Part 10 (1/2)

STEVENSON'S ST IVES

With the publication of _St Ives_ the catalogue of Stevenson's is has closed In truth it closed several years ago,--in 1891, to be exact,--when _Catriona_ was published Nothing which has appeared since that date can reat extent the best critical estimate of his novels Neither _Weir of Hermiston_ nor _St Ives_ affects the matter You may throw them into the scales with his other works, and then youthe balance is not disturbed But suppose you were to take out _Kidnapped_, or _Treasure Island_, or _The Master of Ballantrae_, the loss would be felt at once and seriously And unless he has left behind hi his loose papers, some rare and perfect sketch, some letter to posterity which shall be to his reputation what Neil Paraday's lost novel in _The Death of the Lion_ arded as the epilogue

Stevenson's death and the publication of this last effort of his fine genius may tend to draay a measure of public interest from that type of novel which he, his imitators, and his rivals have so abundantly produced This may be the close of a 'period' such as we read about in histories of literature

If the truth be told, has not our generation had enough of duels, hair-breadth escapes, post-chaises, and highwayreat-coats, and pistols which always miss fire when they shouldn't? To say positively that we _have_ done with all this ht of the popularity of certain ht not be too radical a view if one were toteical relation to modern literature rather than an essential one

Matthew Arnold spoke of Heine as a sardonic seist Let us say that theseof color on the cheeks of that interesting young lady, the Genius of theof color _on_ the cheeks, for the color comes from without and not from within It is a matter of no moment Artificial red does no harht

These novels of adventure which we buy so cheerfully, read with such pleasure, and reater part an expression of son to the deeper spirit of modern fiction Surely the true modern novel is the one which reflects the life of to-day And life to-day is easy, familiar, rich incontrasts and thrilling episodes People have enough to eat, reasonable liberty, and a degree of patience with one another which suggests indifference A man may shout aloud in the market-place the most revolutionary opinions, and hardly be taken to task for it; and then on the other hand we have got our rulers pretty well under control This paragraph, however, is not the peroration of a eulogy upon 'our unrivaled happiness' It attempts merely to lay stress on such facts as these, that it is not now possible to hang a clergyery, as was done in 1777; that a man may not be deprived of the custody of his own children because he holds heterodox religious opinions, as happened in 1816 There is widespread toleration; and civilization in the sense in which Ruskin uses the word has much increased Now it is possible for a Jew to becoland's Poet Laureate

If, then, life is familiar, comfortable, unrestrained, and easy, as it certainly seems to be, how are we to account for the rise of this serotesque, the contrast between the books themselves and the ruous ele up to his suite in a handso ro he dines at his club, and the day after the happy launching of his novel he is interviewed by the representative of a newspaper syndicate, to whom he explains his literary method, while the interviewer makes a note of his dress and a comment on the decoration of his mantelpiece

Surely roerated the way--bears no relation to ical one _The Prisoner of Zenda_ and _A Gentle examples of this type of novel, are notor any vital characteristic of to-day They are not instinct with the spirit of the tiht say that these stories represent the novel in its theatricalJust as a respectable bookkeeper likes to go into private theatricals, wear a ith curls, a slouch hat with ostrich feathers, a sword and ruffles, and play a part to tear a cat in, so does the novel like to do the same The day after the performance the whole artificial equipment drops away and disappears The bookkeeper becomes a bookkeeper once hts has done hiot his lines at one place, but what is a proency? Now that it is over the affair ht of the gratifying state for the new organ

This is a not unfair comparison of the part played by these books in modern fiction The public likes them, buys them, reads them; and there is no reason why the public should not In proportion to the deesticulation, these books have a financial success; in proportion to the conscientiousness of the artist who creates them they have a literary vitality But they bear to the actual modern novel a relation not unlike that which _The Castle of Otranto_ bears to _Toical discrepancy

Froainst the co to Mr Frederic Harrison there is no romance left in us Life is stale and flat; yet even Mr

Harrison would hardly go to the length of declaring that it is also commercially unprofitable The artificial apartainst the duller elements in our civilization; and as has often been pointed out, the novel of psychological horrors is another expression

There are a fewthat they love theatrical politter for its own sake, or that they write fiction as a protest against the times in which they live Stevenson was of this number He was an adventurer by inheritance and by practice He cahthouses and fought with that bold outlaw, the Sea He himself honestly loved, and in a measure lived, a wild life There is no truer touch of nature than in the scene where St

Ives tells the boy Rowley that he is a hunted fugitive with a price set upon his head, and then enjoys the tragic astonishh sense of romance and a secret cultus for all soldiers and cri library consisted of a chap-book life of Wallace, and some sixpenny parts of the Old Bailey Sessions Papers;and the choice depicts his character to a hair You can ihtened on a boy of this disposition

To be the servant and coitive, a soldier, and a uises, and false naht and mystery so thick that you could cut it with a knife--was really, I believe, reat trencher- by which all this ro, I was simply idolized from that moment; and he would rather have sacrificed his hand than surrendered the privilege of serving me'

One can believe that Stevenson was a boy with tastes and ambitions like Rowley But for that matter Rowley stands for universal boy-nature

Criticism of _St Ives_ becomes both easy and difficult by reason of the fact that we know so much about the book fro circumstances, and never completed it; the last six chapters are from the pen of a practiced story-teller, who follows the author's known scheme of events Stevenson was almost too severe in his comment upon his book He says of _St Ives_:--

'It is a ure not very well or very sharply drawn; no philosophy, no destiny, to it; soood in themselves, I believe, but none of them _bildende_, none of them constructive, except in so far perhaps as they make up a kind of sha Here and there, I think, it is ritten; and here and there it's not If it has a merit to it, I should say it was a sort of deliberation and swing to the style, which seems to me to suit the h 'Tis my most prosaic book'

One must remember that this is epistolary self-criticism, and that it is hardly to be looked upon in the nature of an 'advance notice'

Still more confidential and epistolary is the humorous and reckless affirmation that _St Ives_ is 'a rudderless hulk' 'It's a paGoda,'

says Stevenson in a letter dated Septeht have been a pleasant story if it had only been blessed at baptism'

He had to rewrite portions of it in consequence of having received what Dr Johnson would have called 'a large accession of new ideas'