Part 3 (2/2)
[Note 8: _Montenegro ... Richmond_. Montenegro is one of the smallest princ.i.p.alities in the world, about 3,550 square miles. It is in the Balkan peninsula, to the east of the lower Adriatic, between Austro-Hungary and Turkey. When Stevenson was writing this essay, 1876-77, Montenegro was the subject of much discussion, owing to the part she took in the Russo-Turkish war. The year after this article was published (1878) Montenegro reached the coast of the Adriatic for the first time, and now has two tiny seaports. Tennyson celebrated the hardy virtues of the inhabitants in his sonnet _Montenegro_, written in 1877.
”O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years.”
_Richmond_ is on the river Thames, close to the city of London.]
[Note 9: _Lord Macaulay may escape from school honours._ Stevenson here alludes to the oft-heard statement that the men who succeed in after life have generally been near the foot of their cla.s.ses at school and college. It is impossible to prove either the falsity or truth of so general a remark, but it is easier to point out men who have been successful both at school and in life, than to find sufficient evidence that school and college prizes prevent further triumphs. Macaulay, who is noted by Stevenson as an exception, was precocious enough to arouse the fears rather than the hopes of his friends. When he was four years old, he hurt his finger, and a lady inquiring politely as to whether the injured member was better, the infant replied gravely, ”Thank you, Madam, the agony is abated.”]
[Note 10: _The Lady of Shalott_. See Tennyson's beautiful poem (1833).
”And moving thro' a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear.”]
[Note 11: _Some lack-l.u.s.tre periods between sleep and waking._ Cf.
_King Lear_, Act I, Sc. 2, vs. 15. ”Got 'tween asleep and wake.”]
[Note 12: _Kinetic Stability ... _Emphyteusis ... Stillicide_ For Kinetic Stability, see any modern textbook on Physics. _Emphyteusis_ is the legal renting of ground; _Stillicide_, a continual dropping of water, as from the eaves of a house. These words, _Emphyteusis_ and _Stillicide_, are terms in Roman Law. Stevenson is of course making fun of the required studies of Physics and Roman Law, and of their lack of practical value to him in his chosen career.]
[Note 13: _The favourite school of d.i.c.kens and of Balzac_. The great English novelist d.i.c.kens (1812-1870) and his greater French contemporary Balzac (1799-1850), show in their works that their chief school was Life.]
[Note 14: _Mr. Worldly Wiseman_. The character in Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ (1678), who meets Christian soon after his setting out from the City of Destruction. _Pilgrim's Progress_ was a favorite book of Stevenson's; he alludes to it frequently in his essays. See also his own article _Bagster's Pilgrim's Progress_, first published in the _Magazine of Art_ in February 1882. This essay is well worth reading, and the copies of the pictures which he includes are extremely diverting.]
[Note 15: _Sainte-Beuve._ The French writer Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) is usually regarded today as the greatest literary critic who ever lived. His constant change of convictions enabled him to see life from all sides.]
[Note 16: _Belvedere of Commonsense_. Belvedere is an Italian word, which referred originally to a place of observation on the top of a house, from which one might enjoy an extensive prospect. A portion of the Vatican in Rome is called the Belvedere, thus lending this name to the famous statue of Apollo, which stands there. On the continent, anything like a summer-house is often called a Belvedere. One of the most interesting localities which bears this name is the Belvedere just outside of Weimar, in Germany, where Goethe used to act in his own dramas in the open air theatre.]
[Note 17: _The plangent wars_. Plangent is from the Latin _plango_, to strike, to beat. Stevenson's use of the word is rather unusual in English.]
[Note 18: _The old shepherd telling his tale_.. See Milton, _L'Allegro:_--
”And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.”
”Tells his tale” means of course ”counts his sheep,” not ”tells a story.” The old use of the word ”tell” for ”count” survives to-day in the word ”teller” in a parliamentary a.s.semblage, or in a bank.]
[Note 19: _Colonel Newcome ... Fred Bayham ... Mr. Barnes ... Falstaff ... Barabbases ... Hazlitt ... Northcote._ Colonel Newcome, the great character in Thackeray's _The Newcomes_ (1854). _Fred Bayham_ and _Barnes Newcome_ are persons in the same story. One of the best essays on Falstaff is the one printed in the first series of Mr. Augustine Birrell's _Obiter Dicta_ (1884). This essay would have pleased Thackeray. One of the finest epitaphs in literature is that p.r.o.nounced over the supposedly dead body of Falstaff by Prince Hal--”I could have better spared a better man.” (_King Henry IV_, Part I, Act V, Sc. 4.) _Barabbas_ was the robber who was released at the time of the trial of Christ.... _William Hazlitt_ (1778-1830), the well-known essayist, published in 1830 the _Conversations_ of _James Northcote_ (1746-1831). Northcote was an artist and writer, who had been an a.s.sistant in the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Stevenson projected a _Life of Hazlitt_, but later abandoned the undertaking. (_Life,_ I, 230.)]
[Note 20: _The quality of mercy_. See Portia's wonderful speech in the _Merchant of Venice_, Act IV, Scene I.]
[Note 21: _Joan of Arc_. The famous inspired French peasant girl, who led the armies of her king to victory, and who was burned at Rouen in 1431. She was variously regarded as a harlot and a saint. In Shakspere's historical plays, she is represented in the basest manner, from conventional motives of English patriotism. Voltaire's scandalous work, _La Pucelle_, and Schiller's n.o.ble _Jungfrau von Orleans_ make an instructive contrast. She has been the subject of many dramas and works of poetry and fiction. Her latest prominent admirer is Mark Twain, whose historical romance _Joan of Arc_ is one of the most carefully written, though not one of the most characteristic of his books.]
[Note 22: ”_So careless of the single life_.” See Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, LV, where the poet discusses the pessimism caused by regarding the apparent indifference of nature to the happiness of the individual.
”Are G.o.d and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life.”]
[Note 23: _Shakespeare ... Sir Thomas Lucy_. The familiar tradition that Shakspere as a boy was a poacher on the preserves of his aristocratic neighbor, Sir Thomas Lucy. See Halliwell-Phillipps's _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_. In 1879, at the first performance of _As You Like It_ at the Stratford Memorial Theatre, the deer brought on the stage in Act IV, Scene 2, had been shot that very morning by H.S. Lucy, Esq., of Charlecote Park, a descendant of the owner of the herd traditionally attacked by the future dramatist.]
[Note 24: _Atlas_. In mythology, the leader of the t.i.tans, who fought the G.o.ds, and was condemned by Zeus to carry the weight of the vault of heaven on his head and hands. In the sixteenth century the name Atlas was given to a collection of maps by Mercator, probably because a picture of Atlas had been commonly placed on the t.i.tle-pages of geographical works.]
[Note 25: _Pharaoh ... Pyramid_. For _Pharaoh's_ experiences with the Israelites, see the book of _Exodus_. Pharaoh was merely the name given by the children of Israel to the rulers of Egypt: cf. Caesar, Kaiser, etc. ... The Egyptian pyramids were regarded as one of the seven wonders of ancient times, the great pyramid weighing over six million tons. The pyramids were used for the tombs of monarchs.]
[Note 26: _Young men who work themselves into a decline._ Compare the tone of the close of this essay with that of the conclusion of _AEs Triplex_. Stevenson himself died in the midst of the most arduous work possible--the making of a literary masterpiece.]
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