except himself; but although Death loves a s.h.i.+ning mark, it took over forty years of continuous practice for the grim archer to send the black arrow home. It is perhaps fortunate for English literature that his health was no better; for the boy craved an active life, and would doubtless have become an engineer. He made a brave attempt to pursue this calling, but it was soon evident that his const.i.tution made it impossible. After desultory schooling, and an immense amount of general reading, he entered the University of Edinburgh, and then tried the study of law. Although the thought of this profession became more and more repugnant, and finally intolerable, he pa.s.sed his final examinations satisfactorily. This was in 1875.
He had already begun a series of excursions to the south of France and other places, in search of a climate more favorable to his incipient malady; and every return to Edinburgh proved more and more conclusively that he could not live in Scotch mists. He had made the acquaintance of a number of literary men, and he was consumed with a burning ambition to become a writer. Like Ibsen's _Master-Builder_, there was a troll in his blood, which drew him away to the continent on inland voyages with a canoe and lonely tramps with a donkey; these gave him material for books full of brilliant pictures, shrewd observations, and irrepressible humour. He contributed various articles to magazines, which were immediately recognised by critics like Leslie Stephen as bearing the unmistakable mark of literary genius; but they attracted almost no attention from the general reading public, and their author had only the consciousness of good work for his reward. In 1880 he was married.
Stevenson's first successful work was _Treasure Island_, which was published in book form in 1883, and has already become a cla.s.sic. This did not, however, bring him either a good income or general fame. His great reputation dates from the publication of the _Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,_ which appeared in 1886. That work had an instant and unqualified success, especially in America, and made its author's name known to the whole English-speaking world. _Kidnapped_ was published the same year, and another masterpiece, _The Master of Ballantrae_, in 1889.
After various experiments with different climates, including that of Switzerland, Stevenson sailed for America in August 1887. The winter of 1887-88 he spent at Saranac Lake, under the care of Dr. Trudeau, who became one of his best friends. In 1890 he settled at Samoa in the Pacific. Here he entered upon a career of intense literary activity, and yet found time to take an active part in the politics of the island, and to give valuable a.s.sistance in internal improvements.
The end came suddenly, exactly as he would have wished it, and precisely as he had unconsciously predicted in the last radiant, triumphant sentences of his great essay, _Aes Triplex_. He had been at work on a novel, _St. Ives_, one of his poorer efforts, and whose composition grew steadily more and more distasteful, until he found that he was actually writing against the grain. He threw this aside impatiently, and with extraordinary energy and enthusiasm began a new story, _Weir of Hermiston_, which would undoubtedly have been his masterpiece, had he lived to complete it. In luminosity of style, in n.o.bleness of conception, in the almost infallible choice of words, this astonis.h.i.+ng fragment easily takes first place in Stevenson's productions. At the end of a day spent in almost feverish dictation, the third of December 1894, he suddenly fainted, and died without regaining consciousness. ”Death had not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he pa.s.sed at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the mallet and chisel was scarcely quenched, the trumpets were hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shot into the spiritual land.”
He was buried at the summit of a mountain, the body being carried on the shoulders of faithful Samoans, who might have sung Browning's n.o.ble hymn,
”Let us begin and carry up this corpse, Singing together!
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes Each in its tether Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain...
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought, Rarer, intenser, Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Chafes in the censer.
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; Seek we sepulture On a tall mountain...
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights: Wait ye the warning!
Our low life was the level's and the night's; He's for the morning.
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 'Ware the beholders!
This is our master, famous, calm and dead, Borne on our shoulders...
Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot clouds form, Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm, Peace let the dew send!
Lofty designs must close in like effects Loftily lying, Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects, Living and dying.”
II
PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER