Part 10 (2/2)

(1) _Catriona_ is just two stories loosely hitched together--the one of David's vain attempt to save James Stewart, the other of the loves of David and Catriona: and in case the critic should be too stupid to detect this, Mr Stevenson has been at the pains to divide his book into Part I and Part II Now this, which is a real fault in a book called _Catriona_, is no fault at all in _The Memoirs of David Balfour_, which by its very title claims to be constructed loosely In an Odyssey the road taken by the wanderer is all the nexus required; and the continuity of his presence (if the author know his business) is warrant enough for the continuity of our interest in his adventures That the history of Gil Blas of Santillane consists chiefly of episodes is not a serious criticise's novel

(2) In _Catriona_ more than a few of the characters are suffered to drop out of sight just as we have begun to take an interest in them

There is Mr Rankeillor, for instance, whose coood to be spared very easily; and there is Lady Allardyce--a wonderfully clever portrait; and Captain Hoseason--we tread for a e of re-acquaintance, but are disappointed; and Balfour of Pilrig; and at the end of Part I

away into darkness goes the Lord Advocate Preston-grange, with his char womenkind

Well, if this be an objection to the tale, it is one urged pretty often against life itself--that we scarce see enough of the ain that which may be a fault in _Catriona_ is no fault at all in _The Meh noveliststhey write to hold a mirror up to life, the reflection e In the one, for very clearness, they s and cut off the currents (so to speak) bearing upon theer canvas they are able to deal with life more frankly Were the Odyssey cut down to one episode--say that of Nausicaa--we e and provided with his just portion of good and evil before we ring the curtain down As it is, Nausicaa goes her way And as it is, Barbara Grantwe feel at parting with her is anything rather than a reproach against the author

(3) It is very certain, as the book stands, that the reader must experience soes of the , David fails in the end to save James Stewart of the Glens Were the book concerned wholly with Jareat deal more than half of _Catriona_ points and trenetic needle, the cheat is pretty bad if we take _Catriona_ alone But oncewith _The Memoirs of David Balfour_--if we bear steadily in mind that David Balfour is our concern--not Jaiven Then, and then only, we get the right perspective of David's attenize how inevitable was the issue when this stripling engaged to turn back the great forces of history

It is more than a lustre, as the Dedication reminds us, since David Balfour, at the end of the last chapter of _Kidnapped_, was left to kick his heels in the British Linen Co people five years older; and the wordy, politic intrigue of _Catriona_ is at least five years older than the rough-and-tuue of _Kidnapped_; of the fashi+on of the _Vicoelonne_ rather than of the _Three Musketeers_ But this is as it should be; for older and astuter heads are now raduate in a very her school of diplomacy than was Ebenezer Balfour And if no as said in _Kidnapped_ of the love of women, we kno that this matter was held over until the time came for it to take its due place in David Balfour's experience Everyone knew that Mr Stevenson would draoman beautifully as soon as he wasin _The Pavilion on the Links_ But for all that she is a surprise She begins to be a surprise--a beautiful surprise--when in Chapter X she kisses David's hand ”with a higher passion than the common kind of clay has any sense of;” and she is a beautiful surprise to the end of the book The loves of these twostory--old, yet not old: and I pity the heart that is not tender for Catriona when she and David take their last walk together in Leyden, and ”the knocking of her little shoes upon the way sounded extraordinarily pretty and sad”

Nov 3, 1894 ”The Ebb Tide”

A certain Oxford lecturer, whose audience demurred to some trivial entlee ofit out in the Lexicon”

The pleasant art of reasoning about literature on internal evidence suffers constant discouragement from the presence and activity of those little people who insist upon ”looking it out in the Lexicon”

Their brutal methods will upset in two ic, your taste, your palpitating sense of style, your exquisite ear for rhythoes straight to Stationers' Hall or the Parish Register?

”Two thousand pounds of education Drops to a ten-rupee jezail,”

as Mr Kipling sings The answer, of course, is that the beauty of reasoning upon internal evidence lies in the process rather than the results You spend aa poet, and draw so: within a week you are set right by soister Well, butpoetry, and he has not Only the uninstructed judge criticis Messrs Stevenson and Osbourne's _The Ebb-Tide_ (London: Heineuess or two upon its authorshi+p; and if somebody take it into his head to write out to Sauesses are entirely wrong--why then we shall have been perfor each of us his proper function in life; and there's an end of thea nu my sympathy to Mr Lloyd Osbourne Very possibly he does not want it I guess hientleman of uncommonly cheerful heart I hope so, at any rate: for it were sad to think that indignation had clouded even for aBox_--surely the funniest book written in the last ten years But he has beenwith hiiven us _The Wrecker_ and _The Ebb-Tide_ Faults may be found in these, apart from the criticisenius nobody denies that they are splendid tales: nobody (I iinal pattern Yet no reviewer praises them on their own ed always in relation to Mr Stevenson's previous work, and the reviewers concentrate their censure upon the point that they are freaks in Mr

Stevenson's develop as the public expected him to continue

Now there are a number of esteemed novelists about the land who earn co just what the public expects of the ard--freaks enius so consciously artistic, so quick in sys, however diverse, was bound from the first to make many experiments Before the public took his career in hand and mapped it out for him, he made such an experih

But because he now takes Mr Osbourne into partnershi+p for a new set of experi that these, whatever their faults, are vast improvements on _The Black Arrow_--ascribe all those faults to the new partner

But that is rough criticism Moreover it is almost demonstrably false

For the weakness of _The Wrecker_, such as it was, lay in the Paris and Barbizon business and the author's failure to make this of one piece with the main theme, with the ro Scud_ But which of the two partners stands responsible for this Pais-Barbizon business? Mr Stevenson beyond a doubt If you shut your eyes to Mr Stevenson's confessed familiarity with the Paris and the Barbizon of a certain era; if you choose to deny that he wrote that chapter on Fontainebleau in _Across the Plains_; if you go on to deny that he wrote the opening of Chapter XXI of _The Wrecker_; why then you are obliged to maintain that it was Mr Osbourne, and not Mr Stevenson, rote that famous chapter on the Roussillon Wine--which is absurd And if, in spite of its absurdity, you stick to this also, why, then you are only dereatest living writers of fiction: and your conception of hi the master's elboider of the truth than ever

No; the vital defect of _The Wrecker_ must be set down to Mr

Stevenson's account Fine story as that was, it failed to assimilate the Paris-Barbizon business _The Ebb-Tide_, on the other hand, is all of one piece It has at any rate one atmosphere, and one only And who can demand a finer atmosphere of romance than that of the South Pacific?

_The Ebb-Tide_, so far as atoes, is all of one piece And the story, too, is all of one piece--until we come to Attwater: I own Attwater beats ht say, ”I have no use for” that monstrous person I wish, indeed, Mr Osbourne _had_ said so: for again I cannot help feeling that the offence of Attwater lies at Mr

Stevenson's door He strikes me as a bad dreahts_ Do you re of Mr du Maurier's in _Punch_, wherein, seizing upon a locution of Miss Rhoda Broughton's, he gave us a group of ”ly”

roup

But if Mr Stevenson is responsible for Attwater, surely also he contributed the two splendid surprises of the story I am the more certain because they occur in the saes of each other I mean, of course, Captain Davis's sudden confession about his ”little Adar,” and the equally startling discovery that the cargo of the _Farallone_ schooner, supposed to be chane, is mostly water These are the two triumphant surprises of the book: and I shall continue to believe that only one living man could have contrived them, until somebody writes to Sa Mr Osbourne's contributions to the tale

Two small complaints I have to h level of profanity maintained by the speech of Davis and Huish It is natural enough, of course; but that is no excuse if the frequency of the swearing prevent its ht place And the name ”Robert Herrick,” bestowed on one of the three beach-loafers, ro ”Julius Caesar”: for out of such extrerotesque But the Robert Herrick, loose writer of the lovely _Hesperides_, and the Robert Herrick, shameful haunter of Papeete beach, are not extremes: and it was so very easy to avoid the association of ideas