Part 8 (1/2)
[Note 12: Since the above was written I have tried to launch the boat with my own hands in _Kidnapped_. Some day, perhaps, I may try a rattle at the shutters.]
[Note 13: _Crusoe ... Achilles ... Ulysses ... Christian_. When Robinson Crusoe saw the footprint on the sand, and realised he was not alone.... To a reader of to-day the great hero Achilles seems to be all bl.u.s.ter and selfish childishness; the true gentleman of the Iliad is _Hector_.... When Ulysses returned home in the _Odyssey_, he bent with ease the bow that had proved too much for all the suitors of his lonely and faithful wife Penelope.... Christian ”had not run far from his own door when his wife and children, perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on crying, 'Life! Life! eternal Life!'”_--Pilgrim's Progress_.]
[Note 14: _]_. The Greek heavy-weight in Homer's _Iliad_.
[Note 15: _English people of the present day_. This was absolutely true in 1882. But in 1892 a complete revolution in taste had set in, and many of the most hardened realists were forced to write wild romances, or lose their grip on the public. At this time, Stevenson naturally had no idea how powerfully his as yet unwritten romances were to affect the literary market.]
[Note 16: _Mr. Trollope's ... chronicling small beer ... Rawdon Crawley's blow_. Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) wrote an immense number of mildly entertaining novels concerned with the lives and ambitions of English clergymen and their satellites. His best-known book is probably _Barchester Towers_ (1857).... _Chronicling small beer_ is the ”lame and impotent conclusion” with which Iago finishes his poem (_Oth.e.l.lo_, Act II, Sc. I).... _Rawdon Crawley's blow_ refers to the most memorable scene in Thackeray's great novel, _Vanity Fair_ (1847-8), where Rawdon Crawley, the husband of Becky Sharp, strikes Lord Steyne in the face (Chap. LIII). After writing this powerful scene, Thackeray was in a state of tremendous excitement, and slapping his knee, said, ”That's Genius!”]
[Note 17: _The end of Esmond ... pure Dumas_. Thackeray's romance _Henry Esmond_ (1852) is regarded by many critics as the greatest work of fiction in the English language; Stevenson here calls it ”the best of all his books.” The scene Stevenson refers to is where Henry is finally cured of his love for Beatrix, and theatrically breaks his sword in the presence of the royal admirer (Book III, Chap. 13).
Alexander Dumas (1803-1370), author of _Monte Cristo_ and _Les Trois Mousquetaires_. Stevenson playfully calls him ”the great, unblus.h.i.+ng French thief”; all he means is that Dumas never hesitated to appropriate material wherever he found it, and work it into his romances.]
[Note 18: _The living fame of Robinson Crusoe with the discredit of Clarissa Harlowe_. A strong contrast between the romance of incident and the a.n.a.lytical novel. For remarks on _Clarissa_, see our Note 9 of Chapter IV above.]
[Note 19: _Byronism_. About the time Lord Byron was publis.h.i.+ng _Childe Harold_ (1812-1818) a tremendous wave of romantic melancholy swept over all the countries of Europe. Innumerable poems and romances dealing with mysteriously-sad heroes were written in imitation of Byron; and young authors wore low, rolling collars, and tried to look depressed. See Gautier's _Histoire du Romantisme._ Now the death of Lovelace (in a duel) in Richardson's _Clarissa_, was pitched in exactly the Byronic key, though at that time Byron had not been born.... The Elizabethans were of course thoroughly romantic.]
[Note 20: _Faria_..._Dantes_. Characters in Dumas's _Monte Cristo_ (1841-5).]
[Note 21: _Lucy and Richard Feveril_. Usually spelled ”Feverel.”
Stevenson strangely enough, was always a bad speller. The reference here is to one of Stevenson's favorite novels _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ (1859) by George Meredith. Stevenson's idolatrous praise of this particular scene in the novel is curious, for no greater contrast in English literary style can be found than that between Meredith's and his own. For another reference by Stevenson to the older novelist, see our Note 47 of Chapter IV above.]
[Note 22: _Robinson Crusoe is as realistic as it is romantic_. Therein lies precisely the charm of this book for boyish minds; the details are given with such candour that it seems as if they must all be true.
At heart, Defoe was an intense realist, as well as the first English novelist.]
[Note 23: _The arrival of Haydn_. For a note on George Sand's novel _Consuelo_ see Note 9 of Chapter IV above.]
[Note 24: _A joy for ever_. The first line of Keats's poem _Endymion_ is ”A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”]
[Note 25: _The Sailor's Sweetheart_. Mr. W. Clark Russell, born in New York in 1844, has written many popular tales of the sea. His first success was _The Wreck of the Grosvenor_ (1876); _The Sailor's Sweetheart_, more properly, _A Sailor's Sweetheart_, was published in 1877.]
[Note 26: _Swiss Family Robinson_. A German story, _Der schweizerische Robinson_ (1812) by J.D. Wyss (1743-1818). This story is not so popular as it used to be.]
[Note 27: _Verne's Mysterious Island_. Jules Verne, who died at Amiens, France, in 1904, wrote an immense number of romances, which, translated into many languages, have delighted young readers all over the world. _The Mysterious Island_ is a sequel to _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea_.]
[Note 28: _Eugene de Rastignac_. A character in Balzac's novel, Pere Goriot.]
[Note 29: _The Lady of the Lake_. This poem, published in 1810, is as Stevenson implies, not so much a poem as a rattling good story told in rime.]
[Note 30: _The Pirate_. A novel by Scott, published in 1821. It was the cause of Cooper's writing _The Pilot_. See Cooper's preface to the latter novel.]
[Note 31: _Guy Mannering_. Also by Scott. Published 1815.]
[Note 32: _Miss Braddon's idea_. Mary Elizabeth Braddon (Maxwell), born in 1837, published her first novel, _The Trail of the Serpent_, in 1860. She has written a large number of sensational works of fiction, very popular with an uncritical cla.s.s of readers. Perhaps her best-known book is _Lady Audley's Secret_ (1862). It would be well for the student to refer to the scenes in _Guy Mannering_ which Stevenson calls the ”_Four strong notes_.”]
[Note 33: _Mrs. Todgers's idea of a wooden leg_. Mrs. Todgers is a character in d.i.c.kens's novel, _Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1843-4).]
[Note 34: _Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot_. A character in the _Antiquary_ (1816).]
VI
THE CHARACTER OF DOGS
The civilisation, the manners, and the morals of dog-kind[1] are to a great extent subordinated to those of his ancestral master, man. This animal, in many ways so superior, has accepted a position of inferiority, shares the domestic life, and humours the caprices of the tyrant. But the potentate, like the British in India, pays small regard to the character of his willing client, judges him with listless glances, and condemns him in a byword. Listless have been the looks of his admirers, who have exhausted idle terms of praise, and buried the poor soul below exaggerations. And yet more idle and, if possible, more unintelligent has been the att.i.tude of his express detractors; those who are very fond of dogs ”but in their proper place”; who say ”poo' fellow, poo' fellow,” and are themselves far poorer; who whet the knife of the vivisectionist or heat his oven;[2]
who are not ashamed to admire ”the creature's instinct”; and flying far beyond folly, have dared to resuscitate the theory of animal machines. The ”dog's instinct” and the ”automaton-dog,” in this age of psychology and science, sound like strange anachronisms. An automaton he certainly is; a machine working independently of his control, the heart like the mill-wheel, keeping all in motion, and the consciousness, like a person shut in the mill garret, enjoying the view out of the window and shaken by the thunder of the stones; an automaton in one corner of which a living spirit is confined: an automaton like man. Instinct again he certainly possesses. Inherited apt.i.tudes are his, inherited frailties. Some things he at once views and understands, as though he were awakened from a sleep, as though he came ”trailing clouds of glory.”[3] But with him, as with man, the field of instinct is limited; its utterances are obscure and occasional; and about the far larger part of life both the dog and his master must conduct their steps by deduction and observation.